It Could Have Been Her(54)
I give her a tight smile and then tell her I’m going down to make coffee for her mum.
“Well,” she shouts after me, “aren’t you going to say anything? I’m right, aren’t I? You know I’m right! Your choice to see her, but don’t come crying to me when she gives you some sob story about dying dogs and you end up giving her half your money!”
I slow as I approach the door, swallow down my fury, and quietly close the door behind me.
* * *
She sits across the kitchen table from me later that day, staring at me with icy eyes. I have made spaghetti with a slow-cooked cherry tomato and basil sauce. There are curls of hand-shaved parmesan on top of it. It’s one of my specialties. Daisy in particular loves it. I am drinking a cold lager, my third of the day. I will have two more in front of the TV and then I will stop drinking. Not least because if I drink any later than 9 p.m. I’ll be up half the night peeing. Jessamine is usually on her first rum and Coke by now, but I see that she has already emptied the bottle and is making her way swiftly through the second bottle of wine. I have a bad feeling.
“What have you done to your hair?” she snaps at Daisy.
Daisy shrugs. “I just cut some side bangs. It’s no big deal.”
Jessamine shudders lightly. “It looks terrible. You should have asked Grandma to book you a proper hair appointment.”
Daisy narrows her eyes at her mother and then looks at me as if to say: “What the fuck?”
“Well,” I say, “as a professional hairdresser I can truthfully say you’ve done a lovely job. Really suits you.”
Daisy has blossomed in the last couple of months. She turned twelve last October but looks older. She cut all her girlish hair off last year into a bob that skims her jawline, and she wears edgy makeup and wants to get herself pierced. She’s cool. Striking. We get on really well, and she is, as it’s probably clear, the only reason I’m still here.
She tells us about her day at school, about some girls who are giving her a hard time. Jessamine slops another serving of wine into her glass and says, “You make yourself stand out too much. That’s the problem.”
I throw her an admonishing look. “Jess,” I say, “that’s a terrible thing to say to a young girl.”
I turn to Daisy. “You can never stand out too much, OK? Remember that. All your life, just remember that.”
A darkness descends over the table. It feels like winter. I hear Annie clearing her throat. I hear Jessamine’s fork clank against her plate. Then I hear the sounds of the feet of Jessamine’s chair grinding against the tiled floor and the swoop of both of her arms, hands turned outward, heaving her plate of pasta across the table and straight toward me.
It tips into my lap, warm and red. The dish drops to the floor and smashes into two pieces. Annie makes a shrill, panicked noise; Daisy yells out. I don’t say a word or make a sound, I simply grab my paper napkin and scoop up the spaghetti from my lap and from the floor, get to my feet, put the napkin in the trash, put the two halves of the broken plate in the trash, and quietly leave the room.
She’s after me in seconds. I feel her fist around my ponytail, yanking my head back. I grab hold of my hair and try to pull myself away from her, but she yanks back harder. “What is it with you and her?” she hisses in my ear. Her breath is sour and hot. “Are you a pedo? Is that what it is? Do you fancy her?”
“Jesus Christ,” I snarl, freeing my hair from her grip and turning to face her. “Jesus! What the fuck are you talking about?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” The horrible mimicry again. “You know what I’m talking about.” Her words are slurred, her eyes are wild. “You. And her. Daisy. You can’t get e-fucking-nough of her. Always complimenting her, telling her how great she is…”
“Well, I’m sorry, Jessamine, but someone has to. Left to you and your mother…”
The minute the words are out I know what I’ve done.
“Left to me and my mother… what?” Her voice is ripe with madness and fury.
“Nothing. Just that she needs a bit of building up. That’s all.”
“Why?” she asks. “Nobody fucking built me up. What makes her so fucking special?”
I pause. We’re here, having the conversation that I’ve been wanting to have for so long, but Jessamine is so, so drunk and so close to the far edges of reason and sanity that now is not the moment, but suddenly I find myself not caring.
“She’s not ‘so’ fucking special. Jessamine. She’s just a girl who needs a nice mum and some TLC; needs to be told she’s good and important; needs, Jessamine…”—I pause, inhale, and then continue—“not to end up like you.”
The palm of her hand is like flicked elastic against the skin of my cheek, stinging and raw. I clasp my hand to my face and sigh loudly. “Fuck’s sake, Jessamine.”
She goes to slap me again and this time I grab her wrist inside my fist. She pulls my hand toward her mouth and tries to bite it, but I pull away from her, and then she comes for me with everything, every bit of her—nails, teeth, fists, feet—and I curl into myself and I take it, take every last bit of it.
Afterward, she collapses against the wall, on her haunches, panting. “You’re a fucking loser,” she says, wiping drool from her chin. “A loser. All of you are. Especially her.” She jerks her head toward the kitchen. Then she sighs. “Ah well, who cares? She’s nothing to do with me anyway, is she?”