‘Yeah, mine’s too busy with work and stuff. It’s always been that way, really.’ She sits and plays with her ponytail, winding it round and round into a ballerina bun.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I ask her.
‘Anything.’
‘How bad do you want it? Fame, or whatever. I assume that’s what you want?’
She ponders my question. Chews her lip. ‘You know the look on your face when you listened to my music? And the one after when you figured out it was me?’
I nod. ‘The “blissed-out” face, then the “gobsmacked” face.’
‘Yeah,’ she smiles. ‘Exactly. I want to see those expressions again. Like, a million times more in my lifetime.’
‘Could you do that? Perform in front of people?’ I couldn’t do it. I’d pass out or puke or fall off the stage.
‘I could if I pretended I was somebody else. Like you.’
Kate’s honesty makes me feel like a fraud. After all, I’ve been using her to get back at Jordan, haven’t I? Guilt settles heavy as lead in my chest but I have an idea how to make things okay again. I could help her. I could give her what she wants, if she’s brave enough to go for it.
‘Wait here. I want to show you something,’ I say.
‘Okay.’
She picks up a travel magazine and turns to the pages I’ve marked with sticky notes. I know she’ll wonder why I’ve skipped the ones with glossy photos of pristine beaches and five-star hotel rooms. I’m drawn to the shocking, the obscure places. There’s a picture of a train that just stopped going in the thirties and was abandoned; later a whole town grew around it. A monkey smoking a pipe in a temple. Brown-skinned children splashing in road-ruts deep enough to swim in. An artist by the Seine sketching a faded beauty who’s wearing too much make-up and a dead fox around her shoulders. The artist has drawn her much younger. I wonder if the woman was pleased with his lie, if she ever looked close enough to see he’d given the fox stricken eyes.
I go into the lounge room and rummage through a pile of CDs. Where is it? Mum’s eighties music has found its way to the top of the pile. She’s been feeling nostalgic again. Near the bottom I find what I’m looking for: a compilation mixed by a deejay I know. He does Friday nights at a club Tahnee and I used to go to a lot.
‘Would you like to stay for dinner?’ I call, hoping Kate will say no. Knowing that there’s no such thing as a formal dinnertime in our house. We load our plates, find a corner and watch the telly. Dinner conversation consists of ‘Can I have the sauce?’ and ‘Pass the remote’.
‘Kate?’ No answer. ‘Do you want to stay for…?’
Kate is standing with her hands in her pockets. ‘I have to go.’
‘Look, this is…’
‘I have to get home.’
I hold out the CD but she ignores it. ‘Just have a look, if you…’
‘Bye, Mim.’ She won’t look at me. She leaves through the front door and lets it slam shut behind her.
What the hell is her problem?
Mum comes out of her bedroom and takes up her position on the couch. ‘Kate’s gone?’ She has an unpeeled carrot in one hand, a celery stalk in the other.
‘Obviously.’
‘She seems like a nice girl.’
I snap. ‘Yeah, she’s nice! I could be nice and sweet and talented if I was genetically and geographically blessed, too. She was born a fucking angel. I,’ I poke my chest, ‘have to work at it.’
‘Oooh, haven’t heard you talk dirty in a while. Welcome back, Jemima Dodd,’ Mum smirks. ‘You’ve been gone so long.’
‘Oh, fuck off, Mum,’ I say, smiling too.
I take the CD back into my room and frisbee it onto my bed. It lands next to a pile of cards. Valentine cards.
My breath whooshes out of me. I pick the cards up and open the red one, the very first card I ever sent him. The tacky verse inside makes me cringe.
There’s nothing that I want to do
but look at you all day.
There’s nowhere that I want to be
than in your arms to stay.
There’s no one who could ever want
as much as I want you.
I’m dreaming of that perfect day
when you will want me too.
Signed, Just a girl.
Kate knows about the cards and that it was me who sent them. Why else would she be upset? And now she knows that her new friend has a secret, an ulterior motive and no conscience—except she’s wrong about the conscience part. I have that, at least.
