Chapter 30: Saturday Lunch

Drawing...

Drawing...

I sat back and looked at my picture. I’d drawn Faith and Danielle sitting together on the bleachers before the football game. I’d tried to capture the moment after they’d kissed each other. It had been a fairly quick kiss, but after that they’d cuddled against each with contented little smiles on their faces. They weren’t looking at each other, they’d been looking at Pearl and me, but their entire bodies seemed to be reaching out and holding the other person. It was an expression of total comfort and love for each other.

I hadn’t drawn any background – just the bench they were sitting on. I closed my eyes and called up my memory of that scene in my mind. The people behind them were a bit fuzzy. I hadn’t taken any notice of them at the time, so now I couldn’t remember them properly. I guess I could draw in some blurry random people to make a background but I didn’t think the picture needed it. It seemed to work with Faith and Danielle, sitting on a bench, looking out of the picture but totally wrapped up in each other.

I looked for places that needed finishing off and didn’t find any. I tilted the picture a bit and tipped my head to one side so I could look at it from a different angle. It was definitely finished. Carefully I sat my sketchbook down flat on the table and put my pencils beside it, my gaze still fixed on the picture. I decided I liked it. It was a piece of artwork that I could be proud of.

I closed my eyes and sat up straight, tilting my head to one side then the other to get the kinks out of my neck. I wriggled my fingers a bit to stretch them out after holding the pencil for so long. I took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. Something was strange. I breathed in again and this time I could identify the smell of freshly baked bread filling the kitchen. Mum had been using the bread maker again and I didn’t even notice. The bread smelt like it was ready so I opened my eyes, prepared to get up and take the bread out of the machine.

I had to blink a couple of times to absorb what I was seeing. The table was spread with food, including a freshly baked loaf of bread – half of which was already gone. The rest of the loaf already had several thick slices cut from it. Mum, Dad, Tara and Angie (with Lucy) were sitting around the table. Tara was across the table from me, sitting in the seat Pearl had used for breakfast. That was probably because I was still sitting in her usual chair. She was still wearing the same bathrobe she’d put on during breakfast. Angie was still wearing her two dresses and probably those bright purple shoes, though I couldn’t see them. Everyone had bowls of soup in front of them. It looked like they’d been eating for a while because Dad’s soup was gone and the tide was nearly out in everyone else’s bowl. Tara was in the process of popping the last morsel of a slice of bread into her mouth. Mum and Dad’s bread plates only had crumbs left.

Nobody said anything. They sat there and looked at me – except for Angie, she was playing with lumps of bread on her plate. Tara chewed on her mouthful of bread but that didn’t hide her grin.

I guess I must have looked surprised. I thought I’d been alone in the kitchen and suddenly it was crowded. The evidence suggested they’d been around me for a while. I hadn’t noticed them – at all!

“That look on your face – priceless,” commented Tara.

A little voice in the back of my head wanted to call out, “I see you’re still wearing a bathrobe!” That would certainly wipe the smirk off her face. But the words never made it out of my mouth. I’d like to be able to claim that I was being nice and avoiding a fight with my sister. I think the truth is that I was still trying to cope with the shock of opening my eyes and seeing everyone sitting there.

“Now, girls! Don’t start fighting.” Mum’s voice was pleasant but there was a deep, dark warning hidden in the spaces between her words. See, I didn’t open my mouth and still I got into trouble for fighting. How fair is that? Okay, maybe I was glaring – but that shouldn’t count.

A thought occurred to me and I snatched my sketchbook back up off the table, fearful that I’d put it down in a mess and ruined my artwork. I let out a small sigh of relief when I saw that it had been sitting in the small island of clear, clean space which my family had thoughtfully left around me.

Dad helped himself to another thick slice of bread and smeared a thin layer of butter onto it. Then he pointed at my pad with his knife.

“Danielle and Faith, am I right? The two girls with Pearl at the football game last night?”

I nodded. I was still trying to adjust to my family suddenly being there. It was like I’d been sitting in a dark room when suddenly the lights went on and a whole crowd jumped out from behind the furniture and yelled, “Surprise!” It was a bit scary – no, not really scary so much as ... unsettling. I was unsettled. Okay, maybe I was a bit scared too.

Mum looked accusingly at Dad. “You didn’t tell me they were lovers. When you told me about it, you made it sound like you had these three beautiful girls hanging all over you for the entire evening – panting in lust for you. Looking at Bec’s picture, it’s pretty clear that two of them weren’t all that much interested in you. And we know Pearl is more interested in your son than she is in you.”

Dad sat up straight and tried to look dignified. “Please! Allow a man the simple pleasure of a harmless fantasy. They are indeed beautiful young women and they did me the courtesy of paying attention to a lonely old man.”

Mum blew a raspberry at him across the table. Dad pouted and tried to look unhappy, but his eyes were sparkling.

