So Much to Learn (5 page)

Just as I was
about to open my mouth and ask Jack what he was doing he leant down
until his mouth was close to my ear and his cheek was almost
resting against mine.

"Lesson number
one," he said quietly, his voice, for some reason, making the
tingles in my belly shoot up in a burst towards my throat, "the
simplest touch can sometimes be the most effective."

He pulled away,
but I stayed frozen. Seeing my stunned mullet impersonation he
really did smile. With a chuckle he released my hand and then
grabbed his bag off the floor.

"See you later,
Tally," he called out over his shoulder, walking towards the door
and then exiting it with a final wave.

As the door banged shut I finally relaxed. What the hell
had
that
been all
about? Getting that little bit of frission going with someone was
as simple as a handshake? Well that was easy! Why hadn't I managed
to figure that out before? Shaking my head to clear it of the last
bits of Jack-induced fuzziness I headed for the
bathroom.

Better make
that shower a cold one.

For the rest of
the day I couldn't get lesson 1 out of my head.

The simplest
touch can sometimes be the most effective? Well maybe when you have
hands like Jack’s, but I couldn’t see myself giving guys tingles in
their bellies with just a handshake. Do guys even get the tingles?
Whatever, all I can say is that Jack has a great talent.

I arrived home
from work that night, thankful that the Thursday was over as I only
had one class on a Friday and no work, so it was basically the
weekend for me. I hadn't seen Brad at all throughout the day, but I
did have a lecture with Allison which had been a bit awkward.

I'd been
looking forward to some lazing about in my pyjamas and maybe even
another 'lesson' from Jack when I got home. Unfortunately, I had
forgotten about 'the boys.'

I know
technically
there are only five of them, but when they're all
together in a clump it seems like there are millions of the
buggers. There's always one in the loo, another rifling through the
fridge, two having a ridiculous argument, another three or so
challenging each other to a drinking competition and at least ten
others doing something they're not supposed to. Yes, I know that it
is not strictly possible, but it damn well seems like
it.

As I entered
the flat they all looked up from the television and I was greeted
by a chorus of grunts which, in boy land, passed as a greeting. I
waved unenthusiastically in reply and headed to the kitchen for an
apple. Someone once told me that an apple is more effective than
coffee at waking you up and, since I hate coffee anyway, I've
chosen to believe them. Just as I was about to take a bite of the
wonderfully cold, crisp fruit (always keep apples in the fridge, no
matter what people tell you) the phone rang.

"Phone's
ringing," Matt offered helpfully from the couch. This was his
ever-so-subtle way of saying that he wasn't going to be the one to
answer it. I made a face at him and picked up the receiver.

"Hello?" I
greeted, eyeing my apple enviously. I could virtually see its
wonderful coldness seeping out.

"Darling, did
you know that the Neanderthal's brain was bigger than modern
mans’?"

I bit into my
apple, after all I was going to need the sustenance. It was my
mother.

"You don't
say?" I mumbled through my mouthful. "And where did you pick up
this spicy piece of gossip?"

"At my adult
education class. I told you I learn such interesting things there,
didn't I? Well it's true and Professor Clarence said that my views
were thorough and insightful. He's quite good looking, you know.
Not as good looking as your father maybe, but if I wasn't married,
or if I had an unhappy marriage I'd get with him like a shot. I bet
that's where he gets most of his girlfriends from. Oh, that sounds
mean, doesn't it? I didn't mean to imply that he was so pathetic
that…"

And on it
went.

I slumped down
at the kitchen table and continued to eat my apple. I got down to
the core and was nibbling away at those gross bits that surround
the seeds and she still hadn't stopped her monologue. I threw the
core away and, as I did so, I caught Matt's questioning look.

'Mum,' I
mouthed at him and he nodded sagely before turning back to the TV.
I laid my head down on my arms with the phone resting next to me.
My mum's voice was loud enough that I could hear every word she was
saying, although I was struggling to put them into any kind of
coherent order in my brain.

