Preloved (13 page)

On my way home, disappeared within myself, I tried not to think how much I liked it when Logan called me his
Matey
.

Instead, I drifted into my favourite daydream.

In it, I bump into Dad with his new girlfriend.

In it, I tell both of them exactly how I feel.

I ask Dad if he knew that Mum and I sometimes went without dinner. If he knew that we’re so poor that sometimes the electricity and water got cut off (who on earth goes through that?) and if he knew what it felt like not to have a shower for three days. If he knew Mum cried and pretended it was because of something else.

I tell the girlfriend that Dad was an alcoholic and he never called Mum “dear” or “love” like other husbands did and he would never be a decent father to her future children because since he’s been gone, he never rings. He doesn’t send me birthday cards and stick me if he even knows how old I am.

In this daydream, sometimes his new girlfriend slaps him and runs off. Sometimes she thanks me later for telling her the truth.

As I walked home, I felt the coldness of my own heart against my skin; I felt the warmth of my skin against the locket. I picked it up and stared at it, stunned and captivated for a moment. I shook it off and kept walking, indignant, hoarding up all my black feelings and enjoying them one by one, like individually wrapped dark chocolates.

Chapter 8

Okay, I was helping Logan. But three minutes into the ordeal, I wanted to leave.

“What do you think of this one?” asked Rebecca, pressing a shiny deep green number to her body.

“Tell her it looks fair dinkum excellent,” said Logan.

I pretended he wasn’t there.

“Rebecca, I don’t understand why we are shopping for new Eighties-inspired dresses when we can just get like real Eighties dresses. You know, actually from the Eighties?”

“Yeah, I know that. Especially since your mother runs a vintage shop. But old clothes are kinda ewww. Plus they smell funny. Isn’t it great that the Eighties are back in mainstream fashion?”

“But you hate mainstream … actually, forget I said anything.”

I hated clothes shopping. Or maybe that was just something short girls with no boobs and no cash would say. I watched the other girls in the store stare at Rebecca’s tall, shapely figure with a mixture of admiration and jealousy.

“I’m gonna pull a move,” said Logan.

“Just wait, okay?” I hissed, trying to hide behind a rack of dresses. “Inside a snotty boutique packed full of plastic-carrying princesses is
not
the right time.”

I had promised Logan I was going to tell Rebecca about him. I had a horrible sensation in my stomach only because, like, a billion things could go wrong when you try to tell a girl that her Eighties-flavoured boyfriend from a past life was trying to hook back up with her.

Logan shrugged and went to stand in front of a full-length mirror. It was strange that he could see his own reflection. Hang on. Was that vampires?

I watched as Logan did a Michael Jackson hat flip.
Show-off!
I thought, but I ended up smiling anyway because he executed it perfectly.

I flicked through the rack half-heartedly.

Newsflash: there had been a last-minute change of plans. We were going to the ball –
the Eighties-themed ball
– after all. I was in denial and not mad about finding out who or what had caused Rebecca to have a change of heart.

I picked up a glistening black number that had the same texture as a garbage bag. I turned over the price tag and almost gagged at the long row of numbers following the dollar sign. “Shit!” I said out loud. “And there’s hardly any fabric! Someone tell me what I’m actually paying for?”

Rebecca ignored me and picked up a hot-pink dress that had ridiculous-looking ruching all the way down both sides and a ruffled fishtail. Logan followed closely behind her. I watched as he stood next to her and looked into her face as she browsed the racks. At one stage he stared longingly down the nape of her neck.

I frowned. I think my brain hurt. I was tempted to cover both my ears to block the overly loud and obnoxious pop music blasting in the store and just scream “this is not happening” over and over.

“Fair dinkum, is this music or is it a four-minute loop of something that sounds like a chipmunk singing over a dentist’s drill?” Logan asked me. He was suddenly over my shoulder and I baulked.

“It’s called modern music. That’s what those darn modern kids are dancing to these days,” I replied, trying to sound ironically upbeat. I’d decided no one was going to hear me talking to myself because it was so loud – unless of course I decided to speak just as the song ended abruptly.

Dammit.

The skinny sales assistant, whose nose was somehow able to point high in the air despite the heavy-looking piercing in it, glared at me.

