Day Minus One

Elizabeth could feel her life being figuratively washed down the drain, and literally being shattered in front of her. Her mother held the remnants of a ukulele neck in her manicured hand, the strings curling up awkwardly around Elizabeth’s mother's’ wrist, collecting with the - what looked like - hundreds of bangles already hanging off the exposed skin.   

“You are a disgrace!” Susan spat at her daughter, “I will not tolerate any tomfoolery in my house” with that the remaining piece of the beloved instrument was thrown to the floor and Susan turned quickly on her heels muttering under her breath “I should have known the skinny jeans were a sign...” Elizabeth unclenched her fists, her knuckles were fading into white and she had left small semi-circle nail marks on her palm.

Since Elizabeth’s hair disaster, she had been avoiding her mother, sliding around corners and even on occasion ducking behind the ridiculously sized pot plant in the hallway. Elizabeth was lucky enough that her mother's heels and shrill voice could be heard from any part of the house - especially if the whole food store was running low on kale chips.

As busking was the only source of independent income for Elizabeth (“What do you even need money for, honestly?” As her mother would ask and if needed, “Just use my account” from her father) sneaking out each afternoon became imperative.

Clutching a small fragment of wood Elizabeth cursed her mistake of playing too near the town centre because of course, Carol has already spread the gossip about her, and of course Joyce changed centres to support her pilates endeavours and of course she was already on the phone to her mother almost as soon as her BMV pulled into the carpark.

Gathering as much as she could in her arms Elizabeth stormed out of the room, running upstairs and through to her brother’s room.

“Don’t you ever knock?” Carlton mumbled, not looking up from his chemistry textbook. Ignoring him Elizabeth dropped the shards of the wood on the cream carpet.

“Look at this bullshit,” she said, then leant backwards out through the door, holding onto the frame. “Absolute BULLSHIT!” she yelled. Carlton leapt out, grabbing her sister's arm, pulling her hastily into the room. Closing the door sharply. “Hi Maximillion” she added.

The second male youth in the room curtly nodded his head from behind his laptop screen in response.

“Hey now, I do not want to see my sister living under a bridge, what are you doing swearing like that? Mom will hear,” he mumbled panicky, leaning against the door in case his apparent insane twin tried to do anything more to get herself dispelled from the household.

“Well my life is basically ruined”

“That seems melodra- is that your uke?”

“Observant as ever dear brother” Elizabeth jumped onto the bed, landing next to Maxmillion who on a glance seemed to be googling something about the Brooklyn railway system. He didn’t look up. “If I don’t get out of here I’m going to go non-compos mentis.”

“Okay... this is bad.”

Elizabeth placed her head on the wall, just under the feet of the poster version of Damien Rice. Calton moved from the door to the floor to examine the material. Feeling exasperated Elizabeth left her brother, Maximilian and the leftovers of a woodshop in the room as she retreated into her own.

A weird sort of adrenaline was pumping through Elizabeth, her radio was still on from the corner of her room, playing softly an Iron Maiden song, rushing over she turned it up to full volume - almost willing her mother to retaliate.

Five minutes later a quick, sharp knock was heard against the wood of the door, expecting her mother (although she never knocks) a scowl found itself on Elizabeth’s face. However, a tall, brooding boy stood there, flicking his long hair over his shoulder.

“Maximillion?” she asked.

He held up a set of keys that suspiciously looked like they belonged to Elizabeth’s mother's’ Honda Minivan.