All I Ever Wanted
Page 5
Today, I want to believe it. There’s no way I’ll get the package back. The stuff will be bagged up and on the street by now. I want to savour the inevitability of it, like when you run out of time in an exam. I can do no more. Let it go.
‘Where’s Ryan?’ I ask her.
Right question. Her eyes shine and her hands flutter.
‘Working. He’s picking me up at seven and we’re going out to the pine forest. It’ll be mostly the guys and we’re having a bonfire and a few drinks. We’ll pick you up.’
‘On a Tuesday night?’
‘It’s the holidays, Mim.’
‘Okay, fine,’ I say, without really thinking about it.
Tahnee browses the fridge, then moves on to a cupboard. She’s so sure of everything that her fingers move while her eyes are on me, reading boxes like Braille. She picks up a packet of biscuits, changes her mind, grabs a bag of chips instead.
We sit at the kitchen table and share the chips.
‘Are you still in love with Jordan Mullen?’ she asks me, out of nowhere.
‘I will love him forever,’ I say, deadpan. I hate him.
‘If you want something you have to take a chance. You’ve never even spoken to him. How is he supposed to know that you love him if you don’t tell him?’ She licks salt from her fingers and grabs another handful. It grosses me out. I push the packet over to her.
‘I sent him Valentine cards and I wiped drool from my chin every time he walked past me at school. Don’t you think he should have figured it out by now?’ I say.
‘That doesn’t count. He couldn’t possibly have known they were from you.’
‘What’s love, Tahnee?’ I sigh. ‘I mean, really. I don’t even know the guy. Perving at him was just a way to pass the time.’
‘You don’t mean that. You know what I think?’ She frowns at me. ‘I think you want him because you know he’s so out of your league he’s no threat to your stupid rules. You don’t even try because there’s no chance.’
I want to tell her everything. About the package, my bike, the look he gave me. The Valentines in his cupboard, the smell of his room. That instead of wanting to slash his pillow I just wished I could lay my head on it. That I could handle indifference because it still felt like something could happen between us. Rejection feels so final and so imperfect.
‘Maybe I like the wondering more than the actual doing.’
‘Ahh,’ she wags a talon-finger at me. ‘You’re being sarcastic. Me, I’m done wondering.’
I roll my eyes.
‘Well, I have to go and get ready.’
I look at my watch. ‘It’s only three o’clock.’
‘I know, if I don’t get moving I’ll be late. I just came to bring you this.’ She opens her bag, pulls out something white and unfolds a surfie-style strappy dress. She drapes it over the back of a chair. ‘Trust me. Wear it. If I get here and you’re wearing a T-shirt…I. Will. Scream.’
I give her a salute and she leaves without saying goodbye, like she always does.
I’m not sure why I don’t tell her. A week ago Tahnee knew everything there is to know about me. I’m embarrassed, but that’s not it. Maybe the telling will make it all true. There’s safety in denial.
I try on the dress and swing open the wardrobe door. I check out the top part in the mirror, then stand on my bed to see what’s going on below the knees. Mum’s always pinching my ribs and telling me I’m too skinny but Tahnee’s dress is tight. The swingy skirt actually makes me look like I have hips.
Last week when we went out I spent the whole night babysitting a decoy vodka, pretending to drink, faking fun. Tahnee was at DEFCON 2 in the virginity stakes; poured over Ryan like syrup on a pancake. I knew it would happen, eventually, but they’ve only been seeing each other for a month.
I feel empty about it all. Until Saturday, there was only one of my rules that was pencilled in, one that I’d break in a heartbeat. I could face school every day knowing that any second I might turn a corner and run into him, or sit near him at lunch, or stand behind him at the canteen. I think I’m an anticipation junkie. That something might happen any moment…it’s enough. But if sex was part of the deal, I’d probably do it. If that was what it took to call him mine.
I slide a frozen pizza into the oven, set the timer and open a can. Lemonade sloshes down my chin and onto the white dress. Great. Tahnee will freak.
As I mop up the mess, there’s a knock at the door.
