All the Ways to Here

by Emily O'Beirne

  “Of course.”

  “And your dad?”

  “Yeah, he’s behaving too.”

  “Very funny. I mean how is he?”

  Why is Nan asking her? He visits Nan every single day. “He seems okay, I guess.”

  “Hard to tell sometimes, isn’t it?” Nan smiles wearily and pulls her cardigan closer around her.

  Willa picks a stalk of lavender and rolls it between her fingers. “He watched Jack play soccer on the weekend. Riley saw him there.”

  “Of course he did. Why are you surprised?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say anything.”

  “When does he ever?”

  “True.” Willa holds the wounded flower to her nose and breathes in its rich smell.

  Nan’s silent for a minute, and Willa knows it’s because she’s deciding how to say something. “Listen, your dad might not say much, but he thinks and feels it. Remember that,” she says finally. “You just have to look a bit closer.”

  “I guess.” She’s not sure she wants to look any closer. Or that she knows how to.

  “You can be just the same sometimes.”

  Willa drops the flower onto the grass and changes the subject. “He said he used to be really good at football.”

  “He was. Quick on his feet.”

  “Then he said he gave it up because of Mum. Didn’t she like it?”

  “I don’t think she cared about football either way, really. But she wouldn’t marry him if he didn’t have a steady job. So he gave up all the training and got himself a job. He only played on weekends after that, even though he loved it. That’s how besotted the boy was.”

  “I can’t even imagine him having a conversation with a girl.”

  “He couldn’t until the met her. But your mother talked for both of them.” Nan grins. “She was a force of a thing. Bright and big and bossy. If Jack’s like your dad, Riley is your mother. Sometimes when that child’s telling me one of her endless tales, I can see your mother sitting in her kitchen, drinking tea and chatting that pretty face of hers off.”

  Willa smiles and watches a crane heft a slab of cement a couple of streets away. They never talk about her mother much. Mostly because Nan didn’t know her that well. They only met five times in total before she died. There was the once when they first became engaged, once at the wedding, and then when Nan flew up to visit each time one of the three of them was born. It was too far and too expensive to fly to Northern Queensland more often, she’d said.

  Her mother’s voice is something Willa remembers well. The constant, relentless chatter and the lilting traces of her accent as she talked to the neighbours, to Willa, to anyone who’d listen. “I guess I’m not much like her.”

  “No, you’re a little more like your dad. But more like your grandfather than anyone. Quick-minded and decisive. You look like Leela, though. You didn’t get that face from us.”

  “Do you miss Granddad?”

  “Of course. But grief softens with age, doesn’t it?”

  Willa nods. It’s true. When her mum died, the pain was acute, like a physical hurt sometimes. Later it was a soft ache. Now it’s just a twinge and a smudge of memories, and Willa knows she’s losing her. But at least she had her. Riley and Jack barely remember her at all.

  “Riley thinks Dad’s not interested in her,” she tells Nan. “Because he doesn’t talk.”

  “He probably just doesn’t know what to do with her.” Nan gives Willa a shrewd look. “I don’t suppose you two are finding much to say to each other either?”

  Willa shrugs. She thinks of those other times when he’d visit and how it used to get easier. How it hasn’t this time. And it’s never going to now, not after the Finn thing. But Willa’s not about to tell Nan that.

  When she looks up, Nan’s staring at her, her mouth thinned into a tight line, like she already knows things aren’t okay. “I’ll be home in a couple of weeks,” she says, patting Willa’s arm. “Then we can get back to normal.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Finn

  Finn idly sketches the shape of the white blood cells they’ve been studying in Biology in the margins of her History book. She draws in her books so often that sometimes her teachers comment on it as well as her work. Only nice things, though, because she gets good marks, and it’s not like she’s just sitting there, doodling and ignoring them. It actually helps her to listen.

