ruffled her hair, and that had been that.
Ramon, her hair stylist, arrived. He was doing a colour before her big appearance tomorrow. Sherilyn had insisted on sitting in on the session: Dr Lux had told her she wasn’t to be left alone with men—the girl had a sex addiction that temptation did nothing to ease.
‘Mom!’ she yelled up the stairs. The word bounced hollowly off the high ceilings, precise as a tennis ball. ‘Ramon’s here!’
Upstairs, Sherilyn Rose applied a flush of rouge to her alarmingly pale complexion. She looked bad. The lighting in her dressing room was unflattering, but, even so, she was tired, overworked and under-slept. Opening a drawer in her vanity table, she extracted a bottle of little red pills. She chucked a handful into her mouth and took a slug of water.
‘All right, sweetheart!’ she sang, her soft Alabama tones melting down the stairway to her waiting daughter. Sweet-As-Pie-Mom was a hard act to maintain, she thought grimly. It used to come to her naturally—recently she felt like a gruesome monster wearing a little girl’s skin. Ugh, that was horrific. But that was the sort of image residing in her head these days.
It was hardly any wonder her nerves were shredded. The pills Lindy had given her were the only things that allowed her to sleep at night. She had been enduring terrible dreams of late: memories that she’d thought were buried deep in the past. And yet every time Aurora misbehaved—this latest episode the worst yet—they returned to her in vivid, appalling detail.
The vast Indian Ocean. The island. That man …
If it ever came out, the reasons why they’d done it, her life would not be worth living.
Another couple of tablets, that was all. Shakily she chucked them down her white throat.
Was her life worth living now?
Sherilyn took a deep breath, in through her nose, out through her mouth, just as Lindy had taught her. She tried to smile, making her way slowly down the mansion stairs, one step at a time. As always, she shuddered when she passed the open games room, its equipment cleanly polished and disinfected on her instruction. Nothing could have prepared her for the sight of her daughter in that context. It disgusted her.
Not that her husband seemed to care. People said fathers were always closer to their girls: that the mothers got left out in the cold. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps she was jealous of their connection, a bond she had tried so hard to feel, to engage, and, failing that, to manufacture. It hadn’t worked. How could it, when week after week she was subjected to yet another reminder of her daughter’s monstrosity?
What on earth had she and Tom raised?
Whatever it was, she knew they deserved every bad thing they got.
Aurora’s first impression was that her mother could do with a visit from her own stylist: a recent dye job had rendered her hair the same colour as Barbie’s and she wore tight frayed jeans and precarious white shoe boots. Dated.
She hitched herself on to a stool by the patio doors, making sure she could see the poolside arrangement and issue preferences if necessary, while Ramon, young with a Mohawk, plonked down his cosmetics bag and laid out his tools. He was so clearly gay that any notion of chaperoning was absurd. Still, Aurora adhered to the new rules—it was a novelty to actually be made to do something.
‘OK, honey,’ he said, running his fingers through Aurora’s blonde hair. ‘What are we doing today?’
Sherilyn lit a cigarette and surveyed her daughter. Aurora noticed how her hands trembled with each puff. ‘How about some layering in the length …’
‘I want it all off,’ announced Aurora.
Ramon was appalled. ‘Shaved?’
Aurora rolled her eyes. ‘Not shaved. But nearly. Really short, like a boy’s.’
Sherilyn blew out smoke. ‘Darling, no!’
‘Do you mind?’ Ramon gestured to Sherilyn’s cigarette, then to his cosmetics case filled with mousse and sprays. ‘I’ve got flammable substances here.’
‘Yeah.’ Aurora nodded decisively. ‘Dramatic. You can do drama, can’t you, Ramon?’
‘Anything for you.’
‘We should dye it as well,’ said Aurora. ‘Bleach it. So it’s kinda white.’
Ramon grinned. ‘I like it.’
Sherilyn ground out her Marlboro. ‘Are you sure? It sounds extreme …’
‘I am extreme, Mom. And this is my party.’
‘All right, if that’s what’ll make you happy …’ She drifted out to the pool.
‘Is your mom doped?’ asked Ramon.
‘Probably,’ said Aurora as he began mixing the colour. ‘I don’t blame her. I’ve been a bitch lately.’ And she did honestly feel bad about the pool-table thing, but the fact was that in its aftermath her life hadn’t changed at all. Some days she thought her mother could do with an electric shock, or a cattle prod, something that frazzled her; something that brought her back to life. But if that hadn’t done it, what would?
Ramon applied the cold mixture to her roots and didn’t comment.
Aurora was watching a shirtless guy string lights in the trees by the pool. So was her mom by the looks of it. Ew! Weren’t you meant to switch those bits off when you got married? An image popped up of Sherilyn and Tom getting it on. Maybe they didn’t any more, seeing as they were now, like, way old. But they must have—at least once. Yuck yuck YUCK.
She spied a gossip rag poking out of Ramon’s bag. On the front was her so-called best friend Farrah Michaels wearing a solemn expression above the headline: BFFs AT WAR: ‘AURORA NASH SHOULD BE IN JAIL!’ It was hardly a war, thought Aurora, since it was entirely onesided: she wasn’t the one mouthing off to the press at every available opportunity, all for a bit of cheap publicity. Farrah was just bitter because she’d split with Boy-Band-Christian after he was found cheating on her with a dwarf while on tour in Vegas.
She tossed the magazine down, pissed.
‘Hold still!’ commanded Ramon, swiping at her head with his brush. The dye stank and she told him so. ‘Your hair will stink too if you don’t do as I say.’
Outside, Sherilyn was on the phone. She was frowning and nodding. When she came back in, Aurora demanded to know what was going on. Weirdly, her mother ignored her. Instead, she addressed Ramon.
‘How long will this take?’
‘Don’t hurry him, Mom, it’s important.’
‘So is this.’ Sherilyn closed her cell. ‘That was your father. He’s got some news to share with you.’ She took a deep breath. ‘He’s taking us for lunch at Il Cielo.’
‘Is it about the party?’
Sherilyn hesitated. ‘Not exactly,’ she said.
‘What,
