Three Wishes (7 page)

“So, when do you think I should have sex with my locksmith?”

It was that same night, and Gemma lay immersed to her neck in a peachy-smelling bubble bath, talking to Lyn on the portable phone. She had turned the lights out and the bathroom was lit by dozens of perfumed, flickering tea-candles. A box of funny-shaped chocolates from Cat’s work was in convenient reach. (Cat kept her in constant supply of rejected Hollingdale chocolates. It was a truly tragic occupational hazard that Cat was now repulsed by even the smell of chocolate.)

The Penthursts had a gigantic claw-foot bathtub, which was
wonderful, although it did remind Gemma of those movie scenes where the woman dreamily (so foolishly!) runs an extremely steamy bath while a knife-clutching villain creeps up the stairs. To ensure this didn’t happen, she thought about it a lot. As an added security measure, she took the phone with her into the bath and telephoned no-nonsense people like her sisters and her mother.

“I’m thinking, controversially, the fourth date. Normally, I succumb on the third date.” She lifted a foamy leg and watched the froth sliding back into the steaming water. “What do you think?”

Lyn’s voice burst forth from the portable phone, spoiling the ambience quite considerably. “I don’t know and I don’t care,” she said with an irritable clatter of crockery. Lyn always seemed to be packing or unpacking a dishwasher when she spoke on the phone. “I’ve already got one teenager in my life, thanks very much.”

“Oh.”

Gemma’s leg splashed down into the water as she hurriedly tried to think of a breezy new topic of conversation to demonstrate that her feelings weren’t hurt.

“For God’s sake, Gemma, why do you always have to be so bloody
sensitive
?”

Too late.

“All I said was oh.”

“I’ve got Maddie whining. I’ve got Michael stressed. I’ve got Kara threatening to sue me. I’ve got Christmas orders flooding in and staff flooding out. What do you expect?”

“I don’t expect anything. It was just, I don’t know, idle chat.”

“I don’t have time for idle chat. Have you talked to Cat since Friday’s drama?”

“Yes,” Gemma relaxed again. “Dan wants them to try counseling.”

“He’s a fuckwit.”

That was strong language for Lyn.

“Yes, he is,” said Gemma. “But only a temporary fuckwit, don’t you think? They’ll work it out. Dan just made a stupid mistake.”

“I’ve always hated him.”

A tidal wave of bubbles went flying over the side of the bath as Gemma sat up straight.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“I thought we all loved Dan!” Gemma felt slightly sick.

“It’s not a group decision who we like and don’t like.”

“Yes, O.K., but I didn’t know we—I mean you—
felt
that way.”

“I have to go.” Lyn’s voice softened and a saucepan banged. “The locksmith sounds really lovely. Sleep with him whenever it feels right. Try not to break his heart. And don’t take any notice of me. I’m just tired. I need more iron.”

Gemma put the phone on the wet bathroom floor and used her big toe to dislodge the plug just slightly so she could put more hot water in. She selected a large warped strawberry cream.

Of course she was angry with Dan. She was furious with him. She wanted to punch him in the nose. She was looking forward to publicly shaming him on Christmas Day by not giving him a present. Not even a scratch ’n’ win card.

But the cold hatred in Lyn’s voice was way beyond what Gemma was feeling.

It made her feel left out.

She thought about Friday and pulling up behind Cat’s blue Honda. For some reason it had wrenched Gemma’s heart to see the lone little car sitting on the side of the road outside some strange block of units.

Lyn turned off the ignition with a grim flick of her wrist.

“This is ridiculous.”

Together they walked over to Cat’s car and tapped on the driver’s window.

Cat wound down the window. “Get in, get in!”

Gemma hopped in the backseat, while Lyn went around to the front. There were spots of feverish color on Cat’s cheeks. “This is fun, isn’t it?” Her eyes were bright.

“Nope,” said Lyn.

“Yep,” said Gemma.