I peep through the spy-hole. Kate Mullen is standing there. Through the fisheye lens she looks big-headed, like one of those morphed dogs on birthday cards. I breathe out. I look around the lounge room and notice things I usually don’t: the sunken sofa, stained carpet, mismatched furniture and the creeping clutter that spreads like a noxious weed. It seems like ages since I stood in the Mullen kitchen drinking iced water with a lemon slice, but not long enough that I can’t see the glaring difference between that—and this.
I don’t know why I open the door. Maybe it’s that I can’t resist the pull of something out of the ordinary. It must have taken some guts to come here. Kate Mullen barely ever raised a hand in class. She’s made it through Tudor Crescent, the least I can do is offer her a glass of tap water.
I open the wooden door. ‘Hi, Kate.’
She peers through the darkened mesh and I realise I can see out, but she can’t see in. She looks uncomfortable and skittish.
‘I’ve got the right place, then. I wasn’t sure where you lived. I had to ask my brother.’
A thousand questions in my head but I don’t ask a single one. A million butterflies in my stomach, but somehow I open the screen door and stand aside as she walks in. I want to tie her to a chair and extract information through medieval torture, but I don’t think she has the answers I need.
Her eyes rove around, but her head stays still. I expect judgment, or pity, but her face is a mask of cool politeness.
‘Drink?’ I offer.
‘Yes, please.’
It feels like we’re playing a game of charades. She has an agenda and I wish she’d get to the point, so she can leave and I can stop feeling ashamed. But she accepts and follows me into the kitchen where yesterday’s dishes are a leaning tower and yesterday’s rubbish is an indoor compost heap.
I hand her a can of lemonade. Sick of the silence, I prod her, ‘So, let me guess. You were in the area.’
She smiles, that funny twisted smile. ‘Not really. I feel bad about yesterday. I was really rude, asking you so many questions. You did me a big favour and I was rude to you.’
‘No. You weren’t. I’m just a bit touchy about my family, that’s all.’
‘My family’s not perfect either, Jemima.’
‘God, don’t call me that. I hate it. It’s Mim.’
‘Okay, Mim. I like your name. It’s unusual. I wish I had a different name.’ She wanders to the back door and lifts her face to catch the warm breeze. ‘Is that a train?’
It’s an overlander, with hundreds of carriages. For a full minute the windows vibrate and the train belches out black smoke that hovers in our backyard. I’m so used to the trains that I don’t hear them unless I’m trying to get to sleep or I’m ready to wake up.
‘Let’s go in my room. It’s cooler. Do you want some pizza?’ I put the slices on a tray. In my head, I’m trying to remember if I made my bed or put my dirty washing in the basket. Neither is likely.
When Kate sees my bedroom, she stares.
Another thing I don’t notice. Mum uses every corner in the house to stash her impulse buys. Most of my room looks like a second-hand goods store. Boxed stuff and bagged stuff and useless things that she’s forgotten as soon as they’re home because it’s the actual point-of-sale buzz that she’s really after. Blenders, juicers, toasters, even a microwave oven. Clothing with the tags on, Easter eggs, Christmas decorations and kids’ toys. And dolls, thirty or forty of them, with vacant eyes and faces pale as cadavers. Based on my own confession about my family
’s reputation, Kate must be thinking we run a sideline in stolen goods.
The only corner that’s really mine has my bed, a three-legged bedside table and a dressing table with a mirrorless frame. I still have the Eiffel Tower quilt cover from my eleventh birthday and an original lava lamp that was Mum’s when she was a teenager. A World globe with a skewer stuck through it hangs above my bed by a strand of fishing-line. The opposite corner is empty, but there’s a smoke-blackened stain that flares up to the ceiling, like a ghost, from when Tahnee and I set a toaster on fire after a night out. Only my bookcase stands new and straight and tall, everything at right angles, each book in its place. Apart from that, there’s not a lot to say who lives here.
‘I know, it’s a bit much, isn’t it?’
Kate laughs. A real belly laugh. It keeps on going and she sits down on my bed, pressing her side. She’s got her eyes closed and her legs clamped together and I don’t think she can stop.
