A LIFE MADE OF LAVA

by Del, Lissa

  I read through the resumés carefully, trying to find something – anything – that stands out. Nothing does, save for the fact that two of the applicants are named Amy. Determinedly, I set their resumés aside and pick up the third. Julia. It’s a nice name. Julia is twenty-nine, a psychology major, and, under health, she’s listed excellent. Lucky Julia.

  I frown at her credentials. Why would a psychology major be applying for a job as a nanny? At least the Amys have some childcare experience.

  “Ouch!” I jump as the cat sinks his claws into my thigh. He glares at me through one slitted eye and I shove him off my lap.

  “Evie?” Nick’s voice is thick with sleep. “What are you doing down here?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Are you in pain? Do you need anything?” The question ends in a yawn.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  He joins me on the sofa and I scoot over, laying my head on his chest. He takes my hand, playing with my fingertips, like he always has.

  “What really happened with Steph?” I ask.

  “I told you, I caught her stealing. She borrowed money from petty cash without permission and there’s no way of knowing if she would’ve put it back if I hadn’t checked.”

  I want to call him out for lying but my courage fails me. “How are you going to manage without her?”

  Nick pats my hand. “I’ll manage.”

  “I could come in and help out until you find a replacement?”

  “That’s not necessary. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m more than just a pretty face.”

  “Your face isn’t actually that pretty,” I tease.

  Nick and I met at college. He was a year ahead of me and graduated summa cum laude, with a degree in design engineering. I barely made it through finals, although it didn’t help that I spent almost every night of my final semester out on the tiles. Nick played state football, I played a mean game of poker. On the spectrum of college social classes, we were polar opposites, but somehow, we clicked. I don’t know who was more surprised to find that not only did we click, we worked.

  “Do you remember the night we met?” I murmur into his shirt.

  “How could I forget?” he chuckles. “You flashed your boobs at the entire football team.”

  “To be fair, Kat dared me to.”

  “I remember. I also remember thinking that I didn’t want anyone else to ever see them again, except me.”

  “Nobody did. You stole my heart that night.”

  “If memory serves, you stole my beer.”

  It begins as a laugh, but I choke and bury my face in his chest. His arms come around me, pulling me closer so that our bodies are pressed together.

  “I would’ve flashed my boobs more often if I’d known I wouldn’t have them forever,” I say.

  “I still wouldn’t have let you, even if you had known,” he replies firmly, kissing the top of my head. “Besides, boobs are overrated. All they do is put a barrier between our hearts.” He pulls me closer and our flat chests touch in all the right places. “See,” he adds sleepily, “I couldn’t do this before. Now I can touch all of you at once.”

  I raise my head and kiss him, because only Nick can make me feel beautiful, even after a double-mastectomy, even after losing my hair. To be fair, it did grow back after my first round of chemotherapy was over, but the waspish tufts were so far removed from the thick, bushy curls I was used to that I kept it shaved. I’d bought a lot of hats that first year. Now, thanks to bouts of radiation and chemo to slow the cancer down, I don’t need to bother shaving.

  Nick kisses me back, slowly, leisurely. It doesn’t matter that we haven’t brushed our teeth, or that my breath smells of tea, because things like that don’t matter when you only have so many kisses left.

  “I’m sorry.” He pulls away and I know it’s not because he wants to, but because he feels bad that his erection has risen like the leaning tower of Pisa to nudge suggestively at my hip.

  I do a quick mental assessment of my body. The meds are working, the pain has receded to a dull ache and a tiny fire has ignited in my belly. It doesn’t get much better than this.

  “I’m sorry,” Nick repeats, taking my silence for embarrassment, or worse, disappointment. I silence him with another kiss and then reach for his pants.

  He stays my hands with one of his own. “Evie…”

  “Shhhh,” I whisper.

  His hand falls away. “Are you sure?” he asks, his eyes heavy-lidded with desire.

