Prologue
5 YEARS BEFORE…
MARY
“Mary, that? Really?” Bea groaned, hand on hip. “I told you?—”
I brushed by. “I’m sorry, but unlike you goons, I’m 5-foot-nothing and if I wear an oversized football shirt, I’m going to look like I stole my dad’s clothes.”
“That is my grade five kit!” Bea giggled.
“And yet? You keep it in your wardrobe. You specified to grab a shirt—notwhichshirt. Also, I’ll remind you that I am doing you a favor, Bea.”
I faced the bathroom mirror of a London club to fix my hair part—our dressing room tonight. An annoying cowlick on one side of my head always made it weird after a few weeks. It stuck up in places I hated—something Bea knew. She sat down her eyeliner and nodded in my direction.
“Let me help. I’ve got product,” Alicia Morrison, Bea’s girlfriend, said.
“I regret letting you give me this undercut. I’m not cool enough for it,” I groaned.
“You look powerful,” Bea said.
“Shut up, Bea!” I sighed, rolling my eyes. “I am not taking cues from a girl who looks like she could do a Philippa Lepley campaign.”
“Who is that?” Alicia Morrison fussed with my hair.
“The one who did Princess Ingrid’s bridal gown,” Bea answered. “The real question is howyouknow that, Mary?”
“I still couldn’t point the woman out in a crowd, but lord knows I’ve heardallabout her damn wedding dress just the same. I am sure when we see it, it won’t be that great. Royal weddings are a joke and I’m sick of hearing about it.”
“I think it will,” Bea swooned.
“Trust me. We can fix this,” Alicia grabbed more product.
I remained doubtful and looked Alicia over, noting that she wastentimes cooler than me—a studio musician and writer who never took the stage anymore. Alicia was loud, very much out, and didn’t care what anyone thought. She was badass in a way I’d never be. She was also younger than me.
“I’m too old.”
“You’re thirty-seven,” Bea sighed.
“She’s twenty-five, Bea! Andcool!”
“Don’t move, Marit!” Bea used my given name like an angry mother. “Stand still, you little Viking!”
I sighed but stood still as Alicia worked.
“We need the angry Viking from within to come out on stage,” Bea continued. “Can you manage?”
“I will manage,” I said. “I’m notthatrusty.”
Alicia backed up and Bea cupped my face—pulling it towards her sky-high visage that was now evenhigherin heels.
She said, “You deserve to be yourself. You’ve given up years to take care of someone else. I love you and I’m going to keep saying it.”
I grinned, nodding. “If you say so.”
“Don’t box yourself in. You come alive on stage. Eat it up,” Bea said.
I faced the mirror, taking in my new hair. I didn’t hate it. I only hoped it had the benefit of making straight men ignore me.
