One True Thing

by Nicole Hayes

  Jake lets go, watching me with that cocky smile in place.

  ‘See you round,’ I say to him, offering a half-wave that suggests I don’t care either way. I turn Luke on his heels and head home.

  Behind me, Jake shouts goodbye, but I pretend I don’t hear him and keep walking. It’s not my smoothest exit, and the fact that Luke waves cheerfully at Jake on our behalf only makes it more obvious.

  I scowl at my brother when he turns around again.

  ‘What?’ he says. ‘He’s nice.’

  ‘He’s just a guy from school, Luke,’ I say, and walk faster, even though there’s no longer a reason to rush. I don’t know how or why but Jake D’Angelo’s got inside my head. And that can’t be good.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE CAMPAIGN LAUNCH

  The website is so slow I could scream. I watch the seating plan refresh on-screen, my hand clutching the mouse, the cursor hovering over the ‘Buy Ticket’ button.

  ‘Give me another one,’ Luke begs. He’s sprawled out on my bed, his wispy hair tousled. He looks like he’s had a rough night, except he always looks like that and the kid sleeps like the dead, anywhere, anytime. ‘Hard one this time.’

  I look at the computer clock – 8.54 am – there’s still time. ‘Every song from Ten. In order.’

  ‘Parachutes’ is playing on my iPod dock, the bouncy up and down of its uneven melody a needed distraction from the frustrating website.

  ‘Have you got them yet?’

  ‘You’re stalling. Ten, in order, starting now.’

  ‘“Release”, “Deep”, “Alive” –’

  ‘Backwards,’ I cut in.

  A microsecond of a pause. Then, ‘“Once”, “Even Flow” …’

  I look at the clock, tuning Luke out. 8.57. Almost time.

  ‘“Alive” …’

  I shake my head. ‘Hang on. What about “Just a Girl” and “Brother”?’

  ‘You didn’t say you meant the reissue.’

  ‘I’m saying it now.’ My fingers itch, my elbow aches – 8.59. Tick. Tick.

  ‘“State of Love and Trust” …’ Luke dutifully recites the entire song list, then says, ‘Give me another one.’

  I grin. I can’t help myself. He’s my little brother and all kinds of annoying, but he knows his grunge rock, and you’ve got to love that. ‘That’s my boy.’

  Luke smiles proudly.

  Twelve seconds to go. Almost there. My hand grips the mouse. 9 am.

  Click! I scan the site, waiting for the offer. Section M, Row 5. I sigh. Further around from my ideal section but pretty close to the front. ‘I got M5.’

  Luke is standing behind me now. ‘Take them.’

  ‘Really?’ I have two minutes to decide before this lot goes back into the pool. In the meantime I’m imagining other obsessed fans around the city stealing those front-row seats with a single click. ‘No,’ I say, clicking on the ‘try again’ button to see what I get next. I’m not a natural gambler, but sometimes – when the stakes are high – you have to put yourself out there. That’s what Mum says.

  The egg-timer icon swirls teasingly, and I wait the endless seconds to see if I’ve won.

  Ting. Section D. Row 3.

  Wait, is that right? I click again, checking the seating arrangement in another window to make sure I’m seeing it right.

  Whoa. Holy mother of …

  ‘I got D! I got D!’

  ‘Is that good?’ Luke is jumping about before I can answer.

  ‘It’s brilliant! Third row!’ I shout, fumbling blindly for Dad’s credit card.

  ‘Come on,’ Luke urges, clutching my shoulder in solidarity.

  I can barely breathe … 3, 2, 1 … Ting! The message comes up declaring that my payment has gone through, and Luke and I leap about the room like lunatics until I drag him into a bear hug. He escapes, gagging theatrically as if the very idea of me touching him will induce vomit. He falls back on my bed, out of breath, and I plonk back down at my desk to stare at the email confirming my purchase.

  I text Tyler to tell her, my thumbs sprinting across the keypad so that all that comes out is a string of incoherent letters. I stop, clear the screen and try again.

  ‘I can come, right?’ Luke asks after catching his breath, a hint of a wheeze escaping his chest.

  I ignore his question. ‘Do you need your puffer?’

