Half My Luck

by Samera Kamaleddine

  ‘Madeline not here?’ she asks, when she finally comes to a halt at the top of our towels, hands firmly on hips.

  George and I look at each other.

  ‘Helping her boyfriend buy a new car?’

  ‘We don’t know, Sufia. Why are you asking us?’

  ‘You know my boy Nasser?’

  ‘No?’

  ‘He’s got epic curls?’

  Oh. Yes. I have seen him around the red gum before.

  ‘Yeah, well, he got locked up last night. He’s probably already been charged with burning that car.’

  ‘Well, did he do it, Sufia?’ I ask. ‘Because if he’s been busted for something he actually did, then why are you getting pissed at us?’

  Her hands are off her hips now and flailing in the air above her head. ‘Because that arsehole Daniel is still walking around, isn’t he?’

  She makes a good point. The playing field hasn’t exactly been evened out for both sides.

  ‘Sufia, I don’t want to get involved,’ says George. The George who never speaks up when Sufia is around. ‘But Layla and I can’t control what goes on with Maddy’s boyfriend. I don’t know what you want us to do.’

  I don’t think Sufia knows what she wants us to do, either. She’s frustrated, she’s angry. She wants to unleash on someone and I guess I’m an easy someone. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she says, and storms off back to the Cedars.

  I’ve managed to dodge Jordan all arvo, even though I have so much I want to talk to him about. The sun’s getting lower, my irritation is getting higher, and I’m watching Ricky P pull up and Sufia get into Phantom1. I assume this means she’s not too bothered about her parents busting their relationship. She’s also not bothered about offering me a lift home today.

  I’m almost at the road when a breathy voice drags me a step back.

  ‘You walking home?’ Jordan is puffing his way up the grass behind me, holding onto the chest straps of his bag.

  ‘Sure am,’ I say, letting him get closer as my heart rate starts galloping off the charts at the sight of him.

  ‘Cool. I’ve gotta walk to the shops, grab some stuff for my uncle.’

  We start on the pavement, and I start on the probing. ‘So, Carina was at the kiosk about a hundred times today . . .’

  ‘Yeah, she’s a bit full on that chick. Going on about some drama with her boyfriend . . . Kelvin?’

  ‘Kyle.’

  ‘Kyle! And yeah, anyway, asking me what I think about some fight they had. What’s the deal with everyone asking me for boy advice lately, hey?’ He looks down at me and grins, nudging my side so that I almost fall into the gutter. ‘I’m practically the Dr Phil of Australia.’

  ‘I wouldn’t give up your kiosk job if I was you. Things didn’t exactly go down so well for me when I confronted Daniel!’

  ‘Oh, yeah? What happened?’

  ‘He’s still a douche. And I swear I kept my cool like you told me to. But yeah, he didn’t want to hear it. And then someone burned his car to the ground . . . so I guess karma is a queen!’

  ‘I know,’ Jordan says. ‘Although . . .’

  ‘You never know what the truth is around here?’ It’s not something that’s ever offered itself up freely in my home, my family, my school. It’s easier not to speak it, apparently.

  ‘I was actually going to say I wasn’t surprised. From what you’ve told me, people like to strike back in this place.’

  ‘Are you trying to make some lame Star Wars reference right now?!’

  Jordan bursts out laughing. ‘No! Definitely not!’

  ‘Good.’ Then I look down the path. ‘That’s Imogen Meyer’s house,’ I point out. It’s coming up on the right.

  ‘Her mum’s a councillor?’

  When we arrive at the front fence, there’s a sign sticking out of the lawn with a photo of Mrs Meyer taking up half of it. She’s wearing the black dress I saw her in the other week. Vote 1: Belinda Meyer. Putting community first.

  ‘Pfft, speaking of liars,’ says Jordan. ‘Don’t pollies do that for a living?’

  It turns out Maddy actually was with Daniel buying a new car while we were being accosted by my crazy cousin. I’m walking to George’s when I see them pull up outside Maddy’s house in a black Honda Civic. It’s a pretty tree-less corner, so I have nothing to hide behind. I can stand here and check a stranger’s mailbox with my head down, or I can keep walking and hope they reach Maddy’s front door by the time I get there.