“You’re not that old, Dad,” Tara spoke up, trying to cheer him up.

“And besides...” She paused and ran her eye down across his broad shoulders and down his chest. “You are pretty sexy for a guy your age. I’m sure they wouldn’t have minded hanging out with you for a few hours.”

I tilted my head to the side and looked Dad up and down. Well, he was sitting at the table, so I looked his top half up and down. Tara was right, he definitely had a kind of sexy thing going – for an old man that is.

In fact, he looked like an older version of Dan ... or maybe Dan was a younger version of him. Hmm. That was a complicated thought. I mean it was a thought with lots of complicated thoughts connected to it – all in a big long chain of thoughts that I didn’t really want to follow to the end.

Dad had been looking at me when Tara spoke up and I saw in his eyes that he was a bit uncomfortable with what she was saying – and with the way that I was looking at him.

“You really shouldn’t say things like that. It’s not right,” said Peter.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Peter. Besides,” Mom teased from the other end of the table, “I happen to think she’s right. You are a bit sexy for an old man.”

“You’re allowed to say things like that. You aren’t my daughter. There are some things daughters shouldn’t say to their fathers.”

Dad really did look uncomfortable. I decided to take pity on him and change the subject. I stood up and held up my sketchbook.

In my head I said, “I’m going to put this away in my room. I don’t want to get food on it.” I’m not sure how much of that actually came out of my mouth. Or if it did, how much could be heard.

“That’s fine, honey,” said Mum with a smile. Maybe she heard what I said, or maybe she guessed. “Do you want some soup?”

I nodded. “Yes please.” I think that was loud enough to be heard.

“I poured some out for you.” Mum pointed at a soup bowl sitting on the counter with a bread plate resting on top of it, ‘to keep the flavor in’ as Mum always says. “It’s probably still warm, but I’ll zap it in the microwave for you.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Mum,” I whispered.

“Honey,” Mum stopped me before I got out the door, “it’s a really good picture.”

I smiled some more. “Thanks, Mum.”

The sheets had been stripped from my bed and the blankets and coverless pillow piled into a heap on the floor. A neatly folded set of clean sheets were sitting on the mattress waiting for someone – meaning me – to remake the bed. Also on the mattress were my two bags from school. Obviously Dan had emptied the trunk of his car and brought the bags in for me. I screwed up my nose as I realized that the clothes I’d put in them yesterday had been all wet and would probably be quite manky and disgusting by now. I decided to leave them until after lunch. They wouldn’t get much worse in that amount of time and I wouldn’t get put off my lunch.

Also on the mattress was my science book. I’d given it to Pearl to put in her bag last night at the football game. She must have had it with her when she came to the house and forgotten to give it back to me. I picked it up and put it on the pile of books sitting on one side of my desk. As I did so, two brochures slid a little way out of it. They were the two brochures from Dan’s college that talked about courses I might be able to do.

I took them with me back to the kitchen and dropped them into my lap as I sat down at the table.

The soup was a thick vegetable soup and the fresh bread melted in my mouth. I wasn’t super hungry but it did hit the spot quite nicely. It was also nice to be able to eat without my stomach doing flip-flops like had been happening during breakfast. I mean, apart from Tara still wearing her bathrobe it was a fairly normal sort of lunch.

Once I’d taken the edge off my hunger, I decided to be brave and talk about the college courses. Well, I would try and lead up to them carefully. I wasn’t stupid enough to just come out and say everything.

“Mum, have you heard of an artist called Arbena Satiri?”

Mum crinkled her nose up as she thought. “The name rings a bell, but I can’t place her right now. Why do you ask?”

“Well, you said we could look for a proper art teacher for me.”

“Do you think this Arbena Satiri would be willing to teach you?”

“I don’t know. She runs a class once a week. I’d have to take along a folio of my stuff to get in.”

“A class once a week seems reasonable. What else do you know about the class? How much does it cost? Where is it held?”

“That’s a bit of a complication. It’s a class at Dan’s school. It’s a three hour class starting at 1:00 pm each Wednesday. It’s designed for school students to attend for college credits as well as for college students. I don’t know if they’ll take me or not. Her personal assistant spoke to me and I showed her one of my drawings. She said she thought I was good enough to get in, but I think she thought I was a bit older.” I said it all in a bit of a rush – trying to get past the problems as quick as I could.

I took the art brochure off my lap and pushed it in front of Mum, pointing at the description of the class I was interested in.

“See it’s not that expensive. And look, you can read her biography. And there’s a print of one of her artworks. I saw some line drawing she did. They’re amazing. I think she’d be really good.”

Mum was frowning and glancing between the brochure and Dad. I didn’t even want to look at Dad’s expression.

“I was thinking more along the lines of a class for school students – kids your own age. This will be at a college – full of college students.

