The Trouble With Choices Page 2

  ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife,’ said the celebrant, and Dan and Lucy shared their first kiss as a married couple, to the cheers and applause of the assembled guests. For the first time today, Hannah experienced a momentary pang of wistfulness. Marriage was so far off her radar it wasn’t funny, but every other wedding or so, she was reminded why, and she found herself wondering, Why me?

  And then the moment would pass in a flood of rationality. Marriage was for a different kind of person, for romantics and the ones who wanted to raise a family. For people like Dan and Lucy, who were clearly made for each other. Not even close to being a number-one priority for practical people like her, already busy with their lives and careers.

  The newlyweds started making their slow way back down the aisle and she fell in behind Kate. Fifteen minutes had been allowed for congratulations before the wedding party and family were due to assemble in a nearby spot in the orchard, where Dan’s gleaming nineteen-sixty-nine Triumph Spitfire was prepped and ready for photographs. Strictly speaking, it was Kate’s job as matron of honour to organise the bridesmaids, but Hannah was sure Kate wouldn’t mind if she pulled rank on this one. Hannah was older, after all. She’d ensure the bridesmaids were there on time and didn’t keep anyone waiting.

  Except that Sophie disappeared the second the formalities were over, and Beth and Siena looked like they were going to do the same thing. ‘Where are you going?’ she called to Beth. ‘We’ve got photos coming up.’

  ‘Going to touch up my makeup, actually,’ Beth said. ‘You got a problem with that?’

  Hannah blinked at the hostile tone. Actually, she did have a problem, given they were supposed to be gathering soon for photos like the plan said, but Beth hadn’t waited for her answer, and Hannah figured that maybe touching up her makeup was code for having a word to Siena about what standing still meant. At least that might explain her snippy tone.

  She turned to where she’d last seen Kate only to find her gone too, absorbed into the crowd. Typical.

  So, it was no surprise to Hannah that she was the first to arrive for the photographs at the allotted time, given she seemed to be the only one to pay more than lip service to their responsibilities. Oh, she could excuse the bride and groom for taking their sweet time to get to the designated spot in the orchard. Lucy and Dan would have to run the gauntlet of the sea of guests wanting to congratulate them, but that didn’t excuse everyone else.

  The photographer strode up, his big camera bag slung over his shoulder, a camera in one hand, a tripod in the other. He nodded to her in acknowledgement, and then swung the bag down onto the ground and got to work changing lenses and checking the light.

  ‘They’re all hopeless,’ she said, smoothing her skirts. ‘Everyone knows photographs are supposed to be happening now.’

  He smiled as he screwed on a new lens, bagging the other one. ‘It’s okay. No rush. They’ll get here.’

  Hannah sighed as she turned to see if anyone else was coming yet, only to find that, no, nobody was. In fact, nobody looked close to coming anytime soon. One side from the crowd still gathered around Lucy and Dan, she could see Nan and Pop deep in conversation with a group of local orchardists, while Beth was chatting to the post-office lady and clearly totally oblivious to Siena, who was now running around playing chasey with another child—while in her flower-girl dress and before photos of all things. What was her sister thinking?

  Finally she spotted Kate, her own new husband with his arm looped around her shoulders, while the best man, Nick Pasquale, looked on. She clucked her tongue. Nick, who looked sensible enough, but who’d been daydreaming about God only knows what during the ceremony because he’d had to be asked twice for the rings.

  Hopeless.

  But if all that wasn’t bad enough, there was Sophie, who looked like she was heading for the bar. Bloody hell, that was so not going to happen. Hannah tossed off a quick, ‘I’ll just go round everyone up,’ over her shoulder to the photographer as she set off, marching back to where the guests were still milling around Dan and Lucy.

  It was just lucky for them that somebody was taking this wedding seriously.

  4

  Sophie

  The photos were almost done, and Sophie felt drained from the effort of smiling. On the plus side, it had been so long since she’d had a drink, she was feeling less tipsy by the minute. She watched as the photographer shot off a few extra snaps of Dan and Lucy in front of the car—he’d asked everyone to wait to make sure he had what he needed before he let them all go, and then the sun had moved, the light dappled and golden, and he’d gone back to work again. Now Sophie stood to one side of the group, barely aware of the conversation going on between the rest of the bridal party, lost in her own thoughts while she watched the photographer do his stuff.

