- •I type a full stop, take a sip of coffee, and turn to the second page of the press release.
- •Extract 2
- •Extract 3
- •I should say something. I should say, “Janice, I don’t fancy Tom. He’s too tall and his breath smells.” But how on earth can I say that?
- •Extract 4
- •I’m absolutely stunned. I’ve never seen anything like this at a press conference. Never!
- •I head toward the back to get another cup of coffee, and find Elly standing by the coffee table. Excellent. I haven’t seen Elly for ages.
- •I’m sorry, but I can’t go and sit back down there. I have to hear about this.
- •Extract 5
- •I stare at him blankly.
- •I have never before worked so hard on an article. Never.
- •I can’t do this. I can’t speak to Luke Brandon. My questions are jotted down on a piece of paper in front of me, but as I stare at them, I’m not reading them.
- •I’ll show Alicia, I think fiercely. I’ll show them all, Luke Brandon included. Show them that I, Rebecca Bloomwood, am not a joke.
- •Extract 6
- •Extract 7
- •It’s basically my idea of heaven.
- •I close my eyes and, after a few seconds, feel a cool, creamy liquid being massaged into my face. It’s the most delicious sensation in the world. I could sit here all day.
- •I almost want to laugh at the incongruity of it. What’s she doing here? What’s Alicia Bitch Long-legs doing here, for God’s sake?
- •Is that me? Oh God, I don’t want to be a leading industry expert. I want to go home and watch reruns of The Simpsons.
- •I look around for support and see Rory gazing blankly at me.
- •I watch in a daze as he picks his way across the cable strewn floor toward the exit, half wishing he would look back.
- •Extract 8
- •Extract 2
- •Extract 3
- •Extract 4
- •Extract 5
- •I’ll just have a really quick look.
- •I mean, what is wrong with these people? Are they complete philistines?
- •Extract 6
- •It’s only as we're approaching a department entitled ‘Gift Wrapping’ that I realize what’s going on. When I said ‘gift’, she must have thought I meant it was an actual–
- •I take the card from her, and as I read, my skin starts to prickle with excitement.
- •Extract 7
- •I stare at him, agog.
- •I can’t tell him I’ve actually got three. And two on hold at Barneys.
- •Extract 2
- •I wish bridesmaids got to say something. It wouldn’t have to be anything very much. Just a quick ‘Yes’ or ‘I do’.
- •I’ve always been a teeny bit awkward around Tarquin. But now I see him with Suze – married to Suze – the awkwardness seems to melt away.
- •Extract 3
- •I glance into the mirror, feeling quite grown-up and proud of myself. For once in my life I’m not rushing. I’m not getting overexcited.
- •I remember that cake. The icing was lurid green and the lawnmower was made out of a painted matchbox. You could still see ‘Swan’ through the green.
- •I have never worn anything less flattering in my life.
- •Extract 4
- •Extract 5
- •Extract 6
- •Extract 7
- •I’ll be a grown-up, go along to the cake studio and break the news to her face to face.
- •I had no idea wedding cakes could be anything like this. I flip through, slightly dazedly, looking at cake after spectacular cake.
- •I can see Alicia’s brain working hard.
- •I can see Robyn and Antoine exchanging looks, and I’m dying to ask them what they think of Alicia. But... It wouldn’t be becoming in a bride-to-be.
- •If I’m really honest, hand on heart – I feel exactly like someone who’s going to have a huge, luxurious wedding at the Plaza.
- •I put the invitation into my bag and snap the clasp shut, feeling slightly sick.
- •I look at him, my attention finally caught.
- •Extract 8
- •I stare at him in utter stupefaction. What does he think he’s doing?
- •I stare at him in horror.
- •I follow his gaze, and see Danny’s brother Randall walking across the floor towards us.
- •Extract 9
- •I stare at her, momentarily halted.
- •I stare at the page, my heart pounding. It’s a typed sheet, headed terms of agreement. I look straight down to the dotted line at the bottom – and there’s my signature.
- •I haven’t said a word about anything to Luke. In The Realistic Bride it says the way to stop your fiance getting bored with wedding details is to feed them to him on a need-to-know basis.
- •I feel a stab of shock.
- •Extract 10
- •I put the phone down and smile at Robyn, who’s wearing a bright pink suit and a headset and carrying a walkie-talkie.
- •In fact, it’s completely true. I’m beyond nervous. Either everything goes to plan and this all works out. Or it doesn’t and it’s a complete disaster. There’s not much I can do about it.
- •I’ve never seen a wedding dress like it. It’s a work of art.
- •Extract 11
- •I reach out and hug her tightly.
- •I can't move. I can't breathe. I need my fairy godmothers, quick.
- •I don’t believe it. It’s Luke.
- •Extract 12
- •I feel a huge spasm of nerves as I see the familiar sign. We’re nearly there.
- •I’m getting married. I’m really getting married.
