Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

Author:Liane Moriarty [Moriarty, Liane]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: 2018-09-16T16:00:00+00:00

Frances

It was nearly 3 pm as Frances made her way, with some eagerness, downstairs to the meditation studio for the breaking of the silence. She hadn’t eaten anything solid since the night before and she was very hungry. When the breakfast and midday bells had rung today, Frances had gone to the dining room to find a row of smoothies set out on the sideboard, labelled by name. Frances had found hers, and tried to drink it slowly and mindfully, but it was gone before she knew it, and her stomach had begun to rumble, loudly and embarrassingly.

She was not really starving, but she was yearning; not so much for food, but for the ritual of food. Maybe if she’d been at home, running around doing errands, it would be easy to skip a few meals (not that she ever did, she’d always had difficulty comprehending the phrase ‘I forgot to eat lunch’), but here, especially during the silence, meals were crucial to break up the day.

She’d tried to distract herself by reading in the hammock but her book had taken an outlandish turn which she couldn’t handle on an empty stomach.

Her spirits lifted when she walked into the studio. The lights had been turned off and the room was illuminated by clusters of flickering candles. It was cool down here, some sort of essential oil burner was pumping out a heady mist, and spine-tingling music was being piped through invisible speakers.

Frances always appreciated a little effort when it came to ambience. She noted low camp-like beds had been set out around the sides of the room, with blankets and pillows. Headphones and eye masks were laid out on the pillows, with water bottles alongside, like business-class seats thoughtfully arranged for a long-haul flight.

Masha, Yao and Delilah sat cross-legged in the middle of the room, along with the three members of the Marconi family and the tall, dark and handsome man.

‘Welcome, please join the circle,’ Masha said as more people filed into the room behind Frances.

Masha wore a long, white, sleeveless satin and lace dress somewhere between a wedding dress and a nightgown. She’d made up her eyes so that they were even more prominent. Yao and Delilah, extremely attractive young people, looked almost ordinary and washed-out next to this celestial being.

Within a few moments, everyone was there. Frances was seated with Heather on one side, and young Ben on the other. She wondered how Ben was feeling. Probably missing his car. She studied his tanned, hairy leg in the candlelight – not in a sexual way, thank the Lord, just in a kind of fascinated way, because all this silent mindful meditating over the last few days made everything fascinating. Each individual hair on Ben’s leg was like a tiny tree in a dear little forest –

Ben cleared his throat and shifted his leg. Frances straightened and met the eyes of the tall, dark and handsome man seated on the opposite side of the circle. He sat straight-backed and solemn, yet somehow in a manner that conveyed he wasn’t taking any of this too seriously.

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