  ‘Now, Lucy,’ the photographer said, as he had Dan standing behind her, his arms around her waist. ‘Look up at Dan. Dan, look down.’

  Click. Click. Click.

  ‘Lovely. Let’s see a kiss …’ Dan obliged, leaning down and kissing his bride, both of them unable to stop smiling. ‘Perfect, keep it going.’

  Click. Click. Click.

  Sophie sighed as she gazed at the picture of true love playing out before her. If she wanted love like that for herself, she was going to have to start being more selective. No more dickhead boyfriends. No more believing a guy’s bullshit ‘forever’ stories because she wanted them to be true. She was going to find herself a man who’d be her partner for life. Someone who’d love her the way Dan loved Lucy.

  No, forget selective, she was going to be a whole lot more ruthless.

  Starting tomorrow.

  Because tonight she just needed a stopgap. Someone to share a five-star hotel room with so she wouldn’t feel like she’d blown all that money for nothing.

  She looked over her shoulder to the party already in progress, the reception well underway, a DJ set up near the dance floor currently belting out John Paul Young’s ‘Love is in the Air’, and right this minute she wasn’t just hoping JPY was right. She was counting on it.

  A waiter arrived, bearing a tray of drinks, heading for Sophie first because she was closest. ‘Don’t give her anything alcoholic,’ ordered Hannah from a distance. ‘She’s had enough.’

  ‘Do you have older sisters?’ she asked the girl as she reached for a glass.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Take my advice, keep it that way,’ she said conspiratorially as the hand that had been hovering over the water picked up a glass of the sparkling wine instead, and not because she particularly wanted it, but because she knew it was guaranteed to annoy the older sister who was now marching her way towards Sophie with Beth hot on her heels.

  ‘Somebody has to watch over you,’ Hannah said, glaring at the flute in Sophie’s hand, ‘don’t they, Beth?’

  ‘Do they? You know, I’ve been meaning to tell you, Han, you’re wasted as a vet,’ said Beth, reaching for a glass of bubbles herself. ‘You should have been a policewoman.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘You’re so bloody bossy.’

  Sophie would have laughed, but the look of abject horror on Hannah’s face told her that would be a very bad idea.

  ‘I am not!’

  Beth gave an unladylike snort. ‘Yes, you are.’ She looked around to see where her daughter was, seeming relaxed when she found her happily still playing chasey. ‘Look at the way you ticked off Siena during the ceremony. I saw what you did, you know.’

  ‘Well, somebody had to do it.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. You’re not her mother.’

  ‘Clearly, her mother wasn’t paying attention. Siena was fidgeting.’ Hannah turned to Sophie. ‘She was fidgeting, wasn’t she? You must have seen it.’

  Sophie shrugged and cast a glance over at the dance floor. She didn’t want to get involved in a bitch session between her sisters, not if they were both too busy to pick on her. Besides, she had more important things on her mind—lik
e that group of men hovering to one side of the dance floor looking like they were lacking in female company. ‘I didn’t notice.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right,’ said Hannah. ‘You were too drunk to notice. God only knows why you need another one, but don’t listen to me. And take it from me, Beth your daughter was jumping around like a jack-in-the-box.’

  ‘That’s garbage. Her seams were digging into her waist. She was uncomfortable, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, she stayed still after I tapped her on the shoulder. All she needed was someone to give her a little bit of guidance.’

  ‘What? And you don’t think I do?’

  ‘Girls, girls,’ their nan interrupted, a vision of wall-to-wall blue floral fabric, as she bustled over with Pop. ‘This is a happy day for all of us, isn’t it, Clarry? Don’t ruin it by bickering. Not when you all look so beautiful.’ She stood back and took in the sight of her three granddaughters and her great-granddaughter in their bridesmaids’ gowns and gave a wistful sigh. ‘Oh, I do wish your mother could have been here today to see your brother get married. What rotten luck to break her leg like that.’

  ‘I know,’ said Hannah. ‘But they couldn’t let her fly all the way from Zurich in a cast.’

