Music From Standing Waves (10 page)

“How nice to not be old and jaded,” said
Lily, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-six.

“Shut up Lil,” said Andrew. He stopped to
pick up my hair claw as I jolted it off my head.

I said for the billionth time that the Dvorak
was so brilliant. We walked along the riverbank. It was almost
eleven, but the walkway was full of lantern markets and buskers.
The dull thud of bongo drums drifted over the water. I was counting
the number of ferries that shimmered by the docks when I realised
Andrew was telling me about his bassoonist friend from the
orchestra.

“Are lots of your uni friends performers
now?” I asked, wondering how his version of events compared to
Lily’s.

He shook his head. “It’s a tough industry to
break into. Only the best of the best make it as performers.”

I wondered if I would ever be the best of the
best, but was too afraid of the answer to ask.

“What do your other friends do?” I asked
instead.

“Well…” Andrew walked along, playing with my
hairclip. I wondered if he was reminiscing about uni. I sneaked a
sideways glance at him. Maybe he was thinking about being in Paris
with Lily. Or maybe just being back in Acacia Beach with Hayley and
Oliver.

“Lots of them teach during the day and play
gigs at night,” he said. “And a couple of my friends are
composers.” He nudged me suddenly. “Hey, you know that ad with the
singing fruit salad? My friend wrote the music for that.”

I smiled. “That’s cool.”

Lily tapped ash onto the footpath and started
humming the fruit salad jingle. I walked in silence, watching my
feet pass in front of each other. Finally, I stopped and my stomach
dived.

“Am I going to be the best of the best?” I
blurted.

Andrew handed me back my hairclip. “Yeah,” he
said. “Yeah.” He started to walk again and I had to skip to keep
up. Around us, the city glittered. Made anything seem possible.

My debutante ball is one of those memories
that refuses to be repressed.

I hovered outside Justin’s front door,
playing with the buttons on my school dress. I must have stood on
that doorstep a thousand times as a child, yet there I was sweating
like a criminal and rehearsing my conversation.

I longed to be a kid again. A pig-tailed girl
in pink shorts and bare feet. I’d just throw open Justin’s front
door and skip into the kitchen like it was my second home. Inhale
the musky smell of Michelle’s incense and help myself to a Sunny
Boy from the freezer. The most pressing issue between Justin and I
would be whose turn it was to be captain on our next Antarctic
voyage.

I stood staring at the glass for a while,
then sucked in my breath and knocked gingerly. Michelle swung open
the door.

“Abby! How are you, darling? It’s so nice to
see you.”

I smiled crookedly. “Is Justin here?”

“He’s upstairs.” Michelle put a hand on my
shoulder and ushered me down the passage.

I chewed my lip. “Is he by himself?”

She flicked on the kettle. “I think so,
darling. I didn’t see anyone else come in.”

I climbed the stairs slowly and tapped on
Justin’s open door. He swung around in his desk chair.

“Abby. Hey.”

I mumbled some kind of greeting.

“What’s up?” he asked. “Is everything
alright?”

I forced a smile. “Everything’s fine. How are
you?”

“Me? I’m fine. How’s all your violin and
music and stuff?”

I glanced around his room. The walls had been
painted pale grey and his blu-tacked posters had been replaced with
a framed surf photo. A glass cabinet stood against one wall, filled
with a stereo and rows of CDs.

“Fine,” I mumbled.

“What’s up?” Justin said again. I glanced at
the textbooks scattered across his desk.

“Well,” I spluttered. “I was just wondering
if you wanted to go to the ball with me. Seeing as we always used
to talk about going together.”

He stuck his pen between his teeth. “I’m
really sorry, Abby. I’m already going with Mia.”

My mouth opened and closed and nothing came
out. “Who?”

Justin took his pen out of his mouth. “Mia,”
he said quietly. “You know, in year twelve.”

“Oh.” Tall, blonde, legs to her armpits Mia.
Excellent.

“I’m sorry,” Justin said. “I didn’t think
you’d want to go with me any more. We haven’t talked or anything in
ages.” We had barely spoken in over a year. He glanced at me
apologetically.

“That’s cool.” I forced a steadiness into my
voice.

“I’m really sorry.” He reached for my arm,
but I pulled away with more force than I intended.

