“For a family get-together before your wedding.” The excitement in Jess’s voice shone through. “Your bachelorette party, one of your last nights of freedom...”
Carla swallowed uncomfortably. As soon as she and Tom had become engaged, her relatives started to swamp her with well-meaning advice, such as popping a coin in her shoe when she walked down the aisle, for good luck and prosperity, and not to wear pearls on her wedding day because they represented tears.
She’d suspected they’d plan something to celebrate her marriage and had caught them whispering together a few times. When her gran pursed her lips and whistled in a mock-innocent fashion, it had made Carla wince.
Sharing superstitions was like a currency among her relatives, and the narrative often changed as the stories were passed along the family grapevine. She and Tom had planned their small, sophisticated wedding in fine detail, and their invitations even featured a list of FAQs, so her relatives would be clear about what would happen on the day and when. Her aunt Mimi once showed up to a cousin’s wedding dressed as Catwoman because she’d heard the reception was fancy dress, and Carla didn’t want to risk a repeat performance.
“Please tell me what you’ve planned,” she pleaded with Jess. “You know I don’t like surprises.” To be truthful, they made her feel a little motion sick and she definitely didn’t share her sister’s fear of missing out on anything.
“It’s a secret,” Jess said. “We’re taking you somewhere exciting and, um, insightful. Don’t you want to have some fun before you get married?”
Carla tried not to worry about the words we’re taking you. It was easy to picture Jess, Gran, Mimi and Evelyn joining hands together around a huge cauldron, plotting her fate. Was there anything more annoying than people with a secret who told you they had one then refused to share it? Especially if they were your own family.
“How about going to an escape room or a murder-mystery evening?” she said, offering up something she’d actually enjoy. “I love things that involve skill and teamwork. Doing something this evening isn’t ideal for me...”
Jess pulled a face at her. “Are you sure you’re really my sister?” she asked. “The one who dropped out of uni to go traveling when she was twenty-one? What happened to your sense of adventure?”
Although Carla knew she was joking, Jess’s words still stung. Certainty in her life was like a safety blanket she didn’t like to cast off. “Adventure doesn’t pay the bills,” she murmured. And it led me into a failed marriage, she thought to herself.
The two sisters glanced at each other warily, as if sensing a widening chasm between them. Carla often thought if she applied the Logical Love algorithms to her own family members, her match statistics wouldn’t be very high, especially with Jess. “I have some fresh data to analyze,” she said, picking up her report again.
“We’ll see you outside at five thirty.” Jess coolly turned on her heel.
Carla wasn’t sure what her sister muttered when she slammed the office door shut, but it sounded like, “You’re too bloody particular.” The cards on the corkboard fluttered and then stilled in the momentary draft.
“Particular can mean anything from distinct to specific to extraspecial,” Carla called after her. “All three are positive.”
She perused the report and tried not to worry about her family’s plans for that evening, telling herself they only wanted the best for her. They were excited about her and Tom’s wedding, and this was their way of showing it.
Now all she had to do was turn up and get it over with. She tried not to overthink the words exciting and insightful.
Two
Magpies
After Carla finished work, she headed downstairs to meet Gran and Jess at the front of the building. She was one of those people who’d prefer to be twenty minutes early rather than five minutes late. There was a sickly taste of pear drops on her tongue, even though she hadn’t eaten any, and her nerves about the evening weren’t helped by her gran parking haphazardly on the pavement. Carla didn’t even know if they were going out for food or not, so she’d nibbled half a sandwich just in case.
Lucinda wound down her car window. “I know, I know, honey,” she called out. “I swerved to avoid a black cat on the road. I didn’t want it to cross our path. We want only good luck today.”
On the rare occasions she drove, Lucinda added a paisley silk headscarf and huge sunglasses to her usual outfit of flared jeans and embroidered moccasins. Her seat belt squished her ample curves, making her body look like it had been freshly upholstered.
Carla ducked her head to speak through the car window. “Where are we going? Can you give me a clue? Am I dressed appropriately?” She wore a crisp white shirt and tailored black trousers to work each day and ran a hand over her curly copper hair that she’d scraped into a bun. Her aquiline nose made her look more suited to wearing an Elizabethan neck ruff than jeans, and she liked to think her polished appearance showed clients she took their matchmaking seriously.
She tried to embrace her distinctive looks and imperfections and encouraged her clients to do the same for themselves, therefore the Logical Love entry process didn’t feature any questions about appearance. Moles, birthmarks, too much hair (or too little of it) and crooked teeth gave a person character, and if anyone wanted to date only gods and goddesses, Carla told them to try a different agency.
“You look supersmart, always do.” Lucinda blew her a kiss. “Jess has planned your evening and I don’t want to spoil her surprise.”
Carla jangled the keys in her hand, waiting to lock the agency’s front door. Above it was a large pink plastic Logical Love sign, designed by her sister. The two o’s in the logo were red and shaped like hearts. “She told me to be here at five thirty,” she muttered, pacing up and down on the pavement.
After a few more minutes, Jess finally appeared. She wore an ethereal orange maxi dress that complemented her long, russet hair. Her several thousand followers on Instagram often mentioned her Pre-Raphaelite looks when they “liked” her photos of tarot readings, crystals and runes.
“Sorreee,” Jess said. “Got tied up.” She took something black and silky out her pocket and dangled it from her finger.
Carla recoiled. “Is that lingerie? Where the hell are you taking me?”
Jess laughed. “It’s a blindfold.”
“What on earth for?”
“It’s a thing on TikTok. Blindfolding people, taking them to places and filming their reactions. It’s hilarious.”
“It sounds sinister,” Carla said, her temples throbbing. She was forty-two, too old for this stuff. “I need to lock up first,” she said, touching her pendant for comfort.
“Chill, it’s going to be fun.”
“You’re blindfolding me and bundling me into a car. I’d call it kidnapping.”
The fabric strip covering Carla’s eyes was tight, letting in only a slit of light at the top. She gripped the back seat of the car as her gran swerved around a corner, jolting her from side to side. She wasn’t sure how long they traveled for, maybe twenty or thirty minutes, and her gran’s sweet honeysuckle perfume made her feel queasy in the confines of the car. As they drove over a bump in the road, she dug her fingers into the leather upholstery. “I’m supposed to be meeting Tom this evening. He’ll wonder where I am...”
“Don’t worry, I called him. He’s staying home to play with his origami or something,” Jess said.
“It’s kirigami,” Carla corrected. Tom worked in product development for a packaging company, though his big ambition was to design and produce his own board games. “Origami just involves folding paper. Kirigami is the art of folding and cutting. He’s working on some pop-up paper games for our guests to play at our wedding reception. They’re intricate and very clever.”
“Oh,” Jess replied flatly. “Nice.”
Carla noticed her dry tone. Could Jess possibly be jealous of Tom? Her sister had recently endured a string of dating disasters. Romanticizing the idea of meeting someone through chance or fate alone wasn’t paying off.
“Maybe you can share photos of Tom’s games on Instagram, alongside the ones of you burning sage and playing with runes,” Carla said. It was supposed to make her sister laugh, but the only sound that followed was the hum of tires on the road.
