For whatever you want, my grandmother insisted, when she sent the money. And maybe this is what she meant. For what I want. Not what everybody else wants for me.
‘So what do we do instead?’ she asks.
‘Perhaps we do dye our hair green,’ I say. ‘Disappear for a while. Take a year off. Travel. Figure out who we are when we’re not being told who to be.’
‘Where would we go?’ Keiko asks, twining her fingers through mine.
‘We could start with a bamboo forest,’ I say.
And she smiles.
It’s different, when you know it’s ending. You have the chance to look at it properly, really study it. Whatever was weird at first that became normal becomes weird again. You start to miss it when you haven’t quite lost it yet. And you have to work hard to stay present, really appreciate it, which only leads to more proper looking, more studying and more weirdness …
Sunday mornings, the centre plays classical music for the shoppers who aren’t here yet. Workers wear baggy jumpers over their uniforms as they rearrange displays behind shuttered shopfronts. Some talk to themselves, some dance.
Nina doesn’t dance. She doesn’t work retail either, she says she’s allergic. She leans against a tall fridge and sips her smoothie. She has a navy-blue streak dyed into her hair. It’s nothing new — she’s cycled through coloured streaks for as long as I’ve known her — I’m just noticing it again. Along with the name badge that reads Damien, and the scar on her cheek she calls Foreboding Backstory, but really, the doctor just nicked her during the C-section.
When the centre closed the food court to make way for some European clothing chain, we were banished to the basement with homewares and electronics everyone can buy cheaper online. Nina and I are from two different worlds. I work the register at Phat Buns, a twelve-year-old’s greasy fever dream, and she’s the teen queen of the juice-bar island HealthiU. Their smoothies come with activated almonds, standard. For an extra three dollars at Phats, we substitute our signature phat buns for deep-fried crumbed chicken fillets. But that said, for six hellish hours every Sunday, we’re unlikely allies, trading fries for smoothies, triple cheeseburgers for fruit salads. And today, we’re over.
Phat Buns has been flirting with the idea that I’m too expensive to work weekends, and like the person who unfriends you on Facebook when a birthday notification reminds them they don’t really like you, Tilly called on my eighteenth last week to let me know she was yanking me from the Sunday roster. She offered me Thursdays after school, which I refused because one, a six-hour shift after a six-period day sounded like hell, and two, it wouldn’t be the same. I could forget casually eating fistfuls of nuggets at the counter and taking extra-long breaks in the walk-in with free soft-serves — weekday managers lack all chill. And Nina wouldn’t be there.
She squints over at me. ‘Adam, you look bored,’ she says.
‘I am.’
She sighs like I’ve just revealed some heavy truth, then she pushes off the fridge, discards her drink and reaches for a rag. She wipes down the bench with all the enthusiasm of, well, an eighteen-year-old wiping down a bench. She gets me. We get each other. I wonder if we’d be friends if we met in any other place, if we went to the same school or were invited to the same birthday party. Are we friends because we’re trapped together, or is there more to us than fries and smoothies?
Will we be friends after I’m gone? Can we? I mean, is it possible that our friendship could extend beyond short bursts of conversation, metres apart? Or even further, to maybe …
‘How’s your girlfriend?’ Karl asks from the back.
I don’t bother looking at him. ‘Shut up, Karl.’
Everyone who works Sundays acts like Nina and I are inevitable, like a guy and a chick can’t have solid banter that builds for years and goes nowhere. I guess part of me must have believed them, because now it feels so … unfinished. Even though it never actually started.
‘You hungry?’
I turn. Karl is hunched over the grill, checking the temperature of various breakfast meats with a needled instrument. When he’s done, he stacks them on an opened muffin to make one of his towering breakfast monstrosities. My stomach churns.
‘I’m good.’
He’s not fazed, more for him. He’s been back crew for the two years I’ve worked at Phats. Recently promoted, he’s exercising his managerial right to grow a beard. Beard is probably too strong a word. There are patches.
‘You ready to open?’ Karl asks.
‘I’m sure we’ll survive,’ I say.
