Girl Defective (8 page)

T
HE MIND IS A
funny thing. It takes all those images that rush you every second of every day and mixes them up with your memories until you can't remember what's yours and what's complete fiction. When I woke up on Saturday morning with a desert mouth and a disco head, the first thing I thought of was Mia Casey. On the floor by my bed lay the following:

—Nancy's clothes

—the bead necklace from the Paradise

—the article about Mia Casey

—Luke Casey's glasses

I picked up the article and stared at it. “What happened to you?” I asked her image.

I'm trying to tell you,
her eyes replied.

I pressed the page against my forehead and closed my eyes again. My head felt drum-tight. I lay still for a long time, listening to the cars and the birds and my breathing. I tried to sort the jumble of images crashing through my mind: chandeliers, cocktails, clouds, scarf
girls. I relived Quinn's small kindness, Luke and Mia in the park in the dark. My bottom lip felt sore. I touched it and thought about the drug dealer kissing me, walking me backward into the wall.
Whoosh!
My stomach felt like a lift that had just dropped two floors. I almost enjoyed the feeling, but then I flashed on Nancy going off with Otis. Her groupie glaze, the way she'd given me taxi money as if it could make up for deserting me. But then, I reasoned, Nancy wasn't used to looking after someone. Just because I did it for Gully didn't mean other people had to do it for me.

I lifted the window and inhaled the warm air, then climbed out of bed and started to put things in order. I folded Nancy's clothes. I put Mia back in my wallet and the bead necklace around my neck. I didn't know what to do with Luke's glasses. I tried them on, smiling at my blurred reflection. He was only a little bit blind.

There was a knock on my door.

“Sky, Sky, Sky.”

“Gully, Gully, Gully.” I let him in. He was in full snout and tool belt, carrying a tray of tea and toast.

“Dad said you were sick. So I made you this.”

“Thanks.” I crunched into the toast while Gully studied me.

“Why are your eyes all black?”

“It's makeup.”

Gully was standing very straight. His eyes darted
about. He let out a groaning noise, fiddled with his snout, and then spoke from behind his hand in a clipped staccato.

“I have intel.”

“What?”

“I woke up in the middle of the night and I was hearing funny noises, so I went downstairs. . . .”

I hurried him along by waving my hand.

“And I saw Dad and the police officer. Remember Constable Eve Brennan? They were . . .” He stopped and blinked forcefully. “Wrestling, I think.”

“Just wipe it from your mind,” I suggested.

Gully nodded. Then: “The new operative is downstairs.”

“Huh?”

“Luke Casey.”

My stomach dipped. I tried to keep a straight face, blowing coolly on my tea. “What's he like?”

“Tall. Doesn't say much. He smokes Peter Stuyvesants and carries a sketchbook. He has a muscular twitch.” Gully brought a finger to his cheek. “Here. Indicates a level of discomfort.”

“Good,” I said. “We wouldn't want him to be too comfortable.”

Gully
chh
ed his fist. Then he relaxed his pose, jiggling his shoulders. He could never stay completely still. “Come down? It's too different.”

“Um. Half a tick.”

I was not interested in Luke Casey. I was not going to jump him or fall for his hot and tragic combo. I told myself this as I changed out of my pj's into the green dress that Nancy said made me look like an ingenue. I went to the bathroom and washed my face. My hair was cowlicky. No amount of wet would suppress the bumps. At the last minute I remembered Luke's glasses and put them in my bag.

“How are you going to play it?” Nancy had asked. “I say, do it on the down-low, act like you don't even see him.” But that was before last night.

I stood on the pavement looking through the shop window. Dad and Luke were behind the counter, their heads bent together like dark, punk flowers. They had similar angular frames and unkempt hair. I took Luke's glasses out of my bag and put them on. I didn't smile or move my head. I just stood there, bespectacled. It was the kind of move that Nancy would pull. I was slightly proud of myself until I realized he was shortsighted and probably couldn't see me. Then I took his glasses off and entered the shop as nonchalantly as my speedy heart would allow. As I walked toward him, I was thinking this: Nancy was right, Luke was pretty. I considered his cheekbones, the soft set of his mouth, and suddenly it was like I was standing in front of him, waiting to be remembered.

D
AD WAS PLAYING LOVE'S
Da Capo
, which meant he was in a good mood despite my infraction. He was moony, lovestruck even. He waited until “Orange Skies” had floated off on little pop clouds before paying me any attention.

“How's your head?”

“How's yours?”

Dad ignored that and made the introductions. “Skylark, this is Luke. Luke, Skylark.”

Luke had been sitting on my stool. He stood and offered his hand. He had paint around his fingernails, a mist of black that looked gangrenous. We shook hands. I looked into his eyes and saw that he recognized me. He didn't smile; he swallowed.
He's nervous,
I thought. And that made me nervous. When I brought my hand back, it felt limp and like it didn't belong to me. The rest of me was messy too. My stomach felt like it had slipped its moorings.

