Three Wishes

by Liane Moriarty

  She had a sudden image of herself running up the escalator and a baby flying from her clumsy hands, hurtling through the air, shoppers looking up with mouths agape, the tampon lady tossing aside her walking stick to hold out both hands to catch it.

  She snorted through her straw.

  She remembered the first time she and Cat baby-sat Maddie for Lyn. Cat was lying on her stomach on the floor reading a magazine, while Gemma sat on Lyn and Michael's bed cradling the warm, sweet-smelling swaddle against her shoulder. It suddenly occurred to her that the baby had gone extremely still.

  She carefully turned Maddie over.

  "Oh my God," she said. "I've killed the baby."

  Cat didn't look up from her magazine. "Well, Lyn's going to be really mad at you."

  "Cat! I'm not joking!"

  Cat threw aside the magazine and bounced to her feet. Together they stared at Maddie's flushed, creased face. Cat poked her gently in the stomach. The baby didn't move. Gemma pressed her hand to her mouth. "What have I done?"

  Cat poked again, harder--and Maddie's face crumpled as she erupted into a scream of rage. Cat picked her up and began to jiggle her. "Yes, I know, darling, we won't let that murderous Auntie Gemma hold you anymore."

  It had been the most terrifying moment of Gemma's life.

  "Gem! Gem! Oh! Gem!"

  Gemma looked up to see Maddie running through the coffee shop to her, followed by Lyn pushing an empty stroller. Maddie was wearing blue denim overalls and a gaudy pink and silver tiara in her hair. Gemma had bought her the Little Princess tiara, secretly coveting it for herself.

  "Over there! Gem!" called Maddie to the little boy at the next table as she went running by, pointing her out, as if to say, Are you mad? How could you have missed seeing this extraordinary person sitting right next to you!

  Gemma swooped her onto her lap, and Maddie placed both her tiny starfish hands firmly on Gemma's cheeks and immediately launched into an incomprensible story.

  Lyn remained standing, clutching the stroller handles. "What's the matter?" she demanded.

  "What do you mean?" asked Gemma, turning her head and letting Maddie turn it back again.

  "Why are you so early? What's wrong?"

  "Nothing's wrong! Why are you so late?"

  "I'm not," Lyn maneuvered the stroller out of the way and sat down. "I'm right on the dot. We always tell you a time half an hour earlier than the actual time."

  "Your Auntie Gemma is typecast," Gemma told Maddie. "Just like Meg Ryan. That's why nobody believed she was a brain surgeon in that movie."

  "City of Angels," said Lyn. "Shocking movie. Michael and I walked out of it."

  "Nobody would believe I was a brain surgeon either."

  "Probably not. You'd keep dropping your instruments."

  "I think I would make an excellent surgeon. I'd be very calm and cool."

  "You've got something on your cheek. Mascara, maybe." Lyn licked her finger and reached over for Gemma's cheek.

  Gemma recoiled. "I'll do it myself!"

  "It's only saliva. When you become a brain surgeon, you'll have to touch mushy, bloody brains."

  "Dirty," said Maddie sympathetically. She put her own finger into her mouth and began to rub away at Gemma's cheek.

  "Where's the waitress?" Lyn swung around in her chair and tapped her fingers on the tabletop. "I need caffeine to help me cope with Cat. This is the first time I've seen her since the Dan thing."

  "Oh yes! I knew there was something I was looking forward to! The biggest family scoop of all time."

  "Stop it, please. It was a long time ago. I can hardly remember it."

  "Oh, come on. Explain yourself. I don't get it. Why didn't you just tell her at the time?"

  Lyn pushed her hair back behind her ears and leaned forward with her elbows on the table.

  "Why didn't he just tell her is more to the point! I was on the other side of the world. By the time I got back they'd already been seeing each other for months. Obviously I should have said it right away. But she was so happy and they were all over each other, remember? It seemed cruel to say, Oh by the way, I dated him too. And besides--"

  "Yes?" said Gemma benevolently. She was feeling especially affectionate toward Lyn today, she looked so uncharacteristically uncertain.

  "I never thought it would last. I didn't think Dan was the commitment type. Every week I expected it to end. Next thing you know, you and I are both walking down the aisle in purple taffeta."

