by Bree Darcy
“I hate being away from the whole scene but ma needs me around right now. Anyway that’s my story. What about you? What do you do when you’re not bashing tennis balls?”
I told Andy about how I was also an only child, raised by a single mum, after my loser of a father up and left before I was born. Last we heard he was in England.
“I never really thought about it like that before,” Andy said. “In a way I was lucky to have sixteen years with my pops. You never even met yours.”
“But then again,” I replied, “what you’ve never known, you’ll never miss.”
When we reached my house, it was like we didn’t know how to say goodbye. So we didn’t.
“Is your ma waiting for you to come in for dinner?” Andy asked, nervously twirling the crucifix on his necklace.
I explained that my mother was a waitress at a Mexican restaurant and worked nights.
“So are you going to ask me in?”
I hesitated for a second before blurting out: “Can you cook?”
He puffed out his chest. “I’m from an Italian family, of course I can. Food is our lifeblood.”
“So why are you so skinny then?”
“I’m not skinny.” Andy flexed a fairly insignificant bicep at me. “I’m built like a rock star – Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop, Kurt Cobain. How many fat frontmen do you know? That’s right, nada.”
“Meatloaf.”
“Okay, apart from Meatloaf.”
“Elvis Presley.”
“He was fine before he hoed into the burgers.”
“Sir Mix-a-lot.”
“Who the hell is he? Now you’re just making them up.”
“Getting back to the topic at hand – if you’re willing to cook tea while I study, you can come in.”
Leaning my bike against the side gate, I unlocked the front door and steered Andy towards the kitchen at the back of the house. “Do you have any specialty dishes?” I called over my shoulder.
“Spaghetti bolognese?” he offered.
I scrunched my nose in distaste. “I don’t eat meat. What about spaghetti with a plain tomato sauce instead?” I tossed him a couple of tomatoes before slamming shut the fridge with my hip.
“Stand aside woman and be prepared to be amazed. You got a stick blender?”
I pointed towards the bottom drawer. Our tiny kitchen was really only a one-person zone. Mum had vowed for years to rip out the wood-vinyl cupboards and orange laminate benchtop to redesign the poky space. But we were still waiting for our lottery win.
I left Andy to whip up our dinner, humming to himself as he chopped up a salad, while I finished a maths worksheet at the dining table.
“What on earth are you doing?” I exclaimed as he flung a strand of spaghetti against the wall next to the fridge.
“Testing to see if it’s ready. You really don’t know much about cooking, do you? It needs a few more minutes.” He sauntered over to flick through my files. “Ninety-five per cent, A-plus, Excellent effort … geez, don’t tell me you’re one of those freakin’ smart kids who’s enrolling in pre-med.”
Over dinner – and it really was the tastiest pasta I’d ever eaten – I explained my plans to become a political reporter after I finished school the following year. Three years for a university degree, then a newspaper cadetship – I had it all mapped out.
“Why don’t you become a music writer? Then you can tour with us and write about how brilliant we are.”
“Standing shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of sweaty music fans ain’t really my scene,” I grimaced.
“Better than hanging out with lame politicians. Hey, can I use your phone? I should let ma know I’ll be late.”
Just after he hung up from speaking with his mother, the phone rang.
“DON’T … answer it.” I trailed off as he picked up.
“Hello … This is Kell’s boyfriend” – he grinned at me – “who’s this?”
I could hear Nikki’s shrieks from where I was standing.
“You want me to tell her what? You’re never speaking to her again? Hang on.” He turned to me. “Your best friend demands to know why she wasn’t told you have a boyfriend.”
“Can you inform her I don’t have a boyfriend – that we only met today.”
“Hey, I’m back. She says she hasn’t told you I’m her boyfriend because we only met this afternoon.”
More shrieks. “She wants to talk to you.” Andy passed me the phone.
“What the heck is going on? Who is this bloke? And what’s he doing at your place?”
