Alice looked unsure.

‘I can help move your things?’ Angie offered.

‘What about Buddy?’ said Alice, holding Joan Didion protectively to her chest.

‘Uh . . . No worries. It’ll be fine.’ 

Shane looked confident. Angie wasn’t.

***

Wendy O’Shaughnessy’s consulting room never changed. In the thirty-plus years she’d been living and practising in Golden Hill, she’d made it her policy to keep the surroundings as constant as possible, to minimise visual noise and keep her clients’ attention on the work.

‘You changed the couch,’ Bette said, the second she entered the room.

Wendy laughed. ‘You noticed?’

‘Of course.’ Bette looked proud of herself. ‘It’s a new slip cover, little bit darker.’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Wendy, moving slowly to her chair.

‘How’s your hip?’ Tina asked.

‘Should be better. I have exercises and I do them about half as often as I should.’

They all chuckled. Wendy watched as the couple settled in. Bette’s eyes seemed tired, maybe windburned. She offered Tina water and poured hers before she poured her own. Tina took a cushion from behind her back and gave it to Bette, who added it to the one behind hers. They’d always done these things. They were still doing them. 

‘Thank you again for rescheduling,’ said Wendy.

‘Of course,’ said Bette.

‘Not a problem,’ said Tina.

‘How was the drive?’

This time they answered simultaneously.

‘Fine,’ said Bette.

‘Terrible,’ said Tina.

They laughed and started immediately trying to agree.

‘Of course it was terrible,’ Bette said, ‘but it’s been worse.’

‘Oh, definitely been worse, but it’s never not terrible.’

‘Right.’

‘Right, so, y’know . . .’

They nodded, having reached harmony, and now looked at Wendy like puppies awaiting instruction. She reached for her notepad.

‘Let’s begin.’

***

Just before noon, Angie walked along towards the Cahill Center trying not to panic. It wasn’t unusual, her advisor said. A lot of people have a period of adjustment.

I don’t.

She walked faster. Why, she wasn’t sure, but faster’s just . . . faster, right? Her phone got a text. A study group she was part of was meeting that afternoon. She didn’t reply. There was no way she was going. She’d only done a fraction of the reading. Spent Friday night playing Skyrim, slept most of Saturday, binged Gilmore Girls all day Sunday and then finally, when Alice stopped ‘singing’, she did the one thing she needed to do for today and emailed it in.