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Chapter 9
The phone hadn’t stopped all morning.
“Can I offset the cost of my running shoes because I jog to work?”
“What about deducting my takeaway coffees?”
“Can I negatively gear my new campervan?That counts as an investment property, right?”
Then there were the complaints about Ron he had to field.
“Ron hasn’t done my last two BAS statements.”
“The tax office said Ron hasn’t sent through the A240ZB4 form yet.”
“Ron NEVER returns my calls…” and on and on.
The only remedy was to leave his desk and make himself another coffee.He wasn’t even over the hump of the week.Instead of getting closer, Friday night yoga and seeing Judith seemed to be moving further and further away.
He shouldn’t think about the Judith situation.It made him feel like crap.
Instead, he thought about the Avery situation.Which also made him feel like crap, but marginally less so.
Last night’s family dinner had not improved on the mall incident.
It had started when Mum remarked on Avery’s nails, which were painted in different shades of metallic grey, and she’d turned to Dad and said, “Will you look at her nails, Adrian?They look like she’s hit them with a hammer.”Silence from Dad.“Can you add your weight to this?Back me up, for once.”
Dad glanced over at Avery’s hands, then returned to neatly piling mashed potato on his fork.“You’re worrying your mother, Avery.”
Avery gave them both the stink eye and muttered, “You can divorce your parents, you know.”
Carts knew exactly why Avery had grey fingernails.To be honest, he quite liked the one on her thumb, it had a translucent sheen to it.It was meant to match her dress for Saturday.The dress Mum knew nothing about.He sighed and shoved a piece of broccoli into his mouth.Mum looked from his dad to him, clearly exasperated by the lack of male support.
“Okay, what’s your opinion, Carter?Surely you don’t think it looks nice, do you?”
“I don’t mind the one on Ave’s thumb so much,” he muttered.
Mum glared.Probably she was pissed off because Avery hadn’t done her flute practice tonight.If things escalated from here, there would be a stand-off that would do a spaghetti western proud.“C’mon, it’s not the end of the world, is it?”he said.
Mum snorted and stabbed at her steak.“If you have to paint your nails, Avery, why can’t you stick to a nice normal colour.Like pale pink.”
Avery rolled her eyes and slid her elbow along the table, chin cupped on her hand.“What’s the point of that?”
“Don’t talk back.And sit up straight, you’ll get indigestion.”
Avery’s face looked like a squeezed lemon and Carts flicked back his hair and gave her a warning glare.Avery bit her lower lip and he could see the effort she was making to keep from back-chatting.
To avert disaster, he turned to Dad.“You haven’t said how your interview went?”
“Oh, you know, so, so.”Dad’s brows wrinkled and the wrinkle carried into the smoothness of his bald head.Dad’s hair used to be thick and dark like Carts’.Ten years ago, Dad’s parents had died in quick succession, and he’d been made redundant from a lecturing position, and his hair all fell out in great big clumps.Now he reminded Carts of a cone-head cartoon, his features disproportionately low in his long head.Alopecia, the doctors had said.He’d even lost his eyebrows, which he’d finally had tattooed on at Mum’s insistence.
At least Carts wasn’t going to inherit Dad’s baldness.All the rest of the Wells men had good thick heads of hair, as his mum would wistfully remark from time to time.
“With it being a new super department, I’m probably not quite dynamic enough.”Dad’s face turned grim.“I don’t fancy my chances against Rodney Fell in Physics, to be honest.”
Mum stood up and piled up the plates, and Carts jumped up to help her.“I can always take on more teaching.”
“That won’t pay the bills, Rosemary,” Dad said sadly.“Or for Avery’s year in Paris.”
