Half My Luck

by Samera Kamaleddine

  ‘Why so quiet, Layla?’ she calls across the room, from her position on a stiff armchair with some other cousins covering the floor at her feet. There are abandoned hijabs draped everywhere.

  I always forget that when you’re thinking – even if you’re thinking noisily – you look like a quiet weirdo to everyone else. ‘No reason,’ I say. It’s a weak answer, and Sufia is basically allergic to weakness.

  ‘Alright. Whatever.’ And with a flick of her wrist in my direction, she goes back to entertaining, the Arabic rolling off her tongue. I’ve never been more envious of this skill than I am right now.

  But she’s not really alright with it, because minutes later she’s abruptly rising out of the armchair and heading to the corner of the room I’ve tucked myself into. She’s standing over me with her hands firmly in their favourite position. ‘I don’t understand why you’re not having fun. What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me, Sufia!’ I say, louder than we both expect. Without meaning to be, I’m out of my seat, too, and looking straight (well, up a little) at her face full of makeup.

  ‘Alright, relax . . .’ she says through gritted teeth, her hands now on my shoulders. She’s looking over her own shoulder to make sure none of the aunties or cousins are watching the outburst. They’re not, they’re distracted by Amal showing off all the gold jewellery her future husband has given her.

  Sufia guides me into the kitchen and pretends to busy herself with a fruit platter on the bench. ‘I know there’s something you want to say to me,’ she says, her eyes glued to a piece of watermelon. ‘And I don’t know why you’re not just saying it.’

  I want to tell her she’s the most terrifying person I’ve ever known. Not in a serial-killer type of way, not even in a Lebbo-dad kind of way. It just terrifies me how different we are.

  ‘Well, come on, then.’ Sufia has stopped playing with the fruit, and her heavily mascaraed eyes are staring straight at mine. And looking a little leaky.

  ‘You won’t get it,’ is all I can come up with.

  ‘Yeah? Spit it out anyway.’

  Pretty sure she won’t like it, but here goes. ‘I’m only a Leb when you want me to be.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You practically ordered me to be here tonight, to be like you guys, yelling at me to fit in. But it’s not like that outside of Tayta’s house, is it? Well, the ordering around, yes, but you don’t really look at me like I fit in. Not when you’re with any of the Cedars, not at the beach, not at the community hall, not anywhere in these streets.’

  Sufia’s face is blank, which can sometimes be a dangerous thing.

  ‘No matter where you go, you get to be the same person,’ I continue, feeling my neck get all hot and probably rashy. ‘You’re not a half-caste – sometimes a Leb, sometimes an Aussie. You’re not cursed by the evil eye.’

  She’s twitching now, and that’s when it’s definitely a dangerous thing. ‘You know what shits me, Layla? You think you’ve been cursed. Only you. Like no one else in the Arab world – or the whole world – has it hard. Babe, your mother isn’t watching your every move like she’s some kind of spy for Hezbollah . . .’

  While her hands wave around in the air, my own eyes get leaky.

  ‘. . . waiting to tell you that you’re an embarrassment to the family. You know why I’m the same Sufia everywhere I go? Because I choose to be. Act like the same person and you get treated like the same person. Simple as.’

  The small leak in my eyes has quickly turned into a full-blown pipe explosion, and just as quickly, Sufia grabs me and presses me into her chest.

  ‘All this shit with that idiot Daniel. It’s making you crazy, you know,’ she says, over my sobbing.

  I nod, because I know, but I don’t know how to stop it.

  ‘We’re going to get him. Don’t worry about that.’

  Mum hadn’t asked me why I’d come home early from the laylieh last night. Good. Because I didn’t feel like talking about how Tayta made me sit on the lounge next to her after she busted me crying in the kitchen and Sufia told her it was because I was missing my dad.

  ‘He miss you, too, habibi,’ Tayta had cooed, while stroking my hair. Like I was a dumb baby. ‘Every day he call me and tell me he miss his beautiful Layla.’

  I died about six times from the embarrassment. I can’t ever show my face outside this house again, so it’s lucky that Mum’s now at Pilates – with Mr Hyman, who, it turns out, is hot for planking – and Noah is off playing school-holiday soccer, and I have the house to myself so I can hide in silence. Well, I thought I could.

