“Well hello, Ms Micawber, it is good of you to grace us with your presence,” she said. “But if I could draw your attention to the clock over the door it is now nine fifteen am. If this is your idea of coming in early, I would hate to see you come in late. And may I also point out that you seem to have your skirt on backwards, your tights are laddered and there is a suspicious stain on your shirt.” Edie summed up.
She didn't mention the call she'd made to HR fifteen minutes before.
“Oh God, I am so sorry I’m late!” gasped a red-faced Rachel. A drop of sweat traced a path down her cheek.
“Timmy was sick in the night, and by the time we got him resettled and ourselves back to bed I was so exhausted I missed the alarm,” she stopped to gulp in more air.
“And then Rob gave me a lift to the station but we got a flat,” Rachel peered down at her shirt and made some vague rubbing motion over her left breast, smearing the stain into a bigger circle.
“I think that might be oil or grease from when I was trying to stop Timmy from lifting the spare tyre by himself. He is such a sweetheart, I can’t wait until the wedding and then I’ll be his stepmum properly.”
Edie could feel her eyes beginning to roll back in her head from boredom. It was too early to have to listen to Rachel’s witterings about her allegedly perfect fiancé Rob and his kid Timmy. Actually there was never a good time to listen to her. Edie knew more than she needed to about poor Timmy’s health issues and how his mother had rejected him at birth.
“Rachel," she said sharply. “Enough of the family spiel, we are behind enough already without a rehash of the touching family bonding experience I’m sure you all shared. Pull yourself together and when you have you can tell me where you are with the McCartney-Mills case.”
Edie clicked her Dictaphone back on.
“Half the pension, five thousand pounds a month maintenance and the London flat,” she carried on as if Rachel’s entrance had not happened at all.
Edie pinched her nose as a dull throbbing headache, probably caused by her interrupted night’s sleep, hit her.
And it was still only lunchtime.
She stretched out her arms, laced her fingers and pulled, loosening herself up.
At least today was Friday; she could have a small lie in tomorrow and then she would have the whole weekend. Two days where she could get some work finished uninterrupted by colleagues or clients, two days without Rachel's snivelling.
But what about ghosts? An inner Edie whispered.
There was no such thing as ghosts; last night had been a very vivid and detailed dream, she told herself.
She was obviously fixating on weddings because Mel’s was coming up in a fortnight. Why had she ever agreed to be bridesmaid, sorry no, make that maid of honour in the first place? It was only due to the length of time that she had known Mel that had made her say yes. And when had maid of honour become such a big thing? She shuddered when she thought of it. Not only would she have to sit through a wedding, she was actually having to take part in one as a member of the wedding party. It was enough to make her break out in a rash.
Yes, it was the stress from the wedding that was getting to her. That was probably why she'd dreamt of Jessica. Really it was funny when she thought about it, how her subconscious was playing tricks on her. And everyone knew you shouldn't read into dreams.
Then a memory tickled the back of her mind and as it poked a bit harder at her, a black cloud of dread appeared on her horizon, it loomed and crept closer. It was something to do with the wedding… the clouds gathered into a storm and closed in. There was a sinking feeling in her stomach, her recently stretched shoulders tightened.
What was it?
And simultaneously at the exact point she could put a name to her dread, a calendar reminder on her computer bleeped and named it for her.
Mel’s Hen Weekend – 1 day
The hen weekend.
Her vision of a blessed free weekend was winked out in the flip of a binary switch, the production of a calendar reminder. This time tomorrow she would be in the midst of the most hellish endurance sport known to womankind… the hen party. And as maid of honour there was no way she could miss it or even leave early. She was in for the duration, no time off for good behaviour.
And even she wouldn't back out and blame work. She might hate weddings but she really did love Mel. She owed her for making her teen years at least partly bearable. For giving her a refuge from the coldness at home.
But Edie knew that every one of the other hens were card-carrying members of the ‘happily ever after’ clan.
Her phone rang, thankfully distracting her from the need to think any further about the hen night. She lunged for it without checking the caller ID.
“Edie Dickens,” she answered.
“Edie! It’s a disaster!” a voice squealed out of the earpiece.
She should've checked. Edie frowned as she moved the earpiece further away from her ear.
“Hi Mel,” she said, “What is it this time? The caterers have run out of pink icing? Barry has run off with the best man?”
And of course the other point of being maid of honour and best friend to the bride was that you were supposed to be available to calm down any nerves and last minute panics. It was a bit of a stretch because all the advice Edie had was to tell her to cancel the whole thing, run very fast in the opposite direction and use the money for something more sensible… like taking a course in underwater basket weaving.
“No! As if! Although now you say that I think I’ll just give the caterers a quick ring after we’ve chatted… just in case. God wouldn’t it be awful if they didn’t have pink icing for the cupcake cake? It would blow the entire colour scheme!”
Edie looked upwards in disgust. This was why she didn’t do weddings. And to think she wouldn’t even have Jessica to take the piss out of it with her.
Jessica.
She hadn’t really visited last night had she? She couldn’t have done. All that funny stuff about contracts and loving unconditionally… it was a load of bunkum obviously drawn from some weird and wonderful part of her mind and mixed with dodgy meat.
“Anyway what I phoned about is my bloody parents,” Mel had obviously finished worrying about the caterers.
“What’s up with Maggie and Doug?”
Mel’s parents were the only married couple that disproved Edie's theory. They had been together for thirty-nine years and even though Doug was a workaholic surgeon and was away working more than at home, they would be together for thirty-nine years more. They were safe and solid and completely unlike her own parents. When she was a teenager she used to wish they’d adopt her, that she could be part of their normal family. In fact she'd spent almost all her time round at their house. It was more of a home than the one she'd shared with her mum.
“They are acting like five-year-olds. They are squabbling in low, angry voices and whenever I ask them what’s wrong they both clam up and say there is nothing to worry about. You don’t think there is a problem with paying for it all, do you? Maybe they forgot to pay the deposit on the golf club? Oh God, I hope Dad isn’t going to be completely inappropriate during the speeches.”
Edie sighed. It was nothing startling then, no world-shattering event, Mel just needing to vent to the one person who had to listen. Her maid of honour.
“I’m sure your parents are fine,” Edie spoke absently as she opened her emails at the same time. “Doug probably brought up some surgical procedure at one of their charity dinners or something and put everyone off their scallops.”
“Yeah. Of course. You are so right Edie. I don’t know where my