Sarah Gibson deposited an empty tea mug into the kitchen sink and returned to her laptop in the living room, only to find a woman already there.
"Susan?" Sarah asked. "How did you get in here?"
"Oh," Susan McMillan waved dismissively, "a scruffy-looking man who looked to have not gotten enough sleep let me in. He rushed out the door as I arrived, shouting about an 'emu calamity' or some such, and drove away in that dung-ridden truck in the driveway."
"That's David," Sarah sighed.
"That's what David looks like now?" Susan held back her amusement. "He used to be so dashing!"
"Why are you here, Susan?" Sarah felt a creeping sense of foreboding that she didn't quite understand.
"Oh," Susan replied, "I just wanted to see if we could make amends. Could I treat you to a day of shopping and relaxation, perhaps?"
"I have work to do, Susan," Sarah emphasized the laptop that was sitting on the coffee table. "I can't just take a random day off."
"But you can use magic to make all the work happen on its own," Susan teased.
There was something wrong about that, but Sarah couldn't quite put her finger on it. Adults didn't use magic. It was immature. Beneath them. But as the thought repeated in Sarah's head, there was also a strange sense of apathy towards it. Why should that idea apply to Sarah? Did it apply to her? She was a married woman with three children, yes, but somewhere deep inside, she didn't feel like an adult.
"Are you worried about something?" Susan crossed her legs and leaned an elbow against the arm of the sofa. "I couldn't imagine what."
"Fine!" Sarah huffed at last, "I'll go with you. But you had better not be up to anything." Sarah waved a hand, and her laptop opened of its own accord and began typing its own keys. "But the girls took my car this morning, and it sounds like David just left with his truck."
"Oh, don't you worry about that." Some would describe the expression on Susan McMillan's face as the cat that ate the canary. Others would describe it as the cat that ate the cream. But as Susan stood up, she felt as though she had eaten both the canary and the cream all at once. "Today, you are riding in my Mercedes."