“His name’s Andy. He was riding his skateboard at the courts and walked me home for tea.”
I listened to Nikki some more, then looked at Andy coyly. “No, I’m not being held against my will. I don’t need to use our secret codeword because I’m not in any danger.”
“Yet …” Andy said with a devilish smile.
“He’s a musician … seventeen … San Francisco … about my height, long hair, a bit like Andre Agassi’s in fact but darker … I guess you could describe him as sort of cute.”
“She means very cute.” Andy leant on me to speak into the receiver.
“Okay, now she wants to speak with you again.” I passed the phone back. And for the next twenty minutes Andy answered a barrage of questions. I think the only thing she didn’t find out was which brand of toothpaste he used.
* * *
“So has your ma always worked nights?” We were sitting on the couch, with the TV on in the background. Seinfeld. That show always cracked me up. But we were too busy getting to know one another.
“Only the last few years. When I was a little kid, we lived with my Aunt Beth. Then when she moved down south, neighbours looked after me after school until Mum finished work. Once I was old enough to stay by myself she took the job at the restaurant. It’s much better pay on night rates.”
Andy kicked off his battered sneakers. “Can we go to your bedroom?” he asked.
“No, we can’t,” I replied indignantly. “Not if that’s meant as some sort of proposition – like can I come up for coffee.”
“Nah, I just want to see your room. You can tell a lot about a person from their room. Although if coffee is on offer…” He made the quote mark gesture on coffee as a filthy grin spread across his face.
I punched his shoulder, before leading the way to my bedroom.
He fake gasped as he took in the poster on my door. “New Kids on the Block! There is no way I can hang out with someone who likes them. Wait, tell me, who’s your favourite?”
“Donnie.”
“Hmmm, that might be alright then. Seeing he’s the bad boy. With the teensiest bit of street cred.”
Andy examined a framed photo of me on my first day of school, all pigtails, dimples and missing front teeth. “So you’re smart, sporty, vegetarian …” he said toying with one of my tennis trophies. “I’m feeling a bit out of my league. All I’ve got to offer is ‘sort of cute’.”
“Maybe make that very cute,” I said shyly.
The telephone rang again. I bet that would be Dawn. Nikki would have been straight on to our friend the minute she got off the phone with us.
Neither of us answered it. Instead Andy leant in and brushed his lips against mine. My first ever kiss. My heart was thumping as he cupped the back of my neck and caressed my hair. Second kiss. Then third. He teased open my mouth with his tongue. And then I lost count.
And so it became a regular fixture: Andy would start work at six, heaving boxes of fruit and vegetables at a warehouse alongside a family friend. I would go to school, heaving a bag filled with textbooks. By five o’clock he would be at my house, cooking dinner while I did my homework. Sometimes even when Mum didn’t have a shift, Andy would tell her to put her feet up while he cooked for the pair of us.
On paper, Andy was hardly the type of boy you’d want to take home. A long-haired high school dropout who played in a band. But he knew how to turn on the charm and my mum loved him. Plus
he could make a mean vegie casserole.
And the truth is, I loved him too. One minute he was this annoying kid on a skateboard and the next he was someone I couldn’t imagine not having in my life.
CHAPTER THREE
“Don’t get mad.” It was Nikki on the phone.
“What have you done?” I sighed, reaching into the fridge for the Mars Bar I’d been so good at avoiding all day. “You’ll have to speak up though – you sound like you’re down a well.”
“I’m in the loos. It’s my only excuse to get out of the studio while the show’s running. But I had to tell you this.” She paused dramatically; Nikki relished being the mistress of revelation. “We had that singer Kris Carson in for an interview with the boys.” The boys were Woodsy and Murph, the comedy duo who hosted the radio show Nikki produced. “Did you know his dad Marty used to be an Ironman?”
