Episode Three: Changes in the Wind

“My, my, it’s Mr. Excitement,” Cheryl murmured, as Briony got up to greet her fiancé.

Briony knew Cheryl’s opinion of Ian – she thought him useful, in a way, but dull. She sometimes asked his advice on property matters, but apart from that, they had little in common. Cheryl didn’t see that having a good head for business meant being straight laced and conventional.

“You’re back early,” Briony greeted him, planting a kiss on his cheek. Cheryl watched this restrained display with a raised eyebrow. Ian had been away for almost a week, and the pair greeted each other as if they were mere acquaintances, rather than lovers.

“We finished a couple of days early,” Ian said, placing his briefcase on one of the tables. “I thought I might beg a coffee before I went to the office.”

“Sure, I’ll get it,” Cheryl said. “Briony?”

“Yes, please.”

Ian sat at the table and opened his briefcase. “It was a very good trip,” he said. “I got some very influential clients lined up.”

“That’s marvelous,” Briony enthused.

“It is – in fact, things are looking so good we might be able to bring the date of the wedding forward. Say twelve months?”

“Next year?” Briony said. “So soon?”

He looked at her quizzically. “Aren’t you pleased?”

“Yes, of course, but – “ her voice wavered. “I wasn’t expecting our plans to change, that’s all.”

“Not changed,” Ian said. “Brought forward.”

Briony sat down in the chair opposite. She knew she ought to be more excited at the idea of getting married sooner, but instead she glanced around the restaurant.
“Things were going well here too,” she said. “But you know we agreed to give ourselves a few years to get established – “

“I am getting established,” Ian said. “And much faster than I thought. The restaurant is a nice little business, you should be able to sell your share without any trouble once we are married.”

Sell her share? Her ears twitched. Where had he got that idea?

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Ian, but I’ve no intention – “

“Here we are,” Cheryl said cheerfully, bustling in with the coffee. “Briony, no sugar, Ian, no milk – right?”

“Right,” Briony said absently.

“I’ll have to drink it and run,” Ian said. “Bri, we’ve got plenty of time to discuss the future. Things have changed now – that trip to Brisbane was more productive than I could ever have imagined.”

“Yes, but – “

“We’ll talk about it some other time. We’re having dinner at your parents’ house tonight by the way – I called them from Brisbane.”

Cheryl’s eyebrow popped up again. “Nice of you to ask Bri first,” she said.

Ian looked perplexed. “But we always have dinner with Frank and Elspeth on Wednesday nights,” he said. “When the restaurant is closed.”

“Oh, but you see, we’re actually open tonight,” Cheryl smirked. “Special party. It’s already been booked.”

Ian looked put out. “You might have told me,” he said to Briony.

“You weren’t supposed to be back until the day after tomorrow,” Briony pointed out, with some exasperation. This was just the kind of thing that had been worrying her lately – Ian acting as if she would just fall in with his last minutes plans without having any of her own.

Cheryl grinned. She was enjoying this, Briony could see.

“It’s all right, Ian, you can still go,” Briony said. “Mum and Dad will be glad to see you.”

“Very well,” he said, snapping his briefcase shut. “But, you know, you’ll need to keep me better informed of your plans when we are married.” He leaned over and planted a kiss on her cheek. “You look very pretty this morning,” he added, almost as an afterthought, and left.

Cheryl glared after him, her eyes narrowing.

“Good riddance!” she muttered. “Honestly, Bri, that man is so up himself – what do you see in him? Thank goodness the wedding isn’t for another couple of years, I can still hope you’ll come to your senses.”

“He wants to bring the wedding forward a year,” Briony said.

“But I thought you’d both agreed to stay engaged until you could afford the whole big white wedding thing, and a house of your own.”

“He seems to think we can afford it sooner,” Briony murmured.

“What about the restaurant?”

“You know nothing will change that – I’m not leaving the restaurant.”

“Things might change when you are actually married, Bri – Ian seems to think so,” Cheryl said doubtfully.

“Stop worrying – this restaurant is my life, my dream – you know that.”

“Yes,” Cheryl agreed. “I know that – but does he?” She jerked her thumb in the direction Ian had taken.

“He knows me.”

“I wonder,” Cheryl said. “Well, can’t sit here talking love and romance with engaged ladies all morning. We’re on tonight.”

Briony spent the morning preparing some of the dishes for the evening’s party, and shopping for some supplies, ticked off on the big shopping list she kept on the fridge. On her way back to the restaurant, she walked through the latest shopping mall to open on the quay, and noticed that a wedding shop had opened there. She paused to look in the window, realizing that she might actually have to start thinking about buying a wedding dress.

So far, she really hadn’t given her wedding day much thought. Ian wanted a conventional white wedding with all the trimmings, and she went along with it because her mother wanted that too – between the two of them, she hadn’t a lot of input. But then, it had been so far away that she hadn’t needed to give it much thought. It would be the usual sort of wedding, she thought – white frothy dress, bridesmaids, cars with ribbons on them, reception – she had never questioned that was the way it should be.

But now, as she gazed in the wedding shop window, looking at one of those white frothy dresses, topped with yards of white veiling held in place with a spray of jasmine and stephanotis, and compared it to the figure she saw reflected in the glass, she wondered – what had the man with the camera said? “You look like you belong outdoors” – or something like that.

She tried to picture herself in the mass of froth and tulle in the window and couldn’t stop a giggle escaping from her lips. Imagine that silly concoction of flowers and pearls on my head, she thought. Her unruly mass of honey colored hair barely allowed itself to be confined under a white scarf in the restaurant kitchen. She had to push it back under a stretchy headband, secure it in a tight ponytail, and then cover it before she could be sure it wouldn’t fly everywhere. And her tall, rangy form, healthy though it was, was hardly the stuff of fairy tale romance.

Instead, her mind was suddenly filled with an image of sunset on the beach, and two people taking quiet vows surrounded by loving family and friends – and the man standing with her didn’t look anything like Ian…

Briony shook her head and the dream scattered. What was she thinking of? She wasn’t marrying the man she’d met this morning – and she never would marry anyone like him.

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