Machinate (v.) – Engage in plots or intrigues; to scheme
The journey to Adelaide was our quietest one yet. I wasn’t sure if it was because we’d been in each other’s company for too long, were slightly hungover, or just wanting to be back in civilisation, but it felt like something had changed. We’d left, thankfully not bumping into Sarah-Jane as we checked out, and made sure to fill up a little at each petrol station we passed. Fool us once and all that.
It was strange returning to civilisation. Swapping dusty barren plains for sprawling motorways, wide pavements, busy roads, and lush green parks plonked between it all. Adelaide is the fifth biggest city in Australia; everything appeared to be stretched out. It felt as though you had the whole street to yourself but also needed to walk the length of it just to get to the next tall and wide building.
‘Shell, is the sample sale, like, an evening late-night shopping thing?’ I asked, glancing at the setting sun highlighting the dust motes and sticky fingerprints on the dusty dashboard.
‘No,’ she replied, shifting in the driving seat.
‘Are we staying in another hostel tonight then, to be there for first thing tomorrow morning?’ Cara asked, trying with all her might not to let out a moan at the thought of another hostel.
‘No.’ Shelley fixed her eyes on the road signs.
‘A hotel?’ Cara’s voice lifted three decibels in anticipation. This was clearly a woman in desperate need of room service, feathery soft duvets and tasteful soft furnishings.
‘Not quite,’ Shelley wouldn’t give any more away and told us to look out for the Serenity Bridal Store. Cara and I passed looks of confusion between ourselves.
‘Ah, there it is!’ Shelley shouted, and veered The Beast into a parking space.
‘I don’t see any hotels.’ Cara peered outside the window at the quiet street; the sky was darkening with every second. ‘I don’t see this shop either. You sure we’re in the right place? Where’s the hotel you’ve booked?’
‘You can’t see one because we’re not staying in one,’ Shelley said, cutting the engine and turning to face both of us. ‘We’re staying here.’
‘Here?’ Cara and I said in confused unison.
‘Like, in the truck?’
‘No!’ Shelley laughed as if we were idiots, ‘Out there …’ Opposite us was a large, red-brick shop with two enormous flouncy bridal dresses in the window. Signs announcing the sample sale of the year were hung haphazardly in the softly lit glass, but the most worrying part about all of this was that trailing off, just to the left of the wide double doors, were rows of tents pitched up for the night.
‘You cannot be serious!’ Cara quickly caught up to speed with what Shelley had planned for us. ‘I thought you were joking when you said you were packing a tent!’ The colour had drained from her face, even in the bright street lamp that had just flickered on outside.
‘If we expect to stand any chance with finding the dress I want, then we have to get the best spot in the queue, and that means spending the night in line. It’ll be fun!’ Shelley dismissed our open mouths and flung her door open.
‘It’s official. She’s lost the plot,’ Cara gasped.
I just stared in disbelief at the impromptu campsite, unable to string a sentence together.
Shelley poked her head in the door as she began heaving our things out of the boot. ‘Come on, hurry up. The queue is already building!’
She raced off with bags under her arms, leaving Cara and me to shake our heads in disbelief.
This was surely taking bridesmaid duties to the extreme?
*
‘You girls packed your thermals?’ The woman from the next tent along asked, after we’d managed to put up the blasted thing. ‘It’s set to be a cold one tonight.’
‘Screw this!’ Cara huffed. ‘I’m sleeping in the car.’
Shelley didn’t say a word as she watched her storm off to take shelter.
‘You want me to go and talk to her?’ I asked.
‘Nah, to be honest, I could do with a break from her moaning.’ She sighed and plumped up a pillow that was peeking out of her sleeping bag, then passed me a sandwich and bottle of water she’d picked up at our last petrol stop for our dinner.
‘Thanks for staying here with me,’ she said quietly, picking out some tomato and flicking it on the pavement outside.
‘It’s an experience. I don’t think I’ll ever go on another hen do like this one,’ I said honestly. ‘I still can’t believe that you’ve left your dress to the last minute.’
