Maddy’s Christmas Wedding (Little Duck Pond Cafe #37)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

When all your dreams of the perfect wedding are suddenly shattered, people start talking in hushed voices around you. Weird but true.

Ellie did it when I went in to work the next day. I’d already phoned her to let her know we’d have to cancel the wedding, so she was obviously really sad for us – and very apologetic that she couldn’t offer the function room at the café as it was already booked for an event.

News spreads fast in a village, and by the afternoon, more and more people were finding out – and of course some of them had seen it on the news about the hotel going bankrupt. I’d started to wish I hadn’t been quite so open and effusive about our forthcoming nuptials, talking about the wedding so that all our regulars knew about it.

By closing time, I was altogether fed up with telling the story over and over again, and being faced with all those sympathetic looks, the consoling pats on the arm and – yes – those hushed voices.

And then Jack appeared.

‘I was just passing,’ he explained, seeing my surprised face, ‘so I thought you might like to do something?’ he said (in a hushed voice).

‘Right. Such as?’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe we could go for a bite to eat or a drink?’

‘Sounds good. I’ll just finish up in the kitchen and I’ll be out, okay?’ It had cheered me up, the fact that he’d come specially to meet me from work. He wouldn’t have been ‘just passing’ and I really appreciated his thoughtfulness. To be fair, a drink was probably just what I needed.

I tidied up in the kitchen then grabbed my coat and bag and went back out.

Jack and Ellie were huddled together over the counter talking, although when they saw me, they broke apart and plastered on cheery smiles. It was blindingly obvious their topic of conversation had been me.

‘I’m not ill, you know,’ I joked. ‘I haven’t been struck down with a mysterious lurgy. I’m a big girl. I can cope with disappointment. You don’t need to treat me like a valuable china tea service.’

Ellie laughed. ‘Sorry. I just know how gutted you must be.’

‘I know.’ I nodded. ‘And I really appreciate your concern. Right, so what about this drink, then?’ I grinned at Jack.

‘Come on.’ Smiling, he took my hand, we said goodbye to Ellie and walked out to his car.

*****

The hushed voices continued at my parents’ house the following day.

They were obviously horrified that we were having to cancel the wedding. I’d had a few telephone conversations with them and Dad was so annoyed at the hotel company, he was already talking about taking them to court if we didn’t get all our money back.

But when I went over to see them, to my relief, he didn’t mention court proceedings at all (the last thing I wanted was for Dad to get stressed out doing something like that). But what he did say was that they were going on a mini break to Barcelona and they wanted me to go with them!

‘Oh.’ I stared at him, bemused. ‘This is all very sudden. When are you going?’

‘We’d be leaving tomorrow night,’ said Mum.

‘But there’s no way I’ll get on the same flight as you. When did you book this anyway? You’ve never mentioned it.’

‘Well . . . we haven’t actually booked it yet,’ said Dad, looking a little sheepish. ‘Your mum was looking online for a cancellation and she found this: five nights in Barcelona at an amazing price.’ He shrugged. ‘We just thought it might take your mind off . . . well, everything.’

‘Right. Well, that’s really thoughtful of you both, but what about Jack? He’s already taken loads of time off to help his mum and dad with the move, so there’s no way he’ll be able to take more days off for this. He’s already promised his boss he’ll work some weekends to make up for the time he spent away.’

Mum and Dad exchanged a look.

‘Well, actually, we were thinking it would just be the three of us,’ said Mum. ‘I mentioned it to Jack and he seemed to think it was a good idea.’

‘You spoke to Jack about it?’ He hadn’t mentioned anything that morning, although he’d left very early for work.

Mum nodded. ‘I just wanted to make sure he was okay, you know? And of course we were already thinking about taking you away for a break and I wanted to know what Jack thought about the idea.’

‘You’ll have to ask Ellie if she can give you the time off, of course,’ said Dad.

Mum nodded. ‘You’d have to talk to Ellie.’

As I was going out to the car, she called after me. ‘Phone Ellie when you get back to find out if it’s okay? And then we’ll go ahead and book it.’

I drove away, feeling vaguely as if I’d been railroaded into going away. It seemed everyone wanted to look after me in the wake of my disappointment. But it was lovely, really, and I was already starting to think about Barcelona and how nice it might be to escape all the sympathy from the well-meaning folk around here. (I couldn’t visit the village store these days without someone else coming up to me and telling me how sorry they were to hear that the wedding had been cancelled.)

It turned out that Ellie thought Barcelona was a great idea as well, and Jack insisted he’d be fine.

‘I’ll work late while you’re away to make up for all the time I’ve missed and I’ll phone around and speak to all the wedding guests to let them know what’s happened,’ he said.

‘Are you sure?’ I gazed at him, feeling quite sick at the thought of the gruelling task ahead for him. We’d been putting it off up till now, but it had to be done. ‘I should be helping you with that.’ Everyone was being so nice!

Jack was adamant. He didn’t mind doing it. It would be great for me to get away and spend some time with my parents, he said.

It was all fixed, apparently, and with no input from me whatsoever.

I was off to Barcelona!

Ten Days Later

22nd December