Lucy and Linh (22 page)

I decided I wasn't going to hang around with the Cabinet anymore.

It wasn't a difficult decision, Linh, because if I continued to spend time with them I knew I would go mad. Also, although I knew you were still angry with me, I had the feeling you might come around. My worst fear was that I might lose you entirely. The school was driving me insane, and it had nothing to do with the difficulty of the work. It was the other stuff I couldn't bear—the way the place could swallow you whole if you let it.

The Cabinet fascinated me in the way that movie characters did. Their lives didn't seem quite real—
they
didn't seem quite real. I often felt as though I was on the set of a TV show, where the grouting on the tiles was still ivory because no one actually lived there. The grout around Amber's bathroom floor tiles was perfectly white, I recalled as I was cleaning ours at home with a toothbrush. A few days later it would be gray again, and in a few weeks it would be black. It was as if grime attached itself only to certain types of people, and once you were marked, you were marked for life.

I had become self-conscious about things that never bothered me before. The way my teeth were slightly yellow. How my nylon socks lost their elasticity at the top after a term of washing. And just my general grossness, the way I must have smelled. It got to the point where if I needed to go to the bathroom at school, I would wait until the whole room was empty, then I would wet two paper towels in the sink with warm water and soap, and take them to the stall to clean myself. I knew that if I hung around these girls for much longer, I would also start worrying about getting fat. There was already enough wrong with me that I didn't have room for any more insecurities.

In the end, leaving the Cabinet was easier than I had expected it to be. I just stopped going to their corner of the school yard and went to the library instead. Never big on confrontation or closure, I did to them exactly what I had done to Katie.

Katie and Siobhan were close now, the sort of closeness where they whacked each other playfully with their books, shared lunches and made plans to visit Katie's farm in Mallah over the holidays. I saw them and felt a familiar ache in my chest, Linh, an ache the exact shape of you.

I wasn't afraid of being alone, but I was afraid of what people would think about my solitary state. People, even well-intentioned people, were always trying to take away our quiet little successes and joys and replace them with big, overarching fears. At this school, the worst thing was trying to rise above the limits set for you by the minds of others. Each girl was an island of her own dreams and insecurities, thoughts that made us different in a deeper way than the differences of musical tastes, clothes or even culture. Thoughts about the best way to be stoic, how to live with very little control in life, how to make the most of a miserable time doing something that you were supposed to love. And if people thought that fifteen-year-old girls never thought about these sorts of things, it was only because we didn't have the words to express them.

We talked all the time, but we hadn't yet learned the words to link thoughts and ideas with any depth of feeling, because we didn't really talk to adults. We talked only to each other. And within this little world, we imprisoned one another. You could be anyone you wanted, Linh—until you were judged and held captive by everyone else's thoughts. Nothing has a stronger hold over a girl than the fear of the thoughts of her peers—thoughts that change five times in a day. No wonder things are so complicated with teenagers.

So I went back to the library and to flicking through old yearbooks. This time I started at the end of each book, because that's where all the extracurricular activities were—the photos of Laurinda girls and Auburn boys engaged in debating, drama, sports and music. I was searching for one specific face.

And there he was, in a photo from Year Seven, in the junior orchestra. He played the trumpet. He had the same gap between his front teeth, and the same straw-colored hair. He was chubby and looked like the awkward twelve-year-old he was. He looked exactly the same in the next photo in Year Eight, but things had changed by Year Nine. He'd grown vertically and lost his festive plumpness. He looked dignified with his trumpet against his chest and the school colors sewn on his blazer pocket.

Knowing that Richard the Lionheart—and presumably his allies—understood the undercurrents of our schools as I did made me feel less alone. I imagined the two of us standing strong against the slings and arrows of outrageous wealth. I imagined us forming a secret pact, a duo that wrote about the bizarre things we witnessed at school. We would meet up once a week at the Sunray Public Library to exchange notes. We would fall in love as we wrote a great satirical novel together about private colleges, won over by each other's wit.

We would get married; Harshan and Anton could be his groomsmen, and Yvonne and Ivy would be my bridesmaids. The Lamb could be the ring bearer. We'd have our reception at the Mirabella Center in Sunray because they served crab claws. He would sell his dad's shoe store when his dad retired, and we would use the money to start a French café in a posh suburb, filling the walls with shelves of books.

Then I stopped, realizing how stupid my fantasies were.

I remembered something Richard had said: “My dad thought he was sending me to
Dead Poets Society.
”

Richard had a group of friends. He talked to everyone. He was like Katie—not popular, but he probably had a happy home life and a close-knit community in the outer suburbs of Melbourne near the farming properties. He didn't need school to validate him. That's why he could laugh when the boys made fun of his dad's shoe shop. He was lower middle class, but he wasn't ashamed of it, as much as the other boys ridiculed him.

