Half My Luck

by Samera Kamaleddine

  Imogen’s face relaxes in a way I’ve not seen it do before. ‘Yes, she’s going to be okay. It’s been traumatic, but she’ll be fine.’

  I don’t know what to say next. This all went down much cooler when I was imagining it in my head last night. But of course it’s awkward. Imogen and I are not friends. These are the most words ever exchanged between us in the history of our co-attendance of the same high school.

  It’s Imogen who breaks the silence. ‘She’s not ready for visitors . . . just yet.’

  ‘Oh, of course. No worries.’ I back away from the vending machine. ‘I should have called the hospital to check first. Sorry. I hope she feels better soon.’

  There’s a super-soft ‘thank you’ as Imogen lowers her glance. I’m walking off when she speaks again. ‘Is that the real reason you came?’

  I pause, freaking out that she’ll see the actual intention all over my exposed face when I turn around.

  ‘To check on Shontel?’

  ‘Yeah, it is. I’m glad she’s going to be alright.’

  Satisfied with the answer, Imogen heads back on her path towards Shontel’s hospital room. It might not be the most enjoyable path to be on, but at least it’s a purposeful one.

  George and I float on our backs. Eyes closed, the sun lands on my face like yellow-and-orange strobe lights. A party in the sky. The only one I’ll be going to for a while.

  Before we got into the river, George had told me to spread the word: this week’s beach party is cancelled. ‘It sucks, but it’s the right thing to do. I mean, can you imagine the mood?’

  I can imagine everyone just partying on like nothing even happened last week, to be honest. The show-offs launching themselves into the sunless water from the huge branches that dangle over. Upbeat song after upbeat song echoing across the river. Daniel Mason-Johnson acting like he’s the king of said river – and no one telling him otherwise.

  ‘The right thing to do is for someone to dob him in.’

  ‘Him who? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Daniel.’

  ‘Hmm, I don’t like the look on your face right now . . .’

  Tayta was right, my face is tired. Just really, really tired. And also, probably sunburnt after leaving my sunscreen on the bathroom counter by accident this morning.

  ‘I could have told them, George. I could have told Sufia what he was planning to do, about the bungers. Given them a heads-up. Maybe Shontel wouldn’t have gotten in the way because it wouldn’t have even happened.’

  George had frowned when I’d said this. ‘Reckon the Cedars would have cared? Doubt they would have up and left the party. They probs would have tried to start something with the boys instead.’

  She’d caught my raised eyebrows and put her hands up in defence. ‘I’m not saying what you think I’m saying. I’m just saying . . . it could have gone so many different ways. You don’t know.’

  What I do know is she’s right. But it still feels like this whole thing is now a mess that’s been dumped on me to clean up. I haven’t told her what Sufia wants me to do. I don’t know if I can tell anyone.

  ‘So, we should do something else tomorrow night? Come sleep over at mine?’ George, the queen of changing an uncomfortable subject.

  ‘Yeah, cool, sounds good. Just us, or Maddy, too?’

  ‘Wellllll . . . I’m pretty sure she’s busy.’

  ‘You obviously know she’s busy. So just tell me what she’s busy doing.’

  ‘Hanging out with someone.’

  ‘Like, a boy someone?’

  There was an affirmative nod.

  Since when does Maddy have a boy someone? My eyes narrowed in on George’s and we had one of our famous stare-offs (we once lasted five minutes and seventeen seconds). She knew I was asking who he is without me even saying the words.

  ‘You’re not going to like it,’ she’d said.

  I peel my eyes open now and lift my head out of the water. I see George still floating next to me and remember that the convo we had earlier wasn’t a dream.

  Maddy hooked up with Daniel. Like, full-on made out with him at the party. After he’d been running around the red gums letting off bungers, after Shontel Meyer was taken away in an ambulance, Maddy had stayed behind and let him stick his tongue in her mouth.

  George has packed up and gone home for the day, probably because I went (and stayed) quiet after she told me. I’m lying back on my towel just thinking about it, but trying not to. Because he’s the worst. And now Maddy, my friend, is pashing on with the worst.