“Don’t worry about it.” I forced a broad
smile. “I’ll see you later.”

Rachel chased me out of the school gates. “So
did you ask him? Where have you been? I was looking for you
everywhere at lunch.”

I kicked a stone and watched it bounce over
the footpath.

Rachel skipped along beside me. She reeked of
vanilla body spray. “Well?”

“Well, I decided I’m not really interested in
this whole ball thing after all.”

Her eyes widened. “You asked him, didn’t you?
And he said no?” She grabbed my arm and shook frantically. “Oh my
God! I can’t believe he said no!”

I pulled my arm free and swung my backpack
onto my other shoulder, forcing her away from me.

“Forget about it,” I said irritably. “I said
I’m not interested. Not because of Justin… I’m just not.”

“How come he won’t go with you?” Rachel
pushed. “That’s so mean!”

I marched across the road. “If you must know,
he’s already going with Mia. But I don’t care, okay, so stop making
such a big deal out of it.”

Rachel wound a strand of hair around her
finger. “So all that stuff about him and Mia
is
true! Katie
told me about it when we were doing our science prac but I thought
she was just bullshitting.”

“There’s no
stuff
,” I snapped.
“They’re just dancing together, that’s all.”

“Well, yeah… But everyone says they’re going
to hook up.” Rachel’s voice began to rise excitedly. “Katie said
that Mia said they’re even going to do it after the ball.”

I felt a sharp pain at the back of my throat.
Rachel kept spewing out gossip.

“She’s real pretty, don’t you think? Blondie-
I guess that’s Justin’s type now, huh?”

I pictured Mia flouncing around the ballroom
with Justin, doing all the things I had missed my chance to do.
Hatred bubbled inside me. Who the hell did Mia think she was?
Justin was supposed to be my date, just like he had been my
Shipwreck buddy, my underwater wrestling partner. My best friend. I
blinked back tears.

“I’ve got an idea,” Rachel said brightly.
“Why don’t you ask Simon?”

“Justin’s best mate? That’s just weird.”

“Seems like the perfect revenge to me.”

“I don’t want to go with Simon. And I don’t
want revenge.”

“Of course you do. Ask Simon. He’ll go with
you for sure.”

I got home from school the next day to find
Nick sprawled on the back veranda swigging from a beer can. His
shirt hung open over a hollow chest and his shorts were covered in
dust. I wished he would go inside so no one from the park could see
him.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I demanded.

He shrugged. “I gave myself the afternoon
off.”

I dropped my school bag. “That’s a great way
to save money.”

“Just don’t, Abby,” he said darkly. “I don’t
need this right now.”

“What happened?”

He lay back on the porch. “Nothing. My mates
are all moving to Cairns, that’s all.” He rubbed his eyes and the
muscles in his arm flexed.

“Why don’t you go with them? I’m sure you
could find a new job there.”

“I can’t. I have to stay on the farm. I got
my reasons.”

“You hate the farm.”

He shrugged. “It’s money, I guess.”

He stayed dozing on the veranda until the sun
disappeared. I joined him again later, handing him a plate of
sausages and a carton of juice.

“Here,” I said. “Sarah made this for
you.”

I sat beside him. He smelled like animals.
Nick tipped the plate upside down so the food slid off into the
dirt. A bull-ant crawled towards it.

“Not hungry,” he said. “But thanks
anyway.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen
Nick eat. His face was thin and pale, his blue eyes like murky
saucers. He took a long swig from the juice carton.

“You can come inside you know,” I said.
“She’s not home. They’ve gone to some school thing with Tim.”

Nick let out a long yawn and rubbed his eyes.
“I like it out here.”

We sat in silence and listened to the
crickets shrieking in the bushes. Nick slid a cigarette out of his
pocket and flicked his lighter. I chewed my thumbnail and listened
to the washing machine clunking in the laundry behind us. I let out
a dramatic sigh.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“The stupid ball. Me and Justin decided years
ago we were going to do it together, but now he’s going with some
skank in year twelve.”

Nick curled his feet over the edge of the
porch step. His big toe poked out of a hole in his sock. “Thought
you don’t talk to Justin any more.”

