Wedding Night

what? Until that moment we’d been fine. So clearly what he needed a break from was
the risk of hearing the word “marriage” again
. Clearly this was such a major worry that he couldn’t even face seeing me, for fear that my mouth might start to form the word again.
    Before the “break” was over, he was with that red-haired girl. I didn’t mind, because by then I’d met Seamus. Seamus, with his sexy Irish lilting voice. And I don’t even
know
what went wrong with him. We were besotted for about a year—crazy all-night-sex nothing-else-in-life-matters besotted—until all of a sudden we were arguing every night instead. We went from exhilarating to exhausting in about twenty-four hours. It was toxic. Too many state-of-the-nation summits about “Where are we heading?” and “What do we want from this relationship?” and it wore us both out. We limped on for another year, and when I look back, it’s as though that second year is a big black miserable blot in my life.
    Then there was Julian. That lasted two years too, but it never really
took
. It was like a skeleton of a relationship. I suppose both of us were working far too hard. I’d recentlymoved to Blay Pharmaceuticals and was traveling all over the country. He was trying to get partnership at his accountancy firm. I’m not sure we ever even broke up properly—we just drifted apart. We meet up occasionally, as friends, and it’s the same for both of us—we’re not quite sure where it all went wrong. He even asked me out on a date a year or so ago, but I had to tell him I was with someone now and really happy. And that was Richard. The guy I really do love. The guy sitting opposite me with a ring in his pocket (maybe).
    Richard is definitely better-looking than any of my other boyfriends. (Maybe I’m biased, but I think he’s gorgeous.) He works hard as a media analyst, but he’s not obsessed. He’s not as rich as Julian, but who cares? He’s energetic and funny and has an uproarious laugh that makes my spirits lift, whatever mood I’m in. He calls me “Daisy,” ever since we went on a picnic where I made him a daisy chain. He can lose his temper with people—but that’s OK. No one’s perfect. When I look back over our relationship, I don’t see a black blot, like with Seamus, or a blank space, like with Julian. I see a cheesy music video. A montage, with blue skies and smiles. Happy times. Closeness. Laughter.
    And now we’re getting to the climax of the montage. The bit where he kneels down, takes a deep breath …
    I’m feeling so nervous for him. I want this to go beautifully. I want to be able to tell our children that I fell in love with their father all over again, the day he proposed.
    Our children
. Our home. Our life.
    As I let my mind roll around the images, I feel a release inside me. I’m ready for this. I’m thirty-three years old and I’m ready. All my grown-up life, I’ve steered away from the subject of marriage. My friends are the same. It’s as though there’s been a crime-scene cordon around the whole area: NO ENTRY .You just don’t go there, because if you do, you’ve jinxed it and your boyfriend chucks you.
    But now there’s nothing to jinx. I can
feel
the love flowing between us, over the table. I want to grab Richard’s hands. I want to envelop him in my arms. He is such a wonderful, wonderful man. I’m so lucky. In forty years when we’re both wrinkled and gray, perhaps we’ll walk up the Strand hand in hand and remember today and thank God we found each other. I mean, what were the chances, in this teeming world of strangers? Love is so random.
So
random. It’s a miracle, really.…
    Oh God, I’m blinking.…
    “Lottie?” Richard has noticed my damp eyes. “Hey, Daisy-doo. Are you OK? What’s up?”
    Even though I’ve been more honest with Richard than I have with any other boyfriend, it’s probably not a good idea to reveal my
entire
thought process to him. Fliss, my big sister, says I think in Hollywood Technicolor and I have to remember that other people can’t hear the swooping violins.
    “Sorry!” I dab at my eyes. “Nothing. I just wish you didn’t have to go.”
    Richard is flying off tonight to an assignment in San Francisco. It’s three months—could be worse—but I’ll miss him terribly. In fact, it’s only the thought that I’ll have a wedding to plan which is distracting me.
    “Sweetheart, don’t cry. I can’t bear it.” He reaches out to take my hands.