“So who’s playing?”
“Guess,” Martin said with a silly, almost girly giggle.
“I don’t know, maybe that Tom Jones impersonator again?” No one good ever came to Donny Vale.
He made a horrible sound at the back of his throat, like a buzzer going off.
“Wrong. Guess again, although you may want to throw your undies at this guy.”
And suddenly I knew.
“That Byron guy?” I said, not hiding my shock and the obvious fact that he was still fresh in my mind even after two weeks of nothing. Blood rose to my cheeks. Hopefully my sunburn would mask it.
Madeline sighed, as though sick of the conversation already, but Martin winked at me in a knowing way. Reading each other’s minds came naturally after so many years of hanging out.
“Yep. And, get this, on his flyer it says that he’s here in Donny Vale for a short time only.” Martin made a face. “Why the hell did he come to the shop begging for work? Lucky I didn’t give his arse a job.”
“There was no work anyway,” I reminded him, trying to keep my face blank so he couldn’t see the disappointment I was feeling inside. A short time? Did that mean he was going to leave Donny Vale after this concert?
Martin leaned forward and implored me with his eyes. “Whatever. You so have to come. We can heckle him or at least boo him. Nobody should get away with having looks and musical talent.”
Silently I drank this information in while the TV in the living room played the jingle for my favourite gameshow. The pang in my stomach urging me to return to the couch to see how the lady in the blue and orange dress was doing made me realise how housebound I’d become in the past couple of months since Mum had died. Dad was right about one thing. I needed to get out more. I needed a life.
Car surfing and unsafe sex, here I come.
Well, maybe not the car surfing…and maybe safe sex as opposed to the unsafe variety. That is, if I ever found anyone to do it with.
“He sounds like a douche-bag,” Madeline said, her shiny white teeth flashing like fangs while she laughed, distracting me from my gameshow compulsion. “I mean, why put short time only on the flyer when you’re an unknown?” she scoffed. “The Tom Jones guy doesn’t even put that on his flyers and he’s, like, well-known and stuff, well, at least to the old ladies.”
“Well, maybe he’s just creating hype for a big audience. You can’t blame a guy for doing that. It’s sort of genius really,” I said, fiddling with the screen door handle. A desperate urge to shield Byron from mean girls like Madeline consumed me. I’d been on the receiving end of Madeline’s cruelty in the past, so I knew what it was like. She was the first one who had started calling me ‘ranga’ at school and took great pleasure asking—at least once a week and always in front of a bunch of guys—if I was just as orange downstairs. I gave up explaining that my hair was deep red—hence the name, Ruby—after the first time. She just wasn’t worth it. A brick wall would have more compassion.
Martin drew a piece of paper from out of his pocket and held it out in front of my face, waving it about so that I couldn’t actually read it.
The screen door scraped and rattled when I opened it.
“Come in before the mozzies get in,” I said, waving my hands about to keep the insects from entering the house. They seemed to like poor Jay and gave him bites that swelled to the size of twenty cent pieces.
Madeline hesitated and looked at Martin.
“But the gig starts in half an hour and we want to get a good possie, so, you know, we don’t miss the gig before it’s over and he’s suddenly gone,” she said with a thin laugh. The smug look on her face stirred another pang of sympathy-fear in my belly for Byron, because it wouldn’t be only Madeline criticising him tonight, it would be the entire town. Donny Valers were tight and didn’t like outsiders much.
Most people here either liked rap, nineties soft-rock, country music, or the Tom Jones impersonator. A few kids in high school listened to trance, but that was about as different as it got out here.
Byron had a fauxhawk, dressed in black, and was good-looking, better looking than any guy in town. And not just good-looking like your average guy next door, he was an artist’s wet dream for crying out loud. Plus he had that huge scar running down his face, and he was known to stalk library shelves looking for poetry—instant weirdo. Even more reason to hate.
I sucked in a deep breath and sighed. Byron would be everybody’s breakfast. I cringed inwardly just to think about it and knew then and there that I just had to go as moral support.
