Love-shy (8 page)

What if he was lying about his age? If he wasn't in my year level . . . there were approximately five hundred boys at my school who I
hadn't
interviewed. Five hundred and fifty stinky, scratching, grunting boys. And I didn't know most of the other year levels. I mean, I knew the Year Elevens and Twelves, but who knew anything about Year Sevens? Surely they were too young to be love-shy.

I sighed and opened the yearbook again. I must have missed someone. Or maybe
PEZZ
imist was just an accomplished liar. Maybe he had fooled me.

No. My journalistic instinct was better than that. I
know
I would have recognised him if we'd spoken face to face.

‘Penny?' It was Dad, with the phone in his hand. ‘It's your mother.'

I felt something bunch up inside me. ‘Tell her I'm busy.'

Dad raised his eyebrows. ‘But you're not busy.'

‘Tell her I'm not in.'

‘But you
are
in.' He put on his most serious face. ‘Penny. You can't lie to your mother.'

I wanted to say
Why not? You did. For fifteen years.
But that wouldn't be fair. Dad tossed the phone to me and I glowered at him. He gave me a sad sort of smile and headed back into the living room. I looked at the phone. Stupid phone. I sighed and picked it up.

‘Hello?'

‘Hi, sweetheart.'

‘Hi.'

‘How are you?'

‘Fine. Good. Great.'

I hated talking to my mother. I hated the way she always tried to sound bright and chirpy, as if everything were wonderful. I hated the way she made it sound as if she
had
to move to Perth for work. I hated the way she sounded as if she didn't have a choice, that there was no way she could have possibly stayed in the same city as us.

And I hated the way she never asked about Dad.

It wasn't like he
chose
to be gay. What would she rather, that he'd just kept it a secret? And been miserable for the rest of his life?

I'd always thought she was open-minded. She had a climate-change bumper sticker and listened to ABC radio. She bought recycled toilet paper and worried about the state of public education. I never would have imagined she was homophobic.

Dad said that she was just upset. That she had every right to be angry with him. That it was understandable that she needed space. But it'd been two years. She wouldn't speak to him, except to ask for me when he answered the phone. She wouldn't come here to see me – I'd have to go to Perth. That song on Dad's Sting album said if you loved somebody, you should set them free. I never understood that when I was little – why would you dump someone if you loved them? But now I thought I got it. Surely if Mum loved Dad, she'd want him to be happy?

‘So I thought maybe you could come and visit me during these school holidays,' said Mum.

Fat chance.

‘Penny?'

I closed my eyes. ‘Maybe,' I said. ‘It depends on what's happening with the paper. And my swimming. I can't miss any training sessions. I'll get out of shape.'

‘We have swimming pools here, you know,' said my mother, jokingly. ‘And an
ocean
as well. Very nice for swimming.'

I scowled at the phone. ‘I'll talk to Dad about it.' I knew that would shut her up.

Her voice went wobbly as I said goodbye, just like it always did.

I felt tears pricking my eyes as I put the phone down on my desk, which just made me more irritated. How dare she emotionally manipulate me?

The yearbook stared at me, screaming my failure in great fluorescent slashes of pink highlighter. I shoved it into a drawer and turned off my computer.

Dad was hovering in the kitchen, waiting for me to return the phone to its cradle.

‘How is she?'

‘Fine.'

I examined the contents of the fridge. Leftover Chinese food, a shrivelled avocado, half a watermelon, some yoghurt. We were totally overdue ordering groceries.

‘And . . . ?'

I found some marinated olives up the back and ate one straight from the jar, licking the oil from my fingers. Dad continued to look expectant. I spat the pit into the bin.

‘I don't know, Dad. The usual. Everything's fantastic. She loves the climate in Perth so much. She's really busy at work. Who cares?'

‘I care.'

I ate another olive. ‘I don't know
why
. She doesn't seem to care at all about
you
. She certainly never
asks
about you. I don't understand where she gets off on being so wounded and hurt and moral-high-groundy when she doesn't seem to miss you at all!'

Dad leaned on the breakfast counter. ‘Well, I miss her.'

‘Why?'

He shrugged. ‘She was my best friend for fifteen years, Penny. Just because I don't want to be married to her anymore doesn't mean I don't still care about her.'

‘So don't you think she should feel the same way about you?'

Dad shook his head. ‘She's allowed to be upset. I betrayed her.'

‘It's not like you
cheated
on her,' I said, putting the olives back and closing the fridge door with a little more force than was necessary. ‘You didn't meet Josh until over a year after Mum left. And it wasn't like you
knew
you were gay when you married her.'

‘It's complicated, Pen,' said Dad. ‘And I understand that she needs time. I wish you'd cut her a little more slack.'

‘Well, I wish she'd cut
you
a little more slack.'

‘Just promise me you'll give her a chance, okay?'

I stuck my tongue out at him and flopped onto the couch. The chances of there being something acceptable on television were slim, but right then I'd have watched just about anything in order to escape that conversation, and the book filled with pink highlighter in my room.

I went to bed without checking
PEZZ
imist's blog. I was giving up. No, not
giving up
. I was
freeing up my time to pursue
different goals
. Yes. That was better. I hadn't
failed
. Who wanted to read about some loser who couldn't get a girl anyway?

I read a few chapters of
Catcher in the Rye
for English. Who needed stupid old
PEZZ
imist? There were other stories out there. Surely Nellie Bly started plenty of stories she didn't finish because it turned out they were boring.

