“Yes,” I rasped, even though I honestly couldn’t have been trusted to think anything through at that point.
She let me take the paper. “Good,” she said, sounding somewhat satisfied. “I’m sorry I had to do this, Mr Lee. It is honestly outside my control. I’m glad Bree has someone generous like you looking out for her, though.” She smiled briefly.
With that, she ushered me out and deposited me in the hallway. I stood there completely disoriented for a second, unable to make sense of what had just happened. Then, because the Principal was watching me and I didn’t want Bree to be kicked out, I obediently took the sheet of paper to reception and handed it over with my credit card. She didn’t close her office door until the receptionist was running it.
“Great!” the receptionist said, pressing buttons on the EFTPOS machine. “I’m glad this is all sorted out. Debit or Credit?”
My ears were ringing. Was I really doing this? “Credit,” I replied automatically, and she passed me the terminal. My fingers moved by themselves to enter the PIN, and then after ‘Approved’ appeared on the screen, the receptionist stapled a copy of the receipt to the piece of paper and handed it back to me.
“I’ll activate Briana’s portal access,” she promised cheerfully. “It might take 15 minutes to work, though. I’ll see you in a week!”
I took the receipt from her, folded it and shoved it in my pocket, and then walked out of the warm reception into the gardens in a complete daze.
I was sitting in my car and feeling around beside me for my seat belt when it really hit me: I’d just paid ten thousand dollars to Bree’s school. $10,000.
I stared forward out of my windscreen with my jaw open.
I just… I mean, seriously? What the fuck was I doing? I’d known Bree for four months. Well, longer if you counted chatting online, but… $10,000?
God, what was I…?
What have I done? I thought, my chest tightening. I tugged weakly at my tie, trying to move air through my throat. What have I done? What the fuck have I done? I’d just completely fucked myself over and I didn’t even know if it was going to change anything. What if I couldn’t get the other $11,550? God, I…
God. I was so, so, so incredibly fucked.
TWENTY-ONE
This isn’t a disaster, I repeated like a mantra for the whole drive home. This isn’t a disaster, this isn’t a disaster, I’ll figure something out.
Even still, I’d nearly run a red light because I was so preoccupied—that would have been a disaster—and I got stuck sitting in my car when I finally managed to get safely back to Sarah’s. I needed to check what I’d paid $10,000 for.
Just do it, Min, I told myself, parked in the driveway with my shaking thumb hovering over the ‘submit’ button on the Cloverfield Portal. This was it, the moment when I found out if all the faith I had in Bree to do well was justified, or if I might as well just have cashed that $10,000 and scattered it on the wind.
My heart was pounding against my ribcage; every possible scenario had already gone through my head on the drive home: Bree did really well, Bree did really badly, the portal still didn’t work because the Principal was just lying to get me to front up with Bree’s fees, every possible outcome. Now, I was just staring at the web page, willing myself to bite the bullet and press the damn button. Whatever the outcome was, I needed to know so I could manage it.
Bracing myself for it, I tapped ‘submit’.
The first thing I saw was an enormous ‘64’, and for one terrifying second I thought that was Bree’s average and I was even more fucked than previously thought. Once I zoomed out and saw a mixture of other marks, though, namely an 81 in English, I breathed a small sigh of relief. The 64, not surprisingly, was from Maths, the teacher who’d singled Bree out for not having a tablet a few months ago, and the one who’d complained to the Principal about her. I swear to god he had it in for Bree.
With some help from my calculator app, I pinned her average at 73. That wasn’t exactly the 75 the Principal wanted, but I figured if Sarah, Gemma and I kept helping Bree and she kept focusing on her grades, it wouldn’t be long before she’d hit 75.
That was assuming I could find $11,550 and keep her in the school in the first place.
