The It Girl: Don't Tell the Bridesmaid. Katy Birchall

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СКАЧАТЬ Danny said under his breath with a smile before I threw him an evil glare.

      ‘Stop being so pathetic – you are a particularly awesome friend and . . . Hey, Anna . . .’ Jess hesitated. ‘What’s this? Wait a moment. Is this . . . is this . . . a CAPE?’

      She yanked out a large red piece of material from the pile of clothes and held it up so that Danny could get a good look.

      ‘Does that big glittery gold “A” on it stand for Anna?’ Danny asked, sitting upright and looking mesmerised by it.

      ‘Uh . . .’ I blushed. ‘No?’

      There was a moment’s pause before they both burst into hysterical, uncontrollable, tear-inducing laughter.

      Note to self: it’s time to make new friends in Rome.

      Things you would normally expect to happen at a bridesmaid-dress fitting:

      1. You are cheerily greeted by the bride and anyone else present.

      2. You try on your bridesmaid dress.

      3. The bride and other bridesmaids tell you how wonderful you look.

      4. You all laugh together and excitedly talk about the wedding.

      5. Everything goes perfectly.

      Things that happen at a bridesmaid-dress fitting when the bride is Helena Montaine:

      1. You enter the bride’s house and are greeted by an angry Chihuahua.

      2. You are introduced to the prime minister’s wife, who has dropped by for a cup of tea, while an angry Chihuahua slides along the floor behind you, refusing to let go of your shoelace.

      3. The angry Chihuahua is removed from your shoelace by a member of the bride’s wedding team, and Fenella, the wedding planner, makes a remark when she sees you about how hairbrushes must have gone out of fashion with teenagers.

      4. As you wait for the bride’s daughter to arrive, your own mother decides to fill the time with demonstrations to the bride and the prime minister’s wife of some Chinese martial-art moves she learnt on a recent business trip.

      5. Everything is a disaster. And nothing has started yet.

      ‘Sorry I’m late, everyone!’ Marianne sang as she breezed into the hall, placing her huge designer handbag down on the ground and whipping off her sunglasses, looking every inch the perfect British It Girl as she swept her glossy brown hair away from her face. ‘Did I miss anything?’

      ‘Tai chi,’ I informed her as she came over to give me a hug. ‘And the prime minister’s wife. She just left.’

      ‘Sounds like a normal day in Mum’s household.’ She gripped my shoulders. ‘How are you? After the events of your first date, I mean.’

      ‘Trying to forget about it. The internet won’t let me.’

      ‘Oh, have I been there.’ Marianne grinned. ‘It will go away. Tom thinks you looked adorable, by the way, in that avocado costume.’

      ‘I was a turtle, but please thank Tom on my behalf.’

      Marianne laughed and went over to say hi to Helena and my mum. Tom Kyzer was her rock-star boyfriend, who she was completely in love with, to the point where she could hardly talk about anything else. As a couple they were a particularly big attraction for the paparazzi – they couldn’t do anything without the whole world knowing about it. But unlike my dad – and even Marianne who was indifferent to it all – Tom seemed to love the attention. ‘I was born for the cameras,’ he once said to me with a wink.

      ‘So, Rebecca,’ Marianne said to my mum as she ignored Fenella’s Chihuahua yapping at her from the arms of the dismayed-looking man holding him, ‘I hear that, unlike Anna and me, you’ve had the privilege of already seeing the bridesmaid dresses.’

      My mum smiled mysteriously. ‘You can never know what it’s going to look like until you see it on.’

      ‘Speaking of which, let’s get going, shall we?’ Fenella encouraged our two mothers to take their place on the sofa and bustled Marianne and me behind separate screens that had been set up in the sitting room. Two elegant ladies followed me and began to help me undress.

      I heard my mum chuckling about something with Helena on the sofa. Mum is a travel journalist and is often the other side of the world on some kind of weird assignment, but she was staying in England for the summer. Even though my parents weren’t together romantically – they never really had been in the first place – they were best friends and Mum completely ADORES Helena. So, when it came to the wedding, Mum was very much involved with the plans and Helena seemed to need her approval on every aspect of it.

      ‘I can’t wait to see you girls!’ Helena crowed as one of the elegant ladies yanked my hair into a bun to get it out the way and the other one began to unzip a suspiciously large clothing bag hanging up on the screen.

      Marianne and I had already been subjected to a traumatic dress moment when Helena made us try on bridesmaid dresses that looked as if they had been snaffled from the cast of Sesame Street, but I had full faith that everyone had learnt from that experience and that Helena’s excellent taste as an international fashion and acting icon would shine through.

      Hmm . . . whatever was being pulled over my head by various assistants did feel quite heavy.

      And there was a lot of puffing going on.

      ‘There we are,’ one of the ladies said, panting as though she’d just finished a workout.

      ‘You look like you belong in a fairy tale,’ the other lady whispered, as she looked me up and down wistfully.

      Yeah, for sure, I did look like I belonged in a fairy tale.

      AS ONE OF THE GOBLINS.

      ‘Helena!’ I yelped, as the lady fiddling with the waistline of the dress practically knocked the breath out of me.

      ‘Divine, isn’t it!’ Helena exclaimed. ‘Diana designed them – she’s with you right now – so you have her to thank for it!’

      The lady who had just finished winding me, tilted her head to the side and then smiled. ‘It’s perfect. You look like a princess.’

      OK, so I know I’m no fashion designer, but is this woman BLIND?! She had put me in some kind of lavender monstrosity that contained enough netting to catch a pod of killer whales.

      ‘Let me see!’ Helena squealed, and Mum added, ‘Yes, we’re dying to see.’

      Diana shooed me out from behind the screen and at the same time Marianne appeared from behind hers. The expression on her face reflected exactly how I felt.

      ‘Oh, girls,’ Helena whispered, her eyes welling up.

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