"Youth Novels"

Chapter Six

Claire crossed the pink ribbons around her ankles three times and tightened the ends into matching bows. She bowed forward over her legs, exhaling deeply as she felt the pull of her hamstrings and the relentless push of the arch against her foot. The room was still with night. Above her, the large crystal chandeliers cast sunspots on the wood panel floor and will-o'-the-wisps in the glass and darkness of the French doors.

There was still magic in the old ballroom.

Claire closed her eyes. The house breathed. With every creaking step of her foot, she could hear the echoes of phantom dancers swaying across the floor. It was years since her parents had last held a party in the ballroom and perhaps the real time for parties was in the distant past, back before television and radio, when dancing and talking and watching had been confined to the party and not encumbered by outside influences. Parties were a dime a dozen these days. Not a week at Shermer High went by without there being word of a party at Stubby's or Steff's or Jake's. Claire was always invited to them, and she usually showed up because that was what was expected of her. They weren't real parties though, just a gaggle of teenagers drunkenly pawing at one another. None of them held the same elegance she had once seen trotted out beneath the diamond lights of the old ballroom. How beautifully the dresses had once glittered against the gold gilled cream walls and mirrored panels all around her.

'You got everything, and I got shit. Fuckin' Rapunzel, right? School would probably fuckin' shut down if you didn't show up. Queenie isn't here…' Claire screwed her eyes shut tighter. His words still hurt but what hurt even more was that she could say nothing to defend herself. All her faults and vanities now weighed heavier than they did before.

He would never apologise. She never expected him to either. It wasn't John's style, apologising would be too much like letting on that he cared. Besides, she liked his belligerence, the fact that he was bad news. He fascinated her; infuriated her and worst of all, he tempted her into feeling more─ that was the part she had not been expecting. He'd been sweet on Monday. He'd liked her dancing, even if he'd almost ruined it all by getting into an argument.

"Claire, what are you doing? It's twelve at night. I thought you said you were going to bed early?"

Her mother was standing in the doorway, her eyes narrowed against the light and the consequences of her heavy drinking the night before. They had the same face, Claire hated that. She'd once considered her mother one of the most beautiful women she knew; now it was like watching her own self wither away in self-loathing.

"I couldn't sleep."

Sylvia crossed the room, gathering the ends of her nightgown ties to her and tightening them around her waist in a clumsy knot. "You'll ruin your complexion if you stay up late."

"Just fifteen minutes." But she felt wide awake as though an electric rod had replaced her spinal column and now currents of electricity were jolting out through her arms and feet in a frantic SOS. She'd needed to do something, anything because she could not say it.

Sylvia looked at her sharply. "I thought you'd given up dancing? Grandfather said you'd never make it to Juilliard with your form, remember?"

Claire bristled. She remembered all too well. 'It's good enough,' she reminded herself of what John had said. She was good enough.

"I'm thinking I might take it up again," she said casually. "For extra-curricular credit. It'll look good on my college application form."

But her mother was no longer listening. She was inspecting her reflection in one of the mirrors. Her ring fingers pulling and prodding at the puckered skin beneath her eyes with determination.

"I'm going to go to Doctor Warton again." She sighed unhappily and picked up a glass, pouring water in it from one of the mineral bottles laid out on the Georgian side table by the window. "These bags are getting unmanageable."

'Maybe if you stopped drinking?' Claire thought. She'd never say it though. Sometimes she wished she could, like now when she had electricity in her veins. Sylvia settled down onto the day bed in ignorance. Even in her misery, her mother oozed luxury. The satin of her gown pooled over her thighs like water.

"If I'd gone to college I would've liked to have studied law," she told Claire for what was the millionth time. "I was the top of my class at finishing school. Did you know that?" Claire nodded obediently. "Course, your Grandfather never let me. He had certain ideas about the educated women." She sighed. "And three months after I married your father I was pregnant so of course by then it was completely out of the question."

"I'm sure Dad would've let you if you'd insisted."

Her mother snorted. "Let me let you in on a little secret, Claire. Men don't like women are smarter than them, your father included," she added bitterly. "Men need to feel like they're the ones who know better. That's why when you go to college pick something easy that doesn't require a lot of thought. That way you won't scare them off."

