Chapter Forty-Four
I haven’t been to many weddings, actually no weddings ever, but I’ve decided I’m a fan of the whole crazy ritual.
For the price of me putting on a dress, in this case an emerald-green seventies chiffon maxi dress trimmed with feathers,
I have had six courses of delicious food, listened to the rest of my table share shocking gossip about people I don’t know,
and heard the best man tell inappropriate jokes, much to the hilarity of the bride. Oh, and champagne, lots of champagne, which
is great because you can drink loads of it and still be totally sober.
Rani was right, the dress does fit Jessica perfectly.
When she and Eamon walked into the ballroom after the ceremony, she wore Rani’s prized gown as if it had been made just for her.
Both bride and groom looked filled to the brim with happiness.
Even Cynthia Raven was smiling, although one side of her smile was quite swollen.
A few minutes ago Jessica and Eamon took to the floor to dance to the same band that performed for us the other night, playing “Can’t Help Falling in Love” again, and I found myself thinking of Hal, and then Forrest, and then wondering if this was our song now, and if it was, which one of us it belonged to and in what order?
When the next song began to play, Alex came to ask Rani to dance, and the rest of my table got up to dance too, leaving me alone with the champagne, score.
Pouring myself another glass, I sneezed when the bubbles got up my nose.
Then I heard something unexpected.
“Pssst.” Looking around, I couldn’t see where the hiss came from. “Pssst! Ava!”
Lifting up the tablecloth, I discovered Artie crouched under the table. She seemed to be dressed as a Viking, complete with
two streaks of mud smeared under her eyes and a helmet with cow horns.
“Real Viking helmets didn’t have horns,” I tell her because, you know, history matters to me, today anyway.
“I’m not a Viking anyway,” she says. “I’m a . . . cow warrior.”
“Oh, that’s okay then,” I say, lowering the tablecloth. Then I think for a moment and raise it again. “I’m not sure you should
be here, Artie. This is a kid-free wedding.”
“That’s stupid,” Artie says. “Everyone knows that kids are the best and funnest things about weddings. Anyway, I won’t stay.
I just wanted to look at the dress.” She looks at it from under the other side of the table. “It’s okay, I guess. Bit plain.”
“That dress is the pinnacle of chic and elegance,” I tell her. Artie screws up her nose, inspecting it a second time.
“It could do with a pair of fairy wings,” she says. “And some tinsel.”
“Won’t your dad be looking for you?” I ask. “It’s almost nine o’clock. I’m pretty sure you’re too young to be crashing a wedding.”
“Probably,” Artie confesses, scooting a bit nearer to my side of the table.
“But I haven’t finished invading Paris, and I’m not ready to go to bed yet.
Why do kids have to go to bed. I want to go on a nighttime adventure.
I’m never going to get to see the fairies in the daytime.
They only come out at night. Do you have cake up there? ”
“No, they haven’t cut the cake yet. I think the tradition is to hold back the cake to make us stay longer for all the dancing
and talking.”
“That’s crazy. Everyone knows cake is the best part of a wedding,” Artie says, her tone as heartfelt as I feel about the situation.
Still, one of us had better be the grown-up here, and I suppose it should be me.
“Artie, where is your dad? If he can’t find you, he will be worried.” Pushing my chair back, I stand up and then sit down
again rather abruptly. Turns out I’m a little bit tipsy after all. “Just give me a minute, and then I’m going to take you
back to your father.”
“You’re drunken,” Artie says, with a slow smile. “I did one hundred spins once and fell over right after and Daddy said that’s
what it feels like to be drunken, and I said I never want to be drunken after that, thank you.” A grimy hand emerges from
under the table and pats my knee. “I’ll walk you to your room.”
“I am not drunken,” I tell her. “I just need a moment or two. It’s probably the heat and the . . . pollen.”
“And would you like to share a few words?” Suddenly I look up to find a microphone in my face, held by one of the ushers.
Another one is filming me on his phone. This is bad. This is very bad. “Share your hopes and wishes for Jessica and Eamon,
and give them your advice for a happy marriage.”
