‘Nothing,’ I said stiffly. ‘I just don’t like taking advantage of Tsundoku’s generosity, that’s all.’
‘You’re going to have to do better than that.’ She gestured to her face. ‘You’ve gone the same colour as when I caught you with Satoshi in the restaurant. White, with a hint of green. What is it?’
I hesitated.
‘I know I’ve been teasing you about him.’ Her tone was gentler now. ‘If I’ve been poking at a sore spot—’
‘No.’ My voice was hoarse. ‘It’s fine.’
‘You, however, are obviously not.’ She reached across the table to me. ‘What happened?’
I exhaled. The quickest way out of this conversation was probably going to be through.
Sadie listened impassively as I told her about our Thursday night arrangement, but her hands flew to her mouth when I recounted the story of Michelle catching us beside the bins. ‘Ohnoooooo.’
‘It was mortifying,’ I said. ‘I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me – are you laughing?’
‘I’m sorry!’ Sadie wasn’t just laughing, she was practically crying. ‘I bet it was embarrassing – but come on, you have to admit that it’s also—’ she almost couldn’t get the words out, she was laughing so hard ‘—unbelievablyfunny.’
I stared.
She clapped a hand to her heart in mock horror. ‘Oh,my stars,’ she said, in an affected imitation, presumably of Michelle. ‘My delicate, innocent eyes! My mind simply cannotprocessthe thought of someone actually getting some when my husband hasn’t cared about anything but cricket and craft beer for ten years!’
It was, based on what I knew from the Fridays I used to spend volunteering with her, a pretty accurate read of the dynamic of Michelle’s marriage, but I bristled anyway. ‘You know people don’t stop having sex just because they have kids, right?’
‘Yes – yes – sorry.’ Sadie wiped tears of laughter out of her eyes. ‘That was mean. But come on. You must be, like, a cult hero now. “Woman gets over arsehole ex-husband by getting under hot younger guy who comes with bonus high-quality booze”? That’s iconic.’
I didn’t say anything.
Slowly, Sadie’s laughter faded away. ‘So… not funny, then.’
I shook my head. ‘It was a wake-up call. That I – I’m being – I shouldn’t be doing this.’
‘Fiona, no.’
‘I have to be realistic, Sadie. It’s been wonderful, this past month, but it can’t last.’
I took a long sip of my wine, trying to swallow down the lump in my throat. ‘Satoshi’s got this big glittering future ahead of him. He deserves a proper partner, someone who can really be there for him and support him and give him what he needs, not someone he has to put back together. And he’s not just some stranger I can have a bit of fun with and then forget, either. He’s in the kids’ lives.’
I swallowed again, but the lump in my throat wasn’t going away. ‘I thought Thursdays could just be this secret little thing I did, just for me. But look what happened at the barbecue. If I let it keep going, the kids will find out. I’m lucky they haven’t already. And if they do – then when it ends—’ I swallowed again, once, twice, three times ‘—they’ll lose someone else.’
‘And so will you?’
‘This isn’t about me, Sadie.’ I tipped my head back, looking at the stars. ‘I can’t let it be about me.’
She regarded me for a long moment. ‘You really are a Fisher, aren’t you?’
I blinked. ‘What?’
‘You clearly know how to construct an argument. Look at you, twelve logical leaps ahead.’
‘Thank you?’ I was strangely flattered.
‘It makes total sense that you’d jump to the worst-case scenario, where everything turns to shit and you and the kids get hurt. It’s already happened to you once, after all. But—’ she leaned forward across the table ‘—you’re still wrong.’
‘Sadie—’
‘Your logic is sound, but your premise is flawed. Everything you said relies on you not being able to have him – but I really think you can, Fiona. I think you can have it all.’
