‘Did you? That’s cool.’ She carries on talking as if we were the best of friends. She’s saying how she’s going to make a vegetable chilli for her sister once a week and that it makes them emotional when they have it because of their mum. I don’t really listen to the words because I’m too busy looking at her. She is so alive. She’s talking just to me. I know I’m gazing at her like an idiot, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

I pretend to know about her family because I can tell that I’m meant to, and soon enough I’ve caught up. Her mother died nearly a year ago; her sister’s pregnant and her dad left. She hates him, which seems reasonable.

We chat for a bit, about my family and hers, and then she says, ‘Shit, I have to go.’ She starts to say something, then stops, then starts again, then stops.

‘What is it?’ I say.

‘It’s just,’ she says, ‘do you want to swap numbers? I’d like to hear about your French trip when you’re back. Maybe we could meet somewhere else. Take it out of the room, you know?’

I know I’m beaming.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes. That would be great.’ I tell her our number and she types it into some sort of PalmPilot thing. She asks for my mobile number too, looking a bit amused, and I give her that, pleased I can remember it.

She says, ‘Brilliant. Have an amazing trip. Can’t wait to hear all about it!’

For a second she looks as if she wants to hug me, but the moment passes and she gives me a little wave, and is gone.

She pops back in.

‘I meant to ask – which school do you go to?’ she says. ‘I forgot.’

I say, ‘Beachview.’

‘Like this mall?’

‘Yeah.’

She blows me a kiss and is gone.

She blows me a kiss.

A kiss.

And she’s gone.

11

The vegetable chilli was perfect this time. We ate it sitting on the sofa because no one could stop us. In fact, the table had just become a place where we put random things: the sofa was our dining table now. The chilli was emotional because of it being Mum’s thing, but I’d decided to conquer it, to push past the sadness of taking it over from her, so that it could become a family heirloom.

‘A family heirloom!’ Sasha was laughing. ‘Oh, Mermaid. Explain.’

‘It’s for the baby,’ I said. ‘When he’s big enough for proper food, I’ll make it for him and tell him it was Granny Anna’s dish, and that means that, in a weird way, Mum’s cooking it for her grandson, and I’m a kind of medium, but not in a creepy way.’