Cloudwish (2 page)

‘So, did you find it?'

He couldn't be speaking to her. Billy Gardiner did not seek out V
â
n Ước Phan for after-school chitchat.

He came a couple of steps closer. He was buzzing. He pulled the phone from his pocket, glanced at the screen, switched it off, stuffed it back in. ‘Whatever you thought was inside your dress – did you find it?' He was smiling the question. Had put her ahead of the phone call in his queue of popular-boy activities. Was looking at her with complete attention. Not the
sorry, I bumped you on the way past
look, not the
scanning the crowd and not bothering to stop
look, not the
don't really know who you are
look. But eye to eye. Waiting. Listening.

‘No,' she said. ‘No, I didn't.' And walked off.

Nice one, Vân Ước
, the commentators said quietly.
That's the way to play it when your dream boy tries to talk to you/Yup, you nailed it, and – what's this? – look, she's leaving the field/She's throwing in the towel/She's –

‘Oh, do shut up,' she muttered.

chapter 2

Two knocks on her
bedroom wall. It was Jess from next door.
Coffee?
Three taps back.
On my way.

Her father was already at work, so it was only her mother stern-eyeing her as she hit the kitchen.

‘Bye, Ma,' she said, picking up her packed lunch from the bench.

‘Don't be wasting so much time with Jessica,' her mother said in Vietnamese. They always spoke Vietnamese at home. Her mother could speak a small amount of basic English. Survival English. It was a miracle she could speak it at all after a total of twenty weeks of language class more than twenty years ago. Vân Ước had always offered to teach her more, but her mother waved it away.
Too late, too late
. She was probably right. She had only ever worked with other Vietnamese women, hung out with them, shopped in their shops in Albert Street . . . she didn't need much English to get by. Especially not with a daughter on tap as interpreter/translator.

‘Quick coffee, Mama – I'm so early. We get into trouble if we're too early.'

Her mother never had a clue about what school approved or disapproved of. That world was as remote and mysterious to her as the moon. She had a generalised fear of the school: it gave her daughter a scholarship; it could take the scholarship away. Vân Ước always had the trump card: all communication from the school was via her. Sometimes it felt mean, and too easy, to play it like this, but it was, finally, an upside of being the family English-speaker, whether she wanted to be or not, for all these years.

She chose a banana from the fruit bowl and kissed her mother goodbye.

Her mother nodded and shooed her out dismissively. ‘Be good. Study hard.'

How much did she hate it when her mother said
study hard
? How many times did she have to hear it? (Three thousand six hundred times, she had estimated. Give or take.)

She walked to Jess's, the twelve big steps along the concrete hallway that used to be sixteen steps when they were little. The metal screen door was open, the coffee ready. Jess's parents, both cleaners at the local public hospital, were working early shifts and long gone.

‘Your mum would kill you,' Vân Ước said, nodding at the open door.

Jess shrugged. ‘She's not happy unless I'm giving her something to kill me about.' She handed over the coffee in a tall glass. ‘How was IB day one?'

Vân Ước took a sip. Instant, mixed with a heap of condensed milk and some boiling water. A Vietnamese specialty. A great heart-starter for the walk to school. It made you fly on a little cloud of sugar and caffeine. One of the many off-curriculum things she had learned at Crowthorne Grammar was that instant coffee was a crime, a hideous faux pas. If you didn't pay four bucks and have someone else make it for you, it wasn't coffee. They didn't know what they were missing out on.

‘Eck – the usual. More work than I signed up for,' she said, thinking, IB had started weirdly. With Billy Gardiner
talking to me
after school. She wouldn't tell Jess about that until she'd figured it out. ‘How's year eleven going?'

‘Same. All they've done basically is tell us it's more work than we realise and we'd better work like we mean it from day one if we want to compete blah-dy blah . . .'

Jess's school – Vân Ước's old school – offered the standard year eleven and twelve VCE program. Crowthorne Grammar offered VCE plus an alternative, encouraged for the smarter students: the IB program. It was crazy that Vân Ước had won a scholarship to Crowthorne Grammar in year nine and Jess hadn't. Their scores all through school had been pretty much on par. They switched first and second place in most of their subjects. The irony was that Vân Ước – she realised later – got the scholarship because she
was so sure she wouldn't. Because of that sudden conviction,
she had spoken freely in her interview about what she thought of the current state of politics and society, and her intention to study art eventually, and what her plans were for her art folio over the next few years.

