Upside Down

by Lia Riley

  Pretending to be a normal, functioning member of society is exhausting stuff.

  “You’re wearing that on the plane?” Beth inventories my jeans, purple Chuck Taylors, and Pippa’s favorite tee.

  “What?” I glance at the red-stenciled words crossing my chest—HOLDEN CAULFIELD IS MY HOMEBOY.

  “There’s no way you’re getting upgraded,” Beth says.

  “It’s a full flight. Besides, I needed to…” A shrug is my best explanation. The night before Pippa was removed from life support, I pinky-swore my beautiful, brain-dead sister that I’d live enough life for two. This shirt helps remind me of my promise.

  Fortunately, Sunny is the resident expert in deciphering vague Talia gestures. “You want to be close to Pippa. I get it.” She toys with her feather hair extension and shoots Beth a “let it go” death stare.

  “There’s an X Games competition in the city next weekend, so Tanner’s back in town.” Beth’s tone is controlled, far too even to be natural. “Did he stop by?” She gazes at me like an implacable jury forewoman, about to pronounce a verdict of guilt.

  “Nope.”

  The ensuing silence makes me want to curl into a catatonic ball and stare as dust motes filter through the air.

  I don’t mention watching Tanner land heel kicks and pop shuvits while walking past Derby Skate Park last night. Or how he stared right through me. He’d been in love with Pippa since she was twelve. She and I had been walking home from Mission Hill Middle School when a classmate cornered the two of us on Bay Street with rape threats. Tanner spotted the encounter from the front stoop of his trailer, marched over, and clocked the kid over the head with his skateboard. When Pippa told Mom what happened, she took Tanner out to Marianne’s Ice Cream parlor for sundaes. By ninth grade, he and Pippa were going steady and that was that, until the year anniversary of my sister’s death.

  Tanner will never forgive either of us for the night we got trashed, and then naked, under the Santa Cruz wharf. I’m sure he guilty-conscience confessed the whole sordid story to Beth, but she never called me on it, a form of punishment in itself.

  “What’s up, girls?” Dad appears in the hall dressed in well-worn board shorts and a ratty surf comp T-shirt. He looks more like a beach bum than a coastal geologist.

  Beth gives him a little wave. “Hey, Mr. S.”

  His head grazes the top of the door frame. He’s huge, my dad, but quiet, more a gentle giant. Mom used to run the show around these parts, a high-strung Chihuahua to his laid-back golden retriever. Now he wanders around like he forgot where he hid his bone. He’s not in the right headspace to deal with my crap. All I need to do is fake happy and stay alive.

  “You finished yet?” He shifts his weight, eyeing the mess spread over my bed. “We’ve got to hit the road soon to beat the traffic. Don’t want you missing your flight.”

  Sunny leaps up with a squeal and wraps me in a fierce bear hug. “Safe travels, honeybunch.”

  She’s the only person who occasionally calls me by Pippa’s old nickname. I miss hearing it but don’t have to look at Dad to know he flinches.

  “Remember your promise.” Sunny presses her forehead to mine. “You can’t call either Beth or me while you’re gone. We’ll be fine. This time’s just for you. Relax. Get a tan. Ride a platypus. Throw a shrimp on the barbie and whatnot.”

  “Got it.” I nod as she gives me a final squeeze. Sunny’s firm in her belief that we can’t communicate until I return home. She wants me to escape from my family train wreck, and you can’t get much farther than Australia. I’ll have five months to screw my head back on straight.

  Beth steps forward with a steely look in her gray eyes, but maybe I’m imagining things because in another second it’s gone. She rumples my hair. “Don’t forget to have fun, Tals.”

  “Never do,” I crack. When’s the last time I let go, lived without an invisible boulder crushing my chest? Can’t even remember.

  “Good times.” Dad grabs the suitcase with an easy swing while I cram the rest of my stuff in the bulging duffel. “There’s going to be a lot to celebrate when you get home. You three, almost ready to graduate.” He casts a hesitant smile in my general direction. He was the first kid in his family to go to college. I know it means the world to him that he can provide me with an opportunity for higher education.

  My lungs go on strike. A full breath is impossible.

  He’d be so proud to learn his only surviving daughter is a liar and a failure.

  I’m letting him down.

