by Cath Crowley
“Well, you don’t get to choose my friends.”
“It’s either him or me, Luke.” As soon as I say it, I want to snatch it back from the air. But it’s out of my mouth with a life of its own.
Luke’s cornered. His face is as pale and tiny as the day he kicked Dave through the goals on the footy field. “Then it’s Antony.”
“Then it’s over,” I say. But what I really want is for Luke to grab my hand and run with me to the river. I want what I had before, Luke standing up for me no matter what. I want him right up to the second I leave this town. “And you won’t tell Charlie about the scholarship?”
“I don’t care enough about it to tell her,” he says, and walks away. So this is what water feels like, I think, the second before it can’t hold on any longer. This is what it feels like, the second after it lets go.
Dad takes one look at me when I get home and says, “Rosie, put your walking boots on. We’re going out for the afternoon.”
“I’m too tired to walk.”
“Five minutes,” he says. “Move it.”
He drives to my favorite spot, where the mountain looks as if it’s been cut away from the rest of the hills around it. The surface is jagged and crumbling, and if you climb to the top where the water runs through, “you might be lucky enough to find fossils,” Miss Cantrell told me in Year 7. I’ve never found one in all the years I’ve been coming here. “Most things don’t leave evidence of themselves when they die, they just crumble away,” she said. “But if they live near water, then there’s a chance some tiny part of them will be etched into the earth.”
“You read a lot of stuff, hey, Rosie?” Luke always says when I try to explain it to him. He looks for fossils when we come up here, though. He looks because he knows how bad I want to find something.
“So, everything all right?” Dad asks while we eat the food Mum’s packed.
“Yep.”
“Luke hasn’t been round all that much lately. Everything okay with you two?” I nod and sift through tiny pebbles. “You know, when your mother left for overseas, I thought I’d lost her. She had to go but it killed me to see her leave.”
“Me and Luke aren’t you and Mum, Dad.” Luke and I are over. It’s time I cut my losses and moved on. No more looking after him. No more saving him. No more believing him when no one else does.
I know Dad wants to help, but it’s too little too late. He should have come here with me years ago; he should have kept coming with me to see the sunrises.
“So, you okay to walk or do I have to carry you back?” Dad asks after a while.
“Nope,” I say, standing up. “I can walk on my own.”
I brush my jeans clean of grit before we leave. “Not taking any rocks with you?” he asks.
“No.” All this time I’ve been coming to this place and there’s no history here, at least nothing worth taking with me.
Rose is quiet this week, but it doesn’t feel as though I’ve done anything wrong. It’s a different kind of quiet than the one that sat between Dahlia and me after Louise told her about the auditions. I kept trying to make things better by bringing her cake or inviting her over to my house for one of our old-time sleepovers. “Can Louise come?” she asked, and I took as long as I could to say yes so she knew I meant no.
Rose walks into the shop today and says we can visit Dave tonight. “Ask your grandpa if you can.”
“Mr. Robbie won’t like that, will he?”
“I said we should visit Dave. I didn’t say anything about his dad.”
“I don’t want to get him in any more trouble.”
“Dave’s always in trouble with his dad,” she says. “It’s just the way it is.”
I think about that on the way, about whether I’d rather have a dad like mine or Dave’s. “What’s your dad like?” I ask Rose as we’re walking.
“He talks more than yours does. But he works a lot. He’s pretty tired since he started at the mill. It’s more Mum who won’t let me do stuff. I wanted to go on exchange last year, and I thought maybe he’d let me, but she wouldn’t even talk about it. She says if I’m not careful I’ll wind up in trouble. I tell her if I’m not careful I’ll wind up like her.”
“You actually say that?”
“It pisses her right off.” She stops to catch her breath. “Check out that sunset.”
Pink runs down the world. “Have you ever heard someone play the cello?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. What’s it sound like?”
“That sky.”
She nods. “It makes me ache.”
I know what she means. A long line of horn or a note sung low makes me feel the same way.
“Luke and I broke up.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and her being quiet this week makes more sense.
She starts walking again. “I knew it was coming.”
“I never broke up with a boy before. Mainly because I never went out with a boy before.”
“You’re lucky,” she says. “It feels like shit and both of us wanted to end it. Imagine how I’d feel if he’d dumped me.”
“It’s not the same, but Dahlia stopped talking to me before I left.”
“I thought you said she called all the time.”
“She did call me other summers. Not this one, though. I acted stupid last year. I lied to her about stuff.”
“How come?”
“I wanted her to think I was as good as Louise Spatula, this friend of hers who hates me.”
Rose nods. She doesn’t say anything till we reach the edge of Dave’s property. “Louise Spatula is a stupid name,” she says, and then we keep on walking.
“Dahlia stopped talking to me before I left,” Charlie says. “I acted stupid last year. I lied to her about stuff.” I cut her a break today and don’t push her about it. I’m measuring out a little bit of brutal at a time. I tell her, “Louise Spatula is a stupid name.” Everything about Louise is stupid if she doesn’t like Charlie. I should know. It takes one to know one.
