Frankie and Joely

by Nova Weetman

  ‘Come in, love.’

  Frankie walks slowly to the bed and sits down on the floor near Jill. Her friend doesn’t look over. Instead, she seems to be watching the fan turn.

  ‘Is she okay?’ whispers Frankie.

  ‘Yeah. The doctor thinks the sunstroke was worse than we realised. And maybe the bump on the head. She just needs rest.’

  Jill hands her the bowl of ice and nods. Then she leaves the room and, at first, Frankie isn’t sure what to do. Joely’s eyes close and then open. Frankie picks up the largest cube she can find and runs it across her friend’s head. Joely sighs. Frankie keeps looking at her eyes, hoping to see something familiar there.

  ‘Hi,’ whispers Frankie.

  Joely rolls onto her side so she can look at Frankie. Strange, thinks Frankie as she stares at her friend’s eyes. She’s never really noticed how dark Joely’s eyes were before. They are almost black.

  ‘I really liked him, Frank.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘You were with him the whole time, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Frankie, wishing she could say no.

  The ice has melted under her fingers. She shakes off the leftover drops and picks out another piece. She runs it back and forth across Joely’s head making slippery snail-like circles.

  ‘I’m sorry, Joel.’ Frankie leans down and kisses her cheek. She takes in her skin, peeling and red; her eyes, puffy; and her arms, bruised. It doesn’t matter somehow. She still looks beautiful but she knows that Joely will laugh if she tells her.

  Joely shifts onto her back and closes her eyes. Frankie watches, envious that she can go to sleep now.

  Without opening her eyes, Joely whispers, ‘It’s not just him. It’s everyone. Don’t you ever have enough?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Frankie.

  ‘I just wanted one boy. Just him. But you had to come along and steal him.’

  ‘I didn’t know … I’m sorry …’

  Frankie knows she’s crying. She tries to touch Joely’s arm, but she can’t. So she does what she always does when she doesn’t know what to say. She walks out of the room.

  Chapter 42

  Frankie runs into the water fully dressed. She can see him in the deep end of the pool, dipping up and down, playing. She forges through the water towards him. He senses her somehow. He turns when she’s almost there and starts moving towards her with that stupid smile on his face.

  Frankie smiles back as he reaches her. Her heart is racing.

  He leans down for a kiss. She shoots up and pushes his head under the water with all her strength. It’s only a second before he flips her off and under. She comes up fast and sends a wave of water into his face, fury surging through her. She hates him more with each splash.

  ‘Why?’ she yells.

  ‘You found out then,’ he says.

  ‘Why?’

  He shrugs. ‘I was bored.’

  ‘So you fucked with us?’

  ‘I didn’t fuck with either of you.’ He sneers. ‘Although I think she would have said yes in a flash.’

  ‘I thought …’ says Frankie, hating that he’s hurt her.

  ‘You thought I liked you? I did. If it makes you feel any better. I liked you more than I liked her …’

  He moves closer, like he’s going to try to kiss her. She’ll punch him if he comes any nearer.

  ‘So Mack dobbed you in, hey. I knew he would. Really burnt him when I told him I was with you and his cousin.’

  ‘Mack didn’t say anything. He couldn’t give a shit about me or you. Joely told me. She is my best friend, after all,’ says Frankie wishing it were true and Joely had just told her what was going on so they could have played this boy right back.

  Rory looks at her and she stares him down. ‘Joely didn’t tell you anything. You got busted. She saw me kissing you at the party.’

  Frankie wants to kill him: break his teeth, spit on him and hurt him so bad he’ll never smile at a girl again. Instead, she sucks it all in knowing he’ll expect her anger. Then she leans up and kisses him hard on the mouth, waiting for him to relax. Just as he does and he opens his mouth, she bites his lip so hard she expects it to rip right off.

  He screams at her and she pushes off towards the steps, calling, ‘You’re a loser, Rory Macleod.’

