The boy on my block

Decoration

The family's together. It's late in the afternoon, and yellow sunlight is shining through the tall windows. Me, my sister, grandma Etta, uncle Francis, Mom, aunt Mary, Dad, and grandpa John are all in the large living room sipping whatever they poured into their glasses, with around 30 other people talking in between them. We're having fun. I guess. Well not really. I'm sitting in a corner of the house we freshly moved in to, on the designer piece sofa standing pretty alone in the empty house. I'm surprised I survived the moving. I'm sipping my Diet Coke. I prefer diet over regular. It's got too much sugar, grandma Etta says. She's 90, so she'll know.
It's day four of being in Los Angeles. The city's great. All the streets look the same, it's always sunny, a coffee is eight dollars minimum, but then again, we moved here so we could easily afford those coffees. Yesterday we even had a sandwich on the side. My mom, Grace, runs her own interior decoration supply chain, which is doing very well. She decided Los Angeles would be the perfect place to settle, since Nevada isn't very known to be a place of style. The new house sits on the hills with a nice view. It's beautiful. I'm still decorating my room. It's coming together slowly.
Jazz is playing, jazz that I put on, to lighten the mood. No one is saying much. The mood is unbothered and gloomy. It's supposed to be a house warming, but so much for the warmth. Etta might be old, but not stupid. Neither is aunt Mary. They don't say anything. They just sit and eat their cookies, occasionally dipping one into the tea they clamp in their wrinkly hands.
Those two old ladies know exactly what went on a few days before today. My dad, Donald, got angry at my mother, Grace, for a reason I can't remember. Probably because it wasn't a very justified one. Either way, he went to sleep over at a friend's house for the night.
I blame him. You're not a fucking teenager annoyed with your mom. Be adult, own up to your mistakes. He couldn't do that though. And all these ladies know. So do the men, but they don't care as much. The stock market Interests them more at least, since that's all they've talked about among these 30 people, for the two hours they've been here. "Summertime, and the living is easy. Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high" sings Ella Fitzgerald in a slow pace through the speakers we had installed this morning. It was the "finishing touch" to the house apparently. Don't get me wrong, I love that I'm able to play any music I like with a really good quality sound now, because yes, the sound is that much better, but I just can't for the life of me see my dad buy another thing that he claim will make him happier than he's ever been. I think he's showing midlife-crisis symptoms. Poor mom. She tries. She really does. Dad just yells, apologizes, yells some more, and leaves for a day. Only to come back and pretend everything is fine between the two of them. Mom can't do that. She's too pure of a person. She has her art. She calls them "sketches" or "little nothings", but the little ballpoint pen doodles she makes on random pieces of paper or even her skin, mean something more to me.
"Hon, are you quite alright?" Grandma Etta asks me in her old and cranky, but yet still very sweet voice. I'd been staring into the literal distance for at least 5 minutes. Subconsciously looking at the people, listening in on conversations, taking it all in. "Yeah grandma I'm doing alright" I say. Then I realize old people tend to enjoy talking to younger people, especially ones they're related to. "How are you doing yourself grandma, having fun?" "Oh yes, the most." She keeps it short. Not typically Etta to be this unchatty, but I suppose she doesn't want to talk about the elephant in the room. The elephant looking father figure. He's currently smoking outside with a beer in his hand, with the new speaker system that was supposed to give him some more meaning, on the other side of the walls.