  "And why didn't you tell me?"

  "You?" Lyn looked at her with disbelief. "You can't keep a secret."

  Gemma's affection levels plummeted. "That is so not true!"

  "That is so not true," repeated Lyn thoughtfully. "You talk like a fifteen-year-old. Kara says that. That is so not true, Lyn, I do pick up my own washing."

  Gemma gritted her teeth and went back on the attack. "So, did you sleep with Cat's husband too?"

  "Gemma! He wasn't Cat's husband at the time."

  "Did you?"

  "What if I did?'

  "Nothing if you did. I'm just wondering. Did you?"

  "I lost my virginity to him."

  "You didn't!" Gemma allowed Maddie to slither from her lap. "Your first time was with Hank in Spain!"

  "Well, it wasn't."

  "But it was!"

  "I guess I might be just a little more qualified to speak on the subject."

  "I can't believe it."

  Gemma and Lyn watched Maddie trot over to the little boy at the next table and put her face right up close to his so their noses were practically touching.

  "So." Gemma didn't look at Lyn. "Dan, hey? Any good?"

  Lyn didn't look at her. "Yes. Very."

  Gemma's mouth dropped. For some reason this seemed incredibly shocking. Lyn looked at her sidelong with a glint of pride, and the two of them began to rock with wicked laughter.

  "Stop it," said Lyn helplessly. "It's not funny."

  Gemma grabbed a napkin to wipe her eyes. "No, it's terrible. You're terrible. I didn't know you were so terrible."

  "Cat! My Cat!"

  Pushing the little boy unceremoniously to one side, Maddie went running through the coffee shop toward Cat. Gemma smoothed both her hands down her cheeks as if to wipe away the laughter, and Lyn sat up very straight.

  "One word and you're a dead woman," she said as she held up her hand to wave at Cat.

  "Get a grip."

  Cat walked toward them with Maddie clinging to her hip. The woman with the little boy had stood up and was gathering together her shopping bags. When she saw Cat, she did a little start and straightened.

  "Hello!" she said. "You're Lyn Kettle, aren't you? The Brekkie Bus business! What a coincidence, I was only just reading about you in She this morning."

  Cat shifted Maddie to the other hip.

  "I'm her sister. The unsuccessful version. But Lyn's right there." She pointed at Lyn and the woman did a double-take as Lyn gave her an embarrassed little wave.

  "That's right! You're triplets! Oh, you can really tell!"

  The woman was swinging her head back and forth observing the three of them with satisfaction.

  "And you're just the same as the other two, except your hair is red!" she said to Gemma.

  "That's right!" Gemma praised her.

  "Good Lord, we'd never noticed!" Cat said.

  The woman's smile became a little fixed. "Well, it was a pleasure to meet you all!" She held out a hand to Lyn. "I really admire what you've achieved."

  "Thank you." Lyn shook her hand graciously.

  "Bye now," said Cat, and she buried her face in Maddie's stomach and growled, so that she gurgled with delight.

  "What are you doing here?" Cat asked Gemma as she pulled out a chair and sat down with Maddie on her lap.

  "She's refusing to be typecast," said Lyn. "Do you both want a coffee? I'm going to order one at the counter."

  "How are you?" asked Gemma, as Lyn went for their coffees. The dark shadows under Cat's ey
es reproached them for their laughter.

  "Fine," answered Cat. "Never better. I stopped by at Nana Kettle's on the way here. She says you're going to do water aerobics with her. You're a glutton for punishment."

  "I think it will be fun. Want to come?"

  "Yeah, right. You made a shocking mess of her nails last week."

  "Thanks," said Gemma. A sudden thought occurred to her.

  "You know something weird Nana said?"

  "Everything she says is weird."

  "She said Pop didn't like Marcus."

  An expression of nervous caution immediately crossed Cat's face. Cat and Lyn both became peculiarly polite whenever Marcus's name came up.

  "Did you like Marcus?" asked Gemma. "You can say if you didn't. He's dead, you know."

  "I know he's dead. Of course I liked him."

  "Did you think we had a good relationship?"

  Cat shifted around in her seat, looking for Lyn. "Um. I really don't know. I mean, yes. You did. You were getting married."

