‘Yeah, yeah. This was your shift, remember? I’m doing you a favour.’
He swears as he reverses out the driveway. ‘Fine, I owe you one if that’ll shut you up.’ He throws a stick of gum into my lap — an order, not a request. I wish I had a bar of soap to peg at him. ‘Hey, how’s Sal going in old Canberra town? You two have a lovers’ tiff? You’ve been acting like an even bigger weirdo all week.’
I pop the gum in my mouth and start grinding. ‘Nah, it’s good. She’s good.’
‘Damn straight. She was a sort the last time I saw her.’
I snort.
‘What? It’s not my fault she got smoking hot. It’s science.’
‘You’re a knob, man.’
Trent pushes his palm against the horn, payback to the learner driver in the car crawling ahead of us. He turns back to me. ‘You were always batting above your average with her, bro — we all knew it. You were just lucky she never did.’
I don’t say anything, just keep chewing.
‘It’s gotta sting that she’s gone,’ he adds. ‘And you’re still here, bludging off the parentals.’
‘Righto. Remind me who does your laundry?’
He laughs. ‘Yeah, but we’re talking about you, bro, ’cos Sal’s off doing who knows what.’ I catch him smirking in my direction. ‘Literally.’
My jaw tightens as I turn up the radio, but it’s not enough to block out Trent’s ribbing. The truth is: Sal left in such a rush she probably didn’t even slow down for the usual salute to the Thank you for visiting Durnan sign. And I stayed to sink into the semitrailer-sized pile of crap that is my new life. No idea what to do, no idea where to go, no idea how I missed the memo everyone else got to get their lives together. Not even Durnan High’s careers advisor could help me. Nothing she suggested felt right. Although she’s a careers advisor who not-so-secretly resents that she never made it as a musical-theatre star, so I don’t reckon I could’ve trusted her advice anyway. Despite her urging me to ‘just do anything’ — er, no thanks, Mrs Fletcher — I wound up missing the cut-off date so didn’t apply anywhere.
The rest of our year fled town at such high speeds you’d swear a cyclone was nipping at their bums. Uni, TAFE, travel, jobs — they’ve all left for something. My mate Steve sped off in his ute to Bathurst Uni with a ‘Guess I’ll see ya, Dark,’ like the past six years counted for nothing. Another mate, Murph, got into University of Technology Sydney, but reckons he’ll visit his dad heaps and still come round to see me. He’s probably lying, even if he doesn’t know it yet.
That’s the thing about Durnan. Most of its residents live and die here, but if someone leaves, they don’t come back.
Trent swears as he slaps the steering wheel. ‘Oi!’ he yells out his window at a bearded bloke driving a minivan. ‘Where’s your blinker, mate?’
He taps my arm. ‘Don’t freak about Sal, bro. I’m playing. She ain’t a cheater.’
The gum is now flavourless rubber in my mouth. ‘I’m not freaked.’
‘Good. That’s good. Well … I’m pretty sure she’s not.’ He notices my filthy expression. ‘Relax. I’m sure she’s not. Well, ninety per cent sure. She is a long way from home, bro.’
Next time I’m hitchhiking to work.
* * *
It’s a quiet Saturday at The Little Bookshop.
I squiz at the notes and coins in the till. Almost the same as when I opened up this morning. Dad won’t be happy when he runs the numbers after I close, which means we’re all in for a lecture at dinner.
Despite working his way through half the books in our self-improvement section, Dad’s signs of self-improvement so far are zero. In fact, he might even be worse, because now if we have a good day, he’s upset because he wanted it to be a great day. We have enough — money, food, clothes, house — but enough isn’t enough for him any more. The man’s one inspirational quote away from mutating into a walking, talking Instagram feed.
Those books should really come with a thirty-day money-back guarantee.
Still, Mum steps up the marketing for the bookshop, we all take turns serving at the front counter — even Trent pitches in when he’s not talking me into covering his shifts.
I don’t need a self-proclaimed guru to know why the shop’s empty today. Half the town’s probably seeking refuge at home in the air-conditioning or cooling off in their above-ground pools, while the other half are probably watching my old team at the cricket ground, sweating it out with soggy egg and lettuce sandwiches on their laps and fighting for the scraps of shade bordering the field. I quit playing when a chunk of our team bailed out of Durnan. It wasn’t that great without Steve and Murph taking the piss out of everything with me.
