‘Y. Great. Last time I gift you, bitch.’
She smiles. ‘So last Friday, Dunbar left us on our own – he had to go to the staffroom for his afternoon medication break. But it’s cool because there’s only eight of us and we’re all pretty focused. Plus, we love not having a teacher eyeballing us – why can’t they all be high-functioning alcoholics?
‘But this time, Mark – yes, I said Mark – chose to sit next to me. That’s weird because Mark normally sits next to Eden Kyles-Tewolde because she’s the smartest chick in school. I’m good at Maths too but I’d stab my HB through his cock before I gave him my answers, you know?’
I laugh. I know.
‘As soon as Dunbar splits, Mark starts talking to me. First it’s all, what did you get for question eight, why did I even take Specialist Maths, are you going to Truc’s party this weekend, blah blah blah, bullshit bullshit bullshit. I can tell he’s got something he wants to ask me because he never talks to me. So I say, spit it out, Mark, what do you really want to ask? And he’s all like, what, can’t we just have a conversation? So I’m like, no actually, unless you’re keen to explain why you cheated on my best friend. So he gets all sulky and stops talking to me and I’m like, suits me fine because now I can get on with my work. But after five minutes he finally spits it out. Wants to know if I’ve heard from you. She’s my best friend, I tell him, of course I’ve heard from her. And he’s like, well, what’s up with her? Are they going to kick her out? And I’m like, you just saw her the other day and he’s all like, I didn’t really get to talk to her, did I? So I tell him you’ve joined a cult, and he laughs and says, no seriously, and I’m like, seriously, she’s joined this cult and she’s only allowed to wear hessian and they worship a turtle god who carries the world around on his shell and they can only eat peas. Frozen peas. And he looks at me for a second like, really? And I’m like, no, you dick, she still works at her aunt’s kebab shop and if you want to know how she is and if she’ll go out with you then you know where to find her.’
Cara swings back over the railings. When she pops up again her cheeks are flushed with the blood rush. She’s grinning. ‘So the moral of this story is that lover boy still has a thing for you.’
‘Maybe he’s one of those people that get all revved up over criminals.’ I jab at the dirty concrete floor with the tip of my boot. ‘You know, they write letters to people on death row. Maybe he figures I’m a good one to bet on.’
‘Even in Texas you wouldn’t get the death penalty for breaking a dickhead’s nose with a book.’
‘Yemen,’ I say. ‘It’s in the Middle East.’
‘I know where Yemen is. I’m not a total dummy.’
I inspect my rust-stained fingertips. ‘So what about Ava? I thought her and Mark were all Brad and Angelina.’
‘I think they just hook up. Apparently it’s you he’s all happily ever after about.’
‘He cheated.’
‘True. And then he apologised about fifty gazillion times and talked Square-Tits into playing your favourite song over the loud speakers at lunch and wrote you a gag-worthy poem and got all puppy-eyed whenever you walked past. So I guess he tried to win your forgiveness.’
The bricks are cold as I press against them. I frown deeply; Cara watches me with her know-it-all eyes. She’s cat-like in her intensity. The kind of intensity Buttons reserves for his surprise attacks on my bare feet. ‘You think I should forgive him?’
She tilts her head. ‘As if. He’s a bona fide douche. The question is: could you forgive him? I don’t think you know how to forgive.’
‘I take it back – you’re not Nag Girl, you’re Bitch Girl.’
‘Says Queen Bitch-face of the Bitchi-Bitchi tribe of Bitchlandia.’ She blows me a raspberry and then checks her phone. ‘I got to go. School’s almost starting. If I get another detention for being late, Mum will flip. Nepal. Walk me?’
We run up the steps, two at a time.
‘I’m not really allowed near the school.’
‘So wear a hessian bag over your head. People already think you’re in a cult that only wears hessian. It’s karma. No, I mean fortuitous. Do I mean fortuitous?’
My phone vibrates. ‘Wait up.’ I hang back a couple of steps from the top. The screen is cold against my ear. ‘Yeah?’
‘That shit turned up?’
Ugh. Bill Green.
