I shut my front door behind me, relieved at the respite from my dad and his incessant wedding chatter.
I am not looking forward to the conversation I am about to have with Rachel, though. In fact, the words ‘frying pan’ and ‘fire’ spring to mind.
It is sunny and unseasonably warm out, and happy, laughing people are carrying children or coffees or yoga mats and looking as if they have dropped out of a TV commercial. Even the dogs seem to be smiling.
I go over what I am going to say: So the thing is, I am not a bully but I did shout at Tommy Cassidy. And then, when his mother confronted me about it, I panicked and said I hadn’t. Oh, and, side note, I also yelled at one of the Ofsted inspectors when he doored me on my bike. And messed up my observed lesson.
Maybe Rachel will take all this information completely in her stride? Say the Ofsted inspector deserved a strip chewing off him and my observed lesson went better than I thought. As for the Tommy Cassidy thing, well, every teacher loses their cool from time to time. It’s inevitable when you consider the pressures of the job. Had she ever told me the funny story about when she…
Or maybe Rachel will be shocked and appalled?
That’s how I’d be if the roles were reversed. I feel a stab of guilt as I think about all the times in the past colleagues have told me about a mistake they’d made, whether it was inadequate lesson planning or missing a problem that later seemed obvious. I’d listened and made the right noises but inside there was always a judge-y little voice shouting: Try harder, do better.
The café looms into view and, for a second, I am tempted to keep walking. And walking. And walking.
I’ll take myself far away from awkward, embarrassing admissions to colleagues; far away from planning a fake wedding and choosing a dress I am never going to wear.
Instead, I’ll go somewhere I can be completely alone. Maybe another café where no one knows me, and I can sit undisturbed and cry into a humongous slice of chocolate fudge cake.
‘Hey,’ Rachel says, getting up and wrapping me into a hug. ‘You poor thing. What a horrible situation.’
I extricate myself from the hug and sit. ‘Yeah, look—’
I am interrupted by the arrival of a waiter asking what he can get us. We order drinks and then I take a breath. ‘Before we even get on to the letter, there’s something else I need to tell you about.’
Rachel listens as I tell her about Ofsted guy. ‘God,’ she says, when I’ve finished. ‘I’m not surprised you shouted at him. You could have been seriously hurt. Plus, it doesn’t sound as if he was particularly sorry. And don’t worry about your observed lesson. I’m sure it went better than you think.’
I nod gratefully. Rachel said just what I wanted to hear. ‘As for this whole thing with Tommy—’
Rachel reaches across the table and puts her hand over mine. ‘It’s awful. Honestly, I hate parents like the Cassidys. The ones who are never satisfied and believe every word that comes out of their “little darlings’” mouths.’
Yeah, except this time their little darling was telling the truth. ‘I sh—’
‘It’s parents like that who drive good teachers like you out of the profession.’
The waiter reappears with our tea. I look around the café. It must surely be my imagination but, just as it had outside, it seems as though everyone is preternaturally, stagily happy. The couple over at the next table with supermarket carrier bags at their feet (what about the frozen items?) who are laughing with their heads thrown back, the mother who is breastfeeding her baby with a beatific look of contentment, the staff behind the counter who are trading jokes.
Rachel’s voice snaps me back into the present. ‘…I told Tara straight away that you’d never shout at a kid. That’s not you at all.’
People change. Do things you think are totally out of character. Like tell you they’ll love you forever and then just up and leave you.
I reach for my tea with trembling hands. Suddenly, the mug is on its side and what seems like a bucket of tea has flooded the table and dripped onto my leg, soaking through my jeans.
‘Did it scald you?’ Rachel says, rescuing her purse from the puddle and shaking it.
I shake my head and swallow the tears that are rising. Luckily, I’d added a fair bit of cold milk to my tea, but my thigh is still stinging in protest. ‘I’m fine,’ I say, plucking at the wet denim.
Rachel mops at the table with a napkin and the waiter appears with a cloth.
‘Sorry,’ I say, once everything is dried off.
‘Don’t apologise,’ Rachel and the waiter say in unison.
‘I wish you’d told me what was going on,’ Rachel says, as soon as we are alone again. ‘I knew something wasn’t right with you all week – you’ve been so quiet.’
