Page 34 of Kiwi Sin
Oriana said, “Just a minute. I need to talk to Gabriel first.” She got to her feet, came over to me, and asked, her voice low, “Any news?”
“Yeh,” I said. “Text. She had the baby. A boy. Drew asked if we could stay until later tonight, though, as Hannah’s a bit rough still. You were right. The neighbor lady fell on the stairs and hit her head, by the way, rushing to get over here. Her husband didn’t think about the kids, I guess, until later.”
“Oh, what a pity,” Oriana said. “I hope she’s all right. We’ll tell the kids about the baby during cocoa, don’t you think? Now go take your shower, please, before you get everything even wetter.”
At ten o’clock that evening, I heard a light step in the passage, then saw Oriana heading into Drew and Hannah’s enormous, very comfortable family room. I’d hoovered this carpet quite a few times, but I’d definitely never sat alone here at night, and it felt a bit like trespassing.
Oriana said, “She’s asleep again,” then sat on the sectional couch beside me—well, technically beside me, as she was all the way at the other end—and asked, “What’s happened?”
In the film, she meant. I said, “Same place. I paused it. I’ll start it again.”
This was the second time I’d done that, because Madeleine had woken crying twice now, calling for her mum, and I’d been more than glad of Oriana’s presence. When I’d gone to take a quick look, she’d been sitting on the bed, stroking Madeleine’s hair, crooning a lullaby that I remembered my mum singing to the younger kids.
“May thou sleep, may thou rest,
May thy slumber be blessed.
May thou sleep, may thou rest,
May thy slumber be blessed.”
She had a sweet singing voice, soft and low and a little husky, and the little girl’s face showed nothing but peace. Nothing but trust. I’d felt like an eavesdropper, watching them this way, but something in my chest had caught and twisted hard, and I hadn’t been able to move until the song was over.
Ever since we’d got here, in fact, Oriana had taken quiet charge, organizing lunch for the kids, then asking the girls to show her their toys and getting down on the carpet and playing with them, making them feel like this was fun, like it was normal, while I took Jack outside to play basketball.
Now, I sat on the couch in my dry clothes, my stomach still pleasantly full from the shepherd’s pie she’d cobbled together for dinner with no fuss and complete assurance, and looked at her. She was curled up against the end of the couch in the low light, watching the film, not looking at me. Thenreallynot looking at me.
Oh.
The film had seemed all right from the description. “Romantic comedy,” it was called, but then, that was what that first porno book I’d read had been called, too. We’d been watching for more than an hour, and nobody had even kissed anybody yet, so I’d relaxed. There had been heaps of what people called “flirting,” which was pretty sexy, but not … well, not having such an obvious effect on me. Now, though, the two people were kissing on the stairs of an office building, then kissing some more as the bloke opened the door to his apartment. They fell through the door, kissing still, then started to unbutton shirts, their own and the other person’s, and the fella slammed the door, then got that last button undone on the girl’s filmy shirt, pulled it out of the waistband of her skirt, and dropped it to the floor. All of it frantic, and the woman making some little noises in the back of her throat.
She was wearing a bra under that shirt. The kind of bra I’d never seen before, coming only halfway up her breasts, and my eyes were … well, they couldn’t have looked anywhere else, that was all. The bloke seemed to feel the same way, because he was holding her, kissing her, his hand sliding up her side to cup her there, seeming like he wanted toeather.
Which he probably did. The eating thing had featured heavily in those books, if I haven’t mentioned it.
I hoped Oriana wasn’t looking at me, because there was no way to hide what was going on with me without actually crossing my hands over my groin. I glanced at her fast. She was sitting up straighter, her eyes fixed on the screen, her mouth a little open, and I’d swear she was breathing hard.
The two people were in bed now, kissing again. Close-ups of faces, his back, her shoulder, a big hand sliding down a slim torso. The man over the woman, and neither of them wearing anything on top. Oriana must have seen me glance at her, because now, shedidlook at me. Just for a second, and then she was looking away again fast.
I said, “Maybe—” Then had to stop and clear my throat. “Maybe not, eh.” What would she think of me, choosing this,watchingthis? What would Daisy and Gray think of me, if they knew?
“Oh,” she said. “Yes. Probably not. I, uh … I don’t usually … I don’t normally …”
“Me neither,” I said, and pressed the button to stop the film.
We sat there in silence for a minute, and then Oriana said, “Of course, now we won’t know what happens.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Not very satisfying. Maybe we should …”
“Yes,” she said. “Just so we’ll know.”
I pushed the button again.
When I finally turned the set off, I realized she’d fallen asleep sometime when I was doing that not-looking. Curled up tight, her head on the arm of the couch. Uncomfortable, that looked, and not nearly warm enough. I took the fuzzy blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over her, and she made a little noise and snuggled in closer, so I lifted her head carefully and slid a cushion under it.
There. That was better.
Asleep, she looked seventeen, or like the way people Outside viewed girls of seventeen. Her face unlined, her hand clutching the edge of the blanket, all of her curled up like a child. Today, though—