  He shakes his head, frowning at me for even asking, but then the wheeze builds to a cough and, before I know it, he’s red in the face and panting. I reach for the spare puffer I keep on my bookshelf. We have multiple inhalers planted at key locations around the house because it means Luke can never use the excuse of having lost his puffer – again – as a way to avoid using it. I don’t know why he hates it so much but he does. Half of his class has asthma. Not as bad as him, but still, it’s not like it’s some exotic illness no one’s heard of. Hell, it seems not having asthma or some kind of allergy is weird now. But it’s his thing and everyone has a thing.

  I stick the puffer in his mouth. ‘Go.’

  He inhales, shooting me evil looks the whole time.

  ‘I know. What a mean sister, wanting you to breathe.’

  He twists out of my grip, still holding his breath, then lets it out and pushes me away.

  ‘Just one?’

  He won’t even look at me.

  ‘I’ll give you a minute, but if that wheeze is still there …’

  There’s a knock on the door, and Mum’s muffled voice cuts through. ‘Frankie? Is Luke in there?’

  Luke freezes, then stares at me, shaking his head.

  ‘Hang on,’ I say. I shoot him my ‘one false move’ look and he nods, a single gesture promising me the world if I just play along.

  I tuck the puffer back on the shelf. ‘Ready?’ I whisper.

  Another nod, his breathing smoother now.

  ‘Yeah. He’s here.’

  Luke’s sprawled out on my bed again, faking cool in that uncool way only a ten-year-old can.

  Mum comes in and heads straight for Luke. ‘Did I hear coughing?’

  ‘Morning, Mum,’ I say too brightly.

  She smiles at me knowingly. ‘Yes, my darling teenager, what a good morning it is. Great to hear my favourite band so early too. Perfect music to get me in a winning mood.’

  ‘Finally, she comes around,’ I say, ignoring her sarcasm.

  ‘Honestly, why couldn’t you like someone nicer?’ she says. ‘Like Robbie Williams or Michael Bublé.’

  As one, Luke and I make choking sounds, hands to our throats, eyes bulging.

  But maybe Luke’s performance is a little off, or maybe she can hear him rasping, because she abruptly trains that laser-like gaze on my brother, who is doing a pretty decent job of looking completely innocent. ‘Your colour’s not right,’ she says to him, undoing his performance in one single blow.

  He looks like he might cry. He has the regionals this afternoon, and he knows Mum will pull the plug if she’s worried about his breathing.

  ‘He’s fine,’ I say in his defence. It wasn’t a bad one. He’s had worse and been perfectly fine by the afternoon. ‘He promised he’d do his spacer after breakfast to make sure.’

  Luke shoots me a filthy – he’d promised no such thing. ‘It was nothing,’ he sniffs.

  ‘Fair enough,’ Mum says, trusting me to get this right. I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t pick a wheeze from a rattle, or a wet cough from a dry one. ‘One puff and we’ll see,’ she says, her hand automatically feeling his forehead for clamminess or fever.

  Luke roughly pulls away, but it’s half-hearted. I feel a small tug in my chest on his behalf. He’s missed out on some things healthy kids take for granted, and the fact that I don’t have any allergies or even a hint of asthma just rubs it in. Still, there’s much worse. Mum’s starving children in East Timor, for a start.

  Despite Mum’s brisk concern for Luke, this is probably not how she thought today would go. She sealed off the morning for us – no Harry
or Christie or Sarah, no photo-ops or media. There’ll be plenty of that at the campaign launch, where we’ll stand beside her as she accepts her party’s nomination and a million cameras will go off like it’s the most important thing on the planet. I guess for Mum it kind of is.

  I grin. ‘You look appropriately terrified.’

  Mum’s face is flushed and her lips are pursed. She’s wearing her favourite scarf thrown loosely over her shoulder and her wavy hair is neatly clasped back. She looks lovely but also incredibly tense. She keeps tugging at her clothes to find the perfect arrangement. ‘I can’t imagine why,’ she says, the lines around her mouth easing, the creases around her eyes crinkling.

  ‘How hard can it be?’ I say. ‘Making history?’

  ‘Piece of cake.’ She laughs, finally relaxing enough to stop fiddling. ‘How do I look?’ she asks, a tiny twitch in her jaw the last remaining evidence of her nerves.

