Kate's Wedding by Chrissie Manby Read Free Book Online Page B

making her mother happy and her sister snigger.
    Ian had texted. Are you having fun? he asked.
    While Heidi prepared dress five, Kate responded. Oh, yeah. This is about as much fun as being back at school.
    Kate had told Ian about the cool girls who had made her teenage years a misery. Even over twenty years on, the thought of them could still make her shoulders slump. The past hour in this stupid bridal shop, with Heidi commenting so candidly on her figure and evil looks from the other brides, was having the same effect as an afternoon in the school gym. The confident Kate her work colleagues knew had all but disappeared.
    Kate lifted her arms at Heidi’s instruction while the dress was slipped on over her head.
    ‘OK,’ said Heidi, surveying dress five, ‘your saddlebags are covered, but we’re going to need the crate.’
    The crate.
    Moments later, Kate found herself standing back outside in the salon on the crate in question – just a plain plastic bottle crate – while Heidi and another assistant fussed around the enormous skirt of the Giovanni Lucciani dress like a couple of busy elves. Kate, meanwhile, was having an out-of-body experience. Heidi had laced her in so tightly that she could barely breathe.
    ‘You’re lucky you’ve no back fat to speak of,’ Heidi said when the lacing was done.
    Elaine and Tess were less damning in their praise.
    ‘Oh my God,’ breathed Tess, when she returned from a loo break to see Kate in the final outfit.
    ‘It’s amazing,’ said Elaine.
    Kate, too, was stunned by her reflection. She looked like Cinderella in the last picture in the Penguin fairy-tale book she and Tess had shared as children. At least, from the neck down she did. Her waist was tiny.
    ‘In comparison to the skirt,’ Heidi kindly pointed out.
    ‘The back looks wonderful,’ said Kate’s mother.
    ‘Like I said,’ Heidi chipped in, ‘no back fat.’
    ‘You look like a princess,’ said Tess.
    ‘It’s ridiculous,’ said Kate. ‘You know this dress weighs almost three stone?’
    ‘It’s my favourite,’ said her mother.
    ‘I’m getting married in a register office.’
    ‘I always tell my ladies,’ interrupted Heidi, ‘that no matter where you’re getting married, you want to make sure people know you’re the bride.’
    ‘I don’t think anyone would make a mistake if I wore this frock. It’s much too much for me. Even Lady Gaga couldn’t pull this one off.’
    ‘Oh, Kate!’ Elaine suddenly sobbed. ‘It’s so wonderful!’
    Kate and Tess looked towards their mother. The Kleenex were out and the waterworks were off. Tess wrapped her arms round Elaine, but Kate, stuck on that stupid crate in a dress that weighed three stone, was powerless to move. She didn’t dare.
    ‘Oh, Mum,’ she said. ‘Mum. Please. Please don’t cry. It’s supposed to be a happy occasion.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Elaine. ‘I am happy really. It’s just that I’ve always wanted to see you get married. It means so much to me to know that someone’s going to promise to care for you for the rest of your life. I can end my life in peace. I’ve got cancer,’ she explained to Heidi.
    ‘What?’ said Kate.
    The definitiveness with which their mother announced her diagnosis was a shock for both Kate and her sister. Weren’t they supposed to be waiting for the results of the biopsy? Now Tess burst into tears too.
    ‘I’ve never seen so much crying,’ said Heidi.
    ‘You look like an angel in that dress, my love. You have never looked more beautiful. I think that’s the one,’ Kate’s mother added before making a trumpeting snort into a fistful of tissues.
    ‘It is the one,’ Tess agreed through her tears. ‘Definitely. You’ve got to have it.’
    And that was how Kate came to be the proud owner of a genuine meringue.
    Kate and her family were so busy being emotional that they didn’t notice Diana step out of her changing room in the exact same Giovanni Lucciani dress. Diana’s eyes narrowed as