Half My Luck

by Samera Kamaleddine

  I was awake for approximately three-quarters of the night wondering about Maddy. And the fact that she’s ever had a civilised and private conversation with Sufia. Or that she’s double-crossing a guy she’s been so crazily defending to me for weeks. So now I feel like a zombie. A zombie on an assembly line of chicken-wing rinsing. I rinse and Tayta inspects, before smothering each wing in smelly spices with her crinkly fingers.

  I’m also wondering, as I grab another wing from the bowl, what the plan was, is. What the Cedars are planning to do with any info Maddy passes on to them. Have they been tracking him? Sussing his routines? Are they going to hurt him?

  I look at Tayta, so old and innocent, humming a ballad under her breath while she concentrates on spice allocation. She’d be devastated if she knew Sufia was involved in anything dodgy.

  ‘What is doing here?’ she asks, facing me and tapping at the side of her head with her orange-stained forefinger.

  ‘Oh, nothing. Just . . . my friend. We found out she’s been keeping a secret from us.’

  ‘Good secret? Bad secret?’

  I consider her question while shoving another chicken wing under the tap. Is there such a thing as a good secret? I guess the first assumption, when finding out a friend is hiding something from you, is usually that it’s bad. Because only bad things are kept on the down-low in my experience. I suddenly realise I’ve been treating Maddy’s secret as the bad kind without really contemplating what she’s doing and what it means.

  I shake the excess water off the wing and pass it on to Tayta. ‘Actually, it might be a good one.’

  When Mum puts the roast chicken on the table, I want to scream. So much for not having to look at another chicken wing in this lifetime. But there’s something even worse at the dinner table tonight. Mr Gary Hyman is sitting opposite me, awkwardly spilling gravy over the side of his plate.

  ‘It’s been a lovely summer, hasn’t it?’ he says to no one in particular.

  Lovely. That’s definitely not a word I’d use to describe it.

  ‘Very . . . warm,’ he goes on.

  ‘Thank goodness we’re out of the thirties now,’ Mum says. She can’t sit still. She’s up and down at the table like she’s swatting away summer flies. Filling water glasses, turning the air-con on and off, transporting the salt shaker to and from the kitchen. I look at Noah beside me. He couldn’t care less about our dinner intruder. He’s shovelling food into his mouth as though he’s in a race, like he’s in one of his video games.

  Mr Hyman grabs Mum’s hand on the table as she rises again. He gives her a little wink. It makes me want to throw up even more than having to eat chicken. But I guess it works, because Mum sits down long enough to finish her next few bites. It’s only when there’s a soft knock on the front door that she attempts to escape the table.

  ‘It’s alright, I’ll get it,’ I say. She’s not the only one who’s looking for an out.

  I can hear Mum wondering aloud as I’m walking towards the door, ‘Who turns up at someone’s house at dinner time?’ I want to remind her it’s only five thirty-nine pm, a totally reasonable time to turn up at someone’s house.

  Behind the wooden door, behind the screen door, is someone I wasn’t expecting to turn up at our house at any time.

  ‘Hey, L, you’ve been looking for me?’

  CHAPTER 18

  Maddy looks super tanned, despite the fact she was only down the coast for like, three days. She’s wandering around my room, picking up citrine and amethyst crystals from my bookshelf. My first attempt at lucky charms.

  ‘Remember that time your dad was giving us a lift to a sleepover or wherever, and he stopped at that fruit shop? Then he comes walking back to the car with this giant bag of cucumbers, and he just started like, eating one, like it was an apple or something?’

  I’ve been sitting on my bed quietly. Waiting for her to volunteer something useful to the situation. This is not something useful.

  ‘It was hilarious,’ she says. ‘Your dad is always so funny. My dad is always Serious Steve. You were so embarrassed by him, L. You’re always embarrassed about something. Or someone.’

  Maddy joins me on the end of my bed, and it’s the first time we’ve been face to face in forever. The first time in ages we’ve let each other see truth in our eyes.

  ‘It turns out we’re not always right about people,’ she says. Move over, Jordan Michael, there’s a new Dr Phil in the house. ‘Do you know how much I hate saying that? And I can totally say that word right now because George isn’t here to tell me off . . . don’t tell her.’

