Mya poured herself another large glass of Chenin Blanc, the taste sharp on her palette. She hadn’t planned to drink, but what with Jade’s announcement and the champagne that followed, she’d been marooned here. Tomorrow she’d wake in her childhood bedroom in which everything remained the same as it always had been; everything aside from the ‘Forest Fresh’ air-freshener that her mother had installed throughout the house and was now tickling the back of her throat.

As Jade mused aloud about the colour scheme for the wedding, Mya found herself deliberately tuning her out, thinking instead about the stack of year nine coursework that awaited her at home, the admin forms she had to complete for the year seven daytrip, the assembly she had to plan for Wednesday...

‘What about you, then, Mya?’ Jade asked. Her hand was clamped tight over Anthony’s and the crystal in her engagement ring seemed suddenly enormous. ‘Any special man in your life?’

‘Not at the moment,’ she replied. She looked to her mother. ‘That asparagus was lovely, Mum, thank you.’

Rose Harper shrugged, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she still had two daughters in the room. Perhaps she was being overdramatic, but Mya knew that her mother’s allegiance had shifted: she knew that in her mother’s mind a married daughter was far more pride-worthy than one with a career.

‘I can’t wait to tell Angela over the road,’ she said now. ‘Her Marianne’s been with her fella for three years and he’s not once proposed. And her with three kids.’ She tutted. ‘No one wants to buy an ice cream if they can have the van for free.’

‘What about that guy you met online?’ Jade asked.

Mya heard her mother gasp beside her.

‘You’re not meeting people from the interweb,’ she said. ‘I’ve read about that in Chat. It’s all rapists and murderers.’

Mya stifled a sigh. ‘We met in a bar, Mother. A busy bar.

He was more interested in the wine list than anything else.’

‘An alcoholic,’ Rose said, shaking her head. ‘Just as bad.’

‘Well, what does it matter? I won’t be seeing him again.’

Jade frowned, a look of genuine concern on her face.

‘Why? What happened?’

The clock ticked loudly in the background and a moment passed before Mya said calmly, ‘He was wearing a toupee,’ and the room was filled with laughter, her own the loudest.