The Mimosa Tree

by Antonella Preto

  ‘Lloyd Cole and the Commotions?’

  ‘“Perfect Skin”. It’s one of my favourites at the moment.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, and I am a little bit stumped because actually, I like that song too.

  I lean back in my seat, face out the window. Okay, so she’s got one song, maybe one album that doesn’t make me want to puke. It doesn’t make us friends. Thanks to Lloyd Cole, the rest of the drive to uni isn’t so bad. As long as I smile at her every time she looks at me and bop my head a little like I’m listening too, she’s happy to just keep singing and driving, content that some kind of connection has been made.

  When we get out of the car, the I’ve-showed-you-my-soul thing starts working against me immediately. Felicia wants me to meet her for lunch and, well, I’d be a big wanker if I turned her down now. So I say yes, and she gets excited, starts drawing me maps of the campus with big red arrows showing the way to the cafeteria. I see some goths staring at us and I’m mortified. I snatch the paper from her, shove it roughly into my pocket and get away as fast as I can.

  ‘Mira!’ she calls after me.

  ‘What?’ The goths are still watching.

  ‘Art building’s that way,’ and she points in the opposite direction to where I’m heading. ‘You want me to draw you another map?’

  The goths start laughing. If it wasn’t so embarrassing it could be legendary. Ignoring Felicia’s map offer, I sling my backpack over my shoulder, drop my fringe over my eyes and walk as quickly as I feel safe enough doing while staring directly at the ground.

  ***

  When I was twelve, I stood up in front of my class and told everyone I was going to be a painter when I grew up. As I looked out at my classmates and at my teacher perched against a child-sized desk, there was not a single face that looked sceptical. A few days later, when I told Via and Mum the same story, the feedback was less encouraging. This is what they said:

  ‘Ceilings,’ said Via. ‘I hope you mean you’re going to paint ceilings, because that’s the only kind of painting that’s going to put food on the table. Understand?’

  ‘Mira,’ said Mum. ‘You have to be really good to be a painter.’

  ‘I’m the best in my class.’ But the doubt was creeping in.

  ‘You see any jobs for painters in here?’ said Via pushing the newspaper towards me.

  ‘I don’t mean a painter. I mean an artist.’

  ‘Oh I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise I was speaking to Michelangelo.’

  ‘Artists take drugs,’ said Mum nervously.

  ‘Didn’t you want to be a teacher once?’

  ‘I was four.’

  ‘Teacher is a good job,’ said Mum hopefully. ‘When you work for the government you never have to worry.’

  ‘Forget it, Mum.’

  ‘But Mira,’ she said eyes widening. ‘Artists take drugs.’

  ‘Not all artists take drugs, Mum!’

  But she was doing that block thing that she does. When she gets an idea in her head, no matter how much you argue against it, it wouldn’t matter if you got God to explain to her that she’s wrong, she just won’t budge.

  Then, in an uncharacteristically diplomatic moment, Aunt Via suggested I could be an art teacher.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Mum.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Via.

  ‘No way,’ said I.

  ‘Your cousin is a teacher.’

  ‘She works in childcare.’

  ‘They have paints,’ said Via, leaning back satisfied. ‘Same thing you see? Yes, yes. Art teacher. It’s a good job for you.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Mum.

  And just like that, without any further discussion everyone was happy. Everyone, that is, except me.

  Not that it matters, because I haven’t exactly turned out to be a great artist. Lately, the only thing I have drawn is my nuclear survival map, and you can’t really call that art. I’ve been working on it secretly, usually at night after everyone has gone to bed, though sometimes I wonder why I bother. If Mum or Via saw it, they wouldn’t know what it was for. My family, like the rest of the world, prefer to ignore the fact that nuclear war is inevitable. That’s why I started the map: to try and figure out if there is somewhere safe I can run to when the bombs start coming down.

