The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl Read online

  I stop the bike, and Eddie kills the engine. I tumble sideways off the seat and press my forehead into the dirt. And I burst out laughing.

  Eddie drops hurriedly beside me. ‘Jesus, Alba, are you all right? Feck, knew I should’ve got the girls out here first – dammit – do you need tea?’

  ‘Eddie,’ I manage to say through teary laughter. ‘I’ve just put myself through possibly the most traumatic experience of my life. I have stared death in the face, Ed! Like, ruthlessly exorcised my demons and whatnot. And tea is the best you can do?’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he shouts. ‘I don’t know!’

  I grab Eddie around the waist and pull myself onto my knees. And then I grab his cheeks, and I plant a giant smoochy kiss onto his forehead. Eddie’s raspberry-jam freckle-face turns the colour of a beetroot macaron.

  ‘Francis Edwin Palmer. You are the most awesome of all things made of awesomeness. You really are the best person I know. You do know that, right?’

  Eddie clears his throat. ‘Well, Jesus. I didn’t do anything. Apart from, y’know, not riding us into a cow. But … are you really all right?’

  I fall backwards onto my butt. ‘Honestly? Ed, I think I’m really, really fine. I just am. Who would’ve thunk it, hey?’

  Eddie shuffles into the shade of the shed, and I scoot around beside him. He glances down at me. ‘So … you find whatever you were looking for?’

  I peer up as a few more helicopters circle overhead. I can only imagine what we must look like from above. Through the PA system a voice bellows, ‘Welcome to the end of the universe, Eden Valley!’ and a cheer erupts from the front of the farm.

  ‘Ed, I know this is going to sound super vague, but honestly? I don’t know what I’m looking for. You were right about one thing, though – I don’t think I’m ever gonna have a lightning-bolt moment. At least, not going twenty kays an hour on the back of a Honda.’

  ‘Then what the feck was that about?’

  I lean back against the cool shed. ‘You and I … we weren’t really friends yet, were we, Ed? Back when my dad …’

  ‘No. But I remember,’ he says quietly. ‘I used to see you in your yard, when it was just weeds and that trampoline …’ He clears his throat. ‘After it happened, I used to see you and Grady sitting out there heaps. You guys never did do much of anything, but. Except clump together like you were welded that way, looking like life had walloped you both in the gonads. And it’s not like I could’ve missed it, Alba. Jesus, whole town was nutsy about your dad. And G-man and I’d just started hanging out a bit … he was pretty messed up about it too. Yeah. I remember. It was shithouse,’ he says helplessly.

  I hug my knees into my chest. ‘Yeah. It was. And that’s the thing, Eddie. I think, despite everything, it was never the fiery crash bit that was the most scary. I think the thing that terrified me most was maybe the … anticipation? Of reliving those things? Of having to feel any of that again.’

  Eddie is silent for a long time. ‘So what you’re saying,’ he says slowly, ‘is that you were more freaked out by the idea of freaking out than the actual thing you thought would make you freak out itself? Jesus. That is pretty … angsty. Even for you.’

  I laugh. ‘I know it doesn’t make sense, but –’

  ‘Nah,’ he says, shaking his head, ‘it makes sense. Dunno if you are aware of it, Alba, but you do have this knack for grabbing hold of stuff and hanging on like your life depends on it. You’re kinda shit at letting go. With bad stuff … and the rest, too.’

  I thread my arm through his and rest my head on his sun-warmed shoulder. ‘Can’t I have just one epiphany at a time, Ed? I get that I’m, like, a hoarder of nostalgia and whatnot. But I love this place so much. I love you guys. You, and Petey and Tia and Caroline and … I mean, how lucky are we? I know I’ll never find friends like you guys again.’

  Eddie snorts. ‘Well, I for one am fecking irreplaceable, for sure.’ He leans his head against mine with a sigh. ‘You know, you guys – all of you – you’re so busy planning and stressing and running around like chooks with no heads. Looking backwards and forwards and everywhere but right in front of your noses –’

  ‘Hey, I’m not! I’ve never wanted to do anything but be right here and now –’

  ‘Uh-huh. Right. This from the girl who spends half her life staring out the bakery windows with her head in fantasyland? Shit, if I had a dollar for every time someone used the phrase “Alba, are you paying attention”, I’d be retiring to an island in Hawaii with that chick from last month’s Maxim.’

