Stan

by C. J. Duggan

The beat of the bass caused the pictures on the wall to vibrate, and the thudding of the music could be felt in my temples and almost redirected the rhythm of my heart. I groaned, stuffing the pillow over my head, which only served to muffle my swearing.

  He was deliberately trying to torture me. I had been fooled into thinking he was sugar and spice and all things nice. That he was the better person, mature, and thoughtful in his way of getting over the fact I had completely ruined his weekend. Instead he planned to torment me. Slave me around the park with ‘chores’. Who the hell did he think I was?

  Deep breath, Bel. Deep. Breath.

  The three of them were probably partying it up now the killjoy had gone to bed, now they could finally relax. I threw the pillow across the room in frustration. It made absolutely no difference; the music was so loud, so mind-numbing, it was obviously coming from Stan’s room. Was there seriously no other stereo in this house? Or had he deliberately used that one? Maybe he was in there partying … with Ellie. My stomach twisted in that unsettling way it did anytime I thought of them together. I shook it from my thoughts, instead pacifying myself that at least it wasn’t romantic music—any Barry White and I would have been sick.

  As it were, I would stand to be seriously sleep deprived. I wanted to rip the door open to demand he turn the music off, but that is exactly what he had wanted … no doubt. Instead I lay there in the dark, glaring at the ceiling, plotting of ways to seek my revenge on him, somehow, some way. Maybe I could sabotage the power to the house? No, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing and would probably electrocute myself. Maybe I could sneak back to my caravan and have a deep, peaceful night’s sleep? What was he going to do about it? Tell my mum and dad? Actually that’s probably exactly what he would do, and the last thing I needed was to ruin their weekend and for them to come home to yell at me. No, I would just ride it out, ride him out.

  Listen to the music, it couldn’t go forever.

  Twelve a.m.—boom-boom-boom.

  Stan be damned. Ringer, Ellie be damned. My parents be damned. Let him ring them, dob me in and sabotage everyone’s weekend; I couldn’t care less. I had had enough, for the sake of my sanity and the ringing in my ears, I couldn’t take it anymore. I yanked the covers off and skimmed my way to the door, not easy when you’re mad as hell. I grabbed blindly for the door handle, whipping it open, blinded by the hall light and blasted by the music, the music that blared from Stan’s room, the door wide open. All the better to deafen me with. The combination of the loud music and Stan’s upbeat singing, singing I could barely believe was still going all these hours later.

  The night they drove old Dixie down

  And the bells were ringing

  The night they drove old Dixie down

  And the people were singing

  They went, "Na, na, la, na, na, la"

  I stood in his doorway, watching on in disbelief as a sprightly Stan lay against his bed head, air drumming in only his boxers. No shirt, no pants. Just sitting quite comfortably, empty stubbies of beer by his side. He didn’t even miss a beat when he saw me standing in front of him, my arms crossed over my singlet top. My anger had morphed into disbelief as I watched Stan unwind in a way I had never seen. I thought he might have been embarrassed; instead, he sang louder, reached over to his beer and saluted me.

  “The Band,” he yelled over the music. “My absolute favourite.”

  No shit, Sherlock.

  I smiled sweetly, nodding with interest as I walked casually over to the stereo player, lifting up the CD cover and reading the back of it with mock interest.

  I reached over and innocently pulled the cord out of the wall, plunging the room into the most delicious silence. My ears were ringing.

  “Hey!” Stan exclaimed in outrage.

  “Enough is enough,” I yelled back, mostly because I was still deafened. I yanked the other end of the cord out of the stereo.

  “Consider it confiscated until tomorrow,” I said sternly.

  Stan’s mouth gaped in horror. “I gave you pizza. I gave you water.”

  “You’re drunk,” I said.

  “Not nearly enough,” he glowered, squinting into his empty stubby.

  “It makes me laugh; beer is always the answer, is it?”

  “I don’t know. It seemed like wine was the answer to all your prayers last night.”

  I felt the minimal humour I had held in the victory of the cord slip away. “I don’t like you very much when you drink.”

