Hot Little Hands (10 page)

“And these sources of yours. How do you know they're not working for me?”

He laughed. “Oh no, I've checked them out thoroughly. Rorschach tests, lie detectors. They're very reliable sources.”

“Hmm, I see.”

“Ramona. Ramona!” Minyung had come around the edge of the building and was whispering to her. “Come on.”

“Shit,” Ramona said, moving toward Minyung with her head tilted down and out of view of any sport teachers. “I have to go. But wanna see me later?”

“Sure,” Adil said. “Should I meet you there?”

“No. I'll come to you. Gottagobye.” She flipped her phone shut, dropped it into the pocket of her blazer, and followed Minyung around the corner. But what she saw there was not what she had expected; what she saw was not a teacher coming to bust girls using mobile phones on school grounds, but a group of six or seven girls with Kirsty at its center, and in Kirsty's hands a cupcake covered in pink icing with a fat red candle sticking out the top.

“We just wanted you to know we're thinking about you,” Kirsty said.

“Yeah,” said Amber, her curls nodding in concurrence. The bell rang for the end of lunch but none of the girls moved.

“And we know it's not your birthday or anything,” said Kirsty, “but we thought you might want to make a wish. For the start of a new life without anything weird or, you know, gross in it.”

“Thank you so much.” Ramona smiled. She felt like she'd won an award and her speech was being televised. “Um, I don't even know what I'd wish for. With such good friends like you guys.”

“Aww,” Hayley said, “we love you, too.”

All the girls stood in a circle around Kirsty, who raised the candle to Ramona's face and said, “Yeah!” when she blew it out. She handed Ramona the cupcake as the second bell rang, then grabbed her free hand as they rushed toward the main school building.

“I can't believe you got molested,” Kirsty said as she stopped in front of her locker, out of breath. “I feel so bad for you.”

“Thanks.” Ramona spun the dial on her combination lock. She felt so happy she didn't even care that she was on her way to a double period of maths.

Dowling Boys finished fifteen minutes after Kenley, so Ramona was waiting out front when the guys started coming through the gates. Adil kissed her on the cheek when he found her.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey. Hey Jules.” She reached over and gave Adil's best friend an awkward hug, one arm around the back of his neck. He was red-faced when she pulled away.

“Miss MacKenzie,” he said. “What are you doing here? Didn't know you were moonlighting as a safety monitor.”

“Yeah, LOLsies,” she said. Jules could be a smartass but, Ramona had noticed, he never looked her in the eyes when he spoke to her.

“Should we go?” Adil put an arm around her, and the three of them headed to the station.

On the train, the guys talked about something that had happened at school. A substitute teacher had told the class about a brief stint he'd done in a Malaysian jail for drug possession. He'd ignored the teacher's lesson plan and answered their questions for the entire period.

“He didn't even ask us not to tell the principal or the other teachers or anything,” Jules said. “Some people have a death wish, I guess.”

Adil shrugged. “Maybe he just trusts us.”

Jules got off at Clifton Hill, and Ramona and Adil rode on together.

“How was your day?” he asked as they stepped onto the platform at Northcote. “Anything special happen?”

“Nothing at all.” She shook her head. “Same old same as.”

His mum was in the living room, spoon-feeding baby Zahra, when they came in.

“Hey, guys.” She smiled up at them. “Please don't tell me you're hungry. All I've got in the fridge is baby food and baby formula. Don's gonna do a shop on his way home.”

“I'm fine,” Ramona told her, stroking baby Zahra's head. It felt like a warm coconut.

“Me too,” Adil said.

“You're never not hungry.” His mum laughed. “Take heed, Ramona. He has two settings: starving and ravenous. Just pray he's grown out of this stage before you two get married.”

“Umi!” he said. “You're gonna scare her off. It was hard enough just getting her number.”

Ramona smiled at Adil's mum, then followed him to his room. Once inside, she closed the door, raised her hands up to his shoulders, and pushed him against the wall, standing on tiptoe until she could reach his mouth with hers.