  As I stand outside the art building, staring up at the concrete walls, I have a sinking feeling that Via and Mum are probably right: art teacher is the best I can hope for. Around me real art students shuffle by with their suitcase-sized folders full, I am sure, of serious and important art. Someone smiles at me and I immediately want to apologise, explain that I am just an education student and I’m only in their building for one insignificant unit; Painting – Observation and Perception. Eventually I go inside, keeping my head low and looking up only as much as is needed to avoid walking into the walls. It takes me a while but I find the entry to the studio classroom at the end of a long, vinyled hallway, designed it seems, for a short, medieval person. The studio door is red with a green handle. The word STUDIO has been collaged with the severed heads of paintbrushes, still clogged with paint. I push against the door, which has a lot less resistance than I expected. It swings open fast, slams against the inside wall, then swings back again so I have to brace my arm out to catch it. For a moment I only see light, the blinding effect of walking from a dark room into a well-lit one. Then, like the Tardis, the room opens up before me.

  Inside, four students sit as far apart from each other as the room will allow them. They are perched at long, high tables, looking interested in everything except each other. Respectfully, I seat myself as far as possible from each of them. I look around at the room. The light, I now see, is spilling in from floor-to-ceiling windows that make up an entire side of the room. Above me, the ceiling domes to a central skylight, and heavy chains hold balloon-sized globes that seem unnecessary in this furnace of daylight. Walls are tacked with a mixture of sketches, paintings, notices to students and local gig posters.

  As each student arrives, down-faced and timid, the ritual of finding places at a respectable distance to strangers continues. At some point, as the room fills up, it will be impossible not to sit next to someone, and so the random act of making friends begins. It depresses me how everyone behaves the same all the time. It depresses me that friendships can be forged by nothing more than random seating.

  Then student number eight walks into the room.

  Student-number-eight lets the door slam behind him and instead of shuffling to anonymity, pushes a long fringe from his eyes and looks at each of us in turn. He doesn’t just glimpse, he actually looks, taking his time to check out the details. Squirming, I try to keep my eyes on my desk, avoid returning the gaze, but it’s impossible not to want to watch him watching us.

  Then he walks over and sits next to me.

  And I don’t mean at a respectful distance either, I mean right next to me, in the place that is usually reserved for that poor student who comes in late and has to sit in the only place left in the room. This is a bold and unusual move. I want to laugh out loud. From behind me, safely out of sight, I can feel the others studying us, waiting to see what connects us – and the joke is, there is nothing connecting us at all, other than this random movement by Student-number-eight. He’s so close it’s almost impossible for me to ignore him, but ignore him I do, and he shows no other interest in me. I sit tensely, like I am trying to suck myself smaller, caught between the giddiness of being chosen and the noose of unnatural closeness.

  At some point a person who looks like they think they know everything stands before us and begins yabbering about negative space, perspective and interpretation. Things I am probably supposed to be listening to, but everything seems to wash around a small, focused tunnel featuring Student-number-eight. The lesson feels like it’s over in minutes, but the wall clock assures me a full hour has passed. Students start filing out of the classroom like cattle to the next prodding. I half expect him to say something to me, maybe goodbye, but Student-numbe
r-eight just grabs his pack and exits with the crowd. For the rest of the morning I watch doors expectantly, but he doesn’t show again.

  At midday, I head to the cafeteria without the help of Felicia’s stupid map. I don’t have to spend much time looking for her. Felicia is bopping up and down and waving at me from a table in the middle of the room like someone drowning. How long is it going to take her to work out that we are not going to be friends?

  ‘I saved you a seat,’ she says and pats the chair next to her.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, and then take a different one instead. ‘Here is fine.’

  ‘Oh sure,’ she says, and tries to look like she’s cool with it. ‘So, how is your first day going?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Meet anyone nice?’

  ‘I didn’t speak to anyone. I’m going to get some lunch now,’ I say and stand up.

  ‘Great!’ she says and stands too. ‘I’m starving.’

