Preloved

by Shirley Marr

  Yeah, it must be so hard trying to fight against your parents and your comfortable middle-class existence every day.

  I watched as Rebecca flicked through posho dresses in the posho store, with her new poseur boyfriend slobbering on her. It made me wonder a little about the heart that was really inside my “individual” pink-haired and tartan-skirted friend. I had a feeling it was mass-produced and not altogether different from everyone else’s.

  “Remind me why she’s so special to you again,” I said to Logan.

  “Does she need to be? I don’t care what she is. All I know is that I love her.”

  I stared at Logan. I was aware my mouth was slightly open, but I could only hope I wasn’t about to drool or anything. Something inside me suddenly loved him more. Which meant I had loved him a little bit to begin with.

  Uh-oh. I could hear a gaggle of gossip approaching – a noise worse than fingernails down a chalkboard. Oh no. Not The Minority Group. Nancy walked coolly through the door of the shop flanked by an eye-rolling-and-whispering Valerie and Florence.

  I wondered if this drove Nancy nuts and if she ever craved real company. Outside of schoolwork, all Valerie and Florence seemed to talk about were eyelash extensions and designer handbags.

  “Oh great,” said Rebecca, glancing sideways. “What do those girls have against me? Why am I the beautiful and the damned?”

  Nancy gave a nod and a smile as she walked past.

  Did Nancy Soo just acknowledge me in public? I looked behind me in case it was meant for someone else, but all I could see was an invisible ghost making a face back at me.

  Rebecca picked another dress off the rack and slipped the hanger over her head.

  “What do you think of this one?”

  “It’s perfect,” Logan and I said at the same time. We stared at the purple dress with the short double-skirt and the big rosette at the waist. Stacey’s dress.

  This had to be a sign. But unfortunately we were currently in a movie called Rebecca and Benji’s Infinite Snogfest. I had to break up this bad romance and get the love story going between Rebecca and Logan, thus setting everything back on track.

  I plonked myself down on a large oblong ottoman facing the changing room as Rebecca disappeared inside. Logan sat at the other end. I watched him stare up at the ceiling, which was a dome made up of hundreds of those twinkling little lights. It looked like the night sky.

  I sat awkwardly, with my knees pointed together, and gauged the space between us. I wished he was a real boy and that this was our chance encounter. He’d say something about the coolness of the Commodore 64 and I’d confess that I had an Atari under my bed.

  I was so tempted to kiss him on the side of his face.

  Not only because I was harbouring some deadly romantic notion of love at first sight, which was waiting inside of me like a time bomb ready to explode onto the wrong person, but because it felt like I had known him a lifetime. That we had been friends for longer than the last few days. That I cared for him, like I had cared for him once, a long time ago.

  I wanted to run my fingers through his feathered hair.

  No, I didn’t.

  Quick, brain! Think of something to turn yourself off.

  Think of Michael Limawan.

  Who so sweetly thought of you when he was going to an Eighties movie marathon … you could have eaten a boysenberry choc top with him and rolled Jaffas down the aisle. Shit. Stop thinking about Michael.

  Think about grandpa undies.

  Yeah. Big grandpa undies.

  I cleared my throat. “We’ll just have to dispatch Benji the Bad Boy and you’re all set,” I said matter-of-factly. “We need to find you that tux and shoestring tie. I was thinking maybe the fancy dress shop. Ha-ha! Ahhh, I kill me.”

  “Did Amy Lee just use some cool Eighties slang?” Logan smiled, shaking his finger at me. He moved right next to me.

  I rolled my eyes and pretended it didn’t matter. Hey, I could be cool. Just like all those … cool people.

  The curtain to the cubicle was pushed aside and Rebecca stepped out as if she was shy. Which I now knew to be a complete and utter act. When had Bex become so shallow? Or had she always been like this and I just pushed it aside because she was my only friend?

  Logan gasped audibly as Rebecca checked herself out in the mirror. I would have punched him in the head if my hand wouldn’t have just gone straight through him.

