Perhaps, if reincarnation was really where it was at, she could come back as the small pet of a lonely woman. Miss Nibbles and Squelch were treated like princesses, adored. She’d quite like a cat, too, but knew that Miss Nibbles and Squelch would then need a mini-defibrillator as cat/guinea pig relationships were rarely good ones. But a cat could sit on her lap, purr, help in a way that the guinea pigs – whom she had not been able to house-train – could not.
Ginger reached over to her cluttered bedside table to pick up her phone, wondering would Liza have texted her with any sort of apology.
Over the twenty-six years of their friendship, they’d fallen out before, but they’d been only small things. Apart from that horrible time after their final school state exams when Ginger got such fabulous results and Liza was shocked to have only scraped by.
Or recently, that time Ginger had had a big work event – the relaunch of the digital paper – and hadn’t been able to go out with Liza on the spur of the moment to comfort her because she’d broken up, briefly, with James.
Liza hadn’t spoken to her for an entire week.
It was always Liza that did the falling out, Ginger reflected now. That should have been a warning sign. Really, how dumb was she? Clever at books, an idiot at humans.
But there were no texts from Liza.
Instead there was a raft of happy birthday messages from her crew in work sent the day before, some with bits added on late last night:
Hope you’re having a marvellous time! Happy Thirtieth!
Catch yourself a hot man.That was from Paula, who felt that a hot man was the main requirement for happiness in life.
Don’t go too wild. Busy week in work next week!!!and a few exclamations marks from Brian, her boss. Given that Brian was a curmudgeonly sort of guy, that was almost a hug, a kiss and a birthday cake with sparkles from him.
Ginger smiled.
We’ll have cake on Monday!was the text from Deirdre, one of the researchers with whom Ginger was friends.Big gooey chocolatey with cream in the middle!!
Wow, reflected Ginger.
Was that the sum of her parts to her friends? Either into cake or men?
Or was that just Deirdre and Paula?
She’d have to stop everyone assuming she was a cake- and man-obsessed woman. Besides, how could she be madly into sex when she’d never had any?
She imagined the email to her own agony column.
‘Dear Girlfriend, my pals all talk about sex all the time – I have not had sex. Ever. And I am thirty! Is this normal, because there is nobody else I can ask without being humiliated?’
‘Normal is a setting on the dryer,’Girlfriend would reply.‘You can be into what you want to be into, and if anyone asks, tell them all you are a Christian woman and you are waiting for marriage before you give the precious gift of your virginity to anyone.’
Ginger lay back on the bed and started to laugh. Maybe that’s what she might tell everyone in future. She was a truly Christian woman who didn’t believe in sex before marriage or dating before marriage or even having a boyfriend before marriage.
Yes, it was the perfect excuse.
Or else, she could become Amish. Or did they have arranged marriages? Still, a husband ...
But how would she cope with no TV? No Starbucks’ hot chocolate. No lipstick.
OK, maybe not.
Finally, she dragged herself out of bed and went into the living room to where Miss Nibbles and Squelch were scooting around in their duplex. They were genuinely delighted to see her, pushing their little pink guinea pig noses at the tiny bars of their cool perspex and cage home.
‘Come on, my little babas,’ she crooned, taking them out for a little meander. They were sweethearts and liked to sit on her and snuffle her instead of running off like the clappers, which was what they’d done before she’d socialised them enough to enjoy being held. Miss Nibbles was apricot-coloured and Squelch was a misty grey. They were affectionate, although once at the vet’s Miss Nibbles had managed to bite both the vet and Ginger in a one-off fit of temper.
‘I don’t know what I’d do without you both,’ she said. ‘Otherwise I’d be talking to myself, and isn’t that the first sign of madness? Can I take you both to my birthday family lunch as my guests? I will pretend I don’t want dates ever: just you two.’
The house Ginger had grown up in was out in the country, although the city was encroaching now with several housing estates coming closer and closer. Her mother had come from a small town much further down the coast called Ballyglen, but there was no family left there anymore and Ginger could barely recall ever having been there.
Her father still went, though: to visit their mother’s grave. Declan and Mick did too, but not Ginger.
