THE RED SHOE IS IN THE GRASS
AT THREE THIRTY I negotiated the maze of group-huggers and pinch-faced pinkie-swearers to find Gully at the school gate—snout in effect. He smiled grimly. There was a wet patch on his shorts that he kept trying to cover with his hand.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Someone drew something on me. I washed it off.”
“Drew what?”
“A penis.” He said it like Sean Connery. Penish.
“Who did it?”
He looked away, wrote something in the sky.
“Tell me who it was. I’ll sort him out.”
He stopped writing to shout, “IT’S OKAY!”
“FINE!” I shouted back.
We walked, our bag straps slapping in sync. Gully started talking about the Bricker. It took me a while to link what he was saying to his memo, and by the time I made the connection, he was in another realm.
“It’s entirely possible that the Bricker is an anti-Semite. He also hit Ada’s Cakes and Bernard Levon, Tax Accountant.”
“But, Gully, we’re not Jewish.”
“Maybe the Bricker only hit our shop to make it look like he doesn’t have a vendetta against the Jewish community.”
“The brick was random.”
“Nothing is random.” Gully stopped walking; he thwacked his snout and drummed the side of his head with the heel of his hand repeatedly until I had to seize his wrist. Beneath the snout he had on what Dad called his “dazey-face.” The one where he stood too close and swayed, and his brow loomed like a slab of granite. And if he was silent, it was spooky; but if he talked, all you could see was the pink of his mouth moving, his eyes so earnest it hurt.
“Nancy’s coming tonight,” I told him, trying to distract.
“Agent Cole, KGB.”
“Affirmative.”
“Tell her, The red shoe is in the grass.”
“I said she’s coming—you can tell her yourself.”
Gully nodded, but he still didn’t move.
“Come on. Friday night fish and chips, remember?”
Seconds passed. And then he smiled as if seized with happiness at the prospect of flake. He adjusted his backpack and walked, carefully avoiding the cracks in the pavement.
Two hours later Nancy and I were sitting on the back counter, swinging our feet and meditating on the Wall of Woe. Dad’s “display” had started as a cheap way of concealing rising damp and turned into a mosaic of the world’s worst record covers: Top of the Pops, Hooked on Classics, the New Seekers, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Jimmy Shand’s Scottish dance band . . . Some customers laughed, others left. I figured most would rather face rising damp than Barry Gibb and Barbra Streisand in matching white silky pantsuits.
“Barry looks worried,” Nancy noted.
“It’s his hair, it’s too fluffy.”
“It could be his jeans. They’re sectioning him.”
Dad turned to Nancy, his eyebrows knitted like furry summer caterpillars. “Where are you working these days?”
“The Purple Onion,” Nancy said. “You know that dome on the foreshore? It’s what they call a ‘pop-up’ bar.”
“Is it now?”
“They’ve used this hideous purple paint and all this brush fencing. It’s like being inside a testicle.”
Dad opened his mouth and then closed it again. He turned back to his records, shaking his head.
The shop was empty of customers. Gully patrolled the floor, searching for dividers in need of rejuvenation. Dad was playing Hank Williams, which meant he was feeling sorry for himself. He fixed the lady cop’s card to the till. I picked it up; the corners were curled.
“Why don’t you call her?”
Dad ignored me. He had the pricing gun in his hand and a stack of vinyl piled high on the counter in front of him, but he couldn’t seem to connect the two.
“Do you want me to call her?” Nancy suggested.
Dad gave her a pained look.
“I’m really looking forward to this movie.” Nancy shot me a wink. She quoted breathily, “You and I are the same. We do what we do because we have to. Because we don’t know any other way.”
I could see Dad’s shoulders tense.
Nancy went on blithely. “We have to dress up.” And for Dad’s benefit. “People dress vintage.”
“And what time will it finish?” Dad asked.
Nancy grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll get her home before pumpkin time.”
Gully piped up. “I wish I could go. I love Jane Crawford.”
“Joan Crawford,” I snapped. “You don’t even know who she is!”
Nancy swooped down from the counter to hug Gully. She squished his face. She was the only person he would take this from.
