Carmen throws the tea towel on the bench. ‘Sorry to make you trek all the way out here. It’s just I had all this,’ she waves at the sink, ‘and uni stuff and it’s one of those days, you know? Where it just seems impossible to leave the house.’
‘It’s fine. It’s good. I don’t mind coming. It’s a nice house. Your dad’s nice. This is nice.’
Oh, Marlowe. Do shut up.
I press my lips together and stare at the tiles. Orange tiles. My heart twists.
This is a quiet house. In the room next door a clock ticks and Luis’ father turns the page of his newspaper. But that’s it. There’s so much silence I wonder if Luis was the one who used to fill it. Was he the kind of person who raced through the house singing and slamming doors and dragging his feet and laughing and talking? Maybe he was the one who did all of that and Carmen and her dad haven’t figured out yet how to fill the space he left behind.
‘So,’ she says. ‘How are you?’
‘Good.’ I shift my weight.
‘Through there.’ She points to the other end of the kitchen, towards an annexe of sorts. ‘My room. Just let me put these dishes away and I’ll meet you there.’
She turns, already humming to herself and busy with the clashing and clanging of dishes. Can I just walk into her room? Just like that?
‘Go on,’ she says, with a smile over her shoulder. ‘It’s messy but no diseases.’
My footsteps echo as I shuffle through the kitchen. I spy a chipped tile – did Luis do that?
I step down into another narrow corridor. On one side there’s a toilet and a laundry, and on the other there’s an open door into a bedroom.
Carmen’s bedroom.
My fingers brush the doorframe as I enter, longing to hold on.
It’s a colour explosion. And things. Things everywhere. There’s a low bed, like a mattress on the floor. I think they call them futons. The quilt is embroidered – flowers and patterns of all colours. There are clothes and shoes. And books and stacks of essays, notes, printouts of articles. Candles, trinkets, jewellery, posters, scarves, hats, postcards.
And photos.
The walls are overlapped with photos.
Carmen at every age, Carmen and her dad, Carmen and her friends. Young Carmen and a woman who could be her mum. Carmen on holidays – Vietnam, Spain, France, Brazil, America.
And Luis.
Luis everywhere.
‘Sorry about the mess,’ says Carmen, walking through the door. ‘Didn’t have time to clean up.’
I turn my back on her, rubbing my eyes but they won’t clear.
‘You should see my room,’ I say, wincing at the crack in my voice. I rub my eyes again. Everywhere she moves, I keep my back to her. But, Luis, I can’t hide from him. He watches me. From everywhere, he watches me.
I lean close to look at a photo of Carmen and Luis jumping in the air to form silly shapes. The photo was taken some place dusty and dry and red.
‘Oh, I love that one,’ says Carmen, moving in behind me. She reaches over my shoulder and runs a finger across the photo’s shiny surface. Luis is too big to fit under her fingertip – she can’t wink him out of existence. ‘Mexico.’
‘Looks like fun.’
‘So fun. You ever been?’
I shake my head. I haven’t been anywhere.
‘God, we loved it. Luis loved it. You should go.’ I turn and lean against the dresser.
‘Nice dress,’ she says. ‘Cute.’
Is it ironic for me to be perched in front of a photographic shrine dedicated to the kid who might be my donor while his sister acts like we’re best friends – or is that tragic?
‘So what do you want to do?’ She flops onto her bed and throws her arms over her face. ‘It’s one of those days, isn’t it? I’ve got all this uni work to do but . . .’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Do you want me to go?’
‘God no. Shit no.’ She rolls onto her side and smiles at me.
‘I want you to distract me, Ray. Be a bad influence. Let’s watch something.’
We close the blinds, chasing away the afternoon heat. We watch three episodes of Misfits, eat our weight in chocolate (don’t tell Mum), talk about anything and everything and then dance to someone called Kim Wilde. It’s cheesy as anything, but Carmen says it’s a ‘classic’. It’s fun to dance to whatever it is: a clunky beat, an overdose of synthesisers and a purring female voice. I like it.
You know when you take a dog for a walk and he’s straining against his leash all the way to the park and the second the leash is unclipped he bolts and just runs and runs like a maniac because he’s so happy to be free? Well, that’s me right now. It’s how I feel when I’m with Carmen.
