Six Impossible Things (9 page)

She serves the rice. Expression: neutral. She’s thinking; it’s sinking in. I hope.

W
HEN I GET HOME
from school the next day, she’s had a stack of promotional flyers printed up at the Officeworks around the corner. I breathe a sigh of relief. Something I said last night must have got through. She’s back on board the sane train.

But only for a minute. She wants me to take a bunch of flyers to the staffroom at school. Is she kidding? No. And it’s hard to argue with her logic. Teachers are always getting married. It’s like their number one hobby or something.

I’m pretty sure being the PR boy for a wedding cake business is another rung on the social suicide ladder, so I make sure I’m in early the next morning to jam some flyers under the staff-room door. And that’s it. I’ll try to get rid of some more at the shops after school. Relief at getting the job done without being spotted is short-lived when Jayzo grabs a handful of flyers from my bag at the lockers.

‘Are you having a party, jerk-off?’ he asks. But then – proof that he can actually read – he says, ‘What’s this lame-arsed cake business got to do with you?’

I try ignoring him. Great tactic in theory. Practical success rate? For me, about one in twenty. He uses a flyer on me like a face-washer. It really hurts my bruised and battered face. ‘I asked you a question.’

‘It’s my mother’s business,’ I say through gritted teeth.

‘Is that right?’

He folds the flyer carefully and puts it in his pocket, sneering.

As he walks off, Lou says, ‘I think he likes you.’

I have to introduce Lou to Fred.

On the way home, I stop at all the likely shops and drop off flyers. When I get to Phrenology the bald guy, Ali, is sitting on a bar stool in the window talking to an old guy. So I go in and wait.

It’s a comfortable, homey café. Red concrete floor, long marble counter, biscuits in huge laboratory jars, wooden chair all-sorts, cakes on tiered stands, mismatched flower-patterned cups and saucers in a pigeonhole grid mounted on the wall, yellow tulips in a blue enamel coffee pot, blackboard menu, light-bulbs hang ing from long looped cords, a deep wooden crate painted lettuce green and half full of baguettes. I want to work here.

Two cool mothers sit deep in conversation while their little kids turn cake into a spitty mess – wearing some, eating some and smearing some around.

Ali notices me and throws an impatient look at the girl behind the counter washing glasses. ‘How can we help you?’ he asks, catching her attention. I recognise the dark red hair before she turns to me with a glare of recognition. It’s Estelle’s friend, Janie. She wipes her hands on the black wrap apron.

‘What can I get you?’ she asks with a smile that’s polite on the surface but flipping me off underneath.

I fake concentration on the cakes and pastries, piled in a glass display cabinet on the counter. ‘They look good.’

Janie rolls her fierce black-rimmed eyes. ‘Would you like to choose one?’ then dropping her voice, ‘Or would you prefer me to read your mind?’

‘I’ve come about work,’ I say. If I’d had any money on me, I would have chickened out, bought a cake, and run.

‘He’s here about a job,’ she calls in Ali’s direction, turning back to the washing-up area.

Ali is about thirty-five. Black jeans, black jumper, black stubble. Tall, tough-looking. He’d be a perfectly believable bouncer. He looks at me with such focus as I head over I feel as though I have a large sign hanging around my neck that says:

CLUMSY

INEXPERIENCED

DON’T HIRE ME

‘Hi, I’m Dan,’ I say, as a dad-imprint reminder floats to the surface: make eye-contact, shake hands. His grip is like a tourniquet.

‘How old are you?’

‘Nearly fifteen.’

‘Come back after your birthday.’

I’m expecting this one. ‘I’m prepared to be trained free of charge until I turn fifteen. I really need a job.’

‘Have you got any experience?’

‘Not in the area.’

My only job has been an abortive paperboy round when I was twelve, where Dad ended up driving me half the time.

‘What makes you think you’re suited to working in a café?’

‘I love food, and I’m interested in the service industry.’

I’ve rehearsed all this, but it comes off sounding like something out of ‘First Job Interviews for Dummies’. Is he buying it?

‘Can you handle a boss who shouts occasionally?’

It’s more like ‘all the time’ according to Mrs Da Silva, so I’m prepared for this too.

‘I’m used to it. My dad used to yell quite a bit.’

‘But he’s stopped?’

‘Kind of. He doesn’t live with us anymore.’

His considering look makes me babble on. I hope he doesn’t think my dad’s inside or something. ‘So it’s just me and Mum now. Mum and I. She has a food business, too. Wedding cakes.’ I pull a flyer from my backpack. ‘Maybe . . . would it be okay if I put this up in your window?’

He looks it over. ‘Sure. Okay, I’ll give you a trial – paid work-experience. If you handle it well we can talk about some part-time work when you turn fifteen. Breakages get taken out of your pay.’

I’m coming in for the morning shift on Saturday, seven until twelve-thirty. Fantastic. When I tell him I can help out by taking home any leftover food, he just smiles and heads out the back.

As soon as he’s out of range Janie comes over. Foolishly, I smile, imagining she’s going to congratulate me on getting a job. But she says, ‘Stop staring at my friend all the time in class. She thinks you’re a creep.’

Today is winter solstice. It’s nearly five o’clock and the wind is scribbling the trees’ bare branches against a darkening sky. Following my dragon-breath home along the puddled footpaths, I worry about the frequency of my Estelle glances in class. I honestly thought I had a lid on that. Does she really think I’m a creep or is that just Janie’s helpful take on the situation? Has Estelle actually called me a ‘creep’? Or has she said something like, ‘It’s a bit “creepy” when people look at you in class’ . . . ? There’s quite a difference.

