Girl Defective (21 page)

As we hustled upstairs, Quinn said, “He's definitely showing signs of disengagement.” Gully was at the kitchen table again. Quinn and I circled him, checking out his work. He'd arranged the lips and ears and eyes and haircuts and was busy pasting them onto pieces of paper, making composite faces.

I finally caught on. “Identikits!” I cried.

Quinn and I waited as the silence grew. I felt my mood plummet. Gully looked up at me. I crouched by his ear. “Gully, if you don't start talking soon, Dad's never going to forgive me.” He shifted slightly in his seat. Not a smile, not a look, not a crumb. “I'll leave you to it,” I said grimly, turning on my heel and marching upstairs with Quinn cool in my wake.

Quinn gave my bedroom the same forensic eye that I had given hers. She considered blankness, the row of packed suitcases. Her foot nudged a bin-bag. “What's all this?”

“Mum's stuff. I used to have it up everywhere.”

“I get it. You think if you hang on to her stuff, she might come back to claim it one day. I did the same thing with my dad. Only he didn't have so much. I found this T-shirt of his and wore it till it was all gross and holey.” She bent down to pick up the Noddy eggcup. “You should have a clearing. You can't have your mum's energy muscling in all the time—you'll get lost.”

“I could take it all to the thrift shop.”

Quinn smacked my arm lightly. “Don't give it away. Sell it at Fat Helen's or put it on Goldmine or something.”

“My life for sale.”

“Not your life. Hers.” Quinn's eyes roved the bags. Her voice went soft. “After Mum and Dad split, I didn't see him for ages. I thought he was living in Queensland,
and then one day I ran into him at Fed Square with his new wife and he had, like, a three-year-old, and Mum hadn't told me. I had coffee with him and his wife and child. It was the worst hour of my life. Grown-ups are just like kids but bigger. They're scared of us because they think we'll catch them out, burst their bubbles.” She poked the air and made a popping sound. “After that I decided I was always going to be straight up. If I didn't like a person, I wasn't going to pretend. I don't ever want to be a faker.” She patted her camera, slung around her neck. “That's why I don't do digital.”

I smiled. Quinn was analog. “You're one of us, then.”

“What I've been trying to tell you. Now show me the single.”

I played her “Wishing Well.” Quinn nodded along to the dorky beat. Then she pulled out her laptop, and we checked out how much Rocky's records were really worth.

“You want to list them?” Quinn asked.

“Don't I need a credit card?”

“You can use mine.”

“Really?”

“As long as you don't go charging up hotels and bitches.” She laughed. “And I want a cut—ten percent.”

“Deal! Okay!” I started to arrange the records in alphabetical order for no reason other than it made me feel slightly more in control. “Dad won't let us have a
computer at home. He thinks I'm going to hook up with a cannibal or something.”

“It's a legitimate concern,” Quinn conceded.

After that it was easy. Credit card in, address, etc. I had to create a profile—I called my “shop”
Sky's Wishing Well
and even borrowed Dad's tagline.
Nothing over 1995.

It took us a little over an hour to list the records. I was careful to note the condition but couldn't help adding enthusiastic sidenotes and smileys. In the lull that followed with the laptop still warm, we returned to our regular haunts: Quinn to Otisworld, me to Galaxy Strobe. There was a link to her video installation, “My Blizzard.”

“Play it,” Quinn urged, so I did.

What can you say about your mother in darkness, wearing an outfit fringed with seventy thousand tampons? When she go-go dances with her face set like a tragedy mask, and the whirl of white threatens to blind you?

Quinn looked a little wistful. “I can't help it. I still think she's awesome. I can separate the art from the person.”

I pointed to the bags. “If you see anything you want in there, you can have it.”

They don't teach you how to make friends at school. How one day, if it's the right person, you can open up
and empty out, and then they can pour their story into your space, and this shifting of components goes on until you're mixed good. Quinn left with a big portion of Mum's stuff, and she was right about that, too—I did feel clearer. I felt almost hopeful, like I had done something toward improving our lot. The only problem was as soon as I left my bedroom, the positive ions slid into reverse. The silent Martin males were excellent vibe killers. They skulked and sulked; they kept their eyes averted. I couldn't stand to be around them. I made a desultory dinner of sausages and mash and then raced back to the safety bedroom, where I played the saddest songs in the world. All my maudlin boys: Nick Drake and Jackson C. Frank and Tim Hardin. I played “It'll Never Happen Again” three times in a row. The mournful piano was like a finger prodding me, like Gully's voice, back when he used to use it: Sky, Sky, Sky, Sky.

O
N WEDNESDAY MORNIING THE
postie dropped off an express post parcel from Japan: Gully's Christmas present wrapped in delicate rice paper. Dad tried to use it for leverage. He held the brick in front of Gully. “You can open it early if you say something.” Gully kept his mouth fixed firm. “What the hell,” Dad said, his lips twisting with hurt. “You can open it anyway.”

Night vision goggles.
With head mount to leave hands free for manipulation.
Whatever that meant. I knew Gully was excited; he had to be. But his face stayed stiff as concrete as he placed the contraption over his head and adjusted the straps and milked the LED lights. He promptly set off for the darkest room in the house, the under-stairs cupboard, and only came out when Dad threatened to break the door down. Following that, he was strangely compliant. Dad secured a silent promise that Gully would take the goggles off as soon as he got to school.

“I've got a bad feeling about this,” Dad groaned. “He's gonna get arrested.”

“They have to catch him first,” I said.

I walked up Carlisle Street with my weirdo brother, and I tried to deflect all the rubberneckers. He had the goggles on the head mount. I could see his face below. There was the tiniest hint of a smile, but he still looked like a baby sniper.

