Five Years Later ~ Everyone Loves A Good Wedding …
The sun rose early over Beckleberry on midsummers day, a low-slung rose pink haze streaked with delicate wisps of golden cloud that would melt away as soon as the sun gathered its strength.
Kev the Elvis impersonator carried buckets of creamy roses into the shop for Ruth the florist, taking the chance to smack the rounded cheek of her bottom as she bent double to pick out the most fragrant sweet peas from the delivery that had just arrived. She straightened, swatting affectionately at his hand as he leaned in to place a smacker on her lips. Their romance had taken everyone by surprise, Ruth and Kev most of all. A misplaced New Years eve peck on the cheek that had landed on her lips was all that it had taken for them to see each other in a whole new light, and he’d flourished like one of her freshly watered blooms under her attention. Not that today was their wedding day. All weddings were special of course, but the whole village seemed to be caught up in the romance of today’s ceremony.
Two of their own were coming together at midday in the chapel, and they were all set to make it a day to remember.
‘Baby blue or lavender?’ Jonny stood in his skin tight Calvin Klein budgie-smugglers, his hands on his lean, suntanned hips. Two almost identical suits hung on the doors of the gilt armoire in front of him, both impressive enough to guarantee he’d stand out from the crowd.
‘Lavender,’ Sean said, propped up in bed with an early morning cup of coffee resting on his equally impressive chest. ‘It goes with your eyes.’
Jonny twirled around with a cynical look on his face. ‘I’m not Elizabeth fucking Taylor, Sean, pay attention. This is crucial.’
Sean threw the silver sheet back to reveal his impressive erection. ‘No, Jonny. This is crucial. Get that delightful ass of yours over here.’
Jonny licked his lips, all thoughts of lavender and blue chased from his mind by the sight of something altogether more enticing. ‘Love God,’ he murmured, sidling over to the big baroque bed and beneath the held back covers. Sean laughed softly at the term of endearment, and Jonny caught his breath as the sun glinted off his wedding ring. Jonny hadn’t taken the ring off since the moment Sean slid it into place less than six months after they’d met in that snowy smoking shelter five Christmas eve’s ago. Their wedding had almost raised the roof of the chapel, and they’d remained scandalously happy from that day forward.
Yes. They’d already had their special day. Today belonged to two people they held as close as family in their hearts. And they’d be there centre-stage to help make sure it went with a bang, just as soon as they’d taken care of the love-bomb going off right there in their own bedroom
Marla leaned her back against her garden gate, a china cup of ginger tea cradled in her hands as she breathed in the pure early morning air. She could already feel the warmth of the sun kissing her bare arms as she watched Vinnie mooch around in the flowerbeds for his tennis ball. She didn’t reprimand him. It didn’t matter. The garden of the big old cottage was delightfully ramshackle, and these days Marla didn’t feel quite so hung up on everything being so orderly and white. Hell, she was even wearing red striped wellies with her broderaise-anglais slip. Contentment could do that kind of thing to a girl.
She still couldn’t believe her luck. Buying the rambling cottage on the edge of the village a couple of years back had been a no brainer for them, and it had been the final piece of their jigsaw. For god’s sake, it even had yellow roses rambling around the door. Marla had loved it at first sight, just as Gabe had loved Marla from the moment he’d set eyes on her.
Gabriel Ryan. She glanced up at the low-slung white washed bedroom window frame over the doorway, knowing he was in there, sprawled naked across their crisp cotton sheets. He of the dark gypsy curls and come-to-bed eyes, the man who’d spent the last five years filling her heart and her life to the brim with a depth of love and happiness she hadn’t believed existed outside of romance novels. The summer had been kind to them so far, sprinkling gold dust over his skin, rendering him even more beautiful to Marla’s eyes. And to every other woman’s, too; Marla loved the way he turned heads in every room he entered, and she loved him even more for not even being aware of it.
Vinnie, having finally retrieved his well-chewed tennis ball from the shrubbery, rolled his gangly little frame across the lawn towards her and dropped the ball expectantly on the toe of her wellington boot. A valentine’s gift from Gabe, the leggy black lab pup had quickly wriggled his way into the fabric of Marla and Gabe’s lives. Gabe had presented the fat little puppy in a basket tied with sky blue ribbons, blissfully unaware that Marla would present him with an even more unexpected gift later that very same day.
Tears had filled his expressive dark eyes when she’d told him he was going to be a father.
She rested her cup on the garden wall as the postman ambled down the lane rummaging around in his bag.
‘Postcard for you,’ he grinned, holding it out over the gate. ‘Sounds like Dan’s enjoying himself as usual.’
