Page 49 of The Wedding Forecast

‘Anna. We’ll never make it at this rate.’

‘It’s fine, I’ve got it,’ I say. I do another five, with Patrick taking some photos, but he pauses and puts the camera down after a while.

‘Six,’ I announce shakily. My fingers are numb, I’m not sure if it’s from fear, or pain, or nerves.

‘Six!’ Hayley says. ‘I thought you were halfway.’

‘I’m almost halfway.’ I have decided delusional positivity is the best way forward.

‘You’re not even a quarter of the way.’ Hayley’s voice has an edge, an edge I know is a warning sign. We’re five minutes away from hysteria. Hayley can get there very quickly.

‘Can I help?’ Patrick asks.

Hayley and I exchange a look in the mirror. We have exchanged it many times before. Oh, a man who thinks he knows best. Mansplaining buttons to me, a woman whose great-great-grandmother was a seamstress. Well, could have been a seamstress. I don’t actually know for sure what she did for a living.

‘I’m good at fiddly things,’ he says. ‘I can sew.’

‘You can?’ I say.

‘Yes, my mum believed very firmly that her son needed to know how to cook, sew and clean.’

Hayley gives me another look, a different one this time. Now she’s making a this is a dream man face.

‘Go for it,’ I say, stepping back.

‘Yes,’ Hayley says. ‘But if you break off a button, just know, the whole wedding will be ruined.’

‘Got it,’ he says, and he sounds confident.

He is silent for a while.

‘I broke a button,’ he says after a second.

‘What!’ Hayley shrieks.

‘Oh my god!’ I am gripping my chest, like there has been an actual death.

He smiles at us uncertainly. ‘I haven’t. Sorry, I was joking.’

‘Not funny,’ Hayley says in a shaky voice.

‘Yes, that was inappropriate timing. I’m sorry. I’ve actually done ten buttons.’

‘Oh,’ I say, peering around to look.

He has, damn it. ‘He really has,’ I say to Hayley.

‘Okay, you get right out of the way, Anna. He’s doing this now.’

I watch Patrick work. It’s attractive to see him take charge and solve the problem, but it’s also, I am ashamed to admit, unattractive, because now I am examining his hands and his fingers seem unusually slim and fast-moving and dexterous to me in a way I find suddenly repulsive.

Do not do this. Do not talk yourself out of a cute, funny, charming, helpful man who can sew, and cook, and clean, because you find his fingers unappealing. I am giving myself this lecture because I know Hayley, Mum and Bobbi would if they knew.

‘Honey, you’re thirty. You want a child someday. Is now the time to worry about a man’s fingers?’ I can hear Mum asking, and my imagined furious response. Oh, I’m a washed-up spinster now, I don’t even get to be picky about the man I want to be with. I’m so desperate, I have to settle for nightmare hands? While at the same time, I am furious at myself for letting this turn me off. Turn back on, I tell myself. Turn back on right now.

This is, of course, Mac’s fault. There is nothing wrong with Patrick’s hands. Mac is in my head, making me judge other men for things that aren’t even real. And he’s far from perfect! He’s repulsive too, I just can’t think how in this exact moment. Patrick’s hands are lovely and nimble and they could very well one day touch my breasts in a quick and appealing way.

Patrick gets the rest of the buttons done up, and then bows when Hayley and I applaud him. I want to find the bow charming. It is charming. It’s charming. But there’s something about how low he goes in the bow that makes me uncomfortable. Should tall men bow so low? I know this is not rational. My brain is betraying me. Sabotaging me. No, not my brain. My hormones. My horniness. Whatever misguided part of me it was that followed Mac into the garden. That part is trying to tell me people who are objectively attractive are not. But I am smart enough not to fall for this. I can reprogram myself.