Still, this wasn’t a disaster, was it? Bree could hit that grade average she needed, I could speak to her about her behaviour, and the money? Fuck, it was a lot, but I needed to keep reminding myself that my mother had managed to pay several years of school on a cleaner’s wage. I only needed to afford one, and, honestly, I wasn’t completely broke, was I? I was waiting on all my entitlements from Frost—which would be at least $8,000 if everything went according to plan—and I could always just get another credit card or something, and worry about the repayments later. Also, I couldn’t forget my Lexus, I had to get rid of it anyway. Finally, if worst came to worst, and if all else failed and I still needed a bit more money to get to that full $11,550, I could always go cap in hand to Mum, as much as the idea of needing to prostrate myself before her was a giant no fucking way.
No matter what happened, though, one thing was certain: I couldn’t tell Bree. She felt very uncomfortable when I spent big money on her, and I’d never spent anything near this amount. She’d probably drop out before she’d let me pay $21,550 for her fees, and she’d definitely never forgive herself. I didn’t want her to feel that way. She deserved to feel proud of herself for once.
I sat back in my seat. Anyway, I didn’t pay $10,000 to lock myself in my car and stress, did I? Bree had been desperate for her marks. Time to bring them home to her.
All the lights were still out, so I tip-toed inside, changing very, very quietly out of my suit and putting it away before I knelt down beside her bed.
Bree was curled in a little ball on her side, her fists tucked under her chin and her hair everywhere. I brushed it gently off her face. She stirred, opening her puffy eyes. She looked so tired.
“Guess who’s got some good news for you,” I said as casually as I could manage. She frowned a little, so I unlocked my phone and held up the results screen so she could see. She squinted at it.
When she realised what it was, she hurriedly half-sat up, wrenching the phone from me. I saw her scroll up in disbelief, looking for her name. “These are mine?” she asked anyway, the frown fading. When I nodded, all that tired sadness melted away as her face simply lit up. “I got an 81?”
I grinned at her. “I guess those stars you’re reaching for are a bit closer than you thought.”
Unexpectedly, she threw her arms around my neck and squeezed the life out of me. “Thank you!” she said, not knowing exactly how much she was thanking me for. She planted several quick kisses on my cheek. “Thank-you-thank-you-thank-you! Oh my god! 81!” It wasn’t long before she was upright and jumping up and down on the bed, cheering.
I stood back and watched her, a big smile on my face, too. This Bree, the one bouncing around my bedroom with her arms in the air, this was my Bree. It was like she’d suddenly had the life pumped back into her. This is what I paid for, I thought, watching the joy and elation on her face. This is what I’m paying for.
…she was seriously going to break the bed, though. That would be interesting to try and explain to Sarah. I took her hand to stop her. “Uh, I know we used the trampoline as a bed, but just FYI it doesn’t work so well the other way around.”
She looked chastised for a second. “Sorry,” she said, climbing down. Then, she bounced on her toes again and grabbed my arms. “I got an 81!” she repeated, her excitement creeping back. “I have to tell everyone!” She grabbed both our phones and rushed off with them, her socks slipping a bit on the floorboards.
After she’d taken selfies with the results and posted them all over her many social media accounts, she was a bit calmer. “I can’t wait for Sarah and Gemma to see!” she said. “I mean, I know I only got 64 in Maths because Mr Preston is a total asshole, but I’m sure Gemma will get that a 64 when the teacher fucking hates me i
s basically the same as getting 100.” I wasn’t so sure, but since Bree had come up to me and put her arms around my waist, I didn’t mention it. “We should do something really special to celebrate and thank them! We could all go out to dinner, or something? Somewhere really nice, and then maybe go clubbing or something afterwards like Gemma always wants to?”
That sounded expensive. “It’s a work night for them,” I pointed out.
She made a face, hanging backwards off my middle. “On Friday then?” she asked, and then dangled a carrot in front of me in a sing-song voice, “I’ll let you drink…”
…which would have been a tempting offer if I could afford to drink. I supposed I didn’t have to actually lie about what the problem was, just avoid mentioning why it was. “I’m running a bit low on money, we’re going to have to dial back a bit on the extravagance. Maybe we could all celebrate here?”
