I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW MUCH I wrote yesterday. It’s amazing what you can get done if you don’t have to go to school because the principal thinks you’re a homicidal maniac.
Maybe this exercise wasn’t such a bad idea of Jane’s. It is kind of good to write down everything that happened and try to make sense of it all. Not that I feel any more enlightened about the whole stupid situation than I did yesterday, but maybe something will come out of it. Maybe I’ll be able to work out why Dad keeps looking at me as though I’m some sort of malfunctioning android and he’s wondering what happened to the real Luie. I mean, I can understand he was a bit upset about the car – but at least I’d made sure the insurance was up-to-date.
Monday morning after the Federal Police came round was the worst. (They’re the ones they send out to investigate terrorist attacks, apparently. Even fake ones.) I had to explain again all about why the car was parked where it was, why the petrol cap was missing, and why Mr McGregor had a towel on his head. When they’d gone, Dad was staring at me as if he’d never really seen me before. Which is so unfair, because usually he doesn’t take any notice of me at all.
That sounds horrible, but I don’t really mean it that way. I just mean that Dad, Nina and me are all so busy – going to work or school or dance classes, making dinner or paying the bills – that we’re like a bunch of atoms whizzing around in space. Occasionally we’ll collide by accident at breakfast or dinner, but the rest of the time we’re off in our own little orbits.
So it feels like Dad is seeing me for the first time since … who knows? And – I can’t believe I’m going to say this – it’s not just as if he doesn’t know who I am, it’s as if he’s actually scared of me. Yesterday we were in the supermarket and he picked up a box of Frootubes and was just about to put it in the trolley, when without thinking I snapped, ‘We don’t buy that kind of cereal, Dad. It’s full of sugar and has no nutritional value at all. Put it back.’ I swear he couldn’t get that box back on the shelf fast enough – as if maybe he thought I was going to go nuts and start detonating things right there in the cereal aisle.
And every time I see that look on his face – that ‘Heaven help me, I raised a psychopath’ look – I end up asking myself, ‘What could I have done differently?’ Which is exactly what Jane told me not to do. But maybe I’m just refusing to face up to the facts. Maybe I’m completely delusional and the whole thing happened because of my selfishness and stupidity. I seriously don’t know.
But if I stop beating myself up long enough to think about it logically, I can see that nothing would have happened at all if Jet Lucas had just ignored me as usual, instead of suddenly deciding that I was the most desirable female on the planet. I was so intoxicated and confused by him – by his hot and cold act – that I couldn’t think straight.
A couple of weeks before the fete, I organised for Jet to meet Danny and me in the library so I could do the official handover thing. The meeting was, let’s be honest, as much for the benefit of the KGB as for Jet and Danny, but it was also a kind of test to see whether Jet would finally publicly acknowledge me – or at least express some kind of regret that I wasn’t going to be working with him on his concert. Ha!
As Danny and I waited for Jet to show up, it was hard to say who was more nervous. I assumed – wrongly as it turns out – that Danny was as in awe of Jet’s godlike being as I was and that was the reason he had volunteered in the first place. It didn’t occur to me that he might have a whole other agenda.
A ripple of girly gasps and whispers radiating across from the automatic doors alerted us to Jet’s approach. And then there he was, head down and shoulders hunched, hair cascading across his profile like an emo James Dean as he slouched across the heavy-duty industrial carpet towards us. He was so beautiful. I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but my insides did a little flip-flop at the sheer gorgeousness of him. But at the same time, I was waiting for Jet to look up, to look at me, and maybe, just this once, show me that he didn’t care if everyone was watching.
He sat down opposite Danny and me and pulled some sheets of paper out of his pocket.
‘Hi, Jet,’ I said. His eyes flicked towards me for a millisecond and then back to the paper.
‘Hi,’ he mumbled.
I felt like kicking him under the table. That’d make him look at me. ‘This is Danny Baldassarro. He’ll be operating the sound desk at your concert.’
As I said it out loud, I realised for the first time that it was actually true. Danny would be the one up there on the stage with Jet, not me. I was suddenly furious – with Jet for not sticking up for me, with myself for caring so much, with the KGB, and with Danny. I couldn’t trust myself to say anything else. Jet obviously wasn’t going to add to the conversation – he was too busy staring morosely at his shoes – so it was up to a slightly bewildered Danny to fill the silence.
