Got 'Em Page 9

Restlessly, answering her question, he coughs out, “No, I’m good,” with a bit of a desperate tone he continues, “Umm, I have got to go somewhere, so I’m going to get changed quickly and chuck on some good clothes and head off.”

  Amanda looks at Andrew in question, then asks in a demanding voice, “Where are you going?”

  Answering her, as he looks at her with secretive eyes as he takes his work shirt off, in a defensive tone, “Uh, nowhere, I’m just going to see a mate.”

  Excited! She yells out, “Oh, can I come?”

  As Andrew unbuckles his belt to take off his pants, he gawks at Amanda with spite, abruptly answering her, “I don’t think you’d want to come.” He continues defensively, “We are going to be talking about boring stuff—shit you wouldn’t be interested in.”

  Curious to see and meet his ‘friends’, she answers back, morbidly excited, “Ooh, I definitely want to come so that I can meet your friends.”

  Andrew, snuffling, grabs his clothes that are folded on the couch beside the coffee table and dresses himself. Grabbing his keys, he finishes in a rushing voice, “Okay, I’m leaving now, I’ll back soon,” as he walks out the front door and pulls it close. He walks to his car and hops in, closing the door; Amanda runs out and hops in the passenger seat speaking to Andrew dominantly, “I’m coming, and that’s that!”

  Andrew grumbles with frustration as he starts the car, reaching for his seat belt and pulling it over and buckling it in. Pushing the clutch in, placing it into reverse, he performs a skid out of his driveway onto his street in an ‘L’ shape top to bottom. Placing it into first gear, he continues skidding down the road that is to the right of the front of his house.

  Driving along, they make direction towards Pennant Hills, along the almost bare streets of Sydney. Pulling into a parking lot with a small shopping centre, he hops out of the car asking Amanda if she wants a drink. In a husky voice, as he clears his throat in anticipation of where they are going, he asks, “Hey, you want a drink?”

  Distracted by her phone, she answers, “Sure.”

  He replies, “Yeah, what do you want?”

  As he looks down at her, she replies, “Umm, just water?” nodding her head in confusion, as her distraction has been interrupted.

  Andrew walks into the little take away shop as Amanda peers around at her surroundings, then turns her head to the back of the car. Questioning herself in realisation of where she is, “Hmm? I know this area, I just can’t remember how I know it.” Bringing her head back around she looks up at the advertisement board above the take away shop, it illustrates; ‘East Take Away and’ underneath the writing it continues, “Wood-Fire Pizza.” As the expression on Amanda’s face becomes more alert of where she is, she stares at the sign, stunned, gasping to herself, “Oh, I know where I am—”

  Putting her head back down into her phone as Andrew walks out from the take away shop with two drinks and a small packet of chips. He hops back into the car, passing the chips and drinks to Amanda; she states exultingly, “Umm, I asked for water, and you got me a diet coke?”

  Full of aggression, Andrew snaps back, “You get what you’re damn well given!”

  Moving on, Amanda grasps, as Andrew starts the car ready to leave. Strapping his seatbelt in, they pull out onto the road and take off. Amanda places the hot chips on her lap, then places the drinks in the cup holders in the middle of the car, reaches for her seat belt and buckles herself in; as Andrew couldn’t stop worrying for her safety.

  Taking the third right from where the shopping centre is, it becomes clear in Amanda’s mind where she thinks they are going. After they make a right turn, four houses down on the left, Andrew pulls alongside the kerb and parks the car, pulling his handbrake up.

  Exiting the car, both of them walk on through the gates of this place, that Amanda is unaware of, as they walk on up to the door. Andrew knocks three times. Waiting for about ten seconds the sound of the door unlocks as a lady familiar to Amanda answers the door. Walking out, the lady; Lucas’s sister—Marnie Mayfound—says to Andrew in a polite and welcoming voice, “Hey honey! How are you? And I see you brought Amanda with you, oh that’s good!”

  Amanda is stunned out of her mind; looking at Marnie, she says, gesturing politely, “Uh, hi, how do you know Andrew?”