Claire didn't reply. She knew what her mother expected of her, what her Grandfather expected of her but Claire was not going to be that girl, not any more. She had options and the world was a wide place filled with all sorts of different people, people like John. She doubted that even in her wildest dreams her mother could ever have imagined such people existed.

Having nursed her bile, Sylvia got up, leaving her glass half empty and crossed the floor to the door.

"Fifteen minutes, Claire and then bed. You don't want bags in the morning."

As she brought her feet into First position, Claire wondered if that sort of thing mattered at all to Allison's mother.

On Wednesday afternoon, she found John and one of his friends, the Skinhead at a locker that was quite evidently neither of their own.

"What are you doing?" she asked, stopping in front of them.

A soft smirk settled on his lips at the sight of her. "Locker shopping," replied John smoothly as he handed his friend the folder he'd been poking through and pushed off the wall with his foot.

She met him halfway, ignoring the curious looks from passers-by. Their relationship was out and all over school by the time Monday had ended. Many people hadn't believed it and Benny Hanson had out rightly questioned her sanity just like Shayne had done. Claire had never liked Benny anyway.

She allowed herself to be pulled into his strong chest as his hands slipped around her waist.

"You're going to get in trouble for that," she warned.

John's eyes twinkled. "It was open when we got here."

"Already open or you opened it?"

"Semantics."

A nicer person would have scolded him. She however raised her hand and brushed his bangs away with her fingers to show the fading bruise. It was lesser that it had been and his sallow skin helped disguise much of it. She frowned at the thought and kept her hand in his hair. John had great hair; it was soft and long and silky, different from the way the other boys at the school kept theirs but then there was nobody quite like John, not in the school or in the entire world. No one could ever have his eyes, she was positive of that. When angered, they reflected perfect storms and yet there could be vulnerability there. She'd seen it, in the closet. The surprise, the timid question, 'Why'd you do that?'

When he caught her lips with his, she felt it right the way down to her toes.

"How was pool?" she asked when they broke for air.

"Got the old bag off my back for about two weeks," He leaned against the lockers, pulling her with him, his hands still locked around her waist. "You should've seen one of the guys. He came in dressed like Don Corleone. Dropped thirty bucks on the first game and kept going until I cleared him out."

"What's with all the flower smelling crap girls use?" interrupted the Skinhead beside them. He was smelling a stick of deodorant. Claire wrinkled her nose when he rubbed it on his armpits. He picked up a card and laughed. "She's got a fuckin' Duran Duran fan club card. Samantha Baker, member 472," he held it up for them to see.

Claire placed her head against his shoulder as John chuckled. She could feel the rumbling all the way through to her back.

"And what is this?!" The Skinhead's face lit up with delight as he read over a neatly folded piece of paper. "It looks like our Miss Baker has a Public Sex fetish."

John snatched it from him and began to read aloud. "Have you ever touched it? Nearly," he glanced at Claire. She giggled. "If you could do it with anyone then who? Jake Ryan─ You better tell Blondie to watch out cause it looks like her boy's got a stalker on his hands-"

Claire threw her head back and laughed. It was too cruel; too easy and stupid and mean but Claire had done it herself before. Herself, Caroline and Shayne had delighted over stolen notes of various embarrassing content in the back of class. Shayne had told everyone that Kate Nox had given Steff McKee a blowjob in Blane's bathtub from a note that was meant for Robyn. They'd all laughed about it and afterwards they'd frozen Kate right out.

"-What would be your ideal setting? Bedroom─ What is it with chicks and bedrooms?"

"Em, comfort factor?" piped in Claire. She was beginning to feel a little bad. It really was cruel. They didn't even know the girl. "Put it back, she might see you."

But John would not be deterred. "Where is the most outrageous place you'd have sex? Lake Michigan shore." He smirked, the Skinhead laughed uproariously. "How would you answer that one, Claire?"

"Certainly not on a piece of paper or within hearing of your friends." She snatched the note from him, folded it over and went to put it back in the locker, hoping to hell that the girl wouldn't return.

"Carl must get serious kicks outta reading that shit," John went on. "He probably knows who everyone's done─ Oh, hello. Is this your locker?" he said to a person behind them.

