Evan drives to Steffi’s house first. I open my mouth to say something as he whizzes past mine but he’s too fast.
Steffi grabs her stuff and opens the door. ‘Shell wants you at dinner tonight,’ she says to Evan.
‘Yeah, maybe.’
‘No “maybe”. You don’t have to live with her when you don’t show up.’ She raises her eyebrows and stares at him until he relents.
‘All right, fine.’
‘Good.’ She turns back to me. ‘Pleasure as always, Lucy.’
‘Pleasure’s mine,’ I say and get out behind her.
Evan leans over the seat. ‘I’m supposed to be driving you home.’
‘It’s not far.’ I shoulder my backpack. ‘I can walk.’
‘Ah, no. ’Fraid not,’ he says. ‘See, we’re running a full-service operation here and, um, it’ll affect my Yelp rating if I let you walk.’
I laugh. ‘It’s really not that far.’
He gives me that same unwavering stare that Steffi just gave him—all tilted and eyebrow-raisey. Looking back into his large brown eyes, a small twinge occurs in my stomach.
‘Um, okay.’ I get back in the car and balance my bag on my lap.
‘Good,’ he says. ‘Right. Where to?’
‘Ah, do a U-turn.’ He obeys and accelerates towards Beach Street. ‘And stop.’
He stops.
I gesture with my thumb out the window. ‘That’s me.’
For a second I don’t want him to see it: the overgrown front lawn, Mum’s long-dead veggie patch. Everyone assumes we have heaps of space because our front yard is massive or that we can see the ocean because our house is elevated. We don’t and we can’t.
But he doesn’t mention any of that.
‘Hmm,’ he leans over, one hand still on the steering wheel, ‘that is pretty close.’
I laugh. ‘Yeah. Thanks for the ride.’
‘I trust you’ll give me a glowing review.’
‘I actually have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Yelp? That app where you rate businesses and stuff?’
I shake my head.
‘Damn, country kids.’
‘Hey,’ I jab the air with my finger, ‘we’re rural, coastal rural.’
He laughs. ‘All right. See ya.’
‘Bye,’ I say and heave open the car door.
‘Hey, wait,’ he calls out. I lean back in. ‘What’s your last name?’
I frown. ‘It’s Taylor.’ I watch him put my name together in his head. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Harris,’ he says.
‘We’ve both got first name last names.’
He smiles. ‘Catch ya round, Lucy Taylor.’
A blush burns up my neck. ‘Bye, Evan Harris.’
7
‘What’s this supposed to be?’ I lift the lid on the frying pan and flinch back as flecks of oil spit out at me.
‘Butter chicken,’ Auntie Deb says, elbowing me out of the way and thrusting a bag of potatoes into my hands. ‘Chop these.’
I groan and set up the chopping board on the breakfast bar so I can still watch the TV.
The front door opens and Dad walks in. He drops his keys on the bench and grabs a beer from the fridge.
‘Dinner’ll be ready soon, Jim,’ Auntie Deb says. ‘How was work?’
‘Good,’ he says, ‘talked to a few other local stores. If we can get enough people we might be able to stop the Bunnings development from going ahead.’
‘Can you do that?’ I ask. ‘I mean, isn’t it already approved? And people want it, right? It’d mean a stack more jobs.’
‘That’s true,’ Dad says, pointing his beer at me, ‘but Towra is a historic community and people live there because they don’t want the big stores and all the mess they bring. Can you think of any other reasons why it’s a bad idea?’
I straighten. I’ve walked into a Dad Quiz. ‘Cos it would be bad for the little guys. Like you.’
‘Like us,’ he corrects. ‘How would you stop something like this?’
‘Um,’ I chew on my lip, ‘petitions, letter writing, stuff like that.’
‘Anything else? That’s pretty standard.’
‘I think those are great ideas,’ Deb says.
‘Lucy?’
I shrug and Dad sighs—disappointed.
‘I spoke to a couple of reporters today,’ Deb says.
‘What?’ I look at her. ‘What about?’ When Cam died it was all over the news, the tragedy of a life cut short, the dangers of teen drinking.
