Breaking Her Rules

Chapter 3

'Just don't get your hair wet.'

Ainsley gives me a disbelieving look. 'With the Elmhirst boys and everyone in the pool? They'll splash me. I just won't swim.'

I narrow my eyes.

'Did your mum put the dressing in the salad or is it on the side?' she asks.

I frown. 'Um, I don't know.'

'Okay. I don't like salad dressing,' she says.

'Since when?' I say, but she just shrugs. 'Do you want a drink?'

Ainsley opens her eyes wide and shakes her head. 'Mum doesn't like me drinking.'

'That's stupid. If my mum told me not to drink she'd be the biggest hypocrite in the world. Anyway, you're turning seventeen in a month.'

'So?' Ainsley says. 'I'm not legal until I'm eighteen, and as far as my Mum is concerned, that's when I'll start drinking. She thinks I just go to parties to hang out with people.'

I roll my eyes. 'Your mother was in a rock band when she finished high school. As if she wasn't getting drunk and high well before she turned eighteen,' I say.

Ainsley shrugs. 'You know my mum. I'm not going to try to cross her.'

I grab a beer and join Ainsley on a bar stool looking out towards the pool area. Dad, Trevor and Ivan cluster around the barbeque while Mum and Karen have taken seats at the table. Dan, Lucas, Mike and Zach are now in the pool. I watch Lucas do lazy laps. His blonde hair looks dark when it's wet, and his arms glisten as they come out of the water.

Julian and his family arrive. His mum, Nicoletta, is a striking Italian woman with big hair and a round figure. Dad has told us how she was fiery and passionate in her youth, but it seems her marriage to Julian's father, Guy, has subdued her. She dumps a platter of potato salad on the bench and stays close to her husband, almost as if she's reluctant to be here.

Julian has two younger siblings, Findlay, who is a year younger than us, and Ana, who is eight or nine. Findlay's not here, and I hear Julian mention something about Findlay's girlfriend's birthday party, but then I'm too busy hugging little Ana. Ana is a dark haired beauty, shadowing Julian until I greet her. She beams up at me after we hug.

'How's school?' I ask her.

'I won the art prize even though there were grade seven students who entered the competition,' she says proudly.

'So you're good at art too, hey?' I say.

'I taught her everything she knows, dude,' Julian says proudly, pulling his sister into him and tickling her.

'Jules!' she shrieks, and laughs wildly.

Julian looks at me over his little sister's writhing figure. 'I see the Elmhirsts are here. I haven't seen Zach and Mike since they graduated.'

'Unfortunately we see Lucas far too often,' I say darkly.

'Come on, let's go out and sit by the pool,' Julian says. 'It's too hot in here.'

I'm wearing my bikinis underneath my loose summer dress, and when we enter the pool area I take the dress off. I catch Lucas watching me as I sling the dress over the fence. I raise my eyebrows at him.

'Well hello Em!' Zach says. 'The years have not been unkind to you. Why haven't we seen you around our house anytime recently?'

'You should ask your brother,' I say, and sit down beside the two oldest Elmhirst boys.

Ainsley joins me, sitting timidly in her black dress. I see her examine the way her thighs splay out across the edge of the pool. She pulls at her dress, covering up her thighs. 'Don't want to get sunburnt,' she says to me.