Cat took the bottle of wine from her. “You’d better get me drunk first.”
They went inside, and Cat went to the bedroom to change out of her work clothes while Gemma opened the wine.
“There’s some good Brie in the fridge,” Cat called out. “And some olives.”
She came out buttoning up her shorts to find Gemma staring reverently at the fridge door.
“What are you doing?”
“You’ve got Charlie’s number here.” She peeled off a colorful advertising magnet in the shape of a key and held it out to Cat. “I forgot it was thanks to you that I met him. Remember, that day when I got locked out watering the garden and I called you? How did you get this magnet? It was the hand of fate!”
“More likely a letterbox drop. Or the hand of Dan. How is your luscious locksmith anyway?”
“He’s wonderful.”
“You say that every time.”
“This one’s different.”
“You say that every time too.”
Gemma pulled the cork from the bottle. “Do I? I guess I do.”
Cat wondered if her fifty dollars was safe. As soon as Charlie had arrived on the scene, she and Lyn had followed their normal routine of putting money on how long he’d last. Cat had him off the scene by March. Lyn had him lasting till June. A closet romantic, that girl.
“In a funny way, he reminds me of Pop Kettle,” said Gemma. “There’s something sweetly old-fashioned about him.”
“God. That doesn’t sound very sexy.”
“Everything seems very simple and uncomplicated when I’m with him.”
“Ah. A bit thick, eh?”
“Shut up.” Cat watched as Gemma automatically poured exactly the same level of wine in each glass. She did it herself. It was the legacy of a childhood spent sharing cakes and chocolate bars and lemonade with two eagle-eyed sisters.
“You’ll meet Charlie,” said Gemma. “He’s going to stop by at Lyn’s and say a quick hello on Christmas Day.”
“I’m not coming on Christmas Day,” said Cat, wondering if she meant it.
“Of course you are,” said Gemma. “You haven’t heard my persuasive speech yet. Where’s Dan tonight?”
“Out picking up another slut in a bar.”
“That’s nice for him.”
“He’s playing squash. I think. The worst thing about this is he’s turned me into one of those suspicious wives. Noticing what time he gets home. I hate it. I’m not like that. I’ve never been like that. All of sudden I’m a cliché.”
“You’ll be O.K.” Gemma ate an olive and spat out the seed into the palm of her hand. “Dan adores you. He does, I know he does! The thing with Lyn was just nothing, and the thing with that girl was just a stupid mistake. You and Dan have always been the best couple. Everybody says that.”
Cat held the stem of her wineglass firmly. Jesus. She’d done more crying over the last few weeks than she’d ever done in her whole life.
“I never thought this could happen to me,” she said with difficulty. “It’s so sordid. So tacky. You know what I mean? I thought I was too good for it.”
“Oh, Cat!” Cat felt her body become stiff and awkward as Gemma put her arm around her shoulder and she breathed in her familiar soft, soapy Gemma smell.
Lyn had a clean, citrus fragrance. Was there a “Cat” fragrance? Probably not. She probably smelled like a cardboard box.
Cat shrugged Gemma’s arm away. “It’s O.K. I’m fine. Come on, let’s drink our wine on the balcony. Enjoy my marvelous view.”
“I like your view,” said Gemma loyally.
Cat and Dan lived in a renovated 1920s apartment, with high, ornate ceilings and polished floorboards. Their view was a sliver of bay, a sweeping arc of the Anzac Bridge, and a lot of gum trees. On summer mornings they ate breakfast with an audience of brilliantly colored rosellas quivering busily on their railing.
They had bought before the last boom and had built up enough equity to buy an investment property a year ago. According to the standards of property-obsessed Sydney for a hip, professional young couple, they were doing O.K. In fact, they were right on track.
Gemma and Cat sat down and rocked back on their canvas chairs, balancing themselves by entwining their big toes around the railings of the balcony fence.
Cat said, in honor of their mother, “Sit like that if you want to break your neck, young lady!” Gemma responded in perfect Maxine-pitch, “You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face when you’re in a wheelchair, miss!”
“I wonder if we’ll say things like that to our own kids,” said Gemma after a minute. “I heard Lyn ask Maddie if she wanted a smack the other day. Maddie shook her head in this patronizing way, as if to say, Really, what a stupid question!”
Cat could visualize the exact expression on Maddie’s little face. It was amazing to her, how a toddler could already be such a little person. Sometimes just looking at Maddie twisted Cat’s heart. She was the one thing Lyn had that Cat couldn’t even pretend not to want. Lyn had got pregnant the very moment, the f**king month, she scheduled it. Why hadn’t Cat’s identical womb responded to orders? The injustice of it. Month after month, you’re not a mother, you’re not a mother, and once again, you’re not a mother.
Her period must be due any day now, just to add a final touch to the general gloom and doom.
Gemma rocked her chair back onto all four legs and gulped a mouthful of wine. She put the glass down at her feet. “Right,” she said with a deep breath. “I’m ready to do my speech.”
Cat swirled her own glass reflectively. When was her next period due?
Gemma stood up and opened her arms wide, like a politician behind a podium. “Cat. This has been a difficult, terrible time for you—”
“My period is three weeks late.”
“What?” Gemma plunked herself back down and picked up her wine again. “Are you sure?”
Cat could feel a strange shivery tremble in her lower stomach.
“It was due the day Dan told me about his one-night stand. I remember. I had a pimple. Right here on my chin. I thought it meant my period was coming. That’s what it normally means. But it didn’t come. And I didn’t think about it like I normally do.”