Unveiling the Bridesmaid Read online

  Hope steeled herself to look in the mirror. It was like looking at a stranger: a girl with huge eyes, emphasised with liquid liner and mascara, hair swept back into a low, messy bun, tendrils hanging around her face. This girl looked as if she belonged on the Upper East Side; she looked ready for anything. This girl was an imposter but maybe, just maybe, she could exist for a night or two.

  The sound of the buzzer brought her back to the room, to the evening ahead, and Hope blinked a couple of times, getting her bearings back, returning to reality. Rather than buzz Gael up she grabbed her bag and slowly, teetering slightly as she adjusted to the height of the shoes, made her way out of the studio and down the stairs into the evening heat.

  Gael took one look at her feet and hailed a cab, much to Hope’s relief. She breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction as she sank into the back seat and swapped the evening humidity for the bliss of air conditioning. She had spent twenty-seven years in London considering air conditioning a seldom-needed luxury—less than a day in the New York summer and she’d changed her tune for ever.

  She didn’t recognise the address Gael gave the cab driver and so sat back, none the wiser about her destination, watching the streets of Manhattan slide slowly past. They were heading west and down, towards the busy tourist hotspots of Times Square and Broadway. She lived barely half an hour’s walk from the lively theatre district and yet had only visited once, quickly defeated by the crowds and the heat. Hope stared out of the cab window at the crowded streets thronged with an eclectic mix of tourists, locals and hustlers—the busiest district of New York City by far.

  The cab made its slow progression along Fifty-First Street until just after the road intersected with Broadway and then pulled up outside a small, dingy-looking theatre. Hope hadn’t been entirely sure what to expect but it wasn’t this down-at-heel-looking place. She pulled the dress down as she got out of the cab, wishing she had worn the black tights, feeling both overexposed and overdressed. Gael took her arm. ‘This way.’ They were the first words he had said to her all evening.

  He ushered her through the wooden swing door into the lobby. It was a study in faded glory: old wooden panelling ornately carved and in need of a good dust, the red carpet faded and threadbare in places. It was the last place she had expected Gael to bring her. He was smart in a pale grey suit, his hair sleeked down, as incongruous a contrast to the tatty surroundings as she was. He handed two tickets to a woman dressed like a nineteen-forties usherette and then led Hope down the corridor into the theatre.

  It was like stepping into another world. The huge chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling gave out a warm, dim glow, bathing the gold-leafed auditorium in flattering lowlights. The seats had been removed from the stalls and instead it was set up cabaret style with round tables for two, four or six taking up the floor space instead. Many tables were full already, their laughing, chattering occupants wearing anything from jeans to cocktail dresses.

  The stage was set up with a microphone and a comfortable-looking leather chair. Nothing else. Steps led up from the floor to the stage.

  Gael led her to a small table with just two chairs near the front, pulling a chair out for her with exaggerated courtesy. ‘Two glasses of Pinot Noir, please,’ he said to the hovering waitress, who was also dressed in nineteen-forties garb. Hope opened her mouth to change the order, she preferred white wine to red, especially on a hot night like this, but she closed it again as the waitress walked away, not caring enough to call the woman back.

  ‘What is this?’ she asked as she took her seat. ‘Are you thinking this will be suitable entertainment for after the wedding meal?’

  ‘What? Oh, no. We’re looking into that later. Right now, this is all about you.’ The wolfish look in his eyes did nothing to reassure her and she took the glass the waitress handed her with a mechanical smile. This wasn’t some kind of comedy improvisation place, was it? Oh, no, what if it was audience participation? She would rather dance in public than try and tell jokes. And she’d probably prefer to strip naked rather than dance. Maybe that was the point.

  Just as she tried to formulate her next question the lights dimmed and one lone spotlight lit up the chair and the microphone. The buzz of conversation quietened as, with an audible scrape and squeak, all chairs turned to face the stage. It remained empty for what was probably less than a minute but felt longer as the anticipation built, the air thick with it. Hope clasped her glass, her stomach knotted. She doubted she was here to see an avant-garde staging of Shakespeare or some minimalist musical.

  Finally, a low drum roll reverberated throughout the room, the low rumble thrumming in her chest as if it were part of her heartbeat, and a woman stepped out onto the stage. She was tall, strikingly dressed in a floor-length black dress, a top hat incongruously perched on her head.

  ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to welcome you to the Hall of Truth tonight. As you know the entertainment is you and the stage is yours. This is where you are able to free yourselves of an unwanted burden. You are welcome to share anything—a secret, something humorous, a sad tale, a confession, a rant, a declaration, anything you like. Here are the rules: what’s said in the Hall of Truth stays in the Hall of Truth unless it’s illegal—there’s no confessor’s bond here, people.’ A nervous laugh at this as people turned in their seats as if searching out any potential villain.

