All She Ever Wished For. Claudia Carroll
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Cindi, flushing scarlet red in the face and breaking this horrible silence, seeing as how it looks like no one else is going to. ‘And he’s lovely,’ I can’t resist throwing in. ‘You’d like him, everyone does.’
Yet another unbearably long drawn-out pause and for a split second, Gracie and I lock eyes, me willing her to say something, anything, but she just glares into the mirror, now totally avoiding eye contact with me, the way she always does whenever she’s struggling to keep her mouth shut. I swear I can physically sense steam coming out of her ears, cartoon-like, from the stress of having to bite back her tongue.
‘So the groom’s name is Bernard?’ Cindi chats away, innocently skating over the surface tension that’s almost pinging off the walls.
‘Yes, yes that’s right,’ I answer automatically.
‘Well I’m sure he and all your family get on like a house on fire.’
‘He’s a lecturer in City College,’ Mum eventually chips in, while Gracie just stares blankly ahead, mouth firmly zipped.
‘And he has a really good pension plan and everything,’ Mum adds, to still total silence from Gracie.
Except this time the silence has somehow turned into something much, much angrier as Gracie and I stare each other down, me willing her to say something nice about her brother-in-law-to-be, her glowering right back at my reflection in the mirror, like she’s determined not to blink first.
Lovely Cindi finally seems to sense that there are thunderclouds brewing between bridesmaid and bride-to-be, so she excuses herself and steps out of the room on the pretext of getting some more safety pins.
Which is when I seize my moment.
‘Jesus, would it kill you, Gracie?’ I ask her straight out.
‘What are you talking about?’ she asks blinking her blue eyes, faux innocent.
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about,’ I say, deliberately trying to keep the sharp, stinging hurt out of my voice.
‘Now, now, girls,’ says Mum from over at the dressing table. ‘We’ve been having such a lovely day. There’s absolutely no need for the pair of you to start into each other. There’s a time and a place for conversations like this and that’s certainly not here and now.’
‘Mum, tell her!’ says Gracie defensively. ‘I never even opened my mouth and she’s still having a go at me!’
‘No, you didn’t open your mouth,’ I say, ‘and that’s exactly my point. For God’s sake, Gracie, it’s less than a month to go to the big day and yet when a total stranger asks you about the man I’m about to marry, you still can’t find it in yourself to say a single good word about him?’
‘Well what do you want me to do?’ is her comeback. ‘Be a complete hypocrite and pretend that I don’t think you’re about to make the biggest mistake of your life?’
‘Come on now, girls, there really is no need for this,’ Mum hisses warningly, ripping a fascinator off her head and turning round to face us both. ‘Cindi might hear the pair of you squabbling and then what’ll she think of us?’
‘You’re my only sister, Gracie,’ I tell her, ignoring Mum, determined to say my piece. ‘And what’s more, you’ve agreed to be my bridesmaid. So is it too much to ask that you could be a little bit more enthusiastic about my wedding? God knows, I’m not asking you to be best friends with Bernard, you’ve made your misgivings about him clear enough—’
‘And I’m sorry, I really am,’ says Gracie, stepping down off the dais, where she’d been posing in her dress, and kicking off the high heels she’d been wobbling uncomfortably in. ‘But I still stand by what I said.’
‘I know you don’t like him, but what I don’t get is why you can’t accept that I love him and I’m marrying him no matter what you might think!’
I’m red in the face and properly angry now. Hot tears are starting to sting at the corners of my eyes now that the gloves are well and truly off. The dull pain from the horrible comments and the thousand searing humiliations Bernard and I have had to put up with ever since we got engaged is suddenly fresh in my mind now, almost making me shake with white-hot anger. But then this particular row has been brewing between Gracie and me for a very long while, and no time like the present, etc.
‘Yeah but you’re marrying him for all the wrong reasons,’ is Gracie’s quick as gunfire reply. ‘You know as well as I do that you’re just getting married on the rebound from Paul. In fact this is such a textbook rebound case, it’s almost a cliché.’
‘That’s not true and you know it isn’t—’
But she just cuts across me.
‘Well, I’m here aren’t I, babes?’ she says, stepping closer to me now, arms folded aggressively. ‘I’m practically beaten into a dress that frankly makes me look anaemic with my pasty white skin – and all for you. Because you’re my one and only sister and, believe it or not, I love you and I want to be there for you. Just don’t expect me to dance cartwheels when you exchange your vows, because to be perfectly honest with you, I think in two years’ time you’ll be singing a very different tune. So there. Now I’ve said it. To your face.’
Silence in the room. Cold, stony silence. It’s only now I notice that Cindi has already come bustling back in with a mouthful of pins, most likely having overheard the gist of our row. I’m actually shaking and even Mum is at a loss for words, which is not like her at all.
Thank God for Cindi though, who instantly clicks back into mindless-saleslady-patter mode, effortlessly gliding over the surface tension that’s just beneath.
‘I really am so happy you went with this style, Tess,’ she says brightly, getting back to re-pinning the hem of my dress. ‘You’ve certainly got the figure for it, and not many would have, you know. I don’t think in all my years working here I’ve ever seen a dress suit a bride so well.’
I’ll take a large bet that she says that to just about every bride who passes through these doors, but right now I’m just so grateful to her for changing the subject, that it doesn’t bother me.
Still more silence.
‘So have you been checking out the long-range forecast?’ asks Cindi, aware of the dark undercurrent and seemingly determined to jolly us all out of it, bless her. ‘Because you know there’s a weather app that a lot of my brides find very accurate!’
‘Erm, no,’ I say in an unsteady voice. ‘I haven’t just yet, but I certainly will when it gets closer to the time.’
Another excruciating pause while Gracie stares furiously off into space and Cindi keeps steadfastly pinning the hem of my dress. Then Mum, bless her, comes to my rescue. She’s drifted over towards a coffee table now so she can top up her glass of Prosecco and her eye falls on a newspaper that’s lying there.
‘Oh, now isn’t that very interesting, girls,’ she says, picking up the paper as something catches her attention.
‘What’s that?’ says Cindi brightly.
‘Kate King is in the papers again,’ says Mum, sitting down on a sofa and leafing through the pages. ‘On the front page and everything.’
‘Really?’ says Gracie, suddenly back to herself now that we’re talking about something other than Bernard. ‘But then, Kate King is never out of the papers, is she? Particularly these days with all this talk about court action and charges being pressed and some painting she and the ex are bickering over.’
‘Oh yes, I heard about this!’ says Cindi. ‘My pal is a hairdresser who does a friend of Kate’s hair and I heard it all from her first hand. Well, almost first hand.’
‘Are they divorced yet?’ asks Gracie.
‘Legally separated and just biding their time apart till they can