  Someone’s banging on the door. I wish Mum would get the doorbell fixed.

  ‘She’s MIA!’ It’s George, breathless. She must have run all the way over here. Her face is beetroot red and there are sweat patches around the armpits on her singlet top. I know it can’t be from the temperature because it’s at least five degrees cooler today than it was last week.

  ‘Who’s MIA?’

  She trudges past me and flops down on the nearest lounge. ‘Maddy. I was calling, texting, calling, texting, and she was ignoring me,’ she says, trying to catch her breath. ‘So, I went over to her place and there’s no one there. Her brothers’ cars aren’t there, her parents’ car isn’t there . . .’

  Shit, they’ve gone away, I suddenly remember. ‘Don’t they always go down to Lake Conjola in the middle of the holidays?’

  Surely Maddy has mentioned it? She loves going to Lake Conjola. There’s some hot guy she always talks to, who stays in the same caravan park as her family. But I can’t remember her talking about it these holidays. Then again, I haven’t talked to her about much lately apart from my serious dislike of her moral-fibre-less boyfriend.

  George is squinting, trying to dig into recent memories, too. ‘Well . . . she might have said something. I don’t know, did she?’

  I park myself next to George. It’s starting to feel like someone – or something – doesn’t want us to tell her.

  ‘Layla, Georgia.’ Imogen’s voice is monotone as she opens her front door and quickly closes it behind her, indicating we’re not being invited in. ‘Mum’s working on Neighbourhood Watch policies. There’s stuff everywhere.’

  She moves over to the cane loveseat on the verandah, while George and I follow and lean up against the railing to face her.

  ‘Oh, right. Nothing exciting to report there, then?’ I ask, and Imogen shakes her head. Defeated. That’s how she looks. ‘Anyway, we think Maddy’s gone away with her family, to Lake —’

  ‘I don’t need to know where she’s gone. Do we know when she’s back?’

  George and I share a look, hoping the other has some kind of acceptable answer. But we both know we’ve paid zero attention to Maddy’s recent holiday plans.

  ‘Has he gone with her?’

  ‘I don’t reckon,’ I say. ‘Her parents wouldn’t really be down with that.’ Plus, there’s the hot caravan-park guy to flirt with . . .

  Imogen is looking straight through us at the front garden behind us. ‘Let’s confront Olivia.’

  This sentence doesn’t make me feel great.

  ‘And say what?’ questions George. ‘“We know our friend’s boyfriend is hooking up with you, don’t do it again”?’

  ‘She’s not my friend,’ snaps Imogen.

  ‘Okay, that wasn’t the point. The point is, is it really our place? Shouldn’t Maddy be the one to do it?’

  George looks to me for support. I agree. Well, quietly in my head.

  ‘What if Olivia really is the Cedars’ insider?’ asks Imogen. ‘And what if Maddy ruins whatever it is she’s planning with the Cedars by going psycho at her? Which we know she will. Maybe we can work with Olivia instead.’

  My pedestal fan is off. I haven’t switched it on for a few nights now. Thankfully, the temperature is dropping and it’s one less noise in this quietly noisy room. There’s more than enough commotion in my head to make up for it.

  I
kick off my sheets.

  Maybe Imogen is right. That we should go straight to Olivia ourselves, find out what she’s feeding the Cedars. If she’s even feeding anything to the Cedars at all.

  I grab my sheets and curl beneath them again.

  But there’s always the chance she’s not the Cedars’ insider. Just a different kind of mole instead. If that’s true, then Maddy really does need to unleash some of her psycho powers onto her.

  I uncurl and lay flat on my back.

  She’s our only suspect in a small part of this big, shitty crime scene. And the lead probably came from Carina Campbell, student most likely to become a dirty, truth-twisting politician. Like Mrs Meyer. No one is trustworthy anymore.

  I roll onto my stomach, despite all the knots twisting up inside of it. My arms are outstretched, reaching for truth. I’ll take anything right now. Even if it means I have to play for a new team.

  CHAPTER 16

  Olivia looks pretty happy serving the sunbakers of Lame Beach their melting ice-creams and soggy meat pies and mixed-lolly bags. I don’t know anything about her, really. What school she goes to, why she’s wasting her summer holidays behind that counter. But the most important question that comes into my head is, what does Jordan Michael think of her?

