Things I Don't Know

by Meredith Badger

  ‘Um, no, it’s okay,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, come on. It’ll be fun!’ Jo jumps up and grabs something from a box. ‘We could practise on these,’ she says, and she chucks me a huge white teddy with a spotty bow tie. It looks like the sort you can win at a fair by knocking over cans with a foam ball. Maybe Jo’s boyfriend won it for her. The teddy has got beady little eyes and he’s made from super-white fake-fur material, like the trim on a department store Santa’s costume.

  ‘I dunno,’ I say, inspecting the bear doubtfully. ‘I’m not really into dudes who shed.’

  ‘Want to swap then?’ asks Jo. She’s holding up a soft toy pig with crossed eyes and a sticky-out tongue.

  ‘Guess I’ll stick with the bear,’ I say, laughing.

  Jo gets me to stand up and hold the giant teddy up in front of me. I feel pretty stupid but I do it anyway. ‘So, right now you have to imagine that I’ve got my arms around some really gorgeous guy, okay?’ Jo says. I wonder if she’s done this before — taught someone how to kiss using teddies, that is. I do what she says.

  ‘Now,’ Jo continues, ‘you can either wrap your arms around the person’s back or rest your hands on their shoulders. Or you can put one hand at the back of their head. Like this.’ She adjusts her position so that one of her hands is resting behind the pig’s head.

  ‘Wow, you ARE an expert!’ I say, making my eyes all big and wide. Then I grin. ‘At cross-eyed pig kissing, anyway.’

  Jo donks me on the head with the pig. ‘Listen, you! You’re not taking this seriously.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘It just feels too stupid to do it with these soft toys.’

  Jo frowns in this thoughtful way and then she picks up something from the top of her chest of drawers. It’s a mirror — a round one with a long wooden handle. ‘Well, let’s try this instead,’ she says. She holds the mirror up in front of her. ‘The first thing you need to remember about kissing is that you have to tilt your head so your noses don’t hit.’

  ‘How do you decide which way to tilt your head?’ I ask.

  ‘Don’t worry so much about it,’ says Jo. ‘The head-tilting stuff just kind of happens.’ She leans towards the mirror and her head tilts towards her left shoulder. ‘See? You try.’

  My head goes the same way as Jo’s.

  ‘You’ve got it!’ says Jo.

  ‘But what if the other person tilts their head to the right?’ I ask. ‘Do your noses bash? That would be pretty awkward.’

  Jo thinks about this for a moment. ‘I guess it’d mean that one of you would have to start tilting the other way. But I don’t think it’s ever a big problem.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Anything else I need to know?’

  ‘Well, most people close their eyes when they’re kissing,’ says Jo. ‘I guess because they sort of lose themselves in it.’ Losing yourself in a kiss sounds pretty nice. Like something I’d like to try. But I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get lost in a kiss with a moulting teddy bear or a mirror.

  ‘Then you just lean in and press your lips against theirs,’ says Jo. ‘Don’t press too hard, though. Your lips need to stay soft and a little bit puffy. Open your mouth just a little bit too. Like this.’

  Jo closes her eyes then, and with slightly parted lips she presses her head forward and kisses the mirror. She holds the kiss there for a few seconds then pulls away and looks at me. ‘See?’ she says. ‘Easy.’

  ‘What about — you know — tongues?’ I say. ‘Isn’t it totally gross to stick your tongue in someone’s mouth?’

  ‘I know it sounds gross,’ agrees Jo, ‘but it’s actually nice — I mean, if you really like the person.’ She scrunches her nose, thinking. ‘I’ll have to come up with a way to show you — it won’t work with a mirror, obviously.’

  Then she hands the mirror to me. ‘Your turn. Come on — the mirror will feel rejected if you don’t hurry up.’

  I take the mirror. The print of Jo’s kiss shimmers in the middle of the glass. ‘You’d better not be filming with that!’ I say, nodding at the open laptop. ‘If this ends up on YouTube, my life is over.’

  Jo reaches over and closes the laptop. ‘No filming, I promise,’ she says. She grabs my hands and pulls me out of the chair so that I’m standing in the middle of the room with her. ‘I did it, so you can too.’

  So I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and tilt my head and I plant a kiss on the mirror.

