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It was an accident, as it turned out. Kate had somehow stumbled over her rucksack, which she appeared to be in the process of packing, and hit her head on the heavy oak coffee table in the middle of the living room. It all had to be confirmed by the coroner, of course, but there was no indication it was anything other than a tragic turn of events.
But why had Harry gone over there. Why had he felt the need to check on her and talk to her neighbour? Sophie bit the inside of her lip and strolled from her bedroom to the kitchen to wash out her coffee cup and put it in the dishwasher.
“Sophie, are you ready?” Victoria called from the hallway.
“Um. Okay.”
Victoria was insisting on indoctrinating Myra to the wonders of the weekend Farmer’s Market and Sophie, needing a break from her own thoughts, had agreed to come—especially since it appeared Victoria was going to focus her attention on Myra.
An hour later, after they’d done one circuit together, Victoria dragged Myra away to the organic smoothie place so that she could inflict her favourite kale-and-something concoction on her. Sophie sidled away happily to purchase a bag of avocados. What kind of avocado-based meal could she make tonight, she wondered. She ambled toward a nut stand and eyed the various options—perhaps some sort of fancy salad—until something made her look up.
It was a mere glimpse from afar; a familiar shape. Sophie focused her attention and craned her neck. There it was again. A profile she knew. Sophie smiled as her stomach did a happy flip.
It was Roman.
He was here.
But when Sophie realised what she was actually looking at, she was so utterly unprepared it was as if a bomb had gone off right next to her and she’d been sent flying through the air.
Ten metres in front of her was Roman. Next to him was a woman who Sophie knew instantly was his wife. There was something proprietary about the space between them, even though they weren’t touching. It hung around them, like a cloud. Or a stench. Years of history and shared experience. Love?
Shock rushed through Sophie’s body and landed with a thump in her stomach.
Roman was married.
The woman was tall, somewhere between willowy and lanky, with the kind of reddish, strawberry-blonde hair Sophie had always wanted. It swished around her shoulders in loose bouncy curls, whereas Sophie’s fell in boring brown clumps. The woman looked like she did yoga but also drank wine, so she wasn’t aggressively and annoyingly healthy, and she gave the impression of floating about life without feeling stupid or unsure about anything.
Roman’s eyes found Sophie’s. He paled. A brief flit of something—pain? apology?—crossed his face. He took a step forward and raised his hand. Sophie stepped backward, hit something solid and felt it yield. A second later, she’d lost her centre of gravity and was on the ground surrounded by an assortment of organic, packaged nuts.
“Are you okay?” The owner of the stand was helping Sophie to her feet, but all she could see was Roman, now standing in front of her. The woman, his wife, looked at Sophie, her eyes narrowing, and looped her hand through Roman’s elbow. Roman looked down at this gesture, surprise knitting his brows as if it was unfamiliar, or at least unexpected, then lifted his eyes to Sophie.
“You’re alright?” he asked as Sophie managed to get upright.
“Uh, y-yes.” Sophie felt numb. Watching them was like watching a different person live out her life.
“I’m Anya,” the woman said. “Roman’s wife,” she added pointedly.
Sophie didn’t have the strength to introduce herself.
“Ah...” Roman said in the silence. “Anya, this is... Dr Swanephol. She’s... ah... she and her partner own an investigation agency. We worked on a case together.”
Anya pulled Roman closer to her. “Roman drags me to these things,” she murmured languidly. “But it’s a lovely day to be out and about.”
Sophie felt a yearning so intense she thought she might choke.
“We’d better head off, we’re going to brunch. Nice to meet you.” Anya steered Roman away. He turned back to make eye contact but Anya tugged his arm again.
They were gone in seconds, but it felt like an eternity before they were out of Sophie’s sight, and for that eternity she stood there with wind roaring in her ears and blood pounding in her chest as everything collapsed in a pile at her feet.
***
SOPHIE WENT STRAIGHT to her bedroom, ignoring Myra’s questions and Victoria’s persistent knocking. She pulled on her grey tracksuit pants, slipped on her headphones, put on Amy Winehouse, and crawled into bed.
Of course he had a wife. How had she not seen all the clues? The red indent on his finger was so fresh. It was obvious now that his ring was only off temporarily because of recent weight gain. All of his clothes had seemed a little ill-fitting and he didn’t seem like the kind of guy to indulge in that skin-tight-suit look. Sophie sighed. For some reason she found a weakness like this, one she could relate to, endearing. It did make her wonder though, why he’d put on weight. Was he stressed? And if so, was it work, or was it his home life? There had been something strained between him and Anya today. Her overt display of affection had seemed awkward. Roman had even flinched slightly when she’d looped her arm in his. He’d definitely looked a little surprised. But maybe she was misremembering, Sophie thought. And what did it even matter, Sophie chastised herself.
