by Andrew Daddo
We’d definitely lost her to the other side. If there’d been a shop selling kaftans, she would have bought one.
When we got home I wanted to hug the TV. I wanted to kiss the remote and cuddle the Xbox and couldn’t choose what I should spend some special time with first: the iPod or the computer. I ran to the pantry and wanted to raid it. I rubbed my fingers across the Coco Pops box and whispered, ‘See you in the morning.’ Kylie muscled in next to me and looked as if she was sweet on the peanut butter.
Mum said if we were hungry, we could eat an apple.
I was almost asleep when the beeping started. I thought it was another one of those bizarre dreams I’d been having. I was flying a plane that was falling from the sky in a terminal descent. The warning buzzer sounded worse than any impact might be. Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep. But it wasn’t a dream. It was the message bank on Mum and Dad’s mobile phones.
Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Over and over.
And then the doing doing doing of incoming email. ‘How long have we been away?’ said Dad. ‘Sheesh. I’ve got 38 voice messages and 411 emails. My God!’ Beep-beep. Beep-beep. ‘40 voice messages. Something must have happened. Something big.’
‘I’m not listening to mine. I’m on holiday until this is over!’ Mum sounded like she meant it.
But nothing had happened. While we were at the Spiritual Health and Wellness Centre the sun had continued to rise, and set. Every day still had twenty-four hours and all the gossip magazines had the same stories in them with different pictures.
I crashed.
Before I woke up there were no landless streams, no flying fish, no muffin tops covered in maggots or seagulls or poppy seeds in a big circle calling me into the landing zone. There was nothing. I just woke up. I opened my eyes and saw the poster of my footy team on the ceiling above me. My fish, Fighter, was doing laps of his tank beside me and I knew my toys were stuffed under the bed below me, with dirty socks and jocks and all kinds of other stuff I couldn’t bear to think about because the time was coming for a Mum-supervised-under-the-bed-clean-out.
No yoga. I could watch the music videos on TV. Coco Pops with warm milk. Things were looking up.
I sat in front of the TV and turned on the music channel. My legs were crossed, my back straight. Some boy band was doing a song about ‘givin sumfink to sumbody’s dumb-body cos dis body’s lovin ya body know what I mean bobby, baby!’ I closed my eyes and listened. ‘Wiggadah waggedah homeboy’s body fought sumfink about dumb-one was a homerun. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!’
So I listened to my breathing instead. In, out. In. Out. Shoulders up, back straight. Shoulders down and exhale. Nice.
‘You are NOT doing yoga!’ Kylie scared the serenity out of me.
I jumped. ‘Course not! I was just –’ But I couldn’t think what it looked like I might be doing.
‘You were doing your yoga warm-up. If I’d waited half a minute you would have been on your stomach and then pressed up into a Downward-facing Dog. Did you see how high I got mine?’ She lay on her stomach and pressed her body into position. Her bum was high in the air, her hands and feet inched towards each other. She was good at it.
‘Nice,’ I said. I wanted to push her over, but waited until she was done. ‘Have you seen the Barking, Downward-facing Dog?’
‘There’s no such thing.’
‘Is so. Lotus told me about it. But you can’t see it from there. You’ll have to stand behind me. There.’ I pointed at a spot behind me and off to one side. ‘Stand there.’ I couldn’t believe it: she did it. She had her hands on her hips, a sign she was ready to be a non-believer, but she was waiting. I carried on a bit with some deep breathing – not Aztec, but not bad.
‘Get on with it.’
‘I’m working up to it. Trust me.’ I pushed my butt high into the air. My legs and arms were straight. I inched them together slowly and carefully so I didn’t topple.
‘That’s just a normal Downward-facing Dog.’
‘Come closer,’ I whispered.
‘What?’
‘Come. Closer.’
She did.
‘You ready?’
‘Der.’
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp! What a beauty. It Would have copped her fair in the face. ‘Barking, Downward-facing Dog! Get it?’ The pain from the punch in the back was worth it.
After breakfast Mum took us to the mall, but Dad didn’t come. Even though it was a Saturday, he had to go to work. He said he had to deal with things that were more important than shopping. ‘I’m happy to dip into the old stuff, honey. Did you notice that denim shorts are back? And Superman t-shirts?’
