by Melissa Keil
Camilla darts around and gathers up the chaos of papers. ‘Make yourself at home,’ she calls as she shoves them into her dresser drawer.
I drop my backpack near her door. My feet squeak on the dark floorboards as I spin in a circle trying to look at everything at once.
CDs and books are piled in thick stacks on the floor on one side of her mattress, her MacBook balanced precariously on one tall pile. A bar fridge doubles as her nightstand on the other side. The fridge is topped with a heap of junk; snow globes, and a ceramic London phone booth, and a giant yellow lamp that has three brass dachshunds for a base. She doesn’t have a desk, so I’m guessing she’s a homework-and-Warcraft-on-bed kind of person. Her room is messy and cool and makes my bedroom look as personality-full as a toaster factory.
‘Camilla, I think I want to move in here.’
She giggles. ‘I think I might snore, Sam.’
She scoops up her crumpled volleyball uniform from the keyboard and shoves it into a drawer. She doesn’t seem to see the yellow bra dangling from the handle of her dresser. My face starts to feel a bit warm, although, really, I’m not sure what I expected a girl’s bedroom to hold, if not a heap of bras and stuff. Not that I’ve spent much time thinking about it. Girls’ bedrooms. And bras. Have I?
I tear my eyes away from the yellow bra and hurry over to her picture wall. Different faces stare back at me from the scattered photographs. I see one picture of a group of people standing in front of a pretzel cart. They look American, in that shiny-teeth and perfect-hair way. Dave the Boyfriend’s gloomy face peers out at me.
Camilla takes one last look at the floor, now clear of debris. She trots over to my side and follows the direction of my eyes.
‘Dave seems cool,’ I say lamely. ‘So … how long have you guys been … going out?’
Camilla grimaces. ‘Actually, Sam, I have a confession to make. And I think it’ll probably make me sound like a huge idiot. At the very least, it’s gonna make me sound really weird.’ She drops onto her futon and looks up at me guiltily.
‘What sort of confession?’
‘Well, the thing is … Dave and I broke up. Before I moved here. We weren’t even going out that long. It’s just that the new school thing is … it’s kinda hard being …’ She shrugs. ‘Well, fresh meat. When Justin and those guys were buzzing around on day one, Dave just kinda slipped out. And I ran with it because, well, fending off random guys wasn’t really part of my new-school plan.’
‘Oh. Well, yeah. Random guys. I guess that would be … annoying?’
She sighs. ‘I always try to make the best of wherever we end up, but the guy thing, it’s just complicated.’
‘So then Dave is like your beard?’
She laughs. ‘Jesus, that’s spectacularly pathetic, isn’t it?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had to invent an imaginary girlfriend to keep swarming masses of girls at bay.’
Camilla plucks absently at her bedspread. ‘He wasn’t imaginary. Just exaggerated.’
‘Okay, but then who kept texting you today? You didn’t look thrilled with whoever it was.’
She looks up at me. ‘You noticed? That would be my mother. Gabriella is … tricky.’
I glance at her wall again. Dave the suddenly-ex-Boyfriend stares out at me. This new information makes me feel a bit like I’m trying to decipher the plot of a David Lynch movie. For some reason I feel a little … untethered. I store it away for later analysis. ‘This must have taken you ages to do,’ I say, waving at her walls.
Camilla accepts the subject change with her customary shrug. ‘It did. But I’m considering it insurance. I’m hoping the thought of pulling all this stuff down is gonna be enough excuse for Dad to stay put, at least for a bit. Henry would have us living out of his car if he had his way.’
I wander over to the instruments while she’s talking. ‘Do you actually play these?’
‘Um, with varying degrees of suckiness. Yeah.’
‘All of them?’
Camilla stands and skips over to my side again. ‘Well, I mean – bass guitar isn’t that difficult. I pretty much taught myself. And acoustic isn’t hard to pick up with a few lessons. And I learnt piano when I was a kid. And the others I just … mess around with.’
She blushes. I am not sure I have ever seen Camilla blush before. It is sort of … endearing.
‘Would you play something? I haven’t even heard you play the piano at mine.’
