Lindsey Kelk - Always the Bridesmaid

‘Go on, then,’ I said. I didn’t know if it was a trap or not, but I am not above taking a free drink when it’s offered.

She poured two glasses of champagne into water glasses and pushed one towards with me something resembling a smile. I took it, peeking at the phone in my pocket while she chugged. Shona might tolerate drinking and smoking on the job, but carrying your phone while you were waitressing? She’d replace my champagne with lighter fluid, spark it up and still make me drink it. There was a message from Sarah but it was going to have to wait two minutes until I could escape.

Looking up at my boss, I saw that she was already three-quarters of the way through her Veuve Clicquot. Shona was tall and thin with white-blonde hair that sometimes looked fantastic and sometimes looked as though she needed to shave it off and start again. Today fell somewhere between the two.

‘I don’t think we’re going to need you to serve for the late shift,’ she said, refilling her glass and not refilling mine. ‘I was going to send a couple of the girls home, but why don’t you just knock off early instead.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, utterly relieved.

‘I don’t mean leave,’ she expanded. ‘I just mean you don’t have to waitress. I still need you here to make sure everything runs OK. I’m probably going to go home after this.’

Oh, Shona, you card. It was only ten and I knew full well that we had the venue booked until two a.m.

‘Going somewhere nice?’ I asked through gritted teeth.

‘Maddie, I’m exhausted,’ she announced, rubbing both of her hands over her face. ‘Ever since that slacker Victoria quit, I’ve been doing two people’s jobs. I need a bath, another seven drinks and an early night. You can handle this − I trust you.’

Fighting the urge to charge her with the carving knife resting on the butcher’s block to my left, I pasted on a smile. She was my boss, she was allowed to leave early. Even if I had arrived two hours before her, done all the prep and spent three hours serving at the reception while she sat on her arse in the kitchen drinking herself stupid.

‘Speaking of Victoria—’

‘The slacker.’ Shona nodded.

‘Such a slacker,’ I replied with far too much enthusiasm. ‘Can’t believe she just left like that.’

‘Standard,’ she replied. ‘She was crap anyway.’

For the record, Victoria is neither crap nor a slacker, she’s a very nice lady who happened to marry a man who used to work with us who Shona fancied. Probably best that they’ve both left now, for their own safety.

‘Actually, I meant to ask, is her job still going? Have we hired anyone yet?’

Across the island, Shona lowered her glass from her lips and nursed it in both hands. Very, very slowly, I reached out for the carving knife and placed it in the sink behind me.

‘Victoria was crap,’ she said in a crisp voice, never taking her eyes off me. ‘Compared to me. Compared to most other people in the industry, she was brilliant.’

‘OK.’

I wished I could have recorded that and sent it to Vic. It might have made up for the time Shona emailed the entire office asking them not to eat snacks in front of her because she’d just joined Weight Watchers and we should all support her in her weight-loss journey. It was just about the nicest thing she’d ever said about anyone.

‘But you won’t get that job, Maddie. So don’t embarrass yourself by applying for it.’

For some reason, it seemed as though I had suddenly decided to stop breathing. What?

‘You’re a decent assistant, Maddie, but there’s a lot to learn and a long way to go. You know I’m not an event planner, I’m—’

She cued me to complete the line.

‘An experiential architect,’ I said, trying not to be sick in my mouth.

‘An experiential architect,’ she confirmed. ‘And let’s be honest, you’re not cut out for management, are you? I know I can say that to you without hurting your feelings because we’ve known each other for such a long time.’

Too long, some might say.

‘If you were working for anyone else, I’m not sure they would have been as patient as me,’ she said, raising her glass and sipping. ‘I’m so used to you, it’s like I hardly notice how you let me down me sometimes.’

I didn’t say anything, I just nodded.

‘I mean, you’d have to apply like everyone else, submit your CV, interview with Mr Colton,’ Shona’s eyes sparkled at the very thought. ‘And to be honest, he’s so totally threatened by me, your being my assistant for so long would probably go against you.’

‘It would?’

‘That’s if they even gave you an interview,’ she said, wincing at the very thought. ‘I know everyone likes you, and your job must seem like a lot of fun, but moving up would mean a lot of responsibility. You would literally have to be me.’

I’d have to lose three stone, fuck up my hair and start taking motivational tips from Darth Vader first.

‘Don’t overreach, Maddie. When you shoot for the moon, you end up with your face in the mud.’

I blinked several times and gently reminded my lungs that I needed them to work for me to go on living. They weren’t convinced. It had been a bloody long day.

‘I thought it was reach for the moon and you might land amongst the stars?’ I said. ‘Isn’t that the saying?’

‘To be in the stars, you’ve got to be a star.’ Shona gave me a sharp, kindly look. ‘Do you feel like a star, Maddie?’

I looked down at my slightly too-small-across-the-bust shirt, knee-length black skirt and nana-approved shoes. I did not feel like a star. I felt like a girl at the end of year nine who has grown out of her school uniform but her mum doesn’t want to buy her a new one until September.

‘Do you know what −’ she slipped off her stool in her three-inch black patent heels and sleek grey dress and knocked back the dregs of her drink without so much as a champs shiver − ‘why don’t you take the rest of the night off? No point in having an assistant around if her head’s not in the game anyway, is there? I’d only spend all night worrying and double-checking.’

I wasn’t sure how I’d managed to be so thoroughly insulted and abused but still get away with an early finish, so I kept my mouth shut and my eyes down. Shona rounded the kitchen island and patted me on the shoulder.

‘Go home and think about what you’re suggesting,’ she said as I flinched. ‘Ask yourself if you really want to put yourself through it. I can’t guarantee that your job will still be waiting for you if you decide you want to play at being me and it all goes wrong.’

‘That’s not—’ I started to explain but she cut me off with a sad shrug.

‘It’s just not who you are, Maddie,’ she said with a sympathetic smile. ‘You’re an assistant. You’re good at that. Mostly. Don’t rock the boat.’

Left alone in the kitchen clutching the bottle of champagne, there was nothing for me to do except storm back outside into the gardens. The party was in full flow inside, big picture windows lit up with flashing lights and silhouettes of people much happier than I was. Or at least more drunk than me. Pouting, I considered the champagne and decided it was churlish to waste it just because I didn’t want it. Besides, nothing said thirty-one and going nowhere better than binge-drinking alone.

Staring blindly into the party, I was vaguely aware of a vibration against my right thigh. Phone. It was my phone.

‘Oh no, Sarah,’ I remembered, throwing myself down underneath a tree like a fifteen-year-old with a bottle of White Lightning. ‘ You home? ’

This was followed by a sad-face emoji and a gun. And that was followed by two Martini glasses and a dancing girl. The phone rattled in my hand as I tried to decipher the pictograms while swigging champagne out of the bottle. Class act all the way.