jordan

Jordan was back at school. After her rest.

She lay down, reclined, feeling the spikes of grass through her school dress. Orange Sunny Boy drops watered the ground from her uplifted hand. The slope overlooking the basketball court was dry and brittle, other than the dripping Sunny Boy drops. The bright sun promised more of the same.

Wednesday. Which still came after Tuesday and before Thursday, as though everything was right with the world.

As though the sound of her mum tossing and turning in the king-sized bed, alone, didn’t matter one bit. As though the pieces of Jordan’s life could be picked up by a breeze and that was just the way it went.

Whatever.

Jordan sat up slightly, leaning back on her elbows. The boys were bouncing and tossing and running and sweating. Jordan didn’t get it. Why bounce and toss when you could just lie back and watch the clouds making pictures in the sky? Why run and sweat when you could just sip the melting juices of a sweet Sunny Boy?

‘Jack just got another goal!’ Lee’s voice, as was usual when she talked about Jack, was way over the top. The pitch always went an octave higher. Talking to him, she kind of sounded like a duck.

‘Hooray for Jack, then,’ Jordan said out of the side of her mouth. She moved her wrists to dance invisible pompoms. ‘Rah, rah, rah.’

Lee tucked a wild blonde curl behind her ear and blinked three times. She was ready to take offence. To wonder if Jordan was hanging it on her.

Lee, how she cared about everything. Exhausting.

‘Come on, Jordy. Let’s have a game with the boys?’ Lee was quick to hurt. Quick to forgive. ‘If you feel like it, that is.’ Her head loomed over Jordan.

‘Yeah, let’s. We’ve only got twenty-two minutes of lunchtime left,’ agreed Cecilia, straight mousy bob leaning into Lee’s big blonde mop. ‘I think it would be good for you. Unless you don’t want to, Jords? It’s up to you, really.’

‘Australia has voted,’ Meredith joined in, amping up the volume. Her arms waved frantically, blocking out the last patch of blue sky.

Jordan rolled back. She played dead. Her friends were all so fricking … enthusiastic. So pumped up.

She glanced up the slope at a chunky silhouette between sun and shade. A girl, sitting alone. Not bothered. For the first time, Jordan wondered what it would be like to be one of the anonymous kids. One who didn’t get hassled like this. Peaceful, perhaps? It was a thought she would have liked to continue.

To float in.

To drown in.

But her friends were too annoying to let her be. Within seconds, there were three of them pulling at her arms. Very unbalanced it was, too. Meredith and Lee on the right, and tiny Cecilia trying to take the burden of her left side.

‘All right already,’ Jordan groaned. ‘Do you reckon I can have my arms back, though? I might need them for the game, you know.’

‘You think that would really make a difference, Miss Unco?’ Meredith stirred.

Jordan rolled her eyes. There was a little pang as she walked down the slope to the basketball court. A sort of reprieve that still happened sometimes. When, for a moment, she forgot what had happened. What punishment he had doled out. While Jordan and her mum tried to figure out their crime.

Wednesday. From now on, Wednesday would be the day to toss her life into an overnight bag and lug it over to his new flat. She hadn’t packed Zebra. The toy she’d taken to every camp, every sleepover. The one that sat on her pillow at her real house, one eye falling out of its socket and barely any stripes on its worn-out fur.

What was the point in pretending? Soft toys and beddy-byes were completely over.

‘Jordan, could you hang back after class? Just for a chat?’ called Mr Moulton, cowboy/English teacher, over the sound of the bell. He had retro sideburns and slicked-back hair.

Jordan shrugged. Kept her head down so she couldn’t see the others as they left the classroom. The door slammed closed. Looking up she could see the backs of three heads through the glass pane. Her friends were hanging around. Staying close.

Mr Moulton sat next to her on a plastic chair. Stroked his sideburns while her stomach constricted, tensed. She wondered if everyone had guessed what he was going to talk to her about.

‘Jordan? Here are the worksheets you missed out on,’ he said. ‘You’ve been away a bit lately, hey? How was your –’

‘Rest?’ Jordan finished for him. ‘It was very restful, thanks. Very chilled.’

