The Trouble with Flirting

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

It’s a universal truth that the majority of people are more attractive at the end of their teenage years than at the beginning. Who hasn’t had the urge to burn their pimply-skinned, brace-faced, weird-haired early high school photos? I know I have. Then you get the people who are lucky enough to become not just attractive, but properly beautiful. You look at their pictures on f*******: and wonder where their supermodel genes were in grade eight when no one seemed to fit into their own skin properly. And then you get the people who look so vastly different it’s entirely possible they climbed into a new body.

Luke is one of those people.

His skin is perfect, his blue eyes are bright, and his chiseled jaw and artfully tousled bed-head would make any of the top one hundred hottest men in the world jealous. The only thing remaining of the creepy boy who used to stare at me is his hesitant demeanour and the way his eyes dart away when I try to meet his gaze.

After several moments of gaping on my part, Luke looks up briefly, gives me a shy smile, and says, “Welcome to Cape Town, Livi. Um … I hope you enjoy staying here.”

Blank. I’m going blank. My knees feel oddly weak, and I think my mouth is still open.

“Thank you, Luke” my mother says, filling in the gap left by my sudden inability to talk. “Livi is so looking forward to living in this … lovely house.”

Be cool, Livi. BE COOL. Salivating over hot guys like a groupie at a concert is not part of Project Ditch the Nerd. I suck in a breath of air and clear my throat. “Yeah, um, thanks. Anyway, Mom and I were just heading out to do some shopping.” I casually bend down and pick up my handbag, arranging the expression on my face so it says, No big deal. I drop my handbag all the time. Nothing to do with the hot guy in the room. I catch Adam’s eye, and he sticks a finger in his mouth and mimes puking. I glare at him before straightening.

“Yes, we have lots to do,” Mom says. “Lynda, do let me know if you need anything for the house. I’ll be happy to pick it up while we’re out.” After nodding to Adam’s mom, she heads past Luke. I follow her, refusing to look at the blue eyes that could potentially freeze me in place.

“This is going to be so much fun,” Mom says to me as we climb into my car. “We haven’t shopped together in ages.” She doesn’t ask if I want to drive, and I don’t offer. I have messages to send.

Livi: You didn’t tell me your cousin is now one of the hottest guys on the planet.

Adam: I don’t really think of guys in that way.

Livi: Adam! As one of my best friends, it’s your duty to point out attractive potential boyfriend material to me.

Adam: *throwing up* I don’t think it is, actually.

Livi: You could have mentioned his hotness when you invited me to live with you guys.

Adam: Perhaps I was waiting to see you become a speechless, handbag-dropping mess.

Livi: *sigh*

Adam: *throwing up again*

My mother is scared of old furniture that’s been used by other people—“You never know what might be living in it now”—but after a lengthy argument, I remind her of what she and Dad always say about not giving me the best, biggest, and newest of everything because they don’t want to raise a spoiled child, and that’s how we end up heading to the second-hand shop Lynda mentioned. I breathe a sigh of relief after winning that battle—I can only imagine the princess names Adam would come up with if a delivery van from the most expensive home decor store at the V&A Waterfront showed up in Toll Road to drop off my designer furniture.

After an hour or so of Mom trying to touch as little as possible and me examining every item of furniture in every room of the rundown house in Muizenberg that now serves as a second-hand furniture shop, I’ve chosen my collection: a desk, bed, bedside table, bookcase, and a comfy old armchair covered in a hideous green-and-brown patterned material that I assure my mother I’ll be covering with a throw the moment it’s delivered.

“Okay, that’s all,” I say to Mom after pointing out my chosen items to the guy behind the make-shift counter in the centre room of the house. “Do you, um, want me to pay?” I never know with my parents if I’m going to catch them in a generous mood or a Livi-needs-to-learn-how-to-support-herself mood. On the one hand, they were happy to pay for my ticket to Germany last year, and they’ve assured me they’re fine with paying my rent this year, but on the other hand, they flat-out refused to buy me a car.

Mom heads to the counter without saying a word. She whips out her credit card, gives me her be-grateful-I’m-paying-for-this look, then exclaims in surprise at the low total. “Oh, goodness, Livi. These things cost hardly anything. Are you sure they aren’t going to fall apart five minutes after they’re delivered?”

The guy behind the counter assures her that all items are thoroughly checked when they come into the shop, and anything broken is fixed before going on display. Mom looks doubtful but pays for everything anyway while I write down our Toll Road address so someone can deliver everything this afternoon.

“Now that you’ve had your second-hand shop experience, we’re going to the Waterfront,” Mom says as we climb back into my car and wind the windows down to let some air into the oven-like interior. “There’s a hotel there with the most gorgeous views out onto the water, and their sushi is simply superb. Your father and I ate there often the last time we were on holiday in Cape Town. How about we have lunch there? And then we can shop for the rest of your things. Some curtains and bedding and a decent mattress—and something to cover up that awful armchair you seem to like so much. Perhaps I’ll even treat you to some Egyptian cotton items.”

