Just My Luck by Adele Parks (best interesting books to read TXT) 📕

with some fresh lasagna sheets and then cheat a little by layering on ready-made white sauce. I get great pleasure in repeating this process three times, scattering torn mozzarella and prosciutto over the top and popping the entire dish into the oven to bake. There’s something lovely and reassuring about producing a big slab of food where, just a short time ago, there was nothing.

I become aware that not only is it dark in the kitchen, but a chill is sweeping through the house. A door slams shut upstairs and makes me jump. The wind is getting up outside and I have all the bedroom windows open. In the garden the trees are shuddering, their leaves rustling as though they are whispering and chattering among themselves, passing on slippery secrets. The sky is charcoal. Raindrops splash onto the kitchen window, fat and determined, the type that suggest an oncoming deluge. I run around the house closing windows. Last year we had a heat wave, and either because we’re an optimistic nation or a dumb one, I think we were all expecting the same again despite the fact that the heat wave before last was in 1976. We really ought only to be hopeful every forty-two years. Funny thing, I made this jokey observation to my next-door neighbor this morning, a woman in her eighties who I have always pegged as a sweet old dear.

We have rubbed along side by side for over a decade, passing pleasantries, helping each other when needed. She is tolerant when the kids make a lot of noise in the garden, and Jake puts her bins out.

“I think all your summers have come at once, haven’t they? And your Christmases, too, come to that. You can’t complain about the weather. You can’t complain about anything ever again,” she said. Then she chuckled, but it wasn’t a nice old lady chuckle—it was a fake laugh, spiked through with aggression.

“I didn’t really mean a good summer would be nice for me specifically,” I stuttered. “It would be nice for everyone.” She glared at me over her glasses. The message was clear: I am no longer entitled to want anything, not even a sunny day.

The downpour is relentless now. I listen to the rain slap the garden patio, our roof, the windows. A drum roll, a constant growl. It’s drowning out my classical music so I turn that up to an uncomfortably high volume. I wonder how far they have got with putting up the marquee. This rain will be a problem if the top and sides aren’t on yet. Although, however much of a problem it is, I’m sure the party planner will have a solution. She’ll buy electric fans to dry the place out, heaters to warm it up. She’ll buy carpet for the fields. Money can’t solve everything, but it certainly helps when it comes to party planning. I send Jake another message. How’s the progress with the tent? I’ve made a lasagna. Are you on your way home?

His response. We are all in the pub. Sheltering from the rain. We’ll grab something to eat here.

A thought jabs my mind, I wonder who “we are all” is referring to exactly. Him and the kids? The party planner? Other people? Who else? I didn’t used to be a jealous woman. I never watched Jake the way some women feel the need to watch their husbands.

I never anticipated infidelity. Even when we were very young and both quite striking, when we had chances and choices, I trusted him. We felt solid. Recently, I’ve felt we are on shifting sands.

I carefully take the piping hot lasagna out of the oven. The delicious smell of cheese, beef and tomatoes floods the kitchen. Seems like a waste to cut into it just for me. Never mind, it will be better tomorrow anyway because it will have settled. I open myself a tin of baked beans and put a couple of slices of bread in the toaster. I suppose I could go and see them at the pub, but it’s too wet to walk, I’m not insured on the Ferrari and they have the Audi. Anyway, Jake didn’t suggest that I join them, so I feel it might be strangely intrusive. They all—whoever they all are—have spent the day together party planning, and it will be awkward if I muscle in now. Besides, I still have the letters to plow through.

I decide the best way to try to keep track of the requests is to input the details into a spreadsheet. I can log whether funds are for research or relief, education and ongoing development or emergency aid, animals or people, elderly or the young, home or abroad. It still strikes me that it will be a near-impossible job to rank one worthy cause above another, but it feels like a start. It doesn’t take long for me to become absorbed. The next thing I know, I look up and see that it’s late. It’s pitch-black outside; as the lights are on in the kitchen, my image reflects back from the black windows as though I am staring into a mirror.

I am alone.

I mean, obviously I am alone—the others are at the pub—but I am shocked by my reflection. I’m a small woman; however, I’ve always thought of myself as strong, centered. The reflection that shines back at me exposes a woman who looks isolated, frail and intense. So much has gone on in the past few weeks. I think I’m managing everything, but am I? My hair needs a wash. I should have a blow-dry. I love a blow-dry, and it’s not as though I can’t afford to treat myself. The truth is I’ve been avoiding going to my hairdresser’s, avoiding all the fuss that will inevitably ensue. All eyes on me, the same barrage of questions. “I bet you can’t believe your luck?”

“No, no, I can’t.”

“What are you going to spend it on?”

“We haven’t quite decided yet.”

“A house? Car? Travel?”

“Probably.”