  My heart skips a beat and I reach for the hem of my night-shirt, pulling it up and over my head. “Less talking, more touching, Mr Danvers.”

  I fall asleep after, cocooned in Nick’s arms. If only I could emerge beautiful again, like a butterfly, but I don’t. Instead, I wake with a niggling spasm in my lower back and a dull burn in my lady bits, protesting such an energetic work-out.

  Nick isn’t on the sofa but I can hear the shower running upstairs. I pull on my pyjamas and go through to the kitchen to turn on the coffee machine only to find it’s already been brewed. Typical, thoughtful Nick.

  Caffeine-fuelled, I make the kids’ lunches for school and set up their breakfast on the island.

  Mornings in our household are chaos. I wish there was a better way to put it, but there’s not. Three kids are the social equivalent of an army of adults, only they make more mess.

  “Promise me you’ll reschedule with Doctor Moxley,” Nick says as the children rush off to brush their teeth.

  I cross my fingers behind my back. “I promise.”

  By the time Nick has ferried them all out of the front door, planted a wet kiss on my mouth for good measure, and driven out of the garage, I feel like I’ve run a marathon. Not that I would know what running a marathon feels like, but I can only assume it’s how I would feel if ever I did.

  Before I clear away the breakfast dishes I phone the three applicants Kat picked out. Julia and the Amys can all come through for an interview after lunch so I schedule them forty minutes apart. I’ve just hung up the phone when it rings in my hand.

  “Are you dressed?” Kat asks.

  I look down at my wrinkled pyjamas. There’s a Cheerio stuck to my thigh. “No.”

  “Get ready, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Are we going anywhere special? Should I wash my hair?” I tease.

  “No, it’ll take too long to blow-dry.”

  I take a lightning shower and pull on a pair of faded jeans and a tank top. I look about eight from the neck down, with my androgynous body and jutting hip bones and I’ve gone up another notch in my belt. I don’t bother with make-up, and by the time Kat’s flashy silver Mercedes pulls up to the curb, I’m already waiting on the verge.

  “Took you long enough,” I say, sliding onto the leather passenger seat. “What were you doing, driving Miss Daisy?”

  “I had to make a quick stop.” She grins and points into the back seat, on which lies a bona fide ‘For Sale’ sign. I read the details upside down and burst out laughing.

  “Excellent!”

  It’s no secret that I don’t get along with my mother-in-law. Mary-Anne Danvers had taken one look at the nineteen-year-old reprobate her son had brought home and decided that this girl would never become her daughter-in-law. Five years later she wore black to our wedding and cried quite sincerely into her silk handkerchief. Jesse’s birth had resulted in a temporary ceasefire, but only for the duration of time it took for Mary-Anne to discover that my parenting style was nothing like her own, and so began a decade-long war of wills. I believe in letting children sleep when they’re tired and eat when they’re hungry. Mary-Anne imposes a rigid bedtime routine and follows a paleo lifestyle.

  Mary-Anne believes children should be seen and not heard. In our household, whoever yells loudest, emerges victorious. When, during one of our very rare lunches at the country club where Mary-Anne has been a member for over twenty years, she claimed that no floor could ever turn to lava, I had promptly throw
n myself to the ground and burned to death. It was vocal and dramatic, but necessary. My children had been present and I couldn’t let her steal their magic. Mary-Anne has never forgiven me.

  Every Tuesday my mother-in-law leaves home at nine o’clock on the dot and drives four miles to Grace Fawcett’s house to play bridge with a group of women who, for all intents and purposes, detest one another. The bridge routine is simply another means for them to attempt to outdo one another – a pissing contest for old women, as Nick calls it. I peek at the clock on Kat’s dashboard. It’s 9.27. Nick’s father, dear David, works tirelessly to afford Mary-Anne the lifestyle which she deems worthy, which means he’s doomed to fail. It also means he’s almost never at home.

  “Where did you get it?” I ask Kat as she pulls into the street on which David and Mary-Anne live.

