I Heart London (19 page)

‘Look, Jenny,’ Mum interrupted loudly. ‘There’s Harrods. And Harvey Nicks.’

‘Omigod.’ She span round and leaned across my mother, who somehow managed to keep the car on the road. Jenny unfastened her seat belt and scrambled about in her seat like an overexcited puppy. ‘Holy shit, it’s for real,’ she squealed.

‘It is,’ I agreed, pleased that the flower-girl debate had been postponed. ‘Weird, that we’re in London, isn’t it?’

‘Yuh-huh?’

Jenny and I stared out of the window while Louisa studiously ignored us both. It still felt strange to be in a car watching winding streets, big red buses and cheery Underground signs rather than numbered streets pass me by. I missed the yellow taxis and the green light-up subway signs and the endless street carts that would almost definitely give me food poisoning, but I was buzzing to be back in England. And to be buying a wedding dress. And to be full of coffee on an empty stomach.

While Jenny bounced around in the front, I took a look at the list she had furnished me with before we got in the car. She had assured me it was open to discussion, but that she hadn’t wanted to overwhelm me with tasks when I had a presentation to take care of and a wedding to be at. Most of my to-dos were to do with resting, deep-conditioning my hair and not touching my eyebrows. I was shameful at eyebrow maintenance. But I was in charge of writing my own vows and I’d been given a questionnaire to fill in regarding colour schemes, cake options, cocktails and party favours. Slightly odd but totally manageable. My involvement was also required on the seating plan. A little scary. And I also had to drink six glasses of water a day and stay off the booze. Completely unrealistic.

‘How many appointments did you two manage to make overnight?’ I asked, silently chanting the number one over and over in my head. In my dreams, we were going to walk into the shop, I was going to fall in love with a dress and we were going to be murdering Topshop along with some very tasty pie and mash within the hour so I could go home early, cuddle up on the sofa with Alex, write our vows and eat as many Percy Pigs as it took me to throw up the sausage and mash. Never let it be said that I didn’t have a plan. ‘Surely nowhere is open yet?’

‘Please, everyone has BlackBerries or iPhones, doll-face,’ she said, bashing me in the head with hers for effect. ‘Louisa sent me a bunch of numbers. We have three appointments confirmed and I’m just waiting for Browns to get back to me. I think they’re going to be the best.’

I watched to see whether or not my mum flinched at any of this information, but she just carried on, eyes on the road. There had been very little talk of who was paying for everything beyond her rash declaration in the pub, but if Jenny was making appointments at Browns Bride, we really were going to have to get everything else from B&Q. It wasn’t like Mum and Dad were short of a few quid − I always got the feeling they had considerably more put by than they wanted me to know about − but I didn’t want to take advantage. Not Jenny’s concern, obviously.

‘Of course, this would be way easier back in Manhattan, but we don’t have time.’ She looked back at her mobile. ‘And Erin can’t get us a dress shipped in time. So London’s just gonna have to come through.’

‘London will do very well indeed, I’m sure,’ Louisa said. ‘It was good enough for me.’

‘And I’m sure you looked great,’ Jenny replied, almost too quickly, with a condescending smile. ‘Really.’

Louisa’s eyes flamed and she stared daggers into the back of Jenny’s head. What a fantastic start we were off to.

Several hours and not a single sausage later, Jenny, Louisa, me and my mum had trekked the length and breadth of London looking for The One. It turned out it was considerably easier to locate your one true love on a planet of six billion people than it was to find your wedding dress in a city of six hundred wedding dresses. It was fair to say I was feeling a little defeated. We’d been to all the heavy hitters − Browns, Pronovias, House of Fraser − and nothing had been right. Either the dresses didn’t fit, or they didn’t have my size in stock, or I didn’t like it, or Mum didn’t like it, or Jenny downright hated it. Louisa loved all of them. For the sake of everyone’s sanity, I’d taken to distracting her each time we walked into a shop with a hunt for a veil I had no intention of wearing. It seemed to be working.

We were all trailing behind Jenny somewhere in Mayfair, Mum muttering about me getting married in a bin bag if this carried on, while the New Yorker continued to stride around the city as though she owned it. The theory that planning a wedding in a city she’d never visited before would slow Jenny down had proved fatally flawed. Nothing slowed Jenny down. Nothing but five Dirty Martinis or her ex-boyfriend, and I was prepared to bring up neither. It was getting late − almost four − and I knew Mum wanted to be back in the car before rush hour and, more importantly, back in the kitchen before teatime. If she didn’t get home before six, Dad would get into the biscuit tin and it would be all over. I couldn’t be responsible for a divorce this close to a wedding.