“College students and high school students and me – people who want to learn art. What does it matter how old they are?”

“What does matter is that you’re too young to be hanging around with people that age,” rumbled Dad. “You don’t belong in a college until you’re older – much older.”

I looked down at the table. This wasn’t going so well. I didn’t expect it to be easy but I thought at least Mum would like the idea. I wasn’t ready to give up yet. Someone taught me that sometimes you had to fight to get the things you wanted. Who taught me that? Oh yeah! That would be The Parents.

“I was hanging around with people that age last night and I had a great time. Everyone thought I was older – like in high school. The cheerleaders liked me. They even said I’d be good as one of them. Everybody liked me.”

I blinked. They really did say that. They didn’t even know I was listening so they weren’t telling stories to make me feel good. That was a really big thought. Everybody liked me.

“What’s the harm?” Tara wanted to know. “They’d probably adopt her like a pet. They’d pat her on the head and feed her biscuits. She’s too young for them to be much interested in anything else about her.” Sometimes I wish Tara wouldn’t try to help me.

Dad scowled his blackest scowl. “You didn’t see what I saw during the first half of the game last night.”

I felt myself blush, which I tried to hide behind a curtain of hair. Trust Dad to bring that up right now.

“What happened during the first half? I think you should explain, young lady. I want to hear all about it.” Mum was using her ‘Obey me or suffer’ voice, but for some reason it wasn’t as scary as it usually was. All it did was make me angry.

“Don’t pretend you don’t already know about it,” I hissed at Mum. “You probably heard all about it within ten minutes of Dad walking in the door last night. What’s more, I’d almost guarantee you laughed your head off when he told you. I’d bet the candles off my cake on that one. So stop acting all surprised and shocked. It was nothing. You know it was nothing, but you’re trying to make it sound like I did something wrong; just so you can have a go at me.

“As for you, Daddy, you saw it all. So you know perfectly well, it was nothing but a bunch of silliness. It was fun, it was silly and it was perfectly harmless. So don’t start making a mountain out of a molehill.”

Okay, a little bit in the back of the brain was wondering what the heck I was saying. It certainly wasn’t helping me get into that college class. Somehow my mouth had become disconnected from my brain and now it was running completely out of control.

“And by the way, Tara, just so you know what we’re talking about. I was giving good-luck kisses to the guys in the football team last night. That’s right, I made out with the entire freaking team. The ironic thing is that I got more action than you did last night. The difference is that I was the one deciding who got kissed. So don’t talk to me about people treating me like a pet, when last night you...”

Somehow I managed to snap my jaws shut before I could finish that last sentence. I was staring straight across the table at Tara. The things I’d nearly said...

There was silence around the table. Except for Angie, she was grizzling. I’d been shouting and now she was upset. No one moved to comfort her.

Mum and Dad had been deliberately not mentioning that topic throughout lunch. I mean, Tara was being punished. She’d had her lecture, so now they were making sure she knew she was still a part of the family by having a normal lunch. And I ruined it. I sat here and let my big mouth run away with itself and ruined it all. Not to mention ruining any chance I had of doing that college class. I’d stopped myself before I said the worst things, but everyone knew what I’d been about to say, so it was as bad as if I’d said it.

I couldn’t face Tara any more. I looked down at the table. I stared at the grain in the wood as if there were answers hidden deep in the waving lines. There were no answers, only whirls in the wood.

The sound of Angie’s fussing punctuated the stillness of the room. Her every moan, sniffle and whimper were commas in a sentence made up of pauses. After a short time, the grizzling halted with a sigh. Exclamation mark!

The silence condemned me. I couldn’t bear it any longer. I wanted to flee; to run away and hide. I pushed my chair back. Mum said something but I couldn’t hear her words. I stood – well, I half-stood – I rose half-way out of my chair and stopped. A large hand on my back stopped me – pressed me back down into the chair – locked me in place.

Dad said something to me but it was a blur of noise. His hand stopped pressing me down, but the message was clear – nobody escapes.

I heard Mum move out of her chair, open and close a drawer then sit beside me. Mom’s hand slid into my vision – interrupting my view of the table. The hand placed a single small candle onto the table in front of me and then retreated. The lemon colored wax spiralled up its length then tapered to the small piece of white thread that was its wick.

Another candle, the same color as the first, was placed beside it on the table. Then there was another and another until I had thirteen candles lined up in a row in front of me.

What?

My brain couldn’t answer the question.

“What?”

My question was only a whisper, but it echoed in the noisy silence of the room. A puff of air from when I spoke moved the first two candles into a “V” shape. In roman numerals that made it five – five plus eleven ones equals sixteen. A single breath of air and I was suddenly three years older. It didn’t seem right. My right hand lifted off my lap and carefully straightened up the two candles then it returned to its place on my lap. Sanity was restored – I was thirteen again.