Chapter Fourteen
A Good Woman does not indulge in intercourse until after the wedding ring is on her finger. After all, why should he buy the cow when he can get the milk for free?
Matilda Beam’s Guide to Love and Romance, 1955
Following my ill-timed funeral comment, the rest of lunch is stilted and awkward. We eat our food in silence, and as soon as we return home Grandma hurries off to her room for her afternoon nap. Peach is dispatched to town for various project supplies, and I’m given instructions to read the first two chapters ofMatilda Beam’s Guide to Love and Romance, paying extra special attention to a chapter entitled ‘Making a New Male Acquaintance’.I go upstairs to my bedroom, drag the tub chair out onto my balcony and sit in the sun with the first of the guides, flicking forward a few pages to the correct chapter. I skim over the text, snorting at some of the more ridiculous suggestions.
Catch a Good Man’s attention by ‘accidentally’ dropping your glove and allowing him to retrieve it for you.
Never talk about clothes with a Good Man – he is not interested in your new dress. Find out about what heisinterested in and only talk about that.
Speak to your chap in soft, soothing tones, almost as if you’re keeping a delicious secret.
I can’t decide whether to laugh or throw the book at the wall in rage. What a lot of bollocks. May as well just remember to ‘act like a wimp’ and be done with it. I cast the guide aside and turn my face up to the sun, letting my eyes flutter closed. I try hard to keep it out of my head, but I can’t help but think back to Grandma’s reason for not coming to Mum’s funeral. I might have been so drunk on tequila that I barely remember any of it and Summer might have had to drag me there, but I went. You don’t miss a funeral. Not for a chest infection anyway. I can’t help but think Grandma is hiding something. She was so cagey and cross afterwards. But why would she hide anything? And why, come to think of it, if she’s so pleased to see me now, has she never tried to get in touch before? Andwhy− while we’re in a suspicious mood − does she think it’s a reasonable choice to keep porcelain dolls at her age?
I make a mental note to ask her. Not in a blurty way like I did at the cafe – that was awkward and she closed up like a clam − but maybe just in a subtle, casual way when the mood is right. Even though the very thought of those kinds of deep conversations makes my brain itch to the max, I find that my curiosity about Mum and Grandma has been well and truly piqued.
I take off my glasses and prop my feet up on the rail of the balcony. I’ll get back to revising that silly chapter in just a second. But for now, the sun feels damn good. I could almost be abroad. If only …
* * *
‘Jessica? Are you all right? Jessica?’
I come to with a start. I was having a lovely, almost hypnotic daydream about possible exotic travel options when all this shit here is done. I open my eyes to see Peach’s anxious round head blocking out the sun. I wipe some drool from the corner of my mouth.
‘Hey, Peach,’ I say blearily. ‘How’s it going?’
‘I got you contact lenses, like you asked,’ she says, handing me a Specsavers bag.
‘Awesome, thank you. I think I dozed off. What time is it?’
‘Four.’
‘Is it? You were in town for ages!’
‘Matilda had a long list.’
She follows as I drag the chair back into the bedroom. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust from the glare of the sun outside. I plop back down in the chair with a sleepy sigh. Peach points to the end of the bed. ‘May I sit down?’
‘Course − you don’t need to ask. S’up?’
Peach stares down at her T-shirt and fiddles with the hem. ‘I’ve been thinking.’
‘OK.’
‘I’ve been thinking that since you are here, and you said that your friends had abandoned you, and I never had many friends in Alabama and I can’t seem to find any here – I’m a little shy, you see—’
‘No kidding.’
‘I was hoping that … ’
‘What?’
‘Well, I reckoned that m-maybe we could be friends?’
‘Oh.’ I nod. ‘Sure. Good idea. We are now friends.’
‘Really?’
