console of his car in one meaty hand, stomping around his house, grabbing every piece of paper he could find before stuffing the lot into the shoe box with a gusty sigh of relief. Job done.
She went back to the dining room table and picked up the next receipt. Perfect Pete’s wife had just spent $335 at the beautician, where she had enjoyed the “classic facial,” “deluxe pedicure” and a bikini-line wax. So that was nice for Perfect Pete’s wife. Next was an unsigned permission note for a school excursion to Taronga Zoo last year. On the back of the permission note, a child had written in purple crayon: “I HATE TOM!!!!!”
Jane studied the permission note.
I will/will not be able to attend the excursion as a parent helper.
Perfect Pete’s wife had already circled “will not.” Too busy getting her bikini line done.
She crumpled the receipt and permission slip in her hand and walked back into the kitchen.
She could be a parent helper if Ziggy ever went on an excursion. After all, that was why she’d originally decided to become a bookkeeper so she could be “flexible” for Ziggy, and “balance motherhood and career,” even though she always felt foolish and fraudulent when she said things like that, as if she weren’t really a mother, as if her whole life were a fake.
It would be fun to go on a school excursion again. She could still remember the excitement. The treats on the bus. Jane could secretly observe Ziggy interact with the other children. Make sure he was normal.
Of course he was normal.
She thought again, as she had been all morning, of the pale pink envelopes. So many of them! It didn’t matter that he wasn’t invited to the party. He was too little to feel hurt, and none of the children knew one another yet anyway. It was silly to even think about it.
But the truth was, she felt deeply hurt on his behalf, and somehow responsible, as if she’d messed up. She’d been so ready to forget all about the incident on orientation day, and now it was back at the forefront of her mind again.
The kettle boiled.
If Ziggy really had hurt Amabella, and if he did something like that again, he would never get invited to any parties. The teachers would call Jane in for a meeting. She would have to take him to see a child psychologist.
She would have to say out loud all her secret terrors about Ziggy.
Her hand shook as she poured the hot water into the mug.
“If Ziggy isn’t invited, then Chloe isn’t going,” Madeline had said at coffee this morning.
“Please don’t do that,” Jane had said. “You’re going to make things worse.”
But Madeline just raised her eyebrows and shrugged. “I’ve already told Renata.”
Jane had been horrified. Great. Now Renata would have even more reason to dislike her. Jane would have an enemy. The last time she had had anything close to an enemy, she was in primary school herself. It had never crossed her mind that sending your child to school would be like going back to school yourself.
Perhaps she should have made him apologize that day, and apologized herself. “I’m so sorry,” she could have said to Renata. “I’m terribly sorry. He’s never done anything like this before. I will make sure it never happens again.”
But it was no use. Ziggy said he didn’t do it. She couldn’t have reacted any other way.
She took the cup of tea to the dining room table, sat back down at her computer and unwrapped a new piece of gum.
Right. Well, she would volunteer for anything on offer at the school. Apparently parental involvement was good for your child’s education (although she’d always suspected that was propaganda put out by the schools). She would try to make friends with other mothers, apart from Madeline and Celeste, and if she ran into Renata she would be polite and friendly.
“This will all blow over in a week,” her father had said at coffee this morning when they were discussing the party.
“Or it will all blow up,” said Madeline’s husband, Ed. “Now that my wife is involved.”
Jane’s mother had laughed as if she’d known Madeline and her propensities for years. (What had they been talking about for so long on the beach? Jane inwardly squirmed at the thought of her mother revealing every concern she had about Jane’s life: She can’t seem to get a boyfriend! She’s so skinny! She won’t get a good haircut!)
Madeline had fiddled with a