Angie (5 page)

That left just Eric and I.

"I guess I should go too," I said.

I wavered.
I wavered so much. I wanted to pounce him right there and do all the crazy shit that I'd been thinking about but my stupid brain stopped me, telling me it wasn't the place or time to do that.

He wavered too.
I could see him wavering. The two of us just stood there, looking at each other. Wavering. Like massively wavering things. Flags or something.

"I've got to be the sensible one.
I'm driving the van tomorrow..."

I nodded.
Of course. Sensible. That was what we had to be.

But before I could answer, he pulled me to him.
When his lips touched mine, I wondered if I could hold back. He was so gentle, it felt like if I let loose the full force of my passion, it'd destroy him.

Then he grabbed me even tighter and our lips melded into some amazing dance of sexy times.
I fell into the spiral of kissing him. It made me think that nothing in this world meant anything except for kissing him.

Then bloody Hannah and Jack came home.
Bastards. If they hadn't interrupted, we'd have totally been making sweet love and then not so sweet love then sweet again before my brain started functioning. Instead, we jumped apart as though we'd been caught doing something wrong.

"It's settled," Hannah said.
"They can get separate rooms. It's going to blow the cost of the tour way out of budget but it's what we have to do.

Eric nodded.

"Sorry, Eric," she said. "You’re the one being screwed over. Damn Spud and his suddenly getting a love life."

So I ended up leaving instead of having a night of incredibly hot sex and it'd be ages until I saw Eric again and I still had to make sure his mother wasn't out to kill me.
I wished my life was a bit less screwy.

-o-

I had a bitch of a time deciding what to wear to the Eric-Mama dinner. I wanted to look nice, but not too nice, because that would make it look like I was purposely trying to look nice. I went with a cute vintage dress and a cardigan with swallows on it. I even toned down the make-up a bit. That would have to do. When I got to their house in the suburbs and rang the doorbell, I wanted to run away.

Their front yard was the neatest front yard I’d ever seen. Like every flower had to bloom on schedule and every blade of grass had to grow to regulation height.

It was going to be a gruesome ordeal filled with uncomfortable silences and nagging. I knew it. It'd never work so I should just quit. I mean, I am not the kind of girl that mothers like.

Then I remembered the feeling of Eric's lips and thought maybe it'd be worth making a slight effort if it meant I could feel those lips again.

Anyway, she answered the door before I could run away, so I had to go through with it.

The house smelt like garlic and chilli and all the good smells.
A homely home. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a regular suburban home with a neat garden. Very neat. Scarily neat.

"Come in, come in, don't stand on the door step scaring the children.
They'll think you are a witch with that hair."

I'm pretty sure most kids nowadays
aren’t that easily scared.

I walked into a living room as neat as the garden outside.
Eric’s father sat on the floral sofa, watching TV. He said hello and, when I turned around, Eric-Mama had gone. I wasn't sure what to do. Should I sit down? Then I’d look like a slacker, not wanting to help out. But, if I tried to follow her and she’d gone to the toilet or something, I’d look like a total fool. I stood in the middle of the room, helpless. Again, an ordinary suburban room but spotlessly clean with all the framed photos in perfect alignment on the shelves. Those photos showed various Erics – from his faltering first steps to the one she’d taken on the first night of the tour.

I grinned at the cuteness of young Eric and his shy yet cheeky grin.
He’d obviously been a doted-on only child by the number of photos. Not like me, the second last in a bunch of four. My parents had kinda got bored of taking photos by the time I arrived. There were a couple at birthday parties throughout the years and that was it.

A huge bunch of flowers
mangled into an elaborate arrangement sat on a lace doily on the coffee table.

Oh hell, I should've bought some wine and maybe a bunch of flowers.
That was what polite people did. I'd already blown it.

The
TV was the only modern thing in the room. The furniture, the ornaments, the wallpaper all looked like they’d been there since the 80s. All well-preserved and very looked after but unchanged.

I thought of all those times in my life when I
’d been just a full-on motor mouth, not even thinking about the right thing to say, and I'd blown all that confidence on worthless things and had none of it left to use.

I sat on the edge of a chair and tried to watch the news.

Eric-Mama called us to dinner and I followed Eric-Papa to the dining room. I totally wanted to peek into the other rooms and get a glimpse of Eric’s home life but most of the doors were shut. Everything seemed very normal and ordinary.

My stomach started rumbling before we even got to the table.
The smell of spices and meat wafted through the house from the kitchen. I couldn’t wait to eat. She’d made a huge amount of food that filled the table. I sat down and waited for them to start. Eric-Papa handed me a platter of food and told me to help myself. I took some of the spicy seafood pancake things then looked around at the vast array of side dishes.

Wow, if I went out with Eric, he’d better not expect me to cook like th
at every day. I could barely manage to throw a meal together for myself, let alone a feast every night.

While we ate, Eric-Mama talked about all the bargains she'd got at the market.
She told Eric-Papa the gossip and he nodded in all the right places even though he so didn't care. It was like I wasn’t even there. I wasn’t sure if I should get involved in the conversation or just stay quiet.

Then she turned to me.

“So umm… Angie…” she said. “What is your job?”

I thought she
’d known I worked for the band. When I told her about it, she pursed her lips, obviously not approving.

“But what about a real job? A job you do for money.”

