Saving Francesca (19 page)

Tara rings the bell with an exaggerated middle finger and prepares to get off the bus.

Siobhan looks at Tara. “If you were in her shoes and Will Trombal had kissed you twice and not committed, what would you do?” she asks.

“I’m not into relationship advice,” Tara explains.

“Based on the fact that she’s never had one,” Thomas scoffs.

“Neither have you, except for the one with your hand.”

I’m impressed. So is Siobhan.

“That was a great call, Tara,” Siobhan says.

Tara is pleased with herself and gets off the bus.

People start moving down the bus and we’re packed in more than ever.

“Oh my God,” I say, pushing Thomas out of the way. “It’s the tuba guy.”

“The what?”

“This guy that Justine likes. He’s in the same youth orchestra as her, but she’s never spoken to him. He looks at her at the bus stop every morning, but there’s no way that he’ll ever know her name because she’s so tongue-tied around him.”

“Those relationships go nowhere,” Thomas says. “Six years down the track you’re still referring to her as the ‘chick with the ponytail at the bus stop.’ Tell her to stay away from it. It’ll only end in heart-break.”

The tuba guy reaches us. Up close, he’s probably less attractive than from a distance, but there’s a lovely honesty to his face.

“Justine?” Thomas calls out to where she has just managed to escape being wedged against the door. She looks over at us, smiling, and the moment the smile disappears and is replaced by a stricken stunned-mullet look, I know she’s seen Tuba Guy.

“There’s room over here,” he says, pushing Tuba Guy. “Oh, sorry, mate.” The apology is so earnest that I actually believe for a moment that he did it accidentally.

“No worries,” Tuba Guy says, making room.

Justine reaches us, her face flaming red.

“You looked squashed over there,
Justine,
” Thomas says.

She doesn’t answer him. Thomas isn’t trustworthy material. He is uncomfortably nose to nose with Tuba Guy.

“Is that a Sydney Boys uniform?” he asks.

Tuba Guy nods slowly, trying to act cool.

“Do you know Chris Hudson in Year Eleven?”

“He’s in my biology class.”

“Tell him Thomas Mackee said to say hi. And
Justine
and Francesca,” he says, pointing to us.

“And Jimmy,” Jimmy says, shaking his hand. “What exactly is a tuba made out of . . . sorry, what did you say your name was?”

“Francois.”

“Francois? French, I presume. Have you ever watched
Queen
Margot? There’s this fantastic St. Bartholomew Day’s massacre scene.”

Justine is pinching me on the hip and I try hard not to flinch.

“Jimmy?” I warn.

Then it’s their stop and Tuba Guy says the magical words.

“After you, Justine.”

Jimmy puts a hand to his heart and feigns an “isn’t this romantic” look. Thomas is making kissing sounds, and I can’t believe I’m stuck with them both.

“You’re not coming home with me, Jimmy.”

At home, Jimmy has a polite thing happening with my mother. She sits in the sunroom and he’s talking tea and fantasy fiction with her.

“I gave up caffeine when it started making me jittery,” he explains to her. “I’m a bit of an expert, Mia. My nan used to swear by chamomile and it helped her heaps.”

Jimmy never asks questions about Mia. Why she’s in her nightgown every time he comes over. Why she looks so thin and tired. He isn’t even curious. Just matter-of-fact and comfortable. Sometimes he has this yearning look on his face when he’s speaking to her, like a little boy.

“What can you recommend for the fantasy booklist?” she asks. She’s determined to hold on to the conferences, but the reading is hard work. Lately, I’ve taken to typing her notes out for her. She has a laptop from the university, and whatever she says I type. Then I take it to school and Tara reads it over, giving me suggestions. Siobhan, funnily enough, is the grammar queen and works on the style.

Luca sits on the arm of her chair and shows her his art portfolio.

“Eddings, obviously, and Irvine. Heard of him?” Jimmy asks. “And of course the
Obernewtyn
stuff.”

