Well, maybe being a loner is not so bad at times. Last week I tried to make friends with someone from my chemistry course and the girl was happy to go out for a drink which should have made me suspicious in the first place. Why go out with me of all people? She confided that she was only studying chemistry because the percentage of male students was pretty high. Isn’t that weird? To be honest, my reason was equally wrong: I’m studying it because my father wants me to because you can always get a teaching job with maths and chemistry. Or so he says. Anyway, this girl told me her life story within two hours, smoking and drinking vodka with Red Bull the whole time. Which I can’t see any more without gagging since a certain day in September. Her hair was spiky and too blonde and I decided not to have my hair cut after all. I may be lonely but I’m not that desperate. Better to be old-fashioned, boring and complicated than to be like that girl. And better to sit at home than go out with somebody like her. I could take in a cat like all the losers in films but I’m more of a dog person. Speaking of cats: I have never in all my life seen more cats than during these last few weeks. And they weren’t even strays but those beautiful creamy Chartreux ones. I didn’t know there were so many of them, I thought they were rather rare. But they seem to be everywhere nowadays, on my way to uni, under my car, even in front of my house. Yesterday it was kind of creepy, when I came home at night and locked my car I had the feeling I was being watched. Like on my last evening with Ralph. I fumbled and dropped my keys and when I stooped to pick them up I saw this silvery coloured cat sitting motionless under the trees, staring at me. Its fur was the colour of the moonlight and instinctively I gazed up at the sky. The moon was just a slim crescent, lying on its back and the stars were glittering. Suddenly the world seemed to stand still. When I looked down again the cat was gone.
The next afternoon I arrive home to the blinking light on my answer phone. I’m not that old-fashioned that I still want a landline but my father insists. Nobody uses it apart from him but as he pays for it I don’t really care. And of course it is him. “Hello Livia,” his voice booms out of the machine as I push the button. I’m sorely tempted to delete the message without listening to it. “You’re never at home so I have to talk to this machine.” Why he didn’t call me on the mobile then is beyond me. Maybe it’s his way to check up on if and when I’m home. “Sophie’s passed all her exams and we want to celebrate, just the family. Come to dinner and bring your fiancé, Saturday at seven.” This is a summons, not an invitation. I groan softly.
Now I’ll have to confess that Ralph and I have split up. I secretly hoped that Sophie had already told them and I wouldn’t have to explain. My parents love Ralph. For once I had the feeling that I’d done something right and they approved. They’ll be horrified. I can already hear my stepmother’s beautifully modulated voice, “How could you let him go? What have you done to drive him away?” No, that’s mean of me. She would never be so tactless. Sophie will be there with her fiancé too, a dentist who likes Ralph enormously. And she’s passed all her exams – she’s going to be a lawyer - and will be Miss Perfect all over again as she always is. I suppress the urge to cry. Why can’t I just stay at home? But it would look like jealousy if I don’t show up and congratulate Sophie. Moodily I open the fridge and take stock of its contents: a bowl of chocolate mousse and half a bottle of cheap white wine. The housewife’s drink, Ralph used to call it. At least I can drink what I like now. But neither the wine nor the chocolate mousse can chase away the black thoughts because compared to Sophie I’m always the loser.
Sophie is five years older than me and everything I am not: tall, slim, elegant and naturally blonde, not dyed. Some people have it all and she’s one of them. On top of that, she’s intelligent, generous and truly nice, in other words perfect. Which would be great if I wasn’t pure average. The physical difference is easy to explain, as Sophie and I are not actually related. She’s my stepsister, the daughter of my father’s second wife who is not a wicked stepmother at all. On the contrary, she always tries to treat us equally and fairly. She was widowed at about the same time as my mother died, when I was very young. Sophie looks just like her mum, as I look like mine, apart from the colour of my eyes. Hers were blue, mine are brown, well, amber. Maybe this similarity is the reason my father has always preferred Sophie, because I am a constant reminder of my dead mum. Or is it just because Sophie is funnier, more beautiful and brighter than me?
I take a sip of the cold wine but wince: it tastes sour after the sweet mousse. Guiltily I stare at the empty bowl. I’ve scoffed it all in one go.
Later I close my eyes and my thoughts start to drift. Tonight I don’t have the strength to push them away as I usually do, although I know they’ll make me sad. How would my life have turned out if my mother, Rebecca, hadn’t died in a car crash? My father doesn’t talk about the accident but when I was twelve I heard him mention that she’d been tired from her medication and fell asleep at the wheel. Which medication, I asked, what for? First he refused to answer me but I pestered him until he told me the truth. I couldn’t believe that my mum was schizophrenic. In the few photos that exist of her, she seems such a happy person. My father explained that the illness started after my birth. After that I didn’t look at her photos very much anymore because they remind me that her illness is really all my fault. If my mum hadn’t had a baby she’d still be alive and happy. Maybe that was the reason my father didn’t like me. I’d destroyed his and his wife’s lives and every time he looks at me he’s reminded of the tragedy. He never talks about it, and I learned the fact that it hadn’t really been an accident from a conversation with my stepmother. She’d driven off a cliff in Madagascar intentionally. So it was suicide which makes it all the worse for me. I couldn’t talk to anybody about it at the time, and even later I only told Ralph. Which I clearly shouldn’t have done. I take a deep breath. What is wrong with me today? It has to be the foul weather or my Ralph blues that bring everything to the surface again.
It’s pitch black outside and I get up to close the curtains. Without thinking I scan the bushes below for the silvery cat but everything is dark. But when I gaze at the sky I see a star, just one, silvery blue and incredibly bright. It seems very close and the moon fades in comparison to its brightness. Suddenly the night is not so dark any more, I detect shadows and lights flickering here and there. I smile, doubtless it’s only a satellite but all the same I feel better. With a last glance at the star I open the top drawer of my desk. There it is, the small box with my mum’s mementos: the faded photo where she is no older than I am now. It was taken shortly before her death. As always I’m blown away by the likeness: we have the same heart-shaped face, the same figure, the same auburn hair. Only her blue eyes are different from mine. Then I take out her jewellery which my father gave me on my eighteenth birthday. I’ve always wondered why he didn’t keep it himself. But my father is a very austere and practical man who doesn’t appreciate things like jewellery, fancy food or expensive wines. He’s a typical banker, and I mean not the stock market and hedge fund kind but the director of a small regional branch of a bank. No wonder my mum didn’t have more rings and such. There’s just her wedding ring, her engagement ring, a slim bracelet with rubies, and a coral brooch. It’s kind of strange that the rings were there though her body was never found in the sea. Evidently she hadn’t worn her wedding ring any more.