Just

Kat hovers on the threshold, one boot raised, and the meagre scraps of fabric she considers fashion, flapping against her thighs.

“And stay out of my room. Don’t rifle through my shit or anything,” she says.

I blink. Vulgar accusations from my flatmate aren’t uncommon, but still, it smarts when she throws such slander with gay abandon.

“I shall do nothing of the sort,” I say.

“Whatever.”

She strides down the front steps, past the patch of flourishing daisies, and towards the dishevelled deathtrap of rusting parts she affectionately calls her car.

I swallow and smooth the creases of my dress, ignoring the building pressure in my chest. She’ll struggle without me. It’ll be all colloquialisms with strangers, drinking beer straight out of the bottle and other such atrocities. I curl my fingers around the doorframe. But no, she has to go, excise her demons, and realise the gift she has in this house.

She’ll be home in no time.

“I hope you find her,” I call, and my cheeks burn with such a coarse exclamation of emotion.

She pauses as she reaches her car, looking back at me, the sunlight catching her hair, casting a golden halo around her head. I raise a hand to wave, but she yanks the door open, tumbles into the car and snakes out of the driveway like the crass whore she is.

#

My tea is cold. Well, lukewarm, to be specific. Like bathwater that’s leached the dirt out of fleshy bodies and sits, waiting to be discarded. I set it on the coffee table and the cup rattles against the saucer, the noise, brittle and grating, travelling through the silence of the house.

It’s been three days. The earth has travelled eight million kilometres. Rotated three times on its axis.

And I have heard from Kat precisely zero times.

Perhaps I should call the police. She’s barely more capable than a toddler, or at least an average meteorologist. What if on this fool’s errand to find her mother she’s lost her phone, or been abducted or—

A pounding on the door jerks me from my reprieve and I spring off the couch, sprinting across the floor, and grabbing for the door handle, my soul hovering above my body in anticipation of the imminent inclement news.

“Katerina Hoyle?” a portly man asks, wearing slacks and a blue baseball cap.

I clutch my hands to my chest, fingers snarled into coils of trepidation. “Yes,” I whisper.

“Letter for you,” he says, shoving a large white envelope into my hands.

I blink, unsteady on my feet, trying unsuccessfully to assemble my thoughts. What type of dire news requires a hand delivered letter? My fingers tremble as I turn over the envelope.

The letter isn’t addressed to me.

“Wait,” I say, stumbling down the steps to the driveway, but the courier man is gone.

#

I throw the envelope on the hall table. The mind boggles at how someone can have time to be gallivanting around, getting hand delivered envelopes, but not even send a simple message to her flatmate.

Not. A. Single. One.

Well, I’ll show her. If she wants to play the game of emotional distance, then so be it. I accept her gauntlet.

I make another cup of tea and recline on the couch, watching the tendrils of steam rise and twist before wafting into the ether.

#

The week passes slowly. On Tuesday, I walk past the hall table a dozen times and refrain from thinking about her. On Wednesday, I shift the letter to the kitchen, so it’s closer to the drawer of miscellaneous junk and refrain from thinking about her some more. On Thursday, I set my teacup too close to the letter, and sadly, the steam lifts the flap of the envelope, but obviously I’m not so crude as to look inside. On Friday, I carelessly knock the envelope off the kitchen bench, and the letter tumbles out onto the floor. 

I pick up the crisp white sheet of quality parchment with a gold-embossed logo at the top. Well, thank the lord some of us have retained our civilities.

My eyes gorge on the words written on the page and a hiss escapes from my lips. Kat’s presence is requested on Monday hence for the reading of her Aunt Etta's last will and testament. I slam the letter onto the kitchen bench and clench my fists, my fingernails biting into my palms, piercing the skin and drawing blood.

If Aunt Etta thinks she can just keel over and bribe Kat’s affection from beyond the grave, she has another thing coming. I swallow. Of course, I’m not so vulgar as to feel rage or be vindictive.

No.

Kat said not to trifle with her possessions and since this letter is clearly labelled with her name, it’s her possession. So, I’m simply going to abstain from doing anything at all.

#

And I do.

The letter sits quietly on the bench all weekend and I don’t think about Kat, or her silence, or the great fortune she’s missing out on due to her persistent doubt in my ability to manage her affairs in her absence. I leave for work on Monday with the letter propped on the kitchen bench in almost the same position I left it on Friday.

The morning drags. The photocopier is relentlessly unreliable, Daniel from accounts incessantly pries about my enjoyment of my weekend activities, even the stapler seems intent on being as irksome as possible and jams, twisting the staples into tiny, mangled pretzels.

“You okay?” Daniel asks, handing me yet another stack of papers to force through the mean lips of the stapler.

I ignore his gross breech of social etiquette and answer him civilly. “Perfectly fine, thank you.”

Daniel shrugs. “You’ve been watching the clock all morning. Got somewhere to be?”

