Saving Francesca (5 page)

I’ve heard Mia talk to them about me. “She’s going through that adolescent alien stage,” she told them once. “Where she has to pretend she’s something she’s not.”

As opposed to being who
she
thinks I am, or should be. Maybe another Tara Finke. That’d make me popular.

Today I want them to wave, just to reassure me that everything is normal. But their happiness makes me angry. So I just go inside, praying that Mia is marking assignments, or cooking dinner, or on the phone counseling her friend Freya, the “bastard magnet,” or gossiping with Zia Teresa, or arguing with my dad, or kissing my dad, or reading, or laughing with my cousin Angelina, or sneaking a look at
The Bold and the Beautiful.

But God’s not listening.

It’s been six days.

The door’s still closed.

chapter 5

THE BASKETBALL GAME
draws a lunchtime crowd in the gym. Not just the basket ballers, but most of the girls and half of the guys. The boys’ team is made up of Year Eleven and Twelve boys, and I notice that William Trombal is one of them, but thankfully not Thomas Mackee, who is too busy eating a meat pie illegally in the back row. Once in a while he gives a war cry and meat pie goes everywhere.

Ms. Quinn sits at the front, chatting to one of the other teachers. She looks pleased. Even Brother Edmund, the principal, makes an appearance, and I watch him shake hands with William Trombal.

The guys huddle together and do a Sebastian’s chant.

Glory, glory, alleluia,
Sebastian boys are going to rule ya.
We’ll beat you in the end
And we’ll perfect it as a trend.
And you’ll go home black-and-blue.

A real Wordsworth, the one who made that up!

The girls stand around pretending to warm up. We’ve never been a team before. We don’t have a chant and we’ve barely spoken in front of these boys, let alone sung. A warning bell is rung by Justine Kalinsky, who is in her element, because she has a role to play for once in this school. I look around and see Luca, who holds up a hand. I give him a smile, and the whistle blows and a cheer goes up.

This feeling comes over me. A positive one for once. A sense of accomplishment and, I hate to say it, pride. The girls are happy, the guys are accommodating, and for a moment I get a feeling that everything’s going to be just fine.

I am a success at last.

We get annihilated. There is no mercy. The word “friendly” is never used in the same context again. “Friendly,” according to
The
Australian Little Oxford Dictionary,
means “acting or disposed to act as friend.” The word “act” is very apt. The girls glare at me. They need to put a face to their misery and I’m it. From then on, whenever someone uses the words “the basketball game,” there is no question which one they are referring to.

This is the short version: They play like it’s the Olympics and their country’s honor depends on it. If we even dare to try to adjust our gym pants, we get wolf-whistled. There are nosebleeds, fractured fingers, and hair pulling. It’s pretty full-on, and although I’m tall, I feel as if I’ve been tossed around the whole game. I end up on my bum so many times that I’m convinced I’ve broken a bone there.

At one point, I end up underneath a heap of bodies in a last-minute rumble, clutching the ball to my stomach, not wanting to let go of it for all the money in the world. It’s there, in that dark huddle of sweat and testosterone and hot breath and heaving breasts and erections, that I get the clearest of pictures. Because somehow I find myself straddled by William Trombal and I see the gleam of something in his face as he pulls the ball out of my hands. Not lust. Not adrenaline. It’s something much more sinister. It’s revenge, and I begin to understand the truth. That it all would have turned out very differently if Trotsky had written
Anna Karenina
.

Later, I sit in the gym alone. Not exactly pondering the game, because it’s not worth it. Just having my own time-out; a bit of self-pity here, a bit of self-loathing there. There are few places in this school to take a breather without the whole world watching.

William Trombal walks in to collect some of the sports gear. He’s cheerful, for once, whistling to himself. When he grabs the stuff, he walks over, knowing he can’t ignore me.

“Good game,” he says. “We should do it again sometime.”

I look at him and don’t answer. There are no comebacks. What am I going to say? “Yes, it was a great game. Put me through it again. Anytime you want.” So silence is my only weapon.

“Hope there’s no hard feelings because of the winning margin.”

“Can I have our list back?” I ask.

“List?”

“The one with all our requests. Tampons? Girls’ sports? Respect? That list.”

“You’re taking this personally, I can tell.”

“And you didn’t?”

I pick up my bag and begin to walk away.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks.

“Great talking to you. We should do it again sometime,” I say without turning back.

My dad takes Luca and me to Bar Italia in Leichhardt. We almost get Mia out the door, but by the time we’re leaving, she’s already gone back to her bedroom, leaving the three of us with no desire for anything. We go anyway, pretending that it’s no big deal. Pretending that it’s normal for my dad, Luca, and me to go for gelato on our own. But it’s not normal. Nothing about our lives, at the moment, is normal.

It’s difficult sitting there without people you know coming up to say “Hi!” every once in a while.

“How’s Mia?” they ask good-naturedly. “You guys keeping her busy as usual?”

The three of us have smiles plastered on our faces as we nod with enthusiasm.

“You know Mia,” Dad jokes, “if she’s not doing a hundred things at once she’s not happy.”

We feel like criminals. Liars. When we get a moment to ourselves, we try to speak about it.

“Is she getting better?” Luca asks.

“It’s not that easy,” Dad says.

“Is it because she does everything?” I ask.

“No.”

