Episode 1: Abby
“Hey, Dad. I’m home!” I shouted into our small apartment. His head appeared around an easel.
“Hey baby girl, stand right there and don’t move.” He gestured vaguely to somewhere on the floor with his brush. I stood where I was and struck an overly dramatic pose. “I’ll call upon that pose when I’m doing Marilyn Monroe. Right now I need a Michael Jackson.” He told me not moving his eyes from the canvas. I laughed and moonwalked down our ‘corridor’. My Dad, Marc, specialises in painting celebrities in neoclassical designs. We live in a studio apartment sectioned off with folding screens. I’ve lived here for my whole life, I’ve never known anything different. My ‘bedroom’ is my single bed and a small set of draws that hold pretty much all of my possessions, the rest of my crap is scattered around the apartment.
“Hey, Dad, can I go out tonight?” I leafed through my clothes waiting for an answer. We had a pretty easy going relationship, he didn’t really mind me going out or drinking for that matter. He does however draw the line at boys, he acted like a father in that respect, if not worse.
“Who, what, when, where, why, Abby? If there is boys you aren’t going!” He asked shouting above the loud dubstep that you could hear from the apartment below.
“Uh,” I stumbled trying to get the details straight in my mind, “Sage, Going out, Tonight, Some club, she’s choosing and because we haven’t seen each other all summer, especially seeing as we are starting senior year this year. You know that I’d never do anything that you wouldn’t want me to do.” Sage is my best friend, she’s a total genius, like save the world genius, but she doesn’t like to show it. She spent the summer with her mum in Queensland, probably getting gorgeously tan whilst I had to give mouth to mouth to old guys pretending to drown. We haven’t seen each other all summer and I don’t think the opposite gender will have anything to do without catching up.
I have a summer job as a lifeguard at St Kilda Beach and then a night job cleaning up after drunken idiots at a local bar called The Royal. Yes I have the most glamorous jobs you could ask for, but it pays for food.
“Sure, be back before I finish this.” He shouted again, by ‘this’ he meant his painting he normally spent hours finishing one. It is not uncommon for him to stay up all night because of this I’ve learnt to sleep with the lights on, judging by his progress he wouldn’t be finished until about eight tomorrow.
The dubstep was getting louder. “I am actually going to kill those delinquents,” He grunted and threw his paint brush across our house and into the kitchen splattering paint over the wall, joining the other various stains, sometimes it’s a fork with spaghetti on it.
“I’ll sort it out dad.” I shouted over the growing noise. It was 5 in the afternoon for crying out loud. I pulled my boots on and a maroon crop top showing off my tattoo on my hip of a jaguar growling. I pulled on an old leather jacket. “I’ll be back,” I said trying my best impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger and stormed out of the apartment.
Down stairs in the apartment under us, the door was closed but light and noxious fumes from bongs were seeping underneath it. I positioned myself beside the door with my back to the wall and let it rip, “THIS IS THE POLICE. OPEN UP!” Then I began the countdown, I love counting down because everyone treats it like the final thing they’ll ever hear. The music is really loud yes, but high high school kids always know the word ‘police’ and assimilate it with the phrase ‘get the hell out of dodge’. The shouts that came from behind the door was hilarious here’s a taste:
