Chapter 24
24
Sophie was busy with two weddings in quick succession in the weeks that followed her trip to Italy as well as a dog who’d missed her daily walks along the canal near her house – and Reshma’s coddling on the days when Betsy was allowed to come along to the office. But Bath looked different, as though the direction of gravity had shifted slightly and the Earth turned on another axis. Her life felt different.
The first wedding was at a stone cottage in Normandy, replete with a thatched roof and fields of poppies. But although Sophie and Ginny spent hours adding the final touches the bride and groom had requested, including a bower of pink, fragrant roses in a circle – to symbolise eternity – and a rustic, wooden chair design for guests, which had to be rented from two towns away, the day itself had felt off to Sophie.
The residence requirements for getting married in France were complicated, so the couple had already married at the Bristol town hall. The commitment ceremony she had helped them develop felt laboured and she was terrified it was because of her delivery. Not only was she a divorced marriage celebrant, but now she was a divorced, broken-hearted one.
Or perhaps she always had been but was only now admitting to it.
As she fixed a smile to her face for the reception – nearly a hundred friends and family had made the trip, just to test Sophie’s endurance – she wondered for the first time if she’d had enough of weddings, if she could keep doing this without being a hypocrite.
Noticing Sophie’s exaggerated sighs on the drive back, Ginny assured her that all weddings were different – as Sophie well knew. Some couples wore their hearts on their sleeves and some were more concerned with chairs and place settings and they usually knew better than to judge.
The second wedding, the following weekend, was somehow worse. The grooms were a pair of sweethearts who’d been together half their lives and had finally decided to get married even though one of their families still refused to attend. As the wedding was in New York City, Sophie travelled alone to save expenses. That meant a desperate hurry sorting all the final preparations and she found herself constantly in a yellow taxi, rushing to collect the licence and then the hors d’oeuvres for the twenty wedding guests.
But running the wedding alone turned out to be a blessing when she was dabbing at her eyes along with Jacob, as Chris stuttered through his vows. All the meetings she’d had with them over the past year, where they’d bickered gently but been so easy and lovely with each other after all their years together, got under her skin and she wondered if all couples should actually get married when they were in their mid-forties and had been together over twenty years.
Perhaps she needed to switch to destination anniversary celebrations until her hope was restored.
She hadn’t heard from Andreas. Toni from Great Heart had assured her that two guides would be available for the week of the wedding. She’d mentioned one of the guides was Kira, but not the name of the second, so she had to assume that Andreas either hadn’t decided or wasn’t coming. Sophie wasn’t sure which was worse.
She’d wanted a clean break, but it didn’t feel clean. She wanted to hear something from him.
By the time June was coming to a close and the next appointment with Lily and Roman loomed, Sophie knew Ginny and Tita had worked out something was wrong, but she’d dissuaded them from asking so far by projecting a subtle aura of stress.
As she brewed coffee and set up the screen in preparation for the meeting, she tried to consciously suppress that aura and found it more difficult than she’d hoped. Sophie didn’t get stressed. She thrived on the tiny details and preferred to be busy than not.
Ginny came in to ask her a question about a venue in Tuscany and Sophie wasn’t sure what kind of nonsense came out of her mouth, she was so distracted.
‘Is it Lily and Roman you’ve got coming today? Shall I send Kira in to you afterwards?’
‘After what?’
‘Kira and Willard are here talking to Reshma. She mentioned she’s doing the Garda wedding and sounded a little nervous, to be honest.’
‘Um, yes, sure. She should come in and meet the couple – and I can talk her through her nerves afterwards over a cup of tea. If she drinks tea.’
Ginny peered at her warily. ‘I’m sure that’ll do her some good.’ She paused. ‘Do you want me to stay in the meeting, too? I could help write stuff down.’
As much as Sophie wanted to assure her that wasn’t necessary, she had to admit her thoughts were a mess and it would be better if they didn’t screw up Lily and Roman’s wedding, so she nodded with a grateful smile.
‘I know Reshma’s keen to make these adventure weddings a thing, but don’t put yourself under more pressure than necessary. The adventure part is Kira’s job.’
She nodded again, hoping her expression showed enough relief that Ginny would continue to assume that was Sophie’s problem.
Lily and Roman arrived early, hurrying inside from the car park in a light shower of rain. Ginny served them coffee – and tea for Sophie, which saved the day.
