side of me knew that a simple paternity test would tell the truth in a few weeks. The side of me that needed Alzam reeled. If Owen was Chiara’s dad … that could never be sorted quickly; that would last forever.
“Are you serious about Chiara?” I’d spat little blobs of spit onto the windscreen, my heart still thudding in my chest once the car was safely switched off. I scrabbled about in my mind to remember anything about her that looked like she could be Owen’s. Nothing, just dark hair bleached blonde, but dark hair didn’t mean anything. I would check properly next time.
“Yes, don’t panic. I don’t think it’s true but there is probably a small chance it could be me because of the timing. I couldn’t get more out of Courtney. And it is also partly why I want them to stay. Just for a bit? Until we can find out the whole story, hear if the ex is mad or if it does involve me.’
“Yes.”
I was so rattled by the possibility of Owen being a dad that within approximately five seconds of finding out about it I did two things I’ve never done before: I crashed my car and said yes to a stranger and her daughter coming to live with us. With me. I wanted to drive straight back home, put up yellow Danger! Do Not Touch tape around everything, including Owen. Only the memory of the gridlocked cars trying to get out of the city stopped me. I wouldn’t get home any faster if I sat in Lucio’s chair or in my own car seat for the next hour and a half.
“You’ll be fine, darling. Just pretend you are back in digs,” Lucio flapped when he realised I wasn’t taking in all the details of the fat freezing on his stomach.
“You don’t know how I am, Lucio! I hate living with other people; other people hate living with me. My parents even hated living with me when I was growing up. People in my face all the time makes me nasty, and it’s not like I’m nice to start off with. The only people I can live with are Kari and Owen and that’s more to do with them than me. To think I was dreading Owen’s mother and sister coming to stay before the wedding, and now I’ve got his ex-girlfriend and her kid. Might be his kid. Right outside my bloody bedroom door.”
Panic. I know I’m a spoilt brat. I’ve been told it enough times. Owen laughed his head off when I told him that he was the first person I’d shared a bathroom with. Even in digs, Daddy always made sure I was the one who got the biggest room with the en suite bathroom. Mum says I’m not good at sharing anything – that’s why they never had more children. I think it’s because she never wanted children in the first place, and after me she made sure it wasn’t going to happen again. Dad wanted more, but he wasn’t the one whose body got wrecked, she said. A child I didn’t totally want? It was never going to happen to me. Owen knew. But now I had Courtney and Chiara waiting to share my house. Potentially waiting to share Owen. Turn Owen into a dad. Even Kari would admit: this was a real crisis.
Lucio was starting to get desperate to keep his salon Fri-Yay happy. I know I’ve got one of those voices that carry (I can’t whisper, it’s not possible) which is okay when I’m all good but is deathly when I am in Debby Downer mode. Lucio knew. Desperate, he bust some moves and started belting out the Tori Kelly version of Stevie Wonder’s song ‘Don’t You Worry ’bout a Thing’. Eventually, about twenty choruses later when I couldn’t help but laugh, he bowed at me to the hysterics of the shampoo girls. I had no choice. He was ridiculous but determined to sprinkle happy dust over the place, like a fairy-hair-mother. The appearance of a tray of champagne helped the magic along, perking up all the other salon ladies immediately.
“Don’t you worry, Lily. I, Lucio, will make sure you are beautiful, and when they see you tonight those skinny girls will wish they ate more sandwiches,” Lucio said sombrely in his Italian-ised Durbanville accent after the last verse of his performance. He fled while the colour set on my hair.
In the break, I WhatsApp-ed the girls in our group. At first it was just called Bitches, but Di didn’t want her girls to see us chatting under a name like that, so we got ABS. Angels and Bitches with a gratuitous ‘S’ so that for once I could feel what it was like to have stomach muscles. We haven’t archived our old LSDoK group (me, Shelley, Di, Owen, and Kari) but after Owen put a ring on it and got upgraded from little ‘o’ to big ‘O’ it was hard to chat about the wedding and his family with him right there. I sort of miss his little ‘o’ voice sometimes, when we were all just friends and he’d helped me understand how guys think. Now I’ve only got Dirk, and Dirk doesn’t phone or send decent WhatsApps and I’m none the wiser as to what happens in the mind of the big ‘O’. When I started the girls-only chat, Owen actually thanked me, he was that glad to be free of the wedding talk. “Dankie fok,” was Dirk’s response when I stopped asking him about the wedding.
I love having ABS.
05:20 PM Lily@ABS: Hell girls, I have news. Owen’s ex and her daughter are moving in. They look like mermaids
05:21 PM Shelley@ABS: No!!
05:22 PM Lily@ABS: Yep. The ball ache? The daughter might be Owen’s. I fucking crashed my car when he told me
05:23 PM Shelley@ABS: What?! You OK? This was NOT on The Complete Wedding Count Down
05:24 PM Lily@ABS: Car is fine. I’m trying not to have a panic attack
05:25 PM Di@ABS: Oh my gosh! I knew that woman was trouble the minute she walked into the office. How old is the daughter? She looks quite grown up, could be the make-up
05:26 PM Lily@ABS: I know hey Shelley!! I’m supposed to be kid-free, what will I do with a red-headed stepchild. Think she is 15, Di
05:27 PM Kari@ABS: Shit, I can’t talk now. Facetime me after 8, Adam should be down by then
Kari put five poop and twenty screaming face emojis in her WhatsApp. Shelley was still typing away but it was time for my rinse and the manicurist Lucio had ordered wanted my fingers.
05:28 PM Lily@ABS: Got to go. Lucio is fixing me, I need to get my game face on for when I go home to THEM. And yes, Di, the kid is blonde. I was just saying.
Lucio talked me into imagining that great hair, perfect nails, a contact for fat freezing (he says it’ll give me a thigh gap) and one Camilla de Angelo-sized G&T (a triple shot that will strip your nail varnish if you accidently dip a finger in) would make it all fine. Fake it until I make it and Lucio was determined not to disappoint in his part of the fakery-makery. They would be afraid of me, dammit!
By six-thirty my hair was fantastic. Sleek and shiny and black – natural-look black, not blue-black – the side-swept fringe skimming the magical space between eyebrows and eyelashes, the ends blunt-cut and curved under, just resting on my shoulders. Lucio is worth every cent of his four-figure eight-weekly bill (great value considering what I’ve spent on the therapists who haven’t made me feel half as good). Chanel Rouge lipstick, Mac Gel Super black eyeliner, Morgan Taylor Light My Fire Engine nails. I didn’t have time to shop but I was wearing my favourite Witchery shirt (soft-washed denim cold-shoulder style, appropriate enough) and white three-quarter Zara skinny pants. Lucio clapped his hands. I was covered in nearly every brand the Waterfront had – that had to be worth something? When I was depressed, it had helped to think of my clothes and make-up as armour. War paint. The more expensive the better.
“Showtime! Remember … no fear, my girl!” He jazzed his hands, flick-flacking his fingers as I left, the whole world his salon. How different it looked when Daddy said the same thing.
At my car, I stared at the crunch in the bumper before I got in. It was much worse than I remembered but I was so pumped I decided I didn’t need Mum’s monster G&T. Great hair, don’t care! I messaged her, told her I would catch up with her some