SIXTEEN
Friday morning I wake tired and raw, like all my nerves are exposed. During the night I wrote messages to Tahnee and Kate, but I deleted them all, unsent. A text message has no soul, no matter how many commas you shift.
Mum asks me to go to the shop for bread and milk so I drag myself out of bed. Our truce is fragile but welcome. I know there is greater loneliness than this if I push too far.
I go to get my bike but I can’t stand the sight of it, so I walk. Even the morning heat is fierce and crackling and by the time I leave the shop I’m ready for bed again.
Nobody notices when Brant Welles pulls up next to me at the top of our street. It’s the same car that drove by on Wednesday, the night of the blackout. Low-slung and cat-like. The engine throbs and the exhaust pipe blasts enough heat to contribute to global warming. People keep going about their business. Just another teenage girl talking to a guy in a loud car.
I speed up, clutching my purse and the bag with Mum’s bread and milk.
‘Oh my God, it’s Jemima Dodd,’ he says, like he’s surprised to see me.
He laughs at his own rhyme and flicks a burning butt out of the window. His shoulders are wide and he has Maori tatts down one side of his face and neck. He inches the car forward to keep up with me, then brakes. Another big guy in the passenger side, one I don’t recognise, gets out and pushes the seat forward.
‘Get in,’ Welles orders.
‘No, thanks.’ I have visions of myself, bound in the boot, gagging on a dirty sock.
When I was nine, a twelve-year-old girl called Ashley Cooke disappeared from our street. People remember what she was wearing well enough, from her yellow scrunchie right down to her green Billabong thongs. Someone recalled her buying a Pepsi at the shops. Someone else said they saw her feeding bread to the ducks on the lake. All that detail about before, but nothing about the moment she vanished. Poof. Gone.
I can see how it happens. Nobody is even looking.
‘I’ll scream,’ I say. I sound like I’m being strangled. There’s not enough air.
‘Get in,’ he says again, ‘if you want your stuff back. Oi. Tell her to get in, will you?’
He talks over his shoulder, into the back of the car.
I keep walking, but I hear Jordan’s voice.
‘Get in. You want your stuff, then get in. It’s all right.’
I stop. Again I stop, even as every connection in my brain is firing and popping. The passenger guy grabs me and drags me without effort to the door. I drop the bag and the plastic milk container splits, milk gushing down into the gutter. The accomplice puts his booted foot against my bum and pushes me in. Face first, into Jordan’s lap.
Jordan helps me sit up. ‘Put your belt on,’ he mutters, as if he cares. ‘He drives like a nutter.’
The car takes off and through the tinted windows I see people. People who don’t see me. I could disappear, like Ashley Cooke, and if I’m lucky a few witnesses might report that I bought some bread and milk. In this context, the package doesn’t seem like a priority at all.
‘Where are we going?’ I squeak.
‘Jordy here tells me you want your stuff back.’
‘Yeah,’ I whisper, then clear my throat. ‘Yeah.’
‘What, this stuff?’
He holds up the package. It’s definitely the same one, more or less intact apart from one torn end. I can’t believe he hasn’t sold it all off by now. He must be after something mo
re.
‘What’s so important about this shit? I’m thinking you must want it really bad to start asking around after me.’ Welles slides the car round a corner and I end up back in Jordan’s lap. ‘So, if you want it bad, then what’s in it for me?’
From the front, dirty laughter. Jordan is quiet.
‘You can probably go on to live a healthy, productive life,’ I say.
‘Just cooperate. Do what he says,’ Jordan says, shaking his head.
‘You act tough, but your brothers won’t be around for a while, will they?’ Welles taunts. ‘They’re not going anywhere. Turns out the police have an informant. Someone who knows about their little operation.’
Hot anger mixes with my fear. ‘You watch too many cop shows. They would know it’s you, you cretin.’
I hear Jordan’s breath suck in as the car slams to a stop.
Welles turns and punches wildly over the back of the seat, just missing my head.
‘Jesus! Calm down. She’s just a kid,’ Jordan pleads.
I crouch down behind the seat and curse my big mouth.
