Terri Paddock - Come Clean

‘Come on, dammit,’ Dad grumbles. I scramble into the back seat next to his neatly folded overcoat and buckle up in double-quick time.

Dad eases the car out of the garage, checking his path in the rear-view mirror in case the rose bushes bordering the driveway are in a mind to scratch his paintwork. Once clear, he reaches to the visor for the garage door remote. He clicks, nothing happens. Click, click.

‘Goddammit!’

I know he wants to order me to get my ass up and shut that frigging garage, but for some reason he doesn’t. He leaps out, the car door hanging open and dives into the garage himself.

I take advantage of the opportunity. ‘Mom, look, I’m sorry, really I—’

‘Shut up.’

‘But—’

She doesn’t move her head one inch in my direction. ‘Shut up, shut up!’

The garage door begins its descent and Dad shimmies out beneath it just in time, the rubber seal catching the back of his suit jacket and leaving a smear of dirt that he doesn’t seem to notice as he climbs back into the car.

This is bad. Worse than the time you and I trapped the neighbour’s cat in the mailbox, worse than when we got picked up by the cop for loitering in the Kmart parking lot, worse than when you brought home the report card with two ‘D’s and I tried to forge Mom’s signature, worse even than when we skipped fifth period so Lloyd Taggart could drive us and Cindy round the block in his Dad’s Audi, even though he only had a learner’s permit and we hadn’t even started our semester of Driver’s Ed. I shiver and wish I’d gone upstairs for a new pair of pantyhose, wish I’d remembered my gloves.

I start coughing again and swallow hard to force the Tylenol down but the pills won’t budge. I cough until my nose runs. ‘Dad, please can we stop at the 7-Eleven for a Big Gulp of Diet Coke?’

‘You know the rule, Justine. Or have you forgotten that one too?’

‘Just some water then.’

‘No drinks allowed in the car. Now quiet.’

I lock my jaw to contain the coughs, my nose still dripping like a garden hose. I’d like to ask Mom for one of those tissues of hers, but I make do with the cuff of your old turtleneck.

We coast through the neighbourhood. Past Cindy’s house with the peeling green shutters, past our old elementary school, past the playground where you knocked your two front teeth out on the jungle gym. At the lights, we right-turn-on-red on to Route 5 and join the stream of Sunday brunch traffic. Dad speeds up and thumps the wheel if the lights threaten to stop him – as they do, one after another.

‘Damn timing mechanisms are way off,’ he mutters. We switch lanes, manoeuvre round slowpokes and honk at other roadrunners. As we crest one steep hill and then another, my stomach drops away, and I have to cover my mouth with my hand and bite back the bile.

‘Dad, I’m gonna be sick. Pull over.’

‘You know the rule. Scheduled breaks only.’

‘Dad!’

Twisting round now, Mom takes a good look at me. ‘I think you’d better stop, Jeff. She’s pretty peaked.’

Dad sighs, flicks on his blinker and gestures at other drivers. There are two lanes to cross to the shoulder and I’m not sure we’re going to make it. I’ve flung the door open and am familiarising myself with the gravel before Dad’s got the hazards on. Please, please, please. My stomach convulses, jolting my whole body. I feel wetness at my eyes but nothing else is coming up. Cindy told me last night I should puke before I went to bed: hurl, drink two great big glasses of ice-cold water, swallow three Tylenol, then pass out. It didn’t work. I wretch dryly a few more times and then get back into the car.

We drive on. Outside, Route 5 slips by – and before long so does the turn-off by Tastee-Freez for the road that leads to the cul-de-sac where our church is.

‘Aren’t we going to church?’

‘We’re going to the mall first.’

I consult my Swatch. ‘But church starts in fifteen minutes. We’ll never make it in time.’

‘We’ll go to the later service.’

A truck driver behind us leans on his horn, heralding another wave of nausea to crash over me. ‘Dad, please pull over again.’

‘Not on your life.’

‘I’m gonna be sick.’

‘You’re not going to be sick.’

My stomach rolls, pressing me forward into my knees. ‘I am.’

‘You’re not going to be sick.’

I heave again and here comes the long overdue foulness, spilling out into the well behind Mom’s seat. It splashes up on to my shoes and the grey leather upholstery.

Mom gasps, ‘Dear Lord.’

Our car swerves as Dad’s head whips round, the trucker’s brakes squeal, and the sudden motion only makes things worse. ‘Holy shit!’

I spit to get the lumps and acid burn off my tongue, but then another eruption flecks my loosened locks of hair and my skirt and your turtleneck, spattering on to my shins as it drums on to the floor mat. I grope for something to wipe my mouth and my hand lands on Dad’s overcoat. The belt droops into the vomit as I pull the coat to my face.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Dad flails at me with his right arm, the car veering into the adjacent lane to the blaring protest of other drivers.

‘Sorry.’

‘Dear Lord, I’m so ashamed,’ wails Mom. ‘First Joshua, now you. What’s the matter with you, Justine?’ She’s got a whole clutch of tissues unpursed now and is dabbing at her eyes.

‘Do you see what you’re doing to your mother? Did you think about that when you were gallivanting around last night?’

‘I wasn’t gallivanting.’

‘Don’t talk back to me, young lady.’

‘I wasn’t talking back.’

‘I’m warning you.’

‘Oh, Lord, Justine. How could you?’

‘Mom, it was one time, just—’

‘Just nothing.’

‘I mean—’

‘Quiet! I can’t bear to hear another word out of your mouth.’

Dad rolls down the front windows to dispel the vomit stink. Mom hates driving with the windows down at any time of year, but despite the cold not even she’s going to kick up her usual fuss. She flips her visor down to determine the havoc the wind’s wreaking on her hair and shoots me an evil eye care of the vanity mirror.

The wind cyclones through the car, turning my bare legs blue. I try to appear contrite but am pretty busy feeling cold. I fold my arms and cover my lower half with Dad’s coat. I would sell my Michael Jackson collection for just one sip of water to get rid of this post-puke taste in my mouth. I slip out my retainer and gross myself by inspecting the bits clinging to it. No question, the thing needs a rinse. I use the lining of Dad’s soiled coat to swab it clean, but it still looks too disgusting to insert in my mouth so I stash it in the flip-out ashtray in the door. No one’s ever smoked in this car – that’s another one of the rules – so it’s as hygienic in there as anywhere.

I lean back against the headrest and close my eyes. I’m exhausted. If it weren’t so cold, if my head didn’t hurt so much and my bangs weren’t slapping so ticklishly around my cheeks with the wind, I might be able to doze off. It’s good to have the glasses on so Mom and Dad don’t know if I do.

As it is, I do drift. I can see myself last night. In the gym bleachers, too morose for words, with Cindy at my side. Beth and Kelly are there too but they aren’t my best friend so they don’t know what to do and sit there acting awkward, like unnecessary appendages. Cindy isn’t too certain what to do either. So she produces a brown paper sack from her backpack, scans the area for teachers, then furtively extracts a can of Milwaukee’s Best from the sack and presses it into my hand.

‘You need it. Take your mind off all this family shit, just for tonight.’ I don’t even like the taste of it, but Cindy assures me that if you drink real fast you can hardly taste it at all. What does Cindy know. She also said the Wrigley’s Spearmint would mask the smell, she said our parents had better things to do than wait up for me, she said the beer – then the pineapple wine cooler then the rum – would make me feel better. Wrong, wrong, wrong.