Michael: Yeah?
Me: Can I ask you something random?
Michael: Is it if I think you’re cute? Coz …
I open and close the message icon on my phone at least fifty times in the space of a minute.
Michael: You know you’re the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
Heat rushes to my cheeks and I smile. What the hell is wrong with me? Guys have told me they think I’m sexy. I’ve had roses delivered to my damn class for Valentine’s Day three years running and this—one message from a guy, saying I’m cute, something you’d call a teddy bear—has me blushing?
I shake my head. I need to snap out of it.
Me: So … you know how I don’t know what I’m going to do next year?
Michael: Are you going to be an actor, Miss Number One?
I pause. Honestly, I hate the idea. Drama sounds so intense, too much pressure on your career to get the part, to make it big. If only I could practice drama and acting every day, without actually having to go through the rehearsals stage …
Stacey: I think it’s too much pressure.
Michael: What about teaching it?
The message comes through so quick that my shoulders jerk in surprise. He had an answer already?
He’s thought about me. About my future.
I blink. Teaching is something I’ve honestly never thought of before. I try the word on for size in my brain. Teaching. I could do that. I mean, I’d have to do a bridging course, and study like a mo-fo to get the grades, but I could. I could so totally do that.
All of a sudden, my line of questioning changes.
Me: I actually like that idea. A lot.
Michael: Great! Whatcha gonna do next year problem = solved.
Me: Yeah, well I’ll have to do a bridging course, and apply for a midyear intake. If I even get in.
Suddenly, I’m filled with excitement for this idea. I’d love to teach drama, even if it only seems like a pipe dream at this point.
A pipe dream I may never achieve, thanks to …
Me: Anyway … so, there’s a puppy. And it doesn’t have anyone else to care for it, and while I can choose if I look after it or not, I know taking care of this thing will really impact my career and studies.
But I probably wont get in to a course anyway …
And it would be kinda nice to have something that depended on me, that I could look after … you know? So I should probably choose the puppy, right?
I hold my breath, count to twenty, and when Michael hasn’t replied I throw the phone down on the bed. I can’t believe I’m asking him this, but it’s the closest I can come without—well, without seeing the sad look in his eyes I know would be there if he found out.
Michael: What, is it at a shelter or something?
I groan, and thump my head against the pillow.
Me: Yep. But I’m the only one who can take it.
I pause for a moment.
Me: Or they’ll kill it.
As soon as I type the words, a wave of guilt floods over me. Now I have to add hypothetical puppy murderer to my list of sins.
How will killing a baby feel?
Michael: I think you could do uni and a puppy. I really don’t think you need to choose.
I press my lips together and turn away from the phone. So maybe my hypothetical situation wasn’t so great after all. If I want to talk to someone about this, I’ll really have to talk to someone about this. Baby and all.
I roll over onto my side, my stomach still feeling like jelly is rolling around in it.
Michael: I guess what you need to ask yourself is, how much do you love this puppy? And what can it give you?
Can you live with yourself if it dies and you know you could have saved it?
His words sink in, and I don’t. I don’t know if I can live with that. Not when there are people I know and love who have had to try for a baby and who had difficulty conceiving, like my brother and his wife. Not when I’ve always tried so hard to look after other living creatures, and sought out the grown-up lifestyle so vividly. Not when it would mean I’d be a murderer, someone who killed this small person inside of me.
I reread Michael’s text, my eyes focusing on the second last line, this time.
Not when it could give me love. It could depend on me.
God, sometimes I just want someone to depend on me. Someone to know that I love them and for that to be enough.
I roll over onto my back and stare at the ceiling, my phone on the pillow beside me. I wish there was someone I could talk to about this, but I can’t burden Kate, and the idea of talking to my family …
I could talk to the counsellor, the one the doctor suggested. But how the hell could I afford to pay for that? Air puffs out from between my lips and I shake my head. Yep, that’s me. The girl who is considering paying someone to be her friend.
“Stace, five minutes till trim time!” Shae calls through the door. I sit up, and hug my knees to my chest. Just no. I can’t tell them yet, anyway.
If I could write a letter to myself in six years from now, what would I write? What would I want to hear?
But it’s not about me.
It’s about the baby.
I reach over and slide the pen and notepad from my desk, opening the book up to a fresh page. I purse my lips together for a few moments before I begin.
Dear Baby,
So, I’m your mum. You probably already know this, because if you can read, then you are alive and at least older than … say …
I pause, and quickly Google average reading ages on my phone.
... five. Ish. But apparently if you’re only able to read this when you’re eight, that’s okay too, because everyone is different.
I bite my lip. What if my child is slow? And people tease her? Or worse—what if people like her? And by people, I of course mean boys.
I take a deep breath and nod. She’s not even born yet. And she might be a he.
I’m going to be the best mum you could have. I promise to look after you, and love you, and I’ll never forget your birthday. Ever.
