Love You Two Read online

  ‘Oh, get a grip, Dad!’ And that’s it. I scrape back the chair and storm out, clenching my teeth to stop the spitfire in me from spewing out.

  3

  Introducing my wog girlfriends and skip boyfriend

  I LIE ON MY BED AND LOOK up at the glow-in-the-dark stars I had stuck on my sky-blue bedroom ceiling. There was a time, when I was about nine, when I thought my world was glowy and shiny like a sky of stars and I could map out my life with my family the way I’d mapped all the stars on my ceiling.

  But then the zits erupted, and the cellulite, and the fat came home to stay on my hips and bum. My period started with its bloats and cramps, so it’s hide the pads in the schoolbag and invent excuses for not going swimming. And through it all are Mum and Dad, carrying on like my own personal cheerleaders. But they don’t have to survive at school where the only way to be somebody is to get a boyfriend. That seemed way impossible till Scott arrived and gave me some status. Hot-but-scary Scott. But now it’s time for The Sex Question and I’m about to lose either my virginity or my boyfriend.

  Stars are just scattered in reality, beyond our control. And my little stars look messy on my ceiling. Year Eleven is barely over, exams over, a summer ahead that was going to be full of the beach, parties, beach-parties, Scott, and more Scott … but all I want to do now is take each star down and look at the black hole in my life that the stars had been covering. Tomorrow I’m staying home. Tomorrow I’m going into that black hole through the computer, the cupboards and my parents’ bedroom to see what reality really looks like. I’ve told Mum so often this house is cluttered, full of chests of photo albums, cards and letters, and shelves of mementos. All this sentimental slop looking so low-class in an old house on the edge of Little Italy in Adelaide.

  I turn over on the bed like a sick seal and find myself looking straight into the kind, smiling face of the huge teddy bear Nathan had given me when I was about ten. It has this card tied to its foot. I raise my head slowly and read it: ‘To pretty Pina, you’re like a daughter to me.’

  Yeah, forgot to tell you I’ve known Nathan, or I thought I’d known him, most of my life. The part-of-the-furniture bachelor family friend doing boring adult-talk with my parents. He’d never married. He’d never had children but loved them, and hung around way too many of them as an upper primary school teacher. I remember his kindly blue eyes, shy smile and softly spoken manner as he sometimes helped Leo and me with our very serious primary school homework. I’d always liked him; a sweet-faced man in bright shirts and black jeans. He’d give us little presents most of the times he saw us.

  He was buying us. That’s all.

  As I got older, he came over less – so where did my mum go when she was ‘going out with friends’ or ‘going to work’? Meanwhile, Dad would put us to bed, Dad would get us to school.

  But then, she and Dad would go away for ‘dirty weekends’ and Nonna would move in – with her dusting cloths and detergent, and a determination to set right the house of her daughter. But she couldn’t get to her daughter’s heart and set that right.

  I want to lie awake until they’re asleep. She’s home tonight, no ‘nightshift’. I cry with hurt and humiliation at the thought that her so-called work roster is really about rostering Dad and Nathan, Leo and me.

  My mobile jolts me with its rap ringtone. I should’ve switched it off.

  Oh no. It’s Lisa. She was going to call to get together tomorrow. She’s been worrying about her parents. They’re threatening divorce – again. She wanted to stay over for a few days to wait it out at what she calls ‘the heaven at your place’ till they decide what they’re going to do.

  Clueless Lisa. I can imagine her trembling fingers with chewed fingernails clutching a smoke while she speaks to me, her thin legs in skinny jeans pacing about her room. All she wants is peace and quiet because her house is loud all the time. Her father bellows, her mother shrieks, their labra-doodle barks at the commotion, and her three feral older brothers play heavy metal and smoke joints to disappear.

  But maybe that’s a normal family after all.

  ‘Hi Lisa,’ I manage to say, but it’s like my voice is emerging from a dark dungeon.

