by Nova Weetman
Chapter 12
‘Five, four, four?’ says Rory trying to key the number in quickly so he can get back to her.
‘No.’ Frankie laughs. ‘Three, four, four.’
Rory looks up to see if she’s laughing at him. But she’s grinning this incredible grin that makes Rory want to grin back. He has to remember what he’s doing here, why he caught the bus in the first place, and why he’ll now have to walk for an hour to get back to town. He’d better make it worth it.
He tucks the phone into his pocket and leans close, smelling the chlorine on her skin.
‘What do you think of Payne?’ he says.
She looks around, pretending to examine the dust and the dry flat paddocks. ‘Beautiful,’ she says and then turns back to him. Her eyes beam into his like she’s reading his mind. It freaks him out.
‘Yeah? Not as beautiful as you,’ he says and then laughs. ‘Sorry. That sounds like a line.’
She shrugs and he can feel himself being sucked in and under.
‘Isn’t it?’ she says.
‘Is that a new piercing?’ He reaches forward and touches the side of her nose, the tiny stud pressing into his finger.
‘How can you tell?’ says Frankie, stepping back out of his reach.
It’s his turn to shrug. ‘It’s a bit red so it looks new, like when Dad pierced a ring through our bull’s nose.’
Frankie cracks up. Rory joins her, enjoying the feeling that she finds him funny. He’s not, usually.
‘Thanks. You’ve gone from a compliment to telling me I look like a bull!’
Rory smiles and does something rash. He just can’t help himself. He rushes her with a kiss. It’s too quick and he sort of crashes into her, but she doesn’t pull away. In fact, within seconds, she’s kissing him back. It’s not like kissing a girl from around here. It’s different, she’s different and he wonders if he kisses like someone who knows what he’s doing. She breaks off and he can tell she likes him. There’s something about her eyes and the hint of colour on her cheeks.
‘That was quick,’ she says with a smile.
‘Yeah. Well … You coming to the New Year’s Eve party?’ He doesn’t know what to say now he’s kissed her.
‘Maybe. Mack already …’ she trails off.
Hearing Mack’s name, Rory smiles. He hopes Mack’s still around somewhere, spying on them.
‘Mack’ll be busy getting pissed,’ says Rory. ‘Like he does every year. He’s a dick.’
‘So you like him then?’
Rory wonders how much he should say. ‘Nah. It goes way back. We had a fight in primary school and never recovered.’
She smiles like she knows what that means. ‘Maybe we’ll come. Not sure yet,’ she says.
He doesn’t like this maybe business. Anna never says maybe. He wants her to say yes so he kisses her again, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her close, chasing those maybes away the only way he knows how.
Joely can hear her aunt in the kitchen. She’s whistling like she always does. Joely stands at the door, not wanting to go in yet. Thommo offered to take her to Jill, but she told him she was fine on her own. She didn’t want to cry in front of him again.
‘Jill—’ Joely starts walking in but doesn’t get far before bursting into tears.
Jill spins around and takes her in. ‘What happened?’
Joely holds out her hand so Jill can see. ‘We fell off Thommo’s bike. We hit a kangaroo … and he … he had …’
Jill wraps her arms around Joely and pulls her in close. ‘Thommo would have done the right thing. He knows.’
‘Yes …’ manages Joely.
‘Better fix up those knees,’ Her aunt inspects the grazes and then laughs. ‘You look like a little kid,’ she says.
Joely likes the way her aunt laughs instead of lecturing her like her mum would.
Her aunt cocks her head sideways and says, ‘Where’s Frankie?’
Joely wants to answer honestly, but something stops her. ‘She had a few things to do. She’ll be back later.’
Jill nods, like there’s nothing else to say. She reaches up, and pulls open a stiff cupboard door. She slides out a large box, plonks it on the bench and riffles through bandages and bottles.
Joely hasn’t had anyone dab her knees with antiseptic for years. It almost makes her cry again, watching her aunt wipe away the crusty blood and dots of gravel dappled across her skin like constellations.
‘Now, show me that hand,’ says Jill. ‘Is it burnt?’
