Truck Stop (7 page)

INDHU:
But I told you. We're going to the Guptas' today for a barbeque.

AISHA:
The Guptas'?

AISHA
grimaces.

SAM:
I get off the train and Chelsea Mills is there on the platform that stuck up bitch on her way to dance class. She looks at me like I'm a dog and asks me
you still dancing
? and then she asks
did you hear I won the tap eisteddfod
?

The tap eisteddfod?

Bollywood music crackles.

AISHA:
I'm full of aloo gobi and Mrs Gupta's questions. Mum sighs as she asks:

INDHU:
Did I tell you I met Shahrukh Khan?

AISHA:
We've heard before Mum. What are we walking clichés?

Mum and Mrs Gupta give me the look.

INDHU:
Respect young lady. If there is not respect then there is /

AISHA:
Yeah? What? I storm off, hide in the bathroom replay last night back in my head. Jasper smiles, dances over to me, his ringlets, his smile, his blue eyes… And this time I don't vomit on the bushes and he doesn't have anywhere else to go. We sit on the rooftop, hold hands stare out at the apricots at sea. Then we kiss.

SAM:
Get home and Dad says how was the party Princess? They've been to Bunnings and bought a new leaf blower and a mulcher and… I go straight to my room. Slam the door. Stand in front of the mirror, press play and…

Fuck you Chelsea Mills.

She dances.

KELLY:
Get home, Mum sitting on the couch staring at the TV—she couldn't be watching that shit. She smokes and pours a wine from a cask into a coffee cup and she's about to speak only I'm not in the mood. Don't want to hear her.

CHARMAINE:
Kel?

KELLY:
I walk.

CHARMAINE:
Kelly?

KELLY:
Go to my room and slam it shut. Lie on my bed, Rihanna on the back of the door, wrapped in an American flag pouts at me.

Turn on the computer, shut the blinds, charge my phone, footsteps in the hallway. Rihanna shakes a little bit as Mum knocks on the door. Mum stands in my doorway crying.

Why you crying? Did Bruce leave you? He's a loser anyway.

CHARMAINE:
You need to give him a chance Kelly.

KELLY:
I kick off my boot and it hits the wall.

Give him a chance? Did you ask me if he could move in?

CHARMAINE:
It's my house Kelly.

KELLY:
It's Dad's house.

CHARMAINE:
Not anymore. I can do what I like so you better be nice to him.

KELLY:
Nice to him? You know what? Bruce is ugly. Not just his face or the way he smells but something inside him is ugly too. Don't you see the way he looks at me? He's like a cockroach come to get whatever scraps he can get from the trash. What does that make you?

CHARMAINE
slaps
KELLY
.

SAM:
Truth.

KELLY:
Neighbour's dog barks.

SAM:
Dare.

KELLY:
Feel like whacking you back, feel like hitting you hard, feel like reaching and grabbing you and pulling you close to me.

SAM:
Double dare.

KELLY:
Feel like running.

Look away from you, never want to see you again.

SAM:
Truth.

KELLY:
I want you dead.

And then calm as anything you say.

CHARMAINE:
What would you know?

KELLY:
I want you to get out. You're fucking crazy. / What would I know?

CHARMAINE:
What would you know?

KELLY:
I don't want you in here anymore.

What would I know?

I don't want to see you. I want to run away from you I want another mother.

CHARMAINE:
This isn't about you. Not everything is about you Kelly. I know what happened to you but move on. You saw a counsellor. It was years ago

KELLY:
Move on?

CHARMAINE:
Yes.

KELLY:
How can you say that? I was eleven.

CHARMAINE:
I know.

KELLY:
Do you? 'Cause you act like you forget. And that's when I cry. That's when the carpet swallows me like the sea and I'm scared.

And she looks at me like she doesn't get it but she does.

I wish Dad was here.

The room spinning.

The carpet the sea in a storm, the blinds sharp knives in the wind.

Who have I got?

Who will protect me?

We see images of moths and flies buzzing around a light. We hear CB radio noise, snippets of conversation but nothing intelligible.

AISHA:
Then.

Cockroach wakes me up, runs across my mouth, it's in my hair scratching my scalp. Car headlights through the window and I see Mum outside in the cold. She stands on the dirt in her dressing-gown and slippers where Dad says we'll grow grass. She's talking to the tower. She's telling it why we've come here. Part of me wants to put my hand on her shoulder, say what she wants to hear. The other part of me wants to push her over. Mum?

INDHU:
You scared me.

AISHA:
You scared me. What the fuck are you doing out here freak?

I don't get you. You're miserable. You hate it here but you don't make an effort to fit in. All you do besides sit at home is visit the Guptas.

Why did you bring us here? You'll never fit in and then I'll never fit in and…

INDHU:
Aisha.

AISHA:
She reaches out, tries to hold my hand. And I laugh at her and walk away.

AISHA
goes.

Daylight.

SAM
then
KELLY
.

SAM:
Then.

KELLY:
The mall after school.

SAM:
The food court near the donut shop, anything to avoid going home.

AISHA
enters.

AISHA:
I film the boys, all their haircuts. Them coming in and out of the toilets 'cause they're checking their hair, the colours, the tips, the shape.

KELLY:
Faggots the lot of them. Just don't know it yet.

