FicWad

Chapter 19: Could it be that your curse is bliss?

Gia was upstairs, talking on the phone with Frank, trying to decide what to wear. The clothes she was supposed to wear to Tina’s Christmas party were now carelessly thrown in the corner, all forgotten.

Frank had called when she was getting ready, just to talk, because apparently his bachelor life was really that sad and boring, and of course he wanted to know what she was going to wear to the party. After all, he was responsible for 90% of the clothes Gia had in her closet, and the clothes she was originally going to wear were just not ‘snappy’ enough.

Even though Gia wasn’t quite sure what ‘snappy’ even meant (and for the record, she had a feeling Frank didn’t know either even though he was the one who used the word), she still decided to take his advice and rethink her outfit.

Gia wasn’t one to stress about her looks. What to wear was a question that millions of teenage girls struggle with daily, but never Gia. However, she was easily persuaded, and it didn’t take long for Frank to convince her that this party was important.

While Gia was upstairs, cursing the whole party she had to go to, Gerard was downstairs, just relaxing on the couch, eating a sandwich, watching TV, all dressed and ready to go. He hadn’t put much thought into what he will wear. He was kind of hoping that Tina would be outraged by his casual clothing and just ban him from her house. Long shot, he was aware of that, but it was worth trying.

The doorbell rang and Gerard panicked for a moment. For sure it would be Tina, wondering why his new favorite neighbors were late by twenty minutes. But then Gerard relaxed again and realized that Tina would be too wrapped up in her party to come over.

So he put the sandwich down, got up and went to the door.

“I’ve got a delivery for Gia Way”, said the young man when Gerard opened the door. Without a word, Gerard took the pen, signed the paper and took the package from the man.

“Thanks”, Gerard said right before shutting the door. After picking up his half eaten sandwich, Gerard went upstairs to give the package to its rightful owner.

“I really don’t think a jean skirt is appropriate”, Gia was saying into her cell phone when Gerard entered the room. “Because it’s all dazzled up and sparkly! You’re no help at all! -- Well maybe I won’t give you your present then. – Calm down, of course I got you a present. – Yeah, okay, bye.”

She hung up the phone and threw it on her bed. That’s when she noticed her dad.

“I don’t think you should wear a jean skirt either”, Gerard said and took a bite from his sandwich.

“Why? You don’t think it’s appropriate either, right? I told Frank but he just insisted that it’s a good idea.”

“Well, it's mostly because it has pink glitter on it.”

Gia grinned at his comment and threw away the skirt with pink and silver rhinestones on it. The pink ones spelled out the word ‘babe’ on the back of the skirt. You might now think that she had a problem with pink or skirts, but no. She just didn’t want to draw any attention to herself. Plus she didn’t want her clothes to have the word ‘babe’ on them.

“Why are you stressing about clothes anyway?” Gerard asked and plopped down on a bright yellow bean bag chair.

“Sorry, I just... I have nothing to wear.”

Gerard glanced around the room. There were clothes scattered all over the floors and hung over on the chairs. “Well it’s okay. We have time.”

Yeah, he was in no hurry to go to the party. In fact, he was hoping that Gia would take so long trying to decide what to wear for the party that by the time she makes the decision, the party will be over. At that moment Gerard was so happy that he had a daughter, not a son.

“Oh, by the way”, Gerard suddenly said, remembering the package. “This just came for you.”

Gia went to get the package he was holding out and went to sit on her bed to open it. “Who is it from?”

“Don’t know”, Gerard answered, too occupied by the sandwich to really care.

The package was a brown box. It didn’t weigh that much and it wasn’t too big either. Gia shook it, wondering what it could be. She never got packages. Actually she never got mail either. How sad.

When she opened the box, there was a present inside. By the looks of it, it could be a book, but since it was wrapped in a light green and red wrapping paper, she couldn’t know for sure. Who could be sending her a Christmas present? The only people who know her lived in the same town, so there was no point in sending it.

Gia picked up the present from the box and noticed that a white envelope was taped under it. She read the short letter inside the envelope first.

Dear Gia,
We thought your mother would have wanted you to have this. Merry Christmas.
Love, your grandma and grandpa.

The fact that her mother’s parents, Gia’s grandparents that she hadn’t seen since her mother’s death, was extremely surprising. They had made clear that Gerard’s decision of raising Gia alone was impossible and that he could never succeed. In fact, they were so against of Gia’s birth, too, that even though they loved their daughter very much, they couldn’t accept their granddaughter into their family.

