A Letter from Luisa

by Rowena Mohr

  THAT WAS IT . I T WAS all over.

  And that’s when I heard it – the wind whistling off what’s left of the polar ice cap right through the empty place where my heart used to be.

  I know what you’re thinking – that sounds like a really bad line from a really bad country and western song. And you’d be right. Because that’s what I turned into. Some heartbroken heroine from the He-Done-Me-Wrong Hall of Fame. A walking, wailing cliché. Except, of course, I kept my wailing to myself. I knew Meko didn’t want to hear it and besides I was too humiliated, too embarrassed and ashamed to admit to her that I cared as much as I did.

  I looked after everything at home and I went to school, same as normal, but I was totally numb. I wasn’t even angry – not yet. I walked through the days as though I was walking through glue – everything seemed to have slowed down and lost its colour and taste. There was nothing in my head except a really annoying sound loop on endless repeat: ‘Jet Lucas dumped you. Jet Lucas dumped you.’

  Wednesday afternoon, a week after my life had ended, Dad had taken Nina to a ballet rehearsal and I was sitting out back in the studio playing my guitar and trying not to think about dirtbag Jet. I was playing your song – ‘My Life Before You’ – strumming the chords and singing softly to myself. Then I saw Danny in the open studio doorway.

  He was looking at me strangely, almost angrily. I quickly put the guitar down and turned back to the console, wondering how long he’d been standing there. Danny stepped into the room.

  ‘You know your dad thinks you don’t play anymore?’

  ‘I don’t really. I was just messing around.’

  ‘What was that song you were playing? Did you write that?’

  ‘Like I said, I was just messing around.’

  ‘So why don’t you ever jam with your dad and me?’

  ‘You two look like you’re getting along just fine without me.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing. I just don’t want to get in the way.’

  ‘Get in the way of what? You’re not in the way. What are you talking about?’

  I took a deep breath, trying not to scream in frustration.

  ‘What are you doing here, Danny? It’s not Friday.’

  ‘Meko told me about you and Jet. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Meko’s got a big mouth.’

  ‘She’s worried about you, that’s—’

  ‘Well, as you can see, I’m fine.’

  I picked up my guitar and stood up to go. As I walked past Danny, he tried to grab my hand. I pulled it away and kept walking.

  ‘Luisa,’ he called after me. ‘You know we’re not all like Jet Lucas, don’t you?’

  I don’t know what it was about what Danny said to me that afternoon but it changed everything. I know what he meant to say, and what he wanted me to hear, but somehow my brain decided to process it differently. What my brain heard was, ‘We’re not all like Jet Lucas. Jet Lucas is unique, one of a kind, one in a million. Don’t be such a wimp. If you really love him, go after him – because Jet Lucas is worth fighting for.’ And that’s what I decided to do. I didn’t know how I was going to do it – but that seemed like a minor detail.

  The one thing I did figure out is that if I was going to win back Jet, it was going to have to happen at the fete. Ever since the night Meko and I turned up at his house, he’d been totally avoiding me – if he so much as spotted me on the other side of the quadrangle, he would turn around and walk the other way. The one situation, I reasoned, in which he couldn’t run away from me was when he was actually up on stage performing in front of an audience.

  I know, I know, I sound like a total lunatic – but as I said, at the time it made perfect sense.

  Now that I had a new-found purpose in life, I went into overdrive making sure that everything else I’d promised to organise for the fete was under control. I checked off my list:

  1. Old records and CDs in Home Ec storage cupboard ? Check.

  2. Year Ten Common Room starting to look Oz-like? Check. (Okay, Edith wasn’t as artistic as she claimed, and the yellow brick road looked more like a toxic industrial spill than a magic highway. But Tiahna had come up with twenty-five mocktail recipes – all featuring green cordial – so it probably wasn’t going to be a total disaster.)

  3. Five fashion tribes booked in for the Urban Tribes show? Check. (We would have had more but the Death-Rockers threatened to beat up the Emos, who wisely decided to stay at home and listen to Jimmy Eat World CDs instead.)