"…but I do
think it'd be nice to do something big for a change. So what do you
think?"

I jerked out of
my almost catatonic state and put the phone back up to my ear,
aware that this question wasn't rhetorical, and that I had
absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

"I think it's a
great idea, mum," I said jovially, hoping against hope that this
was the right answer.

"Oh good!" I
could virtually feel her beaming down the phone. "Now if we could
only convince your father then I could start preparations right
away. You'll speak to him, won't you? And tell him that you think
it's a good idea?"

"Of course I
will," I said with a great deal less certainty in my voice. Mum's
idea of a good plan was often vastly different from my dad's and,
subsequently, Matt's and my own. What had I leant my endorsement
to?

"Excellent.
Then you can bring your boyfriend, Brent is it?"

"Brad," I
corrected her without thinking. Catching my mistake I quickly
added, "But we've broken up."

"Wonderful! I'm
sorry to say, honey, but I never really liked him. Shifty eyes. Or
was that your brother's girlfriend? I can never keep track."

And there you
have it. Perhaps the best example of the inner working of my
mother's brain. According to her own admission, she can’t keep
track between my boyfriends and Matt's girlfriends. Speaking of
whom…I looked across the room and saw that my brother was now
watching me out of narrowed eyes. What was his problem? Then I
suddenly remembered that I hadn't told him about breaking it off
with Brad or, more importantly, my reason for doing so and he must
have overheard me. Crap, he looked pretty annoyed. Still, I didn't
have to worry about this for too long as my mother had started up
again.

"Have those
daffodils outside your building flowered yet? I thought they
would’ve, but your father seems to think it's too early."

Bam! Onto
another train of thought, dismissing my boyfriend-less state in one
swift movement. This is why I love my mother so much, she believes
in three main codes of life: no histrionics about things in the
past, life is too short for regret, and, her favourite saying of
them all, move on!

"How's my
favourite boy then?" She asked, taking another leap to a different
line of thought.

"Oh Jack's
fine," I said absentmindedly, still looking at Matt's angry
expression.

"Good. Is he
eating well?"

I smiled, my
mother adored Jack and was constantly fussing over him.

"Yeah I think
so, mum. Ask him yourself in a minute."

"Yes, but he
knows how I worry so he might lie to me to set my mind at
ease."

The thought of
Jack lying to my mother was patently ridiculous, but as I wanted to
speak to Dad before midnight, I agreed with her and asked for the
phone to be passed over.

"Oh, of course,
honey, he's right here. Love you," she chirped.

"Love you too,
Mum," I said with a grin.

There was a
pause and, over the scuffling noises as the phone was handed over,
I could hear my mother telling my father not to talk too long as
she wanted to talk to the boys. I rolled my eyes at her bossiness,
my mum thinks she has a greater claim over us than my dad because
she carried us in the womb for nine months. The fact that she
didn't even meet Jack until he was eight doesn't seem to
register.

As is probably
blatantly obvious, our family follows the age old stereotype where
the mum is closer to the son and the dad closer to the daughter.
They even had an agreement before either Matt or I were born that
Mum would get to name the child if it was a boy and Dad would name
it if it was a girl. I was born on Christmas Day and my dad chose
Natalia as it means Christmas in Latin. This was all very well for
formal stuff, but I much preferred to be called Talia
day-to-day.

Finally I heard
Dad shush my mother, not a small feat. "Hello sweetheart." His
voice sounded long-suffering although I knew he was just putting it
on to annoy Mum.

"Hi, Dad." I
smiled, bringing my legs up to sit cross legged on the kitchen
chair. "How’re you going?"

"I'd be a lot
better if your mum would just drop this anniversary thing. If I've
told her once I've told her a thousand times I don't want to have a
huge party, let alone one involving a massive tent in the
backyard," he ranted.

Ah, so that was
what I'd said was a good idea. Whoops.

"We've gotten
to know an awful lot of people over three decades of marriage, and
most of them are imbeciles. Why on earth would I want to be stuck
with them in an expensive pavilion that's probably churning up my
lawn?" He continued crossly.