“It’s O.K. It’s fine. I’m not going to talk to her,” said Cat. “I just have to see what she looks like. I can’t bear not knowing what she looks like.”

“Apart from the weirdness of this,” said Lyn. “wouldn’t this girl be at work?”

“Oh no, she’s too
young
for work, Lyn!” said Cat. “She’s studying law. Smart, as well as attractive. My husband doesn’t have one-night stands with just anybody! Anyway, I’ve worked out her timetable. She had a lecture first thing and then nothing for the rest of the day.”

“Oh. My. God.” Lyn twisted around in her seat to look at Cat.

Cat turned and looked at her fiercely. “What’s your problem?”

Gemma looked fondly at their identical profiles. “There’s someone coming,” she said.

Lyn and Cat turned their heads and Cat made a strangled noise. A girl was walking toward the car. She had long swinging dark hair and a knapsack.

“Is it her?” A bubble of schoolgirl hysteria was expanding in Gemma’s chest. “Should we hide?”

“Yep, that’s her,” said Cat. She sat very still, looking straight ahead at the girl as she got closer and closer to the car. “That’s Angela.”

“How do you know?” whispered Lyn, beginning to sink lower in her seat.

“I made Dan describe her to me,” said Cat. “I’m positive.”

She put her hand on the door handle. “I’m going to talk to her.”

“No!”

Lyn and Gemma both made a frantic grab for her arm as Cat purposefully got out of the car, slamming the door behind her.

Lyn put her face in her hands. “I can’t watch.”

Gemma stared, transfixed, as the two women got closer to each other.

“Should we go after her?”

“Just tell me if she starts to assault her,” said Lyn in a muffled voice.

“She’s walking up to her,” said Gemma. “The girl’s smiling at her.”

Lyn took her face out of her hands and together they watched the girl talking to Cat. She was talking animatedly and pointing up the street, past the car, making twisting directions with her hands. Cat was nodding her head. After a couple of seconds and more pointing and head nodding, Cat turned around and began walking back to the car. Her face was impassive. She opened the car door and got back in behind the driver’s seat. The three of them sat in silence.

Cat leaned forward and rested her forehead against the top of the steering wheel.

Lyn said, “It probably wasn’t even her.”

Gemma said, “She wasn’t at
all
pretty,” and then all three of them jumped at a sudden, urgent rapping on Cat’s window. It was the girl, smiling, her head on one side as she bent down toward the car.

Oh dear, thought Gemma, holding her breath. She’s gorgeous.

Cat clumsily wound down the window.

“Sorry,” said the girl. “I realized I should have said first left, not first right. So it’s left, left, then right.”

“Ha!” said Cat, as if giving a polite response to a bad joke. Lyn leaned forward and gave an awkward little flutter of her fingers. “Thank you
very
much!” Gemma’s stomach cramped as she tried to suppress a gigantic wave of laughter. “That’s O.K.,” said the girl. “Left, left, right.” “Yep,” said Lyn heartily. “Got it!”

The girl smiled and walked back toward her flat.

“She’s nice.” Cat’s hands were clenched around the steering wheel. “The bitch is fucking
nice
!”

“It’s not relevant,” said Lyn.

“Actually, I don’t think she was that nice,” said Gemma. “She seemed a bit dull to me. Lacking in personality.”

“Can we just get out of here?” said Lyn. “Please?”

That night, while Charlie was eating free garlic bread, the three of them watched videos at Lyn’s place. Michael cooked them pasta. Cat cheered up a little after reading Lyn’s mortifying
She
article. Maddie skidded maniacally back and forth among all three of them until her bedtime, when Lyn suggested they introduce her to the “igloo” game.

