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‘Is she in contact with him? Has she said? I’m kinda nervous that she’s so private and the last thing we need is someone selling a story… not her, I mean her dad if she went blabbing to him about what’s going on up here.’
Jenny had seen it all before amongst her friends who had trusted their cooks and nannies, with good reason, but the weakest link was who they spoke to at home, relatives who passed on gossip or stole photographs from their phones.
‘I don’t know about her father, and I get where you’re coming from because I was mad as hell with Dad when he let her stay and listen to what I considered to be a family conversation about the past. I wasn’t happy about Nanou and Silvestre being there either, but you know what Dad’s like; he thinks the sun shines out of them.’
Jenny had to hide her annoyance and on this occasion gritted her teeth and let his comment about Nanou pass and concentrated her efforts on Edie. ‘So why did you object? You seemed to be getting on well yesterday when I arrived.’
‘Yeah, as I said she’s okay and we’ve had some fun days since she got here and let’s face it, this place is dire, so I was glad to get out and chat with someone new and mildly interesting.’
Again, Jenny ignored his condescending comments and let him prattle on.
‘It’s just that Ace has only known her a year. They’ve only met a few times in person, and he’s never been invited to see her grandma. She is so cagey about her dead mom and something feels off. No way would I have dated a woman five times then brought her here, or took her to meet my mother.’
‘Not even if you were madly in love? And don’t forget, dating rules are different in the States, Jeez, you need a guidebook!’ As was always the case, the second someone criticised her child, Momma Bear sprang to defence; whereas if she wanted to bitch and snipe, it was okay.
Lance didn’t answer, only gave a shrug, so brushing off her own hypocrisy Jenny steamed ahead. ‘I take it the subject of her mother is still off limits. I’ve been warned by Ace not to pry as I’m sure you all have.’
‘Correct. She never mentions her although it did get kinda uncomfortable the other night when dad was spilling his guts about what happened in Mexico and all that. I was watching her face and it was a picture. I could tell the whole thing rattled her. At one point I thought she was going to flip. I saw her, barely holding it in.’
This nugget piqued Jenny’s interest, but she played it cool. ‘What was Joe talking about, for God’s sake?’
‘Denny mostly, and how he messed with some girl called Harlem and Gus had to pay her off because she was pregnant, the suspicions over Wendy, the girl who died on the bus, and then Felipa and what happened to her baby.’
‘And you think that this upset her? I’m not surprised though. It’s not exactly a fairy story… and if you’ve lost your own mother to drugs then I can see why it would hurt. The poor kid. It must have been rough, growing up without her mom and then sitting through Joe’s horror story. For all we know her mom could’ve been like Harlem, or any of the others.’
Lance stubbed out his cigarette and flicked it into a pot of geraniums. ‘Well, ain’t that a great recommendation for your son’s new girlfriend! Now do you see why Dad needs to vet the people he allows to come through the door, let alone to sleep in his house with his son. She could be anyone.’
And they’d been getting on so well, but now, all Jenny wanted to do was tell him to remove his cigarette stub from Nanou’s flowerpot and have some respect, for housekeepers, women in general and geraniums. But she was too tired for a row and she’d only just arrived. There was time to put Lance in his place, and she’d move the stub herself later.
Instead of responding to his vile comment, Jenny changed the subject. ‘Could you check the news on your phone? Mine’s dead and parts of America will be waking up soon.’
While Lance obeyed and flicked through his phone, she thought again about Edie, guilt twisting her insides for judging another woman before she got the chance to know her better because it was true, the kid may have had a tough life. It had taken Lance and his bigoted attitudes to wake her up to how poorly she was behaving, blaming it on exhaustion and anxiety about Joe and Ace, too, all of it clouding her judgement.
What if yesterday Edie was just trying too hard to make a good impression, and nervous about meeting her boyfriend’s mom, and hell, she was probably still in awe of being around Joe. He might be just another guy to the family, but to a virtual stranger he was something else.
Making a note to self, she decided to end the conversation with Lance and cut Edie some slack, wipe the slate clean and try to be her friend. Life was too short to make things more difficult than they needed to be. She made Ace happy and that was the important thing.
Finishing her cigarette, she poured another mug of coffee and made a promise that she’d take Edie under her wing, be a mother figure to her. Now that would be nice, having a daughter. They could have so much fun, shopping, chatting, spa days; perhaps they could go on a yoga retreat because none of Jenny’s friends could bend their knees never mind get their legs round the back of their neck.
Settling into her chair, she was most impressed with herself for turning her mood and pneuma around and would not allow Lance to paint Edie as a Wairau kino, because she was not an evil spirit. Jenny smiled, remembering how she had embraced the Maori culture on a visit to New Zealand with Hector, and their hike up Mount Taranaki hadn’t been for nothing. Yes, Jenny much preferred the role of earth mother to super sleuth because sleuthing meant surrounding yourself with negative energy and toxic people who did bad things, and she had no time for all that. Her eyes were starting to droop, and she really didn’t think she had the willpower to make it to bedtime when one word from Lance made them ping open.
‘Fuck.’
‘What?’ Jenny sat bolt upright just as Nanou rushed from the kitchen door and began calling up the yard, waving her hands.
‘Jenny, Lance, you must come. It is on the news. Hurry.’
While Lance grabbed his cigarettes then sprinted across the yard towards Nanou, Jenny took her time and eased herself off the chair, taking the cafetière and mug and after removing the cigarette stub from the geranium pot, made her way inside.
There was no rush to watch Joe’s fate, because she knew how it went, had seen it before when a scandal broke. Guilty or innocent his face would be plastered all over the screen, his name mentioned over and over, on media chats, radio shows, in bars and workplaces, the story played on a news channel loop and then the vultures would descend.
It was time for the family to gather, be strong in the face of the storm and it was going to be her job to hold them all together. She was definitely going to need some proper cigarettes. That was her excuse, and she was going to stick to it.
