Free The Girl Next Door by Elizabeth Noble

me.’
    ‘I’ve got one of those mothers who is a brilliant cook but a rotten teacher. I’m great at eating, though.’
    Charlotte looked at Emily’s tiny frame, and wondered if that could possibly be true.
    ‘I brought wine, too. I didn’t know what colour you’d drink – here…’ Emily pulled the bottle out of her bag, and proffered it.
    Charlotte smiled shyly. ‘Thanks. That’s really nice.’ They were both a little nervous. While Charlotte uncorked the wine and poured two glasses, Emily looked round. The layout of the apartment was the same as hers. There wasn’t much artifice in the room. But what seemed like hundreds of books, paperbacks mostly, on cheap wooden shelves that looked flat‐packed. There was a stack of hardbacks on the coffee table, too, and Emily saw that they were gardening books.
    ‘You’ve been doing some homework?’
    ‘Yeah. I like to garden. I used to do it, at home. But that was the North‐west Coast. I think it’s different here. Colder, drier, hotter. I wanted to make good choices for plants – you know – pick things that will do well here. Do you know much about it?’
    ‘Nothing. I never had a garden at all. I love flowers though. I think the Botanical Gardens are my favourite place in the city.’
    ‘They’re amazing, aren’t they?’
    A glass of wine loosened them both up a little. Emily had kicked off her shoes and was leaning back against Charlotte’s small sofa. Charlotte, still in the apron, sat beside her. They’d made a list for Violet. Now they were talking about themselves. Charlotte was surprised how comfortable she felt with Emily. She was beautiful, and sort of glamorous even – the kind of woman who scared her a little. And certainly not the type she would have expected to be interested in her. But she was so nice. And she was interested. She’d asked about Seattle, and Charlotte’s family, and her job at the library. Now she was talking about herself.
    ‘I was born in Oregon. In a town called Longview. About thirty miles outside of Portland. Small‐town America. My mom was born there, too. Her parents had settled there, after the war, each with their own families. There are a lot of Poles in Oregon. There are a lot of Poles everywhere, I suppose. So… they’re good Catholics, my parents. But I was their only child. My dad left when I was three. They never got divorced. My mum wouldn’t have done anyway, I don’t think – she was always pretty religious. But she didn’t know where he was. He didn’t come home one day after work. He drove a truck. We never heard from him again. He’d taken all his clothes.’
    ‘That’s awful.’
    ‘Awful for her. I don’t really remember him. So I’ve never missed him.’
    ‘But for her.’
    ‘It got worse. I think what he did to her, leaving like that, stopped her from thinking she was worth anything. He really did a number on her, you know? I mean, if you want to do that to your wife, and your kid, then that’s about you, right? You’re screwed up somehow. But he never told her that, and you could see that she always thought it was her.
    ‘So she had a succession of lousy boyfriends. Men who didn’t treat her well, because she didn’t expect to be treated well. Some were worse than others. She lived with a guy for six or seven years, when I was a teenager. He was the worst. He crossed the line, from neglectful to cruel. Never to me – I don’t think she’d have let that happen. But to her. And I saw it. She’d got herself trapped – they’d moved in together, and she didn’t have money of her own – he didn’t want her to work. Oh, he was a pig. He wanted a maid, not a girlfriend – and she couldn’t see a way out.’
    ‘Sounds awful.’ Charlotte couldn’t help comparing Emily’s experience with her own. Middle‐class parents, married for thirty‐five years, Church on Sundays.
    Emily nodded. ‘She was a beautiful woman, my mum. Really stunning. By the time she was