Jem…Chapter 26

Chapter 26

I take a deep breath and push Raven forward towards the van and she moves on her own after about twelve steps or so. I watch her do that tranced out walk around it with her fingers almost touching and I’ve never seen her eyes that wide with awe before.

Y’know it’s that kind of look that someone gets when someone gives you something that you could have only dreamt of having but it’s so out there you never really think about it.

Like getting custom work done for your bands travel van.

Then the girls see it and Kimmie runs over squealing and talking so fast she’s in a whole other gear that I’ve never seen her in. Brooklyn…she stays with Dad a bit still hanging onto him and looking at the van and at the house then at Mike’s car.

She looks at Dad. “Are you sure you’re okay.”

“Yes, we’re fine Brook, we figure both bottles were aimed at Mike’s car only one skidded over the driveway and hit the front steps.”

“Assholes.”

“Yeah well they stirred up the hornets nest now.” He leads her over to the rest of us and hugs me again and looks at me. “I heard you’re little rant coupled with everything else has likely given Mitch enough stuff for probable cause to look into things a little more especially with what happened here this morning.”

I nod. “That’s good hopefully that’ll show the Marshalls that they do not run the goddamned universe.”

“No. according to Mitch while the RCMP haven’t had too much to do with them they’ve been on O.P.P. radar for a long time because of the way that the ones in their family that get into trouble seem to get out of trouble.”

Raven looks over. “They do this in other places too?”

I frown. “The Marshalls are one of the oldest families in Ontario, they got in with the railroads and the mining boom and are still big in those industries all over the province and they’ve got a lot of side businesses.”

She and the girls are frowning but she asks. “So it’s like one of the big cattle families’ home or like some of the ones hooked into the oil. They’ve bought other things over the years and have all sorts of pull because they control so many jobs.”

Dad nods. “And those jobs are all votes and if this doesn’t get passed or this doesn’t get approved then they make bad things happen to get what they want. It’s only small town stuff like who care who does what in town council right but these are the people that control your permits, handle zoning and all those things that help them corner the business end of things.”

Kimmie squeaks. “That’s…that election fraud and…and…Ooooh! They suck!”

Brooklyn nods but looks kind of dark/gloomy. “The Marshalls own or own most decent paying jobs here in town. They have for a long time, my brothers all work for them at the pickerel plant and my father too after he was cut from the railway.”

Dad nods. “The O.P.P. guys have been dealing with them that long that honestly they’re itching for a chance to take a bite.”

Raven nods. “Hey I feel the same way about my ex ripping me off and getting away with it. It’s not a nice feeling and I can imagine Adam’s not the only douche-fruit that fell out of the fuck-nut tree.”

God she said it just so manner of factly that it just hits us all with a fit of laughter, even Dad which was really cool and I smile at Raven who’s smiling too and has that whole yeah I’m pretty awesome thing going on. It’s seeing her being that gothy smart ass cool snarky chick she should be more like.

Yeah Skummer, we’re getting stronger.

We make sure everything’s all closed up and we get the food and stuff out of the Cutlass and into the house.

The girls are instantly looking around to check out where I came from. I can see the curiosity. I’ve been curious about them too. I’d love to be able to show up at Kimmie’s parents place to tell them what kind of asses they are to they’re daughter. And Brooklyn…I want to know more because while I’m not a violent person unless I’m hit first…I think I could find a handy blunt instrument somewhere for them. Raven all I really know is that she’s from out west and that after what she said tonight I’m thinking some where out in Alberta.

The fact she’s actually been holding the house, work and the girls together being that cut off from home. That says so much about her character to me. We commandeer the kitchen and I’m pleasantly surprised at not finding too many take out boxes but I can smell the grill’s been used a lot when we past it coming in the house and there’s a lot of steaks and burgers and hotdogs in the freezer and a lot of condiments and buns and stuff too.

I look at Dad. “The steak and beer diet?”

“Hey it’s easy and good and Mitch is here on vacation so it’s just been the way we’ve been going.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We’re doing alright Angel.”

“Uh…yeah, well we’re crashing her tonight and I’m going to cook up that turkey tonight and we can have a big proper meal tomorrow.” And I’m going to make sure that they have lots of leftovers to do them.

“So where are you girls going to sleep, Mike’s using Jason’s room.”

“Mom’s room?”

“Okay…and Angel?”

“Yeah…?”

“Could you…do you know how to make your mothers stuffing?”

I go over and hug him and squeeze him tight. It must have been hard even to ask. “Sure Daddy I’ll make it.”

We hug for awhile and then I set to heating the stuff for supper up and setting the kitchen back counter as a buffet. It’s that older house thing before everyone’s house had the kitchen island but there was like a counter with a window like big open space between the kitchen and the kitchen hall.