I know it’s a while in the future now, but when it comes time for you to leave school, I’m going to be there for you, too, helping you make the right choices. Because you know what? It’s fu freaking scary out there. No one tells you what the right answers are for your life, you know?
Take you, for example. I can’t talk to anyone about you, but I think—I know the right thing to do is to give you a chance.
I shake my head, thinking of Shae’s dismissal of me earlier in the day.
Everyone deserves a chance.
And I have a secret. I already know you’re going to save me. You’re going to be the one thing I’m good at.
I can’t wait to give you the world, Baby.
Love,
Sta
MUM
The jelly that was loitering in my stomach before flips over and becomes scrambled jelly eggs, only this time they’re clawing their way up my throat, desperate to get out.
Excess saliva fills my mouth, followed by the sting of acid, that vile, lemon-gone-wrong taste that you know means one thing, and one thing only.
“Stace! Are you ready to do my hair?” Shae yells outside my door, but I have no time.
She flings the bedroom door open as I bolt for my en-suite bathroom.
“Hey!” she yells.
By that stage, I’m already heaving my guts up, all over the toilet seat.
I scrunch my mental list up into a little ball and accept facts.
Pregnancy sucks.
December 20
Michael: Are you at home right now?
I look down at my baggy yoga pants and tank top. Well yes, I’m at home right now. In fact, I’m almost embarrassed at how at home I am. Because I am …
Knitting.
Yes, I know.
Knitting.
It’s something I never thought I’d do, but since the morning sickness started and this whole “You’re seriou
sly about to have a baby” thing kicked in, I’ve wanted to try doing something … well, maternal-ish. And knitting was the easiest option, since I could hardly try and barrel my mother out of the kitchen.
So far, I’ve managed to knit three inches of one scarf. And ruined four balls of wool.
But who’s counting? What matters is that by the time I have this child, he’ll have handmade winter clothes for days.
Whoa. By the time …? When did that happen?
I look back at my phone, and my hand is hovering over the send button on the No text I’ve tapped out, when there’s a knock on my bedroom door.
“Stacey?” Mum asks. I shove my knitting underneath my hot pink comforter, cringing once more at how embarrassing it is to have a princess bedroom as an eighteen-year-old.
“Yes?”
“You have a guest at the door,” she replies. I furrow my brows in confusion. I stand up, just as Mum swings my bedroom door open. “He says to bring a pair of flip flops.”
What?
And that’s how I end up in a car again with Michael, yet another bad idea in my recent spate of them.
“And you won’t tell me where we’re going?” I tilt my head.
“Nope.” He shakes his, his eyes firmly fixed on the road in front of him.
“But obviously it’s out of Lakes …” I trail off as we enter the motorway leading from our hometown to Sydney.
“Yep.” Michael nods as he overtakes a semitrailer and the vintage car kicks up a gear, hitting the speed limit with a slight cough and splutter.
We drive in silence for a while. I watch the cars flash past my window, and Michael is no doubt concentrating on keeping the shuddering engine inside the bonnet.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on tour?” I ask for the third time since he came to my door. Dave & The Glories tour with Coal was a two-month stint. They were in Australia until the start of January, and Michael should have been on the road with them.
“Stacey, Stacey, Stacey,” Michael shakes his head. “It’s a Tuesday. No one in rock ‘n’ roll works on a Tuesday.”
“Did a show get cancelled?”
“Yeah, a show got cancelled. Dave’s having some drama with the lead singer of Coal. Hit on his girlfriend, or something.” He shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
My blood boils as I think about that idiot. Of course he’s gone after some other guy’s girl. Of course …
But wait. If they were supposed to play a gig, doesn’t that mean—
“Doesn’t that mean you were interstate this morning, flew back, and will have to travel somewhere tomorrow?” I furrow my brow.
Silence.
“Well … yes, I guess you could look at it like that.” Michael slowly nods. “But also my mum was missing me, and I had some … stuff I had to do back here, so …”
I smile. I want to fight it, but the damn sucker of a grin works its way up my face and over my cheeks. “And so if you have all this stuff on, why are you visiting me?”
Michael sucks in a breath. His eyes narrow, and he presses his lips together.
Then he puts his hand on my knee.
And even though this is a guy who I know I can’t have because I have a baby, and he’s in a band, and I don’t even know if he’s really that into me …
I like it. It sends tingles up through my core and I really, really like it.
Silence washes over us for the rest of the hour-long car trip. But his hand stays on my knee. And my heart stays in my throat.
Finally, we park on the street in the inner city, near Surry Hills, I think. Michael gets out of the car and runs around to my side where he wrenches the door open before I can get to it.
“Thanks.” I smile. It makes the lack of his heat on my knee a little more bearable.
He puts his hand on the small of my back and guides me down the road. We walk on the bitumen pavement past high-rise brick office buildings, past modern cafes with herb gardens out the front and past tiny parks with men sleeping—their bellies exposed by their flannelette shirts and cardboard signs by their sides requesting money.
Sydney. It’s high, and it’s low.
