Zac and Mia (16 page)

I find a blaze of red roses on the doorstep, but the card has Mum’s name on it. She puts a hand to her cheek when she reads it.

‘Who is he?’

‘Just a guy …’

‘From the internet?’

She shrugs, turning away.

‘What’s he like?’

‘He’s okay. Nothing special.’

Before I got sick, Mum would go on dates with whoever asked. She kept men secret from me, or thought she did. To them she was an enigmatic potential girlfriend, but in private she was an anxious single mother who couldn’t control her daughter. It’s from her I learned how to pretend, and how to switch faces for different audiences.

Sharing a small house was never easy. If I came home happy, she’d bring me down, out of jealousy, or spite. And vice-versa. There was a constant seesawing of emotion, one of us always on edge. I knew she resented me for fucking up her life, and I hated her for being a fuck-up. In public she’d embarrass me, so I learned to keep my distance. At home she was always in my face. I could never do anything right.

In the kitchen, Mum inhales the scent of roses. How come it’s so easy for a man to make my mother smile? Why has it always been impossible for me?

A man exists who sees something good in my mother: a thirty-four-year-old woman who’s just doing her best. A man likes her enough to buy a dozen red roses, handwrite her a note, and personally deliver them to our doorstep. That takes courage.

I fill a jug with water and arrange the roses. I want her to be happy, even though I’m lonely. I want my mum to be loved, even though I’m not.

Then she hugs me and I think, perhaps, I am.

When I go to check the mail four days later, a semitrailer is blocking my path.

A man sets a ramp in place, jogs up into the truck, then wheels down a trolley that’s holding a tree. Tied to the tree is a shovel. What the hell?

‘Where do you want it?’

‘Not there. Who’s it for?’

He checks his clipboard. ‘Mia Phillips. That you?’

I nod. The tree’s taller than me, with thick, swishy branches and silver-green leaves.

He shows me my name on his delivery schedule as proof.

‘What do I do with it?’

‘Beats me, I’m just the messenger.’

When I sign the form I notice the truck’s loaded with cardboard boxes stamped with
The Good Olive!

‘Are they full of oil?’

‘Just the messenger.’ He offers to wheel it inside the villa and I let him. Then he does a noisy fifty-one-point turn to get out of our cul-de-sac.

‘Mia?’ Mum has to contort herself through the front door. ‘What’s this?’

‘It looks like a Leccino. Or it could be a Manzanillo. Hard to tell at this stage.’

‘A what?’

‘An olive tree. We have to plant it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because that’s what you do with trees.’

She takes off her shoes and inspects the trail of dirt on the carpet. ‘But why would anyone give us a
tree?’

I smile. She still doesn’t know about Zac, how it was either him or oblivion.

She finds a card in the pot and hands it to me. The front has a picture of a bright orange flower. Inside, the handwriting is unfamiliar.

Happy belated birthday, Mia. Hope you enjoyed yourself. We had to shift some fences
and dig up a few trees. Thought you might find a home for this baby? Hope you’re well. Wendy and all. x

I would’ve preferred a card from Zac, but it’s something at least. I look again at the tree from his mum. Its soft leaves are offered in a truce.

‘How do you look after an olive tree? Mia?’

‘Don’t stress, they’re tough.’ I remember Zac’s lecture from under the doona. ‘Even if you neglect them for thousands of years, they’ll still grow fruit—’

‘Olives are fruit?’

I laugh. ‘We can google it if you want. It just needs soil, water and sun. Maybe some fertiliser.’

‘You know this?’

I shrug. ‘Little apple, little egg.’

Between us, we drag the potted tree through the villa and outside. Mum has a date with the roses man and I tell her to go. I’m left in the courtyard with the strangest present I’ve ever received. It’s enough to make me grab for my phone and type in a text.

There’s so much else I’m desperate to say: that my walls and ceiling are blue. That my hair’s touching my shoulders. That I think about him all the bloody time.

But I play it safe and just press send.

I keep the phone in my hand, expecting it to flash and vibrate at any moment. Minutes pass. I check it again and again, but the stupid thing stays mute. For so long.

Zac was once the knock to my tap, but now he’s the boy who leaves me agonising over a text message. He used to take my mind off the pain, now he’s the one causing it. The silence is agony. It turns me into knots, doubting myself and everything he said. An hour and no reply. I’m sick with not knowing.

