It is Saturday morning and I’m picking at a round of toast. The Fridge is drinking coffee.
‘Yeah, great,’ I reply, ignoring her last question. ‘How was work?’
‘Oh, you know. Work is work. Nothing to write home about. Tell me about your evening.’
But I don’t. Not really. My heart isn’t in it.
I want to know why she is lying to me, but don’t have the courage to ask. I’m not sure if I can handle the truth.
ReWND™
I forgot to tell you about the rewind function, didn’t I? Well, it’s a logical extension, after all. I’ve skipped over some pretty important stuff, not the least being the big date with Jason, and we’ve got to engage in some literary time travel if we want to get it all in.
Anyway, wait until you get to the ReCRD™ symbol. Trust me. It’ll blow your mind.
Chapter 9
Just your average week
Actually, when I think about it, I’m not sure I want to go over the events of the week. If I’m honest, it wasn’t the best week I’ve ever experienced. Not that anything went terminally wrong, you understand. But not a whole lot went right, either.
You know I said I had missed out some important stuff and that’s why we had to go back in time? That’s not strictly true. Sorry. It was a cheap narrative device to keep you focused. Of course, the date with Jason was interesting and I will give you a full run-down later. But the rest of the week was not high on drama, so, yes, it’s true. I misled you. I apologise. Believe me when I say I feel better for having got that off my chest.
I’ll start with Vanessa.
You’ll remember I left Vanessa’s house on Sunday in a state of simmering resentment at her lukewarm reaction to my romantic liaison with Jason. You might also recall that by the time I had finished on the phone with Jason, I had mellowed. It’s difficult to stay mad at someone when you’re feeling particularly optimistic, and anyway, Vanessa is too calm. She dilutes drama. If she had been the first person on the moon, she’d have yawned through it all. Instead of, ‘This is one small step for a man, but a giant leap for mankind,’ we’d have, ‘Like, is there any point to mankind?’ for posterity to contemplate.
So I went to school prepared, eager even, to forgive and forget. At recess Vanessa was already on the benches outside the canteen when I rocked up. She was chipping away at a banana and staring off into the middle distance, pondering the mysteries of the universe. I plopped myself down beside her.
I’d given this some thought. I wasn’t going to mention Jason. I was going to be completely normal, chatting away as usual, while Vanessa sat there like a rock, making the occasional monosyllabic response when her energy levels peaked. If she had a problem with my love-life, and I couldn’t understand why she should, then I wasn’t going to give her any opportunities to articulate it. A good plan, I thought. Unfortunately, it was a doomed one.
‘Hey, ho, Vanessa,’ I said in a frighteningly cheerful voice. ‘Here we are again. It’s Monday morning and the week stretches before us like a pitted path to nowhere. Tell me. Why are two urbane sophisticates like us marking time in this academic wasteland, when we could be out in the real world amassing personal fortunes and making indelible marks upon history?’
Not an aggressive opening statement, I think you will admit.
‘I’m surprised you bother to talk to me,’Vanessa replied.
‘What?’ I said. Sometimes I fluctuate wildly between a flood of words and a dribble. This time I was just stunned.
‘Nothing,’ she said, keeping her head turned from me.
‘Hang on,’ I said. I wasn’t going to let this go. ‘What do you mean, being bothered to talk? Why wouldn’t I be bothered to talk to you?’
Vanessa squirmed. She kept her head at an angle so I couldn’t make eye contact, shutting me out.
‘Now you’ve got a boyfriend,’ she said, ‘I figured you’d find me dull company.’
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. She sounded so childish, like we were both six years old. Maybe I should have left it at that, possibly put my arm around her shoulders to comfort her. But it was absurd. I’ve never been good at dealing with immaturity and I’ve also got an alarming tendency to speak my mind, regardless of the consequences.
I’m not proud of this. It’s just the way it is.
‘Have you completely lost it, Vanessa?’ I said. ‘What are you on about? Do you really think that because I’ve got a date with a guy – he’s not even my boyfriend, damn it – it diminishes you as a human being? Are you so insecure you can’t bear for me to have relationships with other people? What do you want me to do? Stop speaking to anyone else, to protect your jealous possessiveness? We are not in preschool, Vanessa. You’re being pathetic.’
