“His woo?”
“Correct. I’m talking about his tools of seduction. Some guys use alcohol, some guys use flowers. Jimmy Irish used to take me to the dog track and let me pick, even though I always lost all his money. This guy—what’s it like when you’re alone together? Does he look at you? Talk to you?”
“He looks, but he’s pretty quiet.”
“He could be shy. Shy boys need a firm hand. Also—the element of surprise.” Vesna patted my arm. “Oh, you look so worried. Don’t be. Boys are like buses; if you miss one, another one will come along.” Vesna stopped. I could see her working backward, trying to figure out if she’d gotten the saying right. “Oh, what the hell. Boys are like buses, and if you get on the wrong one, you can always pull the cord.”
The phone rang. I picked up.
“Moshi moshi, Sky!”
It was Mum. “Moshi moshi,” I echoed, moving up the stairs.
She launched into “Happy Birthday,” giving it her best performance brass. I let her get all the way to the trilly end before stating, “My birthday’s on Sunday.”
There was an awesome trans-Pacific pause, and then she laughed lightly. “I knew that.”
Mum’s boyfriend, Yanni, joined in, “Hullo, Sky.”
I was on speakerphone. I hated that.
Yanni talked like he’d learned English from a tape. “Galaxy’s going to the Biennale. It’s so exciting. We are all hammers and kettledrums.”
Yanni was shiny-bald, but his back looked like a flokati rug. I witnessed his dodgy hair distro on our “family holiday,” a year to the day after Mum first left. Japan was too expensive, so we met them in Penang. At the airport I said to Dad, “What if she kidnaps us?”
He looked stricken for a second. Then: “It’s highly unlikely.”
Polaroids from Penang: There was nothing to do but eat gado gado, and swim in the pool, and get laughed at by the busboys because I wore shorts instead of a bikini. Yanni spent the whole week on the phone, making deals. And then on the last night he loosened up. He gave me my first beer (vomit) and said girls who wear men’s clothes are “like the sleeping hibiscus, they never unfurl” (vomit). At the karaoke club Mum made like Yoko Ono and nearly cleared the joint. An American boy named Chas Cheroot asked me to duet on “Somethin’ Stupid”—and we lost Gully, only to find him back in the hotel room sorting through his collection of cocktail umbrellas. He had amassed four hundred in seven days, and had a major meltdown when Mum wouldn’t let him take them home.
“How’s school going?” Mum started on her list.
“Okay.”
“How’s Seagull?”
“He’s still wearing the snout, if that’s what you’re asking.”
She laughed. “I’d forgotten all about it.”
“It’s not funny. He wears it everywhere.”
“What does he want for Christmas?”
“Night vision goggles.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
Mum exhaled audibly. I pictured her in her blue yukata, smoking a poser cigarillo.
“So what are you doing for your birthday? Who are your friends, Sky? Have you found your people?”
Mum was always asking me if I’d found my people.
Yanni chimed in. “How’s she supposed to know her people? She’s only fifteen.”
“Fifteen is it, Yanni,” Mum cried. “Fifteen is when the world opens its doors.”
“Does he have to listen in?” I complained.
There was silence. Then a click.
“Sky, what is going on? I’m hearing attitude.” This was Mum trying to be perceptive. Trying. “Is this about a boy?”
“No.”
“Is it about a girl?”
“Mum!”
“It’s perfectly normal. It’s nice to explore these things. . . .” She laughed again, a tinkly bell. I waited for wisdom, but none came. Mum started talking about her new performance and the catsuits and the whirly-winds. Blah blah blah.
I interrupted her. “Dad’s got a new girlfriend. She looks like Ann-Margret.”
“Oh, Sky, no one looks like Ann-Margret except Ann-Margret.” I heard the click of her lighter. The sharp inhale. “Has he spoken to you about the shop?”
“No.” My body tensed like it knew something bad was about to happen.
“I’ve sold it,” Mum said.
Just like that. I nearly dropped the phone. My mouth fell open.
“Skylark? Are you still there?”
“Yes,” I croaked.