I stare at her. ‘Are you drunk?’ Crazy, more like it.
She shakes her head, still laughing. ‘Oh, God,’ she says, wiping away tears with the back of her hand.
It was a mistake to let her in. Heat sears my cheeks and I cross my arms over my chest. I shouldn’t have opened the door.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just…’ She stops. ‘I just think we have a lot in common, that’s all.’ She grabs a piece of pizza and chews with her hand over her mouth.
‘Like?’
‘Like being stuck somewhere where everything else fits, but you don’t. I mean, I imagined you having a room that was more like…you.’
‘Like me.’
‘Yeah. You know, a bit rock-chick. Sassy. A bit more…confident.’
‘You’ve got me all wrong.’ I shake my head.
‘Maybe. But you always seem like you’ve got it all together. I mean, at school, you’re, like, untouchable.’
It’s my turn to laugh. I’ve hidden behind the force field of Matt and Dill’s reputation for years. To some extent, in such a rough school, I’m unscathed. Even Tahnee’s breezed through, despite starting out with knobby knees, braces and a concave chest. A free pass by association.
‘Look at this stuff!’ She runs a greasy finger along the spines of my books. ‘Shakespeare, Hardy, Chaucer, Ibsen. You’re a closet reader,’ she accuses.
‘I stole them from the library,’ I lie through a mouthful of pizza.
‘You did not.’ Kate picks up my lava lamp and blinks at me through the red liquid. ‘What does this do?’ She tips it sideways and a few chunks of cold wax float to the surface.
‘Doesn’t work,’ I say. ‘Never has.’
She shakes the lamp like a snow dome until something metallic clinks inside. ‘Oops. Sorry. I’ve broken it.’
‘It was already broken,’ I remind her. I take it and set it back on my bedside table. ‘Hey, can I ask you something?’ ‘Shoot.’ She sits cross-legged on my bed.
‘You could go to a better school. It looks like your parents could afford it. Why do they send you to that hole?’
‘My dad thinks I should go to a public school because he did, and he did okay. He’s all about succeeding in spite of the odds.’
‘That’s a bit screwed up.’
‘Yeah. That was his theory until Jordan went off the rails. Now he’s reconsidering.’
The blood in my veins goes from a steady whump to a rush.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, Jordan’s deferred his place at uni and he’s running around with some guy called Brant Welles. He doesn’t come home much. Mum’s freaking out and they’re watching me all the time.’
I know Brant Welles. He used to hang with the boys until he screwed them over and they had to teach him a lesson. Maybe he’s over-confident now that the boys are locked up. It makes sense. He could have known about the pick-up. He probably told Jordan where I lived.
‘Do you know my brother? He went to our school.’
‘I know of him.’ It’s almost the truth.
‘Well, it’s inconvenient that he’s just gone off the rails because that’s exactly what I was planning on doing. Look.’
She pulls a piece of paper out of her purse and unfolds it. The creases are soft and furry and I wonder how many times she’s looked at it.
‘What’s that?’
‘A design. It’s a treble clef, in a kind of Celtic style. I want to get a tattoo. What do you think?’
I look at her in her denim shorts that come to her knees. They have pleats down the front because somebody who loves her irons her clothes. She has a ponytail, for God’s sake. No piercings. I bet she carries a photo of her parents in her purse.
‘I think if you’re planning on going off the rails you need something a bit tougher than a treble clef.’ Her whole body sags and I feel bad for her. She tucks the piece of paper away.
‘Hey. Give me your purse.’
Her eyes bulge, but she hands it over.
‘Relax. I’m not mugging you.’ I flick through the compartments, but besides a library card, a few receipts, a twenty and the photocopy, there’s nothing else there. No photo of her parents. I hand it back.
‘Okay.’
‘Okay, what?’
‘I’ll take you. You would have gone to Ink Inc. Wouldn’t you? That place near the pizza shop. You’ll get a grotty needle and an extra feel from a dirty old biker with stinky pits. I’ll take you somewhere with a better reputation.’
She looks shocked and I know that’s exactly what she was planning. A slow, wobbly smile spreads across her face. ‘Really? You’ll go with me? When?’
