Page 40 of A Second Chance Summer in Dublin
I can’t help but laugh as I trudge behind them as they bound up the stairs. I hear the deafening squeals and a fewfuck a ducksbefore I get into the kitchen. It’s quite the sight. The four of them are huddled in a circle, like a rugby scrum. All their dresses are now finished and ready to go.
‘Careful of Kathleen’s dress. The brooch is delicate,’ I have to warn them.
‘Oh, yeah!’ Belinda moves back, ‘Oh, Grace, she’s gorgeous. I love it!’
‘She looks like a little Oscar!’ Denise observes.
‘Ya do! Then again we could have put ya in a plastic bin liner and, well, you’d still be a total ride.’ Amanda guffaws.
Kathleen, beaming, holds out the pleated skirt and swishes it around her bronzed legs.
I am shocked to feel a lump forming in my throat. ‘C-can I get you to slip out of your dress, Kathleen?’ I’m feeling more than a little emotional that I will never see these fabulous women again after today, except on Belinda’s actual wedding day. I always drop by the place where my bride is getting ready, for final checks. I turn my back for a second, overwhelmed. They don’t notice me as they’re still chattering and laughing. Pull yourself together, Grace, I think. I reach for my phone for some background music. ‘Sign of the Times’ from Harry Styles is playing, and I hit speaker.
‘So guess who I saw this morning? Only Daniella,’ Kathleen says over the laughter, and it stops abruptly. Silence falls. I do a double take. Kathleen turns her back to me as I carefully unzip her gold dress.
‘Shurrupayerface! Where?’ Belinda does a bouncy sidestep in front of Kathleen, in her soft-foam loafers.
‘I was out at Peter R.’s house, he wanted me to see the magnificent basement he’s just finishing, and there she was .?.?. sauntering on down Fitzwilliam Square towards me.’ Kathleen is holding court in the middle of them.
Amanda pokes her. ‘Did he see her?’
Kathleen rubs her arm. ‘No, he’d gone down into the basement to let the electrician in.’
‘Thank God for that,’ Denise says, makes the sign of the cross.
‘As though she didn’t nearly destroy him! Bitch!’ Belinda pulls out a chair, leans both hands on the back of it, as though she’s a detective in an interrogation room.
‘Cow,’ Amanda hisses.
‘Tell us you didn’t speak to her?’ Denise gasps.
‘I did.’ Shamelessly, Kathleen steps out of the dress in her flawless, semi-naked body.
‘Em, you can go behind the .?.?.’ I trail off; no one is remotely listening to me.
‘What did you say to her?’ Denise draws in her breath sharply.
Amanda hits Denise on the shoulder. ‘Let her tell us!’
‘I was pleasant. Cold, but pleasant. She asked how long I was home for. I told her I was home for Belinda’s wedding, she—’
‘What’s she look like now?’ Amanda butts in, propping her hands on her hips.
‘The same. Hasn’t grown horns if that’s what you mean.’ Kathleen shrugs again. ‘That was it. She said to wish you a great day, B, stuffed her earbuds back in and walked off.’
I’ve no idea what they are talking about as I eye up the business cards I designed on the table; I got them printed at Terenure Office Supplies for little or nothing. If I have any chance of keeping this business going, I am absolutely relying on these women to spread the good word.
‘He saw her, ya know, in the Omniplex in Rathmines months ago with some fella,’ Kathleen says.
‘Oh, we know,’ Amanda says.
‘He’s far too nice. We told him he should have blanked her.’ Denise looks indignant.
‘Instead he went over, all alone, with his popcorn and Coke, to say hello and even introduced himself to the man she was with!’ Belinda rolls her eyes, turns the chair around now to sit down hard into it.
‘He did the right thing. You all need to let the hate go. He loved her. He adored the ground she walked on, I’ve never seen anyone so broken-hearted as when she dumped him .?.?. I was there, remember, in that noodle place he loved? She just fell out of love with him, it happens.’ Kathleen is still half naked as I go about my business of gathering all the dress bags and hooking them back onto the rail.
‘He was good enough for her for ten years!’ Belinda explodes, and although I’ve still no idea what they’re talking about, I’m glued to the conversation now.
