The Wrong Girl & Other Warnings by Angela Slatter

Author:Angela Slatter [Slatter, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brain Jar Press

NEW WINE

‘If you leave that dish on the table instead of rinsing it and putting it in the dishwasher, I will make you miserable for a week.’

Valerie’s voice floats back to him from the entry hall of the too-big house; she’s gone to collect the mail. There’s the click of her returning heels on the parquet floors, coming closer.

‘But it’s my birthday!’ Alek, bag over his shoulder, having just risen, is two and a half steps away from the kitchen table (where they eat in preference to the formal dining room).

‘I don’t care,’ she sings back.

He turns around, grabs the cereal bowl, and does what he should have done in the first place. He makes noise while he does it so she’ll hear.

‘Yes, Valerie.’ How the hell does she do that? Two years, almost, and he still hasn’t figured it out. Every damned time. Maybe it’s just because she observes him at close quarters; Alek wonders sometimes if she pays extra attention to one child because she once failed to do so to another.

Alek likes his tutor, he really does. Although that’s a weirdly small word for what she does: keeping him on top of his studies and doing well, managing the occasional day staff at the house (cleaners, gardener, repairmen), feeding them both, generally ensuring he stayed out of trouble. And that was how his dad pitched the job to her: Tutor my boy. But the surrogate mom stuff? That kind of took them both by surprise, Alek thinks, but maybe they’re good for each other. Everyone in Mercy’s Brook knows what happened with Valerie’s daughter, but that’s the reason Valerie came into Alek’s life and some days he finds it hard to feel bad about it.

Valerie in her sunflower summer dress appears in the kitchen doorway as Alek is closing the dishwasher; he waves his hands ta-dah!

‘Lordy, don’t you deserve a parade?’ She smiles to take out the sting, and it’s the brightest thing. Alek remembers his father Reid saying that most of the guys in their high school class had a crush on her, Reid included—almost all unrequited. From what Alek’s seen of the stares from middle-aged men when he helps her do the groceries that hasn’t changed much, and a lot of his own college friends aren’t immune to her either, no matter that she’s old enough to be their mom.

‘Late lecture tonight?’ she asks.

‘Yeah.’

He likes that she thinks he’s smart. Knows he’s smart. He even likes that she understands how lazy he can be, but she just crosses her arms and stares at him with those hazel eyes until he pulls his head out of his ass and does the work. She’s smart too, so smart it kind of scares him a little. Okay, a lot, but he likes having her around. Her sense of humor is so dry sometimes it almost chokes him. She knows him and seems to like him anyway. Sometimes he thinks he’s lazy for attention or it’s just to make sure his dad keeps her around longer.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.