She’s right and I want to shout for joy. Before I know it, Michael plops down next to me as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. My heart is hammering away so fast that I’m worried he’s going to hear. But as the movie unfolds, I relax. We end up sharing popcorn, and when he gets up to get himself a drink he brings back one for me too.
It’s night-time when we make it to the end of the three movies. Surprisingly, people generally remain quiet as we watch. We take breaks in between, manage to stretch our bodies. Some of the hardcore fans get up and recite lines during dramatic scenes, which makes us all laugh. Tom throws a plastic spider on Paula in the spider scene towards the end of the third film and she screams, sending us into hysterics.
For the first time since the beginning of the year I feel I’ve found a new corner in the world that I can also call home.
*
I’m waiting in front of the house for Mum to pick me up. I’m one of the last to leave. She called to say she’s five minutes away. Michael comes outside and leans against the rails of the wraparound verandah to face me.
‘So what’s so special about Ryan Gosling?’ he jokes.
‘He’s not just special. He’s perfect.’
‘Oh, well, if you say so.’ He watches me, a playful look in his eyes.
‘You do realise you’re questioning Gosling’s looks while dressed as a wizard, don’t you?’
‘I bet Gosling couldn’t pull off Gandalf the way I can.’
‘You started okay. But once you took your beard off to eat, you kind of just looked like a badly dressed, sexually confused busker.’
He points to his robe. ‘This could be the next big look.’
We laugh.
‘So, did you have fun?’ I ask.
He stretches his arms up overhead. ‘Yep. It was great! I feel like I need a run though after sitting down all day. I’ll probably go for a jog when I get home. Do you want to have a coffee this Saturday?’
‘Huh?’
‘Yeah, sorry, that came out quicker than I planned.’ He looks at me sheepishly.
‘You think?’
‘So how about it? To celebrate The XX album drop. Have you pre-ordered?’
‘Obviously. You?’
‘Obviously.’
I drum my fingers against the front porch rail. ‘Coffee where?’
‘Wherever you want.’
I think for a moment. It’s surreal. Michael is asking me for a coffee and I’m about to say –
‘Okay,’ I blurt out.
I cringe wondering if I’ve come across as too keen.
But he smiles. ‘So, do you want to suggest a place?’
‘The library.’
‘You know, one day parents will realise that most books are online and it will be RIP to the library excuse.’
‘Hopefully not while I’m a teenager.’
We agree to meet at the Chatswood food court at one and he asks me for my number.
I give it to him, and he gives me his. He smiles again. I smile back. There’s a lot of smiling going on.
Who would ever have thought: Michael Blainey is in my contacts list now.
Michael
I try not to get too excited, to read too much into Mina saying yes, but who am I kidding? I go home buzzing. I feel slightly tragic asking her out the way I did. Luckily she said yes so maybe the Gandalf costume saved me.
The next night Mum, Dad, Nathan and I are in front of the TV watching one of those reality talent shows I can never keep up with but have to pretend to enjoy for Nathan’s sake as he is fascinated by them. I’m finishing off a sketch for an Art assignment, Dad’s multitasking, watching and working on his laptop, and Mum’s putting leaflets in envelopes for the next Jordan Springs mailbox drop-off.
Nathan takes the competition seriously and is on the edge of his seat as one of the judges lets rip into one of the performers. I get up to grab a snack.
When I return, Mum’s flipping through the pages of my notepad.
‘You’re so talented, Michael,’ she says.
‘What’s that?’ my dad says, looking up from the laptop screen.
‘Michael’s sketches. They’re lovely. Here, look at this one. It’s of Nathan at the beach.’ She holds it up and Dad takes it from her.
‘The effect of your shading and outlining is really impressive, Michael,’ he says as he studies the picture, nodding with approval. He goes to turn the page. ‘Can I have a look?’
‘Sure,’ I nod.
He turns the pages slowly, attentively. ‘What’s this one of?’ he asks, holding up the book to show me.
‘A group of men out in Auburn.’
‘Auburn?’
‘Yeah. I went out there in the holidays.’
Dad looks surprised but just shrugs, inspecting the picture more closely. ‘Good, strong lines here. Are they using the traffic bollards as seats?’ he asks, amused.
‘Yeah.’
He lets out a faint laugh.
‘Who are the men?’ Mum asks, peering at the picture.
‘Refugees from Sudan.’
‘There’s something so wretched about them,’ Dad says. ‘Sad and pathetic and unfortunate. It’s not their fault really.’
I look at him in surprise. ‘Do you really mean that?’
‘I mean the whole refugee situation is the government’s fault. They bring them in here when they shouldn’t and then they squeeze them all into one suburb, create these ethnic enclaves and look at the result: these men probably never mix with Australians, they seek out the company of people from their own country only, and they never assimilate.
‘I saw one of them working as a trolley boy at Coles the other day,’ he says. ‘I wanted to be friendly. I said g’day, asked him how he was. He didn’t even return my smile.’
‘Maybe his English wasn’t so good,’ I suggest.
‘Hmm, maybe,’ Dad says. ‘That’s kind of the point though, isn’t it?’
