He She It

twenty-five: the campest vehicle in existence

Four months later

"You are not serious."

Manuel rolled down the window of his newly acquired car (which, much to everybody's distaste but his own, was a barely-functioning Beetle painted a psychedelic yellow and covered in gay-pride and 'Child on Board' bumper stickers).

(His explanation for this maternal décor was: "the child is Robert, you see?" followed by a large grin and a beep of his horn).

(Manuel, much like Lilly, was his own biggest fan).

"Of course I am serious! Get in, get in," he said, taking his sunglasses - which, of course, had rainbow-striped frames and were slightly too small for his head on account of the fact that he'd bought them from a seaside stall designed for six year old children - off and slipping them into the glove compartment. He twisted his neck to look back at Lilly, Grace and Eve, who had squeezed themselves into the back and were casting slightly concerned looks towards the giant, rhino-shaped piñata in the carboot. "You look so beautiful! You have noticed Rick, yes?"

"Rick," Lilly repeated, as Manuel backed out of her driveway with enough enthusiasm to potentially get himself convicted. "You bought a rhino-shaped piñata, and you called it Rick."

"It is good, no?"

"No," Lilly said, attempting to hold her dress so that as little of it as possible rubbed against the sheepskin rug that Manuel had felt the need to drape over his seats. "Where's my Dad, anyway?"

Manuel looked at his passenger seat as if the absence of the man he was supposed to be marrying in little under an hour had escaped his notice, and then shrugged and adjusted his bowtie (in keeping with the raging homosexual theme of the wedding, it was patterned in slightly obnoxious neon stripes). "He is driving himself there," he said. "I do not know why, but he no like my car."

Lilly could think of at least three bumper stickers and one sheep carcass that would explain her Dad's preference for his Ford, but she feigned equal confusion, because a) Manuel was grinning at himself in the wing mirror of his hideous contraption, and clearly thought he was the new king of the road, and b) his current attire was an even more pressing - and most definitely more trashy - issue that needed immediate attention.

"Manuel," Grace said, before Lilly could chime in with a: 'what the actual fuck are you wearing.' "I'm sorry, but why are you wearing that tux?"

The tux in question was just as psychedelic as his new car, and emblazoned with neon-yellow pineapples. It was also, apparently, Manuel's current favourite item of clothing (just a tiny step up from last month's, which had been a pair of purple Crocs, complete with flower decorations) and something he deemed appropriate to wear to his own wedding.

Lilly sighed.

"What about you, Eve? Do you like my tux?" Manuel asked, taking a last-minute turn down a back road and throwing them all sideways. He gave a slightly nervous laugh. "Whoops! I am always doing this - I give Robert the whiplash!"

Eve imitated his laugh and then did an admittedly very convincing impression of not only liking his tux, but actually wanting one for herself. "I think it's very stylish, Manuel," she said, elbowing Lilly in the ribs. "I'm sure Robert will - wait, isn't that the registry office?"

"Oh, la mierda!"

The following five minutes were ones of utter horror for everyone inside Manuel's bright-yellow trash-trap, and utter hilarity for everyone on the outside. Neglecting every road code in existence, he put the car in reverse, shot back a couple of metres, turned into the driveway of three different houses until he found one that suited his needs (like, Lilly thought, a road safety edition of Goldilocks) and then proceeded to do a particularly vigorous one-eighty before riding into the carpark of the registry office to the opening notes of his favourite salsa song.