Girl Next Door - Alyssa Brugman [19]
'They can't kick us out!' I tell her. 'What are they going to do? Flush us out with a SWAT team?'
'They send the sheriff,' Bryce Cole says.
I have a vision of Clint Eastwood on our lawn, eyes all squinty, picking his teeth with a paspalum stem. Behind him is the bearded posse with shotguns and spotty horses.
Are you ready to vacate? Well, are ya?
All I can think about is the beer in the roof space. Now the sheriff is coming. They're going to sell our house with a ceiling full of half-drunk beers. They'll wonder why we did that. How embarrassing.
This could be a stress response. I should be worrying about where we're going to live, or the fact that Mum knows I've been going to the track with Bryce Cole. I'm not really worried though. They're not going to kick us out. Not really. We'll build a fort.
Dad will come back. He'll have won lotto. He'll give the sheriff the money in a briefcase, like in the movies. Okay, maybe not like a movie, but something will happen. Mum can go down to the bank and talk to the manager, and if we have to, we can just move back into a smaller place.
Sheriff-schmeriff. They can't come in and remove us forcibly. We live in the first world. We have civil liberties. I learned about it in legal studies.
Bryce Cole slips his fingers into his breast pocket. He unfolds a wad of notes and counts them onto the kitchen bench in front of my mother.
Four hundreds and six fifties.
Mum puts her hand over them, but she doesn't say anything.
'Rent in advance,' he says. He slaps his hip pockets and the car keys jingle. 'I was going out to get some takeaway Chinese. Would you like some?'
Mum is sitting very still with the piece of paper still held out in one hand and her other hand resting on the notes on the bench. She looks stiff, as if she's a shop mannequin.
'Thank you. You have no idea what a difference this will make.'
'I have an idea,' he mumbles, and then he leaves.
I can see why porn is bad, how drugs are bad, and why drinking is bad, but I don't get how gambling is like that. It's not dirty. It's fun. No one gets hurt, or sick, and no one is being exploited. Everyone who's there makes their own choices about how much they can afford to spend. If you're not willing to lose it then you just wouldn't bet it in the first place. What's the big deal?
8
GHOSTS
It's after ten when Bryce Cole gets back.
'Did you actually go to China to collect this meal?' I ask him as he sets the plastic bags down on the bench.
He cocks an eyebrow at me. 'You should reserve your smart-alecking till after you've been fed, don't you think?'
My brother comes out of his room to eat. I imagine him being drawn by the Chinese food smell as if he's in a cartoon, where the scent is a grey, wafting line that grabs you by the nose.
Most nights we lean against the kitchen bench eating cereal, or something microwaved. Mum can't sell the microwave because it's actually built in to the cupboard. Tonight we stand around the dining room table. Mum sold the chairs. She would have sold the table too, but you have to take the legs off to get it out the door, and she's just not that handy. It feels almost as if we're a proper family except that it's Bryce Cole instead of Dad. Dad would be making us tell him about our day and then complaining about me talking with my mouth full, but Bryce Cole doesn't say anything, except after Will eyes the last spring roll, he says, 'I'll wrestle you for it.'
Will starts to size him up, and then all the lights go out.
Mum fumbles around in the kitchen drawers for a moment and then strikes a match. She stands a candle on the kitchen bench. Bryce Cole breaks up his six-pack of beer. He hands one to Mum, but she shakes her head and pats her tummy. He passes it to Will instead. Mum doesn't protest. He holds one out to me, but I wrinkle my nose. They take the beer and candles into the lounge room.
When I put the leftover Chinese in the fridge, the light doesn't come on, and I can't see, but it doesn't matter. I'm not going to knock anything