She turned towards me and I saw her eyes were filled with tears. Her face crumpled. I was shocked. It was so rare that Vanessa showed any emotion at all and now her whole being was drenched in it. And for what? For nothing.
‘Thanks,’ she said, her voice strangled and tight with feeling. ‘Childish? I see. I’ve never been good enough for you and your smart talk. No one is good enough for Calma Harrison. It’s not all about you, bloody big shot Calma. No one wants to be your friend – because you pride yourself on making people feel small and worthless. Didn’t you ever wonder why the only friend you’ve ever managed to keep was a mindless dickhead? That Kiffing boy. He made you feel really superior, didn’t he?’
It felt, literally, as if someone had smacked me across the face. I don’t know where the tears came from. Suddenly they coursed down my cheeks and dripped onto the hot stone of the bench, shrank and were renewed. It’s a cliché, I know, but it was like an internal tap had opened. My chest felt as if a massive weight had me pinned. I couldn’t breathe. For once, I could find no words. Even my brain was paralysed. I watched in a daze as Vanessa threw down the remains of her banana and stormed off. Then, with a dark, malevolent surge, the anger swelled within me and I was on my feet.
I yelled at her retreating back.
‘And what the hell do you know, Vanessa? About me, about Kiffo, about anything?’ She didn’t stop. ‘Fuck you, Vanessa. FUCK YOU!’
I can’t stand immaturity in others, but I have a surprisingly high tolerance of it in myself. Strange, isn’t it?
If nothing else, I had the complete attention of every student within a hundred metres. Not that I cared. I also had the undivided attention of Mr Haubrick, a Soc. Ed. teacher on yard duty. I spent the rest of the day in the office of the Assistant Principal for Student Welfare, where I continued to cry as if I was never going to stop. I refused to talk about Kiffo, though she tried to draw me out. I’m not going to tell you, either. I’m not in the mood. Sorry.
Remember I said earlier that the week wasn’t high on drama? Okay, that was a fib as well. I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again. All narrators are unreliable, but some are more unreliable than others.
Then again, maybe I’m too smart for my own good.
I worked at Crazi-Cheep on Wednesday evening. It wasn’t my normal shift. In fact I had told them I could only work weekends because I didn’t want anything that would interfere with school work. I was forceful about that. Under no circumstances could I work Monday to Thursday. Non-negotiable. Set in stone. Don’t even ask.
So they rang me late Wednesday afternoon and I said yes.
There was an emergency. Three employees had rung in sick with sub-acute pulmonary carcinoma of the clack, or something. Maybe it was flu. Maybe they wanted to wander around the riverfront and lie to their children about it. Anyway, the store was desperate and would I, just this once . . .
I wasn’t doing anything, anyway. The Fridge was out [who knew where?] and I was torn between knocking my head against probability theory or feeling depressed over the things Vanessa had said. Perhaps paid employment would take me out of myself. Perhaps there would just be me and Jason in the store.
He wasn’t in and I worried for a while if he had succumbed to
the mystery clack ailment and, if so, whether it would have cleared up by Friday.
Candy was in, though. I got the impression she never took a night off sick, possibly because no self-respecting virus would touch her with a two-metre fence picket. She looked at me as if I was something nasty left over in the mother–baby nappy-changing facility [I wanted them to rename it Crazi-Krap, but didn’t think it was worth suggesting to management]. Or rather, she nearly looked at me. Her eyes slid over the fluorescent lighting as she explained the mysteries of till rolls, scanning procedures and refund policies.
I was going to work the till!
So much for the theory that operating the checkout was up there with cardiac bypass operations in terms of complexity and experience required. A few people sick and they bunged in a complete novice. I don’t know what they would have done if I hadn’t been able to work. Probably kidnapped a toddler from a stroller in the car park and stuck him in a highchair at the till.
