:: chapter eight ::

I started in surprise as a heavy Postpak was dumped rather unceremoniously on the kitchen table, right on top of the music score I was trying to memorise. I glanced up to see Cassie standing there, a look of distaste on her face.

“What’s with the scowl?” I asked as I made to open the parcel. “And what the fuck is this?”

“I don’t know, but it’s from your mother.”

I affected a scowl of my own and opened it up. “Oh shit, it’s my mother’s photo album.”

“So?” Cassie asked. “That’s not so bad.”

“Oh it is, believe me.” I eased the photo album out of its protective covering and set it down on the table. “This is a little test that my mother devised when I started asking girls out. She goes through each and every photo album in the house, looking for photographs of me, which she then sticks into another photo album. And one evening, when I invite my girlfriend over, she sits the unsuspecting girl down in the living room and hands over the photo album; the girl has to look through it with my mother watching. And if the photo album doesn’t scare her off, she’s a keeper for sure.”

“So what kind of photos am I going to be looking at?” Cassie asked as she pulled it towards her.

“That’s just it,” I admitted. “I really don’t know.”

Cassie shrugged. “Well, let’s find out shall we?” She opened it to the first page and giggled. “Aww, you were such an adorable baby…”

“Oh I was, was I? What about now?”

Cassie scrutinised my appearance. “Get a haircut and maybe I’ll tell you.”

I responded to this by crossing my eyes at her; she flinched. “Jesus Taylor, I really wish you wouldn’t do that! It creeps me out no end.”

“You know you love it.”

She snorted and continued flipping through the photographs. “Oh Christ, I hate that photo,” I said, shuddering; Cassie had found a photograph of me dressed up as a medieval prince, as part of my role in a school play when I was in Year 6.

“Why? I think you looked very handsome.”

“I looked like a freak. There’s a difference.”

“Oh, shut up.”

She continued flipping pages and scrutinising each picture that came to light. The final photograph was one that had been taken nearly a year ago – it was of Cassie, Matthew and I after a concert. Cassie had somehow found her way up onto my shoulders; she was wearing a purple and black zebra-striped cowboy hat on her head and drinking from a can of Bacardi and Coke. Matthew was sitting at my feet, and for some very strange reason he was chewing on his drumsticks. Of course, the bottle of Bacardi he had in his hand may have had something to do with it; he did look slightly drunk. And there I was in the middle, the only sane person in the whole photograph, an almost full lemon Ruski in hand.

“So, what do you think?” I asked as Cassie closed the photo album.

“Mark me down as a ‘keeper’,” she replied. “Y’know, we grew up together; I can’t believe your mother forgot about that.”

“Now that you mention it…Jesus Christ my mother can be so fucking stupid sometimes!”

Cassie chuckled. “I bet you’re glad you aren’t related to her.”

“Oh yeah. You bet I am.” I cast a sidelong glance at Cassie. “You sure you weren’t freaked out by the photos?

“Taylor, the only things that freak me out about you are your long hair, your habit of crossing your eyes just that little bit too often, those big feet of yours and the incredibly phenomenal talent you have for playing the guitar. It took me thirteen years to learn what I know how to play on the piano, and it only took you eighteen months to learn to play guitar like a pro. But…those things are what I love the most about you. You’re a non-conformist, which is something that this world needs more of.” She smiled sweetly. “Just promise me one thing.”

“Sure, anything.”

“Please get a haircut. You can still have long hair if you get it cut to your shoulders. And…before you get it cut, I’ll plait a couple of locks of it. They call that kinda thing a rat tail; it’ll be proof of just how long your hair used to be.”

“But I don’t wanna get my hair cut…”

“You can be so fucking vain, you know that?” Cassie laughed. “Come on, don’t you want to give your mum and dad a surprise when we go home for Christmas?”

“I don’t know…well, I guess having long hair can be a pain in the arse sometimes.” I sighed. “Okay, okay, I’ll get it cut.”

Cassie grinned. “Wait here.” She raced upstairs, returning with a hairbrush, a couple of shark clips and an armful of elastic bands; she pushed me off the lounge onto the floor, pinned most of my hair on top of my head, and started to plait what she hadn’t pinned up. “Quit wriggling around; this is trickier than you’d think,” she scolded after about ten minutes. She pulled on the plait a couple of times, then unpinned my hair. “Okay, all done.”

“Jeez, about bloody time! I guess this means that I have to get it cut now.”

I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. One trip to the barber later and my hair was considerably shorter than it had been that morning. The sole clue that my hair had ever been longer than it was now was the lonely little plait that swung loose over my shoulder.

“Doesn’t that look better now?” Cassie asked sweetly, coming up behind me and resting her chin on my right shoulder. “I think it looks much neater than it did.”

I cocked my head to the side and squinted. “I guess you’re right,” I agreed. “So…we’re going home for Christmas, right?” Cassie nodded. “When exactly do we get to go home?”

“What’s today, the 27th of November?” I nodded. “Saturday. I was talking to Rachael about it, and she said that we can take December off; we’re due back at work on January sixth.”

“Man, a whole month off work; that’s gotta be good.”

“It’s good all right. So…what’s on the agenda for tonight?”

