Fly Me Away

I felt bad the next morning when I slunk into the kitchen to get some breakfast and Mom was in there. She didn’t speak to me and I didn’t speak to her, we both just went about our business. The entire time I thought the guilt would burn a hole in my throat – I was so not used to being angry with my Mom like that.

I finally cracked when I glanced over at her and she gave me a small smile. That nearly broke my heart.

“Mom, I went out with a guy yesterday,” I confessed.

She stopped chopping bananas and turned to face me, eyebrows raised.

“But he was just a...” I felt a different kind of burning in my throat as I struggled to push out the word, “...friend.”

She didn’t say anything; she just turned her gaze out the kitchen window at the swallows on the washing line. She appeared to be thinking about something, and then she shook her head and laughed.

“Are you mad...?” I asked, putting a spoonful of muesli in my mouth.

She looked back at me and placed her hand her hip, “of Course I am Maggie, you lied to me.”

I hung my head.

“Maggie honey,” She moved over and sat in the seat beside me, “I’m sure you were fine, but what if something had happened to you? I was so worried when I rang Kelly’s place and you weren’t with her. I just needed to know where you were.”

“I know it was stupid. I’m sorry.”

“I know you are. At least you confessed...eventually,” she placed a hand on my shoulder, “so what happened with this bloke? Did he make you pay the check or something? You sure were angry when you finally got home.”

I looked back up, astonished—she was chuckling. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Had she been waiting until I’d go out with a boy just to ask about him? She seemed a bit too into the idea...

“So—so you... don’t care that I was out with a guy?”

She smiled, “You’re 18 Maggie, you’re an adult. I can’t have you on a leash forever.”

I perked up. Mom was being...not Mom like.

“So? How was your date? Who was he? Do I know him?” she added giddily.

I swallowed. The thought of yesterday brought back feelings I wanted to forget, but the thought of lying to her again made me cringe.

“It wasn’t a date. I let him paint a picture of me, then he...he said...” the lump in my throat stopped me from saying it, “Yeah. That was it. Don’t think I’ll see him again. You probably wouldn’t know him.”

“That all?” She sounded disappointed.

I nodded.

“Oh. Well why didn’t you just say that yesterday? I’ll admit, I didn’t handle last night very professionally, but you certainly could have helped my cause.”

I shrugged feeling a bit grim. She sat still for a moment and I took the opportunity to resume consumption of my breakfast.

“That painting you gave me...did he paint it?”

I nodded.

“So you met him in town last weekend?”

I nodded again, sparing her the details.

She eyed me suspiciously “...how old is this guy?”

“I don’t know,” I finished my mouthful of muesli, “20?”

“Only twenty...” she looked at the fruit bowl in the middle of the table thoughtfully.

“What’s wrong?”

“Well I’ve been looking at that painting a lot and it’s so beautifully painted. I just assumed the person that painted it would be older and more experienced...” she didn’t take her eyes off the fruit bowl.

I bailed out of the conversation. I didn’t know anything about art, but Mom did. Grandpa owned an art gallery which she grew up around. She, unfortunately, didn’t possess the talent for painting her Father did, but she certainly knew her stuff.

I took my bowl up to the sink and rinsed it out. Mom still seemed to be deep in thought, so I decided it was a good time to tell her about Pip, “Mom, Pip’s coming over today.”

“Oh, what?” She glanced up suddenly, “yes, yes, Alright. Should I set up the beds in the other rooms?”

I sighed, “no, it’s just Pip.”

“Oh...well okay then. That’s fine,” she stood up and looked around, “where is that dog? Could you two walk Minotaur at some point too, if you can find him.”

Guess I was officially ungrounded...

-----

“I say Casablanca.”

“Pip, we’ve seen that movie a hundred thousand times!”

“But it’s so gosh darn gooood!”

“I can’t handle it again, I just can’t.”

Pip sighed and placed the case back on the shelf.

Me and Pip were in a large video rental store called Alice’s. They had a shelf of the 50 greatest movies ever and Pip was rushing from left to right, adding DVD’s to the extensive pile in her arms.

I had already chosen my movie: Rent. It was one neither of us had seen before, which was quite rare. Apparently it was a real tear jerker. I waited patiently as Pip laid 5 DVD’s on the ground and tried to eliminate the ones she didn’t want.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I flipped it out. I had a new message from Kelly:


U okay?

Why was she asking that? Didn’t Pip call her and ask if she wanted to join us? I replied:

I'm OK. Jst went out
and told Mom I
was with u yestrday.
Sorry.

I glanced up. Pip had narrowed it down to just three movies now – the godfather, toy story and something else.

My pocket vibrated.

Kelly had texted back almost immediately.

K thts cool.
Were did u go?
Cnt believe u lyd
2 ur Mom haha

I wasn’t brave enough to tell her, especially if she was going to tell all her new friends. I definitely didn’t want that.

Nowea really
Jst doin sum1
a favour.

Pip jumped up and waved Fight Club in my face, “I have selected this one. Let us go!”

-----

As promised, Pip and I took Minotaur for a walk before settling down to the movies. We wandered aimlessly through the suburban area around my house. We hadn’t been gone that long when my phone went off. I flipped it out.

