Bad Apple

Chapter Eight

“Do you want to be an actress?”

I looked over at Karyn, leaning back in her chair whilst we waited for our Monday afternoon drama class to begin. Being the loud-mouth that she was, she’d already managed to let the whole college know that I was leaving for New York at the end of the week. That’s why she was asking about my career plans.

“Like Marigold?” I giggled at the idea that I could be anything like my mother.

Karyn stopped toying with a strand of her inky black hair and looked at me over the top of her fashion glasses. “No, seriously. I think you’d land some cool roles once they know who you are.”

Once they know who you are.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I didn’t want things to happen for me because of my parentage.

“I don’t want to be an actress,” I told her firmly. A girl sitting nearby looked at me like I was insane. Maybe it was an odd thing to say in a drama class. Didn’t everyone here want to act?

Don’t get me wrong, I love acting. I’m good at it. I’m very persuasive and enthusiastic. I can totally do accents. And I’m a good liar.

“What do you want to do over there, then?” Karyn asked. “Don’t tell me you want to be in a band because you don’t play an instrument and you definitely can’t sing.”

“Well maybe I don’t want to be famous.” It sounded stupid before I’d even finished my utterance. Of course I wanted to be famous. I might have acted like I hated all the attention I got but I couldn’t imagine how boring my life would be without photographers and interviews and trashy magazine stories.

Karyn knew me better than that too. She laughed at me as she spoke, “Cady, you couldn’t live without drama.”

For the first time ever today, I thought about James. Okay, that’s a lie. I had already thought about him but I absolutely did not fantasise about us being together or obsess over him like I was some screaming fangirl.

Maybe Karyn was right. Did I just think I had feelings for him because he made more drama in my life? Things were probably always going to be a bit dramatic for me, but I was in charge of my own life, wasn’t I? I could make my own decisions and plan my own future. I didn’t need for things to be any more dramatic. I didn’t need James.

Drama was my final class of the day so, after our tutor Miss Norbury had finally shown up and made us act like idiots all lesson, I was free to go. Karyn said she had some work to catch up on so I left her heading for the library and took the walk home myself.

When I say home, what I mean is that I would be briefly calling at the house I had resided at for exactly eighteen years before my dysfunctional family had finally crumbled around me. I needed to collect a few more things to take back to the hotel with me. Billy living on his own was bad enough but Marigold would literally fall apart without me and Anika there.

When I reached the top of the hill and the house was visible, I saw a car parked outside next to my father’s Mercedes-Benz. It was a gleaming-clean, mid-life-crisis rock star car. It was James Burton’s stupid, showy silver BMW.

I marched up the path angrily and swung the front door open, dumping my canvas bag on the kitchen table. The patio doors leading out of the kitchen were wide open. I looked out at our oversized garden, hearing voices.

James and my dad were sitting at the table on the patio, each clasping a can of beer in their hands, leaning forward towards each other like gossiping women in a bad sitcom. They kept talking so it was obvious that they hadn’t noticed me.