Frankie and Joely

by Nova Weetman

  Frankie knows that Joely’s pretending to sleep again because her breathing isn’t even. They still haven’t talked about what happened because Joely rushed off after dinner saying her head was sore and she needed to lie down.

  After flicking through her book and failing to find the right spot, Frankie slams it on the bedside table, making Joely flinch. ‘I might not be enough for you, Joely. But tough because I’m all you’ve got.’

  Joely feels like she’s back in that moment when her parents sat her down and told her they were splitting up. Knowing Frankie isn’t going to sleep until they talk, Joely finally opens her eyes to find Frankie staring straight at her.

  ‘You’re my best friend. I wouldn’t have been with Rory if I’d known you liked him,’ says Frankie.

  ‘I was jealous of you,’ says Joely, hating herself and still not wanting to talk about it. ‘I never knew I was. But I wanted a boy to like me better than you.’

  Frankie doesn’t understand the feeling, but she understands the words. So she nods, trying to show Joely that she cares about how she feels.

  ‘I like you better,’ says Frankie. ‘Better than pretty much anyone I’ve ever met.’

  Joely can’t say anything because she knows she’s going to cry and she’s so sick of crying. So she just nods. And nods. And nods. Until Frankie starts laughing. ‘Stop nodding!’

  ‘I can’t!’

  So Frankie starts laughing and shrugging, which makes Joely laugh too. Soon they are both laughing and shrugging and nodding and forgetting all about Rory and the fight that brought them here.

  Then Joely reaches out, clasps Frankie’s hand and squeezes it. It doesn’t feel uncomfortable. Or awkward. It just feels right.

  Chapter 46

  Joely isn’t well enough to use a shovel so she sits awkwardly on the back of Thommo’s bike watching her cousin and her best friend dig. Today is not as hot as yesterday. The sun seems to be granting them an hour or two before it belts down and stings them again. It can’t reach her anyway. She’s covered in clothes and a hat and sunscreen. Not even her ears can be seen out of the shadows. Thommo laughs, but she can’t hear what Frankie’s said to earn it. She doesn’t mind. She just likes watching them.

  It’s the first time she’s been outside during the day since Thommo and Frankie found her here on New Year’s. Jill managed to talk Joely’s mum into letting them stay on for a few days, which suited Joely because she didn’t want to go home when she was still blistered.

  Thommo and Frankie drop their shovels and Thommo pulls on an old pair of gloves. He looks funny wearing them with a singlet and shorts. He holds his breath and reaches down into the ditch, pulling up what is left of the kangaroo. She sees him try not to vomit and Frankie turn away from the smell. Then he drags the body to the hole they’ve dug and rolls it in with his foot.

  ‘Your turn, Joely,’ yells her cousin.

  Joely climbs down from the bike and walks towards them. She picks up a handful of dirt, and closes her eyes. Making a silent prayer in her head, she tosses the dirt into the grave, adding the little tussie mussie she picked from Jill’s garden. Frankie and Thommo start filling the hole and she watches as the kangaroo is slowly covered.

  She hears a motorbike in the distance. For a second, Joely thinks of Rory then dismisses the thought. She refuses to let him ruin this burial. Instead, she watches Frankie work, red-faced and sweating.

  She hears the bike stop, the engine cut short. She knows now that it’s Mack without even turning round. She hoped he’d come. He walks up behind her and stands close. Then his hand takes hers and the two of them watch as Thommo and Frankie pat down the red dirt, and then drag the old branch over the top.

  Frankie looks over at Joely and smiles, and Joely smiles back.

  Chapter 47

  Frankie starts to walk into the shop, but Joely stops outside and leans against the window.

  ‘I’m staying here,’ says Joely.

  ‘Why? I thought you liked op shops,’ says Frankie.

  After everything that has happened, Joely’s made a decision. She knows that every day will test it, but she has to start somewhere. ‘No. I hate them. I hate the smell. It’s like dead old people. I’ll wait here.’

  Frankie laughs. ‘Dead old people. Nice. I must like that smell then!’

  Joely looks into her friend’s eyes and wishes she knew what Frankie was thinking.

  ‘So why didn’t you tell me that before?’ says Frankie, looking back into Joely’s eyes.

  ‘Because I wanted to like them. Because you do.’ Joely can’t believe how relieved she feels telling the truth.

  ‘Oh.’ Frankie bumps Joely with her elbow and pushes open the door. ‘I’ll just be a sec.’

  Joely’s never had a friend she can be honest with before. She’s always pretended to like things, to want things because they did. She’s never told anyone about how she felt when her dad had a new baby, and now, maybe she can. Maybe if she tells Frankie stuff, Frankie will tell her stuff, too. The thought makes Joely smile.