Mina
Coffee with Michael.
Outside of school.
On the weekend.
Not because of an assignment.
Voluntarily.
I’m just going to put it out there once and for all. This will be my first date.
Except is it a date?
And even before I waste brain cells contemplating that one, I have to think of the minor matter of my parents’ dying from self-immolation if they discover me alone with a guy on something that maybe isn’t a date but looks like a date. And even if, for argument’s sake, I manage to see Michael behind their back – something I can manage easily enough based on Maha’s expert advice given she’s positively perfected the I’m going to the library/study group/charity raffle excuse – how can I ignore the fact that Michael’s family resents people like me?
This is what’s going through my brain as I go for a walk around the block on Sunday morning. As I’m walking, thinking myself into a frenzy, it hits me that I’m being a complete moron.
It’s two people meeting for coffee.
He hasn’t actually asked me out.
Do people actually get asked out officially or do you just go with the flow?
Can you actually die of a brain aneurysm through overanalysing whether your date is in fact a date?
*
Baba comes home from the restaurant in a good mood tonight.
‘Adnan and Mustafa are excellent,’ he says, grinning at Mum and me as we sit down for dinner. ‘I put them on to Ehssan –’
‘Ehssan who runs the money-exchange shop?’ Mum asks.
‘Yes. He knows a guy who’s good friends with Saaleh – you know, he has the mixed goods shop on Alan Street – and he’s the one to go to if you want to find share accommodation. So he’s helping them until they can stand on their own two feet and
find their own place.’
‘That’s great,’ Mum says. Then, her tone stoic and quiet, she says: ‘So the after-school care job hunting is officially over. I applied to all the local schools. A lot of them are after casual workers so it would suit me before the baby arrives. But nothing. Don’t say I didn’t try. So I am embracing being a stay-at-home mum before the baby is due, and I’ve joined that women’s gym in the mall.’
‘That’s great,’ I say with affected cheeriness. Having seen her in action at the school she worked at in Auburn, I try to hide my disappointment for her.
I see a flicker of sadness in Baba’s eyes. He seems to be weighing up how to respond but he’s saved when Mum speaks up first.
‘I met two lovely women at the gym, too. We’re going to have coffee this week.’
This makes Baba smile. ‘New friends? That’s really good to hear.’
‘And I tried out the yoga class.’
Baba suddenly looks concerned but Mum interrupts him before he can say anything.
‘Don’t fuss, Farshad,’ she says. ‘It’s the best thing for pregnant women. Wait until you see me. Nine months pregnant and doing a handstand.’
‘You’re joking?’
Mum and I laugh.
Baba shakes his head. ‘God help me if we have a girl. I’m already outnumbered.’
‘Girl, boy, they’ll always take my side anyway,’ Mum teases.
‘So who’d you meet at the gym?’ I say.
‘A woman called Emily. Would you believe she lives here too? In the block closer to the park. She used to work in IT but had twins so she’s home now. Poor thing. She put on so much weight, so she’s trying to lose it. I told her to eat nothing but chicken for three months. And I met a Muslim lady too. Rojin. She’s Saudi, here on a working visa for two years. She’s a gynaecologist working part-time at Westmead. Her husband’s in ER there.’
‘If you become a yoga junkie and get a better body than me I’ll die of embarrassment,’ I say.
Michael
Saturday can’t come soon enough. I won’t receive the CD until Monday but there’s no way I can wait. I’m ready to buy it online as soon as possible. I wake early to see if The XX has dropped their album. It hasn’t happened yet, so I distract myself getting ready and head out a little early.
Terrence texts to join him and some other guys for a game of basketball in the park. I text him back and tell him I have to work. The album drops when I’m at the shops, checking iTunes as I walk up the escalator to the food court. I buy it, connect my earphones, find a table and do some people-watching as I wait for Mina.
I spot her from afar, walking slowly, looking around.
It’s as though the shopping centre suddenly empties of everybody. It’s not like the first time I saw her. Now is different.
Maybe you only get one chance at meeting somebody who really gets inside you, wakes corners of your mind and heart that you didn’t know were asleep.
Eventually she spots me.
‘Did you listen to it?’ she cries, her eyes beaming at me.
‘Incredible! Well the first two songs anyway. I haven’t heard all of it yet though. I only just managed to get it. You?’
‘Three songs. I just got it, too. Oh my God I love them!’
I laugh.
‘Have you watched The Great Gatsby? The soundtrack is unbelievable.’
‘I missed it at the movies and I never got round to seeing it.’
We grab some lunch and frappes and sit down. It feels like we sit there for hours, talking about music and movies and school and whether Carlos has a crush on year eleven Zoe not year twelve Zoe, which would be weird given she freakishly looks like his sister, and whether Ms Chalmers, the Chemistry teacher, who can be heard having psychotic episodes in the lab at least twice a day, is sexually frustrated or just born angry, and what’s on our bucket list and whether we believe in life after death.
When we eventually say goodbye it feels like we’re actually at the start of something, not the end. There’s so much promise in her goodbye that it makes my insides feel all funny.