Claire spun around immediately. A young girl, a freshman with short auburn hair and a straw trilby was eyeing the paper in Claire's hand nervously.

"It fell out. I was just putting it back in," she lied. She could kill John in that moment, and his friend. They were both grinning like the pair of dicks they were.

"So Jake Ryan, eh?" asked John.

The poor girl froze, her face went ashen white.

"Don't be an asshole!" Claire hissed at him. "Sorry, he opened it. We won't tell anyone, I swear."

Samantha looked ready to cry. She snatched the piece of paper from her hand, stuffing it in her pocket.

"Relax, kid," said John. "He's probably doesn't even know who you are."

It was the wrong thing to say. Claire could see the girl slipping into despair. There was nothing worse than knowing that your crush would never acknowledge you. Surely John understood that.

"We're not going to say anything. Right?" She fixed the gloating Skinhead with a warning look.

"My lips are sealed," the boy crossed his heart.

Without a word, Samantha rushed forward, knocking her out of the way. She slammed the door closed, locking her locker once more and hurried off down the corridor, her head bowed.

"You dicks!" she smacked John's arm as they roared with laughter. "That was so mean!"

John wrapped his arms around her from behind. She fought the urge to shove him off. "Admit it, you were laughing before she came along," he reminded her.

"She's only a kid."

"Who is very careless with her property."

"You broke into her locker!"

"Prove it."

Claire bit her lip.

"And for the record," John went on. "If we were gonna be truly, and I mean well and truly fuckin' mean then we'd tell Blondie, which is something you're far more likely to do seeming as you're her friend. Correct?" He finished, putting a finger on her hypocrisy.

Claire looked at him, her face set in stone. Last week, she would've let it slip for a cheap laugh. She could see that he knew that from the satisfied curve of his lip. It made her all the more determined than ever not to say a word to Caroline.

"Why would I?" she asked haughtily. "That kid's got no chance."

"Now who's the one being mean?" her boyfriend replied.

"She's a Freshman," she shot back. "The chances of that like happening are a million to one. Would you consider dating her?"

"Am I sensing a little jealousy here, Cherry?"

"As if."

"I dunno, Bender," grinned his friend, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. "If that note's anything to go by, what she might be lacking in experience she'd probably make up for in imagination, know what I'm saying?"

"That's vile," Claire told him sharply.

The boy gaffed and slapped John on the back. "She's jealous-" Claire glared at him. "-Catch you in German, Bender. SIEG HEIL!" And he drew his hand up in a Nazi salute before taking off down the corridor.

"He does know you're half Jewish?" she asked once he was gone.

"He's a dirty Greek goat fucker."

She raised her eyebrows and shook her head. They were impossible. She knew of John's friend, everyone did although she did not know his name. John was the most infamous one, seconded by Garth Volbeck, her old classmate from Elementary school. They most definitely had problems too; probably along the same lines as John's which was why they also felt entitled to step all over everyone else's feelings. It was too bad that she couldn't take the higher ground on that matter. A lot of the things Shayne had said about John were true, but then a lot of things John and Brian had said about her on Saturday were also true. Neither one of them were any better than the other, it was just John didn't pretend to be. He was right, she had laughed.

"So why the question?" he asked, turning back to the topic at hand.

Claire sighed. "My point is most Juniors wouldn't date a Freshman."

"But that's not what you asked. You asked me if I would date her."

"You wouldn't."

"I haven't answered the question."

"By all means, answer away."

John leaned in, until his lips were brushing the tip of her ear. She tried not to shiver.

"She's not my colour of red."

And just like that her anger dissipated. It wasn't fair. He wasn't fair. She turned in his arms to properly face him once more.

"…Wanna go to the drive-in tomorrow night?" she asked.

John arched an eyebrow in surprise and her tongue played nervously against her teeth. People only went to the drive-in for one reason and watching movies was definitely not it. Her face burned as he regarded her question and all its implications. It was so embarrassing. Sometimes she wished she could be like Caroline or Amanda. They had far more experience in extending invitations to third base.

"I can pick you up at half nine?" John offered as he rubbed small circles into the small of her back and Claire wondered what it feel like to have his hand on the bare skin there.

