Now Leaving Sugartown

by Carmen Jenner

  She folds her arms over her chest as she stands before me, demanding the answers I have no desire to give her. “What are you doing here, Pepper?”

  “Nice to see you too, Holly.”

  “It’s Mum. And what the hell happened to your hair? Last time I saw you it was blue.”

  I shrug and fiddle with an empty stubbie. “Changed it.”

  “You wanna tell me why there’s an ice-cream van eating up my lawn?

  “I borrowed it.” I shrug. She may be a teeny, tiny little thing, but nothing makes me feel smaller than my mother’s prudent stare. “I needed a ride home.”

  “Home? You haven’t been back home since you left for Melbourne. And what do you mean you borrowed it?”

  “You know what, I didn’t come here for an interrogation. I’m not really sure why I thought this was such a good idea anyway. I’ll just head back to Sydney and see if the wicked step-mother will let me stay at Cooper’s house. At least then I’d be able to find a decent coffee.”

  Holly’s expression softens and she shakes her head. “It’s not that I’m not glad to have you back, baby, it’s just a shock seeing you here. What happened to Melbourne? What happened to Sting?”

  “Stieg, his name is Stieg. Like the writer?”

  “Stieg, Sting, same thing. What happened to him?”

  “Nothing. I imagine he’s back in our apartment, wondering why the hell I haven’t come home for two days.” I avert my gaze again and gather up the mess I’ve made, carrying it to the kitchen. “Or not.”

  “Well, I hated the little punk-arse bastard, so I’m not in the least bit disappointed you left, but you really do need to stop running out on men in the middle of the night. Poor Sammy never recovered.”

  I make a loud scoffing sound in the back of my throat. “He looks just fine, Hols.”

  Holly abandons her search through the shopping bags and turns to face me. I don’t think I like the excited gleam in her eyes. “You’ve seen him?”

  “I may have run into him on my way back into town.”

  “And what exactly did he say?” She prods at my side with a tiny, perfectly manicured finger.

  “You know Sammy; he’s a man of few words.”

  “He’s not dating anyone, you know.”

  “He’s not my type.”

  “Funny. He was your type for the first eighteen years of your life.”

  “Yes, and I grew up.”

  “You did?” Holly turns to me with a sly smile before stacking the groceries in the fridge. “When exactly did that happen?”

  “Funny.” I roll my eyes and then turn to rinse my hands in the sink.

  “So how’s the tattoo business coming?”

  “It’s not. Not really.”

  Holly arches her brow and gives me that yes and look that mother’s everywhere have mastered since the beginning of time.

  “I don’t know, most guys don’t really like the idea of chick inflicting pain on them. I’m a better artist than all of the guys in the shop combined, but I get stuck doing the shitty little dolphin and butterfly tattoos. I needed the extra money that the ice-cream van brought in, or was supposed to bring in.”

  “And what exactly was Stieg doing while you were working two jobs?”

  “Band practise, a couple of gigs here and there …” I shrug. “Who cares? He’s an arsehole and I’m done with him.”

  “Well at least you’re making sound decisions now,” Holly folds her arms and leans against the counter. “How long are you planning on staying in town?”

  “Jeez, Hols, way to make me feel welcome much?”

  “I just want to know if you’re interested in picking up some shifts at the diner? Ana’s a person short, and Kristine’s working the office with me these days. We’ve been alternating between covering the diner and business and it’s wearing the both of us down.”

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

  “Pepper, are you still taking—”

  “Meds? Yeah, Mum. I’m still drugged up to the eyeballs. Don’t worry—I’m not going to flip out again.”

  My mother throws her hands up in a warding gesture. Her expression softens as she smiles at me. “I’m not nagging. I’m just worried about you.”

  “Well, I’m fine. My doctor is on top of it, and I haven’t had an episode since that last time.”

  “You mean three days after you left Sam?”

  “No, I mean three days after I left Sugartown. Sam had nothing to do with it.” I sigh, wondering why we have to have this conversation every few months. Holly knows why I had to leave, but that doesn’t stop her from laying on the guilt pretty thick. “Now, can I borrow fifty bucks?”