  ‘Is this about Sufia?’ I ask. ‘Because all you do is make me feel like shit for being related to her, and now all of a sudden you two have joined forces? I don’t get it.’

  ‘She told me about Daniel. How he was, how he is, cheating on me.’

  Our eye contact is officially broken. I don’t notice who looks away first.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she says, pretending to pull specs of lint off her T-shirt, ‘I still think she’s an over-the-top cow. And I’m not an idiot, I’m totally aware she’s using me. She had a solid piece of info that could get me to turn. And it did. But . . . there was something in her eyes when she told me. Something that said she has a heart after all.’

  Maddy is tight-lipped while Imogen fires question after question at her. My bum hurts from sitting on this milk crate for the past half an hour.

  ‘So, when exactly did Sufia tell you? Before or after the party at his house? What are the Cedars going to do with what you’ve been telling them? Are you going to do whatever it is with them? What have you been telling them? Is it Olivia who Daniel’s been, you know, with?’

  I glance through the side door of the kiosk. The counter is customer-free, and Jordan and Olivia are casually chatting by the pie oven.

  ‘Does any of this matter?’ Maddy looks around the circle at Imogen, George and me. ‘I came back early from Conjola because I wanted you to know I’m totally safe. To admit everything in person and leave it at that. I mean, I knew you’d be freaking out, but not this much.’

  ‘Madel . . . Maddy, we’re just trying to piece it all together,’ says Imogen. ‘Trying to figure out —’

  ‘We don’t need to,’ I say. ‘If Maddy says she’s fine, then I trust her. I reckon she knows what she’s doing. Let’s just leave her to it.’

  George nods, while Imogen looks confused. Maddy and I lock eyes for the second time in as many days, and she smiles. That’s when I realise how much I’ve missed her.

  I’m thinking about how good it feels to have Maddy back – well, she’s sort of back – after the girls have returned to the sandbank and I’m alone with the crates. Alone until Jordan finds me still sitting there, that is.

  ‘Neighbourhood Watch meeting?’ he jokes, leaning up against the doorframe with his hands stuffed into his side pockets.

  ‘Ha, yeah, something like that.’

  ‘Looked intense. Everything cool?’

  He wouldn’t believe me if I told him. ‘Well, for one thing, you’ve lost your post as the river’s resident counsellor!’

  ‘Oh, yeah? Damn, I was really looking forward to taking that title home with me.’

  That’s the first time he’s mentioned the big, ugly elephant in the room. The one that’ll be giving him a lift back to Bathurst pretty soon. With Maddy’s new revelation already occupying everything, I feel a pang of panic. That there might not be time to get out everything I need to say to him before he goes.

  I start with, ‘I’m sorry. For the full-on interrogation about Olivia the other day.’

  ‘Learning not to jump to conclusions, then, are we?’ He tilts his head to one side, his brown mop flopping over with it.

  ‘More like, learning I can’t fix everything.’

  ‘And that it’s not your job to fix everything, anyway?’

  I nod. ‘The universe is really trying to knock the control freak out of me right about now.’

  Jordan laugh
s and turns his attention to an eavesdropping Carina Campbell at the counter. ‘It has a pretty epic mission ahead of it!’ he says, heading back into the kiosk to serve her.

  While I watch Carina procrastinate over her order – a dead giveaway that she’s down here for killer goss and not Killer Pythons – I can’t help but feel like everything is an epic mission around here. And that there’s so much more to come.

  By the time I get to the top of Lame Beach, most of the sunbakers have cleared the sandbank. It doesn’t feel hot enough anymore to still be sunning at four pm. Only the Ultimate Tanners have stuck around for the mild afternoon glow.

  The glow, for me, is fading fast. I’m starting to see things behind the haze, things I wasn’t looking out for before. I’d never even thought to look out for them.

  In the distance right now, Maddy is getting out of Phantom1. The car has pulled up at the gate to the carpark, with Sufia in the front as usual. Maddy holds the door open, one leg out, one leg in, while she finishes a conversation with the other passengers in the back seat. Finally, when she’s out, I get a clear view of a squished Shontel and Nasser, secured with yellow, padded seatbelts. Holding them safe, but not necessarily out of danger. Maddy isn’t afraid of danger. She’s pacing away, down the road, to who knows where.

