Page 62 of One Moment in Time
‘Mum, your make-up!’ Zara cried, and her mum reacted instantly, her two index fingers flying up to her bottom lids to stop any more tears falling.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got this,’ Eileen promised, grabbing setting powder from the dresser and launching an attack on Brenda’s cheeks.
It took many sniffs, some fanning of the face and dexterity with a setting powder sponge, but five minutes later her mum had calmed down and disappeared into the bathroom to put on her dress. When she returned, Zara gasped, but her dad got in first with the compliment.
‘Brenda, you look beautiful, darling.’
Zara and Eileen stood behind him, both grinning at the happiness that was radiating from Brenda Jones.
However, they had a schedule to keep, so…
‘Right, Mum, are we ready to go? Millie is going to meet us there.’ There was no point being pissed off with Millie for ditching her and leaving her to do this bit on her own. It would be like getting mad at a cow for mooing. Or a cloud for raining. Or a Chippendale for stripping. It was just a fact of life and there was no sense in expecting it to change. She’d better be at the wedding chapel though, or Zara was disowning her.
Her mum nodded, pulling her powder blue handbag over her shoulder and slipping her feet into the matching shoes. ‘Absolutely, let’s go. Although…’
She stopped, as if she’d suddenly realised there was a problem. Zara sent up a wearyOh dear god. What now? She honestly didn’t think she had the capacity to deal with any more hiccups.
‘Eileen, would you come with us?’ her mum asked her former friend slash make-up artist. She then turned to Zara. ‘Is that okay, sweetheart? Can you change the reservation? Only, I’d really love Eileen to come.’
Thankfully, Eileen got right in there with the objections before Zara could even formulate a plausible rejection of the idea. The United Nations of Brenda and Eileen might have agreed to put past hostilities behind them and negotiated some kind of commendable peace deal, but any citizen on earth could see that given everything that had happened, it wasn’t going to work to have the former girlfriend, former best friend, former fly in the great big jar of fucking ointment at the surprise renewal of her parents’ vows.
‘Oh Brenda, that’s lovely, but I can’t… I really wouldn’t impose…’
‘Nonsense. It’s not an imposition. Is it, Zara?’
Zara’s mouth was moving but nothing was coming out, so Eileen jumped right back in there.
‘But I really need to get back to Aiden.’
Her mum shook her head and with all her trademark warmth and friendliness, shot that one down. ‘Eileen! Didn’t you say this morning that you were staying out of the way because Aiden had an unexpected visitor and you wanted to leave them to it?’
He had what, now? Zara tried desperately to compute.A visitor. Layla. Shit. I mean, good. Definitely good. That solved that problem. Took it off the table. So great. Fantastic. Job done. Case closed. Why did she want to cry?
‘Yes, but…’
Zara saw that Eileen was running out of objections, but trying desperately not to be offensive, now that she’d somehow managed to build a tentative bridge with her old friend. Bollocks. Why wasn’t Millie here? They needed some blatant rudeness to sort this out. Unfortunately, Zara just didn’t have it in her.
‘It’s fine, really,’ she told Eileen, giving the woman a look that she hoped said, ‘Yep, we both know why this is a bad idea, but there’s nothing we can do about it, so we’ll just have to go along with it for now and figure something out later because neither of us want to upset my mum or hurt her feelings.’
Eileen must have got at least some of that, because she replied with a hesitant, ‘Are you sure?’
What else could Zara say than, ‘Definitely. It’ll be fine. Great.’
As a last resort, maybe Eileen could fall out of the car and feign injury when they got there.
Downstairs, they all piled into the limo that Zara had booked, with plenty of ooohs and aaaaahs from her mum. She really was making the most of this trip now and it made Zara’s heart soar because she didn’t even know the best bit yet.
The Vegas traffic was heavy and chaotic, even at this time of the day, so that gave Zara way too much time to think.
This was going to be such a special moment for her parents.
Aiden’s ex-fiancée was here.
Even if Eileen was with them and that was borderline inappropriate.
Aiden’s ex-fiancée was here.
Dammit, she’d forgotten to call Kev yesterday or today.
