The Girl Next Door.

Part Two - Parents

The Girl Next Door. 

PART TWO

SUMMER

"Hey." His father said looking up at me from his seat. I smiled and shook his hand I felt oblidged to introduce myself since i had never met his parents. 

"My names Gabrielle, it's nice to meet you." I said  

"I take it you know Josh." His dad replied. "He talks about you all the time."Inside my heart was beating at a mile a minute but I decided it was best to keep my cool. 

"Dad..." Josh blushed punching him in the arm. He looked away. 

"Are you enjoying yourself?" I asked, I had to make sure that they were ok, I couldn't let them go unattended. 

"yes thanks." Said Josh smiling. I noticed that his lemonade had been emptied so I offered to fill it up. I took the glass and dashed into the kitchen where mom was putting a cake in the oven. It smelt delicious. I quickly had a lick of the cake mixture from the bowl before pulling out a bottle of  lemonade and putting it into the jug, and some into Josh's glass. Just thinking about him made me beam. I jumped a little bit as mom had snuck up behind me.

"Why are so happy?" Mom asked. I blushed and ducked my head down, I put a lemon into the lemonade before skipping out of the door. 

"Nothing mom." I said back before going back up to the table. I put the glass and jug onto the table and Josh's dad thanked me. I said it was no problem. We talked about school, how my favourite subject was history and what college I wanted to go to when I was older. I said Harvard so that I didn't get Josh's speech. Eventually we got onto the subject of what we were doing in the summer. to be honest I didn't have that much planned, I was hoping to go to New York to visit my brother at university at some point,  but that hadn't been sorted out yet. I diverted the subject by getting them to talk about California. I hadn't heard much about it despite them living here for almost a year. Josh said that it was nice, and hot and how he missed the sun. I laughed along. Josh's dad had moved to Ohio in order to start up a cafe. How come I didn't know about this? We talked  about how the cafe wasn't quite ready but should be up and running before the autumn chill creeped in. 

"It's going to be down near the sport stadium because that was where most people went, and  so it's sure to draw in a lot of customers." Josh's dad said. I nodded. I was so going there, especially if Josh had a shift there.We talked for about fifteen more minutes, until Josh's mom came up, she had just been at work. She was a successful lawyer, she had changed from her usual suit combo into a cute blue summer dress. she had a diamond necklace around her neck. It looked pretty, and it  must have cost quite a sum of money. But I didn't say anything. I had to move because there was no seats for her to sit down. 

"nice to meet you Mr and Mrs Atkins." I said offering the seat. "See you in school, Josh" I said. He looked up from his book which he had started to read again, and he nodded with a  smile.  

"see you." He said. And I walked away. 

"Tell your father his food is top notch...Has he ever considered being a chef? maybe we could sell food at our cafe." Mr Atkins said handing over a business card. I looked at it. 

"Maybe on weekends." I said. I looked at Josh. "But if he can't and you still need some work I will be happy to help out." I saw that dad was prodding at a sausage with a prong. I laughed.

The barbeque wasn't much more fun since, Josh had to leave because he arranged to meet up with some friends. I thought about how he talked about me to his parents. I thought about how he chatted with us like it wasn't a school mate and his dad talking to each other but like we were two of his best friends. I thought about how he seemed to smile when I said I would happily have a position at the cafe. I just thought about him on general. Did he really talk about me?

As the evening drew on I spent it inside the house. It had became cold and not even my cardi could help me out. So I sat in the living room, sprawled on the sofa so that my head was on one cushion, and my legs were dangling off the arm. It was comfortable that way. So I layed there watching my favourite film, "the number 23", it was a really old film but it never failed to impress me. I had a bag of cheetos and I was scoffing them. I didn't care about what I looked like at that point. I was only a sixteen year old girl, most of the other kids had gone home, or went to another party well away from here, which, as usual I wasn't invited to it. But that didn't matter. I got to eat cheetos. Dad saw me doing this, and he scowled. 

"Don't eat that junk, I have loads more burgers to go." He laughed. He never gave me lectures about how I was going to regret eating this sort of thing, either when I get morbidly obese, or have a heart attack. He said that good parents should let their kids choose. And that was how he taught the kids at school before he became the principal. He said it was their choice to do the homework, their choice to mess about in class, he shouldn't spend his time correcting people if they chose not to be correct. He just knew they would come to their senses after a couple of D minus grades in a few pop quizzes. I thought that other schools across the world could learn a thing or two. 

I put the cheetos down smiling... laughing. 

"Good, now come outside and talk you anti-social misery guts." He picked up a pillow and chucked it at me. It missed, I chucked it back, and laughed as it hit him square in the face. He picked me up in a firemans lift and pulled me out into the night. I saw that the barbeque was now being used as a little bonfire where a group of adults and a few other kids, roughly my age, sat huddled together. Most of the rest of the night was spent telling anecdotes about this that and the other. I didn't think about it really. I had other things on my mind.

Either way I was pretty happy. and I went to bed that night with good dreams.

...

NEXT UPDATE~2 APRIL 2011.