Anyway, it didn’t seem complicated. Get the barcode in line with the scanner and away you go. I reckoned I could do that without burning out too many neurones. Candy wandered off to hone her gum-chewing skills at the customer service desk and I was left in charge of checkout six. It was the only one in operation. I had been hoping that all the trolleys – laden with tricky items – would miraculously queue up at another till and I would be left with the hand baskets containing one item. With one checkout in operation, this seemed an unlikely scenario.
My first customer was all right. She did have a hand basket and there were only a few items in it. Now, I hadn’t had any specific training, but I knew what to do. I fixed her with a dazzling smile, like she was a long-lost relative.
‘And how are you this fine evening?’ I said. It was difficult to enunciate properly while giving her the full range of my teeth, so it might have come out garbled. She certainly seemed startled, possibly at my exuberance, possibly at being confronted by a practising ventriloquist, but she recovered quickly.
‘I’m great, thank you. And you?’
‘Couldn’t be better.’ Actually, it came out as, ‘Couldn-gee-getta’, but I think she caught my drift. Grinning like a lunatic, I scanned her five items without faltering once, and rang up the total.
‘That’ll be four thousand, four hundred and twenty-five dollars and forty cents, please,’ I said happily.
‘Pardon?’ she said.
‘We take all major credit cards,’ I said.
She laughed.‘I think you’ve made a mistake.’
I couldn’t fault her logic. I’d hoped she wouldn’t notice, but I guess that was always going to be a long shot. I pressed a buzzer and a red lamp lit up above my checkout. Useful if you’ve got twenty tills in operation but a bit redundant in this instance. Not difficult to spot the loser.
Candy meandered over and I explained the slight discrepancy. She tut-tutted without breaking her chewing rhythm and used the key around her neck to open my till. For a moment I was tempted to slam the drawer shut, thus garrot-ting her with her own emblem of office, but I was disciplined.
‘I do apologise, madam,’ Candy said to the customer. ‘She’s new.’
‘She?’ The woman’s mouth twisted slightly. ‘You mean Calma? No need to apologise. A small mistake.’
Candy grunted. I could tell she was disappointed. She was clearly hoping the two of them could have a full and frank discussion of my customer-care shortcomings, possibly concluding with riding me out of town, tarred and feathered, on a rail. Instead, she copped a put-down. It’s good to savour moments like those and my smile widened. I could nearly suck my own ears. Candy cancelled the transaction and slunk off without another word. I rang up the purchases again.
‘You have qualified, madam, for a discount of nearly four and a half thousand dollars,’ I said, ‘for being one of the few people in the world to pronounce my name correctly.’ I pointed to the badge on my blouse. ‘Most say,“Kal-ma”, rather than “Kar-mer”.’
She laughed and it lit up her whole face. There are some people who exude an air of good humour, who give the impression that little, if anything, will stop them seeing the funny side of things. She was one of those. I warmed to her instantly, not just because, in my limited experience, she was the exception to the majority of customers at Crazi-Cheep whose smile muscles had wasted through lack of use. She had a kind face, she treated you like a human being and her laugh was infectious.
‘Calma,’ she said. ‘Thank you. You have brightened my evening.’
I could hear her laughing even after she’d left the store.
The rest of the shift, believe it or not, went by with scarcely a hiccup. Okay, there were one or two small mistakes, but I sorted them out myself. Thankfully, we weren’t busy. I don’t know where pensioners go on a Wednesday – bingo? mud wrestling? the over-eighty leapfrog national championships? – but they steered clear of Crazi-Cheep and I was grateful for that. I even managed to get in some thinking about Vanessa.
I knew she was right. Partly, anyway. I can be a smart-arse [does this come as a great shock to you?], but I have never tried to humiliate someone for the hell of it. And Vanessa seemed to be implying that I got a kick out of putting people down. Is that what others thought about me? I’m not a bitch. Honest. Not deliberately. Anyway, should I worry how others perceive me? It was Kiffo who taught me that changing your personality and behaviour to suit other people’s perceptions was wrong. But Vanessa worried me.