He blushed and stammered, “The—the red shoe is in the grass.”
Nancy nodded. “The eagle flies at midnight.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Dad barked. The look on Nancy’s face—it was as if he’d slapped her.
“Sorry,” she said, standing up and stepping back.
Hank Williams continued to moan.
“What’s wrong with him?” Gully wanted to know.
“He’s long gone and lonesome,” I said. “It’s a serious condition.” I was eyeing Dad. I couldn’t work out if he was in a mood about Nancy or Evil Eve Brennan or what. The clock struck six, and Dad set the pricing gun down. “Who’s getting the chips?”
“I’ll go.” Nancy grabbed a fifty off him and sashayed out the door.
Dad turned to me. “Think we’ll ever see her again?”
I kicked him in the back of the knee, hard enough to make a noise but not hard enough to hurt.
A SORT OF SICKNESS
WE WERE STILL WAITING for the chips when Steve Sharp walked in with a man-bag full of vinyl. Steve Sharp was a local “face.” Dad knew him from the old days, but only peripherally because Dad was a failed musician, and Steve Sharp was seriously famous. His band, the City Sparrows, cracked the American charts in the mid-nineties. Then came money, fame, excess, tragedy, legal hassles, rehab, and recovery. His third wife, Yayoi Osa-Sharp, was the tragedy. She killed herself, and would have killed their son, Otis, too, if not for the arrival of two Jehovas, who smelled the gas and smashed a window with a miniature temple from the Sharps’ ornamental Zen garden. Post-rehab Steve Sharp was a model citizen. He performed for charity, was a Buddhist and celibate. He also happened to be a real estate developer, Dad was fond of pointing out.
As far as regular customers went, the Double S was a good one because he knew his stuff and what he sold in was, if not rare, then at least interesting. Despite this, Dad followed record store code of treating him like dirt. First he ignored him. Then he glared at him. Eventually he cleared some space on the counter and grunted, “All right. What have you got?”
“Treasure.” Steve Sharp caught my eye and kept it.
I blushed—just because he was famous, and handsome for an old guy. He pulled his records out and stretched his arms behind his head, eyes back on me. He made me feel see-through. I smiled, but my gums were like thick strips of Blu Tack, and my lips took too long to land.
Dad started the buy, flipping through the stack, separating the good, the bad, and the ugly. He checked the sides, occasionally running his thumb lightly over the grooves, or using his fingernail to check the depth of a scratch. He did this with a poker face.
Steve Sharp drifted over to New Acquisitions. I wondered why he sold records in—he couldn’t need the money. But that was the way with most customers. Apart from the occasional death-rock kid trying to flog his grandma’s Charles Aznavour LPs, Wishing Well patrons were collectors—buying and selling and abhorring or evangelizing their twelve inches of vinyl shellac. It was a sort of sickness.
“Seventy-five cash, ninety trade,” Dad barked.
“What about the Hendrix?”
“It’s got a pressing fault.”
Steve Sharp looked momentarily dismayed, and th
en he shrugged, a fluid arch that said whatever happened in the world could never be enough to rattle him. “Trade, then. Put it on my tab.”
Gully gripped his stomach. “Where’s Nancy?”
Seconds later she sauntered in, all hair and skin and lipstick and tea rose and salt and vinegar. For a moment she met Steve Sharp in the aisle. He moved to the left; Nancy moved to the left. He moved to the right, and the same thing happened. “Sorry.” He touched her arm, let her pass, and watched her as she went. Nancy bustled up to the counter. She picked up a stray single, sniffed it, arched an eyebrow. “Smells like teen spirit.”
Dad laughed. Steve Sharp laughed too. I felt a squeeze inside. I don’t know why it had to hurt, the way she dialed the world with her little finger.
Steve Sharp said, “My son’s band’s playing at the Paradise. It’s sold out, but I’ve got comps. You girls want to go?”
“Not Sky,” Dad said.
Nancy was swinging her legs, eating her chips, blanking everyone beautifully, but I knew her. I knew she was interested.
Dad grunted. “I thought they were pulling the Paradise down.”
