Page 31 of The Wedding Cake
“It’s phenomenal,” said Heather, River’s mum, as she tucked into the lemon curd and passionfruit layer. “The flavours meld so fluidly. I’ll have to get Terry to whip me up a smaller version at home.”
“Hang on a minute. I thought you were only eating things cooked in flaxseed,” River joked, although Alice knew he was overjoyed that his mum had started eating properly again. Not so very long ago, her sister Sheba’s death had knocked her for six and she had barely touched her food.
“Ah, well, this is a wedding… and when in Spain,” Heather replied.
“Itisa wedding,” said the photographer for the hundredth time. “And if you please, some of us have a living to make out of it. Now, let’s get the happy couple positioned in the finca’s tower so we can get those wow factor shots at long last.”
Finally, obediently, Mr Jackson took Mrs Jackson’s hand and they carefully climbed the winding staircase to the roof and the ornate hacienda tower, where they had a hilarious view of the drama unfolding beneath them as the photographer briefed them on the poses he’d like them to adopt for the drone, which he would be flying by remote control in a few minutes.
As Alice snuggled up to her husband, the pair of them giggled at Lee and Bruno below. They were keeping guard over Rob, but intermittently finding their human side and holding him up a cocktail to sip. Intruder apart, Alice realised the day had been everything she could have wished for. And the best thing was, they still had four more nights at the finca to spend quality time with their family and friends, before heading off on another amazing adventure on wheels. Life didn’t get better than this.
TIM
Tim’s bride looked as pretty as any in a glossy wedding magazine – or an edition ofSleb Magazine!,whose photographers and journos, it quickly emerged, were part of the hush-hush guest list. Tim might have known. It totally explained Piper’s caginess. Once again, she was putting herself and her work at the top of the seesaw. His thoughts about her appearance said it all. Her outer beauty was indisputable, but there was nothing beneath it. She was perfectly hollow.
Many would call Tim delusional for standing here today at the gigantic floral beach altar with its virginal silk curtains, waiting eagerly for Piper to join him in her Vera Wang wedding dress. He might not have seen the gown before today, but he had certainly seen the price on the receipt that Piper had carelessly left on the dining table. But Tim had weighed up all his options and decided to go through with the ceremony. Yes, just a handful of hours after Piper had confessed her betrayal, Tim was determined to forgive and forget, despite the fact that his love rival was currently watching on, sandwiched between who knew who from the social media world, his arse firmly planted on a silk ribbon-backed chair to match the draping of the beautiful altar. And so it was that Tim took a deep breath, looked earnestly out to sea, then back into his fiancée’s eyes as she made her dramatic and fluid entrance down the aisle to Coldplay’s ‘Paradise’; the fantastical, dark, rich notes coming from a baby grand piano, as a pair of doves were released from an ornate cage and a hidden bubble machine added another level of intrigue to the proceedings.
Tim thought he would be more nervous. But that trio of Buck’s Fizzes had hit the sweet spot, bestowing him with just the right measure of cheerful confidence to get through this. Everything would be okay. In the end. Piper smiled serenely at him when she reached the altar with her dad. Her hair looked exquisite, trailing down her back in those waves that had first caught his eye, a sparkling tiara loaded with gems resting on her head, the fragrance of peonies from her bouquet tickling his nose. For a moment, Tim might have believed they were in a different reality.
Piper’s father took his seat, and Tim thought of his own parents sitting proudly behind him on his side of the aisle, the moment of truth playing out imminently, with nowhere to run or hide. Still, the fizz warmed his belly and Tim knew this was the right path to take. It was a very different HEA to the one he’d envisaged, but somehow he just knew it would deliver, and then everyone could get on with the party and enjoy themselves.
He went through the motions, listening as Piper recited the words she had written for the both of them (or, more likely, grabbed from the Internet). It was best to let her parrot them off and get this bit over with:I love you completely, wholly and unreservedly, and I give you my heart to hold untilmy dying day… blah-blah-blah. Just as the officiator prompted Tim to spew the first words of his vows aloud, he gave a little cough to clear his throat.
“Enough.” He held his hand aloft to signal his intent. “I think we both know that in light of recent events, you can’t truly mean a word of that.” The wide-eyed wedding guests gasped, the officiator expelled a nervous giggle, and Piper winced, emitting a pained sound. Her bouquet dropped to the floor, but Tim would not be deterred. “I think we also both know that somebody else should be standing here today, don’t we, darling?” He looked Piper in the eye, watching the flash of crimson slowly make its way up her neck and across both cheeks, until it painted her forehead. At which point Tim couldn’t look for a second longer, especially now the guests were beginning to murmur, big and little conversations sparking up everywhere. He put a hand to his own forehead, shielding his eyes from the shards of sunlight sneaking their way across the gathering, as he scoured the wedding party behind him for the person in question.