Is this the moment to cut in and tell Rachel about me and Mark? No, one big revelation is quite enough for one morning. Besides, Rachel was one of the people my father told all about the weekend of wedding planning that lies ahead.
The waiter brings over a fresh cup of tea.
‘Please don’t worry about the conversation with Clare on Monday,’ Rachel says, raising her voice over the clank and hiss of the coffee machine. ‘I mean, apart from the fact you have to go into school during half-term, which is a bloody nuisance. I’ve worked with Clare for years and I know she’ll back you one hundred per cent. And talking of people supporting you, I thought it might be a good idea to have a chat with Natasha. As our union rep, she ought to know if we come up against any problems.’
A wave of panic washes over me. I have to put a stop to this before it spirals completely out of control.
My phone rings. ‘My dad,’ I say to Rachel. ‘What’s the matter? Is Pebbles okay?’
‘Pebbles is fine. What shoes are you wearing?’
‘Sorry?’
‘What shoes?’
‘Why?’
‘Shona just phoned me back. She wanted to check you’d remembered to take the right shoes with you to try on with the dresses.’
I glance down at my heavily buckled black biker boots.
‘I think you were wearing boots?’ my dad says. ‘And you only had that tiny bag. So, I’m guessing that means you don’t have shoes…’
‘Umm. No. But—’
‘If you tell me where they are, I can bring some with me.’
I am about to tell my dad it doesn’t matter but decide it’s quicker and easier to go along with this. ‘There are some rose gold sandals in my wardrobe. Mine’s the one on the left.’ My stomach clenches as I realise that both wardrobes are now mine. Mark still has some things hanging in the right-hand one but only because he was in too much of a hurry to get away the night he left. No doubt soon he’ll send a message asking when would be convenient to collect the rest of his stuff. ‘Convenient’ will be a polite way of asking when I’m out.
I glance across at Rachel, who is jabbing away at her phone.
‘The ones with the wedge heel?’ my dad says.
‘No, those are gold, not rose gold.’
‘Ah, okay, found them. Great, see you at Helen Yately Brides. Looking forward to it.’
I end the call and see Rachel is looking at me quizzically. ‘My dad just checking I’ve got some shoes for when I try on the wedding dresses.’ I gesture towards the biker boots. ‘These not being very bride-y.’
‘Bless him!’ Rachel says. ‘He’s such a love.’
‘Yeah,’ I say, picking at my cuticle.
‘Is this the first time you’ve looked for dresses?’
‘Yeah, well I’ve had a look online but it’s the first time I’ll have physically gone to a wedding dress shop.’
‘And it’s so different when you see stuff on,’ Rachel says. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Helen Yately.’
Rachel claps her hands together. ‘Oh, they have gorgeous stuff. What sort of thing do you have in mind?’
I stare at the floor. ‘Umm, I’m not too sure yet. Look, about talking to Natasha.’
‘Yup, you’re right to get me back on task,’ Rachel says, laughing. ‘I could talk about weddings all day. I’ve already messaged Natasha. I did it while you were on the phone to your dad.’
Terrific.
I take a sip of my tea, which is cold and bitter. I can still tell Rachel the truth about Tommy. It will be awkward, and she will inevitably question why I didn’t do it earlier, but it is still possible.
‘Natasha is a great person to have on your side with things like this,’ Rachel says. ‘You wouldn’t think it to look at her but she’s something of a Rottweiler when she needs to be. She’ll even sit in on your meeting with Clare if you want her to.’
My palms are sweating. If I don’t tell Rachel the truth now, it commits me to also lying to Natasha and, more seriously still, Clare. Surely I can’t do that? It goes against everything I believe in.
Rachel reaches across the table and puts her hand on my arm. ‘Please don’t look so worried. This will all be over very soon, I promise.’
‘Umm… well… thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Rachel says, smiling. ‘And, in the meantime, try to forget about it all and enjoy the wedding dress shopping. I’d hate to think of the Cassidys spoiling that for you.’
There is an obscene amount of happiness in this room. Smiling, hugging, laughter.
I stare at the zebra print rug and try not to scream.
I can do this. Pretend I still need a wedding dress. Pretend to be happy.
A woman called Harriet with lots of dark curly hair is fussing around me and Dad, telling me she wants to make today special for me ‘despite the circumstances’.
