‘Wow.’
‘Gorgeous.’
‘You lookamazing.’
Sasha’s dress was sixties-style simple in cut, in a warm ivory fabric, which set off her slim figure and strawberry-blonde hair and pale skin to perfection.
Fiona dabbed delicately at her eyes with a sparkling white handkerchief. ‘My baby girl,’ she said.
Evie could do with a tissue herself. It wasn’t every day that you saw your best friend in her finished wedding dress for the first time.
‘So, obviously,’ Sasha said, ‘I can’t eat anything for the next ten days.’
‘No, no, no,’ Tiff said. ‘Don’tstopeating. We don’t want a shrunken-bride situation. I don’t want to be taking this dress in next Friday. I want you to stay exactly the same size until then. You wouldn’t believe the number of women who over-shoot on their pre-wedding diets.’
‘Okay.’ Sasha nodded, eyes wide. ‘Bloody hell. One more thing to worry about. I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Lucie said. ‘We’ve all been there. And it’s always perfect in the end.’
‘You will, darling,’ Fiona said.
‘You will.’ Dervla nodded earnestly.
‘Totally,’ Evie said, feeling like a fraud. The other three all had actual being-a-bride-in-a-wedding-dress experience. All Evie knew was hownotto be a bride. In the red knee-length dress she’d worn for her Vegas wedding. Oh, for goodness’ sake. Her mind had wandered to Dan again. She should stop thinking about what had happened during their car journey after the quiz night, and seeing him at Sasha’s wedding and wondering if he would get back together with Hannah, and focus on Sasha. ‘Honestly, Sash, you’ll be fine. You know you will. You always look amazing and you always weigh the same no matter what you eat.’
* * *
A week later, Sasha was saying, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. I shouldn’t have carried on eating normally. Maybe it was that curry at the weekend. And bread. Too much bread. So hard to resist.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Okay, try again.’
Tiff pulled the two halves of the back of the dress in towards the centre, hard, and Sasha squeaked.
‘Are you alright?’ Tiff said.
‘Fine.’ Sasha sounded like she was being strangled.
‘Are you sure?’ Evie asked, worried.
‘Totally fine.’ She was so not fine. She was talking the way Evie’s mum had when she’d had tonsilitis.
‘Sasha, you can’t breathe in for your entire wedding. It’ll ruin the day for you. We’ve got to do something. Tiff, can we take it out a bit?’
‘Well, we really don’t have much time.’
‘Could we add an extra panel or something?’ Evie asked. ‘Like down the sides? Would that be quicker?’
‘But that would ruin my beautiful dress,’ Sasha wailed.
‘Laxatives,’ Tiff said.
It wasn’t the right time for weak jokes, but Evie laughed politely anyway, while Sasha sniffed.
‘I’m not joking,’ Tiff said. ‘It’s a tried-and-tested method.’
‘Great,’ said Sasha, ‘I’ll do that.’
‘What? I really think that’s a bad idea.’ Evie didn’t like being rude to relative strangers, but this was her best friend’swedding.
Tiff shook her head. ‘It always works. Why don’t you take the dress off, now, Sasha, and I’ll get it all packed up for you?’
