To: Lyn; Cat

From: Gemma

Subject: Kara

Dear Lyn,

I don’t know how to set up an address book but thank you for the thought. I don’t mean to alarm you but have you heard of SHAKING BABY SYNDROME? I think leaving Maddie with Kara could be very dangerous. Once I saw her shaking a box of cornflakes FURIOUSLY. She is a teenager and teenagers have problems with their hormones that cause them to be just a little insane. Can’t you ask Cat, once she has finished her bad mood? Or else I could cancel my date with the luscious locksmith. I am prepared to do that to save Maddie’s life. Let me know. Love, Gemma

Cat wondered if her face looked different. It felt different, as if it were bruised and swollen. Both her eyes as if like they’d been punched. In fact, her whole body seemed strangely fragile. She’d been holding herself stiffly all day, as if she were sunburned.

It was surprising really, how much this hurt and how consistently it hurt. All day at work she kept thinking that she ought to get a painkiller and then remembering that she wasn’t actually in physical pain.

She hadn’t slept much the night before.

“I’ll sleep on the sofa bed,” Dan had announced, looking heroic and pale.

“No, you won’t,” said Cat, refusing to give him the satisfaction.

But when they got into bed and she lay there looking at the ceiling and listened to Dan’s breathing starting to slow—he was actually going to sleep—she had snapped back on the light and said, “Get out.”

He went, clutching his pillow sleepily to his stomach. Cat lay in bed and imagined her husband having sex with another woman. She was right there, under the covers with them, watching his hands, her hands, his mouth, her mouth.

She couldn’t stop. She didn’t want to stop. It was necessary to imagine every excruciating second-by-second detail.

In the middle of the night she woke Dan up to ask him what color underwear the girl was wearing.

“I don’t remember,” he said blearily.

“You do! You do!” She kept insisting until finally he said he thought it might have been black, at which point she burst into tears.

Now Cat looked at the people in the 4:30 P.M. Operations Meeting and wondered if this thing, this vile thing, had ever happened to them.

Sales Director Rob Spencer was in his favorite position by the whiteboard, enthusiastically scribbling flamboyant arrows and boxes. “Folks! I think this makes my point very clear!”

Rob Spencer. Well, that was a joke. For the last five years or so Rob Spencer had been having an affair with gorgeous Johanna from accounts. It was the company’s favorite secret. Telling new staff the Rob/Johanna legend was part of the induction procedure at Hollingdale Chocolates. The only people who didn’t know, presumably, were Rob’s wife and Johanna’s husband. Everyone stared with enjoyable pity at the two unfortunate spouses when they made their appearance each year at the annual Christmas party.

It occurred to Cat that she now had something in common with Rob Spencer’s pathetic wife. She was the faceless wife in Angela’s amusing story of a one-night stand with a married man. Well I feel sorry for the wife…the wife isn’t Angela’s responsibility…who cares about the wife, just give us the gory details, Ange!

She swallowed hard and looked down at Rob’s analysis for a quick way to humiliate him.

Colorful graphs. Nifty little spreadsheet. All done by his minions, of course.

Aha.

“Rob,” she said.

Ten heads turned in relieved unison to face her.

“Catriona!” Rob spun from the whiteboard, teeth flashing against solarium-yellow tan. “Always value your feedback!”

“I just wondered where those figures came from?” she said.

“I do believe the marvelous Margie did the number crunching for me.” Rob tapped his figures seductively, as if Margie had given him a rather marvelous blow job at the same time.

“Yes, but what figures did you give Margie to crunch?” asked Cat.

“Ah, let’s see,” Rob began shuffling vaguely through his paperwork.

She savored the moment before moving in for the kill.

“Looking at the marketing budget here, it seems you’ve given her last financial year’s figures. So your analysis, while fascinating, is also, hmmm, how can I put it best…irrelevant?”

Too bitchy. Male egos were so tender, just like their balls. She would pay for that one.

“Crash and burn, Rob, mate!” Hank from production thumped his fist on the table.

Rob held up both hands in boyish surrender. “Team! It seems the Cat has caught me out again with her razor-sharp eye for errors!”

He looked at his watch. “It’s nearly five on a Friday afternoon! People, what are we still doing here? Who wants to join me in drowning my humiliation at Albert’s? Catriona? Can I shout my nemesis a drink?”

His eyes were opaque little marbles.

Cat smiled tightly. “I’ll hold you to it another time.”

She bundled up her files and left the room, feeling quite ill with inappropriate-for-the-workplace hatred for Rob Spencer.

To: Cat

From: Gemma

Subject: Drink

Would you like to have a drink?

We can talk about the bad mood you’re not in.

Love, Gemma

P.S. Essential that you back me up on Kara issue!

P.P.S. Do you owe me any money by any chance? I don’t seem to have any.

Cat sat in a dimly lit corner of the pub with three beers in front of her and waited for her sisters.