‘The ocean race,’ she says. ‘They’re gonna run a recurring thing on it in the paper.’
‘Very good,’ Dad says.
I don’t point out they probably don’t have anything better to run.
Dad takes his beer and heads out the door to his office. I focus on chopping the potatoes as small as I can.
‘Bite-sized, hon, we don’t want to inhale them.’
I used to cook dinner with Mum. She loved cooking—always trying some healthy thing, wanting to substitute everything with cauliflower. Dad hates cauliflower. I don’t want to cook with Auntie Deb. I want Mum to come out of her room and put her apron on—the one with the cats on it.
There’s a knock at the front door. Auntie Deb exhales and goes to wash her hands.
‘I’ll get it,’ I say, escaping the kitchen before she can protest.
I open the door and gape at the person on the other side.
‘Hey, Luce,’ Ryan says.
His tan is dark, his nose cracked and peeling, blond hair almost white against his face. He pushes his hair out of his eyes and tries to smile at me but it comes off kind of strained.
‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
‘Away.’
‘No shit.’ I keep my voice low and the door half closed.
‘Can we talk?’
‘Who is it?’ Auntie Deb calls.
I stare at Ryan. I want to slam the door in his face, I’m so mad at him for leaving, for leaving me, but I feel stuck. A hand touches my elbow, a cold hand, small and weak.
‘Ryan.’ Mum. Shit, Mum, go back to bed.
‘Hey,’ he says and without turning around I can read how awful she looks all over his face. No, I don’t want him to see her. I don’t want anyone to see her.
‘You’re back,’ she says.
‘Yeah.’
She nudges me aside and pulls him into a hug. He hesitates, then hugs her back.
‘Coming in? We’re about to have dinner.’
There are so many things going wrong here: Ryan walking into my house, Mum saying we’re having dinner, when we’ve not had dinner together for months.
‘Smells good,’ he says, hovering in the doorway.
Auntie Deb steps away from the stove and her eyes go wide.
‘It’s Ryan, Deb,’ Mum walks past her into the kitchen, ‘we’ll need an extra place.’
Auntie Deb stares at us with her mouth hanging open and all I can do is shrug. Mum’s always loved Ryan, he’s her second son, she would’ve had him live with us permanently if she could.
‘Ah, I gotta go chop the potatoes,’ I say, seeking refuge at my chopping board. Ryan picks at the fern sitting by the door before going to sit on the couch. The fact he looks so lost in a house that’s as much his home as it is mine twists something in my gut.
I lean against the fridge and watch Mum peer into the pan on the stove. She’s not wearing her apron but I’ll still take it.
‘What’s this supposed to be?’ she asks, tasting a bit off a wooden spoon.
‘Butter chicken.’
‘Is this free range? Pass us the cumin.’
Auntie Deb passes her the spice packet and the chopped potatoes and it looks like I’m out of a job.
‘Can I do anything?’
‘Go tell Dad Ryan’s here, will you?’
‘Can I do something else?’
‘Lucy,’ Mum says in that voice, that so very Mum voice.
&
nbsp; I step into my Havaianas and head down the front steps.
The access to Dad’s office is through the garage. I refuse to come down here when it’s dark; there’s no shortage of spider webs and I always think of the time Cam found a red-bellied black snake.
It was curled up with a bunch of ocky straps. Cam grabbed a shovel and took its head clean off. Then he went surfing and left the headless snake stretched out on the bottom step. I screamed so loud I set the neighbours’ dogs off. When I told him he pissed himself laughing and I kicked him in the shins.
The washing machine is on its last cycle and sounds like it’s about to take off. I walk past Dad’s shiny blue Lexus and drag my fingers along it, leaving two greasy parallel lines.
I knock on the office door. No response. I turn the handle.
‘Dad?’
He’s on the phone.
Cam used to complain that the space behind the garage should be an art studio, not an office—since there are two artists in the family and only one businessman, a businessman who has an office at his shop. Dad said Cam could ask him again when he sold one of his paintings. Meanwhile, Mum makes and sells art out of the tiny space in their bedroom that was supposed to be an ensuite.
