‘NO!’
‘Oh. I kinda already put it up on Instagram. Is that okay?’
I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him. ‘Take it down. Right now.’
‘Yeah, totally. Can I just tell you what I found out, first?’
My heart was racing like crazy. Frustration and anger at Elias, plus a hint of panic at the thought of a photo of me being online. I forced myself to take a deep breath. I’d make him take the photo down. It was easy enough to do, right? Nobody would see it in the next few minutes. ‘Fine.’
‘I’ve worked out the whole family tree. I drew a diagram but I can explain it to you, too.’ And he talked. Just like Aurora, really. I couldn’t get a word in.
I stopped listening and stared at myself in the mirror. But that got too depressing so I turned away and climbed into my bunk. I’d tied the curtains around it, just like it was before, and in the darkness inside I couldn’t tell that the wall was painted a different colour or the window was in a different place. Who says denial is unhealthy?
Elias was still talking. I should be listening, I realised. He sounded like he was just blathering on, but there could be something useful in all of it. Something that would help us find her.
‘Sorry,’ I interrupted. ‘I wasn’t listening. Can you just sum it all up for me?’
I don’t think he quite understood the ‘sum it up’ bit but he at least repeated what he’d been saying. Aurora and Benjamin had two kids, David and Sephora. David had married Susie and they had two girls. His cousins.
‘Aurora wants to organise a family thing. Like a reunion, sort of thing. So I can meet everyone. You have to come too. Aurora said so. None of this would have happened without you.’
Maybe talking that much was a family trait. My head started to hurt at the thought of a family gathering. ‘What about Joseph? They kept mentioning Joseph?’
‘Oh. Right. Joseph is…wait, let me get this right. Aurora’s brother is Orion. His son is Joseph. So that makes him my uncle, or second cousin, or something. But I saw a photo of him. It’s like seeing myself in twenty years. Totally—like—wow.’
Great for him, but not especially helpful. ‘Did they think of any way we can contact Sephora?’
‘Benji’s going to tell her we’re looking for her, next time she calls.’
Benji.
‘You should come to the reunion,’ Elias said again. ‘We’re thinking maybe next month—probably lunch on a Saturday. Unless my cousins have to play sport or something. Aurora was going to check.’
I didn’t want to go. And I didn’t think he should either. He was getting carried away. ‘Don’t you want to hold off, until we’ve found Sephora?’ After all, what if we were wrong about it all? What if it was the wrong Sephora Greenfield and he wasn’t even related to these people? Talk about awkward.
I agreed to meet Elias on Saturday morning to discuss the next steps, and we hung up. I wondered vaguely whether I should add the time of the phone call to my hours log and decided I couldn’t be bothered. Instead, I stared up at the picture of Frankie, just visible in the darkness.
They say time heals all wounds and crap like that, but people are stupid if they believe that. At best, when I see her photo it’s a dull ache in my chest. At worst, it’s like someone has sucked all the air out of my lungs and I can’t breathe. And the worst part is not knowing. Maybe that’s why I agreed to help Elias.
For the second day in a row I fell asleep before dinner. And I dreamed.
‘I want to show you something.’ Frankie led me through the maze of trees, doubled over under the low canopy of leaves and branches, all bony knees and skinny shoulders and pink and white striped sundress. The sunlight filtered through from above, dappled light playing on her white-gold hair, on the ground. It was cool, the ground damp and springy under my bare feet. I could hear the creek trickling past, somewhere through the scrub.
‘Here,’ she said, and she dropped down onto the ground thick with leaves, and reached an arm out to tug on my leg, pulling me down beside her. I obeyed, copying the movement as she spread herself out on her back, then I followed her gaze to the sky.
The sun was fingering its way between the branches, shining through the leaves. I could see every vein. They shone white, so bright they almost disappeared as they waved back and forth in the sun. Everything was bright and warm and safe. ‘What is it?’
‘Heaven.’