For one awful second, I think Harriet is referring to me being a fake bride-to-be. But, of course, she must be talking about Mum. My father will have played the sympathy card to wheedle an appointment.
‘Why don’t you start picking out some things you like?’ Harriet says. ‘And while you do that, I’ll get you both a drink. Tea? Coffee? Fizz?’
‘Tea please,’ I say.
‘Sure you don’t want a glass of fizz?’ my father says. He nods towards a multi-generational group of women in the corner who are clinking glasses.
I glance across at the women, my heart pounding as I see Tommy Cassidy’s mother. I blink and look again, to see the woman bears no more than a passing resemblance to Tommy’s mother. Get a grip, Emily. There’s plenty to deal with today without letting your mind play tricks on you. ‘Just tea, thanks.’
Harriet disappears and I start to poke half-heartedly through the rails. I am determined not to like anything, but it’s hard. Buttery soft satin caresses my fingers, immaculately cut lines seduce my eyes and subtle shimmer lures my senses. It is just my luck that my dad stumbled upon one of the best bridal stores in London. Why couldn’t he have chosen somewhere tacky where huge pink puffballs rub oversized shoulders with OTT jewel-encrusted columns?
‘Seen anything you like yet?’ Dad asks. He has made himself very comfortable on the big squashy sofas in the middle of the room.
‘Not yet.’ And that’s when I have a genius idea. The way to get through this is to try on dresses I don’t like. It won’t completely kill the pain, of course. I am still going to put on a wedding dress and see myself in the mirror knowing there is no wedding, but I don’t have to make it worse by being in a dress I might actually have worn.
‘Have you seen the flowers on the celling?’ Dad says.
‘Yeah,’ I say, going through the rails. ‘For Instagram.’
‘Oh, right. Weird.’
I don’t reply. There are lots of things weird about today, but the fake pink flowers carpeting the ceiling barely make the B list.
Harriet comes back with the tea, apologising for the delay. She squeezes my father’s arm and asks if he is okay. She knows today must be bittersweet.
Christ, he must have really laid it on thick about Mum. He obviously failed to mention they’d been divorced for six years before she died. I’m not a bit surprised. Grieving widower is very much in his wheelhouse.
‘Found anything you like yet?’ Harriet asks me.
Everything unfortunately. But then I see what I am looking for. It has huge puffy sleeves and a square neckline, and it looks more like a costume for a period drama than a wedding dress. ‘This one.’
Do Harriet’s eyes register a tiny flicker of surprise? She pulls the dress off the rail and takes it towards the changing room.
I am in luck too because almost immediately afterwards I find two more ‘horrible’ dresses. A heavily beaded number in a shade of oyster that looks dirty and an empire-line dress that carries more than a whiff of milkmaid.
‘Can’t wait to see you in them,’ Dad says, breaking off from the conversation he has struck up with a couple of women from another party.
Harriet ushers me into the changing room. ‘Must be stressful for you having to move the wedding forward.’
She has clearly confused me with another bride-to-be. Well, either that or the rush wedding was another one of my father’s lies.
I make non-committal noises. I am hardly about to admit that I’d kill to have organisational logistics at the top of my worry list.
Harriet says she’ll wait outside until I am ready to be done up. I push my fingers into my temples. Within an hour this will all be over. Well, not all, but at least this awful game of dress up. I pull off my sweatshirt and step out of my jeans. I’ll try the beaded dress first. ‘Ready,’ I mumble.
Harriet is by my side within a second. This one has loads of buttons so it will take a minute or so to do up. Harriet knows it is a little big, but I should try to see past that. Do I know the bodice is hand-beaded?
I step out of the changing room with Harriet trailing behind like a kind of de facto bridesmaid.
Dad is flanked on the sofa by two women. They are both laughing loudly at something he has said and seem to have entirely forgotten the bride-to-be they are here with.
‘Wow,’ Dad says, breaking off his conversation. ‘It’s so weird seeing you in a wedding dress, Em.’
I look at myself in the huge gilt-framed mirror. The pretend bride. I dig my nails into my palms and bite the inside of my cheek.
Harriet is fiddling around with the hem. ‘This dress looks nice with quite a simple veil—’
‘I don’t like it,’ I say, immediately feeling bad about cutting Harriet off so rudely. ‘It’s just not me,’ I say more softly.
