Dessi's Romance (5 page)

Kaz sets off
first, trundling her case behind her. ‘Let’s find the bus that goes to
Broadbeach.’

‘Broadbeach?’ A
guy in a peaked cap standing by a white limo overhears. He holds open the door.
‘I’ll run you in for ten dollars each. How’s that sound?’

We stare at each
other. ‘Hey,’ says Kaz. ‘What d’you say, guys? The limo?’

‘Why not?’ I
cry. Right now I feel rich. ‘Let’s arrive in style.’

The guy puts our
bags in his boot and we pile into his car.

‘Hope someone
sees us,’ Jodie carols.

I don’t care.
Even without Dessi being here, and Abdul letting me down, I have a feeling that
this holiday is going to be terrific.

Our unit is on the twelfth floor on the
beachfront. I have one bedroom with two beds and the use of the main bathroom.
The other bed reminds me how much I’ll miss Dessi.

Kaz and Jodie have the main
bedroom and a small ensuite. These clean white walls, a midnight blue carpet
and grey tiled bathrooms and kitchen, are such a contrast to our shabby
weather-board cottage I’m determined one day to live like this.

From our balcony we can
look out over a wide stretch of yellow sand and then a vast ocean stretching
towards the horizon. The beach is in shadow already and it’s only five o’clock.
The sky is clear, the air soft and balmy. While the others settle in, I uses an
HB pencil and a splash of water-crayon to do two quick sketches; one of my
room, the other from the balcony.

Then I wander back into the
living room where Kaz and Jodie are getting ready to go out. Watching them
reminds me of my final portfolio where I copied a portrait of two eighteenth
century sisters, but put them in modern gear. Sacha says I should be
concentrating more on using Found Objects. But that was what most of our class
was doing and I wanted to be different. Anyway, our art teacher particularly
liked my mega-sized portrait of ‘Dessi’. I based this on a photo I cropped,
photo-shopped, then finished it on canvas with fine strokes of black ink. The
result is Dessi’s typical expression: a mix of mischief and wistfulness.

Jodie chips into my
thoughts. ‘Okay, what’s on for tonight?’

‘We should go
shopping for food an’ stuff,’ Jodie mumbles. ‘Can anyone cook?’

‘Who wants to
cook?’ Kaz carols. ‘We can eat out, can’t we?’

‘Sacha wants to
meet up with us,’ I remind the others. ‘I’ve told him where we’re staying.’

Sacha is my
other closest of close friends as he shares my passion for art. Next year he
hopes to get into a Graphics or Design course. I like Sacha a lot, there’s no
tension
in
him, not like with other guys who are always trying to maul me.

Jodie goes for
her cell phone. ‘I’ll text him.’

‘I think she’s
keen on the old Sash.’ Kaz’s sharp features slide into a grin. ‘And we all know
where that’ll lead. Do you reckon he’ll ‘come out’ while we’re here?’

‘He’s ‘come out’
already,’ I snap. I hate it when anyone makes fun of Sacha being gay.

‘Yeah, he’s
‘come out’, but only with us. Any gay bars up here?’

‘How would I
know?’ I murmur and turn away.

‘He’s coming
over right now,’ Jodie reports.

Jodie’s parents
are wealthy and she always has tons of cash. Not that she’s generous. This
reminds me to be more careful with money. Which brings my thoughts to my
father. I’d better phone him soon and make contact.

I wait for Emma to put down the phone.
I just hope she isn’t too upset by Abdul not picking her up. What a
jerk! Shame I can’t be there to console her. Determined not to mope for either
her or myself, I pick up the book she left behind to skim through some of the
poems. What interrupts as usual is that bloody ankle. As I keep massaging it,
my thoughts drift towards Abdul. I recall that shock as he walked in when I
know I’ve never laid eyes on him before. In any case, nothing explains the
stirring I felt when I first saw him. What can this mean? Emma did ask him to
phone. What will I do when he does? What if Emma’s right? What if a good ‘best
friend’ needs to keep an eye on her friend’s new guy? But what if this ‘best
friend’ suspects the guy’s interests are leaning towards her? What is she
supposed to do then... particularly if she rather likes him herself?

