Page 1 of The Reno
PROLOGUE
Eight Months Ago
As someone with dyslexia and ADHD, Imighthave been forgiven for being late to my dad’s funeral had I not fucked up the eulogy. The morning had pointed towards success. I only snoozed my alarm twice. I tamed my frizzy air into a respectable bun. I applied my eyeliner accurately and didn’t spill coffee on my black dress. I even ate breakfast. Usually, I’d forget to eat until the afternoon and then almost pass out.
Ordered.
Calm.
Absolutely no chaos.
I was as positive as I could be on the morning of my dad’s funeral. And then, my mum texted.
10 am sharp in the foyer.
Another text a few moments later.
Don’t be late.
I tried not to flinch as my mum sighed when I joined her andmy stepdad, Graham, in the bright white foyer of the hotel. I wondered how often Mum had checked her watch. Graham gave me a sympathetic smile, his towering frame hunched over like he wished he had been made smaller. The foyer smelt of floral bleach, and the bright lighting made our funeral black look stark. Graham looked like Slender Man. The colour dwarfed my mum, making her look more sparrow-like than usual. And me—well, I was ginger, so the black made me look paler, if that was even possible. On a good day, I resembled the transparent fish I once saw at the aquarium in Brighton.
Stood together, the three of us looked like lame, sad Goths. The tinny speaker at the front desk played Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”, making me want to giggle hysterically.
“All okay?” Mum asked. There was only one answer she wanted to hear.
I nodded. “All good.”
Graham touched my shoulder. “You look lovely.”
I smiled tightly. “Thanks, Graham.”
I wanted to say something sarcastic, likeThanks, Graham, it’s dead dad chic!orWednesday Addams is my style icon, but it would garner a dark look from Mum. She rarely understood any humour other thanMrs Brown’s Boysreruns.
We climbed into Mum’s sensible Volvo, Graham at the wheel, and drove to Everly Heath Church. It had been my dad’s local church, although he hadn’t been religious. But tradition prevailed, and he was baptised and married my mum before Everly Heath’s congregation. As we drove through the town, it was greener and leafier than I remembered. Not that I had visited veryoften. Everly Heath—the little town outside Manchester—felt very distant to me. But I couldn’t deny it was pretty.
Red brick Victorian houses flitted by. Huge oak trees that must have taken root over a hundred years ago. Families pushed prams. Kids ran ahead, their parents shouting for them to slow down. An elderly man walked a scruffy little dog. It was peaceful. It reminded me of some of the expensive neighbourhoods in London, around Hampstead Heath.
Everyone in Everly Heath was going about their day, oblivious that today was supposed to be a sad day.
The day I was going to deliver my dad’s eulogy.
“Fuck!”
Graham almost veered into the other lane, and my mum whipped her head around. “What?” she demanded, and Graham looked at me in the rearview mirror.
A familiar dread and shame filled my system.
I’m such a fuck up.
I repeated the sentence in my head like Hail Marys. I couldn’t even deliver a fifteen-minute speech at a funeral without cocking it up. Now I had to face my mum’s disappointed expression, familiar to me through failed tests and tense parents’ evenings of the past.
“I forgot my speech notes. They’re in the hotel room. I need to go back.”
I checked my watch. We were half an hour early, so I might make it.
“Don’t you have notes on your phone?” Mum said snarkily.
Irritation flared, and so did my nostrils. “Youknow I can’t read on my phone. I printed it on my paper. I need the paper.”
