Emma asked again, a nervous, embarrassed thread present in her voice now.
This is not a drill, Juliet tried to convey.
Her expression part bemused, part horrified, Gloria asked, ‘And it has to be bridesmaid at a wedding? I can’t be bridesmaid for something else?’
‘Yes, silly,’ Emma laughed. ‘Specifically my wedding. What do you say?’
Into the shocked silence, Juliet watched Kate push the swear jar towards Gloria.
Gloria
She was being punished.
That was what this was.
A bridesmaid???
Well, if that didn’t categorically prove Karma was a bitch.
She glanced to the stupid swear jar which was already a quarter full damn it – wait, ‘damn’ wasn’t a swear word was it? Crap. It was. She might as well write an IOU for a gazillion pounds and be done with it. Chewing on her bottom lip to stop more four letter words from forming, she rubbed at a spot on the already gleaming surface of the bar.
What on earth had possessed Emma to ask her?
What on earth had possessed her to agree?
Since when was she that person – the one who succumbed to peer pressure?
But as Emma, Juliet, and even Kate, had all turned to stare at her expectantly, she’d felt something inside of her, jumping up and down, waving its hands in the air screaming, ‘Ooh, ooh, pick me, pick me …’
Acceptance.
Something she’d wanted for the longest time.
The next thing she’d known she’d been uttering the words, ‘Oh, sod it, then,’ and awkwardly moving forward to hug Emma.
Pitiful, she thought with a shake of her head as she picked up the pitcher of milk and quietly moved across the back of Cocktails & Chai to put it down on the table where she’d set out coffee and tea for after the village meeting currently in session.
Mary, the school chaplain, was addressing the gathered residents but darned if Gloria could make out what it was about.
‘Speak up,’ she wanted to shout. Speak up and drown out this racing uncertainty Emma had only asked so that the token ‘bitchy bridesmaid’ role was filled, because not to get too technical, but the whole point of working so hard on herself lately was to be, you know, less bitchy.
Creeping back to her place behind the bar, she stowed the swear jar on a shelf behind her and sighed. Had it really only been eight hours ago that Fortuna was assuring her she’d be fine?
At the opposite end of the large room, against the backdrop of what she’d used to think of as calming eau-de-nil paint, but in her current state only made her feel bilious, Crispin Harlow, head of Whispers Woods’ Residents Association, finally cut Mary off with an impatient, ‘Yes, thank you Mary, I’m sure we’re all pleased the school’s pet goldfish will be getting new companions at the start of the school year. Let me know what the children decide to name them and I’ll announce it at the next meeting.’
Wow.
Gloria broke her village meeting rule with an exceptionally satisfying eye-roll. Seriously, the school’s goldfish getting friends to form a school of their own? Hardly, Hold the Front Page news, was it?
To combat the frustration of having to be present while this was discussed she imagined breaking into the school, stealing all the naming cards for the new goldfish and filling them all out with her own suggestions of: Dick and Fanny.
Thinking it through though she realised that to make the cards look authentic she’d have to write in lots of different handwriting styles, and use a lot of different pens … so much hard work. Not to mention making sure Persephone didn’t rumble her, and use that ‘disappointed’ expression like she had when Gloria had asked her teacher to write her an essay on why the urban dictionary was no substitute for an actual dictionary when it came to putting proper words on the children’s homework spelling list.
Reaching forward she turned a copy of the agenda towards her to see what other thrilling topics the village was going to discuss ad infinitum that evening.
As a way of disseminating gossip quicker than rural broadband speed, Crispin’s village meetings were unsurpassable. She’d even used the forum herself, she remembered, wincing at how she’d stood up in one of the meetings last summer and told everyone assembled just who newcomer Daniel Westlake had formerly associated himself with.
She was lucky Daniel had a forgiving nature.
These days, whenever it was her turn to be key-holder for the meeting, the first thing she did after turning the giant clock back ten minutes to ensure everyone arrived on time, was to swipe a stack of Post-it notes from Daniel’s desk in the co-working office space he ran from the top floor of the clock house and write her village meeting mantra: less speaking, more smiling and absolutely NO rolling of the eyes.
She looked under the bar now to the scribbled Post-its (other sticky notes are available at Hive @ The Clock House) and stifled the sigh.
As Crispin started rambling on, she tried to pay attention but within moments all she could think was how on earth was she going to pull off the role of bridesmaid? Didn’t they have to be supportive, and involved and, oh joy, wear one of those dresses in floaty pastel?
Of course the minute the deal had been sealed with the hugging, it had started … The first conversation of no doubt millions, in which she’d quickly realised, she was a) not supposed to want to escape, and b) expected to participate positively in.
‘When’s the date, then?’ Juliet had immediately wanted to know.
‘Yes,’ Kate had said. ‘Because we’ll have to close this place, or are you getting married at the Hall?’
‘Surely it will be at the Hall,’ Juliet had answered on Emma’s behalf. ‘There’s probably some sort of tradition or something?’
‘Or church,’ Kate had said, looking at Emma. ‘Are you thinking the whole big church wedding?’
Gloria had shuddered at the thought of having to step foot inside a church again. Nervously she’d glanced across to Emma, who looked how she felt, out of her depth and completely overwhelmed.
‘Um …’ Emma had trailed off and then bravely admitted, ‘we haven’t set the actual date yet. We’re waiting until we find the perfect one, where everyone’s free. Mum’s on another cruise and we don’t know when Jake’s oldest brother Marcus is planning to come back.’
‘But surely Seth
