The Summer of Kicks Read online

  My phone’s on one per cent, so I plug it into the wall and edge up onto the bar stool. The spacebar on the keyboard jolts the computer awake, and I punch in the letters C-A-N-D-A-C-E-J-O-N-E-S, the same password I’ve used since year seven. The crusty toast burns angrily at my lip, so I reschedule my first bite and set the sandwich back down onto the plate. Social media, it’s not really my thing. I honestly don’t give a crap about Hayley Griffin posting her latest studio glamour shots. ‘Girl ur beautiful,’ says Montana Ramirez. ‘No, you’re beautiful, Mon-Mons,’ Hayley responds. This is repeated tenfold by every other good-looking girl in the school. Including Candace. ‘Gorgeous, Hayles,’ she’s posted. I click her comment instinctively and immediately the greater high-school community knows that I like what she’s said. I’m about to head over to her timeline. Not in a stalkery way. I’m just taking a healthy interest in her activities. Completely normal. But I don’t get as far as Candace’s timeline. The ‘bloop’ noise interrupts me. At first I don’t recognise it as it’s a fairly rare occurrence that I receive a Facebook message. At the bottom of the screen, the small window awaits my response.

  Haha … funny, Jones. LMFAO.

  Jake Toohey. Sports captain. Total conversations between the two of us to date: zero.

  I look up to the notifications icon – the little picture of the earth that sometimes has a one but, more often than not, nothing at all hovering above it. But tonight, the number is slightly more than one.

  Two hundred and twelve? What the hell? One after the other I scroll through the comments. Comments posted on my wall, by people I barely know.

  Hilarious.

  Get her, dude!

  Freaking awesome!!

  What the hell is going on?

  And then I see the reference to the link. I click on it and the YouTube video opens up before me.

  My phone still has barely enough juice to allow me to scroll through my contacts. Sure, I plugged it in, but the second part of that equation is switching it on at the wall. I give the powerpoint switch a flick, find my target and make a call.

  ‘Hey, Starrphola, what’s up?’

  ‘Dude, what was going through your head?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The YouTube video?’ I say.

  ‘Hey, you saw it?’ Hemmo asks. ‘Pretty cool, huh?’

  ‘Pretty cool?’ I say, and Hemmo straightaway works out that I’m less than impressed.

  ‘It’s not like anyone’s going to see it,’ he says.

  ‘Everyone saw it,’ I say. ‘Check it out for yourself.’

  For a moment Hemmo’s silent, typing the sequence of letters into the search bar.

  ‘Holy shit!’ Hemmo says, without any attempt to hold back his laughter. ‘Twenty-two thousand views!’

  ‘Seriously, what were you thinking, Hemmo?’

  ‘I told you, Starrph, the internet’s where legends are born. Tell me I’m wrong.’

  ‘But the name …’

  ‘Well, I didn’t vote for Infinite Nipples as a band name,’ Hemmo says. ‘As far as I knew it wasn’t a hundred per cent decided.’

  ‘It’s not our name, dude, you’ve got to pull it down.’

  ‘Sorry, no can do,’ Hemmo says. ‘Mum banned me from using the internet.’

  ‘That’s crap. You’re using it right now.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ he lies. ‘Just logged out. What’s that, Mum? No, I totally respect your decision. No internet for a year,’ he chuckles.

  ‘You’re a tool,’ I say.

  ‘Happy to be of service,’ says Hemmo. No sooner has he hung up than my phone bleeps. It’s a text message. From Mikayla. I click it open and for the chatty girl she is, the message is uncharacteristically brief. It simply says, Brittney Pigs? How could you?

  Before clicking out of YouTube, I make the curious choice to refresh the page once more. At this very minute twenty-two thousand – holy crap – twenty-three thousand, five hundred and fifty-eight people have hit play on a one minute and fifty-three second video titled ‘Do Rude Things to Me’ by the Brittney Pigs featuring Starrphyre Jones.

  ‘What the hell have you done?’ Rue storms into my room, her words sharpened to a point.

