Chapter 24

24

As soon as I get home, I grab my laptop and look up the Derwent Manor Annual Gala. I’m sent to a website that looks very sleek and secretive. I press the enter button and am taken to an events page, where a gallery of images shows the most insanely glamourous house I’ve ever seen. Underneath, in an elegant typeface, there’s a description of the event:

Join Lady Derwent for her annual fundraising gala in the glorious Derwent Manor ballroom. This year’s theme is Famous Couples Throughout History. We very much hope to top last year’s extravaganza and raise a record sum for this year’s charity— Ditch the Bullies.

Wow. Jonah must be an incredible dancer if he’s going to be performing at something as swish as this. I close my eyes for a moment and imagine Jonah and me at a gala, in a ballroom, twirling around on a polished parquet floor. In this vision there is no hand jive to be found.

I scroll down the page and gasp when I see that the price of the tickets is one thousand five hundred pounds per head.

“Fuck me.”

I could dip into my savings? Money means nothing if I’m dead. I click onto the buy tickets button.

This event is now sold out.

Nooooo. I bury my face in my arms and muffle a scream. I am getting thwarted at every turn. I need to get into this gala! I click on the Facebook event page and tap out a comment.

Hi there! I was wondering if anyone had any spare tickets for the gala? I so want to go and I only need one ticket. I am a solo flyer! Please comment or DM if you can help.

I immediately get three comments. One from a woman called Gloria Montpellier that says, No solo flyers. It’s a couples themed event so you would need a partner. Then a comment from a guy with a picture of a waterfall as his profile pic—that one is just three laughing emojis in a row. The last response is from the event handler themselves.

My gosh, ever so sorry. We are fully booked out and tickets are non-transferable. Feel free to make a donation via our website and add yourself to the mailing list for news of next year’s gala.

“I won’t bloody be here for next year’s gala!” I cry at the screen, slamming my laptop lid closed and rubbing at my temples. A wave of tiredness flops over me. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much happening in my life at one time. It’s exhausting. With a grumble, I open my laptop again and google Jonah’s names both real and stage, narrowing the search to the last twenty-four hours in case anything new has come up. Nothing! For someone who gallivants around London so much, Jonah is a total digital recluse.

“Merritt?” I yell into the air. “Are you there? I am very clearly flailing here! I don’t think I can do this.”

I wait a few minutes, but there’s no answer. I try again. “I really did appreciate you telling me to knock over the juice, by the way! But I’ve reached another dead end, no pun intended.”

I wait hopefully, padding out into the living room in case she appears in there. And then into the bathroom, where the big mirror is. Nope. No sign.

I sulk at myself in the mirror. I’ve developed a bit of a tan over the last few days. It makes my eyes look bright and clear, and the freckles scattered over my nose have deepened.

“At least when I die a second time, I’ll look marginally better than I did the first,” I muse grimly. I tut at my reflection. It was a huge stroke of luck getting into the silent disco without a ticket, but a posh gala at a country house? I wouldn’t have the faintest clue where to begin.

Unless…As swiftly as if the memory has been inserted into my brain, I remember what Aled said about Cooper writing some story about a bank heist. If he can write a story about infiltrating a bank and have it be plausible, then surely, surelyhe would know how one might slip uncaught into, say, a fancy charity gala at a country house?

Plus, there’s the small matter of needing to be in a couple to get in.

I pull out my phone and write the text.

I NEED YOUR HELP.

---

The bell on the door of the pharmacy jingles cheerily as I burst in the next morning. Jan jumps up from watching the Broadway filming of Hamilton, her face softening when she sees that it’s only me and not someone in desperate and immediate need of diarrhoea relief—a customer type more common than any of us would prefer.

“How are you feeling, love?” Jan asks, her voice wobbling with sympathy. “Leanne told me…you know…” Her eyes flicker down towards my crotch. She trails off discreetly, for which I am grateful.

“About the possible thrush!” Leanne calls out, her head popping out from the back, her voice resounding. An elderly woman browsing the loofah selection looks me up and down. “Apple cider vinegar, dear. A gallon of apple cider vinegar.”

“I am…fine. Very well,” I say to Leanne, pasting a smile onto my face. “Thank you so much for your help.”

Jan comes out from behind the counter and puts her hands on her hips. “You’re acting different.”

“Am I?” I shrug. “I don’t think so.”

“You are…What is it? Something’s off…”

“Wait…” Jan says curiously. “She’s being nice.”

“OMG, that’s it. She’s being nice,” Leanne adds, as if the very notion is absurd. “What’s wrong?” She dashes out from behind the counter and places the back of her hand on my forehead as if to check my temperature.

“Oi!” I shoo her away.

“Seriously, though. What’s going on?”

