It Would Be Wrong to Steal My Sister's Boyfriend (33 page)

I don’t see Callie as much as I used to, nor as much as I’d like to, but she’s still my best friend. We grew up together, after all. It was Callie who punched Lauren Davidson in the nose for bullying me when we were eight, and then was made to sit in the corner, and her parents got called in for a meeting with the Head. It was Callie who showed me how to paint my nails when we were eleven, and to whom I owe my current shamefully excessive nail enamel collection (last count: one hundred and seventy-two colours, plus base and top coats, and my nails still look shite. I’ve learned that having nail polishes sat in a drawer doesn’t do anything to improve the appearance of your nails – you have to actually use them. But still I keep buying them). It was Callie who I told when I got my first period and when I lost my virginity.

So even though there’d been a weird distance creeping in between us recently, I wanted Callie to be the first person I told about Nick’s non-proposal, and not even the most vicious hangover would have stopped me taking advantage of her being in London, for some conference about legal aid that was starting the next day. I was really excited about seeing her, especially as she’d be on her own, without her flatmate Phoebe. Phoebe’s lovely and a proper good laugh, but recently it had seemed a bit like every time I arranged to see Callie, she was there too, and sometimes I felt a bit left out. So I was glad to have Callie to myself for once.

Callie was already waiting when I arrived at the café I’d chosen, a former greasy spoon that had recently chi-chi’d itself up and started describing the weekend fry-up as ‘brunch’. Even though it was Sunday, she was wearing tailored trousers and a white shirt and her blonde hair was perfectly straightened.

“What’s up?” I said, once I’d ordered a sorely needed Diet Coke. “How’s work? How’s Southampton? How’s Phoebe? How’s Phoebe’s dad?”

It always comes as a surprise to people who were at school with Callie and me that, rather than moving to London and setting the world of law alight with her brilliance, she chose to stay in the town where we grew up, working in a small high-street practice and learning to draw up wills and sort house purchases and defend people in court when they fail to abate a smoking chimney, and whatever else solicitors in small firms do.

“Work’s great,” Callie said. “Really good. One of the senior partners, Jeremy Gardner, who’s been there so long his office chair is practically welded to his flesh, has finally decided to retire. Which means there might be a vacancy for a junior partner. Which means…” She crossed her fingers.

“Callie, that’s fantastic news! Really great! When will you find out?”

“Hopefully early next year, but I’m not going to get excited about it until I know for sure. Phoebs is fine,” she went on. “Her dad’s not. So no change there.”

“Poor Phoebe,” I said. “It’s utterly shit for her. Having to be a part-time carer is tough anyway, but how much tougher must it be when the person you’re caring for is vile Vernon?”

At first I’d felt really sorry for Phoebe’s dad, because being in constant pain must be an awful thing. But then I began to realise that his pain seemed to mysteriously get worse whenever Phoebe was planning something she was looking forward to, or was under lots of pressure at work, or had just finished being under lots of pressure at work and was planning to spend a weekend vegging in front of the telly. I actually went so far as to google the condition she told us he had. I forget its name now but it’s some distant and horrible member of the arthritis family, and I learned that it was one of those things that are meant to get better the more active you are. As far as I could tell, the only form of physical activity Vernon practised was pressing the keys of his mobile to summon Phoebe and her mum to do his bidding.

“And Phoebs and her mum won’t admit it,” Callie said. “Not even to each other. Not even to themselves. All Phoebe will say is that he gets depressed sometimes. But he’s depressed most of the time, and he’s a fucking nightmare all the time. Anyway. It’s awful but there’s nothing we can do to change it. Shall we order some food?” She smiled at the waitress who’d been discreetly hovering for the past few minutes. “I’d like an egg white omelette with tomato and another black coffee, please.”

“May I have another Diet Coke?” I said. “And a toasted bacon, egg and cheese ciabatta and a custard Danish?”

“Ouch,” Callie reached over and stroked my hand, very gently. “Poor suffering Pippa. How was the wedding?”