Marla smiled and shook her head as the postman wiggled his eyebrows and carried on down the lane. She was pretty much used to the nature of village life these days, to the way everyone knew everyone else’s business.
The postcard had found its way to Beckleberry from the other side of the world, a jaunty outline of Australia set against the national flag. Marla smiled, knowing that Gabe would be glad to hear an update on Dan’s big trip to Oz with Sandie, the receptionist from the funeral parlour.
Gabe’s best friend had fallen in lust at first sight with the Australian ex-ballroom dancing champion, and Marla and Gabe had a sneaking suspicion that lust was turning steadily into love. The pair had flown out to Australia a few weeks previously for Sandie to show him around her homeland and introduce him to her folks. Marla flipped the card over.
G’day dudes!
Having a fucking awesome time! Weathers warm, the beers are cold and Sandie is bendy as hell.
Wish you were here. A bit. Not all that much. Too busy shagging.
Dan x
Oh, Sandie says to say Hi and she misses you! Blah blah blah!
Marla laughed. It was typical Dan, flippant with an underscore of affection. Sandie had been a welcome addition to all of their lives with her antipodean sunshine smile and can-do attitude. She’d slid seamlessly into the role of receptionist at Gabe’s new funeral parlour at the far end of Beckleberry High St.
She picked up the teacup and laid a hand on the swell of her belly. At almost five months pregnant her body had well and truly started to bloom, and she finally had that impressive cleavage that she’d always wished for, albeit temporarily. Gabe made it easy to accept the changes to her figure, adoring her in their bed, loving her curves with his hands and his mouth, spooning his body around hers when he slept, his splayed hand protective and warm over her stomach.
Marla walked up the garden path with Vinnie dancing around her heels.
Today was the culmination of a love story, and she had tingles just thinking of how perfect it was going to be. She glanced at her watch as she opened the old wooden front door, counting the hours until she needed to be standing up at the front of the chapel.
The day started early over at Emily and Tom’s, too. As on most other mornings, Adam had crashed into their bedroom a little after five am and burrowed his stout little body between his parents, his sandy hair tickling Tom’s nose as he dozed back off.
Emily stroked his rounded cheek, still baby soft even though he’d turned five at Christmas. He was a strikingly beautiful child, a laugh always on his lips and mischief never far from his mind. Tom instinctively gathered Adam against him as he slept, and Emily stroked her fingertips lightly over his knuckles. Her boys .
Tucking the quilt around them, she slid from the bed and padded across the landing to the nursery, pushing the door ajar to check on ten-month-old Isadora. As dark haired as her mother, the baby slept blissfully on her back, a tiny fist curled around one of the bars of her cot. A small silk and tulle ballerina bridesmaid dress hung on her dresser in anticipation of the day that lay ahead.
Adam’s arrival in their family had taught Tom and Emily many things, one of those things being that they adored being parents and wanted to give Adam a sibling. The tests that had been a cause of such heartache first time around had seemed so much less arduous with a child to love already, and with the help of medical miracles they’d welcomed Isadora into their hearts last autumn.
If Emily had been asked to choose one word to sum up her feelings as she gazed down at her sleeping daughter, it would have been blessed.
On the flip side of the world, Dan looked on as Sandie performed lazy lengths of her parent’s swimming pool. Her folks were out of town for a couple of days, leaving Dan and Sandie alone in the sparkling villa and a fridge full of beers. He glanced at his watch, and a quick calculation told him it was just around breakfast time in Buckleberry. His heart twisted a little, but only a little. He wished the happy couple nothing but good times ahead, but all the same he was glad to be oceans away from England today.
The water rippled as Sandie stepped out of the water, Bond-girl-esque, and his heart twisted back into shape and expanded a little as she stepped out of her wet bikini. He picked up a fresh towel and opened it wide.
‘Come here, baby.’
The bells of the chapel rang out clear and true across the village, calling them all to gather and bear witness. Come, come and see the love.
‘Stop fidgeting with your shirt collar,’ Sean chided Jonny gently as they lounged together in the chapel doorway. ‘Anyone would think you’re nervous.’
Jonny scanned the street outside for cars. ‘It’s alright for you, you just have to sit there and look devastating. I’ve got to conduct the ceremony for two of our best friends. What if I fuck it up?’
‘Jonny. You’re good at everything you do, and you love these people. You won’t fuck up.’ Sean fixed his husband with the look, the one guaranteed to put the brakes on Jonny’s tendency towards hysterics. ‘Now. Big breaths.’
Jonny’s eye’s glittered with laughter as he glanced down at his chest and then back up at Sean. ‘Yeth. And I’m only thicksteen.’
