Girl Next Door - Alyssa Brugman [13]
We sit silently until my beer goes warm.
'Declan, are you really sick?'
He's tugging at his shoelaces. I can't see his expression.
'It might not be cancer exactly, but it's something. Nobody believes me.'
'I believe you,' I say.
He scoots over on his boogie board and kisses me on the cheek. 'Finish your beer, Jenna-Belle.'
5
POLITE
The fee for dinner at Declan's is having to eat with his parents. Most of the time I can convince him to make me a toasted sandwich before they have their sit-down meal, but sometimes Declan thinks if he has to suffer, I do too.
Declan's mum really uses all those knick-knacky domestic devices. She hands out paper serviettes in a little paper serviette dispenser and has condiments in a special silver condiment rack that spins. She has matching coasters and placemats. She floats camellia flowers and candles in a decorative bowl in the middle of the table. Declan's mum prepares each meal as though she's being judged in the North Shore Mother of the Year award.
She serves the meal on platters as though it's Christmas time. First she brings around the appetisers – figs wrapped in crispy prosciutto. When we each take one she waits for us to tell her how much they rock.
Then she sets down the main meal – separate platters of preserved lemon veal cutlets, minted broad beans and brown butter mash – and serves Declan's dad. She sits down and instead of eating she twists and fidgets at the jewellery on her wrists and fingers as though they're shackles. My mother used to do that with her jewellery when she was anxious – before she sold it all.
Sometimes when I catch Declan's mum out of the corner of my eye I think she looks a bit like my mother except ten years older. It's not even her features, it's more the way she carries herself – as if you could balance a pineapple on the top of her head and it wouldn't fall off. It would look silly, but everyone would be too polite to ask about it.
Thinking of Declan's mum brings something else embarrassing to mind. There was this one time – way back when we first moved in – when I came home from school and neither of my parents were home. They'd given Willem the key, because he was supposed to be the mature one, except he had gone to a friend's house, but still I knocked on the door, just in case. Nobody answered, and then I went around the back and knocked on that door. Still no one home.
There was no way to break in because we have grilles on the windows and a super security system to protect all those kitchen appliances and jigsaw puzzles I was talking about, plus all the stuff my parents bought five years interest free – most of which Mum has since sold, even though we haven't paid for it. But anyway, I was so mad that they'd given Will the key and I was locked out for two whole hours.
I didn't have anything to do. So I started growling and throwing myself against the back door like they do in the cop shows, and screaming and crying.
I did that for ages and then from behind me Declan's mum says, really quietly, 'I don't think they're home.' And then she just stood there watching me be completely humiliated. As if I'd be throwing a tantrum like a three-year-old if I thought someone was watching.
That's the way she always looks at me, all the time – as if she's caught me doing something weird in private, which is another reason she reminds me of my mother. There was this thing about the laundry, and my mum.
Declan's dad is a proper North Shore dad. He drinks designer beer, plays golf and is some kind of hot shot executive. Over dinner he asks Declan about school. He wants to know about sport and what subjects Declan is going to choose for next year.
He encourages Declan to do mock trials, and play cricket. He wants Declan to be a blokey old-boy. It's strange because he's not a big, blokey man either. He always suggests that