Weddings and Other Things I Hate Read online

  “That’s so cheesy, Helen,” I replied.

  “I don’t care,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I have absolute faith that we’re going to get everything that we want in this life and it’s not going to be because of a wish in a fountain. We’re going kick ass and we’re going to do it together. Do you hear me, McMahon?”

  I laughed at her attempt at a pep-talk but I gave her my second salute of the day (and third of my life) and followed in her wake towards The Spanish Steps.

  The next two days blurred into a stream of history, art, eating and drinking too much and ignoring the fact that I didn’t have a valid passport. Neither of us wanted to waste a second of the holiday and so, over one of the many carafes of wine, we decided to risk flying back home on an expired passport and hope they didn’t check the date.

  Now, as we sit on our little balcony, looking through the photos of our trip on our phones I feel the sadness of going back to our normal lives creeping up on me.

  “This has been perfect,” I say.

  “It really has, although you’re not going to get any sleep tonight with that sunburn,” she replies.

  “I was hoping you could spare a Valium; that will definitely knock me out.”

  “Those were brought for me, in case of emergencies. Turns out, I needn’t have worried. That bitch, anxiety, has been subdued this whole trip. Although I think we should both take one before we go to the airport, tomorrow. I can’t see how our mastermind plan is going to work out.”

  “No!” I cry. “We are not spoiling our last sunset in Rome worrying about the bloody passport. If I don’t get through, I don’t get through. There are worse places to be stranded. Maybe we could just set up home here?”

  “You don’t speak Italian, and after this trip I have to concede that neither do I. I’m pretty sure I asked Mama if I could have some extra armpit, this morning.”

  “What did you want?”

  “A hand towel.”

  “Ok, maybe relocating to Italy isn’t the best idea. I’ll take the Valium and hope the candle, that Mum has lit to keep us safe when travelling, covers passport problems too.”

  We don’t stay up much longer before the draw of the bedroom overpowers us both. I wish it’s because of hot holiday sex, but it’s really because Helen has made us walk for hours each day and we are both constantly exhausted.

  I have to admit: the ugly walking shoes were a godsend afterall.

  When our alarms go off, the next morning, the reality of the passport situation starts to overwhelm me.

  I enthusiastically take the Valium, in the hope that it will take all my nerves away, but it doesn’t.

  By the time we get to the airport I’ve already convinced myself that I’m going to be arrested, or mistaken for a sex trafficker. How I got to that particular scenario in my overactive mind, is beyond me.

  As we make our way through security, things are going well – right up until we find ourselves face-to-face with uniformed guards stopping people to check their passports.

  Helen is directed to a different guard and glances nervously at me as she waits to see if I get through. I hand over my documents and smile, in an attempt to look completely relaxed.

  The guard stares at me, then at the passport and back to me once again. He then shouts over to a colleague, who also looks at the passport.

  “This is out of date,” he says.

  At that moment I try to muster every ounce of acting ability I have so I can pretend that I have no idea about this unfortunate turn of events.

  “Really?” I reply, my voice several octaves higher than normal. “I had no idea.”

  I gulp the panic down in my throat and wait as they both speak in Italian to each other. At one stage I think they are shouting at each other but eventually they smile and turn to me.

  “Where’s your boarding pass?” the guard asks.

  I take out my phone to show him and he waves it away.

  “You need to go to your airline and tell them we want a proper paper one. If they give you one with this passport, then you can get through,” he explains.

  “Is that all? Am I going to be arrested?”

  “Why would you be arrested?”

  “Forget it, just panicked. Ok, I’ll go get the boarding pass.”

  “You’ll have to use that exit,” he replies as he points to the door off to the side, “and go through security all over again, understand?”

  “But the flight is in less than an hour. What if I don’t make it through on time?”

  “Then I suggest you run,” he says with a laugh.

  I beckon Helen over and explain the situation. I tell her to wait this side of security and hopefully I’ll be back in time but she won’t hear of it.

  “I’m not going anywhere without you. What kind of person would I be if I left you stranded in Italy?” she asked.

  “Well, I didn’t say ‘get on the plane’. My mother would fly here and kill you.”

  We laugh and push the exit door to try and find a short-cut through the terminal building, back to departures.

  I’m so grateful for learning how to run properly, as the building feels like it’s going to go on forever. Helen curses her way through the experience and by the time we get to the airline desk, she has to dry-heave into a bin.

  I leave her to catch her breath while I pull out the acting skills once more, but this time, I am determined to seem a little more relaxed.

  The woman behind the desk is Irish and I hope that she will take pity on her fellow countrywoman.

  “Good morning,” she says. “Are you checking in?”

  “Actually, I need a new boarding pass. The one on my phone won’t scan properly so they sent me down here.”

  “Oh, that’s a pity. No worries, I just need to see your passport and the one you have on your phone and we’ll get that sorted out in two ticks.”

  My palms are sweating as I hand over the things she asks for, but I keep a smile planted on my face.

  “Oh,” she says, as my stomach drops and I mentally run through the conversation I’m going to have with my bosses when I explain I’m going to be stuck in Italy for longer than planned.