“Great. Katharine’s really brought Iain into line. She’s got such amazing taste, I think she chose pretty much everything and it was all terribly stylish and a bit… you know. Too perfect, I suppose. Very ‘here’s how Shoreditch hipsters do weddings’. But fabulous all the same.” I spent a few minutes telling her all about the five-course meal, the tiny replicas of the bride’s bouquet positioned at all the women’s place settings, the art deco styling on all the stationery to fit the
Great Gatsby
theme, and the person whose job it was to stand in the cloakroom with a basket of red rose petals and scatter a few in the toilet bowl after you’d flushed. “Anyway, we had a great time and the food was lush and we drank way too much. And then…”

“Then what? Did you do the Sexy Dance again?”

“Yes,” I blushed furiously into my breakfast at the memory. “And snogged Nick on the Tube home. But then after that, it got really weird.”

“Weird how?”

“I think Nick and I might be engaged. I think he asked me last night, or possibly I asked him. But I definitely woke up somehow knowing we are, and it wasn’t a dream because he thinks so too.”

“You’re engaged!” Callie shrieked. “You and Nick… That’s just the best news ever. It doesn’t matter if you were pissed when he asked you, you weirdo. You guys are perfect together. You had ‘happily ever after’ written all over you back when you were sitting A-levels and now you’re getting married.” She sniffed, and a little tear rolled down her cheek, taking a smear of mascara with it. Bless Callie, she cries at absolutely anything. Sometimes I hum the theme tune to
Watership Down
deliberately to set her off – it never fails.

She accosted the waitress. “Two glasses of champagne, please. My friend got engaged last night! Can I be your chief bridesmaid, Pippa? Please? We said we’d be each other’s when we were eight, remember?”

“I do remember. But, Callie, the thing is, even if Nick doesn’t change his mind, I don’t think we’d want to have that kind of wedding. We’ve been to so many weddings together and they’ve all been lovely but I can’t imagine us doing it. I mean, why would we? We were never going to get married at all. We’ll just… I don’t know. Elope or something. Or go to a registry office. Or a tropical island.”

“You’ll still need a bridesmaid, though,” Callie objected. “Otherwise who’s going to untie the sheets from your bedpost after you’ve climbed out of the window to meet him? Or sign the register, or protect you from falling coconuts?”

I laughed. “If I need any of those things, I promise I’ll ask you. No one else would be nearly as good, especially at the coconut bit. But seriously, it’ll be a tiny wedding, if it even happens. Microscopic. And really, like, low-key.”

“Pippa, come on. You say that now, but just wait and see what will happen to you. How many weddings have you been to? At least a dozen in the past year, maybe more. And how many of them have been low-key? Don’t rush, I’ll give you a minute to think about it.”

I didn’t really need a minute, but I tried to look thoughtful anyway, and finished the champagne in my glass. “Er… Simon and Deborah’s was quite low-key. It was in a village church, then a marquee in her parents’ garden.”

“Low-key, my arse,” Callie said. “You told me about that wedding. You said it was fabulous, and there was a bonfire and a cake made out of cheese and all the men wore matching ties from Liberty.”

“Only the best man and the groom’s brothers,” I said.

“Pippa,” Callie gave my hand another squeeze, a firmer one this time. “I’m four whole months older than you and I have more life experience, and I can guarantee that you will become obsessed with this wedding. All brides do, sure as night follows day. I give it two months before you’re on the phone to me and Phoebe telling us we have to match our knickers to your table napkins. It. Is. Going. To. Happen. And now I’m off to be a lawyer.”

She put thirty pounds down on the table and gave me another hug and a kiss on both cheeks. “Go and buy a few wedding magazines. You need to start lusting over frocks and wondering if a grand is too much to spend on invitations. And give my love to Nick. Tell him congratulations, and to beware of the bridezilla lurking in his future.”

After Callie had gone and I’d paid the bill, I left the café and wandered aimlessly around a bit, thinking about what she’d said. I couldn’t detect even a hint of bridezilla-ness in myself. Deep inside me, a small, warm flame was glowing with excitement at the idea of being married to Nick (although I’d already decided I was going to remain Pippa Martin, thank you very much, none of this Mrs Pickford business for me). But I also felt a sense of deep trepidation. Would marrying Nick mean that things between us would change? Did I want them to change?

And the actual wedding?

It all struck me as an awful lot of fuss for just one day. I cook for a living and I’ve catered plenty of weddings and I’ve seen the waste of food, of drink, of money they cause, not to mention the stress and the strops. One reception dinner we did at Falconi’s involved a ten-course tasting menu for a hundred and twenty people, followed by fireworks, with an ice rink set up in the square outside, and the couple split up after six weeks.