“Of course your father was against it. I said to him, What are you trying to hold on to? I suppose it started when Yanni had the check for bowel cancer and I thought, we’re not getting any younger. He’s fine, by the way. So I kept saying no and they kept offering crazy money and then I said yes—and now here we are.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. He’s just hired someone.”
“That’s because your father’s in denial.”
My mouth was dry. I couldn’t form words.
“I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it.” Mum started to say something else, but then Yanni said something in Greek and she replied back in Japanese. Her voice boomed in my ear. “I have to go—I have a sound check. Oyasumi, Sky.”
“Oyasumi.” I hung up and sat on my bed and stared dazedly around my bedroom. Mum had sold the shop, and Dad, who always told the truth, had somehow managed to let this one slip. I tried to process the information. Where were all those records going to go? Where were we going to go? If Mum had sold the shop, that meant the flat was probably next. Steve Sharp had bought the corner, just like Dad had said he would. I looked around at all of Mum’s stuff: her bits and bobs and tchotchkes. Slowly, and then faster, I started to take them down: the Noddy eggcup, the Mexican dancing girl, the lava lamp, the painting of the boy with the tear that was supposed to be cursed, the robot lunchbox, the matryoshka dolls, the peanut cushion, and the shell mobile. I filled every hatbox, every sky-blue vintage airport suitcase. I lined them up along my wall. I didn’t do anything about her records or her clothes. I was mad, but I wasn’t crazy.
Minus Mum’s stuff, my room looked squattish, like it could have belonged to anyone. I closed my eyes. I could hear Vesna talking to Gully, and the soundtrack to Joe 90 kicking in. The truth screamed above it: Mum had sold the shop. Dad knew, but he hadn’t told us. When was he going to tell us? Clearly he was working the Martin family default: if we don’t talk about it, it’s not real. So maybe I could work it too.
I took the phone back downstairs. Gully was staring at the television. Vesna was picking something off the coffee table with scary intent.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Perfect,” I said. My throat felt like someone was gripping it. I pinched the bridge of my nose in case any tears were working their way out, and then I wiped the slate of my mind clean and settled down to Joe 90.
Late in the night, in the yoga light, I listened to Leonard Cohen, but I didn’t have to coax the sadness out. His voice was a long tunnel with the tiniest pinprick of light at the end. He managed to sound both near and faraway. Like, he could have been in the Hollywood Hills or hanging off my window ledge. Where were we going to go? What were we going to do? Outside the wind was blowing and the boat masts were singing. I let them sing me to sleep.
PART
THREE
Memo #3
A Memo from Agent Seagull Martin
Date: Friday, December 12
Agent: Seagull Martin
Address: 34 Blessington St., St. Kilda, upstairs
STATUS REPORT
POINT THE FIRST:
Constable Eve Brennan, SK PD, is still “looking into” the owners of registered white Jeeps in the local area but is unable to info-share.
POINT THE SECOND:
Recon #2 was a success. We now know that the white Jeep contained four young men. Further to that: the Jeep had a bumper sticker that read LOVE LIVE LOCAL.
POINT THE THIRD:
Nothing new on the CCTV.
IN SUMMATION
Not a lot of light shined this week, but I, Agent Seagull Martin, Special Investigations Unit, will persevere.
OTISWORLD
FRIDAY. I SAT IN the library staring at the GIF of my mother, hypnotized by her blank eyes and bloody nose. The black box popped up again. Ask Me Anything!
I typed, “How do you sleep?”
Quinn lurched in. “Hello, stranger.”
She paused at my desk. Her bag dangled down, adorned with buttons and badges and band names. She slumped next to me and turned on her computer. Then she swiveled her chair to face mine. I saw her eyes light on my bead necklace.
“Skylark,” she said. “Nice.”
From the neck up Quinn was after-five: her hair slicked back like some old glam rocker. She had shiny green eye shadow and bright red lipstick. She was wearing her glass bead necklaces too.
She said, “I went to Sydney. My grandma died.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t really know her.”
She started to put her earbuds in. I grabbed her arm. I didn’t want our conversation to end, but I didn’t know how to keep it going.