But just as my heart fluttered and my stomach swirled with excitement, I remembered Jay. I hadn’t left him to go out at night since Mum had died, not once, even though Mrs. Simich from next door was always offering her babysitting services.
The sound of the gameshow audience’s applause from the living room sprung me from my thoughts. It made me think of the possible lack of applause Byron would receive at his gig. Though Mum had told him he was good, and she had loved music for most of her life, she wasn’t always the best judge. Sometimes Derek sounded whiny and awful, depending on the song, but Mum had always raved about his talent.
There was no way around it. I had to be there. Byron would have at least one groupie tonight. Well, perhaps not a groupie, but a supporter at least. And there was the added bonus of maybe finding out why he’d asked for my name.
Okay, who I was I fooling? The real reason I was going was because the very idea of seeing him again was making my heart stutter, and my insides flip, and my entire body tingle in a pulse-racing kind of way.
I stepped aside and hastily beckoned Martin and Madeline, who were still outside, to enter.
“Come in while I get ready. Please. I’ll be five minutes.”
“You’ll need longer than that looking the way you do—” Madeline’s voice was cut short when Martin pinched her arm. “Ouch! What?” she shouted at him.
“Sorry. Mosquito nearly bit your beautiful, flawless arm.” He rubbed it and she smiled at him from beneath her long lashes.
“Five minutes only, babe,” she said in a pouty, sooky voice that made me cringe with embarrassment for Martin.
After racing next door to see if Mrs. Simich was indeed available—she was! Dad was in the study snoring and I couldn’t trust him to wake when Jay needed him—I set Madeline and Martin up on the couch with some iced tea. Then, leaping over the coffee table and knocking an overripe banana out of the fruit bowl in the process, I ran down the hallway to my bedroom, almost forgetting that Jay was asleep in my bed. Luckily I remembered just when my finger hovered dangerously over the light switch.
The burnt orange of the setting sun provided just enough light for me to make my way around the bedroom and get changed. I dropped my shorts and singlet in favour of a floral, green and white jump-suit. It was the most girly thing I owned. I was normally a jeans or shorts girl, kind of tomboy, and, well, usually I had no occasion to look nice, but this was my one special outfit that set off my hair and eyes. I tried to block from my mind the question as to why I was wearing my best outfit to go watch a guy I hardly even knew, but then I reasoned that it was going to be sticky and hot tonight so a jump-suit was the logical option.
However the sight of my reflection in my dressing table mirror horrified me and sent all that excitement at seeing Byron again nosediving into the pit of my stomach.
My face was red and splotchy and shone like an oil slick from all the Aloe-Vera I’d smeared on earlier. My hair was okay, in fact, the sea breeze had tumbled it into what Martin would call a ‘sexy mess.’ My green eyes needed only a quick brush of mascara to make them stand out, and my lips a quick slick of gloss to give them some moisture. But no matter how much I tried to ignore it, my face beamed back at me like a flashing red warning light. I needed some face powder, pronto. But seeing as I’d run out about a month ago, I’d have to borrow my mum’s. Goosebumps prickled my forearms at the very idea of entering Mum and Dad’s bedroom. But it had to
be done.
After giving myself a once over, I bent down to rain feather-light kisses over Jay’s bare neck and face before heading out of the room and across the creaking hallway to the room I hadn’t set foot inside for months.
Dad hadn’t slept in it since, hence the fold-out bed in the study and the bad back he was always moaning about. And even then he still had nightmares, just like Jay, whereas, for some reason, I’d somehow escaped them. But then again, between Jay’s night frights and Dad emptying his alcohol-bloated stomach all over the bathroom floor every now and then, I hardly had the chance to sleep deep enough to dream.
The scent of times passed overwhelmed me as soon as I stepped into the dim and dusty room, and with a thudding heart, I groped for the light switch with desperate fingers. There was no way I could handle this room in the dark.
A dull yellow light illuminated the room and I froze.
