hate it when people say things like that. People just say them like they were commenting on the weather – I’ll kill you, I’ll murder you, I could just die, I wish I were dead and buried – and they never think. Maybe Gwen does mean it, but I still flinch when she says it and she obviously means something pretty hateful by it because the next thing she does is launch my belongings out through the open window and into the passing traffic.
I can’t believe it when she does that and I’m so unprepared, I don’t do a thing to prevent it. Too late, I twist and watch as my things recede into the distance. The shoes tumble to the side of the road, one of them landing heel-up in a puddle while the bra seems to float on the car’s tailwind for a second and then gets sucked under the muddy wheels of a florist’s delivery van. I watch until I can’t see any of the items any more and suddenly I’m gripped by sadness. They were the last things, the very last things I had that were my own. I want to slap this Gwen person but then I remember I still have my day-old panties. Kind of gross after thirty-six hours but the thought calms me. I’ve still got something that’s mine.
Throughout this, Gwen’s father acts like he doesn’t notice anything; his eyes remain glued to the road ahead. I can’t imagine our dad wouldn’t have something to say on the matter. If only to holler, ‘You know the rule, Justine. No littering.’
In the evening’s gloom, I can’t see the house much when we arrive, except to make out that it’s two storeys and the driveway bends up and round to the back. And I’m none too pleased, as I step out with my bare feet, to find the path to the door lined with pebbles. I attempt to tread carefully but Gwen’s having none of that. I wince as she trots me across some of the sharper ones.
The dinner table is set. There are sloppy joes, sweet corn and salad, and Gwen’s mom, dad and a sulky little sister who eyes me suspiciously. Ten or eleven, I’m guessing. Gwen’s dad is thin, dark, weary-looking; her mom has red hair like Gwen’s but it’s paler and permed into tight frizzy curls. And she’s a horrible cook. I’ve never liked sloppy joes and these are the worst. Too gunky and juicy, soaking up the buns until they turn into nothing but mush that clumps under your fingernails.
I’m so thirsty. The sloppy joes make it worse as they’re on the spicy side. I wish I had a frigging glass of water. ‘Could I have a glass of water?’ I ask Gwen’s mom.
‘Did anyone say anything to you?’ Gwen snaps. ‘You’re not supposed to say anything until someone says something to you. Got it?’
‘I just—’
‘Shut up already!’
‘It’s OK, Gwennie,’ the mom interjects, ‘I can get her a glass of water, it’s no bother.’
‘Do you mind, Mother. I’m handling it.’
‘But—’
‘Milk. There. Drink!’ Gwen screeches, slamming a too-full glass on to my place mat so that the milk splashes on to my plate, wrists and the sleeves of my polka-dot tunic. I wipe the back of my wrist dry with my napkin and then everyone watches me as I sip at the milk. It’s whole milk and has been sitting out; close to room temperature, it tastes like cream to me. Our family only ever drinks skimmed milk and only ever ice cold and usually only with cereal anyway. I sip some more and the milk curdles on my tongue and makes me even thirstier. I shovel a forkload of sweet corn into my mouth.
Gwen waits until all mouths are full and bulging before announcing, ‘Family rap!’ Her parents exchange wholeheartedly unenthusiastic looks. ‘Whose turn is it?’
‘I don’t know, Gwennie,’ her mom says, lowering a soggy crust from her lips. ‘Is it yours?’
‘You wish. No, I think it’s Dad’s actually.’
‘Not tonight, Gwen. It’s been a long day,’ says the dad.
‘All the more reason. And it’s your turn.’
‘Not tonight.’
‘Tonight, tomorrow night, every night, Dad.’
‘Burt, maybe you should make an effort,’ urges the mom.
‘Hell, whaddya want me to say?’
‘Tell us what happened to you today.’
‘You don’t want to hear about that.’
I have to say, I really don’t want to hear about that and it doesn’t look much like Mom or little sis do either. But Gwen forges ahead and manages to wheedle an appetite-numbing story out of her father about some small humiliation from his too-long day. From what I can gather, Gwen’s dad’s a section manager at some manufacturing plant and today he tells his team they can have fifteen extra minutes for lunch because they’ve been hammering or welding or sawing away so hard, but then the big boss shuffles down at the end of the usual lunch hour and sees these guys hanging about, drinking from their Thermoses and chomping on apples and whatnot, and he says to Gwen’s dad, ‘Hey, what the effing eff are these guys doing hanging about.’ So the big boss overrules Gwen’s dad, sends the whole team back to work and docks them five minutes apiece off their next break.
‘How did you feel about that, Dad?’
‘How do you think I felt?’
‘I don’t know, you tell me.’
‘I felt like an asshole. All my guys think I’m a sorry, good-for-nothing asshole.’
‘That’s great, Dad, that’s really great,’ says Gwen, squeezing his knuckles in encouragement. ‘Thanks for sharing.’
‘Can I watch Happy Days tonight?’ asks little sis as she pulps the remains of her sloppy joe bun with her fork.
‘You know you can’t.’
‘I wanna watch Happy Days. Mom, why can’t I watch Happy Days?’
‘No TV, not while we’re in the house,’ Gwen reminds her, jerking her thumb in my direction. ‘And stop saying that name.’
‘It’s not fair. I never get to watch any of my shows any more. Dad, it’s not fair.’
‘Them’s the breaks,’ declares Gwen.
‘I wanna watch Happy Days! I wanna watch Happy Days!’
‘Trish, I’m warning you, you’d better shut up and you’d better stop saying that druggie name or I’m going to report you and you’ll hear about it in the next sibling rap.’
‘Quiet, Trish,’ pleads the mom, all hushed and hurried.
‘No TV,’ Gwen bangs her knife on her plate like a gavel. ‘And you’d better not turn that radio of yours on either. Don’t think I don’t know when you do that. I can hear it through the wall.’
‘It’s not fair.’
‘Quiet, Trish,’ says the mom.
Directly after dinner, Gwen says it’s time to get ready for bed. She leads me into the bathroom for my ablutions – one of your all-time favourite words because it sounds like a body sneezing and burping at the same time, you used to say – and I wait for her to leave but she doesn’t. She squirts Colgate on her toothbrush, which she sticks in her mouth as she also drops her pants and plops down on the toilet.
‘Don’t just stand there,’ she says through a mouthful of foam, ‘we haven’t got all night. There’s a spare toothbrush on the counter. The blue one.’
The blue one’s gnarled and obviously used, but I don’t want to risk asking for another. As I lean down to wet the toothbrush beneath the tap, Gwen spits into the basin. I close my eyes and brush.
And I hear Dad reciting the dental care mantra in my head, like he used to do when we were little and he’d stand at the bathroom door to make sure we were doing it right. Up and down, up and down, to the back then to the front then to the back and up and down.