Bad Bridesmaid. Portia MacIntosh
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Even though I know that if I just got up a little earlier on a morning I could be on time for work, I still roll out of my bed when I feel like it and spend ages doing my hair when really I should be rushing to the office to make my meetings on time.
‘Good morning,’ I say cheerily as I burst my way through the doors to the meeting, grabbing an apple from the buffet table before taking a seat with the rest of the Pink Inc. team.
‘It’s not morning,’ Molly informs me.
‘OK,’ I say, twirling my chair from side to side as I munch my apple.
‘We were just talking about the script changes,’ Savannah says, kindly bringing me up to date.
Between the three of us, we have the formula for making movies down to a fine art – although unlike me, Molly and Savannah are way into all the romantic junk that I have no time for in real life.
‘Here,’ Molly says, tapping the page of the open script on the table in front of me. ‘We need to make some changes to this line.’
At the moment we’re working on a movie called Three’s A Crowd, which tells the tale of two twenty-something best friends. Both party girls, their friendship comes under strain when one of them goes off on holiday and returns engaged.
‘I wrote that line,’ I say, almost offended. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘I’m just struggling to believe that when Katie’s best friend tells her she is engaged, she asks her if it’s because she is pregnant. No one would do that.’
I have a little chuckle with myself because that’s exactly what I said to my sister when she told me she was engaged.
‘OK, so what were you thinking instead?’ I ask.
‘Perhaps it should be a sweet and sincere moment,’ Savannah suggests.
We could try that. After all, we write romantic comedies, it needs as much romance as it does jokes.
‘Sure, but what?’ Molly asks.
We all sit in silence for a moment – well, almost silence. The unattractive sound of me crunching my apple can be heard all around the room.
‘OK, let’s try this,’ I start with my mouth full. ‘So, Emma tells Katie that she is engaged and Katie is shocked – she drops her cosmopolitan and spills it all over Emma’s dress, just like we wrote originally. This time, instead of asking her if she’s pregnant, the pair rush off to the toilets together to try and get the stain out of Emma’s dress. For a moment no one says anything, they just both work together in silence, Emma holding the bottom of her dress taut as Katie carefully dabs at the stain with a wet paper towel. Now, the stain isn’t as bad as it looks, and together they get it out. Then Emma leans on Katie while she dries it under the hand dryer.’
‘I don’t think any girl watching the movie is going to care so much about fashion that she’ll want to watch them just removing a stain in silence,’ Molly interrupts me.
‘Let me finish then,’ I say sharply. Another thing that changed when I became the new Mia was my tolerance for girls and their bitchiness. I don’t really have any female friends here in the States, unless you count Dalia, but she’s paid to be friendly to me and she doesn’t try that hard. I have a sneaking suspicion she secretly hates me. Yesterday when I sent her out for condoms she looked at me like she wished I was dead. After an anti-climatic night with Zack (who I’m going to have to try hard to avoid today) I’m starting to wish she hadn’t bothered. Well, that I hadn’t bothered with Zack, not that we hadn’t bothered with protection.
Other than Dalia, the only other girls I have to deal with for lengthy amounts of time on a daily basis are Molly and Savannah. Savannah is a lovely, bubbly girl. We don’t have much in common but we get along OK. When all else fails we can always have a girly chat together, about things like hair and shoes, because Savannah is a girly girl too. She has long, naturally curly brown hair and bright green eyes like me, which we bonded over the day we met because supposedly green eyes are quite rare. Whether it’s true or not, it gave us something to talk about and thanks to that we’ve always got on well since.
Sadly, I never hit it off with Molly. We just don’t seem to have anything in common apart from our girl parts. Molly is very tall and very thin. She’s quite gothic looking, with her sharp black inverted bob and her heavy black makeup, but while she isn’t particularly girly, she is still a romantic just like Savannah – and that is the one thing I don’t have in common with either of them. The thing is, being a romcom writer, there’s no way I can openly admit to my aversion to love. If people knew that I thought the stuff I wrote was slushy propaganda, cleverly designed to trick women into thinking they need a husband and a happy ever after – I’d be finished. The film industry may not benefit from you having a happy love life directly, but through the use of product placement they can helpfully suggest the kind of shoes you need to wear to do so, or the bag you need to carry, or the car you need to drive. Molly and Savannah believe that all you need is love, and making these movies is their way of showing you just how beautiful love is and how true love conquers all. Sadly, I don’t believe a word I say. I know that every word I write comes from a dark and cynical place inside me, and the more I write, the less I’m inclined to believe in Love as a thing. It’s not a thing, it’s a marketing tool. It’s how you convince people to splash out on weddings and buy chocolate and flowers on Valentine’s Day. Thankfully the people who watch the movies written by the Pink Inc. team don’t feel the same as me, which keeps me in my flashy lad pad and my designer shoes.
Right, back to work. So Katie has just helped Emma clean the cocktail stain off her dress.
‘So, they’ve cleaned the dress together in perfect silence, both just thinking about what has happened and how life as they know it is going to change. Katie is worried, not only because her best friend is about to have someone else equally as important in her life, but also because to an extent she’s going to be left behind. Emma is going to be playing house, Katie is still going to be a single girl – only now she’s doing it alone. She’s scared. Anyway, Emma sees this. She takes her hand and she says: “Katie, you mean more to me than anyone in the world. I have known you all my life and just because I am getting married, it doesn’t mean I won’t want you around any more – I need you around. Look at the way you just helped me clean my dress – granted you were the one who spilled a drink down it – but even though you were upset you helped me, no questions asked. I lean on you, and not just when I need to dry my dress under a hand dryer. Yes, I have fallen in love, but it will never compare to the love I have for you, my best friend. It may not work out between me and this guy, but you and I will be friends forever. No one can change that.’
‘Wow,’ Savannah gushes. ‘That’s so beautiful.’
‘Yeah,’ Molly agrees. ‘Really beautiful.’
For a moment my writing partners sit and think about what I have just said. What I want to do is roll my eyes, this friends forever crap makes me throw up in my mouth every time I even think about it. Instead I force a smile and jot down my idea before I forget it – well it’s clearly an effective one. Is it hypocritical of me to write these loving and romantic tales if I don’t believe them? Of course not, I write fiction. Fiction can be whatever you want it to be. If you haven’t worked it out by now, I’m just really good at faking it.
‘Business or pleasure?’ an LAX employee asks me as I awkwardly rummage around in my handbag to make sure I have everything I need to fly. I’m not sure if it’s his job to ask me or if he’s just making small talk, either way I answer.
‘Neither,’ I reply, although this answer obviously isn’t a satisfactory one if I want to be allowed on an aeroplane. ‘My sister is getting married,’ I explain. ‘I’m going home for the wedding.’
The man laughs and gives me a knowing smile, a smile that says: ‘Family gatherings are hell. I feel your pain, sister.’