Before she could answer, an odd squeak interrupted them. Claire turned, annoyed. It had taken a lot of courage to even think about suggesting that date location. She'd spent all of Monday night trying to think of the best way to bring it up and now someone had interrupted much to her mortification.

And that someone of course was Allison. She was dressed half reasonably in Andrew's sweater but the black shit was back, so was the shapeless grey skirt. Claire however was more concerned with the way she was eyeing them both with odd, birdlike determination. It gave off the distinct impression of an eagle about to swoop for its prey.

"I want to go to a concert," she announced without bothering with pleasantries. Claire hadn't spoken to her since Saturday with the exception of a few corridor waves.

John's eyes narrowed. "Good for-Ow!"

He shook out his leg from where the girl had kicked him. Claire stifled a laugh against the back of her hand. It served him right.

"And you're coming with me," Allison went on.

He glanced at Claire incredulously and she shrugged. Allison really was in a class of her own. "Why thank you for informing me then? And when will this concert be held?"

"Tomorrow night."

"No can do, Kooky. Claire and I've got plans. Go ask Sporto."

Allison frowned. "He can't go. He's got a meet on Saturday."

"He's got two days."

"He won't go. It's in Cats."

"Cats?!" scoffed John. "No way in hell am I going there."

"I've already bought three tickets. For you and Claire…or Brian," she added. "If one of you won't go…"

But Brian wouldn't go. It was a knife in the gut if ever Claire felt one. His parents had him practically chained to his desk. John looked at her, she looked at him. She could see him relenting because so was she. Allison had probably never been to a concert with people she knew before.

"Cats is the place your sister's boyfriend works, isn't it?" Claire offered, looking up at John. "We wouldn't have to bring ID."

"All the more reason not to go."

"We can go on to see a movie on the weekend instead."

John pretended to consider this but she could see that he'd already made up his mind. Allison was even sneakier than he was.

"What's the band?" he caved at last with a sigh.

"The Rave-Ups," she handed John a piece of paper with a wide smile. "Here's my address."

When Allison stepped into TRAX, she planned to approach Andie, if she was working, and explaining the whole situation regarding John to her. Unfortunately, there was already someone at the counter being served. So Allison just stood and waited, until eventually it became quite apparent that the boy was not there to buy records. He didn't look like anyone who was supposed to be there in fact. He wore white linen and had feathered strawberry blonde hair and wore his shirt half unbuttoned. His body was propped up against the counter like a panther lazing in a tree.

"Look, this thing you're doing-" Allison watched him wave his hand between them. "-where you pretend like you don't find me attractive is cute and all-"

"I'm not pretending," Andie kept her eyes glued firmly to the magazine in front of her. She looked utterly disgusted. "Please buy something or leave."

"I don't get this. I try really hard with you. I go outta my way to talk to you when most people in our school wouldn't give you the time of day-" he said the last bit disdainfully, like he was doing her a massive favour.

"Gee, I'm honoured."

"You should be," went on the slime ball. "A guy like me has a lot of offer a girl of your social abnormalities."

"The only thing you've got to offer me is an STD─ How can I help you?" she plastered on a smile as she caught sight of Allison.

The boy barely stepped to the side as Allison pushed forward. Andie gave her a look as if by way to apologise for him. She wanted to tell her that it was okay, and that people were assholes, and that John Bender wasn't as bad as he let people believe.

"Three tickets to the Rave-Ups please," she said instead.

She watched Andie's expression carefully for a sneer of accusation that she was just going because she'd overheard them the day before. There was none. The till rattled as she drew up the bill, money exchanged hands and soon Allison had three tickets in her pocket. She'd lied to Claire and John, but then they knew she was a compulsive liar. If they were stupid enough to take what she had said at face value then that was their problem.

A small scoff of superiority escaped the boy's lips as she pushed passed him and out the door. Allison froze. The door hit her back halfway. She about turned, marching right back in, the bell ringing violently off the door frame over her head. As she approached the counter, Andie began to ask if she had forgotten something. She, however, kept her eyes glued on her prey. Shoving her way back beside the boy, she seized the staple gun from the counter and grabbed his by the front of his open shirt, dragging him roughly around to face her.

There was nothing but contempt in his eyes. "Got a problem─?"

TAC! TAC!

