A Letter from Luisa

by Rowena Mohr

  And there was no one else to tell.

  Chapter 8

  AFTER MY LITTLE RENDEZVOUS WITH Jet in the library, I had some serious thinking to do.

  On the one hand, my Jet Lucas fantasy looked like it was about to turn into reality – but which reality? For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out whether Jet wanted me to be his sound engineer, his songwriting partner or his girlfriend – or a combination of all three. On the other hand, it didn’t really matter because either way, it would not go down well with the KGB.

  At this point in time, anyone with any sense would have been busy coming up with a plan to protect themselves from certain pain. It might have helped if I had someone with whom to discuss potential plans but, although Meko was talking to me again, acceptable topics of conversation did not include Jet Lucas. In fact, Meko had decreed that every time I slipped up and mentioned the J-word I would have to buy her a new mobile phone charm. At the rate I was going, she was not going to be able to lift her phone. Not only that, if she suspected I was even thinking about Jet, Meko would whip out her iPod and start listening to her impressive collection of J-punk. Which is kind of fitting, when you think about it.

  So what did I do? Nothing. Like an ostrich in knee socks, I stuck my head firmly in the sand and hoped all my problems would go away. By which I mean that I hoped Kravitz and Goss would get run over by a tram on their way home from school and that Jet would somehow divine that, yes, I was more than happy to be his little shadow/girlfriend/muse/ whatever he wanted – without me having to actually pick up the phone.

  And yes, I know that sometimes you have to make hard choices in life, but surely not until you’re grown-up and all the fun’s over anyway. And that’s the whole thing about being a teenager. Most of the time you don’t have a choice. You’re told what to do, you’re pushed this way and that. Things just happen to you over which you have no control. I don’t think I’ve asked for much – or expected much. Not since you … not for a while.

  And then Jet Lucas asked me out on an actual date!

  I was on my way to History class, when, like a blond Superman zooming down to save Lois Lane in freefall, Jet appeared in front of me and whisked me around the corner of the Science building and kind of tossed me up against the wall. He grabbed my hand and checked my fingers.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I squawked. All I needed was for Melissa Kravitz to see me getting jiggy with Jet in the playground and I was toast. Jet didn’t seem to get how things worked in the real world – the one where the KGB was in charge.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, still examining my hand. ‘I don’t understand it. None of your fingers are broken.’ He trained those bottomless blue eyes on my face. ‘So why haven’t you called me? I thought’ – and he did that thing where he leaned in so close that his voice was just a breath against my cheek – ‘we had something going?’

  Kravitz could have been standing next to me holding an AK47 and I wouldn’t have noticed she was there.

  ‘Songwriting, yeah?’ I wheezed. ‘We’re talking about songwriting?’

  ‘We can talk about whatever you like. Saturday night, eight o’clock. I’ll meet you out the front of the Leaning Tower of Pizza.’

  Needless to say I never made it to History that day.

  I realise that I’ve transcribed practically every word that Jet Lucas said to me up to this point in time, and I’m scaring myself. I am definitely not going to describe our first date – except to say, deluded fool that I was, I truly believed I’d died and gone to teen heaven.

  Oh, stuff it. I will tell you, because despite everything that happened and everything I know now, it was still one of the best nights of my life …

  Chapter 9

  I DON’T KNOW QUITE WHAT I was expecting that Saturday night, but it would be fair to say that my expectations were both ridiculously high and pathetically low.

  Jet Lucas didn’t pick me up from my front door in a hotted-up Valiant – which was probably good for a number of reasons, mainly because I hadn’t told Dad that I was going out with an actual guy. In fact, I hadn’t told anyone – not even Meko. I knew she wouldn’t approve and I didn’t want to have to watch her pretending to be happy for me when I knew she wasn’t – or worse, listen to her telling me what a big mistake I was making.

