‘Look, I have to go. Can we talk about this later?’ Dad was asking Mum. Joe had shut the door behind him, and it was a good thing he did too, because when Dad had finished speaking, Mum picked up an empty bottle of Grey Goose vodka and threw it at his head. She missed, missed by a mile, but that didn’t stop the bottle hitting the wall behind him and shattering into thousands of tiny pieces.
‘Jesus!’ Dad exclaimed. He turned around, surveying the damage.
‘Oh, look what I did! Can’t have clean-cut Stevie D trashing the green room. People might talk!’ Mum’s voice dripped with sarcasm. It sounded hoarse, no doubt a result of the hours she’d spent alternating between crying and screaming up until now.
‘Even if this was our bloody lounge room, I would still be furious! You can’t just throw shit like that.’
‘I’ll throw whatever I want to throw!’ Mum yelled. ‘You’re so uptight.’ She walked up to Dad and put her hands on his shoulders, shaking them. ‘Give up this stupid dream already.’
‘And do what? I can’t afford your habits any other way. If I don’t sing, you have to get a job.’ Dad shook his head.
I inched around behind them and started to pick up the pieces of glass. They were all different sizes, and some had gotten stuck in the carpet. They required a bit of twisting to retrieve, but the others I could pick up with ease and place in my hand.
‘What do you want me to do? I don’t have any skills. And there’s clearly only one thing you think I’m good at these days,’ Mum said, leering. She pulled at her top, exposing her décolletage.
I focused on the glass again. I counted each piece in my hand. Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight. On the fortieth piece, a shard broke through my skin, spilling bright red blood. Funny. I hadn’t thought my skin would be so thin.
‘Amy, you’re hurt!’ Mum pushed past Dad and came to kneel next to me. ‘What are you doing?’ She knocked my hand with her own, and the pieces of glass flew up into the air and landed back on the floor.
All my efforts — ruined.
‘Let me see,’ Dad said.
‘Get the fuck away from her!’ Mum yelled, raising her voice again.
‘Do we have to do this in front of Amy?’ Dad asked. I felt them turn to look at me. Did they think I hadn’t heard? That the fights they’d been having all day in the adjacent hotel room hadn’t resonated with a hatred that travelled through walls?
‘Please don’t,’ was all I could say. But it was enough. Dad left the room, and Mum tended to my hand, spilling some vodka to cleanse it before wrapping it in a spare t-shirt.
‘I’m sorry, baby,’ Mum whispered to me. ‘I promise, things are going to get better.’
Only they didn’t. They got much, much worse.
* * *
I walked into the classroom after school with a sense of dread. I wasn’t really into the idea of teaching other students, and I especially didn’t want to risk being labelled a nerd.
It’s better than being at Lou’s
, I reminded myself. And I simply couldn’t afford another deep fried meal from the takeaway, not even if I scraped together all the shrapnel in the bottom of my schoolbag.
‘Oh, Amy, so kind of you to join us,’ Mrs Smith said as I walked into the room. I was approximately five minutes late, and the class was now almost full. I could count the empty seats on one hand. English mustn’t have been the forte of the students of Cherrybrook High. I looked at Mrs Smith and wondered if it had anything to do with her.
‘Sorry,’ I mumbled. Who knew that school extracurricular activities would require such punctuality?
‘That’s fine. Your partner’s late, anyway.’
I nodded and sat down in a chair near the back, busying myself with some notes. I had no idea what to expect from this, but I was sure it wouldn’t be too bad. How painful could reading and chatting about books be?
That is, if I actually had to do any work. I’d been sitting there for 15 minutes and was beginning to give up on my partner even showing when Mrs Smith spoke up.
‘Oh, Coral. Glad you could make it.’ She smiled and gestured at the empty seat next to me.
Please, no.
‘I think you’ve made a mistake.’ Coral glanced at the seat, at me, and then back at Mrs Smith.
‘No. You’ve been partnered with Amy.’
‘Um, no, I’m sure I’m not.’ Coral bit her lip. ‘Last term I was with Dwayne. Can’t I be with Dwayne again?’