  He’s outside the boatshed, battling with a big white bucket that keeps slipping from his grip. I watch him finally pour its contents into the river before heading down there to get my answer.

  ‘Still stinks around here.’

  ‘Yep,’ he says, peering up at me from the now empty, but still filthy, bucket. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Can I ask you something? Without you telling me I’m being crazy or weird or nosy or obsessed?’

  Jordan laughs, wiping his hands on either side of his shorts. ‘Go on.’

  He walks back towards the boatshed, and despite the pong, I follow. ‘You know Olivia?’

  ‘Ah, yeah, I know Olivia.’

  ‘But do you really know her?’ I ask, watching him open and close tackle boxes on the galvanised-steel shelf. ‘Like, what do you guys talk about? What’s her story? Does she have a boyfriend? Who else does she talk to down here?’

  ‘What is it you really want to know, Layla?’ He stops searching tackle boxes to turn and face me. I’m trying to hold my breath while he speaks. ‘Because that’s more than one question.’

  ‘Is she capable of living a double life?’

  ‘I would not have a clue. But if you want my advice, which you will because, you know, I’m an expert and all . . .’ The light isn’t great in here, but I can see him pause to wink. ‘Everyone is probably living a double life when you think about it. But nobody likes to be called out on it.’

  ‘Still no sign of Maddy?’ I ask George when I get back to our towels.

  ‘No posts anywhere,’ she responds, scrolling through her phone. ‘But your cousin, on the other hand, has made out like that hen party thingy the other night was hers or something. Why was she wearing a cocktail dress? Wasn’t it just at your grandmother’s house?’

  While George continues gaping at pics, I’m glancing over at the other side of the beach. Sufia has a tasselled sarong tied around her waist and she’s clapping to a sing-along the Cedars are having. The Queen Bee of the Cedar Army, but a disgrace to her parents. The life of the party, but the fake star of it. A bossy cousin, who is full of heart when she’s willing to show it. Maybe she’s also living a double life. Maybe she’s not really the same Sufia everywhere she goes after all.

  She catches me staring and comes running down onto the sandbank.

  ‘Layla!’ she’s shouting, with her hands cupping her mouth and her legs running faster than I’m used to seeing them. The only time I’ve ever seen them move that fast was the night of the beach party. ‘Layla, come!’

  Grabbing my arm, she’s lifting me up, without even stopping her legs. I try to look back at George, but Sufia has dragged me to the red gum, where of course the singing becomes heaps louder. I can barely hear her when she’s telling me – ordering me – to dance with her, thrusting me into the circle.

  I’m so unco. My right leg keeps crashing into her left leg. My hips look like they’re spasming instead of swinging. I definitely didn’t inherit the Lebanese rhythm. I’m probably embarrassing Sufia right now.

  ‘Do you guys know this is my cousin?’ she’s yelling into my ear, to her friends.

  The Cedars nod, sing and clap.

  Puffed, I pull away from the circle to catch my breath. This is how it feels after doing the beep test in PE class.

  Looking out onto the beach, I search for Imogen. She’s not with Carina and Co., she’s not at the kiosk. She isn’t in the river (not that I’ve ever seen her splashing around in that grossness). I feel a pain, maybe from the dancing, maybe because something doesn’t feel quite right.

  ‘What was that all about?!’ asks George after I’ve raced back, sweat dripping from my forehead to my lazy hips.

  ‘Have you seen Imogen today?’

  ‘Ahhh, no . . .’

  Think, think, think. ‘Do you reckon she’s gone to see Olivia without us?’

  George looks curiously around the beach, at the kiosk, then shrugs her shoulders. ‘Maybe she’s at home? Not like it’s a super-beachy day or anything. Why are you stressing, anyway? Did Sufia say something to you?’

  I’m still standing, looking at the same beach and kiosk that George is, but clearly it appears different to me. ‘I don’t know, George. I’ve just got this weird feeling.’

  She’s not sold. Which makes me wonder what she’d say if I told her about my evil-eye curse. ‘I thought we were waiting for Maddy to get back from . . . well, back from somewhere?’ she says. ‘Imogen would have told us if she was doing something. Right?’