As a result, Gia had always thought of them as cold, unlikable people, and Gerard’s well voiced opinions of them didn’t make the matter any better.

Gia carefully unwrapped the present, and it turned out to be a book like she thought it would. By now Gerard was done with the sandwich and came to see what the book was. He read the letter and even though his expression remained blank, Gia could tell that he didn’t like them sending stuff to her. After all, it was like they didn’t even exist to Gia.

The book’s covers were light pink and there was a drawn picture of a baby with a purple bow on her hair and a white balloon on her hand. The white text above the picture said ‘My baby book’. Gia never knew there was a baby book about her, and judging by Gerard’s reaction, he didn’t know either.

Gia opened the first page and there were information about her. Name, date and time of birth, birth height and weight, and so on. She smiled when she spotted her first word. It was ‘dada’.

What Gia thought was amazing, was that her mother had actually bothered to do this. She had always thought that her mother didn’t care that much, since she did kill herself and leave Gia and Gerard to survive alone, but this proved her thoughts wrong.

But there was still one question. Why did Gia’s grandparents have the book?

“Did you know about this?” Gia asked her father, even though she already knew the answer.

“I wish I did”, Gerard answered, looking just as amazed as she did.

She sensed that he was feeling a little uncomfortable. To Gerard this baby book was a huge thing. If he had been a better father and been more involved before Gia’s mother killed herself, then maybe Gerard would know about this book. This was just another thing added to his list of regrets.

Gia opened another page and there were two pictures of her. The first picture was an ultrasound picture, and since Gia couldn’t see anything in it, she skipped to the other one. In the second picture baby Gia was probably only a few hours old, still in the hospital. Gia found it hard to believe that she had once been that tiny bald creature.

Then she skipped a few pages and there was another picture. Gia must have been about two when that picture was taken. She had a white summer dress on and the front of it was covered in red smudges from strawberries, as was half of her face. Her blonde hair looked nearly white in the sunlight and it was puffy and all over the place. Gerard was on the picture too. She was standing next to him, holding his hand, a strawberry half way to her opened mouth.

It was a happy picture. They both looked at it for a long time, all dwelled up in memories.

“You’ve gotten old”, Gia suddenly said after examining the picture-Gerard’s face and then the real Gerard.

“I have not!” Gerard gasped, grabbed the book and looked at the picture more closely. “I still look young as ever! There’s no difference!”

Gia laughed and went back to her closet. She could look at the book after the party. She didn’t want to disappoint Tina by not going, so she had to figure out quickly what to wear. But when she looked at the closet that was now half empty, it didn’t seem that important anymore. She went to pick up the first selected outfit from the corner. The outfit that according to Frank wasn’t ‘snappy’ enough. It’ll have to do. After all, it was just a small party. A gathering of people that she didn’t even know.

When they got to the house next door, it was like the whole neighborhood was already there. There were people everywhere, talking, laughing, drinking wine and eating. As soon as Gia and Gerard stepped on the porch, Tina opened the door and attacked them. It was like she had been waiting for them.

“Merry Christmas!” Tina squealed, hugged both of them and put a red and white Christmas hat on Gia’s head.

“Sorry we’re late”, Gerard apologized after he got over the greeting.

“Oh it’s fine, the party is just starting! Let me get your coats”, Tina said hurriedly and threw their coats into a closet. “There are drinks and snacks in the living room.” Then Tina was distracted by another woman who came to greet her, and left Gerard and Gia alone.

While Gerard headed straight for the wine bottle, Gia still stood in the hall awkwardly. She didn’t know anyone here, what was she supposed to do? Go socialize with new people? No way. Lucas had promised to keep her company, but he was nowhere to be seen.

When she noticed Tina walking towards her, Gia made a quick decision to flee. She didn’t want to deal with her right now. But later it turned out that maybe Tina was lesser of two evils.

The other evil was called mistletoe.

“Are you one of the people who just moved to 12?” asked an unknown man with a Christmas hat. He had just suddenly appeared behind Gia so she almost screamed of surprise when she heard him talking.

“Um, yes”, she answered after she got over the shock.

“Cool. I live in 7th”, the man grinned. He seemed to be about 20, but the red nose and puffy eyes made him look older. “You know, we should kiss.”

“Excuse me?” Gia’s eyes widened.