  4. The KGB hadn’t gone The Sopranos on Nina? Check. (I’d only had one further, comparatively non-life-threatening, encounter with them, so I was comparatively happy. Melissa and Shania claimed to have seen me in the library flirting with Jet Lucas, which was a total lie, because I doubt either Melissa or Shania know where the library is. Which means that, as I’d predicted, one of their spies must have seen Danny and me having our meeting with Jet and informed on us – see what I mean about Stalinist Russia? But once I had calmly explained that I was just handing over the reins to Danny Baldassarro, and Melissa and Shania had made a few non-specific threats and given me a Chinese burn for good measure, we parted company pretty amicably – or as amicably as you can when you hate each other’s guts.)

  5. Kanisha had discovered her inner fashion-head and had suddenly taken to wearing lots of eyeliner and had her nose and eyebrow pierced? Check.

  6. Meko had no idea what I was really up to? Check.

  It seemed to my slightly warped brain that everything was falling perfectly into place. The planets were aligning in a cosmic sign that my mission to win Jet back was not only just and fair, but also bound to be successful.

  And then I found out that Danny had secretly been visiting Dad at Sound Advice.

  Chapter 14

  I ONLY FOUND OUT BY accident, when Dad was late picking me up from school the Thursday before the fete. He’s pretty hopeless at the best of times, but when he’s got a big project on he gets absorbed in what he’s doing and totally forgets about Nina and me. When I rang his work to find out where he was, Marcelle said, ‘Oh, I thought maybe you were going to meet him at the studio, since your young friend’s here already.’

  ‘What? What friend?’

  ‘You know – Danny – that cute boy from your school.’ I could practically hear her wink over the phone.

  ‘Danny? Danny’s there with Dad?’

  ‘Ye-es.’ Marcelle sounded a bit surprised. ‘He’s here a lot. He pops in after school and even on the weekends sometimes. Didn’t you know?’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t know.’

  ‘Oh.’ By this point in the conversation, even the terminally dopey Marcelle had realised that something was about to go down. ‘Shall I pop you through to your dad?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘No, that’s all right.’ I couldn’t believe how calm I sounded. ‘I’ll pick Nina up and we’ll catch the tram. Thanks.’

  And I think I fully believed for about two seconds that that’s what I would do, but then something kind of snapped inside me. I told Nina to catch the bus home and I jumped on a tram. By the time I got to Sound Advice I was so furious I felt as if my whole body was made of white-hot metal. Marcelle ducked for cover behind the reception desk when she saw me, but I stormed straight into the studio without stopping.

  Now that I think about it, I can’t believe Danny was still there. I mean, Marcelle must have told him she’d spoken to me, so he should have had the sense to disappear – but maybe he didn’t know me as well as he thought he did. Dad, on the other hand, looked gratifyingly terrified. He swung around on his chair so quickly he nearly fell off, and had to grab the console to save himself.

  ‘L-Luie,’ he stammered. ‘Hi. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was just going to ask Danny the same question.’ My voice sounded like steel cutting through ice. I turned to face the little weasel.

  ‘Hey, Lu,’ he said, like it was a lovely day and we were all going on a picnic
together. ‘Pete was just showing me around the new sound equipment. You should check it out.’

  Inside I was going, ‘Pete! He calls my dad Pete!’ but all I actually said was, ‘Oh, should I?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Danny went on, completely oblivious. ‘They’ve got this fantastic new digital snake. It’s really cool.’

  ‘That is cool, Danny.’ Sarcasm dripped from my voice like honey from hot toast. ‘But perhaps you’ve had enough excitement for one day. Perhaps you’d better run along home before your dad starts to wonder where you are.’

  ‘Oh, that’s okay,’ he said. ‘He thinks I’m at the library.’

  If I’d been paying attention, I might have figured out something quite interesting about Danny Baldassarro a lot sooner than I did. But I was too busy being furious and I didn’t give a stuff about how Danny got along with his dad. I was way more interested in why he was getting along so well with mine. And I was just about to ask him that when ‘Pete’ interrupted me.

  ‘Um, Danny, I think you should go now.’

  Danny’s face fell like he’d just been told he couldn’t have any ice-cream because he’d been a bad boy.