  “Amy, I know you don’t believe in love, but unlike you, I’m passionate. Spontaneous. Impulsive. Give me one good reason, why I shouldn’t fall completely and utterly in love.”

  Rebecca came and sat down next to me. Right on top of Logan.

  “Okay,” I replied. “I’ll give you one reason. His name is Logan Feldman and you’re sitting right on top of him.”

  “What?” exclaimed Rebecca. She shot up in surprise.

  “Your boyfriend from a previous lifetime has been haunting me.”

  “I’ll prove it to her,” said Logan.

  “He said he’ll prove it to you,” I said to Rebecca. Great, I was stuck in an episode of Ghost Whisperer. Maybe my whole life was going to be one never-ending episode of Ghost Whisperer, except instead of starring a buxom and romantic Jennifer Love-Hewitt, it starred a socially munted freak who could actually only see one ghost.

  “Ask her to ask me any question about herself.”

  “He said to ask him any question about yourself.”

  “Um,” said Rebecca, blinking her long thick eyelashes. “What’s my favourite colour?”

  “Pink,” replied Logan.

  “He said pink,” I said to Rebecca. “No, hang on!”

  I turned to Logan and frowned at him. “She’s Rebecca, not Stacey! Maybe Stacey liked pink, but I know Rebecca’s favourite colour is purple. This game of yours isn’t going to work.”

  “Amy, I’m going to just leave you alone to relax for a moment, all right?” said Rebecca, nervously. “In the meantime, I’m going to buy this dress and, um – oh cripes. Forgot to tell you I’m going off with Benji. Did I tell you Benji has a motorbike?”

  “Dammit, Bex!” She had disappeared back behind the curtains before I could say anything else.

  “Dammit, Amy!” I turned to the sounds of Logan’s groans.

  “What?”

  “What do you mean what? I’ve had to suffer chronically, watching my girlfriend suck face with that Flock of Seagulls tosser.”

  “Dammit, Logan, what do you want from me? I don’t owe you anything.”

  Logan smacked his hand onto his forehead.

  “This is not the way things are supposed to turn out.”

  “Why are you surprised?” I answered. “I don’t know what fantasy land you came from, but that’s the way the world goes around these days – things fail! Suck it up, Princess.”

  “That’s bullshit,” snapped Logan. “You don’t believe that. You’re all about the romance, and don’t you know it.”

  “You don’t know me,” I snapped back at him.

  “I do,” said Logan.

  He moved closer to me, so close that our feet were side by side.

  “I’m not a hungry ghost, Amy – you are. I see you, this girl who lives inside herself, invisible to everyone, even to herself. You’re hungry for your mother’s touch, hungry for your missing father. You’re hungry for life and you’re hungry to be a proper character in your own story. Boy, do I know you.”

  I wanted to cry. I wanted to let it all out finally. While I sat next to Logan with our feet so perfectly aligned. My pink Chucks next to his white campus shoes.

  “You’re an arsehat!” I shouted instead. “Do you need an Eighties translation for that? It means I think you’re a total dipstick!” I tilted my head up so the tears wouldn’t run out. I was so upset I was shaking. “Why are you taking it out on me? ’Cos I’m the only person who can hear you?”

  The music stopped and the whole shop stared at me. Again.

  I stuffed my humiliation into my m
outh and down my throat, and I ran out of there.

  All I wanted to do was go home and hide under my bed. Go over and over in my mind every single ghost warning Mum had ever told me and agree that they should have scared the shit out of me in the first place.

  My mother had told me stories about hanged ghosts with long red tongues lolling out of their heads, wandering ghosts looking for their murderers, water ghosts looking for someone to drown in their place. All of them lost and aimless. But what she should have scared me with was a story about a shut down, defensive and sarcastic girl who couldn’t move ahead with her life because she was dead on the inside.

  I ran as fast as I could, hoping to leave Logan behind. But I couldn’t run away from the fact that Logan had seen through me, took hold of my greatest fear and shown it to me.

  It had taken someone who wasn’t alive to recognise that I wasn’t either.

  I ran because it was the only thing I could do.

