“Oh! Speaking of which!” said Celeste. “I nearly forgot to give you your champagne! Did I— Oh, yes, here it is.” She rummaged through her voluminous straw basket in her typically breathless way and handed over a bottle of Bollinger. “Can’t give you champagne glasses without champagne.”

“Let’s have some now!” Madeline lifted the bottle by the neck, suddenly inspired.

“No, no,” said Celeste. “Are you crazy? It’s too early for drinking. We have to pick the kids up in two hours. And it’s not chilled.”

“Champagne breakfast!” said Madeline. “It’s all in the way you package it. We’ll have champagne and orange juice. Half a glass each! Over two hours. Jane? Are you in?”

“I guess I could have a sip,” said Jane. “I’m a cheap drunk.”

“I bet you are, because you weigh about ten kilos,” said Madeline. “We’ll get on well. I love cheap drunks. More for me.”

“Madeline,” said Celeste. “Keep it for another time.”

“But it’s the Festival of Madeline,” said Madeline sadly. “And I’m injured.”

Celeste rolled her eyes. “Pass me a glass.”

Thea: Jane was tipsy when she picked up Ziggy from orientation. So, you know, it just paints a certain type of picture, doesn’t it? Young single mother drinking first thing in the morning. Chewing gum too. Not a good first impression. That’s all I’m saying.

Bonnie: For heaven’s sake, nobody was drunk! They had a champagne breakfast at Blue Blues for Madeline’s fortieth. They were just a little giggly. That’s what I heard, anyway; we actually couldn’t make orientation day because we were doing a family healing retreat in Byron Bay. It was an incredible spiritual experience. Would you like the website address?

Harper: You knew from the very first day that Madeline, Celeste, and Jane were a little threesome. They arrived with their arms around one another like twelve-year-olds. Renata and I didn’t get invited to their little soiree, even though we’d known Madeline since all our boys were in kindergarten together, but as I said to Renata that night, when we were having the most divine degustation menu at Remy’s (that was before the rest of Sydney discovered it by the way), I really didn’t care less.

Samantha: I was working. Stu took Lily to orientation. He mentioned some of the mothers had just come from a champagne breakfast. I said, “Right. What are their names? They sound like my sort of people.”

Jonathan: I missed all that. Stu and I were talking about cricket.

Melissa: You didn’t hear this from me, but apparently Madeline Mackenzie got so drunk that morning, she fell over and sprained her ankle.

Graeme: I think you’re barking up the wrong tree there. I don’t see how an ill-advised champagne breakfast could have led to murder and mayhem, do you?

• • •

Champagne is never a mistake. That had always been Madeline’s mantra.

But afterward, Madeline did wonder if just this once it might have been a tiny error of judgment. Not because they were drunk. They weren’t. It was because when the three of them walked into the school, laughing together (Madeline had decided she didn’t want to stay in the car and miss seeing Chloe come out, so she hopped in, hanging on to their elbows), they trailed behind them the unmistakable scent of party.

People never like missing out on a party.

6.

Jane was not drunk when she arrived back at the school to pick up Ziggy. She had had three mouthfuls of that champagne at the most.

But she was feeling euphoric. There had been something about the pop of the champagne cork, the naughtiness of it, the unexpectedness of the whole morning, those beautiful long fragile glasses catching the sunlight, the surfy-looking barista bringing over three exquisite little cupcakes with candles, the smell of the ocean, the feeling that she was maybe making new friends with these women who were somehow so different from any of her other friends: older, wealthier, more sophisticated.

“You’ll make new friends when Ziggy starts school!” her mother had kept telling her, excitedly and irritatingly, and Jane had to make a big effort not to roll her eyes and behave like a sulky, nervous teenager starting at a new high school. Jane’s mother had three best friends whom she had met twenty-five years ago when Jane’s older brother, Dane, started kindergarten. They all went out for coffee on that first morning and had been inseparable ever since.

“I don’t need new friends,” Jane had told her mother.

“Yes you do. You need to be friends with other mothers,” her mother said. “You support one another! You understand what you’re going through.” But Jane had tried that with Mothers Group and failed. She just couldn’t relate to those bright, chatty women and their bubbly conversations about husbands who weren’t “stepping up” and renovations that weren’t finished before the baby was born and that hilarious time they were so busy and tired they left the house without putting on any makeup! (Jane, who was wearing no makeup at the time, and never wore makeup, had kept her face blank and benign, while she inwardly shouted: What the f**k?)

And yet, strangely, she related to Madeline and Celeste, even though they really had nothing in common except for the fact that their children were starting kindergarten, and even though Jane was pretty sure that Madeline would never leave the house without makeup either, but she felt already that she and Celeste (who also didn’t wear makeup; luckily, her beauty was shocking enough without improvement) could tease Madeline about this, and she’d laugh and tease them back, as if they were already established friends.