by Pip Harry
She nodded and smiled politely, glancing nervously at the security cameras on the ceiling. Counting the seconds before I would be out of her lovely, clean store.
‘Have a good day, Miss.’ What she was really saying was: ‘Don’t come back’.
‘I will,’ I said, because that’s what everyone says, to be polite. The truth was my day would be misery. Misery wrapped in loneliness.
A good day used to be sleeping in, riding my pushie down to the one decent cafe in town for creamy scrambled eggs on sourdough toast. A good day was meeting up with my boyfriend Scott at the park. Lying out on a soft blanket under our tree and letting the hours go past like thick honey, his fingers running gently through my hair. Scoring some beers and scoffing on burgers from the fish ’n’ chip place. Getting buzzy and giggly listening to the pub fill up down the street and TJ’s cover band start playing their old eighties rock stuff. ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ and ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’.
Today my good day was huddling against the rain and cold under the light rail in Glebe. Scabbing a feed at the Youth off the Streets van. Watchful and full of fear.
I push my fists into my eyes to stop the tears coming. Aimee nods sympathetically as if she’s seen this all before. People falling to bits.
‘It’s not forever,’ she says, not realising I’m crying with relief. ‘Cool your heels for a bit, get things straight. I’ll sort out a case worker. Centrelink comes in once a week. Lots of our residents end up in secure housing eventually. You’ll see.’
She puts her hand out, as if to reach for me, then drops it. Perhaps she thinks I’ll bite. ‘We have a games night going downstairs. Monopoly? Cards? Might take your mind off things?’
‘Nah, thanks.’
‘Okay, sleep tight. We’ll talk in the morning. Breakfast is from seven to eight-thirty.’ She closes the door, leaving me alone in my room. I put the sheets on the bed, lock the door, turn off the lights and crawl under the covers. I miss him, of course. He’s the last thing I think about when I go to sleep and the first thing as I wake up. And every minute I’m awake. The love of my life, and I left him. I’ll never forgive myself.
But I don’t have to keep one eye open here and the sleep comes in fast and hard. Black and thankfully dreamless.
I knock on the door of my year level coordinator, practising my excuse for not handing in my biology assessment.
Mr Jeffreys lets me into his room, which is plastered wall-to-wall with positive affirmations:
If It Doesn’t Challenge You It Won’t Change You
If Life Was Easy Where Would All the Adventures Be?
And my personal favourite:
The Only Person You Are Destined to Become is the Person You Decide to Be.
Today I wish I’d decided to be a person who handed in her biology assignment two days ago, instead of leaving it half-finished on my laptop.
‘You wanted to see me, Mr J?’
‘Ah, Nola, come in.’
He finds a folder with my name on it from his filing cabinet and I sit down and await a lecture on my uncertain future. It’s halfway through term two of my final year of school, and I’ve yet to select my university preferences, or make any effort to improve my below average marks. I have absolutely no idea what I want to do after my HSC. Every time I think about it, my brain goes into a kind of static fuzz that leaves me unable to form full sentences.
‘Is this about my biol assessment?’ I ask. ‘I know it’s a bit late, but I swear I’ll hand it in tomorrow.’
‘No, I wanted to discuss your community service. As you know, it’s a requirement at our school and you won’t graduate at the end of the year without logging the minimum twenty hours.’
‘Doesn’t forcing us all to volunteer take away the whole purpose of volunteerism?’ I ask. I’m not trying to be rude, but my parents always taught me to speak up when I thought something was bogus. They’re big on fairness. Even bigger on equality.
Mr Jeffreys sighs deeply and looks up at the ceiling as if he hopes a rope will drop down from above and save him. I share this feeling.
‘You’re one of the last Year Twelve students to complete your service,’ Mr Jeffreys reminds me.
He’s right. All of my friends have already done theirs. Ebony sang in a choir at an aged care facility, Kara did tree planting and Lolly worked at a community garden. I could never figure out what I wanted to do, so I stayed quiet, hoping I could slide by without it.
