A Little Wanting Song (12 page)

“I don’t get why you two are all worked up about a chick from the city,” he says, and storms off across the yard.

“What’s wrong with him? He’s been to the falls a million times.”

“You ever been without him?” Dave asks.

I don’t tell him I go all the time, without either of them. “It looked like rain.”

“I have to go, Rose,” he says. He’s leaving to see if Luke’s all right. They won’t talk about me; they’ll play video games until Luke laughs again.

The first spits of summer rain land on my face but stop as soon as they begin. “See, I didn’t lie,” I call out, but it’s too late. I’m already alone.

Sometimes I wonder why I love Luke so much when he makes me this mad. But then I remember how I felt when he kissed me in Year 6. He didn’t do it again until Year 8, and he only did it then because I told him to.

I’d been waiting and waiting for him to ask me to the social. “Well? Are we going together?”

“What? I don’t know. Yeah. We go everywhere together.” I was so pissed off. “Unless you ask me, I’m going with Michael Howsware.”

“So go with him.”

“I will.” Idiot. Stupid idiot. “I’ll let him kiss me, too.”

Luke snarled. “Do whatever you like.”

“Rose, you look beautiful,” Mum said before I left that night; I didn’t care, though. What did it matter if I had to go with Michael? We walked in and Luke was dancing as close as the teachers would let him with Andrea Cushifsky.
Andrea Cushifsky
.

I danced next to Luke and grabbed Michael tight. I held on even though I was gagging on cheap aftershave. I tried so hard to remember how I’d felt when Luke kissed me and to feel it for Michael; but he wasn’t the one who sat with me all Sunday at the edge of the freeway. He wasn’t the one who bought me tiny cars for Christmas. “Just a car,” Luke said. “You don’t have to get so excited.” But I was excited because he’d noticed what no one else had.

Luke and Andrea disappeared about eight-thirty. Most kids made a stop at the back of the sports equipment shed sometime during the night, but I couldn’t believe Luke would take Andrea there.

I waited till Michael went to the toilet, then I slipped outside. I leaned forward as far as I could without being seen. And there they were. Sitting at opposite ends of the fence, staring separate stares across the oval.

Luke was such an idiot. If I hadn’t come round the corner, he would have pretended he’d kissed Andrea, and loved it. I watched till she got sick of waiting and went back inside. Then I walked round the corner in my fantastic dress and sat on the end of the fence.

“What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for Michael.” I smiled. “He’ll be out in a minute.”

Luke looked so hurt that I let him get away with stuffing up my first dance. “You idiot,” I said. And I moved close to him on the fence, swinging my legs while the wood caught at my stockings, making holes in them. The leaves blew off the trees and scattered color. In the light from the gym they looked like tiny pink tongues.

*   *   *

I climb into the old tree. Its branches are thick enough to sit on, but I’ve never done it before. I can see the whole of Charlie’s yard from here. I never knew the garden next door was so green, so overgrown. She’s sitting outside holding her guitar and smiling. I’ve never seen her relaxed like that.

“Rose?” Luke calls from the back door. “You out here? I’m sorry I got mad.” I curl my legs up in the leaves and hold my breath. Part of me wants to go down and talk to him, and the other part of me holds tighter to the tree. “She’s not out there, Mrs. Butler!” Luke shouts, and I stay till I hear the front door close.

“Rose?” Mum calls from the living room as I come inside. “Luke was looking for you. He said you weren’t in the yard.”

“Didn’t hear him. I must have been dreaming.”

She stares at me for a second. “Be careful, Rosie. People hurt easy.”

“You don’t have to worry about Luke.”

“It’s not him I’m worried about,” she says.

Mum and I have heaps of almost conversations these days. She almost asks me what’s wrong and I almost tell her. What would I say if I did? That I can’t decide what’s worse, the dreams I have where I can’t find her or Dad or the dreams I have where I’m crying because I can’t get away?

“You don’t need to worry about me, Mum. I’m fine,” I say. And we both keep pretending that I am.

Dave rides me to my door after the falls. He and Rose leave and I sit in the garden, singing my song about the day. About an hour later he comes back. “You left this at Rose’s,” he says, holding out my hat.

He stands there, rolling his bike back and forward, and I want to ask him in. For a girl who doesn’t talk all that much, strangely I have a million or more things I want to say to Dave. They’re not even important things. It’s stuff like Grandpa ordered in some
Muppet Show
toothbrushes, and I’ve been using one even though it’s too small because I really like Fozzie Bear. But then I stopped using it because I wasn’t sure if it was a sign of respect to use Fozzie that way.

That’s the stuff I want to tell him but I’ve been talking to
him all day and Louise says guys don’t like it when you act keen. I’m not acting keen, I think, looking at Dave. I am keen. But Louise says if you’re not absolutely gorgeous, you should play hard to get. “Play hard to get, Charlie,” she said once. “Act cool. Sometimes you look a little desperate.”

So I don’t tell Dave about my Fozzie Bear toothbrush dilemma. I thank him for my hat and close the door. Sure, I want to open it straight back up and yell his name but I don’t. I draw a line between me and uncool and I don’t cross it.

Instead I put on a Fiona Apple CD and turn her up loud. I told Gus once about Louise and how she treated me and he said, “Some people are hard to understand, so you gotta understand yourself.” He played some Fiona. “It’s what Beth listens to on days when she says I am not the biz.” That music folded Louise in two and put her in a drawer.

I dance to my loud music. Oh yeah, I’m sassy. I’m hard to get, that’s what I am. Hard. To. Get. Cool. I slide to the fridge and grab a Coke. I slide back. “What are you up to?” Grandpa asks, walking into the kitchen.

“I’m being sassy. Playing hard to get. Cool. Not desperate.”

