‘Heeeyyy!’ she said. “Bout time. We’ve been worried about you, stuck in your little house, becoming a total loser.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I love your sandals! Where did you buy them?’ Lara hastily said to Kirsty.

‘You know what? I bought them last summer and, on purpose, I never wore them,’ Kirsty said happily. ‘Now everyone wants to get a pair and they can’t! Anyway, guys, I gotta take off. Troy is coming over tonight to hang out with me.’

Emily looked like she’d got a crack on the skull from a frying pan.

‘Like, really?’ Lara interjected. ‘Are you and Troy…?’

‘Like I’m going to tell you!’ Kirsty replied, in high good humour.

Lara walked Kirsty to the valet stand and Emily fumed at me, ‘Troy is my friend. She only met him through Lara. What the hell does Lara see in her? And what does Troy see in her? Stingy bitch, didn’t even pay for her drink. And that stuff with the sandals. Hiding them in a drawer for a year – what was that all about?’

‘Lara’s coming back,’ I warned.

But instead of that shutting Emily up, she said ‘Good!’ then laid into Lara, who was very grown-up about it all. Emily didn’t own Troy, she said. Troy could hang out with whoever he wanted. Yeah, the thing about the sandals was a bit weird, but Kirsty’s job as a gym receptionist didn’t pay much…

‘Let’s get another drink,’ she suggested.

After another Complicated Martini, Kirsty’s traces had been washed away.

‘You coming to Dan Gonzalez’s party on Monday night?’ Emily asked Lara.

‘I thought you weren’t going to go!’

‘Yeah, well, it’s different now. I can hold my head up. I’m a player. So, you coming?’

Lara shook her head. ‘Nuh-uh. I’m going on a date.’

At this point, Emily got all screechy. ‘Tell us!’ she ordered. ‘You never said! Where did you meet her?’

‘At a club.’

To be honest, I was sort of embarrassed. I just didn’t know what to say. If it was a girl going out with a man I’d have been all agog for details, but…

‘She’s way cute,’ Lara said. ‘She used to be a dancer.’

‘A dancer, wow! Hot body?’ Emily asked.

‘Hot.’

Lara went on to describe the girl, the way men usually get described. How good-looking she was, how sweet she’d acted, how she’d really seemed to like Lara…

I pushed away my embarrassment and matched Emily screechy noise for screechy noise. I am a woman of the world, I thought.

11

Slowly I shifted the sole of my foot along the fluffy bathmat. The squashy clumps of wool were balm to my aching feet. I shifted the other foot and felt the touch of every fibre against my over-sensitized skin… so soft, so kind… Then back to the first foot again.

How long had I been standing here? Too long. Maybe I should finish drying myself. Someone else might want to use the bathroom.

As I stumbled to my bedroom to get dressed, I knew one thing for sure. I’m never drinking Complicated Martinis again. Clearly, Emily was a bad influence. I wasn’t what you might call a party animal, but I’d been drunk twice in two days. And I’d never before had a shower while wearing sunglasses – what did that tell me about the company I was keeping?

I wouldn’t mind, but I was the only one who was in shreds. I’d woken at eight, feeling like I was coming round from a coma, my habitual terror on waking even more pronounced, and I’d found Lara and Emily sitting in the kitchen, drinking smoothies and chattering, just like normal people. Hardy creatures.

‘Y’OK?’ Emily had sounded concerned.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘It’s just… I can’t actually open my eyes. The pain is too bad.’

Emily gave me sunglasses and some painkillers, and suggested I take a shower. Which hadn’t really helped, although the bathmat had, at least while I’d been standing on it.

As I got dressed the sunglasses fell off, but when I bent to retrieve them from the floor, black patches scudded before my eyes so I had to leave them. Then I emerged into the living-room, where the sound of my feet slapping on the wooden floor was too much. I was half-looking for a pillow or blanket on the couch, signs that Lara had slept there, but when I peeped into Emily’s room, Lara’s clothes were flung on the floor. She must’ve slept with Emily.

Not slept slept. Just slept, slept. Oh, you know what I mean…

I got the land of my life to see that while I’d been in the shower Troy had arrived on the premises. I squinched a look at him from my aching eyes. Still strangely beautiful, in a slab-of-granite kind of way.

‘Hey, Maggie,’ he nodded.

‘Howya,’ I said, too shattered to be bothered with this ‘hey’ business. I had to lie down. Carefully I lowered myself on to the couch, flattening my back against the cushions, but even when I’d stopped moving, I still felt as though I was sinking, sinking…

Emily and Lara and Troy were discussing the pitch. From far away I could hear their murmuring voices. I found that if I softly moved strands of my hair along my cheek, the pain in my face-bones lessened briefly. Again and again I stroked the feathery strands from my nose to my ear and back again.

‘Y’OK, Irish?’ Troy was standing over me. ‘What’s the deal with your hair?’

Too out-of-it to be embarrassed, I told him. Then I told him about the rug in the bathroom.

‘What you need is a massage,’ he concluded. ‘Work those pressure points.’

‘From you?’

‘No,’ he laughed softly. ‘From the master. You wait.’

Minutes later the front door opened, bringing a great big bright dazzling morning into the room.

‘Close it,’ I begged.

It was Justin, beaming and wearing a yellow and red Hawaiian shirt. I actually thought I might vomit.

A clicky skiddy noise on the floorboards alerted me to a second presence. A little white Scotty dog chasing dust motes and generally being cute. Desiree, I supposed.

‘Right on time, buddy,’ Troy said to Justin. ‘Lady here needs help.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Justin asked in his highish voice. ‘What appears to be the problem?’ He knelt by the couch and theatrically took my pulse at the wrist.