“Geez, girl,” he said. “You gonna at least let me get my jacket off first?” He pulled it off and they lay down. Adil had a double bed—Ramona still had her old single—and she loved the feeling of being able to open her legs and still have both feet on the mattress.

Adil was her second boyfriend, and not as big as her first. They'd been sleeping together for a month now but she still wasn't used to the difference. She lay there, arched her back, and concentrated on his scent. He worked weekends boxing pastries at his uncle's bakery, and she could swear he smelled like cinnamon all through the week.

“Oh God,” she whispered after a few minutes. “I love that.”

“Wait. Wait.” He stopped moving and closed his eyes in concentration. She held herself as still as she could. A slick of his hair was stuck to his forehead and she brushed it aside with a finger. “Wait,” he said. She pulled her hand away. After another minute he opened his eyes and nodded. “Okay.”

He leaned his forearms on either side of her head and started to move again. “Can you say something?” Ramona whispered.

“Like what?”

“I dunno. Something sexy.”

“You're so sexy and beautiful,” he said. “You feel so good. And warm.”

“No!” Ramona scrunched up her nose.

“What?”

“Just, warm isn't a sexy temperature.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I guess I'm just not that into talking during.”

Ramona turned her head and looked at his wristwatch, then at the fish swimming around in the aquarium on his desk. His closet door was open a crack and inside she could see something—a backpack or a pile of clothes—and she looked at it for a while. Then she squinted her eyes almost shut and pretended the object was Jules—Jules crouched on the floor of the wardrobe watching them fucking, Jules waiting for them to finish so he could have his turn with her. He was jealous, she imagined, crazy jealous, and also a bit ashamed, but mostly he was just turned on. And ready to have her as soon as his best friend was done.

“Oh my God,” she said, turning to face Adil, who was watching her, his eyes wide above her. “Oh my God,” she said again, her head falling back.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, me too.”

“Your mother called,” Dr. Carvden told her the following week. “She mentioned what's been happening at home. She and Tony are very upset. They think I'm putting ideas in your head. She said they're considering discontinuing your therapy.”

“They can't do that,” Ramona said.

“Well, they're the ones paying for our sessions.”

Ramona stared at the tissue box on the table next to her. Last week it had been silver with pink and blue dots on it. This week there was a new one sitting there, green flowers on a peach background. A lot of people must cry in here, she thought. She had never cried in the therapist's presence and she wondered if there was something wrong with her because she hadn't. For a moment she considered forcing herself to produce a few tears, just so Dr. Carvden might like her more, just to be like the other clients. But then the therapist said, “I do hope they'll continue to let us work together,” and Ramona realized that she must like her already.

“Did I do the right thing?” Ramona asked. “By telling.”

“That's not my call to make, Ramona.”

“So, you think I shouldn't have said anything?”

“I would support you, no matter what you decided,” Dr. Carvden said. “It's your experience to share, or not share, as you see fit.”

Ramona waited for her to say something more, but she didn't. The therapist's response was like an algebra problem that was so hard, it seemed to have no answer.

Her mother made shepherd's pie for dinner that night. Afterward, Tony stood at the kitchen sink, washing dishes and passing them to Ramona, who dried them with a tea towel and put them away. Behind them, her mother sat at the kitchen table with Lockie and helped him with his schoolwork.

“No, darling, Scotland has no
u
in it,” she told him.

“Oh, I thought it was called Scoutland.” Lockie leaned over the page, his tongue pressing into his lower lip as he fixed his mistake.

“So,” Tony said. He was using the rough side of a sponge to work at the mashed potato stuck to the bottom of a pot. “Your mum thinks this whole thing has to do with boarding school.”

“It doesn't,” Ramona said.

“It's just too expensive,” her mother said from the table.

“We'd have to cut right back,” Tony said. “Stop paying your mobile bill. And your psychologist. You'd have to get a job over the summer holidays.”