It was our second-to-last day of term. Without the seniors, school looked like a ghost town. My class sat slack and starey. Even the teachers had given up on the idea that we were there for any reason other than cheap child care. I spent the morning thinking about Luke Casey—specifically his absence from the shop. I had a feeling about it. He wasn't sick; he was hiding out. Five minutes into a DVD about a Mennonite community, I walked out of class and off the school grounds.

Out in the world the sky looked dramatic. It had rained overnight and the streets smelled like burned toast. The sun was bright and the scattered clouds had dark edges. I caught the tram down to the junction and then to the beach. The marina glittered in the distance; her mess of masts looked like a giant's game of pick-up sticks. Soon I was at the fence watching the boats clank and bob. The marina was always in development; there had been attempts to turn it into a commercial hub, with cafés and boat sales and even a classy restaurant, but in true St. Kilda style, the old vibe still clung. The marina was home to movement, not all of it visible. There were faces behind shutters, crusty fisherman types, businessman-dreamers. They
didn't care about cafés. They loved the water because the water was always there. Like god or something.

The main gate was open. In a beige cubicle above the sales showroom a woman sat behind an information desk. She waited for me to speak. I spoke like I was Gully.

“I'm looking for Luke Casey.”

“He'll be down around the dry docks.”

I waited, clearly needing translation. She jerked her head toward the window. “Down there. On your right. Big shed stacked with boats. You can't miss it.”

But I still couldn't seem to move. I felt suddenly flooded with nervousness. What if Luke didn't want to see me?

The woman peered at me. “Okay, love? You've gone green.”

“I'm fine,” I squeaked before running down the stairs.

Two black swans by the dry dock sheds; a bright blue sky behind them. I found Luke straightaway. He was cleaning a boat. He had his shirt off. Which was both nice and unnerving. The only other nude chests I'd seen belonged to Dad and Gully and uninhibited backpackers. He turned around and caught me gaping. He scrunched the rag in his hand and smiled a slow, sure smile. My nervous feeling dissipated.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.”

We stared at each other. Centuries passed. Luke went back to cleaning.

“How's Gully?”

“Hmm. He's not talking. He hasn't said one word since the Snouting. He sent us a memo, so we know what happened. Two guys knocked him down, and one of them took the snout. I don't think it was personal, but you know Gully.”

Luke put his rag down. “Yeah.”

We both started to speak at once. We hung our heads, made motions toward laughter.

“You go,” I said.

Luke smiled. “No, you.”

My words came out in a rush. “It wasn't your fault. You couldn't have known he'd run off. What Nancy said—I should have said something back, but there was too much happening. . . . Is that why you haven't been in the shop?”

Luke didn't say yes or no. “I've been thinking it's time I went home. If I get my shit together, I can go to uni next year. Make my mum smile.”

“Oh.” I studied an oil stain on the floor.

“I'm not really record shop material.”

“I don't know about that,” I lied. “You could at least stay until Christmas. I—I like you there.”

“You do?”

I met his eyes. “Yeah. I do.”

Luke found his T-shirt and stretched it over his
head. His voice came out muffled through the material. “Do you want a cup of tea?”

Around me boats bobbed and gulls hovered. “Where?”

He took my hand and led me around the back of the docks. We went through a small door into a large shed. Sunlight streamed through tiny holes in the tin and made the walls look starry. The space was filled with boat business: paddles, ropes, life jackets. The smell of methylated spirits hung in the air; also, faintly, potato chips. In one corner there was a camp bed and stove; in another a work table with some screens and tins of paint and emulsion.

“This is where you sleep?”

Luke nodded.

“What do you do for a bathroom?”

“There's a bathroom.” He smiled. “Why—do you need it?”

“No!”

Luke hunkered by the stove. I heard the hiss and catch of gas and flame. I moved around, looking at things. On top of the worktable there were screens of Mia's face in reverse.

“Who owns this place?”

“A guy I met. I do some work around here, painting and cleaning, some repairs, and he lets me stay.”

Luke stirred sweetened condensed milk into my tea and passed it to me. It was sickly sweet, too hot to drink. I felt hot all over, prickly. He sat on his bed
and looked up at me. I paused before sitting next to him. The camp bed creaked and then quiet descended. He reached across me and I felt suddenly conscious that he was making a move, but when he brought his hand back, Nancy's scarf was in it. He gave it to me. I wrapped it around my hand. The fabric felt silky cool.

“Can I trust you?” Luke asked. I nodded, my throat too tight to talk.

He gave me a photo. The photo was of Mia. The angle suggested she had taken it herself. She looked ecstatic, her eyes caught somewhere between a dare and a dream. And she was wearing a silver scarf.

“That was in her stuff too,” Luke said. “I got a shock when I saw your friend with the same scarf. Well, I've seen a few more since.”

“The Girlfriends of Otis.”

“I guess Mia was with him or into him.”

I thought about the photo on Otisworld, what Quinn had said about there being girls like Mia, only Mia had it worse. I tried to think of a way to tell him that wouldn't sound seedy, and then I lost my nerve. I stared at the photo. The background looked familiar—an old wardrobe with a gilt handle—but I couldn't place it.

“I just want to talk to him,” Luke went on. “I mean, Otis. Like, if I talked to him, maybe he could tell me something good about her.” Luke's fingers were grazing mine. He said, “I went into your dad's shop because of the tape. I was trying to talk to him about it and he
offered me a job. So then it felt like fate, which would be okay if I believed in fate.”

“I believe in it,” I said. I became aware of how close he was, how my school dress was sticking to my back with sweat. Luke took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes. He looked at me. In that second I knew he was going to kiss me, and I knew I was going to let him. His hand curved around my waist while his knee knocked a stack of books, and then he was bracing my body with his. The camp bed creaked beneath us.