The Husband's Secret(9)

            “We’re so very, very sorry,” said Felicity.

            “So sorry,” echoed Will, as if they were singing a duet together.

            They were sitting at the big round wooden table they used for client meetings, but mostly for eating pizza. Will’s face was dead white. Tess could see each tiny black hair of his stubble in sharp definition, standing upright, like some sort of miniature crop growing across his shockingly white skin. Felicity had three distinct red blotches on her neck.

            For a moment Tess was transfixed by those three blotches, as if they held the answer. They looked like fingerprints on Felicity’s brand-new slender neck. Finally, Tess raised her eyes and saw that Felicity’s eyes—her famously beautiful almond-shaped green eyes; The fat girl has such beautiful eyes!—were red and watery.

            “So this realization,” said Tess. “This realization that you two . . .” She stopped. Swallowed.

            “We want you to know that nothing has actually happened,” interrupted Felicity.

            “We haven’t—you know,” said Will.

            “You haven’t slept together.” Tess saw that they were both proud of this, that they almost expected her to admire them for their restraint.

            “Absolutely not,” said Will.

            “But you want to,” said Tess. She was almost laughing at the absurdity of it. “That’s what you’re telling me, right? You want to sleep together.”

            They must have kissed. That was worse than if they’d slept together. Everyone knew that a stolen kiss was the most erotic thing in the world.

            The blotches on Felicity’s neck began to slink up her jawline. She looked like she was coming down with a rare infectious disease.

            “We’re so sorry,” said Will again. “We tried so hard to—to make it not happen.”

            “We really did,” said Felicity. “For months, you know, we just—”

            “Months? This has been going on for months!”

            “Nothing has actually gone on,” intoned Will, as solemnly as if he were in church.

            “Well, something has gone on,” said Tess. “Something rather significant has gone on.” Who knew she was capable of speaking with such hardness? Each word sounded like a block of concrete.

            “Sorry,” said Will. “Of course—I just meant—you know.”

            Felicity pressed her fingertips to her forehead and began to weep. “Oh, Tess.”

            Tess’s hand went out of its own accord to comfort her. They were closer than sisters. She always told people that. Their mothers were twins, and Felicity and Tess were only children, born within six months of each other. They’d done everything together.

            Tess had once punched a boy—a proper closed-fist right hook across the jaw—because he called Felicity a baby elephant, which was exactly what Felicity had looked like all through her school days. Felicity had grown into a fat adult, “a big girl with a pretty face.” She drank Coke like it was water and never dieted or exercised or seemed particularly bothered by her weight. And then, about six months ago, Felicity had joined Weight Watchers, given up Coke, joined a gym, lost forty kilos and turned beautiful. Extremely beautiful. She was exactly the type of person they wanted for that Biggest Loser show: a stunning woman trapped in a fat person’s body.

            Tess had been thrilled for her. “Maybe she’ll meet someone really nice now,” she’d said to Will. “Now that she’s got more confidence.”

            It seemed that Felicity had met someone really nice. Will. The nicest man Tess knew. That took a lot of confidence, to steal your cousin’s husband.