  Stan looked at me, really looked at me stone-faced, glowering in a way I half expected to look at me all the time, not just now. “Yeah, well, I don’t very much like you at all.”

  I hadn’t expected the way those words would plunge into my heart, the way they made me feel so wounded by the way he had declared it with such a serious undercurrent of anger that went far beyond his stereo cord.

  I didn’t get him at all. Was he nice? Was he sweet? Or was he like all the boys I had ever known, the douchebags that were all about the boys and fishing trips and beer. I started to believe that the Stan I was seeing before me was maybe the real Stan—the one only a certain few got to see—the unhinged Stan that listened to music in the comfort of his own little shack on the edge of the caravan park.

  And as I thought all these things, a quick character assessment rolling through my thoughts, Stan spoke again, swinging to his feet and standing rather steadily considering all the empty stubbies next to his bed. He stood in front of me, his eyes looking down at me, deep, smouldering, as if he had a million secrets hidden behind them. He stood so close and it was then I realised that this wasn’t the first time I had been in his room, standing before him half dressed. But this was different. The air seemed warmer, the space more enclosed, maybe it was the dull lighting or the way he was looking at me. He wasn’t angry, it was something else, another emotion that I couldn’t quite name. I was only aware of my breathing and my heart thudding against my chest; my eyes flicked momentarily to the deep swallow of his Adam’s apple and the way his breaths felt against my skin. He stood so close. What alarmed me more was the fact I didn’t step back, that even though there was room, I chose not to. For no real reason of knowing, I was cemented in place, not through fear or anger but by being ever watchful of the shadows that danced across his face in this moment that stretched on forever. A moment that changed almost as if in slow motion. His hand reached out and slowly slid down my arm, blazing a trail of fire down my skin. Down, down until he reached my hand, slowly his fingers worked on uncoiling mine from around the cord. My chest heaved embarrassingly shallow as his ever-watchful gaze stared into my eyes. Each finger that unravelled mine felt so intimate, almost as if he was undressing me. And just as he slid the last piece of cord from my hand, he broke my gaze for a mere moment as he threw the black cord back onto his bed, before looking back down at me with a smile.

  “You better go get some sleep,” he said deeply, his voice like warm butter, the cocky smile that lifted the corner of his lips the only thing that had me blinking myself into the present.

  “Sleep?” I repeated like an idiotic robot. I felt like I had been hypnotised; maybe I had? But more to the point, it was a serious case of sleep deprivation and a pure lack of oxygen that seemed to be sucked out of the air anytime Stan was near me like he was now. It was the most unsettling feeling. I wanted to fight against the emotion, the butterflies that fluttered against the pit of my stomach.

  Stan nodded. “Big day tomorrow.”

  I blinked, trying to grasp onto his words. I was the one that was acting drunk.

  Stan grabbed me by my shoulders, turned me around, and as good as frog-marched me out of his room. Confused and coming to my senses, I found myself standing in the middle of the hall, and I spun around in time to catch Stan’s boyish grin.

  “Those toilets aren’t going to clean themselves, you know,” he said with a wink. He slammed his bedroom door closed, my mouth gaping in incredulous outrage.

  No, I got him all right.
Stan was not nice, or sweet. He was something else entirely.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Stan

  I can’t believe I’m doing this.

  Risking life and limb, I climbed over the apex of the games room roofline holding on with a white-knuckled intensity as I reached out. My face turned bright red as I stretched as far as I could manage, my fingertips grazing the edge of the Sherrin footy that was nestled rather snuggly on the edge of the gutter.

  Bloody kids.

  “Can you get it?” yelled an anxiously awaiting Samuel Becket. The only thing visible past the edge of the roofline was his mop of fire-red hair. If the sun glinted on him the wrong way I was in trouble of being blinded from the glare.

  “Almost,” I said. One final breath and a stretch so far out, I swear I could feel my shoulder dislodge from its socket.

  “Got it!”

  “Yaaaay!” A chorus of cheers sounded from below; Samuel and his little brat pack of his sister and cousins jumped up and down for joy. I tucked the footy under my arm and carefully manoeuvred my way back across the roof and gingerly down the ladder, which Samuel’s eldest sister, Rebecca, was holding steady.