Everyone else stared and I slunk off to stand by the side of the store, like an embarrassed ball boy who had accidentally stumbled onto the court while an important set was taking place.

I stood there chewing on my thumbnail as I watched a tall boy in black appear. He marched up to Rebecca and gave her a kiss right on the mouth.

I think Rebecca’s change of plans had just arrived.

“You know Benji, right, Amy? I’m sure I’ve told you about him. We met when he saw me reading
Prozac Nation
after school. It must have been destiny, because it just happened that I was alone that day you had detention with the freaks at the library.”

No, I didn’t know Benji. But thanks for making me sound so desirable to meet. Wait – an important scene in Rebecca’s movie happened without me?

“Far out, brussel sprout, what’s up with this dude?” asked Logan.

Benji. With gorgeously angular features, but a not-so-gorgeous sulky expression.

“He’s an emo,” I replied. Oops. I said it out loud. Drats again.

“I’m not an emo,” replied Benji. “Don’t use that as a derogatory term and use it to pigeonhole me just because I wear black and have piercings and rebel against a suppressive society.”

Yeah, it must be so hard trying to fight against your parents and your comfortable middle-class existence every day.

I watched as Rebecca flicked through posho dresses in the posho store, with her new poseur boyfriend slobbering on her. It made me wonder a little about the heart that was really inside my “individual” pink-haired and tartan-skirted friend. I had a feeling it was mass-produced and not altogether different from everyone else’s.

“Remind me why she’s so special to you again,” I said to Logan.

“Does she need to be? I don’t care what she is. All I know is that I love her.”

I stared at Logan. I was aware my mouth was slightly open, but I could only hope I wasn’t about to drool or anything. Something inside me suddenly loved him more. Which meant I had loved him a little bit to begin with.

Uh-oh. I could hear a gaggle of gossip approaching – a noise worse than fingernails down a chalkboard. Oh no. Not The Minority Group. Nancy walked coolly through the door of the shop flanked by an eye-rolling-and-whispering Valerie and Florence.

I wondered if this drove Nancy nuts and if she ever craved real company. Outside of schoolwork, all Valerie and Florence seemed to talk about were eyelash extensions and designer handbags.

“Oh great,” said Rebecca, glancing sideways. “What do those girls have against me? Why am I the beautiful and the damned?”

Nancy gave a nod and a smile as she walked past.

Did Nancy Soo just acknowledge me in public? I looked behind me in case it was meant for someone else, but all I could see was an invisible ghost making a face back at me.

Rebecca picked another dress off the rack and slipped the hanger over her head.

“What do you think of this one?”

“It’s perfect,” Logan and I said at the same time. We stared at the purple dress with the short double-skirt and the big rosette at the waist. Stacey’s dress.

This had to be a sign. But unfortunately we were currently in a movie called
Rebecca and Benji’s Infinite Snogfest
. I had to break up this bad romance and get the love story going between Rebecca and Logan, thus setting everything back on track.

I plonked myself down on a large oblong ottoman facing the changing room as Rebecca disappeared inside. Logan sat at the other end. I watched him stare up at the ceiling, which was a dome made up of hundreds of those twinkling little lights. It looked like the night sky.

I sat awkwardly, with my knees pointed together, and gauged the space between us. I wished he was a real boy and that this was our chance encounter. He’d say something about the coolness of the Commodore 64 and I’d confess that I had an Atari under my bed.

I was so tempted to kiss him on the side of his face.

Not only because I was harbouring some deadly romantic notion of love at first sight, which was waiting inside of me like a time bomb ready to explode onto the wrong person, but because it felt like I had known him a lifetime. That we had been friends for longer than the last few days. That I cared for him, like I had cared for him once, a long time ago.

I wanted to run my fingers through his feathered hair.

No, I didn’t.

Quick, brain! Think of something to turn yourself off.

Think of Michael Limawan.

Who so sweetly thought of you when he was going to an Eighties movie marathon … you could have eaten a boysenberry choc top with him and rolled Jaffas down the aisle. Shit. Stop thinking about Michael.

Think about grandpa undies.

Yeah. Big grandpa undies.