I wasn't going to do anything about this crush. I wasn't going to find him and ask him out to a movie, or do any of the things that seemed so simple and easy on TV. I wasn't even sure how to pursue a friendship with a boy. But Richard and his allies had reminded me I was funny and daring, and could even be all the things you were, Linh. So that evening, after I'd put the Lamb to bed, I sat down in the garage to write my conference speech, calmed by the familiar hammering of my mother's sewing machine.

When helping me with my first politics essay, Mr. Sinclair had advised me to get to the heart of the matter and talk about what was important. I began writing.

Laurinda has taught me that if something is not right, then you have the power to change it.

Laurinda has taught me that you should be nice to everyone.

Laurinda has given me opportunities to be discerning.

Those three lines were a good start.

That first day back in the library, I'd kept thinking the Cabinet would be looking for me—that they would catch me in the act of searching for the Lionheart. I felt like a fugitive and collected a couple of heavy history books as an alibi. On the second day, there was still no sign of them. By the third day, I knew they had given up on me.

I was no great loss, after all. The strangest thing was that we had both English, history and politics together. They could have asked me then why I was no longer joining them, but they didn't. They had tried their best, they could say to Mrs. Grey. And now they were free to talk about all the clandestine business they could not talk about in my presence.

I felt a great relief.

Then, on the fourth day, they came to get me.

“Lucy! So there you are!” said Brodie. “Have you been here for the past three days? What have you been doing?”

“Studying.”

“Oh, you dweeb,” said Amber playfully. “Come back and join us.”

“It's okay. I've really got to catch up on some work.”

“Did we say something to upset you?”

“No.” Everything you do pisses me off, I wanted to tell her.

“We've been so worried that we've done something to upset you. We thought you might be mad at us.”

I was furious at them, but I just wanted to be left alone. “I'm studying,” I said. “I don't want to fall behind.”

They knew I was lying. “We could help you,” suggested Amber.

Girls don't have to say nasty things to convey them. Even two simple, benign words—words generally reserved for reassurance—can be flung low and hard like dried-up cow dung. “I'm fine.”

There was a silence. “Well, we're hurt that you won't open up to us about what's wrong,” said Brodie. “And something is clearly the matter. But we're always here if you need our help. We're still your friends, Lucy.”

And with this magnanimity, and a pat on my shoulder, they walked out of the library. But that didn't mean they left me alone. In the next few days they became an overzealous pastoral care tag team, bugging me at every turn and corner.

As a general rule, teenage girls never, ever see solitude as a choice. Katie and Gina were prime examples. They might clutch copies of
The Bell Jar
to their hearts, but they could not imagine that a girl could be by herself and truly
not care
about being by herself. They saw this
not caring
as the sign of a deep sickness. This was why, a week later, Mrs. Leslie came looking for me. “Lucy,” she said, “could we perhaps have a little chat?”

I knew the Cabinet had set her up. She led me to the pastoral care room, which to me sounded like a place for sick farmyard animals. When we were both seated, she told me that Amber had said she was concerned for my welfare. “Amber tells me that you no longer want to be her friend.”

What was this, kindergarten? “That's not true,” I said. I felt sorry for Mrs. Leslie.

“She says that you've been sitting by yourself all week in the library. Is that true?”

I didn't say anything.

“I understand that you might be depressed, Lucy.”

“What do you mean, depressed?”

“Perhaps something is the matter at home and you are not telling anyone about it?”

“No.” I knew I sounded defensive.

“What is happening at home, Lucy?”

“What did Amber say was happening at home with me, miss?”

“Nothing. She's just worried that there might be concerning things going on at home.”

“Like what?”

“We don't know!” cried Mrs. Leslie. “That's for you to tell us, because nothing seems to be the matter at school and yet you've suddenly decided to leave your friends and spend all your lunchtimes in the library again.”

“I'm sorry, miss.” I really was, because Mrs. Leslie cared about me, and she genuinely believed my absence was a great loss to her daughter.

I began to cry—but not because I had upset Mrs. Leslie, or because I was sad about anything. I was crying out of frustration, frustration that I could not be left alone, that no girl at this school could possibly be allowed some space to breathe and sort out her own thoughts. Not all groups were created equal; I knew that. But I had been stupid enough to believe that my presence or absence would not make any difference.

I was also crying because I understood now that no one ever left the Cabinet of her own volition, and that the three of them weren't going to let it go. There would be consequences.

“Child, the doorbell,” my mother said to me over the machine-gun hammering of her sewing machine. It was a warm Monday afternoon, and I'd been home from school for an hour.

“I didn't hear anything.”

“It rang.” Despite being surrounded by noise all day, my mother had supersensitive hearing.

I only had time to grab the Lamb's sippy cup and hoist him onto my hip when the doorbell rang again. Stupid, impatient Sokkha, I sighed. I went back inside the house and opened the door.