I shouldn’t, I know, but I write another message. I don’t censor anything.

I press send and it’s gone. Courage and stupidity, combined.

And still nothing comes back. One hour. Two. Three. The phone is a brick in my pocket. Without the buffer of antidepressants, there’s nothing to stop me from sliding down that slope of self-hate again. I feel the pull of
ugly
and
unlovable
and
you stupid fucking girl, how could you believe he’d want you?
I feel them together—pity and rage. And I keep sliding down.

Fuck, I need to
do
something. I start to dig a hole. I follow the advice on the tree’s tag and keep digging, even though the sun’s gone down.

I get to fifty centimetres and dig further. It cramps my knees and hips, but I go deeper, scooping out rocks.
I have to
Keep busy
, like the cancer handbook says. I pull the tree closer and tip it over, levering it from its pot, then I get on my knees and force it in and upright, filling the space with loose, sinewy soil. I shove it in and push it down, using my forearms to move it around.

My body hurts when I finally stand. My skin’s coated with dirt. I’ve lost track of hours: it’s so late it could be tomorrow. I hurt all over but I’m glad. I planted this. I’ve done something real.

The tree’s my height now. Deep down, its roots will be probing, reaching for things to grip onto. But here at eye level, its branches are poised and still.
Breathe, Mia
, I tell myself. Be still.

When I shower, brown water swirls at my foot. It takes all my resolve not to hate myself. I decide to delete Zac’s number from my phone. I have to. I don’t have the strength for another rejection.

And tomorrow, I’ll catch up with Shay. I might even email Tamara, my friend from primary school. When she went to a girls’ college we drifted apart, though it was probably my fault. I’d like to see her. We can talk about year 12, and boys, and whatever else matters to her. Anything to get out of the house and away from the disappointment of Zac.

Exhausted, I switch off the light and crawl cleanly into bed. I peel the glow-in-the-dark star from the wall and let it fall to the floor.

That’s when my phone beeps beside me. Three am.

The train slows and I tread to the middle, holding handrails as I pass them. A kid notices my slight limp and looks up in query.

‘Leg went to sleep,’ I say, and he turns back to the window.

At Showgrounds Station, the doors open to the low mash of rock songs, loudspeakers and generators. Even from here, I see metal cages pivot and plummet and tiny limbs flailing in waves. Beside me, kids squeal and jump onto the train platform, followed by parents with prams.

I walk down the ramp behind them, closing in on the tunnel and the entrance to the grounds. Caterpillar queues wriggle towards the turnstiles. I step into line, the only one here alone, the only one more nervous than excited. What if I bump into someone from school?

The queue shuffles along and there’s only one reason I shuffle along with it.

It’s in my back pocket.

I’ve read this postcard a hundred times. It’s brilliant to hear from him, even if he is on the opposite side of the world. More than anything, I’m stoked he hasn’t forgotten me.

I hand over the twenty-dollar entry fee then push through the turnstiles into air that’s ripe with cinnamon sugar and Dagwood dogs. Dirt clouds hover, kicked up by thousands of shoes. There’s a stink of hay too, of animals and shit. I don’t recall the show being so rank, but then again, I’ve never walked in on my own.

Two years ago, there were twenty of us who arrived late on a Wednesday. Most of our time was spent queuing for rides, followed by perfect minutes spent flying through air at all angles, trying desperately not to hurl or pee. We wandered through dusty alleyways, occasionally trying our luck with sideshow games. Before closing there was a frenzied rush of showbag purchases—Spongebob Squarepants, Angry Birds, Freddo Frogs and glow-in-the-dark gadgets. Waiting for the train, we inflated toys and decorated ourselves with plastic accessories, reminiscing about the years when showbags had quality items, and more of them.

In primary school, I came with Tamara and her big sister. We dared each other onto the roller-coaster then relived it laughingly for hours, choking on hot
chips. Tamara’s sister won her a big green dog on a skill-tester game and I was impressed. I thought no one ever got to choose from the top row. I wanted it, of course—that green dog, a big sister. She could only win a small penguin for me, which I slept with until it burst.