I wonder what would happen if I told them that the reason I’m being nice is because I want help infiltrating a fancy gala so that I can find a man who has to kiss me within the next four days or else I will die once more and be swept up into a possibly unknown afterlife where my eternity could be spent acting as a guinea pig for a madwoman’s Cupid service.

“I’m actually here because, um, I’m going to a costume party and I need your help.”

The words feel entirely foreign coming out of my mouth. This is a sentence I never expected I would say. A sentence I never wanted to say.

“Theme?” Leanne breathes, pressing her neon-green nails against her chest.

“Famous couples throughout history.”

“Ah yes, a classic. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I need something that looks, but is not, expensive. The people going there are fancy as all get-out, and I really need to blend in.”

“Ooh, how about Celine Dion and René Angélil?” Jan suggests excitedly. “They were very glamourous.”

I shake my head. “I’m not sure the man I’m going with would be able to pull off René.”

“A man, eh?” Leanne raises an eyebrow.

“Just a friend. Well, not even that, really.”

“How about Barbra Streisand and James Brolin?” Jan tries. “You could wear a lovely updo like Barbra does in Funny Girl!”

“Better…but…I’m not sure they’re obvious enough.”

“You want obvious?”

“I want to look good, but not too noticeable. Nothing too quirky—I need to look like I fit.”

“Okay, so…basic. Well, then you want Gatsby and Daisy. You can wear something sparkly and just get your not-so-much-a-friend into a tux. Hey presto.”

I nod. “That sounds doable.”

I screw my face up and try to remember the last party I went to. I can’t, which is fine, because parties I’ve seen on television seem like a full-on nightmare. All those performatively jolly people, beige food, small talk, DJs.

Leanne grabs her phone and pulls up her calendar app. “How long do I have to design the costume? I can try to do everything at cost, but obviously there’s my time and the fittings, and you’ll definitely want embellishments—”

“Oh no, you don’t understand,” I cut in. “The gala is on Thursday night.”

“This Thursday night? As in tomorrow?”

I nod.

Leanne shakes her head. “There’s just no way. No way in sweet hell that I can pull that off by tomorrow. My god, Delphie. I need warnings. You can’t just come in here and demand time off and spectacular costumes with zero notice!”

I grimace. That’s fair. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Do you know of a costume shop where I could hire something?”

Leanne wrinkles her nose. “Christ, I can’t let you hire. Anything decent will already be booked out, and the fabric they use in those places is lousy. I once hired a mermaid costume from a shop and there was a literal flea in the bra. No, no. You’ll spend the evening scratching and pulling, and that won’t be fitting for something so fancy.”

“Ooh,” Jan says thoughtfully, boxing up a bottle of Buttercup cough syrup for a customer openly disgruntled by the lack of attentive service they’re receiving.

“What is it, Mum?”

“Remember that dress you wore for your grandma Diane’s seventieth party? The grey silky one with the…thingies.” She points at her shoulders.

“The capped sleeves?” Leanne finishes, pressing a finger to her chin.

“You were a bit chunkier then, so it would probably fit Delphie now, and you two are about the same height.”

Leanne closes her eyes and starts mumbling to herself. “It would need fringing, and some sort of sparkle. I could leave the capped sleeves on, yes, and then there’s the feathers from…And the hair could…”

She opens her eyes and then looks me up and down three times, spinning me around with her hand and giving a final nod. “What time are you leaving tomorrow?”

I think about the plan I made with Cooper last night. “We’re going to set off at five p.m. in time for the gala start at seven p.m.”

“In that case you’ll have to be here at two.”

“Two? Ha! Are you kidding? I don’t need three hours to get ready!”

“I assume you need assistance with your glam?”

“Glam?”

“Hair and makeup.” Jan purses her lips together, a know-all expression on her face. “Are you not on Instagram, Delphie? All the movie stars get glam. They have glam teams and all sorts.”

I shake my head. “I’m not on Instagram. Too many videos of people pointing at words.”

I don’t mention that I did once sign up to Instagram, posting a selfie that got only one like, from a US Marine doctor. He later messaged me and asked if I would like to rate his dick. I deleted the app soon after.

Leanne and Jan give each other a look.

“Just…leave it with me,” Leanne says. “Be here at two p.m.”

“Ooh, and before you go, this came for you,” Jan says, handing me a copy of Money Maims, Money Kills by R. L. Cooper.

“You opened it?” I tut.

“I thought it was for me. You never have stuff delivered here. I didn’t know you were into crime novels!”

“I’m not.”

But I am curious to know why Aled was so excited to meet Cooper, and there was no way I was chancing the package being sent to Cooper’s flat by mistake and him knowing I’d ordered his book.

I tuck the novel deep into my tote bag and glance up at the clock on the wall. “Shit. I’ve really got to leg it. I’ve booked myself for a manicure!”

“A manicure? Who even are you right now?” Leanne calls after me as I run out of the pharmacy.

I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.