Uhm the kitchen hall is sort of this just space between the kitchen, and the dining room that’s got room for the staircase and connects to the main hallway.

Our house is laid out strange. You walk in from say the front and it’s the steps and the glassed in porch. Once you’re in passed the porch there’s the office to your left and our living room to your right and if you go straight there’s just a bit of hallway before you’re in the kitchen hall. Oh the kitchen doorway is on the left hand wall just before you come out into the kitchen hall.

Now the main hall I always call it goes along the side of the house from the living room and connects to the kitchen hall then to the laundry room on the other side of the dining room wall and the out to the back porch.

So I guess the kitchen hall’s actually sort of a foyer in the middle of the house?

Uhm what else, the basement stairs are actually built under the main staircase, and there’s a side door for the house attached to the kitchen which is the door we’ve always ever used the most really but is reasonably clean because Dad had built Mom this red brick patio in front of it that’s six feet wide and about ten feet long and he put a four foot high wall there out of the same brick there. She planted the rose bushes that are around it there and there’s a cedar bench he bought for her so she could sit out here whenever she wanted and after she died he put up four posts and an awning she always wanted. That’s where they’ve been grilling and Mom would have loved having the life in the place.

I guess it’s not that strange a sort of typical two story 1950’s era home. Decent sized driveway to the right hand side of the house the ends in front of a separate garage/shed for the house and a decent front yard.

Now what would have been the house lot beside us and the lot in back of ours is the fenced in set up for the business with a big yard for driving and turning around and parking in and right behind the house it a large garage with industrial tin on the outside and two bays with the old school mechanics pits plus a bigger area with all sorts of space and tools and stuff for working on big engines and parts. Plus there’s a parts yard off from all of that on the other side of the parking lot.

I guess that’s it, the house that I grew up in.

But getting out the dishes and looking around and after living with the girls…and they’re not the cleanest bunch of girls really…the house, the house is missing not just a woman’s touch but that touch that mom had given it.

The girls are getting the grand tour from Dad and Mitch I think is talking still to the other law enforcement types.

I don’t see Mike anywhere yet.

Huh, I was actually looking for him wasn’t I?

I actually take my own tour of the house and looking at the stuff that we’re out of that dad’s out of and I’m making another list or set of lists in my head and I’m suddenly doing the laundry while I’m doing that. Oh guys and some of their laundry is just…ugh.

I’m not sure if it’s just I’m changing that much or that I’ve always been a little neater and sort of metrosexual? Or something but wow, and there’s a serious backlog of the stuff too.

I know there’s clean linens and stuff but honestly guys rarely think about changing the sheets either.

At one point I think Mom came back and possessed me because I strip the beds and hit them with some Febreaze and change them and the curtains. I’m putting on fresh curtains while standing on a chair and holding a bottle of Windex under my arm and the end of a roll of paper towels in my teeth when the chair comes out from under me and I fall.

I fall and sort of scream but I don’t hit the floor instead I’m…

Oh...

Mike.

Mike caught me.

He had the oddest cutest sort of smile on his face that just…and his hair’s loose and it’s in his face from catching me all of a sudden and my fingers itch from wanting to touch it and brush it out of his eyes.

“You like living dangerously don’t you?”

“Huh?”

“Both arms engaged with stuff, the squirt bottle and trying to hang curtains while balancing on the arms of one of the dining room chairs…”

“Yeah when you put it that way.” I blush.

“Here let me give you a hand.”

“Drop me and start clapping you don’t want to know where I’m going to shove the spray bottle.”

He grins at me and sets me on my feet and that’s when I realize how I’m dressed and I blush because I’m just in the same lay about the house not going out dong housework girl clothes and suddenly I’m kind of self conscious. I blush a bit and pass him the curtain rod. He fits them up there no problem with his height and his reach and oh my god am I looking at his butt? He sort of turns and looks at me too like he caught me and asks.

“So how does it look?”

“Uhm…”

“Uhm?”

“Uhm…” ohfuck…

“Angel…earth to Angel…”

“Uhm, what… sorry it looks absolutely perfect.”

“Uh-huh, I ride a bike and take the stairs a lot. I guess the curtains look pretty good to then right?”

His eyes are bright and they have this teasing happy light in them and that easy sweet smile that’s there too that just tells me that he’s making, having fun with me not at me and …and…

Oh I so get what really did happen when Wendy met Peter…

I take a deep breath and did he just stare at my chest? Ooooh, well…but I don’t really…I feel a bout of confusion and getting all ugg about my situation coming on.

“I should go the food’s ready and everything.”

“Okay, I should go and get Dad he’s likely still talking shop with the other cops and stuff and he’d stay out there all night gabbing if I let him.”

