come to the beach, sit with me, bring some lunch there? Maybe it would even make me feel like having sex with him.
I stumbled out of bed, lumbered down the passage to Harley’s room. I was tired. After the beach, an afternoon at the shop, kids to bed at eight, and bed for me at eleven-thirty, being awake at three-thirty in the morning was a cruel joke. The carpet runner slipped a little on the passage tiles as I walked, making me jerk every few steps so that I wouldn’t fall. I needed to call Paco to get new carpet liners, but I’d forgotten, like everything else to do with the house that I should remember. By the time I got to his room, Harley was sitting up in his double bed, tears streaming down his face. The small round nightlight plugged in near the door cast a soft glow about his room. Most nights he loved that light; other times he swore it hid monsters in the shadows.
‘What’s the matter, Harley baby?’ I reached to put my arms around him. His warm body wrapped into mine. We were made to fit.
‘I made a pee,’ he cried, tears and snot mixing on his scrunched face. My heart sank. A middle-of-the-night change of bedding was not my favourite event.
‘It’s okay, baby.’ I opened the covers. Yup, there it was. Puddle of pee. Harley in red Spiderman shorty pyjamas in the middle of it. If I stripped everything off fast enough, the mattress protector would stop it from soaking all the way into the mattress. Ten minutes later, it was done, fresh sheets on, and Harley hosed off with a fast, warm shower. Bless apoplectic Jerry and his borehole water, we had a little bit of slack around the drought water restrictions. The duvet was wet, so I got the spare one out of his bedroom cupboard while he waited on the bed, his new big-boy haircut making his head look both tiny and grown-up against the white pillowcase. I lay down next to him, let him settle in the crook of my arm, snuggled him close to me. I felt his fingers reach up to my neck and wind themselves into a twist of my hair. I looked down onto his light brown hair, stroked the soft curve of his head. I’d had the same hair colour, before I decided at sixteen that red was more exciting. Also the same curls before I started doing Keratin straightening treatments last year when I’d seen Nicole Kidman’s hair in Big Little Lies. I felt Harley’s grip on my hair loosen. He would be asleep soon. He was good that way – it was usually me left wide awake by his middle-of-the-night adventures. But better a grumpy me who could drink coffee than a grumpy child whom nothing could help.
At five, I crept back to my bed. Maybe I would get half an hour before both of them came to lie in our bed. I made the mistake of looking at my phone. There it was, sent at twelve last night.
Him: Hmm, you are totally on [five fire emojis] I’ll see you at the shop on Monday afternoon, schweet Shelley Jacobsen. Looking forward. Winky face emoji. Coffee cup. Heart eyes. And a selfie he had taken with the kids in the background while I must have been off putting things in the car. There he was, smiling at me with the wet hair and the pecs and the abs and the smile. Those fuck-me lines.
What the hell. Why the flames? I scrolled up. Flowers. There was the selfie I’d taken. My sunburned boobs were squashed together, spilling up over the top of my swimsuit. My mouth in a put-on pout above them, one hand on my hip, my body angled just so for the camera. I looked curvy and sexy. I’d meant to send it to ABS.
Captioned it: Got myself a bit too hot in the sun this morning …
Flowers flowers flowers. Flowers everywhere.
10
Monday, 19 February
I’m not kidding myself. This struggle with my clothes is because Wayde is going to be at the shop for our first full shift together. Wayde. Kids’ surf coach Wayde. Coffee & Cream employee Wayde. Twenty-two-year-old hot guy with sex lines who laughs at my jokes and sends me flame emojis at twelve at night Wayde. I tried not to think about all the banter on the beach or that WhatsApp, but it was in the back of my mind all through Sunday. Nothing worked. I even did Baking Morning with the kids before our Family Sunday outing – a picnic at Kirstenbosch Gardens. The baking was moderately successful. Only half the sugar cookies were undercooked, Harley pronounced the green icing ‘nummy’ and Stacey’s tantrum about the pink icing not being pink enough didn’t last the whole day. The picnic was less successful. I’d hoped it would make Jerry feel better after his ‘no family time’ meltdown, but he’d eaten too many undercooked biscuits which gave him heartburn, and he’d forgotten to bring his hat so his head burned. Everything added to the funk he was already in, so I left him alone in his study when we got back home.
So much for Family Sunday.
I guessed he had been chatting to his brothers in Joburg about their business or their mother, or about the latest family event they had all been together at. I don’t think there are any Jewish holidays this time of year; there’s a big one over Easter, I know. Not that they needed an event to see one another. They live in walking distance of one another in Hazeldene and there are always the Friday night suppers. Jerry didn’t say it, but I knew he got bleak about that. He didn’t use to; he used to be proud of his independent life in Cape Town. Now he feels left out of his family but, que sera sera, he chose me and he has to live with it. Like I do. I’m in Cape Town and I’m not part of his Jewish clan and I’m perfectly fine with that.
This morning he was okay again, even offered to drop the kids at school. I jumped at the offer, giving him a big smile. It’s how we make up without words or sex – we offer to do things with the kids that the other doesn’t want to do. Jerry would always offer first. The kids would only get to school at ten and be a full hour late, but no matter.
The lift didn’t help me get dressed faster. It was an hour before I had to be at the shop and I couldn’t decide what to wear. It’s not often a problem for me. I love my clothes and they all somehow go together in my eyes, if not in everyone else’s. I like my look – the brighter the better, with sparkles on top. More is more; less is lame. Pinks, purples, blues, yellows, reds, prints. I do them all, sometimes together – anything, as long as it’s not boring. Or Scandi. I hate Scandi. I felt quite pleased when I saw clashy-matchy and OTT become fashion trends. Finally, people are getting it.
Life is too short to be beige.
And with me, what you see is what you get. Or what I want to get. I want to live in full colour. It’s the reason for my red hair – I simply couldn’t see myself as mousy brown, even if that’s how I was born. Call me a slutty fake ginger like they did at school; didn’t bother me then, doesn’t bother me now. The haters did make it easier to ditch school, which is one of my few regrets. I don’t advertise it, but I would’ve liked to get a matric or something more. Not that matric would’ve counted for much in Jerry’s family where everyone is a something – his mother was a shrink, for chrissakes. ABS know that I didn’t go to college or university, but I feel too stupid to admit to them that I don’t have matric.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter since I’m anyways not shy to make myself into what I want. Hair, boobs, teeth, Botox, fillers, flattish stomach, flappy eyelashes. All engineered. I won’t make it into a magazine, but I’m pretty happy, especially with the fix-ups after the twins. Hell’s bells, those two scarred me body and soul.
Di asked if I do all the body stuff because I’m insecure, but it’s the opposite – I love my body. I love being able to do with it what I want. I’m not into the idea of my body being a temple; for me it’s more like a building site. I don’t have hang-ups about things being all natural. I make modern science work for me; I mean, we have IVF twins, thank you very much. My body? I renovate as I like, no problem at all. Since that first red dye job, my hair has been everything from bright scarlet to strawberry blonde, mostly curly but more recently straight. The strawberry blonde was my most ‘normal’ colour but never ever have I been back to boring. I hate the idea of being boring, but today all my clothes seemed beyond
