Lindsey Kelk - Always the Bridesmaid

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper 2015

Copyright © Lindsey Kelk 2015

Cover illustration © Shutterstock.com

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015

Lindsey Kelk asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007582334

Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780007582341

Version: 2019-07-18

For Janice

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Lindsey Kelk

About the Publisher

My Bridesmaid Journal

Name: Maddie Fraser

Age: Thirty-one but I definitely don’t look it, honest

My bride’s name is: Lauren Hobbs-Miller

My bride is: My alleged best friend

I have known my bride for: 12 years

How we met: We were flatmates at university

My other bridesmaids’ names are: Sarah Hempel, Jessica Hobbs-Miller-Joyce

Three words that describe my bride: Tyrannical control freak Generous, loving, blonde

Three words that describe the groom: Potentially on drugs

The date of the big day is: Too soon for me to lose weight

How I feel about being a bridesmaid: Like I’d rather pull my womb out with a rusty coat hanger and parade up and down Brighton seafront wearing it as a hat Blessed.

Congratulations!

You have been asked to join your bride on this most important journey, one of lasting love and a lifetime of memories. A bridesmaid is not someone who follows her bride down the aisle, but someone stands who beside her in life. Yesterday you may have been a friend, a sister, a cousin, but from today until forever, you are so much more.

This journal allows you to chart every step of your adventure together, from the day your bride bestows this great honour upon you, up until the day you say goodbye to the fiancée she is today and welcome a wife into your life.

Record every moment, write down every feeling and thought and reflection, for this is one of the most special and beautiful privileges in a woman’s life.

You are no longer just the person you were when you woke up today.

You are a bridesmaid.

Today I feel: Exhausted.

Today I am thankful for: Taxis that can find you with an app.

It is an undisputed truth of the modern age that there are now only two kinds of people in the world: people who call and people who text.

Obviously there are a lot of weirdoes knocking around on social media: that girl from your old job who likes everything you put on Facebook, the boy you hung out with during the first week of university and then ignored for three years but who still added you on LinkedIn, and, most worrying of all, anyone who tries to have extended conversations on Twitter direct messages, but , when it comes to genuine, honest to God, help-you-hide-the-body-without-asking-questions best buds in the whole wide world, there are only texters and callers.

My best friend Lauren is a caller. As annoying as I find it, Lauren can’t help but pick up the phone, regardless of what it is she has to say. In my humble texter’s opinion, we don’t need to actually talk about who has been eliminated on Bake Off ; selected gifs and the odd emoji can express all of our emotions quite adequately. But Lauren loves to call, and that is why I knew something was up when she sent a text message asking me and Sarah to meet her for dinner.

‘What do you think she wants?’ Sarah asked as we trotted dutifully down the street, right on time. ‘Why did we have to come out tonight?’

By the time I got on the Tube I’d run through every possible scenario, and had settled on a kidnapping. Instead of finding her in the restaurant, there would be a sinister man with a random scar, stroking his beard at the bar and demanding a million pounds by midnight, otherwise he would start chopping off her fingers and sending them through the post. Maybe he would FedEx them; the post was a bit unreliable.

‘No idea,’ I replied. No need to worry Sarah about the kidnapping until it was confirmed. ‘It’ll be nice to have dinner together, though. I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks.’

Which was a terribly polite way of saying, ‘I haven’t bloody well seen you in weeks, you massive bastard − aren’t you supposed to be one of my best friends?’

‘I’ve been busy,’ she said. Not even an attempt to make up a lie. I’d half expected her to show up with a baby bump, but I was relieved to see she was as rail-thin as ever. Well, not relieved, obviously. No one is ever ‘relieved’ to see their skinny friend is still skinny, are they? And the worst part was, she still had massive boobs. Explain to me how that’s fair. ‘Work’s been shit. I need a new job. Your place is advertising for a PR manager, you know.’

‘Are we?’ I replied, knowing full well that we were.

Sarah unfastened and refastened the top button of her shirt, pulling the collar tight around her throat, muttering to herself.

‘I don’t know why she couldn’t just say let’s get dinner?’ she said, changing the subject again, still burning up about The Message. ‘Why all the drama?’

Because you’d cancel like you have every time for the last month and a half, I replied silently.

‘Because she’s American?’ I suggested out loud.

‘She moved here ten years ago,’ Sarah argued. ‘She does not get to use “because I’m American” as an excuse any more. I’m officially cutting her off.’

‘Maybe she’s moving back,’ I said, hoping it wasn’t true. There had been a lot of talk about her poorly mum and pregnant sister lately. And who would want to spend another miserable summer in the UK when you could be drinking cocktails at your beach house in the Hamptons and bothering your sister’s new baby? ‘She was quite insistent that we had to meet tonight.’

In truth, I was a little bit giddy. I never went out on a week night. Ever. And yes, I know, that sounds sad, but I work a lot and all my best friends are completely coupled up. What’s the point of going out when you could be at home with a bottle of wine, making fajitas and laughing uproariously with your boyfriend/girlfriend/blow-up doll? It’s fine, I get it, I do the same with my significant other, a great big bottle of gin. And yes, we’re very happy together, thank you.