“Uh, what’s Sydney like?”
Quinn gave me a droll look. “Sydney’s like . . . some bitch with shiny hair who keeps macking on your boyfriend.”
“Right.” I sat back in my chair. It crossed my mind that maybe the whole world was talking in code. Every day the list of what I didn’t understand grew longer. I was two days away from turning sixteen, but I felt closer to six.
Quinn plugged her earbuds in and the usual cacophony sounded. She rocked in her chair and tapped her fingers on the keyboard, but after only half a minute she stopped, pulled her buds out. “What have you got next?”
“Social studies.”
She grinned. “Shit. I can teach you that. You want to hang out?”
“Yes.” The word flew from my lips, like it had been primed for weeks.
Quinn’s eyebrows bounced above her frosty greens. “Cool.”
Hanging out with Quinn meant watching her change at the bus shelter. Her uniform had Velcro attachments so she could rip it off like a stripper—only she wasn’t hiding pasties, she was hiding a cherry-red bowling shirt and cutoffs. It meant walking down the Windsor end of Chapel Street, drinking coffee and looking in thrift shops. It meant watching her fist-bump skeevy bums near the mission and admiring her swagger and wondering how she got to cultivate a walk like that. Quinn talked loudly and said “fuck” a lot. And every now and then I’d catch her looking at me, like she was checking to see that I was having a good time. And I was.
We ended up at her house, the upstairs of a redbrick two-story covered in ivy. She paused at the first step as if unsure I would follow, but I was so on her tail I crashed into her. She led me into a spare, neat flat. There were books and pot plants and rag rugs. “Boring,” Quinn said as she walked. She led me down a hallway and unlocked her bedroom door. It was like walking into a nightclub with the sound turned down. Her bedroom had licorice walls and stick-on stars everywhere. She hit her light switch and for a moment everything went silver. Then my eyes adjusted to the mirrors, the shiny filing cabinets, the black-and-white photographs that hung in strips from silver threads like an elaborate web.
“Wow,” I said. “Don’t your parents hate it?”
“It’s only my mum. She says it’s my space.”
“Where’s your dad?”
“He has another family.” Quinn shrugged. “His loss.”
I couldn’t help comparing Quinn’s bedroom to mine. It was all her. It screamed Quinn Bishop. What did my room say? Especially now, with Mum’s stuff in bags. The only things in my room that said anything about me were embarrassing—like the box of beautiful people. Except for my records. Maybe my records were all I was. For a moment I felt a shiver and remembered that Mum had sold the shop, but I pushed the feeling away. I could do that.
Quinn sat on her bed. I sat next to her. She reached beside me for her laptop and tapped and clicked. Then she put the machine on my lap. “Enjoy.”
I was looking at a website with party photos.
“What is it?” I asked, starting to slowly scroll down.
“It’s Otisworld, don’t you know?” She frowned. “How did you end up at the gig?”
“Steve Sharp brought tickets into the shop.”
“You know Steve Sharp?”
“He’s a customer.”
The images were different from the ones the week before, but the theme was the same. Parties. Girls. Mess and noise. The pictures could have been taken twenty years in the past or the future: club girls, cool girls, drunk girls, nude girls, all staring down the lens with expressions that ranged between hostile and ecstatic.
“I wasn’t even going to go,” I said. “It was Nancy.”
“Who’s Nancy?”
Just as Quinn said her name, I saw her. Agent Nancy Cole, KGB. There were two pictures of her side by side. In the first she was standing on a balcony, leaning with her elbows back on the rail and a fuck you look on her face. She wore an oversize T-shirt, nothing else. In the second photo she was in the same pose but naked. I felt my face burn. In a voice that didn’t sound like mine I said, “That’s Nancy.”
Quinn was not shocked at naked Nancy. She assessed the pictures, like she would any art, and scrolled on. She came to a picture of a girl lying back on the grass, laughing. Next to her face was a horse’s head. The picture was jarring—at first glance it looked like the horse was her Siamese twin.
