Dare Truth Or Promise by Paula Boock Page B

always managed to get in front of them.
    “What we need is a spa,” said Louie after a while, looking at her snow-encrusted mittens.
    “Mmm.” Willa’s black coat was dripping on the carpet. Warm water sounded wonderful. “Push
off,
Judas.”
    Louie jumped up. “Well, why not? A spa! A spa! My bedroom for a spa! I’m going to turn it on.”
    “But it’s outside—well, mostly.” In fact it had three walls and a roof, only the fourth wall being open to trees and the bush. “And your parents…”
    “So what? We’re just having a spa. If they ask, we tell the truth—we met down the street in the snow.” Louie shrugged, her palms spread heavenwards like her father.
    That’s exactly what happened. Just as they were really enjoying the hot frothing water, and watching Judas’s puzzlement at the snowflakes drifting down right beside them, in walked Susi in her dressing gown. Louie was in the process of fixing the clip that held Willa’s hair up on the top of her head.
    “What’s going on? Oh—Willa,” she feigned surprise. Judas woofed, once. “I didn’t know you were here.” She pulled her hands above the range of Judas’s inquisitive nose and looked at her daughter. “Do you know what the time is, Louie?”
    Louie’s dark eyes sent a private message to Willa as she let go her hair. “Yes Mum, we asked Mr. Wolf and he said it was late. But look, it’s snowing outside! Everyone’s playing on the street. I met Willa and we came back here for a spa. Isn’t it amazing out there?”

    Susi looked at both of them rather hard. Willa was pleased the bubbles hid her naked body. All the same, she was beginning to feel flushed. She drew up her legs and hugged her knees. Judas lay down with a small whine.
    “Won’t your mother be wondering where you are, Willa?” Susi enquired.
    “No, I told her.”
    “I thought you said you only met on the street?”
    “We did,” said Willa. “But I thought—we might come back here.”
    “I see.” Susi lifted an eyebrow and looked down at them grimly. “Well, I think it’s time you went home.”
    “Mum!” objected Louie.
    “It’s late,” Susi said.
    “It’s Saturday night.”
    “It’s Sunday morning actually, and we’ve got church in seven hours.”
    “I’m not going,” said Louie.
    “Well the rest of this family is. And your father and I can’t sleep with the noise of the spa motor.”
    “But—”
    “Lou,” Willa shook her head slightly.
    Louie sighed in exasperation. “All right, you win. Do you think we could at least have some privacy to get dressed?”
    Susi twisted her mouth. “Yes.” As she went back through the door she turned to them a final time. “You’re more than welcome to visit during the day, Willa, even with your dog,” she said with the now familiar Antarctic smile, “but we all need our sleep, including Lome.”
    Willa smiled wanly in reply and the door closed. Louie exploded out of the pool.
    “How dare she! What a bitch! You’d think I was twelve years old. God, Willa, I can’t stand it when she’s like that to you.”

    Willa stayed in the pool and closed her eyes.
    “I don’t know why. She’s never been like this before. She just—”
    “She knows, Lou.”
    Louie looked at Willa, her mouth still open. “What?”
    “She knows. Something, anyway. She’s suspicious of me.”
    “Do you think so?”
    “Uhuh.”
    Louie was quiet for a moment, patting Judas’s head and looking out at the falling snow. “She asked the other morning too, after you’d been here. She thought she heard voices in the middle of the night…”
    “What did you say?”
    “The truth, that you’d called in after the late shift at Burger Giant.”
    Willa thought again how different Louie was from Cathy, who had panicked and lied to her parents about everything, until she was so consumed with the deceit that it took over. She looked up. Louie had turned to face Willa, her dark curls shimmying against the backdrop of feathery snow.