Lucy in the Sky

Clown-like.
    Thankfully the hairdresser did a much better job and Molly is thrilled that someone has actually managed to tame her hair. She looks breathtaking in the long white dress which she made in her workshop at home, and as I help her down the front steps of her parents’ home, tiny diamanté crystals across her bodice sparkle in the sunlight.
    Even Andie looks gorgeous in her silver dress, a smaller version of mine, after finally allowing the hairdresser to do a last-minute tong job on her dead-straight hair. My chestnut hair has been piled up high above my head, a few curls cascading down. It looks a tad too neat for me, but the hairdresser promised that it would loosen up.
    We’ve barely even glanced outside this morning because it’s been so manic, but the weather is perfect. A light summery breeze, only a few clouds in the sky. I feel like someone up above is looking out for us.
    Nathan called Molly this morning to wish her luck. He had a message for me. ‘What did one elephant say to the other? Nothing; elephants can’t talk.’ Molly didn’t find it in the least funny, but it made me smile.
    Molly and her dad go in one car up ahead and Sheila, Andie and I follow behind. All of us are quiet; even Andie. Eventually we’re crossing the Harbour Bridge and winding our way towards the Royal Botanic Gardens. When we arrive, I get out of the car and go over to attend to Molly.
    ‘You okay?’ I ask her quietly.
    ‘Yeah,’ she murmurs. ‘Very surreal, isn’t it?’
    I nod my agreement.
    The red trackless train is waiting for us at the entrance. I help her into the front carriage, lifting up her dress so it doesn’t drapeon the ground, then Bruce climbs in next to her. Molly’s mum and Andie sit behind them and I step up into the back.
    I wonder what it would have been like if James had been here. Would he have been allowed to arrive with the wedding party? Would he be sitting next to me right now, as we wind our way past the hundreds-of-years-old fig trees, while bystanders call out their best wishes?
    Finally we see a group of around sixty people up ahead. Molly looks calm–unwaveringly calm–and I feel edgy as hell. She steps down from the little red carriage and links her arm through her mum and dad’s–both of them walking with her to the front. Andie and I follow behind, clutching bouquets made entirely of Australian flora: Sam’s idea. The crowd parts–there are no chairs–and there, standing underneath a great old gum tree, is Sam. And Nathan. I can’t help myself. I start to cry.
    The ceremony passes by in an emotional blur. Sam and Molly have written their own vows and they read them to each other, holding hands solemnly. I find the tears won’t stop falling, and I don’t even have a tissue. Even Sam chokes up, but Molly is calm. I have to keep furtively wiping my eyes every ten or twenty seconds until the first reading when the attention moves away from the five of us and the registrar. Then Nathan is next to me, holding out a Kleenex. He hasn’t shaved for the wedding–I wondered if he would–but he looks handsome in a well-fitted charcoal suit and silver tie. I take the tissue from him gratefully, impressed that he’s such an organised best man, and he gives me a sympathetic smile. It just makes my tears flow faster and I start to laugh quietly, embarrassed. He rubs his hand on my shoulder and I almost step into his arms, then I wonder if he knows about Sam and me and our history. Whatif he thinks I’m crying about that? The thought snaps me out of it.
    The reading finishes, the registrar wraps it up, we sign the witness papers, my signature directly below Nathan’s scrawling one, and my two best friends in the whole world are pronounced husband and wife. Everyone claps as they kiss. Then Andie picks up a basket full of gum leaves and offers them around to people to use as confetti. We throw them as a blissfully happy Molly and Sam pose for photographs.
    As we sit down to eat, I notice that Amy is sitting at a table two away from us. She looks pretty in a pink and white spotted chiffon dress. I catch her eye and smile. She smiles a tight little smile back and looks away.
    The waiting staff bring out the first course, a light crayfish salad, and top up our glasses with champagne. The whole marquee is buzzing. Molly and Sam to my right keep laughing and kissing each other and Nathan, next to Sam, is engrossed in conversation with his aunt, Katherine. I met her earlier, and