  The blonde Master of Ceremonies smiled as the laugh faded away. ‘No slander, no judgement and—most importantly—no lies. And no singing or dancing. There are no directors here searching out their next star! Oh, and please switch your cell phones off. Anyone caught recording or videoing will be prosecuted and, besides, it’s bad manners. Okay. As is customary on these occasions I’ll start. Anyone who would like to contribute please let a waitress know and you’ll be added to tonight’s set list.’ She took in a deep breath, her rich tones captivating the audience. ‘Tonight I am going to share with you the story of my daughter’s hamster and my parents’ dog and I must warn you that I can’t guarantee that no animals were harmed during the making of this tale.’

  ‘You’ve brought me to a place that tells pet snuff tales? Shame on you,’ Hope whispered and a gleam of amusement flickered on Gael’s face.

  ‘Compared to some of the stories I’ve heard here this is practically fluffy and warm.’

  ‘I bet that’s what the dog said.’ But Hope’s mind was whirling. He’d come here before? More than once. Did he sit here and listen, just as he’d sat to the side and taken photos when he was younger? Or did he join in? What did he have to confess? She couldn’t imagine him telling a funny story.

  ‘Have you done this?’ she whispered as the first audience participant stumbled up onto the stage, pale and visibly nervous as he launched into a tale of wreaking revenge at a school reunion on the bullies who had made his school life a misery. Gael leaned in, his mouth so close to her ear she could feel the warmth of his breath on her bare shoulder. Hope shivered.

  ‘I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid. You heard her. What’s said in the Hall of Truth stays in the Hall of Truth.’ He leaned back and the spot on her shoulder tingled, heat spreading down to the pit of her stomach. Hope drew in a shuddering breath, glancing sideways at Gael. He was concentrating on the stage, his eyes shuttered. Why did he come here to hear strangers speak? And more importantly why had he brought her?

  Hope wouldn’t have thought it possible that so many people would be prepared to stand up and bare their souls to a room of strangers but, as the first hour ticked by, there was no shortage of willing volunteers. There was a pattern, she noticed. Most ascended the steps nervously, even the ones with confident grins showed telltale signs, the way they tugged at their hands or pulled at their hem. But they all, even the woman who confessed to crashing her husband’s car and blaming it on their teenage son, bribing him to take the fall, descended the steps with an air of a weight having been
removed from their shoulders, a burden lessened. It was an appealing thought.

  The red wine was heavier than she cared for and yet the first glass was finished before she noticed and replaced with a second, which also disappeared all too easily. Gael motioned the waitress over to get their glasses topped up again and a wild idea seized Hope. Maybe she too could lessen some of her burdens. True, she didn’t deserve to. But she’d been carrying the guilt around for nine long, long years. Would it hurt to share it? To let this crowd of strangers be her judge and jury.

  Her breath caught in her throat, the very thought of speaking the words she’d buried for so long out loud almost choking her. But as the man on stage finished relating a very funny tale of neighbourhood rivalry taken to extremes her mind was made up and when the waitress came over in response to Gael’s gesture Hope handed her the slip, slumping back in her chair as the waitress nodded.

  What have I done? Her chest was tighter than ever, nausea swirling in her stomach as her throat swelled—her whole body conspiring to make sure she didn’t say anything. She glanced at Gael and saw his eyes were fixed on her. Was that approval she saw in their blue-grey depths? He’d brought her here for this, she realised. Wanted her to expose herself emotionally before she did so physically. He was probably right—posing would be a doddle after this.

  If she went through with it.

  She barely took in the next speaker, her hands clammy and her breath shallow. She swigged the wine as carelessly as if it had been water, needing Dutch courage in the absence of actual courage. She didn’t have to do this; she could get up and walk away. She should get up and walk away. What was stopping her? After all, her sister’s wedding was almost sorted—and if this was the price she had to pay for her career then maybe she needed to reassess her options.

  True, Gael wasn’t making her do this. Just as he wasn’t making her pose for him and yet somehow she was agreeing to do both. He was her puppet master and she was allowing him to pull her strings.

  Her head was buzzing, the noise nearly drowning out every other sound and she barely heard her name called. Just her first name, anonymity guaranteed. She didn’t have to do this...and yet she was stumbling to her feet and heading towards the steps and somehow walking up them, even in the heels from hell, and heading towards the microphone. She grasped it as if it were the only thing keeping her anchored and took in a deep breath.

  The spotlight bathed her in warmth and a golden light and had the added bonus of slightly dazzling her so that she couldn’t make out any faces on the floor below, just an indistinguishable dark grey mass. If she closed her ears to the coughing, throat clearing, shuffling and odd whispers she might be alone.

  ‘Hi. I’m Hope.’ She took a swig of the water someone had thrust in her hand as she had stepped onto the stage, glad of the lubrication on her dry throat. ‘I just want to start by saying that I don’t usually wear heels this high so if I stagger or fall it’s not because I’m drunk but because I have a really bad sense of balance.’ Actually after three glasses of Pinot Noir following a dinner comprising of two Pop-Tarts and a banana she was a little buzzed but, confessional or not, she didn’t see the need to share that with the crowd.

  Hope took another long slow breath and surveyed the grey mass of people. It was now or never. ‘My parents loved to tell me that they named me Hope because I gave them hope. They planned a big family, only things didn’t work out that way until, after four years of disappointment and several miscarriages, I was born. They thought that I was a sign, that I was the beginning of a long line of babies. But I wasn’t.’ She squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment, remembering the desperation and overwhelming need in their voices when they recounted the story of her name to her.