AISHA:
This boy with beautiful skin. Noah from Samoa.

KELLY:
He plays football.

SAM:
Are they bitch tits or pecs?

AISHA:
Noah from Samoa smiles at me when I look.

KELLY:
Noah from Samoa's watching you, whoooo.

AISHA:
Noah has really curly hair he's trying to make straight. He looks serious not rough like some of his mates.

Noah buys a bag of donuts and shares them with his mates.

SAM:
Bitch tits, see?

AISHA:
I see him every day after school at the food court. If I'm sly I can catch him on film and take it home and watch it. I lie on my bed and imagine what it would be like to dance with Noah. Lie on my bed and imagine what it would be like dancing to a slow song and then move in to kiss him.

Mum comes in. She sits next to me on the bed gives me a look.

INDHU:
Something weighs on me.

AISHA:
She asks me about the day when we met Kelly's mum. She asks about Sam and Kelly. Then she says /

INDHU:
I've been on the internet. I want to know why those girls call themselves the skanks. Do you know what it means?

AISHA:
Then she stops talking and stares at me.

INDHU:
Are you going to go back to church? Maybe you could meet other girls there.

AISHA:
She picks up my phone. The phone that's made all the films. Films of us, when we got here when I knew no-one else. Films of school, of the skanks in the playground, at Westfield, the night at Kelly's and the party at Nat's.

INDHU:
When did you take this photo?

AISHA:
It was… at a party.

INDHU:
A party? What party? Where was that party and when did you go?

AISHA:
Dad comes home. He looks tired now doesn't smile like he did.

Mum shows him the photo on the phone. Says:

INDHU:
Look at your daughter, what your daughter is becoming.

AISHA:
And I say what do you mean by that Mum?

My father looks at the photo, then at me, then at my mother.

He says

INDHU/AISHA:
My daughter is becoming a woman.

We hear flies and the traffic on the highway.

SAM:
Then

Week after Nat's party, I'm at school and this little cow in year seven starts slutting all over Trent in the quad. Flirting with him in front of me and then I find out she's been sending him pics.

Nick Trent's phone from his bag and it doesn't take long to find them. Pics she's sent to him that make me gag, her in underwear, looks like a whore, her in a swimming pool, then her nude in her bedroom, heaps of cheap stuffed toys on the pink bed in the background.

Trent looks all red and mad says /
My fucking phone's been nicked.

TRENT
: My fucking phone's been nicked.

SAM:
I say it straight up. I nicked it Trent. Knew something was going on and look what I find. I hold up the pic of the fat cow's tits and his mouth opens so wide I could punch out all his crooked teeth.

Who is she?

TRENT
: No-one.

SAM:
No-one? Then what the fuck are all these pics? What's her name dickhead don't just dribble. Speak up you arsehole and tell me her name.

TRENT
: Chante.

Eryn Jean Norvill and Elena Carapetis in the 2012 Q Theatre production at the Seymour Centre. (Photo © Amanda James)

SAM:
Chante? What an ugly name.

Well you two can be together. It's over.

So over.

Break up video in my head like Rihanna post Chris Brown.

Yeah. I look sad but… I'm planning revenge.

Chante. Chante. Two and two together.

That was then and now…

When I overheard her name on the phone I realised who Chante is. And who spawned her.

I change my plan with the counsellor now. I'm going to talk and talk and then… when the time is ripe… I'll ambush her.

Sitting there after school in the demountable now. Flies circling above us and her with her sweat marks and I see Chante looks just like her mum. Fat cow with a pig nose. Her tired eyes looking at me as she's saying.

MICHELLE:
I'm glad you're talking now Sam. It makes it easier when you open up.

SAM:
I feel like laughing out loud and challenging that, let's just see how easy it gets. I ask her
what I am meant to call you
, she smiles says,

MICHELLE:
Call me Michelle.

SAM:
I tell Michelle what she wants to hear about my home life. I say that Mum read in some Christian magazine that the way to ensure your daughter doesn't go off the rails is to sit down every day and talk about things so we talk every night before dinner. When Dad and my brother are out and it's just us. Sometimes we cut up carrots or beans and we talk. Sometimes we have a glass of wine but I have to scull if Dad comes through the door. Dad's princess doesn't drink.

Mum thinks our conversations are deep but I just tell her what she wants to hear.

MICHELLE:
And what is that?

SAM
shrugs.

I'm sure your mum would like to know the truth.

SAM:
I thought that too until after you know what happened. Do you know what their solution to it all was? Send me to you and to a Catholic school. Send me a school run by a barren old nuns and never speak about it again.

MICHELLE:
Maybe they don't know what to say.

SAM
laughs.

SAM:
I ask Michelle about all the stuff on the internet.

MICHELLE:
What do you mean?

SAM:
Like what happens to it all? Like say a kid gets run over by a truck or shot in the head by some drugged up emo loser freak in some school in America what happens to their facebook page? Who answers their email messages? Who turns the whole thing off or does it just keep living? Does the inbox just keeping getting spam?

She never knows what to say.

MICHELLE:
Maybe the parents…

SAM:
Nobody's parents have their passwords Michelle.

I want to tell her maybe I'm worried about all the pics of me that Trent has. How they might live on like some dead kid's facebook.