Walking up the sidewalk toward the front door, I can see the lights are still on in the “family” room and in my father’s room, meaning that he is still awake… drinking.
As soon as I open the front door, there’s bedlam.
“Where the fuck have you been?” my father yells. “It’s 11 o’clock at night.”
“Umm…” I hum as I put my purse down on the dusty table in the foyer. “I am nearly twenty years old. I don’t have a curfew, and I certainly don’t have to take any more of your screaming.”
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” he asks me.
“You, Dad,” I tell him. “I’m talking to you, the only other person in this lonely, lonely house.”
“How dare you?!” he asks, jumping up out of his armchair and charging at me in his usual tactic of intimidation.
“Oh, what are you going to do?” I ask him. “Hit me again? Huh?”
He takes a step back.
“That’s what I thought,” I say. “And for your information, if you need to know my entire schedule now, today I went out on a job interview, which I got. Then Sarah and I went out celebrating.”
“Where?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“As long as you live in my house, it is my business.”
“Why does it matter anyway? Are you worried I’m gonna get raped? Murdered? Kidnapped? No, you’re not. And even if you were, it’d be a senseless exertion of energy, considering that you’re too drunk all the time to do anything to help me even if there was an emergency.”
“You are really starting to piss me off, Brittany Lynn.”
“Yeah, well, I figure that as long as you’re going to scream and yell and pop your hand across my cheek, I might as well give you a reason.”
“You ungrateful little shit.”
He picks up a new bottle of Jack, since the one from the other day was polished off well before I ever made it home from my hysterical walk around L.A.
“Ungrateful?” I ask. “Really?”
I stomp over toward the entryway and grab my purse off the dust-covered table. Then I reach inside my bag and grab the $140 I had pulled out of the ATM for him earlier while I was out.
“How’s this for ungrateful?” I ask him, throwing the money down on the floor. “That’s the $100 I owe you, and I was in such a good mood about getting a job that I even pulled out an extra $40 as interest.”
* * *
I don’t even ask Sarah to pick me up when I call her to let her know I’m coming over. Instead, I just wait for her to answer, tell her how far away I am, and begin marching my way toward her house in the nice breeze of the LA nighttime air.
I need the walk anyway.
It’s the only way I’m going to calm down enough before I arrive at Sarah’s to not turn into an emotional basket case the moment I enter and she inevitably asks me what’s the matter or what happened or where my shoes are (which I forgot to put back on before I walked out the door and was too prideful to go back for).
I take deep breaths and try to remind myself that I have a great new job and that my father’s opinion of me doesn’t define me. I am a whole person, and only half of me came from him.
Granted, it’s not all that reassuring to think about the fact that the other half of me came from my flighty, self-absorbed mother. But maybe something in the amalgam of the two rewired some of the bad into something good.
I ring the doorbell at Sarah’s, but by the time that I do, she’s already opening the front door.
“What’s the matter? What happened?”
Called it.
“Nothing, nothing,” I lie. “I just can’t deal with my dad and his drinking tonight. Is it still okay if I stay here?”
“Of course it is, sweetheart,” Sarah’s mother, Lily, says as she rounds the corner from the living room and moves her daughter out of my path so that I can come inside. “Are you hungry at all?”
Actually… yes. I know we just had tacos, but somehow that feels like a lifetime ago.
“Very,” I tell her as I stop at the mirror along the wall in the entryway.
I pretend to be fixing my hair as they walk off into the kitchen. But really, I’m just looking to make sure no one will be able to tell that I’ve been crying. I wipe away a few dried little tear streams, but otherwise I think I’m fine.
And who cares if Sarah and her mom notice?
It’s not like they don’t know what my dad is like.
“I’ve got a lasagna that’s still warm in the oven,” Lily says, as I enter the kitchen.
“Oh, that sounds amazing,” I tell her.