  ‘You look like the next elected Premier of Victoria,’ I answer.

  ‘I have to get through the campaign first,’ she says.

  ‘You’ll be great.’

  My mum reaches out and rubs my arm warmly, clutching it for a minute before drawing me into a tight hug. I almost pull away out of habit, but decide that today of all days I can suck it up.

  ‘Don’t sweat it, Mum. You were born for this,’ I say, and I mean it. She’s so steady and strong. I’ve never seen her lose it, even when the crazies around her are at their craziest. When The Zoo looks on the edge of anarchy, Mum always finds just the right thing to say – her calm, warm voice reassuring us that, despite all evidence to the contrary, the world is not going to ‘hell in a handbasket’. (Something that, according to Gran Mulvaney, has pretty much already happened.)

  Mum turns to Luke, who’s skulking in the corner in the hope she’ll forget about his attack, and sweeps him into her arms so that we’re both pressed against her roughly. That’s two hugs in one morning – way over my quota – but I let it slide and scowl at Luke when I see him trying to wriggle free. He stops, stands stiffly, then relaxes his body. It’s possible I saw him slip his other arm around her too.

  I guess it’s a big day for all of us.

  ‘Is this a private party or can anyone join in?’ My dad is smiling in the doorway, looking uncomfortably like how I remember Grandpa. Not just the long Webb legs and angular frame, but also in age too. The dusting of grey around his temples. The lines around his mouth. Politics ages people, I’ve noticed. Not just the politicians – their husbands and wives too. God knows what it’s doing to Luke and me.

  ‘I don’t know …’ Mum laughs, shooting Dad that special look she saves for him – the one that makes Luke and me want to leave the room. ‘Depends if you know the password.’

  Dad swoops in to plant a wet kiss on Mum’s lips. ‘The soon-to-be-elected Premier of Victoria, I presume?’

  ‘That’ll do.’ They smile at each other long enough for both Luke and me to escape to the other side of the desk, me shielding my eyes and Luke howling for them to stop.

  ‘You have a twenty-four-hour pass,’ I tell them, ‘because making history is reasonably cool. But after that –’ I shrug – ‘business as usual.’

  ‘We need to get a move on,’ Dad says.

  ‘Wait – who’s taking me to the regionals?’ Luke asks in a panicked voice.

  ‘Sorry, bud, Mr Alessandro called. Nathan is sick and he’s had to pull out of the meet,’ Dad says. ‘He’s not going to be able to take you.’

  ‘Is Nathan okay?’ Luke asks. In Luke’s mind, you’d have to be at death’s door to withdraw from the regionals.

  ‘Just a tummy bug,’ Dad says, ‘but I’m afraid you’ll have to pull out this time too – just this once.’

  Luke’s mouth opens, fish-like, but nothing comes out.

  ‘No way,’ Mum says, before Luke can try again. ‘Nope. Their stuff doesn’t make way for mine. I’m a mother first.’ I hear an unexpected edge in her voice, a shrillness that isn’t usually there. ‘I’ll ring around, find someone else to help …’ She straightens her scarf, suddenly all business. But when she looks at Luke, her voice softens. ‘We can’t let our Olympian-in-the-making miss the regionals, can we?’

  ‘You don’t have time for this, Ro.’

  ‘Give me your phone,’ she says, holding out her hand.

  For a nanosecond Dad looks set to stand his ground, which would possibly be the first time ever. But Mum’s head is tilted up in that way I’ve seen on question time – right before she’s about to rip shreds off the Opposition Leader in that smooth, even voice that has the power to cut down even the bravest of men. Even though they call her Yummy Mummy, they never say it to her face. They wouldn’t dare.

  ‘I’ll sort it out,’ Dad says.

  ‘I can’t miss the regionals,’ Luke says firmly, the colour gradually returning to his cheeks.

  Mum touches Luke’s face tenderly and smiles. ‘You won’t.’

  ‘You need to focus, Ro,’ Dad says. ‘Today and the coming weeks are all about you. They have to be. I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘We’ll be an hour at most,’ Dad says. ‘This way, I get to see both of you win.’

  Luke nods, already mentally strategising the race ahead.

  ‘I’ll be back before your speech,’ Dad says, and kisses Mum again. ‘We both will.’

