Jenny Colgan 3-Book Collection: Amanda’s Wedding, Do You Remember the First Time?, Looking For Andrew McCarthy
A collection of three funny and heart-warming novels by Sunday Times bestselling author of LITTLE BEACH STREET BAKERY, Jenny ColganAMANDA’S WEDDINGAmanda’s old schoolfriends can’t believe it when the social-climbing queen of preen, Satan’s very own PR girl, pulls off the ultimate publicity stunt in getting herself engaged to a Scottish laird. Who cares that Fraser McConnald has worn the same pair of Converse trainers for the last three years and that his castle is a pile of rubble – she’ll be a Lady! Gentle, decent Fraser is clearly ignorant of her wiles, and Mel and Fran, still smarting from the memory of all the mean things Amanda put them through in their days at Portmount Comprehensive, set out to sabotage this mismatch of the century…LOOKING FOR ANDREW MCCARTHY80s child Ellie really thought life was going to be like the movies – where everyone was astoundingly glamorous, popular, successful, had huge apartments and lived happily ever after. But now that she and her gang are thirty, she has to admit that things haven't quite turned out that way. When did horrible flats, difficult relationships and meaningless jobs take over? And, more importantly, what happened to the coolest, wisest, most inspirational Brat Packer of them all? Where is Andrew McCarthy now? Did life fulfil its promise for him? Is he happy on Channel 5? Surely he, of all people, can tell Ellie what to do about her thirty-angst?DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME?As her best friend Tashy cuts into her wedding cake, 32-year-old Flora realises she is disillusioned with life. Suddenly, her well-paid job, cosy flat and stable relationship with sensible Olly don't amount to a whole lot. Flora wants to be 16 again. She closes her eyes and wishes. Her wish has come true…
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Amanda’s Wedding
Looking for Andrew McCarthy Do You Remember the First Time?
JENNY COLGAN
Contents
Amanda’s Wedding
JENNY COLGAN
For Andrew McConnell Stott
Contents
Most of the really messy things in life don’t actually have a beginning – they kind of bear down on you over years, like the consequences of not cleaning your bathroom floor (stickiness, cholera, etcetera).
This one did, though. It definitely did, and I remember it extremely clearly. Well, in a fuzzy kind of way.
Thank God – it was my bed. So: (1) I was actually in a bed, and (2) it was mine. I was beating the odds already.
I prised open one very sticky eye and attempted to focus it, to try and work out where the smell was coming from. I appeared to be jammed between the wall and an extremely large and unidentifiable chunk of flesh.
The chunk of flesh was connected to lots of other chunks, all in the right order, but I didn’t notice this until after I’d sat bolt upright in terror at a potential Godfather-type situation in my bed.
Everything seemed weirdly out of proportion. Maybe I was still drunk. I pawed at the sticky stuff at the corner of my eyes. No, something was very wrong.
An inappropriate hand was slung across me. It appeared to be about the size of my stomach, and my stomach is not renowned for its tiny-ness … A thought began to worm its way into my head.
I knew that thought and tried to avoid it for as long as possible, but alongside my hangover voice that was howling ‘Fluid! Fluid!’ the thought whispered, ‘Oh my God … it’s Nicholas … Again!’
I grimaced like I’d just swallowed something nasty – which, let’s face it, I probably had.
Slowly creeping my way off the end of the futon, and feeling worse and worse, I crawled into the kitchen in search of aspirin and Diet Coke. Fran, of course, was lying in wait. She didn’t live here, but she made herself more at home than I did. Her own place was a three-foot-square studio which induced immediate Colditz fever, so I’d got used to her wandering in and out.
‘Good morning!’ trilled Fran, bright and breezy. She must have been putting it on. Through a strange fog – which I supposed was the alcohol in my system filling me right up to the eyes – she actually looked quite good. I couldn’t focus on her mass of fuzzy hair, but I did notice that she was wearing one of my T-shirts, not quite covering thighs that didn’t even meet in the middle. I hated that.
I summoned all my energy to pipe, ‘Hello!’
‘Hungover?’
‘No, no, absolutely fine. I’ve just suddenly developed a taste for a half-bottle of warm, flat Coke, OK?’
‘Oh, right.’ There was a pause. Then she said, ‘I take it you’ll be wanting two glasses?’
‘Aaaaaaargh!’ I put my head down on the kitchen unit.
‘Mel. Mel Mel Mel Mel Mel!’
‘Urgugh?’
‘Nicholas …!’
‘Uh-huh …’
‘Twice …!’
‘Aaaargh!’
Fran backed away.
‘I know, I know, I know,’ I admitted. ‘Oh my God. Shit. SHIT! I think maybe I’ll just move house, starting now.’
‘In a towel?’
‘You’re right – all my clothes are in my bedroom, and I’m never going in there again! Why don’t I start a fire?’
‘Well, it’s a bit risky, and I don’t think Nicholas would fit in a fire engine.’
‘That’s OK! He could die! In fact, that would be good!’
Fran poured us both a cup of tea and looked sorrowfully at me. ‘Come on, don’t worry. Look on the bright side.’
‘There’s an eight foot tall accountant in my bed who smells like a polecat, whom I have now woken up with TWICE, thus ruining ANY potential excuses – and you’re telling me to look on the bright side?’
‘Ehmm, how about … if you spill any tea on the towel, it won’t matter, because you’ll have a towel handy? OK then … ehmm … it means you’re not the type of girl who has one-night stands?’
‘Oh God, WHAT am I going to do? Is Linda around?’ Linda was my dumpy flatmate. I only saw her about once a fortnight. Possibly, she hid from me.
‘She scuttled past about twenty minutes ago. She looked pretty tired. We might have been a bit noisy last night. Wasn’t Nicholas trying to pretend he could play the trumpet?’
I grimaced. ‘That wasn’t a trumpet.’
Fran grimaced back at the memory. ‘Bloody Amanda!’ she said. I nodded vehemently. Whenever anything really bad happened, Amanda was always mixed up in it somewhere.
Fran, Amanda and I were at school together in Woking, one of those dreary endless London suburban towns, not city or country, just lots of people hanging round bus shelters wondering if they were missing something. I’d met Fran when she ran past our house, aged four, chasing my older brother with a cricket bat.
Amanda lived next to us, and the three of us walked to school together for years, Amanda usually in possession of the latest Barbie-doll outfits, and extra sweets from the man at the corner shop with slightly dubious tendencies. Despite her blue eyes, strawberry blonde ringlets and general air of pinkness, she was pure evil, and played Fran and me off against each other with the talent of a Borgia poisoner.