‘Hey, Jet. I’m really looking forward to working with you. I’m a big fan of yours, you know – I think your stuff’s great.’
‘Yeah … great … thanks.’ Jet was doing his super-cool monosyllabic halfwit act. Another sticky silence descended over the table. Danny looked to me for help.
‘Danny’s still learning,’ I said. My voice could have cut concrete. ‘But I’m going to take him through everything he needs to know—’
‘Here’s the running order,’ Jet interrupted, pushing the paper he’d been fiddling with across the table towards Danny. ‘Um … Luisa’ll fill you in on everything else.’
He stood and, still without making eye contact with either of us, slouched off towards the library exit, another chorus of adoring sighs trailing in his wake.
Danny turned to me. ‘Wow, he’s got charisma written all over him! What do you girls see in that guy?’
I was still seething inside and didn’t bother to answer such a stupid question. Danny probably thought he was being witty, but he had no idea how close he came to being brained with my History book.
Seeing the filthy look I gave him, he added hastily, ‘Not you, of course. I’m sure you’ve got better taste than that.’
‘You know what?’ I said. ‘I’ve got an essay on the causes of World War II due next week. I’ll see you later.’ I gathered up my books to go, but Danny jumped up to block my way, tripping over the leg of the desk as he did so.
‘Actually, Luisa, I … I wanted to ask you something.’ He’d turned slightly pink beneath his olive skin and there were little beads of sweat on his upper lip.
‘What?’ I snapped, completely blind to what was coming.
‘I wanted to ask you if … if maybe … if you’d like to see a movie – or a band – with me sometime?’ He rattled off the question so quickly it took me a second to comprehend what he’d said. And when I did, I was so surprised, so horrified, that I practically yelled out my answer.
‘NO!’
‘Oh, okay.’ He looked around the library at all the staring faces. ‘There’s no need to be rude about it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered, desperately wishing we were having this conversation somewhere else. Actually, that’s not true. I was wishing we weren’t having this conversation at all. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. You surprised me, that’s—’
‘It’s okay. I understand.’ Danny was trying so hard to act as if he didn’t care, to be manly and cool – and so not succeeding – that I suddenly felt a bit sorry for him. For the teensiest second, I wanted to give him a hug, just to see his lop-sided smile again. I didn’t, of course, and Danny turned to go.
‘Danny, wait.’ I grabbed him and dragged him in between the shelves. ‘You don’t understand. It’s not that I don’t … like you. I’m seeing someone else.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really! No need to act so surprised.’
‘I didn’t – I – I didn’t know. Sorry. I wouldn’t have asked … if I’d known …’
By this point both of us were so mortified that if an earthquake had caused the shelves to topple over and bury us beneath a cascade of books about the life cycle of the tsetse fly, we’d have been eternally grateful.
I was in a bad mood for the rest of that week – mostly because it had finally dawned in my pea-sized brain that my ‘relationship’ with Jet was seriously abnormal.
We never had any contact outside his bedroom. We never went out to dinner, or the movies, or even for a walk along the beach on a Saturday afternoon. In fact, we only ever hooked up on Saturday nights. If I hadn’t spotted him at school occasionally, I might have thought he was a vampire.
Not only that, but Danny had also decided to pretend the embarrassing scene in the library had never happened, so that even though I’d rejected him, we could still be BFFs. Everywhere I went, it seemed, so did he. On Friday nights, there he was – sitting at our kitchen table asking me if I wanted to join in his jam sessions with Dad. At school he’d hang around Meko and me at lunchtime talking about music or the fete or whether I was going to write my English essay on The Crucible or Great Expectations. He especially loved raving on about Dad and what an awesome musician and songwriter he was and how much he admired him.
I did notice, though, that Danny never wanted to talk about anything personal, at least not about himself. He never once talked about his family – he’d much rather talk about mine. Well, not about you. I guess he knew about you – everyone probably did – but he never went there.