‘And I’ll bet I know who still has his originals,’ Mum said. Dad nodded as if it was a good thing. ‘And the shorts are flared, too, aren’t they? Cool!’
Anyway, the rest of us went shopping for the ‘after’ photo. That is, Mum went shopping and we watched. But later, when she thought she’d finished, Kylie and I got to do our bit of shopping, too. Kylie got a rah-rah skirt, a top, the world’s widest belt and a pair of jeans that hung off her butt in a way that made her look as if she didn’t have one.
When it was my turn, Mum tried to talk me out of buying real Billabong stuff, because it was more expensive than she’d expected. I said I thought the paper was paying, so what did it matter? But Mum said they were only covering the Wellness Centre; not what it took to look well.
‘But you bought Kylie real Diesel jeans!’ I knew there was no way Mum would have got those if Dad had been here. Mum sucked it up and I got the jeans, cap and three t-shirts I was after. I might have been able to talk my way into a new surfboard if Dad hadn’t called and said the bank had been monitoring their account and wanted to know what the heck was going on. Had someone stolen the credit card or what?
Mum set him straight by saying it was part of the deal she and Dad had made with Kylie and me. I’m pretty sure Dad said that Mum’d made the deal, not him, because she barked something about the two of them being a team, then walked off towards the Sunglasses Hut. She was wearing a pair that covered the top half of her face when she came back, and even though they were massive and dark I could tell there was a puff and a tear behind them.
When we arrived home, Mum said to leave her bags in the boot of the car.
As soon as we got inside, Kylie was on the phone. When she finally hung up she looked as if she needed some big dark sunnies as well. Her cheeks were wet, her eyes red. Both Mum and Dad tried to find out what was wrong. ‘What, Kylie? What? Has something happened?’
‘Is it school?’
‘A boyfriend?’
‘She doesn’t have a boyfriend.’
‘She does so.’
‘She bloody-well doesn’t! Do you? Did your boyfriend do something? Who is he? I’ll let him have it!’
‘He’s a nice boy!’
‘What’s his name?’
‘I don’t have a boyfriend,’ wailed Kylie.
‘So what’s the problem?’ said Mum. ‘Why are you so upset? It’s a boy band, isn’t it! When Robbie Williams left Take That I was devastated. Has someone left your favourite band? I’ve been through it, honey. It’ll help to talk, you know. We could play the CD if you want. What is it, babe?’
Through tears, sobs and a bit of slobber, Kylie said, ‘It’s Lefty.’
‘Who?’
‘Lefty. From my favourite TV show.’
Dad looked at Mum, who mouthed back, ‘He’s hot. She loves him.’
‘Lefty, is it?’ said Dad.
‘Uh-huh! Well, while we were away, he got voted off Dancing with the Stars.’
‘That’s okay, love. It’s not your fault that he couldn’t dance.’
‘But you don’t understand,’ she moaned. ‘If I’d been here I could have voted. I could have saved him.’
24
Mum was on a deadline.
I checked my look before I got in the car. We were headed back to Leroy Stretch’s studio for the ‘after’ photo: an
d I wasn’t the only one scoping myself out. It was as if the whole family had some sort of phobia about dragging themselves away from their reflections. I was looking at myself in one car window, Kylie in another. Mum had the sun visor down and was doing facial exercises in the make-up mirror and Dad was pretending to lock up, but was really ogling himself in the window by the front door.
And we weren’t all totally on ourselves, either. I think that we’d only just figured out what was happening. At the start it had been a bit of a joke; we thought we were going to be the new Coke family. But now we knew we were going to be the after family.
Same family, of course, only now we were supposed to be different. Were we supposed to be better? That was the way it felt.
One by one, Mum had pulled us aside and asked us what we thought about the whole thing. ‘Do you feel well?’ she said to me as she waved a tape recorder in front of my face.
‘What?’ I said. ‘Do I feel well about what?’
‘About you?’ she said. ‘After the Wellness – you know?’ As she nodded, she thrust the tape recorder even closer to my mouth. It stopped my mouth working, which was kind of lucky, because I didn’t have much of an answer, anyway.
