Izzy chooses the jeans with rips; she wants to look cool but not like she cares. Through her bedroom window she can see her mother running in and out to the car, putting stuff in, yelling for her. She’s wearing the scarf again; the bloody scarf. Izzy feels anger rising up hard and hot. She shoves her feet into her oldest sneakers and saunters down, purposely slow.

2. May

Eve

“Oh hi, you must be Martin. Grace said you’d be picking up. Charley and Blake are outside with the others. They needed a break, they’ve worked so hard. My son’s napping so this is a good moment. Gosh, it’s hot, I hadn’t realized. They say it’s going to be a barbecue summer.”

For God’s sake, shut up, calm down. He’s just a man, an ordinary bloke. Invite him in.

“Sorry, do come in.”

He seems shy for someone so well known, hovering at the doorway, his head ducked like a boy’s. He towers over her, but whereas Igor’s height seems brutish, this man’s size appeals. He’s rumpled like her father was, glasses on his head, the same kind of soft cotton shirt rolled to the elbows. That familiar tobacco smell. He puts the pile of books he’s carrying on the table, slips off his jacket, and smiles around at the room as if he were at home. She’s imagined his home often: Martin Cowan, Booker winner. A manuscript spread out on a table in a high-ceilinged loft, balls of paper scrunched on the floor. His wife hovering in the background, bringing tea, hushing the children, shepherding them away. She adds cigarette butts overflowing in a saucer, no, a heavy ashtray, made of African malachite. He spent time in Zimbabwe, she’s read, for the book, the famous one. He gave away half his prize money to the school that inspired it.

“Tea? The children made cakes.”

“Now how could I resist a homemade cake?”

He wanders around looking at the books on the shelves. She pours tea and he sits down with a little sigh; she needn’t have worried. He seems content, relaxed even. She sneaks a glance; he has graying hair straggling over his collar; a good nose, beaked; brown eyes that gleam from little folds of skin. He’s watching her as if waiting; should she tell him how much she loves his book? She sits opposite, suddenly tongue-tied.

“So how did they get on?”

He wants to know how his son performed, of course. “Oh, really well.”

“Really well?” His eyebrows peak comically. “Blake?”

“He was reluctant at first, but we went back to basics with alphabet blocks and phonic cards. Once he’d gained a bit of confidence I set him a writing task with templates, and he didn’t make one mistake.”

“I’m impressed.” The brown eyes shine.

She pushes a plate with a couple of little cakes toward him, the icing splotched and scattered with lavender. “He helped bake these too.”

“Wow.” He takes a bite. “We never make anything like this at home.”