I shrunk a little bit, feeling like I should’ve had some kind of “real” job. I wanted to apologise for my lack of effort, while part of me watched and cursed myself out for being such a sap.

“But you went to university?”

She asked me this just as I took a big bite of food. I tried to swallow it so I could answer but ended up just nodding.

“Ah, that is good.”

“I studied film.” I’d managed to swallow my food and could answer.

“Film! Film! What is that to study?
How can you study film at university? If you want to study film, you can just go to the cinema.”

“Not watching film,” I explained.
“Making film.”

“Ah, that’s why you filmed the boys.
Are you good at making films?”

I
felt too scared to eat any more with all the questions being fired at me. That made me sad because there was a dish of magically delicious pork belly right in front of me and it needed to be eaten.

“Well
, I wouldn’t say I was great but I’m okay.”

“Ah, if you like film, you should watch Korean drama.
Korean dramas are very good.”

I nodded.
I remembered Hannah telling me about watching dramas with Eric and how they’d been really fun. Eric had never watched dramas with me.

I
’d figured I'd stay for dinner then make excuses and have a quick getaway. I hadn’t taken into account that Eric-Mama would want me to hang for a while. Still, if she was going to this much effort to be nice, I should try to get along with her. It wouldn’t hurt me to stick around and watch dramas with her. It might even be fun. I’d have killed for a cigarette but I felt strangely shy about saying so, figuring it’d be another point against me.

We went into the
living room and she put on some drama. I couldn't understand a word of it because it was in Korean. I thought there would be subtitles but there wasn’t. Instead, she kept trying to explain it to me.

“
That girl is the cute girl. She is in love with him but she thinks she hates him. He is rich and not very nice. But she has to stay with him because they have an agreement. If she doesn’t stay with him for 100 days, her dad will go to jail.”

It sounded mighty complicated
but I nodded and tried to look interested.

"
Aigoo!
" Eric-Mama suddenly cried.

I couldn't understand what she was saying but I could tell from the action on the screen that the girl had done something stupid and the guy
in the ugly sequin outfit was ranting at her. I’d have just told him to shut up his stupid talking and to stop wearing that ugly outfit.

"She is
mung chung ee
,
very stupid girl."

I nodded.

"That’s his mother. She's invited the
mung chung ee
girl for dinner. She's going to offer her an envelope of money so she will go away. He is very rich and his mother doesn't want him dating a poor girl. That's the way of Korean dramas."

God, was that going to happen to me?
Is that why she invited me over for dinner, to offer me an envelope of money? I wondered how much she'd offer. Not that I'd take her lousy money but it had to be worth a fair bit to her. I needed to keep watching the drama to see how the girl reacted.

"He's very cute, isn't he?"

I looked at the guy on the screen.

"Yeah, he's okay but he
wears stupid clothes.”

"Ah
, but that’s because he’s rich. He had special clothes for rich people."

I nodded
but didn’t really understand. I couldn’t relax and watch it because I kept thinking about Eric-Mama’s motives for inviting me there. I sat on the edge of my chair, hoping I’d laugh at the right bits of the drama. It all felt like a horrible test.

The
episode finished before I got a chance to find out what happened when the mother of the guy with the stupid clothes offered the stupid girl the money. Eric-Mama decided we should do face masks.

"At least you have nice, white skin," she said.
"It's not good for girls to be all dark."

She was trying, I had to admit that
. Still, it felt odd and forced, like it was tearing her up inside trying to be nice to me.

She got out a packet and removed something that looked like a
refresher towel but cut into the shape of a mask like on Friday the 13th. Then she plonked it on my face. I reeled as the coldness of it hit my skin. Then she smoothed it out and put one on herself. The cold gloop trickled from the sheet mask down my neck. I wondered if I should sop it up but I didn't even have a tissue. I fished in my bag for one but could only find my cigarettes. I wished I gone outside to have one earlier while I could. I couldn’t go out with that on my face.

"Smooth it out like this," she said as she tapped on the mask on her face.
"It will make you look younger and fresher."

Because I looked like such an old battleaxe?
Hells, I was only 22. How much younger and fresher did I need to look? I tried to grin at her but some of that face mask juice ran into my mouth.

At first, it felt refreshing and nice but, after a minute, my skin stung a little.
Maybe that was natural. Maybe that was how it worked. I’d just ignore it and wait for it to feel better.

Then the feeling went from a slight sting to a burning sting.
That didn't feel good.

"Um, is this supposed to sting?"
It was hard to talk with the sheet on my face and I tried not to move my lips too much.

"A little."

"Like an intense burning?"

She shook her head and jumped up, taking the mask off my face then star
ing at me in sheer terror.

"Quick, wash your face."
She grabbed my arm and raced me into the bathroom, forcing my head under the tap. Maybe this was her big scheme – to drown me? My leg bashed against the bathtub and her bony fingers stuck into me. I removed my head and she splashed more water on me then patted my face dry with a towel.

"Just a moment," she said and came back with some glop in a jar that she dabbed
on my face.

It was then I saw myself in the mirror.
My face! I looked like a monster!

My skin glowed bright red and I'd
swollen up like a puffer fish.

"What have you done to me?"

Screw being nice.
Screw trying to make things right. The woman had purposely deformed me. My face started itching. I was sure that was my skin trying to leave my body.