Frankie (19 page)

‘I'm in,' says Truc. He slings his arm around Cara.

‘Bye, Frankie babe,' says Cara, but her eyes say ‘He's got his arm around me! Squee!'

I sit back on my butt and watch them leave.

Mark's the last to go, giving me the old laser light show with his eyes as the door wobbles shut behind him.

My shoulders slump. I reek of garlic and I'm sitting on a sticky floor with a spongeful of mushy kebab. I'm a seventeen-year-old orphan with a missing brother. Talk about a hard-knock life.

But Plan B is still a goer. I really need to orchestrate it so that I'm nose deep in a schoolbook when Vinnie gets back. That would be some seriously good PR. I need –

The door opens with a jingle jangle.

Shit. I need a Plan C.

I scrub the floor madly. ‘How was your “appointment”, Vin? Should we be getting ready for the apocalypse?'

Except it's not Vinnie who walks in. It's not even a random customer.

It's a pair of ridiculously expensive sneakers. Brand-new.

‘Sorry,' says Mark. He holds the door ajar and hovers there like he can't decide if he wants to come in or not.

‘Mark?'

He nods. Okay. Good. We've established that he's Mark and not some kind of pod person.

‘Did you forget something?'

He opens his mouth but nothing comes out.

I fidget with the sponge. Well, this is going swimmingly.

His mouth gets another couple of test runs before he finally blurts out: ‘I forgot to tell you how much I miss you.'

Plan C: Find a way to rewind time and play that back again. Because I mean really. What. The. Fuck.

He looks down. ‘Sorry. Didn't mean to vomit that.'

I slowly scoop the last of the lettuce and garlic sauce into my palm, dumping it into the cleaning tray. I grip the edge of the table and pull myself to standing. I am so cool, calm and collected I may need to check my pulse to make sure I'm still alive.

‘I miss you,' he says, a small shrug of his shoulders. ‘I wish I never . . . I wish none of that stuff happened and we could have just . . .'

I've never seen this Mark who doesn't know what to say, what to do with his hands, how to look me in the eye without blushing.

I remind myself that this is the guy who cheated on me and broke my heart.

But he's also the guy who sent me a note a few weeks into Year Nine:
Do you want to be my girlfriend: circle yes or no.
He's the first time guy. The first love guy.

‘There's nothing between me and Ava,' he says, hovering by the door. ‘I'm done hooking up with her. She's just not into the same stuff as me, you know.'

‘Like you're into origami and she's more into baby sacrificing?'

A shy grin sweeps across his face. ‘That was supposed to be your gig, wasn't it?'

I really want to smile, but then I remember what it was like – Year Eleven. I remember people whispering and laughing, catching the words: ‘Mark', ‘Ava', ‘science block', ‘kissing'. I remember walking up to him and cracking my palm across his face. Him saying: ‘What did you expect, Frankie? I've tried. You won't talk to me. And you're so angry all the time.'

So I don't smile.

I just stand there watching him, remembering.

‘Can I ask you out or are you going to break my nose for trying?' he says. He hasn't registered the change in my expression because he's still smiling, cheeks flushed red.

I swallow a few times, trying to get some moisture back in my mouth.

‘Mark, I –'

He bounds over to the counter. ‘We can check out a band.' He grabs the order pad and a pen. ‘I've got a new number. It's totally your decision. Call me. Or don't.'

He rips off the corner with his number scrawled on it and holds it out for me. ‘I really want to see you again, Frankie,' he says. The laser eyes switch on for an encore performance.

I can't decide what I want to remember: the note in Year Nine or Year Eleven behind the science block.

He frowns when I don't say anything, when I don't reach out and take his number. But he forces a grin as he shoves the scrap of paper under the order spike and heads to the door.

‘I hope you call,' he says. ‘I really do.'

The door closes behind him.

Do I have a Plan D?

Sometimes I think about Ian Curtis wandering into my room and it all gets a little x-rated from then on. What I don't usually daydream about is spending the last of my Saturday night reading one of Vinnie's crappy romance novels –
Once Bitten
– and stressing about a scrap of paper in my back pocket. But that's what I end up doing once my shift ends.

I crank up New Order – if I'm going to freak out, it may as well be to a kickarse soundtrack.

It's just a scrap of paper. It's just a bit of mushed-up tree with some guy's number scribbled on it.

Yeah. Some guy. You keep telling yourself that, Frankie.

You never go back. It's a rule. Once bitten, twice shy (thank you, crappy romance). It doesn't matter how uncomplicated the guy is or how appealing it is to find something familiar.

Ava and Mark have broken up about fifty times this year. And each time they do, Mark gives me moon eyes until he and Ava hook up again. So I'm not dumb, I know the chances of those two getting back together again are Snoop-Dog high. And I know Mark really regrets cheating on me. It's just, I'm not sure he remembers what we were really like together.

Sigh. I start skipping pages, looking for a sex scene.

There's some shuffling outside my door and then a knock. I look at the time – way past bedtime. Guess Vinnie's ‘appointment' went well.

