Chapter Twenty-Five

By the time we finished the flowers, the first creeping shafts of sunlight were starting to work their way through the curtains. It didn’t matter, though: somehow, despite all the odds, we’d managed to get it done with time to spare. As the four of us trudged back to our rooms to grab a few precious hours’ sleep, it was safe in the knowledge that we had done everything we could.

I was glad I was so tired. It meant that I didn’t have long to dwell on everything that had happened.

I didn’t want to have spent the whole day and most of the night trying to organise Lauren’s flowers, but at least all of the activity had kept me busy. It had been hard to think about much of anything else between driving around and hurriedly bundling together bunches of flowers as bouquets. In the quiet of my room, though, questions managed to slip into my empty mind. Despite the fact that it was no longer locked, my phone hadn’t made so much as a chirp – not from Carter, and not from Jack.

It was hard to tell which one got to me more. Both of them stung in different ways, in the rare moments where I found my mind drifting: Carter like a dull ache, already oddly familiar even after no more than a few days, and Jack like a fresh burn, impossible not to pick and poke at even though I knew I was only making it worse for myself.

But I didn’t need to think about that. If there was one good thing to come out of the whole flowers debacle, it was the luxury of oblivion. My head had hit the pillow just as soon as I’d made it to my bed, and when I woke up…

Well, then it was the Big Day. For the next twenty-four hours, everything took second place next to Lauren.

‘Oh, you guys,’ she said as we gave her a sneak peek at the venue. The wedding wasn’t due to start until noon, but by nine there were already people running around, making sure everything was in place: every chair, every napkin, every single one of the flower bundles we’d thrown together with barely a moment of sleep. ‘It’s beautiful. It’s so, so…’

Whatever else she had planned to say was lost in a sob that would have required a significant retouching of her mascara, if she’d seen it once the makeup artist arrived – but that was enough to make all of our work worthwhile.