  I’m so angry. And I’m so tired. My eyelids feel like paperweights, pushing my eyeballs into the back of my head. I’ve succumbed to their pressure for maybe five minutes when I feel a poke in my arm. A poke that feels more painful than it should.

  The culprit has dark, floppy hair and familiar baby blues. ‘Um, how many hours have you been lying here for?’

  Hours? What is he on about? ‘I literally just lay down,’ I say, my eyes slowly adjusting to the sun.

  Jordan is crouched low beside me, looking all kinds of concerned. ‘Are you wearing any sunscreen? Because it looks bad.’

  ‘Am I —’ I push up onto my elbows and see red. Literally. My arms, my legs, my chest, my bikini line . . . all red. The kind of red you get when you’ve been asleep under the giant hole in the ozone layer for hours without sun protection.

  ‘Yeah, like I said . . . it’s bad.’

  A burning sensation suddenly runs through my body, to match with what my eyes can see. The front of my thighs are on fire, my lips are dry and my tummy feels like one of those sizzling plates fajitas are served on.

  Jordan helps me up and I start laughing. Judging by the confusion on his face, he’s not sure whether he’s allowed to laugh with me. Luckily, he doesn’t, because my laughing tears quickly turn into real tears and the saltiness streaming down my face makes the fresh sunburn sting.

  I’m sobbing and how embarrassing, because Jordan can see me sobbing. He’s now witnessed me in a sunburnt, sobbing state and he can’t ever unsee it for as long as he lives.

  I want to die.

  It’s lucky, then, that I’m going home . . . because my mum is going to kill me when she sees this.

  I’m pretty surprised when Mum skips the SPF lesson and silently whips out the aloe vera gel. She’s slathering it all over my crispy body while I sit on the edge of the bath with my arms out in a T-shape, trying to erase the look on Jordan’s shocked and terrified face from my memory bank. My brother is at the doorway taking photos on his phone.

  ‘Noah, go away. And shut the door so I can talk to your sister,’ Mum says. She’s quiet and composed. This can’t be good.

  She keeps her head down, dabbing away at my red-raw skin. ‘I heard – from someone – that you were alone with a boy for quite a while at the party last Friday night. I would hope that, at sixteen years old, nothing was going on while you were alone with this boy . . .’

  Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod.

  ‘. . . and that you weren’t letting anyone encourage anything to go on. Or that —’

  ‘Mum,’ I interrupt, keeping my voice low to match hers. ‘He has a girlfriend. So, no, nothing was going on.’

  ‘Do you think having a girlfriend stops boys from carrying on with other girls?’

  ‘Yeah, I do, Mum. He’s a really cool guy and he’s not like that and . . .’ I wish he didn’t have a girlfriend.

  ‘Well, all I’m saying is, you’re sixteen. And now I’m late for Pilates.’

  With one final rub-in of aloe, Mum rushes out of the bathroom and off to her class.

  I’m not dead, but I’m in some kind of realm of suffering. One where I’m forced to lie flat on my back, no muscle allowed to wriggle out of place, to stress over all of this moment’s important questions: How did Mum know I was alone with Jordan last Friday night? What does she imagine goes on at parties in the outdoors in front of other people? And why was she wearing jeans instead of her Pilates tights?
/>   It’s Friday night again. This one is supposed to be different, but it will inevitably be the same. Everyone will be in their corners, with their people. It won’t be on Lame Beach or under the trees on the riverbank, but they’ll be fighting for what they accept to be right and wrong, who they believe to be good and bad, somewhere else.

  George’s house will feel like neutral ground. As I’m walking there, overnight bag on one shoulder, I’m glad I don’t have to see any of them tonight. And not just because I still look like a shade of Sufia’s Friday-night lipstick and have had to avoid all mirrors and humans for the past twenty-four hours.

  With each footstep, I imagine I’m letting go of something that makes me feel as icky as the skin peeling off my nose right now. Step. Crying like a dumb baby in front of Jordan. Step. Mum’s super-awkward attempt at a sex talk. Step. Maddy hooking up with Daniel Mason-Johnson. Step. Daniel Mason-Johnson . . . is standing in front of me.

  ‘Dude . . . get a bit of sun?’

