Chapter 1
CARRIE
‘Oh. My. God.’ Carrie’s favourite dance track had come on.
Grinning at her two best friends, arms waving in the air, she led the way onto the tiled, starlight floor.
Ariana brushed her fingers through her black curls and strutted energetically into the middle, wearing a top that said ‘Traveller not Tourist’.
Rae walked with an exaggerated beat, the light catching her sparkly Newcastle United gold Winners shirt.
A man shot Carrie an appreciative glance and twirled her on the dance floor before moving off.
Ariana and Rae raised their eyebrows, trying not to laugh.
Carrie shot a bemused look at the drunk whoopee cushion nearby, dressed up for the club’s April Fool’s party, doing their best to twerk, as she and her friends danced more outrageously, high on the fishbowl of vodka and peach schnapps.
Jez, the nightclub’s manager and her boss, shook his head affectionately towards them.
‘You okay?’ mouthed Ariana across the dance floor, letting her hips dip as she sidestepped.
This was nice. Carrie hadn’t seen as much of her friends in the last year.
Life had become… busy. So she’d been touched when they’d reached out to celebrate her birthday and encouraged her to take the night off work.
Today was her twenty-sixth, her first without her mum.
Mum had been Carrie’s cheerleader throughout the years, celebrating her first tooth, word, bike ride, exam pass…
She’d taken her out to the local chippy when she passed her driving test and had bought flowers when she landed her first job – a rainbow of roses sprayed with gold glitter.
Ariana and Rae were the only cheerleaders she had now.
Carrie winked back at Ariana and did a chest shimmy in her favourite going-out top, black with bows down the front, paired with a wrap skirt. Rae grinned and did the provocative slut-drop move at Carrie’s feet.
Okay. That was funny. Carrie took Rae’s hand, Ariana’s too, and the three of them hip-bumped in a circle, shouting to the world exactly what they really, really wanted… just like old times.
God, Carrie loved her mates, she did, and would do anything for them, like drink Ariana’s claggy kale smoothies, laugh at yet another meme from Rae, and even give either of them her last mouthful of Krispy Kreme. But perhaps the most important thing would be to try to see more of them again.
‘Scrum hug?’ Ariana asked tentatively at the end of the song.
It hadn’t happened for a while – their thing, when they were a little drunk, to put their arms around one another and hug tightly. Rae had called the idea soppy at first and only agreed if they called it something to do with sport. Laughing, they eventually broke away and continued pulling moves.
‘Look who it isn’t!’ said a voice as smooth as a cocktail syrup. ‘Never expected to see you here, babe!’
The warm tone whispered in her ear, and for some reason sent a shiver down Carrie’s spine – a reflex reaction to a voice she couldn’t yet place. She turned around.
Oh crap.
Of course. Darcy Jones, a woman Carrie knew from her first job, working in a pub not far from here in Stockport.
It was where she’d also met Rae, years before, who’d recently moved down from Whitley Bay.
Darcy’s dad, Mike, owned The White Hart and his daughter would swan in for free drinks after a few hours of selling make-up on a TV channel run by her aunt.
Darcy hadn’t liked how Carrie had got on with Mike, especially when he’d praised her for having two jobs to help her mum with the rent.
At the time, Carrie had been on a few dates with a guy who worked at Old Trafford, and she got Mike an unofficial backstage tour for his fiftieth.
Darcy was fuming. Carrie didn’t get why.
Wasn’t the most important thing that her dad had a good birthday?
Snide Darcy had thought herself better than all the staff and would spill drinks on purpose to make them clean up. Once she ‘accidentally’ knocked red wine down Rae’s white jeans. Carrie and Rae used to avoid her at all costs.
However, Darcy had… mellowed with the passing of time, going by the interactions the two of them had shared online.
She gave Carrie a broad smile with lips that were plumper than they used to be, with her long glittery nails and butter-blonde hair, and the Lulu Lips bag and off-the-shoulder silky top.
‘I’m so surprised to bump into my Insta bestie offline! Your account on there is amazing! What a life you lead now. You’re so popular.’
Carrie’s knees felt as if she were standing on an earthquake.
Be quiet, Darcy, please, just go away. The song came to an end and Carrie headed to the high wooden table where she and the others had left their drinks.
