Cherry - part 15

Percival

Toast

She calls him Perry and he lets her call him that. She just left for the job interview, and he knows she'll get it. She always get the jobs she wants. He is stuck with working for his father, because no one else would take a fresh graduate in. His father was surprisingly happy about Percival working for him, which made it slightly better for him to cope with it. He is alone in the kitchen and he's eating a cracker with cheese. His mother enters the kitchen. She's got a hangover.

“Morning, son.” She says in a high pinch voice. How can she stand to hear herself speak when she's got a hangover? He doesn't bother thinking more about it and mumbles a silent 'morning' to her.

She starts making French toast.

“So, how was the party last night?” He asks her, and she stops for a second.

“Oh, I wouldn't call it a party, really,” the toast smells burned, “it was just me and the other wives... as usual.” She smiles at him and points towards the French toast. “Would you like any?” He rejects her offer and gets up from the table.
“Don't drink whiskey in the coffee. It doesn't go along with French toast.” With that line, he leaves the room. He doesn't care for yet another speech about how she does in fact not have a problem with alcohol.

Inside his room is the black pants and the blazer he put out last night. As his father’s assistant, he's supposed to look really nice, even though his job is to do all the things the other people doesn't want or have time to do. Though sometimes he can be asked to observe a meeting or something important, and as his father said: 'We certainly don't want people to talk about how poorly you dress whilst working for me, now, can we?'. Certainly we cannot have that.

People who talk are the worst kind of people, that's what he had always learned. Hell, his parents barely spoke any more. What would they talk about now? They have zero in common.

It would just be ever so awkward. He leaves as he think of the missing romance in his parent’s lives.