She slipped the pale lipstick along her lips and observed the results, leaning back a little as a painter does to reflect on his strokes, then the indigo mascara, the curling iron, the eau de toilette her cousin had given her for her birthday last summer, in Paris. In front of the mirror, she meditated on her expectations of this party. How exciting this was to have been invited to a party, merely a month …showed first 75 words of 1240 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1240 total…in Australia? A feeling of betrayal and stupidity overwhelmed her. Her childhood memories had deceived her. How naïve she was, to think that the culture she had experienced as a child would be the same as a teenager; to think that Cairns and suburban Sydney would be the same. She was different, the odd one out, the 'French girl'. Her childhood had turned its back on her. This was not home.