Do You Want to Know a Secret? by Claudia Carroll Page A

page turned down. ‘Now remember, it’s only an amuse-bouche of a moneymaking idea, that’s all.’
    I threw that in casually-on-purpose, hoping the posh word would hook her.
    ‘Amuse-bouche?’ She shrugs. ‘Fancy.’
    ‘Thanks so much, please use it in a sentence by Monday.’
    ‘“I was in love and then he dumped me like I was radioactive waste,”’ she reads aloud from where I marked.
    ‘No, not the problem page, beside it. There.’
    ‘Blah, blah, blah short story contest, blahdy blah blah, theme is a brand-new take on modern motherhood blah blah blah three thousand words, blah blah blah, open to anyone over the age of eighteen, blah blah, closing date for submissions . . .’
    Barbara’s now stopped her ice-munching and is looking at me as if to say, ‘You’ve certainly wiped the amuse off my bouche.’
    ‘Take a look at the prize money,’ I say, sticking to my guns.
    ‘First prize, five thousand euro, second prize, two thousand, third prize, a grand . . . dearest, this is all very well and good, except for one minuscule detail you seem to have overlooked. I can’t write. Treatises, yes, legal reports, yes, fiction, are you kidding me?’
    ‘Laura, you are officially the funniest woman I know. Especially when it comes to stories about your kids.’
    ‘Agreed,’ says Barbara. ‘Certainly the most unintentionally funny. I mean, you telling the story of how Emily is refusing to eat until you get cable is worthy of a slot on
The Late Late Show
.’
    ‘Don’t remind me. The little madam said I should change my name to mean.’
    ‘You see? That’s the kind of razor-sharp wit and humour they’re looking for,’ I say.
    ‘And you honestly believe that anyone would want to read about my family life?’
    ‘Come on, sweetie, if I can go on two dates, me the man repeller, and if Barbara can turn into a producer . . .’
    ‘. . . And do bear in mind my last paid acting job was over a year ago, a stunning portrayal of a lump of cholesterol on a beach in the Benecol ad. Unforgettable, really. And the answer to your next question – “Why aren’t you playing Broadway as a direct result?” – is “Beats the hell out of me”.’
    Laura’s cornered and she knows it.
    ‘Well, if nothing else, I’ve just thought of a title,’ she eventually says.
    ‘Tell us.’
    ‘It’s a sign I hung on the kids’ bedroom doors. “Checkout Time is at Eighteen Years”.’
    Barbara cracks up, with her big he-man laugh, but this time Laura doesn’t join in.
    ‘You really think I can do this?’ she asks me, looking a bit pole-axed.
    ‘What’s the worst that can happen? All you can do is try.’
    ‘In my world, trying merely brings you one step closer to failure.’
    ‘Christ alive, you think what you have to do is a challenge? In the next month I have to try and get two guys to date me.’
    But I know exactly how she feels.

Chapter Five
    RIGHT THEN, MIGHT as well get this over with. It’s Sunday morning, well, mid-morning would probably be a bit more accurate; myself and the girls having sat up till waaaaay late last night, giggling and messing and generally acting like three overgrown tequila tarts. Laura even got to stay out till well after 1 a.m., which for her is a new kind of record, but then she got so worried that her phone
hadn’t
rung with updates on whatever row was going on at home, that she panicked herself into thinking that the house was probably on fire and that she should therefore leg it home post-haste.
    A silent phone tends to have that effect on her.
    Anyway, Barbara and I stayed up till all hours talking shite, taking the world apart and putting it back together again, and now here I am, still in bed, physically unable to budge, I’m that hungover. I’m in no mad rush to get up though, mainly because my bed is probably the most comfortable place to be in the whole house/building site, so I stretch over to my bedside table, grab a pen and pad and get cracking on my homework from last