12
Elias picked me up on Saturday morning. I had wondered what Jazmin thought about all the time he was spending with me. Initially, I didn’t know what she’d meant when she described him as her friend. I assumed she was just being coy and didn’t want to announce him as a boyfriend. Then when I met Elias, I understood: he wasn’t the boyfriend, he was the gay bestie.
In some weird way, that seemed to simplify things for me. He wasn’t like the guys I had to deal with at school that gave me crap. I didn’t have to worry that if I was nice to him—not that there was any danger of that—he would think I was into him.
I thought we were headed to Wentworth Plaza but we ended up at a small café on the outskirts of the shopping centre, on the optimistically titled Boulevard. It was one of those trendy places with artistically distressed couches, mismatched bar stools and vintage lamps. And it was apparently where Elias worked.
I let him organise a coffee for me, because it seemed terribly childish to tell him I didn’t drink the stuff, and he helped himself to two slices of banana bread from the display cabinet.
He was in a different ensemble today. This time he looked like he belonged in a Country Road advertisement. He was wearing pressed white shorts, a white polo and a white blazer. With the Elvis hair and the trademark glasses and eyeliner, of course.
He started talking about Aurora and Benjamin and the planned family gathering, while I pulled the banana bread to pieces with a fork. I felt out of sorts. I still had the remnants of my dream clinging to me, like dirty clothes that I wished I could pull off and throw away. The image of Frankie’s face kept flashing in my mind. It wasn’t the first dream I’d had—I always seem to have dreams about Frankie where I’ve lost her and I’m searching in all sorts of places, like the bus stop or the corridors of our primary school—but this one was especially vivid. To add to all of that, Elias seemed to be getting a constant stream of messages on his phone. Mr Popular, apparently. He seemed able to completely ignore them as they came in—he was pretty engrossed in his own story—but my attention snapped to the phone every time it dinged or buzzed.
‘So what do you think?’ Elias concluded.
I blinked, realising I hadn’t actually been listening at all. ‘Sorry?’
‘The reunion. You’re invited.’
Ha. ‘You couldn’t pay me enough for that.’ I reached into my backpack and pulled out the folder he’d given me.
Opened it up to the birth certificate. I’d stared at it a bunch of times now and wasn’t really expecting to find anything new, but I had to look like I was doing something.
‘No father listed on here,’ I pointed out. ‘Why not?’
‘Maybe she didn’t know who he was. Or he was a deadbeat. Isn’t that normally why?’
How the heck would I know? I shrugged. ‘We should stick with what we do know.’ I stabbed the biggest piece of banana bread with my plastic fork, and waved it at him. ‘What do we know? Like, actual facts.’
Elias started. ‘We know she’s alive, because she’s been calling Benji.’
‘We know what she looked like twenty years ago.’ We didn’t know what she looked like now, though. People gain weight, lose weight, dye their hair, get cosmetic surgery.
‘We don’t know her name now.’
‘We don’t know if she lives in this state anymore. Or even in the country.’ I paused, realising we’d got off track. ‘How did this turn into things we don’t know?’
He shrugged. ‘You started it.’
I stared at the banana bread skewered on my fork. I was
n’t hungry. I felt vaguely depressed by the whole thing.
‘Well, what about the…my father?’ Elias suggested. ‘Maybe she had a boyfriend.’
I’d barely even thought about it. I pushed the banana bread plate out of the way and plonked my head down on the table.
‘What? What’s wrong?’
I’m a crap investigator. You shouldn’t be paying me anything. That’s what I wanted to say. But I was too stubborn to admit it. ‘Nothing,’ I lied. ‘I just don’t like feeling stuck for ideas.’ That part was true.
‘You’ll think of something. You’re awesome.’
‘Shut up.’ I assumed he was trying to make me feel better, but it had the opposite effect.
It didn’t seem like we had much else we could do for now. Elias offered to drop me home again before his shift but I told him I’d sort myself out. I had told Mum we were out looking for the cat again and I didn’t know when I’d be home—which got me a raised eyebrow—so I figured I had till mid-afternoon before the pestering phone calls started coming.
