Read Online The Playdate by Louise Millar - Free Book Online

for days . . .”
    She looks alarmed.
    I take a breath. “I’m going back to work—on Monday. At my old studio.”
    She shrugs slightly, and puts her hand over her mouth. It slides farther up over her eyes.
    “Sorry . . .” I say, wrinkling up my face. “I just have to.”
    Suddenly I hear her sniff.
    What is she doing?
    She sniffs again.
    “Suze!” I exclaim. “It’s just a three-week project to start with to see if I can still do it, and I’ll be round at the weekend and . . .”
    She lifts her face. It takes me a horrible second to realize she is smiling.
    “I know—you bitch,” she says, pretending to hit me on the arm again. “The woman next door told me.”
    She rolls her eyes with comedy effect to emphasize how bad this is.
    I already know.
    “Oh God, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I told her.”
    “Hey,” she says, “don’t worry about it. I think it’s great.”
    “Really?”
    “Absolutely. I thought you seemed a little down. But what about Rae?”
    “She’s going to after-school club.”
    “Really? What does Tom say about that?”
    I grimace. “What do you think?”
    “You want me to keep an eye on her?” she says.
    She, more than anyone, knows how hard it is for me to leave Rae.
    “Thanks,” I say, putting down my wineglass and hugging her. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I try to ignore the hypocrisy of my own words.
    “Oh, you’re welcome,” she says. Even though she’s been here for more than two years, Suzy has never stopped replying like an American to each and every thank-you she receives, and sometimes I want to tell her to stop, but I don’t. “I know you’d do it for me.”
    For some reason, I can’t leave it there. I feel I owe Suzy something back. I have to meddle.
    “Do you ever think about doing something else now that the kids are at nursery—working, or studying or something?”
    I realize I can’t remember what Suzy did before kids. I think she met Jez when she was temping in an office that he was contracting for in Denver.
    Her expression shifts.
    “No,” she says. “Oh my God, no. Really. I just want to be there for my kids, Cal. It’s important to me.”
    A picture of Rae pops into my head: she is coming out of class on Monday, not into my arms, but to the back of the queue of exhausted kids led off by the after-school club teacher to yet another stuffy room full of more chaotic noise and childhoodgerms, where they will wait till tight-jawed parents dash from the Tube to grab them at 6 P.M.
    “Listen, don’t worry about me—here’s to you,” Suzy says, lifting her glass. “Good luck. You know I’ll miss you.”
    All of a sudden, I don’t want my wine. She looks at me quizzically.
    “What’s up? Are you nervous about going back?”
    “Incredibly,” I say. I am actually feeling hurt but I’m not sure why.
    She looks at her phone screen.
    “Oh, hell,” she says.
    Jez probably can’t find the nappies. Four minutes, I calculate. That must be a record. The bottle of wine sits on the countertop, not even half-drunk.
    “Got to go,” she says. “Listen, just ring me if you’re worried. And, hey, don’t be nervous, I know you’ll be brilliant.”
    No, you don’t, I think. You have no idea whether I’ll be brilliant or not because we’ve never really spoken about my job. I am not sure that you even know what a sound designer does and you certainly don’t know what it took me to become one. Because you’ve never asked.
    But I hug her anyway, knowing I should be grateful that she cares enough to say it.
    As she leaves she turns.
    “What was she like?”
    “Who?”
    “The woman next door.”
    “Really nice, actually. She gave Rae a little toy when we went round, which I’ll tell you about another time. And I’m going to borrow a book from her; she has hundreds,” I say.
    “Maybe I should invite her in for coffee,” Suzy murmurs.
    “I see—gone five minutes and you’re already replacing me,” I say, trying