After a few fortifying sips, Sophie started her curated photo presentation and opened her mouth to introduce the first one, but Roman’s reaction cut her off.
‘Oh my gosh!’ Roman exclaimed. ‘We could say our marriage vows there?’
The picture showed the peak of Punta Telegrafo, the last hike she’d taken with Andreas. ‘There or any of the other spectacular places for the ceremony around the lake.’
Lily laughed in delight. ‘This is incredible. I know we said we wanted a cross on top of a mountain, but… wow, the idea of it is so much more powerful, seeing that picture.’
Sophie smiled helplessly, all her discussions with Andreas coming alive in her mind.
‘How do you get up there? Would we need ropes?’ Lily asked.
‘It’s just a hike from a cable car, but the landscape is fantastic the whole way,’ Sophie reassured her.
‘Ah, okay.’ Lily’s tone held a hint of disappointment. ‘I suppose that’s for the best.’
Sophie bit her lip, her finger hovering over her tablet. ‘I’ve been working quite closely with one of our adventure guides—’ She swallowed, remembering just how closely. ‘He has a very good idea of what’s possible, what’s safe – for everyone. And there is…’
She flipped through the photos, passing briefly over Monte Castello, the first summit where she’d stood across from Andreas and made him pretend he could be a real groom – her groom – and Cima Comer, with the wooden lookout.
‘It’s all so beautiful!’ Lily commented as she watched the photos change quickly on the screen.
But Sophie stopped scrolling when she reached Cima Rocca with its metal cross set into the boulders at the summit. She’d taken a panorama shot of the looming rocky peaks and the lake, dizzyingly far below.
‘This one,’ she began, pausing unintentionally before realising Lily and Roman were holding their breath. ‘This summit is accessed by via ferrata, a fixed climbing route. If you’re sure your wedding guests want to slip on a harness and a couple of straps and scramble up for your ceremony, then this might be the place. There’s an alternative route to the top on foot if some of your party aren’t willing to climb.’
The look Lily shared with Roman was so eager, Sophie had to forget her own reservations – and her own memories of adrenaline and kisses.
Roman clutched his fiancée’s hand in both of his. ‘We had all those plans to do the via ferratas in Austria last year and then you got sick. How amazing would it be…?’
‘Obviously, a wedding dress won’t be an option, but the wreath we discussed will look absolutely gorgeous and with matching corsages for the wedding party that you can preserve afterwards, it will be stunning.’
‘You lost me at the corsages,’ Lily said with a grin, ‘but that’s why we hired a planner. I don’t know anything about that stuff.’
‘A woman after my own heart!’
Sophie glanced up to see a flash of blue as Kira poked her head around the door.
‘Come on in, Kira. This is Lily and Roman, our Garda couple. This is Kira Watling. She’s a qualified guide and will be with us for all the activities.’
Kira shook their hands firmly. ‘I’m more familiar with bachelor parties, but I reckon we can pull this off.’ Glancing at the screen, she said, ‘Ah, Andreas told me about the via ferrata. Is that what we’re going with?’
‘It looks that way,’ Sophie said.
Roman thankfully picked up the thread of the conversation while she dealt with the twin blows of the prospect of doing the via ferrata with Kira instead of Andreas and the fact that he’d been talking to Kira and not to her.
Picking up her tablet to distract herself, she flicked through a few more pictures, looking for the shots of the reception venue, when she swiped to a photo she hadn’t been expecting: she and Andreas on Monte Castello di Gaino, holding hands, Sophie stifling a laugh after that spine-tingling moment where her brain had tricked her into thinking it could be real.
‘What’s that ?’ Ginny blurted out, staring at the screen.
Sophie mashed the button to turn off the tablet, forgetting that wouldn’t affect the image on the bigger screen. Frantically tapping buttons, she swore under her breath.
‘Oh, I must have… put that one in by accident.’ Sophie cringed, cursing herself for the oversight and itching to transfer the file out of her work folder and into the forbidden Andreas folder she’d been trying to stop looking at.
‘Is that you and—? Are you two—?’ Ginny continued.
‘No.’ She cleared her throat, feeling Kira’s gaze on her. ‘It was just for the photographer to… an example of the—’ She swiped the photo away, at least a minute too late.
‘It really does look like a wedding,’ Roman said, looping his arm around Lily and pressing a kiss to her hair when she shared his grin.
This was their wedding and Sophie was doing a damn good job organising it. Her own feelings could get lost and she didn’t need to worry what Kira thought either. The awkwardness would fade by the time they had to work together in September.
