The Good Daughter Page 14

  ‘Bahra and I have finished with that phase of our lives.’

  ‘Well, if you can take care of Bahra’s daughter, Safet, I say any man would be happy to have you as a son-in-law.’

  As they reached for each other’s hands, I slammed the door and slumped to the floor of my bedroom in disgust. They’d only known each other for two months and now this creep was going to be my stepfather. I was stuffed.

  After Safet left, Dido called Mum and me to the living room. ‘Your schoolwork has been appalling,’ Dido said. It could have been the refrain to a really bad song Mum and he had written. I wanted to explode.

  ‘How the hell am I supposed to do my homework when I have to fetch and carry for you?’ My jaw was clenched as I tried not to scream at him.

  Dido’s eyes narrowed. ‘From now on Bahra will be here when you finish school and she will do the household chores so you can complete your homework.’

  Mum looked like she’d swallowed a lemon. I smiled.

  ‘And since you will have extra time to study I expect you to get straight As or you’ll get a strap on your hand for each mark you miss.’

  My eyes widened. I was at best a C student at the moment. ‘But, but,’ I stammered. ‘That’s child abuse.’

  ‘Not where I come from,’ Dido said. I wanted to remind him he wasn’t in Bosnia, but he was in take-no-prisoners mode.

  He wagged his finger at me. ‘Remember, I’ll be coming to parent–teacher interviews with your mother at the end of the year.’

  Shit. Now I had to work like a dog or there’d be a scene with Dido at school that I’d never be able to live down.

  At seven o’clock the phone rang. Oh, no. I’d been counting the minutes until I could call Brian—now someone was calling for Mum and would tie up the phone.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, hoping I could pretend it was a wrong number.

  ‘Sammie?’

  It took me a moment to recognise the voice. ‘Kathleen?’

  ‘Can you meet me?’

  ‘It’s a bit late…’ For the train trip to Thornbury.

  ‘I’m in your street,’ she said.

  I headed to the living room window and tried to peer out discreetly, without Dido and Mum noticing. Kathleen waved at me from in front of my house. I walked nonchalantly back to my bedroom before whispering into the phone, ‘I’ll be right there.’ I hung up the phone and headed for the front door.

  ‘I’m going to the shop to buy some tampons!’ I shouted as I slammed out. I knew Dido didn’t have a comeback for that.

  I grabbed Kathleen into a hug. ‘I can’t believe you came to visit me.’

  She pulled her arm out of my grip. ‘My boyfriend is with me.’ She nodded down the street where there was a red car parked with two guys standing beside it.

  ‘Since when do you have a boyfriend?’ I demanded. She hadn’t mentioned anything in the few emails we’d exchanged since the failed birthday lunch. Actually, she hadn’t said much at all; she’d mostly sent me annoying chain letter emails and PowerPoint presentations.

  ‘Come and meet him.’ She walked towards the car.

  The guys were watching us like hungry wolves. ‘How long have you been going out?’ I asked, slowing my steps.

  ‘A few weeks,’ Kathleen said. ‘His name is Rafael and he’s a friend of Francesca’s brother.’ Francesca was eighteen years old and Kathleen’s favourite first cousin. Francesca’s brother was twenty.

  Kathleen’s boyfriend and his mate looked me up and down. As Kathleen introduced me she stood by Rafael’s side and he put his arm around her waist.

  ‘You were right,’ Rafael said. ‘Sammie is gorgeous.’ His hand drifted to Kathleen’s butt and he cupped it proprietarily.

  ‘She sure is,’ Shane, Rafael’s mate, said, his eyes on my chest.

  ‘Are you up for a night out?’ Kathleen asked.

  ‘Um—’ I stuttered.

  ‘We’re going to a pub to watch a band.’ Kathleen’s eyes pleaded with me to say yes.

  ‘I have to ask my Mum—’

  Kathleen moved away from Rafael and I followed her. ‘Since when do you have to ask your Mum for anything?’ she demanded.

  ‘Maybe if you talked to me you’d know,’ I replied. ‘How were you able to go out tonight?’ Her parents kept her on a tight leash and in the past I’d been her only chance to slip off the collar.

