13
EVERYONE IS UP early the next day, fussing about breakfast and worrying about the make-up and hair people getting here on time, and dealing with the potential gas leak and a million other stresses. Bathroom time is at a premium now there are four extra people in the house, and we fall behind schedule quickly.
Other than keeping control of the family dynamics at the reception, my big job today is helping Hayley get into her wedding dress. I went with her to the final dress fitting so they could teach me how to get her into it and out of it. It’s a corset bodice that flows into a long sweeping skirt. There are forty-three buttons at the back of the corset bodice to be done up, and they are small and fiddly. The dressmaker was very clear to me that we needed to allow time for this task, that I needed to be very confident I could do it, if I didn’t think I could, then I needed to speak up now, I needed to be honest, because Hayley needed someone there on the day who could do up forty-three buttons quickly and nimbly, with absolute confidence. This terrifying speech had made me so nervous, I fumbled the first button in front of her for quite some time, and she watched, silently, coldly, staring from behind me, judgment increasing with every passing second.
I can do this, I had kept assuring her, my hands shaking. When I finally got the button in the loop, I turned to her, triumphant, expecting praise. You’ll need to do it much faster than that, the dressmaker said gravely. She will on the day, Hayley had said with a confidence I didn’t feel.
And now this job looms ahead of me. Have we left plenty of time for the buttons, I say jokingly before breakfast, during breakfast, after breakfast, but the more I say it, the more crazed I feel, and the more it becomes clear that we are running out of time. All my anxiety about the wedding, the speech, Joel and his baby, Mac, seems to be zeroing in on these buttons. I haven’t factored into the equation that I have painted nails, which will make it harder. We need more button time, but it’s taking everyone longer than planned to shower and get ready, the hair and make-up has gone overtime too. We have less button time than we started with.
Hayley and I are getting dressed in a dressing room provided at the venue, and once I’m in my dress—a dusty blue floor-length satin gown with spaghetti straps, a cowl neckline—I turn to hers.
‘Cinch my waist first,’ Hayley says and I can hear a note of doubt in her voice, she suddenly doesn’t believe I can do the buttons. Hayley, the person who always believes in me, is doubting me, and I can feel everything crumbling—I can’t do the buttons, or walk calmly down the aisle, or give the speech, or wear satin, or be around Joel, or Mac. I can’t do the rest of this day, this weekend, my whole life.
I am spiralling.
Get a grip. It’s forty-three buttons.
I take a deep breath and wipe my sweaty hands on a towel. To make things worse, Patrick has just knocked and walked in, camera ready, smiling at me in an extra smiley way. His presence calms me a little, which is surprising. Maybe he really is my soulmate. Definitely a point towards it, making up for the two points he lost last night for photographing Joel and me. I should be keeping track.
‘Should I get some shots of this?’ he asks.
Hayley’s body is in the dress and she’s holding it up at the front, so it’s not indecent, but her bra is on display at the back.
‘Yes, why not,’ she says.
The pressure of being photographed doing the buttons should break me, but it does the opposite, because I have a new determination. I need Patrick to see the best me. I cinch Hayley’s waist, and attempt the first button. It’s stiff, and hard to squeeze into the loop, but after about five tries, I get it.
‘One down, forty-two to go,’ I say.
‘Anna. We’ll never make it at this rate.’
‘It’s fine, I’ve got it,’ I say. I do another five, with Patrick taking some photos, but he pauses and puts the camera down after a while.
‘Six,’ I announce shakily. My fingers are numb, I’m not sure if it’s from fear, or pain, or nerves.
‘Six!’ Hayley says. ‘I thought you were halfway.’
‘I’m almost halfway.’ I have decided delusional positivity is the best way forward.
‘You’re not even a quarter of the way.’ Hayley’s voice has an edge, an edge I know is a warning sign. We’re five minutes away from hysteria. Hayley can get there very quickly.
‘Can I help?’ Patrick asks.
Hayley and I exchange a look in the mirror. We have exchanged it many times before. Oh, a man who thinks he knows best . Mansplaining buttons to me , a woman whose great-great-grandmother was a seamstress. Well, could have been a seamstress. I don’t actually know for sure what she did for a living.
‘I’m good at fiddly things,’ he says. ‘I can sew.’
‘You can?’ I say.
‘Yes, my mum believed very firmly that her son needed to know how to cook, sew and clean.’
Hayley gives me another look, a different one this time. Now she’s making a this is a dream man face.
‘Go for it,’ I say, stepping back.
‘Yes,’ Hayley says. ‘But if you break off a button, just know, the whole wedding will be ruined.’
‘Got it,’ he says, and he sounds confident.
He is silent for a while.
‘I broke a button,’ he says after a second.
‘What!’ Hayley shrieks.
‘Oh my god!’ I am gripping my chest, like there has been an actual death.
He smiles at us uncertainly. ‘I haven’t. Sorry, I was joking.’
‘Not funny,’ Hayley says in a shaky voice.
‘Yes, that was inappropriate timing. I’m sorry. I’ve actually done ten buttons.’
‘Oh,’ I say, peering around to look.
He has, damn it. ‘He really has,’ I say to Hayley.
‘Okay, you get right out of the way, Anna. He’s doing this now.’
I watch Patrick work. It’s attractive to see him take charge and solve the problem, but it’s also, I am ashamed to admit, unattractive, because now I am examining his hands and his fingers seem unusually slim and fast-moving and dexterous to me in a way I find suddenly repulsive.