We did it, I think as the girls and I all wrap ourselves into a group hug around the ecstatic bride to be. We damn well did it.

~~~

The work is still a long way from being done, though; in fact, based on the list I’ve prepared, we’ve barely even scratched the surface. The goal isn’t necessarily to make sure that everything goes smoothly from here onwards – I long ago gave up on the idea that the whole thing would be a clockwork affair – but to make sure that it all looks seamless. I think back to my college days, when Lauren and I worked on a production of Oklahoma! together. She was Laurey Williams (of course); I was working backstage, trying to keep everything ticking along and making sure the stage didn’t fall apart as soon as someone sang too loud or looked too hard at the surrey with the fringe on top. My job wasn’t to make everything perfect, but to make it look just good enough that once the lights were dimmed and the music started, the audience didn’t care about the ropey-looking costumes and the wobbly sets.

Well, now I was doing the same thing, for an audience of one. As long as Lauren didn’t notice if things went wrong, I could call that a win.

A steady stream of well-wishers comes to say hello before the big moment, calling in to pass on their best wishes on her impending nuptials: aunts, cousins, long-missing friends from both sides of the aisle. Each and every one of them gets a long and excited hug from Lauren and a promise that they’ll catch up properly at the reception, but each one of them seems to take a little bit of her away with them when they leave, like a river slowly battering a boulder down into sand. By the time the last one of them slips out of the door, Lauren looks like she’s about half the size she was this morning, and somehow I don’t see the day getting any less stressful.

‘You feeling OK?’ I ask.

She nods. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Overwhelmed?’

‘A little.’

‘You want to take five?’

Lauren gives another nod, and a smile as though a weight has been lifted from her shoulders. We’re still a couple of hours out from the big moment, but I can see the stress of the day is finally getting to her.

I turn to the woman behind the camera, who’s taking shot after shot of pretty much everything in sight. ‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Can you maybe give us a second in private?’

The photographer checks her watch. ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘But if you want to get some shots of the bride in her dress before we head downstairs, you’re probably going to want to get her moving.’

I grit my teeth – she’s not wrong, but really, does it look like photos of her pulling her dress on are the biggest concern here? – and gesture for Jess and Paige and Danielle to take the photographer to pick up some other shots of the grounds. By the time I get back to her, Lauren is staring out of the window of her hotel room, her brow creased into deep ridges.

‘There,’ I say, as soothingly as I can. ‘Just the two of us. Now, what’s wrong?’

‘Hmm?’

‘You’re giving the street the full thousand-yard stare, Lauren,’ I say. ‘Come on. You think I don’t know when something’s up with you?’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Liar.’

‘Really. I’m just being dumb. Maybe.’

‘Well, try me.’

‘It’s just…’ She pauses.

‘Go on. It’s OK. What’s wrong?’

‘What if he regrets marrying me?’ The words come tumbling out of her in a mad flurry, like someone opening a door in a blizzard for just a second. Once she’s done, she clamps her lips tightly closed. No more of that.

‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘What if Drew regrets marrying me? What if we get through it all and he suddenly realises he’s made a huge mistake?’

I can almost picture my eyes going black and a bright green flashing marquee announcing how I feel about the issue: DOES NOT COMPUTE, DOES NOT COMPUTE. The idea that Drew might be the one having second thoughts makes about as much sense as… hell, it didn’t make sense.

‘And why would he possibly think that? In what world could he think that that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You’re a doctor, Lauren. He runs a comic book store.’

‘So? What does that have to do with anything?’

‘I’m just saying…’

‘That doesn’t matter, El. It doesn’t, at all. Just… look at his family. You must have seen them since they got here, the way everyone just… clicks, you know? The way everyone fits together. Paige and Drew and their brothers and their folks. You know they’ve been married for over thirty years?’

‘Really?’

‘No shit. Thirty years. My parents didn’t even make it to eighteen months.’

‘Is that what this is?’

‘I don’t know. OK? I just don’t know. I’m used to having a screwed up idea of what a marriage is supposed to be, but Drew… Drew’s grown up with that. How am I supposed to compete with thirty years of wedded bliss?’

I place my hand gently on her shoulder. ‘You’re not supposed to compete. That’s not what this is, Lauren. It’s not you against Drew’s parents, or against Drew’s idea of what marriage is supposed to be. It’s you and Drew, against… well, against everything else. But you’re a team. He’s got your back. I’m sure you’ll be fine.’

‘And what if we’re not? What if it all goes to hell?’

I shrug. ‘What if it does? You’ll never know unless you try.’

‘You think I can do better. I know you do.’

I nod. ‘Sure I do. You’re my best friend, Lauren. You have been since we were kids. No one’s ever going to be good enough for you. Medical science hasn’t yet discovered the sort of guy that I’d think would be worth you getting married to.’

‘So why should I go through with it?’

‘Because you love him, dummy. And he loves you.’

‘Is that enough?’

I sigh. ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I don’t think anyone knows for sure. But it seems like it’s a damn good place to start, wouldn’t you say?’

She nods slowly. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Yeah, I guess it is.’

‘There you go, then. You and Drew. You’ve got this. I promise.’ One more crisis averted, I think. I can almost hear the swish of the ball through the net and the roar of the crowd; truly, I am the LeBron James of wedding organisation.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I shouldn’t be putting all this on you. Not after you worked so hard to sort out the flowers. Not after…’ Not after Carter, is what she means, but she has the grace not to say it.

‘Yeah, well,’ I say. ‘I might not be in the best place to be giving you advice on your love life right now, but trust me: Drew’s the luckiest man in the world.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know so. It’s just cold feet, that’s all. Happens to everyone.’ So I’m told, anyway.

Lauren leans forward and gives me an enormous bear hug, her arms wrapping around me so tightly I think I’m going to pop as she presses her face against my shoulder. ‘Easy, easy,’ I say. ‘Mind the mascara. The last thing you need is me looking like I’m wearing zebraprint in all your wedding photos.’

She sniffs and pulls away, smiling ever so slightly. That’s when I know that everything is going to be OK.

‘You know,’ she says, ‘before I said anything I had this wild moment of wondering what would happen if we just left, you and me. Got into a car, drove away from it all. If we just Thelma and Louise’d this shit.’

‘Can we take the flowers? It’d be a shame to waste them.’

She smiles. Her face is still wet with tears, but at least she’s not crying anymore. That’s a good sign. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Me and you, handing out bouquets in every town between here and Chicago. We’ll be like Good Samaritans, just brightening the day of anyone who looks even a little bit sad. You get a flower, and you get a flower, and you get a flower…’

‘Everybody gets a flower!’

She sniffs, and I hand her a square of tissue.

‘Come on, Oprah,’ I say. ‘We’ve got a wedding to get you to.’