“She won’t want to attend as some guest! It’s her daughter’s wedding! She wants to be the hostess! She wants to organize it!”
“So!” A cheerful voice interrupts us. “Are we resolved?” Robyn appears back at the table, putting her mobile away.
“I’ve booked an appointment for us to see the Terrace Room after lunch,” says Elinor frostily. “I would be glad if you would at least be courteous enough to come and view it with us.”
I stare at her mutinously, tempted to throw down my napkin and say no way. I can’t believe Luke knows anything about this. In fact, I feel like ringing him up right now and telling him exactly what I think.
But then I remember he’s at a board lunch… and I also remember him asking me to give his mother a chance. Well, fine. I’ll give her a chance. I’ll go along and see the room, and walk around and nod politely and say nothing. And then tonight I’ll tell her equally politely that I’m still getting married in Oxshott.
“All right,” I say at last.
“Good.” Elinor’s mouth moves a few millimeters. “Shall we order?”
Throughout lunch, Elinor and Robyn talk about all the New York weddings they’ve ever been to, and I eat my food silently, resisting their attempts to draw me into the conversation. Outwardly I’m calm, but inside I can’t stop seething. How dare Elinor try and take over? How dare she just hire a wedding planner without even consulting me? How dare she call Mum’s garden an “unknown backyard”?
She’s just an interfering cow, and if she thinks I’m going to get married in some huge anonymous New York hotel instead of at home with all my friends and family, she can just think again.
We finish lunch and decline coffee, and head outside. It’s a brisk, breezy day with clouds scudding along the blue sky.
As we walk toward the Plaza, Robyn smiles at me. “I can understand if you’re a little tense. It can be very stressful, planning a New York wedding. Some of my clients get very… wound up, shall we say.”
I’m not planning a New York wedding! I want to yell. I’m planning an Oxshott wedding! But instead I just smile and say, “I suppose.”
“I have one client in particular who’s really quite demanding…” Robyn exhales sharply. “But as I say, it is a stressful business… Ah. Here we are! Isn’t it an impressive sight?”
As I look up at the opulent facade of the Plaza I grudgingly have to admit it looks pretty good. It stretches up above Plaza Square like a wedding cake, with flags flying above a grand porticoed entrance.
“Have you been to a wedding here before?” asks Robyn.
“No. I’ve never been inside at all.”
“Ah! Well… In we go…” says Robyn, ushering Elinor and me up the steps, past uniformed porters, through a revolving door, and into an enormous reception hall with a high, ornate ceiling, a marble floor, and huge gilded pillars. Directly in front of us is a light, bright area filled with palms and trellises where people are drinking coffee and a harp is playing and waiters in gray uniforms are hurrying around with silver coffeepots.
I suppose, if I’m honest, this is quite impressive too.
“Along here,” says Robyn, taking my arm and leading us to a cordoned-off staircase. She unclasps a heavy rope cordon and we head up a grand staircase, and through another vast marble hall. Everywhere I look are ornate carvings, antiques, wall hangings, the hugest chandeliers I’ve ever seen…
“This is Mr. Ferguson, the executive director of catering.”
Out of nowhere, a dapper man in a jacket has appeared. He shakes my hand and beams at me.
“Welcome to the Plaza, Rebecca! And may I say, you’ve made a very wise choice. There’s nothing in the world like a Plaza wedding.”
“Right!” I say politely. “Well, it seems a very nice hotel…”
“Whatever your fantasy, whatever your cherished dream, we’ll do everything we can to create it for you. Isn’t that right, Robyn?”
“That’s right!” says Robyn fondly. “You simply couldn’t be in better hands.”
“Shall we go and look at the Terrace Room first?” Mr. Ferguson’s eyes twinkle. “This is the room where the ceremony will take place. I think you’ll like it.”
We sweep back through the vast marble hall and he opens a pair of double doors, and we walk into an enormous room, surrounded by a white balustraded terrace. At one end is a marble fountain, at the other steps up to a raised area. Everywhere I look, people are scurrying around, arranging flowers and draping chiffon and placing gilt chairs in angled rows on the richly patterned carpet.