Perfume and Betrayal

Furious Fiction (December 2024) Australian Writers Centre submission

There was never a lonelier time for a child of divorce than Christmas Eve. Nuclear families scurried on the edge of anticipation, the centre ablaze with the fury of last minute shoppers. Lia dodged misbehaved children. One crashed against her leg and her ankles rolled. Half-hearted parental apologies chased her on the way to the Golden King restaurant. ‘Just get this over with,’ she whispered to herself.

Her father was waiting at a lonely front table, waving through a dirty window. Watching his half smile and oversized glasses, the guilt of her irritation spread through her chest. It wasn’t his fault she had to split Christmas, after all.

‘Hi Dad,’ Lia said, mustering enthusiasm. She hugged him with one arm, the other clutched at the gift bag she held.

‘Good to see you Lia-Bug. Oh! I told you not to get me anything,’ he said loudly, so that the other tables could hear them. Roy loves to cause a fuss. Lia could hear her mothers voice in her head.

‘It’s nothing really,’ she said quietly, trying to get him to sit.

‘Orange Chicken, Sweet and Sour Pork and Fried Rice?’ The server arrived unexpectedly.

‘Sorry Bug, I ordered while I was waiting. But I got your favourites!”

Lia smiled dimly. It used to be her favourite, but now orange reminded her of her mother’s summer dress, burned in her memory from the day she left home. Perfume and betrayal still stuck in her nose.

‘A shaving kit! I have been looking scruffy lately,’ he was grinning with a piece of coriander stuck in his tooth from his own entree. ‘And the bag is embroidered!’ he declared to the restaurant. The only people who seemed willing to listen to him these days were strangers. That’s all he ever wanted, she thought. Someone to listen to him.

‘Okay my turn,’ he said. In his enthusiasm to reach for the gift under the table, his arm brushed the drinks, tipping them over. The cola and water flooded the table, and spilled all over Lia. She stood up quickly, trying to avoid the oncoming waterfall, her fathers flailing arms making it worse.

‘I’m so sorry, Bug, I’m so sorry. It was an accident, your beautiful dress,’ he said, he wiped with napkins, desperately trying to undo the damage done. Lia watched the bottom of her dress soak, it dripped onto her toes, the pink colour picked out by her mother the day before, pink for her little girl. Anger rose in her, she yearned for orange.

She looked up to her dad, dabbing the table as if trying to fix the holes in his own marriage.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll probably just spill gelato on it later anyway,’ she said.

‘Oh? Gelato too?’ he said. She could hear the hope in his voice, his eyes watered. ‘What flavour?’

‘I’m feeling something zesty, maybe orange and mango,’ Lia said.

‘Oh I love Orange. I guess you take after your old man then.’

‘I guess I do.’