Joss grinned cynically. “It might. For a few minutes.” Her mouth curled into a decisive scowl. “I knew you wouldn’t get it.”
“I do get it. But I don’t want you getting screwed up over something else.”
“That’s easy to say,” she scoffed. “But maybe I’m not getting screwed up. Maybe thinking about something else—doing something I wouldn’t normally do—maybe that’s the best thing I can do for myself right now.”
“He doesn’t even want to do it, Joss. You’re too young for him and he’s smart enough to know it.”
That wasn’t what Jocelyn wanted to hear and our conversation didn’t last long after that. There’d been no room for my Darragh issues while we were talking—Joss’s problems took up all the space between us—which made remembering him an odd sort of relief sprinkled with embarrassment once I’d disconnected.
I was back in front of Screenwriting Fundamentals, my mind looping over thoughts of Noah and Jocelyn together when I heard Zoey sing, “Knock-knock.” She swung the door open without waiting for me to answer. “We’re having pizza out back. Want to come down for a bit?”
“No thanks.” I peered up at her from over the top of my book. “I ate with your parents earlier.”
Zoey leant against my doorframe, making herself comfortable. “Okay, so just come down and hang out with us.”
“I’d feel like I was crashing your band practice.” How could I enjoy sitting around with the band when Darragh was liable to make swot-like comments at any moment? “Really, I’m fine here. Thanks though.”
“It’s not crashing if I asked you, is it?” she pointed out.
I could’ve added that I was busy with homework and left it at that, but the words I’d left unsaid over Skype bolted out of my mouth: “I’m sort of clashing with someone there so I think it’s better if I don’t.” My thumb fanned the pages of my screenwriting book as I tossed my cousin a pleading look.
Zoey shifted her weight away from the doorframe. “Are you serious?” She narrowed her eyes, her lips hovering on the verge of a frown. “Who’re you clashing with?”
“Um…I had this fight with Darragh at the taxi rank the other night. And now I think it’s probably better if I’m just not around him much.”
“What could you possibly fight about?” Zoey asked, eyes flickering.
“I kind of implied he was a player and he got defensive. Things got out of hand, and then really quiet. Awkwardly quiet.” The confession was a relief, but it didn’t stop my skin from burning.
“That’s terrible.” She motioned for me to get up with an agitated wave of her hand. “Come with me now. You two can patch it up.”
I sighed into my palm. “We already did. But it feels like it’s hanging in the air.” With my cousin standing expectantly in front of me and Darragh’s face exasperatingly fresh in mind, I felt myself begin to cave in to the truth. “It’s mostly my fault. I got pissed off about him kissing this girl at the bar, which I know is stupid because Ursula’s—”
“You’re into him,” Zoey cut in.
I didn’t like the way it sounded and I hated the way it felt too, like some weird compulsion to wash your hands twenty times a day.
“Don’t say anything to him,” I begged. “I know he’s with Ursula and that whatever he does is none of my business anyway. I wish I’d never said anything about it in the first place, but now it’s one of those things I just want to bury. You know, let it die a natural death.”
“Yeah, okay.” Zoey’s stare turned sympathetic as she took a step towards me. “But he’s not actually with Ursula, if that helps.”
They’d looked pretty together at the restaurant on Zoey’s birthday. It seemed to me that Darragh was the type who liked to spread himself around; he just didn’t like being called on it like I’d done on Saturday night.
I pulled a gloomy face and tightened my grip on my notebook, struggling against embarrassment. “Thanks for listening and everything. I feel better having talked about it.” I meant that; I just didn’t want to agonize over the details anymore.
“You know what’s best,” Zoey conceded, edging back towards the door. “I wasn’t there and I don’t know what’s been going on between you.”
Nothing, I said silently. There was never really anything going on in the first place except me being a bad judge of character. Darragh Leavy and I could never be friends.
Chapter 8
I think we better have this conversation someplace else.
