I am home, peaceful, safe and, above all, alone.
Ramona’s words are like a contagion in my head. “You can’t decide….”
I turn on the TV. The footy game, I decide, is a good distraction. “I can too,” I answer aloud.
I feel stupid. How can I allow some hormonal child to mess with my psyche like that?
“You're the child. You can’t make any decisions.”
I turn off the TV; decide on a whisky instead. I have barely opened the bottle when the doorbell rings. I don’t want to answer it but I do.
It’s my neighbour, Mrs Belafonte. As always, her fully rounded body fills the doorway. Her cheeks are red and rotund, just waiting for someone to pinch them and go coochee, coochee coo.
I blame my wicked thoughts on Ramona.
“What have you brought me today?” I say, spotting the tea-towelled covered plate in her hands.
“Pumpkin scones.”
Inside, I weep. I hate pumpkin, including Mrs Belafonte’s pumpkin pie, her pumpkin soup and every other blasted pumpkin thing she makes. However, I do what I always do. I take a whiff. “They smell delicious.” My sorry stomach prepares for war.
Mrs Belafonte quickly trots to the kitchen.
Before I close the door, Lorraine appears tapping her right shoe. “You haven’t answered my calls,” she says.
“M… my phone is flat,” I say.
“And you don’t think to charge it?”
“It's the first thing you do, Daniels.”
Sidling up to Lorraine is the shabby Mr Baldwin and Miss Stephan.
I am speechless.
“Do I smell pumpkin scones?” asks Miss Stephan.
Mrs Belafonte reappears holding a large platter of butter. “Would you like some?”
Within several minutes, my home is not my home any longer. Even a perfidious Nijinsky has joined the crowd.
My muscles tighten, my skin burns. And all I see is red, hot flames. “St…o…p…,” I yell. Five pairs of eyes stare directly at me. My heart thunders a nasty tune in my ears, my chest screams for freedom. I decide to let it free.
I tell Lorraine I will never marry her. I tell Mrs Belafonte how much I hate pumpkin. I tell Mr Baldwin what a pompous, bigoted person he is, that threatening my business because he can’t control his students ‘not cool’.
Miss Stephen glares at Baldwin. “You did what?”
I even give Nijinsky my full wrath and call him a furry little traitor.
“I thought you were a good man,” Mrs Belafonte says.
“I am a good man. Or at least I thought I was.”
Suddenly the room feels hot, airless. I reach for my car-keys. I then peek at Miss Stephan, the only one not included in my pitiful tirade. Does she know why? Most likely not. Worthlessness breathes a fresh wave of misery in me and I feel spent.
“Why are you even here?”
“Because of me.”
Ramona.
Who else would conjure this entire charade?
Without even looking at Ramona, I leave my house.
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