Meet Me at the Intersection

by Ambelin Kwaymullina

  ‘My mum fell over a chair, she’s in first aid, she’s fine, and your dad’s on his way.’

  ‘What?!’ said Ollie. ‘Better not let him see us holding hands, or we’ll never hear the end of it.’

  ‘Oh believe me, they think we’re doing more than holding hands.’

  ‘Reeeally?’ said Ollie. ‘Well, I’d hate to disappoint them.’

  For a moment it was perfect. We kissed once, gently. Then again, a little more confidently.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Joe, and my whole body jumped with the shock of being caught mid-kiss.

  ‘Your mum was right, you kids are making out!’ he said. ‘Damn it, now I owe her ten dollars.’

  My chair started to wobble as I tried shifting back into my seat, away from Ollie. Suddenly, it collapsed.

  Ollie offered me a hand. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine. Bloody flimsy chairs. I guess chair-related injuries are a family affair today.’

  Joe picked up my chair and put it back into place, and I carefully sat down again.

  My first kiss had ended a little dramatically, but it was still amazing. Here I was, a few weeks after coming out, about to watch a queer panel after kissing someone I really liked.

  I turned around to look at the people behind me. Twisting hurt my back, but it was worth it to see what a Fantasy Queers audience looked like. I was pleasantly surprised. Since coming out I’d wondered if I should get a new haircut or update my wardrobe, but the people around me looked all kinds of ways. I felt like I belonged here, just as I was.

  Maybe next time I felt lonely or isolated back home, I’d pull that feeling out and remind myself that there were lots of people like me out there, and I could find them again when I needed to.

  I got out my phone and looked at the selfies I’d taken with Ollie before we said our goodbyes. I had somehow convinced a bunch of nearby cosplaying Thors to stand in the background, and Ollie and I had these massive, goofy, happy smiles on our faces. My heart hurt. My leg, too.

  Mum spoke from the driver’s seat, ‘Hey, take your leg off, kiddo. You’re not going to need it for the next few hours.’

  I released the valve on my prosthesis and pulled my stump out of the socket. Even with a liner on, the socket had broken my skin in a few places. I dropped my leg onto the back seat and turned my attention to the silicone liner. I peeled it off, taking a deep breath as the air hit my stump.

  Finally.

  My leg felt better. My heart didn’t.

  ‘Mum, Ollie lives so far away. I know we’ve only known each other for one day, but … it’s real. How are we going to do a long-distance relationship? I’ve never even had a relationship. I’m only fourteen!’

  ‘And they’re only fifteen,’ Mum said. ‘I do understand, Maisie. You two had an instant connection. Sometimes these things last for a day, and sometimes they last longer. If it was a one-day thing, it doesn’t make it any less special or meaningful. Just take it a day at a time from here though, all right kiddo? You have so much time to work out who you are, and what you want to do, and who you want to be with. Take it from me, you don’t want to rush into anything. Have fun being fourteen. It goes so fast.’

  ‘This really sucks, Mum. I miss them already.’

  ‘Take a look in my bag,’ Mum said. ‘I was going to save the surprise for tonight, but I think you need it now. There’s a t-shirt in there somewhere.’

  I finally found it and held it up.

  ‘Oh my god, Mum. Oh my god. No way! How did you get a Midnight Girls t-shirt signed by Kara Bufano?’

  ‘Your embarrassing old mum met her in sick bay, just for a minute or two. I told her about how much you admire her, so she offered to sign something for you. She said to tell you she’s sorry she couldn’t make the panel, but she’d been puking all morning.’

  I couldn’t believe it. I just sat there, staring at the t-shirt and imagining Kara signing it. Now I could wear it everywhere and remember how special today had been: Ollie, my first kiss, the Queer Panel, and a t-shirt signed by Kara Bufano.

  ‘This will get me a tonne of likes on Instagram. Thanks, Mum.’

  ‘Just remember to tell them your mum fell over a chair and risked getting puked on to get it,’ said Mum, laughing as she started the engine.

  ‘I love you, Mum.’

  ‘I know.’

