Page 113 of Husband Material
It wasn’t what I’d meant, but it was the closest we were going to get. “Okay. That’s… Thanks.”
“But I also think,” Oliver went on, “that DJs are a bit—sorry to say this—tacky.”
In his defence, they were. It’s just I was worried cutting all the tackiness out of our wedding would cut out all the fun. And then fifty years from now I’d be sitting in my old people’s home looking back on a day that could have happened to anyone. “So, what? The plan is no music? Everybody standing around talking awkwardly? Or I guess we could get one of those giant games of Twister.”
“If you really want a giant Twister, I won’t fight you on it.”
“Oliver, that was a joke. I don’t want to play giant Twister at my wedding.”
A teeth-clenching silence echoed down the line. “I’m sorry. I’m genuinely…I’m genuinely trying here. I’m aware I’m probably coming across as—”
“A steamrollery wedding tyrant?” I suggested.
“I’m not sure I’d put it quite like that, but…yes.” Another pause. “I think I just…I just want everything to be perfect for us.”
Perfectwas not a good word for Oliver. In fact, it had nearly ruined our relationship once already. But in some ways hearing him say it was a relief because it meant that…that actually he was the one with the problem here. And it was a problem I kind of knew how to fix. And that was way easier to think about than me or how I felt or if Mum had been right all along. “Okay.” I took a deep breath. I could do this. This was doable. We were going to figure this out. “I think you might be getting in your head a bit.”
“I am aware,” he said a little coolly.
“And I think,” I continued, “that where you’re getting mixed up is that you’re confusing ‘perfect for us’ with ‘perfect.’ Theperfectwedding is in June, in the church you grew up in, and has a live band and centrepieces that match the bridesmaids’ dresses. Theperfect-for-uswedding is you and me and people we care about in a venue that fits a sensible number of people and music we like played by—”
I could hear Oliver relaxing. “A failed musician who says things like ‘And now, one for the oldies’?”
“Yeah. Or, I don’t know, a laptop. Or if you want, I could ask Rhys to get the male voice choir back.”
Oliver’s breathing was steadying, which I took as a good sign. “Actually, I was wondering if—and if you think I’m being a steamrollery wedding tyrant do say so—I thought it might be niceto put together a playlist and, perhaps, get every guest to contribute a song.”
In practice, I was mildly concerned that this would mean Alex contributing the Eaton boating song and Professor Fairclough contributing a two-hour lecture on Formicidae, but it did sound… “That…that sounds perfect for us.”
“Then I’ll send out song requests. Thank you for being so… I’m sorry, Lucien, I really am.”
“Me too.” I thought it best to apologise back, even though we’d now formally diagnosed this as an Oliver issue. And it definitelywasan Oliver issue. Not one that my years of baggage and self-loathing were in any way exacerbating. “And I’ll be back first thing tomorrow to… What’s next on the list?”
“Bronwyn wants to finalise the menu.”
Oh yes, that was the other big compromise. We were having all-vegan catering. But that one I’d been fine with, even though I’d have secretly loved a burger option. Because unlike the band, it had clearlymattered. “I mean, I’m still the opposite of an expert. As long as it’s got those spiced-seed things, I’ll be happy.”
He was smiling now. “She’ll be here at noon.”
Egh.That meant getting up at a sensible time. “I’ll be there,” I told him. “Love you.”
He love-you-too’ed, and we hung up. Then I lay down on the bed wondering why I didn’t feel happier. I mean, we’d fixed the music thing and found a middle ground thatwasa middle ground, instead of something neither of us wanted. And Oliver had apologised, and I’d apologised slightly less than he had which—according to the Disagreeing Couples Act of 1974—meant I’d won.
For fuck’s sake, I was getting married. I was getting married to an amazing man I was in love with. As was my hard-won legal right. And, yes, Mum had tried to do that thing that mums dowhen you’re picked last in sports where they tell you not everyone has to be good at everything. But this was my relationship, not a game of rounders. I couldn’t just shrug and say, “Well, when am I ever going to need that in real life anyway.”
No. This was fucking my wedding. I’d planned it, I deserved it, and I was damn well going to have it.
PICKING A BEST MAN WASa complicated business. Because you didn’t want to be gender normative, but if you got too role-reversey you ended up with something that was gender normative in the other direction. For Oliver, it had been simple. Well, simple-ish because he’d asked Christopher. Which had been obvious in one way (because apparently asking your brother was traditional) but really difficult in another (because post-funeral Oliver and Christopher had only just settled into a place where it was even a reasonable thing to ask). But they’d pushed through it and were now slowly building the kind of relationship where they could actually like each other.
I didn’t have the same options. I just had a bunch of friends, all of whom were, in their own special ways, utterly unsuitable. Tom was an ex and technically Bridge’s friend rather than mine, both of which made it weird. The James Royce-Royces came as a unit, and it would have felt unfair to ask one but not the other. I refused to ask any of my coworkers, so that left Bridge and Priya. And Bridgeshouldhave been my go-to choice because she’d made me her maid of honour and I was owed some freaking payback. Only something about Bridge didn’t screambest manto me.
She was my bestfriend, but when I thought of a best man, I thought of someone who I’d gone on the pull with in a disastrousattempt to get over a failed relationship. Or drunk absinthe with at three in the morning. Or ranted to about how awful it was that all our friends were pairing off like a bunch of squares while we were young, free, single, and totally miserable. And that…that was definitely Priya.
Besides, when I called Bridge to break the good or bad news, she’d been in the middle of a major work crisis because the acclaimed author ofI’m Out of the Office at the Moment. Please Forward Any Translation Work to My Personal Email Addresshad vanished overnight somewhere in the vicinity of the Ängelholm UFO-Memorial, leaving only thirty-eight manuscript pages, a cassette recording of Philip Glass’sAkhenaten, and a note sayingTo the Fairest.
So, yeah, Priya had stepped up. Or at least not told me to fuck off. And was doing a really good job. For a start, she’d totally ignored me when I said I wanted a small, low-key non-gender-specific animal party and instead threw me a massive rager at a friend’s gallery. She’d even got me a rainbow balloon arch, although she did tell me we were going to shoot it with BB guns at the end of the evening because—and I quote—“I love you and respect your choices, but balloon arches are twee as fuck.”
Whatever. It was my twee-as-fuck balloon arch, and I was going to stand under it for as long as possible. Or at least for a couple of minutes because, it turned out, standing under a balloon arch by yourself wasn’t as much fun as I thought it was going to be.