Back in the changing room on my own, I try to calm my breathing. I keep picturing an alternate reality. One where I am still marrying Mark and I am bubbling with excitement right now. And, hell, if we’re fantasising about an ideal world, of course my mum would still be here too. I can picture her now, sitting in the chair in the corner of the changing room, her pale blue eyes blazing with love. She’d tell me off for being abrupt with Harriet, though; say there is never any need to be rude. Of course, I wouldn’t have been rude in that reality because I’d be happy.
I pull on the dress with the huge sleeves and am relieved to see it looks even worse on than off. ‘Ready,’ I say to Harriet.
Dad is exchanging effusive goodbyes with his two new friends. ‘Oh,’ he says, spinning around to see me. ‘Do you like that one?’
Despite my mood, I nearly laugh out loud. For someone who is a consummate liar, my dad isn’t half transparent at times.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I really don’t.’
‘Never mind,’ Harriet says. ‘Plenty more dresses in the sea.’
‘Just one more to try on,’ I say, trudging back towards the changing room. I pull the door behind me. This is nearly over. Just the milkmaid dress to go.
I put on the dress. It’s perfectly hideous on me. ‘Ready.’
‘That one is… nice,’ Dad ventures.
I shake my head. ‘I don’t think it’s for me. I probably need to do a bit more research first.’
‘Bear with me a second,’ Harriet says.
Before I have a chance to realise what’s happening, she is swooping through the shop like a tiny dervish, pulling dress after dress off the rails.
‘How about this one?’ she says, showing me an exquisite silk column.
‘Er, I don’t want strapless.’
‘Isn’t it worth trying on?’ Dad says.
‘No thank you,’ I say.
Harriet shows me two more dresses, both beautiful. I find something that isn’t quite right about each of them.
And then Harriet shows me something that makes me let out an involuntary gasp.
It’s the dress from my mood board. Right there in front of my eyes in all its simple, bias-cut perfection.
‘Oh, that one is gorgeous,’ Dad says.
‘It’s, it’s—’ I can’t find a single thing wrong with it.
‘You have to try it on,’ Dad says.
‘I think it would look lovely on you,’ Harriet adds.
I take a deep breath. It’s just a dress.
Back in the changing room, I try to avoid looking at myself. No mean feat when you’re in a room with mirrors on every wall. ‘Ready,’ I say, flatly.
‘Oh, wow,’ Harriet says, stepping into the room. ‘That looks amazing!’
I trail out of the changing room.
Dad looks up and breaks into a huge grin. ‘That’s just perfect,’ he says, his voice cracking.
I can’t help but glance at myself in the mirror. I love the dress. Mark would have loved it. My mum would have loved it. I start to cry.
My dad must misread the tears as happy ones because he says he’d known we were going to find my perfect dress today, he’d just known it and he can’t believe how beautiful I look.
I swipe away the tears with my palms.
‘Your mum would have loved it,’ Dad says. ‘And she would be so incredibly proud of you and the woman you’ve become.’
Naturally, this makes me start crying all over again. Even Harriet is looking a bit misty-eyed.
Back in the changing room, I rip off the dress as fast as I can and stand sobbing in my bra and pants. Seeing myself in that dress – my dress – was tough, but my dad saying my mum would be proud of the woman I’ve become annihilated me.
Why would Mum be proud of me? I have failed in my relationship with Mark (a man Mum loved like the son she never had) and I am failing at work. On top of all that, I’m a liar.
Mum was a fervent believer in honesty. She worked for a kitchen company but could never give people sales patter. If someone asked her if that pan was worth the money, she’d tell them some people thought it was, but others didn’t. Had they considered this one at half the price? After a few weeks of being there, she’d been moved from sales to the customer complaints department, where she’d soothed and cajoled until weeks before she died.
I dry my eyes and blow my nose. I need to get out of this shop. To never have to see that perfect dress again.
I step out of the changing room to see my dad standing by the till laughing with Harriet. In his hand is a huge white and gold bag.
My heart feels as if it is about to hammer its way out of my chest. Surely this can’t be happening?
My dad walks towards me. ‘Your dress.’
‘You’ve bought it?’ I squeak.
‘Yup,’ he says, with a grin that splits his face in two.
‘Paid for it?’
‘Yup,’ he says, laughing. ‘You love it, right?’