The waiter took the card machine away and handed me the receipt with a flat smile. Betty had been making socially inappropriate comments in earshot all evening – ‘So, I’m having my smear test right …’ – because she had no concept of the socially inappropriate. But it had started to get to the poor chap somewhere around an hour in – ‘Only arseholes expect you to have sex without a condom these days’ – and his face, at least, hadn’t quite recovered from these separate waves of shock. I’d been so embarrassed that when the card machine asked if I wanted to leave a tip I’d sincerely considered it, until I realised a) Betty could actually talk about whatever she wanted in public with her friends and b) she was definitely right about the condom thing.
‘Thanks ever so much,’ I said, and smiled. My tip? Be less judgemental.
‘So, can we have a quick check-in before you leave?’ Molly asked.
‘About?’ I shrugged on my coat as Lily cleared her throat.
‘How the sex is with Fred.’
Cora reached across the table to backhand Lily’s upper arm. ‘That is not what we want a check-in over.’
‘Ah, actually—’ Faith raised a finger in protest ‘—I’m certainly curious.’
‘I also wouldn’t mind knowing.’ Betty spoke through a mouthful of food.
‘Perverts.’ Cora looked from one woman to the next before landing back on me. ‘They’re all bloody perverts.’
I nodded. ‘No more or less so than they always have been, though.’
‘We didn’t talk about sex this much when Edi was having sex with Rowan,’ Molly added, weighing in on Cora’s team. It was the crass versus the controlled and I laughed.
‘In their defence, though—’ I stood up ‘—maybe sex with Fred is just more interesting.’
There was a chorus of amusement and applause from one side of the table – Lily, Betty, Faith – while the opposing seats flashed wide eyes before a slow fade to a laugh.
Cora nodded, then, looked at Molly and shrugged. ‘Well, that’s fair.’
Faith tipped her head back to look up at me behind her. ‘It also answers Molly’s question.’
‘I didn’t get to a question.’
‘No, but you did want to ask how things are with Rowan and, or Fred,’ I weighed in, then raised an eyebrow and blew two kisses across to Molly and Cora. ‘The deal is ongoing. Apparently we’re both free to date who we want; we’re still engaged; we still love each other.’ I parroted the explanation out, but my level of conviction wasn’t quite right. I saw Cora flash Molly a look that I thought was a warning not to push, and Molly’s shoulders dropped, as though she were deflated – or beaten at something. ‘Honestly? I don’t know where I’m at with Rowan. We’re seeing each other a bit less than we were, but that’s not through lack of trying.’
‘On your part,’ Lily added.
I hadn’t said it, no. But it wasn’t an unfair addition. ‘Yes, on my part.’ I shrugged. ‘He’s busy, I guess, I don’t …’ I rubbed at my forehead. Over the last few weeks the girls had done a great job of asking all the safe questions, but I couldn’t blame them for wanting to know more – or, if nothing else, wanting to at least know whether I was okay with the hidden ‘more’ of mine and Rowan’s relationship. But the truth was, I didn’t have more to tell. Whatever he was thinking about our engagement, he hadn’t spent enough time in a room with me to say. But who wants to admit that out loud? ‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘You have somewhere to be.’ Betty stood up, then, and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I’ll walk to the door with you anyway. I need the loo.’ She gave me a gentle push. ‘If the waiter swings around, does someone want to grab another bottle of red?’
Cora and Faith said, ‘Yes,’ in unison, and Betty and I giggled our way to the exit.
‘It’s none of our business,’ she said, when we came to a stop.
‘No, but—’
‘But nothing,’ she interrupted again. ‘It’s none of our business. We’re not here to know the ins and outs, we’re just here to support you through them.’ She gave me another kiss on the cheek. ‘Tell Fred we said hello. Text me tonight when you get home safe? Or, you know, when you get wherever you end up.’ She winked and walked off then, and I hurried across town to meet the woman who would take me home that night …
*
Fred came back from the bar with an orange gradient drink in a tall glass, topped with an umbrella.
‘Sex on the beach?’ I asked, after the first sip.
‘That sounds like an offer.’
I laughed. ‘I meant the drink. I think sex on the beach is actually uncomfortable.’
She waved the comment away. ‘It’s different with a woman.’
‘You say that about everything.’
‘Have I been wrong so far?’ She moved a little closer. ‘I think the sex on the beach thing is at least worth putting on the table.’
‘Now that sounds like an offer.’
‘As soon as my blood alcohol drops enough …’
I closed what little space was left between us, then, and kissed her square on the mouth. It was a newfound bravery that had slowly unfolded. Between the girls’ logic – ‘Who gives a shiny shit what anyone else thinks?’ – and Fred’s gentle persuasion – ‘Sweetheart, you’ve got a hall pass. Use this time wisely’ – I was well beyond the point of worrying about friends, colleagues, or anyone else catching us mid-contact. Rowan hadn’t been worried – as evidenced by the number of messages I would still get on the average week from concerned (read: nosy) bystanders who had spotted him out and about – so I’d tried to filter out my own concerns. Still, it was one thing doing this with other men. But Rowan’s thoughts on another woman might be—
‘Are you with me?’ Fred squeezed my arm. ‘You looked miles away then.’