  “I had it specially made,” Kat replies. “Nothing’s too much for my dear friend Mary-Anne.”

  I snort. If I am the thorn in Mary-Anne’s side, then Kat is the ultimate pain in her ass. When Kat made her first million, the first thing she did was join Mary-Anne’s country club. She claimed it was because it was good for business, but I knew better. Kat never forgave Mary-Anne for telling her, the very first time they met, and with no compunction whatsoever, that Kat would never amount to anything. When Mary-Anne got a young waitron at the club fired for ‘being rude’, when in fact it had nothing to do with his demeanour and everything to do with the fact that he was black, Kat promptly hired the young man in her emerging company and proceeded to take a slew of young African-American men on dates to the country club just to piss Mary-Anne off.

  “You don’t even like the food!” I’d teased.

  “Yeah, but the look on her face is worth it,” Kat had replied, without any trace of contrition.

  “She mentioned you’ve reserved seven seats at the fundraiser next week?” I’d asked, knowing the exclusive event was costing over a thousand dollars per head and that Kat would never spend that kind of money on something so obnoxious. “Mary-Anne’s positively orgasmic that she’s sold more tickets than Grace.”

  Kat had burst out laughing. “She’s going to shit her pants when she discovers I bought them for Jasper and his family.”

  Jasper was the young waitron whose dismissal Mary-Anne had organised and his immigrant family barely spoke a word of English.

  Kat pulls the Mercedes over to the curb and peers up at the house. My in-laws have the greenest grass on the street and no self-respecting weed would ever dare trespass on the property.

  “Right, let’s get this done,” Kat says switching off the engine.

  “You know that’s less than half the market value,” I say as I follow her onto the verge.

  “That’s kind of the point,” Kat replies. “Check the number, will you? I’d hate to have made a mistake.”

  I quickly scan the mobile number, printed in bright red and check it against the contact details stored on my phone. “Yes, that’s definitely hers.”

  “Good.” Kat plunges the sign into the lawn with a satisfying thud. Then she dusts her hands off on her designer trousers and gives me a devilish smile. “Our work here is done.”

  6

  Julia

  I hear the familiar sound of a key in the lock and a second later my dad calls out for me, as he does every time he enters the house. As if I might have disappeared during the short time it takes for him to walk that ridiculous dog. “Juju?”

  “I’m here, Dad!” The soft drag as he limps down the hall and I cast a quick look around my room for any discarded underwear. I’ve just stashed a grey bra that used to be black under my pillow when he appears in the doorway.

  “I wondered where you…” he trails off, catching sight of me. “Oh wow, you look nice! Are you going somewhere?”

  I give him the benefit of a mega-watt smile, knowing how excited he’ll be when he hears the news. “I have an interview!”

  “Juju! That’s wonderful news!”

  “Yeah,” I agree, sneaking another look at my reflection in the old looking-glass dresser I inherited from Grandma Soanes. “How does this look?”

  “Very tasteful,” my dad replies approvingly as he takes in the beige linen pants and white button-up shirt combination. It’s one of the nicest outfits I own and the small stain on the front of the shirt is easy enough to hide with a matching scarf.

  “What’s the job?” Dad asks, leaning against the door frame.

  I start picking up the clothes littering my bed so I don’t have to meet his eyes. “A family in Oakland Park are looking for a nanny.”

  A pause. “Julia…”

  “Dad, I know it’s not exactly what I had in mind, but the pay is good and it’ll keep us going until you find something new.” I cringe at that last part. It’s been three years since the accident - three years since he lost his leg - but even the slightest mention of it still brings back memories too painful to bear. My father isn’t going to find another job. Nobody wants to hire an amputee jockey, not even to muck out stalls.

  “It breaks my heart to see you throwing away your dreams because of me,” he says now. “You were supposed to be a psychologist, not a nanny. What good is that degree if you don’t finish your studies?”

