Read Online The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty - Free Book Online
Authors: Liane Moriarty
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at least three separate occasions that she knows of been described as ‘Charming’.
Yep, that about summed it up. What a catch. If Sophie was a man she wouldn’t date herself. She’d run a mile. ‘Jeez,’ she’d say, ‘ regency romances ! Give me a scuba-diving, marathon-running, catamaran-sailing woman!’ The problem is that Sophie wouldn’t want to date the sort of man who would want to date her. She imagines too skinny a man with too nice a complexion, saying, ‘Oh, regency romances, how interesting!’ Blah.
She looks up from her book to watch a family group setting up a picnic nearby. The daddy in his business suit, the mummy in a pretty pink cardigan and skirt, two frolicking angels with white-blond hair. They’ve come in to meet Daddy in his lunch break and he’s so chuffed to see them! Good God, they look like something from a television commercial. Daddy is caressing Mummy’s hand and she’s giggling at something he’s said. Is Mummy looking over and wishing she was a free, single career-woman like Sophie? Nope. No way. She’s so blindingly happy it hurts to look at her.
Oh stop it. You are not going to turn into one of those embittered, jaded single women. They’re a lovely family. If you knew them, you’d be their friend. One of the blond angels comes toddling over to where Sophie is sitting under the tree. He holds out a grubby fist to her and shows her a piece of bark.
‘Wow!’ says Sophie. ‘That’s very pretty.’
‘Sorry!’ The mummy runs over and scoops up her child. ‘Don’t disturb the lady.’
‘It’s OK,’ says Sophie. It’s perfectly OK that you appear to be at least ten years younger than me, and you already have two children, and I’m a ‘lady’ who doesn’t even have a boyfriend. No problem. It’s fine.
There is something so undignified about being single when you’re nearly forty. It’s not glamorous any more, or funny. It’s sad and sometimes it’s lonely, even when you do have a Christmas card list numbering over one hundred and you can remember the birthdays of at least forty different people, not even counting their children. For God’s sake, even the girls on Sex and the City all got matched up in the final episode.
On Saturday afternoon, Sophie had talked to a friend who described what she’d done that morning: two loads of washing, grocery shopping, driving children to soccer and ballet, and so on and so forth. She might even have baked a cake. It was quite extraordinary.
‘What have you been doing?’ asked the friend.
‘Oh, cleaned the bathroom, paid a few bills, you know, just pottering,’ said Sophie, stifling a yawn.
Actually, she was still in her pyjamas and all she’d achieved that morning was getting out of bed. She hadn’t even managed to feed herself breakfast yet. It made her feel like a frivolous flibbertigibbet from one of her regency romances, except that frivolous flibbertigibbets don’t have wrinkles that appear on either side of their mouths when the bathroom lights are too bright, and they don’t feel sick when they see magazine articles about the decreasing fertility of women in their late thirties.
She remembers a woman at her first job who used to sit at the desk next to her doing data entry and saying at regular intervals, ‘Oops! Stuffed it up, buttercup!’ It seems an appropriate description for Sophie’s life: Oops! Stuffed it up, buttercup . You forgot to get a family!
She reads a page of her book. The heroine in her regency romance engages in sparkling banter with her dashing suitor.
Maybe Sophie should try out Internet dating. Maybe she is unrealistically romantic. Maybe she does think her life is a friggin’ fairytale, like her friend Claire had said once when they were both very drunk. ‘Sophie, your problem is that you think life is a friggin’ fairytale. You’re so friggin’ optimistic you don’t just see the glass as half-full, you see it as full , of, of…pink champagne! And the
Yep, that about summed it up. What a catch. If Sophie was a man she wouldn’t date herself. She’d run a mile. ‘Jeez,’ she’d say, ‘ regency romances ! Give me a scuba-diving, marathon-running, catamaran-sailing woman!’ The problem is that Sophie wouldn’t want to date the sort of man who would want to date her. She imagines too skinny a man with too nice a complexion, saying, ‘Oh, regency romances, how interesting!’ Blah.
She looks up from her book to watch a family group setting up a picnic nearby. The daddy in his business suit, the mummy in a pretty pink cardigan and skirt, two frolicking angels with white-blond hair. They’ve come in to meet Daddy in his lunch break and he’s so chuffed to see them! Good God, they look like something from a television commercial. Daddy is caressing Mummy’s hand and she’s giggling at something he’s said. Is Mummy looking over and wishing she was a free, single career-woman like Sophie? Nope. No way. She’s so blindingly happy it hurts to look at her.
Oh stop it. You are not going to turn into one of those embittered, jaded single women. They’re a lovely family. If you knew them, you’d be their friend. One of the blond angels comes toddling over to where Sophie is sitting under the tree. He holds out a grubby fist to her and shows her a piece of bark.
‘Wow!’ says Sophie. ‘That’s very pretty.’
‘Sorry!’ The mummy runs over and scoops up her child. ‘Don’t disturb the lady.’
‘It’s OK,’ says Sophie. It’s perfectly OK that you appear to be at least ten years younger than me, and you already have two children, and I’m a ‘lady’ who doesn’t even have a boyfriend. No problem. It’s fine.
There is something so undignified about being single when you’re nearly forty. It’s not glamorous any more, or funny. It’s sad and sometimes it’s lonely, even when you do have a Christmas card list numbering over one hundred and you can remember the birthdays of at least forty different people, not even counting their children. For God’s sake, even the girls on Sex and the City all got matched up in the final episode.
On Saturday afternoon, Sophie had talked to a friend who described what she’d done that morning: two loads of washing, grocery shopping, driving children to soccer and ballet, and so on and so forth. She might even have baked a cake. It was quite extraordinary.
‘What have you been doing?’ asked the friend.
‘Oh, cleaned the bathroom, paid a few bills, you know, just pottering,’ said Sophie, stifling a yawn.
Actually, she was still in her pyjamas and all she’d achieved that morning was getting out of bed. She hadn’t even managed to feed herself breakfast yet. It made her feel like a frivolous flibbertigibbet from one of her regency romances, except that frivolous flibbertigibbets don’t have wrinkles that appear on either side of their mouths when the bathroom lights are too bright, and they don’t feel sick when they see magazine articles about the decreasing fertility of women in their late thirties.
She remembers a woman at her first job who used to sit at the desk next to her doing data entry and saying at regular intervals, ‘Oops! Stuffed it up, buttercup!’ It seems an appropriate description for Sophie’s life: Oops! Stuffed it up, buttercup . You forgot to get a family!
She reads a page of her book. The heroine in her regency romance engages in sparkling banter with her dashing suitor.
Maybe Sophie should try out Internet dating. Maybe she is unrealistically romantic. Maybe she does think her life is a friggin’ fairytale, like her friend Claire had said once when they were both very drunk. ‘Sophie, your problem is that you think life is a friggin’ fairytale. You’re so friggin’ optimistic you don’t just see the glass as half-full, you see it as full , of, of…pink champagne! And the
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