Dad was in impressive-boss mode. “Now that you've decided to grace us with your presence, I have to see a man about some records. I'll take Gully.”

I felt panic snapping at me. I might have even clutched Dad's arm. “Wait”—I lowered my voice—“You're going to leave us alone?”

Dad looked from me to Luke. “You'll be fine,” he said. “Give Luke the grand tour.”

“How long are you going to be?”

“Not long.”

Dad shuffled off with Gully in tow. I slipped onto his stool. Then it was me and Luke sitting side by side while sweet psychedelic pop sparkled around us. I took Luke's glasses out of my pocket and put them on the counter. He waited for a few seconds, then put them on. “Thanks,” he said, not looking at me.

“Don't mention it.” Side one ended and then it was so silent that I could hear the migration of dust motes.

It was a typical Saturday. St. Kilda throbbed, but the Wishing Well was as sedate as a gentleman caller. The sun slanted in the window, highlighting acne pits, shiny pates, and dandruff. Wishing Well customers were mostly old and male and nerdy. They could tell you why Paul McCartney was barefoot on the cover of
Abbey Road
, but they couldn't manage basic hygiene. I wondered if Luke had noticed the smell yet. Memories and mildew.

“So,” I started, “the grand tour.”

Luke sat up and took his sketchbook from his pocket. He flipped to a clean page, primed a black fine-liner.
His props were like Gully's; they made me soften toward him. I tried to toughen up again.

“Have you ever worked in a record shop?”

“I worked in a pub,” he offered.

“That's good. That means you're used to crazies.”

“You get crazies here?”

“Oh yeah.”

“What kind of crazies?”

“Like you might get a customer trying to explain how the alignment of the stars affected the recording process of Rick Wakeman's
The Six Wives of Henry the Eighth
. . . . Dad's rule is this: don't engage.”

“That's a good rule.”

I pointed to the till. “This is the till, for the purposes of storing money. Behind there is the record file for dupes and raries.” I pulled out five copies of Paul Mauriat's
Blooming Hits
. “Dupes.” Then a near-mint
On the Beach
. “Rarey.”

Luke nodded. “Dupes and raries.”

I pointed to the medieval ledger chained to the counter. “This is the Buys Book for the purposes of buying. When someone sells something in, we write it down. We have to take ID in case it turns out to be stolen.”

I flicked back through the pages. It was all in there: the decline and fall. Looking at the Buys Book depressed me. It was already starting to resemble a relic.

“We used to buy a lot more, but these days most people put their records online.”

“But not your dad,” Luke noted.

“He's analog. He's like a caveman. No CDs. Don't even think about downloads. He's even scared of karaoke.”

“Fair enough,” Luke said. “Karaoke's pretty terrifying.”

I laughed, surprised at the joke. Luke smiled properly. It was a shock to see his face break like that. His eyes crinkled, his cheeks bunched, his lips went tight across good, straight teeth. He looked beautiful. For a second I lost my way, and then I found it again. I showed him the stockroom. I showed him the loo. I showed him where the kettle was. I told him I liked my tea black and Dad only drank his when it was cold, and then I sat down and pretended to read
Record Collector
.

Luke stayed standing. After a while he cleared his throat.

I looked up.

“Is there something I should be doing?” he asked.

“There's some Windex back there. You can clean the cabinets.”

I watched Luke work from behind the cover. His brow went smooth as he wiped the glass, but he never really relaxed his shoulders. If I stood over by the window, I could see an edge of Mia on the wall. I wanted to ask Luke about her, but there was no way to do that without
appearing interested, and I wasn't quite ready to admit to that. I grabbed some records from the Going Out pile and spent the next half hour fattening the racks. I had this feeling that if I didn't move, I might start talking, and if I started talking, I wouldn't be able to control what came out:
I dreamed about your sister. I feel like we were friends. Ray said she was a party girl, but Ray's full of shit.
Every time I caught myself trying to sneak a look at Luke, I reminded myself of his interloper status. Yes, he was pretty, but he was in my space.

Luke looked up. His eyes met mine and he smiled again. This time it was brief and there was something tender-awkward in it. I couldn't work out what it reminded me of, but then I realized it was Mia. I saw her walking with her bare feet and flower crown—the image almost felt religious. What had it been like, to lose her? Were they close? Had Mia looked out for Luke the way I looked out for Gully? Where was she buried? What song had they played at her funeral? All my unanswered questions were banking up, making my brain hurt. I turned up the volume and let drums and cymbals and driving guitars numb my mind.

Dad and Gully returned just before lunch. They came with toasties and tales of grade-three records—g-sale stock, an insult to the discerning musicologist.