Talisman Read Free

…“Limbo” sucks!
    Since I’d started my senior year a couple of months ago, I rarely got to spend any time with Daddy.  Breakfast and a few minutes in the late afternoon, before his shift began at the mine, was all I could catch during the week.  The weekends weren’t any better, what with me working at the Sterling Drive-In.  My mother seemed to be annoyed by his new schedule as well.  Not because he was gone at night, but because he was home during the day.  That was her time.  Even though he would usually be sleeping, Charlotte constantly complained that he was and I quote, “interrupting her routine”.  Her so-called “routine” consisted of lying around the house watching TV, reality shows mostly.  Then there were her trips to the beauty salon or out to lunch with a friend, and of course, all of her spur-of-the-moment shopping sprees that she and my little sister would take to the mall in Bluefield.  Busy, busy, busy.  I see why she doesn’t have any time to clean the house or go to the grocery store…But then again, why buy groceries when you aren’t the one who cooks anyway?   If I’d learned anything from living with my mother over the years, one credo held true — Around our house, it was “fend for self”.  Unless your name was Chloe , that is.
    Secretly, I wished we could heal our broken bond.  But how can you fix what’s wrong when you don’t know “how” it got broken in the first place?   I truly envied Charlotte and Chloe’s relationship.  Even though I didn’t share their egocentric outlooks on life, I did want to find someway to fit into their world — at least coexist with them without too much chaos or drama.  Which is ultimately why I caved to “the favor” they had asked last night.  My frame dropped down into my father’s leather chair with a heavy “plop” of defeat, remembering last night’s events in dreadful high-def detail.
    My shift at the Sterling Drive In was nothing less than rough.  The early dinner crowd had started off particularly demanding, and by the time Kara Leighton clocked in, it turned downright grueling — yet another evening of cleaning up after HER customers and picking up HER slack while she flirted with every guy thumping a pulse.  To make matters worse, Coach Earl Hayes, the head of our school’s football team and my gym teacher, made his usual Wednesday night appearance, along with his wife and their four year-old little monster in tow.  And if that weren’t enough, Chloe topped it off when she and her “too cocky for words” senior boyfriend, Mike Riverside pulled into the parking lot.  Needless to say, between a huge mess that Jeffery Hayes had made (which kept me from punching out on-time) and a heated exchange with my oh-so sweet little sister and her jerk-of-a-boyfriend, I needed the rest of my night to be “uneventful”.  I should have taken it as a bad sign when I pulled up to the house at quarter to eleven and all the downstairs lights were still on.  I tried to sneak up to my bedroom, but fate had other grand plans for me.  My mother busted me while I was creeping up the staircase — all because I’d forgotten to turn my cell on “vibrate”.  I knew I should have climbed up the side of the house and snuck in through my window.  She was the one who had called me.  I would soon find out that “she” needed “me”, finally …for the first time in a long while.  But what she needed was “a favor”.
    Funny, I didn’t know she even knew my number.
    Knowing my location had been announced like the shuddering sound of a gong rolling through the house, I huffed and puffed back down the steps as pouty as a toddler.  Suspiciously, I peeked into the living room.  An open bottle of white wine sat atop Charlotte’s curio cabinet.  Almost empty.  Great…Looks like it’s “drunk” Charlotte tonight , I predicted as I headed to the kitchen.  She must have been low on Xanax.  I preferred a