  KELLY GARDINER

  Kelly Gardiner is a queer writer, editor and educator, who lives and works across Australia and New Zealand. ‘Trouble’ is historical fiction, but based on something that happened to her one night on St Kilda pier when she was a teenager. Set in an era when queer people were becoming visible in Australia, if only to each other, ‘Trouble’ portrays a time (1950s Melbourne) when working-class lesbians could find each other in nightclubs, cafés and bars — moments that were sometimes secret yet hidden in plain sight. Kelly writes, ‘I grew up queer in a world where it was forbidden. Girls like me knew nothing of lesbian subcultures. There were very few cultural representations of our lives — no films or TV shows with queer characters (except a few murderers!), no books like this anthology, no internet. We were isolated but, eventually, through accident or perseverance, we found other people like us, and found ourselves. I wanted to write a story that isn’t about shame, and secrets, and coming out, but about hope and resistance and — perhaps — the first glimmers of love.’

  Trouble

  Melbourne

  Summer, 1957

  Someone’s shouting at me.

  ‘Hey, bella! Where’d you steal the wheels?’

  I pretend I can’t hear over the engines, and keep my eyes on the traffic lights.

  Please turn green. Please.

  But there’s something about the voice. I glance left and there you are.

  Leather jacket. Jeans. Short hair. A woman.

  You wink and roar away. The light’s still red.

  ‘I swear, if James Dean was a woman and lived in Australia, that’s what she’d look like.’

  ‘That’s a big if,’ says Dot. ‘That’s a lot of big ifs.’

  ‘Also,’ I say, ‘if she was Italian.’

  Dot hangs the spanner on a nail, wipes her hands on an oily rag — as if that’s going to help — and rests one hip against the workbench. Now she’s finished doing complicated things to my scooter, she settles in for a chat.

  ‘Let me get this straight. You saw someone who looks like Annette Funicello but dresses like Jimmy Dean? You sure you were awake when this pop singer with movie star looks appeared?

  ‘I know it sounds far-fetched.’

  ‘And she was riding along St Kilda Road, yeah? Was Mickey Mouse there too?’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘And what did she say to you?’ Dot swings herself up on to the bench, boots dangling, evil grin. ‘Did she challenge you to a race?’

  ‘You’ve seen Rebel Without a Cause too many times,’ I say. ‘Actually, she laughed at my scooter.’

  ‘Fair enough, too. Jimmy Dean’s got taste. What was she riding?’

  ‘A silver Triumph.’

  ‘Nice. And you on the bright orange Vespa. That would be pretty funny.’

  ‘It’s the height of style, thank you very much.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ she says. ‘You look like my Nana, pottering along.’ She scratches her nose, leaving a black smudge like a moustache. I decide not to tell her.

  ‘I look like Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday.’

  ‘Who told you that, Nance?’

  ‘Ask anyone.’ Sure, my hair is longer, and my legs are shorter, but I try to look like Miss Hepburn at all times.

  ‘Will I ask Jimmy Dean?’

  ‘So you do know her.’ Of course she does. Dot’s garage is like a magnet for every girl in town with a motorbike.

  She laughs. ‘Everyone knows her. That’s TJ.’

  ‘Does she bring her bike here?’

  ‘Doesn’t have to. She can fix it herself. It’s an old Triumph Trophy.’ Dot’s looking at me,
and I’m looking away. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t interested in … you know.’

  ‘I’m not.’ Now I’m blushing. Damn it.

  ‘Not just a woman, but a foreigner. What would your mum say?’

  I don’t want to think about that. ‘Oh, Dot, shut up.’

  ‘She’s way too old for you, too. Must be late twenties.’

  ‘It’s not like that. I just wondered. What does TJ stand for?’

  ‘Trouble,’ she says.

  ‘And the J?’

  ‘Just beware.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘I’m dead serious. Look out.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  A silver Triumph Trophy is parked on the footpath outside Pellegrini’s. I leave the Vespa a few yards up the street and give her a pat so she doesn’t feel neglected. Smooth down my hair. Take a breath.