  Maddie banged her hands on the table and Cat handed her the salt and pepper shakers. Pleasantly surprised, Maddie immediately turned them both upside down.

  "I do remember something," said Cat suddenly. "I remember when you came back from skiing in Canada. The holiday you got engaged. Marcus said something about you being timid on the slopes. I said, What the hell are you talking about, timid? I've seen Gemma ski double black diamonds at a million miles an hour. You looked really strange, I thought maybe you'd had a big fight."

  Gemma opened her mouth and waited for something to come out.

  Cat looked at her crossly. "See! Now I've upset you."

  "I'm sorry."

  Abruptly Cat changed the subject.

  "So did you know about Dan and Lyn at the time?"

  "No," Gemma said definitely.

  "Well, thank God they never had sex. That would have been too revolting."

  There was no time for Gemma to prepare her face. Cat looked at her. "But Dan said--"

  Lyn came back to the table with two coffees. She removed the salt and pepper shakers from Maddie and firmly placed her in the stroller, distracting her with a spoonful of cappuccino froth.

  "What?" she said, as she sat down and saw Cat's face. "What now?"

  Immediately, she looked with furious accusation at Gemma.

  "What did you say?"

  Gemma woke to the smell and sound of the sea. Through the open doorway of the bedroom she could see straight down a short, beige carpeted hallway to a small balcony with a table and two chairs. The screen door was wide open, and without lifting her head from the pillow she could see a sliver of ocean sparkling in the morning sun.

  She kept still, enjoying the sensation of Charlie's back warm against hers. She wondered if he was pretending to be asleep.

  Every move was so significant, every word loaded, the morning after you had sex for the first time.

  She could see her underwear strewn down the beige hallway in pleasingly provocative satin crumples. "Look! Matching underwear!" she'd slurred proudly through a red-wine induced haze the night before. "Well done!" Charlie had said, although he didn't waste much time looking at it.

  There was movement next to her, a hand reaching for her hip

  "Good morning."

  "Good morning."

  She wondered how his postsex personality was about to manifest itself. You never could tell. She hated it when they woke up wary, with that now-don't-you-be-thinking-this-is-a-relationship look in their eyes. If she saw even the slightest hint of that sort of look, she'd dump him on the spot.

  "That was very lovely," she said, watching 8:31 snap over to 8:32 on his bedside digital clock. "Last night, I mean."

  Most men, Gemma knew, were convinced they were extraordinarily talented lovers and simultaneously terrified that maybe they weren't. It was important to pay them lavish compliments about their abilities. It put them in a good mood.

  Actually, now she thought about it, it had been very lovely. Quite surprisingly lovely.

  "That second time," she continued thoughtfully. "I had a rather startling orgasm."

  There was a dry chuckle from next to her, and suddenly she found herself flipped over and enveloped in a gigantic bear hug, her face pressed against Charlie's wide chest. He had a body like a footballer, except for his legs, which were heartbreakingly skinny. She breathed in the faint leftover scent of his aftershave.

  "A startling orgasm, did you? Why, did you feel it in your left ear?"

  "No. It was just startlingly delicious."

  "And why the surprise? I'm a locksmith. I have trained hands. Trained to unlock delicious orgasms. You should have been lying there thinking, Yep, just as I thought."

  Thank God! Postsex Charlie was still presex Charlie.

  "I like to keep my expectations low to avoid disappointment."

  He reached over for the blind by his side of the bed and pulled hard at the cord so that sunlight instantly flooded the room. Gemma put her hands over her eyes. "Bright light! Bright light!"

  "Perfect weather," he said, uncovering her eyes. "Now. Gemma Kettle. Sweet Gemma Kettle. Here's my proposal for the day. First, I think I'd better give you another startling orgasm. Then I think I should make you breakfast while you're in the shower. Then you'll be so turned on by my cooking skills--especially in light of your own shameful efforts last week--you'll probably want to seduce me back into the bedroom. Then I think we should go down to the beach and have a boogie board. I've got a spare one. Can you boogie board? Then back here for a siesta and more startling sex. Then maybe a movie?"

  Gemma stared at him. "Goodness."

  "Not enough sex?"

  "No. That seems like quite a substantial amount."

