Daddy Dearest
by Erik Hanson
So I’m walking back up the hill to my apartment, and I’m like- I can’t believe this shit. People just don’t know how to have fun anymore. Like, since when is it not okay to make a scene like that. It’s not like it’s my fault. I didn’t even invite him. He just showed up. I can’t be held responsible for what he does just because we slept together like a thousand years ago. I mean, what kind of name is Riff anyway.
Those Jersey Boys do it for me every time though. I just can’t help myself, and it always seems like a good idea at the time. The sex is amazing and all, but the next thing you know he’s piss drunk and getting us kicked out of everywhere worth going.
I have no clue why I took my shoes off in the first place or what he did with them, but they’re definitely gone now, a sacrifice to the night. Sure, there are broken beer bottles everywhere because this is a total trash city, but I’m way too hung over to handle heels on a hill like this anyway.
When I finally get to my apartment, the front door is still wide open. Typical. I should be more annoyed, but right now I just really don’t care. All I want is to crawl into a nice dark place and sleep for like a week. As if that’s going to happen. The living room is trashed as usual, and Sophie’s tangled in a blanket under the table, probably naked. That girl just cannot keep her clothes on, but it’s a party so whatever, right?
I fumble my way into my room by the first rays of morning coming in from my window. It figures the sun would be shining right on my bed. It’s been that kind of night. More like that kind of life, but it’s way better than being Jillian.
I always thought Daddy loved her best because she was always so perfect. Really, she’s just boring, but try telling that to Daddy Dearest. She got straight A’s, went to Harvard, then Columbia for law school. Of course she’s marrying some Senator’s son from bumpkin-nowhere Tennessee, but he’s from money, which always pleased Daddy. Oh, he definitely loved his perfect Jillian best.
I’m already getting worked up over this again, and I really don’t have time for this shit. I go to my bathroom and rip open the medicine cabinet looking for anything to calm me down, but they’re all empty. Nothing. Figures that Sophie’s friends would raid my stash. She always was stingy with handouts and everyone knew it, but what she lacked in generosity, she made up for in connections. That girl has slept with anyone who’s even thought about selling drugs this side of the Mississippi. The girl knows people.
Pissed off, I go to her bathroom because I know she’ll have something. I figure she owed it to me anyway, but they cleaned her out too. Must have been some party, but then again, with Sophie it always is.
Feeling defeated I go out the kitchen looking for something to drink because there’s no way in hell I’m making it through this morning without something in me when the phone rings. That has got to be one of the worst noises in the world, right up there with a knock on the door. I’m in no shape to be awake, let alone communicating with another human being so I let the machine get it.
Wouldn’t you know it, it’s Daddy calling to tell me that Jillian’s wedding is tomorrow and ask if I’m coming. I don’t know whom he’s fooling. We both know he doesn’t really want me there, which is just fine by me because I don’t really want to be there either. I wouldn’t want to ruin perfect Jillian’s big day for Daddy now would I? I’d just get way too drunk, do way too many drugs, and have way too much fun, or ‘make a scene’ as Daddy likes to say. He just can’t accept the fact that I’m not his perfect Jillian and never will be. I’m just Allison, his little screw up.
Well I guess Daddy Dearest was right. Little old Allison has made yet another scene, drank way too much, done way too many drugs, and had way too much fun. It’s not like I asked for this shit. It’s just what I do.
Erik: I am a junior majoring in German with a minor in English at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. I am also doing an internship as an editorial assistant at the West Virginia University Press. My previous works include "Out of Sight, Out of Mind," which won an honorable mention in the West Virginia Writers Annual Spring Writing Competition for Emerging Writers Prose in 2010. Contact Erik
