One True Thing (11 page)

‘
I
feel it. My dad not so much.' Jake seems to almost shrink. He turns away so abruptly that he seems angry, but when he speaks his voice is soft. ‘The light in Alice's eyes in that photo, the rise of her chin – there's a story there, a whole
life
. Sometimes, when I take a photo, when I get the right angle – a particular slant – it feels like I know them and their story. That's what I'm looking for – people and their stories captured in a single perfect shot.'

‘That seems like a big thing to want.' I think of the photo he took of me and why it bothered me so much, why it made me blush. It felt wrong because he got me exactly right.

‘Like the photo of you,' he says, reading my mind. ‘I didn't want to take any more after that. I'd got it – the story, or a sense of it at least. Of you.'

He's watching me carefully and it feels like the whole room has been muted. The silence between us is charged and intense.

‘Maybe being here will help your dad understand,' I offer. ‘A new place, new people …?'

‘It's hard to start again,' he says, ‘but I'm finding my way.'

‘What about the piece on the band? How did that go?'

‘They like the pictures,' he says slowly. A chagrined smile follows. ‘I guess my article wasn't quite what they were after. But I've got another assignment, so that's something.'

‘Congratulations! That's great.'

His phone beeps and I see ‘Dad' flash on the screen. He slides it shut. ‘Enough to get my dad off my back, if I'm lucky.'

‘You said he's a journalist too?'

‘A producer,' Jake says quickly, his gaze finding the TV. ‘Freelance. It's pretty cutthroat – always pitching for work – but it keeps him out of my hair.' He glances at the phone, the message from his dad flashing on the screen. ‘In person, anyway.'

‘Is that why he moved to Melbourne?'

‘That's what he says. More likely he just wanted to get away from Mum.'

The dim restaurant lights cast his face in a gentle glow. So many emotions captured there, but none I can name precisely. ‘Are you okay?' I ask.

‘I'm fine.' His knee starts to jiggle. ‘It's hard to know sometimes …'

‘What?'

He offers a hollow laugh. His whole expression changes, the whimsy and confusion gone, that confident smile in place and the dimples there with it. ‘First world problems,' he says. His smile softens and he reaches across the table, covering my hand with his. ‘I'm really glad you came. And kind of surprised your mum let you.' He tilts his head, indicating the TV, the worm telling us that Mum has just landed another punch. ‘Considering.'

I bristle at this. ‘Yeah, well, if I organised my life around Mum's career, I'd never go anywhere, and I definitely wouldn't be friends with a journalist.'

Jake flinches the tiniest bit but laughs lightly. ‘Fair enough.'

And then he suddenly sits straighter, his back rigid as though preparing for assault. I follow his gaze and see a tall man built a lot like him striding towards us, a broad smile in place, but one that, up close, has a kind of shadow. Not a shadow. A smoothness, like a TV-commercial smile – the kind they use to sell toothpaste.

‘Jake. You didn't answer my message.' The rebuke edges the man's voice but that cool smile doesn't flicker.

‘I thought you were working.'

The man barely looks at Jake when he answers. His gaze is fixed on me. ‘Just a quick break, was in the area …' He has the same startling green eyes, but where Jake's are warm and full of humour, his are hard. ‘Wanted to see if you needed a lift. I forgot you had company.'

Jake frowns, searching the man's face for an answer to a question I'm not sure was asked. But the man is still sizing me up.

‘This must be Francesca,' he says, giving my name an Italian lilt that doesn't belong. ‘You didn't tell me she was so beautiful,' he continues, somehow making the compliment sound like an accusation.

My face feels hot and all I can manage is an awkward half-laugh. I glance at Jake and am surprised to see real anger there.

‘You're not going to introduce us officially, son?'

Jake's jaw twitches, the dimples have now vanished. ‘This is Frankie,' he says, his voice low and thin. He looks at me with apology in his eyes. ‘Frankie, this is my dad.'

I reach out a hand, like Harry has always taught me to do. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr D'Angelo.'

