The Convent (9 page)

Then come the wisecracks about Mum having had a fling around the time Stella was conceived, because oddly enough Mum and I look pretty similar, which is funny, really, because it's me who isn't the blood relation.

I was adopted as a baby when my parents thought they couldn't have any children of their own. They had their names down for another child when Mum became pregnant ‘out of the blue', as she likes to say. Stella came out looking just like Dad, a bit stocky, olive skin, with dark eyes and thick curly black hair.

Sometimes we don't bother to tell people the truth. We just smile at each other and let them rave on. Of course, all our friends know. Most of them were initially intrigued about what it felt like not to be ‘real' sisters. I stopped getting annoyed about what that question implied a long time ago. Stella too. We figure we were so damned lucky to get each other that all that crap isn't important. Everyone has family issues, why should we be immune? When our friends met our parents and saw that we live in a normal family – that me being adopted is not an issue – they soon lost interest.

My hair is naturally blonde and wavy, and although Mum and I have quite differently shaped faces, and her skin is fairer than mine, I pass as her birth daughter without comment, because I'm fine-boned too, and we both have blue eyes. I'm tall for a girl: 172 centimetres when I last measured myself.

Stella was pretty too, but in a completely different way. She still is, of course, only it's getting hard to see it. Her coal-black hair, bright-dark eyes and husky voice make you think of Spain (even though none of us has been there!). People pick up on her warm, gutsy vibe as soon as they meet her, and they either love it or avoid her like the plague. Stella wears her heart on her sleeve. It's just the way she is. She is fantastic and ridiculous in equal measure. We're so close that she tells me I am her
other side,
the ethereal, cerebral guardian angel who lives in her head. If that is true, then she has to be
my
other side; the tempestuous, brave, wild side that I'm too uptight to let out most of the time.

People have all these strange ideas about what being adopted must be like. For the record, let me just say that I don't sit around yearning to meet my
real
parents, nor have I even wondered much about them. I don't spend time thinking about how my life might have been different. Maybe I simply lack imagination, but it has never been something I've considered important. Oddly enough, it's Stella who is more intrigued by it all than me. One of her favourite pastimes is weaving complicated stories about my origins.
Your birth mother was a priestess in a faraway land … She couldn't keep
you because she was doomed to die when she turned sixteen.
My lack of interest in these bizarre scenarios never fails to infuriate her.

‘I wish it was
me
who was adopted,' she often moans to Mum and Dad. ‘The romance of it is wasted on boring old Peach!'

‘Will you look after her for us, sweetheart?' Mum and Dad sat side by side on the deep-pink velvet two-seater couch under the window; it had belonged to Nana who'd lived with us until she died the year before. ‘We don't
have
to go if it's going to be too much for you or if you feel that you won't be able to cope.'

It pissed me off a bit that they thought they had to ask. As though I wouldn't look after my sister while they were gone!

‘Of course,' I said, not bothering to sound enthusiastic. ‘I'll have her sorted out by the time you get back.'

‘We realise it might get difficult,' Dad was looking down at his fingers, ‘but you can ring us any time. We'll come home early if needs be.'

‘Don't sweat.' I shrugged. ‘It will be okay.'

‘Thanks, love.' He gave me a tired smile. ‘But understand, you are not responsible for everything she does. And it's only a couple of months.'

‘I know that.'

‘You think you'll be okay at Christmas?'

‘We've been over this a million times!' I said irritably. ‘I am nineteen years old!'

Christmas has never been that big in our house, mainly because we don't have any close relatives apart from Mum's sister, Claire. It was all arranged for us to go to go over to Claire's place for Christmas Day. But I knew it wasn't really Christmas that was worrying them. It was Stella.

My sister's slide into a strange malaise over the last year had us all stumped. There was Nana's dying, I suppose – they were so close because of the music thing – and then the teacher stuff, but it still didn't make any sense to the rest of us.

‘Your sister is almost seventeen. You must continue to go about your normal life.'

My normal life!
I felt like laughing, and then I wanted to cry, because I was suddenly thinking about Fluke. The way he'd smiled at me through the smoke and bouncing lights and loud music, straight across the heads of the other girls, some of them my friends who were dancing so fast and mean and sexy that I couldn't keep up.

‘Go see your friends and have fun, okay?' Mum was nodding seriously. ‘All we're asking is that you keep an eye out for her.'

‘Just as long as I can still bring home hot guys to party all night?'

Dad grinned. ‘Just make sure Stella doesn't get hold of them first!'

The same week that Nana died, Stella got a new music teacher. I'd already left school by then, but I heard about her. Spiky and vivacious Ms Beatrice Baums, she of the striped red socks and sharp tongue, had decided that she was going to make Stella a star. What sixteen-year-old can resist that? To say Stella developed a crush on her teacher would be the understatement of the year. Stella didn't just want to be
like
Ms Baums, she wanted to
be
her.

Mum stood and propped her bum on my desk. She put one hand on my shoulder and ran her other fingers through my hair.

‘I might have to come back early,' she said, resting her chin on the top of my head and holding me around the neck. ‘Wild men in the middle of the night sounds too good to miss.'