Free.
Free of being told what to do.
Free of being the girl who almost died.
Free of being scared, timid, obedient Marlowe Jensen.
‘Hey, Ray,’ says Carmen, jumping onto her bed. ‘Did you ever pretend you were an Olympic gymnast?’ As the music swells, Carmen twirls and tosses a pair of candles like batons. I laugh as she jumps off her bed and salutes the imaginary judges.
‘I always wanted to be a singer,’ I say.
She hands me her hairbrush. ‘Do it.’
And I do. I sing into that brush like I’m Pip in his Grade Two talent show, dressed up as goth-punk Dusty. I’d actually asked if I could choreograph his moves because back then I didn’t care what people thought, didn’t notice the way they laughed at him and us or maybe I hadn’t learnt to care. I wonder when I started to care?
I sing and Carmen sings too. It doesn’t matter that I don’t know the words and it doesn’t matter that both of us are off-key. All that matters is that it’s fun. That we’re free.
When the song ends, Carmen collapses onto the bed. ‘To say that “Cambodia” is one of the best songs ever written is not an understatement.’
Carmen has a thing for eighties pop music. It’s one of the things I’ve learnt about her. And as the afternoon crawls by I learn that she used to compete in spelling bees, she’s phobic about crabs and her first boyfriend is now in a semi-famous band (‘but he’s an arsehole so who cares?’). She hates asparagus, wants a pet rabbit and secretly believes that politicians are alien lizards in disguise sent to enslave the human race.
My skin prickles under Luis’ constant gaze, from every corner of the room. I have a favourite photo: he’s about seven or eight and he’s on a threadbare couch, legs tucked under and a half-melted ice-cream cone in his hand. Ice cream runs down his fist and there’s a glob on his nose and upper lip. He’s laughing so hard his eyes are nothing more than crinkled slits. I’m sure Carmen would have a story for this photograph, like how the air-con was broken and they’d been leaping over the sprinkler in the yard all day to keep cool and the ice-cream van drove past and they’d chased it for half a block before they realised they didn’t have any money but the ice-cream man gave them a cone to share anyway and Luis had been hogging it so she’d shoved his hand when he’d been mid-lick and that’s when the photo was taken. That’s what I imagine anyway. Maybe it was nothing like that. Maybe it was the only time he’d smiled that day or maybe he hadn’t stopped smiling. You never can tell. A picture says a thousand words but those words aren’t always true. A picture can say a thousand untrue words. And I don’t think a thousand pictures saying a million true words would ever give a full depiction of someone anyway. Not the complete truth. No one really knows that.
Carmen shuffles up onto her elbows. ‘We should do disco mini-golf Thursday night. I know this place, they have a dress-up box and a cocktail menu longer than War and Peace.’
I lean against Carmen’s dresser, hyperaware of all the little Luises behind me.
‘Isn’t Kari’s party Thursday night?’ I know it is.
‘Oh. Yeah. Forgot,’ she says, but she’s not good at lying.
Carmen has this tic. She rolls her thumb and index finger together, slow circles that she watches intently, and I k
now it means she wants to change the topic. I try to imagine what it must be like, to have your best friend’s party two nights before the anniversary of your brother’s death. The same best friend who seems determined to drag you, kicking and screaming, through your grief.
She watches her thumb and finger, a crease between her brows.
‘We’ll do it another night,’ I say. ‘We can’t miss the party because there’s going to be karaoke, right? We’ll sing Kim Wilde. Kari and Zan will sing a love duet. Do punks sing love songs?’
She thinks for a second. Her tic eases. ‘Maybe “Ever Fallen in Love” by the Buzzcocks?’
‘Please don’t tell me there’s actually a band called the Buzzcocks. You’re making that up. Stop making up stupid band names, Carmen.’
‘I’m not.’
‘I refuse to believe you.’
Carmen smiles – which is the point.
‘They’re so cute together,’ she says, the tic gone completely now. ‘But it still makes me want to stick my finger down my throat. I hate happy people.’
I grin. ‘Me too.’
‘When I’m prime minister,’ she says, ‘I’m going to make being happy illegal.’