  ‘What? Nothing,’ I say. ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, don’t BS me, Starrphyre. You know exactly what you did. Warren told me everything.’ And Warren’s face comes into view. He’s standing behind her now, offering me a wink. A friendly gesture, but there’s nothing friendly about it.

  ‘Sorry, buddy,’ he says. ‘But I had to tell her.’

  ‘Tell her what?’

  ‘I don’t care how you do it,’ she snaps. ‘Just fix it.’

  ‘Fix what? I don’t even know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I know that you and Dad have that thing with your music,’ Rue snaps, ‘and I know that you don’t give an ass about anything that’s important to me, but some of those records were mine. The ones Grandad gave me? You know what they meant to me and I want them back. Today.’

  ‘Rue – I don’t even know where the records are.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘I swear, they were right here in my room, then Nanna had those Salvos guys turn up, collecting boxes of her crap, and …’

  ‘God dammit, Starrphyre, don’t you dare blame this on Nanna!’ she yells, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her quite this mad. ‘You did this,’ she says.

  ‘Rue, honestly I …’

  ‘Oh, save it,’ she says. ‘I never would have thought that you’d do something so selfish,’ and she slams the door hard, and really I have no idea what the hell just happened.

  Just seconds have passed when my door cracks open again. It’s Warren.

  ‘Oooh,’ he says. ‘If I didn’t know better, Turdface, I’d say she was upset about how you went and sold her favourite records.’

  ‘What? You’re a freaking liar,’ I say. ‘There’s no way I’d do that.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Warren says. ‘Because I told Rue that you did. And if you think about it – who’s she going to believe?’

  Ordinarily I’d say me. Me over Warren in a heartbeat. But for whatever reason it seems that Rue’s already made up her mind.

  ‘OK, you rejects, I’m outta here,’ says Scene, pulling on a heavy military-style jacket. It’s too hot for it outside, but I doubt he cares. It’s still half an hour until closing. ‘Places to go, people to do,’ he chuckles. ‘You cool to lock up, Ellie?’ he says, throwing the keys to Box Girl. This is the first time I’ve heard her real name.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ she says, and slings the lanyard around her neck, the clutch of keys sliding down inside her top. She doesn’t seem to notice. ‘Go. Have fun. We’ll stay here and slave over your stupid store.’

  ‘That’s why I love you,’ he says, heading out to blend with the centre’s tired afternoon hum.

  It’s 5.30 and as I twirl the vacuum cleaner hose around on itself and press the button that sucks the power cord in, Ellie holds open the back room door for me, and I plonk the vac inside.

  ‘Job done,’ she says, and we’re walking out of the store, pulling down the big opaque roller doors and Ellie’s locking them one by one.

  ‘How are you getting home?’ she says. ‘You drive?’

  ‘Me? Not likely. I’m a bus guy,’ I say. ‘Big fan of public transport.’

  ‘Hmm. Me too,’ she says. ‘The six-thirty-one’s a sweet ride.’

  ‘Six-thirty-one? Hey, that’s my bus.’

  ‘Oh, goody,’ she says. ‘You’re a stalker. Just what I need.’

  ‘Hey, no, I’m not … I’m not stalking you …’ I say.

  ‘Calm down, New Guy, I’m just joking,’ she says. ‘But seriously, if you are a serial killer, could you give me a heads-up before you dump my body in the river? This is a new shirt and I’d rathe
r not get it crapped up.’

  The walk to the bus stop isn’t long. Five minutes. Maybe six. And as we walk, Ellie talks and it’s not about anything in particular. She’s just observing people. Making funny little comments. ‘I think that’s a guy,’ she says, pointing to an elderly lady on a mobile scooter. I laugh and I hear everything she’s saying. I’m looking up every now and then, and out here in the world she seems so different. A lot less like the über-cool record store girl, more like just a girl. A girl who maybe I could get to know. Maybe even like. She’s nice and she’s quirky and even though she’s still talking, I now find myself mostly watching her, her face and her mouth, as she speaks. If anyone asked I’d have to tell them that I stopped listening to what she was saying a while back and I’m mostly just inventing ways in my head that I can extend this moment. Right now I don’t want to go straight to the bus stop. I don’t want to head home to Mum and Rue and Nanna and Warren and dinner and the TV and the normalities of life. I look across at Ellie and it’s like I’m seeing her for the first time. Like there’s suddenly more to her, more that’s appealing, and the more I feel that we’re running out of time, the closer our feet bring us to the inevitable bus stop. To the point where we’ll say a friendly ‘see you tomorrow, I guess’. I don’t want to let go of this moment.