“Oh,” she said, completely accepting it without question. “Well then, you should totally open up for art commissions. Come on!” She grabbed my hand, towed me over to the table where my laptop was, and pushed me to sit down in a chair. Pulling another one up beside me, she reached across me and pressed the power button. “We can figure out your prices right now.”
I looked sideways at her. “Aren’t we supposed to be trying to figure out how to celebrate your marks?”
“We can celebrate better if we’re not starving because we can’t afford food,” she pointed out.
That was a valid point, so even though it didn’t solve my immediate problem of needing $11,550 right now, it would be good to have some cash flow. Bree went through my art folder with a fine tooth comb and told me which pieces she thought I should use as examples to advertise, and then we googled around to find out what the going rate was and priced them all. I put all the info and examples together in a big image and uploaded it to Deviant Art. “I don’t know if any of my followers are still active,” I confessed.
Bree looked smug. “Send the ad to me, heaps of people follow me.” She paused for a second, cringing a little. “Okay, so most of them are just creepy guys kind of hanging around hoping I’ll post tease pics of my boobs again, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be art fans too.”
After she’d uploaded it everywhere, she went to have a shower, which left me free to start my search for that $11,550.
I started with Frost. They’d been investigating my complaint about Jason for months, I supposed there was a reasonable chance they might be close to reaching a decision and paying out. It didn’t hurt to ask them, did it? I grabbed my phone, dismissed all of Bree’s many status update notifications, dismissed some more texts from Mum, and then called Frost and asked to be put through to HR.
“Hello, Min,” that sounded like James Chen. “I must say you’ve got excellent timing! I was actually due to give you a call. How are you?”
Nearly broke, actually. “Very well, thank you.”
“That’s good to hear. Listen, I have some information about your complaint, which I imagine is why you’ve called. I can’t be too specific, but we’ve needed to broaden our inquiry a little because it’s such a complex issue, which is making it all drag on a bit and is also causing a delay in calculating your entitlements. Apologies for that. I also needed to ask you a rather personal question, is now an appropriate time to do that?”
I blinked. “Um, sure,” if it will lead to me getting paid faster…
“Okay, excellent. What I wanted to know is if there was anyone else—anyone else at all—who factored into your decision to leave Frost on April 30, even if they weren’t the main reason?”
That was very left field. I was glad this wasn’t a video call and that he couldn’t see the expression I made. There most certainly was another person: Sean Frost, but I wasn’t stupid enough to make a complaint about the co-CEO. He was very smart, very powerful, and very dangerous. I wondered if that was who James meant; maybe James was having the same trouble with Sean that Henry had. I didn’t want to risk it, though.
“No,” I managed. “Jason was why I left, for the reasons I detailed in my complaint.”
There was a long pause. I don’t think he believed me at all. “Okay, thanks very much for that. Well, that’s all I need for now. Is there anything else you wanted to ask me?”
There wasn’t, so I thanked him and hung up, running a hand over my face. ‘Drag on a bit’ was an understatement. How long did it really take to investigate a complaint about one person? Oh well, at least the silver lining was that as long as the complaint carried on, Jason wouldn’t be manager, which meant Sarah didn’t have to put up with taking orders from that prick while she was pregnant and ill.
Okay, so Frost was out. I wasn’t going to be getting money from them in the next seven days.
My next option was to just apply to a few banks and whack the rest of the money for Bree’s school fees on credit. I didn’t really like the idea of having so much credit card debt, but at least it was something I could chip away at over time. Besides, it wasn’t like I was going to end up like Bree’s parents. $21,550 worth of debt plus my car loan was a bit different than $600,000 of it.
After spending some time hunched in front of my computer and browsing banking websites, I quickly discovered the banks wouldn’t even look at me without at least three months of steady income, and neither would the second tier lenders. Even the dodgy payday places wouldn’t let me leave the income field blank, and a little box came up saying, ‘Hmm, it looks like you don’t have an income. We’ll be happy to help you afford that special something when you do!’.