  Maybe she would. But maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’s at Olivia’s house right now, wherever that is, confronting her.

  ‘My phone.’ The pockets of my shorts are empty, so I start to rummage through my bag and then shake out my towel. It must have fallen out while I was dancing with Sufia. ‘I think I’ve left it over there,’ I tell George as I start retracing the path Sufia and I carved in the sand earlier. ‘Let’s head to Imogen’s when I get back.’

  George does a little hand-to-forehead salute, but I know it’s only half-hearted. She doesn’t believe that something dodgy is going on right now.

  Sufia welcomes me into the circle again with her tanned arms, but I’m keener to find my phone than to dance. For sure I must have reached any one human’s recommended step count for today.

  ‘Have you seen my phone?’ I ask, while Sufia tries to grab my arm.

  ‘I put it down there next to mine.’ She points to two phones sitting side by side, on top of an esky by the base of the tree. ‘Hey, what are you doing later? We’re going to the movies if you want to come.’

  One of the phones has started buzzing. It’s definitely not mine, but it can’t be Sufia’s, either. The name on the screen says: Madeline.

  CHAPTER 17

  Sufia is still dancing while I hold her phone in my shaking palm. Maddy is still ringing. She hasn’t answered any of George’s calls or texts, but here she is calling my cousin. I could answer it. I could tell her she’s busted for whatever it is that’s going on. But instead, I swivel around and hold it up to Sufia. She steps forward, takes one look at the screen and snatches it away, turning back to the circle.

  ‘Don’t you want to answer it?’

  ‘Nah,’ she says, shaking her head along with her hips.

  I pause, watching, thinking. It’s one thing to ignore Maddy, but Sufia’s crazy if she thinks she can ignore me. Not now. ‘So, you’re not going to tell me why my friend Maddy is calling you, then? The Maddy who you can’t stand, who . . . doesn’t get along with you, either.’ I don’t know how they even have each other’s numbers.

  Sufia rolls her eyes. ‘Alright, come here.’ She leads me to the edge of the Cedars’ grassy area, where one misstep could drop you deep
into the river. Along with so many cars, beer bottles and, as George said, secrets.

  ‘She’s the one, isn’t she?’ I say, staring at Sufia, before she gets the chance to spill out a word. ‘She’s your insider?’

  ‘I’m sorry, cuz. I wanted to tell you. Swear it. She didn’t want you to know.’

  I believe her. Because this is exactly something Maddy would do. But I don’t have time to be pissed at her or Sufia right now. I need to get to Imogen.

  ‘Have you ever noticed that Maddy is like, the Aussie version of Sufia?’ says George, while we’re pacing down the road. She’s not pacing fast enough for my liking.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You know, confident, outspoken, mysterious, but like, blonde.’

  No. I can’t say I’ve ever thought it before. But I’m definitely thinking it now, especially the mysterious part. Maddy, the Cedars’ insider. Gushing over Dickhead Daniel, but giving up intel to his enemies. I almost can’t believe it.

  Neither can Imogen when we fill her in.

  ‘So hang on, does this mean she’s not really into Daniel? That it’s all been fake?’

  George and I shrug simultaneously. ‘Who knows?’ I’m hoping Imogen is right. ‘But what we do know for sure now is it’s not Olivia.’

  We’re on Imogen’s verandah again, and I’m just glad that we found her here, that she wasn’t on Olivia’s doorstep instead, throwing false accusations in her face.

  ‘Yes,’ is all Imogen says, gazing blankly out to the street.

  George looks to me. ‘Sooooo, I guess we keep trying Maddy? Maybe Sufia has told her by now that we know? She has to answer us sometime, right?’

  Like Sufia, Maddy will do what she wants. She’ll do this her way. She might not care that we’ve found her out or that we want to – need to – know the full story. Because just maybe she hasn’t yet completed her mysterious mission.

  It’s the worst possible time to spend the day at Tayta’s, completing a different kind of mission: rinsing five kilos of raw chicken wings. I’ve suggested that this part might not be necessary given any bacteria will die with the whole cooking process, anyway (Imogen isn’t the only science genius around here), but Tayta insists. Pretty strongly.