  “Thanks, Bec,” I said, skipping the last few steps and then jumping to the ground.

  “Phew! Here you go.”

  “Thanks, Stan.” Rebecca sighed and clutched the footy, looking up at me all dreamy-eyed like I was some kind of hero who saved the life of a kitten or something. Her trance was mercifully broken by the thudding of little feet.

  “Thanks, Stan,” Samuel said, snatching it out of his big sister’s hands.

  “No worries, but next time, go over to the park and play kick, okay?”

  “Don’t worry, Stan, I’ll make sure they do,” Rebecca said with authority. At a guess, Samuel was twelve and Rebecca was fifteen, so I wasn’t quite sure how that would work. Samuel screwed his face up at her like that wasn’t going to happen.

  The look didn’t go unnoticed by Rebecca. “You will do as I say, Sam, otherwise I’m telling Mum and Dad,” she warned.

  “Well, maybe I’ll tell Stan what you write in your diary,” he teased, making kissy-kissy motions and hugging his shoulders.

  Rebecca turned a deep crimson, a murderous glare shadowing her face. “Don’t. You. Dare.”

  And that was my cue to leave.

  “All right, then, be good. Especially you, Samuel,” I joked, rubbing his head on the way past.

  Rebecca blinked out of her terminator vision and smiled sweetly. “’Bye, Stan.”

  Aside from my unplanned rooftop football emergency, I was ahead of schedule. I had gotten up with the sun, had a cup of coffee and a bowl of Nutri-Grain (the breakfast of champions), and dropped a few Beroccas in a glass of water to stem off the hangover that threatened to take me down.

  It’s not that I forgot about sleeping beauty who was no doubt nestled in a cocoon of comfort still, but with my head pounding and a list of things to do, I really didn’t fancy going in to poke the bear. There was no time or patience for that. There was probably little to no chance she would do any of the chores on the list anyway and I was in no mood to fight about it.

  I sat on the steps of the verandah struggling to untangle the cord from the whipper snipper.

  “Son of a bitch!” I gritted as I wrestled with the fluro yellow cord from hell.

  “Charming!”

  My head snapped around. First I saw legs, legs that led to little night shorts and a skimpy singlet top. Had she been wearing that when she came into my room last night? Jesus, how buzzed had I been? It was like I was seeing her for the first time. She had used one of the throws off the back of the lounge like a cape tied over her shoulders as she nursed a cup of coffee. Her eyes were squinting against the daylight, and her short black hair stood up like a cockatoo crest. I had to look away to stop myself from laughing.

  “Sleep well?” I managed, trying desperately to change tact.

  “Oh, yeah, like a baby,” she replied, her words dripping with sarcasm as she padded across the deck and filled in the spot opposite me on the steps. She wrapped the rug around her legs, thank God, as it was hard enough to concentrate on the task at hand. Bad enough that the steps weren’t that wide and our knees were nearly touching. I kept my eyes down, but even so, I was ever aware as Bel placed the coffee aside, the rug slipping down as she stretched her arms to the sky yawning, her top lifting to expose her stomach as she ran her hands through her hair.

  “So what do you want me to do first?” She sighed.

  My head lifted with a double take.

  What?

  Bel rolled her eyes. “What do you want me to do first?” she repeated.

  I felt like it was a trick question; I was almost afraid to answer for the fear she might leg it down the drive. It was too good to be true. A simple question: no fighting, no arguing, no blackmailing. There had to be a catch, so I looked at her warily.

  “Sweep the verandah.” I said it almost like a question.

  I thought I would ease her into it, and if we hadn’t managed to kill each other after that one chore, maybe I could break cleaning to the toilets to her.

  Bel nodded, taking a sip of her coffee. “Okay, sounds like a job for pants though.” She smirked.

  “Yeah, well, most jobs around here are,” I agreed.

  “Unless you’re playing the air drums.” She stood, looking at me pointedly, before making her way to the screen door and swooshing her cape inside.

  I smiled at the memory of last night.

  Smooth Stan, real smooth.