Two minutes later Hannah,
in business suit and heels, clatters into the kitchen. ‘You okay love?’

I just scowl. No way am I
going to let her off with thinking I’m okay. Right now I need far more loving
care than Hannah, or anyone else for that matter, can provide. With as much
dignity as I can manage, I inspect what she’s brought home. Bread. Meat.
Low-fat milk. Fruit. Vegetables.

Boring!

I pretend not to hear
Hannah’s ‘Darling, how did your day go…’ and crutch despondently up the hall.

Graham has left great-grand-aunts
Lilbet and Ella’s chest in the front bedroom. I squat on the floor and open it.
Inside are yellowing linen table-clothes, frayed towels, a box filled with
cutlery blackened with age. At the very bottom, two large leather-covered
books.

I settle myself more
comfortably. Once shopping catalogues, the books show clothes and furniture
sold in the early fifties. Even more absorbing is that these pages were also
used as diaries. Some have sketches and poems written in a shaky hand:

“Hickory, dickory dock.

Ella has sewed a fine frock.”

With many, many thanks, Lilbet.

Under this an excellent sketch of a
dress with short puffy sleeves, a rounded neck and full skirt caught into a
wide belt. This had to be Ella’s work as Lilbet was too disabled to draw or
sew.

I find more of Ella’s
sketches. Several are of this house plus some lovely water-colours labelled
‘Flinders’. One is a wide street lined with pine trees. Others look out to sea
with a jetty surrounded by fishing boats. Pasted amongst the drawings are invitations
to engagements, weddings, ‘soirées’; and ‘thank-you’ notes for bridge evenings,
concerts, afternoon teas, and ‘war-effort’ parties. Each is addressed to both
Miss Ella Cowan and Miss Elizabeth Cowan. The dates run from well before World
War 2 to the early 1970s.

I know that part of our
family who migrated to Australia in the 1880s had remained Jewish, while
Graham’s grandfather, Benjamin Cohen, became Anglican. I suspect that it was
Benjamin who altered the original spelling of ‘Cohen’ to ‘Cowan’.

What a find! I suspect I’m
holding a social history of the mid-twentieth century. I remember Ms Harcourt,
my history teacher, saying, ‘History helps us understand how the present is
influenced by the past.’

Distracted by the fire-ants
in my boot that never leave off, I use a knitting needle to scratch while I
look over my find. What would my future children think if they come across the
messages I send Emma? Not that that they ever can. All lost in cyberspace. But
best friends always text each other even when they’re in the same room. Paying
for my SIM-card was one of the reasons I needed that job in the
supermarket-from-hell.

Brooding about money or the
serious lack of, reminds me of our family. Since Graham took early retirement,
he’s always scolding Hannah for bringing in ‘take-away’. But we hate everything
he cooks. Though Hannah keeps reminding Dad she’s on a decent salary, he
complains about lights left on and dripping taps. Recently the atmosphere round
here has become so tense, Jeremy has started staying overnight at Justin’s
house.

Lucky Jeremy. Wish I had an
escape hatch. I could always move in with Julie, but her house is so messy,
it’s hard finding somewhere pleasant to settle. Back here, Hannah’s so involved
in her new job and all Graham does is renovate. These days they can barely
manage a civil word to each other. How they manage to sleep in the same bed is
beyond me. Might they end up by splitting? The thought makes me shiver. Half my
class come from separated families.

Relationships! Why do they
have to be so complicated? Even when it comes to best friends. I love Emma.
She’s closer to me than any sister. Since this accident she’s been great. Just
great. She sat with me all day when I was in hospital and turns up daily since
I’m home. No one could be more devoted. We give each other total support. I’d
do anything for Emma and I know she feels the same. But there are times when I
could kill her... such as when she falls for jerks like Sam and Danny. Or when
she draws pictures of herself with knives sticking out of her chest. What if
she does this for real? Or when she pretends that everything will be okay once
my ankle heals when it obviously won’t. Didn’t the physio say in this matter of
fact way, ‘Breaks like this can develop arthritis in middle age.’