We reach an old church. Its steeples spike high into the cloudy late-afternoon sky overhead, and its mass stretches out to a quadrangle beside the main cathedral. Michael steps forward and unlatches the iron gate, opening it up.
“After you.” He sweeps his hand forward.
Of course, this is when my stupid Christian guilt decides to kick in. I freeze on the spot. My mum raised all of us kids as Catholics, even though we haven’t worshipped in a long while. Now here I am, on the steps of a church, and I’m unwed and pregnant to a guy I don’t know.
At least I’m keeping the baby.
This time, the voice doesn’t surprise me. I just smile. It’s what I’m doing. I’m keeping. I made it, and I’ll keep it safe.
I inch a step forward. Lightning doesn’t strike me down, so I take another. So far, so good.
“So, you’re taking me to church?” I ask. Vines creep up the walls of the building, reaching for the sun like the loyal to the lord.
“Not exactly.” Michael laughs, a deep rumbling sound that gives me the same feeling between my legs that him putting his hand on my knee did. Why is it that now that I know I can’t have him, I want him even more? Or is this just crazy pregnancy hormones?
He leads me farther forward, then swings to the right of the main church building. We enter the quadrangle through a vine-covered archway, and then he turns to the right, leading us toward a room at the far right of the area with a typed sign out front:
The Actor’s Handbook
I know the name. It’s one of the city’s top three drama schools. Our high school tutor told us about this place, speaking of its expensive but worthwhile classes and the prestige of being accepted there into a full-time course.
“What the hell …?” I say the words as I think them. What is he playing at, taking me here?
“So … I know you said you were kind of interested in teaching acting, right?” Michael turns to me, a hopeful grin on his face. Something inside of me churns. He spent money on enrolling us into a class at this place?
“Yes …” I swallow. “One day, in the future, maybe …” Maybe after I’ve had this child and gotten some sort of degree, if I am even eligible …
“Well … we’re doing an acting class this evening. Surprise.”
My stomach rolls over and I instinctively clutch at it. Not now, random five o-clock sickness.
“Michael, I’m not really prepared …”
He looks me up and down. “You look pretty prepared to me.”
For the third time today, I curse myself for answering the door in sweat pants. What the hell was I thinking?
“I can’t …” I shake my head again. I have no words. No words except no. “I’ll pay you back for your deposit, or whatever this costs. I just, I can’t.” I cringe, thinking of the money going out the window. Money I will need.
“Look, Stacey, this is how it is.” Michael squares his shoulders to mine. “You go in, you do the class. I’ve already paid. We’re attending students.” He sucks in a deep breath. It makes me look at his lips. His lips … “You leave. We go grab a bite and go home. Three, four hours of your life, including travel time, max.”
I lick my lips. How can I tell him that I can’t possibly, I’m not brave enough, I couldn’t try to show myself to these people who pretend for real?
Michael places his hands on my shoulders.
“Yes.”
I have no hesitation.
We walk into the room, and my first thought is, we are the youngest ones here. Everyone else looks to be in his or her late twenties to early thirties. They are talking with each other while stretching—one girl is even wearing a leotard.
“Are you sure this is—”
“It’s a thing.” Michael takes my handbag from my shoulder and puts it down underneath an unoccupied bench space behind us. I sit on the seat
, twisting my fingers in knots around each other. The nerves are eating me up.
“Hi.” A man in black sweat pants that could be cousins with my own comes bouncing up to us. “You must be Michael and Stacey.” His gaze flicks to the clipboard in his hand, then back up at us.
“Hey.” Michael thrusts out a hand for him to shake, but the guy laces his fingers between Michael’s, then pulls Michael’s knuckles up to his mouth for a delicate kiss.
Michael’s cheeks turn tomato red, and he takes his hand back super slowly—too slowly. So slow that I think our teacher might have ideas, even though I have no doubt Michael was only delaying his hand retraction so as not to seem rude.
“I’m Stacey.” I thrust my hand under our tutor’s nose, and he gives it a limp pump before turning his attention back to Michael.
“I’m Amon. We start in two minutes. I just need you to sign this waiver”—He flicks over a page on the clipboard and shoves it under our noses. I shoot a nervous glance at Michael, but he signs our lives away. Who knew acting was a high-risk activity?—“and then when you’ve completed any stretching you want to do, I encourage you to join us in the centre of the room.” Amon offers up a sweeping bow and departs, frolicking off to a crowd of other people who no doubt come here every week.
“This is what you’re doing to get me pumped about my future?” I scrunch my nose up.
“This is what you are doing, because you’re excited about your future.” Michael taps my nose, pushing the crinkles away and I laugh. It’s one of the first genuine things I’ve done for a while.
“Okay people …” Amon claps his hands and the other eight people in the room amble toward him. “Welcome to Tuesday’s class, improv. Now today we have two new people in the room, Michael”—I swear he bats his eyelashes—“and Stacey. Michael, Stacey, want to tell us why you’re here?”
Eleven Weeks Page 9