  ‘Layla!’ Maddy is calling out to me and waving. She’s still pretending we’re the best of mates. Like I never told her I hated her boyfriend. Daniel, on the other hand, mouths, ‘Oh, shit’ when he notices who Maddy is shouting to. ‘Come and check out Daniel’s new wheels!’

  When I get there, as slowly as I can possibly walk, she’s thrown her body across the bonnet like some kind of skanky car model. ‘I helped him pick it out yesterday. What do you reckon?’

  I reckon my parents would never give me the money to buy not one, but two, brand-new cars. Especially as a fresh P-plater. ‘Yeah, nice,’ is all I can manage.

  I glance at Daniel, who is looking straight down at his feet with his hands in his pockets, then back at Maddy. Something tells me he never told her about our encounter outside the guys’ toilets the other night.

  ‘Sick, isn’t it? Not fully sick, but you know . . . good sick.’ She’s off the bonnet and crouching down at the wheels. ‘Better make sure these rims don’t get stolen, though. You know what it’s like in this street.’

  I couldn’t care less about the shiny silver mags, being half Leb or not. But Maddy, well, she’s grown up with two older brothers and a mechanic for a dad, so cars are pretty much dinner convo every night. Better than my dinner convos this week, anyway.

  ‘Tell George I said hey. I’m guessing that’s where you’re going.’

  ‘Yeah, it is. I asked her if I could come round, it wasn’t like a proper invite thing,’ I stammer. Why am I justifying this when Maddy is the one who has been choosing to spend all her time with a guy over us? It’s annoying how part of me doesn’t want her to feel bad.

  ‘Oh, it’s cool.’ She’s waving one hand over her face. ‘Daniel’s coming in for dinner, so . . . yeah, I’ve got stuff on.’

  Daniel is rolling his shoe in and out of a crack in the pavement. I bet he’s really hanging for this dinner right about now.

  ‘You look seriously buggered, L,’ she adds.

  ‘Well, you know, I guess you just never know what’s going on in other people’s lives . . .’

  Daniel’s head snaps up so that our eyes finally meet.

  Maddy frowns, confused. ‘Okay, well, have a good night. And we’ll catch ya down the river.’ She rushes to her feet and along the driveway.

  Daniel studies my face for a moment, then turns away and starts heading towards the open gate. ‘Hey,’ I say. ‘How come you haven’t said anything to Maddy?’

  ‘Because maybe I’m not the shit guy you think I am, Layla.’

  ‘He’s definitely the shit guy I think he is,’ I tell George. ‘Let’s be real, he just doesn’t want his parents to take away his cool car or Friday-night freedom or soccer trips up the coast or whatever. He literally doesn’t care about anyone but himself. Not my dream boyfriend, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Hmm,’ says George, pulling a bunch of takeaway menus out of a drawer. ‘That’s because we know who your dream boyfriend is.’

  I don’t feel like talking about him. ‘Thanks for letting me crash, by the way. Mum’s taken a vow of awkward silence.’ I’m slumped over the kitchen bench. ‘She puts dinner on the table, doesn’t say a word and then sits in front of the TV texting.’

  George opens her mouth and I put my hand up. ‘Don’t! Whatever you’re going to say, don’t. I can’t even deal.’

  She laughs, then zips her lips closed with her fingers.

  ‘Can we just talk about what pizza we’re ordering?’

  George nods – now that she’s commi
tted to a promise of silence, too – and shoves some menus my way. As I rifle through, thinking about how retro George’s parents are for still using takeaway menus, I land on something that might satisfy my hunger pains even more than cabanossi.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ I ask, holding a piece of paper – about the same size as a takeaway menu – up to George.

  She shakes her head and points to her zipped-up lips.

  ‘Seriously, though? Had you heard about this?’

  George snatches it from my hands and reads it out loud. ‘“Belinda Meyer, local councillor. Official campaign launch for proposed re-election. Briefing the community on key messages. Open forum for questions.” Mum must have put it in this drawer by mistake.’ She hands it back to me, uninterested. ‘Not really something I chat to Imogen about when I see her in the kiosk line.’

