were our own worst enemies at school, Holly,’ said Donna firmly. ‘We should have joined in more. That’s why I’m pals with Caroline and Lilli now. I don’t want Emily to grow up being all quiet and mousy like us. She plays with Caroline and Lilli’s girls and when they’re older, they’ll look after her. Nobody will call my daughter Speccy.’
So Donna had remembered. Holly stared at her friend. ‘And all this time I thought you were suffering from selective memory syndrome.’
Donna grinned. ‘No, I’ve just reinvented myself. Like Madonna. I’m making up for lost time. Come on.’
Caroline and Lilli were on their third double each. The bar was humming and they’d been mingling like mad, but there was still no sign of Michelle.
‘Stupid bitch,’ said Lilli crossly. ‘I always said she was unreliable. And where’s that Donna?’
‘She’s here,’ crowed Caroline. ‘And omigod who’s that with her?’
They watched in astonishment as Donna arrived, breathless as usual, accompanied by this tall, voluptuously stunning woman, wearing what looked suspiciously like the original version of Caroline’s corset. The woman’s dark hair fell gloriously around her shoulders, as glossy as if several catwalk hairdressers had been slaving over it for hours.
She hadn’t needed a seaweed wrap to squeeze her body into the corset; like a modern-day Sophia Loren, her figure was a natural hourglass, with a waspy waist that was surely narrower than one of Caroline’s thighs. Caroline, who’d put on a stone since her school days, wished she’d stopped her mid-morning Mars bar now.
The dark-haired woman was carrying an exquisite beaded handbag and her necklace was definitely the same one that Posh Spice had been wearing in Hello! Confidence oozed out of her like expensive moisturiser out of Estée Lauder radiance pearls.
‘It’s Holly Miller,’ said Lilli, awestruck.
Donna rushed up to her two new best friends, who clambered out of their corner to greet her and Holly. This was true reunion gold. Looking round the room, most people looked almost the same as at school, just with better highlights, real jewellery and more expensive clothes. Pat Wilson had had her long dark hair cut into a bob, Andrea Maguire’s red hair was now dyed a startling blonde, and even Babs Grafton had finally had her teeth fixed and sported contacts instead of heavy glasses. But Holly was totally different, like someone who’d just stepped out of one of those six-month make-over things on the telly.
‘Holly, I wouldn’t have recognised you!’ said Lilli, determined to get the upper hand now that she was faced with this much improved Holly.
‘Isn’t she fabulous looking,’ said Donna.
‘You look wonderful,’ agreed Caroline. ‘That’s a real designer corset, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Holly, overcome with the urge to tell them it was borrowed, ‘although it isn’t…’
Donna interrupted before Holly could say ‘mine’. ‘Wouldn’t we all like a staff discount at Lee’s.’ She gave Holly a prod in the arm and Holly took the hint.
‘…full price,’ Holly amended. ‘It wasn’t full price. We do get a discount.’ She hoped that Lilli and Caroline couldn’t tell there was a lie in the midst of all of this. Holly told lies with all the skill of a devout nun.
‘Tell us all about yourself,’ said Caroline eagerly. ‘I’d love to work in Lee’s; it must be amazing, all those famous people dropping in and out, trying on Versace evening dresses.’
‘I work in the children’s department,’ Holly said apologetically. ‘We stock Baby Dior but we’re drawing the line at sticking toddlers into sequinned evening dresses. It’s hard to get baby sick out of sequins.’
Everyone roared with laughter and Holly felt herself relax marginally. Normally, she was too nervous to joke round other people.
‘Still,’ Donna pointed out, ‘you get a discount. I must come up and look for an outfit for Emily’s First Communion. They have lovely dresses nowadays, not like the terrible frilly things we had to wear. Do you remember mine, Holly? It was awful and my mother put curlers in my hair the night before and it went frizzy and stuck out at angles like I’d been plugged into the mains!’
‘I bet mine was worse,’ said Lilli, shuddering. ‘My grandmother had my mother’s old dress put away and she made me wear it. It was all yellowing and too tight. I was a sight!’
And they were off, comparing stories about how awful they’d looked. Holly realised that it wasn’t as bad as she’d expected. Lilli and Caroline seemed genuinely interested in her, and they weren’t the same arrogant schoolgirls she remembered. Lilli was still capable of being a bit sharp but Holly could cope with that now. And they seemed to think she was funny. Holly knew she’d been funny when she was at school too, it was just that nobody but Donna noticed.
As Michelle hadn’t turned up, Holly was certainly the most fashionable and interesting ex-Cardinal girl there that night and Caroline and Lilli attempted to stick with her. Holly would have preferred to talk to the other non-gang girls from school but she didn’t see any of them there. She’d met Andrea who used to sit beside her in art class, and Geena Monroe had thrown her arms round Holly and hugged her happily. Caroline’s once-great friend, Selina, who’d never even spoken to Holly in school, had been fulsome in her praise of Holly’s outfit, necklace and general improvement. But she hadn’t seen lovely quiet Brona Reilly who’d sat on her other side in art class, or Munira Shirsat and her best friend, Jan Campbell.
‘I think I saw Brona earlier, but a few of the girls didn’t reply to the letter,’ Caroline said when Holly asked her about Brona, Jan and Munira. ‘You’d think they’d want to meet up with everyone again. After all we shared together.’
Holly wondered if the other girls had been so nervous of a reunion that they had deliberately not replied.
‘You’ve heard all about us,’ Lilli said, when they were waiting for dessert, ‘and we haven’t heard a thing about the man in your life.’
‘Or should that be men?’ giggled Caroline, who’d decided that Holly was simply being enigmatic by not talking about herself. That this glamorous woman could be shy never occurred to her, and anyone who looked so amazing must have some gorgeous bloke in the wings. ‘Go on,’ she urged. ‘Tell us.’
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ said Holly.
Donna kicked her under the table. ‘What about that guy you were telling me about earlier?’
All Holly could remember was Donna talking about reinventing herself.
‘I bet he’s a hunk,’ said Lilli enviously.
‘Look!’ sighed Andrea, as waiters converged to place plates of butterscotch mousse, double chocolate cake and Hawaiian Surprise in front of them.
Donna took advantage of the lapse in everyone’s concentration to whisper into Holly’s ear.
‘Make someone up!’
‘Why?’ Holly hissed back.
‘Because I’ve told them you’ve got
