‘Would you hit me if I did this?’ He leans forward, nose gently brushing my cheek.
I tilt my head toward his. ‘Maybe.’
He laughs. His lips pause against my skin.
‘You’re not going to kiss me again, are you?’ We’re so close that when I speak my lips brush his chin. It’s weird how you don’t know how much you want something until it’s right there in front of you, centimetres away.
‘I was thinking about it,’ he says. He grips me around the waist and pulls me closer.
‘Is it just to shut me up?’
‘Partly.’
‘What’s the other part?’
He lowers his head, and . . .
My phone rings.
Shit.
He steps back to give me enough room to squeeze my hand into my jeans. He clears his throat.
‘It’s not me,’ I say. ‘It’s my phone.’
I don’t recognise the number. Bill Green. Or Marzoli.
Either way, it’s too early for a call. A tremor runs through my chest: it could be good news. Or very, very bad news.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Sorry, Nate. Only be a sec.’ I press the phone to my ear. ‘What?’
‘That’s rude.’ It’s a girl.
‘Sorry, no. I thought you were – Do I know you?’
The voice on the other end pauses. She exhales loudly. ‘You’re looking for Xavier.’
‘Maybe. Who are you?’
‘Who are you?’
Nate gives me an eyebrow raise and for the first time I don’t want to slap him for it. Well, not completely.
I go back to the phone. ‘If you don’t tell me your name, I’m hanging up.’
Nate reaches out, his fingers brushing my hips. Maybe I’ll hang up anyway.
‘Fine,’ says the girl. ‘But I saw your poster. Thought you’d care.’
Nate squeezes the tips of his fingers into my waistband and draws me closer. ‘Get off the phone,’ he says.
‘I do care.’
‘I know you do,’ says Nate.
‘Shut up.’
‘You’re so rude,’ says the girl.
‘No, not you shut up. Him shut up.’
‘Who?’
I push Nate away.
‘I’m Xavier’s sister, okay? I am looking for him. What do you know?’
‘Shit. Hang on.’ There’s rustling, heavy breathing and movement. A door closes. ‘Sorry. Mum just got up. I have to go.’
‘Wait –’
‘Meet me at Bellini’s.’ Her voice is harried, whispered. ‘Eight am.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Reenie.’ Another door closes and her voice drops even lower. ‘I’m his girlfriend.’ Her voice catches. ‘I mean, I was his girlfriend.’
‘But –’
She hangs up.
‘What’s this chick look like?’ Nate’s hair falls across his face as he inspects his boots.
I shrug, too preoccupied with maintaining a sane exterior to answer. It’s peak hour in my head: thoughts, memories and freak-outs zooming about. I keep checking the time, thinking about Vinnie and the note I should have left for her, worrying about Cara never speaking to me again, angsting about Steve Sparrow’s broken nose, about being late for a meeting that will decide my future and why Reenie corrected her tense from present to past. But what’s really holding up traffic is the kiss. That kiss.
I look away when Nate catches me staring and I suddenly can’t stop looking at a tram rambling past. Seriously, it’s the most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen because, you know, living in Melbourne means I hardly ever see a tram.
The tram’s brakes screech and the bell dings as a four-wheel drive turns in front of it. I hope no one inside took a tumble – then again it’s the 86 and probably full of hipsters. They’ll land softly on their beards.
‘So how are we going to know which one is her?’ Nate asks.
I cup my hands and peer through Bellini’s window. It’s gloomy: lots of wood, maroon walls, low lighting and taxidermy animals popping up in queer places. Like a meerkat holding the tip jar. ‘I think she might be the girl in school uniform sitting on her own.’
Nate peers through the window, his breath huffing up the glass, shoulder brushing against me. He jerks back, grabbing my arm.
Maybe the guy doesn’t like meerkats.
‘Your school meeting’s in an hour, Frankie,’ he says. ‘You don’t have time for this.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a bad idea. I can get you to school. I‘ll steal a car.’
‘Speaking of bad ideas.’
‘Seriously.’
‘I know. Seriously.’
He looks at me. Pleads with his eyes.
‘What the hell’s gotten into you?’