About the same time we were taught table manners, Mum or Dad had taught us hello manners and goodbye manners, mainly for our grandparents. So when Grandma croaked at us, ‘How are you?’ we’d say we were well, even if we weren’t. What we couldn’t say was ‘good.’ I still don’t know why, but ‘good’ was not an answer to ‘How are you?’ ‘Well,’ was. So when Mum asked if I felt well, I wasn’t sure if the answer was still well. ‘You have a think about it, okay? It’s for the feature. If you can’t think of anything, I might be able to think of something for you. How about that? I’ll tell you what you thought about it, and if you think I’m right, that’s what we’ll say. What do you think, Ash?’
‘Well–’
‘Good.’ She smiled.
I wasn’t the only one to wear all my new clothes back to the studio. Kylie was in her rah-rah and Mum was in a pair of jeans that just covered her hips. I’m not sure if there was another name for jeans like hers. They looked lower than hipsters, but how you’d say that was anyone’s guess. Even though Mum had begged him not to, Dad wore genuine flared denim shorts and his Superman t-shirt. He looked daggy, as if he was trying too hard to be ‘now.’ The leather sandals might have been the kicker. He should have worn thongs. Maybe when the Superman t-shirt and flared denim shorts were in, sandals had been in too. But it was thongs now, the scungy rubber kind. And no flares.
‘It’s a very retro look,’ Dad said. ‘And retro is now.’
Dad the dag.
Candy was watering the garden out the front of the church when we arrived. There were the expected ‘Oh my God’s and ‘Youse look fabulous, darling’s. But when she said, ‘Does it work?’ to Dad, I got the feeling she really meant it.
‘What’s that?’ said Dad, making sure the crease ironed into his shorts was running down the middle of his thigh.
‘The Superman t-shirt. Does it work? I’ve got a friend who swears by hers. She says that whenever she wears it she feels like she’s got super powers. She gets whatever she wants. It’s amazing.’
‘Does she look anything like you?’ said Dad.
‘Kind of.’ Candy was puzzled. ‘Only she’s dark haired and, ah, bigger. You know?’ She waved her hands around her chest.
‘I think I know what you mean,’ said Dad. ‘I think I can see how a Superman t-shirt might work for her. Maybe the same way it might work for me.’ Dad cocked an eyebrow, snarled, sucked up all the available air and posed, with his hands on his hips. No, I thought. The t-shirt ain’t working!
Mum air-kissed and hugged Leroy. ‘Hello, Marnie,’ he said. ‘How was it? Are you okay? I’ve heard those places can be hell.’
‘It was great. Really.’ Mum stuck her arms out wide and did a spin for him. Look at me, look at me!
‘We’d better get you inside and photographed before it all slips down again,’ he said.
‘Very funny.’ Mum giggled as she looked at Leroy through her fringe. She’d only got that this morning. Her hair was straighter, shorter and lighter. When she came home I thought she looked like someone else’s mum.
‘Hilarious.’ Leroy had barely cracked a smile. ‘Let’s do it. These are the “after” shots, right. We’ll do them first!’
‘You’re a card, Leroy.’ Mum grinned.
If he thought it was funny too, he didn’t show it. ‘Come on, we’ve got stacks to do. Get a wriggle on, team.’
So we did.
It was the same gig as last time – only Leroy changed the background to a slightly different colour. ‘It’s almost the same,’ he explained after I’d asked why we weren’t using the Coke-froth colour. ‘But this is warmer. The colour’s juxtaposed with your skin tones. It’s, ah –’ I must have been looking like I didn’t understand, because he winked and said, ‘It’s just better, mate. Trust me.’
Candy gave me a tan that I hadn’t had half an hour before. She messed my hair until it looked done and even told me where to wear my jeans so they looked cool. ‘You haven’t got another t-shirt, have you?’ she said, tilting her head to one side.
‘Why?’ I said. This was my new one. It was dark brown with the word ‘Jellyfish’ splashed across the front in huge, loopy, pink letters. ‘This is the gear, my man,’ said the guy in the shop who sold it to me. He was wearing one, too. This guy was pretty cool. He had sideburns, a mangy, mullety hairstyle and a tattoo on the inside of his arm all the way from his wrist to his armpit.
‘You like my tatt?’ he said.
‘It’s sick.’
‘Yeah? Want to touch it?’
‘Let’s go,’ barked Mum.
Candy took a step back and asked me to stand up. ‘You sure you don’t have another t-shirt?’
‘Do I have another t-shirt, Mum?’ I yelled across the studio.