  Walking out of the pool she smiles to herself and can’t wait to get back to tell Joely that she made him pay.

  Chapter 43

  Joely doesn’t want to open her eyes. She wants to stay lost inside her head where she can see his face and remember the way he kissed. Every time she opens her eyes she sees Frankie’s bed, and Frankie’s stuff, and it hurts all over again.

  She hears the soft footsteps in the hallway and knows it’s her. She feels sick waiting for the door to open. And then it does and her friend tiptoes in like an angel. Joely, can’t pretend to be sleeping. She doesn’t have it in her anymore.

  Frankie kneels down on the floor. She leans in close so Joely can see her without moving too much. Frankie inches her hand forward and Joely thinks Frankie wants her to reach back and hold it tight. But Joely doesn’t. Instead her fingers fidget, unsure.

  ‘I didn’t know, Joely.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have …’

  But you did, thinks Joely.

  ‘You’re my best friend, Joel.’ Now Frankie takes her hand and squeezes it to make her point. ‘He’s an arsehole. He was playing us,’ says Frankie.

  Joely pulls her hand away. She doesn’t want to hear this. She wants to believe it was real. At least for a bit.

  ‘He was just bored. He thought it was funny. I bit his lip and hopefully it’ll need stitches,’ says Frankie.

  Joely tenses. ‘You saw him? Wait, you bit his lip? You kissed him?’

  Frankie shrugs.

  ‘Did you see him, Frank?’

  ‘Yeah. I wanted to know why.’

  ‘I don’t care why,’ says Joely, hurting all over.

  ‘But he’s an arsehole.’

  ‘You’ve said that already.’

  ‘Don’t let him—’

  ‘What? Ruin our friendship?’

  Frankie’s crying now. Joely can see the tears, even though her friend has bowed her head to try to keep them secret. But she wants to see Frankie cry just like she has over the past day.

  ‘You’re my best friend,’ says Frankie in the smallest voice Joely’s ever heard.

  Joely doesn’t want to let her off yet. She wants to make her beg, hurt her and make her understand that she isn’t the one in charge this time.

  ‘Really? Am I?’

  Frankie nods. She still hasn’t looked up.

  ‘You want every boy to like you,’ says Joely.

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You do. It’s not enough that Thommo and Mack have been fighting over you. You had to have Rory, too.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ says Frankie again.

  ‘But if you had known, Frank, would you have left him for me?’

  Frankie doesn’t answer and Joely is pleased. It means she can be angrier with her friend than with him.

  But then Frankie says quietly, ‘Would you have left him for me?’

  ‘No,’ says Joely quickly.

  And saying it makes Joely understand that their friendship wasn’t as strong as she thought. That she was the one who would give up Frankie and all that she meant for seven days with a boy she barely knew.

  ‘I only kissed him. That’s all. Just in case you wondered,’ says Frankie.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Joely wonders if it’s normal that it matters to her if her friend didn’t have sex with him. But it does. Now they’re equal. It means he liked them the same.

  ‘You know what, Frankie? I
just wanted to be chosen. Nobody ever chooses me.’

  ‘I did,’ says Frankie crying.

  Joely thinks back to the first day they met, and how giddy with excitement she felt that she’d finally met someone who wanted her around.

  ‘Well, obviously you’re not enough,’ says Joely, realising as she says it, that it’s true.

  Frankie says nothing. She wipes the back of her hand across her eyes, and moves away from the bed. She grabs her backpack from the cupboard and starts filling it with everything she can, slowing only to fold her green leather coat and tuck it in between layers of protection.

  ‘Frank,’ says Joely, ‘what are you doing?’

  Frankie doesn’t answer. She just pulls the pack shut, zips it up then grabs her book from the table. ‘You lost my page,’ she says to Joely and walks out of the bedroom.

  Joely can’t believe Frankie knew she’d looked at her book. She can’t believe she didn’t say anything before, that she wasn’t even angry about it. Then realising what she’s done, Joely tries to get up, but the room swims around her and she crashes back onto her bed. She grabs her phone, madly trying to turn it on so she can ring Frankie and tell her to come back, tell her she was wrong. But the phone’s dead.

