Beauty and the Bridesmaid

Chapter Eleven

“Kerry called me,” Lela says, looking to Ash for an explanation.

Diane, on the other hand, is only looking at me.

Ash moves to stand beside me, arching his shoulders tightly. “Kerry called you saying what?”

“That Jade was here with you,” she replies, turning her gaze on me for a moment.

“I just came to talk to Ash,” I say quietly. “It’s all sorted now. I’ll see you later, Lela.”

Diane blocks my exit, arms folded across her floral print dress. “What exactly were you talking to my daughter’s fiancé about?”

I want to tell her that it’s none of her business and push past her. But it’s not like I won’t see her again. She’s going to be at a lot of wedding events as the big day grows closer. Why didn’t I take Anna’s advice when she first offered me it and just quit all this wedding drama?

“We were talking about the wedding,” Ash steps in.

Okay. That’s not a complete lie. We were even talking about the bridesmaid dresses for God’s sake! Is there anything more wedding-y?

I suspect that Lela knows what I’m really here for but she doesn’t set Diane on me just yet. Instead, she smiles and says, “Jade, can I talk to you?”

Lela leads me into the kitchen and closes the door, stopping her mother from following us. She places her manicured fingernails against the table and looks down without saying anything.

“You know why I’m here, don’t you?” I ask. “I came to sort things out with Ash. And we’re all clear now. I am not still in love with him. He’s marrying you.”

Lela nods. “Things are over between you two, I know that. But sometimes I think you might be trying to work your way back into his life to get back at me for not telling you about me and him.”

The comment stings me as though I’ve been physically struck and I flinch backwards. “You really think I’d do that? For some stupid revenge?”

She looks up at me with sadness in her mocha-coloured eyes. “I would.”

“We’re not all like you, Lela.”

“You’re right,” she says, picking at a single broken nail. “I’m nothing like you. I don’t deserve Ash.” I expect her to put on her little girl face. She always could cry on command. But she doesn’t. She doesn’t even look at me.

“He’s going to marry you!” I remind her, though I’m sure she doesn’t really need reminding.

“Oh God. I’ve got so caught up in this bloody wedding, haven’t I?” She sinks down onto a chair. “Will you still be my head bridesmaid?”

“You’re still my best friend.”

Lela sniffs, her bottom lip trembling like a child. “I don’t deserve you either.”

“Nobody’s perfect.” I shrug. “We all do things that we know are going to hurt other people, and we all make stupid mistakes.” I pause, having one thing still on my mind that I’m unsure about asking her. “Can I ask you something though? It’s about how you and Ash got…reacquainted. He said something about Facebook?”

Her face is hidden beneath her blonde hair but I can see her chewing on her bottom lip. “Will you hate me if I tell you the truth?”

I automatically shake my head, though really I’m wondering how bad it can be if she thinks I’m going to hate her for it.

“I saw Ash’s profile on Facebook by chance, some comment he’d posted on somebody’s status,” she begins, but it all sails over my head. “I messaged him because I was curious. I was thinking about you at first and how it was such a shame that you’d never got back together but then…we started flirting and arranged to meet up and things moved really fast. It was exciting at first because it felt great to be wanted by him. I used to be so jealous of your relationship with him and suddenly I had that. I don’t expect you to understand. Just please don’t hate me.”

Her confession hangs in the air between us. It all makes sense now. She contacted him on purpose because of some sort of deep-rooted envy. I should hate her. I should detest how she intentionally formed a relationship with my ex and now expects me to go to her wedding wearing the awful dress and makeup. I should hate her for all the selfish things she did during our childhood, from taking the best Barbie princess dress for herself to only ever going to see the films she wanted to see at the cinema.

But this isn’t about that. This is about my best friend’s wedding.

“I don’t understand,” I agree. “But I can’t hate you.”

“Oh Jade,” she gushes, crossing the room to wrap her arms around me. “I know it’s not the wedding we planned when we were kids but you will still be there, won’t you? You’ll still be my head bridesmaid.”

I snort as I stiffly reciprocate her affectionate gesture. “What will the other bridesmaids have to say about that?”

Lela pulls back. “Why d’you say that? Because of Kerry calling me here?”

“They want me to give up my bridesmaid duties.”

“But you can’t!” she whimpers. “You’re my head bridesmaid.”

“Well it’s not like I’ve made any decisions,” I point out. “Kerry and Steph have had all that covered. They told me to stay away from Ash.”

“Oh,” Lela says, colour flooding her cheeks. “They’re just looking out for me. I think they thought that you wanted him back or something after how you acted the other day at the beauty salon.”

“Is that what you thought too? That I was still in love with Ash?”

Lela coughs and looks down at the polished kitchen floor. “It was an obvious conclusion to jump to.”

“Didn’t that occur to you sooner?” I ask. “Didn’t you think I might be just a little bit upset?”

She blinks, confusion filling her eyes. “But you’re not in love with him. You just said that.”

“That’s not what I meant.” I sigh and drag my hands through my hair. “But you can’t have expected me to just be cool with it when you didn’t even tell me you were marrying Ash.”

“It was easier,” she says. “I didn’t know what you’d do or how you’d feel so it was easier to just let you find out yourself.”

“That was the part that hurt me,” I state simply. “It’s not because it’s Ash you’re marrying. It’s because you didn’t bother to tell me you were even seeing anyone, never mind telling me that it was him.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “But he thought it was best too. We just never knew what to say to you and then he asked me to marry him and I…I just really wanted my best friend there.”

It’s an Oscar-worthy performance and I swallow back thoughts that she always was a good actress. How did a conversation about my feelings turn into a story about the Tragic Life of Lela Henry? I consider what she’s just said about Ash and realise that she has a point though. Why did I expect her to be the one to tell me? He’s just as guilty.

“Ash didn’t want to tell me either?” I check.

She shakes her head, her angelic blonde curls bouncing against her shoulders. “He hadn’t spoken to you in so long and you and I were talking less and less. Neither of us really knew what to say.”

“But you did talk about it? You knew that I might be hurt?”

“I tried not to think about it,” she admits. “I know that I’ve made a mess of this, Jade, but we can still fix things, can’t we?”

The truth is that I really do want to see her get married and get her happily ever after. I don’t even care that much that it’s Ash she’s marrying because it’s all sorted with him now and we would never have lasted in the real world. But how can I see past her selfish reasons for not telling me sooner?