She thought about her week in limbo land. The days they’d given her off to recover from the shock had revolved around Dr Phil. She could get the show three times a day on Foxtel. BBQ Shapes and Fanta and the catchcry of the TV psychologist. ‘I want you to get excited about your life!’

With a supply in front of her, she could just veg out on the leather couch. She could reach out to the coffee table for sustenance while they walked out their pathetic little lives on screen for the world to see. Shoplifters and alcoholics. Wife-beaters.

Dr Phil would tell them what to do. ‘You’re not an evil man. What’s happening here is that this family needs a hero!’

She had fantasised about parading her parents on Dr Phil’s stage. Making them sort out their crap in the neat space of an hour. Including ad breaks.

‘You,’ he would say to Jordan’s dad, ‘need to work out what’s important here. If you have to quit your job so you have more time for the family, that’s what you need to do!’

Her dad would nod in agreement. He would mentally write his resignation letter. He would look lovingly at Jordan’s mum on the stool beside him. He would glance out into the audience, at Jordan in the front row, and give her a wave. And it would all be OK again.

Except it wasn’t going to happen.

‘This family needs a hero!’

But this family wouldn’t get one. Must have got lost in the post.

‘Jordan, I heard you’ve been having some problems at home,’ Mr Moulton continued, bringing her back.

‘Is that a euphemism, Mr M? I’m getting pretty good at them,’ Jordan said, gathering strength, using the word he’d taught them. ‘Are you talking about my parents splitting?’

‘I guess it is a euphemism,’ he said slowly, and she thought he might back off. But he didn’t.

‘Jordan, it’s natural to feel confused and sad when your parents split,’ he said, and he was reinforcing her words. As though they meant something. ‘I just want you to know that I’m here if you need to talk. And I can also give you a referral to Ms Spicer. She’s good, you know.’

Ms Spicer was the school counsellor. She was trained to talk. To draw out words.

Her parents had talked to Jordan. Her dad particularly. How kind of him to inform her, now, when he’d already made his decision. He talked about how they’d both tried. But they hadn’t been happy for a long time. And everyone deserved to be happy, didn’t they? It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. They would both continue loving her, and being her parents and blah, blah, blah.

He probably got the whole speech from a handbook. The Idiot’s Guide to Divorce.

It had looked like a massive effort for her mum to lift her head from her hands. Her mum had looked different as she nodded and smiled a pale, fake smile.

‘I’m right, Mr M. I’m good,’ Jordan told him.

She could see her friends were still waiting for her. She pointed. He nodded. She escaped.

‘Are you OK, Jordy?’ Lee fussed, her blue eyes full of almond-shaped concern. ‘Because you can talk about it, you know. It can help. When you let it go.’

‘It’s a bit more complicated than that,’ Jordan said, brushing away Lee’s consoling hand. She wasn’t about to parade her shit. Not to Mr M. Not to the school counsellor.

Not even to her friends.

‘Let me guess. Mr Moulton wanted you to see the school shrink cos you’ve been such a retard lately,’ said Meredith, doing hand claps that didn’t connect. Her crossed eyes and lips-in-a-cat’s-bum shape were signature Meredith style.

It brought a slow smile to Jordan’s face.

Maybe everything was a joke, in the end? Nothing really seemed to matter.

Anymore.

Jordan wasn’t sure she wanted her dad to get out of the car. But she wasn’t sure she wanted him to sit there either, window down, tapping away to some stupid out-of-date song on some stupid out-of-date radio station. Especially in his suit and tie.

She opened the boot and chucked in her overnight bag and her school bag.

‘Hi, Poss,’ her dad said, as she slid into the passenger seat. He was acting as though it was a regular event, this leaving work early to pick her up. What a Committed Daddy. Give the man an Oscar.

Jordan reached out and switched stations.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Thought I’d cook carbonara,’ her dad said, motioning backwards. There were two plastic 7-Eleven bags sitting on the back seat. When her mum did the shopping there were loads more and she always used green enviro-bags.

‘I just have to finish off some paperwork. It’ll take an hour. Two at the max,’ he said.

Some things never changed.

They took a side street, and then turned onto the highway. Part of her pulled in the opposite direction, towards her real house. Ta-ta. Bye.

Jordan stared out the window. Closing her eyes, she felt her head bumping on the glass in a rhythm.

‘It’s not far away. We take the next exit, and then it’s just up here.’