Sean rolled his eyes. ‘The old ones are the best,’ he muttered, letting his fingers linger against Jonny’s adams apple as he straightened his collar properly for him. ‘Look lively. I spy wedding guests.’
By ten to twelve, the chapel was packed, women in summer dresses showing off sun-pinked shoulders, and men in open necked shirts. Informal and relaxed had been the happy couple’s requested dress code, the same approach they’d applied to their choice of decoration for the chapel. Vases of delicate sweet peas, peonies and vintage cream tea-roses filled the deep chapel windowsills, their petals fringed with palest pink.
Gabe and Tom sat in the front row, their heads close together in conversation.
‘You’ve definitely got the ring?’
‘Same place it was last time you checked, bud.’
They both glanced up as Jonny stepped up to the lectern with a discreet nod towards Sean to start the music, and a hush fell as the opening bars of “On Days Like These,” lilted from the sound system. The congregation stood in excited acknowledgment of the appearance of four people in the doorway.
Marla, beautiful in a nude pink silk and lace dress that skimmed her curves, her red hair in lush waves around her shoulders. A simple circlet of burnished gold leaves scattered with diamonds lent her the appearance of a beautiful woodland nymph, an image made all the more earthly by the presence of baby Isadora on her hip.
At the front of the chapel, Gabe caught his breath. He’d loved Marla Jacobs from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her, but never so much as in that moment with the sun framing her face like a halo.
A few steps ahead of her, Emily moved slowly, radiant in floor length cafe-au-lait lace, hand in hand with the proudest five-year-old boy in the land. Adam had a look of concentration on his face, the expression of someone trying hard not to make a mistake. Imperceptibly, Emily squeezed his fingers in reassurance and sent him the most discreet of winks, making him beam and puff his chest out with pride.
Tom stood at the front of the chapel, finding it hard to see his family through the film of tears in his eyes. Emily shone, from her glossy dark set waves to the tips of her toes. He loved this woman, and she loved him back. Nothing else mattered.
They’d danced to the same song on the beach on their wedding night, barefoot and tipsy on local rum. Back then he’d never imagined that their marriage would be such a rollercoaster. Not that he’d have changed anything with the benefit of a crystal ball, except maybe taken care to fasten Emily’s seatbelt a little tighter. He’d almost let her fall. He wouldn’t make that mistake twice in one lifetime.
As the procession reached the front of the chapel, Adam’s eyes flickered to Gabe, who gave him a thumbs up and a nod, the secret signal he’d agreed with the little boy to give his mum and dad his own special surprise.
On Gabe’s nod, Adam lifted his mothers hand formally to his lips and pressed a kiss against the back of it, and then held it out towards Tom, an official handover. Tom swallowed the ball of love in his throat as he accepted his wife’s hand from their child. Adam watched on with round, solemn blue eyes as Tom mirrored his actions, raising Emily’s hand to his lips. He heard Emily’s small intake of breath, and lifted his eyes to hers as his mouth brushed her skin.
The familiar scent of her favourite perfume. The feel of her hand in his. The look in her eyes at that very moment. He wanted to commit every second of the day to memory.
Gabe mussed Adam’s hair in approval for a job well done as he came to sit beside him. The little boy looked up with a gap-toothed grin, and Gabe looked down into Dan’s laughing eyes. His best friend had never breathed a word, but Gabe had long since realised that Adam was his son. He was in no doubt that Tom knew the truth too, and his faith in love was only deepened by the fact that they’d all somehow made their peace with it. The fabric of life wasn’t made up of plain cotton and simple running stitch. It was fine velvet next to the coarsest hessian, stitched together with embroidery silk here and rough twine there. Rough and smooth. Beautiful, unexpected and unique.
He turned and dropped a kiss on Marla’s shoulder as she sat beside him with Isadora on her knees, noticing the way the sun had sprinkled freckles on her fair skin.
As the last notes of the music faded, Tom straightened from kissing Emily’s hand and impulsively drew her against him, his lips lingering on hers.
Happiness soared like a bird in Emily’s chest. If she could have pressed pause right at that moment, she would have, because she knew with complete certainty that she could never be any happier. Had she have had the chance to look at that freeze-framed scene, she’d have seen the reverential way that Tom’s hand cradled her face, his other hand on the base of her back as she arched into him.
As it was, she felt the fleeting perfection of the moment as Tom’s lips moved over hers, his thumb brushing the tear from her cheek.
She wanted to kiss him forever. Everyone else in the place faded. There was just Tom. Tom’s warm hands, Tom’s lips, Tom’s heart beating steady against hers.
And then there was Jonny, coughing dramatically at the lectern.
