‘How’s Indira?’ asked Brooke.
‘Yeah, that’s the thing,’ said Logan uneasily.
‘What do you mean, “that’s the thing”？’
She squinted at him. Then it hit her. They all should have seen it coming. Five years was about right. Long enough for the family to forget Logan’s track record of serial monogamy, long enough for the girl to become part of the family, and his girlfriends were always so lovely.
This was why he was so upset about her and Grant. He didn’t want their mother to have to deal with simultaneous break-ups. All her children would be single. All possible grandchildren swept off the table in one fell swoop. It would knock her for six, as their father would say. He hated cricket, but liked that particular sporting colloquialism.
‘Oh, Logan,’ she said. ‘For God’s sake.’
‘Well, you can’t talk,’ said Logan.
‘I can so talk, I’ve been with Grant for ten years. We got married.’
‘Exactly,’ said Logan. ‘So that makes it worse. You made a proper commitment.’
‘And you didn’t,’ said Brooke. ‘Is that what Indira wanted? Was she waiting for you to propose?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Logan. ‘I asked her once if she wanted me to propose and she just laughed.’
‘You’re not meant to propose to propose, you should just propose.’
‘She’s a feminist.’
‘So what? Did she want babies?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t think so?’ Brooke threw up her arms. ‘I bet she wanted something you weren’t giving her.’
Logan gave his infuriating right-shouldered shrug.
You could never argue properly with Logan because he didn’t care. The angrier you got the calmer he’d become. His laid-back philosophy probably charmed his partners for the first five years and then one day they lost their minds.
Brooke’s eyes filled with stupid tears. ‘She did all that beautiful graphic design work for me and didn’t let me pay a cent.’ She should have insisted she pay her.
‘She was happy to do it,’ said Logan. The shrug. Again.
‘That’s not the point, Logan.’ She surprised herself by suddenly shoving him, quite hard, in the centre of his chest with the heel of her hand, like she was a little kid again. He didn’t budge. His core strength was excellent, even though he never worked out. Maybe he’d known it was coming, even if she hadn’t.
‘That all you got?’ he said. It seemed to have cheered him up.
‘I’m sad,’ she said. ‘I’m really sad about Indira.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m sad about Indira too, and I’m sad about Grant. But life goes on. We live to play another day.’
That’s what their father used to say when they lost. Nobody found it especially motivational.
Logan lifted his keys to go and then stopped as he remembered something. ‘So, guess what Savannah baked for today.’
‘What?’
‘Chocolate brownies.’
‘Oh my word,’ said Brooke. Now she was using one of their mother’s favourite phrases.
‘It’s not funny,’ said Logan. ‘Mum just hissed at me, “Logan, this is not funny.”’ He looked over her shoulder. ‘Here’s Troy. Watch him park me in.’
As predicted, Troy parked his gorgeous shiny McLaren with a slick one-handed spin of the wheel directly behind Logan’s car. He saw his siblings and smiled that radiant smile that could buy him anything: women, refunds, forgiveness.
Brooke smiled back helplessly as Troy leaped from the car with the glittery confidence of a movie star arriving at the premiere of his own movie. He carried a bottle of wine and a small beautifully store-wrapped gift.
‘Love the new car,’ she said. She didn’t envy much about Troy’s life except for the luxury cars, which were replaced with the same regularity as the luxury girlfriends. She shot her dowdy old Ford Focus a resentful glance. It had a persistent problem with the air-conditioning and had recently begun to emanate a deep pained groan each time she turned the steering wheel, but there was no way in the world she could justify a new car right now.
Troy jerked his chin at Logan and gently cuffed Brooke on the back of her head. ‘How are you, baby Brooke? You look great. Are you wearing lipstick? Mum will be thrilled. It’s maybe just a little smudged there.’ He pointed at her lip.