  My feet had stopped moving as soon as I first spied Phantom1. I’m standing still on the grassy incline as the car zooms off in a blur of electric blue, with people who are off to do who knows what.

  If revenge is the sweetest thing, trust must totally be the hardest.

  CHAPTER 19

  ‘Why are you wearing a hoodie like that? You look like you’re hiding from someone,’ Noah asks, gliding his body back and forth with his controller to the breeze of the unnecessarily high air-con.

  I shrink further into my hoodie on the lounge behind him. Because I am hiding. Avoiding Lame Beach meetings. Avoiding Phantom1 sightings. And especially avoiding Imogen Meyer after her 2,653 texts last night.

  She wants more digging, more insight, more plans. I wonder if it’s because she’s spent too much time with Carina all these years. Or if she really does give a shit about clearing the Cedar Army’s name. Sometimes I forget that’s what it was all about for me at the start.

  Maybe I’ll get out of here and go to Tayta’s. At least there will be the distraction of dirty dishes and rugs that need to be beaten with a broomstick. I’ll take the cleaning right now, if it means I’m escaping the urge to get involved in Maddy’s drama.

  I ditch my hoodie and make my way out the door, only to be stopped at the end of the driveway by the one person I didn’t want to cross paths with.

  ‘I know you don’t want to be involved anymore,’ Imogen says, looking calmer than her texts last night. ‘But just say yes?’

  She’s assuming I’ve read her texts.

  ‘It opens you up to new experiences, apparently . . .’

  I scoff. ‘I don’t know if we should be opening ourselves up to any more new experiences.’

  While her eyes plead with me, I fight the urge to tell her about seeing Shontel and Nasser with Sufia and Ricky P. And Maddy. But maybe the two things are connected . . .

  ‘What if I told you I wanted to help Maddy?’

  I start off down the footpath, with a shake of my head. ‘See, this is why I didn’t reply.’

  Imogen rushes after me. ‘She’s definitely not going to talk to me. But if it comes from you . . .’

  Jordan’s words flash into my head, reminding me: I can’t fix everything. No matter how much everyone wants me to. My feet are off on a different path, and Imogen grabs my shoulder to slow me down.

  ‘Wait. There’s something else.’

  This had better be worth turning around for.

  ‘You know that bus stop outside the YMCA, the one with Mum’s campaign ad?’

  I nod.

  ‘Someone got creative with a spray can last night. And I’m pretty sure the someone was my sister.’

  RACIST. That’s what’s scrawled in red over Mrs Meyer’s face. The face that promises to bring this community together.

  Now that Imogen’s dragged me down here to see it in real life, I get why she’s freaking out. But . . .

  ‘I mean, it’s not untrue,’ I say. A tiny, old lady huddled under the shelter glances over with a frown. ‘So, what makes you think it was Shontel?’ And maybe Sufia, Ricky P, Nasser and Maddy.

  ‘She was being a weirdo at dinner. She said her painkillers were making her sleepy, so she went to bed early. I saw her sneak out after Mum and Dad had gone to bed. She didn’t know I was in the kitchen. I had the lights off.’

  And she reckons Shontel is the weirdo.

  Imogen is looking at her mum’s giant defaced head smiling back at us. ‘If Mum finds out it was her, they’ll know she’s still seeing Nasser.’

  ‘Um, so you know?’

  She swivels her head and narrows her eyes at me. ‘Yes. So you know?’

  I try to pull a face that’s a combination of I don’t know and Do you care if I do?

  ‘Anyway,’ she goes on. ‘Not sure if Mum has seen it yet, but I don’t want to be around when she does. So, in the meantime, do you think you can come with me to see Maddy?’

  I said I was out. But here I am, slumped over a chair at Maddy’s desk. Behind me is a pin board with a printed photo of Maddy and Daniel stuck to it. It’s the first thing I notice when I walk in. It definitely wasn’t here the last time I hung out at Maddy’s. I quickly turn my back to it.

  Maddy is lying on her bed, scrolling through her phone and pretending Imogen Meyer is not standing in her bedroom right now begging to be crime buddies.

