Page 6 of People In Love
Yes, pet, Josie says. It might just be … a surprise, at first.
No wind, or noise. Shadow of the swing set behind them on the green.
But if you’re happy, Josie says, then that’s all that will matter, in the end.
She takes her hand off the door and rests it on Nora’s arm. Just lightly. Like a moth landing there.
Have you heard from him lately, she asks, and Nora’s heart does not stop, at the question, but keeps beating, slow, slow, slow.
No, she says, but then, well, yes, but just over email. Have you?
A sigh from Josie, small and sad in the moonlight. Shake of her head.
I’m sure you will soon, Nora says. He’s just moved into a new place, in New Zealand, he said. He’s probably just settling in.
Your dinner will be getting cold, pet, Josie says. Send Robin my love, won’t you?
And Nora nods; waits for Josie to step inside and close her door against the dark, then returns to her mother’s cottage, something sinking in her, or perhaps thawing. Wondering if it could somehow be both.
TWO
We should have a party, Robin says.
A party, Nora repeats, from her place by the hob. She is frying onion, steaming up the windows as the rain falls outdoors. First week of February, now, and the frost is long gone; more rain, again, near relentless. Higher winds.
Isn’t a wedding a party in itself? she asks as she adds more oil, turns up the heat. Robin calls her a joy thief. She calls him a joy addict.
Shared smiles, then. Cooking smells.
All I’m thinking is a wedding’s expensive, Robin says. And takes years to plan.
Does it have to?
Well, I suppose not. But we could have a warm-up act, first. Celebrate this moment, right now. Carpe diem!
You’re very spontaneous these days, Nora says, and he says he knows, it’s his middle name. Or at least, he wishes it was. It’s far more inspiring than Brian.
Nora laughs. Tips a packet of spring greens into the wok.
I think it’d be great, Robin goes on. We could host it here, keep it simple.
He pulls his notebook out from his back pocket; a folded leather journal he carries everywhere. Engagement party, henarrates, elongating the vowels as he says it, and writes the words. First up, he says, the guest list.
Nora adds water chestnuts to the pan, starts mixing soy sauce with sesame oil as Robin reels off the names of their friends. Old colleagues. Art school peers they’ve kept in touch with. Shay, Jin. Henry who runs the bakery down the road. And family, he says. All of mine, and Freya and Josie, of course.
I doubt they’ll come, Nora says.
We should invite them, all the same, he says.
More lines in his notebook, muted agreement in Nora’s throat. The wind outside flecking rain at the window. Ginger paste added, one teaspoon, when Robin says oh, hey, what about Bren?
The oil spits; stings Nora’s skin.
What, she says, as if she hasn’t heard the question.
Would you want to invite Bren?
Um, Nora says, as the sauce continues to spit; she turns down the heat. I don’t even know where he is right now, she says, and then wonders why she is saying this, when she does. Maybe New Zealand, actually. Which is a bit of a way to come, I reckon, for prosecco and pizza.
