She woke up at five o’clock the next morning, hunched over her laptop on the sofa. She must have fallen asleep while researching. Dragging herself back to bed, she found herself unable to get back to sleep – her alarm was set for six anyway, and it was already broad daylight outside, given that the longest day of the year had just been. Five-thirty found her in the guest house kitchen, chopping peppers and red onions and tomatoes and mushrooms, then stabbing them with wooden skewers with perhaps more vengeance than was strictly necessary.Bloody society. Bloody society and its emphasis on weight and clothes size. Why can’t they just accept that people come in all varieties? And that a person’s worth and their number on the scales are NOT inversely proportional?
After the skewers were put in the fridge to marinate, she stood in the kitchen, chewing on her lower lip nervously. She had no idea what to do to help Saskia. Or whether she could do anything at all. Eating was a struggle for her – Kivi could see that now,clear as day. Should she make some changes? Revamp the menu so that it was less calorific?
Then she thought –No. Saskia is an adult. The best thing I can do is treat her as an adult who knows what’s best for herself. If she needs me to do something, I have to trust that she’ll tell me.
At seven, Saskia texted that she would be out all day. A ‘local illustrator’ who lived on the other side of Lygate had agreed to an interview.He illustrates for children’s books and he said he’d take me to his farm up there. So I’ll sort myself out for dinner tonight too. He mentioned cooking for me!
A smiley-face emoji accompanied the text, and Kivi received the message loud and clear. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Saskia was saying. Easier said than done, now that Kivi had seen that naked vulnerability on her face, and held her hand while she tried not to cry.
That image stayed with her all day. Everything felt off-kilter somehow, as if Saskia’s declaration had tilted Kivi’s world slightly on its axis. It probably wasn’t healthy to bequitethis affected, but that was Kivi all over. An empath. She’d heard the phrase ‘emotional chameleon’, used to describe people who intuitively absorbed the emotions of those close to them. Not that she regarded herself as ‘close’ to Saskia. Not really.
The only emotion she picked up from her sister that day was irritation. Kivi couldn’t blame Eva for being annoyed at her. After all, she kept drifting off into space, tuning out Eva’s conversation, and unwittingly tripping her up with the vacuum cleaner (who hadn’t become one smidgen less murderous in the couple of weeks since she’d lashed out at him). But she was functioning, floating through the day perhaps, but she was getting her jobs done.
Or so she thought, until she was dusting the guest lounge and heard Eva’s yell from the kitchen: “Kiera Louise Chadwick, you get your wayward tush in hereright now!”
There was no arguing when her sister shouted like that. Petite in stature she may have been, but she was still liable to the occasional explosion. Kivi found herself scurrying, past a chuckling guest and through the closed kitchen door, until she found herself face-to-face with an enraged Eva and a kitchen full of smoke.
“You’re lucky I came in here in time,” Eva said, pointing to the charred remains of a batch of scones that Kivi had put in the oven… too long ago than she cared to think. “Otherwise we’d have had a little fire on our hands.”
“Bollocks,” Kivi said, peering down at the blackened baked goods. The greaseproof paper on the tray had caught alight too. That explained the density of the smoke. She picked up a scone, and tried to laugh. “I guess we won’t be needing coal any time soon.”
“How can youlaugh?” Eva shouted. “This could have been dangerous, Kivi! Why didn’t you tell me you’d put them in? Or better still, why didn’t you remember yourself?”
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Kivi said, but she knew that her sister was right. And although Eva continued shouting, she couldn’t bring herself to listen. She turned away and headed to the door that connected the kitchen to her annex, walking through the small corridor until she met Toto at the door, wagging his tail in surprised delight at her unexpected mid-day appearance. She opened the garden door to let him out, but he stayed by her side, probably sensing that something was wrong. In the end, she sat down on the sofa and buried her face in his golden fur for a second. For a dog that regularly rolled in fox shitand licked his fur with the same tongue with which he licked his arse, he smelled surprisingly good. She took a few deep breaths until she felt the sofa sink next to her and an arm slip around her shoulders. For a second, she thought it was Saskia, until fingers began to lace through her hair. Saskia wouldn’t do that.
“I’m sorry I shouted,” Eva murmured, and Kivi sat up, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand. “You’ve just been on Planet Pixieland all day. What’s going on? Is it the wedding? Is it getting too much? I thought Saskia was helping you with it – what’s happened to her? Has it gotten too much for her?” Kivi gave her a look, and she mimed buttoning her mouth. “Sorry. Questions, questions.”
“Let’s see if I can answer them all.” Kivi huffed a laugh. “No, the wedding isn’t getting too much, although you have reminded me I have stuff to do for it. The weddingisn’twhy I’m distracted. Saskiaishelping me with it – or as much as I can bring myself to let her, at least. So no, it’s not gotten too much for her.” She tried to laugh again. “Was that all of them?”
“That just leaves the main one: what’s going on?”
Kivi didn’t answer. She couldn’t betray Saskia’s confidence like that, she just couldn’t. But she didn’t have any other answer prepared, and so she just returned her attention to Toto, running her fingers through his golden fur and cradling his floppy ears in her hands. He lapped up the attention, which was just as well, because she didn’t plan on answering Eva’s question. She knew her sister’s brain would be spinning too fast to let a silence stretch for too long, and so it proved.
“It’s Saskia, isn’t it?”
Kivi made an affirmative noise in the back of her throat, still not looking at her older sister.
“Well, I seem to recall we established that you fancied her. Is it safe to assume that we’ve moved a level up from that now? And we’re straying into L-word territory?”
“I don’tloveher,” Kivi said indignantly, sitting up straight. “Whoever mentioned love?”
“You, right now,” Eva pointed out. “Has it really gone that deep? Where love is… somewhere on the cards?”
Kivi groaned, and buried her face in her hands this time. “No. She’s straight. And even if she was Sapphically-inclined, there’s no guarantee she’d like me back. She’s just… gotten under my skin. And she showed some emotions last night, and they’ve stuck in my head. That’s all.”
“Showed some emotions? In what way? I sensed some tension between you yesterday – did she lash out, or-”
“No,” Kivi laughed. “I was actually the one to lash out at her. And we both said stuff, and it turned a bit teary, and…”
“You didn’t kiss her, did you?”
“No!That was… the last thing on my mind.” Although it hadn’t been. There had been a small, primitive part of her that had wanted to kiss the lost, fearful expression off Saskia’s face and replace it with a smile. But she absolutely would not have acted on it. Not unless Saskia had made some sort of move.
“But you’re feeling some things for her? Deep things?”
Eva could always see through her. Older sister’s prerogative. “Yes,” Kivi growled. “Yes, I have feelings for her. Happy now?”
“I’d be even happier if you were honest with her.”