  While meeting Jet out the front of a pizza restaurant may not have been very romantic, at least it took some of the pressure off me. For instance, it meant that I had a pretty good idea of what not to wear – you don’t stand out the front of a pizza place in high heels and an ultra-short bubble dress unless you’re trying to look slutty. Besides which, I don’t own either of those items of apparel.

  Instead, I went for my best punk-chic look – Docs, red fishnets, sailor top and my favourite black denim miniskirt. This outfit, while being both cool and not too obvious, had an added advantage: if I was going to be stood up – which I had convinced myself was a real possibility – I could just pretend I’d been standing outside all that time trying to decide between the capricciosa and the vegetarian with extra olives.

  But Jet didn’t stand me up. At exactly eight o’clock, he walked across the road smiling mysteriously at me from underneath his hoodie like a slightly less scary Donnie Darko. And I was suddenly glad I’d changed three times and straightened my hair and practically drowned myself in the Harajuku Lovers perfume that Meko gave me for my birthday.

  Jet whistled softly under his breath.

  ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘You look amazing.’

  ‘Really?’ I said before I could stop myself, and immediately felt like kicking myself for sounding so needy and pathetic.

  ‘Really.’ He stepped back to get a better look at me. ‘There should be a law against making someone like you wear a school uniform. You look so different.’

  Some other girl, maybe someone like Melissa Kravitz, might have been offended that Jet made absolutely no attempt to hide his surprise at her sudden transformation from gingham-clad caterpillar to post-punk butterfly, but not me. I was so desperate for him to think I was beautiful – or at least interesting-looking – that I only heard what I wanted to hear. And what I heard was that Jet Lucas thought I looked amazing.

  While I was still reeling in shock, Jet took me by the hand. I thought we were going to go inside the restaurant, but he led me back across the street.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

  ‘My place. Is that all right?’

  My stomach did a backflip and not because I was hungry. ‘Um, I guess so. It’s just that I thought we were going to get pizza.’

  ‘I’ve got food at home. I’ll make you something.’

  I’d been trying to see his face, trying to figure out what he was thinking, but he still had his hood up. All I could see of his profile was the jagged blond fringe. And then, without warning, he yanked me into the doorway of an old corner store and did the tossing-me-up-against-a-wall thing again – only this time it was a whited-out window.

  He took my face in his hands, his fingers moving up into my hair, and kissed me for so long I thought I was going to pass out. I must have made to pull away – idiot – because he stopped and stepped back to look at me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t wait any longer.’

  ‘No … no, I’m sorry.’ I could feel my face burning with embarrassment. ‘You took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting … that.’

  ‘No?’ He closed in again so that I could feel the heat of his body through his shirt. ‘What were you expecting?’

  He leant down and placed his lips very softly against my neck, just under my jawline. ‘This?’ His lips skimmed across my cheek and came to rest first on one eyelid and then the other. ‘Or maybe this?’

  ‘None of that,’ I said. And then I started to cry.

  Really! Someone should take me out and shoot me. But Jet didn’t seem to mind. He held my hand again and as we walked to his house, he told me all about the songs he was writing for his first album and sang me a co
uple of verses from what he thought was going to be the first single, ‘Angel Without Wings’.

  By the time we got to his house, I was so totally in love I didn’t think it was strange that, instead of going in through the front door, we went down the side of the house and in through the laundry. When we got inside, I didn’t think it was unusual that we went straight to his bedroom, even though I knew someone else was home from the sound of a television in another room.

  His room smelt of incense and aftershave and vanilla-scented candles. He left me sitting on the bed while he went to get us something to eat, and I picked up his guitar and started to string together the chords to a song I’d written called ‘My Life Before You’.

  I don’t know why I decided to play that song. It was a song I’d written about you.

  I didn’t hear Jet come back and it wasn’t until he slid up behind me on the bed that I registered his presence.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked, kissing my neck. ‘It’s beautiful. Is it a love song?’

  ‘Sort of,’ I said. I was suddenly angry with myself for playing it because I didn’t want to tell him what it was about. Not yet, anyway.