‘I’d vote for you.’
‘Or have designated happy areas – windowless, grey rooms where people are locked inside and can be happy for only two minutes a day.’
I snort.
‘And I’m going to ban love,’ she says. ‘I’ll invent an anti-love vaccine and eradicate it completely. I’ll put the vaccine in the water supply so everyone is immune. Sex is fine but not love.’
‘Could you ban boys? Or maybe just the ones with messy hair and arrogant smiles.’
Carmen sits up straighter, her smile wide and teasing. ‘Like the boy you told me about at the Tote?’
I’m sure my ears are on fire. ‘No. I mean, not especially. Not completely.’ I throw a pillow as she sucks her cheeks together to make kissing noises.
‘Do you fancy him?’
Do I fancy Leo? Oh god, I think I do.
‘My mum’s got this theory,’ I say, ‘that meat bacteria stays in your mouth and when you kiss someone who eats meat you’re eating meat too. Which is gross on so many levels. I don’t know how scientific it is, but I know better than to bring home a boy who eats meat.’
‘Ah,’ she says, because I’ve already told her about my mum and how strict she is. ‘So you’re like a foodie version of Romeo and Juliet?’
I screw up my face. ‘He’s cute, but I don’t plan on killing myself for him – or any boy for that matter.’
She holds out her hand. ‘High five,’ she says and laughs. She pulls out her phone. ‘What’s his number?’
‘I don’t know. I could google the butcher shop.’ She hands me her phone as I sit on the edge of the bed and find the number. ‘What are we doing?’
She presses ‘call’ and holds the phone to her ear and shushes me. I poke her in the ribs while the phone rings but she just laughs and pokes me back. ‘Be patient, little one,’ she says and then jerks straight when a voice on the either end – a young, male voice – answers, ‘Bert’s Quality Butchers, Leo speaking.’
‘Hello,’ says Carmen. She puts the phone on speaker. ‘Is this Luke?’
There’s a pause. ‘Nah,’ he says. ‘Leo.’
‘Did you say Luke?’
A longer pause. ‘Who’s this?’
‘I am your father, Luke.’
I don’t hear what Leo says because there’s too much squealing and laughter from Carmen and me as she hangs up.
‘That was priceless,’ I say.
She turns to face me, hugging her phone to her chest. ‘That,’ she says with a wicked grin, ‘was just the beginning.’
We prank Leo three more times. My favourite is the last one when Carmen asks (in a deep, male voice): ‘Do you have pigs’ feet?’
‘Yeah, actually,’ says Leo.
By this point I don’t know why he keeps answering.
‘Oh, poor you,’ says Carmen. ‘Wear shoes and no one will notice.’
Leo sighs. ‘Listen, whoever you are. If you call back again, I’ll add you to the specials board. And if you don’t believe me, ask Ray – that’s right, I can hear you giggling, Ray – ask her about the offal.’
Carmen’s eyes go wide as she stabs the ‘end call’ button. We collapse into silent, tummy-aching laughter.
Carmen has a surprising arsenal of prank call ideas up her sleeve and when I finally regain my breath I ask her how and why.
‘Me and Luis used to do it all the time,’ she says. ‘He was the master.’
Carmen’s smile fades as she stares at her phone screen, hand frozen as if about to press the number. The smallest slip of the tongue and all the fun evaporates from the room – was the master, not is.
She presses her thumb to her index finger and begins to massage in circles.
I stand. ‘Do you want something to drink? I’ll get the OJ from the fridge. Some more snacks?’
Carmen nods and rolls onto her stomach, still staring at her phone. I wait for her to say something but she doesn’t.
I rise and leave her, slipping into the corridor where it’s still and cool and quiet.
In the kitchen, I head for the humming fridge and stand with a hand on the door handle, breathing slowly. Sometimes I forget that breathing isn’t a race. The first time I met her, my therapist asked if I breathed properly. ‘There’s more than one way to do it?’ I asked, and she smiled and held a hand to her tummy. ‘You can breathe from here. Or here.’ Her hand shifted to her chest. ‘Or here,’ she said as her hand moved to her neck. And then she taught me how to breathe, the one thing I should know how to do without being taught.