With no-one to serve in the shop, I return to scrolling through my phone, whizzing through my friends’ picture-perfect lives in London, Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle — everyone is everywhere except Durnan. I look at a photo album of one of Sal’s mates who’s doing an exchange in Scotland. Damn. Should’ve thought of that. Then I’d be oceans away from Trent’s stirring and foul BO.
That’s the thing. Everyone else is doing stuff. Real stuff. The sort of stuff you can brag about. Studying law and accounting and nursing and actuarial science. I don’t even know what that is, but it sounds hard core. A guy I used to play cricket with has already scored an internship at a radio station in Wollongong. A girl I’ve known since Year 8 moved to the city and is starring in a commercial for dry shampoo, whatever the hell that is, but she’s on telly so she’s doing alright. And it looks like Steve has a girlfriend. Steve’s never had a girlfriend, not unless you count groping Rebecca Clifford’s boobs, outside her top, for about thirty seconds at a house party in Year 10.
Some people say they want the truth, but I reckon they only want to know the good stuff. The highlight reel. Wake me when the world’s ready for the lowlight reel. No prospects for the future because I’m paralysed by decision fatigue? Freakin’ oath. Working weekends instead of having a life? Kill me now. Overbearing parents? Yep. Girlfriend living hundreds of kilometres away and probably never coming back? You know it. Annoying brother? Tick, tick, tick. No mates because they had the brains to rack off? Cha-ching. No amount of cropping, filtering or hashtagging photos can frame my current existence any differently. It sucks, filters and all, so the fewer people who know about my sad little reality in Durnan, the better. If I’m stuck here while I work out what I’m supposed to be doing with my life, then I’m staying incognito.
‘Friggin’ hell, is that you, Milo Dark?’
Or not.
I lock eyes on a shaggy blonde mop. A shaggy blonde mop with a dimple wedged in her chin and thick lashes all gloopy with mascara. My vision adjusts to take in the full picture. Faint streaks of pink and purple run through the yellow nest, jarring with the black regrowth radiating from the middle of her scalp.
Jesus. It’s her.
‘Layla?’
‘Yeah, ’course it’s me,’ she says, with a smile just big enough that I spot the sizeable gap between her front two teeth. I’d forgotten about that gap. ‘Hey.’
‘Er, hey,’ I echo, still in shock. ‘How’s it going?’
‘It’s okay, it’s good. So your family still runs this place, huh?’
‘Yeah, we do, we’re here.’
She walks around to my side of the counter and drags me into a hug. Her hair smells of coconut and her Cons tread on mine. It’s over in a second. When she leans back against the counter, her top rises up above the belt looped through her jeans, revealing a sliver of caramel skin. Real olive brown, not the usual Durnan tandoori fake tan. The top is so stretched it looks like she’s jammed herself into a younger sister’s clothes, but I know she’s an only child.
‘It’s been ages,’ I manage to add. ‘What’s doing with you?’
Her fingertips drum the counter. Her nails are blue, chipped, chewed down. ‘Good question. This and that, I suppose. Nothing to tell.’
‘Nothing to tell after five years?�
�� I pause, then rush in with, ‘It’s gotta be that long, yeah?’
Her bottom lip quivers, so fast I almost miss it. ‘Five years, huh? There you go.’
‘I think it is.’
I know it is. I wait for her to say something, anything, about that day. I wonder if I should — one of us should — but before I can, she frames my face with her fingers, sizing me up.
‘You look exactly the same,’ she says. ‘It’s blowing my mind.’
I snort, kinda embarrassed, kinda annoyed. I’ve still got the pimples, but who doesn’t? Surely I’ve grown up a bit in her eyes? Surely I look just a bit better? Taller, at least.
‘Well,’ she concedes with a smile, as though she’s read my mind, looking me up and down again through those lashes, ‘maybe you’ve changed … a little.’
‘Well … you look … I don’t know …’ The words spurt out in staccato bursts. Not sure why. I was never tongue-tied around her.
‘Here we go. Hit me with it.’
