"Shit. Where are they?" I stood swaying on the pathway, handbag in on hand, the other rummaging through it frantically. There I was: dressed to the nines, 3am on a Tuesday night, drunk on my mother's doorstep, unable to find my keys.
Life can be such a bitch sometimes. Call it a cliché, but clichés are clichés because they're true. Life's a bitch, and never let yourself believe otherwise.
"Shit," I muttered again, moving closer to the door. Staggering, maybe; high-heels are never the best choice for a night of drinking. My breath steaming on the cold air. "I should tie the thing around my neck next time."
When I got within a pace of the doorway I stumbled. Pitched forward onto my hands and knees. Right into the milk bottles carefully arranged on the doorstep. Sending them scattering with a crash that echoed into the night.
"Shit."
I kneeled there for a second, aware only of the sudden burning pain in my knees - a pain so searing I didn't notice the hall light flare into life and, a second later, the front door being yanked open.
"Janine!"
I looked up. "Mum?"
My mother was there, in her dressing gown, standing silhouetted against the light from the hall. A look on her face like...well, if you've ever woken your mother up at 3am on a Tuesday morning by being drunk and falling on the milk bottles, you can probably imagine.
"God, Janine, what the hell is this?"
I slumped against the doorframe. "Sorry," I mumbled.
My mother looked down at me. "Get up. You won't get any help from me." She stepped back into the hall.
I sighed, and, grabbing the doorframe, hauled myself to my feet.
***
In the kitchen, I stood leaning against the table while Mum searched through the medicine cabinet for some iodine. I'd torn my knees to shreds on the gravel path when I fell - blood was oozing out and running down my calves, deep red against my black skin.
"Janine, this really is too much," Mum was saying over her shoulder. "It's 3am on a Tuesday!"
"I know," I said.
"Take a look at yourself."
I did. I looked down and saw a girl in a white vest, white miniskirt and white high-heeled shoes to contrast with dark skin, with great breasts that guys could never stop themselves slyly looking at and long, smooth sleek legs - looking damn hot except for the grazes on the knees. "What?" I said.
"You're eighteen years old," Mum said. "That's what. It's about time you started acting like it."
Mum's favourite catchphrase.
"Your mother's right," said a low voice behind me. I turned around. Dan, my mother's white boyfriend. In a blue dressing gown and slippers. Like he owned the place.
"Keep out of it, Dan," I said. I wasn't in the mood for him butting in.
Mum stood up and came over, carrying the iodine and a bunch of cotton wool. "Hey," she said. "He's got just as much right as you to speak. He's just been woken up, after all." She looked into my eyes, daring me to argue. I didn't give her the satisfaction.
She sighed and kneeled down with the iodine and cotton wool. I looked at Dan. "Sorry for waking you up," I said.
"You almost sound like you mean it," he said.
It's fair to say Dan and I have never seen eye to eye. After my father died Mum had been despondent for months before meeting him, so I suppose I should have appreciated his influence on her...but he wasn't my father, so I guess his efforts to get to know me were always doomed to failure. He was a big guy, stocky and tall, with a big barrel chest and a receding hairline. Handsome in his own way - he hadn't got my mother just through charm alone - and with a distinguised air. Going grey around the temples. He was about forty-five.
There was a sting as Mum pressed the cotton wool against my left knee. I bit my lip.
"Stay still," she said. "This will only take a moment." She tipped more iodine onto the cotton wool and put it back on my knee, hard. Fire lanced through my skin.
You're enjoying this, aren't you?
I thought, looking down at her.
Bitch.
Then I looked at Dan and saw him looking at my legs. Looking at my mother on her knees, one hand on my smooth calf, the other dabbing away at my bloody skin.
Oh Dan, how you wish it could be you
, I thought, catching his eye and smiling.
***
The next day I woke up at 12 with a raging headache and a mouth that felt like cardboard. I rolled over in bed lay there for a while with the sun streaming through a gap in the curtains onto my back. My knees were full of dull pain.
Finally I got up and wrapped a towel around myself to head to the shower.
Dan was in the corridor. "Oh," he said, looking me up and down. "Janine."
"Hi, Dan," I said, seeing the look in his eyes. That kind of look isn't hard to spot.
Bet mum doesn't look like this when she goes to the shower,
I thought as I walked past him, smiling in a sly little way. Making sure my hips swayed as I moved. When I reached the bathroom door I looked over my shoulder and saw him watching. He looked away quickly. I giggled and closed the door behind me.
While I was in the shower I thought about what I'd just done.
I'm such a cow
, I told myself.
But why not just have a little fun?
After my shower I left the bathroom, but this time I didn't have my towel wrapped around me - I just clutched it to my front, barely covering my breasts and hanging down over my crotch. Dan wasn't there. But the thought that he might be out there, watching, made me suddenly forget my hangover.
Fully clothed - well, as fully as you can be in a miniskirt and bikini - I went downstairs to the kitchen, my heart quickening without quite realising why. I had the feeling I'd somehow started something with Dan, but I didn't know quite what it was.
Mother was there, sitting at the table. "Janine," she said. Something in her tone made me stop short.
"Mum?" I said.
She looked at me with eyes like ice.
"What?" I said.
She folded her arms. "Janine, I've been thinking," she said quietly. "And I've made a decision. Well, Dan and I both, actually."
What was this all about?
"You and Dan both?"
She nodded. "We've decided you're grounded, Janine. For two weeks." She sat back in her chair.
Grounded? Was she for real? "Excuse me?" I said.
"You heard," she said. "Until you learn to behave with consideration for others, you won't get any consideration from me. I won't be woken up by your drunken antics at 3 am ever again, Janine. You'd better believe it."
For the first time in my life I understood what it meant to be speechless.
Bitch,
I thought, staring at her.
So you're after a fight?
"After two weeks we'll see how you feel. Until then, you're not leaving this house."
Finally I found my voice. "And how exactly do you intend to stop me?" Putting all my ice into it.
She smiled, though her eyes stayed as hard and flinty as before. "I had the locks changed first thing this morning. And I'm not giving you the key. And if you leave the house, you won't be let back inside."
I put my hands on my hips. "You can't do this," I said.