Jess had given the more standard, well-behaved answers that
they'd been trained to give at scholarship coaching, and she didn't
get one. A scholarship. She wasn't lying when she said she was happier to stay where she was at Collingwood Girls Secondary College. And Vân Ước half wished she were still there, too. But the awful truth was that Vân Ước had made her parents happy and proud, and Jess had disappointed hers and caused them to lose money when the coaching didn't pay off. The old joke was that the Asian ‘fail' was an A-, but in truth the Asian fail was not getting a scholarship. Vân Ước also had what the girls called the ‘oboe advantage', playing one of the more obscure instruments for orchestra. It had only been chosen for her because her father had found the instrument sleeping in its crimson-lined case in a pawnshop on Bridge Road for twenty dollars. Jess was just one more violinist.

Along Albert Street the shops were opening, and footpaths being washed clean of late-night vomits and early-morning dog pee. It was Thursday, so all the restaurants with toilets out the back would already have locked those doors. Centrelink payment day was also look-for-a-handy-place-to-hit-up day.

‘Vân Ước, Jessicaaa!' The girls stopped at the doorway from which the screaming had come. It was Liên Luu from their block. She managed a bakery, the sort that had an improbably large selection of sweet and savoury bread products, and – lucky day – she had a couple of misshapen fruit buns to give away. Liên Luu was also the auntie of cool Henry Ha Minh, of Henry Ha Minh Rolls fame.

The two girls walked and talked and chewed their way past the security-grilled, graffed and bilingually-signed tailors, dry cleaners, two-dollar shops where most of the stuff cost more like five dollars, fishmongers, kitchen-supply places, the huge grocers and electrical goods stores and many ‘original' phở joints so beloved of Melbourne's middle class.

Now, of course, second-generation Vietnamese kids had their upmarket witty designer versions of all this food at three times the price and away from the mini Saigons of Richmond and Footscray and Box Hill. Henry was one of them. Henry Ha Minh Rolls was on Chapel Street, and always had a queue of people waiting outside. Vân Ước and Jess did casual work there on Saturdays making rice paper rolls or, if they were on early shift, doing prep for making rice paper rolls.

The girls gave each other their standard two-way bro-knuckle farewell and went in opposite directions when they hit Punt Road.

chapter 3

Lou stopped Vân Ước,
wandering out to lunch, after a morning of physics. Vân Ước had been hoping to bump into Lou or Michael, who, while not exactly friends, were certainly friend
ly
towards her. They would never ignore her if she sat down in their vicinity at lunchtime.

‘Are you coming to the thing?' Lou was reading from a handout. ‘The “How Can I Contribute to the Community?” briefing?'

‘I forgot.' Great. More work. This was a part of CAS – Creativity, Action, Service. It was a compulsory part of IB and sought to ensure all students were also fully rounded human beings. How much spare time did the IB curriculum developers think students had? They were kidding if they thought human, let alone humane, was going to get a run; there was barely enough time to be efficient study-bots.

Lou had only come to Crowthorne Grammar in fourth term last year, a new girl for the Mount Fairweather outdoor education program, a boarding term, located away from the city campus. In the space of one term, Lou had put herself into a position of strength in the pack, without seeming to try or to care. She had her own rung. She stood up for weaker animals. She had a moral platform. She had a super-high-kudos skill – singing. And she had some extra cachet thanks to having lesbian mothers. Which seemed to have been judged as cool.

When Vân Ước had told her, Jess actually whooped and air-punched at the lesbian mother revelation, an unusual display of enthusiasm. Jess was a lesbian – or, as she preferred to describe herself, a lesbian-in-waiting.

She'd known she wasn't straight since forever, but believed to the tips of her toenails that there was no way she could come out to her parents until she left school and could support herself, because it was likely they would get the locks changed rather than accept her sexuality. She was philosophical about it, seeing it for now as a generalised no-go zone rather than a cop-out, because she knew her parents would object to any brand of romantic attachment while she was at school.