  I’ve been concentrating on the pavement and haven’t noticed I’m out the front of Maddy’s house, on the corner of George’s street. So close to George’s house, but suddenly so far away.

  Maddy comes flying out her front door, down the driveway to meet Daniel, who is slouching against the VW Golf his parents just bought him – and still gaping at my new colouring. ‘Layla, shit!’ she says, when she sees me standing there.

  ‘Yeah, I could say the same to you.’ I look from her to Daniel to make my point.

  ‘Is it sore? You must have —’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Looks like you two have somewhere to be.’ If I wasn’t already the colour of a tomato, I’d be turning a juicy shade of scarlet right about now.

  ‘Um, I’ll just . . . wait for you in the car, Mads. You guys —’

  ‘No.’ Maddy grips Daniel’s arm, but holds her gaze on me. ‘You have no right to stand here and be rude to me.’

  ‘But he has a right to get someone hurt and then not even have enough guts to admit it? Maddy, the cops have interrogated all the Cedar boys. It’s like they’re guilty until proven innocent. And everyone is going to keep covering up for your boyfriend, which means they won’t be proven innocent. Ever.’

  ‘Wow.’ Maddy is shaking her head. ‘You need to get over it, L.’

  She rushes to get into Daniel’s car. I walk off shaking, my footsteps now the exact opposite of healing motions.

  The footsteps continue, in swift succession, right past George’s. Past her perfectly manicured front lawn that her green-thumb parents dote on, and into the bush that starts along the side of her house.

  Remembering it’s snake season, I pick up the pace. I’m stomping further and further into the sparse bushland, my duffel bag smacking into trees, and low, leafy branches scratching my sunburnt skin as I weave my way through. I don’t know where my feet are taking me. My biggest fear is not the snakes right now, but of having to stop running. Which after a few more metres, I have no choice but to do. Clutching my pumping chest, I find myself at the road. The one, that once crossed, lands you at Lame Beach.

  It’s the last place I wanted to be tonight, but it feels as though it’s the only spot extending an invitation. I reluctantly accept, and when I get to the river, it’s dead. Deserted. Perfect.

  Slipping off my sandals and inching closer to the water, I have the sudden urge to dive in. The sun’s still glistening over it; there’s one more hour of light. I could do it if I wanted to. But a rattling from the boatshed interrupts my thoughts, and I’m now watching Jordan carry a fishing rod and bucket in the direction of the water.

  It’s like he feels my eyes burn a hole through him – or else he can see a haze of red blaze from the corner of his eye – because he looks over and waves. I wave back, and he fusses around with his fishing kit for a minute before jogging towards me.

  ‘I’m not gonna have to jump in and save you, am I?’

  I smile weakly and shake my head.

  ‘How goes the sunburn?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, about that . . . Sorry for, you know, the tears and stuff. I don’t always cry when crap happens. Probably because I’m pretty used to it.’

  ‘Crap happening?’ Jordan asks.

  ‘Uh-huh. Crap happens alllllll the time. I’m cursed, you know,’ I tell him. I haven’t said that out loud before. Not even to George or Maddy.

  ‘What, like some voodoo thing, hey?’

  ‘Ha, not exactly. It’s more like this ancient superstitious thing that my dad’s family believe in. The evil eye?’

  He hasn’t heard of it. I don’t know how to explain that it’s actually a whole lot bigger than sunburn. ‘Let’s just say I’ve never been on the lucky side of life.’

  I plonk down on the gritty sand, letting my feet fall to one side. Jordan squats, half ready to be somewhere else.

  ‘There you go again, talking about “sides”,’ he says with a laugh, poking my arm with his elbow. It’s the best elbow I’ve ever been poked with.

  He hasn’t asked me why I’m here. And I don’t know if I feel like giving him a recap of what just went down with Maddy and Daniel – aka me losing it because of ‘sides’. And unfair play of one particular side.

  ‘So, what does your old man think about all this evil-eye stuff?’

  ‘He’s not around that much. Travels a lot. He’s in Hong Kong or somewhere, right now. So, I don’t really speak to him about it.’

  In fact, I’ve never spoken to him about it. There are a lot of things we don’t talk about.

  ‘Oh, yeah, businessman, is he?’

