Page 21 of The Wedding Forecast

Mum and Bobbi then proceeded to argue over Sue’s website and whether or not it was appropriately professional. I thought it less professional than I would have liked, but if the website was too slick, we wouldn’t trust it either.

When I emailed Sue, she wrote back with a form for me to fill in, which I did even though it felt like I was heading down the path of identity theft, and then she replied and said she could see my soulmate’s name right away, that it wasn’t always the case but mine was very clear, and she sent me the link to pay. It was ten dollars extra if I wanted the name right away, otherwise I could expect it within twenty-four hours. And another ten dollars if I wanted to know when I would meet him. I paid the extra twenty dollars. I was in too far. And then it occurred to me that she might email me and say his name is Joel and then I’d be really stuck. I watched my inbox with fear.

The email landed ten excruciating minutes later. Sue wrote a little preamble and then said, your soulmate’s name is PATRICK. And you will meet him in the next SIX MONTHS. The capitalisation made it seem like she was shouting it at me, which also somehow made me believe it.

Patrick.

Paddy.

Pat.

‘His name is Patrick,’ I announced. ‘I’m going to meet him some time in the next six months.’

‘Oh, I like that name,’ Mum had said. ‘And so soon! Do we know any Patricks?’

‘Caroline’s son?’ Bobbi said.

‘No, his name is Noah,’ Mum said.

‘Why did I think it was Patrick?’ Bobbi had her phone in her hand and was scrolling through her contacts.

‘I don’t know.’ Mum had her old-school paper diary out, notes spilling out the side.

‘Are you sure it’s not? Let me check Facebook,’ Bobbi said. ‘No, you’re right. It’s Noah. Would you believe I don’t have a single Facebook friend named Patrick?’

‘Keep looking,’ Mum had said.

I realised, too late, I’d opened a can of worms. Now we were on the lookout. We were hunting Patricks.

That was almost six months ago. Time was running out. I had only a few weeks left. We had come up empty on Patricks. I had marked the date in my calendar and it occasionally loomed before me like a haunted deadline. I had actually thought the mums had forgotten about it entirely or, more likely, given up, because no one had mentioned it in ages. Until now.

‘Who is this Patrick?’ I ask. ‘Please tell me it’s not a random man you accosted on the street.’

‘No. He’s the other photographer,’ Bobbi says. ‘Hayley booked that man with the ponytail, Drew, and he brought another photographer from his company to help him this weekend, and the second photographer’s name is Patrick.’

The mums never just said ‘Drew’, it was always, ‘that man with the ponytail, Drew’.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Let’s calm down.’ My heart is racing though.

‘He’s very good looking,’ Bobbi says.

‘And he’s single,’ Mum adds.

‘He has red hair, the good kind,’ Bobbi says.

‘His hair is lovely,’ Mum says.

They’re worried I won’t like his hair.

‘How did you find out Patrick is single?’ Hayley asks. ‘And, sorry, where did you meet him?’

‘He came to our house looking for Hayley and Luke, he got the addresses mixed up,’ Mum says.

‘We invited him in, and had a lovely chat,’ Bobbi says. ‘We talk to people. We’re not like your generation, that has to do everything through their phones.’

Hayley grips my arm in slight horror.

‘Anna. Don’t make that face,’ Mum says.