White Lady Read Online Free PDF Page A

out like flamingo knees. She flicks her head, as if trying to remove hair from her face, and raises her brow. A cue for me to respond, I guess, but I’m tongue-tied. I don’t want the drugs, but I don’t want to lose the opportunity to form a new friendship either. She might be my last chance at having a decent go of my final year in high school.
    The end of recess bell rings. Some kid outdoors curses and bounces a ball; it echoes through the entrance of the toilet block.
    Kimiko winks and flicks her head in the direction of the exit as if to say let’s go . My mouth is half open, ready to speak, unable to voice my thoughts. “Thank you” somehow doesn’t seem right—neither does silence.
    Kimiko shrugs with a tight-lipped smile and turns to leave.
    “Um—” I sniff.
    She pauses and spins round, lifting one foot off the ground and balancing it on the tip of her shoe. She stares. Her nostrils flare.
    Say something.
    “Don’t worry.” Kimiko smiles, twisting her hair into a bun and immediately letting it drop loose. It falls in front of her shoulder like liquid. “Start with one. See how you feel.”
    See how I feel?
    “How … will I feel?”
    “Not much.” Kimiko laughs.
    I look at the pills cradled in my palm. The bag is getting clammy. Sweat pools below the plastic.
    “You’ll probably feel normal.”
    “Normal,” I repeat, trying to make sense of what that actually means.
    “Yeah. Normal.” Kimiko shrugs.
    I drop the pills into the side pocket of my bag and zip it shut, the zzz sound becoming one with the voices outside.
    “We’d better get to class,” Kimiko says.
    “Wait! Do you wanna, um—” I look at my feet.
    Should I?
    Kimiko frowns and crosses her arms with friendly impatience.
    “Wanna do something later?” I blurt out, feeling my face flush.
    Kimiko pouts and says with a curt nod, “Meet you here at lunch.”
    I smile. Thank, God. First non-rejection in months.
    Together we walk out of the toilet block, separated by a metre of space, teeming with untapped energy.
    By the afternoon it becomes an inch, and she lets me call her Kimi.

Chapter 11
    Sonia: Is this how you be a mother?
    I stand on my doorstep, briefcase in hand, staring at our brass knocker, its lion head roaring at me to smarten up. The wind blows my blouse flat against my back as I look at the round overgrown patch of grass where I attempted to landscape a mini rock garden last year. The pile of decorative pebbles are now lost in weeds, and the tiny apricot tree struggles to survive on its own, producing one apricot a year, as if too stubborn to be conquered by human neglect. Every time I return home, I am sure I can hear the tree spitting at me: “You never learn, do you, woman?”
    I do not want to go inside. I never want to go inside. He is waiting for me. Ready to pounce, either with degrading comments or silence; I do not know which is worse. But I have got to stop doing this. Working late every night is not going to fix the relationship between us. It is not going to fix me .
    As I insert my key, the sound of a car screeching and crashing leaps from the open living room window. He has left the fly-wire off. Again.
    “Fuck you, you motherfuckin’ wanker-fuck!” he screams. “Cunt!”
    Something falls to the floor and thick thuds follow, a bit of bookcase abuse, perhaps. The roar of the digital explosion stops abruptly. He must have turned off the TV.
    I open the door slowly enough for the hinges not to squeak. I step inside and place my briefcase delicately by the door as I do every night—easy access for the next morning. No. The real reason is I hope Mick will open it and find the journal I leave in there. Read all about my struggles. Maybe he will feel sorry for me and realize how hard life has been with his father. Maybe he will realize he’s had me wrapped around his little finger, and I had no choice.
    Maybe the journal is a complete and utter lie I am trying to make myself believe I am not responsible