Page 21 of You Are Mine

‘Ask Katie,’ Maeve said, suppressing a giggle. ‘She’s very keen on going to Jasper’s house.’

‘It’s not like that!’ Katie said. ‘He’s just a friend.’

There was a long and eloquent silence, broken by Sally turning to face her friends and holding up her phone.

‘Look at this,’ she said. ‘She’s wearing pale blue Crocs.’ She sniggered. ‘That’s so her.’

‘Who’s her?’ Mary said, alarmed at the tone in her daughter’s voice.

‘Someone,’ Sally said.

‘Who?’

‘Lizzie.’ Sally laughed. ‘Mandy sent a photo. She’s wearing dungarees.’

‘That’s OK,’ Maeve said.

‘Really?’ Sally said, her voice high and arch. ‘Lizzie thinks so, I guess. Would you wear them?’

‘Maybe not,’ Maeve said, then corrected herself. ‘Probably not.’

‘Exactly.’ Sally turned back to face the front. ‘They’re lame.’

There was an uncomfortable pause.

‘After we get back from Jasper’s we should watch a movie,’ Reya said.

‘Or the new series of Outer Banks,’ Katie replied. ‘I watched some with Jasper.’

She realized her mistake too late.

‘With Jasper?’ Maeve said. ‘When? You didn’t say you’d been watching TV with him.’

‘Netflix and chill,’ Sally muttered. Mary glanced at her. Did she know what that meant? Or had she simply heard the phrase and assumed it meant what it said on the surface: watching Netflix and chilling out with a friend?

Then Sally screwed up her face and added a codicil that made Mary think she did know. ‘Ew.’

Ew, indeed. But that wasn’t what bothered her most. What bothered her most was the negativity her daughter was bringing to the conversation.

‘Just once,’ Katie said. ‘On Sunday.’

‘At his house?’ Maeve said.

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s so cool!’ Reya said. ‘And you watched Outer Banks?’

‘It’s good,’ Katie said. ‘We should check it out.’

‘Do we have to?’ Sally said. ‘That’s, like, such a cliché? Watching Outer Banks? Really? Everybody watches it.’

Apparently Outer Banks was the Audi A4 of television shows. Mary found herself wondering when Sally had become so judgemental.

‘It’s good!’ Reya said. ‘You liked it when we watched the first series.’

‘Before I knew it was, like, mainstream.’

‘Mainstream’s fine,’ Mary said, trying to defuse the situation. ‘Lots of great art is mainstream.’