  The window is steamed up. The door half-open. Inside, the café is packed, as always. A Frank Sinatra record plays. Everyone’s shouting over the sound. Beatniks in berets. Rockers in jeans. Shop girls on a night out on the town, eating strudel and watching the boys. A poet puffing on his pipe and reading a small leather-bound book. Dot’s in the far corner, talking with her mouth full. She waves to me, flicking spaghetti everywhere.

  I call out across the bar to Signor Pellegrini.

  ‘Could I have a cappuccino, please?’

  He nods and turns away. The Gaggia gurgles.

  Someone swings around on the bar stool right in front of me.

  It’s you.

  TJ.

  Trouble.

  ‘He doesn’t approve of people who have so much milk in their coffee,’ you say. ‘Let alone chocolate on top.’

  You don’t look at all like Annette Funicello up close. Or James Dean. I think I’m staring. I try not to, try to breathe and talk and maybe even smile, but your eyes are the most ridiculous green.

  ‘I know it’s not how they do it in Italy,’ I manage to say at last. ‘But I like it.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ you say. ‘He doesn’t like me much, either.’

  I glance down. You’re cradling a tiny espresso cup in one hand. The other hand rests on your thigh. I try not to look at you, at too much of you — look away — and there you are in the mirror, looking at me.

  ‘But you …’

  You smile. ‘Oh, I drink coffee the way it’s meant to be drunk. That’s not why the signore disapproves of me.’

  ‘Once he growled at me,’ I say. ‘He actually growled.’

  ‘He doesn’t like to see ladies wearing trousers.’

  ‘My mum’s the same. I had to sneak out of the house before she saw me.’

  You shout something at him in Italian and he shouts back and, when you laugh, it echoes off the tiles. Everyone looks. At you. At us.

  ‘Sit down,’ you say.

  ‘I’m meeting friends.’

  ‘Go on,’ you say. ‘Or I’ll growl at you myself.’

  Your voice is like Sophia Loren in Boy on a Dolphin, like sparkling water and red wine and summer.

  I sit down.

  ‘You’re the girl on the scooter,’ you say.

  ‘Yes, Audrey.’

  Laughter bursts from you like fireworks. ‘Truly?’

  ‘Not me,’ I say. ‘I’m Nancy. My scooter is Audrey.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  A coffee slides across the laminex towards me. I hand over a shilling and Signor Pellegrini scatters the change on the bar.

  I throw him a smile. ‘Thank you.’

  He’s already back behind the Gaggia, polishing the chrome.

  ‘He loves that damn machine,’ you say. ‘Like other people love their motorcycles.’

  ‘No wonder he’s proud of it.’ I glance around the room. ‘A café with a real espresso machine? Everyone in Melbourne wants to try it.’

  You smile and tip your empty cup in my direction. ‘Salute.’

  ‘Audrey is a GS 150,’ I say.

  ‘I know,’ you say.

  ‘Can you tell that just by looking?’ I ask.

  ‘Don’t be silly. I don’t know a thing about Vespas. I asked Dot.’

  ‘About Audrey?’

  ‘About you.’

  I stand there like a fool — you as smooth as a love song, and me not knowing what happens next or what to do or how to breathe.

  ‘Drink your coffee,’ you say. ‘Let’s go for a ride.’

  Don’t panic. ‘I’m meeting friends, remember.’

  ‘Who?’

  I look around. ‘Dot. And other people.’

  ‘They’re boring,’ you say. You lean a little closer. ‘But I am fascinating.’

  I splutter into my coffee.

  ‘Also, you have milk froth on your nose.’

  The night is still warm. Breathless. You slide onto your motorbike as if you’re made for each other.

  I tie a scarf over my hair. ‘Shall I follow you?’

  ‘You won’t be able to keep up.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Leave Audrey here,’ you say. ‘Jump on the back.’

  ‘Of yours?’ It comes out as a squeak.

  ‘I won’t let you fall off.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ I say.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘It’s just …’

  ‘What are you afraid of?’ you say, so softly I only just catch it.

  ‘Nothing.’

  And everything.

  ‘Don’t be.’

  And suddenly I’m not. I slip onto the saddle behind you.

  The engine rumbles.

  ‘Hold on to me,’ you say, and I do.

  You kick the stand away and wheel around to face down the Bourke Street hill.

  ‘Let’s go look at the stars.’

