“Oh, she’s going to see us alright,” I said.
27
It didn’t take long for me to prove I was right. We’d unpacked and had baths (there was running water here, thank God!) and gotten changed into something less travel-worn when my door slammed open. “What the fuck are you lot doing here?” Tess said.
“Well, hello to you, too, sister dear.”
“I left you a note . . .”
“Yes, we all got the notes, Tess. Thank you for telling me you were leaving our realm for inter-dimensional travel in four short sentences, I do so appreciate it.”
“God! You are so insufferably smothering. You’re here because you thought I’d get hurt and you’d need to ride to the rescue, right?”
“You are about to get hurt and will get killed if we don’t get you out of here!”
“What? You think I’m falling for the prince’s shit? I know what he wants from me, but there’s hardly a risk of me falling in love with him.”
“Oh really? You were crushing on the animated Beast for weeks after we watched it.”
“When I was eight!”
“He’s good-looking, royalty, from another world full of wonders and lots and lots of people who must cough up fur balls on a regular basis.”
Tess rubbed her hands over her eyes and then threw them in the air, “You don’t get it; you never have.”
“You OK Tess?” Flea asked. He’d been hovering in the background, but when he saw Tess distressed, it seemed he had to come forward. He walked over, then stopped short, not sure if he should approach her, then visibly steeling himself, went and placed a hand on her shoulder. Her head jerked up and her eyes widened when she saw who it was. “Sorry, not trying to be that stalker guy after a one night stand, but girl, we were all worried. If you thought the note was enough to keep us sweet, you were wrong.”
“I tossed up whether or not to leave it all,” she said.
“And allow your family to think you were dead in a ditch? C’mon, you know you wouldn’t do that,” I said.
“You can’t trust me with this, can you?” she said, her face going white. “That’s what it is, what it always is. You have to be there, to oversee, to direct, to make sure we get the right outcome. Tess is a screw-up, Tess is incompetent.”
“It’s not that; you’ve just had a couple of rough spots . . .,” I said in a low murmur.
“Really? Really? That’s what you’re going with?”
“Well, the stuff with Ken wasn’t ideal, but you weren’t to know. He didn’t look like the kind of guy that would steal your–”
“Fuck, Ash, you really are unbelievable. What have you done since graduation, hmm?”
“I got my degree–”
“In political science. Any job offers come out of that?”
“Well, no, but I didn’t do it for–”
“And what were you doing before Nan gave us the shop?”
“Ah, mistresses–” Natty said.
“What? There’s nothing wrong with temping. It was a way–”
She fixed me with a hard look, arms crossing her chest, “That’s the thing, Ash, you were waddling around in total mediocrity. You were capable of doing way better, but you scraped in a Year Twelve result that was just enough to get into a Bachelor of Arts at a uni Mum would pay for. Then you coasted along at that, taking another year to get it done when you realised you would have to up your game to pass. Then you’ve floated from one temporary gig to another, white-collar, of course, or Mum would have a shit-fit, and you have the audacity to critique my life. Where’s your life? Apart from the biker boyfriend that I brought into it, where’s your life?”
“I’m sorry, I get you ladies are having a very exciting Jerry Springer moment right now, but what?” Gabe said.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, waving him off.