‘Yes,’ says Joely, imagining her skin peeling off leaving a horrible red scar.
‘It’s just a surface burn. Looks worse than it is.’ Jill kisses her fingers and touches them lightly on the burn.
Her mum would never do something like that. She’d just brush it off and Joely would ramp up how much it hurt because she’d want her mum to notice.
Jill touches her knees gently. ‘There. All finished.’
‘Thanks.’ Joely looks down. She has a little kid’s knees striped with plastic bandaids. She bends her legs, and the bandaids creak with the movement of her skin.
‘Come on,’ says Jill. ‘You can help me take the Chrissy decorations down.’
Walking along the dusty road, Frankie feels her face stinging where Rory kissed her. It will be even worse tomorrow. She hopes she can pass it off as sunburn, but doubts the hickey on her neck will be quite so easy to explain. She wonders what she should say to Joely about it, whether she should tell her. Rory said she shouldn’t, said he could be her summer secret. He even put her number into his phone so he could text her where to meet.
Frankie knows what to do with secrets. She’s Jack’s little secret too. He lives near her in a posh house on the other side of the street. Goes to some fancy school with his tie and his blazer. They meet up sometimes when his mum is out shopping. Frankie only started it with Jack to understand. To try to work out what her mum sees in men. At first Jack was fine with it, but she knows he wants more now. After every time he begs to take her out. But she laughs. A secret is a secret is a secret.
Not even Joely knows.
She was about to tell her friend about Jack. She wanted to share everything, all the bits of her that nobody else knew. But then the school dance happened on that hot Friday night in November. It was meant as an end-of-year celebration to mark their move into senior school. Frankie let Joely bully her into going, even though she had to stay up late fixing one of the old dresses she’d bought from an op shop just so she had something to wear. It started off well with her and Joely laughing and mucking around. Then she went to the toilet while Joely talked to one of the mousy girls she’d known since primary school and the guy who’d been asking her out for weeks grabbed her near the girl’s toilets. He tried to kiss her and she kicked him in the balls. To get her back he told everyone she screwed him in the gym. As if.
Frankie didn’t care about that. Stuff like that was always happening to her. If you move schools enough nothing surprises you. But Joely surprised her when she asked for the details in a little girl’s voice, like she wasn’t old enough to hear it. Frankie shrank that day, like a turtle into a shell.
She’d stopped being angry with Joely now. It’s just the way those girls were, imagining everything to do with sex because they’d never done it. They were obsessed, like her mum was with her new boyfriends each month, hoping each time it would be special. But there was no special. There was just boys. And they grew up. And then they were just men. And they were the same.
She wishes she could tell Joely how a friend means more than all of that other stuff. How she’s enough.
Chapter 13
Joely’s phone rings and she almost chucks it off the bed in fright. Then she snatches it up and answers it without looking because she’s sure it’s Frankie.
‘Joelene,’ says the voice and Joely
shrivels. There’s only one person who calls her that horrible name. She’s tempted to hang up and pretend later that the battery died, but she knows from experience what happens if she makes her mum mad.
‘Hi Mum,’ says Joely.
‘Why haven’t you called me back?’
‘Um, sorry,’ says Joely, trying to think of an excuse. ‘I was helping Jill.’
Her mum sighs. ‘You need to keep your phone with you so you can answer it. That is, after all, what a phone is for.’
Joely hates these sorts of conversations. Just talking to her mum makes her even madder that Frankie isn’t here. If she was then Joely could pull faces and Frankie would laugh and make her feel better. Instead, she feels even more alone.
‘Okay, Mum,’ answers Joely, knowing the only way she’ll ever get rid of her is to agree and apologise and generally behave the way her mum wants her to.
‘I hope you’re not staying up too late or eating too much junk food. That Frankie …’
Joely holds the phone away to avoid hearing the digs. She’s allowed to be cross with Frankie, but her mum isn’t.
‘Joelene!’
Joely moves the phone back to her ear. ‘Sorry, Mum. The reception isn’t very good. You cut out.’