  ‘Can you tell us something? Anything?’

  Scroll, scroll, ignore, ignore.

  ‘I really do want to help, Maddy.’ Imogen darts her eyes at me. ‘Don’t I, Layla?’

  I nod, not that Maddy would even notice right now.

  ‘Let’s face it, bringing him down means more to me than it does to you.’

  This has Maddy shifting her focus. She lets her phone fall onto the bed and stands to meet Imogen face to face. ‘Ah, excuse me? He cheated on me.’

  ‘He could have seriously hurt my sister. He did hurt her. And he has taken zero responsibility for it. Not even an apology. A simple, “Sorry your sister got caught in my dirty trick to show the Lebs who’s boss around here.”’

  Imogen’s eyes well up. I’ve never heard her say ‘Lebs’ before. She’s one of the few people around here who doesn’t use it.

  Maddy drops down onto the edge of her bed. ‘Okay,’ she says, looking first to me, then to Imogen. ‘Sufia will kill me, but there’s something I can show you.’

  CHAPTER 20

  Facing the olive-green ripples of the river, there’s a bit of a breeze hitting my cheeks. The relief we’ve been waiting for all summer is on its way. With the beachgoers gone for the day and the kiosk closed up, it’s almost peaceful looking across the water, all the way over to the other side of the riverbank. Well, it would be if Maddy wasn’t behind me rattling the door of the boatshed like crazy.

  ‘I take it you don’t have a key?’ Imogen says with a sort of snort as a red-faced Maddy continues to try to shake it open.

  ‘It doesn’t normally have a padlock on it.’

  ‘Let me ask you something,’ says Imogen, when Maddy releases her hold on the door handle and wanders away, scouting the ground. ‘How do you just act normal with Daniel now? How can you stand it?’

  Maddy is back at the door with a rock she’s collected. ‘Why do you think I went down the coast? If it wasn’t for you guys . . .’ She starts pounding with the rock, while I imagine what Jordan will be wondering when he comes to work tomorrow to find a smashed padlock outside the boatshed.

  ‘Mads, stop,’ I say. ‘Just tell us what it is?’

  ‘A phone . . . with a recording,’ she says between puffs. ‘Of Daniel . . . talking about the bungers . . . and stuff.’

  ‘Like a confession?
’ replies Imogen, wide-eyed.

  ‘I guess.’

  Imogen shoves Maddy out of the way and grabs at the door, pulling and pushing until she realises she’s going to have the same success – er, failure – that Maddy did. ‘What are you all doing?! Why hasn’t something been done with it by now?!’

  ‘We know what we’re doing, Imogen.’

  I’m too busy feeling . . . shocked. That Maddy had the guts to betray him.

  ‘Mads . . . when did you do this? How? I mean, weren’t you scared he’d bust you?’ So many questions are floating around in my head while Imogen is dramatically jangling the boatshed door, her own head looking sunburnt red with serious frustration.

  ‘I was saying bye to him before going down the coast,’ she starts, shaking her head at Imogen’s ongoing performance. ‘In his car, outside mine.’

  I can tell she’s not in the right mood. She doesn’t want to tell me everything. Especially not in front of Imogen. But I want to know why – of all places in our whole entire world – it’s being kept in the boatshed.

  ‘Because it’s neutral ground.’ Maddy air-quotes the word ‘neutral’. We’re all pretty aware that Lame Beach is hardly neutral ground for anybody. ‘So that, you know, it’s not with me, and it’s not with the Cedars . . .’

  ‘And if there was a bushfire or something?! And the whole thing was destroyed?!’ Imogen is starting to act the way her text messages were sounding last night.

  ‘I’m not an idiot,’ Maddy tells us. She kept the recording on her own phone, too. ‘I’m not totally giving myself over to the Cedar Army,’ she assures us. Or maybe herself.

  ‘Well, if like you say, you’re not an idiot,’ says Imogen, who’s now standing super close to Maddy’s face, ‘I hope there’s a smarter move about to be made.’

  She storms off, while the metaphorical storm continues to brew.

  I wonder if Jordan knows. If they gave him the heads-up that there’s an important piece of evidence being stashed away in a tackle box inside his uncle’s boatshed. I wonder if he’s in on this, too.