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choose.
    “Dad, while you’re up, do you mind making me another egg?” Ryan asked, as William took his mug and put it into some sort of chute on the kitchen bench. A moment later it popped out of another chute and William put it away in a cupboard.
    “You’ve got to be kidding, right?” he replied.
    “I’m still hungry. You wouldn’t deny your growing twenty-one-year-old son adequate sustenance, would you?” He raised his eyebrows.
    William sighed and put an egg into a large machine, pressed a couple of buttons, and held an egg cup against an opening from which the now boiled egg emerged. He placed it on the table in front of Ryan, who began peeling off the shell.
    “We really should upgrade the Kitchen Assistant,” Ryan said. “That one’s ancient. The new version not only boils the egg in five seconds but peels the eggshell for you too.”
    There was no doubt about it; I was definitely in the future. Twenty five years into the future. Genetically modified yolkless eggs and Kitchen Assistant machines that boiled them in five seconds. Maybe there were flying cars as well. Curious, I walked over to the window and peered outside. The street was quiet, except for a dog that appeared to be walking its owner and a little girl walking … rolling down the street with her mother. She must have those shoes with the inbuilt wheels. Nothing new, I’d seen them before. No one was on hover-boards and no cars were airborne, although the few vehicles parked nearby certainly looked different. More square-shaped—and taller—and not at all what I’d imagined cars to look like in the future.
    “What are you looking at, Kel?” William asked, as I peered up, down, around and around, trying to spot anything outside that looked different.
    “Um, nothing.” I said, stepping back and smoothing out my clothes with my hands, a gesture I always did whenever I felt uncomfortable. Which wasn’t often. Until today.
    “Do you feel better now, having eaten?” he asked, slipping his arms into a suit jacket and shrugging it into place.
    Translation: ‘Do you now accept that you’re really fifty and not twenty five and have you finished with your mid-life-crisis freak-out episode?’
    No.
    “Yes, of course.” I reassured him. He was obviously anxious to get going somewhere. Some husband—rushing out the door on my birthday and leaving me alone with my egg-addicted, burping punk son.
    “Good.” He leaned into me with lips puckered and I turned my face sideways so his kiss landed on my cheek. “I have to go, but I’ll see you at the office this afternoon for the meeting.”
    “Ah … meeting?” I asked. “But it’s my birthday. I think I’d better, um … cancel the meeting.”
    William laughed. “I don’t think so, honey. After waiting over a year for this opportunity we’re not going to let it go. Mr Turrow’s heading back to the UK tonight, remember? Today’s the only chance we’ll get and there’s more likelihood of success if we meet face to face than via e-pad.”
    What was he talking about? What opportunity? Who was Mr Turrow? And what in the name of Dior was an e-pad? And I couldn’t work in an office, it just wasn’t possible. What happened to my modelling career? Unanswered questions swung from one side of my brain to the other like a trapeze, picking up others on the way and throwing them all over the place.
    “Oh, and I’ll give you your birthday presents later on,” William added.
    “Presents? There’s more than one?” Okay maybe he wasn’t such a bad husband after all.
    “Yep, there’s two. And you’ll love them,” he said with a confident smile, before leaning in close to me again and whispering into my ear. “Actually, make that three. I’ll give you the third one tonight after our guests have gone home.” His cheeky wink sent a jolt of dread through my veins.
    Does he mean what I think he means? Oh hell, how am I going to get out of that?
    William disappeared through a door and