Life of the Party

by Christine Anderson

  “Hello?” I answered abruptly.

  “Do you have any idea what time it is? I have been calling—” I had to hold the phone away from me so the sheer volume of mom’s voice wouldn’t burst my eardrum.

  “Shit, it’s my mom.” I cringed, whispering to Grey as she continued to rant and rave. He looked at my cell phone in awe. Mom had an impressive range when she needed it.

  “Mom. Mom, hold on.” I tried to calm her.

  “If you don’t walk in this door in five minutes, I’m sending your father to get you,” she threatened. Which would have worked, had she known where I was. Plus, she forgot the threat of my father stopped scaring me when I was eight.

  “Mom, relax. I’m on my way home now.” I lied.

  “Five minutes.” She repeated. That was it, she hung up on me right afterwards. I sighed and flipped my phone shut in defeat.

  “I should go.” I frowned. Still twined around Grey’s hard body, I could easily have changed my mind, hang the consequences. I rested my head on his shoulder.

  “She sounded pissed.” He smiled.

  “That’s because she is.” I groaned. “Shit, Grey, what am I going to do? I’m still like, totally blitzed.”

  “Here, let me look at you.” He sat me up and studied my face intently. With his hand he smoothed my hair, still a tangled mess from our earlier bike ride. His blue eyes were soft. “You look fine. Amazing, actually. They’ll never suspect a thing.”

  “Are you sure?” I bit my lip nervously.

  “Even if they did suspect something, what would it be? Alcohol maybe. At the very worst weed. Cocaine is not a conclusion parents jump to.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’ll be fine.” Grey kissed me again, and his lips hinted of our earlier passion, but it was over way too soon. He lifted me down from the counter. “We should go. Five minutes, remember.”

  “Right.” I frowned and stuffed everything back into my purse. I had missed thirteen calls on my cell phone; my parents must have been trying to get a hold of me while we were out riding. I looked at the call list with dread. I was in huge trouble.

  “You don’t mind giving me a ride home?” I wondered as we put our shoes on at the front door.

  “No. How are you supposed to get home in five minutes by walking?”

  “I don’t think we’ll make it in five minutes riding either.”

  Grey grinned. “I’ll take that bet.”

  It was exactly seven minutes later when Grey pulled up in front of my house. As I climbed off the bike he whistled lowly, studying our home in surprise. I followed his eyes and glanced up at the house, wondering what he was thinking, trying to imagine what it might look like through someone else’s eyes. A sprawling two-story covered in cultured stone and fancy lighting, with a fully landscaped yard and manicured hedges—yeah, I knew what it looked like. Rich. At least, small town rich. I bit my lip. Maybe we were rich, but I didn’t really think of myself that way. My parents were, I guess. I wasn’t ashamed of their status or anything, but I didn’t want Grey to think of me any differently. I wanted us to be on the same page, on even keel.

  “Wow. What does your dad do?” He wondered.

  “Oh, it’s this new thing. He gets paid per the amount he annoys me.” I kidded. “See, he’s pretty good at it.”

  “Oh, I see.” Grey smirked. “So, you’re spoiled.”

  “No.” I could see the menacing shadow of my father in the window; I imagined he was glaring out at us even as we spoke. I tried to ignore him.

  “Thanks for coming to get me.” I wrapped my arms around Grey’s neck and smiled. “I had a really great time.”

  He nodded, and smirked, and bent down to kiss me. I loved the taste of his lips, every time seemed new, delicious. I never wanted to stop.

  I hated to leave him, but I knew I had to. I sighed and pulled away.

  “Bye.”

  “Good luck.” He smirked. He held onto my hand as long as possible, dropping it as I slowly backed away from him. I turned regretfully and hurried across the quiet street, up the flagstone walkway lit by beaming little solar lights. The motorbike rumbled to life behind me. I heard it rev up and then peel away, and I knew that Grey was gone.

  I was nervous. Not about getting in trouble, but about acting sober in front of my parents. I was totally ramped up, everything about me was accelerated. I hoped they wouldn’t notice. I hoped they’d see my twitchiness as anger or frustration.