“Who’re you texting huh?” Pip said suggestively, wiggling her eyebrows.

I hesitated, “...Kelly.”

Pip rolled her eyes and tugged gently on Minotaur’s leash, “she’s gone and replaced us you know.”

I just shrugged, not wanting to take any sides. Kelly’s messages didn’t seem to have any hostility in them, so I didn’t really have any reason to be mad.

“I’m like, sick of her crap you know?” Pip asserted, “she always has to be the flipping center of attention.”

“Pip...”

“No it’s true! You saw her the other weekend, she was practically undressing your friend with her eyes—” Pip suddenly stopped walking and took a quick breath in, like she’d just remembered something important. She steped up beside me, a wicked grin on her face “....well enough about her, let’s talk about you little Missy!”

I sighed, “I thought you’d forgotten.”

“Well, yeah I had, but now that I remember – tell me the whole story! Don’t skip out on the details!”

“There’s no story.”

“What?! Don’t leave me hanging Mags!”

“There’s nothing to tell,” I insisted.

Pip decided to start things off, “.... Okay, let me help you out. So this is what I saw: this totally suave looking Bentley pulled up into the car park and everyone was like ‘whoa dude’ but then this insanely gorgeous guy stepped out of it and everyone was like ‘whoa dude, who’s that?” She made a weird surfer guy accent when saying whoa dude, “But I was like, ‘hey I know him!’ then you appeared in all your little prettiness and slipped into the vehicle and I was like ‘holy moly!”

She was too engrossed in her story to see how uncomfortable the recollection was making me feel. I quietly took Minotaur’s leash from her and her hands started flicking around animatedly.

“I was gunna go up and ask what you were doing, but I wasn’t sure whether you were mad at me or not so I just stood and gawked with all the other girls. Do you wanna know what was really funny? When he first got out of that car and all the girls started drooling – did you see that? It was really crazy, and then there was this, like, moment of anticipation when he was scanning the car park for someone. Annie Marie, that weird girl that plays the piccolo, was right beside me and I think she started hyperventilation when he looked in our direction,” she laughed out loud at the memory, “did you see that? Or where you to busy looking at....hey? Hey Maggie what’s wrong?”

I was staring down at the sidewalk, kicking stones distractedly. She put a hand on my shoulder and shook me a tiny bit, “Maggie?”

I could feel the lump start to form back in my throat as I went through yesterday’s events in my head again. I could easily have told Pip everything now, she acknowledged that she was with her band friends and she even saw me get into his car. I wasn’t a good enough liar to get out of that one.

“He painted me again. I let him, of course, just as a favour, and he took me to this nice lake on the other side of town.”

The lump momentarily stopped my speech, but I looked over at Pip and swallowed. She was staring at me starry eyed.

“It started to get late, but we stopped at a restaurant to eat something—”

“—did he pay?”

“...yes.”

She nodded, satisfied.

“Then as we were leaving—”

The lump became painful as I thought of the dark haired guy’s sinister face, and the way he tried to grab me.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“There were these men, in the parking lot, and I think they wanted his car....or maybe me, I wasn’t sure.”

Pip’s mouth dropped open and she grabbed hold of my free arm, “Maggie? Is this a joke?”

I shook my head and she pulled me down so we were sitting on somebody’s fence. She took Minotaur’s leash and encouraged me to keep going, but for some reason I found it harder to speak when we were sitting like that.

“Jackson was there though and he....he...” I furrowed me eyebrows and tugged on my hair, “he threw one of the men away, just like that. One minute this guy was trying to grab me and the next, he was smashed up against a car, screaming in pain.”

I moved my hands over my mouth at the thought. Pip’s arm slung around my shoulder.

“Oh Maggie.... I can’t even imagine what that must have been like. Thing’s like that just don’t happen to people like us.”

“But he just...lost it. Jackson lost it. And he was so strong. Unbelievably. Like something off the movies....I just...” I ran my hands through my hair, “It was so weird. As we were leaving, he basically told me that he never wanted to see me again. I was so confused...and angry and frustrated. Then that was it.”

Pip waited for a moment as I pulled myself back together. She patted my back comfortingly and tried to prevent the dog from pulling off his collar.

I lifted my head and took a big breath in. What a relief it was to tell someone. Pip looked a bit shocked at my sudden recovery, but stood when I did.

“You all good?” she asked.

I nodded, “Yea. Good to get that off my chest I think.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” she grinned.

-----

Eventually, we were seated in front of the telly and ready to watch Rent. I put the disk in the player and hopped back into my seat. Then I noticed something odd - Pip was fidgeting around in her chair and looking over at me every five seconds.

When it finally looked like she was about to explode, she twisted completely around on her chair to face me, her head propped up on her elbow, “what did he eat?”

I looked at her, confused, “.....sorry?”

“Well, you know, when you were in the diner. Random question, just answer!”

Oh...

“Umm...I don’t know a hotcake?”

“Alright...” she looked as though she had finished, until another question tumbled out, “and what did he say when he offered to pay, like, how? In exact words please...”

“Pip....” I grumbled.

“Come on Maggie it was your first date! Even if it didn’t end that well, we still have to document the milestone!”

It was safe to say, my mind was not completely on the DVD’s we watched that night.