  I left a trail of invisible red footprints.

  I knew they were red because they were made from my blood, as the contents of my heart dribbled out.

  And all the time, I kept the locket pressed deep into my skin.

  Chapter 9

  “What do you really think of the shop, Ollie?” Mum asked the antique taxidermy owl as she gently dusted his chest. “I need your honest opinion. Do you think people these days are only preoccupied with everything being bigger, better and brand-new?”

  “You do realise you’re dusting a stuffed owl with a chicken feather duster,” I said as I opened the door gently and slipped in. My voice sounded steady.

  I had just done a quick, two-minute cry out the front, and I was sure I had it all out of my system. I wiped my face with the back of my hand. All I felt now was low and sinking, wallowing inside a heart of wet cement.

  “Well, they are both deceased,” said Mum in her defence and she put the duster down.

  “It’s weird, that’s all,” I said quietly. “Not a good day?”

  Mum held up the price tag around Ollie’s neck for me as I walked over. It now read $140. Yikes – a $41 price jump in one day.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “It’s just that even though I’ve been surrounded by people all day, I feel lonely. Like he’s the only thing I can connect to. Even though he’s not real. Does that sound strange? If someone decided to buy him, I honestly don’t know what I’d do.”

  I don’t know who it was that stuffed that owl, but with the menacing expression and outstretched wings, Ollie would be the last thing I wanted to be friends with. But I understood exactly what Mum was saying: we were both completely alone in our own worlds.

  “You’re back early,” said Mum. She screwed up her nose in the same way that I knew I did all the time. “I thought you were on a mega shopping spree with Rebecca at the new mega mall.”

  “I decided it wasn’t for me. Y’know, too big, too shiny, too much commercial wankery.”

  Mum smiled wryly as I ran my fingers along the old glass-topped counter, feeling the grooves and dings in the wood. They felt calmingly familiar, as if I knew each one by heart.

  Mum blew some hair out of her face and chewed on her pen as she tapped away on her calculator. The screwed-nose look came back.

  “Did you sell all the Eighties dresses today?” I looked at Mum’s beautiful pale-green store and the empty racks that had earlier today held an explosion of multicoloured dresses shining like big awesome fun.

  “Yup,” replied Mum. “But I don’t know if it’s enough. I just wish your dad would at least think about you and give–”

  “Dad is a dick! The grand pooh-bah dictator of all dicks.”

  “Amy! I don’t care what your liberal Western education teaches you, but as a young Chinese woman, I demand you have some respect for your father.”

  I rolled my eyes and stomped out to the back, not bothering to take my shoes off at the point where our home started. All the boxes labelled “Evening Dresses – 1980s” had been cleared out. All except …

  The box in the alcove under the stairs was still there, tucked tightly into the corner. It didn’t do anything when I pressed my palm against it. It just sat there like a dead thing. My heart felt disappointed.

  I thought I’d just drag it out into the store. Except it was heavier than I had expected. I huffed and groaned and finally kicked the box on its side and let the contents spill out onto the Persian carpet in the middle of the store. I sat down and pulled the dress closest to me into my lap.

  Mum gave me a funny look. Then she walked over to the front door, turned the “Open” sign over and came to kneel down beside me.

  I heard her knees crack.

  “Oooh, old age.” Mum grimaced. “No way can I do a go-go dancer squat these days.”

  “What’s a go-go dancer?” I asked, but I couldn’t even manage a spark of playful sarcasm and it came out flat.

  “Amy,” said Mum, all serious now. “I don’t want you to blame your father, because it was me who decided to leave. I made that choice. No one forced me to.”

  “I hate Dad and he hates me.”

  “He doesn’t hate – Amy, what’s really wrong?” Mum looked down. I realised I was cuddling the dress in my arms like a teddy bear.

  “Nothing,” I replied, and maybe for once in my life I was speaking the truth. Maybe it meant nothing if all of it was happening inside of me.

  “Is it boy trouble?” probed Mum. Then she added, “Although, speaking as a Chinese mum, I do forbid you to date until you’re thirty-one.”

