“Are you slipping behind at school?” her mother asked. “Is that why Lori is here to help you study?”

“No, Mom.” Thembi started walking off, and I gave her parents a quick smile before following her.

“Can I bring you girls some juice or something?” her mom shouted after us as we walked up the staircase.

“No, thanks,” Thembi replied without looking back. We walked into her room, and again, it was not what I’d been expecting . . . at all. It was neat. Precise. And so bloody brown and cream and beige.

“I know,” she said with a long sigh. “It’s disgusting.”

I spun around. “Well, I wouldn’t say that, but . . . it’s not what I expected.”

“Yeah, I know.” She kicked her shoes off and then moved over to a small bar fridge by her desk. She took out two bottles of sparkling water and handed me one. I didn’t know what I was more impressed by, the bar fridge or the fact the bottles had her name on them.

“It’s a water delivery service. They deliver bottles with our names on them and then pick them up at the end of the week and return them filled the next day. My parents say that water is the single most important thing for optimal brain function.”

“I see.” I took the lid off and sipped. I should remember that for Zac.

“I forgot to tell you, I’m adopted,” she said glibly.

“Yeah, I kind of guessed that.” I walked in a small circle and then sat down on the leather couch against the wall. “Your parents seem, very . . .” I was searching for the words.

“Different?” She sat down next to me. “My dad is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and my mother is a neuroanthropologist.”

“A what?” I asked.

“She studies the ways that culture influences the structure of the brain and vice versa. She’s a professor at UCT and my dad has published a million books called A Thriving Adolescent, Understand Your Teen, and my personal favorite, Learn to Speak Teen.”

I chuckled at this.

“You have to watch your tone around him. Trust me, he will scrutinize everything you do and say. It’s like living with a surveillance camera pointed at you.”

I looked at Thembi and wondered if that was the reason for her short, sharp, often flat way of speaking. She’d trained herself to have a neutral tone at all times.

“Sometimes, it’s so exhausting.” She sighed loudly.

“And they think you’re going to study medicine?”

“Apparently, I’m destined to be the next great neuropsychiatrist, or surgeon. Their greatest fear is that I would settle for something as pedestrian as a general practitioner.”

“They have no idea you want to do fashion?”