The queen sized bed had long since been stripped, but the faded, now rust coloured blood stains remained, no matter how hard Mrs. Simich had scrubbed at them when they’d been fresh. It turned my blood cold just to see it and made me wince to imagine my mum on this very bed, so full of sorrow that she thought piecing her snow white skin with a thin, razor-sharp blade was better than a life with Dad and Jay and me.
With my throbbing pulse in my ears, I forced my legs to move, one step at a time, past the bed, careful not to brush against it, until I reached the dressing table. The metal band around my heart tightened as I looked at my mother’s makeup, just as she’d left it, as though she was about to return any moment. If only she could return. If only I’d dreamed up the past couple of months.
I miss you, Mum. I miss you so much.
Unshed tears prickled my eyes. My breath came out in short little rasps of sticky, stuffy air. I had to do this quickly and get the hell out of this room before it suffocated me with memories.
With trembling fingers I carefully opened the shiny maroon case of Mum’s mineral makeup. We had different skin types. She was a shade darker than me, but it would have to do, anything to take away the red.
Dust clouded around my head while I worked the powder into my skin with a fat, bristly brush. To say I was satisfied with the results would be a lie, but at least the shine and most of the redness was gone.
I cleared my throat and eyed my reflection in the mirror. With a wistful, half-smile on my lips, I remembered the time when I was four, when Mum had forced me look in the mirror after the girls at kindergarten had told me I couldn’t play because of my ‘spots,’ which were in fact freckles. While Mum and I both stared at ourselves in the mirror, she told me I was beautiful, the most beautiful little girl in the world. And even if I didn’t believe her words at the time, and still didn’t believe her words today, that memory was one of my most prized because she had believed it.
My fingers slid over Mum’s perfume bottle, smooth and cool to the touch, and before I could stop myself, I sprayed it on my neck. It was instinct. I used to sneak in and spray it on sometimes while she was out at Derek’s place. It always seemed to help Jay settle a little easier if tucked him into his cot while I smelled like Mum. But I hadn’t smelt it since she’d died and wasn’t prepared for how it was going to make me feel.
Her scent flooded the air and made it hard to breathe, as though her long, thin arms had wrapped around me and squeezed.
She was all over me…suffocating me with her essence, like a box of tiny Mum memories had been ripped open right beneath my nose.
My head spun and my stomach churned. On shaky legs, I stumbled out of the room, tripping over the extension cord for the television she used to watch her favourite reality shows on, and swallowing down the threatening vomit that burned my throat. I crossed the hallway and crashed through the bathroom door, thankful Dad wasn’t in there at the time.
Though I missed the toilet, I managed to spew the contents of my stomach into the bathtub, which was the second best receptacle for it. It seemed to go on forever. Litres and litres of bitter fluid I never knew I had in me. When I finished contracting like a bilge-pump and my stomach was empty, I turned on the cold tap and washed the mess away while I hung over the edge of the bath like a wet rag, droplets of water dripping from my fingers.
While I sat there I contemplated giving up on the idea of going out, on ever having a life, but the idea of being trapped at home within these four walls and with all these memories made me choke on air again.
After splashing water over my face and neck to wash away Mum’s scent, I felt much better, but unfortunately the face powder went with it.
“Great. Let’s go,” said Martin, eyeing me with a sort of pitiful look when I reappeared in the living room.
Okay, so now I knew I looked really bad. There was no point checking with Madeline, because I knew what I’d get. Sometimes it was best to remain blissfully ignorant.
“Goodbye, Mrs. Simich. Thanks so much for coming over.”
She looked up from her woman’s magazine that had William and Kate on the cover and smiled.
“We’ll be fine. You go and have some fun, my dear. It’ll do you good. A young girl like you should be out with her friends, not stuck at home with two babies.” She winked at me.
As though planned, a groan and a loud, wet sounding burp erupted from the hallway that could only have been Dad’s, but when I tried to go to him, Mrs. Simich shooed me away with both her hands like I was a runaway chicken. “Don’t worry. I’ll deal with your father,” she whispered in my ear before shutting the door behind us.
