Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,43

baked casseroles, presided over the Young Wives, and looked glamorous on the dance floor; and a father who was good-looking and won trophies in the quickstep. It was all so perfect, so perfectly normal, that I wished that it were mine. Of course, I knew I couldn’t have it; I couldn’t step into Tracey’s life. But if I remained her friend, attached myself to all this perfection, perhaps I’d be able to shed my own aura of social failure and bask in Tracey’s glow.

“God,” Tracey huffed. “I’m bloody starving. Mum! Mum! Have you got them sandwiches made yet?” She pushed herself up from the settee and made for the door. “Come on, let’s see what’s taking her so bloody long.”

I followed her down the hall and into the kitchen, where her mother stood over the counter buttering slices of bread. Tracey walked over to her to look out the kitchen window. “Oh, God. What the bloody hell is she doing here?”

“Tracey,” her mother said, “there is no need for that language! And, anyway, don’t be like that. She’s your sister, for goodness’ sake.”

“Who?” I asked, walking closer to the window.

“Our bloody Amanda, that’s who.”

“Tracey!” Her mother exclaimed.

I leaned over the kitchen counter and, gripping its edge, peered through the window. The back garden was a square of lawn surrounded by a border filled with rosebushes, sweet peas, and geraniums. In the middle of the grass, on a vinyl sun bed, reading a book, lay the girl I had met outside the Co-op. Wearing the smallest bikini I had ever seen anywhere except, perhaps, on the girls who draped the beaches on Hawaii Five-O, her whole body was glossy with suntan lotion.

“You didn’t tell me you had a sister,” I said, turning to Tracey.

“Yeah, well, she’s horrible and I don’t like her. So I don’t talk about her much. All right?”

Mrs. Grasby looked at me and sighed. “They used to get along perfectly well. I suppose it’s a teenager thing. Do you have any sisters or brothers, Jesse?”

“No, it’s just me,” I answered.

“God, what I wouldn’t do to be an only child,” Tracey huffed. Then she stomped toward the back door, swung it open, and stalked into the garden. I followed close behind.

“What are you doing home?” she demanded, standing over Amanda, hands on hips. “First I find Mum at home and now you’re here as well. You told me you were going out.”

“What business is it of yours what I get up to?” Amanda said without lowering her book. It was a romance novel. “Now go along and play like a good little girl.”

“Oh, piss off, Amanda.”

“You piss off. Can’t I get even five minutes’ quiet?”

“God, anybody would think you were the queen of bloody everything the way you carry on. You said you were going out.”

“I changed my mind, didn’t I?” Amanda dropped her book to her lap. She was wearing sunglasses but pulled them off to give Tracey a challenging stare. Then she noticed me. “I know you,” she said, picking up the book again and waving it toward me so the pages flapped loose and open. “You’re the one I saw outside the Co-op a couple of weeks ago. The one that was all wet.”

“She’s my friend,” Tracey declared, as if she thought this was in jeopardy.

“Oh, don’t get your knickers in a knot,” Amanda responded. “She’s quite a laugh, this one. Got a good sense of humor. Maybe she’ll get you out of your permanent bloody bad mood. What’s your name again?”

“Jesse,” I answered.

“Right. Nice to see you again, Jesse.”

I wished that I could find something to say that would make my name, myself, as memorable as she was to me. “Did you have a nice time at the pictures with your boyfriend?” I finally asked, hating the feebleness of my question as soon as I uttered it.

“It was all right. Of course, all he wanted to do was snog in the back row,” she said, lowering her voice and looking toward the kitchen, where Mrs. Grasby was standing by the window assembling the sandwiches. “Me, I wanted to watch the film. Spent as much time fighting Stan off as that bloke in the film spends fighting that damn shark.” She laughed and tossed her book so that it fell, splayed open on the grass. Then she picked up the bottle of suntan lotion that sat next to her on the lawn, shook some of the brown liquid into her palm, and began to rub it