‘Well, I’ll call you tomorrow. And please answer.’
‘Bye.’ Joely hangs up and throws the phone. This is all Frankie’s fault.
Expecting Joely to be up in the kitchen helping Jill, Frankie goes straight in. Instead, she finds Thommo sitting at the table peeling potatoes and laughing with his mum. Frankie hovers, not sure what to do. They haven’t noticed her, but they will any second. Part of her wants to be seen and invited to join in, but the other part just wants to watch, to soak up what it must feel like to have a mum like Jill.
‘Joely’s in her room, love,’ says Jill without looking up. Hardly an invitation and interesting that Jill called it Joely’s room, too. Frankie doesn’t think Jill sounds as friendly as she did yesterday, but maybe she’s just imagining it. Thommo’s watching her now, so she deliberately looks away.
‘Okay, thanks.’
As Frankie walks down the hall to the bedroom, she hears Thommo and Jill laugh, and she feels like she’s that girl starting school with the wrong uniform all over again.
Joely seems to be sleeping. But then one eye opens and Frankie can tell she’s pretending.
‘Hey Joel.’ Frankie sits on the edge of the bed and strokes her friend’s hair.
Joely rolls onto her back and Frankie notices bandaids on her knees and stuff seeping out, colouring her skin red.
‘Oh my God, what happened?’ Frankie hopes Joely’s medical situation will take attention away from the fact that she’s been gone nearly two hours.
‘I fell off Thommo’s bike,’ says Joely in a tiny voice that Frankie’s heard her use on her mum.
‘Oh no!’ says Frankie. ‘Poor Joely!’ She rubs her friend’s shoulder.
‘We hit a kangaroo, Frankie. It was horrible and bloody and messy. Thommo had to kill it with a rock!’
‘Really? Where?’ says Frankie, wondering how bloody and messy it really was. She’s learnt from experience that Joely liked making things worse than they really were.
‘On the road not far from where we left you …’ Joely avoids looking at Frankie, but she’s clearly waiting for information.
Frankie nods. ‘I didn’t see it. I went for a huge walk to get a sense of the place.’ Frankie’s pleased she’s sitting on the right side of the bed so Joely can’t see the hickey on her neck. ‘But I did find some cows. Sorry I took so long.’
‘Oh.’ Joely sinks into her pillow. She looks so relieved that Frankie feels guilty. But she wasn’t actually lying because she did go for a walk and she did find the cows.
‘Were you alone?’ says Joely, looking at the noisy fan struggling to make any difference.
Frankie takes longer than she should to answer because she’s wondering if she should just confess all. She laughs. ‘Yeah! Well, with a few wombats and a kangaroo or two.’
‘Oh, don’t mention kangaroos,’ says Joely grabbing Frankie’s arm. ‘What if the one we hit wasn’t dead? What if we left it there and it was still alive? What if—’
Frankie shakes her head. ‘I’m sure Thommo knew what he was doing.’
Joely nods. ‘That’s what Jill said too. You’re right. I just hate thinking … It’s just like Bluey … Dead things ...’
Even though Joely’s being dramatic, Frankie can kind of understand what she means. That’s why she always says she’s a vegetarian, even though she doesn’t really have a choice at home. If her mum manages to heat some beans, they’re doing well.
‘Oh, I did meet that boy. Rory I think his name was. He told me about the New Year’s Eve party. I reckon we should definitely go. Don’t you?’
Joely looks at her strangely, but Frankie looks straight back and gives her a smile she hopes will stop her friend worrying.
‘Yes. A party might be fun,’ says Joely finally.
‘Well, should we go and help Jill?’ says Frankie liking the idea of hanging out in the kitchen where Joely can’t as easily search her face for lies.
‘Yes,’ says Joely again.
As Frankie stands up, she catches herself in the mirror and sees how red and splotchy her chin is. She can’t believe Joely hasn’t mentioned it. ‘I think I caught a bit of sun,’ she says as a precaution and then opens her drawer to find a scarf. She ties it round her neck, making sure it hides the hickey that she guesses Jill would notice pretty quickly.