I turned around to face the street and rested my back against the door. Just like that Mrs. Simich had handed me a ticket to a few hours of freedom. The world looked beautiful all of a sudden. Birds twittered their evening song and the setting sun cast a deep golden glow across the treetops. I felt like shouting with glee and running down the street, clicking my ankles together like male actors used to do in old black-and-white films.
Martin grinned at me, as though he read my mind.
Madeline rolled her eyes and pressed the button on her keychain and her shiny, yellow sports car unlocked with a small beep.
“I’m walking. It’s only down the road,” I said, ignoring the bumble bee. Who wouldn’t want to walk on such a beautiful evening? The evening breeze was starting to come in and it felt delicious against my skin.
Madeline rolled her eyes. “We’ll get sweaty. More sweaty than you already look.”
“The pub will be stinking hot, Mads, so we may as well get used to it,” said Martin, shrugging his shoulders, but I could tell that Madeline didn’t like her boyfriend taking my side. And, well, I guess if I was in her position I wouldn’t either.
In efforts to wave the white flag, I about-faced and climbed into the back seat of her car.
***
A soft, deep voice repeated, “One, Two,” into a microphone as we stepped beneath the awning of the pub. I recognised that voice and it made my pulse dance just to hear it.
My stomach flipping in panic, I eyed the bouncer at the door, the grumpy one who normally only reared his shaved head during the footy season when the crowds got rowdy. Unlike everybody’s favourite door-guy, Smiling Billy, who’d obviously taken the day off, this man had a reputation for turning away under-agers, and, out of the three of us, I was the only one who was yet to turn eighteen.
“Keep your mouth shut and come here, Ruby,” whispered Martin. Before I knew what was happening, Martin had wrapped a firm arm around my bare shoulders and pulled me in close, pressing my face into his neck. His skin was warm and his aftershave smelt like grass and crushed pine needles. Hugging me like this, like I was his girlfriend, he walked me through the entrance and into the pub. I hated to imagine what Madeline thought of this, but I was too busy waiting to be tossed out by Grumpy at the door to waste time agonising over her thoughts.
Old wood and stale beer filled my nostrils. Background jukebox music and the combination of many conversations happening at once filled my ears.
/> I was inside.
Martin high-fived me and I sighed with relief as we moved through the heavy crowd to the front of the stage.
The place was full of locals and some tourists. Workers from the nearby mine-site were in, fresh from a week away, and ready for action with frosty beers in their gigantic-knuckled man-hands and sweat patches beneath the arms of their shirts.
My heart raced a little when I saw him, his head bent while he manipulated guitar keys and tested the strings simultaneously. Up on the bare stage, he somehow appeared vulnerable and more boyish than when I’d first met him.
As we moved closer to the front I overheard some older girls make plans to show Byron the ‘special’ Donny Vale hot-spots later on tonight. Inwardly I groaned and then laughed at myself for being so presumptuous earlier. Guys like Byron didn’t need pretend groupies like me. Girls and guys would just flock to his kind of beauty and magnetism without thinking twice.
He wore black jeans again and a fitted black shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the bottom of his biceps and the top two buttons undone so that I could see his chest underneath. He definitely looked the moody artist and was definitely living up to his poet namesake.
The lights dimmed, all except for the one illuminating Byron’s dark form. Just Byron with his silver electric guitar, an amp, and a mic stand. Was that going to be enough? Shouldn’t he have at least a drummer?
He winced and arched his back as he adjusted his guitar strap, as though he was in pain. It made me think of that antiseptic smell that had floated around him when we first met and that vicious scar marring his face.
A bead of sweat ran down my spine. It was ridiculous, really, for me to be stressing out on behalf of this stranger. Why on earth did I care if he was a good singer or not? Was it because I felt better knowing that my mum had been out of her mind around the time she’d told him he was good? Because if she’d been out of her mind back then in the park, then she may have also been out of her mind when she’d chosen to leave us.
Push Me, Pull Me Page 6