Part 9 (2/2)

*Not really,' Gabby says dumbly.

*You could have Restylane or Perlane. Just here in the cheekbones. Look a' she hands Gabby a small mirror, gesturing for Gabby to look at her face a *you see these lines from your nose to your lips? As we age our faces drop, but if we added just a tiny bit of filler here,' she touches Gabby's cheekbones, *it would not only add back the volume you've lost, but it would pull your face up and erase those lines. See?'

Gabby's eyes widen with pleasure as her face is pulled up and the lines disappear.

*I wouldn't do too much,' the clinician rea.s.sures her.

*You mustn't do too much,' Gabby says. *I can't stand seeing those women with apple-like cheekbones.'

*Absolutely. You just need a touch to restore volume. I do it on myself and do my cheekbones look bad?' She turns her head slowly from side to side, knowing how beautiful she is, how perfect her cheekbones are. *I'm forty-seven but these treatments have helped me stay young.'

Gabby gasps in awe. *Forty-seven! No! What else do you do?' she asks, wanting to look exactly like her.

*Sculptra,' the clinician says matter-of-factly. *You'd be wonderful for Sculptra, and you'd love it. Everyone I do it for loves it. You do it twice, all over the face, and it stimulates your body to start producing collagen again, so you immediately start looking younger. Even better, the effects are c.u.mulative and last a couple of years. The more time that pa.s.ses, the better you look. You'd look fantastic with Sculptra. It's the best thing I've ever done.'

*I want it,' Gabby bursts out, feeling entirely unlike herself. *When could you do it?'

The dermatologist laughs. *We'll do it all right now. And the Perlane too?'

*Yes!' Gabby finds herself saying. *All of it!'

*What took you so long?' Claire grumbles, throwing down a three-month-old copy of Better Homes and Gardens, as Gabby finally appears in the waiting room, a series of small red b.u.mps on her forehead.

*Ouch!' Claire winces. *Did it hurt? Was it awful?' She squints. *You did something to your cheekbones! Oh my G.o.d! What's the matter with your mouth?'

*It's numb. I had some other stuff and they gave me a local anaesthetic. Do I look freaky?'

*What other stuff? Yes, you look freaky. What did you do?'

*Let's get out of here. I've just handed over a shocking amount of money. I need to recover and figure out a new story. There's no way in h.e.l.l Elliott's going to believe I had a few moles removed for that price. It's at least a leg. Maybe both. Jesus, Claire. What the h.e.l.l was I thinking?'

*I don't know. What were you thinking?'

*I wasn't. I just got completely carried away when I saw the dermatologist. Have you seen her? She's forty-seven! The woman looks thirty. I asked her for everything she has.'

They are in the car park when Claire starts laughing uncontrollably, crossing her legs as she holds onto the boot of a car for support. *Oh no,' she weeps. *Don't make me laugh. I'll have an accident.'

*I wasn't making you laugh. I'm telling you what happened.'

*I know.' Claire calms down enough to stand up straight, wiping her eyes. *I think you're having a mid-life crisis.'

Gabby doesn't say anything until they are in the car and driving, but Claire's words keep reverberating through her head. Is that really what is happening? There is no question that she feels as if her days as an attractive woman are numbered, but does that explain all that she has been going through? Is it really something as predictable as that?

*Do you think women have mid-life crises?' she asks, as they approach traffic lights. *And does this mean I'll be going out and buying a red sports car and chatting up twenty-year-old hunks?' She tries to sound flippant, but thoughts of Matt fill her head a his impending trip back to Connecticut, the way he smiles at her, the way his eyes darken when he looks at her a making her heart, even now, skip a beat.

Claire raises an eyebrow. *You were chatting up a rather gorgeous young man at the bar that time we went out,' she says.

*I wasn't chatting him up.' Gabby is indignant. *He was chatting me up.'

*Are you still emailing him?'