There's a glimmer of something I can't identify in his expression, but then it's gone. ‘Mr D'Angelo is my ex-father-in-law's name,' he says. ‘Jake decided to take his mother's surname after the divorce. Call me Tony.'

‘Sorry. I didn't know.'

‘No problem,' he says too quickly.

The silence stretches.

‘Jake was just showing me some of his favourite photographs,' I say. ‘They're really beautiful.'

‘Dad's not a huge fan of
art
,' Jake says, using air quotes around the last word. ‘Especially not mine.'

I'm surprised by the harshness of Jake's tone and even more surprised that Tony barely reacts. ‘Now, now, Jake,' Tony says. ‘There's a place for photography. It has a purpose. And potential for a career.'

‘As long as there are words to go with it, or if the subjects are famous.' Jake leans towards me, effectively cutting his dad out of the conversation. ‘It's the difference between the Alice photo and unauthorised shots of Kim Kardashian buying lingerie in Brunswick Street.'

‘Come now. That's not news.' Tony glances at his watch, then at the TV. ‘Photojournalism is a perfectly acceptable pursuit. A realistic one.'

‘But not my thing.'

Tony flashes straight white teeth. ‘It's fine to have a hobby. I appreciate art as much as the next man, but it won't pay the bills.' He looks at me. ‘As long as it doesn't get in the way. I'm sure Frankie agrees.'

I laugh. ‘I'm the last person to ask.'

Jake shakes his head, studies the tablecloth.

‘How's the portfolio coming, Jake?' his dad asks.

Jake's cheeks redden. ‘Fine. Do we really need to talk about it now?'

Tony's expression stiffens. ‘No. I just haven't seen you much the last few days.'

‘Maybe you should come home more often.'

‘Wouldn't that be nice,' Tony says without blinking.

The waiter approaches and asks if we need an extra seat.

Tony laughs loudly. ‘No, no! I've got to get back. Glad to have met you, Francesca.' His teeth almost seem to glint. ‘I'll let you two enjoy yourselves,' he says finally.

He leaves as suddenly as he arrived, pausing at the register near the door to wave at us what I presume is our bill, indicating that he's paid it.

We sit there without talking, the air thick with the unspeakable. What can I say?
He seems nice
?
He seems horrid
? I can't say either. I reach across the table and squeeze Jake's hand.

Jake looks at me, the tension gradually leaching from his body. I can see relief wash over him like a wave. His hand has unclenched beneath mine and he's turning it over, his fingers entwined with mine.

Then, just as abruptly, he pulls away. ‘We'd better go,' he says, waving vaguely at the TV screen.

I watch Mum and the Opposition Leader laugh at something the moderator has said, then Mum says something and the worm goes through the roof. I wish I had my own worm here right now so I could work out what the hell just happened.

As we approach the TV studio, Jake's steps slow. He's barely spoken the whole way, and although I made a couple of attempts to get him talking, the heaviness of his tread and the slope of his shoulders was all the information I needed to know there was no point.

Outside the building, Jake stops and faces me. He takes both my hands in his, and I let him. He looks at me for the longest time. ‘At least we're early,' he says, half-smiling.

‘Yeah. I can catch the end of it.'

‘I'm sorry about before. My dad is …'

‘I'm getting that.'

He smiles. ‘Thanks.'

I feel the velvet of his lips against mine and suddenly none of it matters. He tastes like mint, his breath is warm and ragged. The kiss deepens and we are so close, his chest pressed against mine, that I can feel his rapid heartbeat. Or is it mine?

We pull away and he looks at me with that lopsided grin. ‘Can we do this again soon?' he asks. ‘Without Tony.'

I laugh, glad that the mood has eased. ‘Yeah, parents generally aren't the best accessory on a first date.'

‘You think?'

‘I mean, it was a date, wasn't it?' I feel emboldened by those lips, the way his breath caught against my mouth.

It's Jake's turn to laugh. ‘Yes. Oh, yes.'

I reach up to kiss him again, feel him groan against my mouth a moment later when he pulls away. ‘I'm
really sorry,' he says, and looks it. For a second he seems to reconsider his words, like he's said something he shouldn't, but that vanishes and the smile is both reluctant and resigned. ‘You promised your parents.'