  ‘And Dan’s going to send a movie,’ Beth said, ‘so she and Dirk won’t miss out entirely.’

  ‘Would either of you like a drink?’ the waiter asked, offering the new arrivals the tray.

  ‘Not for me,’ said Nan, holding up her hand. ‘I’ll have a glass of moscato later, and Clarry here, he’s on doctor’s orders not to drink too much after that scare he gave us all last year.’

  ‘I’m fit as a mallee bull,’ said Pop, puffing out his chest as he looked longingly at the glasses of beer.

  ‘Of course you are, Clarry,’ said Nan, patting his hand away from the tray, ‘as fit as a mallee bull who’s had a heart attack and a bypass op, which is why you’re on strict instructions to take it easy.’

  Pop grumbled something under his breath, while Sophie kept one eye on the group of men. Who were they? Friends of Dan’s? Long-lost cousins? ‘Are we done here?’ she asked the photographer, itching to get away and find out.

  ‘Five minutes,’ he said, holding up the splayed fingers of one hand while he looked through his viewfinder, and Sophie took no consolation in the fact that he was holding up just four. ‘Just want to check I’ve got everything. Won’t keep you.’ Sophie sighed as he went back to his click, click, click.

  ‘Ah, bless,’ Nan said on a sigh as she watched the newlyweds posing by the car. ‘Did you hear the wonderful news, Sophie? Kate’s just told us she’s expecting a happy event and she’s only been married ten minutes herself. And wouldn’t you know, she didn’t want to say anything and steal anyone’s thunder today, but she’s just so excited, she was bursting to tell someone. Such lovely news.’ She nodded in the direction of her grandson and his new wife. ‘It won’t be long and there’ll be babies on the horizon here, too, you mark my words. High time our Dan became a father.’

  Sophie, Hannah and Beth all looked at each other, all thoughts of sisterly snark forgotten, because they knew Lucy’s history, that a couple of years back she’d suffered a miscarriage at nineteen weeks, and that she was terrified at the prospect of getting pregnant in case the same thing happened again. And they knew their brother had married Lucy first and foremost because he loved her and wanted to spend his life with her, not for the opportunity to have kids.

  ‘I hope you haven’t said as much to Lucy and Dan,’ Hannah said, and just for once Sophie agreed with her bossy big sister. Beth, too, by the look of concern on her face.

  ‘Why not?’ Nan said with the certainty of the long lived with the equally long and firmly embedded belief. ‘Every woman wants babies. It’s the natural order of things.’

  ‘Who says so?’ said Hannah.

  ‘Mother Nature,’ insisted Nan with a nod. ‘The birds and the bees. After all, that’s why we women were put on earth.’

  Hannah snorted. ‘Well, I sure as hell wasn’t.’

  Nan refused to be fazed. ‘You don’t mean that, Hannah. You just haven’t met the right man yet. Wait until you do, and you’ll soon change your tune, believe you me.’

  ‘No, I won’t. I’m never getting married. I’m never having kids. Instead, I’m going to enjoy a brilliant career, with nobody else’s undies to wash and my choice of what’s on TV every night.’

  ‘Jeepers,’ said Beth. ‘You make me feel jealous, and I don’t even have anyone else’s undies to wash. Well, apart from Siena’s, that is.’

  Nan reached over and patted Beth’s hand. ‘You’ll find someone else one day, Beth, I know you will.’

  ‘What if I don’t want to?’

  ‘You don’t have to spend your entire life mourning Joe,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Is that what you think I’m doing?’ Beth directed at her sister. ‘You seem to forget I’ve got Siena to look out for. I’m not interested in another relationship while she’s my first priority.’

  ‘Which is all very noble, but it’s been ten years.’

  Beth guffawed. ‘So says the woman who’s never getting married or having a child when she was never even close! Give me a break, Han, at least I’ve been there. At least I’ve made my contribution to the world’s population.’

  Hannah kicked up her chin like she’d been pistol whipped, her blue-green eyes flashing with something that looked like pain. ‘I was just saying—’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Nan, shaking her head and looking a little lost. ‘I’m just a silly old goose, of course, but in my time this is what everyone knew—women want babies—and that’s what we’re designed for.’ Her watery eyes alighted on her youngest granddaughter. ‘Sophie!’ she announced. ‘You want to have children one day, I know you do. That’s why you became a teacher.’

