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Chapter 3


Five years and several boyfriends later, Buffy’s steady, a guy she’d know in High School had ‘popped the question’, and Buffy, with nothing better to do than seeing years of drudgery working in the burger bar thought that at least she could perhaps look forward to a place of her own and maybe a baby or two, so she accepted Angel’s proposal.

As soon as she told her mother, it was like flicking a switch in Joyce, and things started moving at an alarming pace, Buffy seemingly having little choice or say about things………


“Gods Buffy…less than four weeks until the big day!” Willow grinned at her friend

“Hmm, oh yeah” Buffy said flatly without even glancing up from reading.

Willow frowned, but said nothing; she supposed it could be pre-wedding nerves.

“So, when’s the first rehearsal?” She asked brightly.

“Hmm? Oh…tomorrow night, I think…what day is it – yeah tomorrow? ”

“Is that magazine you’re reading that interesting – coz you don’t seem…excited?”

Truth was Buffy was dreading it. Nothing, and she meant NOTHING had gone her way with the wedding.

It all started five months ago when she, her mother and her very sick grandmother went into ‘Bride Be Lovely’ in the mall to buy her dress, for instance.

Her gran said she’d pay for it. Already stick-thin, the cancer had ravaged her body and everybody knew, but nobody said, that she probably wouldn’t live to actually be at the wedding.

Buffy had immediately seen a silk sheath dress she liked, but her gran and her mother had other ideas, and had gone over to the ‘big’ dresses…

“I really like this one, over here” Buffy said to her mother and gran, turning her head and thumbing towards the sheath dress.

When she looked back, she realised that they weren’t listening to her, and was talking to the assistant.

“Look, Buffy, isn’t this just SO beautiful!” Both her mother and gran were beaming at a great big ‘meringue’ of a dress, all frouffs and flounces, with about a hundred layers of petticoat – not what she wanted at all.

“But I…” she could see the happiness on her gran’s face. With her shoulders dropping and a huge sigh, she went towards them. The assistant helped her on with it. Boy, was it uncomfortable!

“When you have the proper foundation garment on, it’ll be fine”
The assistant said with a grin, coming from under layers of net.

“You mean there’s more to this torture? Buffy said flatly.

She grinned at Buffy, who didn’t even smile, or pirouette, or stand on tip-toe to imagine high heeled shoes – some girls even piled their hair up and just held it to see what the dress would look like with their hair up, but Buffy didn’t anything that normally the brides to be did…the assistants smile became frozen, and she knew no amount of,

‘You look SO beautiful’ or your fiancé will fall in love with you all over again’ was going to convince Buffy otherwise.

“Is she ready, lets have a look…” Buffy heard her mother say. The curtain was drawn back, and both her mother and gran raised tissues to tearful eyes.

“Oh darling, you look so beautiful…doesn’t she?” her mother said to the assistant.

“Oh yes, beautiful!” The assistants smile now almost maniacal.

“Oh Buffy!” her gran said.

“Um…can I take it off now, it’s irritating my skin?” Buffy asked grimacing, and fingering the itchy neck. Her mother frowned.

“Buffy! Don’t be so…ungrateful!” Joyce hissed at her.

“Leave it on a little longer please dear…it’ll probably be the only time I’ll see you in it” her gran said. Buffy winced…ouch, all aboard for the next guilt trip…

“Sorry gran”

“What do you say to your gran dear, after all, she has just forked out $800 for your dress”

“Sorry, thankyou gran” Buffy kissed her cheek.

“You’re welcome dear” her bony fingers squeezed her arm.

“Shoes next, and a veil”

“Veil? Oh no, I don’t want to wear a…but my hair will…I’M NOT WEARING THAT! I mean…a tiara – no thankyou – it’s, it’s tacky, it’s SO pretentious…well, for me it is…I was thinking………flowers, fresh flowers, and…oh!”

Ignoring her protests, Joyce placed the veil, complete with tiara on her head.

“But look love…it sparkles like real diamonds! See how pretty it looks, AND it’ll match the lace on your dress”

Three weeks later, the call that everybody was half expecting came. Her grandmother wasn’t expected to last the night, and Buffy and her mother drove for 4 hours to go see her.

She died two hours after they got there, without waking from the sleep she’d been in. Buffy tried to phone Angel, but he wasn’t in.

Back home the following day, when Buffy quizzed him as to his whereabouts when she’d phoned, Angel had said he’d been listening to music on his headphones, and hadn’t heard the phone.


A month later

“Who are Norman and Sheila Todd?” Buffy asked her mother, frowning, looking at the guest list her mother was writing.

“Hmm? Oh, cousins of your father’s”

“Raymond Trevelyan and Michelle Newman?”

“Friends”

“Of whom?”

“I went to school with her…she’s bought some pieces from the gallery.” Joyce said dismissively.

“Uncle Seth? Oh mom no! Last time I saw him, he was in that home…he smelt really awful – like cooked cabbage!”

“Well, he’s in a different home now, one that looks after him properly, and they wash him”

“But I bet he can’t even feed himself!” The exasperation wasn’t lost on her mother.

“He’ll have a nurse with him…oh, that reminds me, I must put her down for a meal too, it’s only fair.” Joyce said.

“Mom…I don’t know over half of these people!”

“Buffy, will you please be quiet and let me get on with things…now, I’ve ordered fresh flowers for the tables, in lilac and lemon, the napery will be white, well the table cloths will be, the napkins…what do you think, bottle green or the burgundy?” She held out two samples. Buffy shrugged

“Whatever”

“The green…yes the green I think, now-“
The telephone ringing interrupted Joyce.

“I’ll get it” Buffy jumped up and answered it. She came back two minutes later.

“That was the Double Meat, they want to know if I’ll do a double shift, Paul’s gone home sick…so I’ll earn seventy dollars and they’ll pay me cash in hand if I help them out, so, that and the thirty dollars I gave Angel to save last week will pay off the wedding video man”

“Good darling…ok off you go then” Joyce said without looking up.

“If Angel calls, tell him”

“I will…oh gods, Pete and Jayne Michaels…and Rueben and Carmel and their daughter Natasha, I completely forgot about them…I wonder if Sharon Thompson still lives next door to them…!” Joyce frantically began to write again. Buffy went to work.





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