Chapter
One

"So, latest news—Michael has a new girlfriend," Sally announced. "Guess what she's called?"

"Hmmn," Jude said. "Have we had this one before?"

"No, it's a new name. I think…" Sally ran quickly through a mental list. "Yes, it's a new one."

"OK," Jude started. "Jenny? Rachel? Daisy? Or is he having one of his foreign phases?" She stalled for a moment, then came up with: "Marie? Or Cherie?" triumphantly.

"Nah, this one's English. He met her in New York, but she's English."

"Brunette…" Jude began.

"Sparky…"

"Pretty…"

The two of them were almost chanting this together now. It was a long-established ritual.

"And, of course, she's twenty-four," Sally finished.

"That's older than the last one," Jude pointed out.

"Yeah, but she was just a fling. He likes them about twenty-four if it's going to last a bit."

"Is this going to last a bit?"

"He sounds serious."

Jude rolled her eyes.

"No, he does actually sound quite serious," Sally insisted.

Jude shot a glance sideways at Sally, to see if her expression belied the tone of her voice, which was as easy and unaffected as ever. Sally seemed perfectly relaxed, though. A dress she had just bought lay in her lap and she was holding up the bodice against herself, measuring the length of the straps. She marked off one of the straps with a pin and started to unpick the stitches holding it in place at the back.

"Why am I so short-waisted," she said, more as a lament than a real question. "Every single thing I buy, the straps are always too long…"

No reply was needed. Sally had voiced this complaint many times before. Jude registered it absently with a tiny part of her mind; her thoughts were somewhere very different. Every time Michael found a new girlfriend, Jude expected that this time, Sally would crack. No matter how long Jude had known Sally and Michael—five years now, was it, since Sally had moved in next door, and cast her whole exciting, rich, charmed life out so generously before Jude, like a glittering net in which Jude had been only too happy to entangle herself? But even if it had been fifty years, instead of five, Jude would never understand the way Sally talked about Michael and his constant pursuit of girls who all, to Jude's unprejudiced eye, looked like younger and younger versions of Sally herself. Sally really seemed not to care. If anything, she was amused, even flattered, by the resemblance. Maybe it was just that Jude had never been able to stay friends with an ex, let alone turn one into a sort of brother whose relationships she watched over as Jude imagined a sister might. Maybe Jude was simply envious of the kind of closeness Sally and Michael had. Jude had struggled with this question long and often and never arrived at any conclusions.

"When does he get back from New York?" she asked.

"Next week."

"With the new chick?"

"I think so. She lives in London, anyway, so we'll meet her soon. You know how Michael likes to bring them round for approval. Oh, I never told you her name. Katie."

"Perfect."

Jude held up her glass. Sally, pins in her mouth, stretched to the coffee table to retrieve her own, and they clinked glasses in a toast to Katie.

"She sounds nice," Sally said through the pins.

"Young," Jude said from the elderly heights of thirty-three.

"Well… Nice but young."

"Do you ever think you should warn them?"

Sally's head jerked up and she stared in surprise at Jude.

Copyright © 2003 by Lauren Milne Henderson