I sat back on the oversized velvet ottoman I’d claimed as we’d come in, the smaller sibling of the one Lina was standing on. So you can see how it finishes, Marla had said, but I didn’t understand how standing on an ottoman was different from standing on the floor, except that it made Lina look like she was hovering, a ghost of weddings future.

‘Well, his name is Tom.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘You told me that already. This morning. I can’t believe you’ve been seeing this guy for over a week and you only told me about him this morning.’ But her voice skittered, like she could more than believe it, like she was surprised I’d told her at all.

She looked in the mirror. ‘Do my boobs look funny?’

I shook my head. ‘They look good.’

‘The other one made them look bigger.’

‘They look better in this one,’ I reassured her. ‘The other one looked too small.’

‘Tom,’ she said, testing it out.

I nodded.

‘It’s very plain.’ She moved around to another part of the ottoman, looking in another mirror. ‘But I am marrying a Matt, I suppose …’

‘He’s a doctor. He’s thirty, lives in Pyrmont.’

She raised an eyebrow, hitched her shoulders up and tried to look over them at her back. ‘Really?’

‘Really,’ I said, glancing at my phone. Ten thirty. I had to be at work at twelve.

‘And how did you meet him?’

‘He comes into Sawyer’s a lot.’ I shrugged. ‘We got talking.’

‘And you like him?’ She lifted her arm, put it down, then straightened and squinted at her reflection.

I nodded, not sure how to answer, gestured to her shoulder. ‘Pull it up under there.’

‘Damn,’ she sighed, disappointed. ‘It’s going to move too much.’

‘It’ll be fine. That’s what the tape is for.’

‘Honestly—’ she stepped off the ottoman and the dress rumpled at the bottom ‘—this is supposed to be romantic. At this point Matt’s going to need scissors and eucalyptus oil to get me out of it at the end of the night.’

I laughed. ‘He could just rip it off.’

She snorted. ‘And take my skin with it.’

‘That sounds hot.’ I leaned back against the wall, watched her rummage in her bag. When she bent over her boobs wobbled and for a second I worried they’d fall out.

‘Well, that too. Bali is stinking in November. Maybe a short one would be better.’

‘You used to want a short one,’ I said.

‘Yeah, I remember.’

She pulled out her lipstick, put it on in the mirror.

‘That’s better.’ She grinned, her lips bright red. ‘The eggshell was washing me out.’

‘It’s the light.’

‘I can’t wear a short dress.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t make everyone come all the way to Bali and then wear a party dress.’

‘Of course you can, Leen.’