4. father

“So where did you and Tommy go yesterday if you didn’t go to his place?” Carol raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow as she grabbed about two dozen packets of different flavoured chips with her thin, perfectly tanned arm.
“Why do you want to know so badly?” I asked acidly, “You’ve asked that so many times and I don’t want to tell you.”
“I’m merely curious,” she said, sounding a little desperate, “and why aren’t you telling me anyway? I’m, like, your best friend!”

Because I was a nice person, I didn’t tell her that I considered Tommy to be my best friend, and that I had a hunch that she liked Tommy. Like, like liked. And that I didn’t like it.

We were in the local supermarket, buying about 1000 bucks’ worth of food for Justin’s precious 18th birthday party since he decided to invite the entire student body, which was about 900 people. Carol, being the obstinate stickybeak she was, naturally asked me about what I did and where I went with Tommy yesterday. It’s like she had to know everything.

“Umm...” I said, wondering if I should tell her about the amazingly... nice place we went to.
“I can see you’re going to ace English this year,” she snorted, “now tell me!”
“Why do you want to know so badly?” I hissed, at the same time wondering whether I was being too obvious and secretive. I grabbed four raspberry Fanta bottles and she took plenty of lemonade, cherry soda, and juice.
“Do we really need that many drinks? I’m worried about Tommy’s water bill. I mean, people are gonna be peeing and... vomiting... all night,” I frowned, looking at the load of drinks in the trolley.
“Yes. People get thirsty in parties, especially if they’ve been trading saliva with someone.”
“You would know.”
“Shut up. Now stop changing the topic and tell me.”
“You wouldn’t know where we went even if I told you,” I mumbled, really not wanting to tell her about what I thought of as Tommy’s and my secret spot now.
“I don’t care. What was it like?” she said, getting excited, even though I wasn’t planning on telling her. She must’ve taken my reply as an ‘introduction’ of some sort before I actually told her about the place.
“Umm... nice?” I supplied, helpfully. ‘Nice’ would be the understatement of the year.
“Gee, Ash, that tells me a lot,” she rolled her eyes, “Did you guys go to a sizzling hot club and have sloppy teenage sex? Are you going to be the pair that will contribute more fucked up and unwanted kids into society?”
“Carol!” I gasped, horrified and slapping her arm, “Mind your language, missus! Me and Tommy aren’t like that!”
“I’m only kidding,” she said, winking, “but you wish you were.”
I sighed, “Maybe. I mean not in the teenage sex way but, you know and... yeah. Besides, he doesn’t see me in that way. More like a little sister, I guess.”

Til Ella’s 21st...

There was no way he would see me in that way, because he had this... Ella. The sad, nostalgic look on his face flashed back into my mind, causing me to tremble slightly.

The flames from hell...

What flames from hell?

“Or a sex machine,” Carol said bluntly, snapping me back to reality.
I quickly shouted the first thing that came to my mind so as to cover up for my spacing out, “Carol!”
“Okay, okay. I’m just saying it’s a definitely possibility.”
“We’re not having sex!” I exclaimed, exasperated.

We stopped speaking so loudly when we remembered that we were in a public supermarket, and noticed that there was an old lady staring at us, not even trying to be discreet about her mortification of the younger generation that hers worked so hard on conceiving.

Carol looked at me, then smiled and with a sugar-coated, thick-as-honey sweet voice, said, “Hi. Sorry, what was that? You wanted to know where the jam is? It’s in aisle three.”

I couldn’t help but giggle at her nonchalance. The old lady, startled by Carol’s overly exaggerated casualty, hurriedly scuttled away like a scared beetle. I was just glad she wasn’t one of those pissy old ladies who acted like they had PMS twenty-four-seven.

“Weird...” Carol muttered to herself, shaking her head. And just when I thought she wouldn’t press on the matter, “So, where did you and Tommy go?”
“For the last time, I don’t want to tell you, Carol,” I sighed, swinging my arms back and forth pointlessly as we strolled along the yoghurt and milk.
“Fine,” she pouted, “If it’s that precious to you, I’ll keep my nose out of it.”
“Good,” I said bluntly, though I was tempted to boast to her.

She muttered something about reverse psychology and how it didn’t work on me. Well, you’re right, Carol. It doesn’t work on me. Unless Tommy used it... well, Tommy shouldn’t have to use it. I’d listen to anything he said, and it didn’t matter whether it was good or bad; all that mattered was that he was happy. I’d commit a sin for him, even if it meant going to hell.

“So are you excited about Justin’s party?” Carol said in a completely different tone; surprisingly brightly for someone whose countless attempts at prying proved to be fruitless a few seconds ago.
“Of course!” I said, the words dripping heavily with sarcasm, “I can’t wait to be all intimate with drunk people who are already preoccupied with going down each other’s throats.” I looked pointedly at her.
She looked a little offended, but took it as a joke nonetheless, “I swear I won’t do that! Okay, maybe I will, but I can’t help it if I’m sexy.” She winked.
“Yeah, whatever, Carol,” I rolled my eyes, “Shall we pay for these now?” I made my way to the cash registers.
“Yes. Wait up!” she quickly clanked up to me in her six-inch heels, drawing plenty of male eyes to her and her legs. When she caught up to me she chirped, “So, what are you wearing? If I were you, I’d go for something low-cut, you know? Something sexy, so that Tommy will notice you...”
“Ew. No thanks, Carol,” I loaded the goods onto the belt. The cashier’s eyes widened as he looked at the daunting task before him. He looked from the food to us, the food, back to us, and arched a questioning eyebrow. I knew what he was thinking: we were going to pig out tonight; big time.
Carol winked at him and shrugged at me, “Your funeral. Let’s go shopping tomorrow. I can make you look nice without sexy clothes.”