‘But you said you could handle it . . . that doesn’t sound like handling it.’ The shop’s always come first for Dad. He looks at me and holds up his pen. ‘Just a sec.’ He presses the phone to his chest.
‘Um, Ryan’s here.’
‘Is he?’
‘And Mum’s cooking dinner.’
‘Is she?’
I’m not sure what else I should tell him. I want to say maybe this means she’s better now, maybe she’s back, but I don’t think he wants to hear it. So I close the office door.
Ryan helps me set the table and I focus all my attention on straightening the cutlery.
‘Looks good,’ Auntie Deb says, bringing out the plates. Her approval pings something around in my belly and I hate myself for it.
Dad comes in and the five of us sit around the table. Ryan’s across from me and Mum’s on my other side. I push my curry around my plate and avoid eye contact with everyone.
I can feel Ryan’s eyes on me and it makes my blood run hot. I glance up at him but he’s taking a swig of the beer Dad gave him—not looking at me.
‘It’s good you’ve come home,’ Dad says. ‘You look after yourself?’
Ryan smiles in a line. ‘Yeah. Turned out pretty good. Met up with these guys doing a thing for Rip Curl and I got to help out on the shoot.’
‘That’s great,’ Mum says.
‘They pay you all right?’ Dad asks
Ryan huffs out a laugh. ‘Was more a portfolio thing.’
‘Don’t let them take advantage of you.’
‘Nah, wasn’t like that.’
Dad looks at him for a minute then nods. ‘Do you need your job back at the store?’
‘Um,’ Ryan says, ‘that’d be great actually.’
‘I should come in,’ Mum says. ‘I need some new water-colours.’
‘I can drive you,’ Deb says.
Mum goes quiet. ‘No, it’s okay.’
‘I’ll bring you a catalogue,’ Dad says and Mum nods.
‘Ah.’ Ryan clears his throat. ‘I, um, wanted to tell you I’ve got a show coming up.’
Mum reaches over and squeezes his hand. ‘That’s wonderful, sweetheart.’
Ryan smiles, more naturally this time. ‘It’s down in Sydney, so a bit far. It’s called Young Blood. All the artists are under twenty and it’s supposed to be a representation of today’s youth by the youth.’
‘That sounds cool,’ I say.
‘It sounds wanky.’ Ryan laughs.
‘Still,’ Dad says, ‘Very well done. Cam never had—’ His voice is heavy with Cam’s lack of ambition, lack of drive.
‘Maybe Cam never got a chance,’ I snap at Dad.
‘Lucy,’ he says. I wait for him to say something else, finish his thought, but he doesn’t. I smack my fork on my plate and storm off to my room.
I sit on my bed and stare out at the darkening sky. My face burns and I swallow back tears. I hate crying, I hate the feeling of being overwhelmed and it all spilling out. I hate how others can see it, red eyes, flushed cheeks, snot. I want to take all my feelings, put them in a box and drop that box off the bluff.
Two soft knocks on my door. It’s not Deb: hers are short, loud and come in threes.
‘Hey. Can I come in?’
Ryan.
I press my cool hands to my hot face until I feel ready to answer him.
‘It’s open.’
‘Hi.’ He stands in my doorway like all the times I wished he would when he lived down the hall. He’s wearing green cargo shorts and a white T-shirt, the white seeming to glow next to his dark skin—details my brain refused to process earlier.
‘Enjoy the show?’ I ask, my words coming off as harsh as I mean them. He looks into the hall then back at me. He deflates right there, one hand on my doorframe. I take a deep breath. ‘Where did you go?’
Even though I have some idea from his blog where he was I want to hear him say it.
‘Up to Mackay, then Magnetic Island.’
‘Have fun?’
He digs his hand through his hair. ‘I’m sorry I took off. I had to get away, my head was such a mess.’
I look back out at the night. This is when I’d usually close my blinds—the light in my room illuminating me to the dark world.
The sound of Deb washing up bleeds in from the kitchen. Instead of closing my blinds I get off my bed and shut the door. Ryan stands in the middle of my room, fidgeting with his hands, until he slides them into his pockets.
