“And then they tell you that you shouldn’t be weak like that,” Scarlett said. “That you should think for yourself. And of course it means clothes. How girls say, ‘I have to have thesejeans, because this is the brand everybody wears.’ I’ll dry them, Finlay, or we’ll never get to eat.”
“Boys don’t do that,” Finlay said. “About the jeans.”
“No?” Scarlett said. “How about playing rugby? Orlikingrugby, even? Or … or music, or girls, oranything?If you were LGBTQ, you’d definitely have peer pressure.”
“But I’m not,” Finlay said. “So I don’t.” And Scarlett sighed.
“Too true,” Skylar said. “On all of it. I’m not always sure of myself when it comes to clothes, though, and when both the saleslady and my friend Jess—Ms. Thompson, that is, from school—told me that these were right, I thought, ‘What do I know?’, and bought them. Lesson learned.”
“You took clothes advice from Ms.Thompson?”Scarlett asked, earning her another look from her dad. “I’m justsaying.She didn’t dress all that well when she was my teacher, anyway.”
“Going-out clothes,” Skylar said. “That’s what we were looking for.”
“Because you’re dating Dad,” Scarlett said. “Like nobody else has ever done, for some strange reason.”
“That would be it,” Skylar said, keeping it serene.
“The trousers could be PJs, I guess,” Finlay said. “They look a bit like PJs.”
“There you are,” Skylar said. “A helpful suggestion.” The plate-washing looked almost done, so she got busy on her eggs.
Nobody’d said this part would be easy.
Zane said, when the kids were getting stuck into their treats and he was contenting himself with a single piece of date scone and a pile of eggs and fruit, “Family dinner tonight, I hear, Nan.”
“Yes,” she said. “Did I forget to copy you on the text? Lovely eggs, Skylar.”
“Well, yeh,” Zane said. “You did. I’ve invited Skylar and the kids to join us for it, and you probably already invited Geoffrey, so we’ll be a crowd. Give me the list, and I’ll go to the supermarket. Got some days off here, so it’s time to be the family man. Groceries, and then I’ll mow the lawn.” He looked at Skylar. “Need me to mow yours?”
“Uh …” she said.
“I mow it sometimes,” Finlay said. “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you,” Skylar said demurely, and suppressed a smile. Zane guessed that probably meant,You don’t normally do it very willingly, though.
“Good on ya, mate,” he said.
“I help my mum heaps,” Finlay said. “She doesn’t need any more help.”
“I help her too,” George chimed in. Olive didn’t. She seemed to be thinking about something else.
“And I think we should eat at our own house tonight,” Finlay said. “It’s a school night, and Mum always says you don’t go out on a school night, or have people sleep over, either.”
“Thankyou,” Scarlett said. “Because maybe we need time with our whanau. With ourdad.”
“Oh,” George said. “Because he’s gone sometimes, I guess. Like last night, but now he’s home again. It would be very nice to have a dad.”
“I told you,” Finlay said, “it’s not that nice.”
Olive said, “I think you’re probably jealous, Scarlett. Because my mum’s having sex with your dad, and he didn’t come home last night.”
She said it with all the objectivity of an anthropologist, but that wasn’t how it was received. Zane was trying to formulate a reply when Scarlett said, “I am notjealous!That’sridiculous. My dad loves me better than he loves your mum!”
“Oh,” Olive said. “OK. It just seemed like it, that’s all. There’s a kind of complex girls have about their mums having sex with their dads, and I thought it was that.”
“That’s enough,” Skylar said. Unfortunately, Scarlett said at the same time,“What?What are you eventalkingabout?”
“I read about it,” Olive said, and reached for a piece of chocolate croissant. “Thank you for the treats, Mr. Mahuta. They’re very good. I think they’re probably expensive, too. Mum doesn’t normally buy things that don’t come from the supermarket, because we can’t afford them.”
