Zac and Mia

  ‘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.

  Hey Zac, say thanks to yr mum for me. Did u tell her it was my birthday? Very sweet, both of u. Any planting tips??:-) Mia

  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.

  Zac, Im sorry I ignored u. I bottomed out. I was sad. Im getting better, but each time u ignore me, it bottoms me out again. Do u hate me? Have I lost u? I didnt mean to lose u. Dont be lost. Im sorry. Dont hate me.

  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.

  I dont hate u Mia. Dont be sad. Im sorry, been busy.

  I have news …

  34

  Mia

  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.

  Hi Mia

  Howdy from Los Angeles, the home of Baywatch, fake tan, and guys on rollerblades. Dad and Evan are freaking out.

  FYI, year 12’s more hectic the second time. Plus pruning needed doing, Anton came back, and Bec had baby Stu. Somehow, I had to lock in my Make-A-Wish thing, so the day after mocks I was on a plane for the US—LA, New York, then Disneyland. The whole fam’s come along for the ride.

  Yesterday we did a bus tour of famous people’s fences. The driver spotted someone called Jane Fonda walking a dog. Evan swears he saw Arnie Schwarzenegger.

  My phone doesn’t have roaming but I’ll send another postcard soon.

  Hope you’re good,

  Zac

  PS Can you do us a favour? The Websters entered Sheba in the Perth Show and Bec wants a pic. Judging is the first Sunday, 2pm. I’ll pay you back the entry fee … or I’ll take it off your iced coffee bill;-)

  PPS Our neighbour Miriam’s going for a bake-off record—her fruit cake’s won 10 years straight (using our citrus olive oil, of course).

  PPPS Have I mentioned Freddo showbags are my fave …?

  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.

  35

  Mia

  Six days later an envelope arrives from America. Inside are two things: a postcard from Zac and a recipe in Wendy’s looping letters.

  Howdy Mia

  We’re in San Fran, home of the Chinese fortune cookie, jeans, Irish coffee and more weirdos than anywhere else. Celebrity spot #3: Robin Williams eating a bagel. True! How lucky’s that?

  How was Sheba? Did Miriam scoop the cake prizes? Mum’s writing out the recipe if you promise to ‘guard it with your life’!! Lucky you, ha ha.

  Disneyland tomorrow. Any requests for souvenirs? Or should I guess your favourite character … Snow White? Dad has this thing about imitating Mickey Mouse: high pants, big gut, squeaky voice. Evan’s got a lifelong crush on Pocahontas which he better keep under control.

  Mum’s itching for her 2pm Starbucks.

  Wish me luck

  Zac

  Imagining Zac in San Francisco isn’t easy. There’ll be no crowing roosters to wake him. No heavy gumboots or long pink gloves.

  I reread the letter on the bus to the amputee clinic, where I’ll be getting my leg adjusted. I read it again, counting the references to ‘luck’. It’s typical of him to use the word so casually.

  And he’s not the only one. During chemo, doctors would use it around my mum—they knew better than to try it on me. Lucky we’ve caught it at this stage. Lucky it’s isolated. And then, after surgery, I’d overhear nurses in the corridor. She doesn’t realise how lucky she is.

  In the clinic waiting room, there’s a girl a bit younger than me. Her bandaged stump is mid-thigh. I catch her looking at mine with envy. Below knee, I see her thinking jealously. Lucky. She wears a wig and I remember how mine irritated me.

  I have to look away. Does she really think I’m lucky?

  It was bad luck that gave me cancer in the first place, wasn’t it? Bad luck put me through hell. So how can it suddenly be good luck to survive with this much intact? Am I lucky to walk without much of a sway?

  It’s impossible, this luck business. I wish it would just piss off and let me make my own mistakes. I want control back over my life.

  I want to bake a fruit cake.

  And then? I want to do something else, like get a job or travel. I can’t afford to fly to America, but I can go to towns I’ve never been, where people don’t know me. I want to look at a place with fresh eyes, the way Zac does.

  At home, I lie in the small pool in the courtyard and admire the olive tree. When Zac’s back, I’ll invite him to Perth and the two of us can squeeze in here together. We can eat fruit cake and drink iced coffees, and he can tell me all about Disneyland.

  ‘Ariel,’ I say aloud, remembering my favourite character. As a girl, I was obsessed with Ariel from The Little Mermaid, with her beautiful red hair and shimmering tail.

  I still have the DVD, so I go inside to play it. I know each song by heart.

  But the movie’s not the same as it used to be. Ten years ago, I thought Ariel was incredibly romantic, sacrificing her tail for two legs to be with a human she loved. I’d forgotten the fact that the witch stole her voice, and how she suffered in silence to walk.

  What a crappy swap, I think. Keep
the tail, I’d tell Ariel now.

  Keep the tail and sing.

  Hey there Mia

  Start spreading the neeewws …

  Why do they call NYC the Big Apple? New Yorkers eat nothing but pretzels, kebabs and black ‘cawfee’. Mum’s discovered so-called ‘Fat-Free Chocolate Brownies’ and she’s testing the claim.

  I keep expecting Jerry and Elaine to step out of a diner. We’re doing a Seinfeld tour tomorrow, so anything’s possible. Mum even bought me a Seinfeld trivia game, which is so naff it’s hilarious. You better get cramming cos when I’m back, I’m going to kick your butt. (I bags George.)

  Gotta go.

  Zac

  PS I’ve also heard a rumour Emma Watson’s in town … just sayin.

  Zac’s letters are falling into a comforting pattern. I love the commentary and the random challenge he gives me each time. I know he’s just trying to keep me busy. It’s working.

  Whenever the phone rings, I still hope it’s him. Maybe it’s 3 a.m. and he’s lonely in the city that never sleeps.

  This morning, Mum beats me to the landline. She answers a few questions, confused, then covers the mouth piece.

  ‘It’s someone from the amputee clinic. They want you to come in.’

  ‘Why?’ I was there only two weeks ago for an adjustment.

  ‘A fitting, they say. For your new leg.’

  ‘I’ve got it,’ I remind her, tapping the moulded fibreglass. This one should last me a few years. ‘It was probably meant for the other girl,’ I say, remembering the way she looked at me.

  Mum hangs up the phone. ‘Strange. They said it was a carbon-fibre one. For you.’

  It’s in the DVD store that I notice it. A strange feeling in my chest.

  At first it reminds me of the butterflies that I used to experience on the Ferris wheel. But I’m standing on solid ground so there’s no reason for it.

  I scan the TV series lined alphabetically along the shelves. Many of them are set in New York. I flip them over, browsing the front and back covers. New York streets have become familiar to me through sitcoms and dramas like these—the yellow cabs, the wide sidewalks, the narrow apartment buildings. Even the New York City skyline is recognisable.