  I just nod. I can’t speak. You straighten up, throttle the Triumph into a roar, and we’re off.

  My arms are tight around your waist. We lean together into the corners, and forward against the wind — through the dark city, flying past the Tivoli and Myer’s and all the way to Spencer Street, bumping across tram lines and bluestones, over the river, and passing my house where Mum and Dad sit in the kitchen watching Pick A Box and shouting at the television. Somewhere between the city and the beach, the scarf flies off my head and is lost in the night, my hair streaming behind me.

  I can always smell the sea before I get to it — a memory of picnics and Calamine lotion and seagulls and laughter. You slow for a moment, then take off along the waterfront. I don’t know what speed we’re going and I don’t want to know. Audrey never moves this fast. I never move this fast.

  We don’t try to talk. There’s no point.

  My body’s so close to yours I can feel your ribs, your breath. Your heartbeat. Your thighs.

  You slow to a crawl along St Kilda Beach, circle around past Luna Park and the St Moritz ice-skating rink, then pull up near the sea baths. There’s nobody much about — a few couples huddled in the sand, their legs tangled together, and a man walking his dog along the pier.

  ‘I love it here,’ you say. ‘Let’s walk a little.’

  My legs feel a bit wobbly after the ride. At least, I think that’s why.

  ‘Are you all right?’ you ask.

  ‘Of course.’ Bright smile.

  You put one hand in the small of my back and guide me towards the pier. The man with the dog is at the far end, near the kiosk.

  ‘I wish it was open,’ I say. ‘I’d love an ice cream.’

  ‘One day,’ you say, ‘I will bring you back here in the sunshine.’

  I wonder if there will be another day. But for now, in the dark, we walk.

  ‘How old are you?’ you ask.

  ‘Nineteen. You?’

  ‘Older than that,’ you say. ‘Tell me, how can a young woman like you afford your own wheels?’

  ‘I pay off a little bit every week.’

  ‘Where do you get the money?’<
br />
  ‘I work. Don’t you?’

  ‘Sure. You work in a bank?’

  ‘Me? Goodness, no. Do I look like it?’

  ‘Maybe. You dress so fancy. Capri pants. That cardigan.’

  ‘All on lay-by from Myer’s.’

  ‘In an office, then?’

  ‘No, I work on the trams. I’m training to be a conductress. My dad does, too. But he’s a driver.’

  ‘I wish I could drive a tram,’ you say.

  ‘Ladies aren’t allowed to be drivers. But maybe Dad could take you for a ride in the cabin one day. I’ll ask him.’ As soon as the words come out, I know it’s no use. Dad will take one look at you and decide you’re a bad influence. Or a tomboy. Or worse.

  ‘Where do you work?’ I ask.

  ‘In a factory, making uncomfortable shoes for rich ladies. My father works there, too. You see? We are the same, you and me.’

  ‘Except your motorcycle goes a lot faster than mine.’

  You laugh. ‘That was slow. When I’m out on the open road — Ah! Then I go, fast as … as … I can’t describe it.’

  ‘Lightning?’

  ‘Yes! That’s it. But the bike is old now. I am saving all my money for a new one. A Harley Davidson.’

  ‘Like Marlon Brando in The Wild One?’

  ‘But prettier.’ You chuckle and lean on the railing, peering into the water.

  ‘I’m saving up to travel the world,’ I say.

  You look up. ‘Why?’

  ‘To have an adventure, before I get married,’ I say. ‘I want to go absolutely everywhere.’

  You shake your head. ‘Here is better.’

  ‘It’s all right for you. You grew up somewhere exciting.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘You’re Italian.’

  ‘But I have lived here for many years.’

  ‘Since the war?’

  You gaze out to sea.

  ‘I suppose you’ve seen the wonders of Rome?’ I say. ‘The Forum, the Colosseum?’

  ‘You have watched too many movies, I think.’

  ‘I’ve read too many books. That’s what Mum reckons. But you — you’ve really been there.’

  ‘Not Rome,’ you say. ‘I’m from the north. Near Lucca. But we left when I was young. It was not exciting. It was not a good place. Not in the war. Not afterwards.’