  “Is there a problem?” I choke.

  “Not at all, I just noticed that it’s your birthday coming up,” she says with a smile. “Here’s your boarding pass and have a great trip.”

  My hands shake as I take the boarding pass from her and stuff the rest of my belongings into my bag.

  “Thank you very much,” I reply.

  I pull Helen by the arm, just as she pulls her head out of the bin and march us towards security, as quickly as I can.

  “She didn’t say anything?” asks Helen.

  “Nope, so let’s get the hell out of here and onto that plane before anyone changes their mind.”

  “Deal.”

  We run through security and as soon as I hand over my boarding pass, the guard simply smiles and waves us through. The relief I feel is overwhelming and I am flooded with gratitude when I’m finally sitting on a plane back to Ireland.

  As soon as the feel the plane leave the ground, the adrenaline of the last hour leaves my body and I’m quickly sound asleep.

  Helen is still a nervous flier and every so often I feel her grab my hand when we hit a pocket of turbulence.

  When I eventually wake up, I notice that she’d ordered herself a gin and tonic.

  I eye her curiously as she explains that it’s ‘medicinal’ and I do my best to stay awake for the remainder of the flight, so I can distract her.

  I don’t particularly like aeroplanes either, but they will always have a fond place in my heart because it’s where I met Helen. If I hadn’t have offered to switch seats with her, goodness knows where my life would be now.

  It was because of her I moved back to mend things with my family in the first place. Of course, it wasn’t all plain sailing, but things were infinitely better now than they had been.

  I have a job I love, a new fr
iend in Thea, my overly-friendly co-worker and my relationship with my family has never been better.

  None of this compares to how grateful I am for having Helen as a girlfriend. She is the kindest and most fun person I’ve ever known.

  Although it’s only been eight months since we met, I know that she is my forever person. I smile when I think about the word ‘forever’ but I know it’s far too early to bring things like that up with her.

  We’ve a long way to go before we can think about our ‘happily ever after’. She needs to stay in Dublin for the next four years, until she finishes her degree; so in the meantime our relationship will have to thrive on weekend visits and holidays. It’s tough on both of us, but she’s worth it.

  I just hope she feels the same way about me.

  Chapter 2

  As I sit at my desk, the next day, Rome feels like a year ago. The only way I know it’s still a fresh memory is due to the fact that I can’t sit back on my chair properly because the sunburn stings.

  I’ve already made my way through a mountain of emails but I know there are still twice as many wanting my attention.

  “Why are people so needy?” I ask my coffee mug.

  The mug has a picture of my beloved dog, Ernie, on it. It was a present from Helen and it’s my favourite thing she’s ever bought me.

  Ernie used to be the only reason I enjoyed going home and he is always the first one to greet me when I pull into the driveway in the evenings.

  There’s a tap at the office door and I hastily put down the mug before the person comes in and sees me smiling at it like a complete weirdo.

  I always have to have an air of professionalism about me. I can never pretend to be the ‘friendly’ woman in HR, just in case I have to fire anyone. This is fine by me, most of the time, but it does make it hard to have friends in the workplace. Not that it stopped Thea from worming her way into my life. When I first started working here I soon found out that once Thea set her mind on wanting something, she would get it.

  I look at the clock and realise it’s close to lunchtime so it can only be her at the door.

  “Come in, Thea,” I call.

  “See?” she says as she enters the room.

  “See what?”

  “See how I waited for you to call me in? You’re always complaining about me barging into your office, but since you abandoned me to go on holidays, I’ve been spending my time evolving as a person.”

  “Well done,” I reply.

  “You can’t say ‘well done’ and roll your eyes, Jane; it makes me feel like you don’t actually mean it.”

  “I don’t. You’re a grown woman who should have known how to enter a room long before now. Get your coat – it’s burrito time.”

  Every Monday, Thea and I go to lunch at the burrito bar near the office. It’s where we went for our first lunch date and, ever since, I have refused to try anywhere new. Although she complains that it’s boring not to change location, she’s still happy enough to order her weekly lunchtime beer with her food.

  Mondays are a good time to go to lunch with her, because it gives her an hour to talk at me about her weekend. This way I get an info dump instead of several interruptions throughout the day, telling me snippets of information.

  She had briefly been dating my assistant, Tim, but it didn’t take long for it to fizzle out. She now has her sights set on the new union representative, Dermot.

  Dermot has taken over from Henry, a man I can barely tolerate. Henry is still in the company, but after he mistakenly thought I had been harbouring lustful feelings towards him and propositioned me to have an affair things got… awkward.

  Within a few weeks of his, frankly gross, proposal he called a snap election among the workforce and Dermot was voted in.

  I like Dermot, he is professional but friendly – a skill Henry unfortunately never learned to hone.

  As soon as Tim was dumped, it took less than a week before Dermot was marked as Thea’s next prey.

  Tim hadn’t taken the break-up badly; to be honest I think he was relieved. He was definitely in over his head with Thea and he seems content with his single status.

