Page 21 of The Last to Know
Ash turns to Mona at the sound of her name.
‘Huh?’ she says. ‘Sorry. I was distracted by thepastel de nata. Do you want one?’ She gestures inside, where CJ is drinking espresso from a tiny white cup.
‘No, love,’ Mona says. ‘I’m liquids only until noon. Keeps me in tip-top shape. You go ahead, though.’
Ash shakes her head, CJ waving goodbye to her friend at the coffee shop and heading back their way. ‘I’m OK,’ Ash says, quickly. ‘I don’t even really like them, actually.’
Mona frowns. CJ sails past. ‘Are you OK, doll?’ she asks, and CJ doesn’t address Ash this time, she just struts on by and Ash watches her go. ‘You seem … distracted? This fella of yours got you in a daze? Because I can relate.’
Ash drags her gaze from CJ’s behind, the heavenly roundness of her butt, the unfair sleekness of her skin. ‘Must be that,’ she says, forcing herself to smile.
She really likes Mona, is pleased they’re meeting up again, happy to have a pal outside of CoLab. CJ can’t mess that up for her too, stealing her attention, her focus. For the secondtime, too! She was bloody there at the restaurant that day as well! CJ is haunting her, like an angry ghost of Christmas past, except CJ is more like the unhinged ghost of Lisbon present. Ash gives herself a stern talking-to. She can’t let CJ get to her like this. It is honestly beyond reason.
‘Shall we get out of here?’ she asks Mona. ‘Go do something? Go and find trouble? I need tomove, you know? Walk around, be inspired.’
‘All righty, then,’ says Mona, tapping her palm on the table like passing a motion in a particularly tense vote. ‘Sold. Let’s do this. Keep an eye out for any more thirty-three-year-olds who look like they might be able to keep up.’
Ash collects her things and they head off without a backward glance – a feat Ash considers a victory when she could have looked over her shoulder to double-check CJ is really gone. Not that she wanted to or anything. Whatever.
‘You know,’ Mona says, as they walk. ‘I can see how happy Luis makes you, but if you’re after some unsolicited advice from a broad who has been around as long as I have …’
‘And who doesn’t love unsolicited advice?’ Ash teases.
‘Exactly.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘Just keep your options open, is all,’ Mona counsels.
Ash raises an eyebrow and gives her a look. ‘Spoken like a cougar on the hunt for her next meal,’ she says. Then she adds, for clarity. ‘A compliment.’
‘I appreciate we’re at different life stages. I’m in my little whore era, and you’re looking to go trad wife, which I respect. I was a trad wife once, and I enjoyed it. It gave me purpose,to look after somebody else, to be responsible for our home, our life together.’
‘But …’ says Ash.
They’re arm in arm, two women with no particular direction agreed upon. They’re just moseying.
‘I just have a feeling,’ Mona says.
‘Is it a potential UTI?’
‘Your jokes need work.’
‘Upsettingly true,’ Ash laughs. ‘I will work on them.’
‘You’re using humour as an avoidance device,’ Mona says. ‘Which is fine, show me a strong woman who doesnotuse humour as deflection in emotional conversations. But I will lament this, regardless, because I can, because I feel it is my duty: Luis sounds wonderful, my darling, and I am incredibly happy for you to be having a wonderful time. But the mess with this CJ … I have a feeling, like I say. I wish I’d learned to listen more to my intuition a long time ago, to be honest. Or. Well, I think I’ve always listened to her, I’ve just always ignored her when she wasn’t convenient, too.’ Mona sighs, stands still, forcing Ash to stop alongside her. ‘It’s too early to think about the wedding,’ she settles on. ‘Not because he doesn’t sound wonderful. But I can’t help thinking you might have even more wonder to come. I’d hate for you to close the door on it because you’ve already hitched your wagon to his star, bright as it might be.’
‘A star better than Luis?’ Ash asks. ‘Really?’
‘An old woman can sense such things,’ Mona says. ‘But it’s up to you whether you listen.’
13
CJ
‘I’m so mad,’ CJ tells Luis, from where they’re both working behind the main desk. ‘He was such a nice guy, handsome, I’ve seen him around here before, out at the bars, said hello or whatever, but …’ Here CJ shakes her head, thoughts of last night making her cringe. She’d headed out for a drink alone, knowing she’d bump into friends at one of her most frequented haunts, and she did. And there Dinis was, and they’d flirted, and kissed, and CJ had been so full of this bizarre sexual energy that she simply needed to expel that of course she went home with him and, ‘It was terrible. I’ve never believed in bad sex before, but Luis …’
She sighs, shakes her head. Luis is eating this up – they don’t often talk about who else they have been with when it’s good, but when it’s bad? It’s a sort of game to them, because the sex they have is so mutually satisfying that it reaffirms their continued situationship to know you can’t get it that good everywhere. It’s yet more evidence for keeping Luis around, a not-so-subtle reminder to Luis of what he and CJ have.
