Page 1 of The Lucky Escape

1

I was having the best morning of my life.

‘Annie-Doo, you look like a … model. No. Wait. Better than that. Asupermodel,’ my little sister Freddie declared, as my BFF Adzo – a name that she once told me means ‘on Monday born’ in Ghana – put the finishing touches to my lip liner. Freddie had called me ‘Annie-Doo’ since she was old enough to talk, which, my mother never tired of reminding us all, was basically straight out of the womb – unlike me, her disappointment of a daughter, who sat brooding and silent for three years, almost giving her an anxiety disorder. She never tired of reminding us all of that, either.

Freddie tilted her head to one side, assessing Adzo’s work. It was pretty handy having a best friend who yes, was a theoretical physicist, but who also knew her way around a contour stick. Not that I was highly strung or anything, but no way would I have trusted anybody else.

‘You look amazing,’ continued Freddie. ‘What’s the word when you’re, like, the boss? The one in charge of everything?’

‘Regal?’ supplied Adzo.

‘Yeah! Especially with the flower crown!’

She gives the best compliments, my sis.

‘Come here, you,’ I mumbled with a grin, pulling her tiny thirteen-year-old wrist towards me. We’d spent the night in the suite of a fancy hotel in Mayfair, paid for by my soon-to-be in-laws as a girly treat. The three of us – me, Freddie and Adzo – had arrived yesterday and settled in for gossiping and giggling and doing silly dance routines for social media in our matching dressing gowns to celebrate my last night as a single woman. It had been perfect – and I had only cried twice. I was excited to get married, but I can truly say that if I accidentally fell into a sinkhole before I got to the church then I would die having had the most beautiful twenty-four hours ever. Everything had been magical.

Adzo fussed about with the tousled brunette waves curling down my back – another thing I entrusted to nobody but her – and I lowered my voice to tell Freddie: ‘You can still stay over as much as you want. This doesn’t change anything.’ I nuzzled into her neck and looked at our reflection in the giant mirror before us. ‘Alexander loves you.’

‘Even on Saturday nights?’ she asked.

‘Bear, I don’t think you’re going to want to hang out with your fusty old sister on Saturday nights for much longer.’

‘I will.’

I scrunched up my nose, making her giggle. ‘We’ll see about that.’

Adzo stepped back, gave me the once-over, and downed the last of her mimosa – a visible sign that she was satisfied with her morning’s work. She was gorgeous, her Black cheekbones heightened even more than they naturally sat because of how she’d used the highlighter cream, forcing the light tobounce off her face as though she was somehow lit from within. Her dark eyes were lined like a cat’s and her braids piled in thick coils on her head. Thank heavens she wasn’t walking down the aisle with me, for surely all eyes would have been on her.

She’d actually refused to be a bridesmaid before I’d even had chance to ask. ‘I don’t go in for all that,’ she’d stated, after I first showed her the ring. ‘Don’t even ask me, okay?’ I’d chuckled and agreed. Typical Adzo. She doesn’t do what everybody else does. A lot like Freddie, actually, she marches to the beat of her own drum.

‘Are you year eight, or year nine, Freddie-Frou?’

Adzo had quickly caught on that nobody called each other by their proper given name in our world. Everyone was Doo this or Frou that, a bear or a bug or a piggy-poo. Freddie responded to say that she was just starting year nine.

‘She’s thirteen going on twenty-five,’ I teased. Freddie was actually called Frederica, but when she learned about the gender pay gap had decided she wanted a name ‘where you can’t tell if I am a girl or a boy on my CV, so they can’t discriminate’. She’s smart. Smarter than me.

Freddie relaxed into my lap and I inhaled the scent of her: Watermelon body lotion and hairspray lightly dancing through her loose ombré mane. I paid good money to get my roots a darker brown and my tips a lighter colour, but hers annoyingly went that way naturally.

‘Thank you for being my flawless bridesmaid,’ I whispered. ‘You’re my best girl.’

‘You’remybest girl,’ she whispered back. Then she had a thought, twisting up her nose in distaste. ‘But have you got a Tic-Tac? Your breath smells.’

I squealed, reaching to blow a raspberry on the back of her neck a beat too late – she’d already wriggled from my grasp in glee.

‘Not the lip gloss!’ Adzo howled, lunging over to separate us. ‘I’ve never made somebody look so good!’ Freddie bounded over to the other side of the room and, mindful of my dress, I moved comically in slow motion to chase after her. To her luck we were interrupted by the arrival of my dad as he let himself into the room with the key card we’d left at reception. We froze, collectively aware that playtime was over and wedding days were probably supposed to be a more serious affair than we were currently demonstrating.

‘Daddy!’ Freddie padded towards him. ‘We’ve had the best night. We had afternoon tea! And pizza in bed!’

He was wearing his favourite navy-blue suit and a fat red tie with a matching patterned handkerchief in his top pocket, his long Norwegian limbs looking longer than ever in his tailoring. He already had a tiny flute lily in his buttonhole, made to match my bouquet. Putting his arm around Freddie he took a breath and beamed at me.

‘So this is you on your wedding day, Froogle,’ he said as way of greeting, taking me in as I stood before him.

I grinned back. Seeing his eyes glisten made me tear up too, rendering me mute. Bloody weddings. You think you’ll be all nonchalant and not like all those other brides, and then bam: it hits you. You’re just as sappy and emotional as the next chick in white.

‘You look beautiful,’ he said. ‘Truly beautiful.’

Freddie tugged on his arm, slipping her hand into his. ‘I said she lookedregal.’

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