“I don't want to go to boarding school anymore,” Ramona said. “I like it at Kenley.”

“Since when?” her mum asked.

“Since recently.”

“That's great news, hon.”

“What's Steve's middle name?” Lockie asked.

“Frank,” their mother said. “F-R-A—”

Tony rinsed out the pot and placed it on the dish rack. Ramona picked it up.

“Well, if this isn't about boarding school, I don't know what it is you want.”

“I didn't say I want anything.”

“It's not very nice having someone make up stories about you and go around telling them,” he said. “I'll tell you that much.”

“That's not what I'm doing.”

“I just don't understand where this is coming from. I thought we were sending you to the psychologist to talk about what happened with the heater.”

“We are talking about that. But we're talking about other stuff, too.”

“All right. Well.” Tony squeezed out the sponge and dropped it into the empty sink. He sounded annoyed but when he turned to face her, his forehead was all creased up, as though it pained him to look at her. “I hope she can help you, Ramona.”

“Thanks, Tony. Me too.”

“Because your mum and I are upset, but we're also extremely worried about you.”

“Don't be.”

It was hard to keep looking at him. His sad droopy eyes, the dark patches beneath them. He looked like he actually was worrying about her, like he thought she was doing this specifically to hurt him and he couldn't understand why.

He turned to her mother. “I'm all done here, love. Think I'll head out for a bit.”

“Where you going?”

“Just for a drive.”

“Can I come?” Lockie asked.

“I don't think so, mate.” Tony left the kitchen. Out in the hallway, there was the sound of keys, and then the front door shutting behind him.

Ramona's mother smiled over at her. “I'm glad you two had that talk. Now maybe things can return to normal around here.”

“I'd hardly call it a talk.”

“Well, you know Tony. He tries.”

Ramona did know Tony. She remembered a joke someone had made at the wedding, about how the longest sentence he'd ever spoken was “Will you marry me?”

“I've finished most of the dishes,” Ramona said. “Can I leave the rest?”

“Can you just dry them and put them away?” her mum said. “A full rack of dishes is the last thing I need to deal with first thing in the morning.” She stood up and ruffled Lockie's hair. “Come on, you,” she said. “Let's get you changed and into bed.”

All the girls except Minyung came to Ramona's slumber party on Saturday night. They ate pizza in the living room and watched
Napoleon Dynamite
on DVD. Most of them knew it by heart. Every time someone walked past to the kitchen, the girls turned their heads to see if it was Tony. But he didn't appear—he'd gone for a drive as he had most nights that week—and the only person who came by was Steve, who stuck his finger up at Ramona and said hi to the other girls.

“Hi,” they said, looking at one another to check if anyone was flirting with him. Nobody was.

After they'd watched the special features, Kirsty said, “Let's go to Ramona's room.” The girls followed her upstairs, where Kirsty shut Ramona's door and told everyone to sit in a circle on the floor. She switched the light off and turned on a torch. “The reason Minyung isn't here,” she said, sitting down, “is because she told her mum about Ramona being molested, and her mum wouldn't let her come. Here.” She handed the torch to Ramona. “Hold this under your face and tell us exactly what happened with you and Tony.”

“I don't know,” Ramona said. The girls were all sitting cross-legged, watching her. “He'd, like, rub me down. He never touched me with his hands. He always used the towel.”

“Did he, like, use his fingers?” Skye's eyes were shiny in the low light.

“Not right inside,” Ramona said, the heat from the torch warming her chin. “But almost. Like outside, in between.”

Kirsty reached out and took the torch from Ramona. She held it under her face and looked around the circle. “Once, a few years ago, I was at the movies with my mum, and this guy sitting two seats away from us had these running shorts on, you know? They were all pushed up to his thighs and his dick was hanging out of them. I saw it as soon as we sat down but it took my mum a few minutes to notice. Then straight away she grabbed my hand and pulled me into another row, far away. I thought it was a mistake, and the guy didn't know. But my mum told me later that the guy was a sicko and he was doing it on purpose.”