Can You Keep a Secret?

by Sophie Kinsella

1. My Kate Spade bag is a fake. 2. I love sweet sherry, the least cool drink in the universe. 3. I have no idea what NATO stands for. Or even exactly what it is. 4. I weigh 128 pounds. Not 118, like my boyfriend, Connor, thinks. (Although, in my defense, I was planning to go on a diet when I told him that. And, to be fair, it is only one number different.) 5. I’ve always thought Connor looks a bit like Ken. As in Barbie and Ken. 6. Sometimes, when we’re right in the middle of passionate sex, I suddenly want to laugh. 7. I lost my virginity in the spare bedroom with Danny Nussbaum while Mum and Dad were downstairs watching Ben-Hur. 8. I’ve already drunk the wine that Dad told me to save for twenty years. 9. Sammy the goldfish at home isn’t the same goldfish that Mum and Dad gave me to look after when they went to Egypt. 10. When my colleague Artemis really annoys me, I feed her plant orange juice. (Which is pretty much every day.) 11. I once had this weird lesbian dream about my flatmate Lissy. 12. My G-string is hurting me. 13. I’ve always had this deep-down conviction that I’m not like everybody else, and there’s an amazingly exciting new life waiting for me just around the corner. 14. I have no idea what this guy in the gray suit is going on about. 15. Plus, I’ve already forgotten his name.

So it got to Christmas Eve, and we were exchanging presents, and I unwrapped this pair of gorgeous pale pink silk knickers. Size 4. And I basically had two options. A: Confess the truth: “Actually, these are too small. I’m more of an eight, and by the way, I don’t really weigh one hundred eighteen pounds.” B: Shoehorn myself into them.

He draws breath and gazes at me, his eyes so dark they’re almost black. “I met a girl on a plane. And … my whole life changed as a result.”