Gee, thanks, I mentally told that patronising little pop-up box and closed the tab.
Well, shit. At least I still had selling my car to fall back on. As much as I didn’t want to—it was a really reliable, really comfortable car—I couldn’t afford $500 a fortnight for it anyway. It would be a bit sad to get rid of it, though. Henry had always joked about the fact we had matching cars, and Mum loved the car and loved that Henry and I had the same model. ‘Obviously you’re supposed to be together, you have the same taste!’, she’d told me sagely. It was a moot point because Mum had chosen my car.
Resigned to my fate, I’d taken a Dustbuster and a rubbish bag out into the driveway to clean up the interior for sale when Bree, obviously finished in the shower, wandered out.
She watched me a bit forlornly. “You’re selling your car?”
“Yup,” I told her, pulling a prehistoric Red Bull can out from under the driver’s seat. It was so old it might as well have been fossilised. I tossed it in the rubbish bag. “You’re not going to be able to brag about your rich boyfriend anymore, sorry.”
Bree didn’t look bothered. “I’ll just tell everyone you gave up the high life to live your dream. That’s more romantic anyway,” she said, and went back inside the house, returning a couple of minutes later with a bucket and a sponge. She set to work on the exterior.
When we were both done, I went and put the rubbish bag into Sarah’s wheelie bin, and came back to take a few photos of my car in case I needed them. Bree was sitting in the back seat looking all nostalgic, and posed suggestively for one of the pictures when I pointed the camera at her. It was the type of photo you hoped people wouldn’t come across when they were going through the gallery on your phone. I pulled a face. “I’d better delete that,” I told her, spending a little too long gawking at it before I did.
She stopped me. “No way!” she said, “Put it in the advert! Sex sells, right? Say, ‘Look, I was just driving around and I picked up this cute schoolgirl, and now I’m totally nailing her. You could be nailing one, too: just buy this hot car’!”
I half-laughed, half-sighed, and pulled her out of the car so I could lock it. While Bree was facebooking her friends about all their marks and waiting for Sarah to get home, I sat down in front of my laptop again to phone around a few dealers to get their prices on my car. As I started, I opened a blank document to write down the details of the dealers that were interested.
After six phone calls, my document was still blank. “We can’t shift second-hand luxury cars,” one guy told me. “People who have the money buy new ones, and these just sit in our yard, depreciating in value.”
I ran out of prestige dealers and started to call ordinary ones, and there was only one who was even remotely interested. He sighed at length through the receiver. “I’ll be honest with you: you could bring it in, but we’re not going to be able to give you what it’s worth,” he said. “I’ll give you $40 kay for it if it’s in good condition. How much did you say you owed on it again?”
I pressed my lips together. “Nearly $48,000.”
He made a noise. “Well, you can give us a bank cheque for the difference, if you want. We can take care of it.”
Yeah, sure. Let me just shake my pockets for that spare $8,000, I thought bitterly. “Thanks, I think I’ll try and sell it privately. How much do you think I should advertise it for, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“You might be able to get closer to what you owe,” he said. “But people are going to be pretty reluctant to buy a car that’s still under finance. Especially one this expensive. It’s too risky.” I thanked him and dropped my phone on the table.
Well, that was a waste of time, I thought, running a hand through my hair. Shit. So, Frost wasn’t going to pay out, no one was going to give me credit, and no one wanted my car. I posted an ad for the car on Gumtree anyway—not including Bree’s choice pose—just in case I could tempt anyone. In two hours, I didn’t even have a single hit.
The last possible thing I could think of was getting commissioned to do another business piece like the one I’d done in Broome. I still had those photos of my picture in the Frost lobby, too, maybe I could make some inquiries? I googled a few different corporate art brokers, but didn’t end up contacting them because they all advertised long relationships with suppliers and artists with ‘decades of experience’. I supposed I could set up my own similar business, which would be really handy if I needed to find $11,550 in the next five years.
Flesh & Blood Page 31