  Like mother, like daughter.

  My core grows cold. The letter from the history undergraduate committee is torn into a hundred pieces in the trash. They denied my petition to extend my senior thesis and the resulting F is a nuclear detonation in my transcript. My GPA is blown and because I didn’t pass a mandatory class, I’ll have to repeat the semester. Dr. Halloway offered to write a letter requesting medical exemption, but that would mean owning a crazy-ass diagnosis like obsessive-compulsive disorder.

  Even before Pippa’s accident, there were warning signs. Indicators like being hyperconscious about unplugging electrical devices or rechecking that I locked the front door in a certain way that felt “right.” Over the last few years my compulsions intensified. I had to eat my food in pairs, not one M&M, not three M&M’s, but two every time. Don’t get me started on setting my alarm clock, changing a car radio, or trying to fall asleep. Over the course of last semester, I became convinced I contracted leukemia, thyroid disease, and MS. My nights were spent symptom Googling my way to academic probation.

  After breaking down in my childhood doctor’s office a few weeks ago, Dr. Halloway wrote me a prescription for a low-dosage antidepressant. He says the medication will increase my serotonin levels and in turn decrease the severity of my symptoms. It’s got to work. I can’t continue being a closet freak. Dr. Halloway also strongly advised cognitive behavioral therapy, stressing it would be helpful—vital, in fact—in controlling OCD impulses.

  Right now, escape is preferable to weekly psychologist meetings. Once Santa Cruz and its ghosts are behind me, I’ll feel better.

  “Peanut?” Dad’s frowning, so are Sunny and Beth. I’ve zoned out again, lost in my navel-gazing bullshit.

  “It’s all good.” I flick on a megawatt smile because that’s what I do best, fake it until I make it. “Australia’s going to be great. Just think, tonight I’ll be passing the International Date Line. I’m going to Tomorrowland.”

  Leaving is the only way to move forward.

  If I never get lost, I’ll never be found.

  Chapter Two

  Talia

  The door to my cramped studio flings open and Marti, the Quebecois girl from next door, peeks in. “Bonjour, hi,” she chirps in her customary greeting.

  She arrived from Montreal the day before me, and we live on the fourth floor of Melbourne University’s foreign student residence. Our friendship began during orientation a few weeks ago and her direct, take-no-prisoners style cut straight through the tentative getting-to-know-you stage. During the bewildering first few weeks, we helped each other decipher campus maps and dodge cars driving on the left-hand side. Soon we traded giggles over the odd language hiccups like how uni means “university,” capsicum is a pepper, or that an icy pole is, in fact, a popsicle.

  “How was the excursion?” Marti sashays into my room. Her hair is swept into an intentional messy bun with blunt cut bangs. Heavy eye makeup and a silver nose ring accentuate her bold features.

  A history geek to the core, I’ve signed up for every single International Student Club sponsored outing: the Melbourne Museum, the Immigration Museum, and the National Gallery of Victoria. Today’s big adventure? The Werribee Open Range Zoo.

  “A keeper let me help feed the kangaroos.” I remove my black-frame glasses and stand in front of the cracked mirror to pop in contacts. “A cute idea in theory until one head-butted my crotch in front of a bunch of Japanese tourists. Keep an eye on YouTube for t
hat little chestnut.”

  Marti smirks before cocking a penciled eyebrow toward the various outfits laid out on my narrow bed. “Going somewhere? Big date?”

  “Not a date.” I knead vanilla-scented body cream into my calves. “More like a hangout.”

  “With Idiot Boy? Jazza?” She grabs the lotion and helps herself. “Pfffft, such a stupid name.”

  Jasper really, but he was all “Call me Jazza.” He’s a part-time surf instructor and full-time President of the Handsome Club. He’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but an easy, surface-level relationship holds a certain appeal. This is the perfect opportunity to kick-start my Talia 2.0 reboot, one where I’m the kind of girl who lets loose and has good times.

  People tend to regard me as cheerful, almost relentlessly happy. Yeah, sure, a little high-strung, but fun loving. I’ve worked my ass off to cultivate that persona, ground my nails to bloody nubs to make this impression take root. People want to be with the sunflowers, those who rise and face the sky. Who prefers fungus, moss, things that grow in the world’s dank and shadowed places?

