Life in Outer Space

by Melissa Keil

  ‘Hey, Sam,’ she says cheerfully. Victor scuttles into the classroom. Camilla clutches her books to her chest and looks up at me with a smile. But it’s not her normal smile, the cheeky, warm one that, regardless of my mood, always makes me smile back. It’s the polite smile she reserves for random hangers-on, for waiters and ticket inspectors on the train. Jesus. I even know how many different smiles she has. Her smile makes my stomach sink into my toes.

  ‘How … are you?’ I manage to say.

  ‘Ugh, well, the chess club is trying to organise their end-of-year party, only they want to have it in the rec room, which isn’t really a party – more like an average chess club meeting with party hats. So I’m trying to sort something. Oh, and I have extra volleyball training this afternoon, cos apparently we really, really suck.’ She glances at her watch. ‘And I promised Victor I’d help him with this assignment. I don’t think poetry is his thing.’

  She slips into the classroom before I can respond. I duck behind her quickly.

  Allison is sitting three rows back from our usual spot. She completely blanks me. She waves at Camilla. Camilla waves back at her. It seems a little overly enthusiastic to me.

  ‘I’m going to give Victor a hand. I’ll see you later!’

  Camilla scuttles into the seat next to Victor Cho. He looks momentarily more startled than usual. Justin Zigoni peers at them, and at Allison, and at me. His face works itself into that expression he gets whenever he has to multiply more than single-digit numbers in his head.

  Camilla doesn’t look at me.

  Allison doesn’t look at me.

  Mike skulks into the classroom and takes the seat next to the door.

  Mike doesn’t look at me.

  I might actually be one small step away from sinking into a black pit of despair so bottomless that not even a colossal mining earthmover will be able to dig me out.

  I have no idea what happens in that class. All I know is I can’t bring myself to face anyone today. I make a beeline for Alessandro’s office as soon as the bell rings.

  No-one comes looking for me.

  I make it to biology without seeing anyone of significance. Veronica sits at my station and tries to talk to me about the sound system they’re organising for the Spring Dance and the after-party at Annie Curtis’s house. I nod my head every time her mouth stops moving. I don’t say anything, but I’m fairly certain Veronica doesn’t notice, or care. I am as interested in the sound system they are organising for the Spring Dance as I am in twelfth-century Latvian cave painting, or learning how to crochet.

  When the bell rings for lunch I bolt out of the lab before I realise I have no idea where I should be going. I wander vaguely in the direction of the dining hall, my eyes drifting around the corridors. I can’t even kid myself that I’m not looking for her. Fate clearly hates my guts, though, because it is not Camilla that I see, but Adrian. Or at least, I see three-quarters of his normal face, and one eye that is swollen and blue and looks like it belongs to a native from Avatar. When Adrian sees me, he turns around and takes off in the opposite direction.

  I hide in the toilets for the rest of the lunchbreak.

  Monday afternoon, I am alone in Alessandro’s office. No-one else shows up or texts to say they’re not showing up. I stare at Alessandro’s screensaver for two hours – a rotating schematic of the Millennium Falcon – and then I walk home and go to bed. I manage a couple of hours of broken sleep that is filled with dreams of punching a hobbit and being choked to death by strings of blue flowers.

  Tuesday is no better. I pick up my phone approximately thirteen times before I leave the house, alternating between Mike’s, Adrian’s, Allison’s and Camilla’s numbers. I end up calling no-one; when it comes down to it, I have nothing to say to any of them. I stare at Camilla’s number with my finger hovering over the dial button, before deciding that the most appropriate thing to do is avoid everyone from now until I graduate. I manage this successfully until lunch, when I emerge from the bathrooms to see Adrian and Allison having an angry, whispered conversation in the corridor. They don’t notice me. Camilla and Mike are nowhere in sight.

  I hide in the toilets for the rest of the lunchbreak.

  By Wednesday, my misery has morphed into some sort of manifest, physical entity; my legs feel shattered and my hands seem to have developed a will of their own, because they flop about my body without any apparent purpose or intent. Alessandro takes one look at my face in the morning and puts a special request in with the office to obtain my services for half the day. He sits me in front of his computer and sticks on the remake of The Amityville Horror. He doesn’t ask me anything, but he does clasp me on the shoulder and tell me that he’s sure Adrian deserved it. I grunt, which Alessandro seems to interpret as agreement.

