The Other Woman(54)
I looked down at the sleek lines which clung to my curves, went in and out at my waist, and skimmed the shape of my thighs, before pooling on the floor.
‘I think it’s just perfect, Em,’ gushed Pippa. ‘It’s so you.’
‘It looks lovely, dear, it really does,’ added Pammie. ‘You’ll get some wear out of it, that’s for sure. It’ll make a lovely outfit if you’ve got somewhere special to go.’
Her words stung, but Pippa and Mum didn’t pick up on it. That’s the thing with Pammie: she gives you a compliment that everybody hears, only to follow it with a barbed snipe that’s barely noticeable, except of course by me, its intended victim.
‘Will you be doing anything with your hair?’ she asked. ‘To dress it up a bit.’
Francesca stepped in with a simple diamanté tiara, attached to a one-tier veil.
‘Are you wearing your hair up or down?’ asked Pippa excitedly.
‘I’m thinking up,’ I said, wrinkling my nose, still undecided. Francesca scooped up my loose hair, pulling tendrils out around my face, and secured it with a few haphazard pins before gently placing the headpiece on.
‘It gives you an idea,’ she said.
‘Well, it won’t be exactly like that, will it?’ Pammie scoffed. ‘I assume you’re having professionals in on the day.’
It was a rhetorical question that I didn’t feel warranted a response.
‘So, you love it?’ I asked. ‘What do you think Adam will think of it?’
A resounding chorus of ‘amazing’, ‘he’ll love it’, ‘stunning’ reverberated around the shop, yet it was the word ‘interesting’ that seemed the loudest.
My head was pounding by the time we got out of there, exactly thirty-three minutes later. A low, bright sun sliced its way across my vision as we made our way back down through the village.
‘I’ve booked your favourite, Due Amici, for lunch,’ exclaimed Pippa. ‘We’re a wee bit early, but I’m sure they’ll be able to seat us, or we can have a drink at the bar.’
‘Actually, do you mind if we take a rain check?’ I asked.
Pippa spun round to face me, her eyebrows raised, waiting for me to continue.
‘I’ve got a killer headache, and I could just do with a sit-down and a cup of tea, to be honest.’
She took my arm, steering me away from the gossiping mums, who were too caught up in their conversation to notice. ‘Am I getting this right?’ said Pippa, ‘Is this a cockamamie?’
I smiled. We hadn’t used that expression in ages. Not since I’d been with Adam, at least. It was our secret code name for ‘get me out of here’, and I last remembered using it when I had been drunkenly persuaded to go back to some guy’s house after meeting him at a karaoke night in the Dog & Duck in Brewer Street. Pippa was snogging his mate in the corner, and it all sounded like a great idea when we were doing shots whilst murdering ‘Nutbush City Limits’. But once we were all in the cab, with Pippa sitting astride her new friend, I’d been suddenly and mercifully hit with the sensible stick. It was not what I wanted to do, and not where I wanted to be. ‘Cockamamie!’ I’d shouted, and Pippa had sat bolt upright as if she’d heard a jungle call from Tarzan.
‘Seriously?’ she’d cried.
‘Yep. Cock-a-mam-ie.’ I slowed it down, more for my benefit than hers. If it had come out wrong, God knows what a good time the boys would have thought they were in for.
‘She’s getting to you, isn’t she?’ Pippa asked now, tilting her head towards Pammie.
I nodded and felt tears prickle at the back of my eyes.
‘Okay, do you want to come back to mine?’
I thought of Adam, waiting at home, all expectant, eager to hear the news of how my special day had gone, and I just didn’t want to deal with it. I couldn’t put on my happy face and lie through my teeth about how perfect it had all been, yet I didn’t want to tell him how it had really played out: how his mother had yet again ruined it all. He was somehow under the misapprehension that we’d been getting along so much better recently, and it seemed that, all the time he thought that, me and him had been closer. There were no silly arguments about what he deemed to be my unjustified paranoia, whenever she came up in conversation. I’d learnt that it was a lot easier to listen, whenever he spoke about her, smile, and get on with it, because I was suddenly coming to the realization that she might be right: if the chips were down, and I did make him choose, I honestly didn’t know which way he’d go.
‘Ladies,’ said Pippa, as she turned to the mums. ‘Emily’s not feeling too well, so I’m going to take her home.’
‘Oh, what’s up love?’ Mum cried, as she rubbed my back. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’
I shook my head. ‘No thanks, Mum. I’ll be fine, just come over a bit queasy, that’s all.’
‘She’s probably not looking after herself,’ interjected Pammie, as if I wasn’t there. ‘No doubt trying to lose weight on some crazy diet, to get into that dress.’
Pippa must have seen the look on my face, as she quickly steered me away, stopping me from punching the interfering bitch square between the eyes.
‘Is it me?’ I asked, once we were safely ensconced on her sofa, cup-a-soup firmly in hand. ‘Everyone says how thoughtful and kind she is, yet all I can see is a red-faced devil with horns coming out of her head.’