“Mum?”
“David? Oh good,” she said. I blinked at the phone. She didn’t sound mad at all. “Are you at Julie’s then?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” Good again? What in the bloody hell was going on? “Just be home at a decent time tonight.”
“Yeah,” I repeated, knowing my voice sounded strange, rather strangled, but I couldn’t help it. I’d already stayed out all night long, and not only was she not pitching a fit, she wasn’t insisting I come home immediately to accept my punishment! Who was this woman, and what had she done with my Mum?
“Bye, then!” With that, Mum hung up.
That was it? I stared at Julie, bewildered. The thing in my belly that had been there since Dawn and I had started up was churning.
“How did it go?” Julie was frying up eggs.
“Mum wasn’t upset.” I stared at the phone in my hand, still incredulous. “Said I should just get home at a decent hour tonight.”
“That’s rare then?” She reached for the salt and pepper, and I couldn’t help notice how her t-shirt rode up, showing me the curve of her bottom.
“Rare as rocking horse shit,” I agreed. There was something wrong with this picture, I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
“Well, then, we have all day.” She winked at me, stirring the sausages in another pan. “Joanna won’t be back until late tonight.”
I put the phone on the table and went over to her. “Maybe we should kick her out for the whole week,” I said, kissing her neck. She turned her head to let me, and I swear if she was a cat, she would have purred. “Just stay in bed.”
She laughed. I loved that laugh. “You’re going to get me sacked! Just because you don’t have a job…”
“I’m going to have to find one.” I sighed, burying my face in and breathing the scent of her clean hair. “Dad’s threatening to cut off my pocket money starting next week.”
“You’ll find one.” She flipped the eggs. “You’re resourceful.”
“That’s true.” I peered over her shoulder, sliding my hands around to cup her breasts and thumb her nipples. “I’m also hungry. Let’s eat!”
“Mmmm!” She shivered, pressing her bottom back against me. “Hold your horses, sexy. Everything in due time.”
Everything.
That’s what I wanted.
Everything.
And that’s just what I couldn’t have.
–
“Mum?”
She was sitting on the sofa when I came in, flipping through the telly. I could count on one hand the times I’d seen my Mum just sitting in front of the telly.
“Oh, there you are.” She smiled at me, but she seemed distracted. “Did you have fun at Julie’s?”
Fun? What I’d had at Julie’s couldn’t be called anything but, I suppose, but she said it like I was five and coming home from a play date at a friend’s house. She had to have known what we were doing.
“Uh… yeah.” It was a Sunday evening, and I expected Dad to be the one on the sofa snoozing in front of the telly, Dawn to be up in her room playing music loud enough for Mum to tell her to turn it down while she read a book in the chair next to Dad… “Where is everyone?”
Mum shrugged. “Out.”
I decided not to press my luck and went upstairs, glancing at Dawn’s room at the end of the hall just out of habit as I opened my bedroom door. What I saw made me stop and stare.
Her door was open, but there was nothing in it. Nothing – her bed, her desk, her computer, her stereo, even the posters of Sting on the wall. It was all gone. I had to check for myself I wasn’t hallucinating, going past Mum amp; Dad’s closed bedroom door, and pushing my sister’s door fully open.
The carpet was pink – it had been since she was twelve and Mum had gone through a redecorating phase – the walls covered with a shiny white wallpaper, like striped satin. Her curtains were still the pink roses she’d picked out when we were twelve – mine were blue stars and moons because I’d been going through an outer space thing at the time. It looked like a little girl’s room completely, now that her stuff was out of it.
And just what was her stuff doing out of it?
I bounded down the stairs, and Mum turned her face to me as I stopped in front of her. “Mum? Where’s all Dawn’s stuff?”
She didn’t even blink. “Oh, she’s moved into Laurie’s flat.”
My heart sunk and I just knew… Mumhad heard. Had heard, and had acted, quickly and cleanly, kicking Dawn out of the house. No wonder she hadn’t cared how long I stayed at Jules’!
“Is she there now?”
Mum shook her head, going back to the telly. “She’s at the health club, giving her notice.”
“Her…”Notice? She’s quitting her job?
Mum ignored my confusion. “Laurie’s got her in. They needed another shop assistant.”
“I’m going out.” I couldn’t think. I needed to see my sister, talk to her…
“Again?”
“I’ll be back in an hour.”
At least, I thought I would.
–
She was coming out as I was going in. We stood there for a moment, just looking at each other, the weight of what we’d done, how we felt, what we knew, hovering over us like an anvil. And then it fell. She threw her arms around me and I held her, right there in front of the health club with people walking in and out around us.
“I’m so sorry, David,” she whispered against my neck, and I felt the hot wetness of her tears.
“We need to go somewhere.” I meant away from the entrance of the health club – at least, that’s what I meant out loud. What I really meant was we had to go away together, run away somewhere, live happily ever after.
“Come on.” She took my hand and led me around the side of the building. Parking was in back, so it was quiet here, and she squeezed my hand as she stopped. “Mum knows.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“Did she say anything to you?”
“No.” I shook my head. “What did she say to you?”
“She told me she and dad had talked about it and decided I needed to find my own place.”
I stared at her. “Did she say… she heard… or saw…?”
“Mum?” Dawn snorted. “She’d never. No… she just said she’d already talked to Laurie, who said I could move in with her. Dad rented a truck and helped me move my stuff. It happened… very fast.”
“Overnight!” I shook my head, shoving my hands into my pockets. “She told me to stay at…”
“Julie’s.” Dawn swallowed, looking at me. “David, I did an awful thing…”
“More awful than what we’ve been doing?”
“That hasn’t been awful!” She slipped her arms around me, resting her head against my chest. “Do you think it’s been awful?”
I didn’t want to tell her how amazing, how beautiful, how incredible… “I know you told Jules.”
“Oh, David, I’m so sorry.”
I kissed the top of her blonde head. “She doesn’t care.”
“She’s…” I felt her sobs. She was doing it silently, as if I wouldn’t know. I wanted to make it all okay, and I just couldn’t. She gave a hitching breath and said, “She’ll be good for you.”
“I want…” I lifted her face in my hands, kissed the tears off her cheeks. Her eyes said everything, and I knew mine must, too. “Oh Dawnie, I want you. God help me. I do.”
“I know.” Tears just continued to fall from her eyes like rain. “But you know we can’t.”
I didn’t want to know it, but I did. I kissed her as if to chase it away, tasting the salt of her tears, licking it from her lips. I didn’t want any evidence of pain left when we were through.
“David…”
I shook my head, pulling her to me again and holding her. “I’m going to leave home. Move in with Jules.”
“That’s probably best.” She trembled in my arms as if it were cold outside instead of a warm summer evening. “Mum and Dad…”
“They won’t ever talk about it again, Dawnie.”
“No.” The flat tone of her voice told me she knew it was true. We wouldn’t ever have to say anything to them, to admit to our parents what we’d done. But they would always know. And so would we.
“Oh, I meant to tell you…” She moved away, wiping at her cheeks with her hands, trying to compose herself. “I gave my notice and talked you up quite a bit. My boss was very interested. The job’s yours if you want it.”