I couldn’t hear her suck her teeth, but I saw it. Then she screwed her face up as if someone near her had made a disgusting smell. ‘Ashton –’
I shook my head at Candy. ‘No. I don’t. But this one’s brand new. What’s wrong with it?’
‘Nothing, really. It’s just a bit –’
‘You don’t like the pink writing. Is “Jellyfish” dumb?’
‘No. It’s not that.’
‘The colour? That mullet-headed idiot said this was the new black!’
‘No. It’s, um. It’s too big.’
‘Too big?’
‘I can’t see your action, bud. Maybe if I bulldog it. That’ll work.’ Candy scragged around in her bag and pulled out a couple of big black bulldog clips: the kind you use for a big wad of papers, not just a couple of sheets. ‘Turn around.’ She had me face the mirror and she pulled my t-shirt tighter. ‘How’s that: tighter? I think that’s pretty good. I can see your guns, and your tanks.’
‘My tanks?’
‘Your chest. You’re in good shape – why would you want to hide it in a big baggy t-shirt?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought one week away would make any difference.’
‘What are you talking about?’ she said. ‘It hasn’t made any difference at all. Not to you. You look exactly the same. You’re what – thirteen?’
‘Eleven,’ I gushed. I’d been over-aged twice in a week!
‘Dude! You looked great for the “before” shot. It was a shame we had to pretend you didn’t by putting you in those really tight clothes. A stick insect would’ve looked shocking in that get-up. It’s the same for your sister. Youse two don’t have any worries at all.’
‘Really?’
‘Ashton,’ she clucked. ‘Have a look at yourself.’
She spun me back to the mirror.
The t-shirt was snug, not tight. My jeans were balanced on my hips as if they might slip, but didn’t. Was this make-up lady magic, or had I grown? She smoothed the sides of the t-shirt and made the front just a bit messy. A bit up
and a bit down. I was never going to remember how she did it. Then she put her face next to mine and looked at me in the mirror. I think she was impressed. ‘Pretty good, huh?’
‘I guess,’ I said.
‘Don’t forget to flex your guns for the camera. But Leroy will tell you that. He loves guns.’ When Candy talked to me it was as if there was no one else around. She didn’t look about at other people or anything. When she was with me, she was with me. She made me laugh a bit, and she laughed a lot at the things I told her. ‘Better send your Dad over, stud muffin. He does need work.’
I went over to Mum and Kylie. They gave me a woo-hoo. Even Kylie.
‘Woo-hoo, youse too!’ I said. Mum smiled, but rolled her eyes. Sometimes she forgot ‘youse’ was a joke. But they deserved all the woo-hoos they got. Candy had painted them with her magic brush as well.
Leroy put us in the middle of the backdrop and started fiddling about with his light meter. Blap! Blap! went the flash, again.
‘How’s Larry the Light Meter?’ I said, slipping my knuckles under my biceps. You could never have your guns ready too soon.
‘Larry’s dead,’ said Leroy. ‘But you knew that, already. This is just an ordinary light meter. And it works.’ He called for Candy to send Dad over. ‘Let’s go, Candy. Lots to do.’
‘How would I have known Larry the Light Meter was dead?’
‘Pardon, me?’
Mum shook her head. ‘Yeah, Leroy. How would Ash have known your light meter died?’
Leroy was fussing with his camera. ‘You would have told him, wouldn’t you? Didn’t you tell them?’
‘Didn’t I tell them your light meter was dead? How would I know that?’
‘Now you’re being funny and I like it. “Funny, Marnie” – kind of rhymes. Candy!’
It was Mum’s turn to fold her arms across her chest, but she wasn’t trying to push her biceps out. She was getting aggro. ‘Leroy, why would I know about your light meter?’
The camera made a whirring noise as the film self-loaded. It was so old fashioned I wanted to have a look at it. ‘You would have known because you would have got at least one of the messages I left for you on your mobile. Or the email?’ He was squinting. ‘Those were the messages that said there was a problem with the film because my stupid light meter had a brain fart and stopped working, even though it looked as if it hadn’t. I think I made that clear in the message. I said, “Larry looked as if he was working. But he wasn’t.” It was the message where I said we had to redo the “before” shots. That message, right? I think I swore a lot when I left it. You’d remember. I didn’t actually call it a stupid light meter.’