In the dream I couldn’t see my sister’s face. She was sitting behind me on Jack’s bed, her hands in my hair, braiding strand after strand. Her fingers were infinitely gentle and I couldn’t say how I knew it was her, except that I’d always known in the past. I sensed what it felt like to be around her. The air was different. Light. Rana-shaped. Sweet.
Neither of us spoke as she twisted my hair softly into place. We didn’t need to. She was an oasis of calm, my sister.
Because of expensive roaming charges, telephone calls from my mom and dad were rare and mostly they’d taken to emailing me from their cruise ship every couple of days instead. But the morning of the dream they called, a portion of serenity clinging to me as my mom sang in my ear, “Habibti, how is your screenwriting course?”
Mom sounded younger than usual and I instantly thought of her comment about mutual blindness. Did the levity in her voice mean that she and my father were learning to see each other again?
I told her the course was amazing and described Dermot O’Shea and the people in my class as my mind held its own imaginary parallel conversation in which I confessed that I was worried about Jocelyn running over to a twenty-five-year old semi-stranger’s apartment in the middle of the night and my mom reacted with wisdom and understanding.
“How is it going with you two?” I ventured. And what would you say if I were tackling a full grown man I knew from the dog park or even if you knew how riding on the back of Darragh’s scooter had made me feel? Was it possible for a mother to truly know you and not feel threatened by the many things you were, not just the cardboard cut-out of a perfect daughter?
My mother laughed with a coyness I didn’t recognize. “Your father and I are having a very nice time.” Her tone drew taut. “I’m sorry if this has been difficult for you. We wanted to be certain about our relationship; we’re still making sure. That will be the best for you too, in the end.”
“Nothing’s certain,” I said stubbornly. Why was it that speaking to my parents could so easily turn me childish these days?
On the other hand, every time I got an email from Yanna and Ker it made me homesick. Kérane was Kérane—only concerned that I was having a good time, Yanna was excited about the screenwriting course on my behalf and full of complaints about how stinky Toronto had gotten since a city-wide garbage strike had started. Naturally, both of them were anxious about how Jocelyn was doing, although if they knew about her sneaking over to Noah’s apartment they were keeping it to themselves.
It’s strange how things that happen to someone else can make you grow up a little. It seemed to me that if Ajay could do so much unintentional damage to a woman he’d never met, and wound all his family in the process, such a jumble of other good and bad things were also possible. Whenever I thought about that it made me want to pause good moments to make them last and be extra careful in watching over everyone I cared about.
That feeling was why I decided that despite the awkwardness with Darragh, I wanted to cheer my cousin on at the battle of the bands semi-final on Saturday. When I arrived home after class on Friday, Zoey was hanging out in the sitting room. I saw her jotting something down on a piece of unlined paper and, recognizing the look of intense concentration, didn’t want to interrupt. When she glanced up, I waved hello and then twisted on my heel to leave her in peace.
“Amira, wait,” she beckoned. “Can I try out some lyrics on you?”
“Sure.” I scooted back across the room and dropped onto the couch next to her.
“This isn't the end, but it's not the beginning
People say it doesn't matter because we're young
People say, people say, what's done is done
But we were never ones to lie down and die
We're old enough to know how to fight, brave enough to cry
We can make the world listen, or we can bleed it dry.”
She stopped to peer over at me. “It’s the first verse of the new song the lads have been practicing, People Say. They want to play it at Enda Corrigan’s on Saturday if I’m happy with the lyrics in time. I’ve been over them and over them to the point that they sound like a fecking nursery rhyme, but that first verse keeps tripping me up.”
“Can you read the rest so I can hear how it hangs together?” I asked.
Zoey started at the very top of her paper and recited the entire thing for me, folding the paper in two and then dropping it on the coffee table in front of her.
“I wouldn’t change a thing,” I told her. “It’s perfect. I can’t wait to hear it with the music.”