He chews with his mouth open. A bit of meat almost escapes, and he guides it back with a light touch. I tear my eyes away, back to the front, to Nina. What if she was my girlfriend? I wonder what shape dating her might take. Without meaning to, I live it: the two of us sitting against the concrete brick wall of the service passageway, shoulders touching and …
I fall back into my body, and Nina feels too far away.
‘Oi,’ I call.
She stops wiping down the bench. ‘What?’
I ask her when she finishes work.
‘Quarter past two.’
I finish at two. That gives me enough time to run some water through my hair.
I ask if she has plans.
The service passageway is her idea. She says it’s like seeing the world’s seams. The shopping centre’s glossy white walls and faux-marble trimmings vanish. The passageway’s just concrete bricks and exposed piping. We find a spot far enough from the bin that it doesn’t smell like garbage. She brings the smoothies, I bring the burgers and chips. I sit and she sits close. Our shoulders touch.
It’s like that jarring moment when you see a scene from the trailer in the actual film, and you’re pulled out of the action for a sec. It’s enough for me to lose grip on the conversation. She finishes her anecdote — someone called Ed found the goose behind the woodshed — and she makes a face like she’s expecting a laugh. I laugh.
‘So, Adam,’ she says, tilting the remaining half of her burger away from her mouth, ‘what’s the deal with this?’
I search her eyes. She can probably tell my hair’s wet. Shit.
‘What? I just wanted to hang. We hardly ever talk, y’know? Like properly sit down and talk.’
‘True.’ She stares harder. ‘But nah, that’s not it.’
‘Are you saying you don’t want to hang? ’Cause I can leave if you —’
‘Shut up.’
‘Can’t. It’s not in my nature.’ I push on. ‘Who do you live with?’
‘A talking squirrel and a cat that solves crimes.’
‘Be serious.’
One eyebrow arches in delicate condescension. ‘Whatever you’re doing, it’s not subtle.’
I shrug. ‘Go with it.’
Nina relaxes. ‘My dads and my brother, Declan.’
It’s a detail I can’t believe she’s gone this long without mentioning, and the only follow-up I can think of is, ‘Oh, gay dads?’
‘Dad doesn’t say they’re gay. He just says they really like having sex with each other, which is gross when he says it so I don’t know why I’m repeating it to you.’ Her words run together like she’s eager for the sentence to stop. ‘How about you?’
‘Just Mum, no dads.’
‘Oh, now I feel selfish.’
She doesn’t show much remorse. She polishes off her burger and moves on to the chips we’re meant to be sharing. She has the bag in her lap. I don’t mind. I still have the melted cheese on the inside of the burger wrapper. There is nothing in the world that will ever come close to melted burger-wrapper cheese. I peel it off the paper and drop it into my mouth. I food moan. Heaven. I’m going to miss it.
‘Get a room,’ she says.
I’m going to miss this.
‘I wanted to hang because today’s my last shift.’
She drops a handful of chips back into the bag. ‘What? Why?’
‘They’re replacing me with Dimitri.’
‘Who the fuck’s Dimitri?’
‘He’s fifteen.’
‘So?’
‘He’s cheaper.’
‘That’s bullshit.’
‘Look, I’m not the first guy to be aged out of a fast-food job.’
‘But Dimitri isn’t gonna smuggle me chips …’
‘Nice to know that’s what you’ll miss the most.’
She’s unapologetic. ‘They’re really good chips.’ She holds a few up as evidence and halves them with a single bite. ‘Y’know, Gloria always gave me grief that we were gonna pair off.’ She clicks her tongue and eats the rest. ‘Guess we proved her wrong.’
I don’t trust myself to look at her, in case I give myself away. ‘Yeah.’ I sigh.
I want a diversion, and I get one in the form of Dan, in his oversized Phats uniform, wheeling a bin down the service passageway. I pull my legs in and we nod at each other. Nina’s quiet, contemplating something.
When Dan’s far enough away, she asks, ‘Why didn’t we, though?’
‘Huh?’
‘You don’t have a girlfriend, do you?’
‘No.’
‘Boyfriend?’
‘No.’
‘Then why haven’t we gone out?’ She sits up a little straighter. ‘Invite me to the movies.’