That wouldn’t happen to Nick and me, obviously. But the obsession that Callie had mentioned? I like to think I’m quite a level-headed person, but what if it was inevitable?

I spotted a newsagent further along the street and went in and bought a packet of wine gums and another Diet Coke. A shelf stacked with glossy wedding magazines caught my eye, and I thought I might as well buy a representative sample, just to see if Callie was right. I sat on a bench in the park and ripped the plastic cover off the first one, and a stash of leaflets spilled out: ‘Bespoke Suit Hire for Him’; ‘Have you considered a faux bouquet?’; ‘Fancy Favours for Everyone’; ‘DON’T FORGET YOUR WEDDING INSURANCE!’

Wedding insurance? What the very fuck was that?

I selected a red, black and green wine gum and put them all in my mouth at once, opened the first of the magazines and scanned the contents page. ‘Lose weight for your big day’; ‘The season’s most dramatic dresses’; ‘Our fairytale Nantucket nuptials’. The pages were full of pictures of impossibly perfect women in gorgeous frocks, fantastically elaborate cakes and cherubic pageboys. None of it looked like anything to do with me or Nick, I reassured myself. We simply weren’t interested in stuff like this – we’d do it our own way. We’d have our relaxed, low-key, small wedding, with just a handful of guests. Maybe Erica, Nick’s mother, might even decide not to come, if it was going to be small enough and informal enough? But that was probably too much to hope for.

Still, I felt confident as I boarded the bus home that Callie was wrong. I wasn’t going to turn into some spoiled brat insisting that it must be all ‘My Day, My Way’ (which appeared to be the mantra of Lacy Garter, the agony aunt at
Inspired Bride
magazine). Well, I would actually want things my way, and Nick’s, because that’s what it was about: our future together, moving forward from where we’d been before. Not custom-made basques and ombré icing.

And anyway, there was a really good chance that Nick hadn’t meant it and would change his mind. Or I would. In which case we’d just carry on as we’d been before. It was all fine. We didn’t need a wedding – we just needed to be together.

I’d take the magazines home to Nick, I decided, along with the rest of the wine gums (all five of them), and we could read them and have a good laugh about Highland castles and croquembouches, and then talk about last night, and decide what to do. Whether we carried on as we were or went ahead with the smallest wedding ever, it would be fine with me.

“Hello!” I called, opening the front door.

“Hi, Pip,” said Nick. “I’m in the office with Spanx. Come and have a look at this, and tell me how it went with Callie.”

Nick works from our spare room, where just about every inch of space is taken up by his iMac, his scanner, printer, graphics tablet and all the rest. Usually when I look over his shoulder as he works, I’m dazzled by edgy magazine layouts, modernist logo designs or sleek website treatments (when I can see anything past the furry ginger body of Spanx, Nick’s self-appointed junior designer). Now, though, I could see a complex grid of words and figures.

“What are you up to?” I asked.

“I’m doing a spreadsheet,” he said proudly. “For the wedding. I’ve got about two hundred names so far. We might have to cut down a bit.”

“Two hundred…” I leaned against the door frame, clasping the glossy magazines to my chest like armour. “Nick, what on earth are you…?”

“Hey, did you know we need to take out wedding insurance?” he said. “And is that
Inspired Bride
magazine? Awesome! Let’s have a read.”

Acknowledgements

Although
It Would Be Wrong to Steal My Sister’s Boyfriend (Wouldn’t It?)
took less than three months to write, the journey to publication has been a long one and wouldn’t have been completed without the help of many wonderful people.

Huge thanks to my agent, Peta Nightingale at LAW, for believing in me and supporting me, and for all her hard work and excellent advice. My sister Jassy Mackenzie and my friend Lucy Brett read the first draft and provided constructive criticism and some very welcome praise – thank you, you are both amazing. Thanks also to Tash Webber for the gorgeous cover design; to Rachel Alexander for her advice on the world of book publishing; to iron woman Fi Hourston for letting me pick her brains on triathlons; and to Sarah Harman and Jane Brooke for inspiring the Minge Bus.

And finally to Hopi, for being by my side every step of the way. You’re the best and I love you.