  I untangle my arm from his. ‘What are you saying, Eddie?’

  Ed crosses his arms. ‘I’m saying, Alba, that you can harp on about being happy all you like. And I’m not saying you’re not – just that you have other stuff you want, too. Stuff that’s been flapping about in your head ever since I’ve known you. Stuff that keeps you with one foot right here, and one foot feck knows where in your head. What are you afraid of?’ He sighs again. ‘And the other question would be – why aren’t you talking to Grady ’bout all this?’

  ‘Domenic doesn’t want to talk to me,’ I manage to say. ‘If he wants to be a sook, then so be it. I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  Eddie squints up at the circling helicopters. ‘Sarah Jane. You are a very cool chick. But seriously?’ He taps me gently on the head with one of his sausage fingers. ‘I think you’re too scared to make a call on anything, right, so you just close your eyes and hope everything’ll keep drifting along – but somewhere in there I think you know that you flash a smile, and that guy would jump in front of a bullet for you –’

  ‘Eddie, that is so unfair – and besides, Grady just isn’t that sentimental –’

  ‘No, it’s really not unfair. Have you even seen his bedroom?’

  ‘I’ve been in Grady’s room a thousand times –’

  ‘Yeah, but, have you actually seen his room? Think about it. Feck, Alba …’ he shakes his head. ‘Trust me. Just look.’

  I swallow, but my mouth has become Sahara-dry. I stare at the horizon, as if the setting sun might illuminate the answers that feel on the very edge of my consciousness. ‘Eddie,’ I whisper. ‘I know what I’m doing here. I like this version of me. What if … I’m no good at the rest?’

  Eddie stands and helps me to my feet. And then he drapes one arm around me in a quick half-hug before he grabs the bike again. ‘Yeah. But then again – what if you don’t have forever to figure it out?’

  He turns his back on me and wheels the Honda into the shed, leaving me standing in the muted sunshine with this abrupt sensation of vertigo. It’s the strangest thing – scary, sure, and daunting as anything – but not entirely unpleasant. It feels sort of like the earth is realigning beneath my feet.

  ‘Eddie – thank you,’ I call out. ‘For everything. If the world does end, I want you to know, I’m sorry for all those times I called you an arsebag. I’m really, really glad that you were my friend.’

  Eddie gives me a two-fingered wave. ‘Feck off,’ he says with a grin as he shuts the door behind him.

  I take the main road back to Albany’s, the last of the sunlight leaving the Valley as I sprint home. I’m not sure what my face is doing, but whatever expression is on it seems to be working, as people hurry to get out of my way, my boots kicking up beer cans and empty two-minute noodle packs as I run.

  I scoot into my bedroom with the tips of my fingers tingling like they’ve brushed a bakery burner. I grab a new sketchpad and a handful of graphite pencils, and I sit, cross-legged, on my floor. I give myself a minute to catch my breath. And then I place a pencil down, and my hands begin to move.

  I sketch out some borderlines, creating a splash panel that takes up almost the entire space. I ditch the warehouse apartment and the industrial furniture, that, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I’d unconsciously nicked from V for Vendetta.

  In their place, I draw the rough line of a blank, hilly horizon. I fill the top half of the panel with a starr
y sky, a shadowy line of red gums standing guard in the distance. In the foreground, I draw my Cinnamon Girl. She is facing away from me, dwarfed by the vastness of the space around her. I draw her without a whole lot of flair; her hands are by her sides, her feet planted lightly apart, the angle of her head tilted upwards with her curls spilling down her back. There are a bazillion details that I want to cram into this picture: a chipped white weatherboard house, and a yellow one that looks like gingerbread, and a family of fading garden gnomes, and a pub with two mad mums in the window, and a motorbike with a beaming, broad-shouldered rider, and a chubby kid in Toy Story jammies, and a boy in the background with curly hair and a sweet, shy smile.

  I add a few soft contour lines to the fields, and some shading to mark the light of the off-page moon. But I don’t add anything more. There’s something about the cleanness of the composition that I really like. And the night sky will be an ace space for some lettering, once I figure out what I want it to say.