  “Why? Where are you going?”

  “It’s a Friday night, Mum. To Dave’s. Where the hell else would I be going?”

  She pulls two twenties from her wallet and hands them to me, only she doesn’t let go of the bills straight away. “That’s all I have on me. Are you sure it’s wise to be drinking with your medication?”

  “I’ll stick to Diet Coke,” I say, snatching the money from her hand faster than a stripper after a lap dance.

  “Forty bucks worth of Diet Coke?” Holly shakes her head. “Why don’t you just get Dave to install an intravenous drip?”

  I take my time in the shower, letting the hot water scald the feeling from my skin. Once I’m done, I put on my shortest Iron Fist skirt, heels, and a tight black singlet that shows off my cleavage. It also exposes my sleeve of tattoos and the ones below my collarbones. I take a little extra time primping with hair and makeup. I apply false lashes and my signature red lipstick, just as I would if I were going out to see a band in Fitzroy with Stieg.

  When I’m done, I stand back from the mirror and scrutinise every inch of my face. I’m satisfied with the bombshell I see staring back, but my reflection can’t hide the girl inside me that’s screaming to get out. She never really goes away. The drugs keep her safely locked in her cage, but sometimes, when my head is quiet, I can hear her silent screams again, and I feel the sharp bite of pain in her body as she thrashes in her pretty prison. It’s moments like those that make me want to pick up the phone and call him, or hop a bus, or steal an ice-cream van and drive for two days straight just to get home. It’s moments like those that make me want to run into his arms and have him make it all better again, the way he used to. It’s moments like those when I feel alone, and homesick for something other than this shitty little town that makes me relive every mistake that stupid, messed-up girl ever made.

  I stare at my reflection. She begins to thrash against the bars, screaming to be released, and then I shut her up by swallowing two little white pills with a Jack Daniel’s chaser and pretend like I’m not dying inside as I wait for the pills to quiet the noise in my head.

  JAKE THROWS back another shot and slams his glass on the scratched table. “I’m telling you, man, it’s the fucking quiet ones you have to watch.”

  “That so?” I ask, though truth be told I have absolutely no interest in continuing this conversation. I’d really rather forget about the date I just agreed to with Olivia Michaels, because sick, twisted fuck that I am, I can’t get a certain Harajuku-loving, ice-cream van wielding maniac out of my head. I line up my next shot and gently tap the pool cue at the white ball. It rolls across the green and nudges the black, sending it home into the corner pocket.

  “Naw, shit. You did that deliberately, didn’t you? Talking about Olivia so I’d lose my focus. My cock’s gonna bust out of my pants and take out every vagina in a sixty-kilometre radius.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly why I told you about my date with the hot librarian. Because I wanted your man meat to beat every woman in town to death,” I deadpan. “It’s your shout, dickhead.”

  “Yeah, yeah, keep your knickers on, Belle. You want another beer?”

  I nod and rack the balls again. “Thanks.”

  Jake turns toward the bar but stops dead in his tracks. “Well fuck me in the arse on a motherfuc
king Sunday.”

  “Er thanks … but I’d really rather not.”

  “Dude, punch me in the face.”

  “What?” I glance up from the pool table and stare at Jake, dumbfounded.

  “I just died and went to fucking heaven.” I follow his line of sight and see her, the little pink-haired minx I’ve been trying to forget all day.

  “I’m going over there.”

  “Please don’t,” I say, closing my eyes and exhaling. Slowly. I don’t wanna have to go to prison for beating my best mate to within an inch of his life, but I will if I have to.

  “Please don’t? Fuck you, Amigo. That right there is grade-fucking-A pussy, and my cock is gonna be buried balls’ deep inside it before the night is through.”

  Pepper leans over the bar to talk to Dave and I catch sight of a set of matching tattoos on the backs of her thighs, just below her arse. In the dimly lit pub, it’s hard to make out exactly what they are, but my cock goes from flaccid to rock hard in zero-point-five seconds. Mercy fucking me do I wanna run my tongue over that ink, and the indent between her arse cheek and thigh.

