Chapter Twelve
Liv
True to his word, he walked all the way home with me. But unlike the last time, I didn’t engage him in small talk or banter. There was no point. Nothing I’d said was getting through to him, and by this point, I was done trying.
Once we got to my road and I stepped foot on my driveway, I shouted over my shoulder, “Don’t even think about following me to my door. If you do, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”
“It’s a better view from down here anyway,” he shouted back, and I resisted the urge to engage in another battle of wills. You can’t argue with stupid, and his skin was so thick it’d take every comeback I had to penetrate through his walls. Actually, strike that. There was no penetrating through anything when it came to Adam. He was a law unto himself.
I slammed the door shut and then fell back against it. Closing my eyes, I prayed to God that my day had reached the pinnacle of awfulness and it would be downhill from here on in. But when I heard my mum calling my name from the kitchen, I realised that wish wasn’t about to come true anytime soon.
“Liv? Honey? Is that you? Can you come in here for a minute please? I need to get you up to speed on some things.” That was my mum’s code for, I need you to drop everything and run my life for me. My mother would never need a PA in her life. She had me for that.
“I’m coming!” I sighed, pushing myself off the door I was using to keep me upright and then headed down to the designer kitchen that my mother took months to choose but never actually cooked in. Sure enough, when I walked through the door, she was dishing up a Chinese from takeaway cartons. I shouldn’t complain. At least she’d actually thought about feeding her three children.
“What’s up?” I asked, perching myself on one of the bar stools, stealing a won ton from the bag and popping it into my mouth whole.
My mum scowled at my lack of table manners, then her attention turned to my nails and she said, “Olivia, when was the last time you had a manicure?”
I turned my nails to look at them and shrugged.
“A few weeks ago. Why? They’re not that bad.”
“A few weeks?” She gasped in horror. “No wonder you haven’t had a date in ages. How do you expect to attract a decent boyfriend if you don’t take care of yourself?”
I almost choked on my won ton.
“I take care of myself. And who says I want to attract a boyfriend?”
She gave me a pitiful smile and reached across the counter to stroke my face.
“Of course you do. Every girl wants a boyfriend. Maybe not like the ones your two friends chose, but then you’re special. You’re the pretty one. You’ll get one who can look after you. We’ve got to make sure he can keep you in the manner you’ve become accustomed to with your daddy and me.”
My mother was unbelievable. It wasn’t that she was a bad mother, like Emily’s. She certainly didn’t have the motherly instinct, like Effy’s mum did. But I swear, she had a way of cutting me down without even realising it. She could make me feel so small, all whilst trying to big me up. To her, the pretty one meant the one with less brains. I knew that. So my grades hadn’t been as good as my friends. It didn’t mean I didn’t have ambitions of my own. Ambitions that didn’t involve getting married and being the trophy wife.
“Mum, the condition of my nails doesn’t mean shit.”
“Language, Olivia. I haven’t brought you up to be so crass.” She gave me a filthy look as she sashayed past me, carrying the plates over to the table we had set up for less formal family meals in our kitchen diner. We did have a separate dining room, but she tended to reserve that for when special guests came, so she could show off her matching Versace dinnerware and furnishings.
I took a deep breath and swallowed down the cutting retort I had on the tip of my tongue.
“I’m sorry, Mum. I’ll book an appointment tomorrow if that’ll make you happy.”
She smiled sweetly back at me. A smile that never met her eyes.
“It will. Liv, you’re such a good girl. Have I told you that lately?” she asked.
Here it comes.
She wasn’t complimenting me because she could. She wanted something.
“Not since you had that business associate visiting from out of town and you needed me to do the school run every day for Hayden and Oliver,” I replied drily.
Hayden and Oliver were my two little brothers. I loved them, probably more than their own parents. I also looked after them more than Mum and Dad did, which at age seven and eight respectively, wasn’t an easy task. Those boys had more energy than a Duracell bunny.
“Well, it’s funny you should mention that…” Mum continued.
Here we go again.
“You know it’s your father and I’s twentieth wedding anniversary this month?”
Yes, because you mention it twenty times a day.
“And…” She went on in her sing-song voice. “He’s booked us onto the most amazing cruise. Liv, I need to show you the brochure after dinner. It makes our usual five-star service look completely lacking. The suite he’s booked is bigger than our bedroom, ensuite, and our dressing room put together. It’s stunning.”
She was giddy like a teenager talking about it, but I knew exactly what it meant for me.
“We thought about taking the boys with us,” she added. “But it’s the middle of the school year. We can’t take them out. If they’re going to be a bother to you, I can always ask Effy’s mum, Jenny, if they can go and stay there–”