Frankie (25 page)

I shake my head. Twenty different things I could say.

He walks away, punching open the doors.

Square-Tits gawks at me.

I don't know if I sit there for half an hour or half a second but eventually I get up and walk to the reception desk.

‘You have something for me, Fran-chess-caaar?' She holds out her hand.

I place the pen in her palm.

‘And the –'

I walk away.

I ring the front doorbell.

There's a tumble of thumping and shouting as Cara's brothers rush to answer the door.

Lawrence gets there first, elbowing Aaron as he flings it open.

He looks excited for all of about three seconds and then his face crumples. ‘It's only Freakie,' he yells.

Aaron shoots me a glare. ‘We're waiting on pizza,' he says.

‘Take a look in the mirror,' I tell him.

Lawrence grabs his gut and laughs. ‘Oh my god. Burn.'

Aaron kicks Lawrence in the shins. ‘Shut up. At least I don't have a pizza arse.'

‘Do not!'

Cara appears halfway down the entrance hall, coming from the lounge. Her smile is wiped the second she sees me.

I've seen her give that look to Ava about a billion times and it's always made me laugh. Because I wasn't on the receiving end. Because she was giving that look to Ava out of loyalty to me. Having her death stare turned on
me
is a massive kick in the guts.

This isn't going to be easy.

‘You two, get back in the lounge,' she snaps. The twins are kicking and punching each other. Cara boots one of them up the behind, I can't tell which from here. ‘What did I tell you?'

‘You said you're a loser.'

‘You said we could read your diary. Oh wait, we already did.'

She kicks out, but they're already running for the lounge, snorting with laughter.

‘Boys, huh?' I say with a plastered-on grin.

Cara juts out her chin. ‘What do you want?'

Okay, Frankie. You never expected this to be easy. Just do it. I shift my weight and chew on my lip.

‘I'm here to say sorry.'

‘You said that already. I wasn't impressed the first time.'

‘I know. But this time I'm saying sorry with Spanish donuts.' I hold out the paper bag. It's almost completely translucent, the fat having seeped through the paper. Most of the sugar is shuffling round the bottom of the bag.

‘And I've got another lead. About Xavier. I thought we could go together. I'm not really supposed to leave the house without asking Vinnie first but if we hurry . . .'

She leans against the doorframe and watches me, arms folded, paying no attention to my bribe. She's kind of frowning, kind of pissed off, kind of worried.

‘What's the name of the guy my mum's dating?' she asks.

‘Huh?' I open the bag to make sure the donut-y smell can waft seductively up to her nose.

She blinks, slowly enough that her eyes are closed for a couple of seconds. Blotting me out of her vision, I guess. When she speaks there's a pause between each of her words. The way you talk to someone you think is mentally challenged. ‘What's the name of the guy my mum's dating?'

‘Your mum's dating someone?'

‘What happened to Paul at work a week ago?'

‘Your older brother?'

She nods. Again, it's slow and deliberate. ‘You know, six foot, shoulder-length black hair, you've met him about a hundred times.'

‘I don't know what happened to him.'

‘How about me? Do you know how my date with Truc went?'

‘You had a date?'

She looks away. ‘Exactly.'

I shuffle from foot to foot. Waiting. I don't think this is going very well.

‘You don't know anything because you haven't asked,' says Cara.

‘I've been distracted but –'

‘Yeah, Frankie. I know you've had a shit time of it, but seriously. Get over it. We've all got sob stories. Yours isn't even the worst one around.'

I step back. I guess the depth of her anger has caught me off guard. Even when she's standing on the top step and I'm at the bottom, I'm still taller. So how come I feel so damn small?

‘You could just tell me stuff,' I say. ‘You don't have to wait for me to ask.'

She laughs. ‘If I waited I'd be wetting myself in an old people's home before you took an interest in my life. But it isn't even about that.' She folds her arms. ‘I can get over the fact that you're self-absorbed. You always have been. I can even forgive you flaking on me over a boy but I don't think I can get over you lying to me. You lied to
me
. I thought we were in it together.'

I lower the donuts, my cheeks burning. How stupid am I? This isn't like the time I spilt coke on her favourite t-shirt after borrowing it without asking first. That took me ten Spanish donuts and two English essays to fix. And here I am with a bag of donuts – cold now – and a bunch of half-arsed excuses.

