Monday afternoon, as we walked through the door from Ethel’s class down at the art centre, the landline rang. I knew it was almost certainly for Ethel; the only people who had the number were her friends and telemarketers, and even now she loved having them on. Even when she was having a bad memory day, it worked out nicely, because she’d just spin them round in circles until they gave up. Sure, we’d ended up with a set of expensive kitchen knives and a window washer we probably didn’t need given that we lived in a bungalow, but I had to admit those knives cut like a dream.
She walked into the kitchen to answer, and I listened long enough to be able to tell it was a friend rather than a salesperson, then turned my attention to the corset on the coffee table. It was still in parts; I needed to sew all the panels together, insert the boning, and then shape it. It was for one of Chloe’s outfits for the festival, and it had me seriously considering a “no corsets” rule moving forward. I understood why makers online charged so much for them.
But then my phone buzzed, and I realised I had four different messages, all about the same thing. The most recent was from Amy:
AMY
I’m so sorry. This wasn’t me, I promise. Jack can’t keep his mouth shut. Can we talk?
A pit formed in my stomach as I opened the next most recent message, which was from Amy and Jack’s mum Patricia:
PATRICIA
I’ll pretend to be okay with the fact that you two didn’t tell me yourself! Anyway, I suppose you’re officially invited to family dinners, which I’ll be reinstating for Sunday evenings. I know you’re off on that camping trip next weekend, but the weekend after you can help me cook. Ethel obviously invited too. LOL
I was pretty sure she thought LOL meant “lots of love,” despite Jack correcting her several times. I blinked down at the message, trying to piece together what had happened. Why had Amy still not corrected everyone? It was one thing to pretend in the moment outside a bar, but it was another thing to actively lie to her family.
My mind was spinning, but I didn’t have a chance to calm down, because the oldest message, from nearly an hour ago, was from Chloe:
CHLOE
Seriously?????? This is how I hear???? FROM JACK?????
I sighed; okay, that one would need some attention. I texted back immediately:
PHIL
I promise it’s not what it sounds like. I need to talk to Amy, but I promise you’re not desperately out of the loop.
The last remaining message was from Grey, sent just a few minutes after Chloe’s, and I let out a somehow even deeper sigh when I read it. Despite Chloe being furious that she’d found out about Amy and me through the rumour mill– and despite the fact that it was just that: a rumour– she’d clearly been doing her part to keep it spinning. Grey’s message read simply:
GREY
NICE.
At that point I was surprised it hadn’t been shared in our Wench, Please group chat. In fact, it would be so easy to dispel the rumour en masse, I thought. But for some reason, I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it before talking to Amy. Before understanding why she’d let it get this far.
So instead, I ignored Patricia and Grey’s messages and texted Amy back.
PHIL
Free whenever you are.
I’d just decided to get the sewing machine out and get stuck in, hoping to distract myself until Amy rang, when Ethel came out of the kitchen, a sad look on her face.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” I asked, leaping out of my seat and rushing to her side, taking her arm and guiding her towards her chair. Maybe she’d just learned one of her friends had passed away? I wondered if I should start screening her calls.
She sat down and looked up at me, her already quite wrinkled face further creased in concern. I squatted down next to her, holding her hand in both of mine.
“Philip, my love, I know I don’t have the best memory these days.”
“That’s an understatement.”
She swatted my arm. “Cheeky git.”
I grinned at her. She preferred to keep things light-hearted, and I had to admit it felt better for me too.
“But really,” she said, going serious again. “A lot of things get lost to the Great Sieve that is my brain, but I feel pretty confident that I’m not so far gone I would have forgotten if you’d told me something important.”
