Girl Defective (24 page)

“Sky, Sky, Sky, Sky, Sky, Sky, Sky!”

Gully rushed me, clamping onto my waist, giving my heart a power surge.

“Where did you go? We thought you'd gone forever.”

Gully's voice went right through me. Eve was getting up from the couch, smoothing her hands on her jeans. She gave me a tentative smile, her face dimpled with concern. Dad appeared in the kitchen doorway, a mug in his hand. I lifted my eyes to meet his. He put his mug down and came toward me, a thousand sorrows etched across his old man face. He hugged me and made a small fretful croak against my hair.

“I'm so, so sorry,” he said. He pulled back to look at me. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. I couldn't look at him; tears were building behind my eyes.

“I've just been so . . . worried,” Dad said. “I should have told you about the shop. I'm sorry. And I never should have hit you.” He started crying then. It was awful seeing his face contort, his mouth opening like a trapdoor and his eyes racing as his face reddened. My tears gushed forth. Gully stared at us. “It's official,” he said, in his most official voice. “I'm upset.” Waterworks all around.

“I don't want to move to the country,” I spluttered.

Dad wiped his eyes and blew his nose. “Who said anything about moving to the country?”

“I thought we were going to Aunty V's.”

“No.”

“Well, where are we going, then?”

“Your mum's folks are in assisted living now, so we can stay in their place for a while. If . . .” He cast a quick eye on Gully. “If you want to. There's still the beach. Really, it's like an inverted St. Kilda. Or like St. Kilda before all the yuppies got their claws in. It could be okay.”

Newport. The concrete flamingos. The fantasia lamp. The stockpile of perishables. The little notes on everything.

Eve moved next to me on the couch. She put her arm around me. It felt good. “Old St. Kildans never die. They just cross the water.”

Morning streamed in the window, throwing a starchy light on everything.

“What about the shop?” My question hung in the air with the dust motes. Gully was skywriting again, big and looping letters. He started to hum.

Dad coughed. “We may have to diversify.” He paused. “Is that what all this is about?”

I rolled my eyes, faking cool. “I'm just rebelling, Dad.”

“You think you can give it a rest until after Christmas?”

“I can if you can.”

Gully peered up at Dad. “Do I have to go to school today?”

“What do you want to do?”

“Work in the shop.”

Dad looked at me. “Skylark?”

I grinned. School or shop? There was no contest.

Dad made a cage over Gully's face with his hands. Gully chortled. Eve stroked my hair gently the way Galaxy Strobe never had. I leaned in and surrendered to the warm. For the tiniest moment my mind allowed the future in. It looked doable.

D
ATE: THURSDAY, DECEMBER SEVENTEENTH.
Time: 1000 hours. Location: Wishing Well Operation. Grand Sale.” Gully lowered his fist and beamed. He was ready for action: tool belt primed, night vision goggles in hands-free mode.

“Where do you want me?”

Dad turned Captain Beefheart down a smidge.

“Skylark, Seagull, I want everything out. I mean, everything. Let's bung some crates on the footpath and start making capital. Sky, I want you to pull whatever's been in the racks for more than six months and mark it down by half. Gully, I need you to make a sign for the front window. When you've done that, you can start shifting the g-sale stock out to the street. Now, where the hell is Luke?”

I'd been wondering the same thing. Every time I thought about him, I felt a little thrill in the pit of my stomach. When he walked in at ten thirty and smiled straight at me, it was like I was steeped in blush.

“What's the matter with you?” Gully put his palm to my forehead. I brushed him aside and got busy. The
last thing I needed was my crush splashed all over Gully's next memo.

I felt okay about culling but not so happy about the markdowns. We had good stock; our problem was exposure, or lack of it. I thought about Goldmine: the records I'd listed with Quinn. Possible future listings sat everywhere I looked.

Weeding out dead stock. I started at the
A
s—Luke started at the
Z
s—we were going to meet in the middle, and we were inching closer and closer. When we got there, I would stop time and kiss him. I imagined our hearts booming out of our skins like those old animations. The morning turned on tiny moments: furtive grins and sneaky hands. Captain Beefheart was loud enough to hide our crushing, but it was only a matter of time before Dad and Gully got wise.

GRAND SALE—THE END OF VINYL.

Gully held up his sign and waited for the verdict.

“Nice,” I said.

Dad bowed his head. “Prophetic.”

“Not necessarily,” I started to say, then thought better of it. I would tell him about Goldmine—I just had to wait until he'd calmed down. Dad was sorting, humming—you could see where Gully got it from. I hadn't seen this kind of energy for years. His blood was up, no doubt. I hung back and enjoyed it from a distance.

On this last Thursday before Christmas we were an industrious bunch. Dad put out new stock while Luke and I picked over the old. By lunchtime the racks were looking positively roomy. Eve showed up and Dad nicked off. Gully parked himself out front next to the sale table. So for the next little bit it was just Luke and me, and it was lovely. He gripped my hands below the counter and pressed his knees against mine. “How's it going?”

“Good.” I smiled. Luke checked to see that Gully was beyond visual range, and then he kissed me, fast.

He drummed his foot on the carpet. “I can't concentrate.”

“Me neither.”

A customer in Soundtracks muttered, “Get a room.”

Gully came in complaining of the heat, so I put him to work refilling the racks. He trawled slowly, pausing to read liner notes or inspect the discs for secret messages in the runoff. His slowness was calming. I needed to feel calmer.

And then: “Hellooo.” Steve Sharp strolled toward us rock star–ishly—I guess you never lose it. I marveled again at his tight skin, his impossible teeth so straight and white they looked like a mouthguard.

“Where's the boss?”

“Out.”

