Nine Perfect Strangers

‘That wasn’t at all predictable,’ sighed Lars.

Tony sat up cradling one elbow, his face as white as toothpaste.

Frances got onto her knees next to him, to be supportive, even though her knees crunched. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I think I just dislocated my shoulder.’

Frances’s stomach turned at the sight of his shoulder protruding at a strange, distressing angle.

‘Don’t move it,’ said Heather.

‘No,’ said Tony. ‘I need to move it. It’s going to pop back in when I move it.’

He moved his arm. There was an audible pop.

Frances toppled in a dead faint straight into his lap.

chapter fifty-eight

Zoe

Zoe’s poor dad clutched his back where he’d just borne the entire weight of one Smiley Hogburn. She was kind of surprised that her mother had allowed that little exercise to go ahead. Maybe it was the drugs, or her crazy fury over the drugs, or maybe it was just that she and her dad were starstruck by meeting an AFL legend.

‘Sorry, everyone,’ said Tony. ‘Last night I dreamed I was playing again. This felt . . . this felt like it would be easy.’ He gently patted poor Frances on the cheek. ‘Wake up, lady writer.’

Frances sat up self-consciously from Tony’s lap and pressed a single fingertip to the centre of her forehead. She looked around her. ‘Did we get the package down?’

‘Not quite,’ said Zoe’s dad, who never wanted anyone to feel like a failure. ‘Very close!’

Zoe looked around for something to throw up at the rafter. She picked up a three-quarters-full bottle of water, held it in the palm of her hand and took aim.

She hit the package straight on. It fell into Ben’s hands.

‘Nice shot.’ He handed it to her.

‘Thanks,’ she said.

‘Open it,’ instructed Jessica, as if Zoe had been intending to just look at it for a while.

The package had that firm, soft consistency of something encased in bubble wrap. She fumbled with the masking tape and tore at the brown paper.

‘Careful,’ said her mother. ‘It might be breakable.’

Zoe pulled at the tape o

n the bubble wrap and was reminded of opening a birthday gift, surrounded by people at a party, all eyes on her and Zach. Tomorrow was their twenty-first birthday. It might be time to reclaim it. She thought that maybe, once they got back to Melbourne, she would tell her parents that she wanted to go to La Fattoria for pizza to celebrate her twenty-first. It felt suddenly as if it might be possible to do some of the things they’d stopped doing after Zach died. It wouldn’t be the same without him, it would never be the same, but it felt possible. She would still take off the olives and leave them along the edge of her plate for Zach.

And now she really, really felt like pizza. Her mouth watered at the thought of pepperoni. She would never take pepperoni for granted again.

She unrolled the bubble wrap. Inside was a small hand-painted wooden doll of a little girl wearing a scarf around her head and an apron around her waist. She had red circles on her cheeks and quizzically angled eyebrows. She seemed to be saying to Zoe, ‘Uh, hello?’

Zoe turned it around and held it upside down.

‘It’s a Russian doll,’ said her mother.

‘Oh, right.’ Zoe twisted the top and bottom halves of the doll in opposite directions to reveal the smaller doll inside.

She handed the halves to her mother, and opened the next doll.