I didn’t want to go home. I already felt like a failure, and going home was only going to make that worse. There’s nine years between me and Grace, more for the rest of the kids. I’m kind of in this weird limbo of not being one of the kids or one of the adults. I’m an annoying puzzle piece that doesn’t fit anywhere. Plus, the house is just always so freaking loud.
I caught a bus halfway home, figuring I’d walk the rest, which would give me some time to myself. I wandered, and somehow found myself in front of the house where Vogue Fontainbleau had been camping out.
It was still empty, that was immediately clear. The lawn still desperately needed a mow. I slipped through the side gate and approached the back door. Carefully, just in case someone happened to be home. But there were no signs of life inside the house. I could understand why Vogue had thought it was a good place to hide out. Nobody would have known she was here, unless they knew where to look.
I spent ten minutes searching for a spare key. Mainly out of curiosity, because I figured Vogue had found one and that was how she’d been letting herself in. I realised that after I’d dragged her out of the place there was a good chance she’d taken it with her, which is why I was surprised when I actually found it, hidden under a loose brick.
I fitted the key in the lock and slid the glass door open. It was still and quiet in the house. Dark, even though there were no curtains. The courtyard garden was overgrown, blocking all the sun, but I kind of liked it. I slid the door shut again after me and stood for a moment. There were a few muted sounds from outside—birds, mostly, and the occasional car going by. But for the most part it was quiet and peaceful. A world away from my house.
I waited for a few minutes by the door, wondering if there was an alarm that was about to go off, but nothing happened, so I gave myself a bit of a tour through the house. It felt very old-fashioned. Mustard yellow shag carpet in the lounge room. Scuzzy wallpaper on the walls, watermarked in some spots. The coloured glass in the front door panels threw patches of yellow light on the floorboards in the front hall.
Three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, the bathroom all in peppermint green—bathtub, sink, even the toilet. It was an ugly house. And yet I didn’t mind it at all. The best thing about it was the complete absence of stuff. No furniture. No books or bags or clothes or shoes or toys. It was the sort of space you could stand in the middle of and feel like you could breathe.
I picked an upstairs window that faced out onto the courtyard. It was high enough that the trees didn’t block the sun at all. It flooded through the naked window, filling the air, making it seem like the room itself was somehow filled with light, like the inside of a lantern. Dust motes danced, disturbed by my steps on the unfurnished floorboards.
It was perfect. At that moment, I could think of nowhere else I would rather be.
And that, of course, was when she turned up.
13
Vogue. Dressed in another pair of those micro shorts, the pockets hanging out below the cut-off, frayed hems. A hot pink strapless top. A cowboy hat.
She’d slipped through the side gate, a sliver of a girl. As she crossed the overgrown courtyard I moved closer to the window, pressing my face up against the glass until she moved out of view. I figured she was checking for the key, assuming it would be where she’d left it. No reason for her to think the door might already be unlocked. In a moment she’d discover the key was missing, and then…What would she do? Run away? I had a feeling it wouldn’t be that simple. The kid had proven she had an ample supply of attitude.
Irrationally, I felt my heart starting to beat faster. It was stupid. Sure, I was trespassing, but she hardly had any authority to stop me. I was older than her, and physically bigger. So why did I have the same nervous flutterings I always felt when I ended up outside the deputy principal’s office?
I decided there was no point staying upstairs. If she was coming in, I was going to face her head-on, not run and hide. That would just be embarrassing.
The upstairs landing was empty. I sucked in a breath, told myself not to be such a wuss and went down the stairs. I took each step steadily, deliberately. Halfway down I stopped. Vogue was standing in the kitchen, hands on hips, an accusing look on her face. She was a scrawny thing, and with her elbows sticking out she reminded me of a chicken.
She got in first. ‘What are you doing here?’ Authority and disdain mixed together.
I straightened up. ‘I should be asking you the same question.’
‘No, actually, you shouldn’t.’
She took a few steps backward, until she was right against the kitchen bench. In a single move—more cat than chicken—she swung herself up so that she was sitting on the edge, legs dangling. Asserting her ownership.