‘Hang on!' Dad laughed.

My parents are both doctors, specialists in different fields. Mum is in women's health and Dad is a surgeon, with a speciality in oncology. Although he's short for a man, Dad has a lovely, warm open face, dark skin and a long straight nose. He is one of those guys who shaves
twice
a day. He's got patches of hair on his back and shoulders and his legs and arms are thick with it. When Stella and I were really little, we'd sit on the mat of curly black hair covering his chest and belly and he'd tell us that he'd grown it especially for us to and we believed him.

Stella used to say quite seriously that she'd never go out with a guy who wasn't covered in hair like Dad, because she'd be afraid he wasn't the real deal. I secretly agreed of course. Dad is the best.

Mum is two inches taller than Dad, quieter, gentler, with beautiful fair skin. She is the most honest person I know, and the kindest. It's not just me who thinks so. Everyone who meets my parents loves them.

They were both looking at me, waiting for me to say something or ask something, but all I was thinking about was the lines of tiredness and stress I saw around their eyes and the fact that whatever happened I wasn't going to call them back early. They really needed a break.

Of course, we'd all been away together heaps of times, but this would be their first proper holiday together, just the two of them, since I came along. First they were off to Paris, where Mum had gone to university and still had friends, and then over to England to see Dad's very old mother. It was all arranged that as soon as school finished Stella was going to do an intensive music summer school and I was going to get a cafe job and save for an overseas trip with my mates.

Then two weeks before they left, Stella declared that she wasn't going to do the summer school because she wanted to spend more time ‘with friends'. We all knew that was bullshit because she didn't have friends any more.

They'd fallen by the wayside like most other things in her life. She was just piking out on the thing that she was best at, and it didn't make sense. But none of us knew what to do about it.

‘Just make sure you come home safely,' I said stiffly. I couldn't seem to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat.
What
if something happens to you?
Just looking at them was freaking me out. I'd never thought of them as
old
before. Maybe it was just because they'd spent such long hours at work recently. I wished Mum hadn't cut her hair so short and let it go grey. I wished she cared about her clothes; I wished she would laugh more, too, the way she used to.

‘Of course we will, darling.'

I wanted to get nasty, tell her bluntly that if she wanted me to look after Stella, then at least she could start caring for herself again. I would shame her into it. Nana was nearly eighty when she died, but she looked good to the end. You never saw her without her hair coloured and styled, or without her lipstick. We all adored Nana. I wanted to tell Mum that her mother would absolutely hate to see her in an unironed fawn shirt, boring old thongs and a daggy haircut. I opened my mouth to say it all, but nothing came out. I just … couldn't.

‘Tell us what you're thinking, Peach,' Dad said slowly. ‘Come on, sweetheart.'

‘Just come home safely,' I mumbled again.

‘Of course we will, darling,' they said again in unison.‘We'll be home before you know it.'

Watching them walk out of the room talking about what we'd have for dinner, I was overtaken with an
unnerving
feeling that my life was about to be shaken loose from its foundations. I desperately wanted to call them back again, make them sit down and tell me again that they'd be back and that everything would be fine.

As though sensing something, Dad stopped at the door and looked back at me.

‘She'll come good once Year Twelve starts. The new school will do the trick. Give her a fresh start.'

‘Yeah.' I nodded.

He grinned at me.

‘Just don't let her change her name to Beatrice while we're gone!'

It's after eight when I wake, the sky is already blazing and I'm alone. Stella must have gone back to her own bed. The job interview is in an hour and I have to ride there, so I haul myself up and into the shower.

I wash my hair because it will dry before I get there, but I have no idea what I should wear to a job interview on a scorching day. I end up in a short cotton skirt, a loose, black linen top and flat-heeled sandals. I tie up my damp hair in a style that says I'm a practical hard worker, which I suppose I am.

In the kitchen, I pull down the blind to keep out the sun and pull out my phone to text Cassie, who will already be there, serving the coffees and selling bread. I cross my fingers as I turn on the kettle and get bread out of the fridge for toast. It would be so cool for us to work together. I want this job.

Remind Sam-the-man that I'm his girl!
I write.

Within about six seconds she replies.

Already have but be warned, he's expecting favours!

I laugh and pop the bread into the toaster and text back.

Okay, but no sicko stuff
Whips okay?

Of course, but no spurs.

I'll let him know.

Cassie is my other best friend, along with Det. She is opinionated, short, fast and she gets things done. Always has. She started at my school in Year Nine and by the end of the first day she'd organised the class into groups of five to compete with another class to raise money for a dance competition. If a concert has sold out, Cassie can have tickets within the hour. Need something impressive to wear? She'll find you an outfit you really love before you finish the phone call. She's doing Commerce at uni, but she'll end up running a business. I'm convinced of it. She loves fashion and parties and knowing where people fit in, who is important and who isn't. Oddly enough, this doesn't make her shallow or heartless. She's just someone who happens to be really good at knowing how the world works, and making sure she gets a slice of the action. Det and Cassie don't always see eye to eye, but with me in the middle, our threesome somehow works out.