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“Good morning, how are you feeling?” Bronwyn says behind me. She puts her hand on my shoulder, glances at the trash.
“Ah.” She daintily bites on a fingernail.
“Did you throw out the food I made? Why?”
She sighs. “Laura, I’m sorry. I just thought…”
“What?”
“Well, Charlotte is getting a little chubby.”
“What?”
“You know how it is with girls her age. If you don’t snuff it out quickly, they’ll stay like that forever. I just thought…all that cheese…”
I feel my chin wobbling, and she clicks her tongue. “Laura…”
I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong, why everything I do ends up in the trash. Why I’m not even good enough to make dinner for my step-daughter.
“She’s not chubby or fat or anything! She’s perfect!”
I can hear myself shrieking but I can’t help it. Bronwyn looks at me with alarm, then puts her arms around me.
“I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. I apologize.”
But I’m sobbing now, fat tears blasting out of my eyes. I brush them off with my hand.
“Hey! I’m sorry! I won’t do it again! I promise.” She holds me at arm’s length, frowns. “Did you get any sleep?”
“No,” I whine. “I have to go to work.”
“Okay, I’m here if you need me. Okay?”
I nod. “Thank you.”
On the way to the gallery, I try to remember what I’d decided I would say, and I can’t. My head hurts, my mind is a fog. I’ve got Jenny Smith’s emails racing around my brain like dogs on a track, the image of my broccoli and cheese bake in the trash. The way Bronwyn looked at me, with so much pity. I have to stay focused. All I know is that Summer has to go, and she’ll probably be upset because she thinks I’m going to put on a show of her photographs one day. I know she does, even if she has never said it out loud. And her piece in my exhibition isthe lowest pointand it should never have been there, and just for that she should go.
Just before nine am, I unlock the front door of the gallery, turn off the alarm, flick on the lights, and then she comes in.
“Good morning!” she chirps, as happy as a bird, and I have to say, it takes a certain kind of person to behave like that, to live a lie without so much as a flicker of shame.
“Summer, I need to talk to you for a moment.”
But before the door has a chance to close, Bruno, Gavin and another man I have never seen before enter.
“Gavin! Hello! Nice to see you.” I say this brightly, but his response is curt and he looks at Bruno. A little stab of anxiety twists inside me when Bruno introduces the man as Mr. Dore, from the insurance company. He offers his hand.
“Call me Andrew, please.”
“The insurance company? Why?” I blurt.
“Andrew needs to go over a few things,” Bruno says gravely.
“But it’s all over, isn’t it? The police were here, we made a report, it was a robbery. The claim is being processed!”
“Why would you think that?” Gavin asks. I feel my cheeks redden. I turn away, shrug, mumble that I don’t know, I just assumed.
“Should we go out the back?” Summer asks. She turns to me. “Can it wait? What you wanted to talk to me about?”