Roman was married.
***
ALICE HAD PREPARED a lovely platter of bread and cold cuts for their lunch, and she served this with a decanted half-litre of wine.
“What’s all this?” Leo said as he emerged from the bathroom, looking delighted at the feast in front of him.
“No trouble.” Alice smiled.
The weather had looked promising in the morning so Alice had called Leo to ask if he wanted to work on the garden today, but after a productive couple of hours, the sky had turned dark and rain seemed imminent, so they decided to abandon their gardening for lunch inside.
Alice looked pointedly at Leo’s hands and raised her eyebrows. Leo blushed and turned and scuttled back to wash up properly. By the time Leo re-emerged from the bathroom with a waft of white jasmine hand soap, Alice had lit a candle and set the table. The whole thing was so classy and charming Leo felt as if he was in a movie.
“Here’s a plate, and a napkin. The bread is all cut... of course so is the meat. I thought we could help ourselves... make sandwiches, or...”
Alice seemed shy, almost uncertain, and Leo, suddenly feeling confident, picked up the wine and poured them each a healthy-sized glass.
“Cheers,” he said, holding up his glass. “Thanks for this... opportunity... I don’t know the last time I’ve had such a good time with somebody.”
They both took large mouthfuls of wine and busied themselves with napkins and plates and selecting ingredients for their sandwiches. Leo finished his first in record speed. He was hungry, but also nervous, and was about to reach for another chunk of ciabatta when he paused, wondering if he was coming across as a big, oafish pig.
“Yes, have another,” Alice said, both her eyes and her voice, warm.
“Oh, I don’t know—”
“Honestly, please.” Alice reached out to select a piece of bread for him at the same time as Leo did. Their hands touched. They held each other’s gaze. The moment hung, still as a windless day, until both Alice and Leo, each emboldened by 250 mls of Chianti, leaned closer to one another. Alice fluttered her eyelashes, tilted her head a fraction, and Leo kissed her.
***
A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, Sophie woke up from a nap with the horrible sick feeling of being disturbed in the middle of a deep sleep—or maybe it was waking up with that exhausted feeling when you know you’ve been crying.
Sophie needed a distraction. She slouched out of bed, retrieved her laptop from her desk, and returned to bed to check her emails. Well, she thought, she’d asked and the universe had provided. There was a distraction of a most unpleasant kind waiting in her inbox.
She had to give a presentation.
A wave of dread surged through her body. It was incredible how the brain could release such an immediate flood of stress hormones. She felt almost light-headed as she blinked and re-read Josh’s email. He’d been out of the office on Friday at a planning weekend with the execs, but had managed to find the time to message her and request an update on the psychometric testing. They needed to start making some decisions on the restructuring and they’d like the girls to present what they’d found so far on Tuesday.
Tuesday!
Sophie’s stomach folded in on itself. She forwarded the email to Paige, adding a couple of exclamation marks and then started a new document and wondered what on earth they could present to them.
Her phone rang.
It was Roman.
She couldn’t bring herself to answer it; she couldn’t listen to his traitorous voice. She couldn’t bear to hear him ask her how she was, then try to explain. There was no explanation necessary. He was married and he hadn’t told her. He’d let her feel the way she felt. Or had she imagined the whole thing? It didn’t even matter. Either way, she felt like an idiot and a loser and like she needed to do something to wash away the bitter taste of betrayal in her mouth. She needed to get on with things, forge ahead, conquer new domains... or something.
Sophie pulled out her phone and re-installed Tinder. As she waited, she pushed her feet into her slippers, stood up, and shuffled out of her room into the living room. She threw her phone on the sofa and went into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
“Sophie? Are you back on Tinder?”
It was Myra, the semi-corporeal flatmate, emerging from the shadows.
“Hi, uh, yeah.” Sophie didn’t elaborate and flopped onto the couch.
She felt like such an idiot for the fantasies she had already indulged in. Fat lot of good her PhD had done her in real life. Behavioural expert my ass, thought Sophie. She couldn’t even pick up a basic clue like his marital status. And she was supposed to be an investigator. Sophie bit back a bitter laugh. Speaking of fat asses... did they have any ice-cream? She didn’t even care if it wasn’t hers, she’d face Victoria’s wrath if she had to.
