Mine First

by A. J. Marchant

  ‘It’s rude to barge into people’s houses like that, you know?’

  Ignoring her, Beanie balanced along the edge of the bench, showing off, nudging his way under her arm and jumping up onto the windowsill in the corner. He sat there, eyes closed, tail flicking, white fur glowing in the warming sunlight.

  She chatted to the cat as she washed the dishes, told him about the panther and how it was real, how she’d seen it up close, but she couldn’t tell anyone; she’d promised Addy she wouldn’t, to keep the animal safe.

  ‘Addy would understand, right? That I’m just trying to keep her safe too?’

  Beanie purred, but Lori hadn’t really been talking to him, anyway.

  Footsteps above reminded Lori she wasn’t home alone. The clock on the oven told her she’d better get a move on; she had to make a detour to her office before heading to the clinic. Someone had written a note on the flyer she’d put up by the coffee kiosk saying they’d seen the runaway boy, a phone number and address scrawled underneath.

  Lori had called the number and talked to a guy who then transferred her to the landlord who said the boy had lived there with a bunch of older guys for a few months before they all moved on, and that he’d left behind a few things that were now boxed up if the mother wanted to come and pick them up.

  The landlord had paid little attention when he was packing up the place, but he said there were a pile of paperbacks, and that a few handwritten pages had fallen out of one of them. It looked like a letter, left behind. The landlord had no qualms about giving the mother the forwarding address they’d left.

  It was rare that Lori got the chance to do something hopeful in these types of circumstances, and she was excited to share the news with the mother who was coming into the clinic to volunteer.

  She finished the dishes and drained the sink, dried her hands on the tea towel. ‘Time to go, Bean.’

  Beanie dug in, and Lori had to pull him off the windowsill and carry him back to the open window. Stubborn, he meowed, pushing back when she tried to guide him through the gap.

  ‘You can’t stay here. I’m about to go out and your dad will be looking for you.’

  ‘Are you talking to a cat?’

  Lori startled and Beanie slipped outside, jumping down from the windowsill with a thud.

  Em stood in the doorway, a fingernail picking at a divot in the frame. ‘Want some help today? I can get Teddy to run training.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah, I could do with a break. I think all the chlorine fumes are fogging up my brain.’

  It was Em’s poor attempt at an apology. But Lori was used to it. ‘Okay. But I need to swing by the office on the way so we have to leave soon.’

  Emmie rubbed her face into a smile. ‘You should get that window fixed.’ And she jogged back up the stairs to get ready.

  25

  CAUGHT UP IN conversation, Lori noticed nothing out of the ordinary until she reached out to put the key into the lock. Her office door was open, just a little, and the lights were blazing through the glass. It was early on a Sunday morning. No one else was around. The hallway was empty, the other offices silent, dark and locked up tight.

  Lori checked the door, seeing nothing amiss. The handle and lock were intact. Em pushed the door the rest of the way open and Lori scanned the room. Nothing looked out of place. No empty holes where something used to be.

  ‘Is there anything missing?’

  ‘Not that I can tell. But there’s nothing in here worth stealing, anyway. Probably just the cleaning staff forgot to shut the door, or something.’ Lori was rationalising; she’d never known the cleaners to leave a door open, or even unlocked, and they definitely wouldn’t leave the lights on.

  ‘Something?… More like someone.’ Em fiddled with the handle and lock. ‘I told you she was crazy.’

  It took Lori a moment to figure out who Em was talking about. ‘You can’t think Addy—You’re the one who’s crazy. Why would she break in and take nothing?’

  ‘I dunno. Mess with you, maybe? Get in your head and make you crazy too?’

  Lori walked around the desk, tugged on the drawers of the filing cabinets. They were still locked. The books lining the shelves, the gifted and collected keepsakes on her desk, none of them were moved or missing.

