Jane Linfoot - The Little Wedding Shop by the Sea

For a moment I think Jess is going to have a mother-of-the-bride-breaks-down moment. I’m scouring the velvet sofas and gilded side tables for tissues, when first Sera’s distressed boots, and then her long legs, come into view on the stairs from the studio.

‘Here she is, she can tell you herself.’ Jess gives another breathless squeak.

Sera’s coming down the stairs as if she’s an extra from a zombie movie. As she slides off the bottom step and does a slow motion collapse into the nearest carved armchair I swear her face is several shades paler than her bleached blonde hair.

‘Sera?’

Given that she’s clutching the hem of her shorts, and opening and closing her mouth with no sound coming out, I turn back to Jess.

‘Josie Redman has chosen Seraphina East …’ Jess’s squeak slides to her usual baritone mid-sentence. ‘To design her wedding dress.’

The words take a few seconds to sink in. In my head I’m silently mouthing O-M-G in slow motion, because this is huge. HUGE with the caps lock on. That would be Seraphina East, a.k.a. Sera, the local girl who touted her dress designs round to Jess’s newly opened wedding shop in her cut off shorts when she was fresh out of college. She’s still wearing the ragged shorts, but the rest has moved on a long way. That was around the same time I gave up my proper job in London and came back to move in with Brett, and popped in to ask if Jess would be interested in show casing my wedding cakes. Since then Jess has encouraged, nurtured, and supported both Sera and me all the way. But whereas my cake baking was a sideline I squeezed in alongside Brett and his starry career, Sera threw everything and more into her dress designs.

Sera now has her studio on the top floor, just below my attic room, and the shop has been the exclusive stockist for her collections in the seven years since she came. And now all her hard work, not to mention Jess’s considerable financial backing, is paying off. Because they’re hitting the big time here with paparazzi darling, Josie Redman.

‘Oooooooo …’ I can hear I’m doing that embarrassing howl that comes out all on its own whenever I’m over excited. ‘That’s sooooo amazing Sera …’ And it’s going to be equally amazing for Jess and Brides by the Sea too. Brides from across the country will come flocking here now to get a wedding dress like their favourite celeb. It’s the stuff of dreams. ‘Well done … both of you …’ As I grapple Sera into a hug her cheek is wet with tears.

I’m about to track down a tissue for her when the phone in the next room begins to ring. Jess and I exchange glances.

‘There you go, I bet that’s the first booking coming in now,’ I say, not quite believing it. Josie Redman chooses Seraphina East, and an army of brides follow hot on the trail. ‘Who’d have thought it would be this fast?’

But it is. For the next two hours we field non-stop calls. By the time we turn the phone off every booking for the next six weeks has been taken, and it’s dark in the street outside.

‘We’re going to have to set up another dressing room … not every fitting will transfer into an order …’ Jess is thinking aloud as she lowers herself into the nearest armchair and kicks off her loafers.

Sera’s zombie state is beginning to wear off, because she turns to me. ‘How the hell am I going to do this?’ Her strangled shriek is ten per cent desperation, ninety percent pure panic.

‘We’ll be here to help,’ I promise, hoping for Sera’s sake that we will. Poor Sera is amazing at selling anyone else’s designs, but when it comes to her own she withers.

She lets out a desperate moan. ‘I freeze when I meet customers at the best of times, what am I going to say to a celebrity?’

‘Whatever the gossip columns say about Josie, I’m sure she’s not that much of a diva …’ I begin, realising my mistake too late.

‘What?’ Sera lets out a shriek of horror.

Damn. Sometimes she seems so sheltered from the real world, I wonder if she gets out at all, other than to the beach. ‘I’m sure Josie will turn out to be lovely,’ I say, hoping I’m right.

Jess carries on, apparently oblivious to Sera’s nervous breakdown. ‘So long as we can produce the volume of dresses, Sera, we’ll need a room dedicated to your collection.’

At least we have space. The building rambles over four floors. That’s the whole reason Jess was able to come to my rescue, and offer me my place here in the attic when Brett and I broke up.

Jess gives me a meaningful stare. ‘Be an angel please Poppy, and grab us all a drink.’

Bridal boutiques favour white fizz because it gives you a lift and doesn’t stain. ‘Prosecco?’ I suggest. There’s always a fridge full. As Jess says, bubbly brides are happy brides, and happy brides buy.

‘Hell no, we need something stronger,’ Jess waves me away. ‘Get us some stiff G&Ts, there’s Hendricks in the desk drawer. I’ll have mine supersized, like the cocktails at that place in town, Jaggers.’

Sera and I raise our eye brows at each other. ‘When did you go to Jaggers, Jess?’ I have to ask. It’s strictly for under twenty surfers, and Jess is double that and more. If my voice is high, it’s because I can’t believe this either.

‘Oliver and I often drop in on our terminally single Friday night bar crawls,’ Jess says, as nonchalantly as if she’d been a fag hag all her life. ‘It’s so much more fun going out once you give up trying to pull.’

Sorry about the cliché, but Oliver is gay and in charge of Groomswear. And this is the first I’ve heard about his celibacy vow, or these racy Friday nights. I admit I’ve had my head under the duvet these last six months, but this is ridiculous. If this is her way of taking Sera’s mind off her immediate problems, it’s certainly working.

‘You could come too?’ Jess adds brightly. ‘Much better than hiding away, babysitting in the country, or whatever it is you do. Or working nonstop like Sera.’ Although Jess seems to be overlooking that Sera’s work ethic is turning to gold for both of them.

My Friday evenings at my best friend Cate’s house, helping her look after her dogs and four kids, have become a bit of a ritual for me. I know I’m not ready to start dating again after Brett, but I’m still reeling a bit at being included for a night out with self-confessed ‘terminally single’ people. As for Sera, I suspect she might be married to her job. I side step the invitation by dashing to the fridge for ice and mixers. By the time I get back Jess is already on to the next thing. As I hand her a clinking pint glass, she motions me to sit down.

‘So this is no bad news for you either, Poppy.’ Jess stares at me over the top of her Prada reading specs which are still balanced half way down her nose. Probably left there from when she was scribbling in the appointment book. She might hang out in trendy cocktail bars, and have the latest apps on her phone, but she hasn’t quite got her appointments on screen yet.

‘Sorry?’ There’s no point pretending. My sinking stomach knows exactly what she’s coming to. I just wish she wasn’t.

‘That dress of yours. The one we don’t talk about …’ She swirls the ice in her drink.

I know exactly the dress she means. Of course I do. It’s the dress I bought when Sera had a very exclusive private sample sale in The Studio a few months ago. I popped in for a teensy peep before it all began. And ended up buying the wedding dress of my dreams.

In my defence, I’ve been aching to be a bride my whole life. It goes right back to the time when my besties, Cate and Immie, used to dress me up in net curtains when we were kids, and I’d parade around the garden in my Barbie tiara. That was before we went to infants’ school. I wonder now if my lifelong wedding obsession had something to do with me not having a dad around. But whatever, I’d waited so long to be a bride, no-one could blame me for getting ahead of myself. Brett and I seemed so secure. I had no clue my life was going to come crashing down as it did. One minute I thought my wedding was definitely on the very near horizon, the next the groom was … Well, maybe best not to go there. Enough to say, Brett and I didn’t get married.