  ‘Play it for me again.’ He’d pulled aside the neck of my top and was kissing my shoulder. I laid the guitar on the bed and jumped around to face him.

  ‘I’m starving. What’s to eat?’ I could feel myself acting like someone else – like some girl in a movie or something – but it was safer than being myself right at that moment.

  We ate homemade nachos and licked salsa off each other’s fingers and talked about music and songwriting until we were delirious with tiredness. Then we lay side-by-side on the bed holding hands, watching the halo of the candle-flame play across the ceiling and listening to Jet’s iPod, until the sky outside turned pale green and yellow and I realised that I’d stayed out all night.

  Chapter 10

  FORTUNATELY – OR UNFORTUNATELY, DEPENDING on which way you look at it – Dad wouldn’t have noticed if I’d turned up at breakfast riding a tap-dancing elephant, so the fact that I was sitting at the kitchen table panda-eyed and only semiconscious at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning went completely over his head. If he had been paying attention, he would have realised

  A that I never get up before nine-thirty on a Sunday

  B that my bed hadn’t been slept in

  C that I was wearing the same clothes I was wearing the night before

  D that I was stupidly, insanely, certifiably in love.

  Nina noticed – I could see her looking at me with her narrow little judging eyes over her Weet-Bix – but she didn’t say anything. No doubt she’s just storing everything up for blackmail purposes later on, but I was too tired – and too happy – to care.

  Just as I finished choking down my toast, I got a text from Jet:

  … and nearly choked for real. As I staggered off to my room to text him back, hungover on love and lust and music, I felt like my life, my real life, was just about to begin.

  Of course, I still had one major problem – 178 centimetres of pure venom wearing too much eyeliner and a bad attitude. Melissa cornered me Monday morning before school, wanting to know whether I had told Mr McGregor I wasn’t available to be Jet Lucas’s sound tech. Preoccupied though I was, I managed to offer up a small prayer of thanks to the universe that at least she hadn’t found out about the date – yet.

  ‘What are you waiting for, Loser?’ she hissed at me as she and Shania backed me up against the drinking trough. ‘An invitation from the Queen?’

  ‘Um … I’ve been busy,’ I squeaked.

  ‘Busy, huh?’ Kravitz’s nose was about a centimetre away from mine and my butt was wedged into the trough between two taps. ‘You’d better get a wriggle on, Loser – we’re running out of patience!’

  ‘Yeah!’ echoed Shania, blowing a cloud of carcinogenic smoke in my face just to reinforce how serious they were.

  ‘Today,’ I whimpered, crumbling like an overcooked pavlova. ‘I’ll do it today.’

  ‘Good. ’Cause otherwise we’re going to have to kick your butt …’ and here Melissa paused to give Shania a tiny nod, like some kind of secret signal, ‘… instead of just giving it a little bath.’ And in perfect synchronicity, they grabbed the taps on either side of me and twisted them on to full. Two waves of water surged beneath my bum and up over my lap, making the bottom half of my school uniform stick to my legs like a used Chux.

  Kravitz and Goss laughed hysterically as I tried to unwedge my bum from the trough, then they sauntered off arm-in-arm – smug, self-satisfied and secure in the knowledge of another day’s work of terror and intimidation successfully begun.

  After spending most of the morning in the girls’ toilets trying to dry my uniform and avoiding everyone I knew – especially Jet Lucas – Kanisha told me Mr McGregor wanted to see me. I knew immediately what it was going to be about and I couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or totally pissed off.

  When I walked into his office, Mr McGregor was sitting on his desk swinging his short furry legs back and forth and looking extremely pleased with himself. Leaping off the desk with a flourish that reminded me of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat – except Mr McGregor resembled the rabbit more than the magician – he gestured towards the window.

