Deirdre shrugged. ‘Who wants to date a sloth? Maybe only other sloths. Otherwise, they’ll ask you to marry them and then have sex with your best friend in the disabled toilet at your engagement party.’
‘May her shopping bags always rip halfway between her car and the front door,’ Kalani snarled.
‘I’m so angry they did this to you,’ Laurie said, her voice breaking as she shuffled her beanbag close enough to wrap an arm around Deirdre’s shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry you’ve been feeling like a sloth and we never noticed.’
‘Well.’ Deirdre sniffed as tears dripped off her cheeks. ‘I wanted to do a sculpture of nothing, because that’s what I really feel like, and I didn’t want to be mean to sloths, but I thought Hattie wouldn’t let me do nothing.’
‘Now, look! You’ve got me started again.’ Kalani pressed her palms against her eyes. ‘If you were nothing, would you be able to make me cry?’
‘It’s the snakeskin coming off,’ Laurie said. ‘All your tears are coming out now. You were right to wear that dress today, Kalani. You should rip it to shreds or burn it when you get home.’
‘It’s not the snakeskin!’ Kalani shook her head. ‘It’s Gavin. Being stupid enough to fall for Heidi Sprag; may her tea always be tepid. I can’t bear that they made you feel like nothing. You’re everything to us.’
‘The hardest thing…’ Deirdre stopped to take in a shuddering breath. ‘The hardest thing is knowing that if I wasn’t enough for Gavin then, when I was still happy and confident andfun, what hope have I got of anyone wanting this nervous, miserable wreck? I’m thirty-five. I thought I’d have a baby by now. I wanted to blame Gavin and Heidi for ruining my chances of becoming a parent, but they aren’t responsible for me being a nothing, nobody sloth. I am.’
She pressed her cheek against the wet papier mâché of her sloth, shoulders slumping as she sobbed. Hattie gently put the sculpture to one side and then held her while the rest of us quietly tidied up and left them to it.
* * *
I’d been hoping that the Gals might have forgotten Hattie’s comment about Gideon, but I should have known better.
‘So,’ Kalani said, while we waited for Deirdre in the living room. ‘Gideon’s pretty gorgeous, isn’t he?’
I took a sip of coffee, coming up with no better strategy than to pretend I hadn’t heard her.
‘Been hanging out with him much?’
‘I had dinner with Agnes, and he happened to be there,’ I said, inspecting the ceiling.
‘Oh, my goodness!’ Laurie gasped. ‘Look at your face. You really like him!’
‘He seems… nice enough,’ I stammered.
‘He’s very nice,’ Kalani said, ‘for a man. You should ask him out.’
‘I’m not… I don’t…’ Utterly out of practice when it came to these kinds of conversations, I crumbled under their scrutiny. ‘He already asked me.’
‘What?’ Laurie was practically bouncing up and down on the sofa. ‘What did you say? Where are you going? When? You should wear that jumpsuit you wore last week. It really suits you.’
‘I told him that I don’t date my client’s family members. I don’t want to risk things getting messy and awkward.’
‘Now thatisboring!’ Kalani groaned.
‘So he asked me on a non-date to the Sherwood Forest visitor centre and I said yes.’
Kalani broke into a grin. ‘Call it what you want, but that’s totally a date. You do know that, right?’
I did know that. I knew that labelling it a non-date was fooling nobody, least of all me. Instead, I’d decided to focus on how one date, maybe a couple more, even a kiss, was perfectly within my casual, carefree, pain-free dating rules, so it didn’t matter whether this was a date or not.
What I was definitelynotfocussing on was how in the one day since I’d seen Gideon, I’d missed him.
* * *
It was nearly nine when Deirdre and Hattie joined us, and by the time everyone had left, Hattie appeared grey with exhaustion.
‘Shall I see what Lizzie’s left for dinner?’ I asked.
She leant back into the sofa cushions, eyes closed. ‘To be honest with you, I’m still full from her fudge cake.’
