THIRTY-THREE
The air was heavy with the scents of sizzling sausages and steaks on backyard barbies, and I could hear the buzz and shout of conversations from New Year’s parties. Everyone was having a good time except for me. I trudged along the asphalt road, my sneakers scraping, hating life, blinking back the tears that stung my eyes and throat. The last of the sun disappeared over the mountains and I could see the neon-green glow of the Kambah Tavern roof through the trees that edged the Village.
My mind had kicked into overdrive, but just one thought buzzed around in there, like a scratched CD on a stereo. Casey. She had fucked me over. She’d gone after Lukey. My lovely, lame-brain, nerdy stoner emo fairy best friend. She was out of control. She’d gone too far this time. Was there any guy off limits to her? Why’d she have to go after every single fucking guy?
Back at Casey’s the party had picked up. Hilltop Hoods blasted from the speakers, big clusters of kids stood around sinking beers, taking shots and lining up Jager Bombs. I scanned the backyard for Laura but couldn’t see her. Cash was sitting at the picnic table under the old pine, surrounded by a group of girls in short shorts and strapless dresses, his arm hooked around the neck of Casey’s friend, Lee, the hot bogan Asian. I felt my stomach lurch with jealousy. Fuck him, I thought angrily. But it hurt. It hurt so bad.
‘Where’s Case?’ I demanded, marching up to the table and staring pointedly at Cash.
He hesitated for a second and blinked, kind of guilty-like. ‘Dunno, Jezza,’ he shouted over the music. ‘Maybe inside. You know Lee?’
I nodded, not looking at Lee and held Cash’s eyes for a few more moments, searching for something in them, one of those looks he used to give me with the crooked smile showing his chipped tooth. But he just sat there, his face not giving anything away, and pulled Lee closer to his chest. She tipped her head up at him and smiled, slow and satisfied. The cat that got the fucking cream.
‘You right, Jez? Got a beer?’ he asked.
‘Fine.’
I spun on my heel and marched towards the house.
‘Casey!’ I screeched, my voice breaking. ‘CASEY!’ I slammed the glass sliding door behind me.
Her bedroom door was open a crack, the dim glow of a bedside lamp shining from inside. I could hear muffled sounds and a little giggle. I put my hand on the door and pushed gently.
‘Casey? I need to talk to you . . .’ I was angry, not thinking straight.
There was no reply. I could hear a male voice say, Tell her to fuck off!
‘Casey! I want to fucking talk to you. NOW!’ I pushed the door hard, wide open.
Casey was on her knees, in front of her bed, her face buried in Martin Carroll’s lap. His hands were on the back of her head, pulling her onto his cock. I could hear her gurgle and gag, as Martin looked up and narrowed his eyes at me, a slow, smug smile stretching across his face. Casey snapped her head around and clocked me, her eyes bleeding black mascara.
‘Fucking hell, Jez. FUCK OFF!’ Casey gasped. ‘Have you lost it?’
I stood my ground. I wanted it out with her. ‘I want to talk to you. NOW.’
‘FUCK OFF, JEZ!’ Casey screeched. ‘I’m fucking serious.’
Martin reclined on his elbows, not bothering to cover up his stiff and swollen penis, which bobbed up and down as he flexed his groin muscles. I stared in horrified fascination.
‘Come and party with us, Jez,’ Martin said, catching me looking. He gestured towards his crotch. ‘I can handle youse both.’
‘No way.’ Casey stood up and gripped my arms, clawing at my bare skin with her acrylic nails. Forcing me back into the hallway, she gave me one last death stare before closing the door in my face. I stood there, breathless with anger. I could hear Martin laughing on the other side of door, before the muffled sex noises began again.
‘FUCK YOU, CASEY!’ I screamed, my voice strangled. ‘FUCK YOU, SLUT!’
Casey was at the door in less than a second.
‘What did you call me?’ Her voice had dropped to a whisper. ‘What THE FUCK did you CALL ME?!’
Over her shoulder I could see Martin sniggering, clutching at his cock like a monkey holding a banana.
‘Lukey —’ I began.
‘Don’t you ever—EVER—call me that again.’ Casey leaned in so close to me I could smell the rum and Coke on her breath and the rich, earthy scent of sex on her skin. ‘Now get the fuck out of my house.’
