Free The Vintage Summer Wedding by Jenny Oliver

it up tight, jutted out her chin and thought of all the girls she would have to battle to take down.
‘Yes,’
she said, unblinking.
‘Yes. I’m better than the top one percent.’
    And then she had fought like a stray dog in that place, the black-haired, olive-skinned girl amidst a sea of alabaster blondes who would walk past in the corridor whispering things like,
‘Bet she doesn’t even know what a passé is.’
By the time she had to come back to Nettleton for holidays, she was a tough little ball of conditioned attitude and steely defences.
    ‘Anna?’ Jackie said again, nudging her on the arm this time.
    ‘Yes.’ Anna spun to face her, tearing her eyes from the girl on the stage. ‘Sorry, yes. Erm.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘OK, look, maybe I wasn’t watching clearly.’ She took a step back, ran her eyes back over the bunch of reprobates. ‘Why don’t you come down off the stage, I’d like to see it here, on the floor. You shouldn’t be on the stage yet, you’re not ready.’ She pulled off her cardigan when she realised that she was sweating and would have killed someone for a glass of water.
    ‘Come on,’ she called as none of them moved. ‘Jackie, Mrs McNamara, it’s fine, I’ll take it from here.’
    ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ said Mrs McNamara dubiously as she watched the kids schlep sullenly down the stairs to the vacant space in the centre of the hall.
    ‘It’s fine.’ Anna waved a hand. ‘It’ll be better without you.’
    Jackie raised a brow and smirked. ‘OK, if you say so.’ The two of them then made a show of slowly gathering their bags and walking out of the hall, pointedly glancing over their shoulders to check that order hadn’t slipped to chaos.
    Razzmatazz lined up sulkily, facing Anna, but none of them meeting her eyes. Ten-year-old Billy, thick wavy brown hair, too long and swept to the side like a miniature Justin Beiber, who seemed to just come on stage to be thrown about the place, scowled at her like she was the devil.
    ‘OK, no music. I’m going to clap the beat,’ Anna said as they stared at the floor.
    ‘No fucking music? We can’t do it with no fucking music,’ Matt shouted.
    Anna saw Jackie pause at the door and open her mouth, but she jumped in before she could say anything. ‘No, you probably can’t,’ Anna said, curtly. ‘That’s my point. If there are steps, you won’t need music.’ She eyeballed Matt. ‘At the moment all you have is, as you say so delightfully, fucking music. Fucking shit music at that.’
    Billy sniggered.
    ‘We can all swear,’ she went on. ‘I’d just prefer it if from now on we didn’t.’
    ‘And why the FUCK should we do what you say?’ Lucy goaded.
    ‘Well,’ Anna paused for a second and then smiled, ‘You know those montages on
Britain’s Got Talent
of all the worst acts, the really, really bad ones, that they play over and over again?’
    No one said anything.
    ‘At the moment that’ll be you,’ Anna said happily, cocking her head to the side, her lips stretched into a wide fake smile as all the kids looked at the floor. ‘Right, let’s go.’
    An hour later, Anna wondered if some of them had sweated for the first time in their lives. And she had to congratulate herself for the fact that they were now at least moving their feet in time with one another on occasion.
    Seb was waiting for her outside, leaning against the side of the car reading a book. Anna was feeling good, not that she’d admit how good to anyone, but it felt like she’d achieved something. Not a massive amount, but more than sorting antiques into boxes and getting job application rejections.
    The feeling made her see Seb differently too. Blond hair caught in the early evening sun that was just dipping behind the spire on the church, eyes down, concentrating on the book, lips moving ever so slightly, long fingers turning the pages. His tie was loosened and top button undone. He wasn’t the enemy. He was hers, she