Allison let go and slammed the staple gun back down on the counter, victorious. The boy stared down at the crudely stapled closed shirt in open mouth astonishment. She didn't look at Andie but she heard the gratitude in her laugh.

Finally, the rage kicked in. His blue eyes flared. "Bitch! This is Egyptian cotton!"

"You're a shit."

Allison didn't wait to see if her words had cut him. She walked back out of the store with her head held high and the three tickets secure in her pocket. It was going to be an excellent concert, she could feel it.

"That has got to be the ugliest house I have ever seen."

John turned off the engine and stared up at the modernist disaster Claire so disdained off. The façade was an abstract smattering of willy-nilly windows, arbitrary lines, and blocky protrusions all set in white cement. It was pretty damn hideous, the sort of hideous that only an art lover would appreciate.

"I'm pretty sure I've seen cardboard boxes that look better," Claire went on.

He peered around at the strange array of sculptures decorating the flowerbeds.

"Is that a dick?" He pointed to the one with a questionably shaped nose standing in the centre of the drive.

"It's called modern art," she replied.

"Is that a euphemism?"

"Pretty much!" She laughed and hiked her purse over her shoulder as they stepped out onto the concrete and closed the van doors. John lit a cigarette and threw away the match.

"Do you think her parents are like former Factory dredges? Like Betsey Johnson and John Cale?" Claire looked excited at the prospect.

"If they were she probably would've been better socialised. The way she is, I wouldn't be surprise if she turned out to be Schrödinger's original cat."

Claire's eyes lit up in surprise. "Schrödin-? Isn't that a quantum physics theory?!"

"Indeed, I did hear it mentioned in physics class."

There was a pause. His temper flared.

"What?" he rounded on her. "You think I'm too dumb to take physics?"

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't need to."

"I was just surprised about you taking physics. I didn't think it would be your sort of thing."

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"I thought you weren't interested in anything mathematical!" she burst out. "You said to Brian that you didn't give a shit about it."

"Just cause I don't give a shit about it doesn't mean I can't do it."

Claire sighed, exasperated. "I never said that you couldn't do it. It just seems too…" she searched for the word.

"Seems too what exactly?"

"…uncool for your tastes."

She had him there. John saw her cast him a nervous sidelong glance, her breath catching in her throat as she waited for his mood to swing once more. Before John would've let her stew in her discomfort but Claire wasn't out to get him. Brian had been the one who'd thought he was superior but then John was the one who'd always felt education was beneath him. After all, what was the point in it if you were never going to go to college?

"I'm good at numbers," he admitted finally. "Physics, Shop, anything mathematical, I just don't get a hard on for it like Dweebie."

"That's probably why you could make the elephant lamp."

John's eyes darted sideways to look at her face. She was grinning, so was he. Christ, they were both such goddamn assholes. He threw his arm around her neck and pulled her against him, kissing her. She relaxed and giggled as their feet caught and they half tripped over one another on their way to the door.

"This place like totally explains why Allison is like…" she rang the bell. "You know."

She beamed as it opened to reveal a harassed woman with wild thick blonde curls and lots of gemstones and thick silver chains. John pressed his lips down on his cigarette butt as surprise fluttered across the woman's face, quickly replaced by suspicion. Claire thankfully jumped in before she could ask if they were selling anything.

"Good evening, Mrs Reynolds," she said in her very best parent voice. "We're here to collect Allison."

"I'm Rhonda, Mrs Reynold's assistant."

"Oh…" Claire glanced at John and tried not to laugh. "Oh sorry, my mistake."

For some reason he felt like laughing too. Maybe it was her Dweebie comment or Rhonda's ridiculous lion mane, or maybe it was just the whole surreal and wonderful turn his life had taken but God help him if he didn't find it all hilarious.

Before Rhonda stepped back from the door to let them in, she pointed to the cigarette in John's mouth.

"Not inside."

Without a word, he dragged it against the white wall, extinguishing it in a line of ash before dropping it on the ground. The woman looked unimpressed to say the least. Claire nudged him forward. Her face shielded by his arm. John could hear her giggling quietly.