“Because of the mistletoe”, he laughed, pointed up and leaned forward, puckering his lips. The man was obviously drunk, but still Gia just wanted to slap him. If she had slapped him though, she would have felt bad for the rest of the year. The alcohol made him do these things; he wasn’t really a crazy pervert. Maybe. Perhaps.

Well, luckily Gia didn’t have to decide whether to slap or not to slap the crazy man.

Lucas’ dad came to her rescue.

“Bill, should you be kissing fourteen year old girls?” the older man asked in an amused manner. “You’ve had too much eggnog. Here, let me help you to the couch. Gia, it’s nice to see you! Please, enjoy the party.”

Gia was a bit confused by what had just happened and for a moment she watched the two men struggle their way through the crowded living room. Then she realized that she was still standing under the mistletoe and she stepped back. Unfortunately, while she took that step, she ran into someone.

“Oh Gia, there you are! I saw your dad and he said that you should be around somewhere, but I just couldn’t find you!” Lucas babbled, but then he noticed his dad trying to make that creepy guy sit down. “That’s Tina’s brother, Bill. He’s the only sane one from her family. He’s so awesome, you have to meet him. He lives on this neighborhood too, you know.”

Before Lucas could drag her to greet the crazy pervert, Gia said: “Actually, I’m hungry!”

“Oh, well let’s get you something to eat. Then we can go upstairs if you want to.”

While Gia and Lucas were eating canapés and drinking sodas, Gerard wasn’t having as much fun. He held two glasses of wine, and the other one was half empty. He had already emptied at least one whole bottle of wine, and once again he had to curse it how much he had to drink before getting drunk.

Now he was stuck talking to some middle aged couple that lived in the neighborhood. They weren’t that cool at all.

“Our oldest son is in Harvard”, the woman said, and she seemed pretty proud of it, as if it was her who was in Harvard, not her son.

“And our other kids are now seventeen and twelve. Our youngest is entering a chess tournament in January, he is practicing so hard”, the man continued, also proudly.

“We believe that with good example, children can achieve great things”, the woman said. These people were like ripped straight out of an ‘ABC’s to good parenting’-book.

“We never discipline our children, and we don’t let them watch TV or go on the Internet because that is where kids learn all that violent behavior.”

“And we also don’t swear or drink in front of our children; they would just pick up those habits from us. We could never live with that guilt.”

Gerard noticed them staring at the two glasses of wine he was holding. “Excuse me, I have to be somewhere”, he said and right before he left, he saw them rolling their eyes, and he could have sworn that the word the woman said quietly to her husband was ‘alcoholic’. It’s recovering alcoholic to you, Mrs I-live-my-dreams-through-my-kids.

Gerard had never been to a party more boring than this. If he could even drink properly, then it could be fun, but how could he get drunk when his daughter was in the same house? He had sworn to himself that he would never do that again. All he could do now is listen to people talk and be bored. Damn Tina for living next door.

“You cleaned your room?” Gia gasped as she stepped into the little room with a snake in the corner.

“Yeah, well, I had to”, Lucas answered, embarrassed. “Tina gave me 80 bucks to clean up before her Christmas party. She said the mess was bringing down the ‘vibe’.”

Now that Gia could see the floor and walk freely in the room, she could look at everything better. While Lucas was feeding the snake, Gia went to look at the walls. She still didn’t recognize even half of the bands even though Lucas had worked hard to convert her to listen to music like that. When he had heard that she wasn’t that into music, he had absolutely freaked.

“You know what’s kinda creepy?” Gia suddenly asked, staring at the walls.

“What?”

“That you have a picture of my dad on your wall.”

Lucas laughed. “To me, that’s not your dad. That’s the Gerard Way. Your dad is Gerard Way, the guy downstairs drinking wine like it’s water. There’s a difference.”

“Sure, whatever keeps you sane”, Gia smiled and plopped down on the bed. They could barely hear the noises from downstairs, and if the door was fully closed, they couldn’t hear anything. Of course they wouldn’t close the door, Lucas knew better than that. Gia would just start getting uncomfortable to be there.

“So do you know what you’re getting for Christmas?” Lucas asked.

“No.”

“Well what did you wish for?”

“Nothing. I don’t really need anything.”

“Seriously?” he asked in shock. “I asked for a new snowboard, laptop and iPod. I know for a fact that I’m getting that snowboard and iPod because I was there when dad bought them. Not too sure about the laptop though, since I just got a PC for my birthday.”