  Joely looks at a gold mirror on display in the window and sees her reflection. The blisters have almost gone, but her face looks different. It’s changed, like something has played out across her skin in the last week and a half and the story is there in her extra freckles.

  Frankie sticks her head out of the shop door and flashes something bright red.

  ‘Is this colour okay?’

  ‘Yes. What is it?’

  Frankie smiles. ‘You’ll see.’ She disappears back into the shop.

  Joely watches Frankie at the counter, talking to the old woman and making her laugh. She wonders what Frankie’s saying. Then because she doesn’t like the feeling of not knowing, she turns around and leans against the glass again. She stares across the road straight at Rory Macleod. Joely panics. She wants to rush into the op shop, find Frankie, and be saved, but she can’t move. She has to watch as he leans down to the girl he’s with and kisses her on the mouth.

  ‘Ready for the pool?’ Frankie’s suddenly standing right next to her, swinging a plastic bag in her hand. ‘Joel?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Joely, wondering how honest she’s being now. She wishes Frankie would notice him, too, and together they’d storm across the road to kick him in the shins. Joely’s tempted to tell Frankie he’s there, but maybe it’s better to just leave it and forget he ever existed. So Joely smiles, an almost-real smile. ‘Yes, I’m fine!’

  ‘So are you ready for the pool?’ says Frankie again.

  Before Joely can answer, Frankie pulls something out of the bag. ‘You can wear one of these!’ Frankie holds up two bright red rashies that are so big they look like dresses.

  ‘Ergh,’ says Joely. ‘I already have a rashie on. One that doesn’t look like that!’

  Frankie grins at her. ‘Yeah, but now we have matching ones. And if it means you’ll come into the water with me, then I’ll wear whatever it takes!’

  Joely can feel the tears filling her eyes. Frankie laughs. ‘Don’t cry. Just put it on! Come on. We’re in Payne. Nobody has any idea of fashion here!’

  Before she can change her mind, Joely pulls off her own rashie and pulls on the new one.

  ‘Nice,’ says Frankie. ‘It suits you!’

  Frankie strips down to her bikini and, for a second, Joely is terrified that Frankie was kidding. But then her friend wriggles her way into the other rashie. It’s even worse than Joely’s: all puckered and stretched like a whole family were using it together.

  ‘Gorgeous!’ says Joely, only half-joking because, despite wearing such a hideous thing, Frankie does look gorgeous. Frankie always looks gorgeous.

  ‘Come here,’ says Frankie, pulling the rashie material tight around Joely’s waist and knotting it at the front to give it shape. ‘That’s better.’
<
br />   Frankie grabs her hand and they scuff their way across the road towards the pool.

  As soon as they get through the gates and reach the grass, Frankie and Joely kick off their thongs and run laughing and screaming into the cool water. Together.

  Acknowledgements

  This book has taken some time, and there were a lot of great readers and listeners along the way. Thanks to Jo, Paula, Pip, Teens, Saurenne, Selin, Mum and Lou. It’s great to have such excellent women around to get feedback from when the book you’re writing is all about intense female friendships. A huge thanks to Simmone Howell for reading and saying such nice things just when I needed to hear them. Thanks to my kids for their honest advice about cover art! To Aidan for taking a photo where I smile and my eyes aren’t completely closed! To Penguin for letting me use Picnic at Hanging Rock – a book I loved desperately when I was a teen. And a huge thanks to all the work my amazing editor Kristy Bushnell put in on this one. It was so lovely working with someone who got it. And, as always, thanks to everyone at UQP, particularly the wonderful Kristina Schulz for reading this book when it was rough and not ready and seeing something in it.

  First published 2015 by University of Queensland Press

  PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia

  www.uqp.com.au

  uqp@uqp.uq.edu.au

  © Nova Weetman 2015

  This book is copyright. Except for private study, research,

  criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act,

  no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

  or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior

  written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

  Cover design by Kirby Armstrong

  Cover photographs: women by Lisaphoto/Getty Images; landscape by bgfoto/iStock

  Excerpt on p.201 from Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay, 1975, Melbourne, Australia. Reproduced with permission by Penguin Australia Pty Ltd.

  Typeset in 10.5/15 pt Sabon by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group, Melbourne

  This project has been assisted by the Australian Government

  through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  National Library of Australia

  http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

  Weetman, Nova, author.

  Frankie & Joely / Nova Weetman.

  ISBN 978 0 7022 5363 8 (pbk)

  ISBN 978 0 7022 5512 0 (pdf)

  ISBN 978 0 7022 5513 7 (epub)

  ISBN 978 0 7022 5514 4 (kindle)

  For young adults.

  Young adult fiction.

  A823.4

  University of Queensland Press uses papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The

  logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental

  regulations of the country of origin.