KAYLA:
The silence was deafening.
All my life, I had never quite understood what that phrase meant. I mean, really. How can silence- silence, I tell you!- be deafening? Silence is quiet and noise is deafening; how hard can it be to understand that?
Tonight, though, the full meaning of the phrase dawned upon me, for here I was, right smack in the middle of a room where the silence was deafening.
The deafening silence was only occasionally broken by the delicate clinks of silverware on china. Apart from that, though, there was only a heavy, pregnant, deafening silence. No one talked, no one caught each other's gaze, no one moved- in fact, no one did so much as to breathe loudly.
Like I said, the silence was deafening.
After the main course was served and taken away, the salad dish was brought in. I looked distastefully down at mind: cherry tomatoes on top of some green and purple vegetable, dressed with olive oil. Yuck! Surreptitiously glancing around while still keeping my head down, I saw Sean and Ivan bravely digging into their salads, although the grimace of their mouth told me that it was not entirely to their liking. Pursing my lips, I bowed my head and bravely forked up a cherry tomato, trying not to spit out the sour goo that invaded my mouth the moment my teeth sunk into it. Double Ew!
What neither of us counted upon, though, was Emma- very unsilent-like, too,- almost puking out the contents of her mouth right back onto her salad plate.
"That's gross!" she exclaimed loudly, at the exact same moment as Cal's sister, Bethany, saw Emma's semi-chewed salad.
Bethany turned green, but her mother- who was too busy trying to look prissy at Emma- did not notice.
Everything would have ended quite well if Emma hadn't then started to prod her unchewed cud with her spoon, complaining about how icky it tasted. Fate had, unfortunately, pushed Emma to do exactly that, and the world exploded.
Or at least, Bethany did. Over her mother.
The rest, as they say it, was history. The deafening silence was gone, only to be replaced by deafening... yells.
A few moments passed before Cal's step mom realized what she was drenched in. In that few moments, Bethany had already burst into hysterical tears, brandishing her arms around violently at Emma, shouting phrases around. Although I didn't catch what she was saying- for at this time, her mum had finally registered the puke that was hanging from her hair and had started yelling and puking too- Emma got the gist of it. Soon, Emma too was standing on her chair, yelling back at Bethany. Mum and Dad, pale and horrified at their perfect little daughter's behaviour, scrambled up, shouting at Emma to be quiet.
So, in fact, the only people in the midst of this deafening noise who were too stunned to move were: my boyfriend and his father, the twins, and mua.
What we didn't count was William Cafferty observing all that was happening around him with a crinkle in his eye, before... chuckling.
William Cafferty was chuckling at his and my family's hysterics.
To say that us, the silent ones, were shocked would be the understatement of the century. The loud ones were too caught up in their wailing to realize what was happening, though, and secretly I was relieved. A new stimuli could well set them off their rocket again.
With a grin, William Cafferty stood up and beckoned us, the quiet creatures to follow him. And follow him we did, bewildered as we were, out of the dining room, up two more flights of stairs, round the corner... where finally, we were standing in front of his study room.
"Come in, kids," he murmured, opening the door for us.
---
"Brandy?" William Cafferty asked, lifting his glass brandy bottle up.
All four of us shook our heads- Cal a little hesitatingly, though.
"Quite a scene down there, wasn't it?" William chuckled appreciatively again, as he swirled his glass around. "Its not everyday that you get to see something like that here."
"Aren't you going to calm your wife and daughter up, dad?"
William grinned again.
"Nah, I don't think so. I'll leave that to the help; god knows they don't really work for the money they're getting. And anyhow, it'll be good for Bethany. Very character-building stuff, getting yelled back at, is."
Cal's eyebrows shot so high up it was in danger of disappearing into his hair.
"And you are Miss Kayla Thomas, aren't you, young lady?"
I gave a start, but William appeared to have not noticed.
"Vivacious young sister you have there, don't you? And quite a looker, too. She'd break many hearts- once she's done breaking people's voice boxes, that is," William said thoughtfully, then raised his glass again, as if to toast me.
Ivan and Sean darted glances at each other, which were not missed by Mr. Cafferty.
"And you must be her old brothers?"
The boys got up, and strode across the room, grunting their names when they shook William's hand.
"Twins, I dare say?"
They nodded.
"Big family you got here, Ms. Thomas. And your parents, what do they do, Ivan?"
"Partner of a law firm, and an accountant, sir."
Mr. Cafferty grinned indulgently.
"Ah, a typical upper middle class American family then? Professionals as parents, blond and brunette haired kids, nice neighbourhood... got any pets? No? Ah, can't have everything, I guess."
Sean and Ivan had returned to their seats by then, and Mr. Cafferty continued to study us intently, as if curious.
"I must say, I am extremely perplexed," he said pompously, running his fingers on his forehead. "But first, allow me to apologize for my previous behaviour- I thought... well. Coming home to a house suddenly full of people can certainly confuse anybody. Anyway, I am William Cafferty, and welcome to my manor. I hope you find everything to your liking."
Cal rolled his eyes, not bothering to conceal his annoyance.
"Pray, tell me though, what are all of you doing here? Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to kick you out of the house or- Hmm. But my wife would definitely try too, though. I'll have to talk to her later. Anyway, excuse me for saying this, but when I first saw all of you here, I thought, you know, what with the recession and all that... I mean, I couldn't just let any Tom, Dick, and Harry stay here, now could I? But, you know, the way you and your family conduct yourselves, your nice- although clearly not designer- clothes... you guys do seem respectable and educated enough. Certainly not some hobbos off the streets."
Ivan and Sean glared at him from under their eyelashes.
"So what are you guys doing here? And with your bags, no less. You're not in some kind of trouble, now are you?"
Cal stood up, his cheeks red.
"We all are, dad. Evan's back."
---
"Cal?" I whispered softly, tracing the palm of his hand with my fingers.
"Yeah, baby?"
"Your dad, he's not that bad, you know?"
Even in the darkness, I could imagine him rolling his eyes.
"He does love you, Cal. And the fact that he allowed us to stay-"
"Only showed how guilty he feels about everything. Trust me, if Evan wasn't his love child, wasn't his problem, he'd be dropping not-too-subtle hints about how you guys should go find your own fort to hide in."
I sighed, and Cal propped himself above me, making the bed springs creak.
"Look, let's not talk about it, 'kay? Go to sleep, you'd need some rest to face the school tomorrow."
"Oh? Why?"
Cal grinned, kissing the lobe of my ear.
"Cal's girlfriend moving in with him? If that doesn't make the front page of The Sun, well, I'd be surprised!"