  ‘We should go.’

  ‘Huh? I don’t think so. Hearing Mr Proops go on about senates and shadow cabinets and all that other boring stuff in Year Eight was enough,’ protests George. ‘And anyway, since when do you care about politics?’

  Since Imogen implied that her politician mum is shady. And since it might have something to do with the Big Daniel Cover-up. Whether George realises it or not, everything that’s going on around us is related to some kind of politics.

  ‘Do you have something more exciting to do on Friday night, George?’

  ‘It’s on a Friday night?!’ she groans, her forehead dropping to crossed arms on the bench.

  ‘If I go by myself, I’ll look like a total loser . . .’ Despite the fact that she can’t see it, I’ve got my plea face on.

  ‘Fine.’ She lifts her head. ‘We’ll look like total losers together.’

  And just like that, Friday nights have got even sadder around here.

  CHAPTER 8

  No one can remember a summer night this sticky. That’s what all the boring adults are talking about when we get to the public library.

  ‘I didn’t even know we had a public library,’ says George, while we wait around outside in the stickiness. Neither did I. I’ve been to the train station across the road a gazillion times and have never even noticed it.

  The usual suspects are lined up. Some teachers who live in the area, some parents from school and a disgusting combination of the two: Mr Hyman and my mum.

  ‘Don’t look, but she’s touching his arm,’ George informs me.

  I’m already looking and I can’t unsee it and I wish I was blind. ‘Let’s just go in.’

  There are mismatched chairs assembled in no particular arrangement in an area towards the end of the library. George and I take a seat in what resembles a back row, and watch the adults file in. Well, there’s one other non-adult and she’s been lumped with the dud job of handing out flyers. From a distance, they look different from the one I found in George’s takeaway-menu pile.

  ‘Do you reckon Imogen’s mum pays her for that?’

  ‘Dunno. But she always did get the best pocket money when we were kids,’ I say. One time in Year Five, she bought a Nintendo Wii U after doing one week’s worth of chores. When I told my parents, they said her mum probably got someone to catch it as it was falling off the back of a truck. I had no idea what they were on about.

  ‘What are you two doing here?’ Imogen has arrived at our row. ‘Why would you want to put yourself through something this torturous on a Friday night?’ She doesn’t wait for a response from either of us and instead continues forcing paper into hands around us. She quickly finds a seat when she hears her mum’s voice.

  ‘Thank you for coming!’ Mrs Meyer is shouting, mainly to the stragglers still making their way through the library doors. ‘The turnout this evening is such a great example of how this community comes together through a common interest in growth and progress. And that’s what I want to talk to you about tonight . . .’

  Imogen’s hair is GHDed to perfection. I can tell this even from two rows back. What I don’t know is, how she got it to stay so perfectly straight in this full-blown humidity.

  As Mrs Meyer talks on and on about her love for the area she grew up in, that her daughters are growing up in, I wonder when – or if – she’s going to bring up the bunger attack. Surely it would get her some sympathy votes. Maybe someone will ask what really happened. I don’t know how I’ll respond if they do.

  George leans on my shoulder and pretend-sleeps, with a faux snore thrown in here and there. I’m still watching Imogen. Most of the time she’s still, frozen. But suddenly, there’s a tremble in her chin and she creeps out of her chair, apologising to all the legs she’s squeezing past to get out.

  I turn back and watch her increase in speed as she gets to the library’s exit. Pushing fake-sleeping George off me, I get up to follow her.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  Imogen’s sitting on a wooden bench outside the library. Her head bobs. She keeps it bowed down, but I can see that her face is all watery.

  I want to ask if she’s crying for Shontel, but maybe she doesn’t want to answer any more questions. When the silence between her sniffles is too much, I say, ‘You asked before, why I would put myself through this. Coming here tonight. Well, it’s because of you.’

  Imogen squishes her eyebrows together.

  ‘Because of what you said – or what you wanted to say – about your mum. About maybe there being something I don’t know . . .’

  She lifts her head to face me, and she’s red and blotchy, and droplets of tears have got caught in her hair. ‘Do you know what Daniel’s dad does . . . for a job?’

  ‘No. I don’t.’

