In the days since Rowan and I had video-chatted, everything really had been normal. Apart from the Save My Soul that Cora had sent me late on Friday afternoon, asking me to meet her and Molly in The Circus Ring – personally dubbed, ‘The string of stores I’ll never be able to afford to shop in’ – a little earlier than planned. Out of my friends, they’d always been the two to have more money than sense. On the walk there, I entertained myself by making guesses at what extravagant purchases they were looking to buy. I assumed I’d be taking the role of: ‘Of course you deserve to spend that much money on a hat …’ When I eventually tracked them down, though, they weren’t huddled outside of a hat shop at all. Instead, they were outside Bliss – with its brilliant white shop front visible from the moon, if not further afield than that. I rolled my eyes at Cora when she spotted me, and she held her hands up in a defensive gesture.
‘I would like the record to show,’ she said when I came to a stop alongside them both, ‘this was absolutely not my idea and I’m simply here in a supporting role.’
‘Who are you supporting?’ I hugged her. ‘Me, or this crazy one?’
Molly hadn’t even turned to greet me. Her hand was pressed palm flat to the window while she peered into the shop like a street urchin stripped from a Dickens novel.
‘They’re so beautiful, Edi, I just …’ Molly sighed, and turned away from the mannequins.
‘I’m not dress shopping until—’
‘Oh my God, are you actually about to tell me you haven’t put thought into a date?’ she interrupted me. Her eyes were narrowed in such a way that she had a predatory look, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cower. Molly had never been the stern one in the group, but the wedding malarkey was bringing out some interesting shades …
‘What I was actually going to say is that I’m not dress shopping without everyone being here.’
‘Rowan can’t be here,’ she snapped.
Cora huffed and tapped Molly on the side of the forehead, as though checking for signs of life. ‘Earth to Molly, she means our other friends. The girls who we talk to every day, the ones we’re literally about to meet for a romantic dinner for six?’
‘Oh. Oh, them.’ She took another look at the window. ‘Fine, whatever. Betty needs new boots. She told me they’d head to Wear ’Em Out and we should look for them around there.’
I linked arms with Molly. ‘Then that’s where we’ll go, and we’ll come to look at the pretty dresses in the pretty shop window on a day when we’re all together.’
‘But we are all—’
‘God in heaven, Molly.’ Cora looped her other arm. ‘Leave it.’
Molly talked about different styles, cuts and colour options for my wedding dress on the way to meet the others. But she promptly stopped when they were within hearing distance. Hugs were exchanged and Betty – who by then had already bought a new set of knee-highs that she seemed especially happy with – suggested we head towards the high street. Out of the boutiques and into the daily-wear shops, we soon scattered in our separate directions: Primark; New Look; H&M. We met up for half-hourly check-ins, though, partly to get each other’s opinions on clothes but mostly to assess each other’s hunger levels.
‘Can we just eat already?’ Lily eventually said, in a whine that we all recognised as a sign of her growing hanger. ‘Lucky Dragon is—’
‘Where I’ve booked the table, yes,’ I interrupted her.
‘Did I tell you lately that I love you?’ she answered in a sing-song voice.
I cupped her cheek and gave her a dramatic, loving look. ‘But you tell me every day. Onto the main business though, beauts, it’s right at the start of serving time, so if we head there now we can really make the most of the buffet.’
‘Gets my vote,’ Betty added.
‘Mine too,’ Faith said from behind her phone screen. She’d been on and off it for most of the afternoon and I wondered who’d got her attention – whether it was a safe dinner topic to bring up. Since her last relationship had gone south – ‘Of the equator kind,’ she’d said, with eyes that looked like infant pufferfish – Faith had been hesitant to get into anything serious. But she’d definitely been giving online dating apps a college try.
‘That’s settled, then,’ I tried to finish the debate before Molly could find something to object to. She hadn’t exactly been agreeable since we’d left behind talk of bridal gear. And I feared that if she brought up my waistline in the same mouthful as a comment about wedding dresses – well, if she brings up my waistline at all, I fact-checked myself – then I might disown her. On the tread to the restaurant, though, while we all chatted in our couples, Molly caught up with me and Cora.
‘Edi,’ she started, in a tone that was suspiciously sweet, ‘you know I only want the best for you.’
‘Where is this going?’
‘Nowhere. That’s literally all I came to say.’ She rubbed elbows with me. ‘Like, in life, I mean, too. I don’t just mean for the wedding.’
I pulled her close but kept walking. ‘I know, you dope.’
‘Edi will blatantly go for all of the chow mein in the world,’ I heard Lily say from behind us. ‘Valid life choice, of course. Faith, you’ll be on spring rolls, am I right?’
‘You’re not wrong.’