Steve Sharp smiled. “Tonight’s the last night.”
“You don’t have to look so happy about it.”
“It’s called progress, Bill.”
Dad muttered something under his breath. He filled in the Buys Book with Steve Sharp’s details, writing “FAMOUS” in the space where he was supposed to write his license number. “You want anything today?”
“Nope.” Steve took the tickets out of his pocket and put them in Elvis’s tray, swapping them for a couple of tapes.
He walked out. After a beat Gully said, “What’s called progress?”
Dad grunted again. “It’s his company that’s doing the wrecking.”
TOTAL CATNIP
IN MY BEDROOM NANCY stared at Steve Sharp’s tickets like they were made of gold. “Have you seen Otis Sharp? He’s, like, total catnip. I’d like to find him down a dark alley.” She fanned herself with the tickets. “We’re going.”
“What about Joan Crawford?”
Nancy turned to look at me reproachfully. “Sky, do you want to be the person doing things, or the person watching other people do things?”
Chastised, I busied myself by the record player. I put on Bobbie Gentry because her voice was warm and cool, and even when she sang about bad situations, she somehow made them sound tolerable. Nancy stepped out of her jeans, pulled off her top, and started at my wardrobe.
“What’s wrong with your clothes?” I joked.
“What’s wrong with your dad? Man, when I was your age, I was never home.”
“I don’t hate being at home.”
Nancy turned to roll her eyes at me. She pulled a few dresses out and draped them over my bed. She lit a cigarette. I pushed the window open farther. It was still hot outside. Heaving. I took off my school dress, revealing my singlet and undies. I took off my shoes and socks, and the article about Mia Casey fluttered to the floor.
“What’s that?” Nancy said, reaching for it.
I watched her face as she read the article; it stayed blank, inscrutable. Then she said soberly, “I hope she was a party girl; I hope she lived before she died.”
“Her brother, Lucas? He’s Luke. The guy Dad’s hired.”
“Potato guy?” Nancy’s eyes widened. “Now you definitely have to go for him. Hot and tragic. That’s a winning combination.”
“I wouldn’t know what to do.”
Nancy flung her top at me. “Put this on.” I did as she told me. The top was tight; it made me look like I had boobs. Nancy nodded. “Good. Wear my jeans. You can be me tonight.”
Nancy’s jeans were also tight. I had to lie down to do up the zip. Nancy flopped on the bed next to me, topless. Bobbie Gentry was singing about a girl whose mama pimped her out, and I was trying not to look at Nancy’s boobs.
“Sky?”
“What?”
She found my hand and placed it on her breast. It felt soft, full. I didn’t dare look at her. Then she put her hand on my head and brought it to hers. What followed was the weird putty feeling of her lips mashed against mine.
“Open your mouth,” she murmured. I opened my mouth. Nancy’s tongue touched mine, a warm shock. I let her kiss me. I kissed her back. I felt like I was underwater. She pulled away. “So you know what to do with Luke Casey,” she said.
“Of course,” I managed, my face on fire.
Nancy went back to my wardrobe; she decided on a gold top over spandex pants. She fluffed her hair and fixed her makeup, then did mine. When she’d finished my face, I didn’t even recognize myself.
Nancy licked her thumb and smudged away some rouge. “There’s this festival in Japan called the Atukai Cursing Festival. Men go out in boats, wearing white clothing, and travelers stand along the river and swear at them. Can you imagine? The Japanese are nuts. I’m so going.” Nancy paused and then hung her head out the window and shouted, “Fuckkkkkk!”
No one shouted back.
We went downstairs. Gully balked at my makeup. “You look old,” he said, peering at me uncertainly.
“Thanks so much.”
Dad gulped at my forced cleavage. “Put a coat on.” He sounded three beers deep.
“But it’s boiling.”
“Here.” He shoved my denim jacket at me. I shrugged it on, winching it at my chest. I went to give him a kiss on the cheek, but he’d already turned away. I had been feeling guilty about lying, but now resentment glittered in me. Fine, I thought, letting the jacket go slack. Fuck you too.
