Free Brilliant by Denise Roig Page A

three.”
    They said they hoped to see each other again soon. “Get the kids together,” said Gomez.
    â€œWe’ll never see them again,” said Talbot after he left.
    â€œThe pool,” said Molly.
    â€œDoesn’t count,” said Talbot and took Manda from her. Their daughter was nearly asleep, her three-year-old weight and warmth settling him as it always did.
    Â 
    When the first wave of redundancies hit the real estate sector, Talbot hadn’t been too worried. He certainly wasn’t staying up nights like some of his colleagues at Amaal Properties. Bruce, a fellow Scot, had gotten so freaked, he’d landed in emergency at Sheikh Khalifa Medical City with shingles and heart palpitations. He was back at work the next week, looking like someone who’d fallen from a great height and somehow survived. Bruce had been a showboat when he’d arrived two years before, buying a white Mercedes SL convertible with his first-year bonus, dropping the names of ruling family members. “Gotta love this place,” he said a lot. He was one of the few unmarried ones, spent most of his weekends in Dubai. Word back then was that he was shacking up with a Malaysian flight attendant from Etihad
and
her roommate.
    â€œHow do you get away with shit like that in a place like this?” Talbot had asked Molly.
    â€œYou really think it’s so different here?” she’d answered. Sometimes Talbot’s naïveté was charming. But the longer they were together — twelve years now — the more she seemed irritated by it, like it was a kind of obstinacy, a failure to get with the program.
    â€œYeah, I do actually. Can’t have a beer on the front step, can’t hug or kiss in public. You’re my wife and if I hold your hand in the blinking mall, I get funny looks, but if you’re two guys you can?”
    â€œI’ve got used to it,” Molly said. And she’d gone back to sewing sequins on a leotard for Zoë, their seven-year-old, who’d been invited to a ballerina birthday party. Zoë had wanted a custom-made tutu like some of her friends, but Molly had said, no, they could make something themselves. “There’s got to be a limit,” she said. Talbot had watched as she secured each tiny sequin with silver thread. Even if he knew what to do with a needle and thread, a job like this would drive him round the bend. Molly made it look easy. He secretly took her in — she didn’t often welcome admiration — the red-blond hair that curled up in humidity, the small, high-arched feet. Unlike some British women who came here and got broad in the beam, Molly had kept her compact swimmer’s body. She didn’t look that different from their days as young lawyers in Glasgow, a long, long time ago.
    Â 
    They did see the Cassels again. Two days later, as he and Molly unloaded the pile of Spinney’s bags from the SUV , the family pulled into the canopied spot next to theirs. Gomez looked delighted to see them. Spotting Talbot’s racing bike leaning against the carport wall, he gave a thumbs up: “You ride?”
    Gomez’s wife — tall, tawny, so stunning Talbot nearly had to look away — was considerably younger. What had he done to win such a prize? Talbot wondered. It must have to do with money, though he didn’t know what Gomez did for a living. Probably something in oil and gas — people here said it as one word: oilngas — the ubiquitous job description that came with luxury housing, paid tuitions and swollen salaries.
    The wife walked quickly to them, put out both hands. “I’m Carla. You’ve no idea how you saved our lives the other night.” Women this gorgeous were often short on warmth and charm in Talbot’s experience, but Carla held nothing back in her handclasp, chatted animatedly with Molly, ducked to talk to Manda. Britannia and Zoë, close in age, eyed each other