  Her desk chair was where she’d left it, rolled away and under the window. She rolled it back to the desk and sat, shuffled quickly through the pile of old papers still on her desk. None were missing. It would have been too late, anyway. The marks were already in the system, and they were piled there ready with notes to give back in the next class.

  Her lesson planning notebook was still open and cradled in her inbox tray, but it wouldn’t have given much away to anyone who couldn’t read her shorthand. It didn’t feel like a student trying to get a better mark or a head-start.

  Lori noticed the photos Jeremy had dropped off, splayed out underneath the flyer of the missing boy. They weren’t in the envelope anymore. She searched the desk but couldn’t find it. Strange, but still, nothing worth worrying over. Maybe she’d taken them out and just forgotten.

  She straightened the photos and put them in a folder, then folded the flyer and put it in a bag of donated clothes and blankets beside her desk.

  After one last look for anything else she’d need or forgotten, Lori gathered up the bag and hugged it to her chest as she skirted around Em and out of her office. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘But what about…?’ Em waved her hands.

  Lori scanned the room and shrugged. ‘There’s nothing missing, nothing taken or broken. Come on, we’re gonna be late.’

  26

  THE MAN BEHIND the podium was definitely not a teacher or a professor or anyone who spoke in public for a living. He was probably one of the university’s major donors, invited to the midweek brunch solely for the size of his cheque book. The tone of his voice was a monotonous drone that could put even the most eager student to sleep.

  His speech had been dragging for a while and the audience was fidgety and restless, heads dropping, gazes falling to the ground as a roomful of collective minds wandered, concentration scattered to everything and anything else they’d rather be doing.

  Em kept herself occupied by shifting her weight from foot to foot, her shoulder bumping into Lori’s with every sway to the left. Her pendulum motion made it worse for Lori, who struggled to stay awake after a late night catching up on student progress reports.

  She took a clearing breath, blinked out of the staring competition she’d been having with the strip of argyle sock poking out of the top of the shoe in front of her, and looked around the room.

  Framed photos hanging along the wall caught her eye. Trying not to make it obvious she was no longer paying attention, she kept her body pointed towards the stage but dipped her chin to her shoulder, studying the photos.

  It looked like whoever had taken them had been laying on the ground, pointing the camera at an angle or straight up. At first they looked like they were of nothing much at all, mostly just random trees around campus, but after a moment Lori noticed the soft focus on the light coming through the canopies, autumn colours reflecting off the windows in the background.

  It was hard to tell where the trees stood, or which buildings the windows looked out from. Weird, Lori thought, how she’d spent so much time on campus, nearly half her life, but she couldn’t tell where a piece of it belonged or what lay behind it when it was out of context.

  There was a stumbled moment between the man’s last word and the audience realising the speech was over, a sigh rippling through and then quickly covered by applause.

  Em searched the room, dropping down from her toes when she spotted who she was looking for. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  Lori scrambled to grab her sleeve. ‘Wait, no, don’t leave me…’ But Em was already moving. Lori tracked her through the crowd, saw her reach out for the hand of one of the university’s age-old, yet still celebrated, swimming champio
ns, now turned billionaire who funded the entire sports science department.

  Knowing Em, she’d likely go in for the kill before they even finished shaking hands. Lori understood now why Em had abandoned her; if the old guy gave to the clinic half of what he spent on training camps and gym equipment, it could feed, clothe and shelter all the homeless in the city twice-over, likely for the rest of their lives.

  Pretending to be busy, Lori pulled her phone out, eyes flicking up from the screen, scanning the photos on the wall. She noticed the name on a plaque underneath. Jeremy Adams.

  One photo pulled her in. White crumpled shapes against a background of pale blue. Looking closer, Lori saw they were birds. Hundreds of them. There was a pattern to them. They were all turned slightly, wings outstretched, shadows darkening their chests. It was hard to tell if it was one bird repeated, or truly a flock of hundreds, mid-flight. But Lori knew the photo hadn’t been doctored, she’d seen the show that the birds put on.

