Erin Lawless - The One with All the Bridesmaids - A hilarious, feel-good romantic comedy

‘Is everything okay?’ Daisy questioned her as they queued outside the studio door. ‘You seem distracted lately.’

Sarah gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Funny, that choice of word. I’ve actually been in a bit of trouble at work for just that. Being distracted. Making stupid mistakes.’ She sighed.

‘Shit, hun, I’m sorry.’

‘No, no. You’re right. They’re right. I have been distracted. I’ve been … arguing with Cole a bit recently. And I’m not sleeping well.’

‘What are you guys arguing about?’ Daisy pressed.

Sarah’s gaze slid away. ‘Oh, you know. Just domestic stuff. Boring. Nothing worth talking about.’

‘Oh. Well, let me know if I can do anything, hun.’ Daisy was genuinely very fond of Sarah. They were both Johnny-come-latelies, in a way, and Sarah had a sweet, unassuming way about her. They’d all written her off, back when she started dating Cole – pegged her as one of the fangirl types he normally went for that would never see more than one of your birthdays, or more than one Christmas drinks. She’d surprised them all; Cole probably most of all.

‘Anyway,’ Daisy continued, as they made their way into the flood-lit studio and began unfurling their yoga mats. Their instructor waved at them from the corner, where she was plugging her iPod into the speaker system. Daisy clocked her gym tee – NAMASTE … IN BED! it proclaimed – love it! She had to get that one … ‘I’m sure you couldn’t have managed to do something terribly disruptive at work.’ Sarah’s job as an executive’s PA at a stiff, corporate FTSE company was infamously tedious.

A smile finally twitched at Sarah’s lips. ‘Well. No. But the straw that finally broke HR’s back was the other day when I accidentally ordered 200,000 jiffy bags from the stationery supplier instead of two hundred.’

Daisy cracked up laughing. ‘You monster.’

Sarah gave in and laughed too. ‘I think they might still decide to take it out of my pay.’

‘In which case I guess you’ll be setting up a side-business selling padded envelopes, then!’

‘It’s nice to have a Plan B,’ Sarah giggled, sliding into a warm-up stretch. ‘I can call it Sarah’s Stationery Staples.’

‘So long as the stationery staple you’re after is a jiffy bag.’

Sarah laughed again, before she dropped into Flowering Lotus. ‘That can be in the small print.’

‘I think this is beyond the call of duty,’ Cleo hissed under her breath so the masses around them didn’t hear. ‘BENEDICT. STOP THAT. I mean, you got a nice day out and a cream tea. This is – AIMEE, BACK IN LINE – this is hardly proportionate. DAVID, GET YOUR FINGERS OUT OF THERE.’

‘Hey, you agreed, any favour,’ Gray countered. ‘BENEDICT. MISS ADKINS SAID TO STOP THAT. And if you’re good, I’ll see if I can find you a teacake.’

Cleo was near certain that teaching was going to put her off having kids of her own. Okay, fair enough, seventy hyped-up thirteen-year-olds three hours from home were not going to be the best example, but still. She was exhausted and the whole weekend event had barely started. She hated doing field trips. As a maths teacher they weren’t something she had had all that much to do with since her teacher training. But, she conceded grudgingly, she had told Gray ‘anything’ … (and she’d never been to the Black Country Museum before so, well, there was that.)

Gray momentarily dipped back to herd some wayward tweens back into their crocodile. The parent ‘helper’ who was meant to be watching the rear of the line was instead watching YouTube on her phone (earphones in and everything). The two older, cannier teachers seemed to have split the group just so that Gray and Cleo got the trouble-makers (the dicks).

‘What time do thirteen-year-olds go to bed these days?’ Cleo asked Gray as he returned to her side, looking as decidedly frazzled as she felt, his hair sticking up around his normally impeccable parting. ‘BENEDICT. SERIOUSLY. LESS HORSEPLAY, MORE WALKING.’ Cleo just about stopped herself from clapping her hands crossly (she’d sworn to herself she’d never be the sort of teacher that claps at children, but she hadn’t known then what she knows now).

