"We need to talk!"
The universal phrase that means someone is in deep shit came out of my mouth like the knell of doom.
Sue stopped and looked at me for a moment, and then continued on towards the stairs, dragging that stupid little suitcase behind her. One wheel jittered from side to side as it always did, annoying me even more.
"We can talk after I've rested," she said over her shoulder.
"We talk now, or you can just turn around and head on back out the door again – permanently! You're already packed, so it won't take ten seconds."
She stopped, paused for a long moment and then turned around, looking at me properly for the first time since she got home. I kept my face absolutely expressionless – she would get no clues from me as to what this was about.
Her eyes narrowed slightly – those big, innocent, lying blue eyes that drew men to her like flies to a corpse. I could almost see her thoughts turning over, trying to work out how bad it was going to be.
"What's bugging you?" she said with a slight sneer in her voice.
"That sneer you think I never notice, for one," I said levelly.
She sat down on the front edge of the opposite sofa and crossed her arms in the traditional shit-is-about-to-go-down pose that is universal amongst women around the world. I think the pose is to defend vital internal organs against damage, because they know violence is likely to happen – either to or by them. It's like the cat's stare on seeing another cat – equally a warding and a threat.
"So what crawled up your butt?" she asked. She was baiting me to try and make me lose my concentration.
"How was your weekend?" I asked, ignoring her words.
"Pretty good," she said offhandedly.
"Good food?"
"Yes," she said, nodding. "They have a great chef and-"
"Good wine?" I cut her off.
"Their selection is-"
"Good company?" Again, I cut it short.
"You know the girls, they-"
"Good orgasms?"
There was a longer pause this time. Once again, I could almost see her thoughts whirling as she tried to work out what – if anything – I knew. It was almost as if her face was a screen on which those thoughts were projected.
She shrugged and raised her hands to the side. "I may have had a strum in the shower, the way I like to. I was missing you and..."
I refused to let my face change at her lies.
"A weekend with the girls, huh? Just a weekend with the girls, right? Just a time to take in a show and catch up on all the gossip. Maybe get a massage, drink a lot of wine, and have a good laugh."
"Yes, the same as all the other girls' weekends we've been on."
"So this one was the same as all the previous ones, was it?" I asked.
I must have let something through in my voice, as she paused once again, staring at me, trying to work out if I knew.
"Pretty much... Why?"
"So nothing different happened this time?"
"No."
"Okay," I said and picked up my newspaper. I now had the information I needed, and wanted time to think about it. I wasn't sure how to react. Something was going to happen, but I needed to plan it through.
But I'd let the genie out of the bottle, and she wasn't going to let it go at that. Now it was her turn to need information.
"Why are you asking?"
"I was just wondering."
"Why were you wondering?"
I was tired. My eyes felt gritty and my face and hands felt grimy. I decided to take a shower, but she wasn't going to let it go.
"Rob, why were you wondering about something I do regularly? Honey, please tell me if something happened. I feel like you don't trust me anymore, and I need to know why."
"It was just something Jenny said before you left," I admitted. It wasn't just that, but it was what had started me thinking.
"What did she say?"
"She and Helen came by to talk to you, but you were out. I asked her if they'd finished packing. She said, and I quote, "Not just finished packing, we
are
packing." When she said that, she had that sneer that I thought you had patented for yourself. And then they both giggled. Women in their late twenties, giggling like schoolgirls. That's not something you hear everyday – especially about something like putting clothes in a suitcase."
Her eyes widened slightly. "It sounds like a silly thing to say."
"That's what I thought initially, but it struck a chord somewhere in my mind. I write all day, and in my mind words drift around, all jumbled up. And sometimes they morph into something altogether different, and strike a spark which can flare up into a bushfire."
"It sounds painful," she said with a laugh which sounded horribly false.
"Oh sometimes it can be very painful. Like now."
This time the pause became incredibly tense.
"They'd probably been hitting the wine," she finally said dismissively, trying to get me to drop it.
"I hope not – what with Helen driving the four of you to the hotel. You could have been killed in an accident. I guess one of us was lucky that didn't happen."
She took a moment to think about what I'd said. It could be taken a number of ways – one of which was not pleasant.
She drew her legs up and folded them underneath her, all aggression now absent in her body language and displaying only defence.
"So what do you girls talk about on these weekends?" I asked, knowing that the abrupt change in direction would throw her off balance for a moment.
