“You must think I’m terrible,” she said to Michael, snuggled under her airline blanket, feeling a little drunk on too many liqueurs.

“No,” said Michael. “How hard is it to cross a road?”

“Exactly.”

She told him how weirdly nervous she felt about seeing Gemma, a strange sense of resistance even as she rushed home to be with her. It felt as if Gemma had moved up to a higher, more complex level of human emotions that Lyn couldn’t even hope to understand. She didn’t know the rules. She didn’t know the right thing to say to make it better. It was like Gemma possessed a secret, terrible knowledge that Lyn could only clumsily guess at.

“I’ve always known the right thing to say. I’m good at making people feel better. But nothing is really going to make her feel better, is it? Not for a long, long time. It’s not fair.”

“A friend of mine lost his little boy to leukemia,” said Michael. “I was so frightened of calling him up, I got a migraine. I almost chickened out.”

“But you did it.”

“Oh yeah, I did it.”

And for a minute they both sat silently, trying out other people’s pain, until Michael said, “Mmmm, I think another liqueur might be in order, don’t you?”

Eventually, they both fell asleep, waking up rumpled and sticky-mouthed to the stomach-churning aroma of airplane breakfasts and Australian sunshine streaming through the plane.

They promised each other they’d get together for a drink sometime. He gave her his business card, and she wrote her number on the back of one of his cards.

Lyn looked at the name on the card, as he stood in the aisle reaching easily into the overhead locker for his bags.

“Um,” she said, looking up at him from her seat. “Aren’t you…someone?”

He smiled down at her. She noticed the faintest suggestion of a dimple creasing his left cheek, like an innocent memory from his childhood. “Yup,” he said. “No question about that. I am definitely someone.”

When Cat saw the card, she told Lyn that he was an up-and-coming computer genius, with stacks of money and an ex-model for a wife.

They met for their drink about a month after the flight. Lyn arrived at the city bar with low expectations. No doubt they would find it impossible to replicate the easy intimacy of their conversation on the flight and there would be lots of awkward pauses and a sense of why did we bother?

Instead, the conversation flowed just as seamlessly. She told him about the funeral and Gemma’s strange, white face, how she didn’t want to say one word about how she felt about Marcus. Not one word. And this from a girl who normally shared her innermost thoughts as casually and often as most people talked about the weather. Lyn had bought a book on the Stages of Grief to try to understand.

He told her about taking his daughter kayaking on Middle Harbour and how his wife was renovating their house for the third time, which Michael was doing his best to understand too.

She told him about an idea she had for home delivering gourmet breakfasts.

He told her how he was planning to get in on the ground floor with some computer networking phenomenon they were calling the “Internet.”

When they stood up to say good-bye, Lyn thought to herself with satisfaction, Well, it just goes to show it is possible to have a friendship with an interesting, intelligent (actually rather attractive) man without that distracting sexual element.

Next thing she knew Michael had his arms around her and they were kissing in a way that had a very distracting sexual element.

Lyn had become the Other Woman—an event not listed on her five-year plan.

To: Lyn

From: Nana

Subject: A little suggestion

Dearest Lyn,

I hear that you’re having Christmas lunch at your place this year. Well done to you, darling. I wonder if your father and I could come too. He seems to have broken up with that little foreign girl and he is very down at the moment. He’s not like himself. I hear you’re planning a seafood theme. That sounds lovely. I could bring a nice leg of lamb for you. I’m not sure how your mother would feel about Frank coming, but he assures me they are on good terms these days. What do you think? How is Maddie? Gemma tells me she can sing all the words to the Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial. She is a very intelligent child. She takes after you and your sisters. With much love from Nana

To: Nana

From: Lyn

Subject: Christmas Day

Dear Nana,

Of course you and Dad can come to Christmas lunch. The more the merrier! (I checked with Mum and she agrees that she and Dad can speak civilly to each other these days. Miracles will never cease!) You will be pleased to learn that Maddie can now sing all the words to the Pizza Hut commercial as well. She’s working her way through all the major fast-food groups. Mum is horrified. Love from Lyn

To: Cat

From: Lyn

Subject: The Dan Issue

Hi Cat,

I wish you would stop hanging up on me. We can’t avoid each other for the rest of our lives. I don’t know what Dan has told you but here are the facts.

After we left the pub that Melbourne Cup Day you said kissing that boy was like kissing an ashtray and if he called you there was no way you would go out with him.

I met Dan again by accident two days later at the Greenwood with Susi. (He thought I was you at first.) Dan asked me to go out. I said yes. I THOUGHT YOU WEREN’T INTERESTED—see above.

I didn’t tell you because we weren’t talking at the time. I can’t remember why. (Some fight about money on the way home in the cab from the Cup? Gemma’s fault probably.)