Page 114 of Kiwi Gold

I smiled and hugged him. “If you see something you think will hurt me, you can give me your opinion.”

“Big of you,” he said, and I laughed.

“Yeh,” I told him. “I know that’s going to be happening. There’s a difference between a warning and a warning-off, though. I’m thirty-four years old, I’ve been married, and I have children. No more warning Lachlan off. No more telling me I can’t drink wine, or show my legs, or … or whatever other thing I’m going to decide to do, because Iamgoing to decide to do them. I want to choose for myself now. My judgment’s pretty good these days, even in my business. I’m struggling, yeh, but that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong thing to be doing, or that I’m not good enough at it. It just means that starting a business is hard.”

“You’re having trouble?” he asked. “Do you need help?”

Now, Ihadto laugh. “Baba. If you gave me money, you’d tell me what to do with it. Admit it. You would.”

He was silent a long moment, then said, “I probably would.”

“If I’m going to be homeless,” I said, “I’ll tell you. How’s that?”

“If it’s all I can get,” he said.

“It’s not all you can get,” I said. “You have me, and you have the girls, and we all love you, because you’re as big as the sky and as solid as rock. You’re our model of how a man cares, and we love you to the moon and back.” I was pretty choked up by the time I finished that. “Even if you do have a splint on your nose,” I tried to joke.

“Good,” he said. “Just don’t drop your standards, that’s all.”

“No worries,” I said. “That message, I got.”

49

DATE NUMBER THREE

Laila

I was driving home when the call came through the car’s speakers. Not Lachlan, which was unfortunate, because I had a dirigible-sized amount of emotion I needed to share with Lachlan. No, it was Poppy.

I punched the button. “Hi. I’m in the car. With the girls,” I decided to add, because otherwise, who knew? Poppy was perfectly capable of leading off with a discussion of butt plugs. She’d think it was funny.

“Oh!” she said, and almost visibly shifted gears, and I had to smile. It probablyhadbeen butt plugs.

Wait. Did people actuallyusebutt plugs? Did they feel good? So many questions, and Ihaddived, once upon a time, under those cold waves. I hadn’t always stayed on the shore.

Poppy went on, of course. “How are the patients?”

“All good,” I said. “How about at your house?”

“All done,” she said. “Matiu didn’t catch it, because he’s basically immune to everything but bubonic plague by now, and I didn’t catch it, because the universe apparently doesn’t want to punish me that much, and a good thing, too. Matiu’s delivered one baby on the grass already. Having this one on the toilet would be pushing my luck, future-desirability-wise.”

“You can’t have a baby on thetoilet,”Yasmin said. “You have a baby inhospital.”

“Kids,” I reminded Poppy.

“Oh. Whoops.” She was laughing, though, and so was I. “Right, then. I’m monitoring my conversation. It’s difficult. So there’s no progress on your … other project? Due to the unexpected arrival of stomach cramps and so forth?”

“That’s right,” I said. “Lachlan helped with the girls, though, all through the night. Wiped down the kitchen with disinfectant, too. That was above and beyond.”

“He told us a story,” Amira piped up. “And he let me go to sleep in his lap. Lachlan is nice.”

“Really.” Poppy was silent for a minute. “Reevaluating like mad here, then. So … when’s the third date?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I need a babysitter. Not this weekend, anyway.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Poppy said. “Grab the girls’ togs and bring them to my parents’ house. Matiu’s at the hospital overnight, I’ve finished the book, I’m expecting this baby, and we’re all over here, because all I want to do is float on my back in the pool and not feel like a spider dragging around her enormous egg sac.”

“Ugh,” I said, laughing again. “Cheers for the image.”