The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl (15 page)

He chuckles. ‘Naw. Can’t see you ever being quite that desperate. Even if we are looking at a last-man-on-earth-type scenario.’

‘Grady, you don’t really think it’s true, do you? I know it’s impossible, but what if … the world has to end sometime, right? All those rogue nukes and tsunamis and ice caps melting, and we’re just sitting here, and, I dunno …’

‘What?’

‘Well, maybe we should … do something. You know. What would you do if you only had one day to live and all that?’

Grady pulls my hand onto his chest. ‘What would you do, Alba?’

‘I dunno. I think – and I know you don’t feel the same way – but I’d want to be right here. I’d want to be home, with you and Mum and Cleo and the guys …’ With my hand on his chest, I can feel the solid, familiar
whump
of his heartbeat through my palm. ‘If I only had one day to live, then this is exactly where I’d want to be.’

Grady is silent for ages. ‘And if you had more than one day?’

I untangle my fingers from his and roll onto my belly. ‘Well. Guess that’s the question, isn’t it?’

‘I guess so,’ he says, his eyes on my ceiling. ‘But Alba, you’re wrong about one thing. I want big things, you know that, and I can’t imagine any of them happening here. I can’t change that about me. But if I did only have one day to live, then this – right here – is exactly where I’d want to be.’

I rest my chin in the crook of his elbow, and I smile at him until he drags his eyes to me. He smiles lopsidedly back, and just like that, I know this conversation is over.

‘You’re staying here tonight. Right?’

He sits up and swings his legs off my bed, and he sticks the deerstalker on his head. ‘Nah. Better go. I promised Mum I’d wrap the presents we bought Aunt Molly and I’ve got … other stuff on tomorrow. And I should probably not leave the house empty. You know, I caught some drunk guy drinking out of Clouseau’s water bowl this morning? Seriously, this whole episode has put me off alcohol for life.’

He grabs his Christmas box and heads outside. The gabble from the farm gusts into my room, and I try not to flinch as the jarring noise invades my space.

‘Merry Christmas, Alba,’ he says softly as he steps onto the verandah.

‘Hey, Grady?’

He turns around again, the lanterns and Sherlock hat throwing his face into shadow.

‘Yeah, Alba?’

‘You know, you don’t ever have to worry about me forgetting you. Ever. You had very distinctive hair when we were little. I’ll always remember you as that kid I once knew who looked like Beaker from
The Muppets
.’

He hesitates. Then he leans down and gives me a fleeting kiss on the cheek. ‘Woman, has anyone told you that you can be extremely mean?’

I give him a dismissive wave, and he waves back as he disappears into the darkness.

I sit on the edge of my bed again. Now, depressed-guy in the lounge is whining about only being home for Christmas in his dreams, and I have this overwhelming urge to run out there and chuck Mum’s iPod into the compost.

I lie down and shove a pillow over my head.

I’m not totally delusional. I know I can’t stay in this room forever. I know I’m supposed to want to leave. And maybe I do, one day. I want to see MoMA and the Musée d’Orsay, and I want to check out the headquarters of Marvel and DC and Dark Horse. I want to go to art school, one day, though the thought of being just one of a bazillion wannabes makes me feel small and blue. I want to make plans. But I just don’t know how to make myself jump on this arbitrary schedule the universe keeps trying to set for me.

Because honestly? Part of me knows that Grady is right. I’m just not brave enough for the things I want. Any of the things that I want.

My phone chimes. I drag the pillow away from my face and grab my mobile from the floor. On my screen, Daniel’s blue eyes are staring at me with a selfie I took of us that night at the Junction. His expression is straight from
A Home Among the Gum Trees
– part-bedroom eyes, part-someone-has-just-given-me-an-enema face.

Merry Christmas, SJA. Hope Santa brought everything
your little heart desired. Looking forward to catching up again – got a pres for you. xx Dan

I text him back my most articulate response – question mark, exclamation mark, smiley face. And then I toss my phone on the floor and change into my jammies. I crawl under my sheets, despite the heavy, oppressive heat, and make a tent with my Spider-man book and lamp, just like I used to do with Dad’s comics when I was a kid.

