Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
L ulu is getting married in a castle. An actual castle where knights and kings used to live hundreds of years ago.
Now, thanks to the pamphlet I briefly read at reception, it’s been refurbished into a three-hundred-bedroom luxury hotel overlooking olive trees, rolling hills and perfect rows of cypress planted along roadside.
The foyer itself is extremely large and beautiful, with high ceilings and exposed dark timber beams. Thick carved stone walls allow a layer of coolness on this sticky summer night. The carpet is red, as if always waiting for royalty to tread upon its expensive threads, and all the staff wear white gloves. The smell of lavender wafts in from the nearby gardens.
I’m suddenly extremely embarrassed that I’ve turned up in a luxurious castle hotel in airline pyjamas. What started off as a mini coup against Weasel has mutated into a great fashion faux pas. I can see some of the hotel guests looking at me as though I shouldn’t have been let in. To make it worse, I’m wearing the slippers they give you on the plane too. The ones that show off your gnarly toes and should only be worn shuffling around the shower room. And I haven’t had time for a pedicure, so my nails are long and jagged. I scrunch my toes under, and hope to get to my room without anyone I know seeing me.
I give the man behind the counter a big smile. ‘I don’t normally dress like this. Long plane trip.’
‘Rrrright,’ he says in heavily accented English without looking at me, making it clear he doesn’t buy a word I’m saying.
I shrug and give up, but then notice an old man next to me and I say, ‘I’m about to put on a ball gown. You’d never guess though!’.
He sniffs the air a bit, as if that’s his way of acknowledging me, and once again I pray I can hightail it to my room without the family seeing me. Lulu would probably kill me with a bobby pin, slowly jabbing it in my eye until I keel over, rather than let me walk around the hotel dressed like this and sharing her surname.
‘All done. The key to room thirty-six, and your uh … companion is already checked in, room twenty-eight.’ He sniffs too, as though he can smell a couple fight.
The nightmare begins.
I nod in a way I hope is both graceful and demure, and then catch the lift alone, thank goodness, and make it to my room, absolutely exhausted. It’s a standard room, but still incredibly expensive. And I can see why. It has terracotta floors, a winged white armchair, a small wrought-iron table, which gives me writing vibes, and a matching wrought-iron bed with a clean Italian-style white bedspread and a series of purple, gold and green throw cushions that look like Versace designed them. Total comfort.
I push my cheek against the bathrobe hanging in the corner and it feels so plush, I want to wear it for ever. Except I only have two hours until the party. Outside it’s dark, but still I lean against the window trying to catch a glimpse of the vineyard, but everything is just rolling black with tiny stars. Not even the light of another house, or a street lamp. I type a quick text to Ruby.
RUBY, literally like wtf??? Did I kill your mother in a past life? Of all people BEN MCDONALD.
I manage to crawl onto my bed and fall asleep for thirty minutes, before being woken by the screeching of the alarm.
I shove myself under the hot water of the shower, and try to let the tension go. Wrapped in the softest bathrobe, I make a strong black coffee to keep me going. I try calling Adam and Ruby but my phone just makes those strange beeping noises and says call could not be connected. I try connecting to the hotel Wi-Fi and sending emails but that doesn’t work either. Stupid phone, I think, putting it on my bedside table. I really want to speak to Adam. I pick up the hotel phone to dial him, and glance at the clock. Damn. It’s almost drinks time and I have to get ready.
What am I going to wear? I unzip my suitcase and start pulling out the dresses I’ve packed so carefully. I try on a maroon dress that was floor-length, but suddenly I look too much like a librarian. I hold up the black dress, but I remember Lulu specifically saying, NO BLACK. Finally, I try on the floating chiffon peach dress with spaghetti straps and an asymmetrical cut hemline, so one side comes all the way up to my lower thigh, and the other is grazing my ankle. It looks light and fashionable and seems to say, Hello, Italian Summer.
I pull it on, smear some coconut balm onto my legs, use the hotel’s complimentary nail file to file down my horrific talons, noting I should indulge in a pedicure while I’m here, and pull on strappy white sandals with a low heel.
Junior editor , I scoff to myself. No wonder he’s willing to spend an entire four days with me; he’s trying to put me off my game. Maybe he’s hoping I quit. He’ll probably try and get one over Tony next, considering that’s what people without souls do.
But I can’t think about work now. Tonight is going to be make or break. I’m about to go into a ballroom of a hundred wedding guests for the welcome drinks, with a fake boyfriend, and I have to be on my game.