"How long have you two known each other?"
She cannot help but blush and graze her knuckles against his as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other. On recovering her courage, Anna looks Gem squarely in the eye and says, "I feel like I've known him my whole life."
"Of course you have. Of course you do." Gem adjusts the red frame on her nose. "That much is obvious to everyone."
Sam smiles and meets her eyes. "I suppose Anna and I are one of those crazy love stories where we actually get a happy ending."
Gem nods. "It's all about trusting in the ordinary magic of life, you see. Once you do that, anything is possible. But you," she focuses on Anna, "need to believe that you are deserving of this." She gestures at the two of them for good measure.
Anna's eyes brim. She changes the subject. "Gem, I wish I could bottle your serenity and take it home with me."
"Ah, but that's easy enough to do. Just hold the light, Anna. Hold the light and hold the love. If you do that, you'll experience it too. But first you need to know that you deserve this and that you are beautiful and worthy of love."
She cannot look at Sam and she cannot break eye contact with Gem, and at the same time she cannot allow her emotions to spill down her face and onto the kitchen floor. Not in someone else's house.
Laura bursts into the kitchen. "Punch, anyone? But a word of caution: Paul's been chundering all over the back garden, so watch your step. Did anyone see where I put the last of the watermelon pulp? Ah, there it is. Gem, your glass is empty. Would you be a dear, Sam, and give her a top-up?"
Before Sam can nod, she is off, with a punch bowl at her bosom and a bottle of vodka in her armpit. "What would you like?"
"Grapefruit juice, please."
"I'll have the same," says Anna, holding out her glass.
"Seeing the two of you reminds me of Reggie and me when we were your age. Reggie was the name I gave him, see, because he had one of those awful archaic German names that no amount of imitating a cat coughing up a fur ball on my part could help me pronounce it. Reggie was my great love."
"So you're still married to him?"
"Lord, no. I've been married four times." She lowers her voice. "Five by Easter, if things go according to plan."
"Does that mean you didn't marry him?"
"We couldn't marry, Anna. It was different then. He had a family with all kinds of bonkers traditions and they weren't about to let some foreign girl -- a 'distraction', they called me -- mess with four hundred years of doing things their way. It's not like they understood me, anyway. Apparently my accent is impenetrable." Gem laughs.
Sam finds some bar stools behind the counter and brings them round.
"Thank you, love."
"There, that's what I am talking about. Being generous with affection. Reggie and I had that in spades. We were soul mates, you see. Not in the weird hocus pocus sense. But in the same way that you, Sam and Anna, know. You feel instantly comfortable and at home. It's easy to be together. You're on the same wavelength. You're completely understood and accepted for who you are. Should I go on?" Gem sips her drink. "I miss Reggie now, seeing you together. That's how we were. Private but intense. Affectionate without grandiose displays. And I, like you, didn't think I deserved him. Oh, don't worry Sam. It's nothing you did. She needs to develop a sense of worthiness before she can accept that you love her. Which you do. Even I can see that."
"What happened with Reggie?"
"We met while he was on shore leave. He had some cushy job on a big ship doing something like bootlicking. I'm not sure. Anyway, my best friend Linda urged me to join her at some pub known for sailor spotting. Do I look like the type who goes to the pub? According to Linda, I was. She dragged me there and pulled me into the ladies' room where she slapped red nailpolish on me and wrapped a pashmina around my shoulders. I thought I looked like a tart -- and I probably did. As we were walking out of the toilets, we bumped into a guy who was kicking the wall because the payphone had cut him off or something."
"Was that Reggie?"
"No, it was his friend. Reggie was the one trying to talk sense into him. It was a most ordinary moment, actually. I sort of saw him out of the corner of my eye and thought, 'Oh, there you are' before Linda dragged me to a sticky corner table that had enormous Weiss beer pints on it. I had almost forgotten about Reggie when Linda called to his friend and waved them over. Turns out she'd set me up on a blind date with Reggie so that she and his friend could continue talking, as it were."
"Amazing."
"It was. Fortunately for me, Reggie's English was as good as my German was bad, so we hit it off immediately. I felt as though I had found my best friend."
"And that night... What happened?"
"I went home, Anna. Sorry to disappoint you, but it wasn't one of those Hollywood fireworks and violins moments. It was far more low key than that. And it was the best night of my life, even though I went home alone. We got to know each other. We talked. When he could, he wrote me letters. When I could, he would see me. But most of the time, we had to depend on the postman for contact. That was rough."
"I can imagine. We're so lucky that we can text all the time."
"But sometimes Anna takes a while to reply, which makes ten minutes feel like an eternity."
"Try waiting weeks or months for a reply. That, Sam, is an eternity when you're in love. And we did it for two years."
"Good god."
"I was so excited to see him when he finally got discharged from the navy. We didn't see the sun for several days, and at the end of that he asked me to marry him."
"Oh, wow. That's amazing."
"But I said no."
"What! Why?" Sam covers his mouth.
"Because I didn't know his family and he didn't know mine. That was important to me in those days. Now my parents have gone and it's just as well because I know my mother would definitely not approve of husband number five. Anyway, my parents loved him, of course. In fact, I think they compared every man after him to the standard he had set. None of them ever came close; even I knew that. I knew there would never be another Reggie, so I didn't bother looking for someone like him. His family... Well, if I were kind I would say they found me charming but not charming enough to carry their surname. I once overheard his mother calling me a witch, which, I suppose, was a good case of projection because she was no picnic either."
Anna sighs and squeezes Sam's hand.
"Now before you go all morose on me, let me clarify by saying that I had no intention of paying homage to Romeo and Juliet. I was young -- so was he -- and I wanted to see the world. So we did what any rational couple would do."
"You broke up?"
"We ignored his family and lived in sin."
Their laughter bounces off the kitchen walls.
"We loved every minute of it. Every minute of the year we spent together like a non-criminal Bonnie and Clyde, driving around Europe and exploring things. His father caught up with us eventually and the ordinary magic we'd woven for ourselves ended. But -- and this is a bigger butt than a Kardashian -- we never stopped loving each other." Gem puts her glass on the counter and holds up her hand. "Do you see this bracelet? Amethysts are my birthstone, and purple is one of my favourite colours. Every year on my birthday I get an amethyst in the post and every year I add it to my bracelet. Sure, it's heavy and chunky and impractical, but so are my thighs. It doesn't mean I love it less. Because I know Reggie loves me as I love him. And no other person can change that."
Before they can say anything, Gem takes Anna and Sam's hands in hers.
"No other person can ever stand between what you two share. Just do me a favour and stick together no matter what. I miss Reggie every day and that is not something that amethysts or holding the light or drinking or eating or marrying someone else can ever take away. Hold on to the ordinary magic between you. It gives the rest of us hope."
Gem drops their hands and wipes her cheeks. She smiles at them, and they smile at each other.
"Laura, darling, I do think I will have some of that punch after all." Gem gets off her stool and makes her way out of the kitchen. At the door she pauses and turns. She raises an empty glass at them and says, "To ordinary magic."
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