He should be one of those navigating systems you stick on the dashboard.

There was a tiny park at the bottom of the street. A little triangle with swings, a slide and a seesaw. The grass underneath it was impossibly green. Like an apology for the rest of the street being lined with concrete and bricks.

Her dad pulled into a car park underneath the building. It was dark and cold, a place that locked out sunshine. Her dad opened a door leading up some stairs. It was an echo chamber in there.

Jordan held onto the railing. Her dad walked in front, carrying the shopping and her overnight bag. The one that didn’t have Zebra inside it.

In the foyer was a tricycle and a two-wheeler. They were covered with streamers and shiny bells. As if childhood existed.

Jordan knew better. Childhood was just another illusion. Sooner or later, it would crack.

Another flight of stairs. And another. ‘Now, you know this is just short term, Poss?’ he said over his shoulder. ‘It’s just temporary.’

Like everything.

‘Can I use your laptop?’ Jordan asked as he put the key in the door.

‘Sorry, Poss. I need it to finish my work. Why don’t you settle in?’

Jordan wandered down the hall and looked around the spare bedroom. ‘Why don’t I settle in?’ she asked herself aloud. Like a crazy person.

She recognised a cakky brown doona and pillow case stolen from the bottom of the linen press at her real house. The scent of Earth’s Dolphin, her mum’s choice of washing powder. Safe for the Earth and great in cold water!

The doona set was taken out when guests came to stay. Mainly when Nana arrived, dressed in bowling whites and equipped with little jars of Darrell Lea lollies. Bo Peeps for breakfast, dished out by kind old hands from under that doona. Secretly given. Secretly scoffed until only the blacks remained, stuck in little clusters at the bottom of the jar.

Where would Nana stay now? Now that her dad had custody of the doona, and only one spare bed?

Jordan pushed away the question and looked around the room.

There was a chest of drawers, and an old wardrobe with the door half-open. Inside there was a heap of wire coat hangers with nothing on them.

She unzipped her bag and changed into track pants and a T-shirt. She hung up her school dress. The she put a hand back into the bag and pulled out the photo.

Should she put it up? On top of the chest of drawers? On the windowsill, between the two dead blowflies?

Jordan sat on the cakky brown doona. Like a stranger in a hotel.

The photo was of her mum and dad, Jordan standing in between them. They wore giant grins. Jordan’s looked like a mini version of her dad’s. Her mum’s dark eyes in her own face. The three of them were on skis, paused to race down a mountain.

We haven’t been happy for a long time.

It wasn’t taken that long ago, the photo. Maybe a year. It was on the holiday they’d been on before he started the dream job. Were their smiles faked, like everything else?

Jordan tucked the photo back into her bag. She noticed she’d forgotten her pjs.

How was she supposed to kill time in this hole? Smother it with a cakky brown pillow case? Hold it while it thrashed its last breaths?

The floorboards creaked as she walked down the hall.

The tapping on the keyboard stopped for a moment. He even turned around to face her. ‘Do you have everything?’

‘Forgot my pjs.’

‘Oh.’

His body was half-turned back to the screen. His fingers were creeping towards the keyboard.

‘I might just go down to the park for a while,’ Jordan said.

She could smell his relief.

‘OK, Poss. Go and have a play,’ said his back.

‘Ah, yes,’ she muttered under her breath to the background of tapping keys. ‘I shall frolic joyfully in the sunshine.’

Jordan opened the front door and looked around the landing. A sensor light registered her presence. There were two other doors on the landing. Two other flats. Other lives inside, she supposed. Pretend families with pretend children?

She made her way down to the second landing. No sensor this time. Instead, a window. Jordan paused, she sat down. A poem her mum used to recite bounced around in her head. ‘Halfway Down.’ Halfway down the stairs.

A poem about being contented. About being happy, just to be. Wherever you were.

Her dad used to join in. When they were.

A family.

Jordan had known it off by heart. Now, the words were hazy. Ghost words …

From her spot on the landing, Jordan could see the triangle park. An old man let his silky terrier off the leash. She could see him motion for the dog to sit. When it did, he pulled something out of his pocket. The dog leapt up to his hand.

The old man patted the dog and started all over again.

‘That’s Frank. Dog’s called Wanda.’

