The Life and Times of Gracie Faltrain (7 page)

fatal
adjective
: causing death or disaster,
as in ‘a fatal blow to the head'

My life is starting to come undone. Slow, like the zip on your jeans that gradually works its way down to show your pink Bonds hipsters to the world. You don't even notice the pink as you're walking around during the day, but then you find yourself in the toilet thinking, I can't remember having to pull my zip down. You realise with horror that you didn't have to pull it down because it was undone all along.

I don't know if everyone is talking about me because things have started to go badly or things have started to go badly because people are talking about me. In the end, what does it matter?

I walk out of the toilets today with my dress tucked into my undies. It's the end of the washing week and I had to wear the ones Grandma gave me for Christmas. No one should have to see those. A family of five could go camping in them.

I walk all the way down the hall, no idea that Annabelle and Nick are behind me, checking out the real Gracie Faltrain. I
think I am actually humming. That is, until Alyce pulls me into a classroom, shuts the door and points at my skirt. Well, that explains the sudden breeze. There's just no dignity in floral underwear.

‘Thanks,' I say, but my face is a sheet of ice and I leave without smiling. I don't need her sympathy. ‘That was harsh, Faltrain.' Jane's voice is in my head but I ignore her. I walk back into the corridor fully clothed and feeling naked. I am an outcast. No, it's worse than that. I am an outcast with bad underwear.

A second before Alyce ended my walk of shame I saw Nick and Annabelle. Laughing and holding hands. I wanted to yell out at them, ‘You're not meant for each other.' I mean, who is organising all this? Why give me all those signs only to snatch Nick away at the last minute? Mum and Dad were wrong. There's no such thing as fate. Fatal yes. Fate no.

 

Did you
see
those undies?

 

You have to admit, she has a
great
body.

 

Geez, Faltrain, what were you thinking, wearing those things?

 

You never see her dad. He's left town, I bet. Ask Nick; he wasn't there when they went on their ‘date'.

 

Shut up, Annabelle. Just shut your mouth about things you don't understand.

 

I laugh when Annabelle tells the story in class, even though I wish everyone would just shut up and leave Gracie alone. I laugh even though it's not funny at all.

 

I went looking for Faltrain after school today. I'd seen her face when she heard Annabelle talking about her dad. She looked like she'd lost everything.

I found her at the nursery, watering the plants. All I did was talk to her about soccer and she squirts me with the hose, left me completely soaked.

Bloody girls.

 

‘I told you before, Martin, I'm finished with soccer.'

‘Just like that? The team's going to the Championships and you're not coming?'

‘Yep.'

‘Faltrain, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Play like you used to and everything will be all right.'

‘I'm not feeling sorry for myself.'

‘Right. Giving up soccer, waiting around for that idiot Johnson to talk to you again, that's not feeling sorry for yourself? He doesn't like you anymore, Faltrain. Get over it.'

‘What would you know about anything, Martin? Just leave me alone.'

What would Martin know about losing the one good thing you have? I want to go to New South Wales with them more than anything. I keep thinking about them coming back with the trophy. It has everyone's names engraved on it. Except mine.

Yesterday at assembly Coach introduced the Championship team to the school. One by one he called their names out. Everyone clapped. I should have been up there.

Without Jane, without soccer, every second at school is an hour. Everything is broken. Like a bike after a run-in with a semitrailer. What would Martin know about any of that? What would anyone know?

‘I know a lot, Faltrain,' he says. And that's when I squirt him with the hose. Just so he'll
shut up
.

 

Faltrain, forget Nick. What about Martin?

 

There's no way, Jane, I text back. Clearly the high altitude on the flight over has done something to her brain.

 

I remember once one of the guys asked what sort of a girl would play soccer on a boys' team. She just kicked him one in his shins with her boot. I laughed my head off all the way home at the look of surprise on his face. I said to myself, now there's a girl you don't want to mess with.

What does she see in Johnson? I heard him last week badmouthing her to his mates. I thought, if he says one more thing, I'll crack his head against the wall.

What would I know? More than you think, Faltrain. I know that getting on with it is more than just something you say. It takes guts. It takes going to sleep at night even though you know you might dream. It takes waking up, even though you know that for a second you'll forget that she's gone and for the rest of the day you'll have to remember all over again.

 

Gracie looks like a ghost at the nursery tonight. I can't stand to watch her. Some things tell you who you are. They can't be taken away. It's not that simple. You have to cut them out if you're going to leave them behind. That's what she's doing with soccer. What will happen when she finds out about her dad?

I could explain to Gracie how to fix everything but that won't help. She's got to work it out for herself. Instead, I talk to her about herbs that comfort and heal. I cut lavender for her to smell. I tell her that if we plant just this small piece, it will grow. I let my words spin out a trail behind me, a coat for her to wear. I hope that she is standing close enough to be covered.

finale
noun
: the
last
movement of a
piece of music

Helen calls me at the motel tonight. Her voice is quick and businesslike. ‘Do you want to make this separation permanent?' she asks, as though the answer can only be yes or no.

The truth is somewhere in the middle, though, between Gracie's smile and Helen's eyes, and another life I could have lived. I hate travelling. I want my own bookshop, but we've got the nursery and two businesses would be crazy.