‘Come on! Our potatoes await!’
Chapter 14
Joely can’t relax tonight. Even at dinner she sensed something was off. Mack was looking at Frankie, Jill was watching Mack and Thommo hardly spoke. Only Ged was normal. Plus Joely keeps seeing Rory and Frankie together on the road. What if her friend wasn’t telling the truth about where she was? And now Frankie was reading on her bed with her back to Joely in her old singlet and shorts, with a tatty second-hand scarf around her neck. There’s nothing to do and nobody to talk to.
‘I spoke to mum today.’ Joely hears the hum of a mosquito somewhere in their room.
Frankie doesn’t answer and Joely wonders if her friend has fallen asleep.
‘Frank? Did you hear?’ says Joely again. This time Frankie holds up her hand and Joely feels her face heat up and redden. She tries to wish it away, not wanting Frankie to see how put out she feels.
After a second, Frankie rolls over and puts down her book. ‘Sorry, it was the good bit. What did you say?’
Hurt that she has to wait for a page to be read, Joely frowns, tempted not to say anything. But she can’t help it. ‘Mum rang today.’
Frankie groans and it makes Joely smile. ‘Yep, you got it,’ says Joely, loving that her friend just knows.
‘What did she want?’
‘To remind me to eat salad,’ says Joely, wanting to be funny. Frankie rewards her with a smile but then picks up her book again. Joely panics, trying to think of something to say to keep Frankie interested. All she can come up with is, ‘It’s too hot in here tonight.’
Frankie shrugs. ‘It’s okay if you lie still. You just need a book. Something that will distract you.’ Frankie turns a page.
‘I think I’ll go for a walk and see what it’s like outside,’ says Joely, hoping that she won’t have to go alone, but not wanting to ask for company either.
‘Okay. I might be asleep,’ says Frankie, rolling back over.
It takes Joely’s brain a few seconds to register that Frankie isn’t interested in coming with her. But now she’s announced her plan, she has no choice but to go with it. She stands up and makes as much noise as she can looking for her thongs. Hopefully if she interrupts her, Frankie will realise she wants to come for a walk after all. But after picking up and dropping he
r thongs three times, it’s clear that Frankie’s in a reading bubble and nothing Joely can do will drag her out. She hopes the mosquito bites Frankie and not her tonight.
Outside it still feels like forty degrees. There are stars everywhere. Joely can hear her cousins in the shed, laughing, and she likes their happiness. Maybe they get along better when there’s no one else around.
As she passes Jill’s herb garden, she leans down and breaks off a couple of flowers, careful to take one from each plant and not six from the one. Her thongs flap loudly against the gravel path and she slips them off as she creeps along the side of the house, hiding behind the trees so her aunt won’t spy her through the window. Her foot lands in something wet and soft. She almost yells, but stops herself and ducks into the darkness, hoping they won’t hear her beating heart. She starts walking again, wiping away the wetness on the path.
As Joely heads towards the dusty road, her knee stings as the bandaids pull across her skin. She sees the paddock where Bluey used to live. If he were still here, she could lean against the fence and stroke him. Joely wonders why her mum didn’t tell her about Bluey. She knew what he meant to Joely. She was even there when Joely saw Bluey being born. Bluey’s mum had died during the birth, and the only way to keep him alive was if someone fed him every few hours. Joely took on the job, staying up most nights, and even named him after seeing his blue oxygen-starved skin. It was the first word that popped into her head. Nobody thought he’d live. But he did and Joely believed she’d saved him. Now he was dead, just like the kangaroo.
The moon is full tonight so the tyre tracks of Thommo’s motorbike are marked in the light like a beacon. She walks along them, enjoying the heat of the ground under her bare feet, flinching only when small stones dig into her skin. Once, when she was young, she spent three months on the farm and her feet toughened each day. By the time she went home she hadn’t worn shoes for weeks and could stand on the small prickles in her parents’ garden. But now it hurts where her thongs have rubbed between her toes, and her knee has started to throb again. She should have brought her old thongs with her, not these new ones with their hard rubber.