‘So,’ she began, ‘what bullshit are you here to peddle today?’
She spoke like an adult. Not just the confidence, but the words. Like a well-educated person who didn’t give a shit. Only child. I knew it from all those news stories, but I could see it, too. Someone who had spent their life surrounded by adults, not kids. That explained the confidence, too.
She gestured to the kitchen around her. ‘So—are you thinking of knocking it down? Or maybe just a fresh coat of paint and some cheap laminex?’ Her tone was scornful. A person rubbing salt into a wound.
I’d like to think I’ve got a pretty thick skin—after everything that happened with Frankie, it became much easier to just ignore the trivial things—but I had to fight down a flush of humiliation. I looked at her as coldly as I could. ‘Are you done?’
That’s what Mum says when someone is throwing a tantrum. Always calm, a raised eyebrow; maybe a hint of a smile, suggesting that she’s just that little bit amused by the hysterical attempts to get our way. Screaming and feet stamping on the floor, and then Mum with those three words like a pin in a balloon.
A sulky look crossed Vogue’s face. Bullseye.
‘You conned me.’ She crossed her arms over her flat chest. ‘That’s low.’
I shrugged, knowing that would annoy her. ‘It worked.’ Then before she could find something else to say about me: ‘Why are you back here? Did you run away again?’
I hadn’t seen any of her belongings in the house. She had a small bag over her shoulder, the sort of thing that holds a phone and that’s about it. If she’d run away again, she wasn’t staying here. So why come here at all?
‘No.’ Defensive tone, still pouting but scornful too. ‘So you don’t have to manhandle me again.’
She jumped down from the kitchen bench and strolled across to the glass door, looking out. ‘My parents are paying me not to run away again.’ Pride in her voice, like she’d struck a good deal. ‘I have to sleep at home every night to get the money. But I can do whatever I want during the day. They can’t stop me.’
I wondered if they tried. I wondered what would happen if someone like Vogue was stuck living under my mother’s roof.
‘Fifty bucks
a day,’ she added, not that I’d asked. ‘I get half now and half in the bank for later, so I can buy a car. Or’—she looked at me pointedly—‘a house.’
I was a bit over being mocked by an eleven-year-old, but she was still standing at the back door, blocking the exit.
‘You didn’t ask why I ran away in the first place.’
‘Maybe I don’t care.’
‘You want to know. Everyone wants to know.’
‘Yeah, I bet you’ve been milking that for all it’s worth.’ That was bitchy of me, but she ignored it. Probably wasn’t even listening. She pressed both her hands against the glass door, then pulled back, examining the hand prints. ‘They put our house on the market. Have this stupid idea about moving to the country. Some big property with cows.’ A theatrical little shudder. ‘I’d rather die.’
It finally hit me, and I kicked myself for not seeing it sooner. The kid was lonely. Why else would she be telling me all this stuff—except that talking to someone she hated was better than nobody at all.
I opened my mouth to tell her she needed to find some friends her own age, then shut it again. Too easy to keep up the pissing contest. And I didn’t really want to argue with her, I just wanted her to leave.
‘With all that money I’m sure there’s plenty of better places for you to go,’ I pointed out.
Her chin went up, defiant. ‘Maybe I like it here. I like the way the light comes in. It’s peaceful.’
And my presence apparently wasn’t enough to change that for her. I sighed. Handed her the key and gestured for her to move aside. She obliged, at least.
‘Till next time,’ I said, not even sure as I said it what I meant.
I walked home slowly. Dawdled. I was thinking about Elias and his stuff, and Vogue and her stuff, and Frankie because…well, because I’m always thinking about Frankie. It was all going round and round in my head and the last thing I wanted to do was deal with Mum or the kids quizzing me on where I’d been.
It was quiet at the top of the driveway. Usually I could hear the kids playing from downhill, either on the bumpy asphalt driveway or from the backyard. There was no yelling about whose turn it was or who had broken the rules or touched whose scooter.
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