He nodded and looked around the shop. He seemed to be assessing it, and then I felt ill. Urban Renewal. Mum had sold to Steve Sharp, the Buddhist property
developer. He was going to turn the Wishing Well into loft apartments. In twenty years St. Kilda would just be a grid of posh boxes and dry gardens, and her people would be wax-perfect and soulless. Steve Sharp kept gazing around, his lips pursed.

I got angry then. Luke could sense it. Gully, too. He started fidgeting.

“There's rising damp behind the Wall of Woe,” I announced. “You want to lift up the carpet and check out the floorboards?”

“Nah, that's okay.” He winked at me. “You're Sky, right? I knew your mother.”

“She set you on fire?” I turned to serve another customer. Steve Sharp stayed where he was. When there was space again, he caught my eye.

“Pass us that?” He nodded to Patti Smith's
Easter
from the Rocky and Otis buy. I'd forgotten about it, and Dad had priced it and put it on the back wall—land of sweet deals and raries. Luke gave Steve the record. He flipped the cover, peeked inside. A puzzled dent marked his brow like a tiny arrow pointing down. “This is mine, but I didn't sell it in.”

I started to sweat. Here it was: the reason why Rocky and Otis didn't know about “Wishing Well”—the records were never theirs to begin with.

“How do you know it's yours?” I asked, stalling.

Steve Sharp tilted his head. “You always know your babies.”

“Your son sold it in,” Luke told him.

For a second everything stopped. Then Steve Sharp flashed his superwhites.

“That's right. I forgot.” He gave Patti two taps on her hairy armpit and passed her back. I could tell he was rattled, though, and it gave me some satisfaction. He went to leave, adding stiffly, “Get your dad to call me. Tell him, no hard feelings.”

I studied my palms, intent, like I was reading my future. I didn't look back up until I was sure he had gone.

Gully put on Elvis doing “Kentucky Rain.” Then he lifted the cover of
Easter
and looked inside as Steve Sharp had. He snorted. “That man does
not
love records.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean he's marked them. A person who marks their records has no respect. It's a hate crime against vinyl.”

We all peered into the cardboard cave. On the inside back there was a symbol. I knew it and Luke knew it. Three straight lines, like a primitive rake. Same as the symbol on Mia's tape. Same as the symbol on Nancy's. I was stunned silent. Luke was too. I flashed on Steve Sharp scooping tapes out of Elvis's tray like they were complimentary mints. So many times.

Gully
chh
ed his fist. “Excuse me—what's going on?”

We muttered, “Nothing.”

“I can help, you know. I'm an excellent detective.”

“You stick to the Bricker.”

“And the Snouters,” Gully added cheerily.

Luke sat hunched on the stool. He gave me a look that said,
Later . . .
We waited until Dad was back from lunch. Then Luke made an excuse to leave, and after a few minutes I did the same.

I
LED LUKE THROUGH
the knotty backstreets to Ray's cottage. We hung back, planning. The water in the canal had receded almost to nothing; her murky sides were on display. Luke plucked spider grass. “You think we just ask him straight out?”

“I don't know. Ray's unpredictable. I don't think he'll admit that Mia was staying at his house—it opens up too much.” I paused. “We should concentrate on Nancy. She can at least tell us where the tape came from. We can go from there.”

Ray took a while to open the door. I was shocked by his appearance. He was wearing the kimono—untied. I was grateful that his huge stomach obliterated his tackle. But his skin! I was nearly blinded by the pink and white, the muzzy drifts of hair and edema. And his face! A rash cauliflowered his cheeks. He leaned back against a pile of books and tied his belt.

“She's not here. She didn't come home again. I'm in a complete state.” He looked past me to Luke. “Who's he?”

Luke stepped up. “I'm Luke. Mia Casey was my sister.”

Ray's eyes raced. He started to close the door on us, but Luke got a foot in.

“You can't just front up,” Ray bleated. “I didn't do anything! Nancy owes me rent. She hasn't done the shopping or the cleaning. I'm living on dried fruit.”

“I just want to talk,” Luke said. “Did she stay here? My sister?”

Ray let go of the door. He was wheeling around his hallway. His kimono had become untied again, and this time he didn't fix it. He was pantomiming. “Ask Ray. Ray will help. Need some money or a place to crash? Ray's good for it. He won't ask questions.” He snarled. “You're all the same. Take take take. But when is someone going to do something for
me
?”

Luke cast me a let's-get-out-of-here look, but I went in, dodging Ray's flubbing form. “I left something in Nancy's room.” Ray was breathing heavily, the sound like industrial machinery. My eyes slid left to the stairs. I took them, fast.

Nancy's bedroom was the usual mess of books and clothes. I made a beeline for the boom box. The mix tape was still in there. I pressed play, and the music roared out of the speakers.

I scanned the room. My eyes lit on the collage on Nancy's cupboard, then past it to its ornate brass handles. They were definitely the same. Mia
had
been here. She had taken that photo
here
in this room. The boom box played “The Crying Game,” the guitar
sounding like two cats squalling in an alley. A feeling came over me that was thick and hot and formless. I ejected the tape and stuffed it in my pocket, and then I ran back down the stairs. Ray pressed his bulk against the door. Luke was on the other side of it.

Ray was too big to pass, but when he saw me, he latched on to my arm, and Luke was able to foist the door open. Ray's fingers needled for just a second, and then he let go with a queer smile. Luke grabbed me and we ran together until there was enough distance between us and Ray.

Luke leaned on his knees, catching his breath. He looked up at me, his eyes flashing. “Why'd you do that? I was about to break the door down.”

I considered him, all gangly hesitance, and arched an eyebrow. My stomach was jittering like mad. Then I held out Nancy's tape. Luke held it against Mia's tape.