One True Thing (10 page)

‘You want to walk?' I ask Kessie. ‘We'll be quicker the way this thing's moving.'

‘My, my, someone's excited.'

‘Yeah, well, I hardly see you nowadays.'

Kessie colours a little. She reaches for the bars to steady herself as the tram starts up again. The stop pulls into sight.

Jake messaged me to meet outside Pad Thai Dining. He has to pick up his pay before we leave. Kessie was heading to a music shop down the road and said she'd come with me. I was going to object but I'm kind of glad she's here. I might have turned around and wimped out, which I suspect she knew.

We get out and head towards Elizabeth Street, then stop at the next corner.

‘This is me,' she says, but doesn't continue despite the lights changing in her favour. ‘How's your mum?'

‘God, you too? She's fine. She's
always
fine. How about you tell me about you? What's going on with you?' I check my watch; I still have a few minutes.

‘Are you sure your mum's okay?' Kessie persists.

‘Fine.' I frown. ‘Why?'

‘Nothing. Stupid gossip. Bloody Seamus Hale and his lot.' She turns to go and I stop her.

‘Can you tell me –
please
– what's going on with you?' Suddenly I'm in no hurry to see Jake. This is my friend and she's being weird and annoying and is worried about my mum, and I have no idea why.

Kessie searches my face for a long minute. ‘I just …' She takes a deep breath.

‘It's this girl you're seeing, isn't it?'

Kessie half-laughs. ‘That? Yeah. I mean,
no shit, Sherlock
.'

‘How am I going to know if you won't tell me? I'm supposed to read your mind?'

Kessie shakes her head and kisses me on the forehead. ‘You're hopeless. Seriously. Now go find Jake before he stands you up.'

Jake isn't outside the restaurant yet, so I cross the street to swing by Mum's office. On my way into the building, I almost crash into Harry.

He grabs my shoulders to avoid a collision. ‘Hey – what are you doing?' He's half-blocking the doorway, so I have to stop to answer. He's dressed in a suit and tie, which is weirdly formal compared to his usual hipster look.

‘You look almost grown up,' I say.

He offers me a swift catwalk twirl. ‘Not bad, eh? Reckon they'll fall for it?'

‘Yeah, nah, but good try.'

He exhales loudly. ‘I do what I can.'

‘Mum around? Just wanted to wish her luck.'

Harry frowns. ‘You're not coming to the debate?'

‘Mum didn't say? I have, um, plans.' Heat rises to my cheeks.

‘She didn't tell me.'

‘I'll be around later. For photos. Review.' I check my watch. I have five minutes. ‘Is she in?' I ask, making to move past him.

‘She's in a meeting,' he says, shifting just slightly to block me.

I stop. ‘Is everything all right?'

‘Of course.'

‘What about Dad? Is he around?'

Harry tugs at his cuffs, straightens his suit. ‘He's in a meeting too.'

‘Together?'

Harry hesitates, like he suspects he's said the wrong thing. ‘I can give them a message.'

All I wanted to say was that I hoped she'd had a good day. It sounds stupid now and hardly worth repeating. ‘No, it's fine. Tell her I'll see her after, that she'll be great.'

‘Will do.'

‘Thanks.' I wave at him because I don't know what else to do with my hands, and head down the block to Jake's restaurant, wondering if everyone I know is totally losing the plot or whether it's me who's the one going crazy.

Jake is waiting for me when I get there, his face flushed with the cool night air. He smiles, and I melt a little. There's a brief moment when we stand there, awkward and uncertain. I had begun to look forward to this today, and now I'm wondering if I should have come.

Yep. I'm losing it too.

Jake leans in to kiss me on the cheek, but it still manages to speed up my heartbeat. ‘Hey.'

‘Hey.'

We avoid looking at each other for – I count them – six beats, and then he says, ‘Shall we go?'

The gallery is one of those tiny mega-cool places in a cellar that leads into one of the graffiti laneways. We wander through several rooms, each slightly larger than the one before it, Jake's expression seeming to open up with every new image. Near the end, we stop at a wall featuring a single framed photograph that stands as tall as me. The woman's face is captured in monochrome, with a faint blue tinge to it that makes her seem almost sickly up close. I step back to take in the whole image, and the effect changes completely. There's a grace to the way she holds her head. Her expression is frank and unsympathetic and yet there is such enormous pain in her eyes. Such honest, open heartbreak. I can't stop staring at her.

‘Who is she?' I feel compelled to whisper.

Jake shakes his head, his gaze fixed on the image. ‘I don't know. Alice someone, if the title means anything.'

‘She's so …'

‘Beautiful?'