  ‘My parents think I’m sleeping over at Francesca’s.’ Kathleen leaned in closer and lowered her voice. ‘I really need you to come with us. Rafael wanted to go out without me, but I said I could get a date for Shane.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ask Shelley?’ I couldn’t resist having a go at her.

  ‘Sammie, are you helping me out?’

  ‘What’s the big deal?’

  Kathleen opened her purse and pulled out her cigarettes. ‘I don’t want Rafael to think I’m too young for him.’ She lit up.

  ‘You are too young for him,’ I said. ‘And he’ll find out soon enough.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She puffed smoke at me and I moved out of the way.

  ‘When you don’t have sex with him.’

  ‘That’s not a problem.’ She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at Rafael.

  ‘Kathleen, did you have sex with him?’ I demanded.

  She turned back to me and nodded, her eyes dull.

  ‘Do you love him?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Why did you do it?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We were going to wait until we married.’ Another pact we’d made when we were twelve.

  Kathleen took another drag. ‘If I waited I’d make my parents happy.’

  She was so stupid. ‘Please tell me you used protection,’ I whispered, clutching her arm.

  ‘Of course. I’ve been on the pill for a year and we used condoms.’

  She hadn’t told me she was on the pill. It was like I was looking at a stranger. ‘You broke your promise.’

  ‘So did you.’ Kathleen picked up her handbag.

  ‘I never broke my word.’

  Kathleen lifted an eyebrow. ‘What about blabbing to Shelley? None of us is perfect. Your problem is that you think you are.’

  It was like she’d slapped me across the face. My eyes burnt as tears threatened. ‘I’m not like that—’

  ‘So you say,’ Kathleen interrupted. ‘But ask anyone who knows you and you’ll hear a different answer.’ She threw her cigarette on the footpath and ground it with her heel. ‘So you’re not coming?’

  I couldn’t answer her through the choking sensation in my throat. I stayed on the street and watched her get in the car. Rafael did a burnout as he drove off, the car swinging from side to side and the wheels scarring tracks onto the asphalt.

  I snuck back to my bedroom through the back of the house, my whole body frozen. I couldn’t believe Kathleen had turned on me like that. We’d promised each other to be best friends for life, but in a few short months our friendship seemed to have completely died.

  I was supposed to call Brian, but I lay under the doona and covered my head. I couldn’t talk to anyone. My mobile beeped an SMS message. I turned away, burrowing deeper under the covers.

  How could Kathleen have accused me of such awful things? I didn’t think I was perfect. She was so unfair. My mobile rang, but I ignored it. Kathleen hadn’t made any effort to be a friend to me since I’d moved to St Albans, yet she was branding me the bad friend. The phone diverted to my voicemail and then started up again. I threw the doona off and picked up the phone. ‘Hello?’ I snapped.

  ‘Why didn’t you call?’ Brian demanded.

  ‘Because,’ I said.

  ‘Because why?’ he persisted.

  ‘Because I had a really, really, really crap night.’ I lay back on the bed.

  ‘Spill.’ Brian’s voice was full of glee.

  ‘Okay…’ I settled in and told him about Mum speaking to my teachers.

  ‘It’s a bit late for the concerned Mummy routi
ne,’ Brian said.

  ‘Exactly.’ I was pleased that he got it. ‘Then Kathleen came by.’ I’d avoided talking much to Brian about Kathleen up until now. It kind of seemed in bad taste to talk to your new best friend about your old best friend.

  ‘What’s with her?’

  ‘She’s got a new boyfriend.’ I told him about her plan to set me up with Rafael’s loser friend. ‘Then when I said no she came down on me like a ton of bricks and said I was a bad friend.’

  ‘Not like she’d know,’ Brian said. ‘You’re my friend and I reckon you’re great.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked, desperate for reassurance.

  ‘Really,’ Brian confirmed. ‘Kathleen was just paying you back.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. She didn’t say anything until I said no.’

  ‘See, I told you. Forget about her.’

  My mood lifted. Brian was right. Kathleen and I were finished. My friendship with her was the past, and my friendship with Brian and Jesse was the future.

  ‘Anyway, enough of this depressing crap.’ Brian’s voice was upbeat. ‘Let me give you an update on the party.’

  As Brian talked up his plans, Kathleen kept popping into my head. It still felt unreal that our friendship could end so abruptly and so stupidly.

