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She looks toward the back of the bus, where Eva is laughing with all her perfect teeth on display, and tossing her perfect glossy hair over her shoulder. How could she ever compete with that? At least none of her friends know that she's still in love with him. She'd never live that down. Dominica would just be plain furious, and Farah was grossed out enough when they were together, God knows what she'd do if she knew that Lauren was still besotted with him. Every time Tansy or Farah describes Eva as "just perfect" for Joss, it's another punch to her heart. It feels as if Tansy's ditched her for Eva too sometimes. Lauren's barely seen her since Eva came into her life, and they used to hang out all the time.

So now she's trapped in a minibus with said perfect woman while no one knows how long Joss has kept stringing her along, always going back to her, or how much time Lauren spends trying to convince herself that it's completely normal to masturbate at least three times a week over a man she hasn't been with for five years.

 

She's broken out of her self-hating trance by Dominica leaping up with delight in the seat next to her.

"Yes! I've got you, you dirty bastard! You're going to be so fucking poor! It's always their egos that betray them in the end!" She punches the air with glee.

Next to Lauren, Farah also jumps, having been totally consumed by her spreadsheet. She knows it's probably bad form to be planning her own wedding on another woman's hen do. But she's been waiting two years for this, since long before Tansy even knew Ivan existed. And anyway, if you ask her, it's bad form to plan a shotgun wedding just weeks before one of your oldest friends marries the man she's been with for a decade. Now she has to make sure that her wedding is bigger and better than Tansy's, or else what's the point? She couldn't believe it when Tansy's engagement picture went viral.

"What's happened?" she asks, twizzling the huge cushion-cut diamond around her ring finger in the way she's been doing for the last two years, hoping it will catch the eye of whoever she's talking to.

"Andrew Donovan, that shitty football bastard. I'm representing his wife in their divorce and I've finally got what I've always suspected: proof of sexy DMs between him and a fan where he's inviting her up to his hotel room." Dominica turns her phone round to show both Lauren and Farah. "This as well as knicker-gate should see her financially supported for the rest of her life."

"The marriage wrecking ball strikes again," Farah mutters.

"Like a bull in a marriage shop," Lauren quips.

"People like me fuel your industry," Dominica says, pointing at Farah.

"Incorrect. I don't work in the tabloid side of journalism. I stick to more long-form investigations," Farah says, pursing her lips. It's the response she's given Dominica many a time now about her job at a highly respected women's magazine.

"Either way, you'll want me on your side if either of you are ever in need of a divorce," Dominica says.

 

"Toby and I won't," Farah says. "Might I suggest you offer your services to the shotgun bride at the back, though."

"Meow," Lauren and Dominica chime.

"Just saying what we're all thinking," Farah says, spinning her massive ring again to make the point. "Fools rush in."

"And so do psychopaths," Dominica says, thinking specifically of Ivan.

"Such great news for you that this man was cheating on his wife," Lauren says to change the subject. She finds it uncomfortable when they bitch about Ivan so close to Tansy. She also finds it uncomfortable when everyone brags about their jobs, because she knows that they think her job in marketing for a cosmetics company is shallow and frivolous, though they're more than happy to accept the freebies.

"Now to phone the wife..." Dominica adjusts her excited expression for a more somber one and presses call on the number of the WAG in question. "Danni, I'm so sorry to be doing this to you so early in the morning. Before I start, how are you doing, my lovely?...I know, it's hard, isn't it?...I know... I'm so sorry..."

Lauren and Farah go back to their phones, both of them in their own versions of hell as they stare at their screens. A groan fills the bus just as Dominica hangs up her call, indicating that the signal has finally disappeared, and Saskia watches her fellow hens' mounting distress. She knew it was going to cause a scene, but really, if they can't spend one weekend away from their phones, they should look at whether they need to do a full-time digital detox. If she can cope, as a new business owner and with children to care for and a house and staff to run, surely they can too.

The trees at the sides of the road become denser, blocking out the light. On the screen of Eva's phone, a dancing brunette bride in an ivory lace gown stays frozen, her face pixelated into a melted blur, the bridal version of The Scream. Tansy looks down at her own phone. One message looms on it from an unknown number.

It's not the first message she's received like this; she got one last night just before she went to bed. She didn't sleep at all after that, and now, reading this new message, she feels a clawing in her throat and a familiar tightness in her chest.