Free Once in a Lifetime by Cathy Kelly Page A

that might get her off the couch was a real-life Johnny-Depp type in Regency costume with the desire to crush Molly to his manly bosom.
    ‘I got you a hat, just in case you wanted to come …’
    Natalie plonked a zebra-skin cowboy hat on her friend’s head.
    ‘I love it!’ Molly sat up to adjust the hat, then wriggled back down into the couch. ‘I’m happier here, Nat, honestly.
    I’m no good at that party thing. I’d prefer watching it to being in the middle of it, but if you watch, everyone thinks you’re a weirdo. Besides, we haven’t organised a cat-sitter.’
    ‘See you later, crazy lady,’ said Natalie, leaving.
    Lizzie always said that Natalie and Molly were bad for each other because they liked being home so much. Her idea of a good time didn’t involve cats, the TV or books. But then
    Lizzie didn’t appreciate that Natalie stayed in at night slaving away on her designs because she was determined to succeed as a jewellery designer. She couldn’t do that and be in clubs and pubs every night of the week like Lizzie. Natalie enjoyed going out when the mood took her. Though tonight, strangely, she wasn’t in the mood. Instead she was worried.
    There had been such an emotional build-up to the hen night and Lizzie was so fiercely determined to have a good time, determined to have one last wild party before she tied the knot, that Natalie feared the evening wouldn’t end well.
    Club Laguna itself was opaque, from the all subdued lighting that made you think you were wearing your sunglasses indoors. Even the mirrors behind the bar added to the effect: opaque glass and the lodestone was … Lizzie. Which was only fair; it was Lizzie’s hen night, after all.
    Ten women from Lizzie’s life had been hauled together for this momentous party: Natalie and Anna from school, her two mad cousins from Donegal who’d rolled up looking like off-duty supermodels, a couple of girls from college and three from Lizzie’s office. The party had started three hours before in Lizzie’s flat and Lizzie clearly wanted it to go on all night. As the person charged with organising the whole thing, Natalie would have to stay to the bitter end. But she was tired. Working in the cafe in Kenny’s by day and designing her jewellery by night meant she had very little energy. Certainly not the energy Lizzie and the other hens seemed to have, energy for squealing as they admired dresses, shoes and passing men. Wearing their zebra cowboy hats - ‘Nat, you genius! I love them!’ - the hens were attracting plenty of attention from several predatory men. So far, all boarders had been repelled, although one guy - in a denim shirt that displayed his fabulous muscles and with a tiny skull-and-crossbones earring in one ear that showed off how cool he was - was watching from the sidelines, clearly pretty keen on Lizzie. He’d get bored, Natalie hoped.
    She watched the barman diligently mix the cocktails. Swirl
    some crimson liquid into the shaker, do a little smooth move to impress the ladies, add something clear from a modern frosted glass bottle, crash in some ice, then shake.
    The women clustered round the art deco glass bar murmured approval.
    ‘More vodka,’ shrieked Lizzie, a tousled brunette who was kneeling on the barstool so she could see all the action, though she’d definitely had enough vodka already. Four vodka tonics and a white wine spritzer, and now she’d ordered the bar’s speciality: the Laguna Beach, a concoction that came complete with a voucher for the Betty Ford Clinic. She’d already decided she wasn’t wearing enough make-up and had clumsily added another layer of eyeliner in the dark gloom of the ladies’ where you needed a torch to find the flush button on the loo.
    The dark and the drink combined had not resulted in a classy make-up look.
    Natalie thought there was a business opening for anyone who patented a range of make-up bags with breathalyser gadgets fitted to their zips: once you were drunk, you