She stares back. “Do I look like I’m kidding? I’ve written the title at the top of the page, Freya”—she taps it with her finger—“and I’ve underlined it. You don’t underline titles at the top of the page unless you’re serious about them. Didn’t you learn anything at school?”
“I think a wedding survival guide is a good idea,” Leo pitches in. “To be honest, I think I could use one, too.”
“This isn’t about you, Leo,” Ruby teases. “This is going to be a personal guide just for Freya. Something for you to focus on during each wedding and keep you distracted.”
“Distracted from the miserable mess of my life.”
“No, you do not have a miserable mess of a life,” Ruby corrects sternly. “Firstly, you’re on a different path to what you expected, that’s all. And secondly, you’re a gardener now. And gardeners have got their shit together. That’s a well-known fact.”
“How do we go about working out this plan, then?” Leo asks curiously.
“Well, we start with getting Freya’s permission to create the Wedding Season survival guide,” Ruby declares, pointing thepen at me. “Without your full support, there’s no point in doing this. You have to be all in.”
I sigh and then take a swig of wine. “I’m in. Why the hell not?”
“That’s my girl.” She grins, before pulling her legs up so she’s sitting cross-legged on the sofa, resting the pad of paper on her knees. “Okay, now that permission is granted, we need to know what the first wedding is. We need details.”
“Okay, the first wedding of the season.” I get my phone out and open my calendar. “It’s Obi and Eva’s on twenty-first May.”
“Of course!” Ruby starts writing. “A perfect start! It’s in London, so not far from home, and Leo and I will be there, too.”
Leo nods at me knowingly. “We can give you moral support.”
“What can your first task be?” Ruby asks, glancing up from her work.
“Task?” I blink at her. “What are you talking about?”
“The task that you’ll be undertaking in order to survive the wedding.”
“How is giving me a task for the wedding going to help me survive it?”
“Because that’s the best way to distract you. You need something to focus on, a challenging activity that you have to complete. What did you expect this survival guide to entail?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I thought it was going to be top tips or something. Pleasant musings, positive sayings to think on, practical things to do to pick me up when I’m down. That sort of thing.”
Ruby rolls her eyes. “You’ve essentially described the book we have in our toilet. Ah! I’ve decided on your first task,” she says, cutting me off before I can protest any further. “For the first wedding of the season, you shall: be the last person on the dance floor.”
Before she starts writing it, Leo says, “Ooh, make it ‘the last person standing.’ I think that sounds better.”
“You are so right,” she agrees, looking at him in wonder.“Nice, Leo! You got that, Freya? Your first task is to be the last person standing.”
“You have to be joking.” I look at them as though they’ve both lost their marbles. “I’m the last person to be the… well, the last person standing! You know it, too. I don’t do dance floors.”
“Oh, excuse you, Miss Priss,” Ruby says, putting on a silly high-pitched voice. “If you don’t do dance floors, I’m afraid you’re going to have to learn then, aren’t you?”
“Don’t write that one down,” I instruct as Ruby completely ignores me and begins scribbling it in her loopy handwriting. “Ruby! There’s no chance I can be the last one standing. Maybe make it ‘the last one sitting.’ That I might be able to pull off.”
“Ooooh. Yes. That sounds super fun,” she says sarcastically, before raising her eyebrows at me. “The whole point of this is that you’re doing something different! Something challenging! You need to feel like you’ve really accomplished something! For Obi and Eva’s wedding, youhaveto be the last one standing, no excuses. No leaving early, no sitting on your own in the corner with a bag of jelly beans and cola cubes—”
“Okay, that was one time, at Lana’s wedding, and that pick ’n’ mix stall was insane.”
“—and no avoiding the dance floor because you’re embarrassed. This will ensure that you have the best time possible. It will help you to throw off those inhibitions and lose yourself in the moment. You won’t have time to let your mind drift, because you’ll be too busy throwing shapes to the sweet-nectar vocals of Jason Derulo!”
“I think Ruby is right,” Leo adds. “Besides, being the last one standing is a new thing for you. Maybe, thanks to this task, dance floors will become your thing,” he says optimistically.
“Yes!” Ruby holds her hand up and high-fives Leo. “Okay, so you will be the last one standing at the first wedding. Now, we’re getting somewhere. Let’s talk about wedding number two.”
“That would be Isabelle’s, the one who I just went on the hen do for in Bath,” I inform them. “Her and Ryan are getting married in Devon, on eighteenth June.”