  Can I ask her to have coffee with me? I don’t want it to seem like I’m asking her out, but maybe I can make it sound casual. ‘Hey, you want to grab some coffee?’ ‘Are you up for coffee?’ ‘I think I need a coffee. Do you have time for one?’ Any of these would be acceptable if the outcome didn’t matter to me. But in the last bunch of minutes, the game has changed.

  Without a word Ellie stops walking, stretches an arm out to lean against a shop window and begins unlacing her shoes. She loosely knots the laces together and they hang now by her sides, socks peeled off and stuffed inside, and with her bare feet exposed, I feel like I’m a part of some glorious secret, as if a door has opened silently and it’s only me who’s been invited to step through it. She spots a guy walking a great dane along the footpath and points towards him, to share the spectacle with me. The owner of the dog is small. Maybe one-sixty and the dog is clearly an ambitious choice for a man who shops for clothes in the youth section. She runs her fingers through her hair as she looks to me, and I’m reading her signs, I think, and she suggests that the man needs a smaller dog. The fingers in her hair. It’s a female flirting pattern. It’s subconscious. The afternoon has turned cool and the breeze off the water has formed goosebumps on her forearms. Is it a conscious thing? Is she wanting to look appealing to me? Either way, she’s making conversation and she wants me to join her.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Or a skateboard. He could ski behind it.’

  ‘Footpath dog skiing,’ she says with a smile. ‘It could take off,’ and it’s a smile I could watch for an infinite amount of time. I think to myself that maybe this is how people fall in love. Not over time or by learning the intricate details about one another or by building up trust and mutual respect, but in an instant. Like flipping a switch and suddenly there’s nothing else – no one thing that’s more important than the person you’re with. Moments become more than moments, and maybe you find yourself noticing things that you never saw in the person before and all you want to do is to hold onto the feeling that’s just hit you like a hammer and never lose your grip on it.

  I look at Ellie and wonder how this escaped me before. How I didn’t notice, but she’s beautiful.

  Beautiful.

  ‘But you couldn’t try it in water,’ she says. ‘Strictly a footpath activity. Dog skiing. It’ll be huge.’

  I drown in her smile. Whatever she’s selling I’ve bought it and in a heartbeat I’d swap my grandmother for another minute in Ellie’s presence. I have to try. OK, keep calm. Be confident. Not too confident. You don’t want to come off looking like a cocky knob. Confident enough though. And keep it open-ended. An invitation of sorts, but something that gives her the option to join me or opt out without me looking like a goose.

  ‘I think I could use some coffee,’ I say. I look at my watch. Stretch a little, to indicate that I’m kind of tired, underlining my need for caffeine. ‘Do you know anywhere that does coffee?’

  ‘It’s a long shot, but there’s a café,’ she says. ‘I’ve heard that they might do coffee.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘There’s a real chance you could be right. And where is this café?’

  ‘Hastings Street. Everything’s on Hastings Street.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Well, it does have its limitations. But there will be coffee. Coffee is a given.’

  We walk beyond our bus stop, presumably towards the coffee. She hasn’t given me any indication yet as to whether she’ll join me or not. It still could be a solo mission. I look down at her hands, her shoes still swinging loosely at the tips of extended fingers. I smile.

  ‘Do you … have time for a coffee?’ And it’s out there. I’ve never asked a girl out before. Mum had often set up role-playing exercises where she was the girl and I had to practise asking her out. Clearly back then there was less riding on a ‘yes’ response.

  Ellie pauses. It’s a long-ish pause and what comes next carries some weight. A two-possibility outcome. The chance of either a simple yes or a simple no. It’s all up to her and if she looked at me now, she’d see that I’m holding my breath and the waiting is killing me.