I cleared my throat. “We’ll just have to dispatch Benji the Bad Boy and you’re all set,” I said matter-of-factly. “We need to find you that tux and shoestring tie. I was thinking maybe the fancy dress shop. Ha-ha! Ahhh,
I kill me
.”

“Did Amy Lee just use some cool Eighties slang?” Logan smiled, shaking his finger at me. He moved right next to me.

I rolled my eyes and pretended it didn’t matter. Hey, I could be cool. Just like all those … cool people.

The curtain to the cubicle was pushed aside and Rebecca stepped out as if she was shy. Which I now knew to be a complete and utter act. When had Bex become so shallow? Or had she always been like this and I just pushed it aside because she was my only friend?

Logan gasped audibly as Rebecca checked herself out in the mirror. I would have punched him in the head if my hand wouldn’t have just gone straight through him.

“Amy, I know you don’t believe in love, but unlike you, I’m passionate. Spontaneous. Impulsive. Give me one good reason, why I shouldn’t fall completely and utterly in love.”

Rebecca came and sat down next to me. Right on top of Logan.

“Okay,” I replied. “I’ll give you one reason. His name is Logan Feldman and you’re sitting right on top of him.”

“What?” exclaimed Rebecca. She shot up in surprise.

“Your boyfriend from a previous lifetime has been haunting me.”

“I’ll prove it to her,” said Logan.

“He said he’ll prove it to you,” I said to Rebecca. Great, I was stuck in an episode of
Ghost Whisperer
. Maybe my whole life was going to be one never-ending episode of
Ghost Whisperer
, except instead of starring a buxom and romantic Jennifer Love-Hewitt, it starred a socially munted freak who could actually only see one ghost.

“Ask her to ask me any question about herself.”

“He said to ask him any question about yourself.”

“Um,” said Rebecca, blinking her long thick eyelashes. “What’s my favourite colour?”

“Pink,” replied Logan.

“He said pink,” I said to Rebecca. “No, hang on!”

I turned to Logan and frowned at him. “She’s Rebecca, not Stacey! Maybe Stacey liked pink, but I know Rebecca’s favourite colour is purple. This game of yours isn’t going to work.”

“Amy, I’m going to just leave you alone to relax for a moment, all right?” said Rebecca, nervously. “In the meantime, I’m going to buy this dress and, um – oh cripes. Forgot to tell you I’m going off with Benji. Did I tell you Benji has a motorbike?”

“Dammit, Bex!” She had disappeared back behind the curtains before I could say anything else.

“Dammit, Amy!” I turned to the sounds of Logan’s groans.

“What?”

“What do you mean
what
? I’ve had to suffer chronically, watching my girlfriend suck face with that Flock of Seagulls tosser.”

“Dammit, Logan, what do you want from me? I don’t owe you anything.”

Logan smacked his hand onto his forehead.

“This is not the way things are supposed to turn out.”

“Why are you surprised?” I answered. “I don’t know what fantasy land you came from, but that’s the way the world goes around these days – things fail! Suck it up, Princess.”

“That’s bullshit,” snapped Logan. “You don’t believe that. You’re all about the romance, and don’t you know it.”

“You don’t know me,” I snapped back at him.

“I do,” said Logan.

He moved closer to me, so close that our feet were side by side.

“I’m not a hungry ghost, Amy – you are. I see you, this girl who lives inside herself, invisible to everyone, even to herself. You’re hungry for your mother’s touch, hungry for your missing father. You’re hungry for life and you’re hungry to be a proper character in your own story. Boy, do I know you.”

I wanted to cry. I wanted to let it all out finally. While I sat next to Logan with our feet so perfectly aligned. My pink Chucks next to his white campus shoes.

“You’re an arsehat!” I shouted instead. “Do you need an Eighties translation for that? It means I think you’re a total dipstick!” I tilted my head up so the tears wouldn’t run out. I was so upset I was shaking. “Why are you taking it out on me? ’Cos I’m the only person who can hear you?”

The music stopped and the whole shop stared at me. Again.

I stuffed my humiliation into my mouth and down my throat, and I ran out of there.

All I wanted to do was go home and hide under my bed. Go over and over in my mind every single ghost warning Mum had ever told me and agree that they should have scared the shit out of me in the first place.