‘Hello?’ crackles a voice that sounds a million miles away, like it’s trapped inside a 1980s Commodore 64 computer.
‘Zac?’ I say because it’s his number showing on my phone.
I think I hear my name, but it’s hard to make out through the ear-piercing popping and humming.
‘I can’t hear you—you may have regenerated into a psychotic robot with a stuttering disorder,’ I reply at the top of my voice. Simon, who runs our internet news channel, shoots me a disapproving glower from across the room, which is quite the event given he has resting-bitch-face ninety-nine per cent of the time. Simon prefers our newsroom to be quieter than a graveyard, which is an unending hardship for the rest of us reporters.
With an apologetic glance, I inch past Simon’s meticulously tidy desk and out into the hallway with my phone held to my ear.
‘Zac?’ I say again.
‘…you hear me?’
‘I can hear you, but not well. There’s a lot of static. Is everything OK?’ My stomach contracts a little. I’ve been texting back and forth with Zac and Tara since they left for their backpacking month in South America, but a phone call is out of the norm.
‘…gaged!’
‘Sorry, can you speak a bit slower?’ I squint like that’ll miraculously sharpen my hearing.
‘We’re … engaged!’
‘What?’ I reply loudly, cupping my other ear with my palm. ‘It sounds like you just said you’re engaged.’ I snort half a chuckle.
‘…are!’
‘What?’
A buzzing noise overtakes the crackling before Zac’s cyber voice switches to a robot version of Tara.
‘… asked him to marry me … Machu Picchu … engaged!’
My breath stalls inside my lungs, and I twist to stare at the tiny white bumps of painted concrete on the wall, trying to unscramble those words in my brain.Did Tara just say …
‘Josie?’ Zac’s voice is back on the line.
‘I’m here. Wait … what? You guys areengaged?’
‘Yes! … wanted to ring and tell you.’
‘Oh my god—wow.Wow, wow, wow!’
Want to say ‘wow’ for the seventeenth time, Josie?
I clutch one side of my face, my lips frozen into an ‘O’ shape like one of those clown heads at a fair.
What the hell?
Zac is gettingmarried!?
A confused, delighted, stunned smile begins to grow across my cheeks as the reality of this jaw-dropping,wonderfulnews sinks in.
Yet, somewhere, too deep inside for me to reach or even feel sure it’s there, is a twinge of something disorienting—and almost painful—that I can’t quite name.
CHAPTER 40
Today
Christina drops me outside the Sydney Opera House in her silver Audi convertible, promising to pick me up after she’s finished her late-night shopping. I really want her to meet Zac, so we hatch a plan for me to keep him there until she arrives.
