Something Good by Fiona Gibson

Han?”—she’d always go for the same viciously hot lamb dish with pilau rice and a naan bread filled with almondy stuff. To Hannah, that tasted all wrong—like a marzipan sandwich.
    She stole glances at her mother as she tore into her meal. She really could pack it away—even that horrible belly pork at Granny Nancy’s with a thick slab of fat round its edge. It was a wonder she wasn’t twenty stone. She had a lovely figure, Hannah reflected, at least for someone of nearly forty: a narrow waist, a slightly rounded bum and perky breasts. In double art last week, Ritchy Harrison had leaned over and growled, “Hey, Han, I saw your mum the other day. She looked hot.” Hannah had refused to respond to a crass comment like that. She’d scowled at his sagging lips and turned back to her Still Life With Trainer.
    Watching Jane shovel in rice, Hannah felt a stab of guilt. She burrowed in her bag for the card. “Oh, Han,” Jane enthused, taking it from her, “that’s lovely. You haven’t made me a card since you were—”
    â€œYeah, Mum, I know.”
    â€œRemember the last one you made? You’d cut out all these tissue paper shapes and stuck them on a—”
    Hannah fazed off, wondering why parents were so fond of reminiscing about their children’s younger days. It was if they wanted to keep you that way, frozen in time, still clutching Biffa and driving your pedal car.
    â€œHan,” Jane was saying, “did you hear what I said?”
    â€œSorry, what?”
    Jane smiled uncomfortably. “Your dad’s having a housewarming party. That new girlfriend’s helping with the food and stuff.”
    â€œWhen?” Hannah asked.
    â€œSaturday, around seven.”
    The announcement rolled over Hannah like a horrible wave. “But I can’t,” she stumbled, “it’s—”
    â€œNot busy, are you?”
    Hannah’s head milled with excuses. She’d arranged to go shopping with Amy…no, extra rehearsals for Little Shop of Horrors …Damn, she didn’t even have a proper part. “Just a couple of hours,” Jane added. “Veronica has a daughter around your age. Dad seems to think you’d get on.”
    This was getting worse, if that were possible. Instead of spending a long, virtually endless Saturday night at Ollie’s house, Hannah would be forced to make friends with some spoiled-princess-stranger. She glared down at her rice. She usually loved it—the grains colored orange, yellow and green—but now it looked fake and unappetizing. “Do I have to?” she asked weakly.
    Jane nodded firmly. “We’ll escape early if it’s awful. We’ll have a code.”
    Poor Mum, Hannah thought; this can’t be much fun for her either—feeling obliged to show up at a party arranged by her ex-husband’s new woman. She knew she still had feelings for Max. Her parents weren’t exactly how you’d expect a divorced couple to be. They weren’t even legally divorced. “We haven’t got around to it,” Jane had said casually when Hannah had asked, as if she was referring to having the front door repainted.
    Jane ripped off a hunk of naan the size of a mitten. She looked pretty with her lovely clear skin and peppery freckles across her nose and cheeks. She deserved more than a crappy card scrawled in the restaurant’s toilet cubicle. Hannah was seized by an urge to tell her about Ollie: how she could hardly sleep for thinking about him, and even when she’d finally drifted off she’d wake at weird times like 5:37 a.m. with eerie light creeping into her room. Yet telling her would change everything. It felt too fragile to share.
    Jane asked for the bill and re-read the message in her birthday card: To my wonderful mum, all my love, Han xxx. She looked up; their eyes met. Hannah detected a flicker of knowing, as if Jane was fully aware