  ‘Hmmm,’ she says, her smile ever-present. ‘I could do coffee. Let’s.’

  Which means ‘let us’, which also means that our current situation has progressed from two separate people walking towards a coffee establishment, to ‘us’ status, which indicates togetherness. A grouping of individuals. This is good. We are now us.

  We sit by the roadside, but Hastings Street isn’t a bustling traffic-heavy slice of road. It exists purely for people to drive their Land Cruisers to the cafés and boutique stores and galleries that run along the two-kilometre stretch of tar, just a block behind the Sunshine Coast’s most famous beach, Noosa Main.

  ‘You know, I don’t often do this,’ Ellie says.

  ‘What’s that? Sit down? It’s the whole bending your legs thing. It’s such a challenge.’

  She giggles. ‘I mean sit here. Have coffee, like the rich people.’

  I look at her. I know that coffee isn’t necessarily reserved for the rich. Anyone with four bucks in their pocket and ten minutes up their sleeve can sit and drink coffee, but I want to know more. Want to listen to her speak.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The rich people pay a lot of money to do what we’re doing,’ she says. ‘Taking time off work, paying for their trip to Noosa to stay in their hundreds-of-dollars-a-night resort so that they can sit and have coffee here. Right where we are. Just like us.’

  ‘Do you think that people will think that we’re rich? Will we pass for rich wanker tourists?’

  ‘I might,’ she says, sliding her sunglasses up to rest on the top of her head. ‘But you won’t. Not with that haircut. They might think you’re a homeless person and throw coins at you,’ she laughs.

  ‘And ironically if enough people do that, I’ll be able to buy myself a coffee and sit among them.’

  The waiter approaches us, offers some throwaway chit-chat and takes my order of a long black. Ellie orders a cappuccino.

  Time passes and we talk. We talk about everything. I learn about her family, how they moved from Rockhampton when she was nine, how her grandfather had been selected to represent Australia at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 as a runner but couldn’t attend due to a hernia operation. She tells me about her other weekend job. She hears all about the band that was Waxxonn and it turns out that her mum is a fan, but we don’t get to discuss my mother’s curiously intriguing vocation. Not yet.

  ‘Are you going to answer that or just ride out the pocket vibration?’ Ellie says. I hadn’t hea
rd a thing. I reach for my phone.

  ‘Hello.’ I’m trying to sound cool, casual, adult and as un-awkward as I can. I’m pretty sure it’s not working.

  ‘Hey, Star-ass.’ It’s Warren.

  ‘Hey,’ I say. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘So who’s your little friend?’

  ‘What?’ And I look around. Warren’s here somewhere.

  ‘That chicky-babe’s kinda hot,’ Warren says, giggling like a twelve-year-old. I look past Ellie to the shops and boutiques across the street, but I don’t spot him anywhere.

  ‘Hah,’ I fake laugh. ‘You’re hysterical. Look, man, I’ve gotta go.’

  ‘Text me her details, you little reject.’

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Bye … Mum.’

  ‘Wait – that was your mum?’ Ellie asks. I nod. ‘And you call your mum man?’

  ‘What? Um … yeah. I call her man, she calls me Susan. It’s … you know … it’s just dumb family stuff.’

  Five forty-five has become six-thirty and Ellie twists around in her chair, presumably looking for a clock. She’s been fidgeting like she’s aware that the last bus home is about to leave or that she has pushed beyond her curfew. I have a watch on, but don’t want to draw attention to it. I don’t want to do anything that might end this. Selfish? Maybe. But not stupid.

  ‘It’s getting close to dinner,’ she says, and I feel her being taken from me. I fake not knowing the time. I look at my watch. I say nothing.

  ‘Do you think we should get something to eat?’ she says.

  And there it is. Ellie doing her part to keep tonight going.

  ‘We should,’ I say. ‘Dinner is the most important meal of the day. Besides breakfast. And that other one.’

  ‘Lunch.’

  ‘And mid-morning snacks,’ she adds.

  I like her more.

  We decide on Mexican takeaway and walk back to the sand that separates the water’s edge from the town.