“Uh-oh,” a small girl’s voice comes from under the table.
Of course, what I should say is “No thank you. I hardly know the bride and groom, and I have zero experience of what it takes to have a happy marriage.” You’ve probably already realised that is not what is going to happen.
“I would like that very much,” I say, taking the mic and standing up. Artie’s head peers out from under the table, wearing
the tablecloth like a saint. She looks even more worried about this than Rani does, who is weaving her way through tables
and guests in a desperate bid to get to me before I can talk. She’s going to lose this race against time, I can just tell.
“What is love?” I ask the wedding party.
“I’m getting Dad,” Artie says as she scoots out from under the table. “He can’t miss this.”
“Love is . . . what brings us together. It’s a dream . . . kind of like one anyway. A dream within another dream.” Wait, I
think that’s from The Princess Bride. “But love, true love, will always . . . Oh, who are we kidding? Let’s be honest. True love is not a real thing, is it?
The whole idea was made up to trick us—to make us feel that if we didn’t find the perfect match for ourselves, then we had failed.
It’s a trap. To make us settle for Mr. Close Enough.
” Rani presses her hand over her mouth and stares at me, trapped between two large hats and a fascinator.
“I mean, it’s not like in the books, is it?
” I go on for some reason. “When you meet someone and suddenly that’s it, you know you are meant to be with them forever, no questions asked.
Because nothing’s really for forever . .
. we all die in the end.” Oh dear God. I know I should stop talking, but somehow, no matter how much I try, I can’t stop my mouth from opening and letting out the random stream of consciousness that is intent on saying the worst possible thing it can think of at a wedding.
“People change,” I say. “They grow apart, and if that’s the case, what can you really count on?
Should you choose someone reliable, dependable, slightly less human-y, or should you go for a man who’s got the sexiest body and a very lickable . . .”
“Hi, Ava.” Forrest appears at my side. “Would you like me to put that mic down for you?”
I nod vigorously. Forrest takes the mic.
“To the bride and groom!” he says, lifting my empty glass in toast.
“To the bride and groom,” the room repeats back.
Handing the mic back to the very amused ushers, Forrest hooks his arm through mine and guides me out of the ballroom and into
the grand hallway, where Artie is sitting on the bottom step, pulling roses from the garlands and tucking them into her hair.
“Oh my God,” I tell him. “What the hell did I do? Why am I like this?”
“It’s okay,” Forrest says, patting my shoulder. “That speech is only on like a thousand phone videos and will be viral by
tomorrow. Nothing to worry about.”
“Well, that’s it. I’m going to the lab,” I say. “And I’m staying there until this nightmare is over.”
“The wedding?” Forrest asks. “Listen. There’s laughing and clapping. They’ve forgotten your speech already.”
“No, I need to recuse myself from life,” I tell him. “I am not fit for human consumption.”
“No!” Artie protests. “Daddy says I have to go to bed, and I don’t want to go to bed unless you tell me a story, Ava!”
“Artie, what did I tell you?” Forrest tells the little girl, who pulls another rose out of the arrangement. “You can’t use
my friends as a way to procrastinate about sleep!”
Did Forrest just say we are friends, when last night he said he was falling for me? Can you do both? Is that allowed, or are there rules? Both sound kind of perfect. I’m not sure how it fits in the whole licking aspiration, but I like it.
“Anyway, Artie, I don’t know any stories,” I tell her.
“That’s okay,” she says. “Just start talking and something funny and silly is bound to come out.”
Forrest’s shoulders shake with laughter.
“Artie,” he says, trying to be stern. “We can’t force Ava to tell you stories. She’s done enough entertaining for tonight.”
He smiles and says to me, “Look, if you need a safe space, Hal’s in the drawing room, alone.”
Looking towards the drawing room, my shoulders rise and fall in a sigh. I do need to talk to Hal, but not until I know I’m
not going to say something ridiculous. And that might be never.
“Come on then, Artie,” I say, taking her hand. “Let’s see how much of a stupid story I can tell you.”