‘Easy tigers, there’s kids in the room,’ he said, and things swam back into focus as a small laugh rippled around the chapel.
Tom and Emily drew apart a little, their hands still clasped as Jonny welcomed everyone to their vow renewal ceremony.
‘Tom and Emily have written their own words for todays ceremony,’ Jonny said, looking expectantly at Tom, who cleared his throat and reached for a piece of paper from his pocket. He looked down at it for a few seconds in silence, and then gazed up at Emily.
‘Em. Emily. My beautiful, lovely Emily. I’ve spent so long trying to decide what to say to you today. I wrote this speech …’ he shrugged, folding the piece of paper back up and putting it away again. ‘And now it doesn’t seem enough.’
He held both of his wife’s hands in his own.
He shook his head, a look of wonder in his eyes as he gazed at Emily.
‘I don’t know what I did to earn you, and lord knows I’ve been an idiot sometimes, but we’re still here, aren’t we?’ His thumbs stroked over Emily’s knuckles as he spoke in the pin-drop silent room. ‘Everything I’ve learned of love I’ve learned from you. I’ve learned that when you love someone, really love someone, it’s not all hearts and flowers. Sometimes it’s the hardest thing in the world, and the only thing that could be harder is to not love them anymore. So you do. You love them through it all, and afterwards you look at them and you think thank god.’
Emily’s fingers tightened around Tom’s as he carried on speaking.
‘I think thank god I didn’t walk away, because I’d have missed out on all of this, and I’d never have known life could be this good, or that I’d ever get the chance to stand here with you like this again in our lifetime.’
Marla’s eyes slid to Gabe’s profile as she listened to her friends in awe. She knew his features intimately enough that she’d be able to draw him with her eyes closed. And there, at last, after almost a decade of presiding over other people’s weddings, Marla Jacob’s finally got it.
Marriage wasn’t about the wedding day, or the details, or even about the couple stood at the altar. It was about love, that collective, all encompassing, abiding emotion that kept the earth turning and bought wars to an end. About romantic love, about the love between a parent and the child they’d lay down their life for, about the bond between loyal, lifelong friends.
Gabe had asked her to marry him countless times over the years, and every time she’d said an affectionate no. Not because she didn’t love him. She loved him with all of her heart; she just didn’t need a bit of paper to say so.
But sitting there listening to Tom speak, knowing that Gabe wanted to be her husband, she changed. She wanted his ring on her finger, his name after hers. After their babies. She smiled, smoothing a hand over Isadora’s infant curls as Emily started to speak.
‘You said something to me a few years ago, Tom. You said “I don’t know what the future holds, I just want it to hold you.” It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. I knew it and I didn’t tell you at the time, and I’ve always regretted it, so I’m telling you now. For better, for worse, we said in our wedding vows. You’re my better in every way. Better at forgiveness, better at risotto, better at loving. You’re the best man ever, and I’m the luckiest girl.’
Tom smiled, smoothing Emily’s hair behind her ear.
‘Our vows seemed so easy back then, didn’t they?’ he said. ‘Two clueless kids dancing around on a paradise beach saying words that were too big for them. Not anymore. I’ve watched you lose your guts most mornings through two pregnancies, and I’ve watched you nurse our children every time they’re ill. When I say in sickness and in health today, I understand what it means.’ He paused for a moment to gather himself together.
‘For richer for poorer, we said. I thought at the time that it spoke of money … of the bigger house we dreamed of, or the perfect job just over the horizon. I know better now. None of that stuff matters.’ Tom slid the eternity ring onto Emily’s finger beside her wedding ring and then lifted her palm flat over his heart. He didn’t care who heard him, as long as the woman standing in front of him did. ‘You’ve made me a rich man, Emily. In here, I’m a fucking millionaire.’
Jonny wiped the back of his hands over his chiseled cheekbones as Tom tugged his bride-again into the circle of his arms and kissed her. He’d worried over nothing. He’d barely needed to speak, and it was easily the most romantic ceremony he’d ever presided over.
The jubilant peal of wedding bells rang out as Tom turned and beckoned to Adam to join them as they hugged. Gabe handed Isadora over to Emily as the family of four made their way up the aisle to clapping and cheers from their friends and loved ones. They were picture perfect, Tom’s arm slung around Emily’s shoulders, his other hand clasped in Adam’s, the baby on Emily’s hip.
As the guests spilled out into the gardens behind the chapel, they discovered the enchanted tea-party scene that Jonny, Sean, Marla and Gabe had painstakingly created for their friends. The sun’s haze cast an idyllic glow over proceedings as the champagne flowed into vintage cut-crystal flutes and tea was poured into a variety of pretty, mismatched china teacups. Conversation and laughter drifted around the gardens, underscored with melodies picked out by the steel drum duo Jonny had insisted on sourcing because Emily had mentioned it as one of her over-riding memories of their beachside wedding.
