Chapter 27
WE SPEND THIRTY minutes rehearsing the scene. Or, rather, we spend thirty minutes listening to Mum and Aunt Carol spew the lines, trying desperately to memorise them. Poor Adam has a long monologue he needs to nail. Mum won’t let us leave until we get it right.
‘How’s the lighting?’ Aunt Carol asks Tommy as he sets up the tripod. He’d tried to get out of playing the role of Charles by claiming he was needed to film before I helpfully reminded him that Natalia had a tripod on the bus and, once it was set up, Bill could hit record.
‘What does it matter?’ I ask. ‘No one’s ever going to see this. Right?’
Tommy smirks.
‘Tommy, no one is going to see this,’ I say.
He shrugs as Mum and Aunt Carol hover over his shoulder to check the view through the lens. Even if I can keep this video off social media with some hardcore blackmail, I have zero chance of stopping Mum and Aunt Carol from sharing it with everyone they know. Past, present and future.
Mum clucks her tongue. ‘There’s a lot of glare from those windows.’
Aunt Carol nods her agreement. ‘Maybe we can cover them?’
Those windows are beautiful stained-glass windows of angels and saints in vibrant reds, blues and golds. Covering them would be a crime against, well, a crime against everything. It’s like asking if you can hang a curtain over the Eiffel Tower.
‘If there’s too much glare, I guess there’s only one option,’ Gabi says.
‘Soldier on.’ Mum nods. ‘You’re right, Gabi. We can’t let the sun get in the way of this reenactment.’
‘I was going to say give up,’ Gabi mutters. ‘Why are you limping?’ Her sharp eyes turn on me as I hobble away from Aunt Carol before she makes me run through lines again.
‘We went for a run this morning,’ I say. And because of that my entire body feels like I’ve done ten rounds in a boxing ring. I need someone to explain to me how an exercise that relies so heavily on the legs can hurt everything.
Gabi laughs. ‘What’d you do that for? You hate running.’
Because you’re watching everything we do and you won’t hesitate to plead fraud the second you sniff that we’re lying. ‘We run together at home sometimes.’ I try not to roll my eyes. Adam’s already told her this.
‘Really?’ She can’t hide her surprise.
‘Adam, get back outside and wait for your cue,’ Mum orders.
Adam is standing in the doorway illuminated by the sunshine streaming through the stained glass.
I realise he lied about his conversation with Gabi.
She never said anything to him about me and running.
She didn’t even know that was something we apparently did together.
Why would he tell me she’d said that? To punish me for my behaviour at lunch yesterday?
Or just to bask in my failure to keep up with him?
‘Dianne, I really don’t think—’ Adam starts.
‘Outside,’ Mum silences him.
He slinks back through the door. I’m absolutely not swooping in to save him today.
My phone beeps and a message from Hattie lights up the screen.
Hattie: Can you review the salted caramel éclair recipe. The architecture firm next door placed an order for a morning tea and these are top of their list. Felicity’s first attempt didn’t taste like yours
A photo of my handwritten recipe follows. I read over every ingredient and instruction with a pit in my stomach. Did I make a mistake in my handover notes? Everything looks okay. I read it again. Nothing’s missing. Maybe I should call Felicity and talk her through each step.
Hattie: Sorry, she just realised she accidentally used table salt instead of sea salt in the caramel. Crisis averted! We’re all good here
The tension in my shoulders relaxes.
‘Here.’ Mum hands me a red rose. ‘Tuck it behind your ear. It’s a shame we don’t have a veil or a flower crown.’
I roll my eyes and tuck it behind my ear.
‘And put that away.’ She taps my phone. ‘We can’t have any phones in the video or it won’t look authentic.’
‘Nothing about this is authentic so I really don’t think—’ I stop at the look on Mum’s face and pocket my phone.
‘Sabrina still has dirt on her bum,’ Amelia says, giggling.
Mum swoops on me, vigorously swiping at my dress.
‘I can do it,’ I say, jumping out of the way before she can get another swipe in.
‘Tommy, stand here.’ Mum points at the altar and he grumbles last-minute instructions to Bill before he shuffles over.
‘Making him be Charles is weird. He’s my cousin,’ I moan.
‘Nonsense,’ Mum says. ‘It’s not like you actually get married. Alexander interrupts you.’
‘I can play Charles,’ Dad offers.
‘Because almost marrying your dad is so much better than almost marrying your cousin,’ Gabi says.
Mum flies over to Dad and straightens his shirt collar. ‘You’re Lord Hamesley,’ she says. Licking her thumb, she rubs it over a smudge on Dad’s cheek. ‘Were you two playing in the dirt out there?’ Satisfied that Dad’s face is now clean, she claps loudly. ‘Places everyone.’
I loop my arm through Dad’s. Music plays from the phone tucked away in Riley’s lap as she sits in the front pew in her role of wedding guest. Gabi, who is playing my best friend Martha, makes her way down the aisle.
We wait for our cue, which is Mum snapping her fingers from where she directs us all in the pews while also playing the teary-eyed Lady Hamesley, and we follow Gabi. Dad walks with his head held high and shoulders back, nose in the air in the perfect imitation of Lord Hamesley.
I can’t bring myself to look at my cousin waiting for me at the altar because it’s just wrong on many levels, so instead I focus on Aunt Carol, Reese and Amelia huddled together playing the nuns just off to the side of where Gabi now stands.
Aunt Carol’s face is solemn as she channels the abbess’s disapproval of the union.
‘This is good practice for us,’ Dad whispers. ‘But on your actual wedding day, let’s make sure neither of us is covered in dirt.’