"Because then
you'll know where to organise the air raid?" I suggested
playfully.

He chuckled.
"Well there is that I suppose," he conceded.

We chatted for
a bit, but, after a while, Mum's squawks in the background became
too insistent and we reluctantly said goodbye.

"Tell Mum that
I tried to convince you of the merits of a huge garden party for
your anniversary, alright?" I joked and he groaned.

"If I have to
be there so do you, missy, so I wouldn't get too cocky," he warned.
"Take care."

"You too," I
replied before shouting out, "Heads up Matt," and throwing the
phone across to him.

He caught it
and began to talk to Dad, oblivious of the racket his friends and
the TV were making. I was just about to trudge off to my room to
change when Jack came up behind the chair I was sitting on and
leant down to whisper, "Somebody's in trouble."

I looked across
to where Matt was still looking at me with an annoyed expression
even though he was carrying on a perfectly normal conversation over
the telephone. Sighing, I nodded my head. Considering Matt and I
were super close, the fact that I hadn't told him I'd broken up
with Brad had obviously made him pissed.

"Yep," I
whispered back. "It looks that way, but I honestly didn't have time
to tell him. Not to mention I would have spent the whole day
expecting to hear that my brother had threatened to kill Brad and
who needs that kind of stress?"

Even though I
couldn't see Jack I could feel that his posture had suddenly
stiffened. I craned my neck round to look at him and saw he was
staring off to the side like he was deliberately avoiding looking
at me.

"Did you see
Brad today?" He asked, still keeping his voice low as if he didn't
want the others to hear us.

"No, why?" As
he continued to avoid my gaze, I sighed heavily. "Jack Morgan
Whitby what have you done?"

Before he had a
chance to reply, a high-pitched phone ring erupted shrilly from
somewhere quite near us. Swearing softly, I reached down under the
table for my bag. I dug through the layers of trash until I found
the sparkly blue phone (I painted it with nail polish at a boring
party) and answered it.

"Hey, Simone.
I'm about to extract some sort of confession from Jack so could you
make this quick?" I asked having noted the caller ID.

"Quick it is,"
my friend agreed; I do love her so, no questions just straight to
the point. "Did you see Brad this afternoon at all?"

"No," I
answered succinctly. That was the second time in a matter of
seconds that I'd been asked that. I smelt a rat.

"Yeah, well,
I'm not surprised. After this morning he's probably going out of
his way to avoid you," she said, sounding positively gleeful.

"Why? What
happened this morning?" I asked, conscious of the fact that Jack
had left my side and was just now slipping into his bedroom and
closing the door quietly behind him. Suspicious much?

"You didn't
hear? Everyone's talking about it. He was warned off you!
Apparently this morning he was telling his friends that you were
frigid, but he was still going to…um…bed you before the end of the
year." My guess is that it had been a word other than 'bed' and
Simone was censoring it a little. "Anyway," she continued
hurriedly, "your brother overheard him and threw him against a
wall. Apparently Brad was fairly wetting himself and it was only
his friends pulling Matt off that stopped there being a major
fight. It's nice how your brother looks out for you."

"Yeah, it's
just great," I said sarcastically. "Especially when I get two
brothers for the price of one."

It seemed that
my theorising had to be turned on its head. Matt wasn't angry
because he didn't know about the break up, he was angry because
he'd had to find out about it through gossip. And Jack wasn't
guilty because he had done something himself, he was guilty because
he knew about Matt making a scene and he hadn't told me. Oh the
drama!

"But the other
reason I called was to tell you that Brad called me about ten
minutes ago," Simone continued and my eyes widened in
astonishment.

"Really?" I
asked. "What did the scumbag want?"

"He wanted to
apologise, he said he couldn't call you directly because you'd just
hang up, but he wanted to apologise for sleeping around and then
dissing you to his friends." She spoke quickly obviously wanting to
get the message out as soon as possible.