For fathers, everywhere;
for Mitch’s, and for mine
Other Books by Lauren K. McKellar
Finding Home
The Problem With Heartache (coming June 2014)
Chapter One
THE PROBLEM with crazy is that crazy, by itself, has no context. It can be good crazy, bad crazy ... or crazy crazy, the kind that makes you turn your head and avoid eye contact, even though you know you shouldn’t.
Sometimes it can be thrown about with vicious intent, like when my mum used it against my dad.
“I am going to go crazy at your father, if he eventually decides to grace us with his presence,” Mum hissed at me. I say ‘at’ because even though her eyes were darting to all four corners of the full-to-exploding hall, spit still landed square in the middle of my left cheek.
“Mu-um.” I sighed. I was pissed, too, though. I could accept his missing my birthday and Christmas last year, after he’d run out of our lives without a trace, but come on; what kind of father calls to say he’s coming, and then is late to his only daughter’s graduation?
“Kate, it’s the least he could do,” Mum mumbled. She was taking huge strides down the side of the hall, scanning the hordes of seated parents and students for an empty chair. Other parents and graduates-to-be milled around, a buzz of excitement filling the auditorium. Up on stage, our principal, Mr McDonald, was speaking to a few class captains. Suck-ups.
“I’ve not had a cent from him in more than a year, and now he thinks he can just walk back into your life to play father at your graduation? If that drunken idiot thinks I’ll sit next to him when he finally does get here, he is going to be sorely mistaken.”
“I doubt he thinks that,” I breathed. Recounting my father’s sins, both on the phone to him and in my presence, was one of my mother’s favourite activities since he’d left.
“There. There’s a seat.” Mum extended a maroon-painted talon toward an empty chair in the front row. It matched her freshly pressed suit-dress perfectly. The talon, that is; not the chair. “It’ll be a better view for my photos, anyway.” I cringed. It was bad enough she was taking photos, but front and centre? Really?
I racked my brain, trying to come up with a contingency plan to get me out of this mess when I felt a cool pair of hands close over my eyes.
“Guess who?” a deep voice asked from behind me.
“Dave!” I spun around to greet him, planting a tiny kiss on his cheek.
“Hey, Kate. Mrs T.” He nodded in Mum’s direction.
“Hi, Dave. You look just lovely,” Mum swooned at Dave’s tucked-in white school shirt and firmly fastened navy-blue tie. Even his hair was slicked up into neat little spikes, a change from the usual scruffy mess I loved running my hands through.
“Thanks. Hey, I’m sure my folks would like to sit with you, if you’re trying to find a seat.” Dave pointed his delicate musician’s finger toward an empty seat three rows behind us. His parents waved with fervour, and I said a silent prayer of thanks. “They’re just over there.”
“That is so kind of you to offer. I’ll go on and find them. You two kids get backstage—oh! Mr McDonald has turned on the microphone. They must be about to start.”
I turned toward where she was pointing and saw our school principal had indeed gripped his hand firmly around the microphone. The lights dimmed and the audience slowly hushed. I grabbed Dave’s arm and we raced to the door on the left hand side of the room, the one that would lead us to the wings.
Compared to the silence of the hall, backstage was chaos. The other 163 members of our school year milled about, a sea of navy check and white, all talking far too loudly with the exuberance of the released. This was it. In approximately sixty-four minutes, if the dress rehearsal was anything to go by, we would all be officially finished school. And I, for one, couldn’t wait.
“You guys! Can you please get into alphabetical order?” Stacey whined from her position at the top of the stairs. Her blonde ponytail bobbed up and down as she brought her fingers to her temple. No one seemed to be listening. Apparently, graduation was the one time she couldn’t make our entire year stand still and take notice.
“Oh, Kate. Good, you’re here.” She bounced over to my side, blue eyes sparkling as she scanned me up and down. “I was getting worried. What took you so long?”
“You know … She couldn’t decide what to wear.” Dave joked.
