Who knew? I mused, turning my attention to the new itinerary. Having this to present to Jeremy and Maria would, I hoped, soften the blow. Maybe then they’d stop speaking to me for only five to ten years or so . . .
“Don’t worry,” Ben said, as if sensing I was starting to spiral. “It’s going to be okay.”
“All thanks to you,” I said.
“Are you kidding? You’re the a-maize-ing one.” He smiled when I groaned, his hooded brown eyes lighting up. I smiled back, a few seconds passing in easy silence.
Then I spotted something over his shoulder. Anette, grinning at us. I hastened to gather up the pages. It was best not to encourage her. Ben turned away too, rubbing the back of his neck.
When I opened up my bulging satchel to pack the pages inside, I saw the box I’d put in there. I’d completely forgotten that I’d intended to spend some of this morning putting together a surprise for Sarah.
Well, I’d certainly achieved that.
I pulled the box out and the lid came loose, a picture falling to the floor. “Wait!” I said, but it was too late. Ben had picked it up. The photo was of me and my friends, aged eighteen, at a fancy-dress party. Of course it had to be that one. We’d gone as Pretty Woman. Sarah was dressed as Julia Roberts before she took the blond wig off. I was the “after,” in a dressing gown with red curls and a shy grin. Jeremy was our Richard Gere, sporting a thick gray wig. Ben’s mouth twitched.
“I was going to do a collage for Sarah,” I explained, taking the lid off the box to slip the photo back inside. I caught him glancing at the rest of them, a curious expression on his face. Anette and her friend leaned in too. There were more nights out. A series of me bent over my laptop, writing, completely oblivious to whichever of my friends was pulling their face behind me. Holidays we used to all go on together. “Though I’ve run out of time.”
I had some work to do this afternoon. One of our writers, Simon, had begged for a call to go through all the reasons why his current project was both the best thing he’d ever written and completely unsalvageable (he was a fifty-fifty client: fifty percent ego, fifty percent neurosis).
Anette waved her hands as though trying to signal something to Ben, but he didn’t see her. “Actually . . .” he said. She stopped still, staring at him with a pleading expression. “I might be able to help with that too.”
His daughter beamed.
Chapter 21
Cover It in Glitter
EXT: A DETACHED HOUSE, A CUL-DE-SAC, SHEFFIELD—SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 7:30 A.M.
SARAH runs out of the door, pulling a bright pink suitcase behind her. Her fiancé, JIM, wearing his dressing gown, leans out for a kiss. She stands on her tiptoes and pecks his cheek, then, spotting her friend BETH arriving in a hot-pink Audi TT, she throws her hands around Jim’s neck and snogs him. JEREMY pulls up next to Beth in his boxy Vauxhall Corsa and stays seated, leaving MARIA and EVIE to get out of the car to greet SARAH.
“Happy hen do, Sarah!” called Maria, as we huddled to hug our diminutive friend.
“It’s finally here!” Her grip was iron-tight with excitement. With Sarah, it’s like someone took a very large person and condensed them down to make one that packed more of a punch. She was a neutron star of a woman.
Sarah introduced us to Beth, who had the kind of highlighted blond waves that sold hair products. The two of them were dressed in identical pink velour tracksuits.
“For the journey,” Sarah said, in response to our looks. She waved at Jeremy, who rolled the window down. “Let’s get this show on the road! I can’t wait to find out where we’re going.”
“Yes, wherever could that be,” Jeremy intoned.
My stomach swooped unpleasantly. I’d decided to tell my friends the truth after we’d dropped Sarah and Beth off for my version of the treasure hunt, and I was already sweating at the thought. Beth had never seen the original itinerary, but it seemed unlikely that Sarah hadn’t told her about Shrewksbury being a possibility—after all, why would her best friends let her down?
I’d worry about Beth’s reaction later.
Beep-beep.
“Don’t keep Big Bertha waiting!” Jeremy called through the car window, patting his steering wheel lovingly. “Seat belts on?” he asked, once we were all in. “Then next stop: my own personal hell.”
“Is he serious?” Beth asked from the back.
“You get used to him,” said Sarah.
“I’ll sort directions.” I grabbed the GPS from the dash. Jeremy glanced at me—I was normally the last person to volunteer to navigate. The trouble was, I was the only one of us who knew where we were going.
* * *
“Is someone going to explain why we’ve just dropped Sarah and Linda off in a field? Not that I didn’t enjoy the look on their faces, but the treasure hunt was supposed to be in the manor gardens, no?”
I’d taken charge when we’d arrived at the maize maze—giving Beth the champagne for her and Sarah to drink on reaching the center, along with a map with walking directions to the artist’s studios where we’d meet them in an hour. Beth had looked unsure, but on the surface, this was the exact same plan we’d had from the beginning: she was to accompany Sarah while we decorated the suite. Except there was no suite.
“Evie,” prompted Maria from the back.
“Okay,” I said, taking a big breath to prepare myself. “Don’t be mad . . .”
“I’m not mad. Are you mad, Maria?” Jeremy was the first to speak once I’d finished explaining. “I’m really happy I spent a month of my life arranging a weekend that seemed designed to torture me, only to find out my friend has replaced it with something even less appealing.”
“I’m so sorry. It was a stupid mistake, and I couldn’t feel worse about it. We did our best to make sure the weekend still matched up to the one Sarah asked for. Maria?” I twisted in my seat to look back at her.
“I’m not mad,” she assured me, though her voice was strained.
“‘We’?” Jeremy picked up.
“That man I met, the one with the daughter. Ben.”
“Hot Widower,” Jeremy said.
“Yes. No. You can’t call him that.”
“I thought you didn’t like him,” Maria said.
“Well, I do. I think. I don’t know. He’s the reason I was able to pull all this together so quickly. Not that it isn’t all well thought through, of course,” I added hastily. “I’ve just emailed you both the new itinerary now so you can see for yourself.”