  ‘The weirdo has talent. Who knew?’ Addy’s voice came from over her shoulder.

  Startled, Lori spun and bumped into her, knocking the air from her lungs and the phone from her hand. She didn’t know how long Addy had been standing right behind her. She was stuck between picking up her phone and asking Addy what she was doing there. Needing to buy some time, she bent down to pick up the phone, but Addy beat her to it.

  ‘It’s not the same without the sound, though. You lose half the experience.’ Addy straightened, held out the phone.

  ‘Sound of what?’

  ‘The birds.’ Addy nodded at the photo. ‘Have you seen them? Down at Centro Park?’

  Lori ignored her questions. ‘What’re you doing here?’

  ‘Sucker for a good speech.’ Addy smiled. ‘Kidding. I’m surprised no one fainted just to get him to shut up.’ When Lori didn’t laugh, Addy sighed. ‘I’m one of the scholarship students the university likes to parade around at these fancy donor brunches. What’re you doing here?’

  ‘Pulled the short straw.’ Lori turned back to the photograph, not really looking at it.

  Addy stepped up beside her. ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Only take a second.’

  Lori scanned the room for somewhere quiet, where they wouldn’t be overheard. She could feel Addy on her heels as she smiled and made her way past various familiar faces and out onto the balcony.

  27

  IT WAS A warm day for winter, the sun blinding as they stepped outside. Students had spread rugs out on the grass below, enjoying the brief change in weather. Lori leaned on the railing, envious of how relaxed and peaceful they all seemed.

  She knew what Addy wanted to talk about, but she wouldn’t be the first one to speak, not when she didn’t know what to say. Addy must not have known either because she made small talk instead and asked about the clinic, how it went, apologising for not being there to help.

  ‘I think Jeremy was looking for you.’

  ‘Something creepy about that kid.’

  ‘Sure is.’ It slipped out, Lori wishing she could take it back.

  ‘Oh, really? What changed? You were all “be nice, he’s shy” not long ago.’

  Lori had told no one about her sneaking suspicion that it was Jeremy who broke into her office. She couldn’t figure out why he would do it in the first place. Or why he took an empty envelope that could easily have been replaced.

  They both spoke, voices melding together.

  ‘What do you want, Addy?’

  ‘It wasn’t a mistake.’

  Addy placed her hand on Lori’s, curving it to the soft roll of the railing. But Lori pulled her hand free and turned around. She looked through the reflections on the glass doors at all the people inside, worried they’d notice, that this would become another scene whispered in gossip through the campus. Over by the bar, Em stared out at them, a lift of her eyebrow asking if Lori needed help. Lori gave a slight shake of her head, gaze dropping away to the ground.

  The other morning, in Addy’s dorm room, it had been panic that opened Lori’s eyes to the blunder she’d made, the forbidden truth of it, and now she felt only clarity in her decision. She’d let herself get caught up in the sense of danger, the risk and rebellion that came with being around Addy, thinking, or more likely fooling herself into thinking, that she could simply walk away. Not because she was scared of letting Addy in, or anyone else for that matter. All this time she’d been fighting against it, but Lori realised she needed a relationship that was nice and stable and wonderfully boring. And she needed to keep Addy out of trouble and on track. Despite how either of them felt.

  ‘Addy. I’m a teacher and you’re a student—’

  ‘Not your student though.’

  ‘We both have a lot to lose.’

  ‘You have a lot to lose.’

  Lori fell silent, trying to figure out if Addy meant it as a threat. Em had warned her, said she’d tear everything she had apart, but no, Lori couldn’t see Addy doing anything so spiteful.

  ‘You decide and I have to accept it? That’s it?’

  ‘It has to be.’

  ‘It doesn’t. None of that other shit matters—’

  ‘Grow up, Addy. Everything matters.’ Lori’s patience was wearing thin, aware of the potential audience on the other side of the thin glass doors. She slid in close to Addy, lowering her voice. ‘I’m not the only person in the world who can see you for you. Stop acting like you don’t need people to like you, find someone your own age, and don’t fuck it up for yourself. You’ll be fine.’