  I am late to history in the afternoon. Allison and Adrian are sitting in opposite corners of the room. Camilla is sitting next to Jackie Nguyen. Mike is sitting in the front row.

  I slink into a seat near the door without making eye contact with anyone, and I all but run home as soon as the final bell rings. I turn off my phone and go to bed, pulling the blankets over my head and clutching Allison’s Freddy Krueger doll in the hope that it develops a consciousness and stabs me to death in my sleep.

  Thursday, I decide I simply cannot face school. When Mum comes into my room and I am still in bed, I don’t even have the energy to make something up. I tug the blankets up to my chin and tell her I need a day off. She sits on the edge of my bed and stares at me for approximately thirteen seconds.

  ‘So … I haven’t seen Camilla at all this week,’ she says carefully.

  I pull the blankets up to my nose. ‘Guess not,’ I whisper.

  Mum plants a lingering kiss on my forehead and then leaves me alone.

  As soon as the house is quiet, I change my mind. I can’t spend the day here, alone, thinking about my messed-up life and my misfiring head.

  I grab yesterday’s jeans and T-shirt from the floor. I’m halfway down the street before I realise I have neither showered nor brushed my teeth, that I have left my phone at home and that I have no idea where I am going. I decide that – the current state of my life being what it is – showering and teeth-brushing are irrelevant, and wandering the streets aimlessly in a haze of my own filth is probably acceptable.

  My feet somehow find their way to Jasper’s doorstep. His bass guitarist, Ethan, opens the blue door, squinting at me as though he hasn’t seen the sun in days. Ethan has a giant stain on the front of his Annabel Lees T-shirt, and a shadow of uneven stubble across his chin. ‘Sam? What the hell, man. It’s not even ten yet.’

  ‘Hey, Ethan. Did I wake you?’

  He yawns. ‘Yeah. Gig last night. Maybe it was this morning. What day is it?’ He rubs his eyes and then peers at me closely. ‘You look like boiled arse. What’s up?’

  I stand frozen in the doorway, suddenly not at all sure what I’m doing here. I feel like I can’t breathe, like the musty, coffee-and-cigarette-filled air from inside the house is tightening my vocal cords into a lump –

  ‘There’s this girl –’ I manage to choke.

  Ethan nods decisively. He hustles me into the Blue Delilah.

  Ethan appears to have been sleeping on one of the velour couches, judging by the person-shaped depression in the cushions. Their drummer, Kel, is slumped against the bar. He’s clutching a steaming mug in one hand and his head in the other. Ethan grabs a pool cue from the table and bangs it against the ceiling a couple of times, causing Kel to spray a volley of swear words in his direction. A moment later Jasper all but falls down the stairs, looking pissed off and half-asleep.

  ‘Someone better be on fire,’ he growls.

  ‘We have a girl situation,’ Ethan says. He points at me. Kel stands with a groan.

  Jasper sighs. ‘Sam. Dude. Bad?’

  I swallow a couple of times before I trust myself to speak. ‘Yeah. I think so.’

  There are murmurs from all three guys that sound vaguely
sympathetic.

  Apparently, there are protocols for this situation. Kel sticks on some music that’s so full of despair I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy who wrote it dropped dead after the last chord was played. I consider adopting my foetal position on the floor. I decide that I do not need to be adding a fetid-carpet skin disease to my list of problems, and I curl into a ball in an orange armchair instead.

  Ethan asks me if I want to talk about it. I shake my head. I don’t even know where I would start. The guys therefore seem to feel it necessary to chronicle the most traumatic episodes of their various love lives. Jasper strums random chords on a guitar while he tells me about his first girlfriend who ran off with a Belgian keyboard player while they were on tour in Europe. He stops partway through his story to jot down some lyrics.

  Ethan gives me a run-down of his boyfriend history; his very own top five all-time greatest stories of misery and heartache. I am not sure what I am supposed to take from these stories, other than to never continue dating anyone who steals your guitar on the first date. I believe I could have drawn this conclusion all on my own.

