Big Little Lies(10)

Madeline’s expression changed. She beamed and waved. “Oh! She’s here at last! Celeste! Over here! Come and see what I’ve done!”
Jane looked up and her heart sank.
It shouldn’t matter. She knew it shouldn’t matter. But the fact was that some people were so unacceptably, hurtfully beautiful, it made you feel ashamed. Your inferiority was right there on display for the world to see. This was what a woman was meant to look like. Exactly this. She was right, and Jane was wrong.
You’re a very fat, ugly little girl, a voice said insistently in her ear with hot, fetid breath.
She shuddered and tried to smile at the horribly beautiful woman walking toward them.
Thea: I assume you’ve heard by now that Bonnie is married to Madeline’s ex-husband, Nathan? So that was complicated. You might want to explore that. I’m not telling you how to do your job, of course.
Bonnie: That had absolutely nothing to do with anything. Our relationship was completely amicable. Just this morning I left a vegetarian lasagna on their doorstep for her poor husband.
Gabrielle: I was new to the school. I didn’t know a soul. “Oh, we’re such a caring school,” the principal told me. Blah, blah, blah. Let me tell you, the first thing I thought when I walked into that playground on that kindergarten orientation day was cliquey. Cliquey, cliquey, cliquey. I’m not surprised someone ended up dead. Oh, all right. I guess that’s overstating it. I was a little surprised.

Chapter 5
5.

Celeste pushed open the glass door of Blue Blues and saw Madeline straightaway. She was sharing a table with a small, thin young girl wearing a blue denim skirt and a plain white V-necked T-shirt. Celeste didn’t recognize the girl. She felt an instant, sharp sense of disappointment. “Just the two of us,” Madeline had said.
Celeste readjusted her expectations of the morning. She took a deep breath. Recently, she’d noticed something strange happening when she talked to people in groups. She couldn’t quite remember how to be. She’d find herself thinking: Did I just laugh too loudly? Did I forget to laugh? Did I just repeat myself?
For some reason when it was just her and Madeline, it was OK. It was because she’d known Madeline for such a long time. Her personality felt intact when it was just the two of them.
Maybe she needed a tonic. That’s what her grandmother would have said. What was a tonic?
She weaved through the tables toward them. They hadn’t noticed her yet. They were deep in conversation. She could see the girl’s profile clearly. She was too young to be a school mother. She must be a nanny or an au pair. Probably an au pair. Maybe European? With not much English? That would explain the slightly stiff, strained way she was sitting, as though she needed to concentrate. Of course, maybe she had nothing to do with the school at all. Madeline traveled with ease through dozens of overlapping social circles, making both lifelong friends and lifetime enemies along the way; probably more of the latter. Madeline thrived on conflict and was never happier than when she was outraged.
Madeline saw Celeste and her face lit up. One of the nicest things about Madeline was the way her face transformed when she saw you, as if there were no one else in the world she’d rather see.
“Hello, birthday girl!” Celeste called out.
Madeline’s companion swung around in her chair. She had brown hair scraped back painfully hard from the forehead, like she was in the military or the police force.
“What happened to you, Madeline?” said Celeste as she got close enough to see Madeline’s leg propped up on the chair. She smiled politely at the girl, and the girl seemed to shrink away, as if Celeste had sneered, not smiled. (Oh, God, she had smiled at her, hadn’t she?)
“This is Jane,” said Madeline. “She saved me from the side of the road after I twisted my ankle trying to save young lives. Jane, this is Celeste.”
“Hi,” said Jane. There was something naked and raw about Jane’s face, like it had just been scrubbed too hard. She was chewing gum with tiny movements of her jaw, as if it were a secret.
“Jane is a new kindergarten mother,” said Madeline as Celeste sat down. “Like you. So it’s my responsibility to bring you both up-to-date with everything you need to know about school politics at Pirriwee Public. It’s a minefield, girls. A minefield, I tell you.”
“School politics?” Jane frowned and used two hands to pull hard on her ponytail so it was even tighter still. “I won’t get involved in any school politics.”
“Me either,” agreed Celeste.
?   ?   ?

Jane would always remember how she recklessly tempted fate that day. “I won’t get involved in any school politics,” she’d said, and someone up there had overheard and hadn’t liked her attitude. Far too confident. “We’ll see about that,” they’d said, and then sat back and had a good old laugh at her expense.