Jess yawned as she answered her mobile. She’d had an awful day at school, as two of her second class had puked in the classroom and had to be sent home. She prayed that it wasn’t some kind of twenty-four-hour virus that would hit the rest of the class tomorrow, or she’d be dealing with bowls of vomit all day.
She’d done yard duty with Nell Casey. She’d spent the half-hour lunch-break racing around after four ten-year-olds who were playing some kind of dare game. Nell, who was due to retire in the summer, pretended not to see the action when Jenny Fagan fell and almost split her skull jumping from the school wall. Jess had had to clean the gash and Steri-Strip it, and write an accident report for the headmistress.
Tonight all she wanted to do was to go home, have a bite of dinner, go for her hour-long walk and then settle down to watch EastEnders and that new Catwalk Queen programme, but instead Amy was dragging her all the way over to Swords, to some well-known bridal shop to look for a bridesmaid dress.
‘I’ll meet you there,’ Jess said reluctantly.
* * *
Amy had poor Ciara in the fitting room trying on a hideous corset and skirt in a peach colour.
‘It’s vile,’ shouted Ciara, flinging it back out over the door.
‘They can get it in other colours,’ Amy shouted back.
Helen O’Connor was sensibly keeping out of it, looking at a glossy wedding magazine that belonged to the shop.
Jess braced herself as Maggie, the lady assigned to help them, appeared with an armful of dresses for her to try on. Surprised by the huge range of styles, she slipped off her jeans and top.
The first would barely go down over her chest, and had sleeves so tight they cut under her arms. Why the hell hadn’t Amy asked Aisling or Tara or one of her other skinny friends to be a bridesmaid? It would have made things a hell of a lot less complicated. Jess huffed and puffed her way out of the dress and dragged on the next one. This actually fitted. Hallelujah! It was a plum chiffon, with a soft round neckline and a great layered skirt that hid a multitude of sins. It was gorgeous and she loved it.
‘Look, Amy,’ she called out, delighted, spinning around.
The assistant went and got Ciara the same dress in a size ten and she dragged it on.
‘Yuk,’ she said, stepping out in front of the mirrors. ‘I feel like a birthday cake or a lampshade in this, and the colour is disgusting.’
‘But I really like it,’ admitted Jess, catching herself at all angles in the mirror.
‘What other colours does it come in?’ pressed Amy.
‘All the shades we have are on the rail here, but we can order different sizes in if they are out of stock,’ said Maggie, the helpful assistant, passing Ciara another pretty chiffon dress with shoestring straps, a cinched-in waist, and a lovely full above-the-knee skirt in navy.
‘She’s not wearing that colour,’ said Amy.
‘Forget the colour, we are looking for a style of dress first,’ Maggie explained patiently.
Ciara and Jess must have tried on at least fifteen dresses. Jess still liked the layered one, and tried it in another colour: a cool sage green which looked totally different.
‘Oh, Jess, that looks really well on you, too,’ remarked Helen.
Amy frowned, looking doubtful.
‘What a lot of brides do now,’ Maggie suggested, ‘if they have a problem getting a style to suit all their bridesmaids, is to buy different style dresses in the range but in the same colour and material. Here’s a chart with the full colour range.’
Jess understood what she was getting at straight away. She grabbed a dress with a lovely short skirt and straight bodice in the same sage-green colour she had on for Ciara to try.
The two of them laughed as they studied each other in the green, not sure it really worked.
‘I think if you had three or four bridesmaids or more it would be a great idea,’ said Amy. ‘But with two it just highlights the differences between them.’
Little and bloody large! thought Jess.
The shop was beginning to fill up, and Maggie excused herself as she went to see to another bride and her mother.
‘I just don’t know what to do!’ screamed Amy, panicking.
‘Why don’t you take the catalogue and all of you study it at home?’ suggested Helen. ‘The girls have tried on most of the styles, even if they are not in the colours that you like. We’ve less than an hour if you want to get over to that other place you had on your list before it closes.’
The massive Wedding Warehouse, with its proclaimed range of bridal dresses and accessories for every type of wedding, proved a massive disappointment. The bridesmaid dresses were mostly full-length with sequins and beads, in shiny materials and colours like baby pink and turquoise and red. ‘Yuk’, they all agreed, high-tailing it out of there.
As Jess drove home at 9.30, promising herself a lovely long hot soak in the bath, she couldn’t believe that she had agreed to give up another precious Saturday to go and search for dresses again with Amy. She had to be mad!