Gucci Mamas by Cate Kendall Read Free Book Online Page A

come clean with Chloe.
    A gift registry card had been thoughtfully included with the invitation. It appeared Miss Sophie was registered at David Jones and several small, exclusive toy boutiques.
    Ellie broke into her reverie.
    ‘How are Chloe’s prep interviews going?’
    ‘Oh God, it’s hellish,’ Mim sighed. ‘The competition is so intense for five-year-old places at all the good schools. We’re committed to a single-sex environment, although we’re not adverse to parallel learning and we might consider a Steiner approach. She’s thriving under Reggio Emilia at ELC, but we’re not sure if it’s too unstructured for her needs into the future.’
    ‘Mmmm, it is such a dilemma, darling. How did the psychological assessment go?’
    ‘She had her second last month and it’s still off-target, so we’ve booked at a new centre for this Thursday.’
    ‘Oh I know, it’s so tough to get someone who knows what they’re doing. We had to take Rupert to six before we found a psychologist who truly understood him and gave us a result we were happy with. You have to work at these things.’
    ‘We’ve got an interview next week at Barlyn. I’ve made a PowerPoint résumé for Chloe, but I worry that we haven’t provided enough educational opportunities for her. Her listof extracurricular activities is a bit thin – just conversational French, interpretive dance, swimming, choral enrichment and violin. I wish I’d stuck with the Essential Breath Meditation class, but it clashed awkwardly with Jack’s Testosterone Time – you know how important it is for the boys to generate a healthy testosterone level in a structured environment. Can you imagine if I let them self-express physically at home – my objets would be under constant threat!’
    ‘Sweetie, Chloe’s résumé will be fine, there’s always time to add a few enrichment classes before she starts primary school. You know what Prue Watson did? Remember her: she was a Thornbury – old money? Anyway, they hired a feature film director – just an Australian – to put together a really stylish DVD of their daughter, Lillianna (they call her Lola – like Madonna’s girl) – anyhoo … that’s what you need to do, everyone’s doing it. Lola was gorgeous, they had her singing – she has a beautiful voice – doing her ballet, some jujitsu, babbling away en Français , and just interacting within her environment – you know? Playing? And the highlights in her hair came up a treat under the studio lighting. Anyway, she was accepted straight into the three-year-old room at Milton, no questions asked, which was a really lovely coincidence given that it’s part of the new Thornbury wing.
    ‘Oh, and remember Prue’s sister? What was her name, Melita … no … Melina, that’s right, I knew it rhymed with ballerina, which is a hoot, because she is in fact a ballerina, or she used to be,’ Ellie lowered her voice and leaned towards Mim. ‘Weight issues,’ she whispered. ‘Couldn’t get bulimia, no matter how hard she tried; no gag reflex, poor love.’
    Mim nodded sympathetically and steered the conversation back to the school issue. ‘I haven’t got time to get a DVD together before next week. Do you think our PowerPoint presentation will be okay?’
    BC (Before Children), Mim had been a graphic designer at a busy advertising agency and now kept her hand in by doing occasional freelance work from home. She’d pulled together all her skills to produce the slick PowerPoint résumé for her five-year-old.
    She suspected she was being a tad too over-the-top about the whole school thing, but nevertheless she’d hired a tutor to prepare Chloe for the Barlyn College prep entrance exam. What choice did she have when all the other mothers were doing it? She had to give Chloe every opportunity to excel, and Barlyn was one of the best girls’ schools in the state – although that sort of excellence didn’t come cheap. The junior school fees were up to $20,000