“Oh.” Thembi stopped us before slipping her keys into the front door. “Don’t say anything to my parents about fashion design, they don’t know that I’m doing it next year.”

“What?” I asked.

“They think I’m going to study medicine to follow in their footsteps. They don’t know that I’ve applied to the Paris School of Fashion Design.”

“Crap!”

“Yeah, crap,” Thembi echoed.

“Are you going to tell them?”

She forced a grimace. “I’m going to have to at some stage. Especially when they realize I didn’t even apply for medicine.”

I stared at her, and she shrugged playfully. But I could see there was nothing playful about the shrug. Painful maybe.

“I’m destined to be a designer, Lori. Besides, I hate blood.” She turned the key and the massive door swung open.

“Hey.” She walked inside and called out, her tone flatter than usual.

“Hey, love.” Her mom came around the corner and I tried not to do a double take when I saw her. And when her dad appeared, I had to try even harder.

“Mom, Dad, this is Lori Palmer, she’s new. She just moved here from Joburg.”

“Lori, hello. Nice to meet you.” Her mom extended her hand for me to shake, and so did her dad. They both looked so different than Thembi, and it wasn’t their skin color—that wasn’t the reason I’d had to remind my jaw not to fall open.

Thembi’s mom wore a pair of old beige corduroy pants and an ill-fitting paisley blouse in orange and brown. Her hair was long, almost down to her lower back, and looked like it had never been dyed. The rough, gray strands breaking up the dark brown made her look older than she probably was. She wore no makeup and the only adornments on her body were two strange wooden earrings hanging from her lobes. I turned my attention to her dad; he was also gray-haired, and looked even older because he was wearing one of those tweed jackets with the brown leather patches over the elbows. This was not what I was expecting. I was expecting glamour and glitz, a mother in Gucci and a dad like Kanye and . . .

“We’re going to study upstairs,” Thembi quickly said. “We have a biology test.”

I nodded quickly, feeling uncomfortable about this lie I was caught in the middle of.

“I suppose we don’t have to remind you how important biology is?” Her mother had a strange, probing tone in her voice.

“I know.” Thembi nodded.

Her father looked at her strangely now. “You’re withholding. Is there something you want to tell us?”

“Dad, can we not do this now, please.”

“Do what?” her father asked.

“Can you not analyze me for one day?”

“I’m just saying, your body language and tone seem to be concealing something.” Her dad leaned in.