Today's Reading
Marja turns, following Philippa's gaze. She flushes.
Lila understands in her bones what has happened before her brain has a chance to register. She stares, unseeing, at the screen of her phone, her heart racing. No. No. It can't be. Not after everything Dan had said. He couldn't do this to us. But any doubt has been removed by the color flooding Marja's cheeks.
Lila feels sick. She feels dizzy. She cannot think what to do. She has an overwhelming urge to slump against the tree a few feet away but she doesn't want the other mothers to see her do that. She can feel the hot pressure of their gaze so presses her phone to her ear and hurriedly pretends to have a conversation. "Yes! Yes, it is! How lovely to hear from you! That's great. How are you?" She talks on, not knowing what is coming out of her mouth, turning so that she can no longer see anyone, her brain humming.
She jumps as Violet tugs at her hand.
"Darling!" She drops the phone from her ear, registers Mrs. Tugendhat standing beside her daughter. "Everything okay?" she says brightly, her voice too high, too loud.
"Why are you talking when there's nobody on your phone?" says Violet, frowning at the screen.
"They rang off," she says quickly. She thinks she may actually explode. A pressure is building inside her that feels too much for a body to contain.
Mrs. Tugendhat is wearing an emphatically hairy cardigan with batwing sleeves and a yellow cardboard hand-made badge on the lapel that says "Happy Birthday" in green Sharpie. "I was just talking to Violet about the end-of-year production. Did she tell you she's the narrator?"
"Great! Great!" Lila says, her face stretched into a tight smile.
"We don't like to do a nativity—we're multi-faith, these days. And I know it's a long way off...well, I suppose not that far off—four months—but you know how long these things take to pull together."
"I do!" says Lila.
"You're being weird," says Violet.
"And you are our resident Parent in Entertainment, since Frances left Emmerdale. Not that she had a regular part anyway. So Violet thought you might do it."
"Do it?"
"Sort out wardrobe for the lead characters."
"Wardrobe," Lila repeats blankly.
"It's an adaptation of Peter Pan."
Marja is walking away from the other mothers. She pulls the camel coat across her middle, and casts a quick, awkward glance in Lila's direction, Hugo, her young son, pulling at her hand as she passes the gates.
"Of course!" says Lila. A loud humming has started up somewhere at the back of her head. She can barely hear anything beyond it. She thinks tears may have sprung to her eyes because everything seems oddly glassy.
"You will? That's marvelous. Violet wasn't sure you would."
"She doesn't like coming to school," says Violet.
Lila tears her attention away and back to her daughter. "What? Don't be silly, Violet! I love coming here! Best part of my day!"
"You paid Celie four pounds to do pickup last week."
"No. No. I gave Celie four pounds. She needed four pounds. The school pickup was unrelated."
"That's not true. You said you'd rather chew off your own feet and Celie said she'd go if you gave her enough for one of those marshmallow coffees from Costa and you said, Fine, okay, and—"
Mrs. Tugendhat's smile has become a little wobbly.
"That's enough, Violet. Totally, Mrs. Tugendhat. The thing. What you said. Of course I'll do it!" Something is happening to her right hand. She keeps flapping it in the air for emphasis. It feels entirely unrelated to the rest of her body.
Mrs. Tugendhat beams. "Well, we'll probably get started after the October half-term but that will give you time to get the costumes into shape, yes?"
"Yes!" Lila says. "Yes! We must go. Bit of a hurry. But we—we'll talk. We'll definitely talk. Happy...birthday!" She points at Mrs. Tugendhat's chest, then turns and starts walking down the road.
"Why are we going this way?" says Violet, jogging to keep up. "We always go down Frobisher Street."
...