  Marnie replies seductively, “Oh, I’ve known him for years, darling, come in, come in, don’t be shy.” As Amanda is welcomed into a home with a known familiar stranger, who she didn’t speak to that often, due to Marnie never wanting to go over to her brother Lucas’s house to visit. Not mentioning that Lucas is always spiteful to her for her foolishness and selfishness. There’s no blame there for them not talking to each other, Amanda and Lucas always thought she was a bitch!

  Walking in, they seat themselves around the coffee table on this huge couch that forms a ‘C’; in front of the lounge is a massive TV on a low open TV unit. At this point, Amanda had an urge to go to the toilet, excusing herself politely she says, “Marnie? Would I be able to use your toilet?”

  Marnie replies in a ‘posh British’ accent, “Sure, just go down the hall and it’s the last door all the way down the end.” Amanda looks at her and smiles as she gets up off the couch and makes her way down the hallway, looking back up the hallway at Andrew as she opens the toilet door. He suspiciously gets up to move closer to Marnie. Walking into the toilet, she closes the door to start her business.

  In the lounge room where they are sitting, the conversation sparks up about the plan they had to rip Amanda away from Lucas. As Marnie has always despised Lucas, and wanted to get back at him from when they were kids—something weird happened between them and they just weren’t the same since then. So Marnie has conjured up this great idea to take Amanda away from Lucas and give her to Andrew, in the most in-edging and natural way. So the conversation goes;

  He asks her inquisitively, “So, I like Amanda, but I don’t know if I’d love her?”

  Looking up at him, looks dead in the eyes, she states abruptly, “You were never meant to like her, and why did she come with you, you know, I told you I did not—” as she continues she lowers her voice and grumbles, “—I did not want her here. Now I’ll have to disinfect my toilet!”

  Andrews asks, “Okay, so, what did you want?”

  At this point, Amanda opens the door quietly and sneaks up near the lounge room where they can’t see her, eavesdropping. They continue talking; savagely Marnie intensifies her tone, “Get rid of her, we will organise a spot. And you just say something like, ‘Oh, hey Mandy, let’s go out for dinner somewhere special,’” Marnie continues in acerbic tone, “bring her along, tell her to get out of the car where we’ll set up, she’ll get out and we will beat her with shovels and tie her up.” As Amanda stands in the hallway she continues to listen in, Andrew asks with an acerbic tone to his speech, “Okay, so where will we put her body?” as the floor crunches from beneath where Amanda is standing.

  Knowing someone is listening, the room fills with silence as Amanda walks on out and excitedly says, “Hey!” as she wobbles her head around and throws her arms up sarcastically, “Don’t stop talking because of me.” Out of curiosity Amanda continues, “So what are we all talking about?” Andrew states in a rushed voice as he clears his throat, “Okay, well, we better get going, this was only meant to be brief anyway. We will talk soon.”

  Marnie looks up at Andrew saying undoubtingly, “We will indeed talk soon.” She nods her head also knowing that Amanda was listening. Giving Amanda a smirk and the evil eye as they both walk towards the front door to exit.

  Opening the front door and walking out through the front yard to the car, Amanda asks Andrew in a chatty voice, “So where are we going now?”

  Looking at her, then reaching to grab his keys out of his pocket, he replies in a light moderate voice, “Home.”

  Disappointed, she continues arrogantly, “Oh, I thought we could go for a drive somewhere.”

  Replying to her as he looks at her ungracefully, he as
sures her in an absurd voice, “No, Mandy! We are going home,” nodding his head as she sighs and looks down then opens the passenger door to hop into his car.

  Hopping into his car at the same time, they both reach for their seat belts as Andrew starts the car. Buckling up, they take off slowly, as Andrew pulls out his iPhone 4 after hearing his message tone go off and looks at it. It is a text message from Marnie saying, “I know she heard most things, if not everything! Don’t you dare tell her if she asks for more deets!” Andrew gasps and sighs, then looks over to Amanda as she pulls out her Samsung Galaxy Note 4, and sighs again as he locks his phone and puts it into his pocket.

  Continuing their drive back to his house, not much conversing goes on between the both of them, as Andrew is frustrated and Amanda can see that. Also, she doesn’t want to say much as she may say the wrong thing to him. Especially having the suspicion herself that they already knew she was listening in. On that note, Amanda sticks her head in her phone the entire way back to Andrew’s. He just drives with light music from the car radio playing.

