The One Before the One by Katy Regan Read Free Book Online Page B

relationship? I thought I might have made a little more impact than that.
    ‘Can I ask you a question, then?’
    ‘Fire away,’ I say, forcing a smile.
    ‘Was I right?’
    I scour the menu, pretending to be making vital decisions between a burrito and a taco.
    ‘Right about what?’
    ‘The dress.’ She puts the menu down now and folds her slim, tanned arms. ‘The wedding dress? Look, I know it’s none of my business but I think the reason you were wearingyour wedding dress when I turned up and that you were drunk …’
    I wince at the drunk bit.
    ‘… and sh-mok-ing …’
    ‘Now you’re just rubbing it in.’
    ‘… was because you were upset about Martin, you know, and the fact –’ she cocks her head to the side sympathetically, which makes me feel even more terrible – ‘the wedding didn’t happen?’
    ‘If only it were that simple,’ I say, in a you-wouldn’t-understand-you’re-only-seventeen kind of a way.
    But clearly she does understand, because then she says, ‘Caroline. How many times have you had that dress on?’
    ‘Why? What’s it to you?’
    ‘Come on, I just wanna know. How many times have you had it on in, say, the past six months?
    I don’t know how the wedding dress thing happened, it just did, a self-indulgent little ritual that got out of control. It was a bit like how some people feel the need to get all their hair hacked off when a relationship ends, or go out and get drunk.
    That dress was gorgeous, too, a vintage-style gown with silk sleeves sliced to the waist and a four foot train. I pictured myself walking down the aisle, smiling and radiant on my wedding day, arm in arm with Dad, who, for just that one day, would be there for me. Just
me.
I would be a success story. Because someone wanted me and loved me enough to marry me.
    But, in the end, that dress, which was supposed to represent My Future, just smells faintly of cigarette smoke and regret and sits at the top of my wardrobe only to be brought out after another romance bites the dust, so I can wallow in could-have-beens.
    Of course, Lexi’s right; the first time it came out was two months after Martin and I finished, which was one month after the wedding that never happened, which, like I say, was almost a year now and I’m still wracked with guilt …
    ‘Hello?’ Lexi says. She’s got her ‘computer generated’ voice on. ‘Calling Caroline Steele to planet Earth. Calling Caroline Marie Steele—’
    ‘Three times, okay? I’ve had the dress on three times.’
    She raises an eyebrow.
    ‘Okay, possibly five. And, yes, if you must know, I did once put it on and get drunk and listen to Pat Benitar because I was upset about Martin – but that wasn’t really why I had it on when you arrived.’
    ‘Right, got yer,’ says Lexi. ‘So who were you crying about, then?’
    Who was I crying about? It’s hard to tell. Since Martin and the first outing of the dress, there’s been a wake of casualties: Nathan – a Kiwi I met on a client do who I fancied like mad but who then asked me if I wanted to come and visit his mum in New Zealand
three
weeks after I started seeing him. I made a sharp exit in the opposite direction. There was Mark – I had hopes for him, could have really fallen for his green eyes and penchant for obscure French films, but then I realized he was just pretentious. In the end, I could no longer tolerate him calling me Carol-eeen (if he had actually been French that would have been fine, but he wasn’t, he was from Walsall). And of course there was Garf, lovely Garf, who I dumped at his sister’s wedding, which was held at Walthamstow Dogs Track (not that his family’s love of dog racing was a deal-breaker or anything). He was the sweetest of the lot and he could have really loved me, but I couldn’t love him, probably because I was already falling for someone else by then, I just didn’t know it yet.
    So, a pattern emerged. Every time a relationship ended, Iwould find myself getting