Do not do this. Do not talk yourself out of a cute, funny, charming, helpful man who can sew, and cook, and clean, because you find his fingers unappealing. I am giving myself this lecture because I know Hayley, Mum and Bobbi would if they knew.
‘Honey, you’re thirty. You want a child someday. Is now the time to worry about a man’s fingers?’ I can hear Mum asking, and my imagined furious response. Oh, I’m a washed-up spinster now, I don’t even get to be picky about the man I want to be with. I’m so desperate, I have to settle for nightmare hands? While at the same time, I am furious at myself for letting this turn me off. Turn back on , I tell myself. Turn back on right now .
This is, of course, Mac’s fault. There is nothing wrong with Patrick’s hands. Mac is in my head, making me judge other men for things that aren’t even real. And he’s far from perfect! He’s repulsive too, I just can’t think how in this exact moment. Patrick’s hands are lovely and nimble and they could very well one day touch my breasts in a quick and appealing way.
Patrick gets the rest of the buttons done up, and then bows when Hayley and I applaud him. I want to find the bow charming. It is charming. It’s charming . But there’s something about how low he goes in the bow that makes me uncomfortable. Should tall men bow so low? I know this is not rational. My brain is betraying me. Sabotaging me. No, not my brain. My hormones. My horniness. Whatever misguided part of me it was that followed Mac into the garden. That part is trying to tell me people who are objectively attractive are not. But I am smart enough not to fall for this. I can reprogram myself.
‘That was amazing,’ I say, smiling at him, in part because I feel Hayley practically vibrating with the need for me to flirt with him.
‘All part of the job,’ he smiles back, and we make some more small talk while he takes a bunch of photos of Hayley in her dress. Then he turns and takes a photo of me.
‘Oh,’ I say, startled. It could have been a romantic moment, the taking of my photo, but I feel like a rabbit in the headlights.
‘You look gorgeous,’ he says, smiling.
‘Thank you,’ I say.
Patrick leaves to go and take photos of Luke and the groomsmen getting ready, and Hayley looks at me. Now he’s gone, I can be properly emotional about my best friend in her wedding dress.
‘You look so, so beautiful,’ I say, and we grin at each other, goofily, gripping each other’s hands.
‘You think?’ Hayley says, doing a twirl. Her dark hair is all pinned up and she’s wearing simple delicate pearl earrings and a mid-length veil. The dress fits perfectly. It’s more like a piece of art than a piece of clothing.
‘It’s perfect. You’re perfect.’
We admire her in the mirror together.
‘Thank you.’ She turns to me. ‘I have a feeling that I’m going to have a lot of solo pictures of you in my wedding photos.’
‘Shut up.’
‘Are you into him?’ Hayley asks.
‘I am,’ I say, because I need to put the most positive spin on everything today.
‘You don’t seem keen,’ Hayley says, squinting at me.
‘I’m keen!’
‘I know when you’re keen. This is not Keen Anna.’
‘Well, there is a lot of pressure. The psychic and all that.’
‘Oh, I see the problem,’ she says, turning back to the mirror.
‘What?’ I say.
‘The mums like him and that’s a turn-off.’
‘It is not.’
‘It is.’
‘That’s not the turn-off.’
‘So there is a turn-off?’ Now she turns back to look at me.
‘What do you think of his fingers?’
Hayley gives me a no-we’re-not-doing-this look. ‘Come on.’
‘Okay. Let’s not discuss it.’
‘His fingers are totally normal fingers.’
‘You didn’t see him doing up your buttons. The way he did it so fast. He’s too dexterous.’
‘ Too dexterous is not an acceptable ick.’
‘Fine. You’re right.’
Hayley has a slightly suspicious look.
‘You don’t have a thing for Mac, do you?’
‘What? No.’
‘Because there was a vibe between you, last night, when you were signing the book for him.’
‘There was no vibe,’ I say, looking at my make-up in the mirror so she can’t properly see my face.
‘Good, because that’s a waste of time.’
‘Don’t worry. I am focused on Patrick.’
‘We’re here to help with the buttons,’ Bobbi announces, as she, Mum and Jean open the door.
‘They’re all done,’ Hayley says.
‘Oh, darling! You look so beautiful!’ The mums gush and fuss over Hayley and examine the dress from every angle.
‘Well done on the buttons,’ Mum says, when they have recovered from their fussing. Bobbi leans into the mirror, attempting to fix her eye make-up because she started crying.
‘I didn’t actually do most of them,’ I say.
‘Patrick did,’ Hayley says, wiggling her eyebrows at me.
‘Oh, that’s interesting,’ Bobbi says.
‘He’s lovely. Better than Joel,’ Mum says.
‘Don’t do that,’ I say.
‘Do what?’
‘Trash Joel.’
‘I wasn’t trashing him.’
‘Saying a stranger we met a day ago is better than Joel, who I loved and lived with for eight years, actually makes me feel bad.’
‘Fine. I’m not going to say another thing,’ Mum says, holding up her hands.
‘And I’m just going to say one last thing on the topic,’ Bobbi says, still peering at herself in the mirror. ‘Would you believe they told me this mascara was waterproof!’
‘What one last thing, Mum?’ Hayley asks, sipping a glass of champagne I handed her.
‘One last thing, then silence about it forever,’ Bobbi says.
‘Okay, let’s hear it,’ I say.
Bobbi walks over and grips my shoulders. ‘This Patrick, he’s the one. He’s your soulmate. I can feel it. That’s it, that’s all I’m going to say.’
‘Oh, great. Well, that’s settled then,’ I say, smiling despite myself.