I stop-started down the ring road for another minute or so, pondering that truth. ‘Maybe. No, definitely, you’re right. Building the business has needed to be my priority, and I love it. But at the end of the day, I still feel a bit adrift. Unsettled.’ I shook my head, in a vain attempt to shake off the weird mood that had been plaguing me recently. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Why do I get the feeling there’s something else you aren’t telling me?’ Nita pursed her lips. ‘I won’t ask about your love life, because I love you and I don’t want to be another one of those irritating people who are plaguing you about how upsetting it must feel to be the last sister to get married. But could they be a tiny bit right? It might help to admit how you really feel about it.’
‘I don’t care about being the last sister to get married!’ I blurted, frowning angrily at a sports car cutting into the queue ahead. ‘This isn’tPride and Prejudice. But I am sick of going on crappy dates, and dates that in my opinion aren’t that crappy, but end up going nowhere anyway. I haven’t kissed a man in over two years, because I promised my loved-up sisters that I wouldn’t kiss a man I didn’t have genuine feelings for, and now I’m starting to think that I might never have a proper kiss ever again. I just want one proper, knee-trembling, heart-exploding, delicious kiss before I die! And I’m starting to wonder about doing something drastic to get it. I don’t know if it’s a great idea or the worst mistake of my life, and now I’ve had the thought I can’t stop thinking about it and there’s no room left in my brain for where’s my keys and don’t forget the invoice. So that’s why I’m distracted, and thank goodness there’s the hotel because I don’t want to end up telling you because you’ll probably think it’s a terrible idea or even worse you might not and then I’ll definitely end up doing it.’
I screeched into the car park and found a spot as near to the main entrance as possible. The wedding reception was due to start in under an hour, and we had four tiers of gluten-free scrumptiousness to assemble. We carried everything in – always the most nerve-wracking part of the procedure – and then Nita carefully constructed the cake, tucking icing miniatures of the bride and groom’s six dogs, all dressed in doggy bridesmaid dresses, amongst the hundreds of tiny, sugary autumn leaves covering every tier in a dozen shades from dark chocolate, fading through oranges and reds to pale yellow.
While I was placing the last of the one hundred and forty bone-shaped wedding favours on the final table, I heard a voice from behind me. ‘Hey, Old One. I thought I might find you here.’
I turned to find Sofia scrutinising one of the biscuits up close. ‘Please put that back. They’ve been precisely positioned exactly two point five inches above each plate.’
‘Why?’ My sister looked at me, baffled.
‘Because the bride asked us to.’ I moved closer to kiss her cheek and simultaneously took the biscuit out of her hand, replacing it on the table.
‘And was it her idea to give everyone a dog biscuit? Because that’s bizarre even for my husband’s family.’ The bride was marrying Moses’ cousin, Mervyn.
I shook my head at her. ‘These are my finest vanilla spice crumble cookies. Wheat free, dairy free, egg free and organic.’
Sofia rolled her eyes. ‘They probably cost as much as my whole wedding buffet.’
‘Considerably more, actually. So please don’t feed them to her dogs.’
Sofia grimaced. ‘I can’t believe the dogs are coming. I mean, I love a nice dog, I won’t object to them joining the party if they’re well trained and can behave themselves. But these are not those types of dog.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Nita came over, wiping her hands on a cloth. ‘She insisted on bringing them all to the design room to model for the cake decorations. After fifteen minutes of pure pandemonium we were forced to abort, although it took another hour for her to round them all up. Which is nothing compared to how long it took me to clean up the mess and replace the eaten or damaged supplies.’
‘They nearly ruined the ceremony. Barking and whining the whole way through. And Alia kept twisting round to check on them while saying her vows. I’m worried I’ve married her to a chihuahua. I thought I’d seen it all, but there’s something wrong when a woman has dogs for her bridesmaids. Not even one token human to carry the poop bags.’
‘I hope they’ve had a bath since they came to my design room,’ Nita said.
‘I can categorically state that they have not,’ Sofia replied.
At this point, one of the hotel staff opened the main doors to let the rest of the guests in, proving Sofia right as the six dogs came scrabbling into the room in a flurry of tangled leads, yaps and slobber, pulling the bride behind them. They made a mass beeline straight for the cake, and it was only once Moses and three other men had intervened, dragging them over to the other side of the room and securing their leads to table legs, that Nita could breathe again.
‘It’s all right,’ she wheezed. ‘I don’t blame the dogs. It is not their fault their owner is delusional.’
At that point Moses strolled up, the groom beside him. ‘Ladies, this is my cousin Mervyn. Mervyn, this is Sofia’s eldest sister, Emma, and her business partner, Nita.’
We exchanged congratulations and compliments about the cake, Mervyn not appearing to mind that the dogs had relegated him to the second tier.
‘Alia’s best friend from college is allergic to fur. She broke out in hives before the end of the first hymn, so her and her boyfriend had to leave,’ he went on to say. ‘If you want to stay in their place, you’d be more than welcome.’
‘Well, yes,’ Nita muttered. ‘If it’s between your best friend and six confused animals witnessing the most important day of your life, why wouldn’t you choose the ones most likely to crap on the carpet?’
Mervyn pretended not to hear. ‘It’d be a shame to let them go to waste.’
Nita shook her head. ‘Thank you for the kind invite, but I cannot bear to witness the inevitable moment those dogs escape and my masterpiece is mauled to crumbs. I wish all eight of you a very happy life together, truly, but I’m going to get the bus into town and grab a drink with my husband.’
With that, she left.
‘You’ll stay, won’t you, sis?’ Moses asked. ‘I want to introduce you to Mervyn’s mate Rob.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Sofia replied firmly. ‘Emma’s sitting with me, and you’ll keep all potential set-ups well away.’
So, that was that. I found myself at a wedding where half the guests had only met me once before, at Sofia and Moses’ wedding, the rest were complete strangers, and the six canine bridesmaids had stuck their noses into places that I didn’t like to think about right then. Especially when I was trying to style-out chef’s trousers and a black T-shirt smeared with icing sugar at a forty-thousand-pound wedding reception.
Sofia and I were shamelessly cliquey during the starters and main course, two sisters, heads tucked in close together, discussing whether Annie was brushing off our questions about how things were with Greg because we were worrying about nothing, or because the something we were worrying about was too big to admit via a screen, and whether we had the patience to wait until we saw them at Bridget’s wedding in June to find out.
