The Red Queen by Gemma Bowker-Wright

Author:Gemma Bowker-Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Victoria University Press

At the start of March, Summer and I moved in together. The lease on her flat had come up and my landlord wanted to sell. We found a place not far from the radio station.

‘Don’t you think it’s a bit soon?’ said my mother when I told her over the phone. ‘You hardly know her. And you haven’t been together long.’

‘Is this because she’s a girl? Christ Mum!’

‘No honey—’ I could hear something being dropped ‘—that’s not what I meant at all.’ She coughed. ‘She’s not from here. One day she might want to go back home and where will that leave you?’ She coughed again, clearing something from her throat. ‘It’s a trusting thing to do, moving in together.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I know.’

She put the phone down and I could hear the muffled sound of her talking to my father. Then she picked it up again. ‘Well as long as you’re sure.’

My parents came up from Christchurch the weekend we moved and took us out to dinner to an Italian place that turned out to be nicer from the outside.

‘Well congratulations,’ said my mother. She’d brought two bottles of wine—one red and one white. ‘I wasn’t sure which colour you drank,’ she whispered to Summer as we arrived, ‘so I got both.’

We all clinked glasses.

The food took a long time to arrive.

‘So you’re from Canada?’ said my father.

‘Close,’ said Summer. ‘Minnesota.’ She was wearing a blue dress that made her eyes look bluer.

‘You’re a long way from home,’ said my mother.

‘I am.’

‘You must miss your family; do you have brothers and sisters?’

‘Only me.’ Summer glanced across the table at me.

‘What about your parents, do you go back to see them?’

‘I haven’t so far,’ said Summer. ‘It’s expensive. They live on separate coasts now.’

My mother refilled her wine glass. When I tried to catch Summer’s eye again she was looking at the menu.

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