Long nails curled around her shoulder, so different to Carrie’s bitten stubs, as Darcy side-hugged her and followed.
‘Darcy?’ said Rae who’d been doing the floss dance for laughs and stopped.
Darcy squirmed. ‘Rae, how lovely to see you again.’ She eyed Rae’s sporty outfit. ‘You haven’t changed one bit. I mean… I like your shirt.’
Disbelief filled Rae’s face at the compliment and she pretended to gag behind her back and gave Carrie a confused look. Carrie stared blankly, mind swirling like a cocktail stick, mixing up panicked words in her head.
Darcy turned to Carrie again. ‘Love the photos of your big trips, babe.’
‘Babe? You two are in touch?’ Rae raised her eyebrows and glanced at Ariana. ‘This is Darcy. Carrie and I used to work for her dad.’
Darcy frowned. ‘In touch? More than that. I’ve watched Carrie’s account grow, told friends about her amazing lifestyle and they’ve become big fans.
I’m all for supporting other women…’ She gave a sheepish look as Rae rolled her eyes.
Darcy surveyed Carrie’s outfit. ‘Surprised you aren’t in your usual designer gear.
I bet you get loads of companies offering to sponsor you! ’
‘It’s not quite like that…’ Perspiration ran down the front of Carrie’s chest. Please, universe, set off a false fire alarm.
‘Hold on…’ Rae rubbed her forehead and looked at Carrie. ‘What’s she talking about?’
‘Carrie doesn’t wear designer clothes, has only been abroad once, when the three of us went to Spain, and has just a couple of hundred followers on Instagram,’ said Ariana.
Darcy shrugged. ‘You must be following a different account. Only last month she went to Dubai – for the second time. You visited last summer as well, didn’t you, Carrie? It’s my dream to go, and I follow Dubai hashtags. That’s how I came across one of your photos, that’s how I found you…’
Carrie couldn’t believe it when Mike’s unpleasant daughter had got in touch. Yet she’d contacted Carrie in a genuine manner – praised her account, even admitted her TV career wasn’t going as well as expected.
Rae and Ariana listened avidly now, ignoring the bowl of free peanuts they’d retrieved from the bar.
Carrie’s cheeks felt hotter than a sunny day in the United Arab Emirates. Eating pistachio chocolate was the nearest she’d ever got to Dubai.
‘I can’t get over it, you look so—’ Darcy swirled a hand in the air ‘—girl next door, compared to your photos with a full face of make-up on.’
‘Huh? Carrie hates foundation,’ said Rae.
Darcy burst out laughing. ‘But she does make-up tutorials.’ A deep blush rose through her cheeks.
She took Carrie to one side. ‘Sorry. Have I messed up? Didn’t you tell these two about your account?
I mean, I get it – they don’t fit with your lifestyle now and probably wouldn’t be interested. Friends do grow apart.’
‘That’s not the reason, it’s just…’
Darcy nodded wisely. ‘Of course. You don’t want to rub their noses in the fact that you’ve got money now and they clearly haven’t. But you should be proud of what you’ve achieved.’
Rae and Ariana came over.
‘You’ve got it all wrong, Darcy, right, Carrie?’ said Rae.
Darcy looked at Carrie who was frozen to the spot, so she got out her phone.
‘They should know, it’s such an achievement,’ she whispered to Carrie before going into Instagram.
Rae and Ariana stared at the photos. Beaming, Darcy scrolled up for them, and more images appeared of foreign holidays, amazing outfits, make-up videos and a cherry red Tesla.
‘Hasn’t Carrie done well? Dad’s got one of those Teslas too – treated himself when he sold the pub.
Have to say, you deserve to have great wheels, Carrie, given all the work you must have put in to turn your life around. I told Dad and he said as much.’
‘It’s nothing,’ muttered Carrie.
‘Rubbish! Talk about balls. You’ve got, what, nearly fifty thousand followers after reinventing yourself from a bar worker into an upcoming influencer who travels the world.
Genius to call yourself Carry Away instead of Carrie Fletcher!
’ She beamed again, a sincere smile. ‘It’s great to meet in real life, after all this time.
We’ll have to go out together properly at some point.
’ A smartly dressed man came over and slid his arm through Darcy’s.