Jordan felt her body jerk. She hadn’t heard anyone coming.

‘Jack?’ she asked, looking up. Which was pretty stupid because it was definitely Jack. ‘What are you doing here?’ Her voice would have sounded more annoyed if she could be bothered.

The flat was another universe. A parallel life. She shouldn’t have intruders from the other part of her life. That Jack was here, basketball Jack, seemed very wrong.

Jack didn’t seem to notice her tone. He sat beside her, his extra-large sneakered feet tapping the landing.

‘Ha. I guess your dad had the same idea as mine,’ he said. ‘Not so far to school. Short-term rental available. Although my dad’s probably going to be here forever. I used to come every Monday night but had to change to Wednesdays. Alternate weekends too, depending on sport. You?’

Jordan shook her head. It was none of his business when she had to stay in this dump. It was none of anyone’s business.

‘Frank’s got no idea how to train that dog,’ Jack added when Jordan didn’t answer.

Jordan stared out. Wanda was up on two legs, spinning around. Sometimes, she’d get to four or five spins, like a ballet dancer, before falling back to the ground, regaining her balance and starting all over again. The treats were coming thick and fast.

‘Frank gives her treats for everything,’ Jack went on. There was criticism in his voice, but also something else. Jordan could tell that Jack liked Frank. She could tell that Jack even quite liked that Frank was too easy on his dog.

‘He’s a cool old man. Come on, I’ll introduce you,’ Jack said.

He took the stairs, three at a time. Kind of bounced down them. Jordan wasn’t quite sure why she was following him.

‘Hey, good game today,’ he said, turning back as he reached the stairwell.

‘Yeah, I bet you don’t know too many people who can catch a ball with their face,’ Jordan replied.

Jack’s laugh echoed.

Jordan tilted her head to the side, listening for a moment. Jack’s parents had split. But he was laughing. Seemed happy. How could that be?

In a private spot, deep inside her, Jordan tucked away the question.

Then she followed him out the door.

The light had faded but still she followed.

Frank’s flat was like a flipped-around version of her dad’s. A mirror image, but with different furniture.

‘They’re all pretty much the same,’ Jack said. ‘Some have more bedrooms.’ His blue eyes rested on her brown ones and focused. ‘You’ll get used to it all.’

Jordan breathed in. Held the breath. She felt like he was seeing inside her, into the mess. It was strange that it seemed all right.

She looked away first. Around Frank’s flat. She breathed in the smell of loneliness.

Jack took a seat at the kitchen table while Frank banged around in the kitchen. His kettle was the old-fashioned type, where you had to light the stove and wait until it whistled. Wanda leapt up onto Jack’s lap.

‘Don’t let Wanda jump up on you like that,’ Frank grumbled.

Jack lowered Wanda to the ground. In two seconds, she was back.

‘Geez, Frank,’ Jack teased, ‘seems like Wanda might be used to doing this. For some reason.’

Jack shot a grin at Jordan and stroked Wanda’s fur under her collar.

‘Gotta train the dog,’ Frank said, putting a teapot on the table. He brought over three cups that rattled on their saucers.

‘Yeah, you have to be strict, don’t you, Frank?’ Jack said, straight-faced. Jordan felt as if something was tapping at her heart. The something had the same rhythm as the pats Jack was giving the dog.

Jordan took a sip of sweet tea and looked into the lounge room. On the mantelpiece was a sepia photo.

‘Ruthie and me on our wedding day,’ Frank said softly.

Jordan felt a lump in her throat. She didn’t need to be told that Ruthie was gone. The lack of her was everywhere.

‘It’s been better since you got Wanda, hasn’t it, Frank?’ Jack said.

Jordan froze. She was staring at Jack, couldn’t stop herself. She could hardly believe this was basketball Jack. The Bouncing Jock.

He was so still.

‘It has, Jack,’ Frank said. His fingers rubbed Wanda’s neck. She was the recipient of all that spare love. ‘It has.’

Jordan tucked her toes under a cushion and flicked on the new plasma with the remote control. It wasn’t a Wednesday, so the building was Jack-less. But she could still feel him there.

Her mum was out for the evening at some stupid work function, so they’d decided that Jordan should stay at her dad’s. That meant they had spoken to each other. Made arrangements. They had arranged her.