  Mr Granger’s hunched over his desk is his tiny office, expounding on the spelling crimes witnessed in Year 8 English essays. “I suppose I shouldn’t criticise too hard. How can a child whose parents think her name should be spelled k-a-y-e-t-e-e ever have a chance at attaining a normal human vocabulary? However, this essay is truly, deeply shocking. I’m not even sure she could spell ‘string a sentence together’ to save her own life.”

  Finn laughs. This is exactly what Granger will write in his comments too. Okay, maybe not the name-spelling part, but definitely the rest of it. She lifts her head. “Hey, question.”

  “Always. Question everything, fight the power, all that.”

  “Funny. What do you do if you’re holding an event that requires people under eighteen to be out all night?”

  “I thought that was what the bedroom window was for. A screwdriver will take care of the flyscreen.” He lifts his head. “I never said that.”

  “Again, hilarious.”

  “Oh, you actually want the official, teacherly answer?” He twirls his pen between the fingers. “Am I allowed to ask what it’s for?”

  “Of course.” She tells him about the community centre and the campaign. “We have a plan, but we need to be out all night for the last part.”

  “Are you coming out to me, Ms Harlow?”

  “I guess I am,” she says. “But not in the after-school special, ‘I need help’ way. More as a conversational by-product. In the matter-of-fact, happens-to-be-related way.”

  “Perfect. I think that suits our dynamic, don’t you?”

  She laughs, glad that Ms Lehrer isn’t there. That would have kicked this a notch up from vaguely cringe-worthy to mildly excruciating.

  “Tell me more. About your project, I mean.”

  She tells him about the filibuster idea which, with the help of Kayah and Rosie and the others, has turned into a plan for nonstop, all-night speech about why they need the centre to stay open. At first they were just going to record the whole thing and make a podcast to spread on social media, but Kayah has a friend who works at a community radio station, and he said they could use his graveyard shift to broadcast their stories if the station said yes. Which they did, thanks to Kayah and Bea’s pleading visit to them last week.

  The plan is to try and get enough of the kids involved that they can talk for six hours straight between songs, sharing their personal stories and talking about what the centre means to them. They’ll hold a presentation at the community centre earlier in the evening, where they’ll invite the media and local government people as well as parents and friends, and then they’ll go to the radio station later as a group and start the filibuster. And the idea’s just weird enough that they’re hoping some media will want to come and write about it, like her dad said they might.

  “That’s a corker of an idea,” Granger says when she’s done filling him in. “Did you have anything to do with it?”

  “Uh, kind of.” She tells him about the filibuster article and the seed it gave her.

  “I thought it had your name all over it.” He taps his pen on the desk. “Well, I imagine all you’d need for the event is permission slips and a promise of no naughty stuff. Ask some of the parents to chaperone, maybe?”

  “Good idea.” She flips open her notebook and scribbles it down next under some Speech Night notes.

  “So this is what’s been keeping your brain so busy lately?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You seem to have a lot on your mind,” he says.

  She frowns. “Is this some teacher-y way of saying I’m
slacking off?”

  “Harlow, if I thought you were slacking, I’d just say it.” He points his pen at her. “All I’m saying is that you seem like you’ve been going through the motions around here a bit. None of your usual marching around, firing on all cylinders with your big ideas. But it looks like you are. Just not here. And honestly, I don’t care where that energy goes, as long as it’s still out there in the world, doing its thing.”

  “Oh, okay.” The bell sounds. She grabs her things. “Maths. I better go. See you.” She gives him a wave and takes off down the hall. How come, then, if he’s not telling her off, she still feels guilty?

  CHAPTER 43

  Willa

  Amira looks ragged. Her eye make-up is slim to none, and her hair is a wilderness. Willa didn’t even know Amira had curly hair until right this moment. She looks so different. Younger.

  “I know,” she says, holding up a hand as she joins them on the quad. “Don’t say it. I know how bad I look. It was this or be late.”

  “You don’t look bad. You look pretty,” Willa tells her. “It’s just different.”

  “Quit flirting with me, Brookes.” Amira cackles at Willa’s shocked look. “Joke, dude. You can come onto me whenever you like.”

