Midnight crash by Tara zlick (i can read book club .txt) 📖

‘But you can’t
have beer with lasagne, it ruins the taste.’

‘Nothing can ruin the taste of a cold beer,’ Dad said, opening the fridge.

‘I meant the taste of lasagne,’ I said.

Later I piled the dishes into the sink while Dad sat down with his beer and his ice-
cream and fruit salad. This’d be the best dinner we’d have for a few weeks, that’s for
sure, because I wasn’t going to put in an effort like this every night.

I started to fill the sink, then turned the tap off. Let Dad do it, I thought. He wasn’t
going anywhere for the next few days. It’d give him something to do. Why should I do all
the work? But then I saw the lasagne dish. White sauce and burnt pasta had dried along
the rim of the dish and bolognaise stained the base. It looked so dirty and Dad wouldn’t clean it properly either. He’d probably leave it in the sink until the end of the week. I
hated having the dishes pile up. So I ended up washing them myself. I didn’t even use the
dishwasher, a horrible old thing that was loud and wasted too much water.

Sometimes I feel like I’m nothing but a fifteen year-old housewife.


6
..............................................
I waited until I could hear Dad snoring in his recliner before I rang Topps. I didn’t want
Dad to listen in. ‘Hey dude,’ I said when Topps answered. Even though there was five
in his family, Topps always answered the phone at his house. I think it’s because a
cordless phone sits right next to his computer.
‘Hey,’ he replied absent-mindedly.
After hearing that far away voice, I knew immediately that Topps was either
playing World of Warcraft on his PC; updating his homepage or fiddling around with
something technical such his remote-control car motor that was always in need of repair.
I love talking on the phone. It’s much better than face-to-face. I just feel more
comfortable and free to speak my mind. Skye is my best phone-buddy. We can talk about
everything and anything, seriously, for an hour without stopping for breath. It’s one of
the reasons I’m not allowed a decent mobile, though I’m planning on getting a Motorola
this Christmas from Dad. At the moment I have to put up with a pre-paid phone that is at
least five years old and dies at random times throughout the day.
My all-time phone record? Last summer when Skye had come back from the Gold
Coast with an awesome story about almost drowning in the surf. It took two and a half
hours to tell it.
Now Topps, he’s different. He loves to talk but on the phone he’s really average.
He’s always distracted and never listens to what I’m saying. ‘Ah…huh…yep…okay,’
he’d mumble as I waxed on about the store or an assignment or my dad’s latest bad
mood. Boys just don’t get phones.
This time, however, he listened.
I explained about the visit by Detective Rooks and Crass being fairly unhappy
about it. Then I told him that according to the store computer Robert Keppler had rented
almost three hundred DVDs in the past year – most of them for free.
....

‘How does he get DVDs for free?’ asked Topps after I had explained how so many
of his DVD listings displayed CREDIT $0.00 and how easy it was to credit customers for
rentals. ‘You think Crass rents them all to him? Crass doesn’t exactly come across as a
generous sort of guy.’

‘Dunno. Perhaps Crass feel sorry for him because he’s unemployed?’ Although, I
thought, his smart arse cracks this afternoon said otherwise.

Then I remembered the previous login name I saw: KAT. I asked Topps who it
could be. He knew immediately. ‘Only the second best looking chick who ever worked at
the ‘Loon.’

‘Do you have a name Topps, or are you going to start drooling down the phone?’

‘Of course. Who could forget her? Caitlin Allende.’

Caitlin Allende. I knew who he was talking about. Caitlin Allende of the swirling
blonde hair and the blue eyes and the school uniform that was just a little too small. A
very deliberate ploy, I felt, to show off her long, tanned legs. She was in Year Twelve
and had played the lead role of Sandy in the school production of Grease. I thought her
rendition of “Hopelessly Devoted to You” sucked, but Topps loved it and sang it at
school the next day all through our game of indoor hockey.

Being incredibly beautiful, popular and two years old than me, I had never spoken
to her. Topps wanted to change all that.

‘We should talk to her, you know,’ he said. ‘She suddenly left The Video Saloon
several months back. I was heartbroken, of course. It’s like losing your first true love.’

‘Give it a rest Topps. You’ll make me throw up. Why would we want to talk to her
anyway?’

‘She could help us out. Give us some clues. Perhaps she knows something about
the stash of DVDs in the basement? Hey, you could also apologise to her too.’

‘For what?’

‘Taking her job. You replaced her.’

‘Should it be a verbal or do you want me to write a formal “sorry”?’

