Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
The first time I noticed Jane was an arsehole was not long after we met and struck up a friendship in Year 9. I was visiting her home for the first time and her mum offered to order us a pizza for tea. I was delighted, pizza was a rare treat in my family. Jane was less pleased and simply said, ‘no, just make us something’. I think it took me longer to recover from the shock of that exchange between them than it did for her mum to whip us up some spaghetti bolognese. We went to the dining room to eat, but Jane took one look in our bowls and declared it to be ‘shit’, to which her mum responded by offering to order a pizza.
By that time I had already decided that this new friend was not going to hang around long enough to become an old friend, but the spectacle and foreignness of this family dynamic was fascinating enough to at least complete the sleepover. Jane’s mum ordered pizza and we eventually ate. Jane helped herself to ice cream for dessert without offering me any and over the following weeks I successfully distanced myself from her by joining the school concert band. We fell into different social circles and I thought that was one arsehole well avoided.
Until a few weeks ago. I turned up to my cousin Lucy’s interstate wedding to fulfil my role of bridesmaid, and who should be cast in the role of maid of honour? The arsehole herself. I couldn’t believe it. Jane greeted me like an old friend, hugging and fussing and generally being disturbingly friendly given our status as strangers. At the rehearsal dinner I manged to find ten minutes with Lucy to try to understand why she was friends with this maniac. Lucy had met Jane through work five years ago, and they’d been best friends ever since. I related my history with Jane and Lucy was dismissive.
‘Don’t you find her a bit… much?’ I asked tactfully.
‘Oh come on, that was high school. She’s nice. She really helped me when Greg left me, and she’s been so helpful with the wedding. Really. You should give her a chance.’
Some relatives came and swept Lucy away for photos and I was left with her brother, Sam.
‘You know Jane?’ He nodded towards the arsehole, who was dancing rather more wildly than the slinky strapless dress she had on was built to tolerate.
‘Oh yes, I think so.’ I gave him a knowing look. I knew I could count on Sam for the straight story.
‘I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Tomorrow is going to be a disaster.’
‘What was the first shoe?’ This sounded ominous and not unexpected.
‘Lucy has not made a single decision about this wedding without consulting Jane. It might as well be her up in white. Mu’s spitting chips. He wanted to use the GTO, but Jane said it was too ‘old’ and somehow now they’re renting pink stretch Hummers.’ Sam wrinkled his nose at the mention of the ghastly vehicles. It was strange that they would hire cars when Mu had spent so long restoring his own classic car.
‘Why is Lucy listening to Jane?’
‘Search me? Since she met that girl she’s been hopeless. It’s like she’s in love with her and Mu is the dropped friend.’
‘So what kind of drama are you expecting tomorrow?’
‘Oh, it’s anyone’s guess, but I’ll meet you at the bar when it all goes down.’ He clinked my glass and sauntered off towards a group of Lucy’s uni friends.
The morning of the wedding had been rushed but not stressful, I’d certainly handled more stressed brides. Lucy was anxious about not leaving Mu waiting for too long, whatever traditional dictated. Jane had been rather more peppy than was appropriate for the morning, but there was nothing dramatic aside from a small kerfuffle about her dress being shut in the wardrobe door for a moment, oh, and the fact that Lucy had touched her smoothie bowl before Jane had taken a photo for Instagram. Hair and make up had been blissfully uneventful and before we knew it we were dressing and making final preparations to leave. That’s when the trouble started.
Lucy had been telling me she was planning to wear our grandmother’s pearls as her ‘something old’. She had been left them when grandma Hughes died, and I knew this meant a lot to her as they’d been very close. I’d received grandma’s collection of old cameras, which were much more useful! As Lucy was talking about the pearls she headed to the dresser to grab them.
‘Where are they? I left them right here this morning.’ Lucy’s voice rose half a tone.
‘Maybe they fell down the side.’ I tried to keep my voice low and quiet. Lucy’s movement was somewhat restricted in her mermaid style dress, so I got down on the floor and swept the area. No pearls.
‘Are you sure you left them here?’
‘Yes. Yes! I took out my jewellery and my bag and put it all here first thing today. Right before I had my shower.’ Panic was starting to hit now. Lucy grabbed her phone off the bed to call Mu, or anyone at their house to check the bedroom there. While she tried to get through to him, Jane returned from wherever she had been, probably having her own private Insta-ready photo shoot without ruining her aesthetic.