  “Guys, let’s get on with it.” Eva pulls out her script. “Last run through.”

  “Good. I’m sick of this thing,” Amira moans.

  Eva flaps the paper at her. “Says the girl who doesn’t need as much practice as the rest of us.”

  They settle at one of the picnic tables. “I brought donuts.” Willa pulls the greasy bag from her schoolbag. “I thought they would help.”

  “You thought right, lady.” Amira takes a donut and yanks Eva’s script from her hand. “No prompts, missy. We’re doing this in half an hour, remember?”

  Eva sighs. “Okay,”

  “Want one?” Willa pushes the bag of donuts towards Eva.

  She shakes her head. “Thanks. I already ate.”

  Willa’s stomach starts to swim. Because that’s strike three. It’s the third time she’s offered Eva food this week, and the third time Eva’s offered up an excuse not to eat it. Willa promised herself she’d do something if it got to three. Only, now that she’s here, she doesn’t know what the hell that will be.

  Anyway, she can’t think about it right now, because Amira’s whisking them through the dialogue. Willa knows she’s improved since they started, mostly because she did as she was told and watched a bunch of Japanese cartoons with Jack. He was beyond excited to have someone watch with him. He tirelessly explained entire plots and background stories to her, even though she didn’t need them. And she let him because it was nice to hear him talking so much. She even promised to watch some more with him on the school holidays.

  When they’ve finished two uninterrupted run-throughs, Amira pulls a make-up case out of her bag. “Okay, we’re good. I’m going to fix this.” She circles her head with her hand. “Meet you outside the classroom in ten.”

  Willa shakes the bag of donuts at Eva. “Last chance.”

  “No thanks.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  They trudge towards the languages building, walking gallows-slow.

  “So what did you have?” Willa asks finally. She flinches. Interrogation much?

  “Huh?”

  “Um…for breakfast?”

  Eva gives her a funny look. “Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  “You’re curious about what I ate for breakfast? Your life must be packed with thrills right now.”

  Willa shrugs, swallowing hard. She’s started it, now she has to finish it. “I don’t know. It’s just, every time I offer you food, you say no, and…well, you haven’t really been eating lunch much, and—”

  Eva stops and turns. She stares at Willa, her expression incredulous. “I thought it was weird, you constantly pushing food at me lately. Have you been…testing me or something?”

  “I…I was just worried.” Willa grips her bag. “You look skinny.”

  “I am skinny. I always have been.”

  “Well, skinnier. And stressed, and you never seem to—”

  “You know what? You should probably mind your own business.” Eva says it lightly, but as she strides ahead of Willa across the courtyard. Her spine is ramrod straight, speaking her annoyance.

  Willa’s stomach begins to turn in a slow, sickening roll. Yep, she should probably have minded her own business.

  Outside the classroom, girls are lined along the wall, noisily going over their dialogues. It reminds Willa of the birds on her street, perched along the power lines in the mornings. Eva pointedly stares at her phone while they wait.

  Amira comes back from the bathroom, her eyes and lips painted back into being, her hair pulled into a messy bun. She tries to heckle away the sullen silence. “Oh, come on, we’re not marching to our deaths. Cheer the hell up. Think of my party this weekend. It’s going to be killer.” She turns to Willa. “You’re going to come, right? With Finn?”

  “W-what party?”

  “You didn’t get my Facebook invite?”

  “I don’t have Facebook.”

  “Oh, well, you’re coming. It’s my sixteenth on Saturday. I’ll send you a text.”

  Willa glances uneasily at Eva. She’s either not listening or pretending not to. “Um, I’ll probably have to babysit my brother and sister that night.”

  “Get someone else to do it. It’ll be fun. My cousin’s playing tunes. And she’s good too. We’ll get our dance on.”

  Before Willa can conjure another excuse, the classroom door opens and three girls walk out, looking green. A finger beckons them into the room.

  CHAPTER 44

  Finn

  They’re back in the centre for the second night in a row.

