Page 70 of Perfect Wives
I agree. I think we have to go.
We have something on Keira now. We can end this.
Tasha
Marc has already left to play golf. I’ve got the girls.
Georgie
So has Nate. I don’t want to bring the kids.
Beth
It’s fine. Alistair said he’ll have them all.
Tasha
Even Lanie?
Beth
He said it’ll be good practice.
Georgie
He’s a lifesaver.
THIRTY-SEVEN
GEORGIE
The coffee shop is rammed with the Saturday crowd. Families with pushchairs, runners with dogs. Harassed-looking dads with toddlers eating croissants. The noise is chatter and clinking cups, the scrape of chairs against the tiled floor. It smells of coffee beans and pastries, reminding me of when we’d come here after the rhyme time session at the library when the children were little. Me, Beth and Tasha with Henry, Matilda, and Lily and Joshua too before she left. We’d order toasted tea cakes and babyccinos and talk about milestones and nap schedules and husbands and Magnolia Close.
Now we’re silent. Waiting to meet a killer. Fighting to get our lives back. All of yesterday we waited for Keira’s next message – next voice note. Next threat.
There was nothing.
None of us slept last night, and when I woke up this morning to the reality of Nate asking for a divorce and then leaving to play golf like his life is just going to carry on, I knew I had to do something to fix this. I couldn’t stand the waiting anymore. I didn’t want the threat to Oscar hanging over me for a second longer. So I messaged Keira.
Beneath the tension circling our table is a pang of sadness. Everything is changing. The children are growing up, and Beth will have another baby soon, and she and Tasha will go to baby groups together again – and where will that leave me? On the outside, watching a life I used to have slip further away. I’ve tried to picture what comes next – Oscar split between two homes. Nate told me this morning over coffee that he wants to sell the house.‘We’ll both be able to afford something half decent if we sell this place,’he said with the same nonchalance as deciding what to eat for dinner.
I’ve tried to imagine living in a smaller house on a nothing road far from Magnolia Close. I’ve tried to tell myself I could rebuild. Reinvent. Thrive. But every time I close my eyes, all I see is grey. Gloom. A future that looks nothing like the bright, glittering one I worked so hard to protect.
A waitress appears at our table, notebook in hand. Her hair is wispy, and her face is tight. She looks run ragged and stressed. ‘Ready to order?’ she asks. It’s the second time she’s come to our table.
‘So sorry. Just one more minute,’ I say with my sweetest smile as I check the time. ‘We’re just waiting on someone.’
The waitress frowns, the corner of her mouth twitching like she’s holding back a sigh, and then steps away without a word, retreating towards the counter. The bell above the door jingles. All three of us jump, but it’s not Keira. Just another group, eyeing our table, trying to work out if we’ve just sat down or are just leaving.
‘Where is she?’ Tasha hisses, eyes darting from our faces to the menu we’re all pretending to look at.
My stomach rumbles. I couldn’t face my smoothie this morning or my usual positivity post on Insta.
‘You’re just…so fucking ordinary.’
Hurt slices through me every time I hear those words repeated in my thoughts.
Beth’s eyes never leave the door. ‘Keira doesn’t strike me as someone who adheres to timekeeping.’