‘Verbal will be fine.’


I thought it was a dumb idea to speak to Caitlin, even though she had, like Crass,
rented out DVDs to Robert for free. A coincidence? Still, I thought it was pointless and I
definitely didn’t want to tell her about the stash in case she told Crass or Vince.

‘C’mon Stace, this is like one of those awesome Secret Seven books we read in
primary school where the kids solve the crime,’ said Topps, all excited. ‘We’ve got to
take this further by talking to Caitlin.’

Before I could tell Topps how much of a stupid idea it was, Dad barked from the
living room: ‘Stacey, would you get off that phone! You’ve been on it for ages!’
‘You just want an excuse to talk to Caitlin,’ I said, trying to finish off the
conversation. ‘She isn’t that great.’
‘Hey, I never said she was. After all, I said she was the second best looking chick at
the Video Saloon.’

‘STACEY!’ my dad bellowed from the family room. I heard him shift on the
recliner. I used it as an excuse to hang up on Topps. I didn’t want to hear who he thought
was number one.

I went and apologised to Dad. I’d virtually sat on the phone this week. Better to say
sort, it would save a beery lecture later on. Still, if we had broadband I could use Skype
for free.

‘Stacey,’ he said, ‘you know how tight money is at the moment.’
‘We’re not exactly at the starving stage Dad. You make us sound like we’re like,
totally poor. If we can afford beer, we can afford a few phone calls.’

Dad, cut, shrunk back down into the couch. ‘They’ve reduced back my hours at the
store. So it’ll be fairly tough going this month until they need me again full-time for
Christmas.’

Dad worked at a hardware store out of town. One of those giant warehouses that
blight the landscape. He used to be manager of the tradesperson’s accounts but quit when
Mum died. He couldn’t handle the stress. Now he shelves nails and helps answer
customer queries about outdoor acrylic paint. I don’t think he enjoys it.
It’s one reason I was so happy to get the job at the Video Saloon. I hated asking
Dad for money and this way I earned my own cash. If it wasn’t for my job I’d never get
to the cinema, never get any new clothes and I’d even struggle to buy my magazines each
month. I’d even paid for a birthday present for Skye last month because I didn’t want to
ask Dad for any money. If I wanted anything, I had to pay for it. How we’d afford the
text books for school next year when the workload started to really increase, I didn’t
know.

I’d be jeopardising what money I did earn by telling him about the DVDs, that’s for
sure.

‘Don’t worry Dad,’ I said, patting his hands. I drew them over my shoulder and
hugged him. Something I don’t do so much anymore. He hugged me back and I could
feel his bony ribs. He’d lost weight this year. He was skinnier than me. It made me feel
sort of sad. I felt his bristles rub against my cheek. He had bad skin. Wrinkled and
blotched and tight with worry. His grey hair looked limp. His general appearance was not
helped by a boring, daggy grey tracksuit than hung off him like a scarecrow.

I think I got over Mum’s death a whole lot quicker than he has. In fact, I don’t think
he’s made any progress at all. I read somewhere that men fall into two categories: men
who want to look after their women, and men who just want to be loved by them. Dad is
definitely in the second category. He relied on Mum a lot. I guess Dad was always a bit
of a dreamer, a romantic. She was the hard-headed, no nonsense one who ran the house,
paid the bills, made the tough decisions and even bought his clothes. I guess I take after
her. I get over things and just keep working. Boy, the ways things are going it’ll only be a
few years until I’d be buying his Bonds undies for him.

Mum was a primary school teacher. A good one. She was always busy, always
running around organising picnics and school dances and our camping holidays to Lakes
Entrance. I don’t think any of us could believe it when she got cancer. Except her. She
told me before she died she always knew she had been living on borrowed time. It’s why
she hated wasting it, why she was always so busy. Something had happened years before.

A scare. Or more. I never did find out exactly what. It was the reason she couldn’t have
any more kids after me. Something to do with her ovarian tubes.

Anyway, out came the library books, the therapies, the all-natural pills and
meetings with self-help groups. But it didn’t do any good. She hung in there for a long
time. The cancer was like a see-saw. Up, down, good, bad, temporary remission, hospital.
Dad fell apart soon after, although everyone else thinks he’s more-or-less held it together.
But he hasn’t. He doesn’t play in his night tennis competition anymore, he can’t face
Lakes Entrance even though we used to spend almost a month down there every year for
as long as I can remember; he dresses badly and he has to force himself to even smile.
The only thing he still does is fish, but most