‘Hey, Jenny.’ I stopped in front of a tiny white-fronted boutique and pressed my sweaty little palms against the glass. I hadn’t had so much as a Mr Whippy and the weather was so much warmer than I had expected. ‘What about this store?’

‘It’s not on the list,’ she replied, looking more than a little harassed herself. ‘And we’re running out of time.’

‘Ooh, it looks nice.’ Louisa opened the door and beckoned me inside. ‘Let’s have a look. Come on, Jenny − it’ll only take a minute.’

‘But it’s not on the list,’ Jenny whined, placing her hands on her hips. ‘I don’t have time to waste on a whim.’

‘I’ve read about this place,’ Louisa said, letting the door close carefully and staring her right back down. ‘And we’re going in.’

Jenny’s jaw tensed.

‘Maybe they’ll have a dress for Grace,’ Louisa suggested.

Jenny’s skinny shoulders shot up around her ears.

‘We don’t have to.’ I stepped away from the window and towards my old roommate. ‘We have all the appointments Jenny’s made. And this isn’t on the list. Let’s go to the next place.’

‘No.’ Louisa folded her arms over her sweater. ‘I want to go in here, Angela. We’re going in.’

‘Did she just “no” me?’ Jenny shook her head as though she’d been slapped. ‘Have I been no’d?’

I held my breath. I was trapped in the middle of high noon at the not OK corral.

‘Right, shall we all just go in and have a look?’ Mum said, breaking the tension and pushing past the bridesmaid showdown. ‘While we’re here?’

‘Let’s.’ Louisa gave Jenny a triumphant smile and followed Mum in. ‘I don’t think they stock Zac Posen, though, so you might want to wait outside.’

This was not my dream come true. I knew Louisa and Jenny were very, very different people, but I had hoped they would overcome their rabidly diverse personality traits and be nice to each other. I didn’t expect them to be sharing a bed at a sleepover by now, but I didn’t want them bickering in the street when I needed both a dress and a wee.

‘We wouldn’t have put up with this shit in Kleinfeld,’ Jenny muttered under her breath, pushing past me and into the shop.

The second we walked through the door I was transported. It wasn’t that the dresses in the other stores weren’t wonderful − they absolutely were − but I’d been completely overcome with the same panicky feeling I’d had in Vera Wang. The dresses were too big, too elaborate, too someone else. I wanted to be Monique Lhuillier with all my heart, but I wasn’t. I knew this mostly because I’d tried on two of the dresses and fallen over in both. I might be Romona Keveza if I tried extra hard not to spill anything and wore some very restrictive underwear, but I was definitely too fat for Lanvin and absolutely too short for Temperley. Some of the dresses had been beautiful, just not on me. Others had been downright ridiculous. Apparently the ‘in’ trend for weddings was one part Princess Di, two parts Lady Gaga. In fact, even Lady Gaga would have rejected half the lace-covered, overgrown tutus I’d been shown on the grounds of them being a bit too much. And the assistants were even worse − so pushy and almost certainly medicated. (I was only jealous.) But this place didn’t seem too bad. For a start, there was only one woman in the store and she was scoffing a Mars bar and reading
Heat
magazine while wearing a floral romper and listening to the Ramones. We were a long way from Berketex Bride.

‘Oh, hello.’ She leapt to her feet and jammed the magazine under the counter. Everything in the shop was painted white − the walls, the shabby chic furniture and display cases, even the floorboards. Shop-girl stood out against it all with her red lipstick and matching red hair. For no reason at all, I wanted to give her a big hug. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I hope so.’ I pulled my hair back into an anticipatory up-do. I had a good feeling. ‘I need a wedding dress.’

‘It’s all I’m selling.’ She waved her arms around. ‘I’m Chloe, by the way. Want me to pick some stuff or do you just want to browse?’

‘If there’s something you think?’ Woah. Someone in a bridal shop giving us the option to browse … this was amazing. But without even turning round to see Jenny, I could feel her prickling. This was not the approved bridal couture experience. There was no soft, piped music, no chilled champagne flutes, no chocolate truffles. White, obviously. (And none for me.) What there was was three racks of gorgeous-looking dresses and a large white screen at the back of the space, where presumably I would be trying on. It was small, friendly and unpretentious. It was exciting.