“Why would I get mad about that?” I certainly felt no ill will towards buff sportsmen running around in red Speedos. But I had a sinking feeling I knew what Nikki was ringing about. Leaving the kids arguing over whose turn it was to clear the dining table, I closed the laundry door firmly behind me, jamming a towel under it as a soundproofing measure.
“Siena Ellement was there too.” Nikki rushed her words out – as if, like ripping off a bandaid, hearing it quicker would make it less painful.
“And?” I prompted. I hadn’t had a chance to tell her about my run-in with Andy’s wife earlier in the week.
“While Kris and his dad were off filming a spot for the webcam, I got chatting with Siena. I happened to mention I knew the Shrimp when he was living in Perth.”
I groaned.
“And she turned real nasty, telling me she didn’t want to hear about what I got up to with him. And then – this is the bit that might make you a teensy bit mad – I told her she’d got it wrong. That he and I were just mates cos he was in love with my best friend, Kellie.”
“What did she say?”
“First she turned a shade of puce, which I have to tell you really clashed with the coral wrap dress she was wearing. Hasn’t she got the most exquisite taste? And what an amazing figure! Then she spat it – literally. I had to wipe spittle off my arm. She wanted to know how long you were together. It’s like she’s never heard of you. Surely he must have mentioned his Australian girlfriend at some point?”
“Ex-girlfriend,” I interjected.
“I told her you only dated for a few months before he went back to Californ-I-A. Was that okay?”
“You didn’t really say California in that pretentious way, did you?” I then filled Nikki in on my own close encounter with Siena and how her daughter had Kellie as a middle name. “I wouldn’t think she’d put two and two together though – me in Sydney, you in Perth. She probably thinks she’s being hounded by Kellies.”
“Well, that would be the case, I guess, if she didn’t ask where you were now and I sort of let it slip you worked for Starfix in Sydney and then she checked her phone and asked if you were Kellie Carmichael.”
There goes that theory then. I remembered my email from the Atticus spokesman had been copied in to Siena. I reassured Nikki I wasn’t mad and let her get back to work.
Not long after I received an email to my work account: “Stay away from me and stay away from my husband.”
No prize for guessing who that was from.
* * *
I had the best intentions of spending the morning getting stuck into the housework. I got as far as pegging out the washing when I got sidetracked into checking my emails. That led me on to Facebook where my mutinous fingers typed “Danger Game” into its search bar.
Years ago I gave up paying attention to what was happening in Andy’s life – it was like an automatic new year’s resolution for me. Don’t succumb to chocolate, be more tolerant of my mother-in-law and ignore the rock star.
With the band in semi-retirement mode, it had been relatively easy to keep my resolve. Unlike my chocolate and mother-in-law issues.
But seeing Andy pop up on the news like that and then meeting his scary wife had unleashed an irresistible urge in me. I would do a quick search. See what he’d been up to. Just for a minute or two. And then get on with the vacuuming.
Wow! The band’s official page had fifteen million likes. I clicked on a photo of Andy leaning against a wall next to a Harley-Davidson, his thumbs hooked into a pair of red suspenders. His eyes stared out at me from behind his floppy fringe.
His profile gave his hobbies as hanging out with the wife and kids, playing computer games, riding motorcycles, writing songs, drinking coffee, not sleeping and pottery. Presumedly the pottery was a joke.
The fan pages had endless photos and links to videos of music clips, interviews and sightings. I scrolled through them, picking out some tagged “funny moments”.
The first was a really early one of Andy and Gerry skateboarding along the Venice Beach boardwalk, mocking the pumped-up fitness freaks along the way. Then there was a montage of incidents – Dom sliding head-first down a tenpin bowling lane, Gerry starting a food fight at a music festival, a wasted Heath falling off-stage and smashing his nose.
There were the stalkerish videos too, like the one of Andy getting changed backstage. Disappointingly, he turned his back on the camera for the crucial bit. There was even one of him getting a haircut – the shaky footage was shot through the salon window. I wonder if the fan later snuck in and stole some hair off the floor. Oh, why didn’t I think to keep a lock of hair? I could have made a fortune on eBay.