We get to Dave’s and I tell Charlie to wait near the trees. I walk quietly along the side of the house till I get to Dave’s window. I break off a branch and stretch it up to tap on the glass. Dave sticks his head out almost straightaway. “It’s taken you long enough. I’ve been locked in here for weeks.”
“It’s been five days, Dave.”
“It feels like weeks. Did you bring Charlie?” he asks, crawling out of his window.
I nod. “You heard Luke and I broke up?”
“Yeah. He came out to say sorry for getting me grounded.”
“Luke said sorry?”
“He bought me a car magazine. Same thing.”
Sometimes I wish I was a guy. Life’s so much easier for them.
“So, Dave, are you planning on making a move tonight? Maybe asking Charlie on a date?”
“Maybe.”
“By ‘maybe’ you mean you plan on staring at her and doing nothing?”
“I’m not sure she’s interested.”
“She laughs at every joke you make, and let’s face it, you’re not that funny. She listens to you talk about cars. She’s been staring at you for nearly ten years. Make a move, Dave. Ask her out.”
“You think she’d say yes?”
I make it as simple as I can. “She will say yes, Dave. But she won’t if you don’t ask.”
We walk over to her hiding in the trees and Dave grins and she grins and I think if the two of them don’t get on with it soon, they’ll explode. They grin all the way to the river.
“Isn’t that Luke?” Dave asks, pointing over to the trees at the edge of the water.
“Yep,” I say. “And Antony Barellan. What does he see in that guy?”
“Who else has he got to hang out with, Rose? Let’s go get him.”
“You get him if you want. I’m going home.” I walk away quickly so Dave can’t talk me into anything. Luke chose Antony Barellan, so that’s who he’s stuck with.
“Rose!” Cha
rlie calls, and runs after me. “Wait.”
“I’m fine. You should stay. Maybe you could make your move tonight.”
“I don’t have moves.”
“You’ve got plenty of moves.” I look her up and down. “You just haven’t used them yet.”
I watch her and Dave for a second, almost touching but not quite, and it makes me feel like I did watching that sky. Because they’re about to get what they want.
We leave Luke and Antony and Rose behind and follow the river away from town. I’ve got that beat under my skin again tonight, only this time it’s more Motown than disco. I’ve got Barry White in my blood and if I can’t make a move when my blood’s singing like him then there really is no hope.
“So how’d your dad take the news?” Dave asks.
“Grandpa didn’t tell him.”
“You sound disappointed. I wish …” He keeps talking, but I’m distracted by this small shape ahead of us in the dark.
“Who’s that?”
“My dad,” I say. I’d know his shadow anywhere.
We follow quietly. Dave doesn’t ask why. I hold the hem of his T-shirt, and he guides me through the trees. I know where we’re headed; I knew the second I saw him. I pull Dave back when we’re close. Dad walks into the clearing where I swim.
He’s a tiny figure at the water’s edge. If it were anyone else, I’d think they were enjoying the scenery: the silver water and the belly moon. But it’s not anyone. This isn’t anyplace.
I should feel sad, I guess, watching him hurt on his own in the night while he remembers how Mum said she loved him here. How here they thought they’d last forever. I’m too angry for sad, though; I miss her like he does, and if he’d asked I would have sat with him, sat with the rocks and stones and water and the ghost of her.
But he doesn’t want me. He takes off his shoes and socks and soaks his feet in the water. He picks up stones and skims them. He digs his hands into dirt, hoarding her up, hoarding what it felt like to be loved by her, what her voice sounded like, how she smelled. All the things I’m forgetting. Things I’m so thirsty for I could drink the river dry.
I lose track of time watching. When Dad finally leaves, I walk out of the clearing and sit next to the shape he left in the grass. “Come look at this,” Dave says after a while.
I follow him, past where we were standing to watch Dad. Farther even than that. “Through here there’s this spot where the trees cover everything. Too far from the road for headlights,” he says. “Even Luke and Rose freak out a little in here.”
We step through and leave the world. I wait for my eyes to adjust, but they don’t. I can’t see my own skin. “How do you know about this place?”
“Heaps of spots like this in the bush. Some nights I wander on my own,” he says. “Some nights me and Luke and Rose camp around here.”
He’s only voice now. Only breath. “So are you having a good summer?” he asks.
“Yeah, great. I liked the bit where I stole the cigarettes.”
“And the bit where you got into the car with two drunken lunatics?” he asks.
“And the bit where I got you arrested and let you take the blame.”
“I stole the car back. I was the one driving,” he says, his words floating into mine; if I move at all, we’ll be kissing, and I want to kiss, but I’m not sure where that leads to in here.
“You were only driving because I couldn’t.”
“You can’t drive?” he asks.
“I’m only sixteen.”
“So am I. We’re old enough to have our learner’s.”
I’m nothing but aching now and I wonder if he’s done this before and if I’m allowed to ask him that or if there are rules that I don’t know. “Dave?”
“Yeah?”
“I haven’t done this before much. At all, really. That is. If we’re doing what I think we’re doing. And not just, you know, standing in the dark.”
