“As if I would be that indiscreet.”
“Wait—you mean you are?”
“Did you change your mind, darling? Do you want to hear about my sex life?”
I quickly shake my head. Yet… I want to support my mum. But no. I couldn’t cope with the details.
“What was I saying again?”
“Older woman plus younger man equals cougar,” I mutter.
“Ah. Right. But do you know what they call an older man who marries a younger woman?”
I shake my head.
“Rich.” Then she pats my cheek.
Have I just been rumbled?
Nah. I don’t think so.
“I’ll just go introduce myself to Daisy, then toddle off home to my—”
“Gin?”
My mother’s laughter is infectious.
23
RAIF
“And then Iflicked yellow paint on top, and do you know what color it turned then?”
Leaning back in my chair, I pick up my wine and give a little shrug.
“Everyone knows the answer to that, Uncle Raif,” Daisy insists.
“Not me.”
“Green—it turned green!”
“Amazing.” What’s really amazing is how effusive Daisy is this evening. She’s positively glowing as she recounts her day as an artist between bites of her burger.Her McDonald’s burger.I prod mine as it sits in its branded box, uneaten.Inedible, more like, I think, flicking the limp lettuce leaf hanging out of the bread roll. I glance up, feeling Lavender’s eyes on me. She shoots me a faintly evil-looking grin.
“How are you enjoying your first McDonald’s?” Lavender asks my niece, her smile changing depth.
“McDonald’s is… okay.” She pats her mouth with her paper napkin.
“You don’t have to be polite.” Lavender chuckles. “If you don’t like it, I’m not going to be upset.”
Daisy shakes her head, releasing a relieved breath. “I don’t know why everyone likes it so much. Sam’s burgers are much nicer, aren’t they, Uncle Raif?”
I make a noncommittal noise, not ready to give Lavender the satisfaction.
“The chicken nuggets are all right,” Daisy says, swapping the rubber burger for something much too white to be chicken and dipping it in a tiny tub of sauce.
“I wonder what makes that particular shade of orange,” I ask no one in particular. “Probably something nuclear.”
“I like the sauce,” Daisy says,
