She couldn’t wait for Saturday.
8
The Second Photo
Rory could hear her mother calling her to come out in the garden for the picture.
‘Rory, honey, come on, we’re all waiting for you. Steve hasn’t got all day, you know.’
There were so many things about this sentence that annoyed Rory that she couldn’t begin to enumerate them. First of all, her mother calling herhoney. She was sixteen, she made it perfectly plain that she was not anyone’s honey.
No matter that her mother thought she’d invented gay pride all by herself, she still forgot herself and called Rory – Rory! –honey.Rory was the least ‘honeyish’ person she knew.
That wasn’t who she was. Of course, her parents had been screwing up with names since they christened her Aurora. It was insulting to the person she was now.
What gay woman wanted to be called bloody Aurora, after a fairy-tale princess who was at the mercy of men. Huh! That was a laugh.
A new guy in school, who hadn’t got the memo yet, had taunted, ‘When did you first think you were queer, Aurora?’
‘When did you know you were a moron?’ she’d snapped back and she’d hit out like lightning.
Luckily, her instinctive blow to his throat hadn’t crushed his larynx.
Rumour had it he still talked a bit hoarsely. Tough shit, Rory thought.
She should have said, ‘When did you know you were straight?’ but that was too subtle a question for some.
Indy was a bit freaked out when she’d heard. ‘You’ll get into trouble, Rory,’ she’d said. ‘You can’t hit people!’
‘I don’t care,’ Rory had replied mulishly. ‘I won’t hide who I am because other people’s feeble brains can’t grasp it. He won’t go to the principal because then he’d have to admit that a girl beat him.’
‘But violence—’ Indy wailed. ‘It’s not the answer.’
‘Gay kids get beaten up just for existing. It’s not the answer then, either,’ said Rory shortly.
She much preferred being called Rory to Aurora but certainly her sisters’ names suited them.
Savannah was fey, ethereal. Even Eden suited her name – well, she certainly suited the Garden of Eden thing. Every boy within a fifty-mile radius wanted to go into the Garden of Eden with her and eat apples, Rory sniggered to herself. And Indy – Rory realised she was actually more cross with Indy than with anyone else, which was rare, because Indy never fought with anyone. But it turned out that Indy was well able to snap when the mood hit her. And the mood had certainly hit her on one occasion Rory couldn’t forget. The snapping over hitting some moron’s larynx was only half of it.
‘Rory,’ her mother’s voice came clear and loud again.
Rory was in the back kitchen. She’d opened a bottle of wine. Nobody would notice, it was her father’s wine and he went through it so quickly, how could anyone tell? She’d drunk two glasses and then she’d gargled a bit with some minty stuff she’d hidden for this purpose in one of the cupboards. Dad probably used it too to pretend he hadn’t drunk as much as he had. Dad was why she and Indy had argued. It had been so innocent. Rory had gone to Indy with what she’d seen years ago. Rory had been little, eleven.
Now that she was totally sure about who she was, at least there were no arguments like some girls had about having to wear dresses on high days and holy days. Dad called her his little tomboy and she loved going off on adventures with him.
Indy was the oldest, six years older than Rory and she was like a second mommy. She knew stuff, she was wise and kind and gentle. Rory knew that Indy would explain what was happening.
‘Indy, I saw something—’
‘Yes, bubba,’ said Indy, putting down her school book and hugging her little sister to her.
Rory had twisted the rope she’d been using to tie blankets to the rabbit cage so it wouldn’t get cold. Mr Munch was not an outdoors rabbit. He should be in Rory’s bed. She could clean up his poopies.
‘It’s about Dad,’ Rory had begun and then she’d said it. Told the whole story.
As Rory spoke, a flush had risen up through Indy’s neck and face.
‘You did not see that,’ she said, had hissed almost. She no longer sounded like Indy, kind and gentle. ‘You’re imagining it, you’re creating trouble.’