  ***

  “Right! This is called a broom. You hold it here and push it forward like this, in a sweeping motion, to remove things like dust, dirt, and debris. This is a dustpan. You use it to collect said dust, dirt, and debris to transfer into a thing we like to call a bin. Repeat after me … BIN.”

  Bel stood beside me, her hands on her hips, the expression in her eyes shooting me daggers. She didn’t seem to be enjoying my running commentary. Shame. I thought I was hilarious.

  “Any suggestions where I might store the broom afterwards? Because I could give you a few suggestions,” she said in all seriousness.

  “Thanks, but not necessary. Let me know when you’re done,” I said, passing her the broom and dustpan.

  I wanted to add enjoy, but I didn’t want to push my luck; as it was, I had gotten far more than I bargained for. Bel actually agreeing to pitch in. After last night, I was certain she would have been long gone before sun up.

  “I’m just going to go and clean the pool filter out, do you think you will be right?”

  Bel’s eyes widened. “You’re leaving?”

  “I won’t be long.” I frowned; surely she could manage sweeping until I got back.

  “Well, what if someone comes? You know to check in, or out, or I don’t know, what’s something … office-y?”

  Something office-y?

  I had so rarely seen vulnerable Bel, that this was kinda cute. Since when did Bel Evans become cute and vulnerable?

  I sighed. I guess she had a point. I could flip the ‘be back in five’ sign but I was thinking this would take me longer than that, and then I had to tackle painting the shed. Maybe now was a good a time as any to show her the ropes with all things ‘office-y’.

  “Okay, down tools. I’ll show you the basics. Come on.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bel

  Now this was more like it.

  Compared to sweeping the verandah or, heaven forbid, cleaning the toilets, something I had hoped Stan had entirely forgotten about—ha, I should be so lucky—this was doable. Instead I sat back in a high-back ergonomic chair with my hands linked behind my head, the air conditioner on full blast. In between sipping on my ice-cold can of Solo from the vending machine, I would feast on the complimentary mints Stan’s mum kept on the counter, and then make my next bold move on solitaire on the computer. I had a clear view down the drive toward where the pool was, so I would be able to see
Stan coming from a mile away. Sa-weet! This was the life.

  Everything was simple enough; there was a bookings book, and all sites were taken except for a few cabins that were vacated this morning. Apparently Stan had already seen and cleaned those, thank God! In fact, Stan had pretty much done a lot of things. I didn’t hear him get up this morning, but as far as I could see, he was an early riser for him to possibly get all this stuff done before noon. I wasn’t totally unconvinced he was Superman, because if he was affected in any way by the skin full of beer he had last night, he wasn’t showing it.

  Maybe all those empty beers weren’t his? Maybe some belonged to Ringer or Ellie?

  Ellie.

  I wondered what time she left? Did Stan walk her out and kiss her goodbye, or did she stay for a while and that’s why he was half-naked in bed. I didn’t want to think about that, shaking it from my mind and focusing instead on which card to select.

  Stan’s mobile number was written in blue pen and tacked to the top of my computer screen in case of emergencies. He made it quite clear that a footy being kicked onto a roof was not an emergency. Whatever that was about. He seemed pretty adamant that blood was the only emergency to be contacted about; arms stuck in vending machines also another incident deemed an emergency. Duly noted. I really just nodded along to everything he said to herd him out the door; he probably thought I would keep sweeping or something, but meh, that dust was going nowhere. I think my talents were far better utilised at mission control. Sitting in my oversized office chair like I was Captain Kirk on Star Trek.

  Pfft, sweeping verandahs and cleaning toilets. I had much better things to do. For instance, I spent a good two minutes straightening up the tourist information booklets, a thankless task that would go unnoticed. I mean, when it came to business, first impressions were everything. I busied myself with more administrative tasks like checking all the pens had ink in them. One didn’t. Crisis averted, dead pen chucked in the bin. I sharpened pencils, restocked paper in the printer, and spent a generous amount of time pulling a long, damp tendril of hair over my eyes, marvelling at the length and how much my hair had grown as I studied for any split ends. It was a tiresome task and one that had my full attention until my eyes blinked past my hair at the sound of a thundering V8 black Ute pulling up in the drive.