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      Nine

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       One

      So many weddings, Finch Buchanan thought.

      Weddings under awnings in summer gardens. Weddings in Toronto or New York, out on the coast, in white-walled Presbyterian churches, in flower-decorated homes or smart hotels. One at a ski lodge up in the Cariboo mountains and another at sunset on a Caribbean beach. Long-planned or recklessly impromptu, wherever or however they happened they all seemed the same and this one was no different. Except more so.

      This time it was her dearest friend Finch was watching, standing beside an urn of white lilies and stephanotis, and shape-changing from Suzy Shepherd into Mrs Jeffery Sutton of Medford, Oregon. Suzy was about the last of their group to be married, except for Finch herself.

      The bride was wearing an ivory satin Donna Karan suit and the groom had been coaxed into navy-blue Armani. As bridesmaid, Finch was wearing a little suit too, hyacinth-blue, of a cut that made her stand with her ankles together and her hands meekly clasped.

      I’m too old to be got up as a fucking bridesmaid, she was thinking.

      Suzy and Finch were both thirty-two years old. They had been room-mates in their first year at med school at the University of British Columbia and they had gone all the way through training together. Now Suzy was in paediatrics and had moved down to Oregon to be with Jeff, while Finch had stayed on in Vancouver as a medical practitioner. They called each other often, and e-mailed gossip and jokes and medical titbits almost every day, and they met whenever they could. But still Finch missed her friend and ally, and Suzy’s marriage could only move her a further step out of reach.

      They were exchanging rings. Watching and blinking away embarrassing tears, Finch was in no doubt that the two of them were happy. They were woozy with it, as dopey as a pair of Suzy’s neonates after a six-ounce feed. Finch didn’t feel envious, exactly; what she did feel was faintly baffled. She had never worked out the secret of connubiality herself. There had been men, of course there had. Both short-term and longer. But lately, not that many.

      The short civil ceremony was over. Suzy and Jeff walked arm in arm between the rows of their beaming friends and out under an awning. Beyond it the March rain was ribbed with sleet. A photographer busied around with his Nikon.

      After she had kissed her mother and her aunts and her new in-laws, Suzy opened an umbrella to exclude the rest of the audience and whispered to Finch, ‘Jesus, did you see that? I did it. I married someone.’

      ‘You married Jeff.’

      ‘Yeah. I love him.’

      ‘I know you do.’

      Suzy laughed, showing the gap between her top front teeth. She didn’t come from orthodontically obsessive stock, which was one of the reasons why Finch had loved her right from the start – for her difference from and indifference to everything Finch herself was accustomed to and thought she valued. The first time they met, Suzy marched into their room on campus, dropped a duffel bag and an armful of supermarket carriers, and eyed the matching luggage and K2 ski bags that two of Finch’s three older brothers had carried up the stairs for her.

      ‘I suppose you’re some Vancouver princess?’

      ‘You can suppose whatever you like.’

      ‘Well, I’m po’ white trash. My mom lives in a rented two-room and I haven’t seen my dad for twelve years.’

      It was true. And it was also true that Suzy was by far the cleverest student in their year.

      She twirled her umbrella now, sending icy droplets centrifugally spinning. ‘Shit, I’m a married woman. You better lead me straight to the drink, help me get over the shock,’ Mrs Jeffery Sutton said.

      The reception was in a new restaurant and bar that had been designed and fitted by Jeff’s company. ‘Like it?’ he asked Finch.

      There were snug booths and wood floors and tricksy mirrors and halogen lighting. It wasn’t original but it was well done.

      ‘Very much,’ Finch said.

      ‘Well, I guess you don’t need me to introduce you to people,’ Jeff said. His silk tie was already loosened and his top button undone.

      ‘No.’ Finch smiled. Most of Suzy’s friends who had travelled to Oregon were hers too. ‘Go on, enjoy the party.’

      She slid into the nearest booth with her glass of French champagne and found that Taylor Buckaby and his wife were already sitting there. Taylor had

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