Mia looks up from the portfolio as I put some toast in front of her.

“Are you a fantasy reader, Rob?” Jimmy asks my dad, who’s been standing at the door, watching.

“I don’t have much time to read,
Jim
.”

I can see my mum’s mouth twitching and it gives me a bit of hope. My father always seems a bit tense when Jimmy is around. I don’t know whether it’s because Jimmy’s a guy or because Jimmy gets more of a reaction out of my mum than anyone else, but his coldness makes me feel on edge.

“I’d read fantasy if they had simple names like Jane and Bob from Wagga,” I say. “Why does it have to be Tehrana and Bihaad from the World of Sceehina?”

Jimmy looks at my mother and rolls his eyes. “No wonder they call her a bimbo behind her back.”

And my mum laughs.

And because of that, Mark Viduka, the soccer player, stops being my brother’s hero, and Luca and Pinocchio run after Jimmy like he’s their idol.

“Don’t you ever wonder why she’s always in her nightgown?” I ask Jimmy as I’m walking him up to the bus stop. He looks at me. Not like Will looks at me or the way Thomas perves. He just looks, and I don’t know why, but I get tears in my eyes.

“It just means she’s not going anywhere. What’s wrong with that?” he says with a shrug.

“Did your mum go somewhere?” I ask.

“Mine? She’s . . . just a loser, you know.”

I’ve never known someone with a loser mum.

“Does she live with you?” I ask.

“I’m with my grandpop these days.”

“Do you miss—”

“No.”

He shrugs again, as if he doesn’t give a shit.

I just stare at him. I want to ask him a thousand questions, but I can tell he doesn’t want to be asked.

“We make weird friends,” I say instead.

“I’ve never been into the f-word with people.”

“I’m privileged, then? Why me?”

He thinks for a moment and then shrugs again.

“You’re the realest person I’ve ever known.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“It’s fucking awful. There’s not much room for bullshit, and you know how I thrive on it.”

We laugh for a moment and begin walking again.

“You girls are weird in a way. I would never have spoken to Trombal or Mackee or even Shaheen, whatever his name is. They would never have spoken to me. Everyone used to be so different to each other, but with you girls here, everyone kind of just hangs out.”

“Maybe it’s just Year Eleven or being somewhere new. I was the same with Justine and the girls.”

We sit at the bus stop for a while, just talking.

“I don’t miss her,” he says, thinking about my earlier question about his mum. “But I miss . . . I don’t know. Being held, you know?”

He rolls his eyes, but there’s a blush thing happening on his face.

“Do you want to hear something that will cheer you up?” he asks.

I shrug.

“Are you ready?”

I nod.

“I played Captain von Trapp in Year Four.”

“You did not.”

“Yeah, I did.”

The bus comes toward us, and as we stand up he breaks out into “Edelweiss” and he sings it loudly and dramatically, his voice wavering with mock emotion.

And I hug him, holding him tight. At first I think I’m doing it for him, but then I don’t want to let go, so he does the letting go.

He gets on, singing to the bus driver, and the doors shut and I can see him walking down the aisle serenading various people, who look on, bemused. He sits in the back row and opens the window.

“By the way, I just remembered what Trombal told me that was so important.”

The bus pulls away and I’m jogging beside it.

“He split up with his girlfriend,” he yells out.

He breaks out into song again and I stand there, hearing it all the way up the road. And then I bolt, straight home, my heart singing. Will Trombal has no longer got a girlfriend. I dance around the kids skating on their grind pole and race straight up to the house and I call Justine. Because we have men in our lives and there’s much to talk about.

chapter 26

MEMORY IS A
funny thing. It tricks you into believing that you’ve forgotten important moments, and then when you’re racking your brain for a bit of information that might make sense of something else, it taps you on the head and says, “Remember when you told me to put that memory in the green rubbish bin? Well, I didn’t, I put it in the black recycling tub, and it’s coming your way again.”