  I don’t lose myself in the kiss. All I get is cold lips and the fright of my life when someone suddenly knocks on the door.

  ‘Leni!’ It’s Sandy’s voice. ‘Your mum’s here.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. Thanks,’ I call back, my voice all squeaky with fright.

  I wasn’t expecting Mum to come into Jo’s house. My plan was that I’d call her when I was ready to go and then I’d wait for her out the front. I guess I didn’t really want her to meet Jo’s mums. Not yet at least. Not until I got a chance to tell her about them myself first. The thing about my mum is that she has this way of letting every little thought or feeling show on her face. So I guess I’m a bit worried that when she meets Tina and Sandy she’ll look surprised or shocked or something.

  But when Jo and I walk into the lounge room, Mum’s sitting there on the sofa with her own thimble of tea, chatting happily with Tina and Sandy. She’s obviously just come from the shop and there’s flour all over her jeans and a grease stain on her shirt but she still looks beautiful and totally at ease. I feel proud of her. And really relieved too.

  ‘Sorry I’m early, Leni,’ she says. ‘It was quicker to get here than I thought. Did you get your work done?’

  ‘Well, no,’ I say and then stop, unsure what to say next. Definitely not I got distracted kissing a mirror.

  ‘It’s a bigger job than we thought,’ says Jo, smoothly. ‘We’ll have to finish it another day.’

  ‘You’re welcome here anytime, Leni,’ says Tina. ‘And you too, Paula. I’d like to talk to you about Pie High doing some catering for my office.’

  ‘Sounds great!’ says Mum, smiling as she stands up.

  Jo, Tina and Sandy wave goodbye to us from the front doorway and as we’re walking down the street to where Mum’s parked the car, I put my arm around her waist and give her a hug. ‘Thanks for being so cool,’ I say to her. ‘You know. About Sandy and Tina.’

  Mum squeezes me back. ‘Sandy and Tina are a lovely couple,’ she says. Then she grins. ‘And they’ve obviously got great taste if they like our pies so much.’

  For the rest of the week Mum goes into hyper-stress mode about Nana’s visit. Every time I poke my head in the spare room I notice she’s added some extra little thing — a framed picture of some fruit on the wall, a couple of books on the bedside table, a lace doily on top of the chest of drawers.

  Then she goes around tidying up the whole house — even the cupboards and stuff, like Nana is actually going to open up and check how neat they are. Although with Nana I guess that’s a possibility.

  I don’t make it around to Jo’s place again that week, but we spend one lunchtime in the school computer lab. This time the computer works okay, and we make a bit of progress on the flyer.

  I go to aths training on Thursday afternoon and while Adam is still friendly there’s something different about him. He seems edgy. I notice he doesn’t stand near me — he always makes sure that Josh is standing between us, like a buffer or a bodyguard. It’s like he’s suddenly scared of me. I decide to ignore it. I can’t be bothered dealing with his weirdness at the moment. I figure he’ll get over it eventually, whatever it is.

  Saturday comes quickly. I wake up knowing this is the day Nana is arriving. I lie in bed for a few minutes getting myself mentally ready, just like I do before a race. I tell myself that it’ll all be fine. It’s been six months since I last saw Nana. People can change heaps in that time. Plus she’s been sick. I’ve heard that being sick can sometimes change people. Mellow them a little.

  When I go to the kitchen Mum’s in there, cleaning the
outside of the fridge, which is already perfectly clean. ‘Where’s Dad?’ I ask.

  ‘He’s gone to the airport to collect your nana,’ says Mum, straightening the tea-towels hanging from the rail on the oven door. ‘They should be back by now,’ she adds. ‘I hope there hasn’t been a problem.’

  I stare at her. ‘Are you wearing make-up?’

  Mum laughs nervously and her cheeks go even pinker than they already are from the make-up. ‘I do wear it occasionally, Leni,’ she says.

  ‘Yeah, but never on a Saturday morning,’ I point out.

  ‘Today I felt like it,’ says Mum. Then she smiles at me and straight away I know she’s going to say something I don’t like. ‘I thought you might wear a skirt today, honey. That one with the flowers.’ She says it like I have a whole heap of skirts hanging in my wardrobe, instead of just the one she’s describing. We bought it during our last visit to Nana’s place on what was supposed to be a bonding shopping trip.