‘Do I have to do it, Mr J? I’m so busy with the HSC, and I’m on the formal committee this year.’
‘Formal committee is fine, but picking place settings and a DJ isn’t the same as contributing your time to the community. Do you have any idea what you want to do?’
‘No.’
‘I was contacted recently by a group that I thought you might enjoy working with, especially given how well you express yourself in writing.’
My English results are the only bright light in my studies. I love words and they love me back. It’s the only class I look forward to.
‘What is it?’ I ask, a small glimmer of interest forming.
‘They’re a small group that meet up each week to conduct a creative writing workshop in a homeless shelter in Darlinghurst called Hope Lane.’
Hanging out with homeless people writing sad poetry wasn’t my top pick for community service, but I needed to get Mr Jeffreys off my back. At least there was writing involved. It was better than picking up rubbish in parks.
‘Okay, that sounds fine.’
‘Great. I’ll let them know I’ve found a suitable volunteer. They meet up Wednesdays from 2 to 4pm. As a silver lining, you can do your service during school hours. I think this will be really good for you, Nola. I’m sure you’ll do our school proud.’
Mr Jeffreys gives me a service logbook and an info sheet about the writing group. I get up to leave and he eyes me seriously.
‘Hand in your biology assignment too, Miss Piper, or you’ll be seeing me again soon.’
Ebony is waiting for me at our usual spot – the blue couches next to the tuckshop. She’s got her fluorescent markers out, colour coding notes in a binder.
‘What did Mr J want?’ she asks, handing me a cup of tea, made exactly to my specifications. White. Two sugars. This is our lunchtime ritual. One of us gets tea, the other gets snacks. I throw down some inedible kale chips (hers) and a Snickers (mine).
Ebs and I have been mates since Year Seven, when we were seated next to each other in our homeroom and she commented on the bright red streak I had snaking through my hair. We’ve stuck together like glue ever since, despite being complete opposites.
Ebony is a featured student on our school’s website.On the homepage she looks thoughtful and studious as she examines something under a powerful microscope in our cutting-edge science labs. She knows exactly what ATAR she needs for a Bachelor of Commerce, down to the percentage point, what her top universities are in number order, and what career she’s going to devote her life to – Business Management. I know none of the above.
‘He wants me to do my comm services at a homeless shelter. That’ll be fun.’
‘I loved singing in the oldies choir. Give it a chance.’
‘Sure.’ I attempt to change the subject. ‘So Tom and I have been together a year this Friday.’
Ebony claps her hands together, her eyes shining. ‘Anniversary! Have you planned anything?’
‘Not yet. Tom hates all that lovey dovey stuff. He says Valentine’s Day makes his skin crawl; it’s such a consumerist cash grab.’
Ebony sighs as if Tom has cancelled Christmas. Romance is Ebony’s favourite thing in the world.
‘Really, Nola? Do you think Tom is right for you?’
‘Of course I do.’ I feel my skin prickle in irritation. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I say, taking a big bite of Snickers, the ca
ramel lacing my chin. If it were her one year anniversary with her boyfriend Beau we’d be talking about it every lunchtime for weeks.
‘I don’t know how you can eat so much sugar. It’s a kind of poison you know. You can actually become an addict.’
I take another bite, bigger this time.
‘I’ll get Tom a present,’ I decide. ‘Something low-key.’
‘That sounds perfect.’ She looks in her bag. ‘We have twenty minutes until the bell. Do you want to go over some formal stuff before the meeting?’
Ebony retrieves another binder from her bag, this one dedicated to every last detail of our upcoming Year Twelve formal. She’s head of the planning committee. Somehow I’ve been roped in as well.
‘Sure,’ I say, slumping down and preparing myself for a monologue on venue options, photo booths and after party themes. ‘Fire away.’
On Friday I go to Tom’s place after school with an anniversary gift tucked into my bag.
‘Nola!’ says Tom’s mum, letting me into the house. ‘He’s in his room, brooding. I hope you can snap him out of it. You’re staying for dinner?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘Good, I’m trying an Ottolenghi slow-cooked lamb dish that’s apparently out of this world.’