  ‘My childhood was great in many ways. I was loved, we had a nice house in a nice area of London but I knew, I always knew I wasn’t enough. They needed more than me. More children. And so my earliest memories are of my mother crying as she lost another baby. Of tests and hospital appointments and another baby lost. I hated it. I wanted them to stop. No more tears, no more hospitals, no brothers or sisters. Just the three of us but happier. But when I was eight they finally gave me the sister I didn’t want. They called her Faith...’ was that her voice breaking? ‘...because they’d always had faith that she would be born. And although they still didn’t have the long line of children they had dreamed of, now Faith was here they could stop trying. She was enough. She completed them in a way I hadn’t been able to.’

  The room was absolutely still. It was like speaking out into a large void. ‘Looking back, I know it wasn’t that simple. They didn’t love her more than they loved me. But back then all I knew was that she wasn’t told to run along because Mummy was sad or sick or in hospital, her childhood wasn’t spent tiptoeing around grief. She had everything and I...I hated her for it. So I pulled away. Emotionally and physically, spending as much time at friends’ houses as I could. I pushed my parents away again and again when all I really wanted was for them to tell me I mattered—but they had no idea how to deal with me and the longer they gave me space, the angrier I got and the wider the chasm became. Once I hit my mid-teens it was almost irreparable.

  ‘I wasn’t a very good teen. I drank and stayed out late. I wore clothes I knew they’d hate and got piercings they disapproved of. Hung out with people they thought trouble and went to places they forbade me to go. But I wasn’t a fool, I knew my best shot at independence was a good education and I worked hard, my sights set on university in Scotland, a day’s travel away. And still they said nothing, even when I left prospectuses for Aberdeen lying around. I thought they didn’t care.’ She took another sip of water, her throat raw with suppressed tears.

  ‘The summer before I was due to go away they booked a weekend away for my mother’s fiftieth birthday and asked me to look after Faith. You have no idea how much I whinged, finally extorting a huge fee for babysitting my own sister. I was supposed to have her from the Friday till the Monday morning but on the Sunday I called them and told them they had to come home because I had plans.’

  This was the hard bit. True, she had never told anyone what a brat she’d been, how miserable she’d made her family—and herself—but that was small stuff. This, now, was her crime. Her eternal shame. ‘I’d been seeing someone, a boy from school, and his parents had made last-minute plans to spend the Sunday night away. I thought I might be in love with him and I didn’t want to go to university a virgin, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally sleep together—in his house, in a bed with total privacy.

  ‘I called my parents and told them they needed to finish their weekend early. That I would be leaving the house at four and if they weren’t back then Faith would be on her own. It was their choice, I told them, they were responsible for her, not me. And I put the phone down knowing that I had won. I had. Right that moment they were packing their things, their weekend ruined by their own daughter.’ She swallowed, remembering the exact way she had felt at that moment. ‘I knew even then that I was being unfair, I didn’t feel victory or anticipation, just bitterness. At myself for being such a selfish idiot—and at them for allowing me to be. I hadn’t left them much time to get home so I think they were distracted, hurrying. They weren’t speeding and my dad was a really good driver. But somehow he didn’t react in time to the truck that pulled out right in front of him. It was instant, the police said. They probably didn’t feel a thing. Probably.’

  Utter silence.

  ‘I didn’t lose my virginity that night but I did become a grown-up. I had deprived my sister of her parents and so I took on that role. I gave up my dreams of university, gave up any thought of carving out my own life and dedicated myself to raising my sister.’ Hope couldn’t stop the proud smile curving her lips. ‘I think I’ve done okay. I spoiled her a little but she’s a lovely, warm-hearted, sweet girl. And she loves me. But I’ve never told her what I did.
And I don’t know if I ever will. Thank you for listening.’

  * * *

  He only had himself to blame. He’d wanted to know what she was hiding, had wanted her to open up and now she had.

  He should be pleased, Hope had shed a layer of armour, allowed her vulnerability to peek through just as he had planned. It would make her picture all the rawer. So why did he feel manipulative? Voyeuristic in a way he hadn’t felt even as a teen taking secret photos to expose his classmates?

  Because now he knew it all. He knew why she was still a virgin, why she would put her whole life on hold to plan her sister’s wedding, why she put herself last, didn’t allow herself the luxury of living. And Gael didn’t know whether he wanted to hug her and make it better—or pull her to him and kiss her until all she could do was feel.

  The way she looked on that stage was terrifying enough: endless legs, huge eyes, provocative mouth. But the worst part was it wasn’t the way she looked that had him all churned up inside. It was what she said. Who she was. He had never met anyone like her before.

  For the first time in a long time he wasn’t sure he was in control—and hadn’t he sworn that he’d never hand over control to a woman, to another human being ever again? Because in the end they always, always let you down.

  Hope slid into the seat next to him, shaking slightly as the adrenaline faded away. He remembered the feeling well, the relief, the euphoria, the fear. ‘Can we go?’ she asked.