Page 35 of A Midlife Gamble

'Sorry?’ Caro turned to her.

‘The Grand Canyon.’ Kay laughed. ‘Where were you? I was saying we should book it today. I’d hate to miss it.’

'The helicopter?’ Caro said blankly.

‘Yes.’ And again Kay laughed. ‘Helen’s got it on her phone now. Where were you, Caro?’

But before Caro could answer, Kay’s phone pinged.

‘Marianne,’ she said, slipping her reading glasses on to squint at the text. ‘She says Tony has some business downtown and she’ll be over by ten.’

‘Did she stay with him last night?’ Helen asked.

Kay nodded. ‘Last two nights. Apparently he’s got some fancy suite over at another hotel.’ She took off her glasses. ‘She’s smitten, that’s for sure.’

‘Mmm,’ Caro started. ‘He seems…’ but she didn’t finish. She put her cup down and smiled too tightly. Too many thoughts were now racing around her head. She wasn’t even sure what she had been about to say.

‘Nice?’ Kay offered.

‘Not very trustworthy,’ Helen said bluntly, and looked at Caro.

‘I didn’t say that,’ Caro flushed.

‘Nooo,’ Helen stretched the word. ‘But I did. Anyway, I’ll get this booked.’ And she looked back down at her phone.

Caro nodded. She tucked the same strand of hair behind her ears twice, blinking hard. Her eyes stung, and in the midst of this chaotic and bustling restaurant, sitting opposite one lifelong friend and beside another, she was engulfed by a sudden and profound loneliness. The message that had just been passed from Helen was unambiguous.Not very trustworthy.Helen wasn’t just talking about Tony. Within that description, she included Caro and Caro knew this as sure as she knew it was day. With Kay still texting Marianne, Caro swiped the screen to unlock her own phone, looking for a message from Shook, looking for company, support, a little love. But there was nothing. He’d said he wouldn’t contact her, and if there was one thing she was sure of, it was that he was a man of his word.

‘Ah!’ Kay had her glasses back on, reading through another text that had just arrived. ‘Marianne says we’re leaving for the ranch at three. It’s about an hour away.’

‘That sounds great,’ Helen said, the note of determination in her voice unmistakeable.

‘It does,’ Caro managed, but she was empty as a drum. This trip, this dream trip she had so carefully constructed, had been built upon sands she didn't even know had shifted. A knot formed, deep in her belly. A knot of worry. One way or the other, no matter how difficult, no matter how awful the confrontation would be, she had to talk to Helen. Explain what Helen had seen, explain that although, yes, there had been times – distant and incredible as it seemed to Caro now – when, Helen having left the room, she had let Lawrence rest his hand on her leg. But not now. That wasn’t something that was even possible now. The coffee she was drinking too quickly scalded her mouth, and as the burn travelled down her windpipe, Caro felt she deserved it. She wouldn’t have done anything. All those distant and incredible times… nothing would have progressed. She knew this now, but it was no comfort because the knowledge had come too late. Like being handed a compass, after she’d found her way home. It was the friendship that mattered most, far more than the value she'd mistakenly placed in Lawrence's attention. The friendship with Helen that had sustained her through three decades of life, and that had proved more constant than any other source of emotional support in this lonely world. What was clear, what was blindingly obvious, now that she was out of the storm, safely anchored with Shook, was that her loneliness had been a house with no walls, leaving her vulnerable to every passing change of weather. It wasn't much of an excuse to explain why she'd always allowed Lawrence to overstep the boundary, but it was the only one she had. No, she would never have hurt Helen and yes, she would have staked her life on this. What she didn’t know, what she had no idea of, was how she was going to get Helen to see that.

16

The knot was still there, only now it had unravelled, to coil, parasite like, around Caro’s intestines, as she stood staring blankly at Hugh Hefner and the bunny girl in bed next to him.

Madame Tussauds? In Vegas? She didn’t get it. Didn’t see the point or the enjoyment to be gained as she watched yet another middle-aged man, with stiff joints and sweaty hands that he wiped on his trousers, clamber up onto the bed, ready for his middle-aged wife to take the photo.

She’d tried. She’d shaken Elvis’s hand and managed a smile as the waxwork responded with a staticYou’ve sure gotta lot of nerve, baby.She’d stood alongside an enormous basketball player while Kay took her photo. She’d slapped her hand over the hand of Eric Clapton, displayed alongside Paul Simon’s and Janet Jackson’s, on a Wall of Hands. She had stood and watched, as obese teenagers grated behind Beyoncé and not once had she been tempted to join in. To getinteractivewith the waxworks, as they had been encouraged to do upon entering. A stance, she was acutely aware, that set her apart from the others. Because up ahead, Kay, Marianne and Helen were having a great time.

It’s ok to touch,the screens in every room repeated on loop. And so they had. Helen especially, immediately jumping right in to pick up a prop sword and decapitate Jack Sparrow. As if, Caro couldn’t help thinking, she was on a mission to keep herself distracted, to put distance between them and keep it that way.

And because everyone else was so intent upon having fun, she had continued to try, always feeling deeply uncomfortable and always keeping her mind focused on the bottle of hand sanitiser at the exit. She was counting down, waxwork by waxwork. But each new room was a form of mild torture, with the one she found herself in now perhaps worst of all. No, she was as far from seeing the point of all this as she’d ever been.

The middle-aged man shuffled himself off the bed, stuffing his shirt in to cover a huge protruding belly.Did ya get it?he called to his wife and his voice woke Caro from her thoughts. When she looked up, she saw that apart from this man and his wife, she was alone in the playboy room. The others had moved on. She eased past the couple, who were now checking the photograph, and entered a passageway that was dark and narrow. Up ahead, she could hear Kay laughing and she smiled, momentarily forgetting her discomfiture with Helen, with Hugh Hefner and Bunny Girls and Vegas in general. Something was obviously funny, and this was Kay’s trip. No matter how silly, how tacky, how difficult she was personally finding it, Kay was enjoying Vegas immensely, and to hear her laugh like this was a balm. The passageway opened up into a room backdropped by a gauzy silver curtain. In front of the curtain stood a waxwork of a tuxedo-wearing George Clooney. Did he ever wear anything else, Caro wondered as she edged to the side. George’s hand was stretched out, for whomever wished to take it, distinguished streaks of grey in his sideburns. And there, hobbling and wobbling on one leg was Marianne, stuffing… Caro blinked, yes… stuffing herself into a wedding dress.

‘What’s going on,’ she said, her voice as light as she could manage.

Kay had the back of her hand pressed to her mouth, tears running down her cheeks. ‘Marianne is going to marry George Clooney.’

Even Helen, standing behind Marianne to help her into the dress, had visibly relaxed. She was laughing too, and it was easy to see how genuine the laughter was, how unforced.

‘You need these.’ Kay stooped to pick up a large plastic bouquet of white roses.

‘I need to get this on first,’ Marianne gasped.

From behind Helen bent and gave a great upward tug on the dress.

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