Yeah, I’ll go with her. Hanging out with Kate might take me a step closer to where I want to be. Closer to Jordan? Closer to getting back the package? If only it was clear to me which I want more.
‘I’ll come past your place tomorrow at eleven.’
I walk with Kate for a block or two to make sure she’s okay. Just to protect my interests. When I get back to the house, Mum’s there. Her recyclable bags are by the door, empty.
‘Where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you for two days. I was worried,’ I say.
‘Really?’ she asks, one eyebrow up like a wing in flight. ‘Were you really, Mim? You’re not actually telling me that you missed me?’’
‘Of course,’ I lie. The truth is, I breathe better when she’s not around.
NINE
I’ve forgotten my half-promise to Tahnee and when she arrives I’m not ready. Ryan’s car idles in the driveway until Mum yells at him to turn it off because he’s messing with her reception.
Tahnee stands with her hands on her hips while I try to zip the dress back up. It’s even tighter now that I’ve scarfed half a pizza and a can of lemonade. She tuts and hisses over the state of my hair.
‘There’s no time to straighten it. You’ve had since, like, three o’clock. Here, put on some lipstick. What have you been doing?’
I don’t tell her about Kate. She wouldn’t get it. I don’t really want to go out. I need to feed Gargoyle and there’s no way I can duck out to the shed without her following. Tahnee’s always curious about the shed, like she expects there to be a busy little lab in there run by serious men in white coats. She knows everything, but she thinks there’s more.
‘Hurry up, Ryan’s waiting. Don’t you dare put on those thongs.’
‘I don’t have anything else. Thongs and sneakers, that’s it. You know that.’
‘Fine, if you want to look like you’re going to the beach.’
‘Geez, it’s a bonfire and beer with a bunch of guys who’ll stand around checking out each other’s exhaust pipes. Not the Academy Awards.’
I love our brainless banter. We’re way past being polite to each other, the way new friends are.
‘Okay, done. You’re going to wish you made more of an effort, though.’
‘You’re going to wish you didn’t lend me this dress when it splits.’
‘Breathe in and don’t sit down,’ she says.
For a couple of reasons, I try not to let my bum touch the back seat of Ryan’s car: one, I can’t sit fully because the dress won’t let me; two, this is where they did it. Ryan’s okay, but he’s been around. He’s twenty, good-looking and he has a hot car, so you can’t tell me that one of those blue fluorescent forensic things wouldn’t show up a whole lot of DNA.
The car has bucket seats, but Tahnee sits in the middle with her butt half on the console. She laughs at everything he says and he keeps one hand on her thigh, only letting go to change gear. Tahnee lets him slide his fingers between her legs and traps them there. The engine screams in third.
It’s like I’m not even there. I stare out of the window.
When we get to the park, the bonfire’s going already. It’s a total fire-ban day and the flames are too high and too obvious, but the pyros keep piling on sticks. There are only a few other girls. They’re dressed for cocktails and I can feel their assessment, then their dismissal. A guy from school called Cody Ellis is dragging half a tree over to the bonfire. He heaves it onto the fire and the pine needles go up with a whoosh, sending a spray of sparks over the girls. They shriek and cover their hair.
Tahnee nudges me. ‘What about Cody? He’s hot.’
I laugh and she looks pained.
‘Yeah, right. Ugh,’ I slap my chest with my fist. ‘I’m Cody Ellis, bringer of fire. All he needs is a loincloth. He already has a monobrow.’
Tahnee smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
I was right. Mostly the guys are swaggering around each other’s cars, kicking tyres and popping bonnets. Pulling out dipsticks. Swigging beer.
A circle of logs rings the fire. Packets of marshmallows and chips are spread out over a card table. It reminds me of a school camp except I hardly know anyone here. Some faces are familiar but I doubt I’ve ever held a conversation with any of them. Last year two of my friends, Peta and Meaghann, left school and slunk off with loser boyfriends and menial jobs. I heard Peta was pregnant. I got a Christmas message from Meaghann but I suspected it was just a text-dump and I never replied.