Younger than that, the Ferris wheel was my favourite. I would slide into the space between Grandma and Grandpa. I loved the flip-flop in my belly as the chair swung up and away, defying gravity. The showgrounds would shrink by degrees. ‘Look over there, Mia,’ my grandparents would cheer at the top, a cool breeze lapping at my face and hair. Then we’d descend and rejoin the heady scents of oils and sugars, picking out individual voices over the thrum. I remember the Ferris wheel as an endless tide of rising and falling, pulling out, zooming in. ‘Can we go again?’ I’d ask at the disappointing stillness. And we would. What wouldn’t my grandparents have done for me? They’d spend whole days indulging my whims, then idle the car in the driveway to kiss me goodbye.

‘Be a good girl, Mia,’ Grandma would say. I’d watch the car recede until the cul-de-sac was quiet. Only then would my mother open the door.

I used to think it was normal for women to hate their parents: to hold grudges and keep doors closed to them. So I wasn’t surprised to discover I hated mine, or to learn she hated me back. Every word was a criticism. It was easier to shut her out than to let her awful voice in.

Kewpie dolls stare blankly at me from a stall. They
haven’t changed a bit, though my grandparents are dead and I’m no longer a little girl.

I take a breath and fall into the slipstream, not thinking, following. I bustle into steamy pavilions with free tastings, and come out the other end, greeted by carnies trying to coax me.
Everyone’s a winner!
I’m drawn along with the crowds, between dodgem cars and ghost trains.

Everyone bustles about me, around me, and I’m kind of glad the Royal Show is happening, the way it always has, with people wasting money on short-lived rides, eating food they’ll regret later. It’s good to be surrounded by colour and noise, despite the threat of cancer and the sadness of what’s been taken. Perhaps others here have lost something too. Or worse, lost someone. Are
yet
to lose someone. Of these thousands of people, one in every two will get cancer. One in five will die of it. And somehow they still manage to slam dodgem cars into each other and laugh at themselves in magic mirrors.

That’s where I see him.

Rhys pulls faces in front of a magic mirror. A pretty girl’s beside him, a purple monkey on her shoulders.

It sticks me to the spot. I haven’t thought of him in weeks. I want to throw up.

The two of them experiment laughingly with poses. He’s wearing a hat I haven’t seen. The girl’s familiar—I think she was a year below me at school.

Then he guides her away, still showing off to make her laugh, which she does. I follow at a distance,
watching the way he hooks a finger in the back of her jeans pocket, the way he used to with me. He pays for tickets for the
Wipeout
, though I know he’s scared of heights. As they wait in the queue, I see he’s using his old routine, angling his head when he listens, making her believe she’s everything. The hat’s the only new thing about him. The girl smiles and twists, cute in her short shorts and crocheted top. She plays with the golden half-a-heart on a necklace. When he kisses her I turn away.

Half a heart isn’t good enough, Rhys. She’ll realise too, eventually, when she outgrows those shorts, and the monkey, and you.

I walk through alleyways, where laughing clowns shake their heads at me from either side.
Don’t cry
, they say.
Don’t you dare cry
.

And if it wasn’t for Zac’s postcard in my pocket, I probably would.

There are hundreds of pens in the Alpaca Pavilion, but eventually I find Sheba’s. She looks at me with her big eyes, as if to say,
Oh, it’s you. Get me out of here, would you?

She’s the worst behaved through the judging, resisting when the judge checks her teeth and wool. She needs the familiar smell of Bec to soothe her. I watch nervously, surrounded by spectators young and old who’ve come for this strange ceremony. The old judge
bends and leans, crouches and appraises. He’s quick at dodging Sheba’s kick. Spectators tut.

I take photos with my mobile as Sheba’s escorted, ribbonless, back to her pen.

I hadn’t realised how many alpaca farms exist, or how many types of sheep they pack into the Shearing and Wool Pavilion: Poll Dorsets, White Suffolks, Suffolks and White Dorpers. Farmers in flannelette and denim discuss market prices. Some of the young ones remind me of Zac—the way he would lean on a fence as if it was put there for his thinking.

God, I wish he was here, but I know he has a holiday-of-a-lifetime to make the most of. I buy him a Freddo Frog showbag. On the train home, I reread the postcard, just to hear his voice.

Funny. I never picked him as the Disneyland type.