After a few months, Lily’s mother said she would like to meet Heather’s parents. ‘We should have them for dinner,’ she announced brightly.
Heather tried to imagine it. As she did, she felt a twinge of shame.
‘My parents are dead,’ she said for the first time.
That Christmas, Heather was invited to spend the holidays with Lily’s family at their beach house. Her own parents, who celebrated Christmas by buying some slightly more expensive beer, were unbothered by her absence. Christmas at Lily’s was like nothing she’d ever experienced. The house, perched on a cliff top, was straight out of a travel brochure: sandstone with shutters, rolling lawns and its very own jetty on the beach below. On Christmas Day, Heather awoke to gifts for her under the tree – beautiful gifts. A pair of silk pyjamas. A bottle of perfume. A thick plush beach towel. As she opened them, Heather began to cry. Everyone mistook her tears as a sign she was missing her parents, and Heather allowed Lily’s mother to hold her as she cried.
After a year, both she and Lily transferred into the interior design degree course. Lily’s father owned a luxury apartment in South Yarra where Lily and Heather lived together and paid minimal rent. Heather started to associate with different kinds of people. Slowly, she became a different kind of people.
Heather was so lost in her memories as she applied her lipstick in the beautiful mirror in the foyer that she forgot entirely about the steaks. By the time she returned to Stephen’s chef’s kitchen, the air was thick with smoke. Panic shot through her. She wrenched open the sliding door. As the smoke billowed outside, the shame set in. Pamela, she knew, had been adept at cooking extravagant three-course meals. Canapés and charcuterie boards and seafood paellas. Together, she and Stephen were ‘famous’ for entertaining. It was a reminder to Heather, another little nudge that told her: You’ll never fit in.
Her stomach fluttered as she heard Stephen’s footsteps on the stairs – an illogical feeling, as she knew she was entirely safe with Stephen, and yet old habits died hard. She remembered hearing her father’s footsteps as a child, the way her mother would glance around to make sure everything was in order. She never understood the point of it. If he wanted to punch her in the face, it didn’t matter how cold his beer was or how clean the kitchen. She would have been better off just bracing for it.
Heather braced herself now, as Stephen appeared at the bottom of the stairs, fresh and clean from the shower, in jeans, a grey woollen jumper and bare feet. She reached for her wine and drained the glass, but misjudged the closeness of the bench as she brought it down a little too hard, smashing it into tiny pieces. At the very same moment, the smoke alarm sounded.
‘Uh-oh,’ Stephen said, waving his hand around to clear the smoke. He came into the kitchen, hitting the switch on the fan on his way in. Then he grabbed the broomstick and batted it against the smoke alarm until it went silent. ‘What’s going on here?’
‘Clumsiness,’ Heather said. ‘And poor cooking.’
She reached under the sink for the brush and dustpan.
‘Anything salvageable?’ he asked.
Heather shook her head sadly. ‘I don’t know what happened. It said to put the steaks on high heat.’
He lowered the broom. ‘It said?’
Heather hesitated. ‘Google.’
‘You googled how to cook a steak?’
He stared at her, and she wondered for the hundredth time if this was going to be it – the moment that he would see her for who she really was.
‘Wow,’ he said finally. ‘How did I not know you could google that sort of thing? Google can probably tell you how to perform heart surgery these days! Soon I’m going to be out of a job.’
His phone beeped and he pulled it out of his back pocket.
‘Who is it?’ Heather asked.
‘Good question.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Tully’s set up a family chat via some app. What’s Up, maybe? But I can never find the message when it beeps. I wish she’d just text me.’
‘WhatsApp?’
‘That’s the one.’
Heather took the phone from him, opened WhatsApp and handed it back.
‘That simple, eh?’ he said ruefully. Then his eyes lit up. ‘Hey – we should add you to the group, since you’re going to be part of the family. Then you could read all the messages and pass along any pertinent information to me.’
‘I’m not sure how Tully and Rachel would feel about that.’