  ‘Hey Pina, so you’re home! You’re not on MSN. You’re not on MySpace!’ Lisa’s rushing on as if afraid her voice is going to dry up. I can hear some muffled yells in the background. ‘They’re at it again and I’ve locked myself in my room. I feel real sick, I can’t eat.’ Every time her parents fight, Lisa sheds another kilo, I’m sure. Soon there’ll be nothing left of her except an ashtray skeleton. ‘I gotta come over tomorrow and I’m not coming back here till they sort this out.’ She begins to whimper and I can imagine her trying to keep the mascara from streaking down her face without scorching her jet black hair with her cigarette. ‘They’re threatening to call each other’s parents and blurt it all out. Then Mum says let’s get through Christmas before Dad breaks everyone’s hearts. Then Dad says he wants her out and Mum says it’s her parents who forked out the dough for this wog mansion. Then Dad says he’ll get a lawyer to prove he’s more than made up for it with his years of backbreaking construction work, and then Mum does this freakin’ weird laugh and screams, “You mean you found time to work between your drinking and your screwing around?” and off they go again. I gotta get out, Pina. They gotta split up before they split me in two. Wogs! Drama queens, I swear to God. How come Rosie’s parents didn’t go through all this when they split up? They’re still good friends. Will mine ever get like that?’

  I’m only sort of listening. This is nothing new and Lisa has this thing of doing monologues and just needing you on the other end as a prompt. But now the last thing I want is Lisa over, and the first thing I want is my parents having a clearly understandable and extremely reasonable screaming match over who’s been screwing around.

  ‘Lisa, listen, you can’t come over tomorrow.’

  ‘Huh? But Pina, I need –’

  ‘Sorry, but I really can’t have you over. My parents are having a tough time here too.’

  ‘Yeah right, your lovebirds having a slightly ruffled feather moment? Don’t BS me, girlfriend!’ She giggles hysterically, nasally, and then sniffs up more tears. Then she sounds curious. ‘What’s up with your parentals then?’

  ‘I think my mum’s … I mean … I know my mum’s …’ I want to tell her and I don’t want to. It’ll shatter her. My parents are the two adults she’s come to see as constant and ideal. Plus, I’m humiliated. And I don’t know even what words to use. They don’t teach you this insanity at school. This isn’t your normal parental bust-up like Lisa’s parents have the decency to be having. ‘Look, it’s confusing okay? But I need to give them space … and I need space to figure it out with them.’

  She’s breathing noisily. She starts to sniffle again and the tears make her sweet voice wobble. ‘Okay. I was just really hoping to get away from here now school’s over. I want them to split up and then I’m so shit-scared they actually will. Oh my God, what do I do when they split up? Where do I go – what if I love one more than the other, Pina?’

  Lisa stops to breathe. I remember to grunt so she knows I’m still there. ‘I’d go to my nonni’s but they’ll ask me too many questions. They know a divorce is coming and they’re trying to figure out ways to hide it from their church buddies or prevent it ’cos it’s such a figura, you know?’

  She breathes noisily and then begins to whimper again. ‘Pina? Are you sure I can’t hang out there? I just need time out of this hole.’

  I’m torn between wanting to be there for her as always, and wanting to sort out the problems in my family, problems I never knew I had. So I end up sounding cold and frustrated. ‘For once I need time out too! I’m sorry I can’t be there for you – for once. Your parents hate each other – so deal with it! It’s that simple, Lisa. Mine think they love each other and they’re fooling each other big time.’

  That shuts her up. Then we simultaneously apologise. Lisa tries to lighten the t
one. ‘I’ll be okay. I got Labradood here to cuddle.’ I hear her baby-talking to her pet dog. It’s a curly haired overgrown sheep that’s become Lisa’s comfort cushion. ‘Will you call when everything’s all right? I really need one of your mum’s hugs right now.’

  ‘Well, her hugs are a bit hairy at the moment.’

  ‘Well, whateva, you leave your mum alone. She’s awesome.’

  Lisa hangs up but five minutes later Rosie’s on the phone. ‘Hey, you ice-chick, what did you say to L?’ Rosie’s a real wog-chick; tough-talking, blonde-streaked, with heaps of eyeliner and mascara, the tightest of pants and ‘Italian Girls are the Best’ t-shirts. ‘She’s blubbering and coming over to stay with me tomorrow. Says you don’t want her, that you concocted some crazy story about your parents going feral all of a sudden. As if! What’s up at yours?’

  ‘Ro, my parents are not friggin’ perfect!’