‘I don't know what I want,' I say, but as I say it I don't see the coffee stains on the wall in front of me anymore. I don't see the old chair in the corner of the motel room, the foam sticking out through faded fabric. I see Gracie and Helen instead.

When did I forget their faces?

She hangs up before I can say how much I miss them. I feel like I'm watching a play; it's written about me but I've got no control. The curtain has fallen; the audience is applauding. It's too early though. They're clapping but it's only halfway through the second act.

 

The day I gave birth to Gracie I looked at him holding her and I thought, this is it. I am happy. If all I have forever is Bill and Gracie then I don't need money. I don't need things. I just need them.

Who are Gracie and I without him?

outcast
noun
: a person who is rejected

Mum tells me that bad things come in threes. She says this to me like it's a good thing. ‘On my wedding day the car broke down, my bridesmaid got a blood nose and I ripped my dress.'

‘Get to the part that makes me feel better, Mum.'

‘Well, the day went off quite well after that. There are only a certain number of things that can go wrong.'

Mum was right when she said that bad things come in threes. She just forgot to mention that threes can happen more than once.

I flush the toilet at school today and the water just keeps rising. There are some of us out there who will admit to looking into the toilet bowl when they flush and some who won't. As Jane says, ‘Everyone has to turn around to push the button and it's human nature to look down.' Anyway, I push the button and the level rises a bit. It keeps going; I'm transfixed as it rises and floods the rest of the toilets.

I run into the hallway, straight into Martin.

‘MARTIN!' I grab his jumper and yell with the desperation of a drowning woman. ‘The toilet is flooding!'

If I'd had any sense of self-preservation I would have said it quietly, not with the same level of panic as the captain of the
Titanic
. There's a little crowd gathering around me. Someone looks down and says, ‘Euhh, your shoes are wet.'

Yep. They're wet to the power of three. And counting.

I wear wet shoes all day. I try not to think about how disgusting the bowl of that toilet looked. But I know. I always look down.

 

Her shoes were disgusting. Could you smell them? I thought I was going to be sick.

 

Her socks were wet too. She wore them
all
day.

 

Gracie Faltrain plays sport all the time. She never wears a dress. You know what I think?

 

She's
what
? I knew it. I just
knew
it.

 

‘Who cares? Faltrain's a mate, a good one too. How come you hate her so much, Annabelle?'

‘She doesn't like me either, Martin. She's not as good as you think.'

‘Just leave her alone, yeah?'

‘I'll leave her alone when she leaves
me
alone. Tell her that.'

I imagine trying to tell Faltrain anything. I decide to just keep my mouth shut.

 

She told everyone I stunk like the
toilet
, I text Jane.
My life is over
.

 

Did you?

 

Well, yes. But I don't think that's the point, Jane.

 

Don't listen to them, Faltrain. Just don't bloody listen to any of them.

only have eyes for
phrase
: to desire
nothing else but;

open the eyes of
phrase
: to make
someone aware of the truth

Have you ever tried really hard to avoid someone? All of a sudden you start running into them everywhere. It's like they've found some way to clone themselves. Either that, or when you like someone, everyone starts to look like them. Even the fifty-year-old man in the milk bar on the corner looks like Nick in the right light. Either I'm living in a world where there are five hundred Nicks, or five hundred imagined Nicks. And either way, I've seen every one of him.

Mum sent me to Safeway to buy some garbage bags for the nursery and Nick was in aisle three looking at the cookware. Now unless he suddenly got the urge to steam some vegies at four in the afternoon, I'm putting that one down to my imagination. And unless Nick's hiding some
big
secrets, I'm pretty sure that last week's sighting in the shopping centre toilets was a false alarm too.

Inside the coffee shop in the city today is the real thing, though. And I have nowhere to run. We're both standing at the
counter, waiting to pay. My milkshake is starting to circle in my stomach, swirling up to my throat. Please, just don't let me vomit on him, I think.

It seems stupid not to say anything.

‘Nick, hi.'

‘Gracie, I wasn't sure if it was you.'

You've known me for two years. I'm standing two feet away. I can see how you might be confused.

‘What's up?' he asks.

What's up? Let's see, my social life is over, everyone in school is talking about me, and the person with her mouth open the widest is
your
new girlfriend.

‘Nothing much,' I answer.

Why would you watch me for months, and then dump me after one date? Okay, I'll admit, one very bad date, but still, just one date?

I let him pay for his drink first and then I wave as he walks out of the shop. I actually wave. Faltrain – I can hear Jane now – you never,
never
, wave at them.

The thing is, as I watch Nick shift from one foot to the next, looking everywhere but at me, there is a small part of me that doesn't care anymore. A very small part, because he still has that sexy white t-shirt on and his hair still falls across his face, but there is definitely something missing.

I walk all the way home trying to work it out. And then it hits me. His eyes. All that time at the shop, he'd never once showed me his eyes.

 

I've seen her everywhere. I
mean
everywhere. In the supermarket. In the coffee shop. I even walked into the girls' toilet by mistake at the shopping centre and she was
there
. She seems different now. Something's gone. I'm not interested anymore. I wish she'd just leave me alone.