I didn’t answer. Nick passed me his
cigarette. I puffed into the yellow beam of the porch light. I
didn’t like the stale taste in my mouth, but it was relaxing to
breathe out a steady line of smoke.

“Do you want me to go and take care of them
both?” asked Nick.

“Are you serious?”

“Do you want me to be serious?” He laughed to
himself and pushed his blonde hair into a scrawny ponytail. Took
back his cigarette and yawned again. “You’ll get a partner. You’re
a good catch.”

I wasn’t worried about getting a partner.
Simon had followed me home from school that day and made coughing
noises until I turned around and demanded to know what the hell he
was doing.

“I was just, like, wondering if you, like,
wanted to go to the ball with me and stuff…”

“I’m so over the whole thing,” I told my
brother. “I’m so over everything here.”

Nick nodded.

“I can’t wait to get out,” I continued,
suddenly spirited. “You know this guy that I saw play violin in
Brisbane, well before he came to Australia, he’d been to play in
Europe and Japan. Isn’t that exciting? That’s going to be me you
know.”

When I looked back at Nick, his eyes had
dropped closed. I lifted his cigarette out of his hands and ground
it into the deck.

I went to Cairns with Rachel and her mum on a
painful five hour shopping spree for ball dresses. Rachel tried
hers on again when we got home. I sat cross-legged on her bed,
staring at the sprinkling of rain across the window. Rachel
flounced in wide circles so her skirt swelled around her like an
omelette.

“Are you going to get drunk at the after
party?” she asked.

I poked my finger through a hole in the knee
of my jeans. “I don’t know. Can’t anyone think about anything other
than this stupid ball?”

“Sorry,” snapped Rachel. “But I’m kind of
looking forward to it.” She spun around again, gazing at her
billowing white reflection. She lifted her hair off her shoulders
and held it on top of her head. “Do you think I should wear my hair
up or down?”

I sighed boredly. Rachel dropped her fistful
of hair and turned to face me.

“Come on Abby, would it kill you to be a tiny
bit excited about something other than that violin guy?”

“I’m not excited by the violin guy,” I
snapped. “I’m excited by the violin.”

Rachel snorted. “Whatever.” She sat beside me
on the bed. “We only get to do this once, so you might as well
enjoy it. So you’re not going with Justin, big deal. It’s not like
you don’t have a partner. Go put your dress on, I want to see it. I
might have some jewellery you can borrow.”

“I don’t care about your jewellery. I don’t
care about this whole stupid thing.”

Rachel planted her hands on her hips. “What’s
your problem? If you’re going to just sit there and feel sorry for
yourself all day you can do it at your place.”

I snatched my dress off the back of her
bedroom door. “Fine. I’ve had enough of listening to you crap on
anyway.”

I moped down the footpath. Rain drizzled over
the beach, dampening the hem of my dress that poked out the bottom
of the bag. I tried desperately to push away any thoughts of the
ball, mentally ploughing through my new Beethoven. At the end of
each line were Justin and Mia, dancing together, laughing together,
breaking the promise he and I had made to each other.

A horn cut through my thoughts. Hayley’s car
rolled up to the side of the road. She leant across the passenger
seat and opened the door.

“Want a lift?”

“Thanks.” I climbed into the car, trickles of
warm water sliding down my neck.

“What’s in the bag?” asked Hayley. I tossed
it into the back seat beside Oliver.

“My ball dress,” I mumbled.

“Oh yeah, the good old Acacia Beach deb
balls. We’ve all been there- though we probably shouldn’t have.”
She sighed wistfully and I wondered what she was thinking. Half of
me didn’t dare imagine what Hayley had gotten up to on her deb
night. “Are you excited?” she asked.

I looked sulkily out the window. “No. I’m so
over it. Everyone’s obsessed with the stupid thing.”

She flashed me a sympathetic smile. “It’s
like that, isn’t it. I don’t want to go, but Andrew’s supposed to
be there for some piano thing.”

I pushed my wet hair off my face. “You don’t
want to go? That’s unlike you.”

We pulled up at the traffic lights and rain
drummed against the roof. Hayley glanced in the rearview mirror.
“Oliver, get out of that bag. Abby doesn’t want your dirty fingers
all over her dress.”

I rested my elbow against the window and
watched a swell of water wash over the windscreen. Hayley rubbed
her eyes.