‘Ray, wasn’t it?’
I jolt, turning to find Armando hovering in the doorway, swamped in his cardigan and with an empty mug dangling from his fingers. ‘I didn’t mean to give you a shock,’ he says.
Why haven’t you answered my Facebook comment?
‘No,’ I say, ‘I was just . . .’
‘Lost in thought?’ He smiles. ‘It’s a good place.’ He heads to the kettle, flicking the switch. ‘Tea?’
‘Orange juice.’ I look at the fridge but the idea of riffling through it in front of Luis’ dad makes my heart quake. So I stand there. Every breath snagging on the lump in my throat.
‘Ah,’ he says. ‘A healthy girl.’
‘Actually . . .’
He waits for me to continue. The kettle quietly hisses.
‘It’s just that one glass of orange juice has an equivalent of eight teaspoons of sugar,’ I say, ‘and contains no fibre so it’s actually worse than most soft drinks.’
‘Really?’
A flush creeps up the back of my neck as Luis’ dad stares at me.
‘Really,’ I say.
There’s this artist, I can’t remember his name, but he paints these hyper-real mundane scenes of domestic life. Like a woman brushing her teeth while at her feet the cat takes a dump in the litter box. Or a guy washing up while his infant daughter is reaching for the oven. He paints that moment where the perfectly ordinary becomes something else, something messy, horrible, potentially dangerous. Is that what’s happening here, in this square, shabby kitchen? How would that artist paint Armando Castillejo?
I don’t know why the truth hits me in this moment but it does: this man is broken. This man is a ghost. His heart was carved out too when they took his son away from him.
Maybe that’s why he hasn’t answered. Maybe he didn’t realise that asking the question might get him an actual answer.
I back away, towards Carmen’s room. ‘It was nice talking to you, Mr Castillejo,’ I say.
‘Armando,’ he says. ‘Call me Armando.’
When I reach the door, the kettle whistles and I turn back.
‘Your orange juice,’ he says, but I shake my head.
‘Changed my mind.’
‘Ah. All that sugar.’
He watches
me with eyes kind enough to make that lump in my throat swell.
‘Something like that,’ I say.
In the bedroom, Carmen is playing ‘I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten’ by Dusty Springfield. Her voice is smooth and husky and perfect. Carmen stares into the middle-distance with the troubled look of someone who doesn’t know she’s being watched, who thinks she doesn’t have to pretend.
‘Your dad is nice,’ I say.
She looks up and smiles big. Too big.
I don’t know if she notices I’ve come back empty-handed, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead she asks me what her dad and I talked about.
‘Sugar,’ I say, and she throws herself backwards on the bed.
‘The king of saying fuck all,’ she says, voice brittle with bitterness.
I know I should ask her what she means but the words refuse to form. Instead, I climb to my knees and take Carmen’s phone out of her hands. Because I have one job.
One job.
‘Time to get our names on that specials board.’
________
The haircut is Carmen’s idea.
It’s because of the maroon pinafore with the cherry buttons. I wore it again for a Sunday movie marathon at her house and she keeps saying how much she likes it.
When I tell her why I bought it and how I’ve always wanted to look like Twiggy she suggests a shopping trip.
‘Let’s hit up Savers and Salvos and St Vinnies,’ she says. ‘The holy trifecta of op shops.’
I tell her I don’t really have the look to carry it off. ‘You know, there’s all this . . .’ I say, pushing my long veil of hair out of my face.
‘So cut it,’ she said. ‘It’s just hair.’
It’s not like I’ve never thought of doing it before, but it was always one of those one-day-maybe-never dreams. It was just something I’d tell myself I’d do, even though deep down I knew I’d never have the guts to go through with it. And, honestly, telling myself I’d do it ‘one day’ used to be enough. But Carmen is talking about how she’d like to get a cut too and maybe a colour, something fun like green or blue, and standing in her room with all those smiling pictures of Luis around me I think, Why not? Why not? What am I waiting for?
So before I can blink she’s called and booked us in with her friend who’s a hairdresser and then blink she’s poking faces at me in the gigantic mirror and there’s horrible EDM playing and I’m about to get my hair chopped off.
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