“But—it’s school uniform today.” Stacey tilted her head to the side. I sucked in a breath and ignored the elbow to the ribs Dave gave me. Sometimes, I wondered how Stacey had gotten through high school alive.
“Well, helloooo Stacey.” Michael came up from behind, giving her a skirt a quick tug as he scooted his way into our circle. Stacey gave his puppy-dog eyes a quick glare, her hands quickly smoothing the material back down and making sure her assets were firmly covered.
That was how, I reminded myself. With a body like that and eyes that could kill, Stacey had done more than attend high school. She veritably ruled the school.
“Dave, man, how you doing?” Michael asked, clapping his weathered hand on my boyfriend’s shoulder.
“I think I’ll be better in an hour or so.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Not to interrupt your male bonding session, but can you please line up in alphabetical? It’s important,” Stacey pleaded, her hands clasped in front of her.
“Your wish is my command.” Michael bowed.
“Right.” Stacey narrowed her eyes at us, gave a sharp nod, and then spun on her heel. “I’ll see you when we’re graduates, Kate.” She threw one hand up in the air and charged to the front of the line.
“Man, when is that chick gonna notice I’m alive?” Michael turned to watch her go. “Sometimes I think she’ll date anyone but me.”
“When we’re on tour with Coal she won’t be able to help but notice you,” Dave said. His green eyes came alive, widening at the thought of their upcoming tour.
“You know it. This will be our time to shine.” Michael nodded. “It’s a good thing your girlfriend is so good at organising things. We’d never have made the tour if she hadn’t hit them up.”
“It was nothing.” I felt the heat rise in my cheeks.
“Yeah, it’s not like she wrote the songs.” Dave stroked the back of my hair, bringing shiny brown strands of it to rest over my shoulder. “It was probably just seeing her face on our album cover. She’s too pretty to say no to.”
“Dave.” I slapped him playfully across the chest, unsure if it was an insult or a compliment.
“Hey! I’m not saying you weren’t part of the reason we got the spot.” His hands were up in the air in defence. “And when we’re famous rock stars, you can live a life of luxury as payment.”
“I can’t wait,” I whispered, turning to him. He stood deliciously close. He wrapped his arms around my neck and I inhaled his scent—exotic, spicy, and loaded with cologne.
“I can’t wait for the first night of tour,” he spoke into my hair. “For our first night.” His words were loaded with meaning. I felt his hands travel a little lower, skimming over the curves of my hips. My school skirt suddenly felt very thin, and very short.
“Guys, get a room,” Michael said. I pulled away, my face hot for the second time that day.
“We will. On tour!” Dave laughed, and threw his hand up in the air. Michael laughed and high-fived him right back, and I pretended to ignore their stupid boy banter. Nothing makes a girl feel special like a joke about losing her virginity, made by her boyfriend.
It was lucky I loved Dave—because sometimes he could be a downright jerk.
“Everybody, please line up NOW. They have STARTED ALREADY.” Stacey�
�s hands were on her hips as her blonde hair tossed from side to side.
“She’s so cute when she’s mad.” Michael smiled.
“Good luck.” I leaned in and kissed Dave on the cheek.
I made my way to my spot in line, leaving the two boys to walk to their allocated places in alphabetical order. They were next to each other, Belconnen and Belmonte. They’d actually met in roll call one year; funny to think they were now co-founders of one of the biggest on-the-verge bands today. I grinned a smug smile. Thanks in part to me, no matter what Dave said.
A blanket of silence settled over the line and I chewed my lip. I wondered if Dad made it, then hated myself for doing so. I hadn’t needed him for the past year, and I didn’t need him now. Mum and I did just fine without him.
