THREE #2
‘I had Luke young as well. I was only twenty.’
‘I’m talking a lot younger than that, but then, of course, I came from a very different life to you.’ Cecelia looks up at the house again. ‘I’ll see you around,’ she says and turns and goes back across the garden.
Stephanie slides the glass door shut, locking it and pulling down the blinds, not caring what the Kemp family think. She takes out her phone and texts Gail.
The Kemp family moved in today. The woman, Cecelia, seems… odd. And her daughter is quite rude.
Gail doesn’t reply because she’s obviously in a meeting or busy and Stephanie immediately regrets sending the text.
She’s rushing to judgement and she shouldn’t do that.
She can only imagine how hard it must be for them to have lost their house and everything in it in a fire and now to be living on someone else’s property in a small space.
She’s sure that Luke and Avery would be just as unhappy as their daughter Polly seems to be.
The front door opens and she hears her own children arriving home from school.
‘Mum,’ says Avery as she enters the kitchen and drops her bag on the floor, ‘Luke won’t let me borrow his charger.’
‘Because you’ll lose it just like you lost yours,’ Luke replies, raising his voice slightly, and Stephanie knows that Avery has obviously been pestering her brother all the way home.
‘You will find your charger if you tidy your room,’ says Stephanie.
‘But I need music to tidy my room and I need to charge my phone for that,’ replies Avery and Stephanie cannot help laughing.
‘You can use mine but only if you use it in my bedroom.’
‘Yay,’ shouts Avery, grabbing her phone from her bag and running for Stephanie’s bedroom. ‘Don’t move it out of there, I mean it, Avery,’ Stephanie calls after her.
‘Why are the blinds closed?’ asks Luke. ‘It makes everything so dark in here.’
‘Oh,’ says Stephanie, feeling slightly flustered.
‘Um, the new family. You know, the Kemps? They moved in today, and I didn’t realise that they can see in here from the garden and we can see out to them.
It felt best to give us all privacy for now,’ she says.
It’s not the whole truth but Luke doesn’t need to know that.
‘Right,’ says Luke, going to the fridge and grabbing the snack plate that Stephanie has prepared for him. He sits at the kitchen counter, eating his cheese, crackers and fruit as he scrolls on his phone.
Avery returns to the kitchen. ‘I’ve left my phone in your bedroom, Mum. It should be charged soon. Oh, yum. Did you make a plate for me too?’ she asks.
‘Of course I did,’ says Stephanie, taking Avery’s plate out of the fridge and putting it in front of her. ‘How was school?’
‘It was okay. Quinn and I have paired up for a science project. We’re going to grow beans in cotton wool and study what helps them grow the best, like water or coffee or soda.’
‘Sounds interesting,’ says Stephanie. ‘Let me know what I need to get you from the store for that.’ She can get extra things now, without worrying, she realises.
‘And in a few weeks, we’re having a showcase at lunch so all the junior kids can, like perform something if they want to and I’m going to do the routine from last year’s gymnastics competition.
The one where I do the backflip off the beam,’ she says and Stephanie notes that this is the first time since she started high school that Avery has sounded really excited.
‘That’s a great routine. Have they got everything you need?’
‘Yup and they’re letting us rehearse every day and you get to come and see it.’
‘Will you text me the date and time?’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ says Avery.
‘And you, Luke? Any news?’
Luke shrugs. ‘Nothing much. Lots of work, but the countdown to the camping trip is on, so thanks for that, Mum.’
‘That reminds me,’ says Stephanie. ‘I have the money for you. Is it okay if I give you cash?’
‘No one uses cash anymore, Mum. Can’t you just transfer it to Mr Louie?’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll do that.’ She’ll have to use the cash for groceries.
It occurs to her that she hasn’t asked about the tax implications of renting out the property, and she may need to speak to Gail about that, and see if there’s anyone she can put her in touch with.
They have an accountant, but the accountant works for Christopher and is unlikely to be of much help to Stephanie.
A knock on the glass door makes Luke turn around.
‘Who would that be?’
‘I told you. The Kemp family moved in. Maybe it’s them. Maybe something’s wrong.’ Stephanie goes to the glass door, opens the blinds and unlocks the door.
Polly Kemp, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Cecelia and Jason, is standing at the door. She is holding a cup in her hand. Stephanie slides open the glass door, and Polly steps inside. Her gaze immediately going to Luke, who is sitting at the kitchen counter.
‘Luke, Avery, this is Polly. She’s going to be living here for a while,’ says Stephanie. She didn’t mean ‘here’, of course, she means the other property. It’s just taking some getting used to, talking about it like that.
Luke glances at Polly and says, ‘Hey,’ and then he returns to his snack plate and his scrolling.
‘Hi,’ says Avery, hopping off her stool. ‘What school do you go to? Is it the school near here?’
Polly looks at Avery’s school uniform, starting at her feet and ending at her head.