To My Best Friends
Nicci Morrison was always the first of her friends to do everything…But she wasn't meant to be the first to die.Saying goodbye is never easy, but at least Nicci has one last chance to make a difference before she goes. She’s decided to leave letters giving her most treasured possessions to her closest friends.To her single friend Mona she bequeaths her husband David, little knowing her best friend found The One a long time ago…To childless Jo, Nicci leaves the care of her three-year-old twin daughters. Jo however is finding it hard enough to cope with the fortnightly arrival of her stepsons. To Lizzie she leaves her garden. But while Lizzie is loyally tending Nicci’s plants, the parts of her own life that are in desperate need of attention are falling by the wayside.But Nicci didn’t always know best, and she couldn’thave imagined the changes and challenges her letters set in motion for the loved ones she’s left behind.
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SAM BAKER
To My Best Friends
To my best friends Nancy, Clare, Catherine Jude Shelly And, above all, Jon
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
Also by Sam Baker
Copyright
Prologue
That navy Prada suit, the one with the nipped-in waist you wished you’d never bought? Trust me, get the skirt taken up two inches and wear it with my red Marc Jacobs mary-janes. The ones with the blue trim. They always fitted you better than they did me, anyway. You’ll look a million dollars . . .
Slipping the lid back on the cartridge pen, Nicci dropped it on the duvet beside her and let her head fall back onto plumped pillows. She closed her eyes and felt the bedroom spin. It was a familiar sensation now, almost comforting, in a sick sort of way.
Three and a half lines of writing. Five sentences. Fifty-five words. How could fifty-five measly words be so exhausting? They weren’t even the important words. Those were still to come. These were just the preamble, the housekeeping. Nicci risked opening her eyes and the room sped up.
Damn it, she thought, and let her lids drop, feeling the spinning recede. This wasn’t her. Illness didn’t suit her. Nicci Morrison didn’t do sick, just as she didn’t do sitting around at weekends, chilling or downtime. And she didn’t do lying in bed in the middle of the afternoon. At least not since she was twenty-one and had met David. Then they’d done nothing much other than lying in bed all afternoon when she should have been writing a ten-thousand-word dissertation on the way clothes reflect women’s place in society in nineteenth-century literature. Well, not so much lying, but bed had figured prominently. Bed, the floor, the bath . . .
Nicci smiled at the memory. Half sad, half glad they’d had that then, and the rest.
Come on, she urged herself. Get a grip. One down, three more letters to go.
The trick was catching her morphine at the right stage: long enough after her injection for the pain to have eased, but not so soon the opiates dulled her capacity to think straight. Pulling herself up, Nicci rummaged around her for the pen while trying to find her train of thought. Light shimmered at the edge of her vision, brighter than she could stand.
Jo wouldn’t refuse, Nicci was sure of that. Especially not when she opened the parcel containing the red mary-janes, which David would deliver with the letter. How could she – how could any of them – when Jo knew only too well what Nicci had been through in the past year? Biopsies, mastectomy, chemo and radio. None of which, ultimately, had worked. Wasn’t wearing an old navy-blue suit the least a girl could do for her best friend?’
Looking at the sheet of thick cream paper resting on a magazine on her knee, Nicci smiled. She would have the last laugh. And her business partner would thank her for it. In the weeks to come, the last thing her friend would want to think about – the last thing any of Nicci’s friends would want to think about – was what to wear.
Now, that’s the outfit sorted. And don’t argue, Jo. Remember, on the wardrobe front, Nicci knows best!!!
Just think of it as one less problem to worry about. After all, you’re going to have enough on your plate with Capsule Wardrobe once I’ve gone.
But that’s not the point of this letter. No, what I’m really writing about are my twin babies, my darling girls, my Charlie and Harrie, your goddaughters. And you’ve been such a good godmother, Jo, the very best. Which is why I want you to be more . . .
Chapter One
There were few things in life Nicci Morrison had not been able to control. But being buried on a dank, drizzly day in February was one of them.
It was not yet two o’clock, and the dirty grey cloud hung low over the church, obscuring the spire, making the hour seem closer to dusk.
‘There you are!’ Jo Clarke called out as a tall thin woman, hair frizzing from the bun at the nape of her neck, picked her way along the muddy path. She was clad head to toe in black – hardly unexpected at a funeral – but her spike-heeled ankle boots would have looked more at home in a bar.
‘Let me guess,’ Jo laughed, eyeing the Jimmy Choo boots. ‘The person responsible for you buying those in the first place is to blame for you wearing them now?’