He frowns at Bellini’s window. The guy has a meerkat phobia.
‘I’m just . . . I don’t know. You don’t need me here, do you?’
‘Need you? Hell no.’ I pull him with me toward the front door of Bellini’s. He digs his heels in but whatever last-minute freak-out he’s experiencing is no match for Stubborn Frankie. ‘I’ll keep it super quick. And I won’t even throw a welder at her.’
I only score a grimace as he pushes open the door, waiting for me to scoot in under his arm. ‘Five minutes? Promise?’
‘Relax.’
As soon as we get inside he grabs my hand and squeezes. His eyes are earnest. ‘Are you sure this is important? This could stuff up your chance at school.’
‘Have you been having secret meetings with Vinnie?’
A guy, about twenty, shoves a couple of menus under our noses. ‘Two?’ he says, somehow making a three-letter word drag on for a whole minute.
I point to Reenie, tucked in the back corner. A dead fox prowls the shelf behind her head. ‘We’re with her.’
Nate swats the menus away.
‘Two coffees,’ I say.
‘What kind?’
‘The coffee kind.’
I push Nate toward Reenie and the fox; she watches us approach from beneath false lashes.
I should be nervous about meeting this girl – about the things she has to tell me – but all I can think is: how the hell did my brother land her?
Plump, black-skinned, hair shaved close to her head, full-lips and a high forehead. I swear I’ve seen her in a fashion magazine. She’s gorgeous.
I stumble to a halt in front of the table. Her look says, ‘Yeah, and?’
‘You Reenie?’
The seat across from her slides out as she kicks it. ‘I was supposed to be at school five minutes ago.’
‘So was I.’ I try smiling as I sit opposite her but it feels like my face might crack. Nate drags a chair from another table with a screech, a thud and a scowl.
‘So what did you have to tell me?’ I lean on the table and regret it instantly – the surface is sticky.
Reenie spoons sugar into her coffee. ‘Sorry, who are you?’
‘I’m Xavier’s sister. Like I already said.’ God I wish that fox would stop grinning at me from behind her head.
‘Not you.’ She points her spoon at Nate. ‘Him.’
He clears his throat, eyes on the coaster he’s twirling under his thumb. ‘Nate.’
‘That’s a shit name.’
The waiter arrives with two long blacks, plonking them on the table in front of me and Nate. ‘Your coffee,’ he says, putting the ‘aggressive’ into ‘passive-aggressive’.
Reenie leans forward. ‘Xavier owes people money. I don’t want to dump him in it.’
At least she said ‘owes’ not ‘owed’. I take an angry sip of coffee. Or is it black sludge? ‘I know he did. But I only met him three times and I’m too poor to lend anyone money.’
‘Then you’re lucky,’ she says. ‘God that’s gross.’ She spoons three more sugars into her coffee, bashing the side of the cup as she stirs. ‘He owed me shitloads. That’s why we broke up.’
I check the time. ‘So this info you have on Xavi
er . . .’
‘You don’t look like him.’
‘We only share a mother. And we never actually shared her. He hogged her.’ My phone vibrates against my thigh. ‘Sorry.’ I pull it out and reject the call without even daring to acknowledge the name flashing on the screen. Ten past eight.
‘Do you know something about Xavier or not?’
Nate leans into me, whispers in my ear. ‘We can just go.’
‘Wait a second,’ says Reenie. ‘How did you know him?’
Nate suddenly only has eyes for the big-screen TV on the back wall. There’s a soccer match on so maybe he’s into sports. Or maybe he’s casing the joint. ‘We robbed a few flats together. Well, I did the robbing; he was the lookout. Did a shit job of it too.’
I kick him under the table. Why is he being a jerk all of a sudden? I mean, why is he back to being a jerk?
Reenie narrows her eyes. ‘Did you say your name was Nate?’
He points at the TV. ‘Did you see that? Fucking offside. Bullshit.’
I unstick my forearms from the table and lean forward. ‘You said you know something? About Xavier? It’s kind of why I’m here.’
She keeps her eyes lowered as she turns her coffee cup round and round. She doesn’t say anything.
