RPgirl2016
Experienced
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2015
- Posts
- 66
"Almost There"
(closed to JonathanBair)
(closed to JonathanBair)
"I don't want to enjoy myself," Julie Harper growled in a low whisper as she trailed her mother through the kitchen and out the already opened sliding doors to the back deck. "I want to talk about Australia."
"Did you talk to your father?" asked her mother, Elizabeth.
"Yes! Oh my God! Haven't you been listening?" she snapped. Her eyes grew as she realized that some of the neighbors were already present. Elizabeth had thrown an End of School Year barbeque the first weekend after school let out each year since Julie was 4 years old, and before the evening was over, there would be more than 100 people here for the potluck. Julie lowered her voice again, adding, "He told me to talk to you!"
Her mother turned and gave that familiar look, followed by the words that Julie silently mouthed along with her, "I support your father's decision."
Julie growled loud enough to get the attention of most of the two dozen neighbors before spinning and stomping away toward the kitchen, calling out, "It's not fair!"
She sulked in her bedroom for almost an hour, ignoring her mother's polite requests from the other side of the locked door to come out and be sociable. "I don't want to be sociable! I want to go to Australia!"
Elizabeth began in her comforting motherly voice, "Honey, I know you don't want to here this, but... We never promised that you could go on the trip with your friends. We only promised to consider it. And we did. And we decided that--"
"Dad!" Julie corrected quickly. She knew who made the decisions in this family... All of the decisions. "Dad decided!"
After a moment of silence, Elizabeth began again, "You father decided--"
Her mother went quiet as the door before her suddenly flew open to reveal her soon to be 19 year old daughter and the girl's hard, angered expression. They stared in silence for a moment before Julie said in a calm voice, "You said I couldn't go to Europe because of the terrorism dangers..."
Seeing a response was expected, her mother confirmed, "Yes, honey."
"And my friends didn't want to go without me..."
Again, "Yes, honey."
"So they all got their parents to agree on Australia so that I could go..."
Elizabeth stared but did not answer this time. Her daughter was right. There just wasn't anything to be done about it.
"And now...!"
After a moment, her mother said, "Honey, we just don't have the money--"
"Because dad fucked up!"
Elizabeth's eyes and mouth widened to their fullest. "Julie!"
The teen felt the blush coming and -- not wanting her mother to detect the embarrassment -- she slammed the door and screamed out of sight. Julie turned and stomped across her room, screamed again, then plopped down onto her bed. She held her hands out before her: they were shaking!
She'd never dropped the F-bomb on her mother... Ever! EVER!! It just wasn't how she talked to her parents. Hell, she hardly ever used the word even with her friends. She'd always hated the casual use of profanity. She thought it should be reserved for unique moments when what her Gulf War veteran father would call shock and awe were needed.
Dad... she thought. I can't believe I said that about him.
It was only partially true that her father had made an error... Fucked up. He'd loaned money to his brother, Julie's uncle, for a business venture that had flopped. Now, the family was barely paying its bills, leaving nothing for Australia. Julie had socked away almost $4000 over her high school years, with chores, after school jobs, a GoFundMe account, and more. For the trip she and her friends were planning with the help of a young adults travel planning agency, that was barely half of what she needed!
Where the hell am I going to get four grand?
She fumed for another half hour or so before hearing two familiar voices passing by her door: her father and the man who lived one house to the north, just beyond the redwood fence she'd helped her father put in just a couple of months ago. The new barrier had been requested in great part by Julie herself, who always felt like the horny ol' men who lived in the five houses within view of the backyard were watching her while she sun bathed or swam in the pool. It was true that she'd caught one or two of them looking her way on occasion, but there was no evidence that any of them had actually been ogling her. She just knew they were. She was a shapely teen age girl... and they were men!
A thought suddenly hopped into Julie's mind. She leapt from her bed, rushed for and through the door, and called, "Wait!"
When the two men turned to face her, Julie looked first to her father to find him quickly donning that expression, the one that said he was expecting her to embarrass him with this or that or the other thing as an outgrowth of her disappointment.
Instead, though, Julie walked up to the neighbor, smiling politely before asking, "Did I hear that you're looking for an intern at your work?"
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