  Charlie's face changed. "Or you might have plans, of course. You probably have plans. My little sister tells me I'm too domineering. So you know, that's fine, off you go to your plans, I don't mind."

  He smiled at her, lines deepening on either side of his brown eyes with their ridiculous eyelashes. "I've got plans myself actually. Now I think about it."

  It seemed like everything he was feeling was right there in his eyes--a hint of nerves, a touch of laughter.

  No secrets. She hated secrets.

  "Sisters," she said, pulling him to her. "Who cares what they think."

  They followed Charlie's proposal to the letter.

  To: Cat; Gemma

  From: Lyn

  Subject: XMAS

  1. I bought Mum a David Jones voucher for Christmas. You both owe me $50.

  2. Please do not get Maddie anything edible. She'll be sick.

  3. Could you both bring salads and wine on Christmas Day? Can you confirm what sort of salads?

  4. Gemma--are you really bringing your new boyfriend? Can you confirm?

  To: Gemma; Lyn

  From: Cat

  Subject: XMAS

  I confirm that I'm not coming Christmas Day.

  To: Lyn

  From: Gemma

  Subject: XMAS

  OH MY GOD! Does she mean it?

  P.S. I confirm I will bring a VERY SPECIAL, VERY EXOTIC SALAD. I confirm that Charlie will just drop by quickly so you can all admire and gasp at his eyelashes but then he has to go to his own family lunch.

  To: Gemma

  From: Lyn

  Subject: XMAS

  If she means it, it's your fault. You fix it.

  To: Lyn; Cat

  From: Gemma

  Subject: XMAS

  Excuse me but YOU did it. You're the one having multiple orgasms with her husband.

  To: Lyn; Gemma

  From: Cat

  Subject: XMAS

  IS THIS LIKE SOME SORT OF SICK JOKE???

  "Multiple orgasms with my husband"?

  GEMMA: YOU'RE STUPID. LYN: YOU'RE A BITCH.

  To: Gemma

  From: Lyn

  Subject: XMAS

  YOU FIX IT.

  "Nope. Won't do," Charlie announced as they sat
down opposite each other in a cafe. "You're too far away."

  He moved his chair from the opposite side of the table, so he was close enough to entwine his legs around Gemma's.

  He could make her melt like warm caramel.

  Three weeks since she met him. Six dates. Two nights at his place. Two nights at hers. A lot of kissing. A lot of fine-quality sex. A lot of stupid jokes.

  She knew it was always good at the start of a relationship, but was it always this good?

  Yes, probably.

  "No sticky date pudding," she said sadly, looking at the menu. "It's gone out of fashion."

  "We should make our own," Charlie said. "Let's make a sticky date pudding together tomorrow night. Not that you'll be any help. But you can stand around and look pretty and pass me things."

  "First I have to see my sister. I have to fix things."

  "I'm sure it's not your fault."

  "Well. It is a little bit."

  "Do you fight a lot? Do triplets fight more than normal?"

  "The Kettle triplets do. But I don't think we're normal. Mum used to take us to a club for triplets when we were little and some of them adored one another. We were so disgusted, we threw rocks at them."

  "Little savages." Charlie stroked her wrist with his thumb.

  "We got expelled from the Triplet Club for a whole month. Do you fight with your sisters? When I was little I used to have fantasies about having a big brother."

  "My sisters would have paid you to take me. I used to beat them up. I specialized in vicious Chinese burns."

  "No!"

  "Yep. Then I went through my juvenile-delinquent stage and ignored them."

  Gemma was rather aroused at the thought of Charlie as a juvenile delinquent. She imagined him in a black leather jacket, striding in slow motion down a dimly lit street.

  "Then once I got bored with delinquency, I suddenly became friends with them. It was nice. Like getting bonus friends overnight. Now we give each other relationship advice."

  "Really. What do they tell you?"

  "Oh stupid things, of course. I don't listen to them. But I give them very wise advice."

  "Like what?"

  "Well, the other day one sister happily announced she's seeing a married man, for Christ's sake. So my advice was to stop it."

  "Oh, very wise. It might be a bit more complicated than that."

  "It's not." Charlie was looking around for the waitress. "Why are these women all avoiding eye contact with me do you think?"

  "My sister fell in love with a married man. It was their destiny to be together. His ex-wife was a witch."