  As they pull up in the driveway, in a frustrated mood, he quickly unbuckles his seat belt, removes his keys from the ignition whilst opening the car door, hops out and slams it. As he makes his way to the front door of his house, he looks to the passenger door of his car and notices that Amanda isn’t getting out. Shrugging his shoulders, he looks up at the sky as storm clouds start to roll in from out east.

  Unlocking the front door, he makes his way inside to the kitchen on the left at the mid-rear of his house. In the kitchen, he pulls out his wallet, with his keys in hand, and chucks them on the kitchen bench. He then walks over to the double-door, stainless-steel fridge-freezer, wall-side of the laundry and at the entrance of the kitchen. Opening the freezer, he pulls out a pork roast, and places it onto the bench closest to him. Then he opens the fridge and from the chiller section he pulls out a packet of mixed vegetables. Putting them onto the bench, he mumbles to himself negatively, “Shit! Got no carrots.” optimistically thinking out loud, he says, “Oh well, just going to have to make do.”

  Meanwhile, Amanda is still sitting in the car, with a twisted and scared look upon her face as if she had done something wrong, when really, she overheard words of assault, or quite possibly attempted murder coming out of both of their mouths. As she sits there, freaking out a little, contemplating whether or not to get out of the car, she instead tries and calls me.

  Nerves shaking as she touches her phone and her fingers jump as she opens ‘contacts’ to browse through to my name and click on my contact. Then, pressing the ‘call’ button, she initiates the call, bringing the phone to her right ear as the call instigates with the ringing tone. After several rings, the call answers to my voicemail. Bringing the phone down from her ear to the right of her chest, she raises her left hand to her head. Resting her head in her palm, she starts shedding tears. Running down her face, sniffling and whimpering as she felt empty with no one that will listen.

  Andrew notices that she still hasn’t come inside. So he stops what he’s doing and makes his way to the front door, opening it. He steps outside as it starts to rain, and makes his way to the passenger side of the car. Opening the passenger door, where Amanda is sitting, he asks nicely, “Babe? Are you okay?” Amanda looks up at him, wiping away the tears that are still falling with both of her hands. As the make-up she has on runs down her face and the eyeliner marked up around her eyes, she whispers in an upset voice, “Yup, yup. I’m fine.”

  Andrew looks at her, and smirks a little as he gestures in a regretful voice, “Come inside, I’m cooking up dinner.”

  Grabbing her purse that she left in the glove box of the Commodore, she slowly stands up out of the car as Andrew steps back to give her room. The rain starts getting heavier, so Andrew closes the door and guides Amanda into the house. As she goes through the front door, she proceeds straight to the lounge room and sits on the couch against the wall to the main hallway.

  Andrew closes the door as the house semi-lights up with lightning and a loud thunder brakes through the clouds. Andrew makes his way back to the kitchen to start cutting up the vegetables and pre-heating the oven for the roast.

  About an hour and a half goes by. Pulling out the roast and turning off the vegetables that were in a pot on the stove, he brings out two white dinner plates to start serving, whilst letting the roast cool for a few minutes. He walks along the hallway towards the lounge room, dragging his feet along the floor, entering the lounge room as he asks Amanda directly, “How much do you want to eat?”

  Amanda replies arrogantly, “Nothing! I don’t want anything to eat.”

  Andrew replies, curious to know why she won’t eat, “Okay, why don’t you want anything to eat?”

  Amanda looks up at him and says aggressively, “Because I’m not hungry, Andrew!” as she defensively continues, “Please, leave me alone.”

  Throwing a smirk, as he turns around, Andrew makes his way back to the kitchen to continue serving out his dinner. He cut through the pork roast, well enough to suffice himself. Then wrapping the rest of it up and placing it in the refrigerator, he continues to dish out the rest of what he wants out of the vegetables. Heading into the dining area, Andrew pulls out a seat and sits himself at the table.