I walk down the hall to Tom’s room, feeling at home. I’m always here. Dinners, weekends. I’ve even been on their family holiday down the coast. I like their noise and mock arguments. That there’s always someone in the kitchen, pottering with kettles or baking. The verandah light is on when it gets dark and dinner is at six-thirty, sharp. Every food group represented. Gravy made from scratch.
Tom’s lying on his bed throwing a mini basketball into a ring attached to the wall. He barely looks up when I enter the room; grunting when I say hello.
I sit down on the edge of the bed and expect he’ll put the ball down. He doesn’t. He keeps throwing it. Over and over. Thump. Thump.
Tom’s little brother Jeremy is skateboarding in the hall outside, the wheels spinning across the floorboards. The noise doesn’t bother me. I prefer it to the gaping silence of my house, which descended the day Dad moved out, but Tom is on edge. He’s pissed off at me for some reason. I can’t figure out why.
‘Jem! Can’t you do that on the street?!’ Tom shouts. He gets up and slams his bedroom door shut, breaking a loosely kept house rule. If it’s a non-related boy/girl, then the door stays open. But the Maloneys aren’t exactly sticklers for maintaining order, and Tom and I are often alone on his single bed, our bodies entwined. After he reads my card and opens the gift, I want to take my shoes off and lie with him. Let his hands roam my body, his tongue rough in my mouth.
Only 365 days ago, Tom leant into my ear during a clumsy waltz and asked me to be his girlfriend, sending goosebumps down my back. We met in Year Eleven, at dancing class. A major social event between Zara College and our ‘brother school’, Fairhill Boys. He ran across the room, grabbed me out of the line-up and told me he had a thing for girls with long legs and eyes like the ocean. He was a charmer. Still is, most of the time.
I knew we’d end up together, right from our first dance. Our palms sweaty, his size twelve feet misstepping on mine. I fell hard for the gap between his two front teeth, the blue-black mole on his cheek and the way he wore most of his T-shirts inside out, because he didn’t like to be branded. Later, when I met the Maloneys, I fell for them too.
‘Here,’ I say to Tom, handing him a present. ‘We’ve been going out a year today. Did you forget?’
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘I did forget. Sorry.’
‘It’s okay,’ I say, hearing a shrill note in my voice. Why is it always up to me to keep track? Buy the gifts. Write the cards. Make all the effort.
Tom returns to his reclining position and continues to shoot hoops. Thump. Thump. His eyes locked on the ceiling, and not at me. I fight the urge to rip the ball from his hands. Lately we’ve been arguing, more than I like to admit. But today is different. Today feels like something terrible is about to happen.
‘Did we say we were going to do presents?’ he asks coldly.
‘No, but … I always do presents.’
‘Yeah. You do.’
‘You could open it,’ I prompt.
He rips off the wrapping, casting the paper on the floor. He doesn’t notice that it’s printed with a map of Sydney, with Xs marking all our hangouts. The Pavilion on Bondi Beach, where we first kissed. King Street in Newtown, when we first said ‘I love you’. Neither of us wanting to be the first. Here, on this tree-lined street in Vaucluse, where we lost our virginity in a few breathless minutes one raw, sweet summer afternoon. I collect the ripped pieces in my hands and try to piece them back together.
I’ve given him a JB Hi-Fi gift voucher and a plain blue T-shirt. He doesn’t seem happy with either. Tom’s hard to buy for and I usually go generic.
‘Thanks,’ he mutters, avoiding my eyes. He fiddles with the presents and hands them back to me. I consider throwing his present at the basketball ring, wishing I bought something with smashable qualities.
‘I have a no-returns policy,’ I say, trying to lighten the toxic mood.
‘I don’t think we should go out anymore,’ he says. His words are like a karate chop to my throat.
‘Why not?’ I think of all the ways I could keep him – most of them sexual.
‘I went around to your place yesterday, to surprise you. I bought those cupcakes that you like.’
‘Oh, really?’