He shot her a conciliatory smile. ‘Chin up. Only five hours of scintillating Industrial Revolution fun to get through before dinner.’ He just about managed to avoid tripping over Aimee, who had once again stepped out of line in order to take a selfie with some interesting graffiti.

Cleo bit back a laugh as she watched Aimee simper and smirk as Gray put out his hands to steady her. There had been a marked increase in girls wanting to take history as a GCSE next year since the dashing Mr Sommers had joined the staff at Oakland. He was the very cliché of hunky professor, tall and well put together, just enough stubble to be interesting, Harry Potter-style glasses that Cleo wasn’t entirely sure he actually needed to wear, and with an astounding array of V-necked sweater vests that he wore well, over crisp shirts with the sleeves rolled up to his elbow. Hell, thirteen-year-old Cleo would have completely bought into it (even twenty-nine-year-old Cleo wasn’t entirely unaffected).

Cleo did another head count as they reached the glass-fronted entrance to the museum, just to be sure. She watched Gray’s lips moving as he counted too, under his breath. Helpful Helper Mum of Helpfulness finally tugged her earphones out and wound them around her iPhone, looking about herself expectantly.

‘OKAY GUYS, HAVE YOUR PRINT OUTS READY TO SHOW AT THE COUNTER, AND REMEMBER TO STAY IN YOUR BUDDY PAIR AT ALL TIMES.’ Gray steered the first clutch of students through to the ticket area and nodded companionably at Cleo. ‘See you on the other side of 1850, Miss Adkins.’

* * *

Eight hours, one near-miss, where the class clown nearly had a face-to-face meeting with the canal and a train of heaped plates of vinegary fish and chips later Cleo finally got to sit down. She flicked off her pinching Primark pumps and pulled the toe of her tights straight. ‘That wasn’t too bad, actually,’ she allowed. ‘I loved that story about the chain-makers going on strike. Got me all riled up: ‘shoulder to shoulder into the fray’ and all that. Did you know that women still earn on average twenty per cent less than men in this country? In this day and age!’ Cleo shook her head in disgust. ‘Those women back then were so brave … You know, I should go to a protest or something. I couldn’t be bothered to march when they put up tuition fees because I’d already graduated, and I’ve always felt shit about it. What do you think?’

Gray sank his head into his hands. ‘Please, no. No. Turn your teacher switch off. Can we just have a drink and a chat rather than analyse the socio-political landscape? Please?’

Cleo laughed. ‘Okay.’ They were off the clock, after all, with the senior teachers charged with roaming the corridors and keeping teenaged peace; the night was their own.

The hotel was almost entirely booked out with the kids, so the lounge area was empty. It had been quite a mild day out in the fresh air but the building was old and heavy-walled so there was a fire lit in the grate; the old, cracked leather of the wingback chairs in front of it was pleasantly warm against Cleo’s skin. She closed her eyes and let the heat kiss her face (maybe field trips weren’t that bad after all).

After only a few moments Gray was back cradling two crystal tumblers of ice in one large hand and carrying the matching decanter by its neck in the other. Cleo recognised the smell as he pulled the stopper out and groaned.

‘Yup,’ Gray grinned. ‘Your favourite.’ Cleo had gone through a big amaretto-and-cranberry stage at the end of last year, and it was precisely that delightful mixture she’d vomited all over Gray at the staff Christmas party (he’d joked that he’d smelt like a Bakewell tart for the rest of the holidays). Gray poured them both healthy measures over crackling ice cubes and sat back down in the other armchair. The chairs were only slightly angled, so they both watched the fire in silence for a few moments, enjoying their first few sips of the almond liqueur and the feeling of peace settling over them after the manic day. Gray’s profile was painted orange; holding the delicate etched tumbler in his big hand, he looked like the lord of the manor. Cleo thought back to the cheesy selfie they’d snapped in front of the porch of Withysteeple Hall last month and sighed.