Dissonance | ✓

01 | Slip Up

      I had been messing with the same piece of thread from my cardigan for ten minutes and counting. Pulling it out was dumb; the night was increasingly chilly and I needed all the warmth I could get. Even if a single thread would not do much, I wanted to believe it would. I wanted an excuse to leave.

     One option was to find my way back inside the dance hall, filled with heat radiating off of sticky bodies, but that would mean running into Jules at some point.

     I was usually the one heading out on a weekday, but I did not expect this from Jules. As in, my sister, Jules. She had somehow been able to persuade me into accompanying her to a party at what might have been the crappiest club in the state. The speakers played pop (not my kind of music) which, to my ears, played quite softly, yet people danced and grinded wildly.

     "I should not have listened to Jules," I kept thinking to myself, although that did nothing to help my situation.

     A beaming light flashed from my shirt pocket and my phone vibrated.

     "Hey, babe, your boob's glowing!" A Joe Blow with a cigarette hollered from the side.

     I rolled my eyes, pulled out the phone and clicked answer without checking the number.

     "What the hell do you think you're doing? I told you to stay in your God damn room and study. Where are you?"

     Of course. I should have known that within a short time Mr. Baker would have noticed I was not at home. I began to think of an elaborate fib to tell my father, but seconds ticked away and his impatience grew.

     "You know what, Colleen," he began. "I honestly don't care. Just get your ass back home." The line cut off immediately after. I took a few seconds to predict the fire Mr. Baker would have spat out the second I got home, but none of the scenarios I imagined prepared me for what actually went down.

∞

     After handing the taxi driver a few dollar bills, I shut the door behind me and started up a long path that led to the front door of my home. Only this morning, the grass had been touched-up and the flower beds replaced. If the urge came around, I would have dragged my feet across the lawn, but it was not in my best interest to cause havoc in the Baker house. Not that day.

     I unlocked the outside door, and found the inner door open. I dropped my keys on the mahogany table in the center of the foyer and rounded the corner into the family room. Mr. Baker was seated on the maroon love seat, typing away on his laptop. His eyes took a quick glance up to me, leaning against the wall with arms crossed, and he set the laptop beside him. From the foyer, I heard heels click-clacking down the stairs, then on the marble floor towards the family room. My mother put her arms around my shoulders when she came up behind me. 

     "So now that you're home, we have to let you in on something we have been arranging for most of this summer now." My mother said, and as she spoke I got a whiff of coffee and vanilla from her breath.

     I never really knew what was coming when my parents had an announcement to make. Judging from Mr. Baker's harsh tone over the phone when I was at the club, I expected the usual: the worst.

     "Peter..?" My mother prompted my father to speak.

     Mr. Baker sighed, rose to his feet, and said: "I won't keep you in suspense...so just know we are sending you off to boarding.

     My forehead crinkled.

     "Dad,—" I slipped up. And, yes, that was a slip up. Our relationship had always been strictly business, and that is why I did not address him in a fashion regular kids did to their fathers. "Sorry, Mr. Baker," I continued, "I don't understand exactly what you are trying to say."

     "I'm telling you that you will no longer live here. You will no longer attend McLaren Day and you definitely will not be able escape from where you are told to be." With each point, his volume increased. Mother unwrapped her arms to face me.

     "Colleen, we feel as though you haven't been making the best of the life we are living. I mean, just look at this house,"

     I took a look around; from the grand piano (carved and painted by hand), to my mother's hard-paste porcelain figurine collection, thoughtfully organized in a mahogany china cabinet.

     "We are a high-standard family, honey. The whole neighborhood envies the Bakers. We are the talk of this neighborhood!" She spoke with such pride and paced along one direction of the room very poised. When she spun on her heels to walk back, in my direction, she lost her upright posture. This may have been an attempt to mock my own. I responded to this by pushing off the wall and straightening my back. My mother then continued.

     "But you! You make us look like...like we are commoners! You act like the daughter of a single parent living on child support; you don't listen to any instructions, you dress in a middle-class way and don't get me started on your lingo-" All the words came out of her mouth so fast she made an abrupt stop and took in enough air to fill her chest.

     "We just think sending you away will teach you how to be better than you are now, and appreciate what you have here." Mother tilted her head and flashed me her signature smile.

     I asked myself how my parents could do that to me. Was I that much of a problem to handle? Then I remembered something they had to know, that could have possibly moved the attention away from me. 

     "And what about Jules? Why wasn't she called home? You know, it was her idea to sneak out. Besides, it is summer. Just let me chill." I was expecting expressions of shock to wash over their faces, but instead my mother kept the same sorrowful look and my father stepped closer to me.

     "Don't you dare bring Juliet into this. She would never stoop down to your level." He was practically spitting in my direction. "And, anyway, this incident is nothing but the cherry on top over everything else you've done. You are a true disappointment." Mr. Baker was just asking for me to explode. And I did.

     "Oh, I'm the disappointment? Well, I'm sorry that my parents have neglected me in all ways possible. I'm sorry that the two people who are supposed to love me the most have given up on me for reasons made up by you-" I stopped and chuckled, then went on. "but, you know what? I think boarding school would be perfect. I could use a break from this. From you. From all of you."

     With that, I strolled out of the family room, into the foyer, and up the curved staircase. I almost floated over the steps, because that was how my heart felt-for the first time in a long time, I was able to turn the tables on my parents and have the last word.

     It felt great.