I check the time again: eight twelve. ‘This is kind of important. The last anyone saw him was Friday two weeks ago. He paid his dad some of the money he owed and got beaten up. He might have been spotted by the river on Sunday, but I haven’t verified that. I broke the guy’s nose who told me so I’m not sure he can be trusted.’
Reenie looks up. ‘That’s not true.’
‘It is – I used Shakespeare.’
‘I mean it’s not true the last anyone saw him was Friday. I saw him.’
My coffee sludge is going cold but I wait, unmoving. ‘When?’
‘I saw him that Sunday. We’d already broken up but we were still hooking up, you know. He was all excited. Said he’d found a way to get all the money back he owed and then he was going straight. For you.’ She looks at me, eyes shining. ‘Said he was going round to his mum’s and then he was gonna tell you.’
Can’t. Even.
I grip the table – the room starts to spin.
Nate tenses beside me.
Reenie rolls her eyes and keeps talking. ‘All about his stupid fantasy. How the three of you are going to live together and be one big happy family. I’ve met your mum, though. He took me to see her in that home and she’s a leech. She might be dying but she’d still do anything for a hit. You’d think all the drugs she was hooked up to in that place would be enough for her. I mean –’
Reenie doesn’t shut up – her mouth opening and closing. But I’ve got the world on mute.
Hearing your mum’s dying has that effect.
Hearing she’s somewhere in this state, in this city, within visiting distance.
Dying.
Nate grips my thigh tight but I can’t even feel it. All I can think about are pink shoes. I’d forgotten about them. Forgotten the whole thing. Now, I just want to clamp my hands over my ears and scream because I can’t stop remembering.
The day before the Children’s Farm there was lots of screaming. Juliet was throwing furniture round. Bill was there, shouting too. I watched from the couch, cartoons blaring but not loud enough to drown them out. I had these pink shoes on. They were new and Juliet had actually paid for them – a gift for me. I hadn’t taken them off – I’d slept in them. ‘Do something about it,’ Bill was yelling. ‘I haven’t got anything,’ Juliet was shouting back. She threw the kettle at his head. I stared at my shoes, feet dangling off the edge of the couch. They were shiny, a little button in the shape of a heart on the elastic strap and lights on the heels that flashed whenever I moved.
Next thing I knew she was kneeling in front of me, blocking the cartoons. ‘I need these, Frankie Bean,’ she said. She grabbed my feet and starting pulling at my shoes, twisting them and dragging me half off the seat. I screamed but she told me to act like a big girl. She told me she’d get them back for me. She promised.
Bill took the TV and then they were gone. I got left on my own a lot so I didn’t really panic. But I cried about those damn shoes. I cried the whole time they were gone. At least Juliet and Bill came back happy – no more screaming.
‘. . . Frankie?’ Nate’s shaking my arm. I blink. Someone’s phone is ringing. Why don’t they answer it?
‘I’m fine,’ I tell him. I growl.
He looks down at the table. At my phone. Ringing.
I reject the call without checking to see who it is. I know who it is. It’s eight-twenty.
Reenie’s looking at me, brown eyes wide and questioning. The fox is too, grinning at me through the mood lighting.
‘Frankie,’ says Nate. ‘Do you want to –?’
I shove my phone to the side and lean forward. ‘So you didn’t hear from him after Sunday?’
Reenie shakes her head. ‘And he told me he was going to call. I had a basketball game the next night, a really important one, and he said he was going to call and ask me how it went. He always calls after my games.’
‘But you were broken up,’ says Nate. ‘Maybe he –’
‘Hey! That’s how I know you.’ Reenie jabs a finger at Nate. ‘The time Xavier took me to meet his mum? You were there. Your dad’s in the same home, isn’t he?’
The bottom drops out. Smash.
Nate turns to me. Desperate eyes. ‘She’s full of shit. Let’s get out of here.’
‘Screw you,’ says Reenie. ‘Xavier introduced us. I remember you being a jerk then too.’
‘Listen, kid,’ says Nate. ‘We didn’t come –’
I stand; my chair goes flying back. ‘Well, that was a big fucking waste of time.’ I search through my pocket for cash.