Cara waits at the top of the stairs, looking down at me. Her dress is so short I’ve got a good view of her pink knickers from here. She motions for me to hang up.
‘How much does he owe you, Bill?’
‘He’s my son. I’m concerned about his welfare.’
‘Oh yeah, you sound all broken up.’
‘You’d be all broken up if someone stole your credit card and maxed it out at some bloody record store you’d never heard of.’
And there it is. A hot, niggling sensation deep in my chest. The same feeling I got when I hid beneath the cubby house eating Gregory Vu’s lunch because he’d laughed at me for being relegated to the stupid table in Maths. He deserved it, but those spring rolls sure tasted bitter.
I grip the railing. ‘Record store? You mean Vinyl Underground?’
‘How’d you know that?’
Shit, shit, shit, shit.
Cara is giving me big eyes and even bigger hang-up-the-phone charades. I wave at her in a way I hope approximates ‘I’m coming – take a chill pill’. She gives me the finger.
I hold a hand over my mouth and the phone, and turn away. ‘I just . . . I mean, when you say “maxed out” you mean . . . ?’
‘Four and a half.’
Shit. ‘Hundred?’
‘Try thousand, little girl. So you can tell that shit-for-brains kid of mine I’m going to wring his bloody neck when I see him. And he’ll be paying me back every cent.’
Beep.
I stare at my phone, chest and throat burning.
I think there’s another c-word I might be about to use.
‘Who was –?’
‘Latvia.’ I wonder if my face is as flushed as it feels. I hurry up the last couple of steps.
I mean, holy shit just doesn’t cover it.
Cara wiggles her eyebrows at me. ‘Latvia? That’s an expensive call.’
I give her a weak smile.
FOUR AND A HALF THOUSAND? Did he mean Australian dollars or some foreign currency where four and a half thousand is equivalent to five cents? Now I want to take a sledge hammer to my brain and punish it for being stupid enough to think Xavier was an innocent kid who’d been led astray by mean old Shia LaBeouf.
Four and a half thousand.
That’s an overseas holiday.
That’s two MacBook Pros.
That’s a whole wardrobe of fancy clothes with change left over for about a hundred churros.
That’s Juliet Vega.
‘Are you listening?’ Cara tugs on my arm. ‘I’m going to be late. Do you want me to get a detention? Oh, and Algeria.’
I let her pull me along but I can’t even fake a smile right now.
I’ve got four and a half thousand reasons why not.
I’m not talking to Xavier. If I was, I’d tell him what a dickhead he is. Stealing his dad’s credit card to buy me a gift I don’t need, then shoving me against a dumpster and walking away with that smug bastard Nate instead of dropping to his knees and begging me for forgiveness.
I am not speaking to the thieving little bastard, but if I was I’d tell him he can forget about his free kebab. He can forget about me, about dumplings, about a total musical overhaul. He can rot in musical purgatory for all I care.
I slam the door to my room; it rattles in the frame as I collapse onto the bed.
I am not speaking to him. Ever.
I am going to focus on sorting out my own shitty mess: it’s going to be homework every night and I’m going to volunteer for a charity or read to sick kids or something. And I’m going to be a good niece and do the laundry like Vinnie asked (demanded). I’
m not going to spend another second searching through the bins looking for that stupid, ridiculously expensive record because a) someone has definitely stolen it and b) bins are gross.
I slide my phone out of my back pocket: no new messages. Seven unplayed messages.
I might have something to say to Xavier if he left me four and a half thousand messages, but he hasn’t called for the past two days. Not even after my more-than-helpful stay-away-from-Smith-Street warning text.
I curl onto my side and squash the pillow under my head. I let out an angry sigh.
What is it with Vegas and monumental mistakes? Shakespearean nose-breaking, armed robbery, stealing, drug addiction and dumping your kids, marrying the wrong guy (three times). Robbing your dad to buy a gift for a girl you just met because . . . I don’t even know why.
Why?
I roll onto my back and glare at the star stickers all over my roof. They’re not glowing – it’s daytime – but I can see the outlines and they’re pissing me off. So cheery and pretty and meaningful. Stars – I hate the bastards.
Screw this.