  ‘Next time, okay?’ Dad looked at me guiltily, knowing I wouldn’t be too happy with the idea of a next time. ‘I need to talk to Luie.’

  Danny looked at me and then he looked at Dad and I think he finally grasped that something was going on. I still don’t think he had a clue as to what, but that was okay because I was sure as hell going to fill him in the next time I saw him. Right then, it was Dad’s turn.

  ‘So,’ I said, once the weasel was gone, ‘I didn’t know Nina and I had a new brother. When did you decide that Danny was your perfect son?’

  ‘Oh Lu, don’t be like that.’ Suddenly Dad looked really tired and old. ‘Danny’s a good kid and he’s interested in music – that’s all.’

  ‘And I’m not? Oh, that’s right. I’m not a boy, am I?’

  ‘You haven’t seemed very interested in a long time.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because I’m a bit busy with other stuff, Dad. You know, like shopping and cooking and cleaning and generally making sure that things don’t totally fall apart?’ I was being a complete bitch but I couldn’t stop myself. ‘And you’re always so busy at work that the only time Nina and I ever see you is when you’re picking us up or dropping us off somewhere. But now you’ve suddenly got time for Danny?’ I was starting to get upset but I didn’t want him to see me cry. Not over this. Not over Danny. ‘When was the last time you took us to a movie, Dad? Or anything? We go to Nina’s dance concerts every year because you seem to think that’s important, but that’s about it. The rest of the time it’s like we don’t exist.’ And then I was crying.

  ‘Oh, Luie,’ he said and reached out towards me, but I backed away.

  ‘Don’t,’ I snapped. ‘It’s too late for that.’

  As I walked out past the shell-shocked Marcelle, I turned and fired one last shot. ‘Oh, and don’t worry. Nina caught the bus home, since you seem to have forgotten all about her.’

  The next few days with Dad were awful. Nina obviously knew something was going on, but she stayed out of it – tiptoeing around the house as though she was rehearsing her pointe-work.

  The first night after that scene at Sound Advice was the worst. Dad didn’t come home until really late. I’d gone straight to bed because I didn’t want to see him, but I couldn’t sleep. I just lay there in the dark staring at the ceiling – and then I realised I was actually waiting for him.

  It’s funny, you know. I didn’t want to see him, but the later it got the angrier I got. I felt as if everything I’d said to him at the studio was true. He really didn’t care or he would have come straight home. And then I got worried, thinking he was never coming home. That he’d left us. I’d driven him away because I was so awful to him.

  But the minute I heard his key in the front door I was straight back to furious. I lay rigid in the bed waiting for the knock on the door, my heart pounding so hard I thought it would thump through the mattress. As soon as Dad set foot in the room, I could tell he’d been drinking. I could smell it on him, and it just made me even madder. He tried to apologise – for Danny, for being late, for drinking, for lots of things – but I stared stonily at the ceiling, refusing to respond, and eventually he gave up. I heard him watching the late news for a while, and then the TV was turned off and the house went quiet.

  I wasn’t finished yet, though. You’d think after that eruption I’d have calmed down a bit. Oh no! The next day, I found Danny in the library reading a book about his dumb Eighties pop bands.

  ‘Hey, Lu,’ he said in his usual laidback way. ‘I’ve been looking for you. Are you okay? You seemed a bit upset yesterday at Pete’s work. What was that all about?’

  I stared at him an absolute amazement. How could anyone be so clueless?

  ‘Stop calling him Pete.’

  ‘Why?’

  I slid into the chair opposite him. ‘You really have no idea, do you?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About anything,’ I snarled.

  ‘I don’t understand. What’s going on? Are you angry at me?’ He was so infuriating.

  ‘Angry at you, Danny? Noooo! Why would I be angry at you? Just because you’ve been sneaking around behind my back “hanging out” with “Pete” when he’s got better things to do – like spend time with actual members of his family. That’s no reason I should be angry at you, is it?’

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kanisha Lamas pop her head up from behind a pile of Physics books and glare at me like a bespectacled meerkat. I lowered my voice.