Sometime later I hear Mum and Cleo stumbling into the lounge. The god-awful Bing Crosby music is replaced with one of Angie’s early-nineties mixes that will, inevitably, end with one of them standing on the coffee table while belting out a Nirvana song. No doubt to be followed by the digging out of Mum and Dad’s wedding album, and a gush of cocktail-infused nostalgia-tears.

I switch off my lamp and pull the pillow over my head again.

I should be happy. Almost everyone I love is in the one place, and Grady bought me a brilliant present, and, despite a weird hiccup, we’ve had an awesome Christmas, as always, and Daniel is here, and the world is spinning the way it’s supposed to, regardless of the ridiculousness happening outside.

But I can’t shake this horrible feeling that – even discounting the end of the world – nothing at all in my universe is right.

I wake up on a sweltering Christmas Day with an unfamiliar sense of foreboding.

Normally, I’d be spending the morning schlepping in my jammies, reading Dad’s Marvel holiday specials and watching
Double Indemnity
with Grady, as is tradition. But normally, if the universe worked the way it’s supposed to, then Grady would’ve been snoozing on the other side of my room, waiting for me to pounce on him with Christmas Day cheer.

But Grady’s couch is empty, and I can’t sleep. My mental alarm pings at 5.30 a.m., and my eyes are instantly wide, my heart double-timing in bewildering panic mode.

I fall out of bed and click on my computer. The news is led by a bunch of jokey doomsday stories, each more nonsensical than the next. But there’s other stuff, too; stuff that should make me giggle, but serves only to send a clammy trickle of sweat tumbling down my spine. There’s a story about an outbreak of a bizarro tropical disease in Kenya. This weirdness at a Dutch zoo, where the entire troop of baboons freaked out and then fell silent, not eating or moving for days. Some dude in a village in France is convinced his goat gave birth to a rabbit. Though really, his proof seems to be an unfamiliar bunny hopping around his yard, and his goat appearing a little more chuffed than usual. Drunk goat-herders aside, the signs are, apparently, everywhere.

But honestly? I have zero interest in decoding these portents of impending doom; wondering if the sky is falling cos someone saw the horsemen of the apocalypse riding through their cornflakes or whatnot.

And besides. I know that the very worst things of all can sneak up behind you in the quiet and sunshine. And they don’t often come with warnings.

I wander onto my verandah. The sun is creeping over the hills, and the horizon is a mishmash of smudgy pinks. A handful of people are moving in the fields, and many more are splayed on sleeping bags and car hoods. Stray paper Christmas hats and the odd bit of toilet paper tumble past. Apart from the faint song of the Palmers’ cows, the farm is eerily silent.

In the distance, where the fields are broken by the line of red gums, my eyes fall on a motorbike parked beside a tent. The bike is huge, a black body glinting in the early sun – a classic retro cruiser, or it looks like that from here. If Dad got a glimpse of that beast, he’d probably be halfway across the field barefoot in his jocks, drawn to it like a zombie towards chrome-accented brains. Even from a distance, I can tell it’s a beautiful bike. And it kinda makes me feel like yakking last night’s pumpkin pie all over my plastic backyard.

I scamper back inside and draw my curtains tightly behind me.

I stand aimlessly in the middle of the room, staring at my tacked-up sketches. Cinnamon Girl seems wholly unimpressed by Christmas Day. I briefly consider adding a Santa hat to her rockabilly outfit, but she’s becoming steadily more pissy-looking as her panels progress; messing with her could be a bad idea. I’m getting a little worried that one of these days she might jump out of the page and beat me to death in my sleep with one of her red stilettos.

Though it’s barely passed six, I pick up my phone, and I call Grady. I have this flash of him face-planted in his pillow with his Sherlock hat on his head, and I can’t help but smile. I don’t know what I’m planning to say. I just feel this need to talk to him, like, right this second. I call twice. But Grady doesn’t answer. I send him a Merry Christmas text, chock full of festive emoticons, but – though I know he sleeps with his phone under his pillow – I don’t get anything back.