Great! Now I can worry
about my middle age.

At the time Emma looked
incredulous. ‘You may have a problem. I plan to kill myself before then.’ Why
does she have to be such a drama queen? Even someone like me who’s known her
from birth can’t always tell the wish from the actuality.

Did Lilbet and Ella feel
the same? From their letters, messages and poems you might think all their
thoughts about each other were positive. But I’d bet a million dollars that
they weren’t.

I put down the book. More
pressing on my mind is: what’s Emma up to in Broadbeach?

In the bathroom of our
Broadbeach unit, I’m busy applying make-up. Up here I need loads of blusher
until that unhealthy pallor caused by too much work and lack of sunshine
disappears. I’m in the same dress I wore on my date with Abdul. When I assess
my reflection, as usual, I’m disappointed. If only I could change places with
someone taller, would guys then take me more seriously?

I go into the
living room where Sacha has already turned up. ‘Em,’ he says, ‘you look good
enough to eat.’

I smile back,
grateful how quick he is to compliment me. ‘So do you,’ I assure him and it’s
true. This evening he’s in mid-calf shorts, a shiny black tank top, and eyebrow,
lip and ear piercings.

We catch a bus
into Surfers and walk onto pavements choked with Schoolies and holiday-makers:
the kids pimply and pale-faced waiting for something to happen; the
holiday-makers tanned and in bright casual gear — loads of yellow,
orange, a yellowy-green, every possible shade of blue, and masses of creams and
whites. How I love all this colour. Tomorrow I plan to buy some shorts, a
skinny teeny skirt and the brightest tops I can find.

Down Cavill
Avenue, the crowd flanking the pavements is almost too thick to move through.
We wind around mobs of kids determined to have fun, and Toolies, older guys
hoping to pick up chicks or start a fight. A shiver runs down my spine. When
Jodie turns to stare at a drunken Toolie throwing up in the gutter, I hurry her
along. ‘Where to?’ she asks. ‘I’m starving.’

Kaz shakes her
head. ‘Later. I promised Jon and Brad we’d check out their flat.’

‘Do we have to?’
Sacha asks, dismayed.

‘Yes.’ Kaz
refuses to be swayed. ‘I promised!’

‘Just a short
while. Okay Kaz?’ I chime in. I’m only too aware of Sacha’s reluctance to meet
with those macho guys.

Kaz holds up a
scrap of paper. ‘Here’s the address.’

She leads us to
one of the streets that back onto the sand where some of the older high-rise
group together. This late, shadows engulf the beach. If I half close my eyes,
they hint at another dark dank city where just about anything horrid can
happen.

The building’s
foyer needs updating. Here, smudged mirrors and torn seats hint of too many
renters. We ride to the twentieth floor in an elevator that smells of beer and
vomit, then turn right along a corridor that reminds me too much of the
hospital where I visited Dessi, similar nausea-making smells, until we come to
apartment 2017.

The door swings
open.

Inside we walk
into a room already semi-trashed, the floor covered in cigarette burns and
other unrecognisable stains, two coffee tables littered with empty cans, saucers
overflowing with butts beside a NO SMOKING sign. Sprawled over the couch Jon
McKenna waves a stubby at us. ‘Hi. When’d you lot get in?’

‘What a mess!’
Kaz exclaims. ‘The others here too?’

‘Yeah… Out
there.’ Already half stoned, face flushed, bare-chested, Jon waves us towards
the open balcony door. I hurry past. I know he’ll want to talk about Dessi and
how sorry he is about that accident and how he wishes she’d talk to him.

What am I
supposed to say?

On the balcony
we find the other guys as drunk and stoned as Jon. Apart from checking whether
we’ve brought any more cans, they’re too busy yelling insults to a group in an
adjoining high-rise to bother with us.

My chin drops.
The guys in other building are one level up: twenty-first or twenty-second
floor. One guy has climbed over the balustrade and is perched on the narrow
ledge gazing down at the canyon below.