‘Yeah.' With my head still reeling, I turn and head into the building.

I don't see Jake at school the next day and he has to work all weekend, but he messages me several times and we talk about our next date like it's no longer a maybe.

The bump Mum got in the polls after her debate victory was pretty solid, though not as high as they'd hoped. Mum is barely home – I see her more on TV than I do in person. Luke and I help out in bits, attending meet-and-greets with Christie and Sarah and sometimes Harry, chatting with strangers at various shopping centres, appearing on stage at any event to do with kids and families. Dad comes along to a couple of them, but between his new novel and the stuff he has to do with Mum, he's almost never home either. Mum swoops in at
the last minute at the bigger occasions, stands beside us to play happy families, then is ferried out again to whatever new stunt Harry has devised for her. Other than that, I haven't seen Mum and Dad in the same room all week. I don't even ask when she disappears in the middle of the night now. It's almost a daily occurrence.

By Sunday night, I'm done. Luke is still suffering school-camp hangover, and the few engagements he's attended have knocked him around. He spends most of Sunday night watching back-to-back Harry Potter movies in bed, letting Dad and, reluctantly, me deliver him snacks and drinks. Gran pops her head in a couple of times, but Mum's been really cross with her ever since the launch and for once it seems like she's taken the hint.

I kind of miss her, actually.

The only thing of note that happens the whole weekend is that Kessie was apparently front row at one of the Northlink protests against the women's shelter that's being relocated. I saw it on the news – saw her wave her banner and call out to Mum to remember where she came from. Kessie ambushing Mum at a campaign event would usually only drive Harry crazy, but this one seems to have annoyed everyone. I suspect it's because it involves the women's shelter and Mum shifting her story to ‘play down the woman issue'.

When I get to school on Monday and overhear Kessie and Tyler chatting about the protest together, I realise
Tyler had been there too and then the whole thing suddenly feels like something bigger than just Kessie showing Mum up.

‘Thanks a lot for that, Kess,' I say when they both turn to see me in the corridor.

‘What?' Kessie asks, looking genuinely confused.

‘The protest? Yelling at my mum?' I shake my head and slam my locker. ‘Nice work.'

‘You know how I feel – how
we
feel.' The tiny laminated face of Ellen Page stares up at me from the badge on Kessie's jacket collar, mocking me. ‘Eve Was Framed' is in bold pink beside it.

‘It's a pretty big deal,' Tyler says gently, almost apologetically.

‘Thanks for your support, Ty!' I snap, aware that the twisting feeling in my chest seems to increase whenever I see the two of them together.
It's not like I'm being replaced
, I try to tell myself.
I never went to these stupid protests before, anyway.

But still.
Still
.

Tyler blanches. She actually visibly shrinks. I instantly feel sorry. I know how much she hates confrontation. She has more reason than anyone to fight for a women's shelter to stay where it can do the best work. I'd probably be cheering for her on a different day, but with this stupid election, all the tension and bloody Kessie dragging her along everywhere …

And not
once
asking me about my date with Jake.

‘Seriously?' Kessie says, the look on her face searing me. She positions herself in front of Tyler like a bodyguard, like I'm something dangerous that she needs to protect Tyler from. ‘We're not going to stop caring about the world just because it's inconvenient for you and your mum.'

I look from one to the other: Kessie's determination cut into her features, Tyler's resolve quiet but firm. ‘It's up to you how you spend your weekends, but if you want this audition to work, you need to focus on what matters most,' I say finally, and stalk off towards the studio.

Rehearsal limps along. Kessie is still pissed off but she keeps to herself and we get through the entire set. Tyler must have said something to her. We still have to decide on the last song, and it's possible my head will explode if we don't sort it out soon, but right now nothing seems to close the set the way it needs to.

On the tram home, I drag out my phone and see messages from Harry, Sarah and Mum. Nothing from Dad and nothing from Jake.

