*Yes. You called him d.i.c.kie becausea*

*I had a puerile sense of humor, yeah, yeah.'

*But anyway, he asked about you.'

*No!'

*Said he wouldn't mind catching up.'

*No!'

This second *no' had a different meaning. How could I meet the one who got away looking like the one who'd been recently dragged from a swamp?

*Come on. You're always saying your life is boring and that you're so darn miserable. Some harmless flirting with a hottie from your past isn't going to ruin you and Carson, is it?'

*It will when Robert takes one look at me and asks what the h.e.l.l happened? At which point I will top myself.'

*Don't be crazy, Scarlet. You're still gorgeous.'

*I'm a fat lump.'

Lolly wasn't one to lie. *You just need a little makeover, that's all. New clothes, new hair. You're still the same person.'

*I'm about two of the person he knew.'

*A coffee wouldn't hurt, would it?'

It was out of the question. *What is he doing now, anyway?'

*Same as before, something boring like corporate banking. Looks incredible though. Slightly graying, but still gorgeous. More Clooney than Pitt now. Delicious! I could never figure out why tall, dark and handsome wasn't your type.'

*I was dating Carson, remember? He asked me out too late.'

*Never too late,' Lolly said, and then there was some ruckus in the background and she abruptly hung up, leaving me with memories of Robert Simpson and my earlier, slimmer, life.

*Scarlet!'

Carson's sharp voice jolted me out of my flashback, and my seat.

*What?'

*Get out and push.'

*Why do I need to push?'

*Because you can't drive, remember?'

*And whose fault is that?'

*Here we go,' said J to Jessie this time, from the backseat.

Because it was Thanksgiving, I decide not to argue further and got out to push. No snow, thank goodness, but it was freezing and I realized I'd left my gloves in the flat.

*Come on, Scar,' called Carson, revving the engine of the clapped-out Toyota.

What the h.e.l.l kind of man was he? It was hardly gallant, making me do this.

Never mind, if all the skin was ripped from my hands during this pathetic attempt to attend the world's worst Thanksgiving celebration, at least I wouldn't have to do the was.h.i.+ng up.

Again.

The wheels spun, the engine struggled, and finally, the car shot forward.

I had to run in my heels to get back into the car, because Carson couldn't risk stopping in case the b.l.o.o.d.y car seized up again.

As I jumped in, my s.h.i.+rt caught on a bit of metal near where the seatbelt had been reinstalled by one of the previous five owners, presumably after an accident.

The metal tore a hole in the shoulder of my outfit.

*Well, that certainly completes the look,' Carson remarked, without taking his eyes off the road.

It was supposed to be a joke, but if I had some sort of sharp implement, I would have plunged it into his neck then and there, kids or no kids.

I turned around to check that Jessie and J had their coats a it seemed colder in the car than outside, now that we were moving. There were breezes leaking through from every panel of the old motor.

*Slow down, Carson. The faster you go, the quicker the kids freeze.'

*Stop telling me how to drive, will you?' Carson muttered, which triggered the decade old Thanksgiving Day argument about driving.

*I might, if you'd do it properly.'

*Care to take over?'

b.a.s.t.a.r.d!

*You know I can't drive.'

*Are you still blaming me for that, too?'

*Maybe you should learn to drive, Mum,' Jessie said in a soft voice, seeing the tears in my eyes and trying to avert a disaster.

I rolled my head around and threw her a sad little smile.

*Maybe.'

- Cue depressing recollection from the past: *Everyone needs to be able to drive.'

It was nearly Christmas and we were standing on the corner of 5th, near Saks.

*Why? We live in New York City, Scar. And we don't have a car.'

I watched the people around us, rugged up in their warm coats, struggling with their many bags of unnecessary gifts, and wondered if I was making the right choice in marrying Carson.

I loved him a of course I did a but doubts were beginning to gnaw at me. The blond foppish clown was slowly morphing into a serious, boring adult, whilst I was content to be young and carefree for a while longer.

*You have free will Scarlet,' my mother told me sternly on the phone. *Just tell him what you want.'

Mum and Dad couldn't make the wedding because of Mum's blood pressure making it impossible for them to fly. They'd promised to visit as soon as the doctor gave the go ahead.

*I love him,' I'd told Mum stubbornly. *It will be fine, as long as I love him.'

I looked at him now. My snuggly, clever teacher. He wasn't being unkind. Just careful with our money. But that didn't change the fact that everyone needed to know how to drive, did it?

*One day we'll have a car,' I said to Carson, 'and then it might be too late for me to learn. Lolly says she can get me a deal because she's learning, too. It will be almost half-price.'

*Baby,' Carson murmured, nibbling my ear, as we waited for yet another light to turn green, *it's never too late to learn anything, but we can't afford it right now. I'm only a poor teacher, remember?'

We were still in love. Still courting: that's the excruciating word Cecily used a courting. My future mother-in-law also used the most eye-watering swear words I'd ever heard, so I couldn't quite account for the change in tone, and the use of words such as *courting', when it came to Carson.

Anything he did was spoken of with the reverence afforded a British royal.

Meanwhile, the rest of Cecily's life took on the resonance of a late-night re-run of a Jerry Springer unplugged episode.

*It isn't all about you, Carson. I have to have a life too, don't I?'

He ran a hand over my still slim tummy. *We discussed this. Being a wife and mother a that's what you want, isn't it?'

*Yes, no, maybe.'

'Maybe? You've been telling me for months how you hate working with Lolly on that stall and that going to college is a waste of time.'

*Standing out in the cold selling clothes to people who don't want to pay more than five dollars isn't exactly what I wanted to do with my life.'

*But what do you want to do, then?'

*I don't know, study something else?'

*What? Law?'

He'd laughed at the thought.

Loudly.

*No, of course not, but I do want to do something with my life.'

*You will. You'll need to work if we're to live in New York and have kids.'

*Maybe we need to move a somewhere where we can afford. I'll need to learn to drive then.'

Carson grinned. *Sure. Find me a job with another private school that pays a decent wage and we'll go.'

It would be impossible to do that and he knew it. Private schools were closing. Jobs were scarce.

*Now, how about one of those amazing pretzels from Rimnies?' Deftly changing the subject, Carson wrapped an arm around me and directed me across the road.

He wasn't telling me no, I realized later.

He never told me no.

He just never said yes.

Cecily and Cecily 2 were waiting by the door.

*Gosh, you are so late,' said the former.

*Late,' echoed Howie, suddenly appearing, holding a packet of crisps in one hand and a new Nintendo in the other.

*We have to come further than you,' J told him.

Cecily 2 lived in a nearby static caravan a short stroll from her mother's.

*Do not,' Howie said.

*Do.'

Not.'

*Do.'

*Not.'

*Do.'

*Not.'

I gave up.

*You look nice,' I said to the mother-in-law. She didn't a she was wearing something that was s.h.i.+ny and had the texture and appearance of rubber. The hair was a helmet of red mixed with the usual peroxide streaks.

*Is that what you're wearing,' barked the daughter, prodding me roughly.

*No,' I said sweetly, *I've got a nice little Calvin Klein in the car.'

*Really? That's what I'm wearing. Did you get yours from Harry the Crook?' Cecily 2 was clueless; and was wearing something so tight and short that it was defamatory to accuse Calvin Klein of having anything to do with it.

*That'll make a bruise,' Jessie whispered to me, patting my hip in sympathy.

Cecily 2 was a complete moron. An oaf of a women, with a face that the any natural history museum should be interested in acquiring for its missing link section, she also, and inexplicably, had the body of a supermodel.