26

She stopped for a moment, as she always did on her way home, on the bridge over the Yarra to peer into the water, thinking about Michael’s advice. He was right. Of course he was. But so was she, to believe that there was more to Billy than most people saw. And it wasn’t just that he was nice to his sister.

She hadn’t shared with Michael the overheard conversation, or that she’d seen Billy reading one of her favorite books, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler, with enjoyment up at Mount Fairweather. Because they would be weird admissions—that you had noted much about a boy from a discreet distance before he had even noticed that you existed.

Now, if she were confiding in Michael, she could add that the hyped bravado coexisted with vulnerability, that being funny was not the same as being happy, and that strength did not preclude tenderness.

At close range the river was coffee-colored, a silt-based river, though from a distance it reflected the myriad skies under which it stretched. The breeze was creating its own rippling topography of the water’s surface.

There were a few rowing crews in the immediate vicinity, but not Billy’s. She watched and admired the lean, well-oiled coordination, the crisp, strong movement of oars slicing the water. Another rich kids’ sport, of course. Crowthorne Grammar’s girls’ and boys’ first crews were invited to Henley, in England, later in the year. Imagine the fat family budget that allowed for something like that with nothing more than the ever-present Congratulations! Well done! These kids were always being stroked and caressed with soft words and extravagant praise, so different from her own mother’s don’t waste time, study hard, practice more—spoken at times perfunctorily, at other times sharply, like a slap or a bite.

Music to her ears, the whirring of a sewing machine greeted her as she unlocked her front door and walked in. Relief was short-lived as the machine stopped and her mother came out firing as soon as she heard the door.

“What is this about a tall boy? Who is this tall boy?”

“Who told you?”

“Everyone saw you. At first I said, Are you crazy? Not my daughter! She is a serious girl. She is a good girl. There is a mistake.”

“He’s just a boy from my school.”

“So, you—behind your parents’ back—you arrange for a boy from your school to come here and to walk with you! Everyone saw!”

“I didn’t know he was going to come here.”

“He followed you?”

“No. No! Calm down. Can we sit down, please?” She was still standing just inside the front door with her bag on her back. “I’ll make you a cup of tea and explain it all.”

Her mother sat down reluctantly.

“Glad to see you’re feeling a bit better today,” Vân Ước said, sliding her bag onto the sofa and returning to face the music.

“Was. I was. Not now.”

As she went from sink to kettle to cupboard and made tea, Vân Ước told her mother about Billy. At least, it was the version of Billy that had the best shot at making him an acceptable person to have in her life.

“Billy is a family friend of Eleanor’s.”

Her mother adored the homework club coordinator; they all did.

“How does he know Eleanor? He doesn’t come to homework club.”

“He just started. His father is a very important doctor. He is a friend of Eleanor’s. And his mother, too, is a friend of Eleanor’s.”

“Why did he come here?”

“He didn’t. He was in the street, running—he works very hard at his training; he is a leader of rowing—and he saw me coming from the apartments. We are in class together, and so it was polite, good manners, that he walked with me to school. Because he had finished his run.”

“Running?”

“Yes.” It was the weakest link in her story, but he had been wearing track clothes and was on his way to training, so in a pinch she might get away with it. The Eleanor story was safe. Her mother would never question Eleanor.

“Eleanor is very happy that Billy has started as a homework club tutor. She thinks he is a very responsible person. She asked him to help with the little ones.”

“Why is he only starting just now?”

“He only just found out about it.”

“Ah.”

She put a steaming cup of jasmine tea in front of her mother and took a big breath.

“In fact, Billy is having some class members to his house this Saturday and I’m invited. Is that okay? Can I go? I’d be home early. No later than ten o’clock.”

“No going out.”

“Well, it’s more like a school activity, really.”

“Where is the notice from school?”

“No notice—it’s just a celebration of the school’s rowing.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re proud of their rowing achievements. So, the rowers will be there, and some medals might be given out. Some speeches.”

“Compulsory?”

“Not exactly, but the school expects us to go to at least one or two of these… informal events.” Vân Ước tried to look as though it would be an unwanted burden to attend then played her trump card: “It’s part of community life.”

Community life was a very helpful expression, and she used it sparingly. She thought of it as her get-out-of-jail-free card. It was a strangely incomprehensible term to her parents, who thought of school purely as a seat of learning—a place of hard work and discipline and guaranteed excellent results that sent each student with a rocket down the glorious, well-paved, one-way street to university admission and an affluent professional life. Happily ever after. In Kew. Community life was an amorphous, misty zone. But they knew, because she had taken pains to point it out, that their daughter’s scholarship depended in part on her being active in the school community and making a contribution to this community life.

She could see the gears and levers turning in her mother’s brain. That was a partial win. The absence of an angry no meant the possibility of a provisional yes.

“You could always ask Eleanor about it,” Vân Ước offered. “She understands how they like us to attend these things.”

“I will talk with your ba,” her mother said. “School uniform is worn?”

“I think we’re allowed to wear casual clothes,” Vân Ước said. “Like on casual clothes day.”

“Ceremony, medals, speeches—prayers?”

“I’m sure there will be some prayers.” That had to be true: some people would be praying to hook up with other people; at some stage of the night someone else would certainly be praying that they didn’t vomit in a friend’s parents’ car on the way home…

“And to be held at the friends of Eleanor’s, at their house? The doctor’s house?”

“Yes. Billy’s parents are the year level’s official parent committee representatives.” That bit was true at least. She knew from the school calendar notice that the parents’ cocktail party held at the beginning of the year—an event her parents never attended—was scheduled to be held at Billy’s place in two weeks.

“Hmmm. Sounds like a big waste of your time.”

“Yes, I agree. But I should probably go.”

Listen to that!/Bullshitting like a pro/This could be the start of a whole new level of parental manipulation.

The commentator dudes were right. That was uncomfortable—and it was the closest she had come, apart from taking art as a subject, to outright lying to her parents. She usually got by on selective truth-telling. The (conveniently modified) truth, the whole (conveniently modified) truth, and nothing but the (conveniently modified) truth. Fingers crossed and hope to die.

She went into her room and sat at her desk, first digging the winged cardigan from its hiding place in the wardrobe. It was as soothing to have on her knee as a favorite teddy bear might be. She patted one winged sleeve and imagined that the cardigan settled a bit more comfortably. “I’m going to have to put you back out there in a week or so,” she said. “Wow. I’m speaking to a cardigan. Things are bad.”

Lying to her mother/Talking to the cardigan/Watch, next thing she’ll keep it and then Holly will be right/Thinks she can go along to the party without it backfiring/Has she learned nothing from us all these years?