“They’re perfectly safe,” she insisted. “Max and I have done them a few times.” She bit her lip coyly. “Have you ever had sex on psychedelics? It’s amazing.”

I had not. But maybe drugs were the answer to the sexual lull my husband and I were in? Not on a regular basis, but perhaps a night on magic mushrooms would allow us to recapture the passion we’d once had for each other.

“And it’ll make us appreciate our freedom,” Freya nudged. She lifted her chin toward the parents behind me. “Those two won’t be having any fun tonight. They’ll be hand-washing their kid’s shitty diapers.”

I giggled a little. The baby was cute, but Freya had a point. “By the looks of them, they’ll be weaving the diapers themselves on their loom.”

“From thread they spun themselves. From their pet lamb.”

“The baby needs to be changed!” I joked. “Quick! Shear the sheep!”

Freya chuckled. “See how lucky we are? You have to come over tonight.”

“I’ll see if Brian’s into it.” He would be. His man-crush on Max aside, he was the fun-loving half of our partnership. While his asthma precluded him from smoking dope, he was always up for a beer and a laugh. A night on magic mushrooms would be up his alley.

“Awesome,” Freya said, then she peered past me to the baby and its family. She pointed with her fork. “Look at that.”

I turned to see a waitress making goo-goo eyes at the child while she wiped food from the table. Next to her, the middle-aged manager was cheerfully sweeping up the broken crockery.

“If we yelled and threw food and broke dishes, we’d get kicked out,” Freya said. “People will forgive anything if you have a baby.”

14

low

I had finished my shift at the store in tense silence. After Jamie had hijacked my lunch date with Freya, I was not in the mood for chitchat. Given my taciturn nature, she may not have noticed that I was giving her the cold shoulder, but I was. When I left at five thirty, she called after me, “Have a nice night, Low.”

“Yep,” I muttered, adding, “You too,” as the door closed behind me. I couldn’t lose this job, but I was pissed at my boss. She was so desperate for a friend that she’d pulled rank on me, jumped at the chance to share a meal with Freya. It was pathetic. I had just reached my truck when Freya’s text came in.

Are you coming to the studio?

As usual, Freya’s message lifted my spirits. When she had gone for lunch with Jamie instead of me, I’d felt angry and excluded. But her text validated that it had been me she’d wanted to eat with, me she had wanted to see.

On my way, I responded.

Her reply was instant.

Can you get me some shrooms? Enough for four people. I’ll pay you when you get here.

Of course I could get some ’shrooms. They grew wild in the island’s northern forests and several kids at school collected and sold them. But Freya’s request hurt. She was treating me like a drug dealer. And ’shrooms for four? If she’d said ’shrooms for three, or even five, I would have assumed she was inviting me to join in. Although I didn’t care for hallucinogens, I would have made an exception for Freya and Max. But she’d said four. Four. Who was she planning to trip with?