Welles grabs a handful of my hair. ‘You’re going to go see Teeney Fucker and tell him that you’re doing a run. You pick up the gear and bring it to me, and if you come back without anything I’m going to make sure your mum gets that phone call, the one where they tell her they found her kid doing the starfish float. Right?’
‘Yes,’ I whisper.
‘What?’
‘Yes,’ I say, louder, then under my breath, ‘Fuck you.’
He pulls my hair until the roots are screaming. ‘You’re about as stupid as your brothers, you know.’
I twist my neck to look at Jordan, but he’s gazing out the window. He drums his thumbs against the seat. I wonder what could be out there that he can look the other way while this Neanderthal separates my head from my spine.
‘I need money,’ I say, when he lets go.
‘What?’
‘I need money. He’s not just going to hand it over. You have to pay. It’s a business transaction.’
‘I never saw any money.’ He sounds unsure.
‘You wouldn’t, because they didn’t trust you. How much stuff do you want?’ I hope this is making sense to him because I have no idea what I’m talking about. My concept of a drug deal comes from fragments of whispered conversations, school gossip and the telly.
‘Just get what you normally get,’ he says.
‘Okay, so I need five grand, up front,’ I lie.
Some little pieces are clicking together in my head. Snap. Like getting the straight edges around a jigsaw. The picture’s still jumbled, but the framework’s there. I can outsmart this tool. I probably can’t outrun him, but I can sure as hell outwit him.
The two in the front have a little conference.
Welles turns back to me. ‘Nah. Money after. I’ll give you the money, and this, when you bring the gear.’ He holds up my package.
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘But he won’t give me the stuff if I don’t pay. Simple.’
He thinks.
‘Shit. Okay. Go see him, sort out the deal. I’ll have the cash by Sunday. Meet me at the lake at two, and if you dick me around again, remember what I said.’
‘Yeah,’ I nod.
‘You go with her,’ he says to Jordan.
‘No way, I want out of this. We’re even.’
‘Go with her. Make sure she doesn’t screw it up,’ Welles orders.
Jordan slumps, crosses his arms over his chest. Sulks, almost.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask.
‘Shut up.’
We’ve been driving for ten minutes, we’re out of the suburbs now, cruising an unfamiliar road. Somewhere in the sticks. There are no houses, only scrubby gums and the occasional hidden driveway. Welles drives fast and the car slingshots around tight bends. Jordan and I lean into each other on the corners, then repel on the straight bits. Empty cans clatter on the floor.
I’m starting to hold too much air. I can breathe in but I can’t breathe out. No exhale. The same thing happens when I speak in public.
‘Are you going to puke?’ Jordan asks.
I nod. That might make them stop. Except that we’re stopping anyway. Welles pulls up in the middle of a slow vehicle turn-out.
The passenger guy flips the seat forward.
‘Have a nice walk, kids,’ Welles says, sneering.
‘It’s forty degrees out there. Are you kidding me?’ Jordan stays in his seat.
I’m out like a shot. I’d rather walk than share air with them. It is possible to feel hate and fear at the same time. There’s room for both.
I start walking, although I have no idea where I’m going.
‘Wait up,’ Jordan calls.
The car takes off, spraying us with gravel and dust.
‘We can probably hitch.’
‘That’s dangerous,’ I say, then realise how stupid it sounds.
If only everything weren’t so extreme. The heat, the brightness, the whole situation. In another life I could almost be happy scuffing along the roadside with him. It’s shady if we stay close to the fences.
‘You must be in a heap of shit over that package,’ he says.
‘How would you know?’
‘Because you’re going to some crazy lengths to get it back. You know what he’s like.’
‘Actually, I don’t. I know he screwed my brothers over, but I’ve only seen him a couple of times and I’ve never met the other guy.’
‘Oh. Well, he’s nuts. They both are. And Feeney won’t deal with them so Welles is getting desperate.’
‘That leaves the question why you deal with them. You don’t seem the type. I thought you were going to uni, be an engineer, or something.’ Oops. Too much information.
