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Had she ever been there? On the brink of marriage with all its glorious possibilities and dreams and hopes?
Yes! Once upon a time when she’d been just nineteen, engaged to the boy literally only a few doors away, the boy she had known for ever. He’d been her best friend, her confidant and then, when they’d both turned sixteen, her boyfriend. In the little village where they’d both grown up, deep in the heart of the countryside, they’d simply drifted into sealing a union that had been expected of them by both sets of parents.
Celia knew now that the best thing Martin had ever done had been to break things off but still...it had hurt. She’d smiled at the time, and held her head high until her jaw had ached. She’d assured her parents that it had been a joint decision, that they were both way too young anyway, that they’d rushed into things...and wasn’t it a blessing that they’d seen sense before it was too late?
But she could still remember the tightness in her chest and the sadness that the wedding dress she’d been making, a labour of love because she’d just nailed her sewing course and had been excited to try out her newly qualified skills, would never be used.
It was neatly folded in a bag in a cupboard, a permanent reminder that when it came to giving her heart away, she would only do so with a clear head. A reminder that what you thought was love was all too often disguised as something else and if you got taken in, you ended up with an unused wedding dress gathering cobwebs in a cupboard. For her, the thrill of being engaged and planning for a wedding had papered over the blunt reality, which was that she and Martin had never beenin love.They’d been a couple of kids who had allowed the tide to drift them this way and that.
Martin had found someone else in record time, someone athletic and into all the outdoor pursuits he had loved and which Celia had stoically endured. He had found his soulmate, had even asked Celia to attend his wedding, which she had politely declined. He had moved on. But for her? It didn’t matter how much she told herself that she was in a better place single than she would have been in a marriage that would have ended in bitterness and acrimony. The scales would have fallen from both their eyes and reality would have eventually intruded on their youthful, impossible bubble and they wouldn’t have remained friends, that was for sure! And what if a child had been involved? How tangled wouldthathave been?
But Celia knew that the experience had taken that carefree side of her and curdled it. She was so careful now, so cautious...and Julie’s throwaway question seemed to have brought it all to the surface. Briefly.
‘We’re not talking about me, Julie.’ She smiled stiffly, eager to swivel the focus away from her. ‘So don’t try to change the subject.’
Actually, now that she happened to glance at Julie’s finger, the engagement ring appeared to have been well and truly ditched. When had that happened and how had she failed to notice?
Celia felt an uncharitable spurt of irritation and banked it down.
Yes, Julie’s first marriage had been a disaster. But she had moved on to find someone else, someone she presumably loved enough to accept his marriage proposal, and here she was now, washing her hands of it all in a couple of airily nonchalant sentences. Not a remorseful tear in sight.
‘I’ve worked with many brides-to-be, Julie, and there’s always some nerves beforehand.’
‘I haven’t actually been nervous about getting married.’
‘What does Leandro have to say?’ Celia swerved away from all non-starter chat about her client’s lack of pre-wedding nerves, her refusal to consider the most likely reason for her calling off the marriage at the eleventh hour. ‘He must be...heartbroken.’
Did she care about the now fast-vanishing prospect of her stunning wedding gown getting the coverage she had so hoped for? Maybe propelling them into the big league?
Yes, she did.
But more than that, Celia came from a traditional family. She and her brother both did. Their parents had married young and were still in love decades later. A straightforward life with a straightforward outcome. When she thought of the grief and unhappiness opening up at Julie’s feet, at Leandro’s feet, she felt a wrench of sadness for them both.
How was it that Julie seemed so blithely unaware of the ramifications of her snap decision?
Couldn’t she see what she was casually tossing aside? Didn’t she know how very lucky she was to be with a guy who loved her? That you didn’t get love just to throw it away on an anxious whim? Because you figured that something better might be just around the corner? Didn’t she realise that there were women out there with unused wedding dresses stuck in the back of cupboards, melancholy testament to dreams that had never come true?
‘If you met Leandro,’ Julie said thoughtfully, ‘I’m not sureheartbrokenwould ever be a word you could use to describe how he might feel in a situation like this.’
‘But I’ve never met him.’
‘He’s a very busy man.’
Celia frowned, tempted to pry further but conscious that she had no role to play in Julie’s decision. She wasn’t a counsellor, and it wasn’t her job to try and talk anyone out of anything!
But what a shame and what a waste.
She’d worked with wedding dresses for years. She’d ironically thought how odd it was that from her own abandoned wedding dress, lovingly sewn in anticipation of the big day that never came, had come an absolute love for the intricacies of making wedding dresses.
The attention to detail...the little personal requests some brides-to-be asked to be sewn into bodice tops, under lace...once in the lining...
She had never once felt in the slightest bit envious that all these dresses, made by her and her team, would usher in lives filled with hope and happiness while for her...who knew when her own day would come?
But as she listened to Julie kindly telling her how much she loved the dress, plucking at the expensive fabric and frowning with an expression of mild dismay at the faint mark left by the mug she had rested on it, Celia couldn’t help but feel a wave of self-pity. She had chosen to tread carefully, which meant that she was on her own now as much as she had been when she and Martin had broken up. Being on her own seemed to have become a career choice. And here was Julie, wedding dress already stained and soon to be ditched, tossing aside her chance at happiness with a shrug.
‘You’ll be paid for it, of course,’ her client was expanding now. ‘You’ve done an amazing job and I’m going to recommend you to all my friends. You’ll have so much lovely business, Celia, you’ll be rushed off your feet!’
Celia smiled weakly and gave up on trying to play agony aunt.