The only thing Jess could imagine changing her parents' view of the desirability of having a lesbian daughter was if Penny Wong (a hero to both the girls) one day became Prime Minister of Australia. Lesbian Asian Prime Minister might just tip the balance in her favour. But then again . . .

‘We can take our lunch in,' Lou said. ‘They're getting us used to doing at least two things at once at all times for the next two years. Cheers, guys.'

About half of year eleven was settling in the main assembly hall, with high-volume chat and rustle. This vast space of high ceilings and long windows and good acoustics and a professional-grade stage also had a parquetry floor so smooth and deeply glossy that Vân Ước had promised herself a sock-skate alone in here one day before she left school next year.

She sat with Lou and Michael. On her other side was Annie, someone who lived in such a state of perpetual motion that sitting next to her meant shrinking inside the boundaries of your own space for fear of elbows, feet and pen jabs while Annie reliably exceeded her own allocation of space.

As Ms King, who coordinated CAS and was also overall year eleven coordinator, settled everyone down and started explaining the service component of CAS – eliciting groans as she laid down the law about needing to organise your volunteer schedule
yesterday
– Vân Ước was aware of greater-than-usual wriggle activity from Annie's direction. As she turned to ask Annie to stop bumping her, she found herself face to face with Billy Gardiner, who'd apparently swapped seats with Annie. He gave Vân Ước a satisfied smile and leaned in to look at her lunch.

‘Yum,' he said, helping himself to one of her mother's little stuffed omelettes, a first-week-back treat. ‘Delicious!' he said, mouth full. ‘Did you make these?' He looked at the spilling coriander and chicken and bean sprouts as though it was the subject of an intense forensic investigation. ‘What's in here?'

Vân Ước felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment. She had not sat down expecting to be the subject of one of Billy Gardiner's mean jokes. Was he about to spit the food out and pretend to be sick? She felt sick herself at what might be coming next. She covered up the rest of her lunch.

Lou, seeing what was happening, leaned forward, speaking into Vân Ước's silence. ‘Quit stealing food!'

‘Not stealing, swapping,' Billy said, opening a grocery-sized paper bag. ‘What would you like?'

He put the bag on Vân Ước's lap and rummaged about pulling out a container of strawberries that he waved under her nose. She shook her head, eyes forward, dreading the inevitable punchline, where she'd become the butt of his joke, or perhaps the recipient of a nasty nickname. What had she done to deserve the attention? He was elbowing her now. ‘How about . . . a homemade muesli bar?' She shook her head again, determined not to look at him. More rummaging. ‘Orange cake?' Vân Ước squirmed sideways closer to Lou, pushing Billy's lunch bag from her lap. ‘Okay, you got it – chicken schnitzel and coleslaw focaccia . . . Halves?' He produced a massive slab of a sandwich and offered it to Vân Ước. She turned away. ‘I mean, there must be something here you like. An apple? What sort of food
do
you like?'

‘Leave her alone, Gardiner,' said Michael from two seats along.

‘I'm just trying to share,' Billy said.

‘Tune in, please, year elevens,' Ms King was saying.

Billy leaned in so he was almost touching Vân Ước's face. She braced herself. Here it came, the punchline. ‘You know her name's Jo, right?' Billy was nodding to the front of the room. His blue eyes shone with the silliness of the revelation – that miraculously had nothing to do with her. ‘Joanne. Jo King. True story.'

She risked meeting his glance for a second. Nothing but his wide, mischievous smile, directed at her with no apparent malice. This made no sense. Billy Gardiner did not initiate conversation or crack jokes with the V
â
n Ước Phans of the world.

‘What about your name, Vân Ước – what does that mean? What's the translation?'

‘Cloudwish.'

‘Cloudwish?
Cloudwish
. That's so cool. And unusual. Is it, like, a family name, or what?'

He was waiting for a response. He had to be taking the piss. Didn't he realise most names meant something? His name, William, for instance, meant helmet. Tragic that she'd looked it up. She gave herself a mental shake and looked around for one or more of his friends laughing on the sidelines. The dare, the bet, won. Pretend like you're friends with the povvo Asian chick.

