Books & Novels

Chapter Seven - Dawn of The Dad

"My tummy hurts." Was all Andrea said when she got home.

This may have not been wholly true. But being the superb actress she was, Andrea managed to make Babushka believe that Andrea needed some anise-flavoured liquor and a hot water bottle.

In her distress of not wanting to be caught in the act of underage drinking, Andrea ran to the kitchen with " I'll grab some mint tea!" and locking the door behind her. As you could tell, Jamie was coming for another telephone-fixing visit. Sadly, Babushka had managed to get Andrea down some of the liquor.

He'd recently asked for the Hobbit, which she had grudgingly handed him at school. She sat in the kitchen, trying to read a book and pretend her thoughts weren't running gym laps, around and around in her brain. Or maybe that was the liquor, protesting against under-age drinking.

 Five minutes later, Jamie was knocking at Andrea's door. Andrea noticed a thing or two she hadn't noticed earlier. Snow loved Jamie's hair. Weird. There was a light dusting of it on his pale brown hair, and then a few flakes seemed to have gotten to his eye lashes.

That's the liquor speaking. Girls are not supposed to look at eyelashes of boys they don't like. Unless their grandmothers were convinced they needed a dose of friggin' alchohal.

"Um, aren't you gonna let me in?" Jamie asked. "I'm a frozen treat out here."

"What makes you think you're a treat?"

"Uhh.."

 Crap. Crappity crap crap. Andrea stepped aside as Jamie came inside.

Jamie got straight to work at the table. Clicking noises, Jamie stuck his tongue out of his mouth 'til it looked like an oversized, dried up raisin,screw drivers, hammers, nails, every tool you could think of spread messily across the table. Andrea thought the experience was exhilarating until it went on for longer than five minutes.

Then, it became boring.

Andrea downed a cup of coffee and set a cup of for Jamie, but when it sat untouched and undeservingly, unloved, Andrea downed it as well. After popping some minty gum in her mouth, Andrea did the unthinkable. She made conversation.

"So...do you just go around, fixing people's telephones?" Andrea asked Jamie, arms crossed.

Jamie laughed and turned towards her, hand frozen. "Well, in my spare time, I'm an Abercombie & Fitch model..."

"Ew!" Andrea half-giggled, half-groaned.

"Hey, you don't say 'ew' to Alexander Ludwig." Jamie pointed out jokingly.

"Well, that's because he's Alexander Ludwig, and news-flash, you are not. So ha." Andrea grinned.

Jamie rolled his eyes.

The quiet, the dreadful, drowning, unbearable quiet and boredom that returned nearly killed Andrea on the spot.

Jamie went back to work. Andrea began to wonder what type of shampoo boys used to have such nice hair. Brown, wavy, and unfairly smooth. Ugh, I'm going to have to throw Babushka's liquor supply out the window, Andrea thought moodily. The only way a girl can start fantasizing about boy hair is that her brain has been messed with by alcohol.

"You're really, really quiet." Jamie said, then paused. "Do you have Facebook?"

"Yeah." Andrea replied, kind of freaked out about the random subject change.

"Lucky." Jamie sighed, then began to intensely focus on the telephone again. "Don't you have a book to read or something?"

"I read them all, it's no fun reading the same book," Andrea brought out her exaggerated groan voice. "Over and over and over again. You know?"