I rack my brains for what I was doing yesterday. I was shoe shopping, with Ebony. Bored to tears. Then I stayed over at her house. Why didn’t I go straight home?
‘Your mum was there. She invited me in and while I was there she told me all about your family. Funny, it was a completely different version to the bullshit story you spun.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That your parents are gay.’ He shook with anger. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
It was a good question. I’d hidden my family set-up – lesbian mum plus gay dad plus syringe equals me – from my friends for years. Not even Ebony knew. At first I’d done it to fit in, and to protect my parents from the inevitable stares and snide remarks, but the longer it went on, the harder it was to untangle myself from the lies I’d told. I flash back with horror on the hundreds of faux casual conversations I’ve had with Tom – telling him my parents have been together since high school (not entirely untrue, they’ve been soulmates since kindergarten) and all the times I led him to believe they were a typical hetero suburban couple.
‘Now I get why we never hung out at your place,’ says Tom. ‘Why you didn’t want me to meet your parents. What’s wrong with me? Wait a minute … what’s wrong with you?’
What is wrong with me? My parents are the greatest humans I know. But they’re also über gay. Mum’s often mistaken for a guy in her usual outfit of a charcoal men’s suit, tie and black boots. She stands with her feet wide apart, hands in her pockets, hips thrust slightly forward. She has her hair cut at a men’s barber. Dad wears minimal (but not invisible) eye make-up, a touch of foundation and beautiful tailored skinny pants in peacock colours, usually teamed with fabulous scarves and tight shirts. His hair is tipped blonde. I avoid telling them about school events. I don’t have friends over. I keep them in the background deliberately, thinking life would be easier for all of us.
‘Why did you lie to me?’ Tom asks.
This is my chance to explain, but words can’t fix this. I’m not sure what can.
‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. I haven’t lied about anything else, I promise.’
Tom laughs hollowly. ‘How can I know that? Or trust you again? I feel like I don’t even know you.’
‘You can come to dinner,’ I say. ‘We could start over.’
Family dinners are rare these days. Mum works fourteen-hour days and Dad
travels constantly for his job. But if they did manage to get it together, it would almost certainly be a disaster. After the meal (takeaway in plastic containers) Mum would take out the ukulele she was learning to play. Maybe Dad would come over and he’d throw on some tunes and show us his nineties dance moves, most of them involving Madonna and Kylie songs. He’d mention Kitty Glitter – his old drag character. They’d share stories of being on the podium at Stonewall – the most obvious gay bar in Sydney – or even worse, a float at Sydney Mardi Gras.
‘I don’t want to come over for dinner. I want to end it,’ says Tom.
‘Please, Tom, don’t do this,’ I say, reaching for him. Hurting in places I didn’t know could hurt.
I lie down next to him and we hug. I put my face to his chest and breathe in his grassy boy smell. This can’t be over. I slide my hand down past the button of his jeans. He rolls away.
‘Not a good idea.’
‘That’s the first time you’ve ever said that,’ I say. When we argued before, sex would bring him close again. He stands up and opens the door of his room. Jem is still skating outside, and he stops and gawks at us.
‘What’s wrong with Nola?’ Jem says. ‘Why is she crying?’
‘Jem! Seriously, go outside!’ shouts Tom. ‘You should go, Nola.’
‘Really? You want me to leave?’
‘I do.’
‘Fine.’
I grab my bag and what’s left of my dignity and leave, taking a last glance back, in case he changes his mind. But Tom has resumed chucking his basketball against the wall. As I walk out of the house I try to bottle the Maloney essence. The pile of unfolded washing looming in the front room. Someone’s undone chore. The sound of Xbox battles from the study, where Tom’s sister Tilly is supposed to be doing her homework. The smell of spiced lamb slow-cooking in the kitchen. Falling-apart meat I was expecting to have warming my stomach later, maybe with Mrs Maloney’s pomegranate salad and homemade flatbreads. Tom’s surfboard leaning up against the hall cupboard, filled with different sizes of jackets. S to XL.