Driving Home For Christmas. A. Michael L.

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СКАЧАТЬ 2004

       ‘You’re looking fat, M,’ Belinda said, stuffing chips down her throat, barely chewing.

       Megan looked down; her jeans were a little tight, creating a red crease along her middle.

       ‘I thought breakups were meant to make you lose weight. Or are you already over Lucas?’

       ‘B, how about you don’t speak with your mouth full, so that I don’t feel like I’m a victim of a terrible potato storm.’ Megan pursed her lips. ‘And when you do speak, you can stop talking such utter shite.’

       ‘So you weren’t getting off with Joey Monroe at the party a few weeks ago?’ Belinda grinned like the vindictive bitch she was, so pleased to finally tear Megan down. ‘You weren’t upstairs in his room for hours?’

       ‘You think Joey could last for hours? Get a life, B.’ Megan rolled her eyes.

       ‘What, not much in comparison to Lukey?’

       Megan rounded on her. ‘What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you picking on me?’

       ‘Because you’re always the good girl who gets everything she wants, and Lucas doesn’t want you any more. There’s some justice in that.’

       Megan knew Belinda wanted Lucas, she always had. She remembered all the times Belinda had invited herself along on dates, wanted to talk through their relationship in detail, wanted to be as involved as possible. She was overjoyed when Megan and Lucas called it off, chasing him down the second she heard. She’d spent the last few weeks curled around him in corridors. It was hard to tell if Lucas liked Belinda too; Megan was having a hard time making eye contact with him these days.

       ‘You fancy Lucas,’ she stated.

       ‘And he’s not with you any more,’ Belinda said triumphantly.

       ‘He’s still my best friend, B. We’re still in the band together, we’re still in each other’s lives. If you think you’re going to get anywhere with him, you’re wrong.’

       Belinda grinned. ‘Who says I haven’t already? You weren’t the only one up in a bedroom at Joey’s party.’ She flounced off, her stupidly bouncy hair moving dramatically as she departed.

       Megan felt sick. Sure, things with Lucas had become a little…weird. But he was her best friend. They’d been in each other’s lives since they were kids. There was no way…but if there was, then maybe it was time to see Joey again, to try and make it clear to Lucas that she didn’t care at all.

       Her heart sank, and she knew she was a liar. She cared. She definitely cared.

      ***

      ‘So I have some news,’ Megan had told Skye that morning on the walk to school. ‘We’re going to do something different for Christmas this year.’

      Skye tilted her head at her mother. ‘Disneyland?’

      ‘Sadly not,’ Megan said, thinking she’d much rather do that. ‘We’re going to spend it with your grandparents.’

      Once she’d said it, nothing really changed. A weight wasn’t lifted, all her anger wasn’t dissipated. She hadn’t reached the acceptance stage of grief. Anna had said that her mum wanted to see her, that Heather McAllister had finally realised life was short. Well, it was short, too short to spend with people you didn’t love at Christmas. Too short to sit around hearing endlessly about how she’d wasted her life. And how were they going to be with Skye?

      A small part of her longed for home. For the big worn-down dining room table they’d all squished around. The real fire her dad would make in the living room, where everyone bundled onto sofas and cushions on the floor, marvelling at the tree, drinking tea and eating Christmas cake, exhausted and elated.

      ‘But what about Anna? Is she coming too?’ Skye asked.

      Megan smiled gently, stroked her long brown hair, looked at her serious face. That was Skye, always worrying about who was left out and how people might feel. Maybe she’d get home and her parents would say how good a job she’d done of raising a smart, wonderful girl. And if they didn’t, they could go to hell, because they were wrong.

      ‘She wants to have a Christmas party with her theatre friends this year, doll.’ Megan squeezed Skye’s hand to let her know the next part was secret information, it was their code. ‘Between you and me, I think a lot of Anna’s friends are getting a little old and weary, and she wants to spend some quality time with them.’

      Skye nodded slowly, then paused. ‘But you don’t want to go to grandma’s.’

      ‘I guess you could say I’m a little nervous.’

      ‘And angry,’ Skye added.

      ‘And angry,’ Megan confirmed, ‘but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have grandparents. It’s lovely to have them. And uncle Matty will be there, and he has a kid now. So you’d get to know your cousin too.’

      She was hard-selling, she knew. She might as well promise her a pony. Skye had never particularly wanted for a family, as far as she knew. They had Anna, and Jeremy, the reams of elderly debutantes who arrived with sparkling gifts for ‘the little darling’.

      ‘What’s my cousin called?’

      ‘Jasper, I think. I’m pretty sure they went with Jasper over Reginald.’

      ‘Are they rich or something?’ Skye asked.

      ‘I have no idea,’ Megan lied, thinking of the embossed wedding invitation that came in a silk-lined box, with Swarovski diamonds around the edges. ‘Why do you ask that?’

      ‘Because names can be signs of socio-economic status,’ Skye said proudly.

      ‘So…sometimes rich people have posh names?’ Megan raised an eyebrow. ‘You just wanted to use the words socio-economic in a sentence.’

      ‘Yup,’ Skye grinned, swinging her hands back and forth.

      ‘What on earth are they teaching you in that school?’

      ‘Boring stuff. I learned that from Jeremy. He was talking about the boys he went to school with, and they all had strange names. So I asked.’

      ‘It’s good to be curious,’ Megan said, thinking perhaps Megan better not get all of her information on society from an embittered drag queen. ‘So, we’re on board for Grandma and Granddad’s?’

      Skye shrugged, trying not to seem pleased. ‘If it doesn’t work out, next year we could go to Disneyland?’

      Megan stopped and held out her hand to Skye. ‘Deal.’ They shook on it.

      As Megan waved goodbye to Skye’s retreating back at the school gates, and watched as the other mothers eyed her, as if she’d suddenly sprout horns and do a sexy tribal dance around their husbands, she wondered СКАЧАТЬ