  ‘Got to be the best contraceptive going,’ said Beth dryly.

  ‘No, Nan’s right,’ Sophie said, ‘I do want to have kids. Not that I was planning on getting started tonight, if that’s what you were hoping.’

  Nan tittered. ‘Well, no, it would be nice if you got married first.’ The older woman looked around, frowning. ‘Speaking of which, where is that nice young man of yours? I haven’t spotted him yet.’

  Sophie looked into her glass and sighed. Ah well, the truth was going to have to come out sooner or later. ‘He’s not my nice young man, as it happens,’ she said, frowning when she looked over to the dance floor and saw a couple of female guests approach the group of men she’d been watching. Damn. She turned back to her family. ‘Turns out, he’s not very nice at all.’

  ‘Oh, but I wanted to ask if Daphne wanted some more eggs.’

  Sophie raised her eyes to the heavens, but she knew that not even divine intervention could save her now. ‘Nan, I don’t think Jason’s mum is going to be hanging out for eggs.’

  ‘No?’ Beth’s eyes narrowed. ‘All you said was that Jason was late.’

  ‘Yeah, really late as it happens. He’s not actually coming.’

  ‘He dumped you?’ Hannah asked, using the superhuman sense that sisters had to drill down to the core problem through the cracks in what wasn’t being said.

  Sophie closed her eyes, but that was a mistake because clearly she wasn’t as sober as she hoped she was becoming if the action made her feel a bit woozy, so she opened them again quick smart. ‘Last night, yeah.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Nan, wringing her hands, ‘and just when you were getting on so well, too. What went wrong?’

  She gulped, the last thing she needed was pity from a woman in a blue pillbox hat. ‘It wasn’t that serious.’ At least, Jason obviously hadn’t been.

  Pop snorted. ‘Boy must have rocks in his head, passing up a Faraday girl.’

  Sophie found a tentative smile. ‘Thanks, Pop.’

  ‘No wonder you looked a bit out of sorts at the ceremony. Looked like you were about to burst into tears for a while there.’

  ‘Don’t talk
rubbish, Clarence Faraday,’ Nan said, slapping the back of his hand. ‘Sophie was just so happy for Dan.’ She turned to her granddaughter. ‘Isn’t that right, Sophie? Weddings always make me cry.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said, remembering that she’d been concentrating on not peeing. It was a miracle she hadn’t burst. ‘I’m happy for both of them.’

  ‘Oh,’ continued Nan, still shaking her head. ‘But it’s such a shame about you and Jason, isn’t it? To think I was saving a dozen eggs for his mum.’

  ‘Life’s just full of disappointments,’ Sophie said, glancing over at the group she’d been scoping. And there was another disappointment, because the women had been paired off with the men and were being led hand in hand towards the dance floor to Robbie Williams singing ‘Angels’. A nice close number.

  Crap!

  ‘Not to worry,’ said Nan, evidently liking that one out of three granddaughters was making the right noises. ‘There’s someone out there just waiting to meet you, and when you do, you’ll be only too happy to have his babies.’

  ‘Maybe. Though right now, I’d be happy to settle for a bit of …’ hot sex ‘… um, romance.’

  Nan tutted, stroking Sophie’s arm with her gnarled fingers in a way she wouldn’t have if Sophie had said what she really wanted.

  ‘It’s rubbish,’ said Hannah, ‘all this “women want babies” or “women need to have babies in order to be fulfilled” bullshit. It’s a social construct, nothing more. As if we’re all ticking time bombs and we’re worthless if we don’t procreate.’

  Nan looked crestfallen. ‘Is it? And I was so hoping for some more good news to go with the wedding.’

  ‘It’ll happen,’ Sophie said with a reassuring smile, trying to make up for Hannah’s sudden abrasive tone, wondering where that all came from. Hannah had always been the sensible no-nonsense sister. She’d never professed an interest in having children, but Sophie had never heard her being so vocally hostile in her opposition to the concept. ‘Probably when you and we are least expecting it, too. Isn’t that how it always happens?’