Trust Me!
Deborah Abela
Really
I didn't expect anyone to understand. The look on Mum and Dad's faces when it was all over told me that they didn't. But if you asked me if I'd do it again, I'd give you one of my best pearlies.
You bet I would have. Well, maybe a bit differently.
Mareka was beautiful. Not ordinary, magazine, head-turning beautiful. She was haven't-slept-fordays, can't-concentrate-on-anything beautiful. I've been known to get carried away, but this was different.
Trust me.
‘You have got to get over this.'
That was Dash. I must have been talking out loud again. I have a few annoying habits and that's just one.
‘She's so out of your league, you might as well be living in a parallel universe.'
Dash carried around a book called The Outsider. He took it everywhere. It was by a French guy, Albert Camus. It told the story of Meursault, who is convicted of murder and faces execution, not because of the evidence against him, but because he never cried at his mother's funeral. The illogic of it ate Dash up and made him a big fan of things making sense.
‘Your obsession with her doesn't make sense.'
Dash and I had been friends since we were kids and he was smart. Smarter than anyone I knew.
‘I've got to get her to notice me.'
Welcome to my second annoying habit. Not listening to anyone when I really wanted something. No matter how smart they were.
Mareka flung back her hair and it swung around her in slow motion like those shampoo ads. Thousands of sparkling strands of perfect hair, a smile that promised the world and a laugh that curled right into your bones.
‘You have got to get over it. I'm telling you, Rev.' Dash clipped me on the back of the head with his book. He called me Rev because he spoke French. Dreamer in French is reveur. I have a habit of dreaming. A lot.
The bell clanged around the school, barging through my thoughts of Mareka like a wrecking ball. The day crash-landed back to its normal faded redbrick, asphalt and pasty-faced colours.
If she really was in a parallel universe, I was packing my bags and heading straight there.
* * *
The Ride Home
If I rode my bike along Empire Drive, round by the timber yard and past the rows of grapevines that poked out of the ground like fingers of arthritic old women, I'd end up in Paradise.
Paradise Estate was where the rich lived. Where Mareka lived with her parents. A million miles from where I lived.
I'd already worked out what I'd say if Mareka caught me in front of her house and gave me a ‘you're-a-crazy-stalker' look. I was in training to be a triathlete. Most girls loved a guy who took care of himself. A guy who worked out. I read it in a men's mag and knew it was a con but I figured I'd use it anyway.
I waited behind one of the fountains that frothed on either side of the entrance gates of the estate. Sometimes kids from my part of town would ride over just to put detergent in them and watch the groundsman go nuts. He did. Every time. With them behind trees laughing it up. Kids' stuff. I might have smirked at it once but I was way beyond that now.
‘Rev, good to see you, my son.' The groundsman's beard was as long as his robe. ‘Come on in. She's waiting for you.'
I imagined it like this, complete with angels singing in the background, until a car pulled up in front of the gates.
A window hummed down and a slim hand, wrist dripping gold charms, reached out to enter a number on the keypad. The gates opened. The car turned left into a tree-lined avenue, giving me a three second gap between it disappearing and the gates shutting me out. I got pretty good at the timing.
Passing into Paradise, the sky became postcard blue. Almost fake. The air felt cleaner, like any hint of dirt or lost hope had been vacuumed up. I cycled under a corridor of well-watered trees and past roofless, lowriding beemers, Saabs and Lexus 4WDs.
Paradise Estate was part of Dash's problem with my not making sense. There were five of us kids living with Mum and Dad out past Blindman's Ridge. No trees lined our streets, apart from a few scraggy, drought-starved bottlebrushes and no fancy cars either, if you didn't count old Perce McGovern's ancient Mercedes in his front yard. He'd been working on it for years but never managed to even get her started.
Mareka's house was in the upper end of the estate. Even places like this had a pecking order and Mareka's dad was head of the coop.
I lay my bike behind an azalea bush in the park across the street and prepared to wait. For a glimpse into her life. Into the world where I belonged.