When I get home the phone is ringing and my mother’s not home. Despite my jostling worries I remember to answer the right way. ‘I Do Wedding Cakes, how may I help you?’ The voice at the other end sounds like someone my own age, ‘How may I help you, dick brain?’ There’s the sound of two people snorting with laughter. And they hang up. Thank you, Jayzo.

My heart is racing, my face burning. The phone rings again. ‘Yes?’ I bark down the line. It’s my mother.

‘Dan, how many times are we going to go over this? Please answer with the business name. You’re so keen on telling me how to run the show, but you have to do your bit, too.’

She’s ringing to let me know she’s at a small business seminar at the library and there’s some food in the fridge for dinner.

When the phone rings again ten minutes later, I figure it’s her checking up on me. But no, it’s another prank call. ‘You may help me by walking under a truck,’ a girl sputters. More laughing and another hang up. A few minutes later another call – gee, the gang’s all there. ‘You “do” wedding cakes? That’s disgusting.’ The high-end wit keeps on coming. Four more calls in the next hour and that’s it. I put on the answering machine. Surprise, surprise, my amusing classmates’ calls peter out. I’m fuming. I’m embarrassed. I need to talk to Fred, but when I call, the Gazelle tells me he’s at debating.

Before I get ready for bed I work out some anger with a good weights session. Why was I persisting despite my aching arms and aching face? Getting stronger and looking better is now imperative. I want to be able to stand up to Jayzo – and his prank-calling band of hyenas – including thumping him, if it comes to that. Also against all odds and any likelihood, I keep imagining the unimaginable – that I will somehow go to the social with Estelle. Despite knowing it is utterly stupid and I am utterly stupid, given the latest ‘creep’ update, images of us together keep invading my thoughts.

I hear her moving in the attic, push on through the pain barrier, and re-enter the shame zone as I remember my second visit to the attic.

T
HE LAST WEEKEND OF
the holidays we moved in, Estelle and her parents were going away. She and her mother were fighting, as usual – Estelle didn’t want to go.

I waited until they’d left, and then another hour in case of an essential-item-forgotten return trip, before I decided the coast was clear.

She hadn’t replaced the box of books over the hatch cover so I knew my first visit was undiscovered. I pushed the packing boxes away from the hole between my side and Estelle’s side of the attic, putting the cord in my pocket to reposition them on my way out. I was being sneaky and deliberate.

It gets worse.

A figure stepped towards me as I entered the space. As quickly as I gasped in terror and surprise, I recognised the looming shape as my own reflection. Estelle had moved one of the big mirrors. Calming down, I scoped the space and headed for the desk. I’d seen something in that first visit that my feet were making a beeline for. I still hadn’t consciously decided to go to the dark side. But it sure looked like I was heading that way. It was a pile of exercise books I’d noticed, and they were still there.

Carefully noting exactly how they were positioned on the desk, and keeping them in order, my black heart gave the green light to my reading Estelle’s diaries.

She’d started writing in grade six, and was still writing them. The subject matter was highs and lows, rather than day-to-day detail, although, like me, she is a chronic list-maker. I can’t offer any excuse for doing what I did, but I can say I read so fast it was as though someone had plugged a cord into my forehead and clicked an icon to download data. My eyes scanned those pages at the most feverish rate imaginable. I’d race back to the top of each page, unable to believe I’d read everything in the first rush of blood. But I always had. I was as thirsty for those words as it is possible to be. I needed to know her, and here was a foul means dangled before me. I failed the test completely. I hardly struggled. I knew what I was doing was morally reprehensible. And still I did it. All’s fair in love and war, right?

Right?

I felt empathy for eleven-year-old Estelle’s feelings on her parents’ imminent overseas trip – I remember thinking exactly the same sort of stuff:

It’s official. I HATE my mum and dad. They’re probably not even my real parents. Let them see how much they miss me when I’m DEAD. See if I care if they go to Paris for work. AS IF it would matter for me to miss two weeks of SHI T school. I’ll probably catch meningococcal virus and then they’ll be sorry, but it will be WAY TOO LATE.

Since the ‘creep’ episode, I take pathetic vengeful pleasure remembering Estelle’s falling out with Janie in Year Seven. I try not to dwell on the fact that I’ve earned the epithet a thousand times over:

Janie Bacon better get her friends SORTED OUT. She likes me or not, and I couldn’t care less either way. She’ll soon find out she can’t play her petty little HOT and COLD guessing games with me. She needs a wake-up call BIG TIME. And I’m just the one to do it before she turns into a giant, friend-slaying bitch for good.

An involuntary goofy smile hits me when I think about her cloud sandwiches:

I’ll scoop off a sweet piece of that cloud and lie it down on some bread. I’ll put another slice on top, so gently the cloud won’t fly away, and when I bite down and stray wisps whoosh out the sides, I’ll lick them up. They’ll taste like atomised Turkish delight. I’ll call it a floating sandwich. First it will make me dream of flying, then it will make me fly.

I take a break between sets with the weights and visit the inventory for the millionth time:

Our bands in common are Hot Chip, TV on the Radio and Kings of Leon.

We both hate humid weather and long-haul flights and most fantasy writing.

We’re both list and chart makers. She catalogues all her ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’ – bands, books, films, food. In grade six her favourite lolly was a redskin and savoury junk was Twisties. In Year Nine it’s sour worms and salt and vinegar chips. In the hot drinks zone it was hot chocolate with pink marshmallows and now it’s mochaccino. Film was
10 Things I Hate About You
, and now it’s Baz Luhrmann’s
Romeo + Juliet
and
Donnie Darko
.