Ruthless People
Chapter VII
Family dinners were at the top of both Kate and Gillian’s worst things to do lists, next to school reunions, death and taxes; they were completely and utterly unavoidable. No matter what the occasion, there was always a fight or a moment of awkwardness that seemed to last throughout the night when someone brought up a taboo subject. Alice-Anne always tried her best to make sure nothing like that happened, but her efforts didn’t go far. Whether it was their father, Peter, picking a fight with Mark, their younger brother, about his lack of motivation or Stephen questioning Martin and Izzy’s parenting methods; someone always ended up in tears at Jackson family gatherings.
It was no surprise when Lucy stated she simply wasn’t going, and Kate couldn‘t exactly fault her for it because she felt the same way, knowing her divorce would be talk of the table. The only person she’d have to fight her corner, since Anthony flew back to LA a few nights ago, would be Gillian who’d already done more than enough.
Having the choice of fighting with Lucy and forcing her to attend, or leaving her to her own devices while she bit her tongue and listened to what her brother said, Kate chose the latter and went in search of Kevin; requesting only that Lucy practice the saxophone and not veg out in front of the TV.
***
Fulfilling her promise to Kate about her music, and going so far as to do the little housework there was, Lucy settled down with Nacho and went about seeing what offerings cable had for her already knowing she’d be trawling through the DVD collection for something that grabbed her attention.
It was now she reconsidered not having gone with her mom.
With no movies catching her eye and nothing remotely interesting on TV, it came down to a choice of reading her moms medical journals and textbooks or battling her way through ‘Othello’ for Ms. Lee’s quiz on Friday; neither of which were very appealing, but it gave her something to do. Standing, Lucy made her way to the large oak bookcase and selected the largest of the true crime novels she could find, having decided not to tackle Shakespearean tragedies or confusing medical jargon when she wasn’t really in the mood.
Settling herself once more, with Nacho creeping closer to her for the heat, Lucy began reading about the serial killers and psychos of the real world. Her mom, who hated Lucy reading her true crime novels, was due back about eight and she hoped to at least get halfway through the book before she was once again banned from reading them. Before she had the chance to get lost in the worlds of Dahmer, Gein and Bundy, Lucy was interrupted by the phone ringing.
***
“Dammit. Where is it?”
The discordant sound of her cell phone, which had thankfully pulled Kate away from the dinner table and her brothers harsh remarks, continued ringing somewhere in the black suede bag she held in her hands. She was half wishing there was an emergency at work which she was required to go to, but there never seemed to be emergencies for orthopedic surgeons, making Kate wish she’d gone into neurosurgery like Anthony.
“Where the hell is it?”
“Lose something?”
Kate dropped her bag as Mark wrapped his arm around her shoulders, handing her a beer in the process. The ringing cell had stopped, only to immediately start again, causing Kate to throw her hands up in defeat.
“I can‘t find my damn phone, and you creeping up on me like that isn‘t helping.”
“Hang cool, teddy bear. You need to chill, have a smoke.”
“I quit.”
“Liar.”
Kate glared at Mark who was smirking and watching how her eyes never quite made contact with his; an obvious giveaway. Moving his foot toward the fallen bag, he kicked it slightly but hard enough that Kate’s hidden packet of Morley’s fell out, along with the missing cell phone. Bending to retrieve the items, Mark handed over the cigarettes to a still glaring Kate, but held onto the phone once he‘d seen the name on the screen.
“I really think you should drink that and smoke one of them, before you answer this.”
“Give me my phone.”
“Kate, listen. The family fucked with your head tonight, and although I am grateful the heat was taken off my back, you really don’t need that. I really don’t think you’re in a place to answer this call without losing whatever scrap of calm you have left.”
“Then tell me who’s calling.”
Knowing, like a well-informed brother should, that she’d eventually get her way, Mark handed over the phone. Being able to see the blue LED screen for herself, Kate realised her brothers reasons for withholding the phone, but wasn’t going to apologize for being bitchy. Instead she pushed past him and lit a cigarette as he’d suggested before she opened the door and stepped out onto the front porch.
Setting the phone and beer bottle on the railing, Kate began pacing back and forth on the porch trying to work out in her mind why he’d be calling her after months of silence on his behalf. It wasn’t as if they had anything new to say to each other, or anything to say at all. He was such a frustrating man.
It was his fault she was smoking again.
Kate stopped pacing and stood by the railing simply watching his name flash on and off the screen. Picking up the bottle, she swallowed half the beer down before replacing the bottle and having worked up the nerve to talk to him, picked up the phone.
“What do you want, Dave?”
***
Lucy jumped when the front door slammed shut and her mother came storming into the living room. She should’ve called her first instead of her dad, it would’ve saved a lot of stress her mom didn’t need. She looked up when Kate came and stood in front of her, neither saying a word to the other, but obviously wanting to. Pushing herself further into the cushions, as if trying to drown in cream fabric, Lucy felt the tears building in her eyes.
“Dad called. What’s going on, Lou?”
With Lucy’s reluctance to talk, Kate sat down and pulled her daughter into her instead and wrapped her arms around her. When Dave had finally stopped his rant about her neglecting his children and finally got to the point of his call, Kate had realised just how much she’d been excluded from Lucy’s life in the past few months.
“Baby, you have to talk to me. Please.”
“Don‘t leave me.”
“I’m not going anywhere, baby.”
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