What made it worse was that I couldn’t even complain to Meko about him, since I didn’t seem able to talk about Danny without somehow ending up back at Jet. For instance:
| MEKO: | So what’s your probrem with Danny? | |
| ME: | He’s stalking me — again. It’s giving me the creeps. | |
| MEKO: | Why he stalking you? | |
| ME: | I don’t know. Ever since that day in the library with Jet … | |
| MEKO: | Ha! You say the J-word! You owe me another mobire charm. |
And with that, her headphones would go on and the conversation would end.
The following Saturday night, I was waiting outside the Leaning Tower of Pizza for Jet. Just as he strolled up and did his usual tossing-me-up-against-the-window trick – as if I was a ball of pizza dough – there was Danny stepping out the door, two family-size pizzas in hand. Danny nearly dropped his dinner all over the footpath.
‘Luisa? Jet? Hi. What’s happening? Are you guys rehearsing tonight?’ Danny actually sounded a teensy bit hurt – as though he thought we were sneaking around behind his back, which was kind of weird. Jet, I noticed, looked guilty or pissed off – I couldn’t tell which – but he didn’t offer any explanation. He just hid behind me up against the glass, so I was the one who had to think of some good reason why we were hanging out together on a Saturday night.
‘Oh hi, Danny,’ I stammered. ‘Jet and I were just … just going to get a pizza.’ It seemed like the most obvious lie. I gestured at his boxes of pizza. ‘Looks like you’re having a family night in, yeah, so we’ll see you on Monday.’ And I grabbed Jet and dragged him into the restaurant as fast as possible.
We didn’t talk at all on the way to Jet’s place, but just as he was unlocking the back door, I turned to him. ‘Are you ashamed of being seen with me?’
I think the question shocked both of us, and we stood there for a second in the unlit back yard staring at each other mutely, scared of what might be said next.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Jet mumbled as he pushed the door open and disappeared inside.
All that night, as I listened to Jet singing songs about tragically doomed relationships between sensitive songwriters and beautiful but emotionally damaged young women, I kept wondering why I’d covered up for him in front of Danny. It’s as if I’d become so used to the way Jet hid the fact that we were together that I did it automatically as well. What do they call that? Stockholm Syndrome? Or just plain stupid?
I couldn’t stop thinking about it and Jet was growing annoyed. Eventually he threw the guitar down on the bed.
‘Look, this isn’t working for me. Maybe you should go home.’
I felt like a naughty child who’d been slapped for not paying attention.
‘Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just …’ Jet sighed theatrically as if he was already bored by what I was going to say. I steeled myself to keep going. ‘You know I love our Saturday nights together, playing music – but that’s all we ever do. We never go out anywhere, do anything normal. It’s like we don’t exist outside this room.’
Jet’s eyes were blank and expressionless in the dim light. For a moment I thought I could see some sort of struggle going on inside him, but then his face softened and he leant over and grabbed my shoulders.
‘Oh babe, I’m sorry. I guess I’ve just been really focused on the music because I want to try and get a deal with a really good label. You know how competitive it is. And you know,’ he murmured as he pulled me to him, ‘I couldn’t do it without you.’
Inside, the little tsunami had started up again, and all my niggling doubts were washed out to sea without a lifeboat.
The following Monday, Danny came and found me in the library where I was helping Mrs Robinson reshelve books.
‘So you and Jet, hey?’ he said, in what I think he thought was a casually disinterested tone.
‘Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that. Can you not tell anyone that you saw us?’
Danny looked surprised. ‘Sure, but why? Why do you want to hide it? Why do you care?’
‘Well, I don’t … but I think Jet does.’ The minute I said it I wished I hadn’t. ‘Look, I know that sounds bad but it’s just because he’s private, you know. He doesn’t want everyone knowing his business.’
‘Are you sure that’s the reason? Because, you know, I’ve heard some stories about Jet …’ Realising what he’d just said, Danny back-pedalled as fast as he could. ‘Not that I think they’re true or anything. I mean, I’m sure he wouldn’t do that to you.’
‘Do what?’
‘Nothing. Forget it. I’m sorry.’
‘You see,’ I said as I shoved the last book into place, ‘that’s exactly why Jet doesn’t want people knowing his business.’ And I turned my back on Danny and went back to the trolley.