  “I’m not throwing away anything, Dad. As soon as I’ve got enough money saved, I’ll start attending night classes and, with any luck, by then you’ll be back on your feet. Financially, of course,” I add, trying to lighten the mood. “Besides,” I say as a miniature Yorkshire terrier bursts into the room and takes a flying leap onto my bed, “if I’m working we’ll be able to buy Pepper all the jerky treats she can eat.” I bury my face in Pepper’s silken fur and wait.

  “What time is your interview?” He changes the subject and I’m filled with gratitude.

  “At two.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In Oakland Park.” It’s less than a ten-minute drive, or it would be if we had a car.

  “Oh yes, you mentioned that. Do you need money for the bus?” His disability pension doesn’t stretch very far and I’m almost out of savings too. Fortunately, Oakland Park is only a forty-five-minute walk.

  “No, I’m good, thanks Dad.”

  He nods. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you,” he says, holding them up as proof before limping back toward the kitchen. I can tell his prosthesis has been worrying him lately. He’s developed angry red sores where the socket fits against his stump, and the more he wears it, the worse they get. I read recently that the newer, more expensive models come with an anti-allergy silicone coating, but there’s no way we can afford one. I shove the clothes back into my wardrobe with a weary sigh. When my fingers brush against the softest silk, I pause. If I close my eyes I can picture the dress perfectly – tiny diamante spaghetti straps, a soft cowl-neck draped in chiffon and a long skirt which flows straight down. It was made in a happier time, before the accident; before my life fell apart. I know it so well because I designed every perfect inch of it and the delicate stitching was made by my mother’s own hand. It was meant to be my wedding dress.

  I still don’t blame Aaron for calling things off. He had proposed to a girl who wanted to see the world. I had shared his dreams and his wanderlust. As soon as I graduated, we had booked tickets to Thailand and we hadn’t stopped travelling for a long time. We had made love under a blanket of stars on the beaches of Malawi, explored the catacombs of Rome and had gotten high with a group of locals in a Mexican estancia. And that had only been the beginning. We had worked and travelled extensively, going from one adventure to another without responsibility or consequence. Our wedding had been planned and postponed three times, not because we didn’t want to commit, but because we were so busy living we couldn’t find the time to stop long enough to hold the ceremony.

  And then the accident had happened. In a flash, my entire world had been turned upside down. There would be no more travelling, not while my father needed me. Aaron was wonderful. He offered to stay behind, to he
lp, but I had declined. I would join him as soon as Dad had found another job. One month had become six. I’d seen Aaron twice since the accident and even then I had felt the distance between us. It wasn’t only physical, there had been a disconnect between us on a much deeper level. We were losing ‘us’.

  Six months became a year and a new name started dropping from his lips. Moira. He had met up with her in India, a fellow traveller, and they would journey to Egypt together, sharing costs. It was nothing to be concerned about. In the fourteenth month, Aaron flew home, unexpectedly. Something had happened, he wanted me to hear it from him. His guilt had sent Moira packing. He had begged for my forgiveness, it was a mistake, I was the one he loved. I didn’t doubt it. He needed me, would I join him so things could go back to the way they were? Never going to happen. I knew by then that my father would never be able to provide for himself. I knew that my place was now with him. I was done travelling. Aaron wasn’t. There was only one logical conclusion, only I didn’t have the guts to say it. Eventually, Aaron did.

  I shove the silk away into the bowels of my closet and slam the door shut. Aaron got married a few months ago. I had heard through a mutual friend. He and his new wife had bought a house in her hometown. Aaron was putting down roots while I was still living in limbo in the unending space between the day my mother had died and the present.

  7

  Evie

  The cat is back. It weaves between the serviette holder and the spice rack while I wait for the coffee machine.

  “Have you named it yet?” Kat asks.

  I don’t mention my moment of weakness last night. “Hell no! If I name it, I claim it, and the last thing I need is to be responsible for another living thing. And as for you,” I tell the cat, lifting it off the counter and depositing it on the floor, “you need to stay down here. Nick will kill me if he finds cat hair all over the condiments.”