Getting Over Mr. Right (21 page)

“That’s nice,” I said.

Becky’s mother swayed toward me as though to impart something confidential. “But let me tell you that I told her that I would definitely
not
forgive you if you didn’t pull yourself together and act like a grown-up and it didn’t matter if it was her wedding day, if you weren’t smiling when you walked up the aisle behind my daughter, I would give you what-for at the reception.”

“Well, thank goodness you don’t have to.”

“That’s what I said to Henry’s mother. And she agreed. Because trust me she was worried, too, after hearing from Henry how ridiculous you were being about that man.”

“Ridiculous,”
I echoed.

“We were both quite convinced you’d make a scene.”

“You were?”

“Oh, yes. You always were the kind to make a scene. Even when you were a little girl. The times that Becky came home crying because you’d had one of your tantrums. You were lucky that I never slapped you. I really don’t know why she bothered with you. But at least we can laugh about it now, eh? Now let’s go and get that cake.” She practically pulled me to my feet. I shook off her hand.

“There’s no need for you to come,” I told her. “I’d rather do a last-minute check by myself. I want to make sure that everything is perfect before I let
anyone
see it. And I want Becky to be the first. Since it is her special day.”

“If you’re sure?”

“Really, don’t worry yourself about it at all. You should be
entertaining the other guests. Mother-of-the-bride is a very important role.”

“You’re right.” Becky’s mother beamed. “Well, I can’t wait to see this cake of yours!”

She planted a powdery kiss on my cheek and headed back to her seat, lurching dramatically from side to side. She’d had way too much Roederer.

Meanwhile I headed for the kitchen, where Becky’s wedding cake waited for me. All three magnificent tiers of it.

In the kitchen, two waiters who were sneaking a smoke by the back door snapped to attention when I walked in.

“It’s time for the cake,” I said. “I’m going to need some help wheeling the trolley.”

“At your service,” said the younger guy, dusting cigarette ash from the cuff of his jacket.

“Not quite yet,” I said. “I need to add some finishing touches.”

The waiter nodded and went back for another smoke.

I looked at the cake, like an artist appraising a sculpture. What was missing? What would make this cake utterly unique and an extra-special gift for Becky? What would it take to make sure that this cake made Becky’s wedding reception one that no one who had attended it would ever forget?

The previous evening I had asked the chef if it would be okay to leave a Tupperware box in one of his larders. I fetched it now. It contained a few things I might need in a cake-related emergency. There were some spare sugar flowers in case I decided that less wasn’t more after all. There was the little tube of icing I had used to glue the miniature bride and groom (also made of sugar) to the top tier. That icing was what I needed.

My hand began to shake as I contemplated piping a special message around the side of each and every tier. I held my right wrist with my left hand to help steady it and began to pipe letters in neat capitals. The icing I piped was white, but the message
could be seen clearly if you looked closely. The fact that the bride and groom would have to look closely was part of the fun.

It took quite a while and I have to admit that the last few letters were a little wonky, but the overall effect was amazing. I stood back to admire my handiwork. The two waiters joined me, silent with awe. I knew that the cake looked incredible. I could already imagine the delight on Becky’s face as we pushed the trolley out into the ballroom.

“Let’s go,” I said.

The two waiters positioned themselves one on either end of the trolley and slowly, carefully, began to move the cake toward the door. I walked out ahead of them with my head held high. Julian, the best man, saw us appear and tapped the side of his glass for silence.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to cut the cake!”

The bride and groom met up again in the middle of the room—they had been circulating among their guests—and walked hand in hand to where I waited next to my masterpiece.

“Thank you so much,” Becky said to me. “I knew you’d come through in the end.”

Henry just grinned. He was sozzled.

“Have you got a knife?” Becky asked.

“Here you go.” I handed her the enormous knife with a porcelain handle big enough for two newly wedded hands that the hotel kept for just such an occasion. Becky and Henry stepped forward and rested the tip of the knife lightly on the icing so that everyone could take a snap. My stomach gurgled as I waited for her to stop posing and take a proper look at what she was actually cutting into.

It was a moment or two before Becky realized that there were words in the delicate tracery of icing that surrounded the carefully rendered sugar figures of her and her new husband. She squinted to read them.