‘What?’
She doesn’t blink. Her gaze cuts through me. ‘Invite me to the movies.’
‘Um … Do you want to go to the movies with me?’
‘No, jeez, pick a more creative date idea.’ She barely gets through the joke before she laughs. She tries to compose herself, but the laughter escapes her closed-lip smile in bursts.
My heart pangs. Her brow twitches. I lean in and —
— hesitate for a fraction of —
Our lips touch. We kiss. Time slows. Her chest rises into mine. I reach for her cheek. I feel her scar beneath my palm. Our bodies shift closer. The bag in her lap crumples.
Time bends. I feel the hot rage before I see her. We’re standing on some street. She’s shouting, spitting, all rage, too. She’s older, we both are. I can tell without a mirror. I know the difference in my joints, my body seems less cooperative as I amble towards her. She raises a hand and throws something at my chest. I catch it, almost fumble. She leaves. I hold a ring.
I crash back into my eighteen-year-old body, and Nina feels too close. I pull away. I’ve never seen that far before. Twenty, thirty years? My breaths are shallow, pointless. She asks if I’m all right.
I’ve got to go. I’ve got to …
‘Wait.’
I’m on my feet.
Her lips have left a mark on mine. Beneath the taste of the Double Pattie Heart Clog, there’s the hint of strawberry. She put on lip gloss especially for me. And I’m walking, almost running down the service passageway.
It’s different, when you know its ending.
My life as I know it is scrawled on yellow notes and stuck in vague chronological order to the timber floor under my bed. I take a pen and record the details — the rage, the ring — and peel the note off the stack. I clear a patch of dust below the others and stick it down. There’s a rough sequence that traces my path through high school, uni, to full-time work and now … a marriage?
‘How exciting.’ This is Sophia Tan, confidante and cat lover. She sits on the single bed we’ve pushed flush against the wall, casually stroking a Bengal cat. Sophia has been around long enough that me seeing the future is as regular as me breathing. I usually mention the details of a future in a text and she usually replies with an over-dramatic GIF from a Spanish soap opera. But this future, it isn’t usual. It’s worth more than a GIF. It’s worth coming over for. ‘It’s your first love affair.’
‘Can you please stop calling it that?’
Lara Bengal fidgets in Sophia’s lap. Sophia tightens her loving vice grip, knowing Mum doesn’t like a loose Bengal in the house.
‘What else do you want me to call it?’ she asks. ‘You kissed a chick and flashed forward to —’
‘Her throwing a ring at me.’
Sophia’s looking down at Lara when she corrects me. ‘A wedding ring.’
‘We don’t know that for sure.’
‘I don’t throw my dollar-shop ring at people when we’re fighting, I’m not gonna do it when I’m old enough to afford some seriously expensive bling,’ Sophia says. ‘No, it only makes sense as a wedding ring. You’re definitely getting future divorced. I’m so happy for you.’ She hears it. ‘For the stuff before that, I mean.’
I sigh. ‘Thanks.’
My eyes drift from the note (Angry, oldish Nina throws ring during fight) to the one above it (Me in office elevator. Suit pants, white shirt, tie). I remember that future, saw it at the Year 10 Careers Expo when I leaned against an investment bank’s stand. I’d seen myself reflected in the mirrored back of the elevator. I’d looked older, but in the kid-playing-grown-up way twenty-somethings do when they wear adult clothes. There’s so much time between that future and this latest one. I need more to go on.
‘Did you see kids?’
‘No.’
‘Kitties?’
‘No.’
‘How old did she look?’
‘I’m guessing forty? Fifty? Can’t say for sure.’
‘Well, you’re fucking useless.’
‘Cheers.’
Sophia has been aware of and frustrated by the limitations of my ability since day dot. In Year 5, when the futures started, she was irritated that I couldn’t conjure the answers to Dr K’s next pop quiz, or confirm a boy band would re-form after her favourite member quit. To be fair, I tried to control it once. She asked me what she’d get for Christmas, so to coax a future out of hiding, I tipped Mum’s stash of wrapping paper and ribbons into an empty bath and sat in it. I thought of Sophia’s Christmas and instead, I got my own: a tiny present with a card from Mum, not Mum and Dad. I was too scared to ever try again, so I just told her it was impossible.