Gabby, unable to keep it to herself, desperate to talk about him to someone, if only to say that he is a new friend, had confided in Claire a few days after Matt sent the first email.

*Sporadically,' she lies. *I actually saw him last week. He was in town and we had a drink.'

*No!' Claire's eyes are wide. *Gabby! You're so bad!' She peers at her friend. *Just a drink, right? Tell me nothing happened.' Her face becomes stern.

*G.o.d, no!' Gabby says. *Just a drink. He was flirting, though.'

*And how about you? Were you flirting back?'

*Maybe just a tiny bit. But I wouldn't do anything. I'm married, and I love Elliott. There's absolutely no way in h.e.l.l I would ever have an affair, nor do anything to jeopardize my marriage.'

*Did you tell Elliott you were having a drink with a guy you met in a bar?'

Gabby s.h.i.+fts uncomfortably in her seat. *Sort of. I told him I was meeting a guy. I didn't tell him how we met initially.'

Claire shakes her head. *Oh, Gabby. You know this is how these things always start, right?'

*What do you mean?'

*No one thinks they're going to have an affair. Everyone starts by thinking it's just a fun flirtation, or a new friends.h.i.+p, that they'll never let anything happen. So they pretend to be friends, even though the only thing these two people have in common is a mutual l.u.s.t, which eventually has to ignite. It's one of the laws of the universe. They have an affair, and mitigate it by deciding that it isn't just an affair, that this is their soulmate. They aren't supposed to be married to the lovely, stable lawyer in boring old Connecticut; instead they are meant to be living with the dangerous, unstable, inappropriately young surfer in San Diego, or wherever it is the interloper happens to be from. They blow up their marriages, leaving devastation in their wake, to run off with said surfer, only for them both to discover, several weeks, months, but no more than a year down the line, that in fact they have nothing in common other than that l.u.s.t, which has now, shock horror, completely disappeared.'

*Claire, I a'

*Then they realize what a terrible mistake they've made, which is when they go back to their husband, tail between their legs, begging to be allowed to come back, telling them how sorry they are, what a terrible error of judgement they made. The husbands have invariably moved on, and these women spend the rest of their lives beating off sad, middle-aged, professional singles at the handful of bars around town. It happened to Alison and Denise. Oh, and Cathy. Same story. There. That's my cautionary tale for you. I shall say no more about it.'

*You're so convinced. You don't really know what happens behind closed doors.'

Claire shrugs. *It happened to my sister. Who's now in a c.r.a.ppy walk-up apartment in Pelham Manor, taking any job she can find and bitterly regretting leaving her rather wonderful husband for her metal teacher. The thing with Rodrigo lasted six months. Her husband has now remarried and had a baby, and the new wife, ten years younger, is living the life my sister should be living a in the Upper East Side apartment with doorman, nanny and housekeeper. I've seen it happen time and time again.'

Gabby laughs nervously. *That is so not going to happen to me.'

*So stop the emailing,' Claire says. *How would you feel if Elliott was emailing a younger, gorgeous woman? If he insisted they were just good friends it wouldn't make you feel any better, would it?'

Gabby shakes her head. This has occurred to her. Particularly the last email referencing their *friendly' kiss. It wouldn't do for Elliott to read that. Not at all. But there's no way Matt is her soulmate. So this would never follow the trajectory taken by Claire's sister. How ridiculous.

Although ... she has indulged in the odd fantasy of what it would be like to live in Malibu, to be Matt's ... partner. Not at the expense of leaving Elliott, though. Her fantasy is more of a daydream about a life entirely different to her current one.

Sober, reasonable Gabby knows these are only fun fantasies, that she is not seriously thinking she and Matt may be an item. Sober, reasonable Gabby recognizes she is obsessed in an unnatural and unhealthy way, and that it can't go on much longer.

Sober, reasonable Gabby is hoping that, perhaps, after the twenty-third, she'll be able to let go of it entirely.

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