My lips twitch. ‘Can we also make sure the groom isn’t my cousin?’
He shakes against me, holding in a laugh as we reach the altar and he hands me to Tommy.
‘Dearly beloved, we come together to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony,’ Uncle Max says and then falls silent.
‘Just move your mouth Max, like you’re talking, and Tommy will add music over it when he edits the video so it’s just like the real episode,’ Mum says. ‘Sabrina, by this point Clementine is doubting her choice to marry Charles. Try and look like you’re not sure if you want to marry him.’
‘So I should look like I don’t want to marry my cousin? I think I can do that.’
Tommy punches me lightly on the arm. ‘Ah come on, I’d be a great husband.’
Rolling my eyes, I look to Natalia seated on Tommy’s side of the pews. Still upset about being passed over for the role of Clementine and relegated to play Charles’s brother, she’s sitting with her arms crossed firmly against her chest. I’d happily trade places with her.
‘Stop messing around,’ Mum snaps. ‘Bill, once this lot refocuses you can send Adam in.’
Bill tips his hat and holds his fist to the door, waiting to tap.
Huffing out identical sighs, Tommy and I face one another.
The door flies open and heavy footsteps race down the aisle. ‘Stop the wedding,’ Adam says, his voice completely deadpan.
‘No,’ Mum barks. ‘Come on Adam, you did theatre in high school. Go back and do it again and add in some feeling. The love of your life is about to marry another man.’
‘Just pretend it’s Sabrina,’ Gabi calls out. ‘I know that’s difficult because the costume department has done a stellar job in transforming her into Clementine, but try your best.’
‘One more smart comment from you, Gabi, and I’ll make you play Clementine,’ Mum says and then she turns to Adam. ‘She has a point though. Imagine that it’s Sabrina about to marry someone else. If you don’t get there in time, you’ll lose her forever. Channel that urgency. I know you can do it.’
Adam looks to me, a deep frown on his face as he tries to imagine me as someone he’s scared to lose.
He turns and disappears behind the door again.
Mum hurries back to her spot in the pew, ordering Tommy to edit all that out.
She goes as far as to threaten to trim his hair while he sleeps if he doesn’t.
I face Tommy again, who now looks nervous that Mum will follow through on her threat, and the door flies open.
‘Stop the wedding,’ Adam says, running down the aisle, all trace of that deadpan voice gone.
Natalia springs to her feet and latches on to Adam, yanking on his arm as he continues forward. He shakes her off and she lunges again, stumbling slightly when he sidesteps her to reach me.
He grips my wrist and turns me to face him. ‘Don’t marry him—’ he steps closer—‘Clementine.’
Tommy grabs the back of Adam’s shirt and pulls him away. ‘Get him out of here,’ he calls to Natalia.
Adam shakes him off, his pleading eyes searching mine. ‘Clementine?’ he whispers with an aching desperation.
A chill races down my spine. Adam really can act.
‘You can’t marry him,’ he says. His thumb brushes the inside of my wrist and I am stilled.
‘You need to leave,’ I say, the words almost catching in my throat at the next sweep of his thumb.
‘I’m not leaving without you. Please, Clementine.’
‘I chose Charles.’
‘You chose wrong.’ He tugs me gently towards him, one palm on the small of my back.
‘Choose me, Clementine. I know I’ve let you down in the past and I can’t promise I won’t let you down in the future, but one thing I can promise is to love you.
’ Soft fingers tilt my chin up. His eyes trail slowly over my face as though he’s memorising every curve, line and freckle before they meet my gaze.
A further tilt of my chin brings our mouths closer. Almost touching, but not quite. His forehead rests against mine and I forget how to breathe.
‘We belong together, Clementine.’ His words tickle my lips.
I press them together, pulse racing at what is to come.
‘You know it, I know it, everyone here knows it.’ His mouth finds mine.
A peck. Timid. Awkward. Passionless. ‘I love you.’ He exhales slowly as he pulls away, a fire raging in his eyes. ‘I love you,’ he says again.
I blink, rendered speechless by the kiss. Scratch that. The non-kiss. For every daydream I’ve had, every thought of devouring his mouth, that, well that peck was the most disappointing thing ever.
‘It’s your line,’ he murmurs, his palm pressing into my back.
Line? I blink again. Oh. I have a line. In our reenactment. So wrapped up in the non-kiss I forgot that I have lines needing to be spoken. And a mother anxiously wringing her hands, about to call for a reshoot.
‘I,’ I croak and then clear my throat because there’s no way I’m subjecting myself to another awkward lip peck. ‘I love you too, Alexander.’
His hand finds mine, our fingers looping together, and he leads me from the altar and from Tommy who is begging me to stay.
‘Cut!’ Mum shouts, bringing her hands together like a clapperboard. ‘That was perfect.’ She descends on us with a dramatic clutching of her heart. ‘You two were born to be Clementine and Alexander.’
My palm feels sweaty against Adam’s. I don’t dare yank it away with everyone watching us.
‘The kiss was a bit meh, don’t you think?’ Gabi says and my stomach sinks. She’s going to start up on all the digs about our relationship again.
‘The kiss in the chapel was very chaste,’ Aunt Carol says, and I have to hope that Gabi is satisfied. ‘It’s when they get back to Alexander’s house that they really kiss. And that kiss was everything.’
‘We better be watching that episode tonight,’ Reese says. ‘I am officially invested in this show now.’
Bill claps and motions to the door. ‘Before we leave, I promised Paul that we’d take a look at the gardens. Follow me, folks.’
The family files out and I free my hand from Adam’s clutches. I go to join the line of Fogertys but Adam steps in front of me, barring my exit from the chapel.