- •I freeze in terror, one foot inside the car. What’s happened? Who’s found out? What do they know?
- •I think I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.
- •I feel a spasm of nerves inside. Here it comes. The last bit of my plan. The very last cherry on top of the cake.
- •Extract 2
- •Extract 3
- •Extract 4
- •Extract 5
- •Extract 6
- •Extract 7
- •Extract 8
- •Extract 9
- •Extract 10
- •Extract 11
- •I’m fantastically well-organised, basically. And very self-disciplined. The early bird catches the modeling contracts, after all.
- •Extract 13
- •I am such a deluded moron.
- •Extract 2
- •I draw myself up short with a jolt. “I’m sorry,” I say, and exhale sharply. “You don’t want to hear all this.”
- •Extract 3
- •I bet they do.
- •I was so totally mortified, I never told anyone. Especially not Mum and Dad.
- •Extract 4
- •Extract 5
- •I don’t think so.
- •Extract 6
- •Extract 7
- •I watch in total disbelief as Jack settles comfortably down on the rug. He was supposed to be rescuing me from all this. Not joining in. Slowly I sink down beside him.
- •I stare at her blankly. Since when have Kerry and I ever socialized together?
- •Extract 8
- •I am never visiting a zoo again.
- •Revenge is Sweet (by c. Fremlin)
- •It worked like a dream, exactly as she’d planned.
- •The Way up to Heaven (by r. Dahl)
- •For Services Rendered (by j. Deaver)
- •I can help you and you can help me...
- •I can help you and you can help me...
- •Makeover (by b. Callahan)
- •Interrupting her in mid sob, Monty said, “Hold on there, Steph. Gotta pay our bills. Time for a commercial.”
Extract 10
Still, when life failed, there was always food to fall back on. At lunchtime, Jane headed for the supermarket, deciding to buy herself something glamorous and comforting for supper. She headed automatically for the dairy counter, with its wealth of sinful lactocentricity. But here lurked disappointment. Disillusionment, even. Scanning the shelves, Jane couldn’t help noticing the number of products that seemed to exist to mock the solitary, manless diner. Single cream, drippy and runny and the antithesis of comforting, luxurious double. Those depressing, rubbery slices of processed cheese called Singles.
Feeling self-conscious, Jane shuffled over to the more cheerful-looking Italian section, where she plumped for a big, squashy, colourful boxed pizza. Something about its improbable topping – four cheeses, pineapple, onion, olives, chicken tikka, prawns, peperoni, tomato, capers and tuna – struck her as amusing, and its mattress-like proportions looked intensely comforting. And Italians liked large ladies anyway.
Once the pizza box was in her basket, however, Jane felt racked with embarrassment. She was, she told herself, at least a stone too heavy to wander around in public carrying such a blatant statement of Intent To Consume Calories. Hurriedly retracing her steps, Jane slipped the pizza box back on the cooler shelf and replaced it with a nutritionally unimpeachable packet of fresh pasta. No one needed to know she intended to eat it with eggy, creamy, homemade carbonara sauce.
Having secured the bacon, Jane went into a dream by the eggs, confused by the vast variety on offer. Was barn-fresh grain-fed more or less cruel than four-grain yard-gathered? Spending so much of her time in her own dreary office building, Jane was intensely sympathetic to the plight of battery hens. She picked up a cardboard box of eggs and shoved them vaguely in the direction of her basket. Only it wasn’t hers.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Jane gasped to the tall, dark-haired, leather-jacketed man standing right next to her. ‘I seem to have put all my eggs in your basket!’ She retrieved them and giggled. ‘I’m sorry. I was miles away.’ But the man did not smile back. His handsome face didn’t even crease. After staring at her hard for a second or two, he walked swiftly sway. Jane gazed after him. Really, people acted very oddly in supermarkets. They were the strangest places. Some, she knew, were cruising zones. Some even held singles evenings.
Rounding the corner, hoping to happen upon some garlic bread, Jane bumped into Mr Leather Jacket again. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered again. He stared at her even harder. Annoyance flooded her. What was his problem?
Then a thought struck her. Jane flushed deeper and redder than a beetroot. Oh Christ, she thought. He thinks I fancy him. He thought I put my eggs in his basket on purpose. It’s probably accepted supermarket flirting code. Eggs probably mean something very intimate and reproductive. Christ. How embarrassing. She looked round in panic at the contents of die baskets around her, suspecting the existence of an entire alternative universe of shopping semiotics. What, for example, did carrots mean? Or sausages? She hardly dared think about cucumbers. And meat? Were there such things as pick-up joints?
Even more embarrassing was the fact that her advances had been rejected, even though they had been unconscious. Or had they? Had there been some subliminal attempt to attract the man in the egg section? Had she been screaming out ‘Fertilise Me’ as she plonked her Size Twos into his basket? They had, she remembered been free range as well.