Team bride foil temporary tattoo on a wrist

The trouble came when the red plate went through twice. Marjorie noticed only because the first batch looked as if someone had dropped a sweet into the gold. The red bled into the b, and the heart sat crooked over the i like a hat knocked askew. She could reprint, but the foil roll was nearly finished and the courier collected at seven. Dev leaned in the doorway and said, "Pass them off as a design choice," and she laughed so hard she had to sit down on the stool.

So she sorted them. The good ones went into the box for Mrs Calloway's party. The wonky ones she kept back, and at half past eleven she carried them up the stairs to the flat above the launderette, where her sister Ruth was pretending to sleep off a double shift on the sofa. Ruth read the words, held one up to the lamp, and said nothing for a while. Then she pressed a crooked one onto the lid of the tea caddy, heart first, and asked, "Team bride, then. Who's on the team?"

Marjorie didn't answer straight away. She watched the foil catch the lamplight, the gold dulled in one corner where the plate had slipped, the red heart sitting exactly where it had fallen. "Whoever turns up," she said. Ruth smiled as if that were the right answer, and the caddy stayed on the windowsill for the rest of the week, its lid shining crooked in the morning sun.