Yeah, it’s kind of the best day that I’ve had in a long time.
Mina
I can’t stop thinking about Michael. He’s like handprints in wet cement. One moment there’s nothing; the next moment, a lasting imprint. He’s stamped his way into my mind and, dare I even admit it to myself, my heart. I’ve seen girls fall for a guy before. The guy becomes their ‘complete me’; their other half. But I’ve never wanted a guy who would make me feel like a fraction. I just want a guy who can talk the small stuff and the big stuff. Who can make me laugh. Who can make my body tingle and my day feel like it’s playing to a good soundtrack.
Somebody, it turns out, like Michael.
*
Mum’s cooking dinner, talking a million miles an hour on the phone with Rojin and then, later, Emily. She invites them for lunch at our place.
When she hangs up she turns to face me. She’s glowing but it’s more than the baby.
‘Emily and I went for a walk today,’ she tells me as we prepare for dinner.
‘That’s great, Mum.’
‘We see each other at the gym most mornings.’ Mum turns off the tap, cracks her neck to the side and arches her back. ‘It’s a good thing I’m doing yoga. This baby is killing my back.’
I laugh. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing yoga. Next thing you’ll be drinking kale protein shakes.’
‘Kale? What on earth is that?’
‘Hopefully something that never enters this apartment.’
She waves vaguely at me. ‘You’re talking in riddles.’ She rubs her lower back.
‘Does it feel different this time?’
‘Oh yes. I was a skinny teenager when I had you. At nine months I looked like I’d eaten a bit too much dinner, that’s all. When I went for check-ups my sister would come with me and they would mistake her for the pregnant one.’
‘Were you skinny or was she fat?’
‘Both,’ she says with a fond smile.
There’s silence. Then she gives a forlorn sort of sigh. ‘God have mercy on her soul.’
My aunt wasn’t able to get out. One more person in our family buried in Afghanistan’s soil. My memories of her are scratchy. I remember sitting in her lap as she peeled the white off my orange. I remember how her breasts would suffocate me whenever she embraced me. I remember her holding me tight throughout the night Dad died because Mum had collapsed, her eyes blank holes that had stared at me without recognition. My throat tightens and I force myself to banish the memories from my mind.
‘Here, pass me the gloves,’ I order her, my voice a slight tremble. ‘I’ll finish up here. You rest.’
‘Really?’ but she’s already peeled off the gloves and hands them to me. She grins at me and falls onto the couch, stretching her legs out and looking up at the ceiling. She looks so beautiful it makes me ache.
‘Emily is in a bad way,’ she says. ‘She’s depressed about her weight, about looking after the twins alone all day. Her parents live in Queensland, her in-laws are in England and her husband works long hours. I offered to help her with the twins during the day.’
‘That’s nice. It’ll get harder once you get bigger though.’
‘She cried.’
‘Why?’
‘Looking after a baby alone is hard enough. Imagine doing it alone with twins! Her husband’s not very supportive either. He comes home from work and wants to rest.’
I stack the plates and carry them over to the cupboard. ‘That’s not fair.’
‘Do you know what’s funny, Mina? She feels isolated.’
‘There you go,’ I say, smiling. ‘You have your own project now.’
‘I wouldn’t call it a project,’ Mum says, as she sits up, inspecting her nails. A smile spre
ads slowly up to her eyes. ‘But, well, it’s nice to feel needed.’
*
For the next two weeks at school Michael and I fall into a rhythm of hanging out during our free study period, when we’re alone and can talk like the music geeks that we are without boring other people to death.
I wake up for school every day and feel a surge of energy and excitement at the thought of seeing him. When our eyes meet, or he grins at me across the classroom, I feel my skin tingle.
Paula, Jane, Leica and I are sitting in the café when Terrence and Fred walk in. Michael isn’t with them because he’s got an extra Art class today.
Leica’s having a bit of a moment because she didn’t get the mark she was expecting in a Maths quiz and we’re trying to calm her down. We’re failing miserably though because the three of us are also major stress heads about our work and have had moments like this ourselves. Hence our attempts to make her see reason don’t exactly ring true when Leica’s witnessed our own individual I-can’t-do-this-any-more meltdowns.
‘It’s not the end of the world,’ Jane says meekly, rubbing Leica’s back.
‘I told you that when you got your mark in that Studies of Religion assignment and it made you cry harder!’ Leica says.
Jane doesn’t bother defending herself.
‘And it is the end of the world,’ Leica says dramatically. ‘If I can’t do well on a mid-semester quiz, how am I going to do well in the HSC? I might as well give up on getting into medicine and focus on a hairdressing career.’
We all try to say something to make her feel better but Leica’s determined to beat herself up.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Terrence and Fred are standing over us at the end of the table. Terrence is looking at Leica like she’s an interesting science experiment. ‘Have you been crying?’ he asks tactfully.
‘No!’ she says and sniffs.
‘You know it’s better to blow the boogies out then sniff them back up,’ he says authoritatively. ‘Here’s a serviette.’ He throws one across to her and then, because there are no free tables left in the café, the two of them sit down, just like that.