Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
W ith the game underway, I checked Robyn’s Instagram feed. To think she’d stumbled upon the site six years ago and now, all of a sudden, was an influencer. I don’t know when Robyn went from being my everyday, girl-next-door, sister, to becoming semi-famous. She wasn’t especially pretty or tall or anything, really. But maybe that was her appeal. Perhaps whatever Robyn had or aspired to have, could be attained by mere mortals. Maybe that was her charm. Her allure.
In her latest post, Robyn was looking polished and fresh-faced, holding a perky Bugs in her arms, with a wide practised smile and sparkling eyes. #familytime #bunnytime #33weeksandcounting #blessed #happylife #adoptdontshop
Yes, I’d smoothed out her slight skin imperfections, transformed her flat hair into glossy and bouncy curls and enhanced her lips, but everyone knew Instagram posts were photoshopped.
And here she was, twelve hours later, having gathered over a quarter of a million likes and too many comments to read.
Robyn was a someone .
From what I could scan, most were in the realm of Goddess, I love you. I love your style. Life goals .
But there were a few negative ones – Who do you think you’re kidding? Get a life? Who’s the father? Bet you’re ugly on the inside . Chill86.
I put my phone away and focused on the field as lots of little legs ran in a pack after a ball.
Chase the ball, you’ve got to want it!
Well in . Attack!
Harry, what the fork! You big girl .
At the end of the game, I caught up with Arnaud again.
‘We should get together for a drink so I can fill you in on the office gossip,’ he said.
A drink? Yes please. ‘Sure. Great.’ Harmless flirting, I told myself. Harmless.
I hummed all the way home, not even the parched landscape keeping the smile from my face. The once-leafy vistas were now little more than shrivelled and dying trees. Brown and desolate. But the humming stopped when I arrived home and fell straight into a crisis meeting with Matthew and the neighbours, who were standing in our backyard.
Matthew appeared dazed, silently appealing for help. I could have pretended I didn’t see him with Margaret and Peter and snuck up the stairs. What I really wanted to do was give him the middle finger and say, ‘That’s what you get for not going to your son’s soccer game – where they were soundly beaten, incidentally, four goals to one.’ But this was my life, and I had to accept it: a flaccid suburban existence. A life that involved squabbling with neighbours over petty plant issues.
A long time ago, I was a hip inner-city dweller living on the edge. Well, perhaps not on the edge exactly, but I had better things to do with my time than bicker with the neighbours.
‘Roots, Kate,’ Margaret wailed as I approached. ‘Your hedges are encroaching on our property, and I think you’ll agree our back garden is suffering from a severe lack of sunlight. In summers past, sun streamed in.’
I nodded sympathetically.
‘We may need to consult an arborist. I’ve checked. With roots, anything extending into a neighbour’s garden is considered trespass.’
‘Not that we’re saying you and Matthew are trespassing,’ Peter added.
No, of course not.
‘But if falling branches waving around in the wind cause damage to our property, it could be considered negligence for which you might be liable.’ Margaret’s smile was saccharine.
Despite his hangover, and under the watchful eye of Margaret and her stream of instructions – Careful of my zinnias . Watch out for Muffy – Matthew, defeated, dutifully began trimming hedges.
Lexi shouted to me from the back door. ‘Mum, I’ve got nothing to wear.’
‘Coming.’ I was glad for an opportunity to escape, even if it was to sort out Lexi’s latest emergency.
I followed her upstairs. Clothes littered the floor, her bed, in fact every square inch of my daughter’s room where cute kitten posters had been replaced by shirtless tattooed men in suggestive poses. At least fairy lights still decorated her pink bed frame.
‘Goodness, Lex, what are you doing?’
‘Throwing everything out.’
‘I can see. Your clothes are everywhere.’
‘I’ve only got two passable outfits and the rest are so childish only a five-year-old would wear them.’ She took a pair of scissors to her favourite black T-shirt. ‘If I rip the sleeves off, then cut the bottom to make it a midriff singlet, maybe I can get away with it.’
‘Hey! Stop tearing your clothes to pieces.’
‘I told you. I’ve nothing to wear. Everything sucks.’