I wouldn’t have voiced it, but my heart felt fit to burst. To be surrounded by a bunch of people who knew me so completely was at once beautiful and weirdly overwhelming, and I couldn’t say where exactly the feeling had come from. But it was definitely there, fluttering about inside my ribcage like a confused sparrow. I decided to sit on it, though, and save it for the drunk speeches on the evening of the hen party. Molly probably already has hers drafted in the Notes app of her phone. I half-laughed and gave her arm another squeeze, and I made sure we sat next to each other at the restaurant, too. Although I still kept a watch on Faith and her influx of messages. I narrowed my eyes from across the table and she mouthed back, ‘Nothing,’ and stashed the handset away. She didn’t check it again throughout our three trips to the all-you-can-eat food carts.
Everyone was soon settled with their piles of ice cream, half-heartedly nabbed from the dessert cart before it became clogged with teenagers from a birthday party happening on the opposite side of the room. I waited until spoons were clattering and appreciative noises were being made – ‘I didn’t even want this, you know, but it’s so good, like, how can you not?’ Betty said around a mouthful of salted caramel – to call their quiet attention my way.
‘I’ve got something I’d like to talk to you all about, while we’re together.’
‘You and Rowan are splitting up?’ Lily dropped her spoon.
‘Oh my goodness.’ Molly clasped her hands over her mouth. She’d gone from a Dickens urchin to an Austen side character. ‘Are you, Edi, are you splitting up?’
I looked over at Lily. ‘What is the matter with you?’
‘Naturally pessimistic personality type?’ she suggested.
‘Christ, only when it comes to monogamy, Lil.’ I turned to Molly. ‘No, no we are not splitting up, and I absolutely promise that if we ever are, you’ll all be the first to hear about it. You’ll hear my wails the whole city over, in fact.’
‘You would not wail,’ Betty scoffed.
I made a show of thinking it over. ‘No, no, I think I really would.’
‘Ah shush, could be the best thing that ever happened to you.’
My head snapped around to Cora. It was so unlike her to pile on. ‘Did everyone take their man-bashing pills too early today or something?’
‘Ha!’ The noise erupted from Lily from across the table. ‘Every morning with breakfast.’
Molly’s expression was one of deep concern, as though she were the one hypothetically being left at the altar. ‘Molly!’ I reached over to give her hand a squeeze. ‘They’re being cow-bags. Rowan and I are fine. We’re going to have a horrendously beautiful wedding, and a horrendously beautiful marriage and—’
‘Horrendously beautiful babies?’ she cut me off and I winced.
‘Weeeell, maybe we can swing back around to that one later? Wedding aside, though, there was … is something I wanted to talk to you all about, before we start planning my divorce or anything …’ I ferreted about in my backpack as I spoke to them. There was a smaller bag in there that I pulled out, and then I pushed myself away from the table. I walked around my friends, reaching over and popping an off-white ring box in front of each of them. ‘No, what I wanted to talk to you about was this. It’s just … I don’t know, it’s a silly something, I suppose. But you’re all just so important, and this is a kind of token. A really silly token.’ During my lengthy exposition I realised how silly they might think the gesture was. But I was committed now. ‘Anyway, open your boxes and we’ll go from there.’ They all reached forward and set about unveiling the contents of the box. Molly gasped, again, as though she were actually being proposed to, and I squeezed her knee under the table. Inside every box, there was a jelly sweet ring. I pulled in a deep breath. ‘Will you be my maids of honour?’
Lily threw the ring into her mouth and started chewing. She reached over the table, then, slammed the box down and said, ‘No.’
Everyone stared. No longer accompanied by the sparrow, instead my heart was a tiny wounded creature using the rungs of my ribcage to make its way to my throat. I can’t believe she said no.
‘Oh fuck, Edi.’ Lily pushed back from the table and rushed around. ‘I will, I really will.’ She wrapped herself around my shoulders and held on to me from behind. ‘I’ve just always wanted to turn down a proposal and this might be the closest I’ll come.’
I burst out laughing, but there were small tears forming, too. ‘You silly cow.’ The laughter moved around the table, accompanied by gleeful acceptances, and soon everyone piled into the hug. I was weighed down by their joy and it crossed my mind that it was better than my own acceptance had been. But maybe better wasn’t the right word, I decided. Maybe it was just a different kind of lovely.
‘I can’t believe you would have ovaries big enough to turn down someone as good as Edith Parcell,’ Faith said across the table to Lily as they all dropped back into their seats. ‘Jesus, do you know how good you would have it with her?’
‘Obviously.’ Lily grabbed her wine glass. ‘But what if no one ever proposes to me again, ever?’
‘Oh, Lily.’ Molly tried to wrap an arm around her shoulders, but Lily rebuffed the offer.
‘Moll, it wouldn’t be a bad thing.’
‘See,’ Cora spoke to Molly, ‘and this is why you need to read an audience.’
‘Wait,’ Betty said, around yet more salted caramel. ‘You’re going to have us all as maids?’
I nodded. ‘I can’t choose a favourite out of you.’ Lily was sitting down again, then, so I flashed her a quick wink and said, ‘That’s just the sort of shit the patriarchy wants.’