I push up to seated and stare at the floordrobe that is my room. No wonder Vinnie threatened me with extreme physical violence if I didn’t get my laundry done pronto.
I slide down the edge of the bed and onto the carpet, and when I’m on my arse I start dragging clothes toward me. Sniff-test time. I get four pairs of socks, a t-shirt and one pair of jeans into sorting before my mind drifts. Four and a half thousand. Why hasn’t he called? Vinnie’s going to kill me if I get expelled. Yuck, this jumper stinks. I’m starved. Four and a half thousand. Wish I’d kicked LaBeouf. What if Cara finds a new BFF because I’m not around enough? Four and a half – but why? Why steal for me?
Of course, I could just listen to his voice messages. I’m not going to call him back so there’s no harm in listening to the little shit’s grovelling messages, is there? Besides, if he’s got an explanation, then I’d like to hear it.
I could do with the laugh.
I wedge the phone between my shoulder and ear, freeing my hands for laundry duty. ‘You have seven new messages,’ says the message-bank lady in her robotic tone. ‘Message received on the tenth at one-seventeen pm.’
How do you get to be the lady who does these stupid voice recordings? Easiest job in the world. Just talk slowly and put a weird emphasis on every fifth word. I really want that job.
‘Frankie?’ Xavier sounds like he’s outside. Like he’s in a wind tunnel or something. ‘I’m sorry, okay? Call me back. I’ll tell you everything.’
Beep.
The robot lady intros the next message. Four hours after the first one.
‘Frankie? Did you get my message? I know you’re mad but call me back.’
Beep.
I’m not getting an overwhelming sense of pity for the guy. Where’s the poetry? The badly sung forgive-me ballads? The I-have-so-much-grovelling-to-do-I’m-going-to-get-cut-off-trying-to-leave-it-all-in-one-mess– beeeeeep.
The next three are pretty much the same. ‘I’m sorry. Call me back.’ ‘Me again. Please call me back.’ ‘Frankie? Call me back. Please.’
I close my fist around the t-shirt in my hand. Is it light or dark washing? Does it matter?
The sixth message starts with a heap of background noise. Lots of voices. Shouting, swearing, laughing. Someone is singing the blues.
‘Frankie,’ he says, voice covered with static. ‘I messed up, hey. But it’s not my fault.’ He breathes heavily, like he’s moving. A door closes and suddenly it’s quiet. ‘I owe money. Heaps, but I’m going to pay it back. I’m not bad. Swear it. I don’t do really bad things. Sometimes you’ve got to make a choice though, hey. To fix things.’
I look down at the t-shirt in my hand. It’s black so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know which pile to dump it in. I let my head roll back, still gripping the damn t-shirt.
‘I’m really in the shit, hey. I don’t even know if you’re listening to these messages. Maybe you’re just deleting them. Maybe you’ve written me off. Don’t blame you if you have. But I’m going to make it up to you. You’ll see. I’ve got a plan. Don’t give up on me, hey.’
Beep.
I toss the t-shirt across the room. The phone is getting hot against my ear. Clammy.
‘Message received yesterday at nine-ten am.’
I chew on my thumbnail, my legs jiggling. Xavier’s voice kicks in. No blues this time but he sounds breathless. Like he’s been running.
‘I did it, Frankie. I got the money.’ He sounds like a kid at four am Christmas morning. ‘And it was easy too. Can’t believe I didn’t think of it already. Dickhead won’t even know what’s hit him. I’m going to pay back Dad and sort out some other stuff and there’ll even be some left over. I can get that record player, hey. Legit. We can listen to the vinyl and maybe I’ll let you change my mind about Brian Curtis.’ He laughs. I hold a hand over my chest, gripping the fabric over my heart.
‘I fixed everything,’ he says. ‘I told you I would. So call me back. I’ll be at Dad’s for the next bit but anytime after, hey. I’ll wait.’
Beep.
I drop the phone into my lap. I don’t need to replay the message because it’s seared into my brain, on a loop. ‘I got the money. Dickhead won’t even know what’s hit him. There’ll even be some left over. I fixed everything.’