  Starving girl buys a salad and a black coffee, no sugar. I get a pie and a Coke. Between forkfuls she dabs at the corner of her mouth with a folded serviette. I have tomato sauce dribbling down my wrist and I make slurp noises through my straw. Felicia sips her coffee in small, soundless swallows. Every time I look at her she gives me a little smile. I want to scream why are you here? Why are you even talking to me?

  ‘So, Via tells me you’ve always wanted to be a teacher.’

  ‘That’s interesting.’

  ‘She’s always talking about you.’

  ‘I can believe that.’

  ‘From what she says, I think we have a lot in common.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I say with a chuckle. ‘Like what?’

  ‘We both like music, for instance.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘And we’re both good at school.’

  I nod. We go to the same university. We are both Italian. We were born in the same city. We are both eating lunch. We are both digesting our food. On and on it goes, but really, she’s just missing the big picture the whole time. We couldn’t be more different.

  ‘You don’t make it easy, do you?’ she says after a while.

  ‘I don’t make what easy?’

  ‘Being your friend.’

  I put down my Coke, wipe my face with the back of my hand because I’ve somehow lost my serviette. I don’t usually waste time explaining myself, but this isn’t really her fault. It’s Via’s. If she hadn’t decided she couldn’t be bothered driving me around anymore none of this would be happening.

  ‘Look Felicia, you’re a nice person, but I really don’t need a friend my aunt had to organise for me.’

  ‘Is that what you think this is?’

  ‘Come on, Felicia. I think you know I’m not stupid.’

  ‘Nobody asked me to be your friend, Mira.’

  I laugh. ‘I’m sure she made you feel like it was all your idea.’

  She crosses her arms and swivels her knees to the side. ‘I’m not that easily influenced. If you actually tried to get to know me instead of just assuming what I’m like you’d find that out about me.’

  Oh God. Don’t start crying.

  ‘You really don’t have to take this so personally.’

  She laughs. ‘Are you kidding? You’ve been rude to me all day and all I’ve been is nice to you!’

  ‘I’m just being realistic. We aren’t each other’s kind of people.’

  ‘What does that mean? I hang out with all kinds of people.’

  ‘Yeah, and I am sure you’d rather be with them now so just go, okay? I’m all right, really I am. I absolve you! You don’t have to sit here with me anymore. Really.’

  Felicia’s eyes open wide and for a moment she just stares at me. She should be angry or upset, but the expression on her face is more curious, like she’s trying to figure me out. Good luck. I pick up my Coke, slurp at the remains as I wait for her to make the next move. I’ve said what I have to say. It’s up to her now how long we drag this out. After a moment she leans forward onto the table and looks at me in earnest.

  ‘Look,’ she says. ‘Maybe we just got off on the wrong foot. Will you hear me out for a minute?’

  I shrug.

  ‘Via talked to me about you, but not like you think. Most of the time she said, well ... she didn’t say a lot of nice things, put it that way.’

  ‘Now that I believe.’

  ‘But everything she said about you, all the stuff she thought was really frustrating, or difficult, well, to me it kind of made sense. I guess what I’m saying is, I think I understand you.’

  ‘Oh God,’ I say, rubbing my eyes and trying to take this all in.

  ‘Sorry, that probably sounds a bit weird,’ she says with a laugh. ‘Via wanted me to think you were some terrible person, but I got a different picture of you.’

  ‘Oh yeah? And what’s that?’

  ‘Just that you were someone who didn’t really fit in.’ She leans in conspiratorially. ‘You’re someone who doesn’t fit in because you don’t want to fit in. I have lots of friends, Mira, and they are all really good at doing what they are told. But you are someone who wants to find your own way, not just follow and I respect that. Actually, I really like it.’ She is looking me straight in the eye, and there isn’t a single trace of the giddy girly that’s been annoying me all day. Her gaze is sure and solid.

  ‘Wow,’ I say, returning her stare easily. ‘Via really fucked up.’

  ‘Not completely. She was spot-on about you being sad and mean.’

  I lean back in my seat. I should be offended but instead I am trying to keep the corners of my mouth from smirking. I’m starting to think this Princess may be gutsier than I first gave her credit for.

