Chapter 2
You’ve seen The Hunger Games, right? Because the dude hosting this show certainly has, and he’s been heavily influenced by Stanley Tucci’s stylist. The basic premise of the game is several rounds of extreme challenges between us and an opposing duo, and by the end, one team will be victorious and the other, I think, might be dead. I don’t think that’s precisely what Rena signed us up for, but I swear this guy’s got a cannon out back ready to fire when one of the challenges goes wrong and we, or hopefully they, meet their untimely end. I might even set fire to my own dress and let out a mockingjay whistle.
Rena and I have been ushered into a dressing room to be primped and remade up as blushing brides, and we’ve just been fleetingly visited by Roberto, the pouffe-haired, perma-tanned host.
‘He’s… err, a bit full-on, isn’t he?’ Rena says, sitting perfectly still while Natalie, the make-up artist, applies a second coat of mascara.
Natalie pauses, wand in the air. ‘That was actually quite calm by his standards.’
I reach for the coffee someone finally pressed into my hands a few minutes ago and wish I had access to Rena’s contraband brandy. ‘If that was calm, we’re in trouble,’ I say. He was in here for all of ninety seconds, in which time he managed to crow wildly about my disgusting dress, ask if either of us were allergic to peanut butter directly on our skin, and check if we had a fear of dark enclosed spaces or extreme heights. He didn’t fill me with optimism, especially as he shouts everything at least ten times louder than he needs to and claps at inappropriate times. He left after producing a pen from his top pocket like a tiny twirling baton and making us sign paperwork waiving all rights to a claim if anything goes wrong. Like we lose a limb or die, or something.
‘Have you met the other team yet?’ I ask Natalie.
She pulls an imaginary zipper across her lips. ‘I’m not allowed to say a thing about them to you, or to you about them.’
‘Which means yes?’ Rena guesses, her coal-dark eyes gleaming.
Natalie looks as vague as she can manage and shrugs. ‘Maybe.’
‘Do they have better dresses?’ Rena’s competitive streak is already alive and kicking.
‘Not exactly,’ Natalie says after a loaded pause, although the look she gives my frock suggests that she finds it hard to imagine how anyone could have found worse. She offered me an egg-yolk yellow sash to tie around my waist when I arrived because she said a pop of colour might help. I think she was taking the piss.
A balding, sour faced guy in a headset pops his face around the door. ‘Ten minutes, don’t be late this time,’ he says, tapping his watch and fixing Natalie with a death stare.
‘What’s his problem?’ Rena mutters as he swishes the door shut.
‘Probably spurned at the altar and hates the sight of anything wedding related,’ I hazard.
‘Or wants to be the host, not the clipboard boy,’ Rena quips.
‘Or maybe he just wishes I’d finally put him out of his misery and answer his wedding proposal,’ Natalie says slowly, and we both look at her, surprised by the revelation.
‘He asked you to marry him? Is he, like, your boyfriend?’
She nods, and huffs. ’Six months, he’s been waiting now.’
‘You’ve kept your boyfriend waiting six months for an answer to his wedding proposal?’ Rena whispers, slapping her hand over her heart. ‘How could you? My Bryn tells everyone that the thirty seconds it took me to say yes felt more like thirty days.’ She shakes her head. ‘Which means that your poor… what’s his name?’
‘Sean,’ Natalie mutters.
‘Your poor Sean has waited the equivalent of about five hundred years for your answer! What’s keeping you?’
You’ll have to excuse Rena’s bluntness. She’s a fully paid up bridezilla just now, her world is one big whirl of napkins, flower sprays and potential honeymoon destinations. The idea of someone not being keen to join the great veil or no veil debate comes as a shock.
Natalie lays down her blusher brush slowly. ‘There’s stuff about me… stuff he doesn’t know.’
I’m intrigued enough to lean in. ‘Such as?’ I really want her to confess to being a serial bank robber, or secretly packing a penis beneath her denim cut-offs and neon stripey leggings ensemble.
‘Such as he doesn’t believe in sex before marriage. He thinks I’m still a virgin.’
Oh. Rena and I both gaze at Natalie, unsure how to respond.
‘And you’re… not?’ Rena says, eventually.
Natalie nods. ‘I’ve had more men than I’ve got fingers.’
It’s a bit weird this, because we don’t know Natalie at all and we have literally three minutes until we’re due on air, but I get the feeling that she really needs someone to talk to.
‘Look, it’s no big deal,’ I say. ‘Just tell him. Everyone’s entitled to their past.’
Rena nods. ‘Or just say nothing and squirt fake blood on the sheets on your wedding night. They sell it in the Halloween aisle.’
Natalie looks as if she’s going to say something, and then the speaker over the door crackles and someone, our pantomime dame host by the manic tone, booms out that we’re needed on stage for curtain up in thirty seconds.
‘Go, go, go.’ Natalie crosses to the door and opens it, looking slightly embarrassed by her personal revelations. ‘Forget I said anything.’
***
‘Right then, right then, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Forever and Always, the brand new game show that can literally change your life!’
Rena and I are hovering nervously behind a partition awaiting our cue, which in this case is Sean-the-Unwed throwing us a thumbs up from his spot in the wings. Things are made slightly easier by the fact that the show isn’t being filmed in front of a TV audience. It can’t be, because we’re playing the game for the next forty-eight hours and we were told to bring our passports just in case. Beyond that we’re clueless, and I’m starting to feel cold prickles of panic crawl up the back of my knees.
‘Umm, Reen…’ I whisper.
She turns to me, and she knows exactly what I’m going to say and pre-empts me with one of her friendly pep talks. ‘Don’t you fucking dare bail on me Connie Delaney or I’ll snap your neck like a twig.’
It’s blunt, but it does the trick. After twenty years of friendship, she knows how to get the best out of me.
‘I just wish we knew what we’re going to have to do, that’s all,’ I say, even though what I’d actually been about to say was let’s do a runner.
‘Where’s the fun in that?’
Sean-the-unwed flaps his hand wildly to get our attention and signals in no uncertain terms for us to shut up. By that, I mean he holds up a blackboard on which he’s written SHUT THE FUCK UP in massive letters.
’No wonder she doesn’t want to commit,’ I whisper, and he shoots us a murderous look that suggests he can lip-read. Or maybe it’s the mics clipped to our dresses.
’Shit, he’s just said my name,’ Rena breathes, and then it’s all systems go because it’s time.
Ladies and gentlemen, game on.