  No one.

  Marti and I met Jazza at the Espy, a grungy pub near St. Kilda beach last weekend. He’d hit on Marti first until she’d informed him in no uncertain terms that she was a card-carrying Lesbertarian and he down-geared in my direction.

  After shots, my tequila-hazed mind dimly registered his shaggy blond mop and broad shoulders. Our stunted conversation didn’t deepen beyond quick fact trading. Jazza lives at his parents’ beach house and ventures into the city for weekend parties. His eyes glazed while I gushed about my Victorian Sexuality class and he veered the subject to Mavericks, a big-wave surf spot up the coast from Santa Cruz that hosts an invitation-only competition.

  I cracked a few jokes that flew over his head. My interest flagged until he stretched, revealing a ladder of perfect abdominal muscles. My tongue flopped out like an accordion and next thing I knew we were dirty dancing. Despite my buzz and his looks, when he kissed me, nothing happened. No fireworks, not even a sparkler. I didn’t feel a single sensation except sloppy wetness. Maybe it’s the medication—my brain does seem calmer—but that’s a sucky trade-off if the price for sanity is zero sex drive.

  On the bus home from the zoo today, I unearthed his number crumpled at the bottom of my bag, scrawled on an art postcard I’d bought at some museum gift shop. It’s a painting of a guy on a tired horse riding through the outback. He’s dressed in strange armor and instead of a face under the helmet, there’s only sky. I don’t know why, but the image struck me—a certain defiance despite the loneliness.

  The time has come to break out of my comfort bubble. I hadn’t traveled down under to scuffle with captive kangaroos. Would Pippa have filled her days with long, homesick rambles along the Yarra, the wide brown river flowing through Melbourne’s heart? Or spent weekend nights curled in the study lounge reading Australian classics like The Thorn Birds, Cloudstreet, and Picnic at Hanging Rock?

  No way.

  It’s time to fulfill my promise to her, put myself out there in the big, bad world and make a few stories of my own.

  Marti rifles through my clothes and wrinkles her nose at a short-sleeve plaid button-up before lifting the drop-waist dress. “Ooh la la, cuteness.”

  “Think I can pull it off?” The white lace dress is a Sunny castoff and cut lower than anything else I own. Higher too.

  “You want to get lucky? Wear it.” She gives a sage nod. “The boy is a boob hound.”

  “Takes one to know one.” I wink. She’s been going hot and heavy with a voluptuous British chick who works at the coffee shop around the corner. I drop my towel, slide into the tiny dress, and unearth red lipstick from my dusty makeup bag. So what if Jazza isn’t Prince Charming? He is Prince Hot Enough for a Friday Night.

  * * *

  It’s a little after seven and the temperatures have yet to drop. Lygon Street is packed with commuters, students, and townies trying to beat the February heat. I don’t hurry, geeking on the eclectic late-Victorian architecture with the fancy cast-iron lace work. The concrete is damp from a fleeting late-summer downpour and the scent of rain lingers beneath the other smells: exhaust, espresso roasts, and the Italian cuisine being served in any one of a dozen trendy cafés. I pause as a cute couple at a cozy sidewalk table takes turns feeding each other bites of pasta. I wish I’d made the melon gelato I inhaled last longer.

  The Southern Hemisphere’s reverse weather doesn’t throw me. Summer is generally one gloomy, fog-locked season back home while winter is all blue skies and shorts weather. Still, in this humidity, even my sweat has sweat. Moisture trickles down the tight valley between my breasts and puddles in my bra. I miss the cool Northern California coastal breezes and still can’t quite believe I’m here, at the bottom of the world, ten thousand miles from home. So far the second-guessing doomsayer that hijacks my thoughts has retreated to the background. Even my body is calmer, no pulse racing to 160 over a surprise quiz. I haven’t had a panic attack since arriving. Maybe Santa Cruz really was the problem and all I needed was new surroundings.

  “It’s wankers like you who fuck over everything. Take, take, take. When will it ever be enough?” An oddly muffled male voice booms from up ahead.

  “Bloody environmental Taliban, that’s what you are.” A man in a well-tailored suit runs backward, straight in my direction. A koala wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words TREE HUGGER gives chase, elbows people out of the way. A grinning gray-furred mask belies his menacing posture.