“That’s one of mine,” Quinn said proudly.
“Why don’t they credit you?”
“The whole point is it’s anonymous.”
“Where’d you take it?”
“A mess last year. Wait. You don’t know what a mess is either, do you?” I shook my head and stared at the screen. I could hear my breath coming shallow. Quinn rolled her fingers over her necklaces and launched into my education.
“Okay, so a mess is a private party for the cognoscenti. That’s me. And now you. Maybe. Usually what happens is Otis plays and there’s DJs and, ah, refreshments. You know that tunnel under Inkerman Street—used to be around for bootleggers? They had a mess there last year. Forty-something mess-heads dancing under the traffic, and no one even knew.”
“Who organizes them?”
“No one knows. They don’t start until late. And they only disclose the location at the last minute.” Quinn turned back to the screen. “The photos come from the messes, but people also send them in, in the spirit of the messes.”
I continued scrolling past Otis photosets: stage shots of him writhing on pallets. Did I want to see older posts? Almost certainly. The photos were dark and strange; they looked professionally amateur. I saw animal masks, a face through a gauzy silver scarf, and a tribute to Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland—a garden of girls in their underpants. Boobs out, boots on, silver scarves, deadpan faces. I froze. The girl in the back with her face half-hidden beneath her hair was Mia Casey. I was certain.
“Do you know her?” I asked.
Quinn paused. “I heard she was at a mess before she died.”
“The papers said she was at the Paradise.”
“I heard she was at a mess,” Quinn repeated. “She got gypped. She got too into it. There are a lot of girls like her.”
“The ones with the silver scarves?”
Quinn nodded.
“What does it mean if Nancy’s got a scarf?”
“It means she’s fucking Otis.” Quinn smiled. “Personally, I wouldn’t go there. I couldn’t go out with a guy who was smaller than me. Also, who wants to be a number?”
Quinn’s face changed then. She went from tough to soft, just like that. The way she was looking at me made me feel heavy. “I wasn’t really in Sydney,” she said. “I was in the hospital. I have to go in sometimes. For my head. You think I’m a freak now, right
? I don’t care.”
I smiled hesitantly. “I like freaks.”
Downstairs a door opened and closed. Quinn slammed her laptop shut. “That’s my mum.”
“What time is it?”
“Three fifteen.”
“Shit. I’ve got to get my brother.”
I was trying to work out the best way to say good-bye, and then Quinn swooped in for a hug. Our bead necklaces clashed. Her voice vibrated in my ear, “I knew we were going to be friends.”
NOTHING OR SOMETHING
GULLY WAS SITTING IN the gutter with his head in a paperback called Secrets of the MI5. My shadow blocked his light. He spoke without looking up.
“You’re late.”
“I know.”
We started walking. Gully was hanging his head like it was so heavy his neck couldn’t support it. Something bad had happened. Some little arsehole had said something or done something. In Gully’s class there were a few victims; it was like the bullies had them on rotation. I probed Gully. He shuffled his feet, took a while to answer.
“Jack Pratt pantsed me.”
“Did anyone do anything?”
“Laughed. And did this.” He held his pinkie finger acrook.
I put my arm around him; he froze, and I retracted it. “Pratt by name, prat by nature. They’re dickheads. All of them, dickheads.”
Gully half smiled. “Mouth.”
We crossed the highway and tripped along St. Kilda’s wide and leafy backstreets. Everything looked different somehow. Like a layer had been stripped off the world. I felt tremulous, on the edge, but also weirdly happy. I shunned the new townhouses with their manicured gardens and gave all my love to the fifties flats with their pockmarked plane trees giving shade to the shady. The wind was blowing and the palms were swaying. The sun felt sharp-hot on my skin.
Someone wolf-whistled. “Hey, girlfriend!”
Nancy was perched on an old armchair that had been shifted onto the nature strip. I saw the silver scarf first, and then the photograph flashed in my mind. She sprang over to us and then stood there, slightly out of breath. In addition to the scarf, Nancy was wearing a floppy black hat and sunglasses and a man’s business shirt over cutoffs.
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