‘Different,’ I say, voice cracking. I hope she doesn’t notice, but she usually noticed everything, especially the stuff you didn’t want her to. If you had a booger hanging out of your nose, Layla wouldn’t just notice it — she’d notice it and point it out in front of everyone.
‘I look different?’ she says. ‘Smooth, as always, although I guess you’re not wrong.’ She points to her hair like it’s the only change. I don’t mention the skinny jeans or the red staining her lips. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost. It’s just me, dude — former neighbour extraordinaire, not to mention head nurse in Doctors and Nurses.’
‘Jesus. Don’t remind me.’
‘That I’ve seen you naked?’ Her lips pucker as she struggles to hold in a laugh. ‘Back then barely counted. Not like seeing each other naked now. Hypothetically, of course.’
‘Of course.’ She’s not blushing, but heat spreads over my cheeks and down my neck. I gulp. ‘So you’re really back?’
I sound like a moron but I never thought I’d see Layla Montgomery again. Never even imagined it. Not when they’ve been off having mysterious adventures for half a decade.
‘Just crashing at a share house,’ she says. ‘You wouldn’t know them. I’m back, just not … back-back.’
Her voice trails off, as though that explains everything. It doesn’t explain anything, especially why she’s not staying with her dad. Mum told me he moved back to Durnan with a new girlfriend last year. I kinda get the vagueness though. Living in this town comes with a disclaimer, an in-case-of-emergency exit strategy, ’cos it’s the plan B, maybe the plan C, never the plan A.
‘Anyway, how’s my boy Trenticles?’ she asks. ‘And your parents? I guess it’s been five years since I’ve seen them too.’
‘They’re all the same really … although Dad’s like a wannabe Tony Robbins these days.’
Layla laughs. ‘Whaddya mean?’
‘Don’t ask. Trust me.’
‘Sounds grim.’ She pauses. ‘And our treehouse? I miss it.’
Our treehouse. I thought she would’ve forgotten. ‘Um, it’s still there, but I heard the Perkinses are knocking the tree down.’
‘They can’t do that!’
‘They want a pool.’
‘Okay, they can … but they shouldn’t. I’m egging their house.’
Now it’s my turn to laugh. ‘You’re back five minutes and … You know what, you’re the one who’s exactly the same.’
‘Yeah?’ she says, tucking her hair behind her ears. ‘Maybe I’ll egg your face.’
‘Maybe you will.’ I smirk. ‘Why are you even here? Like, here? After a book?’
‘Nah, not really. Don’t read much any more.’
I remember how Layla used to fill her schoolbag with so many books her shoulders ached. She’d lend them to me, I’d forget to return them to the library, the cycle continued.
‘Er, wait, forget what I just said …’ She dumps her handbag on the counter to empty out the contents — mints, sunglasses, wallet, loose teabags, a notebook, tissues — before shoving a crumpled sheet of paper into my hand. ‘I’m looking for work.’
‘For real? Here?’
I read the first few lines of her CV: four and a half months at a bakery in Cooma. Two months stacking shelves at a supermarket in Berry. Three weeks delivering junk mail in Campbelltown. Five days at a pet shelter in Port Macquarie. I’ve had pimples more committed than her.
‘Yeah. Books. Reading. Words. I can’t get enough.’
I raise an eyebrow.
‘Fine.’ She sighs. ‘No-one’s hiring. This place is my second-last stop — before Joe’s.’
‘The new charcoal-chicken joint? Dire.’
‘You’re telling me.’
‘Sorry, dude, hiring freeze. Probably ’cos Dad’s got me and Trent for personal slaves.’
Layla groans. ‘I can’t believe you’re forcing me to go to Joe’s. You might almost be as bad as this town, Milo Dark.’
I grin, folding up her CV. ‘Not at all new information.’
Jingle, jingle, jingle. The front door swings open. A solid guy ambles in, smacking gum around in his mouth. He’s about Trent’s age, maybe older, but I can’t quite place him.
‘Babe,’ he says, twirling car keys in his hand. ‘Ya ready?’
‘Kurt!’ she almost hisses. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Can we get going?’ He spots me standing there like a dork. ‘Hey.’
I give a little nod. ‘Hey.’
Layla stays glued to the spot. ‘Just give me a sec.’