‘So you’re hacking the clothes you do have?’
‘You don’t understand.’ Lexi finished cutting her new singlet in half. A singlet that would barely fit a toddler.
‘Try me.’ My heart ached for her. ‘Anyway, why do you need something to wear? Where are you going?’
‘To the movies with Jazz and Issie. You promised.’
I’d totally forgotten. ‘Which movie?’
‘ The F**k-It List .’
I turned to walk out. It seemed like every conversation Lexi and I had, Lexi pushed my buttons, trying to pick fights. In the space of months, we’d gone from best friends to strangers who shared a kitchen and, occasionally, Netflix.
‘Joking! We’re seeing Barbie. ’
Again! How was that movie still on at the cinemas when it was streaming on TV? No denying Margot Robbie was cute and witty, but still.
I started picking clothes up off the carpet. ‘What about this?’ I said over and over as I held up dresses, skirts, jeans and shirts for Lexi’s inspection. She dismissed each suggestion with an eyeroll and insolent headshake.
‘If I get caught wearing the same top twice, it’ll be social suicide.’
Suicide . I flinched. Bullies had moved from the playground to online chat rooms and beyond. I regularly received emails from Angus and Lexi’s schools advising us to collect our children’s mobiles at night before bed and monitor their non-school-related computer usage, along with tips on how to recognise signs they’re being cyber-bullied, developing toxic friendships, and/or having mental health issues .
I held up a black-and-white polka-dot shirt, her favourite only weeks ago. ‘This?’
Lexi visibly gagged. ‘As if!’
I briefly remembered my own angst regarding a flouncy pink gingham peasant skirt and frilled halter-neck top. I must have been about fifteen at the time. Mum thought the combo was the prettiest thing this side of Kansas. It was hideous. I shuddered at the memory.
‘I was saving this,’ I said over my shoulder as I walked to the hallway cupboard and removed a brown paper bag from the top shelf.
I returned to Lexi’s room and handed it to her. On a generous whim a few weeks back, I’d bought a jacket on sale to give to her at Christmas. But needs must.
‘Mum!’ She squealed and looked inside to find a black cropped leather jacket. ‘Thanks heaps.’
Best not to dwell on the fact I was buying my daughter’s affection.
Lexi settled on wearing a pair of low-rider jeans – slightly too tight – and her new jacket worn over the mutilated black singlet which exposed her flat tanned midriff. She completed the outfit with oversized pink sunglasses.
‘Now then, do you think you could stop using so much make-up? You wear more mascara and eyeliner than the guys from KISS. You have beautiful eyes.’
‘Okay, Boomer.’
‘Lexi…’
She hugged me. ‘Come on, Mum, you’ve got to admit, you’re too old to know. But if you really want me to, I’ll smudge it down.’
I knew Lexi was desperate to grow up and, in my calmer moments, I sympathised. Lexi was trying to find herself, to fit in, and to figure out who she was in an unforgiving world. Still, she was maturing much faster than I could cope with. Thirteen going on twenty-three.
As I drove Lexi and her friends to the movies, I was pleased I’d remained firm on not allowing her to buy a push-up bra like the one her friend Issie was wearing under her pink crop top. Lexi’s other two friends, all black eyeliner and heavy mascara, resembled adolescent raccoons. Their conversations – littered with words like ‘Hunter’, ‘sucks’, ‘random’ and ‘totally hot’ – were worrying, mostly because I couldn’t get a clear fix on what they were talking about. The radio was too loud. But I had an uneasy feeling. I needed to pay more attention to how my daughter was occupying her spare time, especially with summer holidays fast approaching.
‘She. Is. So. Thirsty. Desperate for attention. Who wears that anymore?’ This coming from a person wearing a pink sequinned boob tube over a singlet, a denim miniskirt and knee-high pink platform boots.
‘I so know what you’re saying, Jazz. A freak.’
‘Like, pure psycho skank. Whatever! Sewing sequins on her no-name jeans. Can you believe it? And she slashed her no-name T-shirt as well, as if we couldn’t tell.’
I glanced at Lexi. Her own T-shirt was nowhere to be seen. She’d zipped up her jacket.