Julia frowned. “Leave her alone, she looks fine.”
“See?” laughed Karen. “Precisely my point, darling.”
Bridge sighed. “I’m not public facing most of the time, you know that. You should feel sorry for the poor men, not me. They can’t get away with anything except a suit, while nobody gives a toss what the women wear so long as we don’t look like bag ladies.”
“That’s because we’re invisible to them,” said Julia with a scowl. “Guys like that, you could parade up and down the street naked and they’d look right through you.”
“Papa sometimes comes out of the bathroom naked,” said Stéphanie, “but Maman shouts at him.”
Bridge and the others laughed, while Izzy blushed and scowled at the same time. “Yes, well, Maman has told him you’re a little old for that sort of thing, now.” She cleared her throat. “Can we please change the subject?”
The waitress took their order, and Bridge switched to orange juice. Karen rolled her eyes in disapproval, so Bridge said she needed a clear head for an important meeting in the morning. It wasn’t entirely untrue; she just left out the details, as always.
And then they did change the subject, to the reason they were here in the first place. Izzy and her family were leaving tomorrow for their annual holiday back in France, at an old farmhouse owned by Fred’s family in Côte-d’Or. Every year they spent the summer there, with no internet access, no cellular reception, barely any TV signal. Just a landline phone, in and out. To them, it was an idyllic paradise. To Bridge, it sounded like hell. All evening, her thoughts kept drifting back to Zurich. At least there, she would be connected — but she wouldn’t be able to do anything with that connection. Once she was active OIT, all personal voice and data traffic would be heavily restricted, in some cases forbidden. If Izzy’s farmhouse sounded like hell, how much worse to be surrounded by data but unable to do anything with it?
By the time dinner was over, Karen and Julia had demolished three bottles of wine between them. Karen insisted on paying, and was now debating with Julia whether they should get a cab to Julia’s club, or find a grungy basement all-nighter and slum it. Bridge could have gone for late night karaoke, but didn’t suggest it because she knew they’d just roll their eyes. Izzy had only had a glass more than Bridge because of the children, and was now busy wrangling them into position. Hugo was fast asleep, so Bridge took him for a moment while a waiter retrieved his stroller, and Izzy helped Stéphanie into her coat. When the stroller arrived, Bridge strapped Hugo into it with a kiss on his forehead, then gripped the handles while the waiter held the door open.
They emerged onto the street, still busy despite the late hour, and Bridge smiled a little at the noise. She had the same nostalgic affection for rural life as Izzy, but after the family had moved to London when they were children, Bridge had quickly discovered she was a city girl at heart — while Izzy spent most of her life yearning for a return to the country.
“Shit, my phone. Where’s my phone?” Julia panicked, leaning drunkenly on Karen. She patted down her coat pockets and rummaged through her handbag. “Balls, balls, balls…”
Karen was in no fit state, and Izzy was dealing with a suddenly overtired and whining Stéphanie, so Bridge turned back to the restaurant. “You probably just left it on the table. I’ll take a look.” She gripped the door handle, about to pull it open, when Karen cried out.
“Thanks, babe — oh!”
Karen’s purse clattered to the pavement, spilling its contents. For a moment Bridge thought she’d dropped it because she was drunk, but then saw her outstretched hand, pointing over Bridge’s shoulder.
Izzy screamed, “Hugo!”
Bridge turned to see Hugo’s stroller rolling down the sloping pavement, into the road.
Her limbs suddenly weighed a ton. Like a bad dream, everything happened so slowly, barely moving at all, and the cars were rushing by on the road, and little Hugo’s stroller bumped and clattered over the uneven flagstones, and Bridge only just then saw the pedal, the little bright green brake pedal on one of the back wheels, the brake she’d forgotten to activate before letting go of the stroller, of little Hugo…
Izzy darted past her, faster than any human should move, and grabbed a handle on the stroller just as it left the pavement. The stroller jerked back, waking Hugo, and he started crying.
“You bloody idiot!” Izzy screamed. “What the hell were you doing?”
“I’m sorry, I…I forgot the brake.”
“For heaven’s sake, Bridge, this is why I can’t trust you with anything. You can hardly take care of yourself, let alone anyone else!”
Stéphanie and Hugo were both crying, now. Karen tried to soothe Stéphanie, while Julia scrambled around on the pavement, sweeping everything back into her purse. She held up her phone and called out, “It’s all right, it was in my purse. It’s, um. It’s all right.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” said Bridge, reddening with a mixture of frustration at Izzy and anger at herself. “I’ve done nothing but take care of myself since uni.”
“Exactly,” said Izzy, seizing on Bridge’s choice of words. “All you’ve ever done is look out for yourself. Who was it looked after Mum when Dad died? Who was it dealt with her crying all night when you got arrested? Who sorted out the lawyers when Mum moved into the new flat? It wasn’t you, was it?”
Julia moved between them and said, “Girls, what the