When Lily and Roman left, Ginny went to make tea and then Sophie was alone with Kira, desperate to ignore the tingle at her hairline.
‘I thought something happened while you and Andreas were away,’ Kira said as soon as Ginny was out of the room.
‘It didn’t mean anything.’ It was so obviously a lie, Sophie couldn’t say anything further. She risked a glance at Kira and her new colleague’s scowl made her wish she hadn’t.
But when Kira spoke again, what she said wasn’t what Sophie had expected. ‘I don’t want to see him get hurt again, okay? We look after each other at Great Heart.’
‘You don’t think he can look after himself?’ Sophie asked in a small voice.
‘Of course he can, but you’ve always been like a summit he failed to reach and you know what he’s like with a summit.’
Sophie frowned. She’d thought she was the one who needed closure. ‘He’s got another summit to focus on right now,’ she said, alarmed by her bleak tone.
‘As long as he is focusing on that and not…’ Kira made a frustrated noise. ‘I don’t want to talk about this crap. But I also don’t want to scrape him up off the floor again.’
‘I’m sure he’s not…’
‘God, the both of you are idiots,’ Kira mumbled and flung herself onto the sofa, leaning her forearms on her knees. ‘Let’s just talk about the hen do.’
‘That sounds like a good idea,’ Sophie agreed, trying to shake off the uncertainty. A wedding planner needed to be the one in control while the bridal party broke down in tears. Her own emotional turmoil was a moot point – especially since Andreas seemed to be honouring her request for a clean break. ‘What have you got planned? And which of the other guides have you got booked in to come? Is it Laurie or one of the casuals?’
‘What do you mean? Do we need a third person? I think Andreas and I can manage.’
‘But… I thought Andreas wasn’t coming? It might clash with the departure for Manaslu.’
Kira didn’t respond, she only peered doubtfully at Sophie. ‘He’s not leaving for Nepal until the middle of October.’
‘Oh, well…’ She tried to ignore the flicker in her stomach. Clean break, clean break, clean break . ‘He’ll have to train and prepare though, right? You can’t just stick some crampons on and off you go.’ She crossed her arms tight.
‘Andreas probably could, but I thought you wanted him?’
Did she?
‘For the wedding, I mean,’ Kira added, which only made Sophie flush.
‘Of course, I—’ She swallowed. ‘I just got the distinct impression that he didn’t want to do any weddings at all and this one – with me – in particular. I’m not going to force him… or expect anything.’
The way Kira looked at her, Sophie must have sounded like a fool. ‘Sophie, he’s already accepted the booking in our system and we’ve thrown around some ideas for the bachelor party.’
‘You’ve… He’s actually booked in?’ She tried not to be excited at the prospect of seeing him again. At least she hoped nothing showed on her face – not eagerness, nor confusion and especially not hope.
‘Sorry, I thought he’d told you.’ Sophie heard Kira mutter, ‘The muppet,’ rather fondly under her breath.
‘I’ll get the name updated on the hotel booking then,’ Sophie said with a nod she hoped looked final. Topic closed.
But Kira grimaced. ‘Do we have to stay at the hotel with the wedding party? We usually stay at Andreas’s family’s place where have more space to store the gear and we don’t have to babysit the guests out of hours.’
An unwelcome shiver ran down Sophie’s spine when she pictured Kira and Andreas sharing the flat where she’d made so many memories herself. But Kira had been there before – and probably slept in similar positions to where Sophie had found herself.
Swallowing her discomfort, she said, ‘No, only I need to be at the hotel for last-minute problems, but you and Andreas don’t have to be.’
‘Oh, good. I can tolerate the idea of being an assistant, but you won’t want me anywhere near the fancy decorations and the chair sashes and that other stuff you and Ginny were talking about. Knots, I can handle, but bows are really not my thing.’
Sophie smiled faintly, remembering similar sentiments from Andreas but also the image of him with a wreath of flowers on his head, contrasting with his grim, lopsided mouth. She wanted to look at the photo again, even though she could picture it perfectly in her mind.
Damn, she missed that man. The ache only seemed stronger now she knew she’d see him again in September.
But all he’d agreed to was a job he’d get paid for, probably only because the timing of his trip allowed it. He hadn’t even got in touch to tell her himself. Nothing had changed. She couldn’t allow herself to hope that anything had.