“Oh, but you deserve to scratch that itch,” Nora said.
“I didn’t sayIhad an itch. Sex isfine.” She sniffed.
“Sex isfine?” Daisy asked.
“Yeah,” Soraya countered. “It’s fine. I like it. Mostly. But this is part of what offends me, honestly. It’s not good enough to go breaking a family up over.”
“I completely agree,” Daisy said slowly. “That sex with a stranger, or even sending nude pictures online or whatever, is not worth breaking a family up over. I will never justify what David did to you, or what Jonathan did to me. Or what Ben is doing to Nora. But sex can be pretty great.”
“Yeah,” Nora agreed. “It can make you do very stupid things.”
“Not in my experience. In my experience, you ... just wait until you’re married, and then you have planned sex on your wedding night, and it’s fine. I didn’t have trouble resisting.”
“Oh, Soraya.” Nora pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Well. I’ve just never ... I’ve never lost control.”
“Maybe that should go on your list.”
“I don’t have a list. I already told you, I can’t ...”
“Listen.” Nora paced into the room and touched the candle on the mantel, where their rings were still sitting on the wick, a reminder of the anger from the night of the spell. A reminder of why they were here. “Ifyoufeel like having sex with somebody you aren’t married to is wrong, then I won’t try to talk you into it. But if it’s just a reaction to what other people are telling you? Then maybe I will.”
“Areyougoing to have a fling with some other man?”
“I need to deal with Ben first,” she said darkly.
“What about you?” Soraya asked Daisy.
“I might.” Daisy looked away. “He’s getting married to somebody else. I have weekends without the kids and ... no reason not to. Except it’s embarrassing to be my age and to only have been with one man.”
“I’m in the same boat,” Soraya said.
“At least you have a reason. Everyone will get it if you say you grew up in a purity-culture church. I just hooked up with Jonathan so early I never had the chance.” She sighed. “I’m somad. I was faithful to him. When I decided he was the one when we were teenagers, I gave up the idea of ever having other partners, and he didn’t do the same. I’ll never know if he was with other women the whole time or if it was just Amberly or ...”
“You could ask,” Soraya pointed out.
“Why?” Nora asked. “That sounds like borrowing heartache to me.”
“I want to know,” Soraya said. “While I was being a faithful wife, while I was getting the just-fine sex, what else was he giving other women?”
“We need to learn divination,” Daisy said.
“I don’t know aboutthat.” Soraya’s hands automatically retracted to her chest, like she was seeking out pearls to clutch.
“Too much Satan for Soraya.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. “This has nothing to do with Satan. Or demons of any kind. Witchcraft is about tapping into your own intuition, your own power.” She sighed. “Even if it isn’t real. Even if the tarot cards aren’t telling us anything, or if the spells don’t do anything, I’d rather feel like I could change things than feel powerless.”
Nora smiled, just slightly. “Maybe the real witchcraft was the friends we made along the way.”
Daisy was right, though. The worst part about all this, under the betrayal and heartbreak and everything else, was feeling utterly and completely powerless.
“Poor Alexandra,” Soraya said. “This is why she went ... This is why she went crazy. This is why she was gambling and staying out late and engaging in all the destructive behavior that led to her accident. Because it makes you feel like everything is ... fake. Like everything you believed in doesn’t ... mean anything.” She let out a long, slow breath. “Part of me kind of wants to ... self-destruct. Part of me wants to erase every part of myself that ever loved him. That gave so much time to him. Part of me wants to make that good, perfect wife into something else. A not-insubstantial part of me wants to sleep with the guy across the hall just to ...” She sighed. “He’s making everyone think I’m the villain, so maybe I should be.”
“We’re working on corrupting you,” Nora said.
Soraya set the takeout on the table. They began to dish pad thai and pad see ew onto their plates, and it was Nora who retrieved a bottle of white wine and opened it.
