“Has it always been like this? Or is it a new arrangement?”
Susan paused, as if trying to remember. “A few years now.”
“I think he’s seeing someone else too,” Savannah said as she washed out the cafetière and Jon’s abandoned coffee cup. “A woman called here last night and confronted me. Really aggressively.”
Susan looked taken aback.
“You didn’t know he was seeing other people as well as me?”
“I…no. But nothing would surprise me about Jon this morning. Absolutely nothing.”
Savannah added two heaped spoons of ground coffee to the cafetière and filled it halfway with boiling water.
“God, I can’t believe he didn’t just tell me. Why lie, if you knew anyway?” Savannah carried the cafetière and two clean mugs to the table, nodding for Susan to sit.
“Would you have agreed to go out with him if you’d known he was married, open marriage or not?” Susan asked.
“Probably not. Yeah, I see how it could be a mood killer.”
“Jon is a man-baby,” Susan said. “He’s weak. He’s needy. He wants to have his cake and eat it. He’s an all-round useless specimen of a human.”
Savannah poured coffee. “That doesn’t sound like ‘we get on well as friends.’ ”
Susan seemed to shake herself. “It doesn’t, does it? Maybe I’m getting too old for this.”
“How, um, old…”
“How old am I? Really, that’s what you want to know?” Susan looked amused. “I’m forty-six.”
“Wow, and you just had a baby. That’s amazing!”
“Yes. Not what I expected.”
“How old is the baby?”
“She’s four months.”
“And will you tell her when she’s older?”
“We…we haven’t thought that far ahead. Look, thanks for the coffee, but I’d better get going.” Susan pushed back her chair, leaving the coffee untouched. “I run a hockey camp and I need to check in.”
Savannah eyed her curiously. Wasn’t she a maths teacher? Maybe this was a summer gig.
“Oh, of course. Who minds the baby?”
“What?” Susan looked suddenly flustered. “My…my sister.”
Savannah examined the visitor’s face. Why the fluster over a straightforward question? She couldn’t help pushing for more.
“Oh, cool, does your sister live nearby?”
“Next door.”
Savannah knew she was on to something. Susan definitely looked uncomfortable now, far more so than when talking about her open marriage.
“That’s handy. What’s her name?”
“It doesn’t matter what her name is. I really have to go.”
