Page 19 of The Wrong Suitcase

My eyes refocus and she looks at me.

‘Christ,’ she says. ‘You look like you’ve been ravaged. Have you been on the shots this whole time? You missed the entire eighty-four minutes of speeches! Kat started a sweepstake at our end of the table. That Aran guy won and then kissed the guy he’s been flirting with all night in celebration. It was very cute.’

She’s talking and talking, but I’m not really hearing her.

‘Izzy! Hello?’

‘Do you know where my handbag is? My clutch? They’ve moved all the tables.’

‘Kat has it,’ she says. ‘Don’t worry. Although … I don’t actually know where Kat’s gone, lol. Are you okay? Did Birchy find you?’

A white dress looms into my field of vision then. Sarah.

‘My loves, I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve got to chat with you all night!’ she squeals, pulling us both in for a hug. Her dress is totally trashed. It’s filthy around the bottom and there’s red wine down the front of it. She doesn’t seem to care one bit.

‘It’s been a beautiful day, babe,’ Anastasia tells her, and I can tell she means it because she puts her hand over her heart to speak. ‘Honestly. There’s not a single detail you’ve not thought of. It’s been perfect.’

‘I cosign that.’ I grin. ‘This whole day will stay with me forever. It’s been enchanting. Like a fairy tale.’

‘Thank you, ladies. And thank you for being here! It was a big gamble, a destination wedding, but a couple of hundred people flying in from all over the world certainly does make a gal feel loved!’

‘We wouldn’t have missed it for anything,’ I say.

‘She sobbed the whole way through the vows,’ Anastasia jokes.

‘You did too!’ I counter, and she shrugs, conceding my point.

‘There’s still the first dance to be had,’ Sarah grins, ‘and cake-cutting and midnight fireworks, so pace yourselves, won’t you?’

Anastasia and I make noises of enthusiasm, and I’m trying to be present and grounded and a good, engaged guest as my wonderful friend gushes about her wedding day – her concept and worries and everything Adriano fought with her about and agreed with her about, and mostly I do a good job. But I do have to admit, my attentions are divided. I can’t help but search out Sam in the crowd. He’s disappeared.

‘How are you both, anyway?’ Sarah concludes. ‘Work, life, love? What are the headlines?’

‘Good!’ says Anastasia. ‘Work is busy. Kat is wonderful. We finally picked a sperm donor. Everything is … life, you know? Trucking on.’

‘Izzy?’ Sarah asks.

‘I’m good too!’ I say, brightly. ‘I’m thinking about going up for deputy head because there are whispers of Mr Pattinson finally retiring, and I think by Christmas I’ll have enough saved to consider a mortgage. Only to part-own a place, but still. It’ll be my own flat.’

‘Oh, that’s wonderful,’ Sarah says. ‘And dating? After Doug? Are you …’

I shrug and try to act nonchalant. A thought flashes in my brain along the lines ofI think I just fell in love with Adriano’s friend after we got to second base around the corner,but obviously that’s inappropriate, and a tad ridiculous, and she’ll probably kill me for even suggesting Sam is eligible let alone fessing up to … you know. The rest.

I settle on, ‘You know me. Dating, refusing to settle unless he’s super cute or super funny or just super. One eye out for Mr Right, just in case …’

‘Interesting remit.’ Sarah nods, and her features darken in mischief. ‘Because I do know a couple of men like that, as it happens. I don’t know if anyone has piqued your interest this evening, madame …’ She grins and wiggles her eyebrows, and I can tell trouble is brewing.

‘What did you do, Sarah?’ I demand, a funny feeling rising in my stomach. I will die on this very spot if she presents a gentleman to me here and now, like some interfering pushy mother determined to get her only son married off despite his raging halitosis and predilection for blow-up dolls.

‘She’s not loosened up in the control department then,’ Sarah observes to Anastasia, who is looking at me with squinty eyes, as if she’s trying to figure out a puzzle she doesn’t have all the clues for.

‘I don’t know,’ Anastasia muses. ‘There was some guy’s suitcase she managed to steal earlier, and I feel like there’s something going on there. They went missing together …’

I shoot her a look. She acted like she’d had no idea where I’d been during the speeches, but she blatantly has her suspicions. A lady never dry humps and tells, though.

Adriano appears then, too, drunk on the best day of his life and palpably relieved to be reunited with his new wife after a full minute and a half apart.

‘My love, my darling, my world,’ he says, and Sarah beams and claps her hands.

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