The Seven Steps to Closure by Donna Joy Usher Page A

then.’
    I hung up and headed wearily back to my bed. My feelings of pity for Lil lasted the amount of time it took me to remake the bed and the sixty seconds beyond that. Then I was fast asleep.
     
    * * *
     
    In the end it was Elaine who cracked the Nat nut. Natalie was once again the last to arrive for dinner. When I say once again, I mean once again in recent events. I am usually the last one to arrive – although sometimes Dinah and I take it in turns. Elaine is always smack bang on time. Normally Nat is exactly 5 minutes early for everything. She says it gives her time to focus – which I guess is a handy thing when you are a lawyer.
    We were onto our second glass of wine when she rushed in. Her long hair, normally perfectly coiffure, was tousled and her blouse was incorrectly buttoned.
    ‘What happened to you?’ I exclaimed in horror, thinking she’d been mugged on the way to the restaurant.
    ‘Problem at work, all sorted now,’ she mumbled as she took a seat.
    ‘What sort of problem?’ asked Elaine suspiciously, while staring at her blouse.
    ‘Oh you know the normal type. Big emergency,’ she muttered evasively, trying to tame her hair. Finishing her unsuccessful grooming attempts, she picked up her menu, staring at it intently.
    ‘What type of emergency?’ asked Dinah.
    ‘Oh big client, I had to get his divorce documents in order. Speaking of which,’ she said to me, ‘yours have been submitted. You look great by the way.’
    ‘Thanks, for the compliments and the divorce papers.’ I patted my hair. ‘I’m finally getting the hang of doing it. You should have seen me the first time I washed it. Total disaster: I looked like a mushroom. Tristan got me a hair straightener and some anti-fizzing agent and it’s all under control.’
    Elaine was staring at Natalie. ‘Who is it?’ she asked suspiciously.
    ‘Who’s who?’ Nat stared even more intently at her menu.
    ‘The big important client,’ Elaine persisted.
    ‘No one you would know.’
    ‘I know a lot of people.’
    ‘Look can we just drop it, it’s not important.’
    ‘Not important? You’re late for dinner tonight, Thursday you didn’t even show up for the movies.’
    ‘Oh shit!’ Nat looked stunned. ‘I totally forgot.’
    Now it was my turn to look suspicious. ‘If you forgot,’ I asked, ‘why did you send me a text the next day?’
    Nat squirmed in her seat.
    ‘Oh my God,’ Elaine said.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, looking at her in concern.
    ‘Oh My God.’
    She seemed to be fine so I glanced around for a fire or some other cause for her apparent alarm.
    ‘OH MY GOD.’
    I intensified my search, now hunting for an axe murderer or a suicide bomber. And then I noticed Nat. She sunk guiltily into her seat as Elaine pointed a finger at her and hissed, ‘You’ve been having sex!’
    ‘Shhhhhhh,’ Nat urged, flapping her hands at Elaine. ‘Shut up.’
    ‘I will not shut up. I want to know with whom, and where and for how long and well, just tell me everything.’ Elaine pulled her seat in closer to the table and leaned towards Nat, eagerly awaiting the details.
    ‘You’ve been having sex?’ I asked Natalie.
    She looked at me sheepishly, and then smiled.
    ‘Really?’ I asked. ‘Anyone we know?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘Any good?’
    She grinned.
    Elaine called a waiter over and ordered a bottle of bubbly. ‘To celebrate,’ she explained. ‘Now – tell us everything.’
    ‘I can’t,’ whispered Natalie in a horrified voice, ‘I’m such a slut.’
    ‘Is it more than one man?’ asked Elaine with glee.
    ‘Euwwww no. Ahhh, I’ve been having sex with……… No I can’t say it, it’s just too bad.’
    ‘Come on. It’s all right we are here to support you, not ridicule you,’ I encouraged.
    ‘Okay. I’m going to say it really fast because otherwise I won’t get it out.’ She took a few deep breaths and then launched into her sentence. ‘Itsthekleeneratork’.
    She looked at us expecting some