What Is Left Over, After by Natasha Lester

Author:Natasha Lester
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction/Contemporary Women
ISBN: What Is Left Over| After
Publisher: Fremantle Press
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

sixteen

‘That’s it?’ Selena lets the silence sit for just a few seconds before shoving it aside.

‘It’s after midnight. And here comes your mum.’

Selena looks up and hisses, ‘But was it a strip club or a brothel?’ as if the distinction matters but then her mother is standing in front of us and Selena knows that we really have come to the end of tonight’s chapter.

‘Selena was just on her way back,’ I say to Marie.

Marie bends down and collects her daughter’s lollipop wrappers. ‘Selena, can you go say goodnight to everyone. I’ll be over in a minute.’

‘I can pick those up Mum,’ Selena says.

‘I know you can but you haven’t been over to say hello to anyone so the least you can do is go over now and say goodnight.’

Selena sighs theatrically. ‘It’s not like they’ll have missed me. I see them all the time. Next thing you’ll be saying, Make new friends but keep the old.’

‘I will if you don’t get a wriggle on.’

‘See ya Gaelle.’ Selena rolls her eyes at me and trudges off to do her duty.

‘I’ll get a bag for the rubbish,’ I say to Marie as I stand and go inside, stalling, certain she has come to talk to me about something, possibly the fact that I am monopolising her daughter.

When I emerge she is waiting with hands full of plastic wrappers, watching her daughter kiss and hug a circle of adults who don’t remember how humiliating it is to a thirteen year old girl to have her hair tousled and to be asked where all her boyfriends are. Marie winces as Selena scowls back over at her. Then she says, ‘That’s why she likes spending time with you. You don’t talk down to her.’

I hold out the bag for the wrappers. Marie continues. ‘I’m glad Selena’s found someone she can talk to. But I think she forgets that you’re only here for the summer.’

‘So you do want to tell her to keep the old.’ I walk over to the bin and throw the bag away but Marie keeps talking.

‘She’s doesn’t quite fit in anywhere at the moment. Everyone here still thinks she’s six years old, she’s got a new group of friends at school who I’m not even sure she likes—and then you turn up. She’s granted you big-sister status or something like that, but I know you’ll be gone in a few weeks.’

‘She knows that too.’

‘But, like most of us, she’s pretty good at ignoring things she doesn’t want to think about. I don’t want it to hit her like a ton of bricks a couple of days before she goes back to school.’

Selena beckons to her mother, clearly eager to get away. I take a gamble. ‘Do you want me to ask her not to come here any more?’

Marie smiles. ‘This is Selena we’re talking about. I think it’d take more than asking for her to stay away. I just want to make sure she’s all right, that’s all.’ She turns to

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