Unfaithful - Natalie Barelli Page 0,45

ourselves on the hard wooden bench, rub our hands together and immediately order margaritas with lime juice and dry orange Curaçao. They arrive in jam jars while we scan the menu. Conversation flows, we find ourselves on a new level of friendship. I’ve asked her before about her personal life but she’s always been cagey. “I’m not in relationship, not anymore anyway,” she said. “Trevor. That’s his name. We were together for years, and eighteen months ago I found out he was seeing my best friend behind my back. That’s why I moved away and ended up here. New beginnings and all that. And the rent is cheap here.”

“I’m sorry, June. That really sucks.”

“Yeah, I’m getting over it. Tell me about your mother.” She rests her elbows on the table, hands knotted together.

I cock my head at her. “You want to know about my mother?” I rub my eye, unwind the scarf I’m still wearing around my neck and fold it on the bench beside me. “Okay, I’ll tell you about her.” I cross my arms on the table. “The best way to explain my mother is to tell you about my friend Hope.”

I take a sip of my drink. “I grew up in Youngstown and it was there, in middle school, that Hope arrived one morning, in the middle of term. As soon as I saw her sitting at her desk that day, I wanted to get to know her. It was like, friendship at first sight. She looked sweet, kind, with curly blonde hair, almost red, and she had chipped pink nail polish.

“Our teacher, Mrs. Johnson, asked for a volunteer to look after our new classmate, show her around, that sort of thing. I couldn’t raise my hand fast enough. I’d do it, absolutely. ‘You can count on me Mrs. Johnson,’ I said.

“I’d never had a real friend until Hope. Her parents were hippies who made clothes out of ethically grown cotton and sold them at markets and in local stores. I loved to hang out at her house, so much so that I was there all the time. It was warm and comfortable and even the furniture was welcoming, with its soft shapes you could sink into and its bright, happy colors. My parents didn’t care about making a home, let alone a welcoming one. They were too busy, and probably in some weird way thought it was beneath them, anyway. They worked, like, all the time. Even when they weren’t working, they were working. As a result, my house was spartan and neglected. Sometimes when they went out I would pull out the vacuum cleaner from under the stairs and clean the living room to within an inch of its life. I’d squeeze lemons into a cup of water and dip my fingers in, flicking droplets over the carpet so that my house would smell like Hope’s house—which it never did. I even made cushions once, with some fabric Hope’s mother gave me, red with big blue and green flowers. My parents didn’t notice. When I pointed this out to them, my parents looked around mildly bewildered and muttered something like, ‘very nice’.

“At Hope’s house, we’d sit on bean bags in her room and listen to Michael Jackson. She showed me her parents’ stash of pot once. ‘Smell that,’ she said. I thought it smelt like rotting mushrooms, which possibly wasn’t far from the truth. We’d talk about what we would do when we grew up, kind of like what Luis and I would do years later in college.

“But there was my mother. She disapproved, obviously, eventually, once she took the time to notice. Sometimes I think she simply didn’t like seeing me happy. That it went against her grain. I should be studying instead, or something.

“‘It’s okay, you’re rebelling. It’s what most girls your age do,’ she’d said. And I remember thinking, I’m thirteen years old. I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mother.”

“So what happened?” June asks.

“It was almost summer. Hope had her fourteenth birthday party at her house. It was a Saturday afternoon, and my mother forbade me to go, but Hope helped me sneak out through my bedroom window. I was probably there for only an hour before my mother came to get me.” I bury my face in my hands and groan. “You should have seen her. It was the most embarrassing day of my life. Hope’s mother tried to coax her to stay—there were other parents there enjoying the