Lucy in the Sky

sound merry. ‘Thanks for, you know, taking me surfing and breakfast and everything…’
    ‘No worries.’ Nathan picks up his car keys from the counterand heads out of the front door. As soon as he’s gone, Amy tells me she’ll be back in a minute and she returns wearing a short denim miniskirt and black T-shirt with a white Rip Curl logo. Her long blonde hair floats down her back. ‘Right, then, let’s go. You ready?’
    Amy’s car is a blue hatchback, the back window crammed full of cuddly toys. As I slam the door shut a small sleeping bunny in a hammock swings back and hits me in the eye. Amy laughs. ‘Watch out for Snoozy!’
    I know from self-defence classes in high school that you shouldn’t have fluffy animals in your car because you could be targeted by rapists and murderers who think that you’re a young, defenceless woman. I tell her this, a touch condescendingly.
    She laughs derisively. ‘I don’t think there are too many of them around here. Anyway most of the time Nathan’s with me.’
    I manage to refrain from biting Snoozy’s ears off with my bare teeth and spitting them out of the window.
    ‘I like your earrings,’ she says suddenly.
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘Did you wear them to go surfing?’ she asks, eyes widening.
    ‘Er, yes,’ I admit. ‘I never take them off.’
    ‘Are they from your boyfriend?’ I nod. ‘You’re very, very lucky. I wish Nathan could afford to buy me diamond earrings.’
    ‘I wouldn’t worry. They’re probably not even real.’
    ‘Oh, really ? Why do you think that?’
    ‘I’m only joking.’ I laugh, but even to myself it sounds hollow. Why did I say that?
    ‘No, Nathan can’t afford expensive gifts. He has to use his imagination instead.’ I bet he does, I think, feeling slightly sick. ‘For my last birthday he took me for a picnic on Shellybeach…’ I don’t want to hear this. ‘It was so romantic. He packed everything himself.’ Shut up! ‘Yes, we ate lobster his mate had caught and drank sparkling wine. Not French champagne, of course, but it tastes the same to us.’ I know I shouldn’t be jealous because I have James, but the way she says ‘us’ makes me want to open the door and leap out of the moving vehicle. A minute later we pull up outside Sam and Molly’s home.
    ‘Amy,’ Sam calls out warmly as we walk through the door. ‘How are you?’ He gives her a peck on the cheek and I suddenly feel like an outsider. He turns to me. ‘Hi, you. Surfing, hey? That was a surprise. Molly and I could barely believe it when we woke up this morning and saw your note. When did you two arrange that little get-together?’
    ‘Oh, he promised he’d take her the other night when he got so drunk he could barely speak the next morning,’ Amy interrupts. She’s smiling but I detect a hardness behind her eyes. Or maybe I’m just imagining it.
    ‘Did you go too, Amy?’ Sam asks, oblivious to whatever may or may not be going on between her and me.
    ‘Oh, no, I find it too hard to get up these days.’
    ‘Need your beauty sleep?’ Sam chuckles. For the first time I notice he and Nathan have got the same laugh.
    Molly comes into the room. ‘Amy! Hello, love.’ Another peck on the cheek.
    ‘Hi, you! How’s it all going? Only another week to go…’ As Molly starts to fill her in on the latest wedding minutiae, Amy heads into the kitchen and puts the kettle on. ‘Tea, Lucy?’ I shake my head and make my excuses about needing a shower.
    I’m taken aback by how comfortably Amy fits into my friends’home. Nathan seems adamant she isn’t his girlfriend but she’s sure acting like one. It’s odd.
    In the bathroom I catch sight of myself in the mirror and almost reel back in horror. In comparison to that pretty blonde thing out there, I look like a ’roo who’s been pulled out of the bush backwards. Again I’m struck by the thought that Nathan might just see me like a big sister. How humiliating. Then my heart flutters as I remember his eyes looking searchingly into mine. Hang on, he had his arm around me! He brushed my fringe away from my face! That’s quite an intimate thing to do, isn’t it? Not the way you’d behave towards a big sister.
    Is it?
    I don’t know. I really don’t know. I have a horrible feeling I might be making more out of this than there really is, just to take myself away from my own sorry situation. Huh, I knew I should have been a psychologist.
    The conversation I had with James last night comes back to me. I