My Big Fat Low-Fat Wedding (31 page)

I’ve come to realise by now that Oliver’s robots don’t need feet. Not with the way he’s made it possible for them to roll and float around all over the place.

Ping.

What was that? Was it the elevator? I’ve got to get out of here if the lift is working!

Backing quickly towards the door, I stop when I hear the sound of footsteps nearing. Tap, tap, tap, go the sound of high heels upon the floor. Someone’s coming and I’m wholly unprepared as I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be down here. Let alone supposed to be inside this laboratory!

Oh shit! Hide! I scream at myself inside my head, which is stupid, but I take my own advice nevertheless.

Quick as a flash, I slip off my sandals and hurry around to the other side of the gigantic robot. Outside the open doorway, the footfalls approach and then stop.

“Emily? Are you in there?”

“Callum!” I stop quivering like an idiot and jump out from behind the robot.

“Fucking hell, Em!” My fiancé is holding his chest in fright. “You scared the bejaysus out of me. What are you doing down here?”

“You scared me too! Why do your shoes bloody well sound like women’s high heels?”

“What…?” My fiancé shakes his head as though frustrated. “What are you on about…? Oh, never mind. We should really get out of here. I don’t think Oliver…” Callum’s voice trails off as he steps into the room. “Fuck me.” He whispers, looking up and up at the great big bot. “Where the bloody hell has Oliver got funding for that thing?”

What a strange question. “Who cares!” I state, not as a question. “Can we just get out of here please?” I slip my sandals back on and pull at Callum’s arm. “This place gives me the creeps.”

Eventually I manage to snap my fiancé out of his staring-at-robot revere and we make our way out of the room. The lights in the laboratory behind us go out and as we leave the door swings shut with quite a loud boom.

I don’t know how Callum found me down here, but obviously I’m glad he did. “You know how I joked that the elevator got stuck earlier and we’d be trapped?” I ask my fiancé as we head down the corridor. He doesn’t answer and he’s still got a very pensive look on his face. “Well you can remind me never to joke like that ever again. I was almost trapped down here forever!”

Callum ignores me, pulls another cardkey out of his pocket and swipes it through the lift panel. It pings and we ride up to the balcony lab in silence. We change elevators and when it lets us out on ground level I practically run out of the building. I’m so pleased to be once again out in open air, I don’t even mind that Callum still hasn’t said a single word to me.

“What’s wrong, honey?” I question him as we walk together arm in arm.

“What…?” He looks up and around as though realising for the first time that we’re outside. “Oh… it’s nothing, babe. I was just thinking about Oliver’s lab.”

“Why? His balcony laboratory was much bigger and far more impressive.”

“That’s just it though.” We stop walking and I turn to my fiancé as adds, “Oliver isn’t supposed to have another lab.”

Chapter 20

As relaxing as yesterday’s picnic was, the day had certainly not ended calmly. I’m so nervous about the wedding tomorrow that I can’t stop pacing the room.

“I knew I should have planned something to do.” I wring my hands and Callum comes over to me.

“Why don’t you check into the venue early, honey?”

I stop pacing. “What? And sit there doing nothing in the bridal suite? I’d go insane with stress!”

“All right.” Callum holds up his hands, thoroughly giving up. “It was only a suggestion.”

My bottom lip juts out in a pout and I plonk my bottom onto the bed. “Easy for you to say, you’ve got loads to occupy your mind today.”

It’s true. My fiancé is super busy even at this very moment while he packs his bags. His best man, Vince, and some of his other mates are off on their overnight barge cruise stag-do. They’ll be boarding at Upton, floating down the River Severn, then docking at Worcester. I won’t see my fiancé until tomorrow morning at the wedding when I walk down the aisle.

My parents aren’t flying in from Spain until this afternoon, so until then I’ve got no one to keep me company at all. I’d tried calling Lara, but she hadn’t answered. I’d tried texting everyone about last minute wedding prep, but no one’s gotten back to me yet at all.

“Harrumph!” I exclaim loudly while throwing myself backwards onto the pillow. “Maybe I’ll go see a film or something… in Upton.”

“Honey.” Callum growls at me. “There’s no cinema in Upton.”

Rats. I’ve been caught out. “Isn’t there? I thought they built one.”

“You wouldn’t be aiming to check up on me, now would you?” Callum stops packing his bag and slides on top of me. “You know we aren’t allowed to see each other from now until the wedding.”

“Since when does a scientist believe in superstitious crap like that?”

He laughs and kisses the tip of my nose. “Oh, is that a superstition? I thought it was just something made up in the old days to keep the women from snooping on the groom’s stag do.”

“Why? You’re not actually letting Vince get stripper midgets for you, are you?”

Callum’s eyebrows shoot skyward in curiosity. “I hadn’t heard anything of the sort, but now that you mention it, a groom is required to have at least one stripper—”

“Don’t even think about it.” Grabbing his cheeks, I kiss him hard on the mouth. Then, just as quickly, I release him from my grasp and sit straight up. “I know what I’ll do today! Why didn’t I think of this idea before?”

“I kind of had an idea for something we could do right now, babe.”

Turning, I notice my fiancé’s boxer-briefs have gone rather pointy shaped. “Save it for the honeymoon!”

“Are you saying you want me to remain hard for the next seventy-two hours? I don’t think even Viagra pills are capable of making a bloke sustain—”

Exasperated, I shake my head. “Don’t be so silly. You’ve got packing to do, now get on with it.”