  “Is sexy Derm, in with you today? I may have to call by and talk about a new sales initiative.”

  “He comes in on a Tuesday to talk to me as you well know and you should talk to your manager about sales initiatives. You come to me about sexual harassment claims against you,” I clarify.

  “I don’t have any of those, you cheeky mare.”

  “It’s really only a matter of time when you’re referring to colleagues as ‘sexy’,” I say with a laugh.

  She throws her used napkin at me while I get back to eating my huge burrito.

  “He really is sexy though, that Dermot one. Now, before you start, this is a friend conversation that is taking place outside of the workplace. You have to admit it,” she continues.

  “I have to admit nothing. I will admit that he’s a much nicer person than Henry.”

  “Well, that’s not hard. His wife has left him, by the way.”

  “That’s probably for the best.”

  “That means, he’s up for grabs, Jane. Are you sure you’re not interested? Now’s your chance.”

  I give her the thumbs down, not bothering to look up from my food.

  My phone buzzes to alert me of a text message.

  “Helen is needy today,” says Thea. “That’s the fourth text message she’s sent since we’ve been here.”

  “It’s not Helen,” I reply, with a full mouth. “It’s Siobhan.”

  “Ok, stop spraying your food on me, you animal. What does bridezilla want?”

  Siobhan’s wedding is less than three months away and she is in full wedding mode. She does very little but talk about it since I moved back home but for some reason she seems to be completely disorganised. Apparently, she’s spent so long deciding every little detail, that she didn’t take the time to book anything, so now it’s a mad scramble to get the final bits and pieces done.

  My job as bridesmaid is to organise the hen party. I am touched that she wants me in the wedding party, but I’m quite rubbish at organising parties. Unfortunately, Siobhan knows this and I’m being micromanaged within an inch of my life.

  She’s been constantly texting me, all day, to make sure I have things under control and I’ve been in contact with the ‘right’ people she wants at the party.

  Despite giving me a list of thirty of her ‘dearest’ friends, she doesn’t actually want them all to come. She has highlighted twelve people that she does want to attend, because they were the only ones she trusted not to steal her thunder. She gave me the list to make sure I don’t invite the wrong ones.

  She doesn’t need to worry, because I still haven’t invited anyone or organised anything. I’ve been keeping her at bay by telling her ‘it’s a secret’ and I’ll give her details closer to the time.

  I continue to ignore my phone for the remainder of lunch and only reply in the late afternoon, explaining that it’s been hectic in work but that everything is ‘under control’.

  This vague message does little to comfort my sister and she sends another five messages asking for various details.

  By the end of the day, I’m too afraid to check how many text messages she’s sent. I decide that it’s easier to head home and receive all the questions in person.

  I ring Helen on my drive home and she gushes about her registration day at university. The course isn’t due to start for another week so she has planned on taking a few extra shifts at the nursing home this week to make some extra money. It will be her last week working there, as she can’t do both when assignments and placement takes over her life.

  “My savings are definitely going to take a hit,” she says.

  “I’ll not let you starve,” I reply.

  “I should hope not. Besides, when we’re old and grey, you’ll need me to look after you, so you need to basically support me through school,” she jokes.

&
nbsp; “Do you think about us being old and grey?” I ask.

  “I’m already grey.”

  “I’m being serious.”

  “Of course I do, I’m here for the long haul whether you like it or not.”

  “I like it; I like it a lot.”

  I smile for the rest of the drive home and I’m buoyed at the thought of my future with Helen. Unfortunately, my good mood is punctured by the sight of my sister waiting for me, as soon as I pull into the drive.

  Ernie runs out past her and bounds up to greet me. He’s getting slower, but he still manages to perk up when he sees me.

  “You are such a good boy,” I say as I pat him and ignore the scowling face of my sister.

  “You’ve been ignoring me,” she says.

  “That’s an astute observation. Isn’t that right, Ernie? What an astute observation.”

  “Stop talking about me to the dog, you know I hate that.”

  “Would it help if I patted your head and called you a ‘good girl’?”

  “Jane, will you be serious? My hen party is only a few weeks away and you don’t seem to have a handle on anything.”

  “I have everything in hand.”

  “That’s what you said about the invitations to the damn thing and I know for a fact you haven’t been in touch with anyone.”

  “Siobhan,” shouts Mum, from the door, “Stop that cursing and let your poor sister into the house.”

  I smile at my rescuer, which only serves to annoy Siobhan even more.

  ***

  I decide to skip the post-dinner run with Lucas and he isn’t happy about it.

  “We have our first 10K race this weekend and you’re not taking it seriously. You didn’t run at all last week,” he says.

  “I wasn’t in the country! Believe me, Helen had me walking for days so I wouldn’t worry about my fitness levels.”

  “What’s your excuse tonight?” he asks.

  “Well, Lucas, if you must know, I have sunburn on my back and I want to get my bra off as soon as possible.”

  He blushes at my answer and Mum is quick to scold me for mentioning the word ‘bra’ at the dinner table.

  “Are you trying to give your father a heart attack?” she asks.