The line shuffled forward and I felt the butterflies kicking around my stomach. This was it. I was going to graduate. My whole future was ahead of me, planning tours and events for the band, spending time with Dave, visiting different countries world over and—
“Tomlinson.” Mr McDonald’s voice boomed through the microphone, echoing backstage. I looked up. Front of the line already. I smoothed my hands down my blue-plaid skirt and plastered a smile on my face. Father or no, I was really doing this. I was finally going to graduate high school and go on the road with Dave—far, far away from here, from the memories that haunted our two-storey wooden house and this small, seaside town.
I strode out of the wings. In front of me, hundreds of parents gazed up at the stage, expectation written all over their faces. I swallowed. I’d never been great with crowds.
“A reminder that we’ll hold all clapping till the end of each letter,” Miss Lucas, the assistant principal, disciplined the parents as I crossed the stage to their side. Because nothing disrupts a school assembly like unruly clapping.
“Kate Tomlinson,” Mr McDonald said. I walked up to him and shook his hand, ignoring the stench of stale sweat seeping from his shirt. I took the certificate from Miss Lucas and stood front and centre on the stage, right in front of the photographer to get my formal shot. On the left-hand side of the floor in front of me, three quarters of my year lined up, holding their certificates, too. Sometimes, being almost at the end of the alphabet was a blessing. At least I had a reprieve on smiling from letters A to S.
“Okay, taking your photo in three, two—”
“Yyyyyyes! That’s my daughter!”
The voice came from the very back of the auditorium, accompanied by over-enthusiastic applause. My heart stopped beating for several seconds, stuck somewhere in between my throat and my chest.
What.
The.
Hell.
“Good job, Katie! Good—yob.” I hadn’t heard it for more than a year, but the voice was easily recognisable. It was my father.
My “dad”.
I scanned the room till I spotted him. He was pumping his hands together, standing in the doorway, his mouth slack-jawed, eyes alive with enthusiasm. His voice was slurred and loud, too loud. When he’d left home, he’d been drinking a bit, and Mum and I had hoped his absence would have toned down his boozing.
Clearly, it hadn’t worked.
I quickly glanced down to the floor beneath me, hoping that perhaps, by some weird stroke of fate, the parents and students with surnames A to S had failed to notice the display. It was no use. A hall of attentive eyes was flicking from me, to my dad, to the principal—back, back and forward, like spectators on an episode of Jerry Springer.
I was stunned. There was nothing in the student handbook about what to do when your father shows up drunk to your graduation. A few titters from students and parents alike spread throughout the room.
“Uh, I must remind you that you need to, uh, hold your applause to the end.” Mr McDonald pushed his thick, tortoiseshell-framed glasses back up his nose as he attempted to take control of the situation.
It was no use. Instead of stopping his applause, Dad took this as a sign he should focus on making his vocal celebrations heard, instead of using his hands.
“My! My girl!”
My heart stopped its momentary statuesque state and sprang back into life, beating in double-time, as if to make up for any seconds lost. What was going on? Had Dad lost his mind? Even when he’d been drinking a bit before he left us, it was never during the day, and it was never like this.
No parent was supposed to do this, ever. As a teenager, the embarrassing things you were supposed to worry about included freaking out your mum would pick you up from school wearing slippers and a dressing gown. Or—worse—that you’d go to a party and she’d ask to meet the parents.
Not this.
Never anything like this.
“Yaaaaaaaaaaay Katie!”
This time, one of the teachers walked over to him, no doubt asking him to shut the hell up. My face was a mixed bag of emotion, a smile still plastered from eye to eye, but the corners unsteady, weighted by disappointment and embarrassment. Why was this happening to me?
It was at that moment, with my face full of unspent emotion, that I was blinded by the photographer’s flash and instructed to move on as they announced the next student’s name. I shuffled my feet and went to join the crowd of kids already standing in front.
I kept my head down and pushed my way to the back of the group, not wanting to meet anyone’s sympathetic eyes or hear the accusation in my classmates’ voices. Mostly, they looked away, a few snickers doing the rounds.
“Who gets drunk at, like, ten am?”