‘I mean, you're not even going to tell me what you and that burglar were really doing, are you?'

I grip the bag tightly. The only sounds are passing traffic, a really loud cartoon blaring from inside the house, and Lawrence and Aaron screaming insults at each other. The perfect soundtrack to a perfect moment.

‘I'm so bored with this. You never tell me anything. You won't even tell me why you hit Steve and I'm supposed to be your best friend.'

I drop the donuts at her feet and stick up my finger. I've never done that to Cara but there's a first time for everything. ‘Screw you,' I say. ‘I don't need this.' I stomp on the donuts.

‘Real mature, Frankie.'

I charge down the front path and wrestle with the front gate. ‘If everything about me is so damn annoying then I don't know why you even bother.'

‘That makes two of us.'

I finally win the war with the gate, slamming it shut behind me and stalking up the street. I don't look over my shoulder even though all I want to do is go running back, begging for a second shot. A third shot. A gazillionth shot.

‘Call me when you've had a personality transplant,' Cara shouts. The front door slams shut behind her.

I hurry up the street, holding myself together for half a block.

That
did not go according to plan.

That
just took a shit on top of my best-laid plans.

I crouch in the middle of the footpath and cry. I've just made things about a thousand times worse, haven't I? I can't even really wrap my head around how bad I've just screwed up. Bigger than any number of Spanish donuts can fix.

__________

I go to the river without her. Which is stupid because it's getting late and even stupider because I'm on the world's strictest curfew.

Why am I still looking? Because I'm worried? Because I care? Or maybe I just need to find him so this will all make sense, so I can show Cara, Vinnie, Nate:
See? It was worth it
.
I've found him.
The scary part is I know exactly why I'm still looking: the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach won't let me forget it.

The concrete wall runs for a good chunk of the path along the river. All the way along the right-hand side, leading up to an overpass. Steve was right – it's perfect for graffiti and about fifty million graffiti artist have worked that out already. The path cuts under the bridge and that's where I'm headed until I stop dead in my tracks.

I almost don't see him at first.

I was walking with my head turned, trying to spot Xavier's piece. X marks the spot.

But Dave's impossible to miss, his long puffer jacket and his shock of white hair.

‘Don't cheat me,' he says.

The sound of his voice brings the bile up from my stomach.

He's under the bridge, pacing back and forth. I step off the path, behind the hanging branches of a tree.

Some twitchy looking guy is standing in front of him. ‘Nah,' he says. ‘Nah, I wouldn't. Not you, Dave. I've got the money.'

‘So go and get it.'

Twitchy kid runs his fingers through his hair. ‘Can't you just spot me a gram?'

Dave hisses and then there's a flash of something silver, something metal, and the twitchy kid is backing away, hands out front.

‘All right,' he says. ‘I'll get it.'

My hand goes to my neck. I back away too. Slowly.

‘Get me my money, shithead,' says Dave.

The twitchy kid runs. As soon as he's out of sight, Dave lets out a roar. He turns, beating his hands against the concrete wall. He's muttering; nothing intelligible, nothing I want to hear.

When the knife-wielding psycho is having an episode, that's your cue to run, Frankie.

For once, I listen to my brain.

When I walk through the front door of the Emporium, Vinnie's serving a couple who are all over each other.

‘Out,' she says.

The couple give me freaked-out possum eyes. They probably think I'm some kind of crazy person, banned from every kebab joint in Melbourne.

I start backing up. ‘Okay.'

‘Not you. Them.' She jabs a nail at the couple, one at a time. ‘You two,' says Vinnie. ‘Out. Now.'

My bum bumps into the edge of a table as I back up.

The couple don't stop to argue, bushy possum-tails between their legs as they scurry out. That's another shit review for Terry's Kebab Emporium.

Vinnie marches over to the front door and flips the sign.
Closed.

Hey, at least she's talking to me again.

Vinnie's got one hand pressed to the closed sign, the other on her hip. ‘Take one guess where I had to go this afternoon.'

‘Another “appointment”?'

That's right, Frankie. Poke the bear.

She thumps the heel of her palm against the door. The glass rattles. ‘You better think twice before giving me some smart-arse response,' she says. ‘I've been down at your school being made a fool of again.'

She turns round.