“I can sing it for you,” she offered. “You’ll have to imagine the lads in the background, but it’ll give you an idea, anyway.”
So Zoey sang it for me and between her voice, the wistful lyrics, and the music that I filled in with my imagination it totally worked. I gazed at Zoey in awe, almost envious. She had a natural gift that she could share completely unselfconsciously at any time. She didn’t even need a backing band to sound like a superstar.
“Zoey, it’s terrific.” I folded my arms in front of me and stared at her in open admiration. I never would’ve guessed the same precocious girl singing Mamma Mia on my aunt and uncle’s videotape would’ve turned out to be such an inspiration. “You guys should be able to win this thing easy on Saturday.”
“Thanks,” she said, beaming. “God, I feel like a spontaneous combustion case waiting to happen. I haven’t had one full night’s sleep yet this week.”
I laughed good-naturedly. “You were fantastic last time and you’ll be even more fantastic on Saturday. You kicked ass with that Denis Leary song. Everyone loved you. There’s nothing to worry about and no situation you can’t handle.”
I was only telling the truth, but Zoey gazed at me with astonished eyes. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Amira. I mean it.”
“I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.” She hadn’t looked the least bit nervous at Enda Corrigan’s last time and when it came time for me to read my screenplay for my classmates in August I hoped I’d be half a brave as Zoey. “And I’m thinking, if I can figure out a way to do it, I want to be there on Saturday to see you sing the new song.”
Zoey smiled approvingly. “I was hoping you wouldn’t let what happened with Darragh put you off going on Saturday, but I didn’t want to push it. He’s just a bloke. You don’t want anything he does to mess with your holiday.”
“It shouldn’t have been a big deal in the first place,” I agreed. “It just got blown out of proportion.”
“Great. I’ll give Gloria a ring tonight then. Don’t worry, we’ll sort out something for Saturday.” She pulled her feet up on the couch and blinked at me, the expression in her eyes tilting towards curiosity. “Can I ask you something?”
“I guess so.” I hated that lead-in question; you always had to agree before you knew what you were getting into.
“Are you a virgin? You don’t have to answer—I know it’s none of my business.” Zoey stuffed the nearest sofa cushion under both her arms. “But I was until I was nearly eighteen. I was only with one guy before Rory.”
My first impulse was to joke about it. “Am I giving off vibes or something?” I thought of the innocent look Darragh had given me in the game store. “Is there a green aura around my body?” Or maybe it was more like a bike reflector—something more easily spotted in the dark.
Zoey chuckled. “Trust me, there’s no aura. I just wondered because of your age. At my school half the girls I knew who said they were virgins weren’t and vice versa. People lied about sex all the time. They still do, but it was worse at school.”
I tried not to pay too much attention to the bullshit people said at school. The guys were forever labelling girls as either uptight bitches or sluts. No matter what you did or didn’t do you were destined to be wrong. Eighty percent of my high school’s population seemed to regularly squander their brainpower on gossip, body image issues and anticipating their next sexual hook-up. Emotionally, the school environment was the shallowest and most toxic of pools.
“I’ll probably be a virgin until I’m twenty-six,” I confessed, only partially joking. “Anything else is too complicated.”
“It can be.” Zoey’s eyes sparked, her lips twitching. “It can also be brilliant. But I don’t understand what the rush is, honestly. Most girls do it before they really want to and most blokes don’t know what they’re doing for the longest time anyway so then it’s pretty rubbish. They think if they just poke around down there long enough you’re bound to start moaning and writhing around, but real sex isn’t like porno.”
“Don’t ever let anyone rush you,” she continued, going all big sister on me. “And remember, if he can’t take the time to make you come, he doesn’t have any business in the area.”
I cupped my chin and faced forward, breaking into a stubborn blush. “That’s one I never heard in sex ed.”
The corners of Zoey’s eyes crinkled. “Funny, isn’t it? That should be the very next thing they teach you after condoms.”
