Cassandra Behind Closed Doors. Linda Sorpreso

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СКАЧАТЬ on Dad,” I yelled.

      We heard them say their goodbyes. We watched as he stumbled towards us, his eyes twinkling, a big grin plastered on his face.

      “Geez Christ,” he said as he tripped over his own feet, nearly dropping the plate.

      We laughed. Obviously, he had a bit too much to drink but drunk or sober, Dad couldn’t say ‘Jesus’ and no matter how many times we corrected him, he still pronounced it as ‘geez’. It was hilarious and we had spent countless hours making fun of him. Behind his back of course.

      “Should he be driving Mum?” I asked.

      “Shhh,” she said. “Don’t let him hear you.”

      Dad opened his door, unlocked ours and sat inside. He tooted the horn and drove off.

      We were all quiet. We knew when Dad was like this, it was safer for us to keep our mouths shut. Once, Dad and I were coming back from a twenty-first and he had an accident. After he checked to see if I was okay and there was no damage on the car, he blamed the crash on me, just because I was chewing gum. I couldn’t believe it. He was behind the wheel, yet one pop of gum broke his concentration and it was my fault.

      I kept staring ahead, one hand clutching my seat belt and the other gripping Mum’s leg. Mum always sat in the back seat with me. I suffered from bad carsickness, especially on long trips and while Abby and Carla yelled at me if I vomited on them, she didn’t, so to avoid arguments, Carla sat in the front and Mum mopped my gag if she had to.I was afraid that Dad would hit the curb or a pole. He turned left, and then made a sharp turn right, making the tyre skid on the gravel. I swayed hard against Abby.

      “Watch it!” she said.

      “Sorry.”

      I felt my dessert rise in my throat even though I had it a couple of hours ago. However, the taste of cream, custard and nuts were right there in my mouth, along with the sausages and potatoes that were threatening to emerge from dinner. Dad sped along down the back streets, made a sharp right onto the main road and then a minute later turned into the driveway. Luckily, we had arrived in one piece. It felt so long even though it was only a ten-minute drive.

      Mum and Carla closed the gate while Dad opened the front door. We went inside, carrying presents and I quickly went to my room, setting the gifts onto the carpet. I changed into my pyjamas and walked through the lounge room, into the kitchen. I opened the fridge, thinking about the new book I had received. Maybe I could sneak in a couple of chapters.

      Besides writing, reading was my biggest passion. I loved to read. My life revolved around books and I tried to read as much as I could. Most people would find me in front of the heater, curled up with a novel, refusing to place it down and return to reality. I loved absorbing every word and imagining myself as the character, experiencing another life, at times a life that was so much better than my own. Even if I was tired like I was now, I had to read at least one chapter but unfortunately though, because I shared my room with Abby, I couldn’t read much at night, so I had to grab any chance I could before she yelled at me to turn off the light.

      “Move!” Dad barked.

      Annoyed, I moved out the way, biting my tongue as he reached for a bottle of beer. He smirked at me and walked towards the TV, turning it on and then finally sitting at the table.

      “You couldn’t wait!” I mumbled, grabbing a small bottle of water.

      “Huh?”

      “What?” I asked, innocently.

      “What did you say?”

      “Nothing!” I replied.

      “Bullshit!”

      “I swear I didn’t say anything. Just keep on drinking Dad,” I said and quickly returned to my room, trying not to laugh. My sisters and I did that to him all of the time. Since we couldn’t keep our mouths shut — well, especially me, we would make it seem like he was hearing things or he was getting confused with the TV so we wouldn’t be punished for our sassy replies. My dad hated it when my sisters or I answered back or spoke out of line. He considered it disrespectful and rude, saying we should respect him because he was our father. Whatever! Respect was something that needed to be earned.

      Just as I grabbed my book, Abby barged in the room. “Look at this mess!” she said. I sighed, putting the book onto the bedside table. I didn’t mind sharing a room with Abby, though at times I hated it. Besides not being able to read, I was restricted in what I wanted to do. Everything had to go her way or no way. I even needed her permission to stick a poster up. The only way she would let me was if it were one of her favourite actors too, though it was okay for me to stare at Scott Michaelson’s face from every angle. I would have preferred to have Robert Kelker Kelly or Patrick Muldoon from Days of Our Lives.

      Abby was a real neat freak. Everything on her side was tidy and looked like it hadn’t been touched while my side looked like it was lived in. I had books on my dressing table, clothes piled high on the floor, and magazines scattered across my half of the double bed, combined with the hundreds of articles and pictures that I hadn’t had time to put in their assorted folders. I had a huge collection of posters that I kept in about fifteen different binders; filled with articles or pictures of my favourite stars. Each celebrity had their own plastic slip and were categorised by most preferred to least. I was very proud of my collection and it drove Abby nuts because of the mess it made. Most of our fights were about that and how messy I was but no matter how hard I tried to keep the room clean, after a week or two the room returned to its original state.

      Honestly, as much as I bitched and moaned about sharing the room with Abby, I was relieved. I was very afraid to sleep on my own. If Abby slept over at Zia Sarina’s, I made sure Mum slept with me. When I was about four or five and sleeping with my parents, I had been cursed by this recurring nightmare of monsters trying to get to me through the window. Now that I was older, those monsters had turned into men and I was even more afraid because it could happen. We lived down the road from this bar Starlight and we had heaps of drunken men walk past our house on a Friday and Saturday night. Every week without fail, we would have a group of guys fight and shout obscenities at each other. We had rocks thrown at our windows, beer bottles smashed on the footpath and blood smeared on our white walls with teeth lying in the grass. It was terrifying and every time I heard these fights, I would hide underneath my doona and just pray for it to stop.

      “Please not now. I’ll clean it up tomorrow,” I grabbed the magazines, dropped them onto the floor and slid underneath the covers.

      “You’d better! I’m sick and tired of this mess,” she started putting her clothes away in the wardrobe.

      Mum walked through the door and sat on the bed. “So, what happened to you tonight? Why were you upset?”

      “I kissed Brayden Tammurello.”

      “You what? How?” Abby asked.

      “I didn’t really kiss him, not the way you’re thinking. Just on the lips. We were playing Spin-the-bottle.”

      “Aren’t you a bit young to play that game?” Abby teased.

      “Hello, I’m thirteen-years-old.”

      “What’s Spin-the-bottle?” Mum asked.

      “It’s a game where you spin a bottle and then you kiss СКАЧАТЬ