‘I hadn’t planned to!’ She sighed. ‘It’s been crazy. I mean, the first time I went into a wedding dress shop, I was expecting it to be like you see in the films. But, actually, it’s just row upon row of extra decisions that you have to make. I never knew it would be so tricky. What fabric do you want: lace, satin, taffeta, tulle, silk?’ She pulled a face as she ticked things off her fingers. ‘Then what shape: A-line, princess, Grecian, drop waist, tea dress, full skirt with or without ruffles, mermaid? And that’s not all!’ She paused for breath. ‘Then you need to know what you want on the top half: strapless, sweetheart neckline, spaghetti straps, halter-neck, one-shouldered, full sleeves, cap sleeves, high neck. Honestly, Georgia, I’ll never look at a wedding dress the same way again. I feel like I’ve passed some sort of exam to get where I am now. That’s before you decide if you want a train, a veil, a tiara, or matching accessories. In one shop I went to with Cara, some woman was trying to get me to wear white gloves as apparently they’re making a comeback.’
I smiled, imagining Shelley rocking a Michael Jackson-inspired solo glove on her big day.
‘I told my mum about it all and she said that in her day she made her own dress, but that’s probably because she couldn’t find exactly what she wanted. Now we’re spoilt for choice and it’s so hard to be decisive.’
‘But you do know exactly what dress you want?’
Shelley nodded. ‘Yep. I tried it on and I just knew.’ She had this dreamy look on her face, as if she’d just been whisked off to somewhere other than this chilly nylon den we were huddled in. ‘But then Lars told me about this sample sale that he’d heard about. I just knew I had to give it a go; even if it doesn’t fit, Lars has got an amazing seamstress lined up for me, so all we need is the dress!’
Here was a small spark of the free-spirited Shelley I knew and loved.
‘Once we get back to Sydney, it’s going to be pretty full on,’ Shelley said, scrunching up the wrapper of a cereal bar that passed as our dessert.
‘You’ve got me to help with whatever needs sorting.’
‘I need to check that Jimmy has taken care of Cara’s place since we’ve been away – knowing him he’ll say he’s cleaned it, but actually it’ll be a man’s clean rather than a proper clean. Then we have loads of wedding stuff to finalise before everyone arrives. I’m still waiting to hear back from some of our suppliers, but we’ll be seeing Lars so I can chase that up with him.’ She didn’t pause for breath, reeling off the list from her mind and tapping her fingers as she spoke. ‘I’m terrified I’m going to forget something,’ she admitted, lowering her voice. ‘You don’t really think Ben will propose to you at my wedding, do you?’
I wanted to laugh at how seriously she was taking this ridiculous idea. ‘No. I’m sure of it.’
She was silent for a moment. ‘Okay then. Well, that’s good. Right, we should probably try and get some sleep. It’s going to be an early start tomorrow.’ She shuffled further into her sleeping bag and turned off the torch light on her phone.
*
As soon as the sun rose, movement rippled among the tents around us. It was almost time. Cara had eventually rejoined us, complaining that she was tired and hungry. I bit my tongue. I’d spent a cold and uncomfortable night with a numb arse, fingers aching from possible frostbite, and had to suffer through constant snorts emanating from the lady in the next tent along.
‘Right, we all need to get our heads in the game, ladies,’ Shelley said after packing everything up. She had this steely glint of determination in her tired-looking eyes as she prepared for battle. ‘Our plan of attack is that we hunt for the Cerise Coco “Heavenly” gown, in a size ten.’
I half expected her to pull out the swatches of fabric she wanted, strips of colours in the exact shade, or cuttings from a bridal magazine with the different variety of dresses we may find. Instead, she pulled out her phone and swiped through a full photo album of identical-looking wedding dresses.
‘This is the exact one we want to get. Memorise it.’ She thrust the screen at both of our faces. ‘A-line, tulle skirt with illusion neckline, covered in beaded lace.’ I wasn’t about to ask what the hell an illusion neckline was, I just nodded and hoped Cara would find it first. ‘If that isn’t there, then just grab any size ten dresses, preferably from Cerise Coco, and we’ll go from there!’
‘Fine by me,’ Cara said, rubbing her hands together. ‘Be warned, Georgia, the competitive streak is genetic in our family and I expect you to join us. There’s no way we’re leaving this shop without Shell’s dream dress, even if I have to take some bitches down in the process.’