______
Gloria flashed me a smile as I climbed into her Opel Corsa. “What film are we supposed to be seeing?” she asked. “In case I’m ever quizzed.”
“The Visual Age. Everyone’s calling the director the new Danny Boyle.” The film had received rave reviews and I planned to watch it sometime, just not that particular Saturday night. My aunt and uncle didn’t act suspicious about me supposedly going to a movie on the same night as Zoey’s Battle of The Bands competition but wanted me back by midnight. I could’ve easily felt conscience-stricken but fought the inclination, steering my thoughts to Zoey and how much I wanted to see her win.
I did my makeup in Gloria’s car and then worked a skirt on over my jeans before tearing them off and swapping my running shoes for heels. By the time Gloria and I walked into Enda Corrigan’s, the club was crowded with wall to wall people talking in overlapping voices, knocking back drinks, or hovering around the already hopping-busy bar. Some of the faces were familiar from last week and Mental Wealth had claimed the same corner as last Saturday, this time with an additional cheering squad.
“Heeeey!” Zoey shouted from across the room, dashing towards us with long black extensions in her hair. She pointed forcefully at me, looking like a teen-punk version of Amy Lee in shredded black jeans and a studded sleeveless top. “You—no guilty feelings allowed tonight!”
I nodded decisively. “Don’t worry. I’m up for this.”
“Good.” She motioned back across the room. “Nick, Roisin, and loads of other people are already here. They have a couple of seats saved.”
The lights dimmed as we hurried over to grab seats next to Nick. Ursula was sitting on his other side and I decided, with a twisted logic that seemed to make sense at the time, that since I no longer liked Darragh I shouldn’t have felt any weirdness towards her. I threw a smile her way and tried to think of something friendly to say. I took a couple of seconds too long evaluating her—nails that had obviously been done in a salon and foundation that looked as if it’d been applied by a professional makeup artist—and was relieved when Nick struck up a conversation about his brother’s recent wedding reception, an event that’d ended with the maid of honour dancing on a marble table and sending it crashing to the floor in shards. “She was stone mad,” he declared, as the first chords of the night radiated across the room.
Zoey danced across the stage, eyes gleaming. The familiar beat of Today and After rippled through the audience like a virus, taking over one body at a time. Zoey’s hands gripped the microphone, clinging to it as if nothing short of a lightning bolt could bring her down. Soon the crowd was rocking back and forth, riding the beats like waves as Zoey’s voice pealed through Enda Corrigan’s like a force of nature.
I made a point of paying more attention to every other member of The Brash Heathens than I did to Darragh but each time he stared into the crowd it was a struggle not to stare back. Seeing him happy and energized—his charisma bleeding through his guitar playing—grated on me in a way that made me just as angry with myself. I watched him break his visual connection with the audience to amble over to Rory and whisper in his ear, the two of them smiling at some secret joke I’d never hear.
You don’t care, I reminded myself. He’s not who you thought he was.
Wide Open Mind and Save Me were even bigger hits with the audience than Today and After. Only Suggestions stalled the charged atmosphere, but the band quickly re-ignited it with the newly penned, People Say. At the end of The Brash Heathens’ set our section cheered ourselves hoarse. We were still whispering excitedly to each other as the next band took to the stage—no one had ever seen the band better; we were like proud parents repeating the high points of their performance.
Nick clapped Kevin on the back as he rejoined the table. “Well done! Brilliant. Better give us your autograph now before they start queuing up for it.” The entire table whooped in agreement, talking over each other with such fierceness that it was a wonder Kevin could understand a word.
“Thanks.” Kevin bobbed his head as he scanned our faces. “Messed things up a little having to go on first—one of the bands pulled out at the last minute. The guitarist was having some kind of meltdown backstage. I don’t know what he was on, but he’d had too much of it.”
Just Like You Said It Would Be Page 10