Standing there was Brodie, still in her school uniform.

And standing behind her was Sokkha.

They must have arrived at the same time, and for a moment I wondered if he had offered her a lift in his white van. That would have been hilarious, Brodie's white face peering from the back, her hands outstretched to ward off cascading rolls of material as the van swerved down our street.

I saw a look of extreme nervousness in Brodie's eyes. Sokkha was frightening if you weren't used to him, and his finger was still bandaged up. He was finishing off a cigarette, and his eyes were bloodshot—he looked like he'd had a late night. Sokkha didn't just deliver. He worked too, when there was work to finish.

By this time my mother had come to the front door, running a hand through her uncombed hair. In a bright blue Esprit T-shirt and, to my embarrassment, fluorescent orange Target tracksuit pants, she looked as if she had just crawled out of bed in the middle of a long and lingering illness. The bags beneath her eyes were big enough to carry groceries in, and her skin was the color of uncooked pastry. She put a hand to her brow like a sailor looking out to sea. This was probably the first time today that my mother had seen sunlight.

She peered at Brodie, then noticed Sokkha. “Ah, there you are, brother.”

He fished out of the breast pocket of his green-and-red batik shirt a crumpled white envelope. He handed it to her; a hundred-dollar note was showing through its plastic window.

“Take your friend inside,” my mother instructed me. “I'm going to count the money.”

Brodie had no idea what was going on. I had no idea why she was here, and I really didn't want her to see the inside of our house.

“Go!” my mother hissed, so I really had no choice.

Brodie followed me inside, taking in the peeling wallpaper, the boxes everywhere, our mismatched couches and the lingering smell of baby pee and mold.

“How did you get here?” I asked as she sat down on the couch.

“I caught a cab.”

“You what? From the school?” The trip must have cost her seventy bucks.

What would Brodie have seen through the windows of the taxi? I wondered. The used car sale yards that had bunting around their perimeters, and signs declaring
CHO THUE XUE CAR RENTAL $11 A DAY.
The overgrown hedges, the shopping carts on lawns. Instead of a book library, Stanley had a tool library, for men to go and build things or smash things. “So they don't smash their wives,” my father once joked.

The front yards of Stanley were hives of masculine activity—pieces of metal and scrap automobile parts, half-completed projects and rusty bits of machinery, like Thomas Edison's junk pile in an alternate universe where nothing would ever succeed despite a hundred thousand years of trial and error, mostly error. These rested in relative peace alongside faded plastic swing sets that had not been used for a decade.

“Who's that?” Brodie asked, pointing to a photograph on our wall.

“Oh, that's my great-uncle Hung. My mum's dad's older brother.”

“He's hot.”

At a time like this, and in a house like mine, she was still playing the we-are-connected game—and this time we were connected through our nonracist appraisal of the hotness of the male species. If Yvonne had come over and done the same thing, I wouldn't have minded, but this was Brodie. She'd fixed on the only thing she found redeemable, the only thing of beauty in our house, a photo of my handsome uncle.

“He died during the war,” I added, expecting to see the expression on her face change, but it didn't.

“My great-grandfather died during the war too,” she said. “World War II.”

“Would you like a drink?” I asked, hoping that she would politely decline; all I could offer her was my mum's Nescafé.

“No, thanks.”

“Want to hold the Lamb?”

“Pardon?”

I held the Lamb out in front of me.

“No, thanks.” She didn't even make the characteristic oh-he's-so-cute murmurs most girls did when faced with a baby, no matter how ugly the kid was. She was beginning to freak me out.

“Lucy, we are concerned about you. You left without a word. You won't tell Mrs. Leslie what's wrong. You won't talk to anyone. You've withdrawn into yourself. You don't even want to be around your friends anymore.”

So she had come all this way because she wanted me back in the Cabinet? It was hard to believe. “I'm sorry,” I lied.

“We care about you, Lucy. If something is the matter, you should let us know. If you're depressed, don't lock us out.”

“But I'm not depressed.”

Brodie avoided my eyes and looked around the room. No wonder you're depressed, I bet she was thinking. You live here. You're looking after that runt of a baby.

“I just needed some time to myself.”

“I understand,” said Brodie. “But we're always here to help.”

“Thanks.”

“Gah!” yelled the Lamb out of the blue, and Brodie jumped. I could tell she didn't like the way he was watching her, and I knew that he would keep gazing at her in a squirm-inducing way. The Lamb didn't blink very often, and his eyes were such a dark brown that in the dim light of our living room you could not tell where the iris ended and the pupil began.

He was staring at her teeth. He had never seen braces before.