Gia tilted her head in wonder. She couldn’t understand why he needed those things. Or maybe he didn’t, but why would he ask for them then? Gia knew that if she asked for all that, Gerard would buy them for sure, but she didn’t need that stuff. She would never use them anyway. These thoughts brought up a new question. What did Gerard get for her? She still hoped that he didn’t get her anything, but knowing her dad, he didn’t believe her when she said she didn’t want anything.

“Have you looked for your presents yet?” Lucas asked. He closed the glass box again so the snake wouldn’t get out.

“Of course not! You do that?”

“Why wouldn’t I? If they get me something crappy, I’ll know beforehand so I won’t be disappointed when I open the presents. And besides, that way I’ll know if I should get them presents too.”

“You would give Tina a Christmas present?” Gia asked, raising an eyebrow. It seemed very unlikely.

“No. But I might get one for dad. Wanna see my presents?”

Before Gia could answer, Lucas was out of the door, and she had to follow. She still wasn’t comfortable enough with the snake to be in a room alone with it. Lucas led her to another bedroom, and she guessed that it must’ve been his parents’ room. Tina’s stuff was all over the place; perfume bottles, make-up, flowers, magazines...

“Look, here”, Lucas said from one corner and opened a big chest. There were some more magazines there, but he took them out and removed the fake floor of the chest. Gia saw at least seven presents there.

“Wow, those are all for you?” she asked in awe.

“Yeah. Dad and Tina hide their presents to each other somewhere, but I don’t care about them so there’s no point finding them. Dad’s been hiding my presents here since I was little. The presents that can’t fit here are in the garage. I check those too.”

Gia shook her head in disbelief. What was the point in all this? “You have no self control”, she told him and he laughed, even though she was being completely serious.

“So you haven’t looked for your presents?” he then asked.

“Of course not.”

“Wanna go find them?”

“Lucas!”

He grinned at the shocked look on her face. “Come on, it’s better than being here in Tina’s party. And besides, while we’re at your place, you could let me check your history essay.”

“I’m not letting you copy!”

“But you got an A+! I think it would completely justified that you share your wisdom with me and help me pass the class”, he said, and he seriously sounded like he believed in the crap he just said.

“Why didn’t you return the essay anyway? We already got them back. Why is the teacher still letting you write it?”

“Because I’m special”, Lucas grinned. “I have this holiday to write it and if I do, I might not get an F from the class.”

Gia sighed. Before she met him, life was so much easier. No one tried to mess with her head, no one tried to see her answers on exams so she didn’t have to guard her paper. Now she just felt guilty if she didn’t help him with school work.

“I’m not letting you copy the whole thing. The teacher wouldn’t believe you wrote it”, she gave up. What kind of a friend would she be if she didn’t help him? And besides, she was starting to get curious about the presents too.

“Yes! Let’s go!” Lucas shouted happily, took her hand and dashed out of the room. They went downstairs where they were met with their fathers talking. Since they couldn’t just run past them and go outside without saying a word, they had to stop.

“There you are!” Lucas’ dad hollered when he spotted his son and slammed a hand on his shoulder in a very fatherly manner – though the pat on the shoulder was too powerful and it almost knocked Lucas over. After all, the boy was no weight-lifter. “Gerard and I were just talking about you.”

“You were?” Lucas asked nervously.

The scary man ignored his son’s question and said to Gerard: “Tina and I are so glad that Lucas finally has a friend who isn’t fluent in klingon or whatever that Star Wars language was.”

“Dad, it’s from Star Trek” Lucas mumbled. Gia and Gerard could both tell that he was getting more embarrassed by the minute.

“You speak klingon?” Gerard asked, and he was obviously amused. It was probably due to all the wine and eggnog.

Gia looked around the room, looking for a way out of the conversation, but her mind came up with nothing. No surprise there, she was better with text books and cold hard facts rather than with imagination. But luckily Lucas was completely opposite, even though his mind worked a bit differently and his ideas weren’t always the best.

And Lucas got this particular idea when Tina came over to them and handed Lucas a glass of wine to hold. “Here, Lukie, hold this for a second.”

While Tina was explaining something in a hurry to her husband (something about code red in the kitchen), Lucas looked at the glass of red wine thoughtfully. Then he glanced at Gia’s white blouse.

That was her first clue of what was going to happen.

If Gerard wasn’t so blissfully dwelling in his slightly drunken state, he might have noticed Lucas swing the wine glass at Gia on purpose. But since his mind couldn’t currently put two and two together, and no one else was looking, it came out as a complete accident.