They were left in the airy reception room at the bottom of an abstract winding staircase amongst bright and ridged sculptures and Swedish designer furniture. At the foot of the stair hung a painting on plywood that depicted a multi-coloured and oddly segmented painting of the human digestive tract. At least that was what John thought it was. It was quite cartoony with black outlines and muddy pinks and reds. He was pretty sure one part was shitting out a brown pool of excrement.

"How bad was the acid trip this guy was on when he did this?" asked John as he looked at it. Art completely eluded him.

"Carroll Dunham," his girlfriend read the name at the bottom corner aloud. "I went to a show of his in New York last year with my aunt. It looks so much more unsettling outside a gallery setting. I mean, why would you put this in your house of all things?"

But the painting didn't make John feel unsettled; he found it rather humorous. It was like Warner Brother's had decided to release a new cartoon character based on intestines. The only thing potentially disturbing thing about it was that Allison's parents had bought it. It was no wonder she was so fucked.

"You're not seriously going out in that?"

Claire's question placed him in the now. He followed her gaze to where Allison was standing on the steps, dressed in a long, black ruffled number that looked like something straight out of Little House on the Prairie.

Allison's eyes narrowed. "Why? What's wrong with this?"

"It's perfect for Caroline Ingalls's funeral," said John and the girl scowled.

Ever the saint, Claire took her by the hand and pulled her back up the stairs. "C'mon, show me to your closet."

The girl followed reluctantly.

Allison's bedroom was like a cross between crow's nest and a psychiatrist's wet dream. Crystals, silver and gold foil fans and dream catchers hung from the ceiling. There were photographs and magazines covering the walls, all with their eyes whitened out to create a collage of empty spectators. 'One flew east, one flew west; one flew over the cuckoo's nest' John thought to himself as he picked up a Rubik's cube that was sitting on the desk and began peeling off the stickers and rearranging them on opposite squares.

"I want to wear black," Allison protested stubbornly as Claire held up a purple skirt.

"You look better with a bit of colour." She grabbed a dress. "How about navy? Or midnight blue? It's like practically black."

"I want to wear black," she reaffirmed.

At Claire's sigh, John whistled the opening verse to 'Paint it Black.' A lot could be said about a person's room and whatever Allison's issues were, she wasn't exactly being discreet about it. Her room wasn't meant to be a girl's room, it wasn't meant to be a sanctuary where she could hide from the world or from her parent's wrath. Things were left out for her parents to find. From the artwork to the empty bottles of vodka lining the windowsill, to the open diary right in front of him with the crudely written words "Help me" scribbled over and over again. He wasn't sure what her deal was. He wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to know.

But he asked anyway because from the looks of it she was dying to tell somebody.

"So where are the folks this evening? Do they usually leave you with their assistant?"

"They're around." The girl shrugged. "Probably screwing."

"Waaay too much information there, thanks!" mustered Claire eventually.

John watched in amusement as Allison's lip curled at her priggishness. Claire really was a pristine girl through and through.

"They screw each other all the time," she leaned in closer to her, a small witchlike smile breaking across her lips. "They were screwing in the living room earlier."

"You watch them?" John goaded.

Allison head snapped around like a whip. She scowled. "No. I hear them. She screams like Barbarella."

"That is gross! Why are you telling us this? Parents having sex is like so wrong." Claire was shaking her head in sheer disbelief.

"So I take it you are the result of immaculate conception, Cherry?" asked John.

"Maybe she was a test tube baby?" offered Allison.

"She's Catholic. They don't believe in science or condoms."

Claire rolled her eyes, handed Allison a bundle of clothes and pushed her into the en-suite bathroom. "Put this on," she turned to John. "I know parents have sex it's just no one wants to know about it let alone discuss it: period."

John couldn't argue there. He'd heard the screams too at night although it was less in recent years. The blacks of Reinette's eyes were always like a vacuum the following morning. Sometimes there were tears too, in the kitchen or in the bathroom, any room where she thought he couldn't hear her. If Senior heard her he'd have another go. And the screams would start all over again.

Those screams haunted his nightmares.

There were a three more changes of clothes until finally Claire and Allison settled on the compromise of a black Pretender's t-shirt and a knee length black skirt. Allison wouldn't let her touch her hair or her make-up, despite all her pleas.

"Well, at least now we'll be able to distinguish her from the curtains," offered John helpfully as Claire finally relented.