‘I can –'

‘You wander in late and act like a spoilt brat when you get there? You're given yet another chance to defend yourself and you throw it away?'

She leans against the counter, like staying upright is a challenge. This is Vinnie – Vinnie who could run a marathon in stilettos and pick up a date at the end of it. I swallow the great lump of bitterness in my mouth.

‘They don't trust me to speak in front of the board so I have to write an essay on why I'm such a screw-up. You think that's a genuine chance?'

‘Someone in your position, Francesca, takes every chance thrown her way. What are you waiting for? A golden bloody ticket?'

I grab the thing nearest to me – a serviette canister – and throw it to the ground. Just to hear something crashing. Just to make a noise. ‘What am I supposed to write?'

For the first time in my life, Vinnie looks afraid of me.

I hate myself for it.

‘What do I tell them, Vin? That I'm some psycho freak who doesn't know how to control herself? That I rearrange some guy's face just because I don't like something he says? Who does that?'

Vinnie stares at me, brow furrowed and mouth open. I hate it when people say ‘her lips formed a perfect “o”' because they just don't make that shape. Not perfect. It's distorted, ragged, deflated.

She shakes her head, voice quiet. Too quiet. ‘You're going to lose everything you have if you keep acting like this. Everything.'

Joke's on you, Vin. Pretty sure I've already lost everything.

‘Well, that's what we Vegas do, right?' My whole body is shaking, rattling. ‘We rid ourselves of whatever doesn't fit. Whatever isn't fun, or exciting or useful anymore. We dump it at the Collingwood Children's Farm and fuck off to Queensland.'

‘Don't you –'

‘Or maybe that's just me. Because she kept him. Did you know that?' I grip the side of the table, hold myself upright. Just. ‘Thirteen years she kept him and could barely make it through four years with me. I'm the common denominator, aren't I? It's me people run away from. Juliet, Xavier, Cara, Mark, Nate, you.'

I can't take it anymore. Can't stay here and look at her face, at her disappointment. I can't hear her say the words that are surely coming:
I'm sorry, Frankie. Sorry I ever gave you a chance in the first place.

I turn, my foot kicking the canister along the ground.
Crash. Clang. Bang.

Everything's a blur but somehow I make it out of that place. Somehow I run up the stairs and into my room. Somehow I make it behind the closed door before the tears start.

__________

It was grandparents day at school. I guess I was six. Maybe seven. Vinnie had found the note scrunched up in the bottom of my bag the night before.

‘What's this?'

I looked at Nonna chopping tomatoes in the kitchen.

‘Nothing,' I said.

Vinnie flattened out the note against the coffee table. ‘Like hell it's nothing. Ma,' she shouted. ‘Ma,
vieni qui
!'

Vinnie held out the note for Nonna. She wiped her hands carefully on her apron and squinted at the note.

‘
Sono troppo occupata
,' said Nonna.

‘Too busy?' said Vinnie. ‘Doing what?'

I went to sleep to the sound of them arguing. But the house was silent when I woke up. I found Vinnie in the kitchen making my lunch.

I gripped my stomach and groaned. ‘I'm too sick to go to school,' I said.

She walked round the end of the bench and placed the back of her hand against my forehead. ‘Get your uniform on. You feel fine.'

I wasn't feeling fine when I got to school. Grey hair, yellow smiles, look-at-me-Grandma shouts echoing through the playground.

Vinnie grabbed my hand and walked me to where my class were lined up. I looked up at her as I stood in line, my little fingers squeezed in her grip.

The girl in front of me stared at Vinnie. I wanted to kick her but I couldn't reach, and Vinnie wasn't letting go of my hand.

Mrs Ibrahim came over. ‘Mrs Vega,' she said. ‘Are Francesca's grandparents coming today?'

Vinnie stared back at the girl in the line until she turned around with red cheeks.

‘I'm here,' said Vinnie. ‘It's aunt and niece day.'

If I gathered all my memories like that and tried to bury them in a time capsule in the backyard, the Earth would bulge and the old willow tree would fall down.

As I lie in bed, facing the wall, I listen for sounds of Vinnie returning to the flat. I wait for stomping through the apartment, the pantry door squeaking, kettle boiling, toilet flushing, tap running and lights clicking off one at a time.

It never comes.

I fall asleep to the sounds of silence.