  Dad had the door open before my foot hit the last stair. He glowered out at me, a silhouette in the light streaming through from inside. I bit my lip and slowed my gait, warily brushing by him on my way through the door. Dad followed me silently back into the house.

  Mom was waiting, her arms crossed as she leaned against the wall in the entry. I was amazed by my parents’ calmness, I had expected them to be yelling and screaming at me by now. It actually made me more nervous, this unforeseen serenity; it meant I was in more trouble than just a good old scream-fest was worth.

  “Into the living room, please.” Mom requested civilly. I stepped out of my flip-flops and placed my purse on the floor by the door. She led the way into the adjoining room, and then motioned for me to sit on one of the overstuffed, floral patterned sofas. She sat in the easy chair beside the couch, her legs crossed formally like this was a business meeting. Dad didn’t sit at all. He just stood there, his arms across his chest like he was a bouncer or something. His face was hard and grim.

  “So, Mackenzie.” Mom started. I turned to face her, unconsciously chewing on my lower lip. My heart was hammering in my chest, how could they not hear it? I took a deep breath, focused on acting as calm as they appeared to be.

  “First of all, do you mind telling us where you’ve been all evening?”

  “Uh, yeah. I was with a friend, we were hanging out. No big deal.” I shrugged. Dad breathed heavily.

  “Do you not remember me specifically asking you to be home right after school?”

  “Yeah, I remember.” I admitted.

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. My friend has a bike and he asked me to go for a ride, and I just … I couldn’t resist.”

  “You couldn’t resist.” Mom sighed. “Ugh, Mackenzie. What are we going to do with you?”

  “The same thing you did before. Nothing.” I suggested.

  Mom scoffed. “That’s the last thing that’s going to happen, young lady. There are going to be some changes here. And like it or not, you will have to accept them. We are your parents, you are our child. We must enforce some boundaries for you.”

  “Really?” I threw my hands up in amazement. “Really, though? I’m seventeen years old, I graduate in two days. Don’t you think it’s a little late? Don’t you think we should’ve had this conversation, I don’t know, a few years ago, maybe?”

  “We didn’t need this conversation a few years ago,” Mom shook her head, “I don’t know what’s come over you lately, but you’re changing. Are you on weed?”

  “Weed?” I looked at her like the very thought was insulting. “Mom.”

  “I’m sorry.” She sighed and rubbed her hand across her forehead. I almost felt bad for her. Almost. “We just, we want to help. Can’t you talk to us, tell us what’s going on?”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.” Not anymore, at least. There was a time that I was open to talk to my parents—a time when I actually wanted to talk to them. I could remember it clearly. But they were always too busy. Dad had to catch a plane; Mom had to get to bed so she could work all night. Marcy needed this, Marcy needed that. I’m sure they meant well, working hard to provide for us and everything, but really. How could they expect me to just open up now?

  “Are you sure?” Mom prodded. “We’re not the enemy, you know.”

  I shrugged silently. They weren’t getting anything from me.

  Mom sighed again. “Okay, I tried. Mitch,” she waved her hand at him, like he was tagging in or something. “Go ahead.”
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  Dad nodded. He had on his “insurance” face now, the one he used when he was determined to sell something. “You don’t want to talk? Have it your way.” He shrugged like it didn’t matter. “From here on in, we’re going to have the following rules in place, and like it or not, you’re going to have to obey them.”

  I looked up at him, my eyes narrowing defiantly.

  “One. No more staying out until all hours of the night. You’re going to have a curfew like every other normal teenager, home by eleven during the week, midnight on the weekends.”

  “Dad.” I glared. “You can’t be serious. Midnight on the weekends?” I was incredulous. “You can’t just start treating me like a little kid!”

  “Then you should stop acting like one.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  I stared at him a moment. Neither of us would back down, we were too similar in temperament. “Ugh, you know what? No.” I stood up and shook my head at them. “No, this is bullshit. You’ve been home all of what—a week, and suddenly you get to judge me?”

  “I’m only on rule one, kiddo. Shall I keep going?”