  Fuck. This is Pepper we’re talking about. And she may be legal, but she’s still as off-limits now as she was back when she was flashing her newly-developed tits at me down by the creek all those years ago.

  “Oh fuck, man. Did you see that?” Jake makes a fist and bites down on his index finger. “That arse, the perfectly rounded globes of her arse. I gotta bite it. I gotta go over there and introduce her grade-A pussy to my cock.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, man.”

  “What? Why the hell not?”

  Because she hates your arse. Always has.

  “She’s outta your league.”

  He laughs. “Fifty bucks says I’m pounding my monster meat into that delectable arse before the night’s through.”

  “A hundred says you’re going home alone and jacking off to those fucking sick Asian bunny-girl videos you enjoy so much.”

  “Done,” he says, and thrusts his hand under my nose. I shake it enthusiastically. Easiest hundred bucks I ever made. And yeah, I feel the smallest stab of remorse knowing I’m leading him directly into a trap. But Jake deserves it, after all the shit he’s put Pepper through over the years. That’s why it’s going to be fun to watch her hand him his arse. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a sex kitten to tame.”

  I can’t help but laugh at his stupidity. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

  As I watch him slink up to the bar alongside her I rack the pool cue, forgetting the game. There are only so many times you can kick Jake’s arse in pool before it becomes a waste of expended energy. Instead, I drift closer to them.

  He leans back against the bar, winking at me as he moves in and whispers something in her ear. I want to know what he says because a heartbeat passes and then another, and she raises her shot glass and salutes him with it.

  That is not the response I expected.

  I wanted her to jump up and down, to throw her drink in his face, to die of laughter from his terrible choice of pick-up lines, but she doesn’t do any of those things. She sits still as he leans in again, this time whispering closer to her ear.

  I find myself moving on autopilot. One minute I’m halfway across the room, the next I’m standing beside them and Jake is sending me furious glances. His eyes tell me to fuck off, they scream that I’m encroaching on his territory, and I guess he would see it that way because he doesn’t know who she is. He doesn’t know he’s encroaching on mine, because this is Pepper Ryan-Harris-Rowe, and as much as she’s always been a part of me, she’s also always been my only weakness.

  I don’t know how to say no to her. I don’t know because I never have. Not even when we were down by the lake and she took off her bikini top and threw herself at me. I didn’t say no then, but she more than likely took my horrified expression for a negative response. I wasn’t horrified because Pepper was throwing herself at me. I was horrified because I was afraid of what it made me. I was afraid that I was a twenty-two-year-old man and she was a sixteen-year-old girl who’d grown up with me like a sister, and I wanted to do all manner of unspeakable things to her as she waded in the water in front of me, the hot summer sun beating down on her red hair, the water beading on her skin. I wanted to lick it off, to touch her, and taste her. I wanted her, bad. I wanted her, and that was wrong. Just like it is now.

  “I’m not going to sleep with you, Jake.” Pepper’s words pull me from my thoughts. Like a fucking douchebag, I stare at her. Pepper stares back. We share a moment. To outsiders it’s just two strangers meeting, two people sharing a smile and a few flirtatious glances, but we both know it’s more. No. It must be as obvious to outsiders as it is to us because in my peripheral, Jake’s head swivels in my direction and then in hers, and it swings back again.

  “Do you two know each other?” he asks.

  “We used to—”

  “Bathe naked together.” I finish for her with a wry smile, knowing instinctively what she was about to say, because it’s what I would have said. Which makes me wonder whether she suddenly feels as filthy dirty and desperately in need of a bath as I do right now.

  I think about that. I think long and hard about Pepper naked in my claw-foot tub until I become long and hard inside my jeans and I have to break eye contact so I don’t prop her up on the bar and bury my cock inside of her in front of Dave and all his patrons.

  Jake leans into me, and whispers harshly, “Dude, what the fuck? You’re completely cock-blocking me, man.”