  ‘I invited you to my house so we could work together on this project for the fete – that’s all. And believe me, I wouldn’t even have done that if I had any choice in the matter.’ I was back in top bitch form. ‘And now suddenly you are like bestest buddies with my dad and hanging out with him at his work?’

  Danny still looked confused, as though he really didn’t understand what I was saying. I’d have to spell it out for him.

  ‘Do you know the last time I got to hang out with my dad, Danny? Do you?’

  He shook his head. ‘Lu, I wasn’t …’

  ‘I haven’t finished yet,’ I hissed. ‘The last time I got to hang out with my dad, Danny, was so long ago I can’t remember. Now maybe I’m just being totally selfish, but I don’t see why you should get to spend time with my dad when I don’t. Get my drift?’

  He nodded miserably.

  ‘Good. Oh, and just in case you were wondering – jam session’s off tonight.’

  That’s when I came up with the evil ‘Plan D for Danny’.

  Actually, it wasn’t even that evil. It was mostly just stupid and obsessive and deluded. But it did, unfortunately, seem to have rather a major influence on subsequent events. That damned butterfly effect!

  Or, at least I think it did. Or maybe not. I honestly don’t know, because I get a headache every time I try to figure it out.

  What was Plan D? Simple. It involved taking advantage of a certain person’s unreciprocated but publicly declared affection for me and convincing him – by which I mean manipulating, coercing, blackmailing, whatever it took – to step aside on the night of the fete and allow me to take over the sound desk at Jet’s concert. So charmed would Jet be by my devotion, so in awe of my unparalleled skill at the console, that he would immediately realise what a terrible mistake he had made and beg me to take him back.

  Simple! Evil, deluded, sad – but simple.

  At first, I wasn’t sure whether I should come straight out and tell Danny about Plan D and his part in it, or whether I should just wait and see how things panned out. Deep down, I knew Danny was a soft-hearted, straight-down-the-line kind of guy – and one who had asked me out on a date – but I also knew he wasn’t an idiot and was quite likely to tell me to go jump.

  In the end, I decided I couldn’t risk it. Danny would have plenty of time to figure it out on the night.


  And yes, I am quite aware – now – of how stupid this makes me look. In fact, even though I probably would have punched anyone who dared to say it, I’d become exactly like all those slobbering ninnies who worshipped Jet under his tree every lunchtime as if he was some kind of peroxided buddha. Like them, I had got to the point where my brain pretty much ceased all rational thought wherever he was concerned.

  I mean, Jet Lucas had dumped me. Anyone with even a couple of neurons still firing could see that just because I did a great job making him sound good didn’t mean that he’d take me back again. But as I said before: BRAIN + JET = DUMB.

  Chapter 15

  YOU DON’T KNOW JANE – well, how could you? Her most outstanding feature is this strange white fluff like a mushroom cloud sprouting from her head, like she’s had a nuclear explosion in her brain and the fallout has decided to hang around and pretend to be hair. She’s always kind and caring and sympathetic – to the point where it’s really annoying. You want to yell at her or say something really rude or shocking, just so she’ll stop being so freakin’ understanding.

  I don’t know what good she’s doing, really. I mean, I’m not even sure why I’ve got to see her. What is talking to her for a couple of hours a week supposed to achieve? It’s not going to bring back Mrs Blascoe’s dog, is it?

  I told you, didn’t I, that Jane thinks everything that happened is somehow connected to you? When I’m sitting in her office, it’s as if she’s just waiting for me to spill the beans, to break down and admit that I’m somehow falling apart, to crumble to pieces in front of her. Fat chance! It’s a bit like being on a sneaky kind of rack, like they had in the Spanish Inquisition. It’s just another way of getting information out of you – except in twenty-first-century Australia you’re technically not allowed to torture people, so you send them to a psychotherapist instead.

  Jane’s always asking me how I feel about things. ‘How do you feel about that, Luisa?’ ‘How did that make you feel?’ Well, that’s pretty easy. Most of the time how I feel is crap, about pretty much everything. There. I said it. To be fair, I suppose I should say it to Jane – but I want to make her suffer just a little bit longer.