“It’s eleven, you moron,” I snapped, my voice hushed so as to avoid detection and possible detention. I didn’t know who’d made the snide remark, but I wished she hadn’t. The worst part was their comment was nothing I wasn’t thinking myself.
I chanced a look to the back of the hall. Mum approached Dad, reached out to grab his arm, and then took a step back as he jerked away from her touch. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, like he couldn’t stay still. My jaw dropped, ever so slightly. How could one person change so much? This wasn’t the father who used to push me on the swing, help me with homework and pick my mum up when he got home from work, spinning her in the air like she was the most precious thing in the world.
This man was a mess.
“Kate, what’s going on with your dad?” Stacey said, pushing her way through the throngs of students to reach my side. Her tanned arms were folded in front of her chest, her lips tight with concern.
The collective whispers around me faded to a hush. No doubt everyone was just as curious as she was to know why my father was acting like a first-class moron.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. I looked down, studying the cracked, wooden floorboards at my feet. It was simple. When I got home, I was going to kill him. If he was there when I got home, that was. Who knew? Maybe he was going back to wherever he’d been for the past year when the ceremony ended.
I could only hope.
“I’ve gotta get back to my place up front, but we’ll talk about this later, yeah?”
I nodded and tried to swallow the huge lump in my throat. It was hard to breathe. I could feel the makings of a panic attack coming on.
“Ahem.” The principal cleared his throat. Unfortunately for me, no one noticed. Everyone, both students and parents alike, watched as my dad was escorted out of the room by two male PE teachers, their hands on opposite shoulders in vice-like grips.
God, if you kill me now, I’ll never drink again, I silently bargained. Not that I really drank much anyway, but still. Also, a hole in the floor would be ideal.
Silence once again settled over the hall after Mr McDonald completed a sufficient amount of “ahem”-ing and coughing.
“Sean Toohey,” he said, and the ceremony proceeded as normal. Well, as normally as a ceremony at a normal, everyday high school can proceed after a parent has shown up drunk and yelled at his kid in front of the whole school. You know: the hushed-whispers-occasional-glances-in-my-direction kind of normal. The cr
azy kind.
“Ladies and gentleman, I give you the class of 2014.” The principal swept his arm in our direction. Around me, I felt bodies stand up straighter, jostle for position.
“You may now clap.”
The hall erupted into an outburst of cheering, those with only one child applauding with extra zeal and enthusiasm. I saw Stacey’s mum perform a few lazy golf claps. Stacey was the youngest of five. It was no wonder she was such an over-achiever.
After the applause died down, the sea of adults converged upon the mass of students to offer congratulations, hugs and, in some cases, presents.
“A Beemer? Dad! You bought me a Beemer?”
“Yeah, I’m proud, too.”
“Can we go now?”
I tried to ignore the rush of voices and focus on getting to the front of the hall and the safety of outside as soon as possible. I felt a few people’s stares as I shouldered my way through the masses, but at least only a few of the adults recognised me as the daughter of the drunken guy. Most of my fellow classmates were still stunned, stuck in the safety of our alphabetical-order fold, unable to move for the onslaught of parental congratulations.
I grabbed my phone from my pocket and held it in front of me, pretending I was doing something, anything; anything that wasn’t being stuck in this moment. I pushed the heavy wooden hall door, and it opened with a screech.
All I had to do now was bolt to the car park, get in my crappy excuse for a vehicle, and drive. Maybe I’d take a day trip to Sydney, focus on my future life rather than my past. Although I did still have to pack for the boys’ tour in four nights, and living on the road for six weeks would require a great deal of preparation.
“Kate! Congratulations.”
Hearing her shrill overtones made me cringe. It was all I could do to not throw my arms toward the sky and shout, “Why me?”
Dave’s mother was lovely, but she was very over-the-top, seeing me as the harlot who’d trapped her son. Two years ago, when I’d started dating Dave, she’d sat me down to have the “sex talk”. I later found out she hadn’t even had that discussion with Dave.
The Problem With Crazy Page 1