‘You’re supposed to be my friend,’ I said, blinking tears. ‘I trusted you. I loved Lukey.’
‘Ha! You loved him? You loved him when you were fucking my brother? Did you love him when you threw yourself at Martin?’ Casey jerked her thumb over her shoulder and Martin snorted.
‘I’ve loved him for years.’ I was crying openly now, hating my own patheticness. ‘Why’d you do it? You’re supposed to be my friend.’
Casey folded her arms tight under her breasts and circled my face with her eyes in cold scrutiny.
‘Well I’m not now, bitch.’
Casey slammed the bedroom door so hard I could feel my teeth shake in my skull.
And that was that. There was no more to say. I left the party.
I let myself into my house. I was shaking as I yanked open the fridge, looking for some drinks. Half a bottle of white wine left over from the night when Shaz’d been around. Wine! Yuck! But I snatched the bottle and drank greedily. It tasted like grape voms. I stepped out onto the back porch and stood for a few seconds, staring beyond the fence to the party next door. Laughter and chatter over strains of some sort of rap shit, Jay-Z or something, I dunno, I hated all that pop-chart top-forty shit. Lamest party ever, Casey, I thought nastily. But I wished I was there. I wished me and Lukey were there, sitting at the wooden picnic table, sinking cold beers, poking each other in the ribs and taking the piss out of the freshies and their crap music. I took the ashtray inside and lit a smoke in the kitchen, still swigging from the wine bottle, desperate to drown my sadness.
My mobile rang in my pocket. Laura.
‘Hey!’ I answered eagerly. ‘Where’d you go to? You’re not gunna believe the fight I had with Casey . . . Oh and I’m not going to Melbourne anymore either —’
‘Slow down, Jez! You’re not going? So weird, I had this feeling . . . I mean after the Casey thing. I’m at my house. You want to come over here?’
‘Yeah! Sure! My mum still there?’
‘Yep. The oldies are drinking still, listening to nineties music and being all nostalgic. It’s pretty funny.’
‘I’ll be there in, like, ten.’
THIRTY-FOUR
Laura was sitting on her front porch when I arrived, sipping from a small silver hip flask. I sat on the step next to her, pulled a Winfield out of my pack and lit it, enjoying the red crackling glow of the tip against the dark night.
‘Vodka?’ She held the flask out to me.
I took a sip, enjoying the feeling of the liquid burning in my chest. It took me back to the last time we’d drunk vodka at Laura’s house, a few weeks earlier, after popping those pingers and swimming in her pool. Me, Laura and Lukey. We hadn’t really even known each other then. It seemed like so long ago. So much had happened since.
‘You told Casey about my abortion,’ Laura spoke softly. She didn’t accuse, she just stated it as fact.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said quickly. ‘Please don’t be mad. It was a mistake. It just slipped out.’
‘I believe you.’ Laura looked me in the eyes.
I smiled, grateful. ‘Thanks.’
‘Casey called me a baby-killer,’ Laura told me. ‘Right in front of a whole group of kids. She really doesn’t like me. For no reason.’
‘Casey,’ I spat. ‘Don’t even worry about her. You were so right about her.’
‘Let’s not talk about her. Let’s just enjoy the rest of the night, okay?’
We sat side by side, sipping from the hip flask, enjoying the warm night breeze. I could hear the crackles and explosions from fire
works going off in the distance and people in backyards and houses blowing on noise-makers, yelling, ‘Happy New Year!’ and singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’.
‘Happy New Year,’ Laura reached out and squeezed my shoulder.
Five minutes later my mobile bleeped. A text message from Lukey. I made it. I’m on my way.
I showed Laura.
‘You upset?’ she asked, making a concerned face.
‘Yeah. A bit.’ I nodded. ‘Actually, heaps.’
‘Things happen for a reason,’ Laura said. ‘Everything will come out in the wash.’
‘You reckon?’ I swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the lump lodged in my throat. ‘You really think that?’
Laura hesitated. ‘Maybe. Just have to wait and see, I guess.’
‘Yeah, I guess.’
‘You know what I want to do?’ Laura sighed. ‘Foxtel and ice-cream. Maybe some really lamely happy Pixar animation.’
I snorted. ‘Serious? I want to get fucked up. Like just get really messy.’
