Chapter 10

At the breakfast table I take a bite out of a piece of toast and feel like I've been awake for twelve hours. I chug coffee down, and it fills me with a kind of ecstasy that can only be created by a Bolivian bean. Or Venezuela or some s**t country wherever coffee beans come from. Annie is texting on her phone and Thomas points at the TV and laughs and just watching him makes me laugh even though I don't know what's funny. Only fools laugh when there is nothing to laugh at. Who said that?

“Is there a decent amount of creamer and sugar in your cup your majesty?” 

“Honey, look at Thomas. Look how cute, how damn handsome he looks.”

“Dad what time does school get out today? Do we get out early?”'

“I don't think so. I believe it's normal schedule.”

“I don't want to go. F*****g Christmas break lasted a week practically.”

“Hey watch what you say around him, hes very perceptive.”

“Yeah, imma very fugging perective Annie.”

I laughed and so did Annie.

Right after I finished that piece of toast I told Andrea that I was going to get some gas and then ran outside and got into my car and drove around the seven foot hedge  into Fay Smiths driveway. Her front yard was surrounded by looming pines, and the old colonial sat in place behind the guarding trees. I switched off the ignition and rushed to knock gently on her front door, the same melody every time, my knuckles drumming away to the beat of Fay Smith. 

The door cracked and an pale blue eye shined out of the shadowed interior. Then a nose appeared in my sight and a mouth and it spoke,

“Steven, what took you so long?” Fay pulled me into her house, down the hall with the thousands of photographs tacked to the walls.

“I'm sorry, I was eating breakfast.”

“But I'm making you breakfast, I'm making you pancakes, see?”

Fay glided over to the kitchen, over to the stove where she revealed to me a cooking pile of liquid pancake on a large pan. 

“Well thank you, Fay. You didn't have to do that.”

“Just sit down at the table and I'll get my syrup.”

She walked over to a cabinet and bent over to grab the syrup which was at the very bottom of the cabinet. My eyes are touching her and then she hands me the syrup and I say thanks. She grabs her glass of water off the table and spills a little onto the lap of my pants, apologizes and pulls my pants off.

After fifteen minutes of a combined sex and pancakes workout, I got in my car and drove out of the shadowed driveway and turned around the hedge back into my driveway. The front door opened and Annie walked out with her backpack and headphones in her ears. She looked her appearance,clean and fresh with makeup, ready to be viewed and judged by society. Opening the door and humming to herself she tossed her back pack in the back seat and got in and then we were on the road.

“Annie, did you get the lunch your mom made for you?”

No reply. Her head bobbed. I adjusted the rear view mirror. I turned the music up. I slung the seat belt over me. Annie sang along to a different tune. 

“Annie. . . Annie. . . Annie!”

No reply from little miss pissy piss.

“Hey Annie. Did you remember when I said I was going to put gas in the car?  Well in reality I just drove next door and went into Fay Smith's house. She made me pancakes. And they tasted great. Absolutely sublime. And that's not all I ate,”

“What did you say dad?”

Annie held an ear bud loose and looked at me questioningly and when I didn't say anything she popped it back in.