  ‘Something like that. Anyway, you probably have more exciting plans for tonight than sitting here talking to me about religious curses!’

  Fishing with his uncle is the exciting plan, he tells me. They’re heading out on a dinghy when the sun goes down, to see what they can bring in. They’ll be out there for hours, in the dark, just waiting for the catch.

  ‘You sticking around?’

  ‘For a bit.’

  ‘Alrighty, see ya.’ And with that he’s up and heading back towards the boatshed.

  ‘Hey, Jordan,’ I call as he reaches the edge of the sandbank. ‘Good luck!’

  ‘Ah, there’s no such thing as luck,’ he shouts back. ‘It’s just a word that lives in our brains. That’s the truth about luck, mate!’

  Someone had better tell that to the Karimis and the whole entire Lebanese population, then. Because I don’t think they’ll ever stop believing in the mystic force of bad luck. I wish I knew how.

  I also wish my brain was as quiet as the beach is right now. The flapping of cockatoos fills the air when the distant hum of cars doesn’t. The quietest Friday night this river has ever seen.

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘Doesn’t he have a girlfriend back home?’ was George’s response when I’d told her where I was for an hour, the hour that made me late to hers last night.

  Yes. Yes, he does have a girlfriend. I wish everyone would stop reminding me. Anyway, guys and girls can just be friends, right?

  George wasn’t convinced. ‘The problem is, every time you look at him you’re picturing his lips all over your lips, and when he looks at you . . . well, he’s probably wishing his girlfriend was here.’

  This morning over breakfast, though, she’s had a change of heart. ‘You know what, maybe you are meant to be friends. Like, we would all want a happy ending for you – he breaks up with his girlfriend long distance, you two ride off on a jet ski into the river at sunset, blah, blah, blah – but maybe the universe is like, here’s an awesome guy you can’t have as a boyfriend because he makes an awesome boy friend.’

  It’s not what I want to hear over pancakes. Or ever. And really, I know the verbal diarrhoea is just so we don’t have to talk about anything else. We barely spoke about the Maddy/Daniel street fight last night. George said she doesn’t want to take sides and I know the feeling.

  Her mum is at the stovetop flipping rashers of sizzling bacon in a large fryin
g pan. It’s not a kitchen smell I’m used to. Dad moved out three years ago, but Mum, out of habit, still doesn’t cook bacon at home.

  George’s dad is sitting at the table with us, but if it wasn’t for the occasional shuffle of his newspaper, we wouldn’t know he was there. Pretty sure I’ve never seen my dad even read a newspaper, English or Arabic.

  George’s family just look so . . . normal. They look like they’re straight out of a wholesome Disney show.

  I realise I’ve been ignoring George, when she finally wraps up her prophecy and indicates today’s plans. ‘Anyway, let’s beach?’

  I know I shouldn’t be here in my deep-fried state, but Mum is picking up Grandad from the home again because she heard it was getting to forty-five degrees today. So that’s a lunch I’d rather skip.

  I’m even willing to run the risk of bumping into Maddy.

  ‘How sad is my family, seriously,’ says George, when we hop out of her mum’s car. ‘Who goes antique shopping on a beautiful day like this?’

  Instead of telling her what I see when I look at her perfectly normal family – one with no secrets, no dodgy cousins everyone is scared of and no religious rituals to weird people out – I catch a glimpse of Imogen and Carina standing in conversation at the grassy entrance to Lame Beach. Imogen, I notice, is not in beachwear.

  ‘Hey, meet you down there, George,’ I say. ‘I’m just going to be a sec up here.’

  George is following my gaze, and although confused, heads down to the sand, right past Imogen and Carina, mumbling something about how I’d better not leave her looking like a loner for too long.

  I need to tell Imogen that I lied. When I saw her at the hospital the other day, I lied about why I was there. I reckon she already knows, but I need to explain it. The real reason.

  My feet feel like they’re superglued to the ground, and just as I unstick one and step it in front of the other, Imogen is walking away from Carina – away from the beach and towards a car parked on the side of the road. When I get to her, Carina is staring down at a piece of paper, which she quickly slips into her beach bag when she sees my feet land in front of hers.