She picks up her yellow cardigan from the floor. ‘Maybe later. Besides, it’s still nice out.’ She grabs a couple of cans of Coke from her bar fridge and shimmies through the balcony door. I squeeze between the instruments and follow her.
Bright leather beanbags are scattered on the balcony. Camilla settles into a green one and tugs on the cardigan. I take the opposite beanbag, feeling sand grinding against my thighs, and I think maybe in a few other places. I almost don’t care. The sun is setting over the city, and the sky is a hazy mash of purple and navy. Camilla stretches and looks out over the view. When I straighten my legs, they bump against hers. I move them quickly. She nudges my foot with her toes, her face set in that half-smile. I nudge her foot back.
‘So – do you approve?’ she says.
‘Of your place? It’s awesome. I could set an entire slasher film here.’
She laughs. ‘It’s the nicest place we’ve lived in ages. The apartment in New York was the size of a dog kennel. And my last bedroom in London had an amazing view of my next-door neighbour’s bathroom. She was eighty-three. And she didn’t believe in curtains.’ She shudders.
I grin. ‘So much for your glamorous life?’
‘Yup. It’s been one party after another.’
I hear a door slam downstairs. ‘Your dad?’
Camilla shrugs. ‘Guess I’ll see him tomorrow.’
I settle into the beanbag. ‘You must spend a lot of time on your own.’
‘Sort of. But I like having time to myself. Time to read and listen to music and … stuff. And Warcraft, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s fine. It doesn’t bother me.’ Camilla takes a slow sip of her Coke. ‘Anyway, it’s good that Dad’s keeping himself occupied. He gets restless when he’s bored. And restless Henry rarely works out well for me.’
I crack open my Coke. ‘You know, Camilla, you hardly ever talk about your mum.’
She laughs dryly. ‘My parents. It’s like being stuck between a tsunami and a tornado.’
I’m fairly certain that I have nothing to contribute, parent-wise. But Camilla’s eyes look like they’re focusing somewhere not entirely here. I bump her toes again. She nudges my foot with a smile. ‘Anyway, I keep myself busy. Lucky I have some spectacularly nerdy friends who can fill entire days with movies and WoW. I’m kept sufficiently amusified.’
‘And I guess if the spectacularly nerdy friends ever fail, there’s always Justin Zigoni. I’m sure you could fill entire days talking about his hair.’ I meant it to sound like a joke. I think it comes out sounding annoyed.
‘Maybe I’ll call that my Plan B,’ she says.
‘Sure. I think Justin has your face lined up to replace Sharni’s on those Spring Dance posters, though. You might need to practise your dead-eyed look.’ I have no idea why my mouth is still moving, only I can’t seem to make it stop.
Camilla raises an eyebrow. ‘Jealous?’ she says lightly.
I open my mouth. No words find their way out.
I am not jealous.
Of what?
Am I?
‘I just think … Justin’s an idiot,’ I mutter.
‘So I keep hearing. D’you ever think that maybe he’s jealous of you?’
I laugh, spluttering a mouthful of Coke over the balcony. Camilla’s eyes narrow, but she’s sort of smiling as well.
‘I’m serious, Sam. Maybe someone like Justin, who is – let’s face it – a straight C-average, might be intimidated by someone who aces everything while barely cr
acking a book?’
‘I think you might be clutching at some serious straws. I doubt me and my IQ are giving Zigoni any sleepless nights. He’s just a straight-up, run-of-the-mill knob.’
Camilla groans. ‘Whatever. I’m sick of talking about Justin.’
My head is whirling. I am more than ready to move on from this conversation. ‘Fine with me.’
‘Fine.’
‘Fine.’
‘So then, you wanna tell me what’s going on with you and Mike?’ she says casually.
I sigh without really meaning to. ‘You noticed?’
‘That spat on the train was hard to miss. And my spider-sense is telling me something’s been off for a while. I don’t know Mike all that well, but he seems … sad?’
‘Mike’s been acting weird since the beginning of the year. I’ve asked him about it, but … Mike’s never liked people prying into his stuff.’
