As she tipped as much of the wine into her glass as it would hold, the music in the lounge beyond changed again and Angie appeared in the doorway.
‘Okay?’ she asked gently.
Maggie took a deep breath and nodded, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.
‘I’m sorry,’ Angie said. ‘I should have warned him. I assumed . . . well, I’m sorry if I made it awkward.’
Maggie shook her head. ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘No harm done. It’s ridiculous, anyway; teenage crush that was never going anywhere. I’m fifty years old and I have Leon. I need to get over it and move on.’
‘Unrequited love,’ said Angie wistfully. ‘I don’t think you’re properly human if you don’t have at least one. Actually, when you think about it, there’s only Leon out of the four of us who got what he actually wanted.’
And then, before Maggie had time to quiz her on what she meant, Angie had danced back out of the kitchen. There was so much in that sentence that needed to be unpicked, but this was not the moment. Maggie took a gulp of wine, topped the glass up yet again and followed Angie back into the lounge. Tiger, not wanting to dance on his own, had plonked himself between Romany and Leon on the sofa and all three were just sitting there, like three wise monkeys, because the music was too loud to allow conversation.
‘Shall I turn it down a bit?’ Angie suggested, and then did so without waiting for a reply.
‘So, what else have I missed?’ asked Tiger, now that they could communicate without shouting. ‘How long have you two been an item?’
‘Just less than a year,’ replied Maggie. She and Leon caught each other’s eye, and his expression was a mixture of pride and adoration that immediately brought her back to reality. What was she doing mooning about Tiger when Leon was so much better for her? She responded to Leon’s obvious affections with what she hoped was an unequivocal smile. ‘It just felt right, didn’t it, Lee?’ she said. ‘Like coming home.’
It wasn’t quite the truth, but as she said it Maggie could feel something closing down in her. Enough. It was time to leave the Tiger fantasy where it belonged. In her past. She felt her shoulders relaxing immediately, the tension that she had been unaware she was holding on to seeping away, and she knew that that chapter was over. She was released.
‘I missed my chance there, then,’ Tiger replied and winked at Romany, who wrinkled her nose in teenage disdain.
That was all it was for Tiger, Maggie told herself. A chance. And suddenly she wasn’t quite sure how she had let her infatuation with him run for so many years. Tiger had never been what she needed. And never would be.
‘And Ange tells me you’re not soliciting any more,’ he continued, oblivious to the seismic shift that had just happened in her head.
Maggie rolled her eyes. This was the real Tiger – always light-hearted, up for the cheap gag. If he had made the ‘soliciting’ joke once over the years, he must have made it a thousand times.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I gave it up about a year ago.’
Admitting this was also hard, and didn’t seem to be getting any easier with time. Would she ever get used to it, the change in her status? It still hurt to admit that she had lost her prized career, and the reframing of the facts to something that sounded as if it had been her decision just made it worse, but she still couldn’t bring herself to be honest and tell enquirers that she had been let go.
‘What happened a year ago, then,’ he asked, ‘to bring about all this change?’
Maggie shrugged. ‘The gods must have been bored that week,’ she said with a laugh.
‘Gods my arse,’ said Angie. ‘It was the universe telling you that you needed to change direction. You just haven’t quite worked out which way up the map goes yet, have you, Mags?’
‘No. Not quite yet,’ replied Maggie.
How did Angie do that? How did she seem to know the things that Maggie hadn’t yet fathomed for herself? It was very discombobulating.
‘What are you doing instead?’ asked Tiger.
‘Oh, I’ve got a little job working front of house in an architect’s practice in town.’
Tiger pulled a face. ‘All those brains and qualifications and you’re working as a receptionist? Something doesn’t add up there.’
‘It’s not so bad,’ replied Maggie, trying hard not to sound defensive. ‘Obviously, it doesn’t pay as well as what I was doing, but my needs are very simple, and it is nice to go home at the end of the day and not have to think about work until you turn up again the next morning.’ This was her pat answer, the one she had trotted out to everyone who had asked the question. It almost sounded true.