“I’m not your bestie. What are you even talking about?” I chose to tell Caitlin after finishing a bottle of wine together. After the extensive wine-drinking training I’ve had in France, I seem to deal with it much better than her.

“We’re BFFs, you and me.”

“You’re being melodramatic.” I wish Josephine were here. She has the precious gift of being able to cut through Caitlin’s bullshit with one well-aimed sentence. “Singing somewhere, I gather,” Caitlin said earlier when I asked her about the whereabouts of her partner.

“Pull yourself together. This is an important conversation,” I say.

“Well, I suppose I can’t really hold it against you, seeing as I lived in the US for so long. Tell me though, has Laroche met Trump? And does that drastically decrease my degrees of separation to that orange blob of lunacy? I’m not very happy about that.”

“Strangely, it didn’t occur to me to ask when I met her.”

Caitlin sighs. “I knew you’d go for good. I knew it when you booked your trip. It’s just that Sydney will lose a lot of its appeal for me once you leave.”

“What’s all this sentimentality about, Caitlin? We’re close, but we’re not even lifelong friends like you and Sheryl are. And you fell in love here.”

“I guess I just missed you. It’s been a cold and rainy winter in Oz so far. And Josephine is always busy with something.”

“Is she not paying you enough attention? Is that what this is all about?”

Caitlin shrugs. “I guess I could do with a little more. I love to hear her sing, but I don’t want to go to every gig. Especially not when she’s playing in a dingy student bar in front of a bunch of sweaty youths. That’s not very appealing to me. I told her to be a bit more discerning when accepting bookings, but she didn’t want to hear it.”

“Well, she’s not singing for you, is she?”

“Oh, I know. I’m being an ass. But I’m upset because you’re telling me you want to leave town. Hell, you want to leave the country and the continent.”

“I love her.” My most simple and most impenetrable defense. “I guess you would do the same in my position.”

“Of course I would. I have done long-distance, even though Boston-New York is hardly comparable to Sydney-Paris, and I know how taxing it can be. But you’ll be leaving a good gig here, Zoya. Your audience will be devastated.”

My audience. I’m sure Jack, the producer of the show, will try to persuade me to change my mind when I talk to him about my plans using those two simple words that hold so much meaning.

“I’ve done the show for ten years. Surely, it’s time for a change.”