Île de Ré, France’s answer to the Hamptons. Exactly three years ago, next week. They’d just met. How happy (and thin
and young) she looked then, sarong billowing behind her, Seb’s tennis-honed arms around her waist, both beaming. Next to that picture should be the logical progression, Katy thought, a wedding photograph: ivy-hugged walls, a rose garden perhaps, flower girls in white tulle, daisies tucked into their curls, little hands clapping. One would just be able to see the lace of Katy’s Vera Wang dress, caught on a breeze, her smile, and . . . and, well, probably the car- buncular profile of Seb’s father and the upholstered, floral-sprigged bosom of his wife, swelling with disapproval.
No, Seb’s parents had never thought she was good enough for their youngest son. That couldn’t have helped speed things along. She hadn’t gone to the right schools. She hadn’t come from a par- ticularly wealthy background, but a stolidly aspirational middle- class one, that neither Seb nor his mother made a pretense of being interested in. Katy also worked as a booker in a makeup-artist agency: even in the twenty-first century, a career translated as “pushiness” to Seb’s mother, who’d never had to work. And, yes, she was far too old and, with every noncommittal month that passed, getting older.
Katy checked her watch again. One minute, thirty-one seconds. One minute, thirty-one seconds before her life could change. She dug around her Gucci handbag for a lip gloss and dragged it slowly across her lips, trying to distract herself from the white stick with its totem-like life-changing powers. She checked her face in her hand mirror, gazing back critically at the reflection: the clear, honeyed Scandinavian skin (she had a Swedish great- grandmother to thank for that); the slightly slanted curaçao-blue eyes; the wide, high cheekbones that meant she always did good photo.
Katy had been beautiful for as long as she could remember.
In fact, her first memories were of people telling her blond toddler self that she was the cutest girl in Reading. She’d been christened May Queen at school, three years running. While she wasn’t hugely popular with girls—jealousy, her mother had explained— Katy’s looks nonetheless inspired a certain reverence in them. For a long time, her beauty made her self-conscious, but it protected her from social isolation.
Life improved further when she developed small bosoms with upturned nipples, coltish legs, and hair that swished and curled into breaking waves like Daryl Hannah’s in Splash . At discos, she was first in line for slow-dance requests. The boys had pressed their bony pelvises hard against hers, wispy jaws against her cheek, breathing in jerks. (She’d hummed along to “True” and pretended she was dancing with Tony Hadley.) By the age of fourteen, Katy realized she’d been dealt a good hand, even if she disliked her nose. She also realized that beauty was a currency. It was a means of transaction, and only the dumbest blondes thought otherwise. All women were born equal, but they mostly married and mated ac- cording to their waist/hip ratio. Men were biologically driven to se- lect beautiful creatures for their wives, and mothers of their children. It made evolutionary sense. She’d kept her part of the bar- gain.
Unfortunately, the horrifying tick of the Heal’s clock on the wall was the one thing she couldn’t control. The rest of her life she could box up neatly: career—decent job, tick; family—healthy relation- ship with Dad since Mum’s death, tick; health—Pilates and yoga and normal pap smears, tick; home—great place with Mathew Hilton armchair and Arco lamp, tick; and boyfriend—city job and handsome and er . . . 3,500 miles away. Needing reassurance, she held up the hand mirror again. No, she no longer looked twenty-
five. She’d managed, rather heroically, to hang on to the looks of a twenty-five-year-old well into her thirties, but this
and young) she looked then, sarong billowing behind her, Seb’s tennis-honed arms around her waist, both beaming. Next to that picture should be the logical progression, Katy thought, a wedding photograph: ivy-hugged walls, a rose garden perhaps, flower girls in white tulle, daisies tucked into their curls, little hands clapping. One would just be able to see the lace of Katy’s Vera Wang dress, caught on a breeze, her smile, and . . . and, well, probably the car- buncular profile of Seb’s father and the upholstered, floral-sprigged bosom of his wife, swelling with disapproval.
No, Seb’s parents had never thought she was good enough for their youngest son. That couldn’t have helped speed things along. She hadn’t gone to the right schools. She hadn’t come from a par- ticularly wealthy background, but a stolidly aspirational middle- class one, that neither Seb nor his mother made a pretense of being interested in. Katy also worked as a booker in a makeup-artist agency: even in the twenty-first century, a career translated as “pushiness” to Seb’s mother, who’d never had to work. And, yes, she was far too old and, with every noncommittal month that passed, getting older.
Katy checked her watch again. One minute, thirty-one seconds. One minute, thirty-one seconds before her life could change. She dug around her Gucci handbag for a lip gloss and dragged it slowly across her lips, trying to distract herself from the white stick with its totem-like life-changing powers. She checked her face in her hand mirror, gazing back critically at the reflection: the clear, honeyed Scandinavian skin (she had a Swedish great- grandmother to thank for that); the slightly slanted curaçao-blue eyes; the wide, high cheekbones that meant she always did good photo.
Katy had been beautiful for as long as she could remember.
In fact, her first memories were of people telling her blond toddler self that she was the cutest girl in Reading. She’d been christened May Queen at school, three years running. While she wasn’t hugely popular with girls—jealousy, her mother had explained— Katy’s looks nonetheless inspired a certain reverence in them. For a long time, her beauty made her self-conscious, but it protected her from social isolation.
Life improved further when she developed small bosoms with upturned nipples, coltish legs, and hair that swished and curled into breaking waves like Daryl Hannah’s in Splash . At discos, she was first in line for slow-dance requests. The boys had pressed their bony pelvises hard against hers, wispy jaws against her cheek, breathing in jerks. (She’d hummed along to “True” and pretended she was dancing with Tony Hadley.) By the age of fourteen, Katy realized she’d been dealt a good hand, even if she disliked her nose. She also realized that beauty was a currency. It was a means of transaction, and only the dumbest blondes thought otherwise. All women were born equal, but they mostly married and mated ac- cording to their waist/hip ratio. Men were biologically driven to se- lect beautiful creatures for their wives, and mothers of their children. It made evolutionary sense. She’d kept her part of the bar- gain.
Unfortunately, the horrifying tick of the Heal’s clock on the wall was the one thing she couldn’t control. The rest of her life she could box up neatly: career—decent job, tick; family—healthy relation- ship with Dad since Mum’s death, tick; health—Pilates and yoga and normal pap smears, tick; home—great place with Mathew Hilton armchair and Arco lamp, tick; and boyfriend—city job and handsome and er . . . 3,500 miles away. Needing reassurance, she held up the hand mirror again. No, she no longer looked twenty-
five. She’d managed, rather heroically, to hang on to the looks of a twenty-five-year-old well into her thirties, but this
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