‘God, remind me never to get on the wrong side of you two!’
‘Right, by my reckoning, the shop will be opening in twenty minutes. Have you seen the length of this queue now?’ She looked so pleased with herself as I craned my neck to take in the snaking line of hungry, savvy brides who’d emerged sometime during the night. ‘All the good stuff will be gone by the time they get in!’ she said smugly.
I hadn’t anticipated quite what an ‘up to seventy per cent off’ sign would do to the women of Adelaide. This place was packed. Police had even turned up to try to direct traffic from rubbernecking at the stationary line to see what the fuss was about. We hadn’t stepped a foot in the door and it was already bedlam. Guys wearing fluorescent jackets were blowing whistles and shouting at everyone to move over on the pavement to let other shoppers past. Rumours had been spreading that the sale was going to get cancelled for health and safety reasons. Shelley looked like she might faint.
‘You girls missed it all kicking off at the store in Brisbane,’ a lady in front of us said, breathing pickled onion crisps as she spoke. ‘One of my cousins lives there and told me it was a complete nightmare.’
‘What happened?’ Cara leaned in.
‘Well, three sheilas pushed in. Big girls they were; decided they didn’t need to wait patiently like the rest of us and marched straight to the front. Chaos it was. She thought the store assistants were going to come out and tell everyone to go home. The police had to be called in and they even had the local TV station there filming it all. My cousin got interviewed and everything.’
Her mate, wearing an unflattering crinkly pink bomber jacket, groaned. ‘Pfft. Purlease, this ain’t no different than any other busy shop with a sale on.’
‘Yeah, I hope so. To be honest, they’ll have to open soon or it will be bloody murder if all these ladies get sent home having waited all night for nothing.’
‘Wow,’ I mused, shaking my head. All this for a cheap wedding dress. ‘Is there even enough stock in there for everyone?’
The trio of women in front started laughing at me. ‘Lovey, those at the back probably won’t even get a look in. The website said there would be over a thousand dresses here, but I also heard that there are dress touts who sneak through the back to get in first,’ she whispered, making the others suck air through their teeth.
‘A what now?’ I asked, thinking I’d heard her incorrectly.
‘A dress tout.’ Shelley shivered. ‘Like at a pop concert, they’re the people who go in and buy all the best tickets – or in this case dresses – to sell on the black market for triple the price.’
‘There’s a black market for wedding dresses?’ I asked in amazement. This was getting weirder by the second. ‘I bet they hang out in alleyways in the dead of night offering to do you a deal if you follow them to their mate’s truck for a dress that “fell off a lorry”,’ I joked, making air quotes with my fingers.
The women nodded solemnly. ‘Exactly.’
‘They can’t do that, surely! There must be, like, a limit on the number of gowns you can buy?’
‘Didn’t you hear what I told you earlier about fights breaking out?’ the first lady asked, getting sick of my protestations that she was bullshitting us. ‘There ain’t going to be nothing or nobody who will stop these women getting what they want, you mark my words.’
I saw Cara gulp.
‘Oh you’ll be fine, lovey. You can just peer over all of their heads and spot your way out. In fact …’ She paused and flashed her friend a look. ‘With you being so tall and all that, you wouldn’t mind looking out for this dress, would you?’ Her mate passed over a photo of an ivory strapless gown with big ruffles at the bottom and material folded to make a couple of roses dotted under the corset-style top.
‘Hey!’ Shelley pulled herself taller and cast a look at the lady with gross crisp-breath. ‘She’s with us.’
The woman glanced at the floor, hurriedly put the paper away and turned back round.
‘Don’t be fraternising with the enemy.’ Shelley narrowed her eyes at the back of the woman’s head as she spoke in hushed whispers to Cara.
Just then there was a loud, high-pitched shriek further down the queue. Half expecting to witness handbags at dawn and fisticuffs on the pavement, Cara leant forwards. ‘Oh my God.’
‘What?’ we all turned to ask her.
‘The doors have opened.’
At that, the line nudged forward a fraction before we all pushed and shoved to get in as soon as possible. Operation wedding dress was on.
