LITMIR.BIZ

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went to the counter to order while Ruth and Helen grabbed their usual table in the window. They’d started meeting for coffee when their children had moved to the same girls’ school and conversations at the school gate had become impossible.

      She ordered coffees and a couple of pastries for her friends and pushed her credit card into the machine. It was promptly declined.

      With a murmur of apology, Lauren tried again and the card was declined a second time.

      “I’ll pay cash.” She slipped the card back into her purse and scrabbled around for money. Red-cheeked, she carried the tray over to the table and set it down.

      “Thanks.” Ruth lifted a cappuccino from the tray. “My turn next time. It’s freezing out there. They’re saying we could still have snow.”

      Lauren sank into the vacant chair and unwrapped her scarf from her neck.

      The British preoccupation with the weather was one of the things that had fascinated Lauren when she’d first arrived in London. Entire conversations were devoted to the weather, which, as far as Lauren could see, was rarely newsworthy. On Martha’s Vineyard bad weather frequently meant being cut off from the mainland. She wondered what her British friends would have had to say about a hurricane. It would have kept the conversation going for months.

      “Did you want to share this croissant?” Helen broke it in half and Lauren shook her head.

      “Just coffee for me.” She pulled out her phone and sent a quick text to Ed.

      Credit card not working. Problem?

      Maybe the bank had seen a transaction that was out of the ordinary and frozen it. She probably ought to call them later.

      “I wish I had your willpower.” Ruth ate the other half of Helen’s croissant. “Don’t you ever give in to your impulses?”

      Lauren dropped her phone into her bag. “Giving in to impulses can lead to disaster.”

      Both her friends stared at her in surprise, and she wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

      “Disaster?” Ruth blinked. “You mean like not fitting into your jeans?”

      “No. I—” She shook her head. “Ignore me. I’ve had a crazy morning. Busy.” It was Ed’s fault, for making her think about things she didn’t want to think about.

      “Ah, yes, the birthday. How was Ed?” Helen picked up her spoon and stirred circles into the foam on her coffee. “When Martin hit forty he bought a sports car. Such a cliché, but I get to drive it so I’ve stopped complaining.”

      Lauren sipped her coffee. “Ed seemed fine about it.”

       She’s not the problem.

      “I had a crisis when I turned forty,” Ruth said. “Having a sixteen-year-old daughter reminds you how old you are. I don’t have daughter envy yet, but I can see how it could happen. You don’t have that problem—” she glanced at Lauren “—because you had Mack when you were still in your pram, or whatever you call it across the pond.”

      Lauren laughed. “I was nineteen. Not that young.”

      But she’d been pregnant at eighteen, which was only two years older than Mack was now.

      “And you still look twenty-one, which makes me want to kill you.” Ruth waved a hand in disgust. “At least your daughter doesn’t think you’re too old to understand anything.”

      Thinking of some of the conversations she’d had with Mack lately, Lauren gave a tight smile. “Oh, she does.”

      “But you have energy. I’m too tired to cope with a teenager. I thought the terrible twos were supposed to be the worst age and now I’m discovering it’s sixteen. Peer pressure, puberty, sex—”

      Lauren put her cup down. “Abigail is having sex?”

      “It wouldn’t surprise me. She has a ‘boyfriend.’” Ruth stroked the air with her fingers, putting in the quote marks. “The phone pings all the time because he’s messaging her.” Was that the problem with Mack? Was it a boy?

      “Phoebe is always on her phone, too,” Helen said. “Why is it they don’t have the energy to tidy their rooms, but manage to hold a phone? Last night when I finally wrenched it from her grabby hand and told her all electronic devices were banned from the bedroom, she told me she hated me. Joy.”

      Lauren’s sympathy was tinged with relief. Even during their most prickly encounters, Mack had never said she hated her. Things could be worse.

      “They don’t mean it,” Ruth said. “It’s one of those lines straight out of the teenage phrase book, along with I hate my life—my life is so crap.”

      “And but all my friends are doing it.”

      “Nobody does that stuff, Mom. It’s the moods that get me. I know it’s hormones, but knowing that doesn’t help.” Helen finished her coffee. “It makes me feel guilty because I know I was the same with my mum, weren’t you?”

      Ruth nodded. Lauren said nothing.

      As long as they weren’t doing anything that interrupted her painting, her mother had left her and Jenna alone. It was one of the reasons she and her sister were close.

      “The only one with a predictable temperament in our house is the dog.” Ruth gave a wicked smile. “Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you’d married your first boyfriend?”

      “I’d be divorced,” Helen said. “My first boyfriend was a total nightmare.”

      They looked at Lauren and she felt her face heat. “Ed was my first real boyfriend.”

      It wasn’t really a lie, she told herself. Boyfriend meant someone you had a relationship with. The word conjured up images of exploratory kisses, trips to the movies and awkward fumbling. A boyfriend was a public thing. I’m going out with my boyfriend tonight.

      Using that definition, Ed had been her first boyfriend.

      “You’ve been with one man your whole adult life? No flings? No crazy, naughty teenage sex?”

      Lauren felt her heart pick up speed. That didn’t count, she told herself. “For me it’s always been Ed.”

      “Well—” Helen spoke first. “I’m going to stop talking before I incriminate myself.”

      “I auditioned a lot of men before finally awarding the role of my husband to Pete.” Ruth finished her croissant. “I’d better go. I left my house in chaos.” She reached for her bag. “See you at the party tonight, Lauren. Sure there’s nothing we can do?”

      “No thanks, I’ve got it covered.”

      “Is your sister coming over from the States?”

      “No, she can’t get away from school right now.”

      Lauren felt another stab of guilt. When they’d last spoken, Jenna had confessed that her period was late. Lauren had heard the excitement in her voice and felt excited with her. She knew how desperately Jenna wanted a baby and how upset her sister was each month when it didn’t happen. She’d intended to call, but party planning had driven it from her head.

      “What about your mum? She’s not coming either?”

      Lauren kept her smile in place. “No.”

      Of course that had a lot to do with the fact that she hadn’t been invited.

      Lauren had never had a close relationship with her mother, but things had been particularly strained last time she’d visited home. Her mother had seemed preoccupied and even more distant than usual.

      When her father had died five years earlier, Lauren had expected Nancy to be

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