He laughs, but I don’t feel stupid. I feel electric because his lips feather mine when he moves. “Do you want to go back?”
“No,” I tell him. “I want to stay like this. Exactly like this.”
We hover. Lips feathering. Chests spinning crazy. Skin burning. After a while I take out my iPod and give one earpiece to him and keep the other for me. I put it on shuffle and voices swirl around us and it’s the strangest feeling. I’m nowhere and somewhere at the same time. The last song we listen to is one of mine. He doesn’t know it and I don’t tell him. I feel stranger still. As if the singer and me are different people.
We walk home and he holds my hand and tells me about the car he’s doing up at his job, about how the something or other connects with the thingumajiggy. I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about and I don’t care as long as he keeps talking.
At my door he grins and says goodbye. He calls back from the gate, “Hey. Charlie. I haven’t done it a whole lot, either.”
“It feels like you have.”
“Maybe I’ve just thought about it more than you,” he says. There’s no way I can sleep tonight, no point even trying. I grab my guitar and sit outside and close my eyes so the world is dark.
Wait a Little Longer
If you wait a little longer
I’ll be getting closer soon
I’m really very close
So please don’t move
Got some things to say
And you’ll be hearing from me soon
I’m not that far away
So please don’t move
I’m writing almost-love-songs
That I’ll be singing to you soon
They’re really close to ready
So please don’t move
Even in the early hours, I don’t sleep. I get up at six and wait in the kitchen for Dad. At seven he walks in, puts on the kettle, and stares out the window while it boils. “Good morning, Charlotte.” He talks to his reflection.
“What friends did you visit last night?” I ask.
“Jessie and Tim Bell,” he says without turning around.
“All night?”
“We talked till about one a.m., I think.” He pours his coffee. “Did you and Grandpa watch a movie?”
“I hung out with Rose and Dave. We went to the river.”
Dad faces me. I’m getting closer and closer to what I want to say. Grandpa walks in. “Morning, you two. Summer storm coming. It’ll be here by tonight. Big one. Don’t be out in it, Charlie.”
“No, Grandpa.”
“I’m off to get a part for the fridge,” he says. “The thing isn’t working properly. Something’s off in the kitchen. Could one of you open the shop?”
“I will. Dad doesn’t look like he’s in the mood.”
“So, what happened last night?” I ask, wandering round while Charlie counts the till. “Did you make your move on Dave?”
“Kind of,” she says with her eyes on the money. “How did you and Luke get together?”
“He kissed me in Year Six. A hit-and-run in this game of chasey. My face was still burning when I got home. Mum thought I had flu. I waited two years for him to do it again.”
“Were you nervous?”
“Did you hear me? I waited two years. It might have been nerves, but it felt more like desperation.”
“So how did you get him to kiss you?”
“I think I said, ‘You idiot. Kiss me.’”
“I was the one who didn’t kiss last night,” she says. “I came close. The freaking cicadas were singing Barry White, and I couldn’t do it.”
“Who’s Barry White?”
“Love god. I’ll play him for you sometime,” she says. “How do you get to that last bit?”
“Again, I say, two years.”
“I’ve never kissed anyone, so it’s been sixteen years for me.”
I never had a problem going that last bit, but hearing that won’t help her. “Maybe you ease into it,” I say. “Take it a step at a time.”
“That’s what Dave said.
”
“Dave’s a good guy.”
“Dave’s a great guy. Maybe I should just trip and land with my lips on his face.”
“Yeah, but Dave doesn’t usually get subtle,” I say, and then we’re doing that silent laughter thing, out of control at the thought of Charlie throwing Dave into the pool, her bikini top off and him still not getting it.
“Will you and Luke work it out?” she asks when we’ve settled.
I pick up a book of maps and flick through to one of the city. “I want to be as far away from him as possible, and when I’m away I wonder what he’s doing.”
“Do you go find him?” she asks.
“I don’t need ESP to know half the time he’s somewhere acting like an idiot.”
“So why do you like him?”
“Because the other half of the time he’s acting like Luke. He’s making me laugh and wearing that sleeveless T-shirt.”
“I was always jealous of the way he looked at you.”
“I was always jealous of you leaving here at the end of the summer.”
“You never really know what someone else is thinking,” she says. I nod and put down the map.
Rose leaves to babysit, and I look through some back issues of Rolling Stone that Gus lent me for the summer. I’m circling bands I wouldn’t mind putting on Dave’s compilation CD when Antony walks in.
He picks up things and puts them down, then picks them up again. He curves his head around to look at me and licks his lips. I sit behind the counter and keep circling bands, looking up occasionally to see if he’s still in the store. He winds his way to the register until he’s close enough to bite. “Can I help you?” I say.
“No one can help you.” He laughs. He probably heard someone say that line on TV and has been waiting all his life to use it. He hates me, I see that. And yeah, maybe I could lie to myself and say it’s because I tripped him up, but that’s not true. He treats me the way he does because he can. Antony knew what sort of person I was as soon as he saw me sitting out the front of the milk bar. He picked me for someone he could use; if he can’t do that anymore, then there’s no reason to be nice. “Did you hear me?” he asks.