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Bernadette looks fab. She’s decked out in a lime green lehenga. Or is it a gown? I can’t really tell as she’s sat behind a white plastic floral display. From what I see, I can deduce two things - her outfit is definitely from an Asian boutique (appreciate the effort), and I like it.
I’m impressed with my work colleagues past and present as they all attempted to look at least a little ethnic. There’s my old boss Maggie with her purple pashmina that’s got a smattering of sequins. I think it might be from Monsoon which is probably the closest she’ll ever get to anything remotely Asian inspired. I doubt she even knows where Rusholme is.
Then there is Fiona. I really wasn’t sure about inviting her but as we had a ginormous guest list at our disposal, she made the cut. Plus, she really made the effort to understand more about my culture during my last few months with the company, totally redeeming herself from that major faux pas of asking me in front of all and sundry, in our open-plan office, whether I’d have an arranged marriage.
Bushra, meanwhile, looks sublime in her peach salwar kameez, which highlights her fresh-from-Ibiza tan. However, I was expecting her to come clad in Asian clothes, so she doesn’t get any extra brownie points (pun intended). I can totally see her ogling M’s work colleague Ben.
My employee representation is disproportionately small compared to M’s. When he told me he’d be inviting 21 co-workers past and present, it did seem a little generous. And to think my work quota would have been smaller still, as I only really invited Maggie in the hope that she’ll gift generously. Rumour has it she’s wadded.
I’m slightly miffed that our families are splitting the bill on the hefty guest list, padded out even further by 65 of his friends. It also makes me look like a Billy No Mates as I only managed to bring a dozen pals to the party and that was including plus ones. He is a show off.
My wedding, keeping in tradition with every other Bengali wedding I’ve been to, has a clear separation of tables for... well... the white guests. As terribly segregated as that sounds, it’s not really a designated white table per se. It becomes that way by default, as said guests club together, even when they are perfect strangers. I don’t know what it is but they just gravitate towards each other at weddings. It’s like Morse code, or a secret language, where they’re saying ‘we are the same, let’s stick together and get through this weird shit show’.
I spy a cluster of un-melanated tables, with faces getting progressively redder as the mains are dished out. I hope they have extra jugs of water.
Back to Bernadette, I do have to applaud the lady. She’s a great manager and is going through a horrible time. I only just found out through Bushra that she’s been secretly fighting breast cancer. None of us had a clue. I didn’t even notice the hair. Yes, the golden hue was lighter, but I assumed it was a dye job. She always kept herself to herself, so our general interactions were confined to our fortnightly one-to-one’s. I didn’t mind that, I quite liked the autonomy, though it did make me a little sad that Bernadette, a forty-something lone wolf (we all assumed she was single as she never talked about her love life - but then she never really spoke to us about anything beyond work) having to go through cancer treatment alone. With a big, interfering, yet loving family of my own, I couldn’t imagine such a thing.
I wasn’t actually expecting her to come to the wedding when I found out the news via text (a message that I now realise I hadn’t replied to). So for Bernadette to buy a new outfit, which she will likely never wear again (I suspect she didn’t haggle for it either), has made her go up in my estimations.
She notices me spying on her and gives me a thumbs up. I think she likes my outfit. I should bloody hope so too. Getting this lehenga was a whole other story.