It's been a week since our night at The Luvre and things between Toby and I have been (to an outsider in any case) wonderful. The hours at work hadn't reduced but he'd spend a little extra time each morning making me breakfast or attending to petty things around the house. Whistling to the tunes of Benny and the jets, a song I used to love now dread. I still hadn't answered his question and I hoped he wouldn't ask or that he would someway somehow forget about it all but I knew these were all wishes.
For the first time in a while he willingly went with me to the cookout hosted by our neighbors The Matthews , Karla a gossipy brunette that lived two houses away who had also attended the cookout, commented on how lovey dovey Toby was acting and wondered if we were expecting anything exciting (hinting at a baby). I had to quickly correct her to save myself from the embarrassment and the nauseating thought of having the child of a man I couldn't recognise anymore.
"Oh come on Darling you know you can tell me anything after all we're sisters " she said with an unrealistic look of reassurance.( just to be clear she's not my sister )
" No Karla It's not that...i guess we're just happy...."I replied keeping my answer short , not wanting to feed that inquisitive mind of hers
"You possibly can't be JUST happy Sweetheart, come on spill the beans I also want my Georgy all googly over me like Toby is with you now. Hell all that man does is work work work "
"Oh come Kar we all know he does it for you " Mathilda a short chubby woman who ( in my opinion had made it her mission in life to serve and praise Karla) chimed in. " It's no news he's still crazy over you ,we all saw that limited edition bag he got you last week . You know word around says there's only two like that in the world , heavens only knows how much that cost.
"Mathilde darling, you flatter me . That bag doesn't cost much you're just exaggerating ,she responded completely ignoring the poor woman's embarrassed face after mispronouncing her name, it's just worth a few hundred thousands it doesn't even hold a candle to the necklace I have on.
"Oh my goodness how could I have missed that wonderful piece " Mathilda gushed drawing the attention of the others and taking the spotlight off me.
( I wondered too how she could have missed it. The thing, apart from emitting light as bright as a flashlight looked like a million stones were embedded into it .One could tell how heavy it was with the way Karla's neck stood straight up on her body looking like it would snap off if someone so much as to breathed close to her) . Thinking back I couldn't help but envy them. Are marriages supposed to be stress free that all you care about is how much what cost ? Were they too facing problems in their marriage like I am? or is it that in this unjust world of marriage and compromises I just so happened to find myself on the bitter side.....