  The next day at school we all met up at the oval. ‘I’ve got to talk to you about something,’ Dina whispered, while the boys stood opposite us. Her eyes shifted. I turned and saw Gemma approaching. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said.

  Throughout the day she kept trying to get me alone, but Gemma wouldn’t let Dina out of her sight. We were in the toilets together at lunch and Gemma was waiting by the sink while Dina and I were in the cubicles. ‘Oh no!’ Dina groaned from the cubicle next to me. ‘I’ve got diarrhoea!’

  ‘I’ll wait for you outside.’ Gemma’s footsteps echoed as she ran for the door.

  I quickly pulled up my pants and held my breath as I burst through the cubicle door. Dina appeared at my side. ‘What—’ I bleated.

  ‘I was faking.’ Dina waved her hand dismissively. ‘Gemma can’t stand a bowel movement.’

  ‘She’s not the only one,’ I muttered, as I washed my hands.

  ‘I was thinking we’d organise a fake sleepover the night of Brian’s party and tell our parents we’re at each other’s house. You can spend the night at Brian’s and I can be with Tony.’

  ‘I don’t know…’ I knew I wanted to go to the party, but I wasn’t sure about sleeping over.

  ‘You’d be crazy not to go.’ Dina almost vibrated with excitement. ‘You can get drunk, smoke, hang out all night.’

  I tidied my hair. Dina wouldn’t get it even if I spelled it out. I’d had the chance to do plenty of grown-up things before Mum became an uptight Born-Again Muslim. I’d learnt from experience that grown-up parties were overrated.

  At the last party Mum and Dave threw before they broke up, one of his drunken mates stumbled into my bedroom while I was sleeping and groped me under the doona. I screamed so loud that Dave and Mum came bursting in.

  When they switched on the light his mate was sitting on the bed beside me, dazed, his pants unzipped. ‘She wanted it,’ Dave’s mate said. Dave bashed him in my bedroom while I huddled against the wall. Hearing the noise, other party-goers poured into the room and a melée began. The brawl was so bad that the cops came and hauled everyone away…

  Dina was waiting for an answer. ‘I’ll go to the party,’ I said. ‘But I won’t be sleeping over.’

  Her face dropped. ‘Don’t make up your mind yet.’ She followed me to the door. ‘There’s still plenty of time.’ She never gave up.

  I opened the bathroom door and there was Gemma, waiting for Dina like an eager puppy. Dina bit back her questions. It was the only time I was thankful for Gemma’s presence.

  Brian and I had a free period because our teacher was away. ‘Give it a break?’ I whined. He was still carrying on about his party and I was sick of the topic. I took my juice out and stabbed the foil with the straw.

  ‘Why don’t you come as Wonder Woman?’ He stared at my hair. ‘You can get a dark brown rinse and, with your light eyes, you’d be a dead ringer.’

  ‘Puhlease,’ I said between sips. ‘I don’t look anything like Wonder Woman.’

  ‘Sure you do.’ Brian’s eyes moved to my breasts.

  ‘You’re such a pig.’ I slapped him on the shoulder and crossed my arms.

  ‘What’s your problem? We always talk like this.’

  I shifted uncomfortably. Of course, he was right. We’d talked about circumcision, periods, sperm, masturbation and everything under the sun, but I couldn’t help my discomfort at the possibilities Dina raised with her whole stupid sleepover idea. ‘I’m not coming to the party.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I won’t be allowed.’ For the first time I was grateful for Mum’s transformation.

  ‘But Dina told me the two of you were organising a fake sleepover.’

  I coughed as the juice went down the wrong way. I was going to kill Dina.

  Brian slapped my back. ‘Are you all right?’

  I shrugged his arm off my shoulders.

  ‘Just say you’re sleeping over at Dina’s and stay at my house,’ he said matter-of-factly.

  ‘Can’t.’ I grabbed my backpack. ‘If Mum caught me I’d be dead meat.’

  Brian put his hand on my arm and stopped me from leaving. ‘Sabiha, is something else going on?’

  I side-stepped him, losing his hand in the process.

  ‘There’s plenty of room in the double bed,’ he said.

  I jerked back like I was stung.