“Dave Robbie’s riding his bike around our front yard. Any idea why?”

In case of fire, it’s good to know we can all get out of the house in less than five seconds. I take a breath and open the door. “Hi. Did you forget something?”

He shakes his head. “I just didn’t want to go home.”

Fuck cool. Cool is overrated. “You want to stay for dinner?” He throws his bike down and follows me inside.

“Hi, Mr. Duskin,” he says to Grandpa. “What’s up?”

“Well, you just missed Charlie doing her sassy dance.”

“He’s old,” I say, pulling out pasta. “Losing his mind.”

“I wasn’t the one sassy dancing. What’s news with you, Dave?”

“We went to the falls this afternoon.”

“All the way up there? Tell your dad that, Charlie. He and your mother lived at that place when they were teenagers. ‘Up to no good,’ your gran used to say.”

Dad’s not back by the time we eat, so it’s just the three of us sitting in Gran’s garden. “How’s the shop going, Mr. Duskin?” Dave asks. And the two of them talk about cars and drought and Gran and footy. Dave’s got being cool without being cool down to an art.

After dinner Grandpa shuffles off to watch TV. Dave helps me clean up. His tattoo of a bird flaps its wings against the crease of his wrist. Gliding and dipping while he washes the dishes. The inside of me glides and dips with it. I think about a song I might write, one where I’m washing dishes next to Dave and his tattoo. Parts would be fast, like I’m feeling inside, but parts would be slow and quiet like Dave is tonight, taking time to talk to Grandpa. It would have wings, feathers tickling under my skin, flying all the way to my throat.

Dave washes the last pot, and I worry about what we’ll do after we finish. I’ve only really liked a few guys before. There was Ayden Smith, who I told to piss off. Alex Martin, which ended, you know, at the bottom of a pool. And Leo Gordon, one of the popular guys that Louise hangs out with.

Maybe Dahlia asked Louise to set me up with Leo. I’m not sure. We didn’t even really have a date. We all went out as a group and I said about three words to him, all to do with music. He told me he liked the Clash, so I burned him a few tracks. That’s when Louise suggested I act a little less desperate. It was the fucking Clash, I wanted to yell. It’s not like I gave him Celine Dion.

Dave dries his hands. “It’s quiet. Where’s your dad?”

“I don’t know. He usually visits friends at night.”

“And what do you do?”

“Listen to music, mostly.”

“So put some on.”

“The stereo’s in the living room. Grandpa’s watching TV. My laptop’s in my bedroom.” I mean I’ll go and get it, but Dave follows me. He walks around and looks at my stuff. “Who’s that?” he asks, staring at the picture above my bed.

“The bassist from the Clash. Paul Simonon.”

“He’s smashing his guitar,” Dave says.

“Jimi Hendrix burned his guitar. A Fender Stratocaster.”

“A what?”

“A very cool guitar.”

“Then why’d he burn it?”

“He said you sacrifice the things you love.”

Dave thinks for a bit. “I love my car. I bought an old Hummer I’m doing up in my spare time. No way I’d set fire to it. Would you burn all your CDs?”

“If it meant getting something I wanted more. But that’s a different thing, I guess.”

“You go out to bands, dance?” he asks.

“I’m a pretty shit dancer.”

“So am I. They have these school socials, and I go because Luke and Rose do, but I stand there on the side feeling like an idiot.”

“You could always do the half dance,” I say. “You know, sit and move your hands around.” I choose a song with a kicker beat and give him a little demo. He sits next to me on the bed. “How am I doing?” he asks.

“Almost as good as you are at singing.”

“Lucky I don’t know the words, hey?” He slides into some strangely impressive moves. I don’t tell him about the Fozzie toothbrush in the end. Turns out sitting next to him half dancing is even better than talking. We’re listening to the Stones when Dad puts his head in. I’m sitting on the bed with a guy who’s wearing a black singlet and faded jeans and has a tattoo on his wrist listening to a song about wanting some satisfaction and all Dad says is “Just letting you know I’m home” before he closes the door.

“I better go,” Dave says.

I walk him out, and he gets on his bike. He rides around me a couple of times, half dancing, then grins and takes off up the street.

I walk back inside, half dancing a little myself, and stand outside Dad’s door. I turn off the lights in the hallway and get down on my hands and knees to check if his light’s still on. I want to tell him I went to the falls and see what he says.

“Drop something, Charlie?” Grandpa asks from behind me.

“A while ago,” I say, standing up. “It doesn’t matter.” I kiss him good night. I lie on my bed, staring at the poster of Paul Simonon, wondering how it would feel to be a person who could smash things.

After a while Mum tells me that she and Dad did go to the falls. She tells me it was exciting, like it was for me and Dave. I think about him dancing on the bed, and Mum says, “It was definitely a sugar day, Charlie.” That’s what she always said when things went well for me.

“It was the best sugar day ever,” I tell her, and I sing about it. I sing the kind of song that used to make Dahlia and me laugh. A song in major chords.

Sugar Days

Lazy days
And sweet sun shining
Holding hands would be so fine
And kissing you would be so finer
Would turn my skin and blood to sugar
Would turn my mouth to sunny butter
Voice to milk
Brain to flour
Sifted through your hands
I’m cake

Please kiss me into sugar days

Kiss me till I’m chocolate
Till I’m hot chocolate
Till I’m frosted Froot Loops that you can’t stop
    eating from the box even when it’s not breakfast
    time anymore
Till I’m double-chocolate-chip ice cream
The one that hints at peppermint but you’re never really sure
Please kiss me more

Kiss me till I’m a Mars bar
Kiss me till I’m a freaking box of Mars bars
On top of another box of Mars bars
Kiss me till I am on a sugar high
And flying