fits, but never won.
The sensation of a heavy weight pressed on top of her, cutting off all sound. Through the haze another figure approached, the familiar shape of a teenage girl. Vee uttered a strangled cry and tried to crawl away, when something sharp scoured into her back. Swallowing hard against a fist of horror lodged in her throat, she closed her eyes and counted backwards from fifty-three. Why fifty-three she had no clue – it had worked once in the past.
The girl in the red woollen hat was still there when Vee blinked at the dawn once more. The girl then proceeded to do what she always did: with head cocked to one side, for a few moments she regarded Vee’s prostrate form as if it were some pathetic animal. Then she looked over her shoulder several times, beckoning with a hand.
She’s not misting. The girl looked as real as any tree or scurrying morning squirrel, except for one detail. Her chest rose and fell, but her surroundings belied the proof of life. Vee looked past her own nose and mouth and watched her breath turn to vapour as it hit the chilly air. She moaned in anguish as her heart thudded against the roof of her mouth, like a tiny dying bird.
“Oh my God, are you all right?”
Vee looked up into a concerned and very real white face. Her effort to answer amounted to an ineffectual burble pressing past her lips. Head lolling to one side, she relaxed for a moment as she dug deep for the energy to try again. Meanwhile the woman scrambled through her pockets for a cellphone as her small furry dog bounced up and down, yipping excitedly.
“You saw her?” Vee finally managed to mutter. “She was right over there, with the red hat. You saw her, too?”
“Who?” the woman asked urgently, peering down one minute and then looking around fearfully. “Who? Where? Were you mugged? Just hang on, young lady. I’m calling for help.”
Vee lost control of her neck muscles and felt her head roll back one last time before she vomited thickly over her shoulder. The dog licked the regurgitated breakfast off her face, while the owner struggled between pushing the animal away and yelling into the phone.
Vee closed her eyes against another really bad morning.
Strawberry Lips
Anatomy of a Murder
Strawberry Lips
Jacqui smoothed the duvet cover against the bed as flat as she could get it before folding. Once . . . twice . . . then edges tucked in, all to make perfect squares one could see from the sides of the mattress and one perfect rectangle from the top. A well-made bed mattered to her mother, and these days what mattered to her mother mattered to Jacqui. The kak would hit the fan soon enough and the more she did to sweeten the inevitable journey through hell, the easier she’d make things on herself.
The floor she could never get clean enough. Besides that, it really ruined the whole room; it just didn’t match. She had no idea how a floor couldn’t match, since everything else either had to work around it or ignore it completely. But this one did its best to piss her off. She didn’t know much about styling yet, but one day she definitely would. One day when she was an interior designer, or just a designer period, knowing and being known for having cutting-edge information on such things would be her effing biznas! Cool would radiate from her in waves and people would envy her taste. She’d have closets full of top-notch designer clothes her friends could borrow without bothering to return. Her super-expensive convertible would have spinning rims and her house would be bursting with pimped-out shit –
“Sherbet,” Jacqui corrected herself out loud. “Sherbet, sherbet, sherbet! Never say shit, say sherbet!” she ranted, scraping the broom across the ugly floor. No one would ever respect a designer with a foul mouth or covet her fashion advice. But then again she knew for a fact that arty people were always pumped to the eyeballs with drugs and screwed everyone, swearing being one of their more normal habits. This new “afterlife of the eternal soul” thing was getting harder and harder to live up to.
Okay, fine, right now it wasn’t too bad. It was actually kind of fun: the youth meetings, braais and parties, the study groups where they did more gossiping than homework. Later on, though, after she made it big, how would it conflict with her image? It was one thing when kept separate and part of a personal life; then it was easily packaged as a no-go area and could even lend a bit of mystique to a star personality. If it came down to being part and parcel of a public image, it was just plain uncool. It could go very sour and end up looking like a bad publicity stunt or selling gambit, and there wasn’t much picking yourself up after that. She’d seen it happen so often before: big break, meteoric rise, media darling . . . then poof! Some stink rose from the grave and there went all your hard work. A girl had to be careful.
“Jacqueline!”
“Yes, Mum!”
“Don’t yell back at me when I call you! And that room better be spotless before you think of stepping out of this house!”
Out of common sense rather than habit, Jacqui kept her mouth shut and continued to sweep. This done, she made final adjustments, replacing the small carpet in front of the door and drawing back the curtains to let in the light. Her mother hated parted curtains and windows ajar after dark, especially since the flimsy red material Jacqui had insisted on didn’t hide much. A young woman undressing with nothing but saucy voile between her and the curious eyes of pervers-by, made worse by soft wind and candles on the sill . . .
Unconsciously, Jacqui gave a teasing smirk. If only they knew, if only she could convey somehow that it was too late to have headaches over spilt milk. All she could do now was stay on the right path. No doubt her mother would be up here after she left, yanking shut the curtains, trying to preserve their humble home’s dignity. It was worth a try.
Jacqui turned to her appearance the last few minutes. It was cool and cloudy outside, with a threat of rain later, so she stuffed her hair under her favourite red knitted cap. Saturday tennis was no way as serious as basketball training but still counted as an outing, which thanks to her mum were as rare and precious as gemstones these days. And every outing meant dressing up.
The tracksuit top of her school kit went over a plain T-shirt to complement worn blue jeans and battered tackies. All the new stuff was zipped away, meant only to be worn during, and perhaps after, practice if she was feeling brave. No point inviting more questions when she was almost out the door.
Jacqui took one last look in the full-length mirror as she slung her gym bag over a shoulder. She made a face. Without putting her bag down, she unzipped it and fished around inside until her fingers found her make-up bag. Couldn’t hurt if she dotted on just a bit of her favourite lip gloss. Fruity and rose-red, just the way she liked it. Her lips gleamed as she smeared them together.
Examining her reflection, Jacqui lifted one finger, licked the tip and then pressed it down onto her jutting bum, making the hiss of a cigarette going out on something wet. A sway of hips and a giggle propelled her out the door.
Oh, behave.
Chapter One
Every waiting room in the world has the same bland, depressed air about it. The piece of carpet that only ever covers a third of the floor, the ubiquitous table right in the middle, stacked with magazines on topics everyone is tired of hearing about or no one is ever going to be interested in. Always the one pathetic window, built on a wide frame with huge slabs of glass, meant to look expansive and refreshing and only accomplishing cheap and blinding. Hungry and fed up, Vee had given up rotating around the square of seats set up around the room,
