“I can follow a project through!” says Danny indignantly. “It’s one of my strengths! It’s one of my— Would I be making Becky’s wedding dress otherwise?” He grabs me, as though we’re about to sing a duet. “The most important outfit of her whole life? She believes in me, even if nobody else does. When Becky Bloomwood walks down the aisle at the Plaza Hotel in a Danny Kovitz creation, you won’t be calling me careless then. And when the phones start ringing off their hooks—”

“What?” I say stupidly. “Danny—”

“You’re making Becky’s wedding dress?” Christina turns to me. “I thought you were wearing Richard Tyler.”

“Richard Tyler?” echoes Danny blankly.

“I thought you were wearing Vera Wang,” says Erin, who wandered over to the little scene two minutes ago and has been staring agog ever since.

“I heard you were wearing your mother’s dress,” chips in Lisa.

“I’m making your dress!” says Danny, his eyes wide with shock. “Aren’t I? You promised me, Becky! We had an agreement!”

“The Vera Wang sounds perfect,” says Erin. “You have to have that.”

“I’d go for Richard Tyler,” says Tracy.

“What about the dress your mother was married in, though?” says Lisa. “Wouldn’t that be so romantic?”

“The Vera Wang would be divine,” says Erin determinedly.

“But how can you pass up your own mother’s wedding dress?” demands Lisa. “How can you set aside a whole family tradition like that? Becky, don’t you agree?”

“The point is to look good!” says Erin.

“The point is to be romantic!” retorts Lisa.

“But what about my dress?” comes Danny’s plaintive voice. “What about loyalty to your best friend? What about that, Becky?”

Their voices seem to be drilling into my head, and they’re all staring at me avidly, waiting for an answer… and with no warning I feel myself snap.

“I don’t know, OK?” I cry desperately. “I just… don’t know what I’m going to do!”

Suddenly I feel almost tearful — which is completely ridiculous. I mean, it’s not like I won’t have a dress.

“Becky, I think we need to have a little chat,” says Christina, giving me a shrewd look. “Erin, clear all this up, please, and apologize to Carla, would you? Becky, come with me.”


We go into Christina’s smart beige suede office and she closes the door. She turns round — and for an awful moment I think she’s going to yell at me. But instead she gestures for me to sit down and gives me a long, penetrating look through her tortoiseshell glasses.

“How are you, Becky?”

“I’m fine!”

“You’re fine. I see.” Christina gives a skeptical nod. “What’s going on in your life at the moment?”

“Nothing much,” I say brightly. “You know! Same old same old…”

“Wedding plans going all right?”

“Yes!” I say at once. “Yes! Absolutely no problems there.”

“I see.” Christina is silent for a moment, tapping her teeth with a pen. “You visited a friend in the hospital recently. Who was that?”

“Oh, yes. That was… a friend of Luke’s, actually. Michael. He had a heart attack.”

“That must have been a shock for you.”

For a moment I’m silent.

“Well… yes, I suppose it was,” I say at last, running a finger along the arm of my chair. “Especially for Luke. The two of them have always been really close, but they’d had a falling out, and Luke was already feeling really guilty. Then we got the call about Michael — I mean, if he’d died, Luke never would have been able to…” I break off and rub my face, feeling emotion rising. “And then of course, there’s all this tension between Luke and his mother at the moment, which doesn’t help. She completely used him. In fact, she more than used him, she abused him. He feels utterly betrayed by her. But he won’t talk to me about it.” My voice starts to tremble. “He won’t talk to me about anything at the moment. Not the wedding, not the honeymoon… Not even where we’re going to live! We’re being chucked out of our apartment, and we haven’t found anywhere else to go yet, and I don’t know when we’re even going to start looking…”

To my astonishment a tear starts trickling down the side of my nose. Where did that come from?

“But you’re fine, apart from that,” says Christina.

“Oh, yes!” I brush at my face. “Apart from that, everything’s great!”

“Becky!” Christina shakes her head. “This is no good. I want you to take some vacation days. You’re due some, anyway.”

“I don’t need a vacation!”

“I’d noticed you’ve been tense recently, but I had no idea it was this bad. It was only when Laurel talked to me this morning—”

“Laurel?” I say, taken aback.

“She’s worried too. She told me she thought you’d lost your sparkle. Even Erin has noticed it. She says she told you about a Kate Spade sample sale yesterday, and you barely looked up. This is not the Becky I hired.”