  ‘It’s probably too short for me now,’ I say.

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ says Mum. ‘I’ll make you some breakfast while you get ready. Nana will be here soon.’

  With a loud and meaningful sigh I traipse back to my room, open my wardrobe door and yank the skirt from its hanger. It still fits — just — around the waist but, as I predicted, it’s really short. And not cool short. Stupid short. But just as I return to the kitchen to show Mum how dumb the skirt looks, Dad’s car pulls into the driveway and Nana is here. So now I’m trapped in the skirt. Great.

  Mum rushes to the front door and a moment later Nana sweeps through, arms outstretched and slightly raised. It’s easy for her to raise arms like this because Dad is carrying all her luggage. She doesn’t look sick at all. She doesn’t look like she’s mellowed either.

  Mum hugs her and gives her a kiss. ‘Hello, Mum,’ she says, smiling.

  Nana kisses her back. Then she pats Mum’s hips with her hands. ‘Look at you!’ she says. ‘You’re so … cuddly, darling! Must be all those pies!’ Then she laughs, like it’s a big funny joke.

  I notice that Mum doesn’t laugh, though.

  No-one has actually told me that Nana doesn’t approve of the pie shop, but it’s pretty obvious. Last time we were at her place — when the shop hadn’t even opened yet — she kept giving Mum these newspaper articles about people who’d lost their houses and their life savings starting up small businesses that didn’t work out. ‘It’s just such a risk, darling,’ she kept saying. Sometimes she’d ramp it up by shaking her head and adding, ‘Your father would be so disappointed that you’re wasting your intellect this way. All those years at uni just to end up working behind a counter.’

  I dunno. Maybe she is genuinely worried about Mum not using her brain or about her losing her life savings. But I can’t help wondering if this just feels like something she can’t boast to her friends about. Mum working as a lawyer in a prestigious law firm? Lots to boast about there. Mum working in a pie shop — even if she and Dad are the owners? Not so much. Whenever I speak to her on the phone she always manages to slip in something like, ‘Has your mother gone back to her real job yet?’

  ‘How was the flight?’ Mum asks.

  ‘A nightmare!’ says Nana, massaging her forehead with one hand. ‘The airline staff are so rude these days.’

  ‘They were rude to you?’ says Mum.

  ‘Horribly rude,’ says Nana. ‘They even threatened to throw me off the flight.’

  Dad finally makes it through the door with Nana’s stuff. ‘Did you tell them why, Angela?’ he says. He looks at Mum. ‘They caught her smoking in the toilets.’

  Mum looks horrified. ‘Mum! You didn’t!’

  ‘The plane hadn’t even taken off,’ says Nana. ‘Honestly, I don’t know what all the fuss was about.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to be smoking at all,’ says Mum. ‘The doctors said you had to give up, remember?

  ‘That was my last one, darling,’ says Nana. ‘I give you my word. Now, where are those grandchildren of mine?’

  ‘Hi, Nana,’ I say. Nana leans in to kiss me and I can smell smoke wrapped around her like a scarf.

  ‘You’ve grown, Helena, darling,’ she says, looking at the way-too-short and way-too-tight skirt. She says it like I’ve done it deliberately — just so the skirt won’t fit.

  ‘Leni’s got lots to tell you,’ says Mum, putting an arm around me. ‘She’s doing really well with her …’

  But just then Marcus walks into the room and Mum and I may as well have just exploded into little piles of dust. Nana shrieks in delight and kisses him loudly on both cheeks. ‘Marcus! You’re even more handsome than the last time I saw you!’ she says. ‘And more intelligent!’ I’m not sure how she can tell this just by looking at him.

  ‘It’s great that you’re here, Nana,’ says Marcus, kissing her back. ‘I’ll see you later on.’ He picks up his laptop bag, which is leaning against the wall, and slings it onto his shoulder.

  ‘You’re going out?’ says Nana, her face falling.

  Marcus pulls this I’m sorry too face. ‘I’ve got to go to the library,’ he says as he slips out through the front door.

  Marcus should join the circus. His act could be: Man Who Escapes From Doing Stuff He Doesn’t Want To Do And Never Gets In Trouble For It!