‘And suddenly those hours on ebay buying tea-cups feels worth it,’ Jonny said, his hand on Sean’s leg beneath the long, gingham covered trestle table set beneath the oak tree. He’d known the exact bohemian glamour look he’d wanted to create for Emily, and had pulled out all of the stops.
Sean reached out for a sandwich from one of the several piled high cake stands running down the centre of the table. Ruth had set jam jars of wild flowers between the stands, and a deep victoria sponge sat on top of a cream vanity case in the centre, ruby jam and cream oozing between its layers.
‘Peanut butter and jam?’ Sean said, peeling his sandwich apart and peering inside.
Jonny shrugged. ‘Gabe insisted. His favourite, apparently.’
‘He’s full of surprises, that man,’ Sean murmured. They both watched Gabe laugh as he handed champagne glasses to Cecilia and Robert, who looked more loved up than teenagers with his hand resting on her bottom. It was a toss up who fancied Gabe more, Jonny or Sean; they both harboured a healthy dose of lust for the local undertaker.
Across the lawn, Tom and Emily slow-danced beneath a candelabra Jonny had strung from the bough of a tree, lost in their own world.
‘Happy?’ he murmured against her ear.
Emily didn’t have the words to tell him just how happy he made her, so she put all of her emotions into kissing him instead.
‘Me too, beautiful,’ he murmured a few minutes later, his voice thick with love. ‘Me too.’
Gabe walked through the cool, empty chapel in search of Marla. He’d spotted her heading inside a few minutes before, probably to escape the heat of the midsummer sunshine.
‘Marla?’ A perplexed frown furrowed his brow at the answering silence. He walked the length of the aisle, letting out a slow sigh of relief as he caught sight of her sitting out in the small, shady front garden.
‘Too warm?’ he said, handing her the glass of iced water he’d poured for her in the chapel kitchen.
‘Playing hooky for five minutes.’ She smiled as Gabe dropped down alongside her on the grass. Marla leaned her shoulder against the pale grey headstone next to her.
‘They’d have enjoyed today, wouldn’t they?’ she said, nodding towards Dora and Ivan’s headstone. Gabe laughed softly.
‘Dora would have run the show while Ivan ate all of the sandwiches and drank too much champagne.’
Marla laced her fingers with Gabe’s in the quiet garden, both of them thinking of the larger than life elderly couple who’d been so instrumental in all of their lives and love affairs.
Ivan without Dora just hadn’t made any sense, and no one had been that surprised when he’d gone to sleep and not woke up again within four months of losing his wife.
It seemed fitting that their ashes be buried together in the chapel gardens he’d tended so carefully.
Gabe unpinned the corsage from his shirt and laid it at the foot of the stone.
‘To them,’ he said, and Marla loved him most of all in that moment. She untied the corsage from her wrist and laid it beside Gabe’s on the grass.
She traced her fingertip over the outline of a lighthouse etched into the stone beside Dora and Ivan’s names. ‘And to us.’
She turned her body towards Gabe’s, hip to hip, eye to eye.
‘Marry me?’ she said, suddenly breathless.
Gabe’s dark brown eyes filled with gentle humour. He’d asked her so many times that he knew she couldn’t be serious. And then as he watched her face and realised she wasn’t joking, the laughter left his eyes and he reached out a hand to cup her cheek.
‘You mean it?’ he said, smoothing his thumb over her bottom lip. Marla nodded, never taking her eyes from his face, loving the small, incredulous smile that touched his lips. He looked down for a second as he took her words in, his dark lashes sweeping his cheek. He was so incredibly beautiful that he made her heart hurt.
He leaned in and kissed her then, loving her mouth with his own. Gabe tasted of everything she adored, and even now five years down the line and pregnant with his child, he only had to look her way across a crowded room and she melted. He held her heart in his hands, and it felt safer than it ever had in her own. His tongue brushed slow and languid over hers as she stroked her fingers over his sun-warm dark hair, holding him to her.
‘Be my wife, Marla Jacobs,’ he murmured against her lips, his hand sweeping a slow tingle down her spine. ‘Wear my ring. Have my babies. Let me love you forever.’
It was a dizzyingly perfect proposal. Marla closed her eyes as Gabe kissed her again, the sounds of the wedding reception carrying towards them on the breeze.
Caught up in each other, neither of them noticed the workmen unloading new shop signs from a van outside the vacant premises next door.