Emma Ever After: A feel-good romantic comedy with a hilarious modern re-telling of Jane Austen. Brigid Coady
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able to marry other people.
Her feet twinged from standing too long, so she leant some of her weight on Gee, and he shifted to hold her up without thinking.
Her parents’ divorce and remarriages hadn’t stopped them from still being as flighty as each other. In fact, it had doubled the chaos. She sighed. There had been no one to hold her up then, because she had been the one who had to make sure there were plans and a structure.
She squinted into the distance. Where was the signal to go into dinner? She shifted and felt Gee move with her, a hand hovering just under her elbow.
Why did he have to bring up the ‘Rents. Her whole life had been spent making sure that she greased the wheels of any interactions to ensure no one could argue. Hey presto, you had a happy divorce. It was all in the spin and the story. And underneath she kept it all ticking over with meticulous planning. It was tiring but… she hated mess.
It wasn’t as if they didn’t love her, or weren’t proud of her, because they did and were. And that was what counted, surely? Not whether they’d left her alone in the immigration area at Delhi airport or not.
An hour later, they were crammed into a marquee that was sagging slightly at one side. The late August weather was sultry, no air or breeze moved through the tent, and the light and wispy draperies were limp.
Emma fanned herself with her place card.
‘I’m taking bets on who makes the most inappropriate toast.’ Gee was sprawled back in his chair, sunglasses still firmly on his face, his jacket now hanging off the back of his chair. His legs stretched out into the aisle. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up. She refused to look at his tanned arms.
‘Nope,’ she said sitting up straighter as the sound of a fork on a glass rang out, quietening the room. ‘I’m not taking your bets.’
It would’ve been easy money to win though. She had drafted all the speeches and finalised them during the run-through this morning. There were only three speeches; the best man, the father of the bride and then the groom. Not an inappropriate remark in any of them.
As the best man stood up to speak, she leant forward, her lips sounding out the words as he began.
She batted away the linen napkin Gee wadded up and threw at her without taking her eyes off the wedding party.
‘Perfect,’ she said after the father of the bride sat down after his speech and toast. ‘One more to go.’
All but one of the speeches had been beautifully delivered so far, the words full of heartfelt meaning. And the best man kept to the official narrative that the bride and groom had met backstage at a Feckless Rogues gig. Smooth and organic, just like her boss wanted.
She thought back to the couple’s first meeting, where there hadn’t been a Feckless Rogue in sight, unless you counted the cover of NME in reception. And although the conference room at Mega!’s offices was quite comfy, they’d sat at opposite sides of the table and hadn’t looked at each other, he’d been talking to his manager and she’d been checking her phone.
How times change. Emma sighed as she looked at the top table. They were glowing.
Phil, the groom, leaned over and kissed Brooke’s cheek before he stood. ‘Phooke’, was their ship name; she’d tried for ‘Bril’ but for some reason it hadn’t taken. Like Hiddleswift had taken off instead of Taytom or Swiddleston. The public liked what they liked.
But this was the perfectly constructed story, she thought. It ticked all the boxes that any star and their management could want. It was the fantasy wedding and happily ever after that people wanted and it was clickbait for internet sites, the type that generated advertising revenue. The story just needed the photos that Emma would carefully select. The ones that would show the perfect wedding, framing it so no one saw the page boy having a temper tantrum or that the bride’s mother refused to sit with the bride’s father. And with every blemish airbrushed. It would sell all over the world, raising the profile of both Phil and Brooke’s names in the minds of the masses.
And the bonus was that for once it was actually real, with none of the usual subterfuge and spin underneath it all ending in a statement from their teams that they’d split but were still friends. No, this was merely a tweak to make the truth bigger. With this wedding, no one could crack the surface and see something different because this went down deep. They were in love.
‘Thank you all for coming,’ Phil began cutting through the buzz of conversation. ‘Before I move on to thank my beautiful wife, I’d like to thank someone else. She was the reason I was backstage at the Feckless Rogues’ concert in the first place. Emma Woodhouse, my wonderful publicist, if you hadn’t managed to find me those access all areas passes, we wouldn’t be here today. So, thank you, Emma. May you continue to work your magic.’ Phil raised his glass to her and winked.
She laughed and raised her glass back.
‘Jesus, they aren’t even telling the truth at the wedding? How can they keep track of all the lies?’ Gee said, folding his arms and baring his teeth in the semblance of a grin.
‘It’s all in a spreadsheet, I keep it updated on Google docs,’ she answered, frowning as she listened to make sure that Phil hit all the important points in the speech. They were only white lies, she didn’t understand why Gee always got so wound up about it. Everyone did it – bent the truth or hid it to make them look the best they could. And it wasn’t just famous people, hell, what were filters on Instagram for if not for gilding the truth.
She looked behind her to make sure that the intern was stationed at the rear of the tent and was still filming all of the speeches on her phone. She’d have the other intern ready to capture any video of the dancing later. Then they would leak the videos from some of the guests’ social media accounts to get around the ‘we want to keep this a private event for family and friends’ story they had going. Keeping the illusion, even though the leaks were fully signed off by the happy couple.
‘It was supposed to be a rhetorical question, Ems.’ Gee pushed his glasses to the top of his head as he turned to look at her.
His eyebrows furrowed over hazel eyes.
‘Oh my god, didn’t you used to be Gee Knightley?’ One of the guests at the next table called over loudly.
Everyone in their vicinity turned around to stare.
Here we go again, Emma thought, trying not to smile.
Gee slumped further down in his chair if that was possible, his frown deepening. It was the same perplexed and bad boy look that had looked down from a poster on her wall when she was sixteen. And probably also been on the bedroom wall of the girl currently bouncing in her seat behind them.
‘I’m still Gee Knightley,’ he muttered, before sitting up, smoothing over his face and turning to smile.
‘Hey,’ he said with a small wave.
The girl squeaked, her face crimson and her eyes shining.
Ems rolled her eyes. This happened at least once a day. You would’ve thought that ten years after Gee’s boyband had broken up people would forget.
‘Oh my god, you were always my favourite in Status Single. Are you ever going to reform? I saw that Johnnie was acting now, what do you do? Oh Luke, Luke… you remember Status Single?’ The girl, who was really a woman in her late twenties, poked her companion with her finger.
The bloke looked grumpily impressed and also as if he were worried that Gee was either going to run after his girlfriend or himself and he wasn’t sure which one was better.
‘I’m sorry, but I think we need to listen to the speeches, maybe we can catch up afterwards?’ Gee whispered with a finger to his lips and a wink.
He turned back round, the practised smile falling from