Comfort Food

It is a crowd of strangers who mill about on the lawn outside the pub. Bob’s work colleagues mostly, a few university chums, even fewer family. She's lost touch with her few school friends and she doesn’t have any family. She’s never been easy with strangers and her skin prickles with the nearness of them. She concentrates hard on maintaining what she hopes is a bridal smile. This is meant to be her day. Imbued with the bridal beauty of angels she should be confident, and yet she stands here awkwardly isolated, feeling frumpy. It is a double edge sword with no sword swallower: she wants to be the centre of attention but she would rather no one was looking at her. She does not feel good in her skin and the dress does nothing to hide the fat that has grown to camouflage her lack of confidence. She is a white elephant.

She hears Bob’s laughter bouncing off the walls of the beer garden. She should go to him. She feels safer with Bob, feels stronger, like she belongs. The crowd is broken into groups, archipelagoes of well-wishers,  yet she stands marooned. Get a grip she tells herself, foist yourself onto an island and moor up for a while. But how will she choose? She’s never been very good at reading people. She tries for a devil-may-care approach: what’s the worst that can happen, but she knows the answer to that. 

Why doesn’t Bob come and rescue me? Her insecurity whines. He should be showing her off, it's their wedding day. A thought ambushes her: What if he's embarrassed? He doesn’t want to, after all they are such an odd couple: tall thin Bob and his dumpy new wife. Still, she would feel safer with him by her side. Without him, her nerves are her enemy causing her to tremble and hesitate.

The answer of course is written at the fringe of the longest shadow: the hospitality tent. Food galore presented on beautiful silver salvers. A hundered different morsels each conveniently sized to pop in your mouth with no need to juggle a plate. Maybe I could have just a few, she thinks, for dutch courage. It would give her something to do at least. She would look less like a spare part in this cameo.Food always appreciated her company. It was mutual. No, that was cowardly way. She argued with herself only to find her conscience practiced and ready to justify it: If I go to the buffet table you might be able to introduce myself to someone then follow them back to their group. She knew she would be alright once she was there, she knew how to spin a story.

But greed was a blindfold. Once she was in front of the long buffet table, a choice of delicacies too great to narrow down, the need to quieten the head hunger, the emotional void, the insecurities of social circumstance, were far more compelling than observing social niceties. Her greatest concern became whether or not there was room to do the food justice inside her ridiculous bodice. The lady at the bridal outfitters had assured her three days ago when she picked up and payed for the dress that it wouldn’t matter if it had become a little tight.

“The bride always looses a few pounds before the big day and nobody ever eats at their own wedding." She had been unconcerned about the straining seams. "The nerves will slim you down a bit before the big day.”She had smiled and let her card Bollocks to that she thought. That skinny bitch obviously knew nothing. She had pi

Oh, but here they go again, those alarm bells of shame and judgement. 'Let me just crush them beneath a profiterole or ten.'