Today I’m in the music room, waiting for Justine, watching her play a piece for her music teacher. The tune isn’t important, although I recognize it as one of the classical pieces from an advertisement, but it’s watching her that fascinates me. Her fingers are on keys and buttons, at the same time knowing exactly when to squeeze the accordion in and out, and for a moment I think she’s making it up, that all she’s doing is putting her fingers anywhere and yanking it back and forth, but then all of a sudden it works and it blows my mind. Her eyes are closed and there’s a look of absolute bliss on her face. When have I ever felt that peace?

It was the first week of Year Ten. Restless with my friends gossiping about the guys on the 8:00 a.m. 438 bus, I was walking past the drama room, where they were having tryouts for the Year Ten musical,
Les Miserables
. I stood at the door and watched as five musicians played an overture, and I remember Justine Kalinsky, her eyes closed, that look of bliss on her face, those fingers flying over the accordion keys.

When Mia came to pick me up from school that afternoon, there was something different in the air. It was two months after her father had died, and I remember how beautiful she looked that day. Not that I wasn’t used to her looking beautiful, but Nonno dying hit us hard for a while and I hadn’t seen her smile for ages.

It was like some fantastic aura was surrounding both of us. “So give me a rundown,” she said as I fastened my seat belt.

That’s what she always said, and I usually shrugged because I had nothing new to tell her. But that day I turned in my seat to face her as she drove through the suburbs, and I took a breath.

“I’m going to tell you something, but I don’t want you to get excited,” I said.

“I can’t promise lack of excitement, Frankie. You know that.”

“Okay, the school’s going to do
Les Miserables
and I’ve decided to go for the part of Eponine.”

She nodded approvingly. “Interesting.”

I was crushed. I stared at her, hardly believing her reaction.

“Aren’t you excited?” I asked her. “You’ve been nagging me for years to get involved in a musical.”

We stopped at the lights and she looked at me, laughing. “You told me not to get excited!”

“As if I mean it! You’ve ruined my moment.”

“I’m not excited, I’m ecstatic,” she said, pinching my cheek.

“It’s not as if I don’t know all the songs by heart,” I explained, getting the information out of my bag.

“Eponine is a big role.”

“You don’t think I can do it?”

“I’m petrified that you can and I’m going to be in the audience blubbering.”

I grinned, determined and so sure of myself.

“You know how Nonno used to sing those folk songs at all the parties? Well, it’s like he invaded my body. Do you know what I mean? Maybe this is his way of saying goodbye,” I said.

She looked at me for a moment, and there were tears in her eyes, and she nodded and then laughed.

“I know exactly what you mean.”

I looked at her knowingly. “So what’s your news?”

“What makes you think I have news?”

“I don’t know. You seem different. You have a glow.”

“What would you think if I told you that I’m not going to take the UTS job just yet?”

“How come?”

“I think I want to stay home for a while.”

I was a bit shocked. “Really! Since when?”

“Since I don’t see enough of you guys, and when I do I’m marking or tutoring.”

“As long as you don’t drive Daddy and us crazy.”

She laughed. I don’t know why, but I joined in, and we sang songs from
Les Mis,
dramatically, at the top of our voices, all the way home. The next day at school I told Michaela and the girls about the musical.

They did this thing where they looked at each other and their eyes did a bit of a roll.

“What?” I asked.

“The musical?”

“Yeah?”

“It’ll take up your afternoons,” they said. “What about our plans to play basketball at the Police Boys’ Club with the Burwood boys?”

“Maybe we can do that next term.”

“That’s a bit selfish, Francis. Postponing something we’ve planned with them just because of one person.”

“We desperately need you,” Laura said. “You’re our tallest player.”

“I’ll work around it,” I promised.

“Anyway, girls in the choir are going to go for the musical. They’ve got fantastic voices.”

“Mine’s not that bad, you know.”

I could see them looking over my head again, but I don’t know what look they were exchanging.