  ‘So they’re having a sfogare. Whateva. They’ll get over their little fight or whatever it was. Worst that can happen – as I told Lisa – is they’ll split up and set up two houses for you to live in, and you’ll get heaps of pressies from their guilt trips.’ She giggles dryly. After all, that’s her experience, as she tells us over – and over. Her mum and dad are good friends and life’s way better now, she declares, unable to hide her bitter tone.

  ‘Ro, just have Lisa over for a while till …’

  ‘My mum’s away for a week so yeah, she can stay a couple of days till my boyf comes to stay. Hey, ice-chick, it’s Scotty isn’t it, getting your hormones all juicy, and you’re using your parents to cover for you. Shameless ho you!’

  ‘Ro, will you stop with Scott?’

  ‘What are you, the Virgin Mary or something? He wants some sex, you got it to give, you can enjoy it too. Or you been seeing Laura on the sly and listening to her lesbian feminist crap? You turning lezzo or something? Get some man-sex before it’s too late!’ Rosie laughs but in that kind of unfunny way.

  Sometimes I wonder why we’re still friends. I think I remember the Rosie before her parents split, before she got boy-crazy, before she started hating Laura. Every now and again that Rosie makes a comeback appearance, and I’m waiting for her to return full-time. The Rosie who used to walk arm in arm with Lisa, Laura and me in the primary schoolyard, daring any boy to tease us or try to walk between us.

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with Scott! Or Laura. I’m not seeing her that much, you know that. And I’m not gay! Anyway, if you gave her a chance, she could be one of us again.’

  ‘Okay, don’t jump me, dead giveaway. Whateva. Look, Scott’s not a wog. He’s a skippy boy. He’s a simple-minded horny footyhead. He won’t give a rat’s about your virgin status. Go on girl, give it to him. I never keep it back from Vic – oh my God, I swear I couldn’t. He’s so hot!’

  ‘Ro, what you do with Vic’s your thing. You don’t get me telling you what I think of the dumb creeps you hang out with.’

  There’s some steady breathing before, ‘Do you want out from Lisa and me or something? You want to go over to the Laura Lives in the Library with the Lesbians side? You think you’re too smart for us now?’ So tough, her voice is so tough. But there’s something else, something so hurt there, that I always hear leaking through whenever Rosie talks about Laura, which she seems to want to do way too often, even though it riles her up.

  I sigh and calm myself down. ‘Ro, I don’t want to fight with you. You’re my friend but you piss me off sometimes. My parents are having a tough time, that’s all.’

  ‘Been there, so tell me.’

  ‘I can’t really talk about it.’

  ‘You don’t trust me?’ She’s genuinely shocked. One thing about Rosie that I love is that she’s trustworthy. Keeping secrets seems to come easy to her. I told her that once and she sneered back, ‘I’ve had too much practice.’

  ‘It’s not that, Ro. Anyway, you never quite told me what happened to your olds.’

  ‘They stopped having sex. And my mother’s a freak. Which means the marriage was totally over. Which means I lost my brother ’cos he wasn’t going to stay around to put up with her. Anyway, whateva.’ And that’s all Rosie ever tells you. I know that the divorce changed everything. Rosie had this big brother, Antonio, who she followed around like a little puppy. But he left home as soon as their parents split up, weirdly revolted with his mother. His leaving home crushed Rosie even further. All she’s been getting for ages now is a couple of postcards a year, addressed to her and her dad. The cards tell them where he’s backpacking and taking on seasonal work in Europe, and about the latest girlfriend he’s travelling with. So even now, Rosie rushes ahead in case I pry further. ‘Look Pee, I’m hanging up. Call me when you un-depress yourself. Scott told me tomorrow’s your big day: home alone.’

  Oh hell, that’s right, Scott’s expecting to come over tomorrow to finally settle the sex question. ‘I gotta call him Rosie, he’s expecting a call.’

  I’m feeling nervous and intimidated even as I melt at the bass guitar strumming of his voice. ‘I thought you’d have called ages ago.’

  I can see him sprawled out on his bed, his fingers counting his six-pack abs.

  ‘Hi Scott, sorry, sorry, Lisa called, Rosie called.’

  ‘Nice to know you were making your way down the list to me.’