  Jasper gives me a beer. It tastes like warm bottled foot odour. I choke down a couple of sips because it’s the polite thing to do. Eventually their conversation drifts into non-relationship-related territory, and I sit in silence and let the music and voices and cigarette fog float around me.

  When I can no longer handle the songs of agony and longing, I drag myself to my feet.

  Jasper clasps me on the shoulder as he walks me to the door. ‘Remember, pain passes,’ he says solemnly. ‘But it will continue to be a giant pile of steaming gorilla shite until then. Ride it out. Use the pain. Just don’t do anything rash like showing up on her lawn at three in the morning with a guitar, cos birds get freaked out by that stuff. Right, Kel?’

  Kel grunts and says nothing.

  I thank them for the beer as I shuffle out the door.

  The sun is high in a perfect, clear sky. I may feel like a giant pile of steaming gorilla shite, but I am also suddenly starving. I think about heading home. I decide I am in no way ready to face my real life yet. So I jump on a tram and head into the city.

  Mexican Lando greets me like an old friend. He pulls up a stool at the bar for me and gestures for a waitress to take my order. The music is that upbeat Latin stuff that has people shouting at random moments. I’m not sure this music is any better for my mood than the depressive stuff at Jasper’s. Lando leans over the bar with a grimy dishcloth in hand and asks me if everything is all right. I think I may have seen something like this in a movie before, but I can’t seem to remember which one it was. I wait for my tacos and Coke, and then give him the dot-point version of the mess that is my life. When I finish, Lando nods sagely. He tells me that there are plenty more butterflies in the aviary, whatever that means, and he tells me something about women being like elephants, which is an analogy I’m not sure even he understands. I must be looking either pretty blank or really pathetic, because he gives me a free taco and tries to make me do a tequila shot. I decline politely.

  As always, Mexican food makes me feel a bit better, but I face the afternoon on the crowded city street no closer to having a clue about anything.

  I consider hiding out at Minotaur.

  I consider drowning myself in crap coffee at Schwartzman’s.

  I consider sitting in the darkness of a cinema and losing myself in a movie.

  I have no idea what time it is, but I’m guessing school will be over soon. I think about my friends, in the classes I know they’ll be in. I wonder if anyone has noticed I’m not there. I wonder how much they all despise me now.

  I jump on another tram. I don’t even know how I know it’s the right one, but I seem to have stored this knowledge away without my conscious brain realising it. I’m doing that a lot lately. I even know the stop that I need to jump off at.

  I sit on the floor in the foyer of the apartment building for an indeterminate amount of time. My eyes are closed until I hear my name.

  ‘Sam?’

  I haul myself to my feet. ‘Hi, Dad.’

  Dad clears his throat. ‘Your mum told me you were staying home today.’

  ‘Yeah. Wait – you speak to her?’

  Dad frowns. ‘Of course.’

  We shuffle uncomfortably for several seconds until Dad waves his keys at the elevator. ‘Coming up?’

  ‘Um, sure.’

  Dad’s apartment is more cluttered than I remember. It’s actually more chaotic than I ever remember his stuff being. I see a bike propped up against the narrow hallway wall. I have a sudden flash of him in bike shorts, and then immediately wish I could rinse my brain out.

  Dad dumps his keys on the laundry-covered dining table. ‘Coffee?’

  I sit on the edge of his La-Z-Boy. ‘Can I have tea?’

  ‘Since when do you drink tea?’

  ‘Since … a while.’

  Dad grunts and disappears into the kitchenette. His tea is too milky and weak and it’s in a mug that has a picture of a monitor lizard on the side, but I drink it without comment. Dad sits tentatively on his threadbare couch. ‘So. Is everything all right?’

  I shrug. I don’t really have anything I want to share.

  Dad clicks on the TV. We stare blankly at the screen, but every now and again, from the corner of my eye, I can see him glancing at me. Eventually he clears his throat again.

  ‘You know, Sam … I’m not exactly good at this either. I think I can probably say … I’m bloody hopeless at this stuff.’

  ‘Stuff?’ I mumble.