  “No. No.” My racing heartbeat was suddenly fuelled by more than cocaine. Anger pushed it even harder. I felt a surge of furious adrenaline shoot through my veins. My fingernails pressed into my clenched palms as I struggled to keep it together. Vaguely I remembered all the stories I’d heard of people totally freaking out when they were high on coke. I suddenly understood. My emotions were so intensified that I nearly saw red.

  “I don’t give a shit about your stupid rules.” I concluded. “You can’t just ignore me for years and then suddenly start trying to make decisions for me.”

  “We never ignored you.” Mom looked appalled by the accusation.

  “Really? For the last two years I’ve spent nearly every night by myself. I could’ve been doing anything, and no one would know. Does that classify as ignoring? But it never seemed to bother you, leaving me alone like that. You let me do whatever I wanted to for years.”

  “Did you ever think that maybe we trusted you?” Dad interjected.

  “Trust? Yeah, right.” I scoffed. “That had nothing to do with trust. You just didn’t care about me. You had your friggin’ golden child already.”

  “What?” Mom sat up in her chair. She stared at me for a long moment, as if trying to rationalize my words. They seemed to disturb her. “Mackenzie, is that really how you feel?”

  I shrugged and stared hard at the red woven area rug beneath my feet. I could’ve proved my point, God knows I had enough material, but why should I bother? There was no way they’d sympathise. I’d just come off sounding immature and jealous and petty and then they’d have even another reason to like Marcy more than me.

  “Well. I’m really sorry if you feel that way. Really sorry.” Mom looked repentant; her eyebrows were knit in sincere apology. I had to remind myself to stay angry at her. “That was never our intention, of course it wasn’t. We just felt that you were more … capable, I guess, to be alone. Marcy was always so dependent on us, on me. But you’ve always been braver than her. It was so different after she moved away, when you didn’t need me as much. That’s why I didn’t start working fulltime until after she graduated.”

  I shrugged again. “Whatever.” I sighed. I could feel myself softening but resolved not to let it happen. Mom wasn’t going to talk her way out of the last few years of total indifference, no matter how sweet her words were now. I drudged up a memory to keep me focused on anger. The memory that worked every time.

  It was back when I was chubby. I remember because my skirt wouldn’t zip up all the way, I had a most unfortunate roll that did that to all my zippers. I had to safety pin most of them so they would stay up. On this occasion I was wearing a red and black plaid skirt with a white tucked-in blouse, and black Mary-Jane shoes atop knee-high white tights. My dark hair was done up properly in a French braid. I was in grade eight at the time, because it was my second year playing flute in Band. It was the night of our recital, and I was nervous because I had a solo in one of the songs. I had beat out the other five flutists to win that honour. Grade eight Mackenzie was a bit of an over-achiever.

  We had four songs to play. The last song was my big moment. I spent nearly the entire first three songs looking out into the crowded gymnasium from the stage, searching for one of my parent’s faces. See, Marcy also had a recital that night—she had taken ballet and jazz/tap for most of her young life. My parents hadn’t decided yet who would go to which show, but one was going to watch Marcy dance and one was coming to watch me play.

  Except neither of them were at my recital. I missed playing a good twelve bars during the third song in my desperation to see a familiar face in the crowd, but they were nowhere to be found. When the time came for my solo, I wanted to do good, I wanted to be perfect like always, but in my distress I totally screwed it up. I played an F instead of an E, and then became so flustered by my mistake that it was all downhill from there. I practically ran from the stage after, I was so embarrassed. I locked myself in a bathroom stall and cried for what felt like hours. Not just because I had messed up the solo and neither of my parents had been there, but because I had a sneaking suspicion where both of them had gone.

  And I was right, in the end. When all three of them came to pick me up from the school, my parents apologized profusely for their “miscommunication.” That would have been an okay excuse, except that both of them had stayed for Marcy’s entire recital. They bought me an ice cream on the way home and kept wondering why I was so quiet, why I didn’t tell them how it went at my concert. I think it was something in the way Marcy gloated—the little half smile she gave me as she flipped back her perfect shiny hair. That look said it all. Give it up before you totally humiliate yourself, Mackenzie. There’s no way you can compete with me.