  For once my reflexes are lightning quick. I dive to safety, back pressed against a lamppost.

  “You hippies are the real polluters, mucking up the gene pool. You’re a poster child for abortion, mate.” The suit’s paunchy gut bounces in time to his words.

  The koala responds with a crazy jujitsu move to the guy’s nose. “I’m not your fucking mate.”

  I let out an inadvertent squeal, immediately woozy from the red drops splattered on the concrete. I can’t handle blood—at all.

  The koala wheels in my direction. The businessman takes advantage of the temporary distraction to flail forward. He wrenches the lid off an alleyway trash can, pivots, and drives the metal disk hard into the side of the koala’s mask, making it impossible to see out. Blinded, the koala can’t defend against the wing-tipped shoe when it connects square in his stomach.

  Whoever’s inside goes down hard. The suit’s eyes gleam as he lands another vicious kick to the ribs.

  “Hey!” My anger rises at the pot shot. I kind of want to run away, but blatant injustice raises my hackles. “Pretty tough kicking a guy who’s down.”

  “Want a piece of this?” The businessman’s fists are raised and his expression is pure bloodlust.

  Great, there goes me and my big mouth, biting off more than I can chew. My knees loosen. What the hell am I going to do now? Before I can even begin to form an answer, the koala stirs. “Muss a hair on her head and they’ll mop you off the streets.”

  Whoever is inside sounds dead serious. I don’t know who he is, but I’m glad he’s got my back.

  The suit glances at his fight stance and recalibrates in an instant. “Jesus.” He shakes his head, as if surprised to find himself returned to an ordinary businessman rather than a heavyweight boxer. He scuttles off, swallowed by the crowds.

  “Hey there.” I kneel next to the koala and place my hand on his mangy, threadbare fur shoulder. “You all right? Thanks for standing up for me.”

  Stony silence ensues.

  “Um…” I look around, helpless. No one pays us any attention. “Is there someone I should call—”

  “I’m fine, just taking a nap.” The koala’s freakish frozen smile is a sharp contrast to the deep and surly Australian accent.

  “Well, I can’t leave you here.” I reach to take his arm, help him to his feet.

  He jerks back. “I’m sure you mean well, but time to piss off. Show’s over.”

  “Wow. Nice, real nic
e. Jesus, sorry I bothered.” I stand and wipe my palms on my scalloped-edged skirt, shouldering my bag, irritated at my hurt feelings. “Guess no good deed goes unpunished.”

  “Sorry to let you down, sweetheart.” He brushes off his arms. “I’m no knight in shining armor.”

  “Duly noted.” I take a step backward. When he threatened the suit on my behalf, he meant every word. In some way, I knew, deep down, that he’d keep me safe. So why rush to my defense and then push me away?

  And why overanalyze?

  This is a dude in a koala suit. He clearly lacks vital screws.

  The dive Jazza selected for our not-a-date squats across the street. I give the koala a frosty parting glare and stalk away. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I swear he watches me go.

  Whatever, cuckoo koala.

  Tonight’s plan was to seek adventure, and an altercation with an escapee from the Island of Dr. Moreau must count to that end. Time to grab a beer and chalk the encounter up to a good story for once I’m back home.

  The pub’s cavernous wood-paneled interior is dim. The White Stripes blast and the whole place reeks of vomit and male sexual frustration. Charming.

  Jazza’s easy to spot, beyond the pool tables, towering over a cute girl with a choppy bob. Okay, crap—what if he’s found a better opportunity? I back away and make myself smaller, going from fight to flight mode. This whole not-a-date is a bad idea. Jazza’s gorgeous, but in a bland, beefcake way. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a good-time girl. I mean, in five minutes, I could be back in my room finishing The Thorn Birds.

  What would Pippa say? Not another reclusive night as a bookworm, Tals. Come on, honeybunch, live a little.

  The growing crowd propels me to the bar. “Victorian Bitter.” I order the cheapest beer on tap. Mom—and her family money—might foot the bill for this Australian adventure, but no need to be greedy. I take a sip and focus on the cricket match broadcasting on three different flat screens. Sports don’t interest me as a rule but the sight of fit men in pristine white uniforms running back and forth between a couple of sticks proves an incongruous distraction.