  Then she hears the wire door slam and she knows it’s too late.

  Frankie’s gone.

  ‘Thommo?’ says Frankie from the shed doorway.

  He looks up, taking in her suitcase. ‘You wanna lift into town?’

  Frankie nods, relieved she doesn’t have to ask.

  ‘Sure,’ he says, wheeling Mack’s bike over.

  She gets on the back and waits for him to climb on. She doesn’t want to put her arms around his waist, not after all Joely has said. She doesn’t want him to want her, but she can’t balance with her backpack on if she doesn’t hold onto something. So she grabs the leather seat instead as he climbs on and kickstarts the bike. She half expects Joely to come after her, but the house is still.

  As Thommo revs the engine, he leans back, as if asking her to hold him instead of the seat. Finally, she slips her arms around his waist and presses into him, wishing she could take back the week and start again.

  They ride out the gate and Frankie’s sure she can see Jill watching from the kitchen. She wonders if she’s happy to see Frankie leave. They drive past the dead kangaroo, and Frankie realises she didn’t even get a chance to find out why her friend was sleeping in a ditch with the stinking carcass.

  She never thought it would be Joely who would hurt her. That’s why she picked Joely in the first place. Joely was safe, someone who would love her, no matter what. Stupid.

  Frankie wishes she’d remembered her sunglasses to cover any tears that might fall on the ride into town. At least she knows that Thommo won’t care if she cries. He doesn’t seem to find anything too hard to cope with. He just rolls with it. Frankie used to be like that. Before she met Joely she could just cruise in and out of schools, never look anyone in the eye, and shrug if it all got too much. But now she cared. And that was the worst bit.

  Thommo turns into the main street and Frankie hopes they’ll pass Rory, so he’ll notice she has her arms wrapped around some other guy. She still doesn’t get what happened, why he set out to hurt her and Joely. What sort of person did that?

  They cruise past the Ice-cream Shoppe and the op shop. For a second, Frankie wants to run inside and give back the old lady’s coat so she can find someone more deserving to hand it onto. But it would be worth a bit if she sold it, and Frankie could do with the money. There’s no point keeping it now because it’s not like she wants to remember this place.

  The bike slows and they pull up in front of the train station. Frankie wonders if there’ll be a train anytime soon, or if she’ll have to spend the night. Better holed up here than anywhere near Joely. She leans her head against Thommo’s back before she gets off, liking the warmth from the sun on his t-shirt and the smell of aftershave through his clothes.

  ‘Thanks, Thommo,’ she says, standing up.

  ‘No worries,’ he says because he doesn’t know how to grab her and stop her from leaving.

  ‘Can you thank your mum and dad for me? Say goodbye.’ She bites her lip.

  ‘Yeah. No worries.’

  It’s something to do with the look on his face or maybe it’s the freckles that remind her of Joely but, without realising what she’s about to do, she leans down and kisses him on the lips, her hands in his hair, her breath in his mouth. As she pulls away, she shrugs and he smiles, surprised by the kiss.

  ‘I’ll see ya,’ she says and starts up the ramp to the station.

  Thommo watches her go.

  Chapter 44

  ‘How are you feeling, Joely,’ says Jill from the doorway.

  ‘Fine,’ says Joely, wishing everyone would leave her alone.

  ‘Where’s Frankie?’

  ‘Gone.’

  Jill comes in and sits on Joely’s bed. She strokes her hair. ‘Gone? Where?’

  ‘Home,’ says Joely, wondering what everyone will make of Frankie leaving.

  Jill nods. ‘Are you okay?’

  Joely sighs. She doesn’t know how to explain it, not even to Jill.

  ‘Joely?’ Jill slides her arms around Joely, pulling her close.

