‘I should get you to write my Tinder profile,’ she said with a bigger, bolder smile than I’d ever seen on her before. ‘Oh Christ, I’m going to have to do a Tinder profile.’
‘Yes, you are,’ I replied gravely. ‘The queer gods giveth and they taketh away.’
She clapped her hand on top of mine, slotting our fingers together, and pulled me up to my feet. ‘Thank you,’ she gasped, exhaling out years of stress I couldn’t even start to imagine. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been sitting on that for so long.’
‘The fact you’re queer or that you threw up in my Barbie box?’ I asked with a raised eyebrow. ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten.’
‘Mind like a steel trap,’ she said, laughing long and loud and clear. ‘What do you want to do now?’
‘My steel trap mind seems to remember you mentioningStar Wars-themed cocktails,’ I replied. ‘I wouldn’t mind one of those about now.’
‘Come on then.’ She yanked on my arm, almost pulling it off, and picked up her pace to a jog. ‘Last one at Oga’s Cantina buys the Fuzzy Tauntauns!’
‘I don’t know what that is but I want one,’ I yelled after her, holding my Mickey ears securely to my head as we ran, smiling at the sunset, smiling at my sister and so, so proud.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘I don’t know where the two weeks went,’ I declared from the comfort of a red velvet chaise longue in Myrna’s enormous dressing room. ‘How can it be time for me to go home already?’
Across the room at a vanity surrounded by softly glowing white light bulbs, Myrna glowered in my direction, while an anxious-looking make-up artist worked magic on her face.
‘You don’t leave until tomorrow,’ she replied between puffs of powder. ‘A lot can happen between now and then.’
‘True.’ I pressed my fingertips against the cold brass studs that ran along the edges of the chaise. A lot had already happened in the last two weeks.
‘Now tell me how we’re going to seduce Joe Garcia’s boy.’
Ever since I arrived, she’d been like a dog with a bone on the subject of Ren, and if it weren’t for the very beautiful red dress that was hanging in the doorwayof her walk-in closet, the tray of chocolate-covered strawberries on the side table and the fact I was too British to be so rude, I would have upped and left.
‘I don’t know how many times I have to tell you,’ I replied, shovelling a third strawberry into my mouth. ‘He’s going out with my friend, Bel, and when you meet her, you’ll feel terrible because she’s a literal angel and deserves all the happiness in the world.’
‘There’s every chance I won’t even set eyes on her,’ Myrna said as she retied the belt on her marabou-trimmed, silk dressing gown. ‘The idiot I put in charge tells me he invited two hundred people and almost all of them RSVP’d yes, despite the fact I said no more than one hundred and fifty. Imagine assuming there would be a fifty-person drop-off? For one of my parties? The nerve of that man.’
‘Who are the two hundred people?’ I asked, genuinely curious. ‘I thought you didn’t know that many people these days.’
‘I don’t.’ She pushed the make-up artist out of the way to check her work in the mirror. ‘Lighten the blush. Ideally, we’ll land somewhere between a corpse and a whore.’
The make-up artist whimpered, her hands trembling as she went back into her kit. ‘The event people were in charge of the invitations. My only instructions were A list only and no one who has been so much as accused of anything morally objectionable in the last fifty years.’
‘I’m amazed they were able to find twenty people let alone two hundred,’ I replied as she leaned into the mirror and smoothed a fluffed-up eyebrow. ‘Although I suppose a lot depends on your definition of morally objectionable.’
‘Given that I find most men breathing to be disquieting these days, I suspect the evening will be something of a clambake.’
‘Thank you for teaching me a new word and I can guess what it means so don’t worry about a definition.’ Her lips curled into a self-satisfied smirk in the make-up chair. ‘Although, while we’re on the subject, I don’t suppose you know anyone I could set my sister up with?’
‘Assuming you think I’m too old for her?’ she asked. I nodded. She sighed. ‘Then no. Besides, don’t you think you’ve done enough matchmaking for one vacation?’
The only suitable response was silence, so I looked away, frowning, as she closed her eyes, smiling.
There were no clocks in Myrna’s dressing room, only more perfectly preserved mid-century furniture, impossibly beautiful hand-painted wallpaper and rugs so plush and warm, I couldn’t even see my toes when I planted my feet onto the floor. The room was timeless in every sense, but according to my watch, it was almost seven. The party started at eight and I already felt jittery, three-coffees-anxious with a sugar crash pending for good measure.
‘What I don’t understand,’ Myrna said, closing her eyes to allow a light dusting of grey shadow over her lids, ‘is why you would help your friend secure the affections of Joe’s boy when you want him for yourself?’
‘I’m not talking about it.’ I tapped the fingers of my left hand against the back of my right, my knees bouncing up and down. ‘Who exactly is coming tonight? As a civilian, I think you ought to warn me in case I fangirl someone to death.’
‘Look at a single soul the wrong way and you’ll be removed,’ she replied without a trace of humour. ‘And I’m afraid we are talking about it, darling. You forget I was in the same room, I saw the way he looked at you, like he wanted to eat you up with a spoon. Although God only knows why with you in those hideous pants. Do you work part-time as a clown for sick children? That was the only justification I could come up with.’
The tapping intensified. ‘Wide-legged jeans are considered very stylish by a lot of people.’
