The It Girl: Don't Tell the Bridesmaid. Katy Birchall

descended on our audience and rippling whispers of, ‘What’s in the box?’ and ‘Make sure you get the shot!’

      I undid the ribbon, aware of several lenses focusing on my hands and wishing I had practised an I-love-this-gift expression. I opened the box and peered at the contents. ‘Wow! Great! Is it a fan? That’s . . . handy.’

      ‘Let me,’ said Helena, and, with a dramatic flourish, she lifted the fan and sharply released it, a cloud of glitter bursting from it into the air and raining down on us.

      The crowd gasped and then burst into applause as Helena bowed her head to the flashbulbs in acknowledgement, fanning herself elegantly with my gift and showing me exactly how it’s done. Marianne may have been wearing her sunglasses but I could feel her rolling her eyes behind them.

      ‘What a wonderful present!’ my mum said excitedly. ‘Very useful for the heat in Rome and it’s so beautiful.’

      ‘Handmade by a charming geisha in Japan,’ Helena informed her, pointing at the colourful, detailed pattern. ‘I was filming for a few weeks out there once.’

      ‘Thanks, Helena,’ I said, brushing the glitter off my sleeves.

      ‘I’ve got you a little something too,’ Mum said, holding out a bag. I reached for it tentatively. Mum has always had a rather odd taste in gifts because they are mostly relics from far corners of the earth, which isn’t surprising considering she’s a well-known travel journalist, but my standard response of ‘great, Mum, this is so unique’ was wearing thin.

      I put my hand cautiously inside the bag, ignoring Dad’s eyebrows, which were wriggling away in warning, and pulled out what can only be described as a grubby, jagged bit of rock.

      ‘Er – great, Mum, this is so unique!’

      ‘It is for guidance, wisdom and luck,’ she said knowingly. ‘Particularly useful now that you won’t have your phone on you to contact us when you need to. But at least you have this stone.’

      I nodded. ‘Brilliant,’ I said, and shoved it in my pocket. ‘That’s great. Right, well, I better be going through, then. Thanks for the . . . uh . . . fan and the rock.’

      I hugged them all goodbye and gave a final wave before joining the queue to get through security. Glancing back at my family, who were waving enthusiastically, the press still buzzing around them, I tried to ignore the whispers and pointed looks too, acting as though I didn’t know the person behind me in the queue was taking photos of my back.

      ‘See you for the wedding!’ Marianne cried over the crowd.

      ‘And try not to get into any trouble!’ Dad added.

      I handed over my boarding pass, turning the corner and out of sight from them all, the sudden quiet making my worries seem all that bit louder in my head. This was Connor’s time to work on his comic and my time to have a sophisticated Italian experience. Without any embarrassing press stories. Either way, I just had to make sure I didn’t get into any trouble in Rome. Easy, right?

      I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the bit of rock. ‘I hope you work,’ I said under my breath to it, hoping no one was paying attention to me talking to a stone. I had a feeling I was going to need all the luck I could get.

      I spotted Jess choking next to the perfume stand.

      ‘What’s going on?’ I asked as she coughed and spluttered all over the place.

      ‘I . . . sprayed . . . the . . . perfume . . . in . . . my . . . mouth.’

      ‘No, Jess, perfume doesn’t go there,’ I said, offering her the bottle of water I’d just bought. ‘It goes on your wrists.’

      She gratefully glugged the water and then put her hands on her hips. ‘No kidding. The nozzle was facing the wrong way when I sprayed it. How come it took you so long to get here? Danny, Stephanie and I have already been round all the shops.’

      ‘My family gave me presents before I went through security.’

      ‘Going away presents? That’s so cute. What did they get you?’

      ‘A fan and a rock. Where are the others?’

      Jess looked confused for a moment by the going-away offerings but didn’t comment. She was very used to my weird family by now. ‘Everyone’s in the bookshop. We’ve got to meet Mrs Ginnwell in ten minutes by the information point before going to the gate. I volunteered to wait here for you. So, were you OK with all that?’ she added, jerking her head back towards security.

      ‘Oh, yeah,’ I sighed. ‘I set off the alarm about ten times coming through the scanner and they couldn’t work out what it was. I thought maybe it was the rock, but they used that handheld beepy thing and it kept going off on my right arm.’

      I held my arm out to illustrate my story. ‘But I’m not wearing any jewellery so the security woman was weirded out by the whole thing and that got me thinking: maybe I’m actually a product of a scientific experiment that went wrong and when I was little they injected me with an experimental serum just like Captain America, but it didn’t work out so my parents have kept it secret from me all this time and the only way I’ve discovered the truth is because whatever chemical runs through my veins sets off airport security scanners!’

      Jess lifted an eyebrow. ‘Yeah, I actually meant were you OK with all the press out there, but thanks for that really long spiel of crazy.’

      ‘Oh.’ I checked my wrists suspiciously anyway. ‘Yeah, it was fine. Let’s go to the information point.’

      As we walked, I filled Jess in on the family dinner.

      ‘Marianne and Tom are moving in together?’ She looked surprised. ‘I thought he was on tour at the moment.’

      ‘He is. When he gets back, they’ll sort it.’

      ‘Ah. More importantly, though, how did you leave things with Connor? Did he give you a passionate goodbye kiss?’ she teased, nudging me with her elbow as I swatted her away.

      ‘No! Well, you know.’

      I felt my cheeks growing hot. It hadn’t exactly been the most romantic setting, what with my whole family in the car behind us as we stood at his doorstep.

      ‘Well, thanks for inviting me tonight,’ he’d said, as I spotted everyone in the car looking very obviously the other way. Except Dad who was having his head forcibly turned by Helena.

      ‘Thank you for coming,’ I replied. ‘I hope my family weren’t too overwhelming. They can be.’

      He laughed. ‘They were great.’ He paused, pushing his fringe back. ‘I’m going to miss you, Spidey.’

      I blushed at the nickname he’d given me on discovering that we were both big Marvel geeks.

      I opened my mouth to say something along the lines of how I wished so badly he could come with me to Rome and was there any chance he could forget about the comic book for just two weeks. But I stopped myself, swallowing my words. It wasn’t fair. I should be proud of having such an intelligent and motivated boyfriend who was willing to give up his summer holidays to work on something he was passionate about.

      ‘I’ll miss you too.’

      ‘By the sounds of things, I’m not sure you will,’ Connor joked, looking slightly uncomfortable.

      ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, taken aback.

      ‘Oh, you know.’ He jerked his head towards the car before looking down at his feet. ‘What Helena said . . . You’ll be having too much fun.’

      ‘I’d