"Hey, I like that dress," said Allison. "And I don't want to wear that." She pointed to the turquoise belt in Claire's hand.

"Humour me," Claire buckled it around her waist. "You're supposed to be 21, remember? And it goes so don't complain."

She led her in front of the mirror, like a proud mother showcasing her child. Allison chewed on her bottom lip apprehensively as she stared long and hard at her reflection. Time passed, John pick up a sharpie and start colouring in the Rubik cube in black.

"I don't look like me," she said finally.

"Maybe if you let me take off some of that eye make-up you'll look more like you?" smiled his girlfriend winningly.

But Allison would not relent. She grabbed her bag and a long cardigan and wrapped her scarf around her neck. As they passed the mirror, she quickly picked up a make-up pencil and began blacking the line beneath her eyes even further.

"Don't-!"

"Who cares?" John cut off Claire's protest.

His girlfriend frowned for a moment. "She looks older without it."

"If our kid wants to be a panda then she can. I still don't approve of you dating that Clarke boy," he waggled his finger at their friend. Allison gave a rare, authentic smile. "Besides, it's not gonna matter where we're going. They all dress like that-" he jerked his head at her. From the expression on Claire's face it was clear she held his trepidations. It was probably going to be a goddamn freak show.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, there was a thin, tall woman with grey hair and a colourful Aztec knit sweater shifting through a set of drawers in the reception room. She didn't raise her head to acknowledge them.

"Allison, have you seen my passport?" she called.

"I think-" began the girl.

"Never mind," said the woman dismissively, hurrying off into the back of the house.

"-it's in the top drawer in the kitchen," Allison finished. Claire looked at him worriedly. He felt worried too. Something was seriously wrong with Allison's parents other than their highly active sex life. He just couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"That your Mom?" he asked.

She nodded silently. There was a clattering of heels as the woman rushed back in again, this time with glasses on, her hands were hurriedly putting a string of green beads around her neck.

"RHONDA!" she called. "HAVE YOU FOUND IT?"

Rhonda rushed in, hot on her heels with the passport in hand as Allison ushered them towards the front door.

"Where was it?" he heard her ask.

"In the top drawer in the kitchen."

And once again they were gone. John and Claire stood outside waiting, trying to avoid each other's gaze.

"I'm going out now," Allison called down the deserted hall. There was no reply.

It was only as he shut the driver's door that John suddenly realised that aside from not saying goodbye to her own daughter, Mrs Reynolds hadn't even acknowledged Claire and his existence.

"She's always like that," spoke Allison quietly. "They both are. They never hear me."

If John had a heart to break, it might have broken for her. She looked tiny, all crumpled in and miserable. Claire stroked her arm soothingly.

"Fuck them," she said firmly, repeating the sentiments she and him had shared on Monday night.

Claire was right. Fuck them. Fuck them all.

"I left my cigarettes in your room. Keys," he held out his hand to Allison.

John opened the front door and peered left and right; there was no one to be seen. Somewhere in the back of the house people were talking and laughing. His eyes fell on the Carroll Dunham painting. It was just too fucking easy when it came to rich people. He grabbed it off the wall and walked straight back out the front door, whistling to himself as he closed it behind him.

John handed Allison back her keys and gave the painting to Claire.

"Shove that in that back, would you?"

Claire blinked at him and then looked to Allison. There was a moment in which John thought the little Goth was going to go chicken and put it back in the house. It passed. Claire's nervous giggle broke the tension.

"You'll give it back later, right?" his girlfriend checked. "This is just to freak them out."

John glanced at Allison. "You want it back?"

Allison shrugged. "It's not mine."

There was a pause. "…What would potentially happen to you if John didn't give it back?" Claire asked.

"I don't know."

Suddenly, a laugh erupted from her lips, shooting upwards like a geyser in a shrill shriek. Claire startled beside him. It was impossible to tell if the girl was terrified or elated, either way she'd completely fucking lost it.

"I don't know!" Allison repeated as her shoulders shook and mirth took over. "I don't know!"

There were tears rolling down her cheeks.

To be continued…

A/N: This chapter has been one of the ones I've really looking forward to write from the beginning, the same with the next one. I hope you enjoyed it. Feedback always welcomed.