Why had she reacted so angrily? I couldn’t understand it. She must have been suffering in some way, but the origin of the pain was a mystery. After my raw hurt subsided, I saw Vanessa’s reaction for what it was – a cry for help. She had lashed out blindly and I should have felt angry if she hadn’t used me as a target. What are friends for after all? I made up my mind to go to her house at the earliest opportunity and talk.
She could be non-communicative and downright strange, but Vanessa was my friend. I’m a little strange myself, if truth be known.
The only other thing worth mentioning about my shift was that my father turned up at about eleven o’clock. I noticed him out of the corner of my eye, much the way you do when a rodent scuttles out of the wardrobe and disappears under the bed. [Look, it might not have happened to you, but you probably live somewhere where wildlife have the decency to observe negotiated boundaries. My roof space could be an audition set for a Hollywood version of the Noah story.]
Anyway, he skittered among the aisles, pausing occasionally to scan the shelves. I wasn’t fooled, though. He was giving me the once over. Either that or there was something so fascinating about the pan scourer section that it required the concentration reserved for the perusal of a rare Van Gogh.
I ignored him and he disappeared. If only it could be that easy all the time! Certainly he didn’t buy anything. When you’re the only checkout operator, you notice stuff like that. It made me uneasy, though. When I left the store at midnight and walked the short distance home, I kept glancing over my shoulder. I had a horrible feeling someone was following. Once, I thought I saw a shadow move when all the other shadows remained fixed. I stopped in the middle of the street and focused on using my peripheral vision, but I couldn’t see anything.
It must have been my imagination. I went round to Vanessa’s house straight after school on Thursday. She had been avoiding me during the day and I wanted to defuse the tension.
Mrs Aldrick opened the door in the manner of one expecting an advance party of invading aliens from Alpha Centauri, showed me into the front room and disappeared in a flurry of rolling eyeballs. Vanessa was curled up on the sofa, watching something appalling on the TV. It was one of those soap operas where everyone is young, physically irresistible, morally unscrupulous and emotionally screwed.
Scene 37
Interior. Daytime. Vanessa’s front room. Tasteful art is on the walls, pot plants with gleaming leaves stand in corners and there is no hint of dirt, anywhere. It looks like a room fumigated regularly by people i
n white coats and breathing apparatus. You could perform open-heart surgery on the dining table with complete confidence [see next episode].
Vanessa Aldrick, 17, is lying on the sofa. She is dressed in flowing robes of pure white that drape elegantly over slender limbs. Her hair, a pale waterfall, catches the light.
Enter Calma Harrison. She radiates good health. Her long, muscular, tanned legs are perfectly complemented by an immaculately-tailored designer dress. Her bust heaves dramatically, threatening to explode out of the confining material and concuss a cameraman. When she smiles, impossibly white teeth flash like a solar flare. She stands in front of Vanessa, one beautifully manicured hand on hip, the other running through the silk of her hair.
Calma: Nessa. You were right about Jason all along. He has been two-timing me with Charlene.
Nessa: That girl who is so attractive she makes us seem like the rear end of a constipated Rottweiler?
Calma: The very same. I found out tonight when he crashed his sports car [with her in it] into the coffee shop, killing four extras, ruining the special of the day and turning Tammy into a paraplegic.
Nessa: Tammy? The champion surfer with the honed body of an Olympic athlete and flawless make-up?
Calma: The very same.
Vanessa and I talked. I apologised for swearing at her. She apologised for what she had said about Kiffo.
On the surface, we were okay again. But I wasn’t satisfied. Vanessa was hiding something. I mean, it was fine that she recognised her overreaction, but she didn’t offer any explanation for it. And there had to be something more. The difficulty would be getting it out of her – as you must have gleaned by now, Vanessa isn’t the best communicator in the world. It was a problem.
I didn’t have time that afternoon, so I filed the dilemma away for future reference. You see, it was always going to be a quick visit. I’d made an appointment at the hairdresser’s for five o’clock and I didn’t want to be late. I was overdue for a trim. My hair had been bothering me for some time. It had nothing to do with my date on the Friday, you understand.
It's Not All About YOU, Calma! Page 6