Katy Birchall - The It Girl - Don't Tell the Bridesmaid

As soon as we had come through the airport doors and turned the corner to the check-in desk, we were hit by a barrage of shouting and paparazzi camera flashes.

At first I was shocked that they could possibly know which desk to wait for us at, but then I saw that our teacher, Mrs Ginnwell, was standing there holding a big sign that said ‘WOODFIELD CHECK-IN POINT’.

Helena, a paparazzi professional, immediately took it in her stride, guiding me towards Mrs Ginnwell and smiling angelically at the cameras as she swanned past in her wide-brimmed sunhat and billowing summer dress. Marianne clacked along in her heels next to her mum, wearing sunglasses that dwarfed her face, tiny denim shorts and a crisp white shirt, her arms and hands dripping in jewellery. I wish I could look so effortless in front of the national press but, you know, doing something as casual as checking in your luggage becomes much more difficult when you’ve got a hundred flash bulbs going off in your face and people shouting questions at you.

‘Anna, who are you wearing?’ ( Actually, funny story – this T-shirt was originally a dress but Dog ate half of it to punish me when I turned the TV off halfway through Homeward Bound.) ‘Helena, any wedding dilemmas?’ ( Yes, excellent question. Big dilemma, in fact: she is dressing her daughter and her stepdaughter up as giant purple Moomins. ) ‘Marianne, is it true that you and Tom Kyzer are on the rocks?’ ( Well, you obviously don’t have the whole moving-in-together scoop, duhbrain ). ‘Anna, are you worried about causing chaos abroad after your recent disaster at the London Comic-Con event?’

I froze.

The reporter clearly smelt fear: ‘Anna, do you consider the embarrassment you might cause your friends and family when these incidents occur or do you like the attention? How is your boyfriend coping with the pressure . . .?’ He paused for dramatic effect. ‘At HOME?’

All cameras suddenly pointed away from the rest of my family and focused entirely on me.

‘I . . . I . . .’

Suddenly Dad’s arm was round my shoulders, leading me away from the check-in desk and towards the security queue for departures. ‘Here’s your passport,’ he said, placing it in my hand. ‘What have I told you about the paparazzi? Ignore them.’

‘But they were asking about Connor!’ I felt horrible thinking about how Connor would react to being dragged into the latest news story when he wasn’t even here this time.

‘They’re trying to push your buttons – you know that. Don’t let them.’ He gave my shoulder a comforting squeeze as I nodded.

When we got to the queue, the press still swarming around us taking photos, Helena produced a thin box from her oversized handbag that she was now holding out for me.

‘A parting gift,’ she said, smiling. ‘Just a little something.’

‘Thanks, Helena!’ I took it from her nervously as a hush descended on our audience and rippling whispers of, ‘What’s in the box?’ and ‘Make sure you get the shot!’

I undid the ribbon, aware of several lenses focusing on my hands and wishing I had practised an I-love-this-gift expression. I opened the box and peered at the contents. ‘Wow! Great! Is it a fan? That’s . . . handy.’

‘Let me,’ said Helena, and, with a dramatic flourish, she lifted the fan and sharply released it, a cloud of glitter bursting from it into the air and raining down on us.

The crowd gasped and then burst into applause as Helena bowed her head to the flashbulbs in acknowledgement, fanning herself elegantly with my gift and showing me exactly how it’s done. Marianne may have been wearing her sunglasses but I could feel her rolling her eyes behind them.

‘What a wonderful present!’ my mum said excitedly. ‘Very useful for the heat in Rome and it’s so beautiful.’

‘Handmade by a charming geisha in Japan,’ Helena informed her, pointing at the colourful, detailed pattern. ‘I was filming for a few weeks out there once.’

‘Thanks, Helena,’ I said, brushing the glitter off my sleeves.

‘I’ve got you a little something too,’ Mum said, holding out a bag. I reached for it tentatively. Mum has always had a rather odd taste in gifts because they are mostly relics from far corners of the earth, which isn’t surprising considering she’s a well-known travel journalist, but my standard response of ‘great, Mum, this is so unique’ was wearing thin.

I put my hand cautiously inside the bag, ignoring Dad’s eyebrows, which were wriggling away in warning, and pulled out what can only be described as a grubby, jagged bit of rock.

‘Er – great, Mum, this is so unique!’

‘It is for guidance, wisdom and luck,’ she said knowingly. ‘Particularly useful now that you won’t have your phone on you to contact us when you need to. But at least you have this stone.’

I nodded. ‘Brilliant,’ I said, and shoved it in my pocket. ‘That’s great. Right, well, I better be going through, then. Thanks for the . . . uh . . . fan and the rock.’

I hugged them all goodbye and gave a final wave before joining the queue to get through security. Glancing back at my family, who were waving enthusiastically, the press still buzzing around them, I tried to ignore the whispers and pointed looks too, acting as though I didn’t know the person behind me in the queue was taking photos of my back.

‘See you for the wedding!’ Marianne cried over the crowd.

‘And try not to get into any trouble!’ Dad added.

I handed over my boarding pass, turning the corner and out of sight from them all, the sudden quiet making my worries seem all that bit louder in my head. This was Connor’s time to work on his comic and my time to have a sophisticated Italian experience. Without any embarrassing press stories. Either way, I just had to make sure I didn’t get into any trouble in Rome. Easy, right?

I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the bit of rock. ‘I hope you work,’ I said under my breath to it, hoping no one was paying attention to me talking to a stone. I had a feeling I was going to need all the luck I could get.

I spotted Jess choking next to the perfume stand.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked as she coughed and spluttered all over the place.

‘I . . . sprayed . . . the . . . perfume . . . in . . . my . . . mouth.’

‘No, Jess, perfume doesn’t go there,’ I said, offering her the bottle of water I’d just bought. ‘It goes on your wrists.’

She gratefully glugged the water and then put her hands on her hips. ‘No kidding. The nozzle was facing the wrong way when I sprayed it. How come it took you so long to get here? Danny, Stephanie and I have already been round all the shops.’

‘My family gave me presents before I went through security.’

‘Going away presents? That’s so cute. What did they get you?’

‘A fan and a rock. Where are the others?’

Jess looked confused for a moment by the going-away offerings but didn’t comment. She was very used to my weird family by now. ‘Everyone’s in the bookshop. We’ve got to meet Mrs Ginnwell in ten minutes by the information point before going to the gate. I volunteered to wait here for you. So, were you OK with all that?’ she added, jerking her head back towards security.

‘Oh, yeah,’ I sighed. ‘I set off the alarm about ten times coming through the scanner and they couldn’t work out what it was. I thought maybe it was the rock, but they used that handheld beepy thing and it kept going off on my right arm.’