‘So it’s a little last-minute and I don’t know what your set-up is,’ Jenny broke in, taking over. As Jenny tended to. ‘But she’s getting married on Saturday and we need a dress.’

‘Well, I can sell anything off the rack.’ Chloe turned and eyed me carefully. ‘I’ve got loads that will fit you. You’re a ten?’

‘There or thereabouts,’ I nodded, already shedding my cardigan.

‘What sort of wedding are we looking at?’ She started pulling dresses down and hanging them on another rack at the back of the shop. ‘City chic, country garden, Westminster Abbey?’

‘Country garden meets city chic,’ Jenny replied. ‘Simple, elegant and classic.’

‘And I really like this dress,’ I said, taking my life in my hands by interrupting and waving my creased-up magazine in Chloe’s carefully made-up face. ‘If you’ve got anything like that, I’d love to try it.’

‘Oh, Sarah Piper? I went to St Martins with her.’ The girl smiled and grabbed two dresses from the opposite wall. ‘That’s an amazing dress. I don’t have it, though. It’s next season.’

I tried not to be too disappointed. It was a little much to ask.

‘I’ve got a couple of hers from last season, though. And between you and me, I think they’re better. What do you think?’

What did I think? I thought I was going to cry. Both dresses were exquisitely beautiful. One was a faded blush colour, an incredibly simple silk number with a high halter-neck that draped into an open back with a dropped waist and long, flowing skirt. I wasn’t sure I would do it any favours, but for a brief moment I thought about ditching Alex and having that dress’s babies. Until I looked at the other one.

Sweet baby Jesus. It was perfection.

‘Can I try this?’ I pointed at it hesitantly, holding my hands very close to my body, afraid to get too close in case she said no. The success of my entire wedding, all of my future happiness, depended on this dress going over my arse.

‘You surely can.’ She put the other back on the rack and led me towards the back of the shop. ‘Give us a minute,’ she said to my restless bridal party. ‘This is an easy one to get on.’

It wasn’t often I enjoyed taking my clothes off in front of strangers, but in this instance I couldn’t get naked fast enough. I wanted that dress on my body as soon as.

‘You can wear a bra with it,’ Chloe said as I held my hands over my head with barely contained glee. ‘If you get one of those convertible or racer-back ones. AP have a couple of nice bits. You can’t do a corset, though.’

‘I really don’t want a corset,’ I whispered, hoping Jenny couldn’t hear me. The cool silk slipped over my skin, like a happy sigh. ‘I want to be able to eat at my wedding.’ Provided there would actually be food. We hadn’t discussed that yet today. I was sure we would.

‘This is perfect, then,’ she said, turning to the back of the dress and fiddling about with some unseen fastenings while I stared impatiently at a covered mirror, trying to knock off the white muslin with previously unexplored telekinetic powers. ‘The waistline is fitted, but it only needs a pair of relatively contained pants rather than full-on Spanx, and the back really shows off your arms. You’d be surprised how many people look terrible in this. It wouldn’t work if you were super-busty, but I think it looks really great. Just needs a couple of alterations and I can easily sort them by Saturday.’

Never in all my days had I been so happy not to be ‘super-busty’. Chloe took a step back, frowned, then furnished me with a pair of spike-heeled silk sandals and a couple of white gold bangles, loosened my hair and pulled it over one shoulder in a messy cascade.

‘And you’re done,’ she smiled. ‘I love my job.’

She walked over and yanked the muslin cover away from the huge three-way mirror and clapped. I couldn’t breathe. The long, layered silk skirts swished around my legs. There was a long slit up the front and hidden pockets at the sides. Pockets! A tightly fitted waist gave way to a slightly looser bodice with a high round neckline that slid over my shoulders into a narrow ribbon of a racer-back. The fabric widened as it travelled down my back until it met up with the skirt, wrapping me up in the physical embodiment of joy. This was a serious dress that had come to party. And it fitted. The magical secret zips all went up and once I tried I could very nearly breathe just like a normal person.

My feelings for the last dress had been lust. Maybe I thought I wanted its babies, but really I just wanted to give it a good seeing-to and send it home the next morning. But this dress … This dress I wanted to take home to meet my parents. I wanted to take it to dinner and make sure no one ever hurt it. If I wasn’t getting married, I’d buy it to do the dishes. This was the dress.