Sophie pulled herself up. She was about to return to the kitchen to investigate when the front door slammed. High-heels clip-clopped down the hallway. Victoria was home. The footsteps continued past Victoria’s room, seeming to get more aggressive as they got nearer. Sophie winced at the sound. They were all supposed to take heeled shoes off by the front door, they had a shoe rack and everything. This rule had been raised—ironically by Victoria, after Sophie had worn high heels in the house—and agreed upon by the three of them, many months ago.
“Oh. Hi.” Victoria seemed displeased that both her flatmates were home, and, of all the audacity, had already turned on the TV and selected something to watch.
“Hey,” Sophie said, suddenly reminded of the ominous landlord visit. “Did you ever find out why the landlord came to visit?” Sophie asked.
Victoria shrugged, uninterested. “Just an inspection.”
A glimmer of hope flickered in Sophie’s belly. Perhaps at least she could take getting kicked out of her flat off her list of Things To Worry/Be Miserable About.
Victoria nodded, but she wasn’t listening. She’d also noticed that Sophie’s phone, lying abandoned on the couch, was open on Tinder.
“Ooh, Tinder,” Victoria said with considerably more pep. “Are we on Tinder at the same time?”
“I am,” Myra said quietly.
Sophie looked over Myra’s shoulder. Sure enough, her phone was also open on the dating app.
Sophie shrugged. “I guess we are.”
“Wait for me.” Victoria tottered off to her room, unstable on her super high heels. They were the same heels she’d worn to the ball the other night, so Sophie suspected they were shockingly expensive and she was wearing them to work to get her money’s worth. Or perhaps someone had complimented her on them. Sophie, still looking in the direction that Victoria had gone, recalled that the night of the ball, Victoria hadn’t come home until the morning, and rather bizarrely had kept quiet on the subject. Perhaps she’d had such a bad night even she couldn’t re-arrange it so that it fit her personal narrative of being popular.
Victoria emerged from her room clutching her phone and wearing leggings and a singlet with a long cardigan. “God, Soph. You look like crap. What’s wrong with you?” she said as she sailed past Sophie into the kitchen. She turned back to add, “You really need to think about changing your skin regime.”
“Thanks,” Sophie said under her breath.
Victoria returned a few minutes later, her eyes bright with excitement. “Wine and nibbles? I’ve got cheese and crackers and some other stuff.”
When she wasn’t measuring the levels of her labelled almond milk and leaving notes insinuating it was lower than it should be, Victoria could be quite generous. On the rare occasions that they hung out as flatmates she always provided expensive wine and uncharacteristically refused any offers to pay her back. But Victoria’s generosity was only ever on her own terms and had to serve her in some way.
They settled in with cheese, crackers, sundried tomatoes and pesto, plus a bottle of Pinot Gris which had already been chilling in the fridge, and started swiping. Being different ages, physical types, and with different profile styles, there didn’t tend to be a lot of crossover in the matches of the three flatmates.
Myra, cute and clearly shy, was a magnet for guys who described themselves as easy-going, but in reality only opted for girls who seemed like they wouldn’t put up much of a fight when it came to making decisions, or who would fit into their own life without any sort of accommodation on their part. Victoria, with long blonde hair and a trout-pout perfected for the camera, got a fair amount of Tinder attention from guys that Sophie avoided like the plague, but Victoria seemed to like. Sophie generally matched with anyone she’d swiped right. Her unassuming expression combined with her beautiful face seemed to inspire—in all sorts of men—wild fantasies about who Sophie was and who she could be to them, exacerbating even the slightest tendency for delusion.
“I think I might be interested in older men, you know? Guys my age seem so immature,” Victoria said out of the blue.
Sophie had a sneaking suspicion that this was related to Victoria’s obvious interest in Professor Richard Thinton. What on earth did she see in him, Sophie wondered. He of course wasn’t ugly, but she thought his personality so odious that it transformed his neutral features and normal face into something rather off-putting.
Not wanting to encourage Victoria, Sophie didn’t say anything and returned to scrolling through Tinder. After a few minutes she shook her head. “If an alien came down and used Tinder to assess the human heterosexual male population—in New Zealand at least—they would think owning a dog, going fishing, driving a car or a motorbike, and travelling, or at least hiking, were the absolute cornerstone of male existence.” She said, then thought to herself, maybe they are. “Where are the photos of a guy reading a book, or like, eating a yummy dinner or something?”
Victoria snorted, then said, “Ugh, listen to this. If you don’t look like your photo, you’ll be buying drinks until you do.”