‘So rude,’ says Reenie.
Eight-thirty.
I dump the cash on the table, swatting Nate’s outstretched arm. I stick my finger up at the dead fox because I don’t know what else to do.
I hurry around the tables, clipping my thigh on the back of a chair as I weave. I’m walking like I’m drunk.
Nate calls after me, the sound of cutlery and dishes crashing as a tray goes tumbling. I don’t stop.
‘Wait,’ he calls when I’m already outside. I’m jogging down Smith Street, through the early morning crowd: suits carrying takeaway coffees, students struggling home from a big night out and Homeless Eddie rambling to himself. He isn’t really homeless. He has a home; it’s just that we’re standing right in the middle of it, which is pretty rude of us. He owns the whole of Collingwood. Ask him, he’ll tell you.
‘Frankie!’
I jerk to a halt as Nate grips my arm. I shake free of his grip and slap him. The sound cracks. People walking by gasp.
‘You knew?’
Nate holds his cheek with one hand, the other reaching out for me. ‘Xavier said he was going to tell you when it felt right. He didn’t want you to know she’d kept him when she’d dumped you. He thought you’d hate him for it. I didn’t think it was for me to tell you.’
Homeless Eddie shuffles toward me, asking if I’m okay. He holds one arm high, wrapping it around the back of his neck as he hovers a metre away. He doesn’t know anyone at the Fitzroy pool.
‘I’m okay, Eddie.’
‘Please,’ says Nate. ‘I didn’t lie, I just . . . He went missing and . . .’
‘I already know that Juliet kept Xavier longer than me. I didn’t know she was here. That’s something you could have told me.’
As the icy wind bites through my jacket to my skin, a realisation creeps into my mind. One of those insights that come about five minutes too late – usually because you’re so focused on something else that you don’t see what really matters until too late.
‘You said your dad died two months ago.’
Nate shoe-gazes while Homeless Eddie starts humming, loudly.
‘But I saw you go to the hospice a week ago.’ I
grab hold of Nate’s chin and force him to look at me. ‘Did you go to see her?’
‘I was asking about Xavier. For you.’
‘You arsehole.’ I hit his chest. Not hard. Not hard enough.
‘So you keep saying! She lied to me, though, didn’t she? Said he hadn’t been there for ages.’
‘That’s what she does. She lies. Everybody does.’
Eddie keeps on mumbling. ‘Everybody does,’ over and over.
Nate grasps my arm and pulls me in close. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought you hated her. You’ve already got this weight on your shoulders – you try to hide it but I see it. I didn’t want to give you another reason to hate yourself. And I didn’t want you to hate me.’
But I can’t even look at him.
I shrug free and walk away.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Where?’ shouts Eddie.
My phone is vibrating in my pocket but I ignore it.
‘To get my shoes back.’
The day after Xavier first contacted me I was in the school library, hiding in the corner with the classic literature. No one would find me there. I needed time to pick through what was left of me – I wasn’t Frankie anymore. I was in pieces, blown apart by a bombshell called Xavier.
She’s my mum too.
She’s my mum too.
She’s my mum.
There was this moment I couldn’t get out of my head. A memory that had always been hiding in the periphery – but I kept shoving it back. Shovelling the shit on top and forgetting about it.
I couldn’t forget about it anymore.
Before my mother took me to the Children’s Farm, I stood in the doorway of her bedroom while she swayed in front of her full-length mirror, a hand rubbing her tummy. It was sticking out, like she’d overeaten. She was looking at herself in the mirror and smiling.
She caught me watching her. I shrank against the frame but she said, ‘Come here, Frankie Bean.’
I went to her. When I got close enough, she wrapped her arms around me and pulled me in tight, my cheek pressing against her thigh.
‘It’s going to be so brilliant,’ she said. ‘Can you feel it, Frankie? Everything’s brand-new.’
And we smiled at each other.
Sometimes I forget that we smiled.
Sitting in the library on my own I came to know what that moment really meant. The lie behind it. Both of us smiling but for different reasons. The truth of it wrapped tight around me, suffocating.
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