Wedding Night

rang and congratulations!”
    I put down the phone and beam elatedly around the empty office. My gloomy mood has vanished. I want to dance. Lottie’sengaged! It goes to show, some things in the world
do
go right in the end.
    But, how?
    How, how, how, how, how?
    What
happened
? Did she fly out to San Francisco after all? Or did he fly back? Or did they call each other? What? I text her:
    You’re engaged????????
    I’m expecting radio silence again, but a moment later she replies.
    Yes!!!! Was waiting to tell u all about it!
    OMG! What happened???
    All very fast. Still can’t believe it. He came back into my life out of nowhere, asked me in a restaurant, had no idea he would, absolute whirlwind!!!!
    I
have
to talk to her. I call her mobile number, but it’s engaged. Damn. I’ll get myself a coffee, then try again. As I head to our in-house Costa outlet, I can’t stop beaming. In fact, I’m so happy I really want to cry, but editors at Pincher International don’t cry at work, so I’ll settle for hugging myself.
    Richard is perfect. He’s everything I could ever have wanted for Lottie. Which sounds motherly—but, then, I
do
feel motherly toward her. Always have. Our own parents both kind of gave up on the job, what with the divorce and the alcohol and the affairs with loaded businessmen and South African beautyqueens.… Put it this way: we were left alone a lot. Lottie is five years younger than me, and, well before our mother died, she started turning to me when things went wrong.
    And as mother figure/sister/possible chief bridesmaid (?), I could not be more thrilled that Richard’s joining our strange little family unit. For a start, he’s good-looking but not to-die-for. This is important, I think. You want your sister to land a sex god
in her own eyes
, but you don’t want to be lusting after him yourself. I mean, how would I feel if Lottie brought Johnny Depp home?
    I try to examine my thoughts honestly, in the privacy of my own head. Yes, I would be unable to stay sisterly. I would probably try to steal him. I would feel like all bets were off.
    But Richard isn’t Johnny Depp. He’s handsome, don’t get me wrong, but not
overly
handsome. Not
gay
handsome, which that awful Jamie was, always preening and competing over carbs. Richard’s a man. To my eye, he sometimes looks like a younger Pierce Brosnan and sometimes like a younger Gordon Brown. (Although I think I’m the only one who can see the Gordon Brown thing. I mentioned the resemblance to Lottie once, and she got quite offended.)
    I know he’s good at his job. (Obviously, when he first started dating Lottie I asked around all my City contacts for the lowdown on him.) I also know he can have a short fuse and once bawled out his team so hugely, he had to take them all out to lunch to apologize. But he’s also good-natured. The first time I ever saw him, he was holding an armchair, which Lottie wanted moved in her flat. She was wandering round the sitting room, saying, “There … no, there! Ooh, what about there?” And he just held that big heavy chair patiently while she dithered around, and I caught his eye and he grinned and I knew.
This
is the right guy for Lottie.
    I want to jump up and down, I’m so happy. After all the shit of my divorce, we needed something good to come our way. So, how did it happen? What did he say? I want to know
everything
. As I head back to my desk, I impatiently dial her number again—and this time she answers.
    “Hi, Fliss?”
    “Lottie!” I erupt with excitement. “Congratulations! Amazing news! I can’t believe it!”
    “I know! I know!” She sounds even more euphoric than I was expecting. Richard must have swept her off her feet.
    “So … when?” I sit down at my desk and sip my coffee.
    “Two weeks ago. It still hasn’t really sunk in!”
    “Details!”
    “Well, he just contacted me out of the blue.” Lottie gives an exhilarated laugh. “I couldn’t believe it. I thought I’d never see him again. Let alone
this
!”
    If he proposed two weeks ago, that means he’d been gone for a day, max. He must have landed at San Francisco and turned right around. Good work, Richard!
    “And what did he say? Did he get down on one knee?”
    “Yes! He said he’d always loved me and he wanted to be with me and then he asked me to marry him about ten times, and at last … I said yes!” Her elation bubbles over again. “Can you
believe
it?”
    I sigh happily and take another sip of