Charlotte Butterfield - Crazy Little Thing Called Love

‘That’s why I’m phoning.’ He then reeled off a list of five or six clients of his legal firm, big companies that Leila had heard of, that were offering services that targeted professional single women. A bank that had special mortgage rates for single borrowers, a financial services firm that offered women better premiums on car and life insurance, a brand of wine whose latest advertising campaign focused on friendship and sharing, a sportswear brand that wanted to align itself with empowering women, and so on. ‘Don’t you see Leila,’ he continued, ‘your blog would be the perfect place for these brands to reach out to your women, and these people have cash to spend. Now I can’t be seen to be involved in this in any way, obviously, but if you were to send them a short presentation about you and your site, I promise you they’d be interested.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. They’d pay for ad banners on the site, sponsorship of any more events you have, they may well offer your followers discounts, freebies, incentives, you could run competitions for singles holidays, God Leila, you could do amazing things with it. Why don’t you talk to Dad about it? He does all the marketing for the hotel, and his strategy is sound. He’s set up barters with different companies and now they have advertising logos on their brochures. Or, and here’s an idea,’ his voice had changed from purely business to something verging on excitement, ‘You could run weekend retreats at Mum and Dad’s hotel during the off-peak season – it would help them out in the quieter months, and you could pitch it as a … what do you call it … “finding yourself” short break or something like that. Get the sponsors to pay to have their branding there, every woman pays two or three hundred quid as well, give half to the folks and you’re raking it in.’

‘And then there’s your cut too of course,’ Leila couldn’t help saying. It was so unlike Marcus to phone completely out of the blue just to offer some brotherly advice. Particularly now Lucy was firmly entrenched on the scene.

‘This first session is free. But I will charge to look over any contracts you sign.’

And there was the brother she knew and loved.

Leila stabbed the last phallic-shaped straw into a lurid cocktail in Lucy’s kitchen, hearing the high-pitched shrieks of hilarity through the paper-thin walls. She paused to plaster her smile back on her face before re-entering the dining room.

‘What’s your favourite part of Marcus’s body?’ one of Lucy’s friends from her book club read out to a chorus of girlish giggles.

‘His forearms,’ Lucy replied. ‘He has amazingly strong forearms.’

Leila tried not to blink, and just focused on dividing out the drinks between the eight women, who were in various stages of inebriation, including, much to her complete embarrassment, her own mother, who was swaying glassy-eyed at the end of the table.

Lucy hiccupped after taking a small sip, ‘What’s in this one? It’s lethal!’

‘Um, lots of clear stuff and some blue stuff,’ Leila took a gulp of her own concoction without wincing. She’d passed the point that alcohol had any effect whatsoever. They’d spent the day gluing sequins onto stilettos as one of their hen party activities. Lucy had put Leila in charge of the day and evening, and then proceeded to forward Leila pins or links to exactly what it was she wanted them to be doing. So, early afternoon was glitzing up footwear, and then they had a mixologist come to the house and throw bottles about. Which Leila had to admit was pretty fun – hence her newfound talent for cocktail-making. Lucy had firmly rebuffed the butler in the buff idea, which was just as well as Leila had no intention of seeing a naked man for at least another two-hundred and forty-eight days anyway.

Looking around the table, it was the oddest mix of women she’d ever seen. Apart from her, Tasha and Judy, there were two women from Lucy’s book club, an ex-colleague of Lucy’s who was heavily pregnant so not drinking, another former colleague who was so drunk her eyes were crossed, and a tall, long blonde-haired, very athletic-looking woman who hadn’t spoken to anyone apart from Lucy all afternoon. She also hadn’t joined in any of the activities, instead she’d sat for most of the afternoon and evening with Lucy’s wedding binder on her lap writing down numbers of florists, reception venues and photographers into her diary.

‘Are you getting married soon too?’ Leila turned to her, trying to kick-start conversation.

The woman looked up from the folder, ‘Yes, I’m marrying Lucy’s brother, Nick.’

‘Oh, that’s great. Congratulations.’

‘Thank you.’

The woman put her head down and was scribbling again.

‘I was with Lucy when we went wedding dress shopping and Stephanie was sending you pictures of some, wasn’t she? See any that you liked?’

‘I actually already have my dress, I was engaged before you see, but it didn’t work out. But I love the dress, so have kept it ready for the next one.’

‘Oh.’ Leila thought frantically of what she was meant to say to that. ‘That’s, um, handy.’

‘Same with the bridesmaid dresses. Although one of my cousins has put on loads of weight recently, so she won’t be able to be a bridesmaid any more. Which is a shame because we were close.’

‘Righto. Um, excuse me.’ Leila reached across the table to an upturned sunhat and fished a rolled up piece of paper out. ‘Shall I read the next one?’ She paused before saying, ‘What is Marcus’s favourite position?’ Oh God, why did she have to pick that one out?

‘You have to be diplomatic here don’t you!’ The pregnant ex-colleague laughed.

‘Not on our account, you don’t, pretend your fiancé’s sisters and mother aren’t even here,’ Tasha said with a lot more good humour than she was feeling. ‘There’s nothing we’d like more than to hear about our brother’s exploits in bed.’

‘We can cover our ears if it makes it easier for you to say,’ Leila added.

Lucy’s eyes casted to the left as she screwed up her forehead, looking like she was thinking way too hard about this question for Leila’s liking. ‘Um,’ she said, biting her lower lip, ‘to be honest, we’ve decided to save ourselves for our wedding night.’

Despite ten minutes of solid scrubbing, the wall still had a faint blue tinge to it where Leila had spluttered her cocktail all over it. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said sheepishly after the last of the party, Judy and Tasha, had been dispatched in a taxi, waving merrily and unsteadily, shouting ‘See you in church!’ noisily across the darkened cul de sac.

‘It’s fine,’ Lucy replied in a tone that suggested that it wasn’t. She turned on the main light and started sweeping the table’s detritus into a bin bag.

‘Here, let me, you go on up, you’re the one that needs her beauty sleep ready for the wedding.’

Lucy’s lips pursed into an unattractive pout. ‘Thanks very much!’

‘I didn’t mean like that! You’re getting married! It’s late, I’ll do the rest, honestly, it’s fine, go.’ Leila gave her soon to be sister-in-law a stiff hug and started the impossible task of picking the thousands of penis-shaped confetti out from between the floorboards.

Leila thought that she might as well wait until the dishwasher had finished to put another load in before she left, it’s not as though there was anyone awake at home waiting for her. There was a small bit of wine left in two of the bottles, so Leila splashed them both into a glass and gave it a swirl. Marcus would be horrified. When they were teenagers they used to work in their parents’ hotel in Dartmouth, and she and Tasha used to stow away the dregs from all the bottles they’d served to customers throughout the evening for them and their friends to share later. She’d decant all the whites into one bottle, all the reds into another, completely ignorant of blending grape varieties or vintages, and trudge to the sheltered safety of the local park to drink the stash and voice ill-conceived musings on the universe. She remembered with a smile that Marcus had been appalled that she had mixed a £200 bottle of 1982 Chateau Haut Brion Pessac-Lognan with a rough house Beaujolais, but she had just tipped her plastic cup at him in a mocking toast and downed the lot.