‘So, how did you get on with this file carving business, top of the class?

‘It doesn’t really work like that,’ Vicki had tried to explain. ‘It’s more like, we all get a drive with hidden data on it, and we have to locate it. There’s no scoring against the other students.’

‘How do you know how you are doing in relation to the rest of the class?’

‘I don’t,’ Vicki had shrugged. ‘But, that’s not really relevant to how we work.’

‘Work? You see,’ her mother had turned her attention to her husband, ‘that’s what they call further education nowadays.’

‘Thanks very much.’ Vicki had laid her fork down.

‘Well, it’s hardly challenging, is it, if there’s no competition.’ Her mother had smiled wryly. ‘It’s more just a play session with computers.’

‘Could you do it?’ Vicki had raised her eyebrows at her mother, who paused for a moment, as if slapped before regaining her sense of composure.

‘I dare say I could.’ She had smiled purposefully. ‘But, I have more important things to do’

‘Important?’ Vicki’s voice had cracked with emotion, ‘like giving masculine jawlines to CEOs, and pouting mouths to bored, rich housewives?’

‘Well, those jaw lines and mouths paid for your education, or lack thereof.’

‘Come on,’ Her father, Steve, had held up a calming hand. ‘Let’s all just…’

‘Let’s what?’ her mother had screeched. ‘Pretend that after sixteen years in the education system, our daughter will have a decent career, outside of some grubby little internet café.’

‘What more do you want? I did my best at school, even if it wasn't up to your standards. I came with you to your golf club and shooting range. Okay, I'm done here,’ Vicki had said, as she pushed her almost full plate away and stood up.

‘Well, I’ll put it in the oven, and you can have some later,’ her dad had murmured, ‘when the dust settles.’

Vicki had shaken her head. ‘I mean, I’m done living here. I’ll speak to the campus accommodation officer in the morning.

‘Well, perhaps that’s best,’ her mother had said flatly, and turned her attention to cutting her own pasta into perfectly digestible pieces.

As a direct consequence of the final fight with her mother, Vicki had made the move to the campus accommodation at the start of her final year. It was there she found herself sharing a small student apartment with Laurie Ann Taylor. Laurie’s first flatmate, a seemingly quiet girl from Iowa, had fallen pregnant, and dropped out of college at the end of the fifth semester, leaving her at risk of eviction from the Mitre Court Halls of residence. In desperation, Laurie had hand written thirty-six posters and placed them all conspicuously around the campus.

While Vicki had stood waiting for the bus on the afternoon following the fight with her mother, she had spotted a sign tacked to a nearby door, which read:

Female roommate needed. N/S Compulsive cleaner preferred. 

No slackers or psychos please.

The poster had been printed with a row of tear-off phone numbers along the bottom edge. Vicki had ripped one off, neatly folded it in half, and slotted into the card holder of her wallet.

Following a Java Script lecture the following afternoon, Vicki had called the number from a public telephone outside the Behavioural Sciences building. She was both pleased and apprehensive about being invited to view the apartment that afternoon.

As she stepped into the hallway of Mitre Court Hall that day, Vicki had found herself in a stark vestibule, with a row of square post boxes on one wall, and mounted telephones on the other. Directly ahead of her, was a formidable looking glass security door.

Vicki had wandered over to the telephone, picked up the handset, and dialled flat eighty-eight.

‘Hi,’ a cheery voice had answered. ‘Come right up.’

As Vicki replaced the phone, the security door had buzzed angrily. She pushed through it and took the shuddering elevator to the eighth floor.

When the steel door slid open, Vicki had stepped into a long, dimly lit corridor. The air was tinged with a student residency combination of antiseptic and fried garlic.

As she wandered along the hallway, a door up ahead opened, and Laurie had popped her head out.

‘Hey, come on in,’ Laurie beamed at her.

It was not an expression Vicki was familiar seeing.

Moving into Mitre Court with Laurie was the best decision Vicki had ever made. Spending a year in the company of someone who was so relaxed soothed Vicki’s numerous anxieties. Whenever she felt stressed or overwhelmed, Laurie would insist that they head to the beach. She would gleefully gather towels and paperbacks, insisting that they let any drama melt away beneath the heat of the sun.

After a day of leisure, once they were suitably relaxed, Laurie would lead Vicki home to sit on the floor eating takeout pizza and formulating a simple plan of action for whatever was concerning her. Compared to Vicki – who had grown up in a luxurious cocoon which left her paralyzed with uncertainty and doubts, Laurie’s own bleak upbringing had left her optimistic and proactive. She seemed to possess a knack of breaking any problem into manageable pieces.

As a result of this personal support, Vicki spent the final year of college gaining better results than she ever had previously. She secured a decent degree and felt certain she would finally get the parental approval which had previously eluded her. She was wrong.

On the first Friday after graduation, her parents had taken her out for dinner at a local Thai restaurant, arranged by her father, who fanatically believed Thai food was the healthiest stuff on the planet. This was mainly due to the fact that for his fiftieth birthday, he had attended some Holistic Dentistry retreat down in woods outside San Francisco. He was away for little over a week, during which he made no contact with home. When he had finally returned, Stephen Reiner had taken to wearing an ornate copper bracelet on his wrist, and would regularly bore anyone with his theory, “it’s not a theory,” he would say, that cumin was the new aspirin.

After they had ordered the food - yellow curry, Pad Thai and fried tofu - her mother had smiled in a disarming manner, before reaching appropriately for Vicki’s hand.

‘Your father and I are getting a divorce,’ she had said, in a deliberately calm manner.

‘A what?’ Vicki had felt like she’d been punched.

‘It’s fine, honey.’ Her father smiled softly. ‘We've been planning it for years.’

Vicki’s mother shot him a bitter look.

‘What?’ He shrugged casually. ‘We agreed to tell her, so let’s be honest about the whole thing.’

‘We haven’t been happy for some time,’ her mother said, returning her attention to her daughter.

As they were speaking, Vicki had gotten the distinct impression the people sitting with her were pretending to be her parents. As it had transpired, that feeling was not too far from the truth.

Over the course of an uneaten lunch, it was revealed her parents had decided to divorce while their daughter was still in high school. They had also decided this shift in family stability would possibly have a detrimental effect on her education. After some discussion, they had taken the mature decision to remain together, if only superficially, until Vicki had graduated from college. The irony was they had taken this bizarre decision in the interest of their child, leaving her unable to criticise their madness, without appearing ungrateful. Their decision, however, had left Vicki utterly debased.

As the fragmented family had left the restaurant that day, Vicki felt all sense of reality melt away. The sun was too bright in the sky above the parking lot. Everything she had known as familiar now seemed untrustworthy and impermanent.

In the months that followed, Vicki had remained in the Oceanside beach house while her mother and father had hastily relocated to the security of their birthplaces in Vegas and San Francisco, respectively. Her parents had mutually agreed they would not sell the beach house on the basis either party would be allowed equal access to it. Two weeks after the arrangement was signed, Vicki’s mother had the locks changed.