Big Little Lies

“So tell me,” said Madeline. “What was your password?”

“I can just change it again,” said Abigail.

“I know.”

“You’ll never guess,” said Abigail.

“I know that,” said Madeline. “Your father and I tried everything.”

“No,” said Abigail. “That’s it. That’s my password. ‘You’ll never guess.’”

“Clever,” said Madeline.

“Thanks.” Abigail dimpled at her.

The microwave dinged, and Abigail opened the door and took out the container.

“You know that there are going to have to be, er, consequences for all this,” said Madeline. “When your father and I expressly ask you to do something, you can’t just ignore us.”

“Yup,” said Abigail cheerfully. “Do what you’ve got to do, Mum.”

Ed cleared his throat, but Madeline shook her head at him.

“Can I eat this in the family room while I watch TV?” Abigail lifted the steaming plate.

“Sure,” said Madeline.

Abigail virtually skipped off.

Ed leaned back in his chair with his hands crossed behind his head. “Crisis averted.”

“All thanks to Mr. Larry Fitzgerald.” Madeline picked up the e-mail printout. “How lucky was . . .”

She paused and tapped a finger to her lips. Just how lucky was that?

68.

There was a CLOSED sign on the door of Blue Blues. Jane pressed her palms to the glass door and felt bereft. She couldn’t remember ever seeing a CLOSED sign at Blue Blues before.

She’d just gotten herself completely, ridiculously, extravagantly soaked for nothing.

She dropped her hands from the door and swore. Right. Well. She’d go home and have a shower. If only the hot water at her apartment lasted for more than two minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Two minutes and twenty-seven seconds was not long enough to get yourself warm; it was just long enough to be cruel.

She turned to go back to the car.

“Jane!”

The door swung open.

Tom was wearing a long-sleeved white T-shirt and jeans. He looked extremely dry and warm and delicious. (In her mind Tom was always associated with good coffee and good food, so she had a Pavlovian response just looking at him.)

“You’re closed,” said Jane dolefully. “You’re never closed.”

Tom put his dry hand on her wet arm and pulled her inside. “I’m open for you.”

Jane looked down at herself. Her shoes were filled with water. She made squelching noises as she walked. Water rolled down her face like tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t have an umbrella, and I thought if I just ran really fast—”

“Don’t worry about it. Happens all the time. People walk through fire and flood for my coffee,” said Tom. “Come out back and I’ll get you some dry clothes. I decided I might as well close up and watch TV. I haven’t had a customer in hours. Where’s my man Ziggy?”

“Mum and Dad are babysitting so I can go to the school trivia night,” said Jane. “Wild night out.”

“It probably will be,” said Tom. “Pirriwee parents like a drink or two. I’m going, did you know? Madeline has gotten me on your table.”

Jane followed him through the café, leaving wet footprints, and to the door marked PRIVATE. She knew that Tom lived at the back of the café, but she’d never been past the private door.

“Ooh,” she said as Tom opened the door for her. “Exciting!”

“Yes,” said Tom. “You’re a lucky, lucky girl.”

She looked around her and saw that his studio apartment was just like an extension of the café—the same polished floorboards and rough white walls, bookshelves filled with secondhand books. The only differences were the surfboard and guitar leaning against the wall, the stack of CDs and stereo.

“I can’t believe it,” said Jane.

“What?” asked Tom.

“You’re into jigsaws,” she breathed, pointing at a half-finished jigsaw on the table. She looked at the box. It was a proper hard-core (as her brother would have said), two-thousand-piece jigsaw featuring a black-and-white photo of wartime Paris.

“We jigsaw,” said Jane. “My family. We’re kind of obsessed.”

“I like to always have one on the go,” said Tom. “I find them sort of meditative.”

“Exactly,” said Jane.

“Tell you what,” said Tom. “I’ll give you some clothes, and you can have some pumpkin soup with me and help me jigsaw.”

He pulled some tracksuit pants and a hooded sweatshirt from a chest of drawers, and she went into his bathroom and put her soaked clothes, right down to her underwear, into his sink. The dry clothes smelled like Tom and Blue Blues.

“I feel like Charlie Chaplin,” she said, with the sleeves hanging below her wrists and pulling up the waist of the tracksuit pants.

“Here,” said Tom, and he neatly folded up the sleeves of the shirt above her wrists. Jane submitted like a child. She felt unaccountably happy. Cherished.

She sat down at the table and Tom brought them over bowls of pumpkin soup swirled with sour cream and buttered sourdough bread.

“I feel like you’re always feeding me,” said Jane.

“You need feeding,” said Tom. “Eat up.”

She took a mouthful of the sweet, spicy soup.

“I know what’s different about you!” said Tom suddenly. “You’ve had all your hair cut off! It looks great.”

Jane laughed. “I was thinking on the way here that a g*y man would notice straightaway that I’d had a haircut.” She picked up a piece of the puzzle and found a spot for it. It felt like being at home, eating and doing a puzzle. “Sorry. I know that’s a terrible cliché.”

“Um,” said Tom.

“What?” said Jane. She looked up at him. “That’s where it goes. Look. It’s the corner of the tank. This soup is incredible. Why don’t you have it on the menu?”

“I’m not g*y,” said Tom.

“Oh yes you are,” said Jane merrily. She assumed he was making a bad sort of joke.

“No,” said Tom. “No, I’m not.”