  Instead, I add another panel on the right side of the page; narrow and vertical with a thin, translucent border. I draw Cinnamon Girl close up and in profile here, her waves of hair billowing behind her and bleeding over the edges of the frames. Her face is calmer than I’ve seen it in a long time; a little smug maybe, but hey, I think that might just be her. I don’t add any background – she could be in Paris, or New York, or in a rubble-strewn diner at the end of the world, or stomping purposefully across the moon. I could place her anywhere, or nowhere at all. I spend some time pencilling her solid legs, one foot in front of the other, resolutely marching through her unfilled frame. I smudge a pinkie over the detailing in her giant boots, as her front foot steps forward and disappears off the page.

  I lean my head against the couch, the world coming back into focus. The music from the farm has a fevered, crazy undertone, the sounds of one epic party kicking into gear, potentially, the party to end all parties.

  I close my eyes. My body is buzzy, the strangest mix of stomach-churning nerviness, and calm, clear certainty. When I touch my fingers to my lips, I realise that I am smiling.

  I jump into a quick shower and slip into my cherry-red sailor dress and Chucks. I shake out my hair. I smooth down my fringe. And I force my feet to walk out of my dim, safe bedroom.

  •

  Mum is frowning at her phone at one of the bakery counters. She glances up as I stick my head into the kitchen.

  ‘Hey, Mum, I’m going out. What are you doing tonight?’

  Mum waves me over. ‘Cleo’s stuck at work but I’ll head to hers as soon as she finishes. You’ll meet me there? Really don’t want you wandering around on your own tonight, Alba.’

  ‘Why? Seriously, Mama, if Thanos is planning on vaporising the planet, I’m better placed than most people here to spot it, don’t you reckon?’

  Mum rolls her eyes. ‘Yes, your particular skill set will no doubt come in handy. But regardless, promise you’ll find me before midnight. And don’t rely on your phone, either.’ Mum chews hesitantly at her piercing. ‘You know, Grady was here looking for you a little while ago,’ she says lightly. ‘He skulked around the kitchen with a face like the backside of a cow before he took off again. Bub … is everything all right with you two?’

  ‘He came back?’ I square my shoulders. ‘No. It’s not all right. Not even a little bit. But Mum, Domenic is insane if he thinks I’m gonna let him just sulk this out. I have things to get off my chest, and he is going to listen to me, even if I have to hogtie him first. The world doesn’t get to end before I have a chance to say what I need to say.’

  Mum smiles. ‘Good to know.’ She stands, her smile wavering, and her eyes get all misty as they linger longingly on me.

  ‘Uh-oh. What is it, Angie? You have weepy nostalgia-face.’

  Mum shakes her head. ‘It’s just, sometimes, I look at you, and you look like him … and when you get all loud and bolshie, you sound just like him …’

  ‘Jeez. Thanks, Mum. Good to know I could be mistaken for a six-foot man who was built like a grizzly bear.’ I smile at her. ‘And anyway. You know Dad would probably claim he looks better in a dress than me.’

  Mum laughs. ‘Yeah, he was always way too enamoured with those legs of his.’

  I stalk across the kitchen and wrap Mum in a hug. In the last couple of years, our Dad conversations have usually been reserved for the moments when one of us needs a good, solid bawl. But strangely, I don’t feel all that teary. What I feel is that buzzy impatience again, a sense of purpose propelling me forward.

  Mum steps back and grins at me. ‘You’d better go. You know, that boy of yours might be stubborn as all hell. But he doesn’t know how to hold a grudge. And he’s never known how to be mad at you, Sarah.’

  I take a deep breath. ‘That’s what I’m counting on, Mum.’

  I glance around the kitchen, registering for the first time an unfamiliar sweet smell lingering in the air. A few cooling trays of pastry parcels are sitting on the far countertop.

  I untangle myself from Mum’s arms. ‘Hey, Mama? You trying something new? What have you been making?’

  Mum glances over her shoulder. ‘The Eversons keep getting more strawberries than they can store in this heat, and there’s only so much jam Donna Ridley can handle. Mr Bridgeman wanted me to whip up something for his dessert menu, and I thought, apple and strawberry tarts aren’t fancy, but they’re quick, and they’ll be good with cider. I never thought I’d say it, but I’m actually really sick of making strudel –’

  Mum looks up. She stops talking. My guess is, because of the panic, which morphs into horror on my face. I gape at the counter again. I can’t be sure, but the rows of little pastry rectangles in one tray don’t look quite as neat as they should.