She tuned back in to Ms King without giving him an answer.

‘Now for anyone without work lined up, can we have some
brainstorming – some networking – hands up – sharing some ideas,
please, for where we might look for work.'

A couple of reluctant hands went up.

‘Visiting old people.'

‘Children's hospital.'

Annie's hand shot up. ‘Refugees!' she said, obviously relieved to have thought of something. She leaned across Billy to Vân Ước, looking mortified. ‘OMIGOD, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean
you
.'

Billy bristled. ‘Vân Ước's not a refugee, you retard; she's Australian.'

Lou bristled. ‘Can you
not
use ableist language, Billy.'

Annie bristled. ‘I said I didn't
mean
her.'

Vân Ước bristled. ‘There's nothing
wrong
with being a refugee.'

They were all confused. The roles were muddied. What on earth, Vân Ước wondered, was she doing speaking out like that? She, the silent one. Sounding so bossy. And what was Billy Gardiner doing defending her?

‘Billy, Vân Ước, Lou, Annie – you can stay and pack up chairs when we finish, thanks,' said Ms King.

‘Great. This is the thanks I get for thinking of the refugees,' said Annie, slamming another chair onto the pile and looking at Vân Ước. ‘
Sorry
. Again. It's just I wouldn't mind having ten minutes of my lunchtime. Have you guys got your volunteer stuff organised?'

‘A couple of maybes, but nothing interesting,' said Lou.

Billy picked up four chairs as though they were feathers. ‘Me neither. Only thing on offer is crunching data on my father's research project. Which I'd rather blow off my own balls than do.' Billy's father was a high-profile doctor involved in developing new treatments for melanomas.

‘What I really hate about it is that I know for sure a whole lot of people will fake at least half of their hours, and suckers like me will actually be doing the work,' said Annie.

‘Do you know what you're doing?' asked Lou.

‘I'm trying to get onto a coastal revegetation program,' said Annie. ‘Who knew you've got to beg to be allowed to help places?' She crashed another chair onto the pile. ‘And I'm only marginally eligible for IB, so I'm basically screwed from day one.' Annie just scraped into the program, but her parents had promised the school she'd lift her game academically if they let her in.

‘What about you, Vân Ước?' asked Lou.

‘I'm working at a tutor program for kids whose parents have English as a second language.'

‘Oh, I'd love to do that – do they need anyone else?'

Vân Ước hesitated. Someone like Lou would be fantastic to have at homework club, but if she encouraged her to come along, she'd be breaking one of her golden rules: keep school life and home life separate.

‘It's pretty grotty. Very noisy. Mostly kids from the East Melbourne housing commission flats.' Kids like her, actually. It was thanks in part to her weekly sessions with her tutor Debi that Vân Ước was as well-read, with as good an English vocab, as anyone else in the year.

‘When is it?' asked Billy.

‘Fridays at five o'clock.'

‘And what's the deal?'

How to describe the heaving bustle that somehow sorted itself into shape every week? ‘About two hundred kids and about two hundred tutors meet at the St Joey's church hall and sit around tables, and for an hour the tutors help the kids with their homework. Or schoolwork in general. Or life in general. Sometimes the mothers come and get help, too. All the kids get a snack and a juice box. The ones who need a lift get bussed back to the flats that are further away.'

‘Sounds excellent,' Billy said. ‘And it's my only training-free afternoon – I can do it too.'

‘Yeah, only you weren't invited yet,' said Lou, rolling her eyes at Vân Ước. ‘Despite being an entitled white male, you do still need the occasional invitation.'

‘I can come, can't I?' Billy looked at Vân Ước beseechingly. ‘Please let me.'

Vân Ước, Lou and Annie looked at him. What was going on with that?

‘I'll ask,' said Vân Ước reluctantly. ‘You can't just show up, though. You need to get a Working With Children Check.'

‘Okay, well let me know, Vân Ước,' said Lou. ‘I'd love to do it if they need someone. I'm happy to tutor any subject, any age group.'

‘Me too,' said Billy.

She was so used to Billy Gardiner mocking, joking and generally doing anything to get a laugh that it was difficult to believe he was being serious.