Three Wishes

“Fine,” answered Cat. “Never better. I stopped by at Nana Kettle’s on the way here. She says you’re going to do water aerobics with her. You’re a glutton for punishment.”

“I think it will be fun. Want to come?”

“Yeah, right. You made a shocking mess of her nails last week.”

“Thanks,” said Gemma. A sudden thought occurred to her.

“You know something weird Nana said?”

“Everything she says is weird.”

“She said Pop didn’t like Marcus.”

An expression of nervous caution immediately crossed Cat’s face. Cat and Lyn both became peculiarly polite whenever Marcus’s name came up.

“Did you like Marcus?” asked Gemma. “You can say if you didn’t. He’s dead, you know.”

“I know he’s dead. Of course I liked him.”

“Did you think we had a good relationship?”

Cat shifted around in her seat, looking for Lyn. “Um. I really don’t know. I mean, yes. You did. You were getting married.”

Maddie banged her hands on the table and Cat handed her the salt and pepper shakers. Pleasantly surprised, Maddie immediately turned them both upside down.

“I do remember something,” said Cat suddenly. “I remember when you came back from skiing in Canada. The holiday you got engaged. Marcus said something about you being timid on the slopes. I said, What the hell are you talking about, timid? I’ve seen Gemma ski double black diamonds at a million miles an hour. You looked really strange, I thought maybe you’d had a big fight.”

Gemma opened her mouth and waited for something to come out.

Cat looked at her crossly. “See! Now I’ve upset you.”

“I’m sorry.”

Abruptly Cat changed the subject.

“So did you know about Dan and Lyn at the time?”

“No,” Gemma said definitely.

“Well, thank God they never had sex. That would have been too revolting.”

There was no time for Gemma to prepare her face. Cat looked at her. “But Dan said—”

Lyn came back to the table with two coffees. She removed the salt and pepper shakers from Maddie and firmly placed her in the stroller, distracting her with a spoonful of cappuccino froth.

“What?” she said, as she sat down and saw Cat’s face. “What now?”

Immediately, she looked with furious accusation at Gemma.

“What did you say?”

Gemma woke to the smell and sound of the sea. Through the open doorway of the bedroom she could see straight down a short, beige carpeted hallway to a small balcony with a table and two chairs. The screen door was wide open, and without lifting her head from the pillow she could see a sliver of ocean sparkling in the morning sun.

She kept still, enjoying the sensation of Charlie’s back warm against hers. She wondered if he was pretending to be asleep.

Every move was so significant, every word loaded, the morning after you had sex for the first time.

She could see her underwear strewn down the beige hallway in pleasingly provocative satin crumples. “Look! Matching underwear!” she’d slurred proudly through a red-wine induced haze the night before. “Well done!” Charlie had said, although he didn’t waste much time looking at it.

There was movement next to her, a hand reaching for her hip

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

She wondered how his postsex personality was about to manifest itself. You never could tell. She hated it when they woke up wary, with that now-don’t-you-be-thinking-this-is-a-relationship look in their eyes. If she saw even the slightest hint of that sort of look, she’d dump him on the spot.

“That was very lovely,” she said, watching 8:31 snap over to 8:32 on his bedside digital clock. “Last night, I mean.”

Most men, Gemma knew, were convinced they were extraordinarily talented lovers and simultaneously terrified that maybe they weren’t. It was important to pay them lavish compliments about their abilities. It put them in a good mood.

Actually, now she thought about it, it had been very lovely. Quite surprisingly lovely.

“That second time,” she continued thoughtfully. “I had a rather startling orgasm.”

There was a dry chuckle from next to her, and suddenly she found herself flipped over and enveloped in a gigantic bear hug, her face pressed against Charlie’s wide chest. He had a body like a footballer, except for his legs, which were heartbreakingly skinny. She breathed in the faint leftover scent of his aftershave.

“A startling orgasm, did you? Why, did you feel it in your left ear?”

“No. It was just startlingly delicious.”

“And why the surprise? I’m a locksmith. I have trained hands. Trained to unlock delicious orgasms. You should have been lying there thinking, Yep, just as I thought.”

Thank God! Postsex Charlie was still presex Charlie.

“I like to keep my expectations low to avoid disappointment.”

He reached over for the blind by his side of the bed and pulled hard at the cord so that sunlight instantly flooded the room. Gemma put her hands over her eyes. “Bright light! Bright light!”

“Perfect weather,” he said, uncovering her eyes. “Now. Gemma Kettle. Sweet Gemma Kettle. Here’s my proposal for the day. First, I think I’d better give you another startling orgasm. Then I think I should make you breakfast while you’re in the shower. Then you’ll be so turned on by my cooking skills—especially in light of your own shameful efforts last week—you’ll probably want to seduce me back into the bedroom. Then I think we should go down to the beach and have a boogie board. I’ve got a spare one. Can you boogie board? Then back here for a siesta and more startling sex. Then maybe a movie?”

Gemma stared at him. “Goodness.”

“Not enough sex?”

“No. That seems like quite a substantial amount.”

Charlie’s face changed. “Or you might have plans, of course. You probably have plans. My little sister tells me I’m too domineering. So you know, that’s fine, off you go to your plans, I don’t mind.”

He smiled at her, lines deepening on either side of his brown eyes with their ridiculous eyelashes. “I’ve got plans myself actually. Now I think about it.”

It seemed like everything he was feeling was right there in his eyes—a hint of nerves, a touch of laughter.