This Extract is the first scene in this book:

Phone Call:

“Mama? It’s me.” Without hesitation, Vivi hang up. Sidda punched automatic redial. Vivi picked up again, but did not speak. “Mama, I know you are there. Please don’t hang up. I’m sorry this all happened. I’m really really sorry. I−” “There is nothing you can say or do to make me forgive you” Vivi said. “You are dead to me. You have killed me. Now I am killing you.” Sidda sat up in bed and tried to catch her breath. “Mother, I did not mean for any of this to take place. The woman who interviewed me−” “I have cut you out of my will. Do not be surprised if I sue you for libel. There are no photographs left of you on any of my walls. Do not−” Sidda could see her mother’s face, red with anger. She could see how her veins showed lavender underneath her light skin. “Mama, please, I cannot control The New York Times. Did you read the whole thing? I said, ‘My mother, Vivi Abbott Walker, is one of the most charming people in the world.’” “‘Charming wounded.’ You said: ‘My mother is one of the most charming wounded people in the world. And she is also the most dangerous.’ I have it here in black-and-white, Siddalee.” “Did you read the part where I credited you for my creativity? Where I said, ‘My creativity comes in direct flow from my mother, like the Tabasco she used to spice up our baby bottles.’ Mama, they ate it up when I talked about how you’d put on your tap shoes and dance for us while you fed us in our high chairs. They loved it.” “You lying little bitch. They loved it when you said: ‘My mother comes from the old Southern school of child rearing where a belt across a child’s bare skin was how you got your points across.’” Sidda sucked in her breath. “They loved it,” Vivi continued, “when they read: ‘Siddalee Walker, articulate, brilliant director of the hit show Women on the Cusp, is no stranger to family cruelty. As the battered child of a tap-dancing child abuser of a mother, she brings to her directing the rare and touching equipoise between personal involvement and professional detachment that is the mark of theatrical genius.’” “‘Battered child!’ This is shit! This is pure character-defaming shit from the most hideous child imaginable!” Sidda could not breathe. She raised her thumb to her mouth and bit the skin around the nail, something she had not done since she was ten years old. She wondered where she’d put the Xanax. “Mama, I never even uttered to that damn journalist. I swear, I−” “You Goddamn self-centered liar! It’s no Goddamn wonder every relationship you have falls apart. You know nothing about love. You have a cruel soul. God help Connor McGill. He would have to be a fool to marry you.”

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