The whole room of people turned to stare when Gia let out an ear-wrecking, heart-breaking screech.

“Lucas! What is wrong with you?!” she shouted and tried to wipe away the red smudge that was now in the middle of her white shirt.

“Oh no! I’m so sorry! You should go change your shirt! Everybody, don’t panic! I’ve got this covered Here Gia, I’ll help you...” Lucas guided her outside.

Again, if Gerard had been more in his senses, he probably would have realized that his daughter was about to go into the otherwise empty house with a teenage boy to change clothes. He would have worried, but not right now.

Outside Gia was nearly in hysterics. “You’re impossible”, she huffed to him when they were crossing the lawn.

“What? I thought that was pretty clever!”

“Do you know how difficult it is to remove wine stains?!”

“You have a lot of experience of wine stains?” Lucas asked, making her shut up.

Because they had a habit of forgetting the house key so often, Gia and Gerard had cleverly hidden a spare key under the door mat. When Gia took it out from under the mat, Lucas had to smile, but he didn’t say anything.

“Okay, we should probably start looking from your dad’s room”, Lucas said. Gia had been so troubled by the wine stain that she had almost forgotten why they were coming here in the first place.

“Yeah, sure. I just have to take care of this stain first. But you go ahead. It’s the door right beside the stairs.”

While Lucas went to Gerard’s bedroom, Gia desperately tried to lessen the damage. Now she cursed herself for not watching that Martha Stewart show when it was on and there was nothing else on TV.

After a while, Lucas called out from the room: “Are you done yet?”

“Almost!” She sighed and put the shirt away. There was nothing to be done.

Gia found Lucas in her dad’s room, looking through the closet where he kept his clothes. “Your dad has the coolest clothes”, he said, nearly in awe.

“Don’t you feel at all weird looking through a stranger’s stuff?”

“Not really.”

“You have a great future as a robber”, Gia smiled and went to check under the bed. No presents. Then she checked under the couch, no presents. Then she went to the nightstand. She didn’t find any presents there either, unless her dad was planning on giving her three and a half bottles of alochol.

Why was he hiding them in there?

“Did you find anything?” Lucas asked when he noticed that she had stopped and was just sitting there on the floor, staring at the open drawer of the nightstand.

Gia hurriedly closed the drawer before he could see what was inside. “No. Listen, I don’t think this is right”, she said, feeling a bit uneasy.

“Yeah, I agree. It would be too easy to hide the presents in his room.”

“No, I mean... It’s not right looking for the presents at all.”

He stared at her for a moment. She was fidgeting and biting her lip; a sure sign that something was up. But Lucas didn’t want to intrude. He had learned to know Gia well enough to know when to let go.

“Alright”, he said. “Should we go back to the party?”

“I feel a bit sick. I think I’ll just go to bed.”

Lucas nodded. “Okay. I’ll go then. Should I tell your dad that you won’t come back?”

“Don’t, he’d just want to come home too. Let him enjoy the party. We can look at that history essay later, okay?”

“Whatever you say. Good night. Oh and, sorry about the wine stain.” Lucas left, but the whole thing was a bit strange. It was clear that Gerard didn’t enjoy the party one bit, so what she said didn’t make any sense.

As Gia lay on her bed twenty minutes later, she was reading through the baby book. Too bad she couldn’t concentrate on it because all she could think of was all that liquor Gerard was hiding. If he kept the bottles somewhere else where Gia could see them, then it would be okay, because that way she’d know how much he was drinking. But if it was like this...

He obviously wanted to hide the amount he was drinking, so it must be a lot. Then again, she hadn’t seen him drink that much since he came back, only a couple of times.

Gia couldn’t have him drinking again. Even if he took a small drink per evening now, that small drink would eventually grow into a whole bottle. She had seen it happen before.

That’s why she got up from her bed, put away the book and went back downstairs. Gerard wasn’t home yet. Probably still in Tina’s claws. Good.

Serves him right.

Gia went to the nightstand, took the bottles and was carrying them to the bathroom so she could pour all that liquor down the drain, when she suddenly realized something. If she did that, he would know she knew about the bottles, and that would lead to the question of what she was doing at his nightstand.

It might not seem like a big deal, but it was matter of trust. Gerard didn’t go through her stuff and she didn’t go through his. Gia made a promise to herself that the first thing tomorrow she would do the honest thing and confront him about the bottles. Talking would solve everything.

Too bad Gia was very bad at keeping promises, especially to herself.