Girl Next Door - Alyssa Brugman [31]
'I went back to my old company,' Dad begins. 'I wanted to see if they'd filled my place yet, and unfortunately they had, but I caught up with a . . . a colleague of mine for lunch, and she said she knew of some openings . . . some positions . . . A few jobs that were going.' He's blushing – stumbling through it. 'We had lunch . . . a few times, and we got talking. You see, we'd worked together for a long time and we hadn't realised, and things got complicated pretty quickly. I never thought, I mean I always . . . You have no idea until you find yourself there, really.'
'Complicated?' I say. I can see Will's face in the side mirror. He's frowning over his fries.
'So do you kids like this Bryce Cole fellow?' Dad asks. 'I mean, is he nice to you?'
Will grunts. 'He's nice to Jenna-Belle.'
'What does that mean?' He flicks a look at me over his shoulder.
'It doesn't mean anything. Will's a dickhead,' I say. 'Go back to this colleague.'
Dad stares straight out the front window. That's why he didn't let us eat in. He didn't want to look at our faces while he told us this stuff.
'See, now that we weren't working together my colleague felt that she was finally at liberty to . . . and I never knew she felt that way. I had no idea! Believe me. And you know things weren't going well with the business. I had very low self-esteem. Then your mother with the . . . baby. Has she said anything to you about that?'
'I went to the hospital with her,' Will said. 'She was only there overnight.'
'Did your mum say anything about . . . anything?' Dad asks.
He's searching for something. There's a secret – something they haven't told us. Something else.
'Well, anyway.' He sighs. 'It was very different with you kids. This time it really was a rock-bottom moment for me.'
'Are you trying to tell us that you're sleeping with your secretary?' I blurt. 'Seriously? I thought that was a joke! It's a joke, isn't it?'
Will is still frowning, and he's stopped eating. He's getting the gut knot.
Dad sighs. 'I'm feeling intensely conflicted right now. I really feel like your mum and I need a time-out.'
'Who uses expressions like that?' I say. 'Are you channelling Oprah? Jesus!' I'm smiling, because people don't talk like this. He's having a lend of us.
Dad ignores me. 'The important thing is that this is not about you kids. You're probably going to be angry for a while. I know I am. But I've come to accept that sometimes in your life you really need to just stop right where you are and think about whether your life is heading in the direction you want it to go, or if you're just living day-to-day, because you'll find . . . You wait and see – you'll wake up one day and think, My God, my life is halfway through and what am I doing? I know it sounds like a cliché, but isn't it a cliché because it's true?'
'So, what happens now?' Will asks. His face has gone white. There's a twitch in the muscle on the side of his neck.
Dad doesn't say anything for ages, and then he puts both hands over his face.
'God. This is really difficult for me.'
I snort. I can't help myself, because it's a joke, right? Difficult for him?
Dad sighs again. 'There's an opportunity for a job on a short-term basis, and I think I need to take it. I have . . . I've already accepted it.'
He taps the steering wheel and I can't escape the feeling that he's trying to recall a rehearsed script.
'I want to spend as much time with you guys as I possibly can. It may be difficult for us to see each other for a while, but it's short-term.'
'Why?' Will asks.
'I'm . . . The fact is that Heather and I are moving . . .' He takes a deep breath. 'I'm only here for a few days. I'm . . . The job is in New Zealand.'
The knot lurches to the side and now my ears are ringing. I'm too shocked to say anything.
When Will speaks his voice cracks. 'But what about our house? Where are we going to live?' Will looks as if he's been punched. I think he's going to faint.
'Maybe it sounds selfish. It is selfish, but I haven't done anything selfish . . . I haven't done anything for sixteen