‘Babe, my mates are bugging me. Two minutes or I’ve gotta leave without ya. Sorry, but I can’t keep them waiting, you know that,’ he adds, storming out the door.
‘But it’s my friggin’ car!’ she shouts after him. She swivels back to me, avoiding eye contact, her cheeks flushed.
‘He seems nice,’ I say, hoping it doesn’t sound as weak as it feels.
‘Don’t. Don’t even …’
‘Did he go to Durnan High?’
‘Yeah, few years above us and he left early — sparkie apprenticeship. Does odds and ends now. Stuff like that. We met a while back … anyway, I should go,’ she says, cutting herself off as though she’s trying to stop me from asking anything else. ‘Say hi to your fam from me.’ She pauses. ‘Or maybe that’s too weird, it has been ages …’
As she hovers in the doorway, hands resting behind her on the glass, she looks like she’s going to say something significant, like the words are so big and important they’re fizzing up in her mouth.
‘I, ah … bye, I guess.’
Maybe not.
‘Yeah, bye.’
I manage to get the words out just before the door swings closed behind her. She’s gone. In and out of my life, just like that.
Ten bucks says I never see Layla Montgomery again.
* * *
Milo: Hey Layla, sorry for the late msg. Got your number from the CV. You left your sunnies at the shop
Milo: It’s Milo Dark by the way
Layla
Music pulsates through the house. My bedroom walls hum with vibrations and the floorboards shake. I imagine Kurt and our housemates thrashing around in the lounge room. The furniture’ll be pushed to one side to create a dance floor, their hair’ll be damp and the room’ll reek of sweat. It’s Saturday night so they’ll be happy — well, happy enough to forget everything in their lives that’s making them unhappy — and they’ll keep telling each other they haven’t been this happy in ages. Kurt’ll be pounding the ground with his feet and punching the air with his fists and he’ll have forgotten why we even fought this afternoon. Ryan’ll be sucking on a homemade bong, probably in the laundry so he doesn’t have to share it with the others. Jay and Mel will be feeling each other up on the balcony and wondering when Kurt’s going to come in and make up with me so they can get some privacy.
I burrow down deeper into the mattress and jam in my earphones, but it’s not enough to block out the nois
e. I pull the sheet over my head a little tighter.
My phone buzzes. Two unread messages. Both from Milo.
Before this afternoon, he was a discoloured memory with blurred edges and a washed-out palette. Yet five minutes with him and everything came back to me in an instant. I remember riding our bikes around the river until our thighs ached, and sprinting across grass riddled with bindis to catch the Mr Whippy van. He had hair the colour of dust and dirt and once let me dye it royal blue for the athletics carnival. He was my partner-in-crime in convincing the kids across the road that a witch lived in the rundown double-storey house around the corner. When I argued with Mum and Dad, sometimes it was about how long I could stay up ’cos Milo was a special guest and, in my opinion, I shouldn’t have to sleep at all when he was visiting from next door.
I reread his messages.
Milo doesn’t know it — there’s no way he can — but one look at his face also awakened a million memories of Mum. Memories I’ve spent five years trying to block out. Like how when we were busted playing Doctors and Nurses, Mum sent Milo home and gave me an educational talk so detailed I became the go-to girl in the playground whenever someone whispered, ‘Where do babies come from?’ How when I beat him at ping-pong, Mum hollered from the sidelines as though I’d taken out gold at the Olympics.
The last time I saw him was at Mum’s funeral. He was hiding behind Trent as they shuffled down the aisle out of the church with its light grey walls and dark grey carpet. Everything was grey and drab that day.
Everything except our clothes.
Mum hated black, so her closest friends requested everyone wear colour to the service. The bigger and bolder the better. Dad forgot, so Jen, Milo’s mum, took off her lime-green shawl and wrapped it around his shoulders to hide his wrinkled charcoal suit.
At Mum’s request in her will, we also had to suffer Mr Agiostratitis struggling through Europe’s The Final Countdown on the organ. I thought his vocal cords might snap as he squeaked and squawked for the higher notes. I reckon I even saw Dad, who was almost crumpled over next to me in the front row, hide a smile during that. Mum would’ve loved the sight of the stickybeaks and snobs turning up their noses at her unorthodox super-eighties’ pop selection too. Friggin’ loved it.
Remind Me How This Ends Page 2