‘What’s going on?’
‘We can’t find the pearls?
‘What pearls?’ Jane’s eyes were wide, her hands stretched wide.
‘The ones she planned to wear, our grandma’s.’ I watched Jane carefully. Something about this was not right. Jane seemed to controlling this whole event but she didn’t know which pearls?
‘Oh, is that all?’ Jane turned back to her preparations, seemingly unfazed by this hitch in her fastidiously planned morning.
Lucy ended her call with Tom, one of the groomsmen, shaking her head.
‘They can’t see them at home either. I can’t believe this, how could I have lost them. And today?’ Lucy was close to tears, which wasn’t going to bode well for her fresh make up. I took her hands and tried to keep her calm.
‘I know how much they mean to you. We will find them, but maybe not for the ceremony. But you know grandma will still her here to see this.’ This was how desperate I was getting, I had no such belief in the afterlife, but I knew Lucy liked this idea. Slowly, she shook her head, I could see she was adjusting to the idea that it was going ahead without the jewellery she had planned.
‘Aw, come on Luce,’ Jane interjected, ‘those pearls didn’t really match your dress anyway, so old school.’
My spidey senses were set off immediately by this comment. Right then, I would have bet everything I had that Jane had had something to do with the missing pearls. But, one look at Lucy told me now was not the time to start hurling accusations around.
‘Your dress is gorgeous, and you are luminous, no one would have even noticed those pearls.’ I tried to summon some enthusiasm for this line of ‘cheering up’ that Jane had started.
Lucy smiled shakily and nodded. ‘You’re right, this is one small thing. Something always has to go wrong, doesn’t it.’ I squeezed her hands, yes, one small thing.
‘Come on ladies, we don’t want to keep Mu waiting, who knows when he’ll come to his senses and run off!’ Jane impatiently gestured for us to get out the door she was holding.
I started towards the door, and just as I reached it I heard Lucy say, ‘Oh wait, my phone.’ She ran, as best she could in taht crazy tight dress, around the bed to pick up her phone. As she went to come back her foot caught on something on the floor and she almost fell. Catching herself on the bed she stayed there, half bent over for another beat, as if she’d been frozen.
‘Luce, come ON!’ Jane almost bellowed at her, looking out the door at the waiting pink abominations.
Still Lucy stared at something on the floor, not moving. Since she wasn’t responding I went towards her to see what the problem was. She wasn’t going to have some sort of anxiety attack or bout of cold feet was she? I wasn’t ready to handle that level of breakdown. As I came around the end of the bed I saw what she was starting at; the pearls. They been thrown out of Jane’s tote bag when Lucy’s foot caught the end of it.
‘Lucy?’ I caught her eye and raised my eyebrows. Her face was like nothing I’d ever seen from her before, stone cold. Even with all that make up on she was white with rage, and I was pretty keen to get out of firing range. I peeked back at Jane, who still hasn’t realised that she was busted. We didn’t have time for a huge confrontation right now. Mu, and everyone else, were waiting for Lucy already.
I took a step back and held my hands up in a gesture to wait to Lucy.
‘All right? Ready?’ I gave Lucy a meaningful glance.
‘Yea… Yes.’ She nodded, keeping a lid on the no doubt strong feelings boiling away inside. I turned towards Jane and walked outside, Lucy following close behind. We boarded the waiting car (surely one does not just get into such a huge vehicle), Jane being the last one in.
Once we were all in, I said, ‘Oh no! I forgot Lucy’s bag. Jane, would you mind grabbing it quickly?’
‘Jesus Sally, you had one job.’ Jane rolled her eyes like a mad horse and huffed her way out of the car.
As soon as she was out I told the driver to leave. He hesitated for half a moment, before I repeated my instruction at top volume and he took off, Lucy grabbing my arm.
‘We can’t just leave her here!’
‘Why not? That bitch just stole our grandmother’s pearls and tried to ruin your wedding day.’
Lucy half-giggled and half-sobbed, ‘she’ll kill me’.
But her face ultimately broke out into a huge grin and I knew Jane wasn’t going to be one of her old friends either. We both collapsed into a storm of giggles, which was a real workout while crammed into those tight dresses. By the time we made it to the ceremony Lucy was thankfully back in good spirits, in fact almost on a high about having ditched Jane like a stone cold queen. We could deal with the fallout later. That was the last time I noticed that Jane was an arsehole. For now.