‘So I’ve noticed. Mike’s always kinda stoic. I mean, he’s more stoic than you, which is saying something. It’s hard to get a read on him. But you’re his best friend – don’t you have a prying exemption?’
I think about this. ‘Guess I’ve never needed one before.’
Camilla twirls one of her braids around her hand. ‘Have you tried to find out?’ she says eventually. ‘Maybe Mike doesn’t realise he needs help.’
‘That’s what Adrian thinks. He’s been trying to get us to do recon for a while now.’
‘But?’
I take a deep breath. ‘But what if it’s something I can’t do anything about? What if it’s something serious? I’m not an expert on all things … Mike-related.’
What I can’t really explain is how much I’ve come to rely on consistent, solid Mike. Solid Mike is possibly the only reason I haven’t had a complete psychotic meltdown these last few years, what with school and my parents and everything. The current state of my life being what it is, unsolid Mike is not something I know how to deal with.
Camilla is silent for a moment. ‘Okay. What’s your plan, then? I know you’re worried about him, Sam. I can see it.’
I stand up and lean out over the balcony railing. The sun is nothing but a blood smear in the sky now. ‘Do you have any suggestions?’
She hauls herself up and leans out beside me, her braids dangling midair. ‘Well, barring straight-out asking – if I were a psychological detective, I would suggest going back to the moment you noticed the weirdness. Maybe something happened at the beginning of the year?’
‘Psychological detective?’
She grins. ‘Uh-huh. It’s a thing. Look it up.’
I can’t help but smile back. ‘So I’m searching for the psychological equivalent of a bloodied icepick in the library?’
‘Correct. Follow the clues. And don’t trust anyone with an eye patch. Or anyone who runs an antique store. They always turn out to be dodgy.’
‘Isn’t is always the sweetest character who turns out to be the psychopath?’
‘Oooh yeah, right. That’s a basic movie cliché.’ She peers down at the flickering streetlights for a moment. ‘So does Allison own a chainsaw?’
I laugh. ‘Right, the baby-faced killer. That would definitely make my top five list of pathetic mystery movie clichés.’
Camilla spins around to face me, bracing her elbows on the railing by my side. I’m not sure if it’s my imagination, but she seems to have developed the faintest freckles across her nose since this morning.
‘What about your top five list of truly clichéd death scenes, Sam?’
‘Well, Camilla, that all depends on your genre …’
I seem to have forgotten what we were talking about.
•
The Yu Kan-do It Karate dojo looks like a cross between a Japanese tea house and a medieval torture chamber. The last time we were here, Mike was doing his first dan black-belt grading. The Japanese weaponry hanging on the walls was very cool; watching Mike get yelled at and kicked for six hours was not so cool. Allison spent most of it flinching every time someone so much as waved in Mike’s direction. Adrian just yelled and cheered until Mike made him stand outside. Still, Mike’s photograph – exhausted and grinning with his black-belt in hand – is now hanging alongside the photos of the other black-belts in the dojo foyer.
Adrian, Allison and I hover uncertainly in front of the photos. Harmonised shouts rattle through the walls from the main room. A bunch of kids with belts of varying colours wander past us and into the smaller side gym. A bucktoothed kid with a yellow belt shoots me a dirty look as he walks by. He comes up to my kneecaps. I am fairly confident I could take him. I glare back. He scampers away quickly.
‘Any idea what we’re looking for?’ Allison whispers.
‘Maybe we should just hang out for a bit and watch?’ Adrian says.
I scowl. ‘Yeah. Let’s hover near the change rooms while the little kids are training. That’s not going to make us look suspicious at all.’
‘Well, should we split up? Maybe someone here has some idea –’
‘Can I help you?’
The three of us spin around.
A guy in a crisp black uniform and black belt is standing behind us. His legs are braced apart, his hands crossed lightly over the knot on his belt. He looks no more than a couple of years older than us.
Allison stares at him with her mouth hanging open for approximately four seconds. Then she looks down at her toes, a mottled blush spreading down her neck.
I am not gay. I do not have gay tendencies, I don’t think. But this guy towers over my six-foot frame; he has shoulders like a football player and black hair that flops across his forehead so perfectly it looks photoshopped. His goddamned chin even has one of those chin-arse things.