  “When are boys not trouble?”

  Mum thought about it. She nodded to herself. I smoothed the dress down and held it out in front of me.

  “This is quite beautiful, actually,” I said, surprised. It was a strapless black thing with a sweetheart neckline and pleated ruffles that fanned out into a train at the back.

  “What about this one?” asked Mum, holding out a gold, one-shouldered minidress.

  “That’s actually really fashionable,” I had to admit.

  “And this one?” Mum picked up a mint-green dress with mega shoulder pads and a giant black velvet bow.

  “Okay, two in a row is probably considered a very lucky run.”

  I prodded one of the shoulder pads. I couldn’t help but crack up a little on the inside, even though at the same time I could feel fresh tears forming in my eyes. Mum gave me an encouraging smile. Then we fell into an awkward silence. It felt weird without Logan – the little-angel-and-little-devil rolled into one – over my shoulder. I felt so alone.

  “Do you believe in reincarnation, Mum?” I found myself blurting out.

  “Why the sudden interest?” replied Mum. “I thought you youngsters didn’t believe in gods or demons these days.”

  I don’t think anyone believes in anything these days. It was good to know that we’re not stupid enough to burn women at the stake for being witches; that if you told someone you heard the voices of angels in your head, they wouldn’t think you were going to become the next saint, but would take you straight to an asylum for your own good. It made us smarter and savvier, but why did accepting that we were a chance occurrence on the face of the cosmos, like some random pimple, make me feel so empty and lonely?

  “It’s just that you love telling me ghost stories.” I stared at Mum with hopeful eyes.

  “Let me show you something.” Mum placed her hand on my elbow and lifted it.

  “You want to show me … my own arm?”

  “Humour me for a sec, won’t you? Roll up your sleeve.”

  I raised my eyebrows at her, but did as I was told. I pulled up the edge of my T-shirt.

  “Look at this.” Mum poked her finger into my skin.

  “That’s a birthmark,” I said. “Uh, we should both know it’s there. Especially you. Since you’re my mother.”

  “It’s an unusual birthmark, isn’t it?” interrupted Mum.

  I examined the surface of my skin. I had a dark imperfection cl
ose to my shoulder, in the shape of an almost perfectly round dot.

  “There is a practice in Chinese culture that if a child dies, the mother might make a small mark somewhere on their body so that if the child was reborn into the world, she would be able to recognise and know that they had come back safely.”

  In Human Bio, Mr Haq had insisted birthmarks were not marks of the devil or what old superstitions would have people believe. They were caused by irregular cell migration during development in the womb. I glanced down at my birthmark again.

  “It depended on how desperate she was. Some mothers would cruelly dot their children’s faces, but others would leave an inconspicuous mark somewhere, like an upper arm. I saw it the very moment they put you in my arms, Amy.”

  Mum had one of those looks on her face that sat between composure and falling apart, like the split second before a biscuit soaked in coffee crumbles in half.

  “I believed this story, which your ah ma told me, so much that I was scared that if you had been taken too young from your mother in a previous life, the same would happen to me. And who knows how many generations this has gone on for, it could be a curse.”

  Mum lost it then, and tears rolled down her face. She covered her face, embarrassed.

  Well, that explained a lot. It explained all the superstitions she was so determined to let me know. I felt filled with love for Mum then. I wished I could hug her, but it would be awkward to start a hugging tradition this late in life.

  I wondered if it was true that somewhere out there, a mother I had in a previous lifetime was looking at all the teens walking by and wondering if any of them were me. I wondered if she went on to have more daughters. It made me feel ashamed that in moments of anger and frustration, I often thought that no one cared about me. When in fact many people were in the process of loving or having loved me or would one day love me. Maybe there were even people I was completely unaware of who loved me too.

  “Anyway,” said Mum, smiling through her tears. “Your Aunt Veronica – when she was heavily pregnant – fell stomach-first into wet cement at a construction site, and when your cousin Amos was born, he had a huge grey birthmark across his entire forehead. Tell me you have a logical explanation for that! Luckily it disappeared though after a year …”