After the shopping expedition is over, and my furniture has arrived at the house, I spend the remainder of the afternoon helping Adam and Lynda clean. Mom hangs my curtains, makes my bed, and takes her time arranging cushions and other frivolous decorative items around my room so she won’t be roped into anything that involves dust, household detergents, or a wet cloth. She even unpacks all my clothes and shoes and arranges them neatly in my cupboard when it becomes clear that the only other task left in the house is cleaning kitchen shelves.

As evening draws closer, Mom goes for a walk and comes back with a selection of gourmet sandwiches from a restaurant she found a few roads away. Mom, Adam, Lynda and I—not Luke, who left the house so quietly no one is sure exactly when it happened—sit on the floor of the empty lounge eating our sandwiches, and Mom and Lynda reminisce about a time long ago when their children were young and the idea of sending them off to university seemed like an eternity away. Even my mother, whose butt probably hasn’t touched a floor since she was a teenager, seems to be relaxed and enjoying herself. I suddenly wish Dad were here too. This is what our last dinner together should have been like: laughing about the past and dreaming of the future.

At the end of the evening, when Mom and I have finally unpacked and put away all the stuff I brought with, I collapse onto the mattress on my bedroom floor—a blow-up mattress borrowed from Sarah’s family—while Mom climbs into my bed.

My lamp clicks off.

“I enjoyed dinner,” I say through the darkness.

After a pause, Mom answers with, “Me too.”

I roll onto my side and pull the blanket up over my shoulder; the evenings are cooler here than in Durban. “I kinda wish Dad had come with us.”

The pause is longer this time, and my mind is already drifting into that half-awake, half-asleep state when Mom’s second answer comes, quieter than her first. “Me too.”

Sunday dawns bright, beautiful, and disgustingly hot. I layer sunscreen over every exposed part of my body, and Adam and I head into the garden to battle the weeds while Mom and Lynda drive to the second-hand shop together to find furniture for our living area. I thought Mom would try to find a way out of returning to ‘that bug-infested place’ and simply offer to pay half of whatever Lynda chose, but, to my surprise, she seemed happy to go with.

The sun climbs higher, Adam fights with the lawnmower, our moms return, the furniture arrives, we spend all afternoon transforming the house into a home, and before I know it, it’s time to drive my mother to the airport and say goodbye.

We’re quiet in the car. I’m concentrating on the road—having actually been allowed to drive my own car this time—and Mom doesn’t seem to have any words to say other than those required to direct me to the airport. It’s only when we climb out at the drop-off zone and she’s standing in front of me with her small suitcase at her feet that I notice her red eyes and trembling lips. She blinks and presses her lips together, swallowing hard as she tries to remain composed. I’ve never seen my mother in an emotional state like this before, and suddenly I feel like crying.

“I … I don’t think I ever told you how much I missed you when you were in Germany,” she says. “It was all arranged in such a rush, and then you were gone, and we’d barely said goodbye to each other.” She tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Now you’re leaving again, and this time I want to say goodbye properly. I want to say all the things that should be said.”

“Mom, it’s … it’s okay. You don’t have to say anything.” Deep Meaningful Conversations have never been my mother’s strong point. She gets uncomfortable when people start getting too personal. So does my dad, for that matter. It’s a miracle I didn’t end up with the emotional IQ of a brick wall.

She smiles at me and takes hold of my hand. “I know we haven’t always found it … easy … to talk to one another. But I hope you know how much I love you and how excited I am for you embarking on this new journey in your life. Please don’t think that I don’t want to know about it. I do. I want to know everything. Well,” she adds with a laugh, “perhaps not everything.”

Holy hippogriff, did my mother just make a joke? On top of getting personal? Who is this woman! I wrap my arms around her and laugh to keep myself from crying. “I’ll be sure to keep you updated.”

After a few more sniffles, she gives me one last smile and turns away. I watch her go, trying to imprint this relaxed, smiling, jeans-and-T-shirt version of her over the suit-and-high-heels image my brain always defaults to when I think the word ‘Mom.’

On the drive back to Toll Road, I’m too busy concentrating on the dual task of not getting lost and not crashing into something to focus on my feelings. But after parking my tin oven in the vastly improved front garden and looking out at the tall trees across the road that hide the mountain, I’m aware of an odd mixture of nostalgia and excitement. A kind of mourning for everything I took for granted in the past—passing notes to Logan during Afrikaans class because Mev. Pretorius was always too ditzy to notice; lying on the grass in Our Spot every breaktime at school; sleepovers with Sarah—and a joyful anticipation for tomorrow and every day after that.

It only takes about half a minute for the excitement to begin burying the nostalgia. It rises up like bubbles in a jacuzzi and blots everything else out. I slam the car door shut and bound up the stairs to let myself in—with my very own key. “I’m home!” I shout, just to see what it feels like to say those words.

Home. My home.

It feels good.

“Good to know you’re still alive,” Adam shouts back from his bedroom.

I dance down the passage, run into his room, and jump onto the bed with a squeal. “This is really happeniiiiing!”