  If anyone inside was watching them, they wouldn’t have felt the tension bouncing between Lori and Addy. But they would have seen that they were almost close enough to touch, almost shoulder to shoulder, a little closer and they’d be cheek to cheek. They would have mistaken the forced blankness on Lori’s face for boredom.

  What they wouldn’t have seen was Addy’s hurt, turned and hidden from view, glassy eyes trained down over the railing. Only Lori could see it, and it hurt her just as much. She waited for Addy to push back, to argue, but another moment passed and then all the fight went out of her.

  Addy’s shoulders dropped. ‘I hope you’re right.’ And she walked away, not going back inside but down the stairs at the end of the balcony. She cut through the middle of the crowded grass below and then she was out of sight, a fountain blocking Lori’s view of the path beyond.

  Lori stayed out on the balcony, not ready to face the grovelling going on inside, pulling her phone from her pocket. When she tapped the phone icon, the photo album appeared on-screen instead, displaying the photos taken by Addy and her friends at the nightclub. She tried again, and the same thing happened; something must have knocked loose inside when she’d dropped it. Double tapping the home button did the trick, and she flicked through to the phone app.

  Marina answered on the second ring, catching Lori out before she’d decided on what to say. Not given the chance to overthink, she asked if Marina wanted to meet up.

  ‘Sure, when?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Well, I’m at work…’ There was a moment of hesitation and Lori was about to backtrack, suggest another time, but Marina spoke before she could. ‘Okay, yeah. Now is great.’

  Following Addy’s path, Lori snuck away from the boring donor brunch. She felt bad for bailing but figured Em would understand.

  28

  IT WAS PEACEFUL, laying on the ground, staring up at nothing but endless blue. Lori’s eyes sought something to rest on. Finding nothing, she squeezed them shut. Cold tears pushed their way out, running down her temples and soaking into her hair.

  The traffic had long ago blurred into a background hush. She’d even drowned out the screaming kids in the playground on the other side of the creek. The occasional honk broke through. The soft rustle of dried reeds in the breeze and the flutter of wings as ducks launched themselves off the bank and skimmed the surface, rushing to get away from the angry red-faced goose that tormented the
muddy creek.

  A shadow fell over her and she opened her eyes to a face inverted above. Lori wiped away the tears. ‘Just in time. Grab some grass.’

  Marina lay down next to her and whispered, ‘What’re we doing?’

  Lori pointed up at the sky. ‘Waiting.’

  ‘Waiting for what?’

  She didn’t have to answer. Almost on cue, a commanding screech set the surrounds in motion.

  Every morning at sunrise, a massive flock of corella cockatoos invaded the trees scattered around the park, flapping their wings and hollering, hanging upside down, flashing patches of pink around their mischievous eyes, their beaks and talons tearing at branches and leaves, making a mess of the ground below.

  And every day, around midday, they took flight in a screeching swoop, collecting from the four corners of the park and gathering in one enormous ball of movement in the sky. Just like they were at that moment.

  As the last stragglers joined, the birds moved as one, twisting and twirling and gliding, making soft and sharp acrobatic turns, aerobatic loops and rolls.

  All as one, each change in direction, moving in sync. There probably wasn’t, but it seemed like there were hundreds and hundreds of them. Lori had always thought it was their movement that made it feel like something sacred, or like a secret, shared just between her and them.

  But Addy had been right. It was the added sound that made it real, that sunk her body into the ground as they dipped, her mind soaring with them as they rose. It wasn’t horrible, the sound you’d expect would come from hundreds of birds screeching at the same time.

  It was the sound of their wings, a rush and a hush as they timed each turn perfectly. Pushing against the air, cutting through currents that ruffled through their feathers, over their wings, buffeting their bodies.