I switched off the light, but I couldn't sleep. Dad had gone to bed and the apartment felt very quiet.

For some reason – probably because of Mum's phone call and that stupid conversation with Dad afterwards – I was reminded of the first few nights after Mum left. Dad had just wandered around the house staring at strange things like the orange lampshade on my bedside table, a half-empty packet of basmati rice and the floral-covered ironing board. He'd looked as though he'd finished a marathon and didn't know whether to laugh with relief, or collapse in a heap because it was over. I think most of the time he'd come down on the side of collapsing.

The only problem with living in the city was that it was never truly dark. The wooden venetians blocked out a lot of the city light, but my room was always illuminated with an artificial orange glow, no matter how late it was.

I turned onto my side. The sleep light on my laptop was pulsing on and off. Had
PEZZ
imist posted anything new? How was he feeling? Had he managed to talk to the brown-haired girl?

I wasn't going to check. I was abandoning that story. It was never going to go anywhere.

But what if he'd said something that would help me figure it out? The missing piece of the puzzle?

He was still out there. Still full of loneliness and suffering. He needed me.

I rolled out of bed and woke my laptop.

23:02
Today was bad. I was nervous and jittery all day, like I'd drunk too much coffee.
The only time I felt calm was at lunch, when I could watch my girl.
She sat in her usual place with her usual group of friends. They were all looking at something on a mobile phone, passing it around and laughing. I hate mobile phones. The telephone's the most stupid invention ever. I hate the way you can't see the face of the person you're talking to, so you have no clue whether they're making fun of you, or listening at all. It's hard enough talking to people in person. Although I suppose text messages might be okay. I like writing things down. I think I could say more in a text message to my girl than I could to her face. But I never will, because I don't have her number. Or a mobile phone. Maybe I could email something to her school email address. But then what if she laughed at me?
I can't remember the last time I laughed.

He really was a massive drama queen. I was just about to re-read it to see if it could really be as soppy as my initial impression, when I noticed a little green
online
spot next to
PEZZ
imist's name. He was online. He was there, in his own bedroom, sitting in front of his own computer, looking at the very same page on the very same website that I was.

Without realising I was doing it, I brought my cursor up to his name and clicked. A window popped open:
private
chat between GUEST and PEZZimist
.

I could just
ask
him, right now, and get an answer to the whole thing. I placed my hands on the keyboard and noticed they were trembling. I swallowed.

GUEST: hello?
GUEST: are you there?
GUEST: i need to talk to you. i think i can help.
GUEST: please.

I waited. There was no reply. Maybe he was typing out an essay-length response. Or maybe he'd gone to the toilet. Or maybe he was too shy to say anything at all.

But then the little green spot disappeared. I'd scared him away.

I climbed back into bed, my mind full of mysteries and hidden faces.

5

O
N FRIDAY, I FORGOT THE NAME
of Othello's wife in English, didn't hear anything Ms Wilding said in Biology about the Linnean system of binomial nomenclature, argued with Hugh Forward about the price of helium balloons for the social
and
bombed my Maths quiz (I was facing a
B
, a letter I was totally unfamiliar with). It was a total write-off of a day. Of a week, really. Stupid
PEZZ
imist.

The only good part of the day was lunchtime swimming practice, where I beat my personal freestyle record. But my good mood was short-lived – I spent too long in the pool and didn't have time for a shower before class.

When the bell rang at the end of a somewhat chlorine-scented final period, I inwardly groaned with relief for probably the first time in my life. I felt as if I were in one of those '80s High-School-Sucks teen films and would spill out the front door in a wild joyful rush with the rest of the student body.

Instead I traipsed to the train station.

It was one of those afternoons that seemed warm and sunny, but where the wind was so icy it chilled your bones. I shuffled from foot to foot on the platform and wished I'd worn a thicker jumper. A voice sounded over the PA, announcing that city-bound trains were delayed approximately fifteen minutes, due to a fallen tree on the tracks. This was hardly a promising way to begin my weekend.

I trudged up the platform against the wind, and queued at the coffee cart, hoping that the warmth of the cup on my hands and the liquid in my mouth would override the disappointment of what I was sure would be a decidedly average cup of coffee. The guy in front of me ordered a skinny mochacino with whipped cream and extra chocolate sprinkles, and I wanted to smack him in the head. Had he no sense of culture?

The coffee-cart woman handed his coffee to him with a sneer (you know you've ordered the wrong thing when you get attitude from someone wearing a magenta-and-lime floral apron), and as he turned away I felt a jolt of recognition. I watched him shuffle away.

‘Yes, love?' Floral Apron was staring at me in a bored sort of way.

‘Flat white, please,' I said, still watching the guy. ‘Extra strong.'

He went to my school. He was short and pudgy, with metal-rimmed glasses that kept slipping down his nose. He was wearing grey slacks (slacks!) and a white collared shirt with a black knitted vest. I remembered Shaun Davies' horrible brown jumper, and considered starting a new internet meme called Hipster or Geek. This boy was definitely Geek. He had rather dirty earbuds in, and was clutching a thick fantasy novel in one hand and his disgusting creamy sugary beverage in the other. His face looked as if it had been cobbled together from leftover bits – he had heavy eyebrows and a wide jaw, but a small, freckled nose and quite feminine blue eyes. His cheeks were mottled red from the cold wind, and he bobbed his head up and down a little to his music, which made him resemble one of those bobblehead dolls.

Why hadn't I interviewed him? I studied the guy more carefully and realised he was in the year above me. But he did look very young. Maybe he skipped a year.