It was a game Cat created when they were little. It involved huddling under a white sheet and pretending they were three Eskimos in an igloo. It was extremely cold and icy in the igloo of course, so you had to put your arms around each other and snuggle close, shivering and trembling and making your teeth chatter loudly. Sometimes Cat would bravely venture out into the snow and catch a fish or kill a polar bear for their dinner. (Gemma and Lyn weren’t allowed to go hunting because it was Cat’s game, so she made the rules. They had to stay in the igloo and get the fire ready.)

It was their favorite game for when their parents were fighting. When the yelling started, Cat used to say, “Quick! Into the igloo!”

Maddie thought the igloo game was hysterical—and it was a good way for Lyn and Gemma to secretly give Cat a hug, while they huddled and trembled.

Gemma laid her head back against the rim of the bathtub and was suddenly intensely uncomfortable, too hot and headachy. Baths, she thought, were just like her relationships, all “ooh, ah” in the beginning and then suddenly, without warning, she had to get out, out,
out
!

She walked gingerly across the slippery tiles to reach blindly for the light. Rubbing steam from the bathroom mirror, she stood sideways and gave herself a sultry centerfold pout over one shoulder. It was her secret opinion that she looked sexiest when her hair was wet.

Sex.

It was such a funny thing. Sometimes, she found it amazing that she actually had sex with anyone. It was so, well, shocking.

“Ladies and men do
what
?” eight-year-old Gemma had exploded, when their mother sat all three of her daughters down to briskly and precisely explain the grisly facts of life.

Maxine sighed and went over the fundamentals one more time.

“I don’t believe you!” Gemma was horrified.

“Neither do I.” Cat folded her arms aggressively. She always kept a careful eye out for conspiracies, especially when it came to her mother. “You’re making it up.”

“I wish I was,” said their mother.

“I think it might be true,” Lyn said sadly. How did that girl come into the world knowing everything already?

Sometimes when Gemma thought about sex, sometimes even when she was
having
sex, she felt a faint echo of that horror she felt as an eight-year-old. My goodness, she’d think, looking up at the ceiling as some boyfriend earnestly scrabbled around her body, what in the world is he doing
now?

It didn’t stop her from having quite a lot of sex.

She rummaged through the bathroom cupboard for the Listerine and thought about Charlie, standing in the Penthursts’ kitchen that morning. “This fridge is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” he’d said, taking out a bottle of milk, sniffing it suspiciously, and then throwing it straight into the garbage. “You really don’t cook, do you?”

“Nope.”

He closed the fridge door and leaned back against it, folding his arms. “Well, what are you going to feed me, Gemma?”

He had a lovely, slightly wrong way of saying her name, a caressing emphasis on the second syllable. Gem
ma.

She took him to a local café where they served breakfast all day and the patrons sat on low, cushiony sofas reading free magazines and newspapers, looking self-consciously relaxed over their Big Breakfast Specials.

As first dates went it was promising. There was a pleasing
crackle of sexual tension that caused their eyes to keep meeting and sliding away and meeting again. Charlie seemed slightly flushed and she felt a heightened awareness of everything: the smells of coffee and bacon, the edge of his T-shirt against the caramel skin of his neck, her own hand reaching across for the sugar. But there was also an odd familiarity, as if she already knew him, as if they’d been to this café dozens of times before, and this was just an ordinary Saturday. Instead of sharing vital information about jobs, hobbies, ex’s, and families, they flicked through the magazines and shared stupid information about celebrities and diets.

“Did you know that the shape of Nicole’s head proves that she could never have been happy with Tom?”

“Check out this woman. She lost over forty kilos by walking up and down her hallway. Now her husband says he liked her better when she was fat.”

And then, when they were leaving and Charlie asked, “What are you doing tonight?” something about the slightly defensive way he was standing and the way his eyes grinned straight into hers, made her want to cry and laugh at the same time.

Wrapping a towel around her, her mouth minty with Listerine (tonight was most definitely first-kiss time) she went dripping down the hallway into her bedroom to choose her most unsexy, unmatching underwear so she wouldn’t be tempted to sleep with him too soon.