‘So, how to describe Hope,’ Angie continued thoughtfully. ‘She’s quite direct. Very, actually. I mean, she takes no prisoners. In fact, I’d say she borders on the rude.’
Maggie opened her eyes wide in comedic shock. ‘She must be really direct if you think she’s rude,’ she said with the merest shadow of a fear that Angie would take offence.
‘Yeah, she makes me look like a shrinking violet,’ said Angie without even a pause. ‘Oh, and she’s beautiful. I mean, beautiful like you’ve never seen a real person to be, beautiful.’
‘Wow!’ said Maggie. ‘I don’t think I know any beautiful people,’ she added with a smirk.
‘Thanks a bunch,’ replied Angie. ‘But seriously, she is. She was a model, and now she’s set up this business importing swimwear. That’s why she was doing the course, to learn the basics of business. And that’s about all I know about her. She’s got a house somewhere in town. She’s got a boyfriend who’s a chef. And that’s it. I’m not sure why she’s invited me to her do, to be honest.’
‘Maybe she’s so beautiful that she’s got no friends.’ Maggie laughed. ‘Bet it turns out to be you, me, the chef boyfriend and a couple of maiden aunts all sitting round and playing gin rummy.’
It wasn’t like that at all. The party was possibly the most lavish and definitely the most stylish that Maggie had ever been to. It was held in the Hospitium in the Museum Gardens, a fabulous fourteenth-century, half-timbered building that backed on to the river and just oozed history. The stone walls glowed honey gold in the warm evening light and glass lanterns were dotted along the path from the gardens to the entrance to show the way.
A group of women, all considerably younger than Maggie and Angie, were milling around outside, champagne flutes in hands. They were elegantly dressed in expensive cocktail dresses of varying lengths and colours, and Maggie was glad that she had thought to wear one from her own meagre collection even if it was several seasons behind the times. It didn’t matter what she was wearing, however. No one would be looking at her when there was so much that was more appealing on display. She had become resigned to the invisibility cloak that middle age wrapped around her, but she couldn’t help but feel a little bit old and ugly, despite telling herself that these things were all relative.
Angie, of course, was totally undaunted by the sea of glamour before them. She cut her way through the group and into the hall itself. The room matched its occupants for style and elegance. The pale stone pillars that held up the timbered ceilings were festooned with garlands of eucalyptus, interwoven with tiny twinkling fairy lights. Light also flickered from dozens of wrought-iron candelabras that stood like sentinels, each holding nine tapered ivory candles and twisted round with dark green ivy. Tables and chairs, wrapped in crisp white damask, lined the edges of the room, with a space left in the centre of the room for milling and possibly dancing later. It looked like the sort of party where there would be dancing.
A handsome young man, no doubt a student, in a black waistcoat and trousers that clung in all the right places sashayed past them with a tray of glasses. Angie swiped a champagne and an orange juice and passed the fizz to Maggie, raising an eyebrow as she did so and cocking her head in the direction of the young man’s bottom. Maggie suppressed an appreciative giggle. Since the thing with Leon had started up, she was suddenly seeing men in a way that she hadn’t done for years. And it was wonderful. It made her feel alive, feminine and downright sexy.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Angie quietly once she had taken a sip of her orange juice. ‘How the other half live, eh?’
‘It’s pretty impressive,’ replied Maggie. ‘Which one is Hope?’
Angie had a look around, but it wasn’t hard for Maggie to spot the birthday girl. She was holding court in the centre of the room and wearing a floor-length gown in midnight blue lace, the skirt falling away into a fan of tulle. The bodice skimmed her flawless figure and her arms and shoulders, tanned and toned, were bare. The dress gave the illusion of nakedness beneath the tulle but was actually lined in a near-invisible nude fabric. It was stunning. A group of well-wishers surrounded her, but somehow she was keeping them from standing in her personal space, as if she had a force field protecting her. She was, as Angie had suggested, the most beautiful woman Maggie had ever seen in the flesh.
‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. ‘She’s like a goddess. How is a creature who looks like that a friend of yours?!’