  ‘My room …?’ I remind them.

  ‘It’s all yours,’ Mum says. ‘Get your swimming stuff, Luke. Cute as that bum is, it’s best for everyone you wear bathers.’ Luke storms off, huffing at the indecency, while Mum shoots me a long look. ‘How bad was it?’

  ‘Not bad – short burst, a bit red in the face, but one puff and he was fine.’

  ‘Got it,’ Mum says, then heads out after my brother, telling him to do his spacer now, ‘… while I’m looking.’

  Dad and I share a smile, but I can see something uneasy sitting behind his eyes. I remember our lunch at Carfe Diem, his concern.

  He’s squinting at my laptop, the screensaver flashing through some photos – of me holding Luke when he was a baby, me outside Mum’s electoral office when she was first elected to Parliament, Kessie and me in matching Pearl Jam T-shirts back before Kessie found politics. ‘Did you get the tickets?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah. Third row.’

  ‘Nice.’ He nods, then holds out his hand.

  I give him back his credit card.

  ‘Happy birthday, Francesca,’ he says, kissing me quickly. My birthday is in three months’ time, but this was the only thing I wanted – tickets to see Pearl Jam live. And now that I have them, I can even forgive him for calling me Francesca.

  ‘You can finally shut up about it,’ he says. He has bags under his eyes – big, puffy bags – and the campaign hasn’t even started yet.

  ‘I’ll be glad when it’s all over,’ I say.

  Dad frowns. ‘The concert?’

  ‘The election. You look like crap,’ I say, shrugging to lighten my tone.

  He shakes his head. ‘It’s fine – really. I’m just distracted. This damn book is killing me, and I’m way past deadline.’

  It’s so clear he’s lying that it’s almost embarrassing. The media have been all over Mum the past few weeks, angling for Dad too. He’s trying to act like it’s no big deal, but Mum’s never home at the moment, all those late nights and evening events cutting into our lives. Half the time we only know what she’s up to by reading the papers or asking Harry.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ I say, wishing there was something I could do.

  ‘You’re a good kid,’ he says unexpectedly.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I say lamely, wishing all his weirdness would go away. ‘I’m all you’ve got, apart from Loser Luke.’

  ‘Right.’ He laughs and heads for the door. ‘Let’s make your mum proud, shall we?’

  CHAPTER 11

  THE CANDIDATE

  The room is packed with every party member, their families and about a thousan
d other hangers-on. People who I’ve never seen before are pumping my arm up and down, congratulating me by name, as though I’ve just landed the candidacy, not Mum. Luke is beside me, his hair barely dry from the pool, staring at the sea of wellwishers like they’ve all just arrived from Mars.

  ‘Who are all these people?’ he hisses after a total stranger ruffles his hair and asks him about his swimming carnival.

  ‘I have no idea!’ I laugh. It’s crazy – insane – but kind of cool too. All these people believe in my mum and want her to be their voice. It’s almost like an election victory party except this is just the first stage and there’s a long way to go.

  ‘Come through. We’ll tidy you up for the announcement.’ Harry shepherds us towards the backstage entrance, pushing through the crowd with one arm, waving at anyone who approaches us with his other.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ I ask, because Harry always knows where everyone is. He even checks in with Gran a couple of times a week, just to make sure she’s not making outrageously racist comments about ‘boat people’ to the press, or complaining too noisily about the youth of today in her countless letters to the editor. Harry’s tried a few times to convince Mum to ask Gran to stop speaking to the media, but Mum just shakes her head and says that her mother has as much right as anyone else. Dad says it’s hardly the same thing because ‘anyone else’ is shouting at the moon, while the mother of the Premier will make the national news.

  Then again, Dad’s never been a fan of Gran’s.

  ‘He’s with your mum,’ Harry says, gesturing towards the backstage entrance. ‘You’ll see him on stage.’

  The make-up team gets to work on me, primping and fluffing every bit they can. I rarely bother with make-up, but having someone apply it for me is different. Besides, photos are one thing – and there have been a few shockers I would gladly burn if I could get my hands on them – but TV? Even footballers wear make-up for TV. Next to me, Luke is squirming and twisting in his seat while a girl who looks barely older than him is attempting to brush his hair flat – and failing.