“Are you firing me?” I say dolefully.

“I’m not firing you! I’m worried about you. Becky, that’s some combination of events you just told me about. Your friend… and Luke… and your apartment…”

She reaches for a bottle of mineral water, pours out two glasses, and hands one to me. “And that’s not all. Is it, Becky?”

“What do you mean?” I say apprehensively.

“I think there’s another complication you’re not telling me about. To do with the wedding.” She meets my eyes. “Am I right?”

Oh my God.

How did she find out? I’ve been so careful, I’ve been so—

“Am I right?” repeats Christina gently.

For a few more moments I’m completely motionless. Then, very slowly I nod.

It’s almost a relief to think that the secret’s out.

“How did you find out?” I say, sinking back into my chair.

“Laurel told me.”

“Laurel?” A fresh shock runs through me. “But I never—”

“She said it was obvious. Plus you let a few little things slip out… You know, keeping a secret is never as easy as you might think.”

“I just… can’t believe you know. I haven’t dared tell anybody!” I push my hair back off my hot face. “God knows what you think of me now.”

“Nobody thinks any the worse of you,” says Christina. “Really.”

“I never meant things to get this far.”

“Of course you didn’t! Don’t blame yourself.”

“But it’s all my fault!”

“No it’s not. It’s perfectly normal.”

“Normal?”

“Yes! All brides argue with their mothers over the wedding. You’re not the only one, Becky!”

I stare at her confusedly. What did she just say?

“I can understand the strain it’s been putting you under.” Christina looks at me sympathetically. “Especially if you and your mother have always been close in the past?”

Christina thinks…

Suddenly I realize she’s waiting for an answer.

“Er… yes!” I gulp. “It has been… rather difficult.”

Christina nods, as though I’ve confirmed every suspicion she had. “Becky, I don’t often give you advice, do I?”

“Well… no.”

“But I want you to listen to me on this. I want you to remember, this is your wedding. Not your mother’s. It’s yours and Luke’s, and you only get one shot. So do it the way you want to. Believe me, if you don’t, you’ll regret it.”

“Mmm. The thing is…” I swallow. “It’s not quite that simple—”

“It is that simple. It’s exactly that simple. Becky, it’s your wedding. It’s your wedding.”

Her voice is clear and emphatic and I stare at her, glass halfway to my lips, feeling as though a shaft of light is cutting through the cloud.

It’s my wedding. I’ve never thought of it like that before.

It’s not Mum’s wedding. It’s not Elinor’s wedding. It’s mine.

“It’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting to please your mother too much,” Christina is saying. “It’s a natural, generous instinct. But sometimes you have to put yourself first. When I got married—”

“You were married?” I say in surprise. “I didn’t know that.”

“A long time ago. It didn’t work out. Maybe it didn’t work out because I hated every moment of the wedding. From the processional music to the vows that my mother insisted on writing.” Her hand tenses around a plastic water stirrer. “From the lurid blue cocktails to that tacky, tacky dress…”

“Really? That’s awful!”

“It’s water under the bridge now.” The water stirrer snaps and she gives me a slightly brittle smile. “But just bear my words in mind. It’s your day. Yours and Luke’s. Do it the way you want, and don’t feel guilty about it. And Becky?”

“Yes?”

“Remember, you and your mother are both adults now. So have an adult conversation.” She raises her eyebrows. “You might be surprised at how it turns out.”


Christina is so right.

As I make my way home, I can suddenly see everything clearly. My whole approach to the wedding has changed. I feel full of a fresh, clean determination. This is my wedding. It’s my day. And if I want to get married in New York, then that’s where I’ll get married. If I want to wear a Vera Wang dress, then that’s what I’ll wear. It’s ridiculous to feel guilty about it.

I’ve been putting off talking to Mum for far too long. I mean, what am I expecting her to do, burst into tears? We’re both adults. We’ll have a sensible, mature conversation and I’ll put forward my point of view calmly, and the whole thing will be sorted out, once and for all. God, I feel liberated. I’m going to call her straight away.

I march into the bedroom, dump my bag on the bed, and dial the number.

“Hi, Dad,” I say as he answers. “Is Mum there? There’s something I need to talk to her about. It’s rather important.”

As I glance at my face in the mirror, I feel like a newsreader on NBC, all crisp and cool and in charge.