Wish You Were Here

I could hear the doorbell and it didn’t take long to realise that no one else was going to answer it, the no-one being Tre and his…bit of whatever so I knew I’d have to get up and get it. What if it was Ramona? I thought suddenly but it couldn’t be, surely it wasn’t that late.

But it was, it was Ramona as I could see her silhouette through the glass panels of the front door as I padded downstairs in my bare feet wrapping my robe around me as I went. I could also see another silhouette standing behind Ramona and knew that this was Lisea and knew that I must look a terrible state and hadn’t even glanced at myself in the mirror thus confirming what Lisea always thought of me, that I was just as bad as the guys when they were drunk, drunk and lazy and slovenly but I wasn’t like that anymore but she’s not going to believe me anyway.

“Hey,” I answered as I opened the door. “I didn’t realise that was the time, come on in, I think your Dad’s been asleep. I’ve been up a while, just sorting through my papers and was about to get a bath. Hi Lisea,” I said trying to make out that I’d not just rolled out of bed. I hadn’t even had that much to drink. I knew she didn’t believe me.

“Hello Jules, sorry to hear about your broken engagement.” She said. She was immaculate, as usual and I always felt that she looked down on me slightly. We used to get on in our younger days when Tre and Lisea were together but I could never quite get that close to her, not like I was with Adrienne.

“That’s OK,” I said knowing that she was probably thinking that I’d ruined yet another engagement, once again confirming that I was a good for nothing.

“So, Tre said he’d drop Ramona home this evening but if it gets too late then he’ll bring her here for the night,” said Lisea.

“OK, I’ll remind him. Have a good day,” I said to her as she turned and walked off down the drive to a huge parked car with some guy behind the wheel who I’d never seen before.

“Yeah, bye,” she shouted out then was gone and I could still smell her perfume, expensive and she always did overload it. It used to make me sneeze sometimes when we were all together I remembered as I wrapped my robe around me once again.

Ramona was in the kitchen, getting herself some cookies out of the cupboard. She always did eat like her father but she was athletic and liked to run and swim, therefore eating a few extra cookies didn’t really affect her.

“Dad knew I was coming at 11.30, he’s so lazy just recently,” said Ramona sitting down at the kitchen table as I began filling the kettle with water.

“He’s just tired, he was out last night anyhow he wasn’t planning on going to grandmas for another hour. Enough time for me to have a coffee and a quick shower I said, then I’d go and wake Tre but, shit, what if, what if that woman was still here. He’d obviously brought someone back last night and now Ramona would probably find out.

”He’s got someone up there hasn’t he?” said Ramona suddenly. This I wasn’t expecting.

“What?” I said getting a couple of mugs from the cupboard, unable to look at her.

”Dad. He’s got someone up there, I’m not stupid, and he’s done it before. When I’ve come over here before he’s had someone here. He’s…been doing it a lot lately and he makes it obvious they’re just one night stands,” said Ramona.

Oh Tre, what the fuck have you been up to, blatantly flaunting your tarts in front of your daughter? This wasn’t like him, something had changed him and Mike had been right, it couldn’t go on like this.

“I don’t know what to say, I didn’t realise.” I said pouring boiling water onto instant coffee.

“Well, everyone else knows about it, he doesn’t seem to hide the fact. You know, when you were away in Scotland sometimes I just wanted to call you up and tell you, tell you about what he was up to. I thought…perhaps…if you spoke to him, he’d stop all this, it’s ever since he and Claudia split, just after you left. I thought may be he missed Claudia but there’s no way they’re getting back together and now this is what he does. All the time.

I went to her then and felt guilty, guilty once more for not having been in contact while I was away, oblivious to the fact that Ramona was going through hell and only wrapped up in my problems.

I’m sorry but you could have called me, anytime Ramona it’s just that…well, you know what happened with me and I kind of felt as though I wanted to be by myself.”

“Heyyy,” said a voice from the doorway. It was Tre and he didn’t look that bad seeing as he’d had a rough night.

“Its my number one daughter,” he said going to kiss Ramona on the top of her head. Stood in the doorway was a woman, well, more like a girl of about 20 with long blond hair, long, long legs and the hugest false tits I’d ever seen. She was grinning gormlessly at us with teeth that wouldn’t look out of place in a toothpaste commercial. She didn’t speak to us and, well, we didn’t speak to her.

“I’ll just see Paula out and then I’ll grab something to eat.” He said.

Paula still didn’t speak and we didn’t speak or acknowledge Paula and worst of all, Tre didn’t introduce us to her.

What the fuck was he doing?

**

I always loved the drive up to the mountains, it was like leaving the City behind, the air changed and I loved opening the windows just to smell the air and listen to the sound of nothing much at all.

Ramona had fallen asleep in the back and Tre hadn’t said much, just asked if I’d had a good time at Mikes and wondered what time I’d got in.

I hated being like this with him, it wasn’t the comfortable silences that we used to have together, I’d wondered when it had all gone wrong. Surely he still couldn’t be annoyed with me for going away and hardly being in touch. If he was, how fucking much longer was this going to go on for?

**

About five minutes away from home Tre spoke. Ramona was still asleep, I had my eyes on the road ahead but had felt him glancing over at me on and off for some minutes. I wasn’t going to acknowledge the fact that I knew he was looking, if he had something to say to me then he could just come out and say it.

“Do you want me to be with you when you tell your parents?” Said Tre.

“What?” I said turning to him, his eyes were on the road and I just glanced at his oh so familiar profile as he drove.

“Do you want me to be with you? When you tell your parents?” He said. “I’m guessing it could be a difficult moment for you.”

“Its…OK thanks Tre, I’m sure it’ll be OK.” I said suddenly unsure. I was going to bring home the news that my parents would never be grandparents. My mother had always mentioned it sometimes how she’d spoil my children and take them places. Suddenly I felt sorry for them, this was going to upset them may be more than I’d have thought. Tears burned the back of my eyes.

I felt Tre’s hand on mine, warm, firm and reassuring.

“Think about it,” he simply said as we pulled up onto the track that led up to where our parents were, waiting for us, mine waiting for me to break some shit news to them.

He knew me too well, had been with me on many occasions as I’d broken difficult news to them. Like when I’d borrowed their car and crashed it whilst trying to park it in a car park in the town, crashed it into another car causing hundreds of dollars worth of damage.

He’d been there when I’d got bad grades, having to explain to them why.

He’d always been there to help me through and as I glanced at his familiar profile once more I couldn’t imagine what life would be like without him.