  ‘Oh…’ Brian said knowingly. ‘’Cause, you know, nothing will happen.’

  Oh, so I was a street skank he’d never want to touch.

  ‘I mean…’ he stuttered. ‘You know we’re just mates.’

  I walked away.

  ‘Sabiha,’ he called, but I didn’t stop.

  I wanted to kick him. He’d tried to kiss me only a few weeks ago.

  He grabbed my arm again and turned me to face him. ‘What’s your problem?’

  ‘What’s your problem?’ I shouted.

  He raised his hands in surrender. I backed down, more embarrassed than ever. We’d never had a fight and now I’d ruined everything. I was so confused: I wanted him to like me but I had to admit that I still wasn’t sure exactly what I meant by that.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Brian asked gently. ‘It’s me. Your best friend.’

  My throat choked up and I was blinking back tears.

  ‘If you don’t want us to sleep together...’

  I flinched.

  ‘You think we’re going to do more than sleep together?’ Brian demanded.

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Sabiha, we’ve been in a bed together before,’ he said, exasperated.

  How could I forget parent–teacher night?

  ‘That was daytime,’ I said.

  He arched his eyebrow. ‘You know people can have sex during the day, right?’

  ‘Smartarse,’ I replied. I was sick of feeling so horridly embarrassed. It’s like there’s a baseline to how much embarrassment you can feel in one session and then the shame retreats like it never existed. ‘It’s the way Dina talked about the sleepover.’

  ‘You let that slag create this.’ He pointed at me and him. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’

  ‘Oh, shit.’ I covered my face with my hands. ‘I can’t believe I freaked out.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ He hugged me. I stiffened, but this was Brian, my best friend. My body relaxed into him. ‘Are we cool?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Good.’ He kissed me on the forehead. ‘What are the chances of you coming as Wonder Woman?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘What if I dyed your hair for you?’ he persisted.

  How could I refuse that offer?

  Dina called me that night. ‘Are you going?’ she demanded before I had the ch
ance to speak.

  ‘Hello to you, too.’

  ‘Are you or aren’t you?’ Dina was getting edgy.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ I lied. I wanted her to suffer for stuffing me round.

  ‘Didn’t you and Brian talk?’

  ‘You mean after you spilled your guts about the fake sleepover?’ Anger crept into my voice.

  ‘Yeah.’ Dina sounded confused.

  She was as thick as a brick shithouse. Anything that wasn’t about her flew right over her head. ‘We talked,’ I admitted. ‘If we got sprung it would be World War Three. Aren’t you worried?’

  ‘Nope. I just want to get a break.’ Her voice was all bitterness.

  ‘Aren’t you scared?’ I licked my dry lips. ‘I mean if you sleep over at Tony’s then you and he will...you know.’

  ‘I’ve waited for six months because I wanted our first time to be special, and a guy will only be satisfied with blowjobs for so long,’ Dina said.

  Was I the only one who didn’t think sex was the be-all and end-all?

  ‘I know you’re scared,’ Dina said. ‘But I really need this. I need one night where Tony and I can be with each other like a normal boyfriend and girlfriend.’

  Even though her idea of normal was clearly way off mine, I heard the pain in her voice. ‘All right,’ I interrupted. ‘I’ll go to the party.’

  Dina shrieked and I nearly dropped the phone. ‘You won’t regret this, I promise. Okay, gotta go,’ she squealed.

  The dial tone purred in my ear. I returned the handset to its cradle. Dina had a one-track mind leading to Tony. I still had time to call Brian. I picked up the phone again and dialled. As I pressed the last digit the uncomfortable feeling I had earlier in the day returned and I quickly hung up. I bit my nail and stared at the phone. I was still behaving like an idiot. This was Brian. I wiped my sweaty palms on my skirt and called him.

  ‘So, hi Wonder Woman!’ Brian exclaimed.

  ‘What makes you think I’m coming?’ I asked petulantly.

  ‘Because Dina told me,’ he said. ‘So are you?’

  I held the phone away from my ear. What the hell? She moved so quickly. ‘Um…’

  ‘Because you’d look fabulous as a brunette.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’

  ‘We’ll put a rinse in tomorrow after school. Dina’s already done the prep by telling her parents she has to go to the library.’