  ‘He’s an accountant. He’s my mum’s accountant.’

  He’s good with money. That explains Daniel’s mag-wheeled cars. But what does it have to do with anything else?

  ‘He helps her . . . well, he makes sure there’s no trace of . . . anything that she doesn’t want to be traced,’ she says, reading my thoughts.

  ‘She doesn’t want to fall out with him, then, does she?’

  Imogen shakes her head, sobbing.

  ‘So, she’s willing to let Daniel off the hook so that she won’t have to.’ And let the community that she loves so much believe that the Cedars are responsible for all the bad shit that happens within it.

  Imogen sobs harder. I want to sob, too.

  ‘But her daughter. Like, I just can’t even —’

  ‘I hate my family, Layla.’

  As if you wouldn’t. This is shittier than what Daniel did. Shittier than what the Cedars did back.

  ‘My dad’s a gambler,’ I blurt out, taking a seat next to her.

  Imogen cry-laughs. Then she reverts to just a cry.

  ‘Sorry, I was hoping that might make you feel better. To know that, you know, your family isn’t the only shit one around.’

  And maybe make myself feel better, too.

  ‘I found out when I was like ten. By accident. I overheard my mum on the phone talking to my aunty about it. I haven’t told them that I know.’

  The crying downgrades a level.

  ‘He’s never in Sydney, always somewhere else. I let everyone believe it’s because he’s this big jet-setting businessman, but really, it’s because he’s this big gambler. Chases casinos around the world. Spends his winnings on flights, probably. Then loses what’s left at the next blackjack table.’ I sneak a sideways look and see I’ve still got her attention. ‘I know it doesn’t hurt anyone, but it’s embarrassing. It’s easier to just kinda lie about it.’

  ‘I’m sick of lying,’ Imogen says abruptly. Her skin is red from anger now.

  I’m sick of the lies, too. All of them. ‘Then we have to do something about it, don’t we?’

  Sunday is meant to be Funday. But these days it’s more like sit-by-the-river-and-solve-all-the-world’s-problems day. Mum went to visit Grandad at the home, but said I didn’t have to go with her. After all, there’s nothing like being in a small, confined car to get the awkward vibes flowing.

  ‘What
do you want out of all this?’ Jordan asks me, after I’ve told him about Imogen’s crying confessional outside the library. ‘To be throwing yourself into it so much, surely you’ve gotta think about what you actually want. I know it’s not ’cause you want the drama . . .’

  ‘I just want their names to be cleared, that’s all.’ I watch our feet dangle off the edge of the long jetty beside the boat ramp, the darkness of the river below our soles.

  ‘Aaaaand . . . your conscience, by any chance?’

  ‘Yeah, alright, Dr Phil, I guess I don’t want to feel this . . . this guilt anymore, either. But mostly, I want everyone to see the Lebs aren’t the only bad guys.’

  Jordan’s head bounces up and down to the rhythm of cockatoos squawking overhead.

  ‘The Suck-ups, Daniel’s crew . . . they all walk around breaking the rules like it’s some kind of entitlement. Like they’re allowed to, but no one else is. God, if anyone else broke the rules . . .’

  ‘You know you sound like them? When you say things like that.’ Jordan’s head stops bouncing and turns to face mine. ‘The “Suck-ups”. That’s probably like them calling your cousin and her mates “Lebbos” or “wogs”, right?’

  Yeah. It is. ‘It’s habit,’ I say, watching his mouth tighten a little. ‘I know, I know. It’s a bad habit.’

  The bouncing starts up again. Either in agreement with my last statement or in collaboration with the birds. Or because I’m making him feel super weird with my subtle ‘break up with your girlfriend and be my boyfriend’ vibes.

  ‘I’m contributing to the shit things people say about each other, aren’t I?’

  A more deliberate bounce for affirmation.

  ‘I’m going to make it right,’ I say as Jordan checks his phone and then gets to his feet. His break is over.

  ‘Oh, yeah, how’s that?’ he asks, towering over me, blocking out the boiler in the sky.

  ‘By finally revealing the truth. Everything has gotten so complicated, though. I’m starting to feel like it might be harder than I thought it would be to get it out there.’