  And there, leaning against the windowsill, was Jet’s new sound-tech: Danny Baldassarro. Yes, the Danny Baldassarro. The one who used to follow me around at school all day like Orphan-freakin’-Annie when we were in Grade Five. The one who, after school, would follow me home and stand on the footpath gazing wistfully at our front door. I’d never invite him in, so he’d leave little presents for me on the doorstep: a couple of chocolate crackles in a basket with a bow on the handle, or a notebook and pencil with stupid little butterflies or fairies or something on them. Everyone thought it was hilarious, which is pretty sick because now I think about it, he was actually stalking me – I just didn’t know that’s what it was called.

  And suddenly, five years later, here he was again – with his funny lopsided grin and brown puppy-dog eyes – gazing at me innocently as though he wouldn’t know a chocolate crackle from a cream bun. But I could see right through him. Maybe all those years he’d just been waiting for his chance to pounce and this was it?

  Well, actually, that’s probably not true. I did see Danny at school occasionally and he’d give me a little wave or a ‘Hey, Luisa’ without seeming to have any deep dark ulterior motives – but sometimes you just can’t tell. That day in Mr McGregor’s office, despite the fact that I’d completely ignored him for almost half his life, Danny Baldassarro seemed genuinely happy to see me.

  ‘Hey, Luisa,’ he said, and I swear his voice had dropped about three octaves since Grade Five. In fact, it actually sounded quite sexy. Or it would have if it belonged to anyone but Danny Baldassarro. ‘We’re going to be working together,’ he rumbled cheerily.

  For a second I thought I’d misheard him but before I could say anything, Mr McGregor jumped in. ‘Ah yes, Luisa, I wanted to ask you about that. I know you’re busy with the mocktail bar and the fashion show and the CD stall, but I was hoping you could spare the time to show Danny the ropes – you know, make sure he’s up to speed with all the equipment et cetera.’

  And then I understood. Mr McGregor didn’t want me teching the actual concert, but he did want to borrow all Dad’s sound gear, and this was his way of sucking up to me. Danny, I’m pretty sure, was completely oblivious – but he played right into Mr McGregor’s hands anyway.

  ‘That’d be great, Lu, if you could take me through everything. Obviously, you’ve got a lot more experience than me but I’m a pretty fast learner. It’ll be fun, hey?’ He flashed his aren’t-I-adorable? puppy-dog eyes at me again and, even though he had just saved me from the KGB, I felt a strange desire to strangle him then and there.

  I know I should have been grateful to Danny but it wasn’t that simple. I felt as if I had been totally manipulated, pushed into a corner and us
ed and abused – by Mr McGregor, by the KGB and – by extension – Danny Baldassarro. And I know I shouldn’t have cared about Jet’s concert. After all, it was just one stupid concert at a crappy school fete, and last Saturday night with Jet had changed everything. So why was it so hard for me to let go?

  Thinking that maybe Jet would be able to make me feel better about the whole situation, I sent him a text:

  But I got no response, which was weird – we’d been texting each other all weekend.

  I went looking for him, and eventually found him hanging out at the far end of the quadrangle with a couple of mates. They were sprawled on top of one of the lunch tables looking at something on Jet’s phone and laughing. For a fraction of a second, I wondered if they were laughing at me – at the string of revealing messages I had sent to Jet in a delirium of bliss since Sunday morning. Which was totally stupid, right? I mean, how paranoid can you get? They were probably just laughing at some dumb photo or something – nothing to do with me at all.

  But then Jet looked up and saw me, and I thought I saw the faintest shadow of annoyance flash across his face. He leapt off the table and bolted towards me. Grabbing me by the elbow, he steered me around the corner of the Admin block and into a dingy alcove beneath the external stairwell.

  There was no tossing up against the wall this time. Jet looked about distractedly and licked his lips.

  ‘Hi, Luisa,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  I thought he was being funny, so I said, ‘I go to school here, remember?’

  He gave a fake sort of laugh and dragged me further into the alcove.

  ‘Hey, I was sort of thinking that maybe it would be better if we, you know, cooled it at school? You know what people are like.’

  Did I know what people were like? Sometimes I don’t think I had a clue.

  ‘Oh, okay. Sure,’ I stammered. ‘You’re right. That’s probably best.’