"No." I tell Mom that right away. I don't want HER to come here and mess up my summer that was supposed to be the best one ever. I don't, I don't, I don't.
"But Satin, dear. She doesn't have anywhere else to go. I doubt that she desperately wants to come here and spend two months with complete strangers. Even though we are of the same blood."
"But it doesn't feel like that. And besides, I bet she's some meat-eating hillbilly who wears a straw hat and denim overalls and doesn't even know what couscous is..." My voice is starting to break. I don't want her to be here. Me, Misty and JK had planned to do everything fun. And now SHE'd come and ruin that everything.
SHE is my second cousin from backward Northern Australia and Mom doesn't even remember her name.
"Satin, the fact that you've never met her doesn't mean she's a hillbilly. She can be whatever she is, but remember you can always teach her what couscous is." Mom gives me a stupid grin and presses her lips together to smooth the lipstick. It's Shiny Stars, shade 365 Liz Taylor. Mom has worn that shade for over two decades, and I bet that's why my middle name is Elizabeth.
She grabs the car keys and calls bye. By glancing behind, she spots my asking countenance.
"I'm leaving to the airport to pick up the girl. When you wake up, she has arrived."
Oh no. How come she's already coming? This had already been decided? And I thought Mom was kind of asking my permission. Why didn't I know anything?
This is a conspiracy against me. Everybody knows. But not me.
There's a big mirror in the hall. I look somehow pathetic. Kind of narrow. Here I am, a blonde complaining vegetarian vamp whom the whole world is against. A little bit like Barbie. But Barbies can't complain, they've got their Kens and pink campers and their life is smiling like a newly chosen beauty queen.
And besides, they always have a jacuzzi or a tennis field or at least an ice-cream machine on the roof of the camper. And everything's pink.
I'm wearing Miss Sixties and a yellow tank top. It doesn't have the washing instructions in the back. I cut them off with Mom's nail scissors as they were constantly itching my neck.
Now I almost wish I hadn't done that. I'm irritated, and I'd rather be irritated about an itching neck than the fact that I'm supposed to babysit a second cousin who wears her hair in two braids and whose name is completely forgettable and who has never visited a Louis Vuitton store. Not that I had - those bags are so ugly - but there's no doubt of that she is a total countrygirl.
I wonder what her name is. What could be a suitable name for a peasant? Maybe... Victoria-Josephine?
Ha ha ha.
Ugh. I shake my head and my hair hits me in the face. I don't want to think about her. I stand up quickly, it gets black in my eyes. I feel dizzy and sit down again. Then I stand up slowly and make my way to the kitchen cupboard. Usually I watch pretty closely what I put into my mouth, but when I see the yummy chocolate cookies - the ones with the picture of a sailing boat - i just have to snatch one. Better to make the best of the time what's left before SHE arrives in Melbourne.
It's all Velvet's fault. Velvet is my big sister who left home to be an exchange student in France, or at least that's what she had skilfully staged. I think she is really in France, but as a dancer in the Moulin Rouge, or then she's railing around Europe, which she definitely should not be doing. If she hadn't gone, Mom had never tried to get me some "company".
Boring. The house is boring because there's no one else here. Although I don't really long for HER coming over and start making noise. It's quiet. I grab the phone.
"Hey, I was startin' to worry 'cause you didn't call me!"
"Hi, Misty", I say, somewhat exhaustedly.
"Listen, you know that cafe 'round the corner? Carambola or whatsit?"
"Carambar."
"Yeah, sure, whatever. Listen, there's this super cute guy workin' there. Let's go there for a couple of cakes so we can check him out. Cathy said he's not taken."
"Seriously, Mis. Are you really going after some pie boy? He must be at least twenty. And besides, you can't really trust Cathy, can you?"
"Whatever, but he can't be twenty. Maybe eighteen."
"Still."
"Whatever. But Cathy knows these things, you know?"
"I bet she's been with that guy herself and now they've split up."
"Doubt that. But you're comin', right? Meet me at seven?"
"Well, in fact... I can't actually come now. My second cousin is coming from somewhere north and I have to wait for her. She's some hillbilly."
"Oh no. Can I come over and check her out some day?"
"Do you really want to?"
"Yeah. Well, OK, I'm going with JK, then. Bye."
"Bye."
Oh, gee. I don't want to show off my second cousin. Especially not for Misty. I don't want anybody to know that I have that kind of relatives. I'm already ashamed of her though I've never even seen her. But now that's going to change. I mean the fact that I've never met her. Even though I wouldn't want to. I mean, to meet her.
You can't really notice that my mind is reeling, can you?
There's one thing for sure. I'm going to be the nastiest I can toward her. Maybe then she'll go away. That's how it goes. I won't greet her, I won't show her around, I won't even try to make her comfortable and tadah! By the morning she's gone. What an ingenious plan. She may go to be the pain in some other almost-relative's neck.
"Yeah", I tell my purple pillow. "Yeah."
The pillow doesn't make a sound, but I can almost sense its answer. It promises to
help me in everything, the loyal pillow darling. But I've made it myself, so that's how it's supposed to be. It obeys only me and not any second cousins. That's how it goes.
I can hear the slam of a car door. Is it ours? Or maybe it's Mr Coldron's. He comes home from work around this time.
But when the key starts to make noise in the door lock, I don't think of Mr Coldron anymore. I look at my pillow, give it a nod and jump up to switch the lights off. I curl under my blanket and feel the cool, satin surface of the pillow on my feet.
I don't hear any faked oh-how-beautiful gasps. Actually I don't hear anything until the knock on my door. I keep my eyes tightly shut although I'm dying of curiosity.
"Oh", Mom says softly. "Satin's already asleep."
My Mom is the only person in the whole world who's able to believe that someone over six goes to sleep before seven.
"Well, you'll meet each other in the morning, then. Fun, isn't it?"
SHE doesn't say anything. She's having a pause in which you can nod and smile politely.
They close the door. I randomly whisper good night and frantically wonder what Victoria-Josephine looks like.
The pillow's not cold anymore.