I roll onto my side. ‘You can come in but I do not want to hear details about your date. No kissing, no tongues, no sweaty hands.'

The door creaks open. ‘How do you feel about third base?' asks a
male
voice.

A
Nate
voice.

I bolt upright, knocking
Once Bitten
to the floor. My heart doesn't just leap out my chest, it applies for a visa and goes to live in Siberia.

He leans against the doorframe – hair ruffled, ripped jeans, white shirt, The Jacket and, for some reason, a black skinny tie. He's acting like materialising in my bedroom is all perfectly normal and natural and expected.

Oh my god, there's underwear on the floor.

‘Cute socks,' he says.

I look down at my furry bedsocks. My pink furry bedsocks. The kind with individual toes. ‘Nice jeans,' I say. ‘Do they sell those at Punk Posers R Us?'

I throw my pillow at him. ‘Are you here to kill off the only witness to your burglary spree?' The pillow lands at his feet. His black combat boots are caked in mud. ‘Wait a minute . . . you
broke
into my house? What the actual fuck?'

He laughs. ‘You need to replace the locks. That was way too easy.'

‘So this is some kind of public service?'

‘Sure.' He holds out a blue wallet, dangling it between pinched fingers. ‘I come bearing gifts.'

‘Are you offering to pay for my silence?'

‘Just take the damn wallet.'

I crawl to the end of the bed. The springs sing out like I weigh a thousand tonnes.

He dangles the wallet just out of reach before dropping it into my waiting hand. I handle it like it's a bomb. It's one of those surfy-brand wallets, velcro fastening, patterned like a Hawaiian shirt. I flick through. Zero money, a gym membership, a bank card and a probationary licence: the guy grinning in the photo is of the ex-boyfriend variety.

‘You robbed Mark?'

‘Actually, that's not the favour. I did that just for me.' Nate's got his lopsided smile going on. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a mobile. You'd swear it was Christmas. ‘This is the favour.'

He holds the screen in front of my face, showing me a photo of two people. Two people I know all too well.

‘See the time stamp?' he says. ‘Half an hour ago.'

First thing I think is: Hey, that's a seriously nice phone for a guy who lives in a squat. The second thing I think is: Hey, my carpet needs a steam clean. I should tell Vinnie. And then I keep thinking about the carpet – keep my eyes on it too – because it's way better for my mental health than looking at ‘Exhibit A'.

‘Well?'

I scoot back along the bed, far, far away from the offending mobile. ‘What are you even doing here?'

He frowns. ‘You don't want to know the guy hitting on you likes to spread the love?'

I don't say anything. I don't need to: a picture says a thousand words. Especially a picture where the ‘completely single' guy who gave you his number and told you how much he misses you is whispering seductively into the ear of Ava Devar, probably telling her he wants her back, he'll do anything to make it up to her.

See? This is why I'm so angry. Because the second you consider opening yourself up to someone they tear your heart out.

It's not like I didn't know I was slotted to be Rebound Girl, something familiar to return to, something I'm sure Mark genuinely wanted – just not more than Ava. The second she wanted him back, he'd have been right behind that science block again, breaking my heart.

I swing my legs over the edge of the bed. Nate watches me but, bless him, doesn't say a word. I go back to looking at the carpet.

Why is Nate telling me this? Maybe he just wants to see me suffer.

I look up. No. His brow is majorly creased.

I didn't realise Nate gave enough of a shit to worry about who's hitting on me. It's surprising and weird. Like running into your teacher at the supermarket buying tampons.

Wait.

‘How do you know Mark was hitting on me? Were you
watching
us?'

He shoves the phone in his pocket and flashes a half sneer, half smile. A snile. ‘Don't flatter yourself. I was waiting to talk to you but wasn't game to interrupt you and your friends.'

‘Light-fingered
and
unsociable. You've got all the best qualities.'

He gives me the finger.

‘And a wordsmith. Hold me back, LaBeouf, I think I'm in love.'

‘My name,' he says, taking a massive step forward. With his giraffe legs, one step means he's pretty much on top of me. ‘Isn't LaBeouf. Whatever the hell a LaBeouf is.'

Man those eyes are blue.

‘I know it isn't.' My voice – damn it – shakes. ‘But it suits you.'

He studies me a little longer with those broken-love-song eyes. He's either going to punch me or . . .

He frowns deeper. Then he steps back.

Breathe.

He starts pacing. It's not a big room so it takes two steps before he's reached one end and has to turn around. Two steps, turn. Two steps, turn.

He stops at the far end of my room, pointing at my Ian Curtis poster. ‘See? I was right.'

‘Yeah. And?'

‘If we're talking desert island and I have to choose between Morrissey and Curtis, Morrissey every day of the week. But I guess they're okay.' He scratches his chin. ‘Where do you sit with Coldplay?'

That's easy. ‘I sit on a throne made out of the blood and sweat of genuine artists watching those arsehats being fed to lions. Zombie lions.'