So instead I wake up Angie with a pot of Lady Grey tea and a tonally challenged ‘Trolley Song’ from
Meet Me in St Louis
. It feels like ages since I’ve properly hung out with Mum. Angie and I whip up breakfast in our PJs while mercifully chatting about everything other than the apocalypse, and then we swap our presents. Mum gives me her traditional awesome artists’ bag with graphite pencils, pots of India ink and pads of Bristol board. Annoyingly, one of the art books I’d ordered for her still hasn’t arrived. For a fleeting moment, I see myself on a busy street with more than a handful of crusty old shops. And the rows upon rows of comics patiently waiting on the shelves of city stores …

Mum’s added something extra to her present this year. As she whips cream in a bowl, I tear the paper off a small PVC folder. It’s about the size of a paperback, with a very cool reproduction of Warhol’s
Campbell’s Soup Cans
printed under the plastic. I flip it over in my hands before it dawns on me that it is a passport holder.

‘I don’t even own a passport,’ I mutter.

Mum adjusts the Christmas cracker hat on her head. ‘Cleo found it on Etsy. You know how I feel about Warhol, but you dig his stuff. Hey, use it for storing recipes,’ she says casually. ‘Or whatever.’

I slip the wallet into the pocket of my kimono, wondering vaguely whether there is such a thing as a PVC pop-art signal from the universe. ‘Thanks, Mama. I’m just grateful that you didn’t go all survivalist-themed for your presents this year.’

Mum grins. ‘Your chemical toilet might be in the mail.’ She glances at her phone. ‘Domenic still sleeping? You should give him a nudge before the scones get cold.’

I gulp a mouthful of tea. ‘Nah. Grady’s not here.’

Mum frowns. ‘I thought Cleo’s cook-fest would have kept him holed up in your room. Aren’t you two supposed to be watching something black-and-white right about now?’

I shrug. ‘I think Grady wanted to check on Clouseau or something. You know, after what happened to poor Mr Frankenstein.’

Mum grimaces. ‘Who would’ve thought Rosie and I would ever have to google “how do you remove blue hair-dye from a poodle”? Is it really six whole days till New Year’s? This whole bizzo can’t be over quick enough for me.’

I hoist my butt onto the counter, running my fingers over the familiar pattern of burns on the green laminate. And I can’t help but laugh. ‘Mum, honestly, did you
ever
expect this kind of crazy in Eden Valley? I know you guys moved here for the fresh air and weed-growing potential, but this has got to be
way
beyond what you signed up for?’

Mum rolls her eyes. ‘The weed-growing was strictly Grady’s dad’s vision. And Adam couldn’t grow mould on bread –’ She gives me a faux stern look. ‘Anyway, there was no
weed
involved, Sarah Jane. It wasn’t exactly a hippy fantasy that brought us here. More like … well, in my case, the need to avoid getting a job,’ she says with a laugh.

‘Uh-huh. And that’s how you sold the idea to everyone else?’

Mum settles into a chair. ‘It wasn’t entirely my idea. But you know that. Your dad and I both wanted to try the small-town thing after uni –’

Mum’s breath catches. And her eyes do that thing they still sometimes do when his name is mentioned: pinched at the edges like the world is just a bit too bright.

The ceiling fan bounces the pots suspended in the centre of the room. For a moment, the only sounds in the kitchen are pans against pots, like sad, ghostly windchimes.

‘Hey, Mama? What do you think Dad would have thought about all this?’

Mum shakes her head. ‘Best guess? He would’ve vanished into the fields the second that first van showed up. We’d have found him in a tent somewhere making friends with a bunch of old guys with beards. And our car would have been given away to the first person he met with sad eyes and a sob story.’

I shovel in some jammy scone, and blink until my eyes don’t feel so blurry. ‘Yeah. I reckon he’d totally be partying like it’s 1999.’ I take a ginormous swig of cold tea. Then I give Mum a cheery smile. ‘So I sort of get why you and Dad schlepped out here, but what about Cleo? How did you talk your bestie into trading twenty-four-hour bars for, well – a bazillion cows and the Junction?’

Mum grins and surreptitiously swipes her eyes. ‘I didn’t need to talk her into anything. Cleo would’ve moved to a yurt in Kathmandu if someone suggested it. And Adam and Cleo were joined at the hip … but you know, none of us were thinking too far ahead. I mean, Cleo had a
baby
– trust me, Anthony wasn’t in anyone’s plan. But then Domenic and you came along …’ She frowns. ‘Bub, what are you asking?’