Truly Madly Guilty(50)

She pulled out everything from the bottom drawer and placed it on the floor next to her. There was a book jammed right at the back of the drawer. She went to put it on the floor and saw that it was only half a book. The cover was missing. It had been torn in half. Almost every page had been scribbled upon in angry, black marker, in some cases so violently there were holes through the paper.

She sat back on her haunches, staring at it, breathing rapidly. The title at the top of the page said, The Hunger Games. Wasn’t that the book her sister Karen had told her was too grown-up for Dakota? ‘You’ve got to take responsibility for what she reads,’ Karen had said, bossily. ‘Don’t you know how violent that book is?’ But Tiffany had believed she shouldn’t censor Dakota’s reading. It wasn’t pornography after all. It was a young adult book. Tiffany knew what the book was about (she’d watched the movie trailer on YouTube) and even fairy tales were violent. What about Hansel and Gretel?! Dakota had always loved the most gruesome fairy tales.

Had the book had such a profoundly terrible impact on Dakota that she’d felt the need to destroy it? It was like it had been brutally vandalised. Tiffany pulled more clothes out and found the remainder of the book.

Dakota loved her books and she always took such care of them. Her bookshelf was in beautiful order. She didn’t even freaking well dog-ear pages. She used a bookmark! And now she was tearing up a book and hiding it? It didn’t make sense. Reading was her greatest pleasure.

Tiffany looked at the ceiling. Although, was Dakota reading as much as she once had? She had to read for homework, of course, and Dakota diligently sat down at her desk and did all her homework without ever being asked, without Tiffany having to monitor her at all. But what about reading for pleasure?

When was the last time Tiffany had come across her reading in bed or on the window seat? She couldn’t remember. Jeez Louise, had this book distressed her so much that she couldn’t even read anymore? Tiffany’s negligence was breathtaking. Terrible mother. Terrible neighbour. Terrible woman.

‘Have you finished polishing those shoes yet, Vid?’ she called out. ‘We don’t want to leave late! The traffic will be bad in the rain!’

Tiffany shoved everything including the book back into the drawer. Obviously she wouldn’t say anything to Dakota now, not when they were just about to leave for the Information Morning.

She put it out of her mind for later.





chapter twenty-six



The day of the barbeque

Sam said ‘Erika!’ Clementine clapped her hand over her mouth as if to grab back her words and then quickly dropped it as evidence of her guilt. Her stupidity and thoughtlessness were beyond belief.

‘Oh! Hi! Thanks!’ she said as Erika came into the room and handed her the nappy bag. ‘How did you guess we needed that? Is Holly okay?’

As she babbled, she frantically rewound the conversation. What could Erika have overheard? Anything? All of it? Oh God, not the part about being ‘repulsed’. It was her tone that was the worst. The tone of contempt.

She kept talking, talking as if she could somehow conceal what she’d said with layers of new conversation. ‘Dakota took her to see the dog kennel or something. She wants a puppy for her birthday. Don’t you dare give her one, will you, only joking, I know you wouldn’t. Isn’t this house amazing? I bet even the dog kennel is five-star!’

From behind Erika, Sam widened his eyes and ran his finger across his throat.

‘Tiffany wants us all to go outside to the cabana,’ said Erika. She sounded dry and cool as usual. Maybe she hadn’t heard anything.

‘I’ll go back down, check on Holly,’ said Sam. ‘You right with Ruby?’

‘Of course I’m right with Ruby,’ said Clementine. He always did that when he left her with one or both of the girls, as if he needed to confirm that she would indeed remember to take care of her own children.

‘Where are you going to change her?’ Erika looked around.

This was what rich people called a media room. There were leather couches facing the laughably gigantic screen on the wall. Sam had just about lost his mind with envy when he saw it.

‘Oh God,’ said Clementine. ‘I don’t know. The floor, I guess.’ She started laying out the change mat and wipes. ‘Everything looks so expensive, doesn’t it?’

‘I’m stinky,’ said Ruby. She tilted her head seductively as if being stinky were something to be prized.

‘Yes, you are,’ said Clementine.

‘Wasn’t Holly toilet-trained by this age?’ asked Erika as Clementine changed Ruby.

‘We’ve been putting it off,’ admitted Clementine. Normally she would have been annoyed by the implied criticism in Erika’s question, but now she was anxious to humbly admit her failure, as if that would somehow acquit her of the nasty things she’d said. (My God, she’d complained about the size of the cheese.)

‘Once you start you’ve got to commit, and you’re sort of stuck at home, you can’t go anywhere – well, you can, but it’s tricky … and, um, but we’re all set, we’ve got her big-girl undies ready, haven’t we, Ruby? And we thought, after we get my audition and Holly’s birthday party and Sam’s parents’ ruby wedding anniversary out of the way, we’d commit.’