day and once it’s issued I think we should start making definite wedding
plans.’
I gaze at him. We haven’t talked much about getting married since Dee Dee died. Somehow any kind of celebration has felt inappropriate.
‘Are you sure you’re ready to start thinking about that?’ I ask.
Jed nods. ‘If Dee Dee were here she’d be nagging me about it.’
I fall silent, remembering the conversation the three of us had just after the engagement party where Mart and Cameron gave Dee Dee and me our bracelets. Dee Dee had been keen to be a
bridesmaid, though decidedly against any kind of frothy pink frock.
‘I’d like to keep it small,’ I say. ‘It just seems wrong to do anything bigger without Dee Dee being here.’
‘Whatever you want.’ Jed smiles sadly.
‘I love you,’ I whisper.
Jed leans in, his breath hot on my ear. ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Because I’m not letting you go. Ever.’
June 2014
SO I worked out how everyone has seen the photo Sam Edwards took of me. Basically he showed his friends and one of them is going out with Georgia Dutton in my class and she
has made sure EVERYONE has seen. I don’t know what is worst, that Sam broke his promise not to show anyone so he can’t really like me even a little bit OR that EVERYONE at school has
now seen and thinks I’m a slut AND ugly, including Ava and Poppy who haven’t really spoken to me all week except to say things like ‘I don’t mean anything by it, but you
were showing off for a boy.’ Which I WASN’T. It’s not just the photo either. Sam has told people I let him touch me and that I was all hairy and now the boys in my class are
calling me ‘hairy Dee’ then laughing like they’ve made the funniest joke in the world. I have been thinking that if I got all the hairs waxed off then maybe that would stop. I
could casually just tell Ava or whoever that I’d done it, and then gradually everyone would find out and they’d think more of me. I don’t know, I am so worried I just don’t
know but it has got to be worth a try.
I can hear Mum downstairs, she’s had a few glasses of wine now so I’m going to go and ask her if I can go to her beauty place this weekend. I’m going to say I want to have
my eyebrows plucked and my legs waxed. I’m NOT going to say about the other bit, I’m not stupid and I know Mum wouldn’t go for that OBVIOUSLY but once I’m in there I bet I
could get the girl to do it.
And then maybe Ava and the others would be my friends again.
December 2014
It’s the first Friday in December. Jed is off at a conference on counterfeit medicines and won’t be home until late. I’d been hoping that now the court case
is properly lodged in the system, Jed’s focus on Benecke Tricorp might ease up. But instead he has become interested in the many terrible stories his research into fake drugs has unearthed,
from the diethylene glycol used as a substitute for glycerine in children’s cough syrup to the leukaemia clinic in which patients were given false oncology drugs.
‘There’ll be sessions on lots of useful things including a seminar on international law,’ he explains eagerly. ‘There’s even going to be a practical demo from the
lab guys at the Campaign against Counterfeit and Substandard Pharmaceuticals; they’re going to show how to use a spectrometer to analyse exactly what ingredients are inside fake drugs.’
He pauses, his eyes glittering. ‘Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you, but I need to know that the law can and will change, that companies and dealers can and will be held to
account.’
I nod. I understand better than Jed thinks that without things changing in the future, it’s as if the pain of the past has no point, no meaning. Unfortunately, I also understand that past
pain
often
has no point and no meaning. My parents’ death taught me that many years ago. You can rationalize and focus your ambitions all you like but, in the end, the dead stay dead
and the agony of
plans.’
I gaze at him. We haven’t talked much about getting married since Dee Dee died. Somehow any kind of celebration has felt inappropriate.
‘Are you sure you’re ready to start thinking about that?’ I ask.
Jed nods. ‘If Dee Dee were here she’d be nagging me about it.’
I fall silent, remembering the conversation the three of us had just after the engagement party where Mart and Cameron gave Dee Dee and me our bracelets. Dee Dee had been keen to be a
bridesmaid, though decidedly against any kind of frothy pink frock.
‘I’d like to keep it small,’ I say. ‘It just seems wrong to do anything bigger without Dee Dee being here.’
‘Whatever you want.’ Jed smiles sadly.
‘I love you,’ I whisper.
Jed leans in, his breath hot on my ear. ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Because I’m not letting you go. Ever.’
June 2014
SO I worked out how everyone has seen the photo Sam Edwards took of me. Basically he showed his friends and one of them is going out with Georgia Dutton in my class and she
has made sure EVERYONE has seen. I don’t know what is worst, that Sam broke his promise not to show anyone so he can’t really like me even a little bit OR that EVERYONE at school has
now seen and thinks I’m a slut AND ugly, including Ava and Poppy who haven’t really spoken to me all week except to say things like ‘I don’t mean anything by it, but you
were showing off for a boy.’ Which I WASN’T. It’s not just the photo either. Sam has told people I let him touch me and that I was all hairy and now the boys in my class are
calling me ‘hairy Dee’ then laughing like they’ve made the funniest joke in the world. I have been thinking that if I got all the hairs waxed off then maybe that would stop. I
could casually just tell Ava or whoever that I’d done it, and then gradually everyone would find out and they’d think more of me. I don’t know, I am so worried I just don’t
know but it has got to be worth a try.
I can hear Mum downstairs, she’s had a few glasses of wine now so I’m going to go and ask her if I can go to her beauty place this weekend. I’m going to say I want to have
my eyebrows plucked and my legs waxed. I’m NOT going to say about the other bit, I’m not stupid and I know Mum wouldn’t go for that OBVIOUSLY but once I’m in there I bet I
could get the girl to do it.
And then maybe Ava and the others would be my friends again.
December 2014
It’s the first Friday in December. Jed is off at a conference on counterfeit medicines and won’t be home until late. I’d been hoping that now the court case
is properly lodged in the system, Jed’s focus on Benecke Tricorp might ease up. But instead he has become interested in the many terrible stories his research into fake drugs has unearthed,
from the diethylene glycol used as a substitute for glycerine in children’s cough syrup to the leukaemia clinic in which patients were given false oncology drugs.
‘There’ll be sessions on lots of useful things including a seminar on international law,’ he explains eagerly. ‘There’s even going to be a practical demo from the
lab guys at the Campaign against Counterfeit and Substandard Pharmaceuticals; they’re going to show how to use a spectrometer to analyse exactly what ingredients are inside fake drugs.’
He pauses, his eyes glittering. ‘Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you, but I need to know that the law can and will change, that companies and dealers can and will be held to
account.’
I nod. I understand better than Jed thinks that without things changing in the future, it’s as if the pain of the past has no point, no meaning. Unfortunately, I also understand that past
pain
often
has no point and no meaning. My parents’ death taught me that many years ago. You can rationalize and focus your ambitions all you like but, in the end, the dead stay dead
and the agony of
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