“Not Noah, Tim.Pleasedon’t say his name,” Piper let out a crackled whisper. “I told you there’s nothing more between us.”
Their (well, mostly her) ‘friends’ and family fell silent again, waiting for the climax of this unexpected turn of events, eyes also panning the sea of people for any errant body language that might give the third person in this love triangle away. Sensing his duty at last, a man several rows back on Tim’s side of the guests (Piper had insisted on inserting various top influencers closer to the front on both sides of the aisle) got to his feet. But it wasn’t Noah who shuffled out of his row to walk down the aisle.
It was Nath.
All the years Tim had known this guy. All those seasons of friendship and support and laughter and tears had culminated in this. Who’d have thought it? Nath and his ill-fitting grey suit meandered towards the altar looking every inch the guilty party. Head slumped, hands in pockets. Hundreds of pairs of eyes cast their aspersions, burning holes in his back, banking up the tidbits of conversation for when they could let their hair down at the reception, bitching and laughing about his betrayal as they wolfed down the lobster and necked the vintage Dom Perignon.
“Hang on, mate! What are you like? You’ve forgotten this,” Josh and Kyle both cried out to the lone figure, Kyle tagging on an ear-splitting finger whistle.
A mass of hats and heads turned at once to the two Northern lads and their announcement. Tim let out a sigh of relief that everything was going to plan.
“Oh, yeah. So I did,” said Nath, suddenly straightening himself up and jumping into his role as if he was centre stage in a theatre. He paced back to his friends. “I couldn’t wait to do the honours. Got a bit ahead of myself there.”
Josh and Kyle lifted a long, flat object, covered in the same snow white as the drapes and chair bows decorating the beach set-up. They eased it up, one of them holding each end, faces more serious than Tim could ever recall. Like… not even after a Man United home defeat.
“What’s going on, Tim?” asked Piper at his side, unable to keep her voice to a whisper now, fidgeting in her heels. “Talk to me, please! I’malmostyour wife!” She began to tug on the sleeves of his white linen jacket.
Tim shrugged, a beam working its way across his lips. He kept his eye on his friends, patiently waiting for all to be revealed. It was tricky to overlook the astonished faces of his parents and sister, trickier still to ignore the muttering of the celebrant and the perplexed expression of the photographer, who did what he could to capture a handful of appropriate happy wedding day shots, but Tim had resolved to stay focused, no matter what. Finally his friends edged their way along their row among the guests so they could pass the item to Nath. It was nearly the same height as him and he seized it triumphantly, tucking it under his arm, making his way back down the aisle to the bride and groom.
“Do you want to do the honours, my friend?” Nath asked when he reached Tim. “Or shall I?”
Tim weighed up the offer as he admired his friends’ handiwork, the afternoon sunbeams revealing the gift hidden beneath the layers of material. Nath, Josh and Kyle had excelled themselves.
“I can’t deny that it’s you and the boys’ persistent nagging that made me realise something wasn’t right,” said Tim, waving a hand in Josh and Kyle’s direction. They grinned self-consciously back, unfamiliar with being in the limelight among such a large group of people. People who mostly hogged it for themselves. “But I think you’ve done more than enough.” Tim returned his attention to Nath. “How you sourced a shop that could make you one of these,” he nodded at the object, “with little more than twelve hours’ notice, I will never know. You can relax now, guys. I will take over from here.”
Nath passed him the shrouded item and walked back to his seat. Now the hullabaloo really got going, and Tim knew he needed to act fast. Some might judge his next moves as malicious – and perhaps they were right. Maybe he should have taken the moral high ground, discreetly walking away before things had gotten this far, but for one, Tim found he couldn’t resist and secondly, when it came to counselling and matters of psychology, maybe a statement such as this was the only way to help Piper reassess her life?
By trading places today, he could save Piper and her new beau the added expense and hassle of planning their own wedding. They had everything in place, after all; the press, the influencers, the ridiculous cake on its swing seat. Not that the cake itself was a joke. Nothing and nobody who came out of FOM could ever be that…
Tim was contemplating all these things, and about to unveil his grand surprise to a statue-like Piper and their audience, who were literally on the edge of their seats. Then Mervyn took to the aisle with his sparkly walking stick, just as Piper’s dad got up too. Both looked the other up and down and hovered, waiting to make their move should Tim’s next actions require intervention. Of course, Tim’s parents had already looked askance at him once or twice but they weren’t the kind of people to cause a scene. And as for Brittany, well, she just looked jetlagged.
Tim composed himself. He could either do this slowly and tantalisingly… or he could do it like a plaster ripped off a hairy leg. He opted for the latter. Somehow it felt more in keeping with the theatrical venue. Tim, Piper, and the officiator would be the first people to take in the vision. He felt it was only fair since he was, in a sense, giving his bride away. Tim held his breath, and ripped away the material from the life-size cardboard cut-out.