“Oh, you’ve written something,” she said.

What was she expecting? Their names? The date of the wedding? Just “Congratulations,” perhaps? That would have been the obvious choice. She definitely wasn’t expecting what I had really iced on to her wedding cake.

I GIVE IT SIX MONTHS
.

That’s what I had written. In elegant iced script, again and again and again and again. Around and around the sugar lovers like a labyrinth, and all over the sides of each tier. I had thought, as I was doing it, that it was a pity I couldn’t write my message in red, but I decided ultimately that white on white was more subtle and artistic. In any case, I could tell that it was having just as dramatic an effect.

Becky looked first at me and then at her husband. In his halfcut state, Henry had yet to register what was wrong with the otherwise perfect picture. Becky’s face crumpled. The cake knife dropped to the floor with a clatter. Henry narrowly missed losing a toe. Becky gathered up her enormous skirt and ran from the room.

“What’s wrong?” Henry called after her.

“What’s happened?” asked Becky’s mother.

The wedding party reacted in shock.

I left moments later, but I didn’t run after Becky, who had gone out into the garden to sob among the roses. I turned left, to the car park, where a taxi was already waiting. (I had asked one of the kitchen staff to order it in advance.) I went straight home.

Did it make me feel better? Not exactly. But in my drunken state I did manage to convince myself that my actions had been justified. I was fed up with being ridiculed or, at best, ignored. Becky’s mother had talked to me as though I were still a child. Well, the worm had turned.

I pushed open the front door to my building. It was jammed, as usual, by junk mail. Pizza leaflets. Letters from our local MP. It made me even more angry than usual to see the pile of paper that no one in the building would ever read. But that day, just when I felt more alone in the world than I ever had, I noticed that there was something for me! A pale blue envelope with my name and address written on it in a very familiar hand.

It was a letter. From Michael!

Snatching it up from the pile of junk on the floor, I tore the envelope open and greedily devoured its contents. What did he want? Was it a love letter? Had the voodoo worked? Had he come to his senses? Did he want me back at last?

He had cc’d the letter to G. Kleinbeck. And to M. Fox, whom I knew as Martin Fox, one of the lawyers at Michael’s company. Martin and I had met on several occasions, and he had always seemed a nice bloke. I thought he’d liked me, too. The thought that he had seen the letter I now held in my shaking hands, a letter that accused me directly of being a stalker, made me feel rather sick. How could Michael do this to me! I was outraged for a moment before I started to panic. Was it possible that Michael had found out about my fake Facebook profile? Could he trace it back to me? There was bound to be CCTV coverage of me lurking around outside his building. Did Miss Well-Sprung have CCTV outside her shop? Was Michael gathering evidence to take me to court? Did he have enough already?

I decided I had to get rid of the letter at once, as though disposing of it would mean it had never existed. In the safety of my flat at last, I lit the scented candle in whose gentle light I had wished so many times for a reconciliation with the man I
loved. I tore the hateful letter into pieces and fed them into the flames, crying bitterly all the while. I drank a bottle of wine while I was at it.

Then I went to bed, leaving the candle burning. I slept fitfully until I was woken good and proper by the smoke alarm …

“You’re lucky to be alive” was what the fireman said to me as I stood outside the block where I lived, wrapped in a gray blanket, while everything I owned in the world sizzled away to nothing. “You don’t know how fortunate you are that your landlord installed a smoke alarm in the first place! And that the woman from across the road saw your curtains on fire and called us. It could have been much, much worse. You are a very lucky girl indeed.”

I nodded mutely. I didn’t feel lucky. And I didn’t feel very much like a girl. I felt old and stupid. My upstairs neighbor, Miranda, who had also been evacuated, glared at me, as if I needed any reminder that I was an idiot.

How could one little scented candle have done such an enormous amount of damage? The fire brigade’s initial investigation suggested that leaving the candle burning was compounded by the fact that I had also left the sitting-room window open. It was a warm night but also breezy and the wind had blown the curtains inward so that they brushed across the flame, and that was all it took. Towering inferno. It took the firemen a good couple of hours to make sure the fire was out.

My neighbors and I were taken from the scene to the hospital, where we were checked over for smoke inhalation.