The couch at home was much harder. Leather. Old imprints of Jordan had softened it in places. But this, this new one at her dad’s, was really comfortable. It was maroon velveteen. Jordan wouldn’t have chosen the colour, but it was sinky. When she stretched her body out, it billowed around her, cloud-like.

Some clouds looked solid. But they weren’t. You would fall through them if you were stupid enough to try to lounge on top.

‘Hey, Poss. What do you think?’ asked her dad.

‘’S’OK,’ Jordan said. She pulled up her knees, so her dad could sit at the end of the couch.

He eyed the remote that she held tightly in her hand. Jordan looked at the clock on the wall. She waited as it ticked over another minute, wondering if he would say anything as news time came closer.

‘So, you’re getting on well with the boy from down-stairs?’ her dad asked, adjusting his glasses.

Jordan raised her eyebrows. He used to be a stirrer, her dad. When she’d had a crush on Blake way back in primary school, he’d used it for his personal entertainment. Quips about what Jordan and Blake might do together. Taunts about sharing peanut-butter sandwiches. Bite for bite.

There was a smile twitching around his lips. Jordan muted the TV. Her dad muted the smile.

‘Maybe you could bring him over for dinner or something?’

Jordan stretched out her legs again. Kicked him lightly. Even though he was behaving. Maybe because he was behaving?

There was a sudden rap on the door, and then another. Jordan’s dad shrugged, motioning for Jordan to answer it.

She took the remote with her like a hostage, and her dad followed.

On the landing stood two little boys. One was dressed in a red-and-blue Spiderman suit. The costume was too small for him. It stretched tight over his belly and finished just under his knees. His face was covered in painted-on spider webs.

The other boy was smaller. His costume looked supermarket-cheap. A plastic armour breastplate with a few cracks in it. A plastic silver sword with a chewed tip.

The kids were quite real. Not pretend at all.

‘Hello,’ announced Spiderman.

Jordan leant against the doorframe. There was something else holding her up, too. A feeling.

Spiderman pulled at the crotch of his costume, trying to loosen its spidery hold.

‘Um, Dad, I think it’s Spiderman and Hercules,’ Jordan said, pulling at her bottom lip.

‘Yeth,’ said the smaller one proudly. ‘I’m Hercules.’

Jordan’s dad rested his hands lightly on her shoulders. Testing to see whether he had permission.

‘And how can we help Spiderman and Hercules today?’ he asked, his tone very serious.

‘We’re nick-knocking!’ Spiderman said, unhinging another wedgie.

‘On random doors,’ added Hercules.

Her dad’s laugh was snorted. Jordan had almost forgotten how he did that.

‘Fergus, Chandler? Dinner!’ A woman’s voice echoed in the landing. The superheroes turned and raced off.

‘I remember when you were about their age,’ her dad said as they walked back into the living room together. ‘You had a Wonder Woman costume. Wore it to bed five nights running and wouldn’t let us wash it.’

Jordan tilted her head and looked at her dad. Not quite in the eyes but not so far from them.

She had a sudden memory of sleeping in the Wonder Woman suit. Of a nightmare and creeping down the dark hallway to her parents’ room. It was always smarter to get in on her dad’s side. Mum wasn’t so good at getting woken up in the night. Could get grumpy rather than soothing. Jordan whispered the bits of the nightmare she could remember, her mouth to his ear so as not to wake up Mum.

There’s a bad man following her. She turns up the pathway, and she can see her house, but she can’t get to it. It never seems to get any closer. The bad man has heavy footsteps and she doesn’t know what he wants from her. She only knows that he isn’t good. So scary.

And then they swap. Her dad’s mouth is near Jordan’s ear. Don’t forget, he whispers, that Wonder Woman has superpowers. When the bad man comes, you can fly. Just fly away, my baby. All the way home.

Jordan snuggled her feet back up onto the couch, letting them rest against her dad’s leg.

‘I’ll ask Jack,’ she said, throwing the remote over to him.

Another Wednesday, and they kept on coming.

‘Did you finish your map, Jords?’ Cecila asked. ‘We’ve got geography fifth period. If you didn’t do it, I could come to the library with you and give you a hand. I’ve got some spare graph paper.’