The letter was delivered. They’ll be expecting her. Proper decorum would dictate I head to the lawyer and clear up any confusion. Besides, I can conduct negotiations far better than my absconding, fragile flatmate.

“Yes Daniel. Indeed, my presence is required elsewhere.” I pick up my bag and cardigan. “I shall return after lunch.”

And I walk brusquely out of the office, with the warm tingle of anticipation crawling over my back, leaving before Daniel can resume his snooping.

#

The lawyer is a most disagreeable man. He’s small and round and utterly devoid of any manners. His secretary isn’t much better. I assume she procured such a menial role due to her poor listening skills and pitiable comprehension, made evident by her lack of understanding that I was, in fact, here for the reading of Aunt Etta’s will, but I was, in fact, not Kat.

The lawyer isn’t comprehending this fact either. What is the world coming to?

I try again. “Sir, I must protest, you’re not—”

He runs his oily gaze over me. “Just sit down. We’ll deal with any protests after the reading, love.”

Love.

He just called me love.

The audacity. I open and close my mouth, but I am at a literal loss for words, shocked into silence by his vulgarity. He reads from a series of papers, but the words wash over me. It’s good I’m here, protecting Kat from such a clearly sexually deviant man. The world’s full of men like him, always taking, ready to—

“Sign here, please.” He’s holding out a pen, pushing a paper in my direction.

Kat shouldn’t have to deal with such unpleasantries, especially while she’s so preoccupied with determining her mother’s fate. It’s just a small thing. I’m doing her a favour. The lawyer’s eyebrows crinkle together, forming a thick, hairy caterpillar. No, Kat shouldn’t be subject to this.

I pick up the pen and sign.

Katerina Hoyle.

He nods and hands me a key. I stare at him blankly.

“Were you listening to anything I said?” he asks.

No, I was equating his vocabulary to his moral standards.

“This is your inheritance, love.” He hands me an envelope. “Address and details are inside.”

I nod and slip the paper and key into my bag and stand, pulling my cardigan tighter over my chest.

“Good day, sir,” I say, even though such manners will be wasted on this vulgar buffoon.

He holds open the door. “Later, love.”

Later, indeed.

#

I must keep Kat’s inheritance safe, ergo, I must enter her bedroom, even though it is against her express wishes. This is a matter of safety. I push the door, and it creaks as it swings open.

The room is a cacophony of colour. Pictures and postcards adorn the walls, fairy lights are scattered around the walls, beads, daisies, dream catchers all haphazardly vomited onto the walls with total disregard for order or logic. I hang up a tan leather jacket with a daisy trim that’s strewn over a chair and straighten her bedspread, tucking in the corner before placing the envelope and key on her pillow.

I pause at her bedside table. There’s a bowl in the shape of a dinosaur. The tail is chipped but, still, it’s cheerful and childish. And heavy. One swing and you could kill something with it. Multiple things, even. Tucked inside the bowl is a card, black, white, sharp edges and smart. Even though I’m not prying, it catches my eye, and I see the writing inside. It’s an invitation.

Aunt Etta warmly invites you to celebrate her 70th birthday.

Seems she was planning on having a big celebration this weekend. Well, that didn’t work out so well for Aunt Etta after all, did it?

A stab of jealousy tingles across my spine. I don’t have an Aunt Etta to invite me to a 70th birthday celebration, warmly or otherwise. My aunt, Henrietta, was a decrepit, miserly old vulture.

I return the invitation to the dresser and turn to leave. The key has slipped off the envelope, down onto her pillow, and I straighten it, the smooth, hard metal cool under my fingers. I should put it inside the envelope. For safe keeping.

My fingers hesitate as I pull the flap out of the envelope. The words, safe deposit box, pop out at me. What if no one is paying for it after Aunt Etta’s demise? I should just go and collect it for Kat. Or at least attempt to rectify the situation.

Even though it’s cold outside, I’ll do it now. I’ll take a jacket.

#

The security at the vault where the safe deposit box is located is severely lacking. Aunt Etta must be vexed with the same disregard for detail that afflicts Kat. I walk up, hand them the letter, and the key, and a petite, blonde lady ushers me into a room, leaves, returns moments later carrying a steel box.

“I’ll leave this here for you,” she says, placing it on the table.

“Thank you,” I say.

She dithers in the doorway. “Once you’re done, you can push this button here and I’ll come back and let you out.”

I nod, but my eyes are feasting on the box. What has Aunt Etta left Kat? I slide the key into the lock and turn. It opens easily. There’s a smaller, black box inside. Flat, square, about the size of a readymade tv dinner.

I click the latch open, and in spite of myself, I utter a vulgar profanity. Nestled in plush red velvet is an exquisite heart-shaped diamond necklace; the gold chain catches the artificial light. What the hell was Aunt Etta thinking, giving this to that unholy, ungrateful cow?