My mother came back with her wad of money. She looked at us, me sunk into the back of the couch with the Lamb and Brodie perched on the edge. Brodie stood up when she saw my mother. She walked over and extended a hand, turning on her high-wattage smile. “Hello, Mrs. Lam, very pleased to meet you.”

My mother looked bewildered. She transferred her crushed envelope from one hand to the other and took Brodie's hand limply. “ 'Allo.” Then, “You eat?”

“Pardon?”

“My mum asked if you'd like to eat something.”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Lam,” Brodie said, still smiling. “I ate something before I came.”

“Okay,” said my mum. By then she had exhausted her store of English words, so she turned to me and said, “I'm going back to work. Don't let that girl get anywhere near the garage, you hear me?”

“Yes, Ma.” It was funny, the hushed tones my mother used to speak about her work. She lived in constant fear of being reported to the authorities for the illegal sewing she was doing.

When my mother left, Brodie asked, “What was your mother whispering about?”

“Nothing.” It was none of her business.

“What was that in her hand?” she asked.

“None of your business.”

“Gah!” yelled the Lamb again, and this time he pointed at Brodie. I wanted to kiss his little marshmallow cheek, but then she would have thought that I had set him up. He just wanted to see the metal machinery in her mouth.

“Also, about the talk you are going to give at the University of Melbourne,” Brodie began, and at last I understood why she was here. She wanted me safely locked away before I could do any damage to their reputation.

“So you came to talk to me about my speech?”

“No! I came because we are concerned about you.”

I sighed. “I don't give a stuff about the stupid talk.” At that moment I really wished that Tully had won the scholarship instead of me.

“Exactly,” persisted Brodie. “That's the reason I'm here. Because you don't care enough, Lucy Lam.”

I couldn't believe that Brodie—thin-nostriled, hawk-eyed Brodie, sitting there in the middle of my living room—was asking me to worry myself catatonic over a ten-minute appearance at a university. All the carefully cultivated politeness was gone from her face. She could not help herself.

“I appreciate your efforts, Brodie,” I told her. “But I really don't need your help. I've got my conference talk under control.”

“Do you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Can I see it?”

“What?”

“Your talk.”

“What are you, my teacher?”

“From day one we've taken you under our wing, Lucy Lam, and you throw it all back in our faces. We try to help you fit in, and you refuse to cooperate. The Growler specifically asked Amber, Chelsea and me to look after you when you were moved into our English class.”

Liar, I thought; it was Mrs. Leslie who had plucked me from solitude and established me in Amber's life. I had become their white ladies' burden. Now, whatever I did wrong reflected badly on them. They'd offered help and I'd refused it. But they did not realize that I did not need Laurinda. Everything I loved was in this house, in two rooms.

“This is impossible!” sighed Brodie, perhaps because I did not seem to her to be feeling enough guilt. “I'm sorry we even tried, Lucy.” Even her sighs were exaggerated gestures stolen straight from American TV.

Suddenly there was a splashing sound from our kitchen, then an enormous thump that shook the floor of our house.

“What was that?”

“Mum just killed a fish.”

“What the—”

“That's what we're having for dinner. She makes tasty fish with ginger and coriander. Come and see, if you like. She'll be gutting it now.”

Brodie gave me a look, as if I was deliberately trying to disgust her—which, admittedly, I was. Yesterday, Mum and Dad had driven to the Sunray market, and they'd returned with a bucket containing the thrashing fish.

“Well, I'd better not interrupt your dinner, then.” Brodie stood up.

“How are you going to get home?”

“I'll call a taxi.”

“Let me get our phone for you.”

“No, it's all right.” And from the front of her schoolbag she pulled out her phone. The only people in Stanley I had seen with that brand were businessmen and builders.

My father arrived home and saw Brodie standing in the corner of our living room. After she hung up, she smiled at him and apologized for being on the phone.

“Lucy,” Dad scolded, “why did you let your friend waste money calling from her father's phone? She could have used ours.”

“That's all right, Mr. Lam,” she said. “It was a short call. I was just booking a taxi.”

“A taxi? Don't be ridiculous—we'll take you home.”

My father was the one being ridiculous, I thought. He didn't even know where she lived.

“Lucy, how could you let your friend catch a taxi?” my father said accusingly, as if I had stolen the umbrella of a frail old lady on a day pummeling with hail.

“No, really, it's all right, Mr. Lam. You're having dinner soon. I don't want to disturb your family.”

“Nonsense. Join us for dinner! Lucy, lay down the newspapers.”

I prayed that Brodie would leave before she had time to realize our environmentally friendly choice of dining ware.

“No, really, Mr. Lam, that is very kind of you, but my parents expect me home for dinner.” She probably thought we were going to eat her and that the newspapers were to line the floor to clean up the evidence.

After her taxi left, my father turned to me.
“Wah!”
he exclaimed. “Extraordinary! That friend of yours takes taxis by herself.”