  ‘So what makes you so sure there’s something about me worth knowing? Sounds like you’re giving me a whole new set of expectations to live up to. I hate to disappoint you by turning out to be just normal and boring like everyone else.’

  ‘God, you really are full of yourself aren’t you? I only just met you this morning remember? You’re not that important to me.’

  Far out! Where did this morning’s do-gooder airhead go? I don’t even mind that she is insulting me. Maybe I’m weird, but this kind of nasty banter puts me more at ease than her sycophantic sweet-girl act.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ I say leaning back in my chair and folding my arms.

  ‘Sure,’ she says all blinky-eyed and lip-glossed.

  ‘What’s your opinion of Ronald Reagan?’

  ‘Well,’ she says leaning over and picking up her handbag. ‘I would say that Ronald Reagan is a good actor.’

  ‘Right,’ I say as a smile creeps across my face. ‘Doesn’t sound like you have a high opinion of him.’

  She scoffs like I’ve said something obvious and her brow furrows. She’s like an angry Barbie doll. ‘That fool is hell-bent on steering us towards a war. His insistence on keeping the Strategic Defense Initiative open killed the disarmament talks. It’s a good thing for us that Gorbachev is still calling for a treaty or we would all be goners.’

  ‘You really think there’s hope?’

  ‘Of course! There’s always hope. Life would be unbearable otherwise, right?’ She stands up suddenly. ‘You coming or what?’ she says and without waiting for an answer she’s already out of her chair and moving. I pick up my bag, tripping a chair in the process, then try and look casual when I am really hurrying to catch up with her. She waits for me at the door, holding it open for me.

  ‘I’m not, you know,’ I say quietly.

  ‘Not what?’

  ‘Sad and mean.’

  ‘See? There’s another thing we have in common.’

  Her long fingers curl out to wave me out of the door. There’s a crowd of people outside and the sound of their conversations is deafening but all I see are five shiny peach-coloured nails glinting in the sun and all I hear is the tinkling sound of her bangles. As I follow where those fingers guide me, I start to realise that Princess Felicia may have just delivered my fir
st real lesson of the day.

  Chapter 3

  In preparation for ravioli making, Mum has removed some flyscreens from the windows, soaped and dried them, and laid them across the backs of two chairs to form a drying rack. The old tablecloth, faded and torn, has been spread across the table. The pasta machine has been floured and bolted tightly to the table’s edge. It’s early morning, the windows and sliding door are wide open. A soft breeze lifts the edges of the tablecloth and dries the beads of sweat already forming on our faces. Via is late, but Mum is not concerned. She starts on the pasta, humming a tune as she works, occasionally singing the lines she remembers then falling back into a soft hum. Into a small volcano of flour she cracks a dozen eggs, then with a twisting movement of her fingers she begins to combine them with the flour a little at a time.

  ‘You should pay attention.’

  ‘Flour, eggs. I got it. No big deal.’

  ‘It’s not enough to watch. You have to get your hands in to really know how to do it. Try.’ She waves me over with her flour-encrusted fingers. A drop of yellow yolk slides onto the faded red tablecloth.

  I sigh, get up and walk over to her side of the table. She takes some flour, uses it to wipe her fingers clean over the unformed pasta dough, then she plunges my hands into the mixture before I have time to think of an excuse. She places her hands over mine, squeezes them to show me the motion I should be using.

  ‘Then scrape in from here,’ she says, moving my hand over to the flour that has escaped and pushing it back into the pile. ‘You see?’

  I shake her hands away. ‘I get it.’

  She puts her hands on her hips. ‘It took me years to learn this from my mother and I still cannot get the pasta as good as hers. What makes you think you can learn so quick?’

  I roll my eyes.

  ‘Look,’ she says, pushing in beside me and poking the dough with a finger. ‘You think you are so smart, but you don’t see that it’s getting dry, do you?’ She cracks another egg over my hands, and the pasta begins to squelch and stick to my fingers. ‘You want us to break our teeth on it?’