Page 41 of Here One Moment

“My clairvoyant says it’s a good idea,” she says as she shows Paula photos of her (dreadful) creations on her phone. “I never make a significant life decision without first consulting her.”

Well, Paula is on her second glass of champagne and she doesn’t drink much these days. She’s out of practice. Her head is happily swimming and it is physically impossible not to share the story of what happened on the plane.

The random cousin listens. She purses her lips.

“You think I should be worried?” asks Paula.

“Well, sometimes they mean things metaphorically.”

“How do you metaphorically drown?”

The cousin doesn’t know.

And then it turns out that the person on the other side of Paula has been eavesdropping the whole time and next thing everyone at the table is weighing in on the story, and regrettably, Matt first learns of the prediction when a drunken bridesmaid throws her arms around him (hussy) and tells him she is so, so sorry about Timmy.

He is justifiably annoyed that Paula hasn’t told him this story earlier and that so many other people know before him. She doesn’t have a good answer.

Matt wants to know why Paula was talking to this lady in the first place.

“I wasn’t talking to her!” says Paula. “I told her I didn’t want my fortune told.”

“So you were talking to her.” He is a lawyer too. When they argue they look for holes.

Paula tries to explain that it happened so fast, she was trapped in her seat, what was she meant to do?

“Where were the flight attendants?” asks Matt.

“Well, where were you?” says Paula, which doesn’t even make sense because it had always been agreed that she would go ahead to Sydney a week before the wedding so there would be time if Willow’s dress needed alterations.

“Anyway, it’s nothing to worry about,” says Matt, already snapping out of his bad mood. He is good at that. “We shouldn’t…make a thing of it.”

“I’m not.” Irritation swells. He means “you” shouldn’t make a thing of it.

“What’s this nonsense I hear about Timmy?” It’s her dad. Bushy gray eyebrows forming a V shape.

Paula sees herself, at seventeen, holding the sharpest kitchen knife to his neck in a sweat-slicked hand, while the spaghetti sauce simmered on the stove.

“Bit closer,” said her dad.

“Trust the science,” said her mum.

“My turn next,” said her sister.

Just another wholesome family memory.

Chapter 36

The consequences of my predictions were not necessarily negative.

After my identity became known, I received both “hate mail” and heartfelt thank-you cards.

I honestly don’t know how to feel about the thank-you cards.

Chapter 37

Ethan Chang and a gorgeous frozen-fish heiress sit silently in the back of an Uber, driving through the Rocks under a canopy of red-gold trees, past historic sandstone buildings, cobbled laneways, and sapphire flashes of Sydney Harbour. The streets are blanketed with fallen brown leaves dancing in the chilly breeze and their car cuts through them like the bow of a slow-moving boat.

Ethan feels the kind of euphoria he’s only ever experienced listening to certain music while high. It’s a revelation that it can happen when you’re stone-cold sober on a Saturday morning.

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