He smiles. Not a grin, not a snile – a smile. Actual teeth showing. And when he's not scowling, he has a nice face. Lots of angles and everything in proportion. Ian Curtis meets Jeff Buckley meets Faris Badwan. Maybe he's not so bad. Maybe he's just shy or awkward, or a little bit broken, like me.

‘Xavier told me about your mum,' he says. ‘The whole Children's Farm thing.'

‘Did he.'

It's not a question. It's a prelude to throwing up. Or kicking out. Or both.

I wait for the follow-up – the punchline to whatever joke he thinks he's making – but he just frowns, pressing the tip of his finger against the poster, pushing down an air bubble. ‘How come parents are allowed to be shitty but we're not?'

It's his tone of voice that stops me from shooting off something cutting. I mean, I want this guy knowing about my past about as much as I want a punch in the face but I'm pretty sure he's not talking about me anymore.

‘It's the number one perk of being an adult, isn't it?' I say. ‘Do as I say, not as I do?'

He smiles. Wryly. His finger runs the length of the poster. ‘But I'm nineteen,' he says. ‘Where's my free pass to be a jerk?'

We grin at each other. ‘You probably used it up already,' I say. ‘You're handing out IOU jerk passes like crazy.'

He tries looking cut but can't stop the smile from spreading.

‘Your notebook,' I say. ‘The one in your cosy nuclear bomb shelter of a room. Looked like poetry to me but now I'm thinking song lyrics.'

Maybe he's noticed my carpet needs a steam clean too. ‘At least my room doesn't look like a bomb already hit it,' he says.

D and M over. Whatever.

I run my fingers through my hair, pushing my fringe out of my eyes. It always clumps together after a shift. It's the oil in the air. And there was extra oil tonight with Mark being around. ‘What did you want to talk to me about then?'

‘Huh?'

‘You were waiting outside the shop to talk to me, remember?'

He goes back to pacing. ‘Right. We need to talk about Ted.'

‘You gave me the address so I could go see him.'

‘But not so you could piss him off. How come I had Ted on the phone banging on about you being the daughter of a cop?'

I snort. It isn't a very attractive thing to do but it shows the right amount of contempt. ‘So you break into my house to tell me off? What are you going to do, spank me?'

He pulls up short, eyes wide, and then – and this is the big surprise of the evening – blushes.

‘Calm down. I didn't mean –'

He holds up his hands. ‘Hey. I'm not complaining. Let's just agree on a safe word first, okay?'

‘Stop it. I'm trying to focus,' I tell him. ‘Ted saw Xavier Friday morning. He said someone had beaten him up.'

‘He say who?'

I shake my head.

Welcome back, Detective Frankie.

There was a news report tonight. A shot of Harrison Finnik-Hyde's father being led into the station for ‘questioning'. The neighbours told police they heard arguing the night before Harrison vanished. Raised voices. Why the hell didn't they speak up earlier?

The dad didn't look happy about the cameras shoved in his face, ducking his head as his lawyer hurried him into the station. It made me think about Bill Green sneering while I asked him about his missing son. About the sting in his voice when he said Xavier owed him money. And Ted's words: ‘Black eye. Cut lip. Bruised all over. Someone was mighty pissed at him.'

I sit forward, bed springs chorusing. ‘Why is Bill not looking for Xavier anymore? At first he wouldn't stop calling me. If Xavier stole stuff to pay Bill back then he got some money off Ted, didn't he? So why did Bill tell me he hadn't seen Xavier for weeks? At first I thought something happened that stopped Xavier reaching his dad's but maybe . . .'

From my dresser, Nate picks up the statue of a girl holding a kitten, her yellow sundress frozen in a twirl. Vinnie gave it to me about a thousand Christmases ago, before she realised I was never going to share her love for the feline species.

‘You know Bill was in prison for assault, right?' he says.

Damn the police. They're right again: always look into the dad.

He dumps the little girl back on the dresser with a thud. Hanging from a hook next to the mirror is something I'd rather he didn't touch – a ballet-shoe pendant swinging from a thin chain; it was tarnished seven years ago when Vinnie passed it on to me and it still is. It's the only thing I have of Juliet's. I don't know why I kept it. I should have buried it with the rest of the stuff.

His fingertips brush the pendant. It feels like somebody reaching into my chest and poking about in there, messing everything up. I don't know why I don't leap onto his back and claw his eyes out.

I wait for him to say something about it. I wait for the sneer.

‘We definitely need to talk to Bill,' he says, completely sneer-free. He turns his back on the pendant and faces me. Wait, what? No cutting remark? No ‘so where's your stash of My Little Ponies?' ‘We should get a look around his place,' he says.

We? This guy is
so
confusing.

I shake my head. ‘Bill's not going to want to talk to me any time soon.'

‘You piss him off too?'

‘Just his front window.'

Nate laughs. ‘Then we'll have to show up when he's not there.'

I try raising a single brow. I fail. ‘And how's that going to help if we can't get inside?'

He grins, leaning against Ian Curtis's face. ‘Lucky you know a burglar,' he says.