*
The noise was insane. Women of all ages and backgrounds were squawking like ravenous baby pigeons.
‘Oi, I had that one first!’
‘You want to take this outside?’
‘Back off biatch!’
I felt like I’d stumbled into some female wrestling match with every competitor experiencing raging PMT as women eyeballed each other, clutching different halves of the same dress. The shop assistants cowered behind the long line of tills set against the far wall. Three security guards were swamped by wall-to-wall racks of wedding dresses. It was every woman for herself in here.
‘I’ll go left, Cara, you go right, and, Georgia, hit the central aisles. Get as many size tens as you can!’ Shelley screamed, and was quickly lost in a throng of women lurching towards a fresh rail that was being dragged out by a wide-eyed, spotty lad who dumped the rack and legged it back to the safety of the storeroom.
I was being pushed and shoved by faceless arms, elbows and handbags as I tried to get over to the central section. The shop was enormous, but because of the frantic brides and their entourages it felt like we were trapped in a phone box. So much for letting people in one at a time. Racing my trembling hands over the coat hangers, stepping over dresses that had been pulled to the floor and almost tripping on abandoned bags and shoes as women raced to try the dress on in the centre of this bedlam, I spied the section for size ten and made a beeline over to it. I didn’t even get the chance to check the price tags, I just scooped up four dresses that were within arm’s distance and awkwardly bundled them up.
With my selection in hand, I barged my way over to the suit section of the shop to catch my breath. There were three bemused-looking men gawping at the madness playing out in front of them. I felt like I’d reached base camp. I held up the dresses that I’d safeguarded for Shelley – thankfully three of them were slimline gowns and looked pretty similar to the one she liked. Now I just had to wait.
I didn’t know if it was the noise, the heat, or the suffocating air of hysterical energy but suddenly I felt like I couldn’t breathe. It hit me like a punch to the stomach that the last time I’d held a wedding dress in my hand it had been my own.
Gripping the soft fabric of these dresses in my clammy hands made my own dress-buying experience come rushing back. The anticipation of what would suit me, the desperation to be wearing something that made me look the best version of myself, the need to please Alex and his traditional mum … The fact that I never got to wear my dress.
Tears sprang to my tired eyes, my heart was pounding, and it felt like I couldn’t get enough air into my heaving chest. For fuck’s sake, get it together, Georgia. Except, I wasn’t doing this on purpose. It was as if I’d taken leave of my senses and all these emotions that I thought I’d had a handle on came spurting out, like a pipe that had been repaired with tape that wasn’t strong enough to hold against the blast of water.
I didn’t even know why I was crying, or why I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. I certainly didn’t have any feelings for Alex any more, that part I knew to be true. I just couldn’t stop this crushing, invisible weight of lost chances and broken promises pushing down heavily on my shoulders as I ran the fabric of Shelley’s potential dresses through my trembling hands.
When I thought Ben was going to propose to me in Chile, I’d tried to get my head around the prospect of being someone’s fiancée again. However, when the proposal never happened, I’d placed ‘weddings’ in the maybe some day category, along with buying a dog, getting a tattoo and learning how to ski, and I was totally okay with that. I knew he loved me and I loved him, but we had our hands full with work and relocating so there wasn’t a spare minute to think properly about going up the aisle. At this very moment, I missed Ben more than I had during any of my other trips away. It was as if my body ached to see him, and for him to see me wearing one of these dresses.
‘You all right, darl?’ A man with a severe buzz cut and faded anchors inked on each forearm hesitated before coming over to me. ‘My daughter’s out there at the moment.’ He nodded to the carnage. ‘Didn’t you find the one you wanted?’ He was awkwardly holding a fuchsia-pink handbag – his daughter’s, I presumed – and looked like he wanted a distraction from waiting in the men’s zone.
I sniffed loudly and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. ‘Yeah, well no I …’ I trailed out, trying to find the breath that had been knocked out of me. I was about to blurt out what had happened, how I’d never got to have my moment and wear a dress like the ones around me. How I didn’t know if I ever would have my moment. Looking at his kind face, his dark eyes knotted in concern for this English woman dripping tears on rental suits, I knew I didn’t need, or want, to spill my guts about my past.