Dwayne, a fellow student wearing a particularly large pair of glasses, spun around in his seat. His eyes lit up, and he looked like he’d just won the lottery. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Coral’s choosing him over me was hardly worth the excitement.
‘No, Dwayne has been assigned to another partner this term.’ Mrs Smith was insistent. ‘From this point forward, you will be working with Amy.
If looks could kill, I would have been dead right then and there. Coral shot me a glare of pure evil before striding through the classroom to her desk. She elegantly lowered herself onto the edge of her seat, as far away from me as possible, and then proceeded to retrieve her notebook, pen, textbooks and lip gloss from her satchel with the utmost of care.
‘So, where do you want to start?’ I asked.
Coral didn’t answer. Instead, she wrote the date carefully on the top of a new page in her notebook and then drew a little flower next to it.
‘Hello? Coral?’ God, she was irritating! Didn’t she realise that partnering up was as painful for me as it was for her?
‘What?’ She finally deigned me worthy of her attention, flashing her icy blue eyes in my direction.
‘Where do you want to start?’ I spoke the words with a careful deliberateness. I had no idea why she was ignoring me, or what her problem was, but it was definitely irritating.
‘Wherever,’ she replied. She took a strand of her long blonde hair and started to twirl.
‘Fine, well, Mrs Smith said we need to focus on theme today. What do you think the theme of this novel is?’
‘You tell me, nerd.’ Coral flicked her hair over her shoulder so its spiky ends brushed past my face. I flinched.
What a bitch.
I’d never been in a fight before, but all of a sudden I wished I could hit her, slap my hand right across her face.
‘Well, dumbass,’ I all but spat at her, ‘since you’re the one who needs the help, I figure you’d be better off guessing so I can correct you.’ I instantly regretted my words. Calling her a dumbass was not going to help the situation, even if she had started the name-calling.
She looked at me with something foreign in her eyes, a slight softening around the edges. My breath caught in my throat. For a second, I thought maybe I’d hurt her, even though I suspected her insides were actually made of steel.
‘I don’t have to put up with this.’ Coral pushed back her chair and gathered her belongings together. ‘Mrs Smith?’
Mrs Smith looked over at us from her desk.
‘Amy just called me a dumbass,’ Coral said. ‘I don’t think she’s the right partner for me.’ She gave a sweet little smile, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. I could have killed her.
‘Did you, Amy?’ Our teacher lowered her glasses.
‘Well, yes, but she called me —’
‘I won’t have any name-calling going on in my classroom, Amy. That is disgraceful. Coral, I don’t know what’s going on with you and Amy, but it ends here.’ Mrs Smith had raised her voice. All the students began to look up at her, and then at us, their eyes engaged in a teacher versus student tennis match.
‘Coral. Amy. You’re going to have to learn to get along for this class. You will not be swapping partners and you will certainly not be engaging in any more name-calling. Understood?’ Mrs Smith slammed her book down on the table.
Coral and I remained silent.
‘Is that
clear
?’ Her voice reached a fever pitch, and the windows all but shook.
‘Yes, Mrs Smith,’ Coral and I mumbled in unison.
‘Then sit down and do some work, for crying out loud.’ Mrs Smith shook her head, plonking herself back down in her seat.
I looked over at Coral, who had sat back down with somewhat less bravado. Her face was creased in a frown, squarely directed at me. How did someone like that get Luke? She was threatening, mean, and had called me a nerd. What was her problem, anyway?
I ripped a page out of my notebook and scribbled a few words on it.
I really don’t want to talk to you, probably just as much as you don’t want to talk to me. But since we have to work together, writing down rather than talking seems to be the best option. That way we can get through the class and won’t risk a failing grade. Thoughts?
I passed the note over to Coral, who slowly scanned the words. I looked away, almost afraid of what she’d write in reply. While I was helping with this class purely for extra credit, I didn’t want to risk ruining my grades because Coral couldn’t keep her behaviour in check. My good grades were my ticket to a good university, and university would get me away from this hellhole.
The note was slid back under my hand.
The theme is society and their hesitant reaction to change.
I smiled and got ready to compose an answer.
It might take a little longer, but at least I’d found a way to work with Coral without running the risk of punching her in the face.