‘I’m sorry. The girls were asking questions tonight. I feel like their worries are floating.’
‘About me?’
‘About Rowan.’
‘Ah.’ She took a long swig from her drink and I wondered whether she was buying time. ‘Okay, give me some guidance, lady – do you want to talk about this or …’ She petered out and nodded to the dance floor. ‘Do you want to get your arse over there and have a little grind on me?’ She took another sip. ‘There’s no right or wrong answer, incidentally. Of course, I know which one I would prefer. But if you’re not in the mood to talk about Rowan, then I guess I could stomach a dance.’ Her smile cracked through the final words, and I bit back on a laugh as well.
‘Dance with me?’
She held out a hand, palm up. ‘I would be honoured.’
Fred and I had talked about Rowan, while tangled in bedsheets and tired from the night before – or sometimes the afternoon, only earlier. She was soft with me like that; not always, but when I needed her to be. She hadn’t commented much, other than to say he was mad for risking the loss of a good partner: ‘Mad or very cocksure,’ she’d once added, but she hadn’t expanded.
She eased my drink away from me and set it alongside hers on a nearby table. When ‘One Drink Away’ by Cher Lloyd kicked in, Fred grabbed me closer to her. ‘God, let this song be a prophecy,’ she whispered to me while we danced and we fell over ourselves with laughter. Her body knocked against mine in a way that I’m sure Lily’s, Cora’s, Faith’s must have done at one point. But there was a kind of heat starting up, from knowing I’d seen those thighs unclothed; that I’d probably see them that way again before the night was over. I could feel a physical shift somewhere. It might have been arousal, I thought. But as Fred pulled me into the most sexually charged hug I think I’ve ever had on a dance floor, it occurred to me that this excitement – this charge – might just be something like freedom …
One song faded out to another and soon the room was flooded with Lady Gaga’s ‘Free Woman’ – and I took it as a sign. I eased myself away from Fred long enough to guzzle down what was left of my drink, leaving a sandy mess at the bottom of the glass, and then I turned back to her with my arms stretched wide to welcome her in. Body to body we backstepped to the centre of the floor and swung ourselves about like teenagers on an A-level results night. It was somewhere in this twirling that the mess of other bodies cleared the way enough for me to see him.
I’d told him I was out that night – with Fred again. He’d only grunted in response and then told me he was staying in – with the boys. I tried to work out the lie: had he planned a night out with the other woman all along, or had someone swiped right at the last minute? Either way, they looked comfortable – close. Fred led my arms in an excited jig, but I still couldn’t help but watch for a second longer: while he brushed hair away from the woman’s face; while he kissed her cheek with a tenderness that meant they couldn’t possibly have had sex yet.
Fred came to a stop, when she realised what I was watching. She tucked an arm around my shoulders and pulled me to her – like I thought Lily, Cora, Faith must have done once. ‘Are you okay?’ she shouted above the music.
I glanced her way but then looked back – and in that time he’d seen us. Rowan stared at me through narrowed eyes, as though he couldn’t place me. I wondered what it must be like to see me so far out of context. But it was clear when the realisation kicked in. He looked like something had physically stung him: his eyes spread wide; his forehead creased; his mouth parted as though he were about to speak across the ocean of bodies between us. He said something to the woman he was with – who was also looking our way – and then forced his way through dancing forms to close the distance. I spotted behind him that the woman’s eyes were still fixed. Are you expecting him to come back to you? I wondered, closely followed by, Do you even know who I am?
Fred eased away from me. ‘I shouldn’t be here for this.’
‘Wait.’ I grabbed her hand and tried to bring her back to me. ‘Why shouldn’t you?’
‘Edi—’ They both spoke at the same time, and it struck me how different my name sounded in each mouth. Fred smiled – an awkward nervous smile that I hadn’t seen on her before – and, I think, laughed, although the sound was hardly audible thanks to the soundtrack of Little Mix’s ‘Confetti’. Rowan only stood there.
‘I thought you weren’t out tonight,’ I shouted to him.
He raised an eyebrow in answer and looked between us. ‘Where’s the infamous Fred?’
She opened her mouth but I got there first: ‘Here.’
I’d never quite known what people meant when they said someone scowled at them. But when he looked back at me, looked me up and down, and then went back to his narrow-eyed stare, I thought, This must be it. He didn’t say anything, but when I opened my mouth to speak again, he silenced me with a shake of the head. He threw Fred the same up-and-down look he’d given me before he walked off – leaving the woman across the room alone with her cocktail. She bunched her arms into a shrug and turned her attention elsewhere. And that’s how much you matter to these women, I thought with my own shake of the head.
‘Hey …’ Fred rested a fingertip against my chin and pulled my face to her. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I am, actually.’ And I really meant it.