It took Jemma two days to realise that Holly wasn’t talking to her. On Wednesday morning, she walked into the kitchen when Holly was making toast. ‘Morning,’ she said. Holly took her toast to the table, sat, and ate. Jemma poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot Holly had brewed, and joined her at the table.
‘I thought I might walk up Blackford Hill today,’ she said, ‘take some photos.’ Holly finished her toast. She put the plate in the dishwasher. ‘I managed to sort that setting on my camera that was annoying me,’ Jemma said. Holly grabbed her keys from the counter and headed for the door.
‘Will I pick up something for dinner?’ Jemma called after her. Holly stopped in the hall to pull on her boots and coat. Jemma came out of the kitchen. ‘Is something wrong?’
Holly considered ignoring the question, but she was tired of her own childishness. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘What?’
Holly sighed. ‘I’m serious about wanting a baby, Jemma. And you’re not,’ she said. ‘And I don’t know what to do about that.’ She let herself out, careful not to slam the door.
*
At 10 o’clock, Katie walked into Abramo’s. There were a few other girls there, at tables dotted around the floor. Katie sat at the nearest table and tried not to look uncomfortable. Her stomach had been fluttering since Monday afternoon. She’d told Angel about the sign in the window as they ate dinner that night.
‘Tell me I should apply,’ Katie had said.
‘Of course you should apply,’ Angel had said.
‘But I’ve never been a waitress before.’
‘You’ve worked in a coffee shop. It’s the same thing.’
‘It’s not the same thing. Abramo’s is a proper restaurant.’
‘The last time we were there that guy from your class funnelled an entire bottle of wine at the table.’
Abramo’s wasn’t fancy. It did student discounts and 2-for-1 pizzas, and was popular among their friends for birthday celebrations. It wasn’t working there that worried Katie. It was who she’d be working with.
Seeing the doubt on her friend’s face, Angel had said, ‘Just go and ask for an application.’ She’d seemed a little irritable.
Katie had gone downstairs, spoken with the older man she knew to be Sergio’s father, and arranged this interview. Now Sergio came out of a small office at the back of the restaurant, holding a clipboard. He looked at it and said, ‘Katie Kilkenny?’
*
Erin was determined not to drink her way through another day with the twins. She had taken them to the park, rolled around on the living room rug with them, and was now singing to them as they drifted off for their naps. It had been a good morning. Erin tried not to think about the long afternoon ahead. She tried to think only of the twins’ babbling words, the silly things that made them laugh, the feel of their tiny bodies when she held them. I love you so much, she thought, as Annie’s eyelids got heavy and Archie gave the little sigh he always gave before he fell asleep. I love you so much.
It had been fun talking with Mateo. Her and Andy hardly had time to talk. Their nights were a treadmill of dinner, bath, bedtime, which ended with them slumped in front of the TV, bone-tired.
‘Put them in nursery and go back to work,’ Mateo had said, in that authoritarian way of his. ‘Kids are great. Apart from that one,’ he’d joked, with a nod to Sergio. ‘But you’re the sort of person who needs to work, Erin.’
The way his words niggled at her told Erin he was right.
*
Waiting for her last lecture of the day to begin, Angel sat apart from her classmates. She wasn’t in the mood to chat.
Someone slid into the seat beside her. Angel glanced to her left to see Ryan pulling his laptop out of his bag.
‘Hi,’ she said, trying to sound normal.
‘Hi,’ he replied. Angel wondered what was going on. Ryan hadn’t sat beside her in a lecture since before the summer.
‘Tavish is a dick,’ Ryan said. Angel didn’t know what to say. ‘What he did the other day. To your hair.’ He looked at her. ‘He’s a dick.’ It sounded like a warning.
‘I know,’ Angel said. She was surprised by how uncertain she sounded.
Dr. Tavish entered the lecture hall. He walked through the rows of seats. As he passed Angel and Ryan he smiled. ‘Ms. Ugwu,’ he said, ‘could you stay behind after the lecture? I’d like a word.’
Angel nodded. She didn’t look at Ryan.
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