I head off to the kitchen and I start setting things out and the girls help and sort of are staring at me.

“What?”

“Nothing…” They all said it way to coy, teasing and innocent all at the same time. No wonder that guys can’t keep up when girls can mean so many things at once when they say stuff.

“Okay…yes I like him but it’s…its way too complicated.”

“Okay…” Yeah the Okay was just like the “nothing”.

I just stare at the three of them before giving them the finger.

“Won’t Mike get jealous?” Brooklyn quips.

“No, he’s a guy most guys like the whole two girls together thing.”

“Michael is definitely Not most guys Angel.” Raven says looking at me.

“I know, god help me I know it’s just never going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“Uhm…hello?”

Raven looks at me and raises one eyebrow. “I honestly think that he might know Angel.”

“Huh?! What? How?”

“All the pictures around the house of your Mom. Pink hair aside Angel you’re her teenaged doppelganger.”

“I am?”

“Yeah, you seriously look a ton like her.”

“I do?”

All three girls are nodding.

“Oh…”

“Oh.” Raven says.

“But I’m not gay.”

“But you’re attracted to him?”

“Yes…but it’s not like he’s got me like wanting him to uhm…you know do things and stuff and it’s not like I get uhm…” I hold up my close fist and raise out my index finger blushing.

Okay Brooklyn and Kimmie find that way too funny.

I’m all flustered and confused until it comes time to eat and the guys make a massive dent in the food supply that I brought over. It’s kind of nice to see but I so didn’t really make anything near enough but it goes over really well and so does dessert and us girls are actually kicked out of the kitchen by Mitch and Mike as they do the dishes.

I take the opportunity to get some more laundry done and raven helps me and so does Kimmie but Brooklyn take a look and at some of the guys clothes and holds her hands up.

“No effing way.”

Dad gives her a coffee. “Get your keys and we’ll pull your car into the garage and give it a go over Brook.”

She looks surprised. “Um…okay, you don’t really have to…”

“I want to.” He smiles at her and they head out and I can still hear. “So you know anything about cars?”

“No, not really I was pretty much banned from anything like that ‘cause it weren’t my place.”

“Oh that’s bullshit, one of the best custom car people I know in Montreal is a woman and she’s a lot better than me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah really, so how’d you like to learn?”

“Oh, right the fuck on!”…………………………. “Uhm…sorry.”

I hear Dad laugh. “It’s alright Brook, its cool now let’s put some of that excitement into fixing up your ride.”

They’re out of earshot by that time and I can’t help but to smile and by the time that we’re out of the laundry room and with more stuff on washing everyone’s actually out in the garage.

That’s actually pretty normal for here actually even when Mom was alive. There’d be some project that Dad had going or helping so buddy of his and they’d show up half the time with the wife and the other kids and we’d all help to get stuff done all in one night a lot.

I get the turkey out to thaw and Raven’s taking over the back porch for our stuff and setting up the computers and stuff so we can do some stuff with the sites and respond to the comments and everything.

I keep myself busy trying not to think about Mike and what Raven had said and if he knew and if he did know then what does that mean and oh…yeah trying not to think about stuff like that is right next to impossible for me.

Some more wash and I’m actually nearly done it all so I go out to the back porch and hang with Raven who’s online and chatting with our now nine hundred some followers and I go online on the other laptop and we spend about two hours talking about music, the artists and songs that speak to us and influence our own stuff and a lot about bullying.

There’s a good hundred of so comments and stories about stuff that has happened here in town mostly with screen names and them not naming names but just to hear the stories is more than enough and there’s a lot of sharing those stories and passing them from Blogger, Tumbler, Facebook and the hardest ones even if they aren’t from here Raven and I are reading out loud for our You Tube channel and just trying to get the message out that you can get through this, that you can’t let these kind of people rule or ruin your life and after about two hours of that Brooklyn and Kimmie show back up where we’re at and they sit in on the conversation too.

We switch out so I can finish the laundry and I actually bring the dry stuff with me in the basket to fold and it’s funny that people that catch me doing that are actually into it and some even said it shows we got a lot more of a human side to us than a lot of would be bands because we keep it real. That and just the response of a late Saturday night bunch of people that get pretty real about their pain has us recording all these little conversation videos and putting them up and stuff.

It’s two in the morning when we sign off and Mike’s there leaning in the inside doorway of the porch watching us with this smile on his face and this so intense and serious look on his face that’s just…and with his shower wet hair it just looks all the more….

Wow….

“There’s some pizza out in the kitchen if you girls want some. I hope you didn’t mind me watching you girls doing all of that it’s just...
Honestly, I’m not sure that any of the kids that need this around here has actually had people that get their reality until now….
It was worth loosing the car. G’nite ladies…”

Oh…

Oh wow…