by Lia Weston
She stares at me, and finally says, ‘Did you just call me an idiot?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Also, I don’t know your middle name.’
Mica looks down at her knees. ‘Sophia’s your perfect woman, not me.’
‘She’s not. Think about it – all she does is jog or lie around. She probably hasn’t seen any Daniel Craig movies. She’s never eaten guacamole made of peas. What would we talk about?’
‘Touché,’ says Mica.
We sit side by side, not quite touching, not quite sure what to do now with this new thing of ours. I wait, like Alex’s row of bobblehead figures with their wands and magic hammers.
‘I can’t cook,’ she says after a minute.
‘I’ll make Pasta Surprise.’
‘I’m a terrible dancer.’
‘So am I.’
‘I hate running.’
‘I’ll never make you do it. But if Gen makes you Special Awesome Noodles, you’ll have to eat it.’
‘Deal,’ says Mica.
‘Well, that pretty much covers it, I guess.’
‘Yeah.’
I put a finger gently under her chin and tilt her face to mine. Everything on the periphery shimmers and disappears like a mirage. There’s nothing but Mica, softly filling my head with pepper and bergamot, pulling me under to happily drown.
‘By the way,’ she says, quite an interval later, ‘you’ll never guess what my middle name is.’
‘Tell me. It’ll be quicker than guessing.’
‘Sophia.’
‘You’re kidding.’ I sit back against the handrail. ‘Gen was right. I am psychic.’
‘Or you’ve forgotten you had access to my confidential HR files, saw my middle name was Sophia and then filed it away in that interesting brain of yours.’
‘You’re killing the mood.’
‘No, I’m not,’ says Mica, pulling me in to her again. After a few seconds, I agree.
‘I have to ask you another question,’ I say a bit later.
‘Shoot,’ says Mica.
‘Where are you on the scale of high to low points in your life?’ I indicate a vertical ruler. ‘Because I’d say you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen but I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you.’
‘Are you asking me to have sex in a sports car?’
‘Nope,’ I say. ‘But we do have a jumbo box of emergency underpants and a half-inflated bouncy castle.’
She looks at me properly, pink-tinged on her cheeks, green flecks of shadow smudged under her eyes, the blue in her hair falling into black, my rainbow-coloured girl, and grins.
‘I’ll go turn on the generator,’ says Mica.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing a book is one thing, but getting it into the hands of readers (like you, hello there!) is quite another, so I am indebted to the following people.
To the team at Pan Macmillan, who have been absolutely brilliant – in particular, Cate Paterson, Danielle Walker and Clare Keighery – and to my editor Julia Stiles.
To my lovely friends who let me pick their brains regarding the strange places that You Wish took me: Georgia Cheesman, for illuminating how visual artists process their environment; Dr John Flackett and Emma Berry, for patient advice on cloud and IT procedures, and for helping me untwist a thorny plot; and Carla Scragg, for guidance on all things legal and criminal. Special thanks to the artist Jack Franceschini, for letting me interrogate him about his work and techniques while he created a beautiful wall piece. I stress that any errors in the book regarding these areas are mine.
To the rest of my friends and family, who put up with my disappearing act while this book was being written, especially: Tony Selover, Mark Riley, Maïté Petrement, Garry Patterson, Holly Nielsen, Tamika Kenyon, Brianna Rolfe, Rach Buchanan, Karia McQuillen, Vikki Wakefield, Allayne Webster, Karen Richardson, Sam Snoad, Poona Ghazizadeh and Louise Fay. Finally, my special gratitude to my unflagging cheerleaders: Jen Rossiter, Gloria Hague and my beloved Pete Hague. Thank you.
About Lia Weston
In between writing novels, Lia Weston runs a bicycle shop in Adelaide with her husband, Pete, and also works as a freelance copyeditor. You Wish is Lia’s third novel.
Also by Lia Weston
Those Pleasant Girls
This is a work of fiction. Characters, institutions and organisations mentioned in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe actual conduct.
First published 2018 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000
Copyright © Lia Weston 2018
The moral right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
The author and the publisher have made every effort to contact copyright holders for material used in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked should contact the publisher.
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au
EPUB format: 9781760559830
Typeset by Midland Typesetters
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