The messages don't give anything away; they all just tell me I need to talk to Harry as soon as I can. Mum reminds me that ‘they're just words', that nothing – not even the truth – gets in the way of a good story. She says she'll be home late and will talk more when she's
back. Mum's going bush for the next couple of days, trying to cultivate the rural vote, some of the more marginal seats that could go either way. The country's always been a bit difficult for her. She used to live in the bush, near the South Australian border, when she was little but she never talks about that, so the media and the voters see her as a Melbourne politician. Being a woman is problem enough, but appearing to be Melbourne-centric? Unforgiveable.

I call Harry. Then Dad. Then Sarah. Even Christie's number gets a run. Everyone's phone goes to voicemail, which means they're all probably in a meeting, so it's up to me to work out what sort of disaster looms. I open the browser and start searching the mainstream papers first. I stop at a headline about Mum and more queries over unexplained expenses. I scan the article but it's still not clear what they're talking about. There are quotes from her press release claiming that she has nothing to apologise for, that any mistakes made in her entitlements were corrected as soon as they were identified. That she is ‘getting back to the business of running Victoria'. The photo they've used is a file pic from weeks ago, which shows Mum hurrying up the Parliament steps. She looks good, as always, but is frowning at something off-camera. I remember that photo because a couple of the outlets had used it. She'd been held up before a vote and was hurrying so she wouldn't miss it. It was a big one – the
forced adoptions bill. I know her expression is nothing more than concentration on not tripping on the steps while checking how much time she has with Sarah or Christie – whoever it was she was looking at off-camera. Except, next to this article, it makes Mum look like she's running from something, or not prepared to answer questions. It's out of context – and it works.

Something about the newspaper's decision to link
this
photo with
this
article makes me queasy. It's as if they're determined to tell a story even if they don't have all the facts, like they've made up their minds already.

I stare at the screen, trying to decide whether it's worth checking Seamus Hale's blog. I decide to continue with the other mainstream media – the tabloids can be nasty and careless in their reporting, and talkback radio is brutal like no other. But nothing beats the anarchy of the political blogosphere, Seamus Hale being king of them all. Surprisingly, the tabloids have been easy on Mum – they left Evan Sandry alone when he announced his early retirement, probably because we'd had a decade with a different government and it was still a new administration. Mum's appointment meant a fresh start and there's usually a honeymoon phase at the beginning, where even the media feels positive and hopeful.

I scan several websites and decide that the tabloid articles are about the same, though with big pictures and fewer words. Nothing dodgy and nothing new. And yet,
together, they're making a case – building a narrative, Harry would say – and it's not a good one.

There's no putting it off. I have to deal with Seamus Hale sooner or later.

I click on the link and brace myself for the onslaught. There she is again. It's probably the closest thing to a bad photo I've seen of my mum. Her hair is ruffled as though she's been caught in the wind and her jacket is rucked up roughly on her shoulder. She seems rushed and untidy – under pressure. But that's not what worries me; it's the headline across the top: ‘Yummy Mummy's Secret Life'.

I read the article. It's three paragraphs long and takes me about four minutes to discover that there is no secret or any evidence of anything at all. Hale just repeats the unexplained expenses bit from other news, referring to a couple of ‘unscheduled gaps' in her diary, and includes a couple more photos of Mum hurrying somewhere or looking the other way. Except none of that matters because, at the top, there for all to see, is a quote from ‘a source close to the Premier' (code for a total stranger) claiming that the Premier is too busy ‘consorting with a man half her age in the middle of the night' when she's supposed to be taking care of Victoria.

Consorting with a man half her age. In the middle of the night.

I re-read the article. Still no real explanation, just a brutal headline and a few words dropped like a bomb
with no attempt to even prove them. Smear Politics 101, Harry calls it.

I shut my phone, wanting to undo the words that are now branded on my brain. I look up, get my bearings and jump off the tram when it stops. I need to walk to clear my head. A part of me knows I'm letting it get to me, exactly what I've been warned against. It's media manipulation – dirt being thrown in the hope that some of it sticks. Filthy, rotten, made-up dirt. I know none of it's true.
I do
.

So why does it feel like the ground is collapsing beneath me?