True to You

Not Afraid

2019

The temptation was strong. In fact it was too strong. Social media was an evil, evil thing at times but sometimes resistance was futile.

After Steph had helped her lug her belongings, essentially the contents of her dorm room, into the pool house she'd left Laine alone to settle in. In total contrast with the main house the pool house appeared to be completely furnished. It made Laine think of a luxury hotel suite that she and her mother had once stayed in for a couple of days in Los Angeles.

At one end of the room an enormous bed was tucked into a niche where filmy white curtains could be drawn to seclude the bed. At the other end of the room a massive bathroom with a shower that at a conservative estimate could fit four people was located behind a glamourous kitchenette and wet bar of dark oak and black marble. The only solid walls in the frontage facing the pool were the ones beside the bedroom niche and the bathroom along with a fireplace that sat dead centre between the massive doors that slid back on top of each other. Above the fireplace was a huge television and in front of it was a nubby grey sectional sofa that looked as though it would stand up to Steph's kid and dog friendly criteria admirably. There was no need to wonder why the fireplace had been placed on the wall facing the pool rather than the solid wall at the back because it was replicated on the expansive terrace that overlooked the pool. Comfortable looking outdoor furniture was laid out on the terrace just waiting for cocktail holding people to occupy.

Laine had a sneaking suspicion that she'd evicted Brian and Steph from the one room on the property where they'd spent the majority of their time. Particularly as Steph had responded to Laine's awestruck expression of admiration by saying, "It's cool isn't it? I let Cathy have at it first because she was bugging me so much when we bought this place. We kind of thought that maybe we'd stay out here while she caused chaos inside." So if she'd stolen Brian and Steph's bedroom she was going to make damn sure that she enjoyed everything about it. Including the fluff ball that sat at her feet watching her adoringly as she stalked her frenemies on social media.

Picking up the adoring Pinkly – who showed her gratitude by lunging for Laine's face with an extended tongue – she dropped her onto her shins. Picking up her phone she lined up a shot of Pinkly, her feet with their sparkly navy blue pedicure and the pool in the background. Uploading the photo to her Instagram she added a couple of hashtags to her comment – hanging with my cousin's dog #fluffball #whysshecalledpinklyifsheswhite #thestoriesshecouldtell #family – then posted it. It was a bit of general happy for her friends but it was something else for the other girls. The girls who'd gone to the same Seattle schools she'd always found herself back at after a few months elsewhere with her mother while she worked. The girls who scrutinised everything she posted just so they could stab her in the back later on. Those girls – girls who offered her sickly sweet smiles to her face and cutting words on social media and in the hallways where they knew it would eventually come to her ears - would definitely see what she'd posted. The girls who always hated her because they didn't understand that just because her mother knew, and photographed, famous people didn't mean that she considered them her friends any more than they considered their parent's colleagues their friends.

She dropped her phone down beside her leg kind of hating herself for what she'd just posted and the way she'd been fishing for a reaction but unwilling to delete it either. For the first time ever she was going to be what they accused her of being – someone who bragged about her famous connections, she had no doubt they'd work out exactly who's dog Pinkly was – but mostly because for the first time ever she was bragging that her family was more than her well-travelled and respected mother and grand-parents who they all seemed to resent. She'd never let on to anyone friends, frenemies, enemies or even her mother how much it sometimes cut her to the quick when her friends etcetera, etcetera posted pictures of family outings or events. Not one of them knew that of all the things they said about her behind her back the thing that hurt her most was their happy family pictures. She'd had her Mom and she'd had her grandparents but she was the only child of an only child and her father had been so disinterested in her existence that it hadn't even been possible to list him on her birth certificate. Reaching forward she gave a panting Pinkly a scratch behind her ears. "I should have just left it huh Pooch? But you now what? Just once I wanted to rub their noses in it." Pinkly gave her a snuffly little bark in response. Laine couldn't tell if the dog was disagreeing or agreeing with her. And what had her life become if she was looking to a dog for advice?