Beauty and the Bridesmaid

Chapter Nine

“I don’t think I can take another makeover,” I protest, remembering the pre-wedding look Lela and I had argued about in the first place.

“It won’t be that bad.” Anna pulls the wardrobe doors open and clicks her tongue as she runs her hands through the garments.

I love Anna to pieces, but her idea of ‘looking hot’ appears to derive from Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. After she deems everything in my wardrobe unsuitable, I end up in a white top with cut-out sides and a zebra-print mini skirt. Since she is little bit more on the busty side than what I am, Anna also has to stuff my bra with tissue to fill out the gaping top.

“What do you think?” she asks, spinning me around in front of her full-length mirror.

“I look like Dolly Parton,” I say bluntly, seeing the effects of Anna’s curling tongs for the first time.

“Damien will love it!” Anna enthuses as though I’ve just told her I can’t wait to borrow her clothes again.

“I can’t turn up to Lela’s mother’s house dressed like this.”

“Oh,” Anna says, frowning. “What’s the occasion again?”

I grit my teeth. “It’s the engagement party.”

“The engagement party? Shouldn’t you have been invited to that ages ago? Like, when they actually got engaged.”

“Apparently they never had one.”

“Not like Lela to miss out on an opportunity to wear a nice dress and toast glasses of champagne to herself all night.” Anna rolls her eyes.

“She’s really not that bad, Anna. And her mum’s hosting it, so it’s really more likely to be her doing all the toasting to her wonderful daughter.”

“Aha!” says Anna dramatically. “So it’s Lela’s mum who’s the problem, is it? Even worse than her daughter?” She pulls a face at the thought.

I ignore her and lock myself in the bathroom so that she’s got no chance of stopping me from scraping the layers of makeup off my face. When I’m done dressing myself without Anna’s input, I think I actually look quite sensible. Boring compared to Anna’s standards but sensible enough to spend the evening with Mrs Henry.

***

Lela’s mother is always the woman I picture whenever I hear the phrase ‘ice-maiden’. She wears her long fair hair in a tight bun piled high on top of her head to make it less obvious that she’s about the height of a ten year old. Her style icon being the Queen, she answers the door wearing a deep blue tweed suit, complete with a matching fascinator in the shape of a miniature hat (because a full-sized hat would never fit on top of that hair do).

“Jade,” she says without any emotion, her thin lips pressing together in an imitation of a smile.

“Diane.” I nod stiffly in her direction and follow her through into the foyer (who calls their hallway a bloody foyer?).

Diane and I have never really formed a relationship beyond mutual tolerance of each other. She always wanted ‘the best’ for her daughter and apparently I’m not a part of that. She probably thinks it’s delightful news that Lela is marrying Ash. Maybe she had him lined up as a potential groom years ago and never thought that I was a worthy bride for him. It was probably her idea for Lela to contact him after she reached her twenty-third birthday with no ring on her finger.

Having married (the long since divorced) Mr Henry when she was eighteen, Diane thinks it should be every woman’s goal in life to get a man down the aisle as quickly as possible and that idea has been very firmly drummed into her daughter.