He breathes out. ‘I’m still a mess.’
‘We needed you. I needed you.’
‘Your mum’s not great, hey?’
‘Did Riss go with you?’
Riss, Marissa, was Ryan’s girlfriend for all of last year. And friends for ages before that. I was there when she told Tara how much she liked Ryan and Tara told her to go for it.
He lets out a breath. ‘Nah, I didn’t tell her. She’s in Melbourne now anyway.’
‘You didn’t tell anybody?’ Not just me, I think.
‘Do you want me around, Lu?’ His eyebrows draw together in earnest. ‘Cos I can be here.’
‘Yeah, now. I needed you two months ago.’ When everything fell apart and my auntie moved in and nobody talked anymore.
‘You could’ve called, texted me, anything.’
I remember all the texts I deleted and the time spent staring at his number on my screen.
He sits on my bed, elbows on his knees. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
Tears sting my eyes and all I can do is nod. I sit next to him and Ryan puts his arm around me.
‘What happened out there?’
His arm drops away. ‘You know what happened.’
‘I want to hear it from you.’
His face hardens. ‘He got caught in a rip. He drowned.’
‘Was he drunk? They said he’d been drinking . . . but how bad was he?’
Ryan closes his eyes. ‘I don’t remember,’ he says softly. ‘Simmo reckons he wasn’t that bad but . . . I was past it, Lu, I don’t know. I remember drinking with the guys that afternoon and we were gonna head to some party then the next thing I know I’m waking up on the beach and Simmo was yelling at me and Cam was gone.’
‘Ryan?’ I whisper.
His fingers grip my bedspread. Grip, release, grip, release. I place my hand over his and he stops.
‘I let him down. I let you guys down,’ he says, his voice small and far away.
‘Is that why you left?’
He nods. ‘I should’ve stopped him and I don’t even know if I tried.’
‘It’s okay,’ I say, squeezing his hand. ‘It’s okay.’
I want to show him the text message and ask him about Cam’s drawings.
‘I should go,’ he says but he doesn’t move.
My body catches up with the fact I’m holding his hand, my heart pounding.
‘I missed you,’ I say.
Ryan turns and hugs me, gripping me so hard my bones hurt. ‘I missed you too.’
He lets me go and stands. ‘I’m staying at Simmo’s if you need anything.’
‘Okay.’ I smile at him.
‘Tell your olds I said bye.’ He slides open my screen door and steps onto the deck. ‘You’re gonna be all right, Lucy Lu,’ he says.
‘You too,’ I say and slide the door closed after him. The sensor light flicks on and I watch Ryan disappear down the back steps, and keep watching for a while after that. Then I snap my blinds closed.
He’s back.
Sand
In my bed and in my sheets
Scratching between your feet and mine
Under my nails and in your hair
On your lips and in my mouth
Stings my legs and scrapes my skin
Sand holds your shape in the dark
8
The following Wednesday is the school swimming carnival. Dressed in my sports uniform, green shorts and white polo shirt, I find a headband in my house colour, red, and stretch it around my head. I look in the mirror, pull the headband off and shove it in my bag.
I stand in the middle of my room, hands on my hips, and eye my pillow. Then I sit on the edge of the bed and pull out Cam’s phone.
There it is: the new message. Same unknown number, same weird poetry. It buzzed me awake at 3am and I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming.
I put the phone down and pick it up again. Sex. Real or imagined? So much wrong, wanting.
‘Ready, Lucy?’ Auntie Deb calls.
Who is this person?
‘Lucy?’
I need to go.
I gripped the metal bars and tucked myself into the wall. My stomach in knots and blood roaring in my ears.
‘Let’s go, Lucy!’
Cam stuck two fingers in his mouth and released an ear-splitting whistle.
I pulled tighter, my body winding into itself like clockwork. The horn beeped. I unwound.
Cam met me outside the change rooms. ‘Great race, Spu.’
‘Shut up,’ I said, punching him, like I always did when he called me that. He thought he was so great when he came up with it. Spucy.
Pieces of Sky Page 6