  I don’t need this now, I really don’t. I try to sound smiley and vague. ‘Scott, Lisa’s having problems and I thought I might spend some of tomorrow with her.’

  ‘Really?’ He sounds concerned.

  ‘Yeah.’ I’m beginning to feel relieved.

  ‘Well, she doesn’t think so.’ His voice is gravelly again.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She just rang wanting to know what I’d done to you ’cos you weren’t wanting her over tomorrow and you were trying to blame your folks. And I told her, no, we need the whole house alone for ourselves.’ He sniggers, so sexy and so sleazy. I’m confused at how it both pulls me in and repulses me. My first boyfriend, finally, and it’s way more complicated than I ever would’ve thought. I feel like shrivelling till Scott can’t see me, not even in his mind as he talks to me over the phone. But I also feel like immersing myself into the deep melodies of his voice. ‘So who are you really lying to? One of your best friends or your boyfriend? And who are you staying home alone for tomorrow: those bitches or me? Choose right now, babe.’

  I breathe in very slowly and manage to say, ‘For me. I’m staying home for me.’

  ‘What?’ He laughs incredulously and I imagine he’s just done a sharp sit-up.

  I remind myself that once I’ve got this parent thing under some kind of control, I’m going to have to take some time to get my head around what I feel for Scott. ‘I need time to think about us, about everything.’

  ‘I can help you think.’ He sniggers again, and then growls – sexy, dangerous. ‘But what’s there to think?’

  ‘Scott, I’m sorry I lied but please understand, tomorrow’s not a good day.’

  ‘So you been saying for months. But if you love me, any day’s a good day.’

  Funny how his use of the word ‘love’ has me melting and freezing. ‘Scott, it’s not about us. It’s my parents.’

  ‘They’re home tomorrow?’

  ‘No –’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Scott, I want to be with you but please don’t pressure.’ I’m about to cry. It’s all too much. My stomach knots tighten. ‘I’m feeling sick, Scott. Can I call you tomorrow night? I just need a day.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For me, for my family. I got to find out stuff.’

  ‘That makes no sense, Pina. You’re studying too much.’ Scott hangs up and I’m left struggling with why I like him.

  Do I like him … if I don’t really like him, then why am I with him? Then I get angry because this is the kind of stuff I should be sorting out, not putting on hold because I’m trying to make sense of my mother’s love-life.

  Just as I’m bogged down in all this
, Laura calls. ‘Hey, couldn’t find you on MSN. Thought I’d better call to update you on my movements.’ Her whole life’s a planned itinerary. ‘Mum’s away this week on a short hol with her partner. I’m at Dad’s, but I’m at Mum’s all next week. But text first if you want to come over to make sure I’m there. I can do most afternoons but I promised I’d leave my nights free for Tim as he’s interning during the day. So, how are you?’

  ‘Crap. I’m on the verge of stuffing things up with Scott, and with Lisa and Rosie. All because I’d like a day at home alone to sort some stuff out. They won’t believe my parents are having a tough time.’ I want to scream to Laura that my mother’s mess is being dumped into my life.

  Laura laughs in that calm, unflappable way. I can just see her curled up in flannel Tweety Bird pyjamas and slippers, as comfortable with herself as she is with me. Here I am making all sorts of efforts to score and keep a guy, like buying enough skin cream to decorate a dozen cakes and a push-up bra to make my boobs stick out further than my stomach. Meanwhile, Laura, in her trackies and floppy hoodie, goes wandering through the Adelaide Uni library one Saturday afternoon, starts chatting to some guy who turns out to be a medical student, four years older than her and from the Anglo-rich suburbs on the other side of town, and they’re hooked.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t sound like your family, but hey, new jigsaw puzzle pieces get lost and old ones found.’

  ‘Oh my God Laura, I still don’t know what the hell you mean by stuff like that.’ I’d always groaned at those little catchphrases of hers. ‘Laura da Vinci’ I call her, because she seems to know much more than she lets you into. But those bits of Laura-wisdom, annoying as they can be, keep her smiling through the scheduling of weekly rosters in her school diary. It’s a week at each of her parents’ homes and a polite smiling apology to teachers when she has a rare ditz moment and leaves books at one parent’s when she moves to her week at the other’s.