‘You heard me. Grow up. This is the most ridiculous poor-little-rich-boy shit you’ve ever said to me.’ I put on a mocking voice. ‘Oh no, my daddy’s friends are going to give meadvantages, whatever will I do?’
‘You don’t know what it feels like, Sadie!’
‘You’re right, I don’t! Because no one has ever treated me like that a day in my life! Today included!’
‘Did you miss the bit where they were like “Here’s Sadie Shaw and here’s the man we only hired because he married her”?’
‘Did you miss the bit where Petrovski was so fucking excited to talk about how you were joining the department he nearly exploded?’
‘Because of my dad!’
‘Oh, golly, gee, Jonah, that must be so difficult for you, having all these advantages simply handed to you. However do you cope?’
‘How doyoucope, knowing that you’ve actually earned all of your accomplishments? Do you have any idea what it’s like having to constantly question your own abilities?’
‘You are not going to makemefeel bad becauseyouhave privilege!’
‘I know I have privilege coming out my fucking ears! Do you think that makes it any easier to have a career based entirely on riding people’s coat-tails?’
‘How did you manage to fit in a Masters degree in feeling sorry for yourself around all your other research? Please, give me some time management tips.’
‘If I wanted a Masters, I probably wouldn’t have to lift a finger to get it! They’d just give it to me!’
‘Oh no, what a tragedy!’
‘Hey!’ Fiona barked. ‘Time out!’
Our argument had, without either of us noticing, carried us to her house. She was standing in her front yard, hose in one hand, watering her garden as the twins played on the lawn. ‘Don’t make me turn this on you,’ she said, flicking the water towards our feet.
Jonah’s shoulders drooped. ‘Sorry, Fi. We were just…’
‘Fighting?’ Fiona arched an eyebrow.
Jonah sighed. I folded my arms.
It was terrible ruse-selling, but Fiona just shook her head fondly. ‘Hey, girls?’
Rosie and Georgia looked up. ‘What?’ one of them asked.
‘How do you feel about being secret agents?’
Their eyes lit up.
Fiona crouched down to their level. ‘Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to help Uncle Jonah relax. He’s had a big week, and he’s tired.’
‘Like Daddy after a long day in the office?’
‘Exactly like that.’ Fiona didn’t skip a beat. ‘So he needs a couple of secret agents to take him inside, and sit him down on the couch, and put the TV remote in his hand, and to play where he can see them –very quietly,’ she dropped her voice to a whisper, ‘because it’s asecretmission. And it has to be undertaken without the supervision of mission command, because mission command is going to take Auntie Sadie out for a wine.’
What?! No!
The exhaustion of the last week crashed down on me like a pile of bricks. Thelastthing I wanted to do was go out for a drink with Jonah’s very nice sister and lie to her about how he was the light of my fucking life and wasn’t she lucky to have him back in hers. I had just enough energy to grab him by the hair, put his head through a wall, and kick him up the irritatingly good arse. That was it.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
Fiona held out her hand to the girls. ‘Agents, do you accept?’
Rosie and Georgia conferred. ‘We accept!’