“Oh? Now you want me to leave? What happened to Little Miss Bored Knickers?”

Crossing my arms, I glare at him. “I’ll have you know she’s now become Little Miss Has Something To Do Kickers, so get going!”

After much grumbling and a few more attempts at what Callum terms: not wasting GoodWood, I finally see my fiancé off out the door.

Now I’m alone and I can get to the matter at hand. I’d completely forgotten about the hen do DVD gift I’d received. That is, I’d forgotten about it until the subject of strippers had come up. I’ve been avoiding any and all talk of strippers ever since coming face to face with the fact that my cousin’s boyfriend is a male stripper. Or should I say ever since I came face to groin with his…?

I shudder at the thought and pop the DVD into the player. When the screen lights up I’m amazed I’m even trying this.

The DVD I’ve just loaded is a stripper video. Not a movie with strippers on it. I don’t need that, I bought the Magic Mike DVD ages ago. It’s a how-to video for learning to do pole dancing! The hen-do gift came with its own pole that I just load up with water or sand in the base for stability. By the time I’m done learning this Callum won’t know what hit him! After we get back from honeymoon he’s going to wish we never went when I show him my new pole.

The instructor on the DVD makes pole dancing look so easy. I’ve filled the base of the pole with water as I don’t have sand to hand. The thing seems steady enough and I test it out by jumping up and holding on for dear life.

It holds my weight. What’s even more surprising is that my arms and legs are capable of holding myself up onto this metal stick. I haven’t wrapped myself around a pole since grade school when playing on the monkey-bars at break time.

While I’ve got a good enough grip on the stick, I figure I might as well try the suggested flip move the DVD instructor has just completed.

This foot goes here. That foot goes there. My hands go onto the bar here and there.

I think I’m sorted. I’m standing on the base like I’m supposed to. Now, according to the pole dancer instructor woman, it’s all just a matter of pulling in one direction and giving it everything I’ve got.

Yanking hard with both arms while pushing off with my feet I catapult my entire body in a half circle through the air.

“Argh!” I scream.

I am now hanging upside-down and holding onto this blasted pole for dear life.

Why oh why didn’t I wait and watch for the instructor to say how the bloody hell I’m supposed to get back down? All the blood is rushing to my head. My eyes are going to pop clean out of their sockets from pressure! There’s nothing else for it, I’m going to have to slide down while upside-down!

Carefully, using all the strength I can muster, I loosen my leg and arm grip on the pole. Slowly but surely the top of my head slides towards the water-filled pole base. My muscles are screaming in agony as I try to keep my body from slipping.

It’s no use! “Argh!” I scream again as I go down.

My head skims the base and I manage to flip outwards. I land knees first on the carpet as my boobs bounce off the pole base.

I’m stunned. Absolutely shell shocked. I’m kneeling in front of the stripper pole and if someone were to walk into the sitting room right now they’d think I was simply meditating peacefully.

Little would they know that I’d just nearly risked cracking my neck and ending my own life one day before my wedding.

***

When the first call comes I’m wholly unprepared. “What do you mean you can’t make it to my wedding? You’re doing the bloody catering, Paige!”

“I’m sorry, Emily.” Her voice doesn’t sound very sorry down the phone. “Didn’t you get my text message?”

Text message? She’d tried to fob me off with a text message about the fact that the person who’d promised to deliver all my wedding food is suddenly cancelling. What a coward! I’m surprised she worked up the courage to even phone me like she has done now.

“But, Paige.” I start hyperventilating. “How am I going to sort out all the food without your help?”

“You’ll figure something out, I’m sure.”

Click.

The phone line goes dead. I stare at the screen utterly gobsmacked. Did she just hang up on me? I feel like I’m going to cry. What am I going to do? This is so last minute it’s not even processing in my brain.

Bring!

My phone goes off while I’m still holding it in my hands. Is it Paige calling to apologise and un-cancel her evil cancelling ways?

Looking down at the phone’s face I can clearly see it’s not Paige who’s calling. It’s Lara. Oh good. It’s my best friend. She’ll know how to help me with this most abysmal problem!

“Lara, you won’t believe what’s just happened!” I bellow into the phone without even saying hello.

“Just hang on a minute, Emily. I’ve got something I need to tell you.”

Emily? Did my best friend forever, who’s never called me Emily, just say my full name? There’s something fishy going on around here.

“I won’t be able to get your dress alterations in time for tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

My world collapses with every word she utters. I see a black shadow in front of my vision. It’s as though my brain is having trouble processing her words. I’m hearing the English language that Lara is speaking, but the emotional wave of chemicals that are being released into my mind is overwhelming my senses.

There’s a pause down the phone line. I think I hear a slight tremor in Lara’s voice just before she adds, “Emily, you could wear that lovely dress you wore to the picnic yesterday. Good bye.”

Click.

This can’t be happening. I must be dreaming that my best friend just cancelled my wedding dress and hung up on me. That’s two cancellations for the most important day of my life thus far in having lived. Something is horribly wrong with the universe.

When the phone rings this time I stare at it as though I’m peering through a kaleidoscope. My vision swims and colours ping abnormally in my peripheral. I’m so confused. So stressed. I can barely hear the ringing chime of the incoming call.

“Hello?” I croak upon answering.