‘No. Well, yes, but it's more than that.'

Jake nods. ‘Yeah, I know.'

I sit down on the low cushioned seat facing the exhibit. Jake sits next to me. His hand is right near mine, our pinkies almost touching. ‘Thanks for inviting me,' I say quietly, focusing on the woman's face.

Jake looks at me. ‘I'm glad you like it.'

I point at the photograph in front of us. ‘This one's my favourite.'

He smiles. ‘I thought it might be.'

We both look at the picture again. Everyone else seems to have moved on; it's just the two of us in the quiet of the gallery and it doesn't feel awkward at all.

And then my stomach growls sharply.

‘Subtle!' Jake laughs out loud.

I blush and laugh at the same time. ‘I guess I'm hungry.'

Jake stands up and takes my hand in his. It feels so natural and right that when we start walking I hold on a little tighter.

Jake and I are sitting opposite each other in a cafe about a block from the studio. It's small and busy, which I don't mind, because it takes the pressure off conversation. It feels easy, like we're friends and we're just hanging out. The debate is playing in one corner of the room – that's why Jake picked it. This way we can watch while we eat.

‘So, it's really about the photographs?' I ask.

‘Politics is kind of hard to avoid in Canberra,' Jake says. ‘Journalism too, when your parents are immersed in it. Feels like everyone around you is.'

‘I know all about that.'

‘Front-row seats, hey?'

‘Yeah, but not the good kind.' I push my empty plate to the side and sip my water. ‘Guess you came to the right
school, then. For the inside story.' I laugh too loudly, hear the echo inside it.

Jake's gaze narrows. ‘That's not why I chose your band. Kessie suggested it.'

‘You knew my name, who my mum is.'

‘Yeah. Honestly, though, that was all.' He places his elbows on the table and shifts forward. ‘If it was all about politics I'd have stayed in Canberra.'

I glance up at the TV. The volume is down low, but we can measure the crowd's reaction by a graph at the bottom of the screen. The worm at the top shows Mum is doing well. The Opposition Leader has landed a couple of blows too.

‘Do you miss your mum?' I try to imagine not living with mine, not seeing her every day, or most days. I know it will happen and that's fine. But to move to a different part of the country? That's pretty drastic.

‘Probably more than she misses me.' He holds his glass in front of him, studies the water swirling inside it, then sets it down. ‘It's like living in a big fishbowl there,' he continues. ‘It's all about politics or Parliament. Everyone knows everyone. The journalists are all mates with the pollies – or sworn enemies. Either way, they're all connected.'

‘Sometimes it feels like that here too. At least, when I'm with Mum.'

‘You've got your music, though.'

‘In a way, it's the only thing I truly own. The only thing that's all mine.' I glance at his camera, sitting there between us like some kind of trophy. ‘You have your photography.'

Jake's face colours, though his expression doesn't change. ‘Yeah,' he says eventually. ‘That photograph of the woman – Alice?' Even as he says her name, his face transforms, like a burden has been lifted just at the memory. ‘The photographer captured something so pure and so simple. But rich, too.' He stops abruptly, those emerald eyes dark and thoughtful. ‘Do you ever wonder if you've made the right choice?'

‘About what?'

‘Everything.' He looks away, studies the tablecloth, his shoulders hunched, but when he turns to face me there's an uneven smile on his face. ‘Just … I don't know. The important things.'

I almost laugh because, well, who doesn't? ‘School stuff? Yeah, all the time. My music? No. It's the only thing that makes sense.' I move the serviette off my lap, fold it, then unfold it. ‘Even when it doesn't, it somehow does.'

‘Now you've lost me.'

I shake my head. ‘I've lost myself a bit too.' I search the ceiling, the floor, his face, wondering how to put this thing that seems so simple in my head into words. ‘I mean that even when I have to do things I don't want to do, or it feels hard or too difficult, it's still …
true
. Still me.

‘I've got this new song that just won't work. It's driving me crazy. It almost hurts to care about it so much, to need to fix it the way I do.' I look away, the colour rising to my cheeks. ‘Sometimes it seems easier to just give up. You know? To stop and do something else.' I lean closer, realising the truth of this for the first time. ‘Except I won't. Or can't, maybe. It's who I am, the bit that matters most.' I smile slowly. ‘Sometimes it's enough. Sometimes it's all that matters.'

‘You're lucky.'

‘I guess I am. Aren't you? Your photographs are proof you should be doing this. It's art,' I say, a little too earnestly. ‘I sound like a tool, don't I? But it's so beautiful and real. You're meant to do it. You feel that, don't you?'