She looked at the time on her phone and groaned.
‘Gotta go. Early start tomorrow. Call me, Carrie, I’ll message you my number.
’ She air-kissed Carrie on the cheeks, gave Rae an embarrassed smile and hurried off.
Rae and Ariana were chomping on peanuts now, not saying a word.
Carrie took in the confusion on their faces. Their reaction was no surprise. Carrie didn’t conceal spots, never led a guy on, and returned lost wallets found in the nightclub; she kept her friends’ confidences, didn’t spread rumours, and owned up straight off if she messed up a customer’s order.
Honest. Unaffected. Authentic.
Yet for one year now, oh God, she had, it was true…
Carrie had been leading a double life.
‘You’re friends with her now?’ asked Rae.
‘She’s okay, honestly,’ muttered Carrie, and she willed the floor to open up as Rae took out her phone and went on Instagram.
Stuffing more peanuts into her mouth, as if she hoped the salt would help her make sense of the bomb Darcy had dropped, Rae scrolled with one hand, Ariana peering over her shoulder.
Ariana gasped and pointed to one post. Rae’s eyes widened as she read another. She scrolled farther.
‘This photo from a few months ago…’ Rae showed it to Carrie.
‘It looks like it was taken on that walk we went on, at Alderley Edge. We hadn’t seen one another for ages and you agreed to meet up.
The weather was crap but you wanted a passer-by to take a photo of us.
’ She looked puzzled. ‘But you’ve photoshopped us out and made the sky blue. ’
‘And which one of your rooms is like that?’ asked Ariana as she pointed to a shot of a swanky office decked out with rose-gold fittings and a Louis Vuitton brief-case.
‘Or… have you rented a workspace? But to do what?’ Her cheeks flushed.
‘Now it’s obvious why you haven’t invited us around for ages.
You kept making excuses about your house being a mess, but is it the opposite – that it’s actually spotless and you want to keep it that way? ’
‘As if we’d care about untidiness,’ said Rae. ‘And then there’s this post…’
‘Stop. I’ve seen enough,’ said Ariana quietly. ‘What’s with the tailored clothes and filtered face, Carrie? No wonder you’ve pushed us away this last year.’
‘I haven’t! I’ve just—’
‘Don’t deny it,’ said Rae. ‘You’ve been so busy building a life we didn’t fit into, with our lack of designer clothes and glamorous trips.’
‘That’s not true. Come on, guys. You know me,’ said Carrie.
‘Do we? Because of your mum, we understood when you missed both our birthdays – but now I, for one, am feeling like an idiot,’ said Ariana.
‘Your posts talk for themselves,’ cut in Rae. ‘Such hurtful words, specifically about me and Ariana.’
‘What do you mean?’ Carrie felt sick and wondered what they were referring to.
Ariana’s voice wavered. ‘That one where you talk about acne scars being so ugly, and how people don’t have to put up with them due to a new foundation.’ She ran a finger over her cheek. ‘You’ve always told me mine look okay.’
‘They do! It’s just… social media, you know what it’s like.’ Carrie swallowed. It didn’t mean anything. She’d only been trying to gain followers.
‘And that one where you say wearing sports clothes is great in the house – comfort over fashion – but that you’d never wear a football shirt on a night out, it’s lazy…’ Rae rolled her lips together.
‘Rae! That’s not me. It’s… it’s not me talking, it’s Carry Away! Everyone knows influencers don’t mean what they say half the time.’
‘But whether you believe it or not, by posting this stuff you’re pushing these prejudices,’ said Ariana, back to her usual steady tone. ‘My God, and we’ve been so worried about you, but decided you needed a bit of space.’
‘I’m sorry. It… it got out of hand. And tonight’s been great, the best time I’ve had in ages.’
‘Really? It matches parties in Dubai or driving down the motorway in a Tesla?’ asked Ariana in a thick voice. ‘Why wouldn’t you tell us that you’d come into some money?’
‘Didn’t you trust us?’ asked Rae. ‘Were you worried that your two friends, who like nothing better than a Greggs pasty and charity shop bargains, would try to sponge off you?’
Carrie sat down at the table and covered her eyes. Eventually she looked up and took a deep breath. ‘Okay. The truth. I’ll tell you everything.’