“Wow. He might as well have written judgemental wanker in his profile description,” Sophie said.
Myra giggled.
They each continued to tap and scroll, sharing the worst and best of the profiles.
“Hehe... here’s one...” Victoria showed the others a profile of a guy wearing nothing except for a woollen beanie and a cheeky smile. He was lying on his stomach and the camera angle, a selfie, offered the viewer a tantalising view of the top of his bottom—a feat which, Sophie thought, must have involved rather a lot of back arching. They all laughed but Sophie saw Victoria swipe right.
“Here, look,” Sophie held up her phone for the other two. His profile photo was a picture of a large snapper. “The fishing one gets me the most. I mean, do guys realise how unappealing fishing is? I mean, doesn’t it mean they’re off with their mates all weekend on fishing trips?” Sophie eyed the photo. “He must be trying to convey his ability to provide food for his woman... unless he is in fact, a fish.”
“Check out this mysterious one.” Victoria showed them a profile with seven photos, each of which the guy was wearing a hat and sunglasses. “Married?”
Sophie and Myra nodded. “Married.”
At this word Sophie felt a surge of unhappiness, but she quickly pushed it down. She was not feeling miserable right now and she didn’t want that to change.
“This guy’s entire description is made up of emojis,” Sophie said. She went through the rest of the profile, sipping her wine. “I have a theory about emoji use,” she added, “the more emojis a guy uses, the less emotionally available he is.”
“Sounds about right,” said Victoria.
“I have one,” Myra said in a small voice.
“Go ahead.” Sophie smiled in encouragement.
Myra read out a profile description in which the guy aggressively stated that he wasn’t interested in anyone’s baggage; that anyone with baggage or issues should immediately go away and look elsewhere; that he didn’t want a high maintenance chick or any gold-diggers... It went on.
“It sounds like he’s the one with baggage,” Sophie said with an eye roll.
They didn’t spend all their time laughing at profiles, they also shared promising matches, cute profiles, and people they thought they might know from somewhere. All in all, it had been a fun night, Sophie thought as she changed for bed with a slightly fuzzy head. She had four matches which she would peruse tomorrow without the influence of wine to affect her perception. She filled up her bottle of water, glugging it back even as she climbed into bed, placed it on the nightstand, and as she reached over to get her book to read a chapter before bed, the deep melancholy cloaking her earlier in the day suddenly re-appeared. It crept back in, sneaking up from her toes, slowly steadily, making its way through her entire body until it had engulfed her completely.
One hot, fat, tear, slid down her cheek, and then another. As she dropped her book at the side of the bed and leaned over to turn out the light she started sobbing. She felt as if she was sixteen again, utterly miserable over a boy who would never be hers.
***
ROMAN, SITTING PROPPED up against the headboard, took a controlled breath and looked over at Anya who was lying beside him.
“You uploaded those photos from our trip to Queenstown?”
“Yes?” Anya didn’t look up.
“It was three years ago.”
Anya kept scrolling through her Facebook feed. “They’ve already gotten heaps of comments and likes.”
“But why now?”
Anya shrugged.
Roman thought he knew the answer, but to say it would be admitting something he couldn’t bring himself to raise. Since they’d bumped into Sophie at the Farmer’s Market, Anya had been affectionate and sweet. She’d insisted they have a date night this evening, and she’d even cooked him a special dinner. This flurry of romance was in stark contrast to the indifference that had crept into their marriage over the last few years. Apparently, if anything could revive Anya’s interest in Roman it was competition. At the very least a flame of jealousy had been ignited by Sophie’s appearance.
Roman again looked over at Anya, who was scrolling through photos on Instagram. The glow from her tablet illuminated her reddish-blonde hair and danced across her high cheekbones. Outwardly she’d hardly changed over their seven-year marriage, but she seemed so different now. Sometimes she felt like a stranger. They’d had good times together. Certainly at the beginning, before she’d realised he loved his job but wasn’t aiming to become the youngest police commissioner in New Zealand; and before she realised what kind of lifestyle a policeman’s salary meant in the expensive city of Auckland.
“What?” Anya made an annoyed sound in the back of throat but kept her eyes fixed on her device.
“Nothing,” Roman said, and went back to his book.
But he couldn’t concentrate.
He couldn’t rid himself of the look on Sophie’s face when she’d seen them at the market. It made his stomach clench and, if Roman was completely honest with himself, his heart ache. Sophie had been crushed, and while a part of him soared at the knowledge that she felt that way, that he hadn’t been wrong about their connection, the cold hard reality was that he was in fact, a married man.