I pull my jacket tighter over my chest, my nails biting into the leather, and snap the box shut, jam it into my bag and stride across the room to push the button.

The petite blonde smiles as she opens the door, but it quickly falls off her face when she looks at me. “Everything okay?” she asks, her hand hovering in the air, as if forming an invisible force-field from my emotion.

“Fine,” I say, pushing past her with total disregard for etiquette, and burst into the hall. 

What is the world coming to?

#

I pull my jacket closer over my chest, running my fingers over the daisy trim on the tan leather. An older man, balding, portly, bulbous nose of someone who has a habit of consuming more than a sensible amount of daily alcohol, approaches me.

He pauses, his face crinkled in concentration, and runs his gaze over me before settling on my necklace. “Kat?”

I freeze. I just came to Aunt Etta’s party to check out Kat’s family, make sure she’s making good choices, but this is a gift that’s just too delicious to turn down.

“Hey, Uncle Perry,” I say, giving a nod. The casual words are thick on my tongue, but I plaster on a plastic smile. And I promise myself, I’m pretending. Just for a moment.

“I haven’t seen you in years.” He clamps his hand on my shoulder, but I don’t brush it off. “I see you got the necklace Etta left you.”

“It was quite a surprise,” I reply. At least that’s not a lie.

“It was meant to be your mum’s, you know,” Uncle Perry says.

I nod.

He pulls me into a hug, and I stiffen, but tolerate the embrace. “Etta said you were going away for months, out of contact, in the Amazon, looking for her?” he asks.

It’s delicious to be considered someone who’d drop everything and search for their missing mother. Through the Amazon, no less.

“Back early,” I say, using Kat’s vulgar habit of truncating sentences.

“Did you find anything?” he asks, sliding back and gripping my shoulder.

I shake my head, the appropriate vocabulary eluding me.

He sighs. “It just doesn’t add up why she’d leave like that.”

“She left a note.”

“I guess so.” The silence hangs between us. He coughs, finally breaking it. “Still living with that demented old bat?”

I bristle. He’s referring to me. The audacity. I open my mouth to educate him about proper etiquette and decorum. But instead, I laugh. Like Kat would.

“She’s not so bad,” I say.

Uncle Perry frowns. “If you say so.” He sips his wine. “Thought you’d gone to the amazon just to get away from her, to be honest.”

Well, I wish he’d be a little less honest. Of course, she didn’t leave because of me.

I laugh again. Like Kat would.

Uncle Perry wraps his arm over my shoulders, and instead of brushing him off, I lean into him. It feels good.

“Now that you’re back, are you going back to work?” he asks.

Yes. Actually, I just think I might.

#

Working Kat’s job is hard. I’m constantly filtering my words to sound like her and my crash course on the internet about beauty and makeup has been eye opening to say the least.

Crash course. That’s such a Kat word.

Sleeping in her room is difficult. The chaos and colour keep me awake, and I’m more than just a little sleep deprived. Still, sacrifices must be made. I pull up her daisy-stricken duvet and close my eyes, edging into sleep. It’s a big day tomorrow. I’m up for a promotion already.

“What the fuck are you doing in here?”

The words slam through the night and wrap around my throat, ripping me from my sleep. I bolt up in bed and open my eyes, but it’s all blackness. I can’t breathe.

“For fuck’s sake, you’re in my fucking bed? What the actual fuck?”

The mental slap of the words jolts me awake and my mind sharpens.

It’s her.

It’s me.

The light switch clicks and the room floods with light. She’s hunched over, face twisted in rage, lips peeled back into a snarl. I push up on the bed, swinging my legs over the side and resting my hand on the bedside table.

She dumps her pack on the floor and staggers towards me, stopping inches from my face. She bends down, lips parted, ready to spit some vitriol, and the truth slams into me.

I’m a much better version of her.

And so, I grab the dinosaur bowl by its chipped tail and swing.

#

“Any news on your sister?” My neighbour leans against the fence, surveying my garden.

I shake my head. “Still nothing.”

“And she just up and left?”

I pick at a bit of fluff on the trim of my jacket. “Seems that way.”

He rubs his hand over his chin and shakes his head. “Just like your mum.”

I shrug.

“You two girls sure look similar, but boy, you’re different.” He runs his gaze over me and smiles. I pull my leather jacket tighter over my chest. “She was never the same though, was she, after your mother left?”

I shake my head and think of the dinosaur bowl with its chipped tail and chipped nose. “We all change. All the time.”

He nods, pushing off the fence, the neighbourly pleasantries almost complete. “Gosh, those daisies grow so well there.”

“They do, don’t they,” I say, looking at the rectangular patch at the back of the garden where the daisies grow so much better than anything else. “They love that spot.” There’s another spot out the front where they grow well, too.

He turns, the conversation over. “Later, Kat.”

Later, indeed.