  It’s all just too much for Joely and she bursts out with, ‘We like the same boy!’ Jill holds her closer and Joely starts crying.

  ‘Oh,’ says Jill.

  Joely snuffles. ‘Frankie gets everyone she wants.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

  Surprised that Jill isn’t more on her side, Joely looks up.

  ‘Maybe she wants someone to love her. That’s all,’ says Jill. ‘I know your mum can be a bit hard on you and a bit odd sometimes, but she loves you. You know she does. I don’t know what Frankie’s situation is, but she seems a little unattached …’

  Joely nods, knowing that Jill is right. Even though her dad left and started a new family, at least she has one. Frankie just has a mum who doesn’t seem to notice when she’s around or not.

  ‘I do know one thing, Joely … Frankie loves you.’

  It’s about the last thing Joely wants to hear and it makes her start blubbering even more.

  Frankie has fifteen minutes left before the train comes. For the last few hours she’s been reading all the graffiti and learning quite a few things about Rory.

  Apparently he’s Payne’s go-to guy. His number is even on the wall, several times over. There are a few other comments about him, nasty ones, suggesting he’s a psycho. Frankie wishes she’d read these walls the first day before heading to the farm. She can’t believe a boy like him played her. She’s usually so good at avoiding the dangerous ones.

  The more she thinks about Rory, the more she sees Joely on the road looking half-dead. And the more she thinks about Joely, the more she thinks about Thommo and Ged and Jill, and even Mack with his stupid comments. If she gets on that train, she’s going home to her mum having loud sex with yet another guy that always leaves the toilet seat up. This wasn’t her plan. She thought she’d be going home with a best friend forever. Not with a head full of sad thoughts.

  She pulls a coin out of her pocket. Heads she stays; tails she goes.

  She flips high. The coin smacks down in her hand. She covers it, desperately wanting it to land a certain way up, but not wanting to make a choice. She peels her fingers back and smiles.

  Chapter 45

  There are three different potato dishes for dinner, but nobody’s eating much. Joely has mushed the same piece around in her mouth until it’s become a paste. Mack’s texting, Thommo’s staring, Jill isn’t talking and Ged just keeps slapping his leg, killing mosquitoes only he seems to see. ‘This is the last time we eat dinner outside,’ he says to no one.

  ‘Can I grab a plate?’

  Joely hear
s the words but doesn’t really register them. Thommo jumps up but then he sits down again.

  ‘Frankie?’ says Joely through the potato sludge.

  ‘I’m starving! I just walked back cos the buses weren’t running. It was too hot or something and it broke down.’ She laughs. ‘Only in the country, hey?’

  Joely gets up, forgetting how sore she is, and rushes to Frankie. She wraps her arms tight around her waist, and pulls her in close. She doesn’t want to let her go and scans her face to see how Frankie feels about her now. She’s terrified her friend has just come back because she’s run out of money, or there were no trains to the city. But then Frankie kisses Joely on the cheek and Joely hopes that whatever’s happened, they will be okay.

  Jill places a plate on the table next to Thommo. ‘Here you go, love. I must have known you were coming back. Made your favourite … potato salad!’

  ‘Jill, I’m sorry, but I don’t actually like potato salad!’ says Frankie.

  Jill laughs. ‘Who does?’

  Ged grabs the bowl and upends half of it onto his plate. ‘I do.’

  And just like that, they all start talking again, freed from their silence by the return of Frankie with her short skirt and her shrug.

  ‘You feeling any better, Joely?’ Frankie squeezes Joely’s arm.

  Joely manages to nod because she’s not yet sure what she wants to say.

  As Frankie sits down next to Thommo, he looks across at her and blushes. She reaches for his hand under the table and grabs it, holding tight.

  ‘Hey Mack.’

  ‘You’re back. Great. Thommo will be pleased.’ He stares at her across the table. She feels Thommo start to let go of her hand, but she grips it even tighter.

  While the others all talk around her, Frankie thinks about what she’ll say to Joely when they’re finally alone.