All that week I watched her. There she was in the distance: Roxy Martin. Walking out of the school grounds in a stream of kids. Walking the shiny school corridors. Sitting in assembly. She’d always be with her gang – three other hot-looking girls.
I was mesmerised. One lunchtime, me and Ajax were playing chess outside on his magnetic board, with Daniel watching. Roxy and her group were sitting across the way, all of them laughing and shaking back their hair. They all had nice hair and wore shiny lip gloss. Though Roxy seemed different. More remote somehow. The other girls would crack jokes but she wouldn’t always laugh. Only sometimes. Then they all joined in even more loudly, as if they had permission now to laugh. If she looked at her nails, the others would start comparing their nails. One day she came to school with a streak of red in her hair. She got a detention, but two days later the others had red streaks as well. I could only try to imagine what they talked about. Maybe the usual girl stuff: make-up, hair, clothes. But somehow I had the feeling there was more to Roxy than that. The way the guys talked about her, though, you wouldn’t think so. She’s hot, they said, as if that was all that mattered. They competed for her attention. But she didn’t see any of them. Maybe that really had been her boyfriend at the bus stop. I could imagine her with an older guy, a guy in his twenties.
‘Dude?’ It was Ajax, looking at me expectantly. Daniel, as usual, was staring gloomily at the board.
‘What?’
‘Did you see what I just did?’
My eyes focussed on the board. Checkmate. Leaden. But did I care? No. Because Roxy was only a few metres away, standing up and smoothing down her flippy skirt, getting ready to go into class.
That day I followed her home after school. Don’t ask: I’m no pervert. It was just one of those impulsive moments. One minute I was sliding on my helmet, thinking about pizza toppings and whether pepperoni or plain ham is better, when Roxy walked past. I watched her hop onto the waiting bus outside school and the bus chug off with a fart of diesel smoke. Then, in a robotic kind of daze, I found myself puttering along on my Vespa behind the bus.
She lived in an old place at the end of a dead-end street. The house needed a paint, and its big old veranda was sagging at one end. A car was rusting out the front. Weeds were growing up out of the bonnet. Which was a shame, because it was a Ford Prefect.
There was a bush reserve at the bottom of the street, right across from Roxy’s, and I parked my Vespa behind a clump of toi-toi, so I could spy on the house. Yep, seventeen years old and spying on a girl. How pathetic was that? I must’ve been well hidden, because at one stage a little kid, carrying a carton of milk, ran past me out of the bush and didn’t even see me. It made my heart skip, though. I hated doing this, but I couldn’t help myself.
I didn’t hang round long. Nothing was happening at Roxy’s place. The house was shut down like a sunken navy frigate. I pushed the Vespa through the reserve, and discovered it opened onto another street which was obviously where the kid had come from.
The next night, when Mum thought I’d gone to bed early, I headed out instead on my Vespa. There was something about Roxy’s house that drew me back.
It was dark by the time I got to the reserve. Lights were on in one of the two front rooms and the curtains were open. I could see right inside the lounge: a couple of big sofas and a TV going. Roxy walked through carrying something. Then a light went on in the left-hand room. It was obviously her bedroom. It gave me a quiet thrill, seeing Roxy there.
She had her back to the street. Then Soundgarden came blasting out the open window, really loud. When I listen to music I put on my ear plugs so nobody else can hear it. I like to have the music to myself. Roxy obviously liked to share.
A man shouted from somewhere else in the house: ‘Roxy, turn that noise down!’ But she was just standing there in front of the stereo, nodding her head. Maybe she didn’t even hear him. A man walked quickly across the lounge, then he was in her room and suddenly the music dropped several decibels. The man walked out again, just as quickly. As soon as he was gone, she turned the music back up again.
It was like watching a play.
The man stormed back. I could tell he was really mad now. He shut down the music altogether and started jabbing at the air in front of her. ‘It’s time you learned whose house this is, young lady!’ I was only a few metres away and could hear every word. ‘You’re doing it deliberately – aren’t you! Well, it won’t work.’
Roxy put her hands on her hips. Even from where I stood, it looked like she was spitting. ‘How could I ever forget, when you’re always ramming it down my throat!’
They shouted at each other for a while, then the man stormed back out of the room. Roxy flopped face-down onto her bed.
Then I realised she was crying: I could just hear her. The sound was carrying softly out into the quiet street. I thought of her on that bus, how it had looked like she was crying. It made me feel protective, as if I could help her in some way.
Suddenly I felt bad all over again. Really like some kind of pervert. I ducked my head, thinking about what to do next, and looked at my Doc Martens, all scuffed and dusty. The dark bush ticked away behind me. There I was, standing behind a bunch of toi-toi, spying on a girl. Bloody hell. I felt like a nine-year-old peeking through a bathroom window at a naked lady. And a great weariness came over me. I had to get home.
Then I found myself looking straight into the face of that kid with the milk.
‘Christ!’ My heart bumped in my chest. ‘What are you doing?’ I hissed.
‘What’re you doing?’ The kid was pretty cocky. He didn’t have the milk with him this time.
‘It’s none of your business,’ I said, starting to push past him. I had to get away.
‘I bet you were spying on Roxy,’ he whined.
That made me pause. ‘Look,’ I said in a reasonable voice, and after all he was just a little kid; I was the older guy here. ‘Listen, I don’t know who this Roxy person is, I was just having a leak, all right?’
That seemed to mollify him, and he watched as I pushed up the Vespa’s stand with my foot. I made sure I didn’t look towards Roxy’s house again.
‘Where’re you going now?’
‘None of your business,’ I threw over my shoulder.
‘Gonna have a leak somewhere else then?’
Cheeky little bastard. ‘It’s dark out here. Haven’t you heard of the bogeyman? You should get home before he shows.’
Puffing now from the effort, I pushed the Vespa through the dark bush and got out into the other street.
Despite being caught out by the kid, I was thinking about love. Not the soppy stuff you see on TV, but real love, where maybe the other person doesn’t even know how you feel about them, but it’s there anyway, deep down and real. And it springs up out of nowhere, so you don’t know what’s happening at first. It feels a bit like you’re coming down with a flu. You feel a bit off-balance.
That was how I felt in the days after I saw Roxy at the bus stop.
Now a line was playing in my head like a crappy pop song: How can I get close to Roxy? Because right then that was the most important thing I could think of. I want to get close to Roxy.