The cashier began his challenge of scanning all our items with great collectedness and ease.

Beep.

“Yes, lots of people manage to get married without showing off too much cleavage, you know?”

Beep.

“Carol will make you absolutely beautiful for tomorrow night!” she said proudly, busting her buttons, “So let’s go shopping!”

Chorus of beeps.

Carol and I watched him scan the rest of the items for what seemed like ages.

“That’ll be nine hundred and eighty-six dollars and sixty-five cents,” the cashier said, finally finished. He looked just about ready to quit his job.
“Oh, snap. We’re lucky Tommy’s loaded,” Carol whistled, blinking her eyes rapidly.

I gave the money to the check-out-dude, who seemed to be rather surprised that we were paying in cash, “You’ll never run out of change again,”“Fine. Shopping tomorrow,” I said impatiently, “What time?”
“Shall we say... 11 at the fountain? Bring Tommy with you. I’ll get Justin and Christian.”
“We’re shopping with them?” I groaned, “Thanks,” I added to the cashier, who nodded.
“Have a nice day,” he said in a fatigued tone as he turned to the next customer, “Hi, how are you today?”
Then Carol said in a very loud voice, “Shit.”
“What?” I said nervously, looking around to see her, again, drawing a lot of attention.
“Shit,” she said, louder this time.
“Do you maybe, want to keep the volume down please?” I said desperately. I hated getting disapproving looks, especially from people I didn’t know. Especially from old people I didn’t know. And believe me, a lot of them were quite the elderly people. I just wanted to say to them as politely as possible: I don’t know this person!
“How the fuck are we going to carry all this shit?”

I looked at the sea of shopping bags. Oh, damn. She had a point.

“Shit," I said, but softer than Carol. I’d never sworn in unnecessary situations, but I felt it was necessary for me to swear. You know, to express my annoyance and anger.
“I know, right?!”
“I’m getting a trolley, or maybe two. There is no way in hell, or even heaven that I’m going to carry all this home. Would your mum mind if she picked us up and dropped us off at Tommy’s?”
“Don’t know. I’ll give her a ring,” she said, whipping out her expensive phone, “Hi, Mum?” she explained our little situation in fluent Swedish.

I pushed the trolley over and proceeded to load everything on. This was going to be rather difficult to roll around. Carol closed her phone and slipped it into her bag.

“Well?” I said, desperate and hopeful.
“We have 10 minutes to load this crap into the trolley and take it to the car park on roof level.”

-

“Thank you so much, Mrs. Hunter,” I said, scrambling out of the car.
She chuckled softly, “Anytime, Ashley darling.”
“Really, really, thank you!’ I almost cried, “If you want, I’ll kiss the ground just to show you how grateful I am.”
She blinked her round blue eyes, “I don’t think that’s necessary, love.”
“Of course,” I grinned sheepishly, “but thank you!”
“Tell Thomas I said hi,” she laughed heartily.
“Will do, Mrs. Hunter,” I saluted, closing the door to her sleek Mercedes.
“Ash, are you going to help me take this to Tommy’s or not?” Carol called me from where she had already successfully made it with the severely overweight trolley.
“Coming!” I called, and again to her mother, “Thanks!”
“Bye, Ashley! You girls have fun!” she drove off. Maybe I overdid it just a little bit.

I ran up to Carol and helped her push the trolley. It made very loud and clattering noises as the plastic wheels scraped across the pavement. We approached Tommy’s very... big house; what he gets for having a mother who’s the owner of a chain of convenience stores.

“I always wanted a house this big,” Carol sighed longingly, staring wistfully at the enviably clean, cream-coloured house.
“You already have a house bigger than this,” I reminded her, “And it has marble tiles. Tommy has floorboards. Now, keep pushing.”
“This is going to be a bitch to get up the stairs. Should we call Justin?”
I shook my head, “You know Justin. He’d say he’ll be here in five, but he’ll be here in forty-five.”
“Fine.”

It only took us ten minutes to get the trolley up the fourteen steps to Tommy’s front door.

“That should be in the Guiness World Record book,” I panted, “Who can get to the top of a staircase with an obese trolley the fastest?”
“You and your ideas,” Carol said, exhausted. She knocked on the door.

We waited for a few minutes. No answer.

“Isn’t Mrs. Hayford off work today?” Carol asked.
“Well, it’s a big house,” I shrugged, “Knock again.”

She did. No answer.

“Shall we check around back?”

We left the trolley on the doorstep, hoping that nobody would be cheap enough to bother going up those steps to get a packet of chips. We climbed over the fence into the backyard where the swimming pool was.

“I’ve always wondered why he never uses this goddamn sexy pool. It’s so big! If I had it I’d be using it every day!” Carol said longingly.
“Shush!” I scolded her harshly, “We’re not supposed to be in here, remember?” Realisation dawned; I hissed, “We’re trespassing. I feel like such a—such a... murderer, breaking into a house. What if all murderers start off like this? First they sneak into a house to see if anyone’s home. And then it—it morphs.”

Carol rolled her eyes and walked on. I scurried after her. We abruptly stopped when we heard voices from the kitchen.

“Oh, honestly, Anthony,” Mrs. Hayford sighed, “I can’t wait until I get that boy out of here.” She spoke about Tommy as if he were a pebble in her shoe.
Someone laughed softly, and spoke in a British accent, “Don’t be too harsh on the poor kid.” A man.

I risked a glance around the corner. Mrs. Hayford was sitting with a mug in her hand, her back facing us. A tall, lanky, dark-haired man in slacks and a tie stood facing her, his eyes a flawless blue.

“Who is that?” Carol whispered, nudging me painfully in the ribs.

I stood there, shocked.

Tommy’s... father?