As we walked away from the shop, I tried to still the waves of excitement vibrating through my body. Nancy cut through Acland Street, my mum’s spindly peach pumps scoring the night, and I was like the shark with half its brain turned off, following her into the deep.
BARBARIANS
ID.” THE BOUNCER’S ARM was like a railway sleeper.
I floundered. Looked at Nancy. She was smiling up at him, trying to win him over, but the guy was made of stone. The line outside the Paradise went right around the block. The crowd was older, late teens, twentysomethings. They were a sea of black with signature items: a cape here, platform boots there. There was crazy hair and conversation-piece piercings, chalk-faced girls with Cleopatra eyes, guys who looked like mad revolutionaries.
We shuffled aside from the bouncer’s bored stare, and just at that moment a noise sounded like a gunshot. All heads turned to the road. Nancy seized the moment, grabbing my arm and hauling me under the velvet rope. And then we were inside and trundling up the great staircase. I could smell thrift-shop shirts and orange oil, Red Bull and adrenaline.
Nancy went to the bar, returning with two blue drinks. She herded me to a corner. A cute guy in a trilby hat with a medic’s bag and stethoscope wandered over. Nancy whispered something in his ear. He checked her heart and then gave her a small packet. Nancy kissed him hard on the mouth. The guy hung around, looking at me. He spoke loudly in my ear.
“Are you here for FUCKBOMB or Otis?”
“What’s the difference?”
“You don’t know? Oh, this is good.” He pressed his shoulder into mine. His breath smelled like caramels.
“FUCKBOMB have to go first because they thin out the crowd. They’re fucking barbarians. You ever see those old videos of the Sex Pistols where kids are throttling each other when they dance? Like that. Otis is slick but shady. All the ladies love Otis.”
“Okay.” I smiled weakly.
He moved in closer. He looked at me like he knew me.
“You’re a baby,” he said.
“I’m nearly sixteen.”
Nancy cut in. “Skylark, pay the guy.”
“Huh?”
Trilby moved in for a wet open-mouthed kiss. I took his tongue poking mine for three seconds before breaking away. He doffed his hat. “Enjoy.”
I turned to Nancy. “What was that?”
She answered by showing me her palm. A fo
il square glinted in it. She opened it and I saw tiny rocks.
I hesitated. “What’s it going to do?”
“Nothing bad.”
“How long will it last?”
“A few hours. Don’t worry. It’s like floating.”
Floating didn’t sound so bad. I pushed away thoughts of Dad and Gully. I let her put the rocks on my tongue. The swirling in my stomach sharpened. Soon the lights dimmed and the crowd thickened. Three guys stalked out onto the stage. The singer was only wearing undies and football socks. He was long-faced and ugly, hairy as an Afghan hound.
FUCKBOMB! The audience screamed against a batallion of drums.
FUCKBOMB! Like getting hit across the head with a sheet metal plate, again and again and again.
FUCKBOMB! Two girls in front of me throttle-danced, smiling huge.
Nancy and I thrashed around. The songs were short and violent and thrilling. By the time the band imploded in a squall of feedback, I was sweating and panting. My body hummed like a tuning fork that had just been hit.
“Do you feel it yet?” Nancy whispered.
My face hurt, but whether it was from smiling or clenching, I couldn’t tell. The DJ was playing something that sounded like psychotic circus music. Nancy grabbed my wrists.
“Do you feel it now?”
My face would have answered her question, but her eyes were closed.
Later in the ladies’ room I clung to a corner and watched the light fall on the beaded curtain. I’d lost Nancy, and time had become a slippery thing. I had no idea how long I’d been in there, but it felt like forever. The room was jammed with girls checking hair and hurling laughter. A group of them was wearing silver scarves. They looked like a girl gang or a dance troupe. One of them saw me staring and gave me a dirty look. I shifted my focus to the wallpaper. I wanted desperately to straighten up, but the patterns on the wallpaper were moving. I turned my face to the wall, aware that I looked weird, unable to do anything about it. I went inside myself. And when I came back out, I heard voices volleying. A door slammed. The towel dispenser jammed. Somebody yelled, “He’s starting!”
Girl Defective Page 4