  “Sammy’s not cock-blocking you, Jake. You’ve done a good enough job of that yourself for the last ten years, and trust me when I say that I would never, ever let you within a hundred feet of my pussy, much less make it wet.” She slams back the bright red shot in front of her, which if I know Jake at all, and I’m pretty sure I do, is a wet pussy. It’s like his opener: “Dave, I’ll have a beer and a wet pussy for the lady.” He’s a fucking moron. What’s worse still is that more often than not, that line actually works.

  “No fucking way. No fucking way. No. Fucking. Way,” Jake chants as he props his elbows on the bench and buries his face in his hands. “This is not happening. This can’t be. You’re not …”

  “I wish I could say it’s nice to see you again, Jakey. But it’s really … not.”

  “You arsehole. The emo ranga grew up. She grew up and turned into that”—He gestures wildly to her body—“and you didn’t wanna warn me what the fuck I was walking into?”

  “I figured she kind of deserved to get a little payback,” I say, winking at Pepper before turning my attention back to Jake. “You were a cunt to her all those years.”

  “This cannot be happening. I’m being Punk’d, aren’t I? I’m being punished for all those times I stole smokes from Looks Both Ways when he wasn’t looking.” Hearing his name, Looks Both Ways—a practically ancient bar fly with a very unfortunate case of Strabismus—swivels in his seat to glare at us, or perhaps he’s staring at the floor and ceiling. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

  “I’m being punished for all the times I’ve peed all over the floor in a drunken stupor in Dave’s bathroom,” Jake continues, oblivious to the death stares Looks Both Ways and Dave are giving him. “I’m … fuck me … I have a fucking boner for the crazy emo ranga.” Jake lurches away from the bar, but I swing my arm out and thump his chest with my fist. He glares down at my outstretched palm.

  “Deal’s a deal.”

  “Come on, man. I just found out this fine piece of arse is the little ranga fangirl who used to follow us around for years. Cut me some slack.”

  “You’re lucky she’s not punching you in the face right now. That’s all the slack I’m willing to give you.”

  “Fine.” He fishes his wallet out from his pocket, slapping the notes in my hand before walking off, muttering about how his entire existence just imploded.

  “You bet on whether or not I’d be a sure thing for Jake?” Pepper asks.
She doesn’t looked pissed; instead, her brow arches with curiosity, and she has a bright inquisitive gleam to her eyes.

  “We made a wager,” I say with a grin, signalling Dave for my usual and downing half of it the second he sets it on the bar. “He bet he’d be buried balls’ deep inside you before the end of the night, and I bet you’d be handing him his arse before he walked away with his tail between his legs.”

  She glances down at the notes in my hand. “And you came out a hundred dollars richer?”

  “I did,” I say, tossing back my Jack and Coke.

  “Then you can buy me a drink,” she says. I stare at the tiny diamond piercing above her lip. I have this insane desire to lick it. I don’t, of course. Instead, I pull a stool up beside her and signal Dave for a round of drinks. He’s older than my dad, and has endured two hip replacements. Jake and I and a couple others around town took over for him until he’d made a full recovery. He’s been back on his feet for two years, but he’s slower than before, and walks with a limp. He’s still just as fucking ornery as he ever was, so it’s good to know some things never change.

  “What’s your poison, Pepper?”

  “Same as it’s always been,” she says, giving me a smile that makes me want to whip out my cock and offer that to her instead, but as usual, I smile back and try to ignore the pathetic way my heart responds to her taunts. “JD and Coke.”

  A few minutes later, Dave sets our drinks down on the bar and yanks the cash from my hand. “So, what brings you home after all this time?”

  “You’re not still bitter are you, Sammy?”

  “I’m not bitter. Bitter would imply that I gave two fucks, and that shit was a long time ago,” I say, and yeah, I’m kind of an arsehole for revelling in the fact that my words made her flinch. “And it’s Sam, now.”

  “Aww, that’s cute. You get all bent out of shape with the use of your old nickname. You’ll always be little Sammy Belle to me.”