Mum reaches out a hand to me. Her fingernails are painted bright red, and she’s speaking in a weird, cut-glass accent I’ve never heard her use in my life.
She’s definitely been watching Dynasty on her phone while she’s been stuck in hospital.
Not knowing what else to do, I shuffle forward obediently and take the hand that’s offered to me, before bending down to kiss her on the cheek, and landing on the pillow behind her instead when Mum ducks quickly out of the way, presumably to protect her carefully applied makeup.
No problems with the old reflexes, then.
My jaw tightens with tension as I step back, watching as Mum turns her Bambi-lashed eyes on Jett, who seems to shrink backwards under her gaze.
“And this must be Jett,” she says simperingly. “How I’ve longed to meet you, my beautiful boy.”
Beautiful boy? ‘Longed to meet you’?I stifle a giggle. She’s really gone all-in with this act she’s putting on for us. I wonder if she’s been practicing?
“Come and give your future mother-in-law a kiss,” she says, holding out her arms to Jett.
“Mum!” I hiss, horrified. “He’s not your future son-in-law! We’re not even—”
Jett glares at me silently, then steps forward to kiss Mum on the cheek (She doesn’t flinch away fromhim, I notice…).
“It’s lovely to meet you at last, Mrs. Steele,” he says, his voice oozing sincerity. “Or may I call you Samantha?”
“You can call me Sam,” Mum simpers, batting her false eyelashes at him. “All of my closest friends do.”
I snort. Unless things have changed dramatically since I left the Bay, Mum doesn’thaveany close friends. She’s even less popular than I am.
“Mum tried to get me to call her Sam too, once,” I tell Jett. “So people wouldn’t realize she was old enough to be my mum.”
The two of them turn identical ‘annoyed’ looks on me.
Play nice, says Jett’s.Or you’ll mess this whole thing up again.
Why must you always disappoint me?says Mum’s.
Suitably crushed, I allow myself to drop down into the single chair in the room. Jett’s sitting on the edge of the bed now, Mum’s hands held in both of his as he chats as easily to her as if he’s known her forever.
He’s charming her the way he charmed me. The way he charms everyone. Only I seem to realize the charm isn’t real. He’s just acting, like he always is. Mum is, too. The only genuine thing in this room, in fact, is my growing sense of outrage at the fact that I’ve traveled all this way, and gone through so much anxiety over it, just for the sake of two people who wouldn’t even notice if I got up and left the room.
For a split second, I consider doing exactly that. Then I decide on a different path.
“So, what’s wrong with you, then?” I ask bluntly, breaking into Jett’s story about all the things “we” will do with Mum when she comes to visit “us” in California.
Fake, fake, fake.
“Excuse me?”
Mum raises her eyebrows as far as she’s able to after all the Botox she’s had over the years, and looks at me as if I’ve broken some important rule of etiquette.
“Why are you here?” I clarify. “In the hospital. Telling journalists — well, Scarlett — you’re at death’s door and you want to see me one last time. Remember that?”
“Lexie—” Jett starts warningly, but Mum simply waves her hand in a regal fashion, as if she’s brushing the question aside.
“Oh, you know how it is, Alexandra,” she says vaguely. “Women’s troubles.”
“Women’s troubles?” I frown. “What do you mean?”
Mum sighs, martyr-like, then looks pointedly down at her chest, which is hidden from view beneath the folds of her dressing gown.
The hospital temperature is sub-tropical, but my whole body goes cold.
