“God, you’re right,” I said. “Thatdoessound saccharine.”
“The truth sometimes does.” Oliver gave me a rueful look. “It’s one of the nicer things about reality.”
Chapter 40
IM SOOOOO SORRY EVRYONE, Bridge messaged the following morning as I was logging into my Zoom meeting. Which I took as a sign that her in-person conversations with Peter and Jennifer and the James Royce-Royces had gone non-disastrously.
To which Priya repliedI can’t believe the one I skipped was the one where things finally got interesting.
THEY WERNE T INTERESTING THEY WERE VERY URTFUHL WHICH IS WHY IM SO SORRY
I’m sorry too.That was James Royce-Royce.
So am I.That was James Royce-Royce.
Alex popped into view with a cheery, “Hullo, Luc! Marvellous technology this, isn’t it?”
We’d been using it for literal years at this point. And he made the observation at least once a week. “Yeah,” I said, “amazing.”
Stop being mature, Priya was saying on my phone.I want fucking blood. Polyamorous childfree lesbians repre-fucking-sent.
We’re not childfree.That was Andi.We have stepkids.
Adult children don’t count.
They fucking do.That was Theresa.
“Okay,” I said to Alex, looking away from what Ireally hopedwouldn’t be another your-life-choices-are-bad-and-you-should-feel-bad conversation. “What cheese is made backwards?”
“Edam,” he replied at once.
“Oh, you’ve heard that one?”
Alex looked blank. “No, just good at word puzzles. Have you got a joke for me?”
The joke, as always, was on me. “Not today, I’m afraid.”
Barbara Clench, who had popped up two seconds earlier, wasted no time in giving me a disapproving look. “Good, we’re meant to be having a meeting, and don’t think I can’t tell when you’re stalling.”
“This isn’t stalling,” I told her, “this is just regular wasting time. It’ll become stalling when the rest of the team get here.”
Still a bit concerned where things stood after Saturday, I glanced down and sent aYeah I’m sorry toomessage to the chat followed by aNo more dinner parties for a while maybe?
“I can see that you’re texting, Luc,” Barbara Clench told me. “You aren’t being subtle about it.”
“I wouldnever,” I protested.
“Your phone is plainly visible on camera.”
Shit, this was why I needed one of those background things that made everything blurry.
Conversation in Dinner Party Survivors’ Club continued to be pretty amicable, with Jennifer sendingPeter and I are also sorry, and Brian following up withAmanda and I realise we might have said some things that didn’t come across how we meant them to.Which, from what I knew of the two of them, was about as close to an apology as they were going to get. And you know what, that was fine. I was past the age where I could be arsed to police the way other people said sorry for stuff.
Besides, Dr. Fairclough had just logged in, which meant I should probably actually start doing my job.
Especially because her greeting—as was pretty typical for Dr. Fairclough’s greetings—went, “I’ve budgeted seventeen minutes from my afternoon for this, and if we go over, I’ll be late with my samples.”
I didn’t want to know what they were samplesof. “Okay,” I began. And I was suddenly beginning to wish Ihadbeen stalling because this was going to be a horrible conversation and having a good bit of stall set up in advance would probably really help me. But I’d never been one for planning in advance, so I just had to launch into it. “I don’t want to do the good-news-and-bad-news thing—”