  ‘Angela. You didn’t leave him alone in here?’

  Mum’s face drains of colour. ‘I didn’t think – I was so busy – but he would have asked if he thought –’

  ‘Mum! When does Grady ever ask? You know he turns into Pac-Man when food’s in front of him! He trusts us to keep that stuff out of his reach! He trusts us –’

  Mum leaps towards the counter, her hands grabbing for the landline.

  But I’m already halfway down my bluestone path at a speed that would make Captain Marvel herself proud, the incongruous dance song blasting from the field like a terrible, pounding lament in my head.

  •

  I heave open the front door of the yellow house and barrel inside, almost braining myself after tripping over Clouseau in the doorway.

  ‘Grady! Cleo – Anthony? Is anyone here?’

  I stare at the useless mobile in my hand, doubled over as I try to catch my breath. The entire house is flooded with light. Grady is always flicking the lights off after his mum; no way he would have left the house like this. I run down the hallway, past Anthony’s bombshell bedroom, and the hallway cupboard with the broken door that Grady’s in the middle of fixing.

  I throw open his bedroom door. My eyes scan his unmade bed and Clouseau’s chewed doggy basket and the blue bookshelves, stacked with novels and lined with basketball trophies. One wall is covered with the New York canvas he bought on one of our city trips last year. Above his desk is the giant pinboard he’s had since forever, thick with random things. It’s been here for so long that I’ve never bothered looking at it closely, but Eddie’s gravel voice is suddenly bouncing in my head, so I stumble towards it and let my eyes run over the junk.

  Grady seems to have no order for the stuff on here, just bits pinned on top of bits. There’s funny dog memes printed from the net, and our year-twelve graduation flyer with a half-circle coffee stain. There’s a few photos of Clouseau, and a black-and-white pic of Anthony from Merindale’s paper that time he won the basketball club meat raffle. There’s articles of the stuff Grady finds interesting enough to keep, and some law-school flyers from the uni sessions he’s been trekking out to all year.

  On the far right of the pinboard is a badge we picked up at Melbourne Uni open day
earlier this year; a white disc with ‘I ♥ Maths’ on it, which, for some reason, Grady seemed to find hilarious. Beneath that, peeking out from behind a Threadless receipt, is a tiny piece of green ribbon, twisted into a loop and secured with a pin.

  I peer closer at the scrap. It’s familiar, in a brain-tingly way. I unpin it from the board and run it between my fingers. And then I remember.

  It’s a bow from this dress I wore to Lucy and George Albington’s wedding when I was in grade six. I remember, cos Grady and I snuck out of the reception at the school hall to climb the new equipment in the playground. I remember, because I got the dress caught on the slide, and a giggly Grady had to cut me loose with a steak knife.

  I stare at the slip in my hand. The distant music thumps through my feet, but I can’t move, and I can’t breathe.

  I keep staring at the pinboard, at the stuff he has saved, and it’s like one of those magic-eye pictures coming into focus, fragments merging to form a clear image. There’s a fading postcard from the year-nine art show at Merindale, the very first nervy time I displayed one of my drawings. There’s the lanyard with my old bus pass, carefully held in place with a silver pin. There’s an unused pair of movie tickets, the comedy we never actually saw on our ill-fated Valentine’s dare-date. And in between Grady’s detritus are bits of my art; some nothing more than doodles on Albany’s napkins or scraps torn from the margins of his school notebooks. There’s half a seventh-birthday card with my inexpert drawing of a Labrador puppy, and a carefully flattened piece of sketchbook with a skeleton of superhero Pete, and a beer coaster duck-hat from all those years ago at the Junction pub.

  I turn around. In the shelf of his nightstand sits the Paddington bear with the missing nose that I gave him for his birthday when we were five, and beneath his lamp, the tacky Big Banana snow-globe I bought for him on that road trip when we were eleven. Sitting carefully atop a basketball trophy is the teeny plastic Bambi I won from a machine in the city a few years ago; I tossed it at him, assuming he’d just bin it, because really, no-one needs a plastic Bambi.