An interview shot in an alleyway after a gig in the mid-nineties probably best portrayed the dynamics of the band. Andy was wearing devil horns, Gerry a joker’s hat and Dom had on glasses with pop-out eyeballs. Heath, who had obviously not gotten the memo about dressing up, asked the interviewer: “How many lead singers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
The interviewer shrugged.
“One. Andy holds it up and the world revolves around him.”
“I’ve got one,” Andy piped up. “What do you call the good-looking girl on the guitarist’s arm?”
Again the interviewer shrugged.
“A tattoo.”
Heath glowered at Andy momentarily before putting on his game face and talking about their songwriting partnership.
Midway through a video of the band mucking around on a German TV show, the phone rang. In a guilt-ridden jolt, I closed the page before answering to my mother-in-law.
“I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time…” Delia began.
“Nope, just doing the housework.” My face flushed with embarrassment as if Delia had caught me in flagrante with another man. “Mopping the bathrooms. Tiring work, all that pushing the steam mop to and fro, it’s nice to take a breather.”
Too much information. Stop explaining.
“By the way, thanks for having the kids over the weekend. Ciara hasn’t stopped talking about the museum.”
This was true, even though her comments had been along the lines of “I can’t believe how boring it was”.
“My pleasure. Finding the right activities can be so tricky nowadays. Ciara was telling me you took her to a dance recital. Boy something – was that part of the arts festival? I don’t recall seeing it on the program.”
I stifled a giggle. B Boyz Battle was a hip-hop competition held out at Olympic Park every year – not exactly the Swan Lake-like performance she’d approve of. Delia still hadn’t forgiven me for letting Ciara drop ballet four years ago to concentrate on the swim team.
I had to admit, although I was not fond of my mother-in-law, you couldn’t fault her for the attention she lavished on her grandchildren. She really did want the best for them – the best schools, the right cultural experiences … and let’s not forget the most important one – a better mother!
For some reason Delia was ringing to invite me to lunch next week.
“Well, must dash,” she said, not offering me any clues. “I have a tennis meeting a
nd need to brief Beryl on what to prepare for Thomas’ supper. He’s watching his cholesterol.” Yes, my mother-in-law had a live-in housekeeper who helped her cater to her fussy husband’s every whim.
I stretched my arms above my head before rousing the computer out of sleep mode. So much for only doing a quick internet search! It was after two o’clock. As my stomach growled in protest about missing lunch, I cleared the search history and logged off.
Despite being miles behind with my to-do list, I felt a sense of accomplishment about catching up on Andy’s life in one fell swoop. There was no need to check up on him ever again, I thought. Meanwhile the other side of my brain noted that I needed to remember “AJ Dangerfield, shirtless” for my next search.
* * *
Ciara burst into the kitchen, dropping her school bag on to the bar stool. Most of her hair had escaped her ponytail and she had biro scribble all up her arm. She also had excitement written all over her thirteen-year-old face.
“Careful,” I cautioned. “I’ve mopped so the floor might be slippery.”
“Mum, I’ve got the best news ever!” Ciara pulled her crumpled school blazer from her bag, to reach a mass of notes at the bottom. Teacher-parent interviews, a call for raffle donations, a graph about attendance rates – it was a never-ending flood of information from that school.
“So what’s the good news?” I asked, taking her lunchbox over to the sink.
“Next Monday, can me and Jenna meet you at Circular Quay after work? Kris Carson has invited us there.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Did he now? I didn’t know you were close.”
“Well, he didn’t invite us personally. He asked all his fans. He’s shooting a documentary about his rise to fame and needs his fans to be there at five o’clock when he performs his new single, Desperate. It’s all over Twitter, #KrisCrushQuay. Jenna’s mum says she’ll drop us in if we can come home with you. Please, please, please.”
At this point Ryan mooched in, asking what was for afternoon tea.