Page 1 of The Wedding Forecast

PART ONE

March

1

I WILL NOT cry this weekend. Not even happy tears. This is my mantra, the one thing I am determined to stick to. I am going to seal off my heart and my tear ducts and dehydrate myself and take a double dose of antihistamines, because I don’t want to risk even watery eyes.

I am not, under any circumstances, going to give anyone the chance to see me, standing at the altar, dabbing my eyes as I listen to Luke and Hayley’s vows, and have them think, poor thing, she’s not coping. Because they’ll assume it’s about Joel. They’ll assume I’m not over the breakup, or that I’m still pining for him, or that the wedding is dredging everything up, or that I’m sad about being single when he has a new partner. People project all kinds of ideas onto bridesmaids, and crying is like waving a big red pity flag.

So, no tears.

Mum seems to have the opposite goal in mind for the weekend though, because she’s almost made me rage-cry twice on the drive here.

‘The speed limit is eighty,’ she says.

‘I know. I’m doing eighty.’ I am also keeping my voice very calm and neutral.

‘I thought I could see your speed creeping up a bit, that’s all,’ Mum says.

‘Let me focus on the driving, and you focus on the navigation.’

She is quiet for an ominously long time as she looks at her phone.

‘Well,’ she says. ‘We’ve missed the turn.’

‘What! When?’

‘We needed to turn left back there.’

‘How far back?’

‘A little way.’ This could mean anything from a few hundred metres to half an hour.

‘Okay. Okay. Fine.’ I swallow the urge to yell at her while doing a U-turn. This is not a big deal. This is a blip. I am remaining calm even if my head is hurting. And my back. And my neck. And my knees. Is it possible to hold tension in your knees?

I’ll feel better once I’m out of the car.

Breaking up with Joel after eight years together forced me to confront a lot of things quite quickly, and the first one was the fact he did most of the driving. Early on in our relationship, the idea took hold that he was a good driver and I wasn’t, and I’m not sure if there was any evidence for this belief, but we treated it like a fact, and he drove everywhere.

So this three-hour car trip to Hayley and Luke’s wedding is the longest I’ve ever actually driven. When I mentioned this to Mum, she decided that Dad could drive to the wedding on his own and she’d keep me company. Which is sweet. Except her presence is probably the most likely thing to cause me to have an accident.

‘This is the turn,’ she says.

‘You’re sure.’

‘Yes. Wait. No.’

‘Mum!’

‘No, I am sure. This is it. Turn, turn.’

Mum reaches into the large tote bag at her feet and pulls out a packet of chocolate-coated almonds, offering them to me. She’s reverting to our childhood dynamic—calming me down with treats.

‘Thank you,’ I say, taking a handful.

Will the sugar improve my mood or increase my anxiety? We shall soon see.

‘I have something else for you,’ she says, reaching down again and pulling out a package wrapped in tissue paper.