Laura shrugged. ‘We can sneak some booze, for sure.’
‘I’ve got pingers for later. Present from Lukey.’
There was laughter and music, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Under the Bridge’ coming from the backyard at Laura’s house.
‘Should we go say hello?’ Laura asked. ‘Your mum might wanna see you.’
We went out the back. It was just Mum, Dana and Joan around a big table strewn with empty plates, wine glasses, party poppers and balled serviettes.
‘Our girls!’ Mum cried, her face glowing under the strings of fairy lights and Chinese lanterns. ‘Happy New Year, baby!’
‘Have a seat, girls!’ Dana cried. ‘A little bit of wine? A glass each for a toast.’ She scraped back her chair and went into the kitchen and returned with two oversized wine glasses and filled them each about a third full.
‘What happened to your party?’ Mum asked. ‘I thought you’d be out all night. Nice of you to come spend Newies with your old mum.’
I smiled. ‘Yeah, the party was good,’ I lied, ‘but we wanted to come spend time with you guys. I thought you were going down to the club?’
‘I’ve been having too good a time here!’ Mum grinned. ‘Shaz was ropeable.’
‘Yeah? What happened?’
‘Oh, she kept ringing and ringing and then when I ignored her calls she sent this.’ Mum flicked through her phone until she found the message and read aloud. You are a dog friend.
‘Oh, Mum. You’re not a dog friend. Shaz is the dog friend.’
Mum shrugged. ‘You know what it’s like down there. Everybody would have been drunk. Shaz gets nasty when she drinks.’
‘She’s nasty anyway.’
‘I think you might be right,’ Mum agreed. ‘You know, I don’t reckon I really want to be spending a whole heap of time with Shaz anymore.’
‘Fuck, yes!’ I cheered. ‘Let’s drink to that.’
We raised our glasses.
‘Joanie? You want to make the toast?’
‘I think we should let Helen —’
‘No, no!’ Mum protested. ‘No, you do it, Joan.’
‘Okay.’ Joan sat up a bit straighter in her chair. ‘First of all, I’ve had way too much wine tonight, so I’m going to get sentimental.’
‘Aw, Joanie, please don’t.’ Laura groaned.
‘Let her speak!’ Mum cried, loving it. She loved sentimental crap.
‘I just remember when I was travelling and spending so many Christmases and New Year’s Eves with strangers, or just being a face in a crowd on the Thames in London or once even on the Bund in Shanghai —’
‘Get to the point, Joanie!’ Laura was embarrassed.
‘— and so many times I remember hoping that one day I’d have a family of my own to spend these types of occasions with. And now I have you, Dana, and our beautiful daughter, Laura.’
Laura groaned again.
‘And our new friends with us, Helen and Jez . . .’
Mum let out a huge sigh of happiness and leaned in against me.
‘And I just want to say that this moment couldn’t be more perfect. Cheers and Happy New Year’s.’
Mum started weeping openly, happy tears. I took a sip of my wine, and couldn’t help but feel kind of nice and glowy. But it wasn’t happiness exactly, it was something else. I’m not one hundred percent sure because it was something I wasn’t used to feeling. It felt a little bit like hope.
Mum got totally maggot on New Year’s and could hardly get out of bed the next day, but I didn’t mind because everyone had been maggot. Me and Laura had popped a pinger each and went wandering around the neighbourhood for a few hours, and when we got back to Laura’s the oldies were still sitting on the back patio, pissing on. It was dawn as me and Mum stumbled back through the grey streets, the laughs of kookaburras pounding in our hollow skulls.
I helped Mum out with her hangover, shifting the DVD and telly into her room so we could watch Dirty Dancing while she sipped on water and nibbled vegemite toast. We both cried at the end.
I thought about Lukey all day. I missed him already. It didn’t seem real that he was hundreds of kilometres away. When the doorbell rang later that arvo, I leapt up, half expecting to see him there on the doorstep, staring at his sneakers behind his curtain fringe, hands buried deep in the pockets of his black cut-offs.
I yanked open the door.
Jeremy.
‘Muuuum!’
I stood to one side of the door as Mum emerged from her bedroom in her bright-orange camisole nightie, panda-eyed, hair sticking up in sixty directions.