I shrugged. “I was thinking…strip poker?”

Cassie’s eyes lit up. “Hell yes.” Then she frowned. “It’s not as fun when it’s just the three of us, though. We need more players.”

“What about inviting next door over? They did say that they’d love to hang out sometime. I think I have a deck of cards in my room, and I’m sure that Matt has a couple of packets of poker chips.”

“Sure, sounds good to me. Pasta for dinner?”

“Actually, what about we order in some Chinese food and some pizza, and Matt can go and get some alcohol? We’ll need Bacardi, Ruskis, Mudslides, Jack Daniels and Tia Maria, unless we already have some here.”

Cassie frowned. “I think we have about three bottles of Bacardi, and one each of Jack Daniels and Tia Maria; we’ll need Ruskis and Mudslides.”

“I’ll put Matt on the case soon as he gets back from the studio.” I grinned at Cassie’s reflection in the mirror, and she smiled back. This would be the night to end all nights.

The fun began at around seven thirty. Our neighbours in Darlinghurst were a group of students from the University of Technology Sydney – Diana Summers, Amara King, Rowan Hill and Danika Cameron. Matt had gone out to the bottle shop half an hour earlier and picked up three six-packs of Ruskis (lemon, grapefruit and cranberry) and two four-packs of Mudslides (both of them chocolate). The Chinese food and the pizzas were waiting in the kitchen, Cassie and I having driven out to pick them up. And with pizza, Chinese food and alcohol in hand, we gathered in the living room, and Amara laid down the ground rules for our game.

“First rule, nobody has to get completely naked, but the girls must lose their bras if it comes down to it. Second rule, it’s a three-drink minimum. None of us has to drive home, so drink as much as you like. Third rule, the person with the lowest hand loses some of their clothing. Last person to lose all their clothing is the winner.”

We all agreed to these terms, and the game began in earnest.

Half an hour and a considerable amount of alcohol later, the scene was a great deal different than it had been at the beginning of the game. Cassie and Diana had both lost all the required items of clothing; Rowan was down to his cargo shorts; Danika only had to lose her bra and socks; Matthew was down to his jeans and socks. I was the only one still fully dressed. And we were all at various stages of drunkenness. Unless something drastic happened, it looked like I was going to win.

“Shit, this can’t be happening,” Diana complained. She blew a couple of locks of jet-black hair out of her face.

“What can’t be happening?” Danika answered, swatting away Rowan’s wandering hand. “Taylor’s winning, so bloody what? You’re having fun, aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah-”

“Then quit complaining, and have another Ruski.”

“I’ll Ruski you in a bloody minute,” Diana grumbled, but she took a lemon Ruski and cracked it open.

The familiar street sign that marked Bayview Avenue came into sight, and I pushed my sunglasses up onto the top of my head. I had lived on this street practically my entire life, knew all the neighbours, had explored each and every inch of its gutters and drains, and yet…I was nervous. I was nervous about coming home. Maybe the fact that I hadn’t actually set foot inside the front door in over three months had a lot to do with it.

The front door of the house was opened even before I’d shut off the engine of my car, and Emma came barrelling out; she wrenched open the driver’s side door and flung herself at me. “Shit I missed you!” she cried. “I really did!”

“I missed you too Emma,” I said. “Please, can you get off me so I can get my stuff outta my car?”

“Okay, okay…” Emma backed away so I could get out of the car, and she clung to me like a barnacle on a rock all the way up to the front door. “When did you get your hair cut?” she asked as we went in the door.

“Wednesday afternoon,” I answered. “You like it?”

Emma nodded. “Yep.”

“I’m home!” I yelled as I dumped my backpack near the front door. “Hey, anyone alive in there?”

“In the kitchen!” came my mother’s voice. I grinned and bolted through the house to the kitchen. Mum was standing at the stove, stirring something in one of the big spaghetti pots that we used for spaghetti; the unmistakable aroma of her homemade spaghetti sauce filled the air, intermingling with the steam that rose from the second pot on the stove. One pot for the sauce, the other for the spaghetti – it was organised chaos, and not a pretty sight if one sleeve accidentally trailed in the sauce. Not a pretty sight at all. I crept up behind my mother and wrapped my arms around her; she jumped in shock. “What in blazes…” She looked back over her shoulder, and she smiled. “Welcome home, honey,” she said warmly, twisting around and hugging me tightly. “My goodness, I missed you so much…”

“I missed you too,” I replied.

She stepped back, holding me at arm’s length, and looked me up and down, her forest green eyes running from my now shoulder length hair, to my ratty old cargo shorts, to my beat-up Airwalk sneakers. “I never would have believed it,” she said softly, fingering my lone plait that was the sole proof of my hair’s former length. “Cassie talked you into it?”

I nodded. “Yeah, on Wednesday.”

“And what of my test?”

“She passed with flying colours. Cassie Dale’s a keeper; you have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

“Good. Now, you keep an eye on the sauce while I go and pick some tomatoes from the garden.” I snapped a mock salute, and she disappeared out the back door.

Dinner was on the table within the hour. For the first time in over three months, I ate dinner with my family, something I’d truly missed.