  I dropped Band that year. And Advanced Science. And the Chess Club.

  “Mackenzie?”

  “What?” I came back to the present then, good and justifiably angry, just how I wanted to be. Mom could give me that damn sorry look all night, but there was no way I was giving in now. All I had to do was imagine that safety-pinned plaid skirt for the heat to start flowing.

  “Did you hear me? I was just saying that we’re willing to be flexible here, if you’ll cooperate with us. We can work on a compromise and come up with some reasonable boundaries for you.”

  “I don’t need boundaries, mom. Haven’t you been listening to me, like at all?”

  “No, Mackenzie. We’ve been too lax for too long.” Dad decided firmly. “We’re making some changes around here. Mom will switch her shifts if she has to, and I’m going to rearrange my schedule. From now on one of us will always be here with you.”

  I groaned loudly and slumped back against the couch cushions.

  “Complain all you want, but this is how it’s going to be.”

  I had to shut my eyes. I hated, hated the way he was talking to me, so smug and casually matter-of-fact. I’d show him. Suddenly it was all I could do not to pick up the crystal vase on the coffee table and smash it on the floor. I imagined the delicious shattering noise it would make and clenched my fists again to keep from actually doing it. A deep breath helped to calm me.

  “No, dad, it’s not.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said, no, dad, it’s not. It’s not going to be this way. Look, you go ahead and make all the damn rules you want.” I chuckled mirthlessly. “But I’m not going to follow them. I haven’t had a curfew since I was like, twelve, and there’s no way I’m going to start again now.”

  “Mackenzie, don’t be so difficult.” Mom frowned. I could tell she was trying to be the rational one among us. “It’ll take some adjusting to, that’s for sure, but it won’t be all bad. We can come up with a living situation that works for all of us.”

  “Yes, you know what, I’ve got one.” Dad’s face was hard and angry, his calm façade nearly out the window
. He stabbed at me in the air with his finger. “She moves out.”

  His icy words hung suspended a moment, totally unexpected. Both mom and I just stared at him for a second.

  “Mitch!”

  “What?”

  “Quit being so irrational.”

  “Who’s being irrational? There are rules here. If she doesn’t like them, she can leave.” He motioned to the front door. “We don’t need to put up with this.”

  It took me a minute to fully comprehend his words. My dad wanted me to move out. I had to admit, it stung a little, as I imagine it always will whenever a child is told their parents’ desirable life scenario doesn’t involve them anymore. I just hadn’t realized we’d reached the kicking-out stage yet. At first I was hurt, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that moving out was exactly what I wanted. What I’d always wanted. If I was on my own I could do my own thing without having to put up with my parents anymore. There’d be no one to try and tell me what to do. No one to fight with and argue with about stupid shit that didn’t matter. Then I could stay out all night, every night. I could be with Grey as much as I wanted to.

  Never had my father ever had a better idea in his whole life.

  I couldn’t let on how excited I was by this unexpected turn of events, so I sat quietly on the sofa, acting every part the wounded party. Apparently my dad had failed to inform my mother of this new, impromptu plan. She was more upset than I was about it.

  “Mitch, you’re overreacting. Let’s just sleep on it. Tomorrow we can talk again once we’ve cleared our heads. There’s no need to do anything rash.”

  “No.” I stood up then, hugging myself. “No. He wants me out, I can move out.” I gave my mom a sad, brave smile. I avoided Dad all together.

  “Mackenzie, you don’t have to go ….”

  “Yes, she does.” He insisted.

  “Mitch, how could you do this—” Mom started in on him. I took this as the perfect opportunity to leave, sliding away as they began to argue and sneaking up the stairs to my room.

  The first thing I did upon entering my bedroom was pick up the phone and call Charlie. It was just after ten, I hoped she’d be home from work by then. I sat on my mattress and scanned the room idly as the phone rang in my ear, picking out the things I would take with me and the stuff I would leave behind when it came time for me to go.