‘I’ve got heaps of fine-tip pens too,’ Lee added. ‘You kind of skipped the last assignment, Jordy, so maybe you’d better –’

‘It’s OK, guys, I did it,’ Jordan replied, and she smiled, though she kind of wished they’d all stop helping so much. She’d actually done the map quite well. Had even wondered whether she should take it over to her dad’s tonight. Her dad loved that kind of thing.

Jordan took a step backwards. She wanted a little space.

It wasn’t really raining, but a slow drizzle took sport off the agenda, at least for a while. The gang stood under the canteen roof.

The boys were edgy, bumping into each other on purpose. Meredith was stirring Sam, something to do with bum fluff that Jordan only half-heard. Sam went red, and then got Meredith in a headlock. Jordan rolled her eyes. Poor dorky Sam, trying to cope with feisty Meredith. They looked about the same size from this angle, and confidence gave Meredith the upper hand. Good luck, mate, Jordan thought. She shifted herself out of the line of fire.

The two of them smacked into Jack. Tomato sauce from his sausage roll decorated the tip of his nose. Lee reached out and wiped it with her finger. Lee, who liked things to be tidy.

‘So, what’s on tonight?’ Jordan asked Jack.

‘I bought a new collar for Wanda,’ Jack replied, seeming not to notice the tomato sauce incident. ‘Thought we could drop in to Frank’s and give it to her.’

Jordan leant against a pole. She noticed Jack’s eyes were smiling more than his mouth.

‘Who’s Wanda?’ Lee squeaked. She tried again, as though training her voice. ‘Who’s Wanda?’

Jack delivered his reply to Jordan. She felt it coming. Felt it land. Felt Lee’s eyes watching it, too.

‘A dog. At the flats where us poor children of divorced parents are forced to go.’

Jordan could feel Cec and Lee freeze. She knew they’d be worried about Jack saying it out loud. The D word. Jordan took a Twistie from Lee’s packet as she realised it didn’t stab her. It wasn’t sharp, coming from him. There was no sympathy. It wasn’t a parade. There was just an understanding.

She watched as a basketball was tossed onto the courts. And of course, Jack followed. He moved. And Jordan felt like she could move, too. She could shed some of the sadness. Jack had proved that.

That afternoon maths dragged. Art sped.

Eventually, Jordan’s dad was there again, drumming on the steering wheel. But this time, Jordan didn’t want to change the station. It was daggy music, and it suited him.

‘Hi, Poss. Now that’s a bag! Did you bring some extra stuff?’

He turned on the ignition, not waiting for an answer. Jordan slid into the passenger seat and pulled out her map. Her dad spread it out over the steering wheel. The car idled.

He traced the tiny squares of the map with his finger. Her hospital drawing was clumsy, when she saw it like this. She should have used one of Lee’s fine-tip pens, not a black texta.

‘Poss, this is really good. It’s not easy to do everything to scale like that.’

When he folded it up, he did it carefully. Made sure he used the right creases like it was a real map.

He took a deep breath, and it was weird how he still let the car idle. ‘In case you forgot your pjs again,’ he said, nodding his head towards a plastic bag in the back.

Jordan reached around and grabbed it. She looked inside. She didn’t know they made Wonder Woman pjs in her size. Red and blue and white.

As they sped along the highway, Jordan smiled a small smile.

‘Thanks,’ she whispered.

He was right. It wasn’t so far. They turned left past the triangle park and into the car park. He switched the ignition off and the two of them sat there for a moment.

The driver. The passenger. The father. The daughter.

His hands rested on the steering wheel, as though, somehow, it could still take them somewhere else they needed to go. As though they could still choose a direction.

‘Are you OK, Poss? You want to get a milkshake or something? You want me to drive you somewhere?’

Jordan looked into the back seat again at her bulging bag and her new pjs. She would leave a second uniform at Dad’s. And some clothes. A few photos, maybe. There was still plenty of stuff at her mum’s.

In the front pocket of her bag, he poked his head out. It was one thing that would move with her, from Mum’s to Dad’s. From Dad’s to Mum’s. One good eye. One dangling eye. A little bit of portable comfort.

Zebra.

Jordan breathed in. Exhaled. ‘Nah, let’s just go up. Let’s just go home.’