I’m sitting there with four and a half thousand questions burning a hole in my brain, chief of which is how do you make five grand or more in under a day? Short of doing something very illegal, something very bad.
I close my eyes, cover my face with my hands. A familiar mix of dread, fear and shame burns in my chest – I haven’t felt it for, oh, I don’t know, say fourteen years?
Hell, Xavier, what have you done?
__________
There’s the rotting carcass of a Commodore in the front yard of Bill Green’s house, the only B Green in the phone book living in Reservoir. Long grass grows around and up through the rusted heap. I hover by the front gate – wrought iron, painted undercoat-pink. Why couldn’t Xavier have just answered his damn phone? I’m way out of my natural habitat here and it’s not like I even owe the kid but . . .
There’s always a ‘but’, isn’t there? The same ‘but’ that used to keep me pressed to the window, heart in my throat, waiting for Juliet to come home.
Anger and worry all mixed up.
Next door to Bill’s house, an old lady dressed in black is leaning against her low brick fence. Her garden is a slab of concrete. She stares at me.
‘Do you know Bill Green?’ I ask.
She straightens and steps back, shaking her head. ‘Non mi parlare. Io non so niente.’
Italian – damn it. I look around but there’s no one else on the street. ‘Is he in? Conosci l’uomo che abita qui? Sai se c’è?’
She waves her hands at me, a black lace handkerchief in one hand, and yells, ‘Che alleva un cobra muore avvelenato. Aiutati che Dio t’aiuta.’ She flicks the handkerchief at me several times before the rant lets up.
And here was me thinking they broke the mould after Nonna Sofia.
‘I’ll just knock.’ I push the gate as far open as it will go. Which isn’t far at all.
I squeeze through the tiny gap and into the front yard. I try walking on the surviving chunks of concrete path and it’s like I’m jumping from rock to rock in a river. Almost fun.
The old lady in black watches me with narrowed eyes, emitting a quiet hum of disapproval.
I make the front porch with an impressive leap. When I land, I teeter but manage not to fall on my arse. I look back at the lady but instead of applauding me she starts ranting again. Some people are hard to please.
I step up to the front door but the glass panels are impossible to see through – bevelled and covered in prehistoric cobwebs.
I bash my fist on the frame and wait.
Four knocks later there’s a lot of banging and thudding from inside and eventually
I see the outline of a figure nearing the door. When it opens I get a flash of something big, hairy and almost naked.
‘Un cobra!’ shouts the old lady. ‘Che alleva un cobra muore avvelenato!’
The big almost-naked hairy guy pushes past me and spits on the ground. ‘Fuck off back to Greece,’ he shouts. Same voice as on the phone.
The old lady crosses herself. Bill Green gives her the finger. ‘Stupid old bitch,’ he says.
My shoulder clips the wall as he pushes me aside again. ‘Excuse me?’
He pauses in the doorway and deigns to look at me. I rub my shoulder and glare back.
Xavier’s dad is wearing blue y-fronts. And that’s it. He’s got a heap of bad tattoos, scars and coarse hair all over his body. I think he’s part yeti. I also think, and this is the jaw-dropping part, that he’s the thin-haired guy. The guy from the Children’s Farm. The guy Juliet was dating when she dumped me.
He’s fatter and has next-to-no hair on his head now. But there’s a lump in my throat and a quickening of my heartbeat to confirm it.
This prick was more appealing to my mother than me. She dumped me so she could run off with this guy.
He adjusts his y-fronts. ‘It’s not my birthday,’ he says with a gap-toothed smile.
‘Frankie Vega,’ I say. His smile vanishes pronto; hey, I’m a magician.
His eyes are red-rimmed and cloudy, like somebody ran a hot bath in his head and steamed them up. He peers at me a little closer and I get the feeling I’m only just coming into his vision now.
He nods. ‘Yeah. I remember,’ he says. ‘You’ve grown but you’re the same. Still look like you just sucked on a lemon.’
What a touching reunion. Somebody call Oprah.
‘What do you want anyway?’
‘I want to see Xavier.’
‘The little shit’s not here. I called you this morning, didn’t I? Told you I was looking for him.’
He grabs hold of the door, ready to slam it in my face.
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