Sophie Kinsella: Shopaholic ties the knot

“Danny?” I say in dismay. “Hey, wake up!”

With a start, Danny sits up and rubs his thin face. His curly hair is rumpled, and his pale blue eyes are even more bloodshot than they were when he answered the door this morning. His skinny frame is clad in an old gray T-shirt and a bony knee is poking out of his ripped jeans, complete with a scab that he got Rollerblading this past weekend. He looks like a ten-year-old with stubble.

“Becky!” he says blearily. “Hi! What are you doing here?”

“This is my apartment. Remember? You were working down here because your electricity fused.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He looks around dazedly. “Right.”

“Are you OK?” I peer at him anxiously. “I got some coffee.”

I hand him a cup and he takes a couple of deep gulps. Then his eyes land on the pile of mail in my hand and for the first time, he seems to wake up.

“Hey, is that British Vogue?”

“Er… yes,” I say, putting it down where he can’t reach it. “So — how’s the dress doing?”

“It’s going great! Totally under control.”

“Can I try it on yet?”

There’s a pause. Danny looks at the mound of gold silk in front of him as though he’s never seen it before in his life.

“Not yet, no,” he says at last.

“But it will be ready in time?”

“Of course! Absolutely.” He puts his foot down and the sewing machine starts whirring busily. “You know what?” he says over the noise. “I could really do with a glass of water.”

“Coming up!”

I hurry into the kitchen, turn on the tap, and wait for the cold to come through. The plumbing in this building is a little bit eccentric, and we’re always on at Mrs. Watts, the owner, to fix it. But she lives miles away in Florida, and doesn’t really seem interested. And other than that, the place is completely wonderful. Our apartment is huge by New York standards, with wooden floors and a fireplace, and enormous floor-to-ceiling windows.

(Of course, Mum and Dad weren’t at all impressed when they came over. First they couldn’t understand why we didn’t live in a house. Then they couldn’t understand why the kitchen was so small. Then they started saying wasn’t it a shame we didn’t have a garden, and did I know that Tom next door had moved into a house with a quarter of an acre? Honestly. If you had a quarter of an acre in New York, someone would just build ten office buildings on it.)

“OK! So how’s it—” I walk back into the living room and break off. The sewing machine has stopped, and Danny’s reading my copy of Vogue.

“Danny!” I wail. “What about my dress!”

“Did you see this?” says Danny, jabbing at the page. “‘Hamish Fargle’s collection demonstrated his customary flair and wit,” he reads aloud. “Give me a break! He has zero talent. Zero. You know, he was at school with me. Totally ripped off one of my ideas—” He looks up at me, eyes narrowed. “Is he stocked at Barneys?”

“Erm… I don’t know,” I lie.

Danny is completely obsessed with being stocked at Barneys. It’s the only thing he wants in the world. And just because I work there as a personal shopper, he seems to think I should be able to arrange meetings with the head buyer.

In fact, I have arranged meetings with the head buyer for him. The first time, he arrived a week late for the appointment and she’d gone to Milan. The second time, he was showing her a jacket and as she tried it on, all the buttons fell off.

Oh God. What was I thinking, asking him to make my dress?

“Danny, just tell me. Is my dress going to be ready?”

There’s a long pause.

“Does it actually have to be ready for today?” says Danny at last. “Like literally today?”

“I’m catching a plane in six hours!” My voice rises to a squeak. “I’ve got to walk down the aisle in less than…” I break off and shake my head. “Look, don’t worry. I’ll wear something else.”

“Something else?” Danny puts down Vogue and stares at me blankly. “What do you mean, something else?”

“Well…”

“Are you firing me?” He looks as though I’ve told him our ten-year marriage is over. “Just because I’ve run a tad over schedule?”

“I’m not firing you! But I mean, I can’t be a bridesmaid without a dress, can I?”

“But what else would you wear?”

“Well…” I twist my fingers awkwardly. “I do have this one little reserve dress in my wardrobe…”

I can’t tell him I’ve actually got three. And two on hold at Barneys.

“By whom?”

“Er… Donna Karan,” I say guiltily.

“Donna Karan?” His voice cracks with betrayal. “You prefer Donna Karan to me?”

“Of course not! But I mean, the seams are actually sewn…”

“Wear my dress.”

“Danny—”

“Wear my dress! Please!” He throws himself down on the floor and walks toward me on his knees. “It’ll be ready. I’ll work all day and all night.”

“We haven’t got all day and all night! We’ve got about… three hours!”

“Then I’ll work all three hours. I’ll do it!”

“You can really make a boned embroidered corset from scratch in three hours?” I say incredulously.

Danny looks abashed. “So… um… we may have to rethink the design very slightly…”

“In what way?”

He drums his fingers for a few moments, then looks up. “Do you have a plain white T-shirt?”

“A T-shirt?” I can’t hide my dismay.

“It’ll be great. I promise!” From outside comes the chugging sound of a van pulling up and Danny glances out of the window. “Hey, did you buy another antique?”

An hour later I stare at myself in the mirror. I’m wearing a full sweeping skirt made of gold silk — topped by my white T-shirt, which is now completely unrecognizable. Danny’s ripped off the sleeves, sewn on sequins, gathered hems, created lines where there were none — and basically turned it into the most fantastic top I’ve ever seen.

“I love it.” I beam at Danny. “I love it! I’ll be the coolest bridesmaid in the world!”

“It’s pretty good, isn’t it?” Danny gives a casual shrug, but I can see he’s pleased with himself.

I take another gulp of my cocktail, draining the glass. “Delicious. Shall we have another one?”

“What was in that?”

“Erm…” I squint vaguely at the bottles lined up in the cocktail cabinet. “I’m not sure.”

It took a while to get the cocktail cabinet up the stairs and into our apartment. To be honest, it’s a bit bigger than I remembered, and I’m not sure it’ll fit into that little alcove behind the sofa where I’d planned to put it. But still, it looks fantastic! It’s standing proudly in the middle of the room, and we’ve already put it to good use. As soon as it arrived, Danny went upstairs and raided his brother Randall’s drinks cupboard, and I got all the booze I could find in the kitchen. We’ve had a margarita each and a gimlet, and my invention called the Bloomwood, which consists of vodka, orange, and M&M’s, which you scoop out with a spoon.

“Give me the top again. I want to pull in that shoulder tighter.”

I peel off the top, hand it to him, and reach for my jumper, not bothering to be modest. I mean, this is Danny. He threads a needle and starts expertly gathering along the hem of the T-shirt. “So, these weird cousin-marrying friends of yours,” he says. “What’s that about?”

“They’re not weird!” I hesitate for a moment. “Well, OK, Tarquin is a tiny bit weird. But Suze isn’t weird at all. She’s my best friend! You’ve met her!”

Danny raises an eyebrow. “So — couldn’t they find anyone else to marry except their own family? Was it like, ‘OK, Mom’s taken… my sister, too fat… the dog… mmm, don’t like the hair.’ ”