I am not gay. But even I can appreciate that, objectively, this guy makes the rest of us look like we’re descendants of Leatherface, after some cosmetic work with his chainsaw.
Chin-arse guy holds out a hand to Allison. Allison looks at is as though it belongs to the Dalai Lama or someone. She shakes it with a nervous smile.
‘I’m Travis Azumi. Can I help you?’ His voice sounds like stones strained through silk. His blue eyes flick from Allison to Adrian to me, before landing back on Allison. She grimaces and smooths down her static hair.
Adrian waves. ‘Hey, dude. How’s it going? We’re thinking about taking lessons.’
Travis’s expression does not change, but something in his eyes does. He looks at Adrian as if Adrian is a green thing that has dropped out of someone’s nostril. Adrian doesn’t seem to notice. Beetroot Allison doesn’t seem to notice.
I notice.
I hold out my hand. ‘I’m Sam. Mind if we look around for a bit, Travis?’
Travis grips my hand. An X-ray might be required once he lets go, because I’m pretty sure he’s fractured a few fingers. I shake my hand out furtively behind my back. A thought starts to worm its way into my head. ‘So … are you an instructor here?’
He crosses his arms over his barrel chest. ‘Senior instructor.’
I cross my arms over my significantly less barrel-like chest. I try to sound casual, and try not to look like I’m about to pee my pants. ‘So … been teaching here long?’
‘Since the beginning of the year. They wanted a new instructor. Some fresh talent. They brought me down from Queensland. This is the place to train, if you’re serious.’
His eyes flick over Adrian again. Adrian smiles cheerfully at him. I can practically see the moment the other shoe drops inside Adrian’s head.
‘Since … the beginning of the year?’ Allison says quietly.
Travis straightens his black uniform. ‘They have a couple of up-and-coming fighters. Future national, maybe even international champions. Someone needed to bring them up to speed.’
A nervous-looking kid in a white belt is hovering near the front desk. Travis looks at him. The kid looks like he’s about to cry.
‘Um, thanks Travis,’ I say. ‘Maybe we’ll come back and try out a
class.’
I grab Adrian by the sleeve and Allison by the wrist, and drag them backwards towards the door. Allison’s eyes are still locked on Travis. She waves with her free hand as the door spits us back onto the street.
‘Wow,’ she says. ‘That was … a very nice-looking boy. Did you see those eyes?’
‘Oh my god,’ Adrian says in an overly dramatic whisper. ‘That’s why he quit! That guy! It makes perfect sense!’
‘What perfect sense does it make?’ I snap, even as I suspect the answer is obvious.
‘Travis shows up and Mike does a runner? Mike practically lived in this place, but now he can’t face coming here? Dude, it’s so obvious! Mike is in love with Travis!’
Allison grimaces. ‘That’s a big leap, Adrian. Just because Mike likes guys, and that guy is kind of a god –’
‘But the fact that he quit just after this Travis guy appeared? You’re telling me that’s a coincidence, Al?’
Allison and Adrian look at me. ‘It seems like … the timing is about right,’ I manage to say.
As I suspected, I am in no way equipped to deal with this. I’ve stood on the sidelines for years with icepacks and first-aid sprays; I know which strapping is best for dodgy ankles, and how many days between tournaments Mike needs to recover. I am not sure I know how to deal with any other sort of trauma.
Adrian sighs. ‘If Mike really is in love with this guy –’
‘Which is kind of a major assumption,’ Allison says quickly.
‘I said if. If Mike has a thing for this guy, or whatever, obviously he’s not dealing with it. Should we talk to him?’
My friends look at me again. I am going to have to be the one who decides what to do. I suddenly wish we had brought Camilla with us; I’m not sure Camilla is ever stumped by anything.
‘Look. It’s not like Mike has ever dated anyone before. Or like he’s even been interested in anyone before. Maybe he just needs time to get his head together?’
Adrian and Allison look at each other. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ Allison says. ‘Maybe we just need to be there, and let him sort whatever this is out on his own?’
Adrian snorts. ‘Really? Do nothing? That’s your plan?’