Hearing the ball and our feet on the court, and feeling sweat pouring off of me felt so good. It made me feel at home.

‘Do you wish you’d brought your bathers now?’ Dad asked as he sucked in air on the bench and took big mouthfuls of water.

‘Nah, I feel fine,’ I told him, teasing.

‘You’ve got to make the most of all that energy, Pheebs. It doesn’t last forever,’ he reminded me.

When we got home, Dad and Caitlin decided to go for a swim while I grabbed myself a feed. I did a whole lot of nothing around the house before getting ready to go to Caroline’s. I tried listening to Deep Purple, one of the bands that I knew Caroline liked. The first two songs that I heard, ‘Hush’ and ‘Black Night’, were really cool so I turned the volume up as I threw on my clothes and put on some makeup. The music kind of revved me up with its fast beat, electric guitars and groovy old keyboard sounds. Maybe Caroline is onto something, I thought.

It was one thing for me to dress up to go to my friend’s place for a night out, but when Caitlin stepped into the living room later that night with a new dress on, her hair pulled back and wearing a fancy scarf, I asked, ‘Where are you and Dad going?’

‘Caroline’s, of course.’

‘And then where?’

‘Nowhere. Why?’

‘I thought you were just dropping me off.’

‘We’ll come in for a drink, like we talked about last night,’ Caitlin said, keeping her cool.

‘How many drinks?’ I asked.

‘What’s going on?’ Dad stepped into the room in fresh linen pants, a collared shirt and his good leather thongs.

‘Phoebe’s interrogating me about how long we’ll stay at Caroline’s.’

As Dad clasped his watch he said, ‘We know it’s your gig bub but it’d be good to connect with your friend’s parents.’

‘You look too flash for one drink.’

‘You only get one chance to make a good impression,’ Dad said, which was another of the sayings he’d told me like a trillion times.

‘You met Caroline’s dad last night,’ I said.

‘We didn’t meet her mum,’ Caitlin said as she packed a bottle of wine and some cheeses and bread into her bag. ‘What’s her name, by the way?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, defeated. That seemed to decide things.

There were about five cars parked out the front of Caroline’s place, a double-storey brown brick home with archways in front of the windows on the bottom floor. There were half-wine barrels with roses in them around the place and agapanthus lining the driveway. I felt nervous about seeing Caroline and the high probability of Dad and Caitlin embarrassing me.

Dad rang the doorbell and Caroline’s dad Luke answered, wine glass in hand.

‘Oh hey,’ he said, as if surprised and trying to recall who we were.

‘Mark, Phoebe’s father,’ Dad said. Caitlin volunteered her name too.