  Dad is silent as he ponders the TV. ‘You know, at uni … when I met your mum … I couldn’t eat properly for weeks. I lost eight kilos. She thought I had some sort of disorder.’

  I feel the heat creeping up my face. I don’t know if he is expecting a response. I don’t know what he thinks he knows, or what Mum has told him, or what he has guessed. I don’t know what I am doing here, or what answers I am hoping to find.

  ‘I’m tired of not knowing things,’ I mumble.

  Dad chuckles. ‘Yeah? Get used to it.’

  I look at his face. His blue-grey eyes – the exact same eyes as mine – peer back at me thoughtfully. ‘Really, Dad? That’s your great advice?’

  He shrugs. ‘No-one knows anything. Anyone who tells you they do … is full of bollocks.’

  I choke on a mouthful of tea. Dad turns back to the TV with a grin.

  We watch the last fourteen minutes of Deadliest Catch, then I stand with a sudden burst of resolve.

  I may know virtually nothing. But I think I know where I need to go.

  •

  I remember the first time I met Allison. It was lunchtime on my third day of year seven and by then I’d realised that BLS was not the awesome adventureland I’d been promised. Justin and a bunch of knobs-in-training had decided that Adrian and his prized Digimon card collection were the most ridicule-worthy things in the universe. Apparently, early-onset puberty was enough to elevate Zigoni to leader of the A-group. I still don’t really understand how we ended up on the other side. But eleven minutes of torment later, Adrian was almost in tears and Justin was circling us like a vulture over carrion. When the bell went, Justin shoved past us, and standing behind him – there she was. This fragile-looking blonde person who was so small that for a moment I thought someone had brought their little sister to school for show-and-tell.

  Allison frowned at Justin’s retreating back. And then she marched right up to Adrian and mumbled, ‘Have you seen the Digimon TV series? My brother just bought season two on DVD. I think it’s awesome.’

  She gave us a half-grimace, half-grin, and Adrian forgot all about crying. I was grateful there was another person on the planet who, if not on the same wavelength as Adrian, was at least on a tuneable frequency. From that lunchtime on, she was part of our group.

  When I show up at her house, Allison opens the door and immediately tries to close it in my face. Without thinking, I stick
my foot in her doorway. I discover this move only works in films. My foot hurts like hell. ‘Allison, wait. Can I talk to you?’

  ‘Why? Do you want to kiss me again and then tell me how weird I am at it?’ Her cheeks turn pink, but she crosses her arms and glares at me. Her red pixie hair is slicked to the side with some shiny hair stuff. She’s wearing one of her oversized anime T-shirts and black tights. It strikes me that she wouldn’t look out of place at Jasper’s, maybe with a bass guitar in her hand.

  I take a deep breath. ‘Allison, please? Can we just talk?’

  Allison glowers at me. And then she stomps into her house, but she leaves the door open. I bolt behind her before she has a chance to change her mind. She throws herself onto a white couch in her lounge room and glares at me again. I hover in front of her, feeling like I’m on stage without a script or a clue.

  ‘Allison … I shouldn’t have said those things to you. It wasn’t what I meant at all. I was just really freaked. By lots of things. By pretty much everything. I’m not even sure how it happened – not that it was your fault or anything. You’re … the last person in the world I’d want to hurt.’

  I swallow a couple of times. When I finally manage to look at her face, the angry mask has slipped a little bit.

  She shakes her head. ‘Sam, you know I hadn’t actually kissed anyone before. Ever.’

  ‘Um. Me neither.’

  ‘I wasn’t just planning on kissing someone random. But I did sort of want to. Just for practice. And, well …’ She sighs. ‘You weren’t random. You’re, you know – you’re Sam. If I think about it, I guess it was pretty … weird.’

  She looks up at me. I test out a fraction of a half-smile. It doesn’t get me thrown out of her house. She sighs again and gestures to the seat next to her, and I all but collapse into it.

  ‘Allison, I’m really, unbelievably sorry. All I meant was it was weird that it was you. Not that the kissing bit was weird. Or, Jesus, that you are weird. And, you know, it wasn’t bad or anything like that. It was cool. I think I might have said that. Allison, can I please stop talking now?’