  “What are you going to talk about for the filibuster?” Finn asks Bea as they all fold and slide invitations into Finn’s hand-decorated envelopes.

  “Clothes.”

  “Clothes?”

  “Yeah, about how I used to feel funny because my grandmother and my parents used to always say ‘but you can’t be gay. You don’t look gay’. I think they thought you had to have the short hair and wear dude clothes, or you couldn’t be a real lesbian.”

  “My kind of clothes,” Nona says.

  “Basically. My parents think all lesbians dress like you. Which is so old-fashioned.”

  “Are you calling me old-fashioned?” Nona pouts.

  “No.” Bea leans in and kisses her. “I’m calling you hot. I love what you wear.”

  Now Nona’s grinning.

  Finn rolls her eyes and laughs. Like Nona needs any more ego. Nona just gives her the finger.

  Bea turns back to Finn. “It was confusing, because they were saying that stuff, but then all the gay girls I saw on TV looked like everyone else—straight. I didn’t know what I was supposed to look like. I just knew I liked what I already wore.” She waves at her dress, yet another fifties concoction decorated with bright blue flowers. “It wasn’t until I came here and met other actual, real-life gay kids that I realised that everyone just looks like whatever they want to look like. I mean, Kayah looks more like the old lesbian cliché than I do, and she’s got a boyfriend.”

  “I just don’t like dealing with my frizz,” Kayah says, running her fingers through her short curls.

  “And I,” Nona points at her slouchy jeans, plain T-shirt and razor-short hair, “am making a statement. Gay as.”

  “I don’t think you need your outfit to achieve that,” Kayah tells her. “The obnoxious flirting pretty much tips the girls off.”

  “You love it,” Nona says.

  “I do love your game,” Kayah agrees. “I wish I’d had that kind of moxie when I was sixteen.”

  “Oh, because you’re such an old lady now,” Rosie teases.

  “You know,” Andy says, “maybe gay girls get to do what they want when it comes to style, but gay guys m
y age have to look a certain way. Like it’s compulsory to have this clean-cut, preppy, shiny look. You can’t be grungy or indie, or even have long hair.”

  “So?” Rosie pulls a face. “As if you would be grunge or indie anyway? Preppy is totally your look.”

  “I know that.” He frowns at his twin. “But I’m just saying, what if I wanted to?”

  “You’d look ridiculous.”

  “Shut up.”

  Rosie sticks out her tongue.

  “I get what you’re saying,” Bea tells Andy. “The stereotypes are crappy and anxiety-making. Which is why I’m going to talk about clothes. How I dress is really important to me, but it took me until I got here to say stuff it, I can wear what I want.”

  “That’s really cool,” Finn tells her. She turns to Kayah. “What about you? What are you going to say?”

  “How just because I have a boyfriend doesn’t mean I’m not queer.”

  “What about you, Finn?” Bea asks.

  “Finn’s making the introduction speech,” Kayah says as she drops a fresh pile of invites onto the middle of the table.

  “I am?” It’s the first Finn’s heard of it.

  “Yep. We need someone who’s used to public speaking. Then after, Andy’s going to do his filibuster piece, to give them a taste of what’s happening later.” She pulls a mock-apologetic face. “Oops. Did we forget to tell you?”

  “Uh, you did. But why me?” Finn looks around the table. “Why not you? Or someone who’s been here longer? Or what about Costa? He runs the place.”

  “It has to be one of the kids,” Kayah says. “And I can’t. I’ll be with the journalists, giving them the info they need, remember?”

  “I’m not even gay,” Rosie says. “So I can’t. It’d be like cheating.”

  “And I’m just not,” Nona says. “Anyway, what’s your problem? Aren’t you like captain of your school? Don’t you have to make inspirational speeches all the time?”

  “You watch too much TV,” Finn tells her. “It’s not really like that.”

  “But you do have to do public speaking, right?” Kayah asks.

  Finn has to nod, because just the other day she had to get up at assembly and remind the school to donate to the uniform drive. But this is different.