In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have told anyone. It’s just kind of hard to keep an ability like mine secret at the start. Seeing the future isn’t like it is on TV, where some wizened psychic touches something, gasps and sees it. Nah, it’s like you’re ripped out of yourself and injected into your future self. You’re a stranger in your older body, seeing, smelling, hearing, touching, tasting. Then you snap back into yourself. It’s enough to make you sick.
In Year 5, it made me spew a lot. I shared a desk with Sophia, and after the third incident involving her favourite cat-themed pencil case and chunks of my breakfast, I felt I owed her an explanation. She was just young enough to believe me without much evidence. She kept a stash of old lunch-order bags, and an eye out for when I seemed out of it. She became a pretty decent catch.
Short-term pain for long-term gain. She figured being best friends with a psychic would have its perks …
There haven’t been many, though. But at least the projectile vomiting’s stopped.
I bend over and peel off the note closest to the skirting board (Fired from Phats). I scrunch it into a ball, and the other futures feel that little bit closer. Time marches on, one inevitable little yellow sticky note at a time. I take a deep, deep breath.
‘So,’ Sophia asks, ‘when’s your next date?’
‘I’m not going to date her. How can I?’ I’m asking myself as much as I’m asking her. ‘I can see the ending.’
Sophia’s supportive in her own special way. ‘It’s a teenage love affair. They’re not made to last forever.’ She lowers her head and starts cat-speaking. ‘Uncle Adam is going to piss away his one chance at love, isn’t he, Lara Bengal? Yes, he will. Oh, you’re so pretty.’
Whatever magnetic field Lara has that attracts Sophia, has zero effect on me. She’s the scratcher of forearms and the source of the putrid smell in Sophia’s laundry, but for as long as I’ve known Sophia, she’s been scarily attached to her — so much so that she rarely walks the two blocks to my place without cradling Lara.
The thought of Lara sends me flying. I collide with a self that doesn’t feel that different. Sophia sits beside me, a tiny kitten in her lap. She calls her Laura, and me her new uncle. Her voice wavers when she tells Laura about her older sister. She wishes they could’ve met. Her eyes are red raw. She’s been crying. I’m flung back into my present self and my heart hurts. The feeling lingers. Sophia doesn’t notice anything’s up. Her face is level with Lara’s. ‘So pretty,’ she coos.
The cat doesn’t give a toss. Sophia pays some attention to the gap between her shoulder blades, and Lara lifts her head, satisfied.
‘Have you done the modern history essay yet?’ Sophia asks me.
I tell her I’m too busy worrying about the future to think about the past.
‘Oh, how long have you wanted to use that line?’
‘A couple of weeks.’
She looks up. Her forehead creases. ‘You all good?’ she asks.
I clear my throat and make an effort to stand straighter. ‘Yeah.’
‘Trying to think of a line that doesn’t suck?’
Sure, I’ll let her think that. ‘Pretty much.’
‘Do you want to go outside and poop?’
‘Wha—?’ Oh, she’s talking to the cat.
Lara doesn’t even flinch, but Sophia reads it as a, ‘Yes.’ Part of me thinks she only brings her over to make it easier to leave. It’s hard to argue with, ‘I think my cat’s about to shit on your hardwood floors.’
Sophia puts her hand on my back on her way out. ‘Support,’ she says.
When she’s gone, I write another note. I peel it off the stack and stick it somewhere close to the skirting board.
Something happens to Lara. New cat, Laura.
Shit, indeed.
I remember the future of my childhood. It was all hope and optimism, my kindergarten teacher squeaking there was no life that was out of my reach. Absolutely anything was possible. But now the meaning of the word has changed. The future is static, a dark, inescapable thing.
Every yellow sticky note is a trap.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope I’ve misremembered the futures, or misinterpreted what they mean. Is it possible they’re warnings more than solid truths, affected by diverging paths and missed trains?
Begin End Begin: A #LoveOzYa Anthology Page 3