“Anyway, what’s new with you?” I ask. “How’s Faizan?”
“He’s good, yeah. Really good,” Amina says, but her voice gets all high and reedy at the end.
“Is everything okay?”
She’s definitely being shifty. She can’t quite look me in the eyes, andno oneis actually this interested in the FRÖTORP coffee table, no matter how affordable it is. She brushes some nonexistent Swedish dust off of it and shrugs. “No, everything’s great. Honestly.”
I tug her down onto a sofa, which, it must be said, is far more comfortable than it looks, and just stare at her. As nature abhors a vacuum, so does Amina detest a long silence. I first learned this when we chatted on AOL as teenagers and if I left even just to go to the bathroom or get a drink, I’d return to about a hundred messages.
Sure enough, she’s soon squirming. “Okay, okay. God, you know I hate it when you do that. Everything is fine, truly. It’s lovely, in fact. And it’s early days so we’re not really telling people, and I know it’s a tricky time for you so I didn’t want to rub salt in the wound or anything, but, well…I’m pregnant.”
The squeal I let out is loud enough to disrupt a nearby couple arguing over a lampshade. They look at us and back slowly away, but I don’t care. I bend over to hug Amina—another thing she hates—and offer effusive congratulations.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“How could I be making fun of you?” My voice is muffled in the soft cotton of her T-shirt. “You’d have to have normal human reactions to things for me to make fun of them.”
“Don’t expect me to start now. This thing is a parasite. Yes, I’m glad it’s growing inside of me, but it’s already an enormous pain in my arse.” She’s trying to look annoyed, but I can tell there’s a little pocket of excitement and pride trapped right under the surface.
I relinquish my grip on her and laugh.
“Seriously, though. Are you okay?” A look of concern slides into her eyes, one that I’ve become all too familiar with in the weeks since Steven left. I’ve gotten it from Josh and Erica, my parents, my brothers, even my five-year-old niece. I bristle at the pity looming behind everyone’s sad smiles; it’s an automatic reaction at this point, no matter how well intentioned they are.
“Am I okay because my dear friend is pregnant? Yes, I am okay. I am more than okay. This is wonderful news.”
“No, I just mean…I know you and Steven were excited to start trying, before the Great Betrayal—”
I hold up a hand to cut her off, but my phone does it better, as it starts buzzing violently in my bag. I fish it out and see it’s anunknown U.K. number. “Sorry, I should get this. It might be work.”
The number might be unknown, but the voice on the other end of the line isn’t. “You seem like a person who knows things about art,” says Lachlan by way of hello.
A little flutter that starts in my stomach quickly spreads to my face and I smile into the phone. He’s calling me—that must mean we’re actually friends! “Oh, sure. I apprenticed under Van Gogh back in the day. The nonstop absinthe was great, but the wages were shit.”
“All the greats have to suffer for their art, Macca. But anyway, I’m with an atrociously aggro dealer named Javier, trying to buy something for my bedroom, and I could use some of that expertise. Come cast your discerning eye over the selection?”
“I’d love to, but I’m busy.”
“Right, busy staring at the wall waiting for me to ring you. And now the moment has arrived.”
I bite my thumbnail and smile wider. “That’s what I was doing all morning, yes, but now I’m at Ikea.”
“Ikea? Fascinating. Tell me, what is it like to be poor?”
“Oh, you can fuck right off.”
He laughs. “Fine. I’ll let you get back to flat-pack paradise, but you owe me at least seven to ten strongly held opinions on the modern masters.”
“You got it, boss,” I say. “It’ll be on your desk Monday morning.”
“Toodle pip, Macca.”
He hangs up but I keep the phone pressed to my cheek for a second because I see the look Amina is giving me and I’m not sure how to handle it. She’s got her eyebrows up about as far asthey can go, and I can tell that all her visions of Phil and me walking down the aisle have been supplanted by a new fantasy.
I preempt her, because the thing is, I’m dying to talk about Lachlan. The happiness from even that sixty-second phone call is vibrating through my body. “Oh, just say it.”
“Do all your coworkers make you blush like a little schoolgirl?”
Fuck, just hearing that makes me blush even deeper. Damn my overactive capillaries! “He’s not exactly a coworker.”
