by C.J Duggan
Chapter Five
"Pool tables are not meant to be danced on"
My dad's disapproving frown pierced us in his rearview mirror, where Ellie and I sat slumped in the back seat. They had been woken in the middle of the night with a reluctant phone call to pick us up from the hospital. After the initial panic, relief soon followed in the knowledge that we were unscathed. Well, mostly unscathed.
"Poor Adam," said Mum, more to herself than anyone else. "He looked as white as a sheet."
I fought not to burst out in hysterical laughter as I thought to myself, yeah, whiter than his filthy Toga sheet. Thankfully, I managed to control myself.
I was exhausted. We dropped Ellie off at home, and I nodded off by the time we made it to our house. I was jolted awake by the slamming of a car door, and managed to stumble my way inside and crash into bed.
The only thing that had me escaping my parents' fury was that I hadn't actually done anything wrong. I had scared them half to death by calling them from the hospital, sure, but I needed them to look at the bigger picture: I wasn't drinking or smoking or acting irresponsibly (aside from Scott's tongue in my mouth but that was not my fault).
I must have looked troubled at breakfast the next morning, because Mum gripped my shoulders and gave them a reassuring squeeze.
"Adam's going to be fine, honey."
Oh yeah, Adam.
Guilt seeped into me at the thought that Adam had not exactly been in the forefront of my mind. Poor Adam! He had been joyously rocking out when the pool table broke in half. He had done so well to balance and not fall over his Toga, which he'd ended up tucking into his shorts, offering partygoers a sight that could never be unseen. But no, it was not the Toga that had been responsible for breaking his arm in two places.
"I spoke to his mum this morning," Mum said as she topped up my juice glass.
I straightened in my seat for the update. "What did she say?"
"Adam was pretty drunk last night." Dad looked up from his newspaper, his eyes bored into me as if I was being interrogated.
"I hadn't seen Adam all night," I defended. "I was with Ellie."
A fact that would not comfort my parents. Over the past year, they had slowly started catching on that Ellie's taste wasn't for alcohol, her taste was for boys. Ellie wouldn't be the sweet, little, church-going, accountant's daughter forever. Even parents talked, and, all of a sudden, I felt uneasy.
Before the conversation could turn in a direction I didn't want it to, I excused myself from my parents' knowing gazes. "Speaking of Ellie, I might just give her a call," I said. "You know, to see if she's okay," and I scurried from the room.
One positive for Adam taking all the attention was that Ellie seemed unperturbed by the fact that John Medding was a giant douche bag.
Our telephone conversation was dominated by Adam and what had happened last night (minus my Toby encounter), but then it moved on to far less desirable topics.
"So what was with you and Scott? Seriously, Tess, what the fuck?" Ellie's angry voice pierced through the receiver.
"Ugh, I know!"
I threw myself back on my bed wanting to erase the entire memory of last night. Well, perhaps not the entire memory. I thought back to Toby appearing out of the dark - the blue, yellow and red flashing disco lights shining on his beautiful smile. Me stumbling rather inelegantly off the bonnet. I cringed. So classy! At least I hadn't burst into tears, that was something.
"Hey, did you notice some older people at the party?"
Ellie replied in a manner that had me imagining her shrug. "Older, younger, it wasn't just a Year Eleven break up, I think anyone was invited."
"But why would you want to go to a Year Eleven break up?"
"Tess, it's Onslow. People go to the opening of an envelope; seriously, what else is there to do in this town?"
"I suppose." I wrapped the cord around my fingers as I lay on the bed.
The thought had never even occurred to me that Adam wouldn't be okay to work the next night, which I guess it probably should have since he had a broken arm and everything. I called him after I spoke to Ellie; we chatted about how much trouble he was in and if he was in any pain. It all seemed so normal, so natural. So when "see you tomorrow night" was met with awkward silence from Adam, a newfound dread swept over me.
"You are going to work tomorrow night, right?"
More silence.
"Adam?"
"I'm sorry, Tess, I won't be able to."
I sat up straight on my bed, alarm settling in.
"Sunday?"
"Tess, how can I wash dishes with a plaster cast?"
"I don't know! Rubber gloves? Surely there must be something else you can do?"
Adam sighed. "It's not just that. Mum and Dad are pretty pissed at me. They think I broke my arm because I was drinking. They went on and on about it. Not to mention Mum's ruined sheets."
"Pfft, I told you," I groaned.
"Anyway, they don't have a great deal of trust in me; they say I have to earn it back. And they don't exactly want me surrounded by alcohol at the hotel."
My silence echoed down the phone. "So? When will you come back to work?"
"I'm not going to, Tess. I'm not allowed." I could hear the regret in his voice.
But that did little to appease me. "What?! What do you mean you're not working?"
"Mum and Dad are sending me to my nan's house in the city. They said that it will do me good to get out of Onslow, but I know that they just want me to be a slave to my nan."
"How long for?"
"Until my cast comes off - six weeks."
"Six weeks! Adam, that's the whole summer holidays!"
"I know, I know," he said, "believe me, I know."
I should have felt sorry for him, a whole hot summer imprisoned at his nan's house. Unable to go swimming in the lake, hanging out with friends, working at the Onslow Hotel that he had looked forward to all semester. All his summer plans gone, just like that. I should have felt sorry for him. But I didn't. I didn't feel any ounce of pity except for myself.
This was not what had been sold to me as a summer we would 'never forget'. "You, me and McGee," he had said. Now I was stuck in a job every weekend for the whole summer. Without Adam, it wouldn't be the same. Adam was like the buffer, always there to cling to when Ellie would wander off with some new boy. Adam was always there to make me laugh, or vandalise a locker for me in the name of revenge. He was my anchor, how could I do it without him?
Who would give me sympathetic looks every time I came into the kitchen with a complaint? Who would punch me in the arm after our shift and promise it would be better tomorrow, even if it was a total lie? I felt lost. My hands clenched the phone with a white-knuckled intensity. My heart sank with the thought of walking into the Onslow Hotel tomorrow without him.
And then the anger set in.
"Well, I am so glad I did you a favour. I really fancy whittling my summer weekends away in a pub infused with cigarette smoke and rude tourists."
"Tess, I'm sorry. This blows, I know. Believe me - I would give anything to be there. The thought of taking my nan grocery shopping while she counts out her change at the cash register in five-cent pieces does nothing for me."
Again, I had no pity. I would happily trade places, but my days of doing Adam Henderson any favours were over. Never again!
"Yeah, well, you have fun with that! I'll think of you with your sweet nan sipping cups of tea, while I get abused and have to dodge a frying pan from crazy Rosanna."
"Te?"
I slammed down the phone, cutting him off. "Not interested." I glared at the receiver.