intelligent, knowing eyes turned to her.
Bugger.
Why had she had to go and mention Seth like she was invested or something?
‘Jake’s asking Seth right now,’ Emma had assured. ‘But—’
‘Look, I know it must be like herding cats getting all the brothers and sisters in the same place at the same time, but isn’t it more important for you to get the date you two want?’ The words had tumbled out of Gloria’s mouth as she remembered receiving the list of suitable dates that Bob’s mother had issued for their wedding.
‘Or, if you don’t know the date yet,’ Kate had interrupted, ‘what season do you want? You could have a winter wedding. Ooh, I’ve always wanted a winter wedding.’
‘Winter?’ Emma wrinkled her nose. ‘I think I’m more—’
‘Absolutely,’ Juliet had instantly agreed, assessing Emma, ‘with your blonde hair, I’m thinking summer or autumn. That’s only a year away – will that give you enough time to plan?’
A year?
As in three hundred and sixty five days of wedding stuff?
Shoot me now, Gloria had thought, and announced, ‘I think you should do it as soon as possible.’
When they stared like she was the font of all wedding knowledge, it had occurred to her that, technically, she was. She was certainly the only one out of the four of them who had organised a wedding and been married.
The nausea had become more pronounced as she’d mumbled, ‘If you spend too much time planning, everything about the day gets blown out of proportion and you lose sight of the fact it’s to celebrate your union rather than pulling off the perfect party.’
There’d been shocked silence and then Kate had murmured, ‘Actually, she has a point.’
‘She has a name and thank you,’ Gloria had said, with a nod, the nausea abating somewhat.
‘To be honest for now I’m just happy to have organised the bridal party,’ Emma had said.
Gloria had looked at Emma’s dreamy expression that suggested a definite lack of feeling the need – the need for speed – and had asked herself how much she really want to be accepted by these women?
‘So let’s ask Gloria,’ Crispin’s voice suddenly boomed across the room.
At the sound of her name she shot up from behind the bar where she’d been quietly rummaging in her bag for those handy stress balls she’d taken from Fortuna’s office. ‘Huh?’ she responded, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes so that she could eye the agenda.
Tonight’s meeting was supposed to be about the infrastructure for the Beer Festival. Now that Whispers Wood had reactivated their summer fetes, this year the village had voted on moving it to autumn to tie-in with the local micro-brewery who’d won some sort of award.
She thought Kate had submitted The Clock House’s ideas when she’d realised the meeting conflicted with Thursday Night Dinner at her mum, Sheila’s. Emma was with Jake no doubt celebrating that they’d made one wedding decision and Juliet had been whisked out for dinner by Oscar after Gloria had snuck out to find him and mention he might want to spoil Juliet that evening.
It wasn’t butting in, she’d told herself. It was making sure two people she sort of liked made time to talk about what was going on because once the talking stopped it usually meant you were completely unpractised at it when the big stuff hit the fan.
‘So, how about it, Gloria,’ Crispin asked, ‘are you going to enlighten us?’
‘Pretzels,’ she said, looking around the room. At the blank stares she added a confident nod. ‘You all know we stock the micro-brewery’s Whispers Wrangler. We had a think about what goes with beer and came up with pretzels. Sheila’s going to cook up huge batches and presto: a Beer and Pretzels tent from The Clock House.’
‘Yes. I have you down for the pretzels but I was asking about the other thing?’ Crispin repeated.
There was another thing?
What other thing?
She certainly couldn’t tell him what she thought about the bridesmaid thing.
She couldn’t tell anyone.
Besides, it was going to be fine.
It had to be.
She could survive without imploding, or worse, exploding all over Emma and Jake’s Big Day.
‘Gloria?’
‘Wow—yes?’ Gloria blinked rapidly, tipping her head to the side on the off chance her own Big Day wedding montage would simply fall right out of her head. Just because Emma and Jake’s wedding was going to be the first wedding in Whispers Wood, since, well, hers … ‘What?’ she said grumpily.
Crispin gave her eye-rolling a run for its money and lifted his hand impatiently, ‘Can you shed some light onto the proceedings?’
‘The pretzel proceedings?’ She stood behind the safety of the bar, caught in the glare provided by some of the residents as they turned to stare at her. Unable to take it, she glanced upwards, straight into the large sparkly chandelier. The one with the ridiculous fairytale attached to it. The one responsible for making her think about Seth Knightley in a light which, if it ever got out and saw the light of day, she’d have to disavow all knowledge of, and leave Whispers Wood in the middle of the night, never to return.
‘You know Gloria,’ Crispin said, his voice exasperated, ‘after all that Whispers Wood has done for you I don’t think it’s too much to ask you to share your intel.’
Intel?
‘I know you’re in the know,’ Crispin declared.
‘The know?’
‘As if you wouldn’t be – what with being Emma’s bridesmaid.’
Gloria’s mouth dropped open. Everyone knew already? There would be no graceful backing-out? Not that Gloria had the first clue as to what constituted graceful. Should have studied ballet like that Arabella Jones.
Yanking up the agenda for the meeting, she pointed to it. ‘There’s nothing listed here about Emma and Jake and their wedding. How did you find out?’
‘Felix heard it from Sheila who I believe got it from Cheryl who told Mrs. Harlow when they met in Big Kev’s corner shop earlier this afternoon.’
General consensus noises could be heard throughout the room.
Unbelievable, except, if you lived in Whispers Wood, and had had first-hand experience of the village vine, completely believable. ‘What has my being one of Emma’s bridesmaids have to do with the beer festival?’
Crispin stared at her like she’d dropped twenty IQ points. ‘I would have thought that was obvious. I did ask both Jake and Emma to be here tonight so that we could address