My past had to stay there. It had no place in my future. I’d realised a long time ago that Alex wasn’t the man of my dreams. He was just a man who I’d loved once, but who hadn’t loved me enough in return. Ben, on the other hand, was everything I wanted. I wasn’t going to let Alex ruin all weddings for me. I would get to have my moment, one day, however and whenever that may be.
I cleared my throat. ‘Sorry, I think I just got a bit too excited,’ I lied, wiping my cheeks.
‘No dramas. I bet you’re not the only one.’ He smiled and cast his eyes over the crowd. ‘I’ve been waiting here for ages for my daughter. She’s got her heart set on this one dress. We’ve driven a couple of hours to be here so I hope to God she finds it. Otherwise she’ll be sobbing like you, and I can’t be consoling two upset women today,’ he chuckled.
‘What style did she want?’ I asked him in a wobbly voice, wanting to get out of my head and brush off that bubble of emotion threatening to spill over again if I stayed locked in my own thoughts.
He pulled out his phone from his jeans pocket and swiped through to the photo albums. ‘This one – she sent me the photo of it to look for, but there’s no way I’m getting involved out there. Ain’t no place for a man.’
I glanced at the screen. It showed a halter-neck lace gown with intricate beading along the plunging neckline and a fishtail bottom; it was stunning and surprisingly similar to one I thought I’d seen.
‘They all look the same to me, but this was the dress, apparently.’ He shook his head, as if trying to understand the fascination women had for white dresses.
‘Wait,’ I said, handing back the phone and looking down at the selection of dresses I’d swiped. ‘She’s not a size ten, is she?’
He nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, think she is. I only know that because her mum used to be the same size and had been grumbling that the older she got, the less likely it was she’d ever be a size ten again.’ He looked surprised, as if this piece of knowledge had been locked away in his mind somewhere.
‘Is this the dress?’ I cautiously held up one of the ones in my stash. I’d picked it up not knowing if Shelley would want such a low-cut one, but I’d thought it was too pretty to leave on the rails in case someone else took it.
‘Blimey, yeah. I reckon that’s it.’ The man flicked his head between the dress in my arms and the picture on his phone screen.
‘Here.’ I passed it over to him.
‘What? This not the one you want?’ He almost stepped back in shock.
I shook my head. ‘I’m not getting married. I’m just here to help a friend.’
‘Isn’t your friend going to be annoyed that you’re handing out her dress to strangers?’
I laughed, for the first time since coming here. ‘No, she has a different dress in her sights. This lot was just backup choices for her.’ I waved my arms over my stash.
‘Jeez, wow. Good on ya.’ He looked like he didn’t know what to do or say. My heart lifted immeasurably.
‘No problem. I hope she loves it and has the day of her dreams,’ I said, without a hint of sarcasm.
He placed a warm hand on my shoulder and looked me deep in my eyes. ‘Thank you, darl, you too.’
I shifted uncomfortably under his gaze and mumbled that it was fine. For God’s sake, why did I want to cry again? What was going on with me and my emotions? Realising that he might set off the waterworks once more, he made a speedy path to the tills before any of the vulture-like women could snatch it out of his arms once he’d crossed the threshold from the safety of the man-zone back into the melee of the shop. As soon as he’d gone I said a silent prayer that Shelley didn’t have a secret lust for the dress that I’d just given away.
‘Georgia!’
I felt exhausted. Flicking my head over to where the sound came from, I saw Shelley with her own large carrier bag in hand and the biggest grin I’d ever seen her wear.
‘I found it!’ she sang, pushing past three women stuffing their feet into delicate, diamanté, strappy heels.
‘You did?’ I asked in amazement. ‘So, I can put these back then?’ I gathered up the other size ten dresses as she nodded.
‘Cara played a blinder,’ Shelley said, as I placed my backup stash on the rails, only to see them immediately seized by eagle-eyed brides. ‘I swear she nearly started World War Three in the process, but she managed to get it for me without killing anyone!’
‘All’s fair in love and sample sale wedding dress shops, apparently.’ Cara let out a weary laugh, as we tried to push our way to the exit. ‘Now, come on, let’s get the hell out of here before it really does all kick off!’