He looks at me, hard. ‘I was. I will. Someday. Look, I didn’t have a choice and I’m sorry. I’m helping you now, aren’t I? So, now will you back off from Kate? I did what you wanted.’ He stops me and grabs my arm.
I shrug and push his hand off, start to walk away from him. ‘I like her.’
‘Of course you do. What’s not to like? She’s a sweet kid. She’s good.’ He jogs to catch up.
I face him. ‘Too good for me, you mean. You worried I might rub off?’
He goes red, from heat or embarrassment, I can’t tell.
‘I didn’t say that. You’re just different. Streetwise.
Kate’s not. My parents expect a lot from her.’
He’s nailed it. Nobody expects anything from me. If I finish school I’ll be regarded as some kind of genius. Shit, I might even get a job.
‘Kate’s got her own dreams. She doesn’t need your protection. Not from me, anyway.’ I say.
‘You seem to know a lot about her.’
‘We talk. We’re not all that different, you know.’
He laughs. ‘So why do you hang out with Tahnee if you have so much in common with Kate?’
He says it like Tahnee is nothing and my hackles go up. ‘What do you know about Tahnee?’ It’s so hard not to jump on him. Gouge his eyes out with my fingernails. ‘She’s good, too.’
‘Yeah, I’ve heard about how good she is. Ryan has a big mouth.’
I let out all the breath I’ve been holding in a rush. There’s no telling him. That he doesn’t know anything about me or mine. And goddamn, he’s still gorgeous.
‘Ryan’s not good enough for Tahnee,’ I say.
He gives me a searching look. ‘I hear you.’
‘Why didn’t he just drop us off at Feeney’s?’ I grumble.
‘He’s scared of him, and your family, that’s why.’
‘Scared of him? Feeney’s not scary.’ I think of him with his quaint little mannerisms. I hardly know him, but scary? No. My brothers are scary, if only for their sheer size and their ability to break commandments without breaking a sweat. God must have swapped conscience for brawn when he doled out character to those two. I miss them.
‘Apparently he’s w
ell-connected.’
A truck passes without slowing. In its wake, the vacuum behind it, I hear a siren going off somewhere.
‘We must be close,’ Jordan says. ‘Do you have your phone? Can’t you call someone to pick us up?’
‘I left it at home. I wasn’t exactly planning on getting abducted.’
‘Mine’s out of battery.’
‘Great.’
We trudge along. Jordan walks a little behind me and I’m concentrating so hard on walking normally that I can’t actually do it. I put my hands in my pockets because my arms feel unnatural. A band of sweat is forming under my bra. I feel desperately unattractive and stupid and wonder at how my pathetic paranoia can override everything else.
‘Bingo,’ he says.
I nearly slam into a bus stop.
‘Two-two-three. We can ride it to the interchange.’ He leans up against the post.
I’m grateful for the bus’s screeching arrival. Ten minutes of excruciating silence have passed and in that time I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m probably exactly what he thinks I am. Gawky, underbred, evil.
The realisation that he’s forever out of my league hits hard, but I’m okay with it. I’m not even angry with him any more, just tired and resigned. More than anything I just want to get the package back. I want to return to where it all started and get things right. I wouldn’t stop, he wouldn’t take the package and I would have my dignity and secrets intact.
But he blows it.
He sits next to me on the bus—right next to me—so close we’re swapping heat and that bean of hope starts jumping again.
‘Why are you getting off?’ Jordan asks when I pull the bell.
‘I’m going to Feeney’s,’ I say. ‘Might as well get it over with.’
‘Now?’
‘Relax. He’s just like one of those cuddly little Pekingese. You don’t have to come. I’ll be fine.’
‘It’s not you I’m worried about,’ he says.
Jordan walks with me to Feeney’s and stops a few houses away. He looks nervous, and again I wonder why everyone is so damn scared of Feeney Tucker. He’s just a middle-aged guy with friends in high places and a garden that looks like something from a Dr Seuss book.
I wander up the path between beds of pink pig-face and vicious cacti. I go three rounds with the doorbell, a tinkly tune that reminds me of ballerinas and jewellery boxes. I have the sense I’m being watched.
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