Jayne reaches for it. A confident gesture. “Let’s see.”
She tugs at the ribbons, and they stretch, digging deep into the flesh of her fingers before snapping. Ragged shreds of paper fall onto the table as she rips off the wrapping.
The box that emerges is a bright, tangerine orange, the writing on it black and elegantly curlicued. “Champagne,” Jayne says. She opens it and pulls out a heavy bottle, with a label in orange to match the box, and places both on the table. They stare at the bottle for a few moments, no one knowing quite what to make of it. Ruth reaches for the empty box and peers into it, as if expecting to find something else, but it’s empty.
She looks at the others. “Is Edie expecting us to drink this to celebrate her going? Or to toast the death of one of our husbands?”
“Do either of you read French?” Jayne asks.
Emily shakes her head.
Ruth reads the label. “Veuve Clicquot.” Her pronunciation is terrible. “Oh,” she says.
“Exactly.” Jayne has already translated it.
“What?” Emily can’t stand the way these two communicate without her. It’s so superior.
“It means ‘The widow Clicquot,’” Ruth explains.
“The widow? As in, that’s what one of us is now? Or that’s what Edie is?” The urge to speak to Paul tugs hard at Emily again. It feels like a necessity.
“I don’t know.” Ruth feels suddenly as if she needs to apologize to Emily for all of this, even though none of it is her fault, because this situation is bad for her and Jayne, but must be even worse for Emily, who barely knows them all. She opts for a sort of explanation. “Edie loves word games. Crosswords, anagrams, that sort of thing. It’s just part of the joke. I think.”
When they played games on previous couples’ weekends, Edie relished comfortably winning any that were related to words or involved acting out. She could transform herself into other characters with ease, dominate the attention in the room effortlessly. Ruth never wanted the attention Edie sought, but she would have killed for a piece of Edie’s confidence.
“It’s sickening,” Emily says.
Jayne puts a speculative finger on the foil covering the top of the bottle. She feels angry with Edie and wants to show that this letter is not to be taken seriously under any circumstances. It’s not to spoil their weekend.
“What do you think?” she asks. “Should we open this? Wouldn’t it be the best revenge on Edie if we have a great time this weekend in spite of her revolting letter? We could make a toast. How about—” She pauses, considering calling Edie a bitch, or much worse, but deciding to keep things civilized, for now, in front of Emily. “How about: Here’s to not letting Edie spook us?”
As the car bumps along country lanes, Imogen’s cell reception fades in and out. She composes a message and taps her phone repeatedly until it sends.
On my way!
A reply arrives quickly.
Awesome
What time do you want to meet?Imogen types.
A bubble appears, indicating that Jemma is replying, then disappears for what seems like forever. Imogen frowns. When Jemma’s reply finally lands, Imogen feels disappointed when she reads the one-word answer.
Later
When?she asks.
“Later” isn’t good enough. She’s had to bust a gut to get out of music camp. She might be good at lying to adults, but that doesn’t mean she enjoys it. She feels bad about it, actually.
Again, Jemma takes ages to reply. Imogen puts her phone on her lap, facedown, and yawns. Camp was tiring. She runs her thumb over the calluses on the tips of her fingers on her left hand. She’s had them since she first began playing the cello and has been making this reflexive, self-comforting gesture since then.
She flips her phone over when it buzzes.
I’ll message you.
Really? she thinks. That’s disappointing. She considers kicking off because it hasn’t been easy to get out of music camp and in fact she’d been quite looking forward to the concert.
At heart, Imogen loves to play her cello. It reminds her of her dad. Music is the thread that’s kept her connected to him since he died. If she shuts her eyes when she plays, she can imagine him sitting in front of her, listening. He’d been her greatest supporter since she began playing when she was just five years old. Music was a thing they had together. Her mum supports her, too, and always has, but not as intensely.