  Mum links her arm through Nana’s. ‘Let me show you your room,’ she says. I can tell she’s excited about showing it to Nana. I help Dad with Nana’s stuff and we follow them down the hallway and into the ‘guest room’. Any normal person would take one look at the room and see how much effort has gone into it. They’d notice the new quilt cover and the matching curtains and the big bunch of flowers and the rug — which I suddenly realise is my rug — on the floor. But all Nana says is, ‘Well, it’s a little poky, but I’m sure I’ll survive.’

  I will Mum to say something then. To tell Nana how much effort she’s gone to. But she doesn’t. Her face falls for a moment and then the bright smile returns. I think about telling Nana myself about all the work Mum’s done, but I’d probably just get in trouble.

  Mum puts one of Nana’s suitcases flat on the ground. ‘I’ll help you unpack your things,’ is all she says.

  ‘We can do that later,’ says Nana. ‘What I need right now is a cup of tea.’ She opens her handbag — which Dad has placed on the bed — and produces a little box of tea.

  ‘We have tea, you know!’ Mum laughs.

  ‘I brought my own,’ Nana explains. ‘I know you’re penny-pinching at the moment but I can’t abide cheap tea.’

  Mum takes the box. Her face has gone kind of stiff. ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on,’ she says, turning and walking off down the hallway.

  ‘And darling?’ Nana calls. ‘Perhaps after that we can find some thicker curtains for the windows. These ones will let in all the morning light.’

  While Mum, Dad and Nana have a cup of tea and I have water, Mum talks about how wonderful it is Nana’s finally here and how we’ll do lots of outings when Nana’s feeling strong enough and have lots of family dinners.

  ‘Don’t forget I’m going to Anya’s for a DVD night tonight,’ I say to Mum.

  Straight away Nana’s eyebrows disappear up into her hairline and she turns to my mum. ‘Paula! We must all eat together. It’s my first night here.’

  Mum kind of hesitates and I feel a little panicky. She’s not going to tell me I can’t go, is she? Then Mum meets my eyes and nods slowly. ‘Of course you can go, honey,’ she says. She turns to Nana and says, ‘It’s a special occasion — a birthday party. It’d be rude if we cancelled it.’ I stare at Mum in surprise. Is she lying to Nana? She seems to be deliberately not looking at me. ‘But don’t worry, Mum,’ she adds. ‘We’ll have plenty of dinners together.’

  Nana purses her lips, but doesn’t say anything else about it and when she isn’t looking I give Mum the most massive grin possible. She smiles back at me, looking a little guilty. I can’t quite believe that Mum lied to Nana like that �
� but I’m totally glad she did.

  When my friends and I have a DVD night we never actually watch a DVD. Or at least, not the whole way through. There’s always someone talking or going to top up the snack supply or using their phone or jumping up to look up something on the computer. Dad says we’re like octopuses, except with eight attention spans instead of eight legs, all focused on different things. Tonight we’re not even past the opening credits when Anya does one of her weird, explosive laugh-snorts that makes me and Sophie jump.

  ‘Oh my god, I totally forgot to tell you guys!’ she says. ‘I’ve got another episode of Max and Carolyn for you.’ Soph and I exchange a look. Anya’s older sister Carolyn has been going out with Max for almost six months and Anya likes to keep us updated on how things are progressing — in graphic detail.

  The Max and Carolyn stories are always pretty much the same. Max and Carolyn sneak off to Carolyn’s room when Anya’s mum isn’t there and shut the door. Then Anya waits a few minutes before barging in and catching Max and Carolyn kissing on the bed. She always does this big mime at the end — pretending to kiss someone, rolling around and moaning and hamming it up, Anya-style. It was funny the first few times, but today I start feeling yuck about it. Anya shouldn’t be watching her sister like this. She shouldn’t be acting it out for her friends either.

  As usual, Soph says out loud what I’m thinking. ‘Don’t you feel bad about spying on your sister?’ says Soph.

  Anya looks annoyed. ‘It’s not spying!’ she retorts. ‘Anyway, I happen to know Carolyn reads my diary, so this makes us even.’ Anya slouches down in the sofa. She seems to have forgotten about the story. A moment later she turns to me. ‘So did you ask him?’ she says.

  ‘Ask who?’ I say, although I’m pretty sure I know what she means.

  Anya looks impatient. ‘Did you ask Adam whether he likes me or not?’