Free The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta Page B

can’t just turn around and ignore her when we’re doing tuckshop.”
    “You do tuckshop with her?” Georgie asks, horrified.
    “Well, if it makes you feel better,” Lucia says, “she’s having problems.”
    Georgie bites her tongue. “So everyone imagines that I want her to be miserable.”
    “Why not? I want her suffering like you’d never believe,” Bernadette snaps.
    “I think she’s having issues with the guy she’s been dating for a while.” Lucia leans forward. “I think they’re very serious and he prefers it when Callum’s not around.”
    “I can’t believe she would tell you that,” her sister says angrily. “You’re one of Georgie and Sam’s best friends. She has no right using you as a confidant.”
    “She didn’t confide in me,” Lucia argues. “She told Kate Blaxland while they were heating up the chicken tenderloins the other day.”
    “Because she knew you were listening,” Bernadette argues back.
    Georgie doesn’t know whether she can handle a full-on argument between the sisters. Despite how distasteful she finds the topic, she decides to join the conversation to avoid the conflict.
    “I can’t believe any of you are shocked that the boyfriend prefers it when the kid’s not around,” she says quietly.
    “Well, if he loved her . . .”
    “That’s
bullshit.
You can’t measure someone’s love based on how they feel about your child.”
    “And I love the way she gets to do the tuckshop because Sam’s paying her enough child maintenance so she only has to work two days,” Bernadette says bitterly.
    Lucia’s nodding. “She gets her hair straightened every week and the suit has been replaced by expensive Pilates gear.”
    Georgie doesn’t want to hear any more. Regardless of how she feels, Sam’s kid seems happy and well adjusted, so they must be doing something right.
    Francesca Spinelli and Tom bring them their food and stay for a moment. Lucia and Bernadette know Francesca’s family, and they chat for a while, the young girl’s arm around both their shoulders. Georgie feels like a pushy parent, desperate for Tom to hang out with her again. Francesca speaks about her parents traveling through Italy and how her
nonna’
s moved into their house so someone can be at home for Francesca’s younger brother at night.
    “Her
nonna
’s the best seamstress in Leichhardt,” Lucia tells them.
    Francesca nods in agreement. “I’m kind of her apprentice this year. I do most of the beading, and I’m beginning to do patterns as well. I made this,” she says pointing to her dress, perfect for her figure and coloring, all full breasts and rich olive skin. “And most of Justine’s clothes.”
    “How beautiful is that?” Georgie says, feeling emotional. “Making wedding dresses with your grandmother.”
    “I’ve got grime to scrub from the wall,” Tom mutters, standing up and walking away.

Boredom becomes a killer. It makes him do things he would never contemplate. Like read every online newspaper from back to front. He hates the blogs the most, but he becomes hooked. The sports ones are the worst, and although he’d rather die than admit to Georgie that ex–league stars can’t string a sentence together because of all the battering they’ve taken around the head, he finds himself clicking his tongue with frustration at the way they can ruin the language.
    Beside him, Mohsin the Ignorer chuckles at something on his own screen.
    “What?” Tom asks, getting sick of the ignoring.
    Nothing. In the movies, the Mohsin guy would turn to him and say, “Oh, just something I am reading that amuses me, my friend.” The Mohsin in the movies would use the words
my friend
a lot. But circumstance stops Mohsin from saying those words. Some history that has nothing to do with Tom. He can imagine the story. It’s probably one of those tragic ones where Mohsin’s father was placed under house arrest in his country and then imprisoned and killed for something he wrote. The