“Is it our—”

“No,” he says harshly. “No,” he repeats gently. “Everything’s going to be fine. She’ll be back at work soon. Let’s just keep the house clean.”

Oh yeah,
I want to say,
because a clean house will result in peace in
the Middle East as well
.

Later, my cousin Angelina comes over. She’s shrewd, and I get an inkling that the family has been talking about what’s happening with my mum and has sent her over on some kind of surveillance mission. Relatives sometimes call Angelina mini-Mia because they have the same fiery personality, although my mum’s her aunt by marriage only. Despite the ten-year difference, they get on fantastically. They’re brutally honest and don’t take shit from anyone. Angelina’s getting married later this year. Angus, her fiancé, is probably one of the most uncomplicated guys I’ve ever come across, a bit like my dad. Her brothers used to say they’d pity the guy she’d end up with because he’d need to be a saint, but that’s because my cousins think they know everything and have their wives convinced of that as well. It’s incredible to witness how clueless they actually are.

Angelina’s in with my mum for ages and I want it to be like the days when Angelina, Mia, and I would have our secret women’s business coffees. I’ve never been left out of their conversations, not even when they talk about sex (although when my mum talks about her sex life with my dad, I feel like being sick). Tonight, I’m excluded and I try to piece things together from a distance, but I haven’t got enough to go on.

When Angelina comes out, she kisses my cheek.

“Ring me about the bridesmaid dresses,” she says, referring to her upcoming wedding and my role in it.

“What did you talk about?”

“I’ll tell you about this later, Frankie. I promise you.”

“Why not now, Angelina? My dad keeps on telling the University she’s got the flu, but she hasn’t.”

She looks at me but doesn’t speak for a moment, which is rare for Angelina.

“It’s a bit of a breakdown. She just needs time out, you know?”

I shake my head. A bit down. A bit of a breakdown. A bit of bullshit. There are no “bits” to this. There are large chunks. Of information that everyone is keeping from Luca and me.

Angelina speaks to my dad outside for a while. Neighborhood Watch, across the road, are out there, of course, and I sit at the window watching them. How dare they be so happy. I block them out and decide to ring up Michaela from Stella’s because if anyone’s going to be there for me, she will be. Her mother answers the phone.

“It’s Francesca.”

“Who?”

“Francesca. Francesca Spinelli.”

There is a silence and I realize that she doesn’t know who I am even though I was at school with her daughter for four years.

“From Stella’s,” I mumble.

“Oh. How are you? Michaela’s not here. She’s out with her friends.”

I thank her and hang up the phone and I feel like crap. I don’t remember the last time anyone used my name, except for Ms. Quinn. I don’t remember the last time anyone looked me in the eye to speak to me. I’m frightened to look at myself in the mirror because maybe nothing’s there.

I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I’m sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and nonthreatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, “Frankie, you’re silly, you’re lazy, you’re talented, you’re passionate, you’re restrained, you’re blossoming, you’re contrary.”

I want to be an adjective again.

But I’m a noun.

A nothing. A nobody. A no one.

chapter 6

LUCA AND I
are late again and, as usual, we have to face William Trombal. Yet another role of the House leaders is to stand in the foyer and record the names of those in their House who are late. From the look on William Trombal’s face each morning, I can tell it’s his least favorite job.

He asks me my name for the fourth time this week. He knows I know he knows it, but he insists on this charade.

“Katarina Esperante,” I tell him.

Luca looks from me to him and then back again as if I’ve gone insane.

William Trombal glances up from the late book in his hands. “That’s not your name.”

I don’t answer and he looks at Luca and rolls his eyes.

“Luca Spinelli,” Luca says politely, “and she’s . . .”

I give him the Spinelli death stare.

“. . . she’s my sister.”

William Trombal gives in and writes in my name. “You’ve been late four times this week,” he says, stating the obvious.

I can sense Luca smiling politely next to me. He wants everyone to be happy and hates any kind of conflict. I pull him away and we walk down the stairs that lead to the quadrangle.

“You’re not to talk to that guy,” I tell him.

“He looks after Year Five,
Katarina
.”

“What does that make him? God?”

He rolls his eyes. I pinch him and he pinches me back. That’s how we do the affection thing in public.

For the rest of the day, I feel out of it. Not that I’ve ever felt into it around here. It’s like I lose track of time. One minute I’m in English and when I next open my eyes I’m in legal studies, but I don’t remember how I got there. On the page in front of me I’ve written stuff down, but I can’t remember holding the pen. I want to rest my head on the desk and just sleep, and for most of the day I kind of do. I can tell the teachers don’t like me. I remember the way they used to look at the apathetic girls at St. Stella’s. I think teachers can even handle the troublemakers, but they hate the slackers and that’s how they see me.

“Just ask me how I’m feeling,” I want to say. “Just ask and I may tell you.”

But no one does.

At lunchtime, I feel Justine Kalinsky watching me and when I look at her, she smiles, and I walk away and hide out in the toilets. Not the greatest place to spend forty minutes, but I just can’t deal with Tara Finke and Justine Kalinsky today. I just want to have a rest from all of that. I just want to lie down and not get up.

After ten minutes, I’ve had enough and I walk out of the toilets and across the courtyard and am beckoned over by the group who sit against the wall. These guys are European, and I know it’s time to do the cultural-bond thing. Sometimes they nod at me. A you-and-me-are-the-same nod. I wonder if they ever nod at William Trombal.