Getting ready took time. Normally, I was all for the jeans and singlet look, but tonight was different. I wanted to look good. I wanted to impress Luke, to be the kind of girl that he would want to be with.
But not like Coral
, I thought, as I skipped past a short black skirt. There was no point in comparing my wavy brown hair and pale skin with her dead-straight blonde locks and golden glow.
Instead, I opted for a pair of black jeans and a black cowl neck top. The fabric shone under the light, sending off tiny sparkling spirals as I walked. Sure, it was still just jeans and a top, but it was hot.
Definitely going-out worthy
.
I went to Lou’s bathroom and tried to remember what I’d seen Jade do several weeks earlier when she’d applied her eye make-up. Unfortunately, Lou’s colour palette was different to Jade’s, so I didn’t really know where to start. I picked up a tray of eye shadow, with greys graduating all the way through to blue. I had no idea what shade to choose.
I tried to think of my Mum and what she would wear. I closed my eyes, trying to remember the last time we’d gotten ready together.
Why can’t I remember?
I decided to start with something smaller.
Think of her face when she laughed
, I told myself.
Her eyes. Her voice.
My mind was blank. I could see her face smiling, but it was as if I was looking at a photo, not a memory. Or was it a memory? How could you even tell? All I knew was that it was static.
I could imagine her voice, but only saying certain phrases. I couldn’t think how she’d sounded telling me how to do my make-up. I could almost hear her calling my name, but only in certain tones, as if she was singing it. Singing…I could remember singing along with her to a host of different melodies in the car. Her voice had been gentle and lilting, like silver.
But there’s nothing else.
The pain started, rippling through my gut like it was made of the same flimsy material as my top. I doubled over, grabbing my stomach, tears suddenly spilling from my eyes. The ball of hurt was big, bigger than I could control. The pain was too much.
My face was wet with tears that I hadn’t felt coming out, and a primal roar came from my throat. Every breath took effort; the pain was all-consuming. It was weird to think that before Mum had died I had thought I was sad. I hadn’t known that sadness could physically hurt you, could ache and sting like someone was attacking you, stabbing you.
My misery poured out of me, echoing through the empty house while the clock ticked and time passed by until I’d collapsed on the bathroom floor. The tiles felt cool against the heat of my face. It was nice. Soothing.
I cried until the tears wouldn’t coming anymore — ugly, big, heaving sobs that wracked my body. Thank God I was going to the party tonight.
I needed a drink.
* * *
I finally got up off the floor and splashed some water on my face. I didn’t know how long I’d been lying there — minutes, hours — but I did know that Lou would be back from work at six, and I couldn’t risk being here when she got home. My tears were private and weren’t hers to share.
Now I really do need the make-up
, I thought, looking at my red eyes and scarlet, patchy skin. I rifled through her drawers until I found something that looked like green lipstick. I remember seeing Mum using something like that before, to even out the redness of her skin after a big night out. I drew some across my cheeks and nose, big stripes of mint, and started to rub and blend. To my great surprise, it worked. The green took away some of the fire and made me look a lot more like myself, if a little sick.
Then I found some bronzer, which I promptly dusted all over my pale skin. It was a bit dark, but I figured in the evening light no one would notice. I was trying to decide between two different shades of shadow when Lou came to the door.
‘Helping yourself to some make-up, then?’
I froze, dropping the eye brush on the floor. Specks of grey splashed out across Lou’s white bathroom tiles.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered and pushed past her, racing out of the bathroom, through her room and then out down the hallway.
‘Amy,’ she called out, ‘it’s okay.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I yelled back from the privacy of my bedroom. I wished I hadn’t been caught. There was something about that moment, and how it might translate to an intimate, emotional connection with my aunt, that I wasn’t ready for. Not yet. Possibly not ever.
I was going to be late, so it was a good thing she’d helped speed me along. I did a quick floor check, eventually uncovering a bottle of bourbon I’d swiped from one gig or another and had managed to sneak into my luggage.
Perfect.
I stuffed it into my oversized handbag, smeared some lip gloss over my lips till they tasted like cherry and headed out the door before Lou could ruin any other part of my evening.