‘Jeremy!’ Mum’s mouth fell open as he stuck a bunch of pink gerberas under her nose.
‘I missed you last night, Hel,’ he squeaked. ‘Wasn’t a party without ya.’
‘I missed you, too,’ Mum murmured, sniffing the gerberas. ‘These don’t really smell like anything.’
‘I just got them down at the petrol station,’ Jeremy admitted, embarrassed. ‘Nothing open today.’
‘They’re beautiful.’
‘You look beautiful,’ Jeremy said, which I thought was ultra-generous of him considering Mum’s fright-wig hair.
Mum cast a quick sidelong glance at me. I gave her a small smile and nodded before she stepped into his arms for a kiss that involved way too much tongue than was decent. I made a show of sticking my finger in my throat and making gagging sounds, but I was secretly chuffed for her. She’d got her Jerry Maguire moment. Mum deserved to be happy. Maybe she had even found love.
I went back to my room and pulled Mum’s laptop onto my bed and logged into Facebook. Lukey Johnson: Melbourne I’m inside you.
I miss you already, I typed under his status update, and made a little heart-shaped emoticon.
The reply came back almost immediately.
I miss you, too.
I smiled through my tears and logged off the computer.
THIRTY-FIVE
Six months later, me and Laura were at Skin Deep Tattoo in Canberra City, high on adrenaline and the triple-chocolate Oreo vegan thickshakes we’d just sucked down at a cafe. My eighteenth birthday and we were about to get our first tattoos; totally sweet.
‘I feel like I’m going to wee my pants!’ Laura giggled. ‘So nervous.’
‘It couldn’t be much worse than piercing,’ I said, running my tongue over the rings in my lip. ‘Plus it’s forever, so it’s worth the pain.’
Forever didn’t seem like such a long time to me. I was eighteen and I didn’t think much further ahead than the next few days, and that weekend it was gunna be a party at Dana and Joan’s all for me, in honour of turning eighteen, and then after that, my present from Mum, a bus trip down to Melbourne to visit Lukey. I’d kept my promise to him. I was keeping an eye on Ashleigh; me and her were hanging out regularly. She was cool, almost like my own little sister.
I hadn’t seen Lukey since New Year’s, but it wasn’t so bad. We chatted on Facebook every night of the week and talked o
n the phone now and then. I saw photos that he’d posted online. He’d shaved his head and was dressing more punk and he had a whole heap more tattoos done, too. He looked good. I couldn’t wait to show him my first tattoo. Freaking awesome.
But to be honest, I didn’t miss him as much as I thought I would. The surprise was my new best friend: me and Laura became totally tight, really quickly. After Lukey left, she turned out to be totally solid, and was heaps of fun to hang out with. Plus our mums all got really close, so it was kind of like one big family.
The door to the tattoo place opened and this little hippy chick walked in, bells around her ankles. She walked up to the front counter, her long paisley skirt flowing.
‘I want to get an “ohm”,’ she told the guy behind the counter.
‘A what?’
‘An “ohm”. It’s a Buddhist thing. And maybe a lotus flower, too, underneath it.’
‘Are you a Buddhist?’ he asked her ‘Not really. It’s more the symbolism.’
‘The symbolism of being a Buddhist?’ Laura interjected, sneaking a cheeky smile at me, her eyes sparkling.
The hippy chick turned and looked at us. ‘Um, yeah.’
Laura leaned over to me and whispered, ‘That is so funny. The other day I saw a forty-year-old slapper in a pub guzzling wine with a “Ganesh” tattooed on her foot. I was like, Honey you’re from Canberra, not fucking Raja.’
I snorted loudly and the hippy shot us a hairy eyeball as she stomped out of the shop.
Laura collapsed into me, giggling. ‘What a poser! I bet she’s from Tuggeranong, just like us.’
‘Tuggeranong like us? Are you a Kambah girl now?’
‘Um, let me see. The other week I wore my Ugg boots down to the Village, smoked bongs in three separate backyards, drank my weight in Bundy and Coke and now we’re getting tattooed. Is that Kambah enough for you?’
‘You’ll never be one of us,’ I teased her. ‘No matter how much you want it. See, you just made fun of that girl getting the “ohm” symbol, but everyone knows a good bogan has a least one eastern religion figurine in their house that they bought from the Dollar Shop.’
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