Visions Of Us

15 | A Teenage Mind

JULIA

Last night at the party, Melinda asked me help her clean up the next morning before her parents got back from a trip. Mel and I don't have alot in common but the one thing we do have in common is absent parents. Melinda's parents are both successful Conneticut real estate agents and created a joint agency together after they got married. When I was a bit younger, Keith and Sophie always seemed like the "cool parents". They let us watch R rated movies when we were pre-teens, they cursed around us, they snuck in alcohol in our cups when our parents weren't looking at us at dinner parties. But as an almost young adult I see them for who they really are now. They are just careless parents, is what they are. I should know, I have a pair myself.

When I get inside the house, its absolutely trashed. Red cups all over the place, unknown liquids on the floors, toilet paper flung over the living room, the living room couch flipped, multiple broken vases. Fuck. There was muffled rock music coming from (most probably Melinda's bedroom), and that just hit my last nerve.

"Melinda!" I yelled in frustration. "Get your tiny ass in here!"

I heard the music turn off, the opening and closing of a door and then I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. The dull-eyed ginger dressed in light blue fine silk pyjamas roamed her eyes around the living room and released an almost comical shocked scream.

"Oh my gosh! Mom's gonna kill me", her eyes zero in on a pink broken vase and she points at the broken pieces "That's an antique china vase my dead grandma gave us. How the hell am I going to fix that?"

"We can always just hot glue it all together. How many times do your parents even look or touch it?"

She thinks about it for a few moments. "They never really touch it but they like looking at and it being there and now it's in pieces. Great. I mean you know how they like not being at home so I doubt if they'll notice its absence".

There was a slight bitterness and touch of sadness to her voice.

"So should we glue it or get rid of it?"

"Let's get rid of it" she released a heavy sigh. "If they ask about the vase I'll pin it on that useless Vanessa".

I raised an eyebrow and she realised I didn't understand.

"Vanessa's the new maid we got a month ago. She's super incompetent and she gets on all our nerves all the time. So I'll pin it on her and say she broke it. I'm sure my parents will gladly get rid of her"

I released a forced chuckle before speaking. "Where is she right now?"

"She's in the staff quarters on the other side of the house. I told her last night if she wanted to keep her job she would have to stay there all night" she smirked to herself then started picking up the red cups. "We better start cleaning up right now or else we'll never get this mess out of the way"

I nodded and got to work with her. We finished the ground floor portion of the house after a hour and a half and then the second and third after three hours. In between all of that, we got take-out food to eat while we made sure every spot of the house looked clean and neat. By the time we were done with everything, the mansion looked sparkly and as good as new. Melinda and I, with our weary and tired expressions, sat on the clean living room couch with a loud sigh, propping our feet on the coffee table infront of us.

"Don't ever make me clean up with you after one of your wild parties again" I said, my hands and legs felt numb.

"And I should ask mommy and daddy for another maid and make her do that stuff for me" she replied, the remaining blue eyeshadow from last night gilmmering on her lids.