Stan Read Free Page B

lounge room, unnaturally quiet and awkward, until his
eyes landed on a glass jar of marshmallows on the kitchen counter. Paula
Remington missed nothing even as she busied herself filling a glass of wine for
Mum.
    “I see you have
found my stash of marshmallows, Alex,” she said with a wink. I elbowed Alex to break
him from his trance. “Paula is talking to you,” I said lowly.
    He nodded quickly,
his eyes flicking back to the pink and white pillows of sugary heaven that lay
tauntingly before him.
    “I tell you what,
after dinner we’ll get Glen to light the fire and you can toast some
marshmallows. What do you reckon?”
    Alex’s eyes
widened with delight, and he nodded quickly.
    Paula laughed. “Excellent!
I always have a stock of marshmallows. Stan is forever toasting them on the
fire.” Paula clinked Mum’s wine glass, thinking nothing more of her throwaway
sentence as she went about her way organising food in the kitchen.
    The short-lived
comfort the ambience had given me was soon swept away as my gaze discreetly
swept around the open-plan home.
    No Stan in
sight.
    Alex soon
abandoned me to join ‘the men’ on the deck where Glen meticulously attended to
the ready-to-order steaks. So I quietly propped myself at the island bench
adorned with enough food to feed a village. Paula must have been accustomed to
Glen inviting guests back at short notice as she nonchalantly claimed she “just
whipped up a pav” for dessert.
    Mmm, pav: my
not-so secret obsession.
    My attention was
broken when a glass of wine clinked down in front of me. I blinked.
    Oh.
    “It’s a Sav Blanc.
Is that okay?” Paula questioned.
    My gaze went to my
mum, who shrugged in good humour.
    “Ah, yeah. Fine,
thanks.”
    In my constant
daily ritual of being treated like I was no older than Alex, I actually forgot
I was indeed of age to partake in adult activities. Even though Mum and Dad
never encouraged such reality, there was something so instantly gratifying
about being treated like one, something that caused my spine to straighten as I
took the elegant, crystal-stemmed wine glass in hand and took a big, grown-up,
elegant sip of my wi—
    Oh, sweet baby
Jesus, it tasted like metho.
    It took all my
effort not to wince in horror as the vile flavour assaulted my taste buds. It
was bloody awful. But seeing as I was finally being treated like the adult I
had so long craved to be, I psyched myself up for another go, thinking maybe it
was just the shock. Nope, it was truly vile.
    Still, for one
night, I could pretend, and I had little say as Paula, the ever-gracious host,
persisted in ensuring everyone’s drinks were firmly topped up; even Alex’s
glass of lemon squash never ran empty. Oh, how I longed for a glass of soft
drink. Gee, I was so grown up.
    I saw my parents
relax in a way I seldom witnessed; my dad actually melted casually into his
chair, something he rarely did unless he was drifting off from exhaustion. Even
Mum, after a few red wines, was laughing and flushed with joy. And get this?
Even Alex was behaving. Usually we’re all just waiting for him to pass out from
fatigue before we enjoy any social gathering. The little bugger was an angel,
maybe because neither of us had been sat at a kids’ table for dinner. We were
very much included in the conversation, a conversation I was actually enjoying.
After a few glasses of wine, I felt my own inhibitions melt away, and the
reluctance to be at the Remington’s disappeared as I settled in. As the hours
and wine flowed there was something that became more and more apparent.
    Stan was nowhere
to be seen.
    Good.
    I excused myself
to use the bathroom, hoping no one noticed the need for me to steady myself as
I stood; the fuzzy edges of my mind didn’t seem to compute with my legs.
    “Oops.” I giggled
as I swayed my way to the doorway leading into the long, darkened hall. I half
expected to hear a muffled sound, or a TV from a bedroom somewhere along the
way, thinking Stan might have