Read Online Odd One Out by Monica McInerney - Free Book Online Page A

off a window ledge.
    “Would you like to meet me for a drink on Friday night?”
    “What a lovely idea. I wish I’d thought of it myself.”
    She crossed the dare off the list. “Thank you very much. Seven o’clock? The Spanish bar? Great, see you then.”
    She hung up. She felt great. Really great. And not only because she’d already done one of her dares.
    ***
    There was a knock at the front door just after three o’clock. It was Leila. She didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “That coffee you mentioned the other day. I don’t suppose it’s still up for grabs?”
    “Of course, come in. How did it go?”
    “The soap audition? It was disastrous.”
    “What happened?”
    “Self-sabotage.” Leila gave a big sigh as she followed Sylvie into the kitchen. “Something got into me about two minutes after I arrived and I couldn’t stop giggling. Which would have been fine if it had been a girly part, but I was going for the part of a newly widowed young mother. I read the lines as if it was the most hilarious thing that had ever happened to me.”
    “Oh, Leila.”
    “‘Oh, Leila’ is right. And do you know what made it worse? I heard them talking about it afterward. They said it was the worst audition they’d ever seen. The producer said that one is definitely going on the bloopers tape. I don’t blame them. You should have seen me. ‘
He’s dead? My husband’s dead? But how will I go on without him?
’ And me laughing as if I’ve inhaled a hot-air balloon full of laughing gas.”
    “It must have been nerves.”
    “Not nerves. The gods telling me to find a new career. Sylvie, do you have any cigarettes?”
    “Sorry, no. I don’t smoke.”
    “Neither do I. I want to start, though. Forget the coffee. Do you have to do anything today? Will you come and get drunk with me? You didn’t have anything else planned, did you?”
    Sylvie thought of Sebastian’s list. “Actually, yes. A dinner party. For next Saturday night. Would you like to come?”
    “Sure. If you come and get drunk with me now.”
    “It’s a deal.”
    Six hours later, it took Sylvie five tries to get her key in the lock. It was nearly midnight. Her head was spinning from too much vodka, too much loud music and eight unaccustomed cigarettes. She squinted as she looked at the answering machine. No messages from Mill tonight. Oh, God. That reminded her. She’d meant to check the George’s Gorgeous Gardens website. Some great-niece she was. Mill could be cut up in tiny pieces and buried under the flagstones of her newly gorgeous garden by now.
    As she waited for Sebastian’s computer to warm up, Sylvie went to the kitchen and made herself drink three large glasses of water. She caught sight of her reflection in the dark of the kitchen window. A panda looked back at her. She always ended up with mascara smudges under her eyes when she laughed. She’d spent most of the afternoon laughing.
    “What Midas is to gold, I am to chaos,” Leila had announced as they walked to a bar she knew in Prahran. “Everything I touch turns to ruin. I’m the original Calamity Jane. It’s not funny, Sylvie. Stop smiling. I can’t help it. I’ve been like it since I was a child.”
    As they played pool, Leila entertained her with a litany of her disasters. Her first cubbyhouse, built by her farmer father in secret for her tenth birthday, swept away in a flash flood the day after her party. Her first day at high school ruined when she spent the day with her school uniform tucked into her knickers. Her step into independence, moving to Melbourne from a country town north of Ballarat as a twenty-eight-year-old, hitting a major road hump when the removal van carrying all her belongings caught fire en route. Her attempt to stave off loneliness in her first few months by volunteering to visit old people in their homes coming to an end when her allocated old lady sacked her for not being interesting enough. Her attempt to get fit ending in failure when her