  ---

  Over the other side of town, in Eastwood, Marnie’s partner, Clifford Pacca, returns home from work with his work carry bag. He is happy and pleased to see Marnie as he enters through the front door and makes his way to the lounge room where Marnie is waiting for him. Clifford, better known as ‘Cliff’, enters the lounge room and looks at Marnie as she looks back at him with dead-pleased eyes. Cliff says to Marnie sympathetically, “The card has come? Hasn’t it?” Marnie continues to look at Cliff in the eyes, as a tear falls down her face. Marnie bows her head down and nods. As she gasps for air, her emotions of sadness and being incomplete come into one.

  Taking a deep breath, Marnie stands up and brushes herself off and adjusts her bra and breasts. Snorting a little, she looks at Clifford and says with a smile on her face, “I’m okay, I’m fine—” taking a breath she continues, “I am brave, I am strong, and I am a bitch!”

  Clifford looks over at Marnie and says, sarcastically condescending, “That’s my baby, always smiling at the face of death.” Marnie starts to walk off to the kitchen which is opposite the lounge room from the front of the house, as she starts giggling as Cliff looks at her. Marnie turns back in a slow freaky way as her giggle turns to howls of laughter in a strangely traumatic way.

  Clifford joins in on the laughing, not so much as freakish, but his general laugh. Marnie stops and looks at Cliff and says in a bitter voice, “That bitch came over today, ha,” slamming her hand onto the kitchen bench as she looks at him in the lounge room, she continues maliciously, “I’m going to cut her fucking head off…” putting on a freakish smile as she has a little giggle. She continues, “And I’m going to send it right back to—” Marnie continues in a slurry bitter voice, “Poor dear Lucas, ha-ha!” Continuing in a bitter tone, she says, “And I’m going to wait outside his house, just to see that priceless look on his face when he opens the beautiful package I sent him—” she pauses for a few seconds, “Then he’s going to look up as I’m driving off, and I’m going to smile, giggle and wave,” as she finishes off with a freakish laugh again.

  Suddenly, a quiet moment stands in front of them as Marnie walks back over to the lounge and sits where she was sitting before. Cliff looks up at her as he opens his carry bag he brought home from work and pulls out plans. As Marnie, shuffles through them vigorously, she says naïvely, “What’s this?”

  Cliff replies pragmatically, “It’s the paperwork plans that you asked for,” he continues informatively, “By the way, there is a storm rolling in.” The sound of thunder sounds from the dark grey clouds outside, falling a fast release of heavy rain.

  Marnie tilts her head to the left as she sighs with the intent of her dues being incomplete. She picks
up one of the pieces of paper and starts reading through it. As Cliff is a coroner, he has read many books on how to get away with cold-blooded murder. Insignificantly, his timing of wanting to do it and his planning are a little out of alignment. As Marnie continues reading through the paragraphs of writing, she puts the piece of paper down and shuffles through the papers until she came across the piece that has the heading ‘The Planning.’ Smiling, she looks at Clifford and says foolishly, “Ahhh, now this is what I’m talkin’ about!”

  Meanwhile, Andrew finishes up with his dinner. Picking up his plate that has nothing but food crumbs on it, he walks over to the sink, turning on the cold water, he rinses the plate off and opens the dish-washer which is underneath, but more to the right of where the sink is installed. Then he places the rinsed plate and dirty knife and fork into the dishwasher along with the pots and pans that he used to cook with. Closing the door and turning the dishwasher power on, Andrew sets the dishwasher up for what he wants and presses ‘start’.

  After doing that, Andrew makes his way to the lounge room to sit down on the couch which Amanda isn’t occupying, and grabs the remote off the coffee table in front of Amanda and turns on the TV. It is directly opposite the facing couch. Flicking through the channels, he changes it to the weather and news channel, as he is obsessed with watching the news.

  With not much on the news that’s interesting, he kicks his feet up on the coffee table. Both of them sit in silence; Andrew watching TV, and Amanda playing on her phone trying to get in contact with me. With not much success, Amanda scrolls down her news feed on Facebook. She searches up my name and finds that we are no longer ‘friends’.

  Not long after seeing this, Amanda persists to look up my name again after returning to her news feed and sees that my profile has miraculously disappeared as if I had literally de-activated it there and then. So, Amanda with her phone in her hand, still opened to the social media app, looks towards Andrew inconspicuously. Noticing him staring at the TV with his feet up on the coffee table and remote controller in his left hand, she sighs, desperate for attention but looks back at her phone.