The front door opened and Mareka walked out in beige cargo shorts and a little red T-shirt. Her hair was wound up behind her head and stuck through with a pencil, letting curled brown strands halo round her face. She barefooted it down the drive and bent to collect the mail. She was perfect. Like someone had worked for months to sculpt her. All marble skin and smooth edges.
I could have stayed and watched that moment forever.
If a lady beetle hadn't chosen to crawl up my nose. I whacked myself in the head a little harder than I intended, which gave me the beginnings of a headache and squashed the little sucker up my schnoz. I sneezed, which luckily dislodged it, sending the newly deceased bug flying onto the road.
Mareka looked up. I sucked myself into the hedge. She collected the mail and went back inside. Every step was like being dipped in pure sweetness. Like those ads with people splashing around in oversized ice-creams. Heaven.
* * *
How to Recognise True Love
There are loads of examples that proved we were meant for each other. Here are just a few.
She smiled at me when she was running late for soccer practice and I let her go in front of me in the tuckshop line.
She likes the colour blue. So do I.
She thinks soccer's a better game than football. I know that's a fact but not everyone gets it. She and I do.
Last week in the library, I gave her a book she was looking for even though I needed it for an assignment due the next day. I failed but it was worth it.
If she'd looked and seen me in the park across the street, she would have loved me from that very moment. She would have seen me for who I really was. Don't ask me how I know. Some things are just true and you have to trust that.
* * *
An Honourable Man
A red Alfa Spider pulled into the drive. Mareka's dad. He wore an Armani suit over his bulked-up body and smiled into the rear-vision mirror as he swept a hand through his thick, grey-streaked hair.
He was about to get out when the tinny sound of a phone floated upwards. He opened it with a measured flick. His sunglassed face gave nothing away. With one word the call was over.
There were rumours about Mareka's dad at school. Shady deals, backhanders to local government, even one about a guy who'd accused him of fraud. The guy was found, kneecaps cactus, lying face down and caught in willow roots at the bend of the river.
He stepped out of the Spider and the door closed with an expensive fffttt.
He stepped across the manicured lawn to the door, which was when his phone fell out of his pocket. He went inside. Not noticing.
I stared at the phone.
It was a sign. A sign that I was supposed to be with Mareka. Mum'd be mad at me. She'd made me promise I'd be home to help with dinner and I was already running late, but you can't have fate hand you a ticket like that and throw it back in her face. That would be impolite.
I pushed my bike across the street and dumped it on the footpath and ran across the lawn. Picking up the phone, I fixed my hair and turned to the house.
That's when the phone rang. There wouldn't be time to call Mareka's dad before it rang out. I stared at it sitting small and silver in my hand. What if it was important? What if it was a call he had to get? I had to think fast.
I'd answer it and relay the message and he'd be impressed by my honesty and quick thinking.
Before I could say anything, a quiet gravelly voice spoke. ‘It's on. Midnight. Fish yards. Sweet merchandise just as you ordered.'
A loud click sent the phone dead.
What was on? Sweet merchandise? What was I supposed to do? It was dodgy, no doubt. I couldn't tell Mareka's dad. He'd know I knew. Then he'd have to do away with me. He might have me kneecapped. I was puny enough for him to do it himself. Worse, I'd blow any chance I had of being with Mareka.
She opened the door in her soccer uniform. My brain emptied. This girl could wear anything and look good.
‘Hi, Mareka, I …' quickly ran out of anything else to say.
She looked at my outstretched hand. ‘That's Dad's phone.' She threw a sports bag over her shoulder. ‘What are you doing with it?'
‘I was passing. On my bike.' I turned and pointed to the footpath to prove it. ‘Triathlete training. Your dad dropped it. My name's Rev. From school.'
I stuttered like Perce McGovern's old Mercedes trying to start up.
Mareka's dad appeared behind her with a glass swilling ice and whiskey.
‘Who is it, sweetheart?'
There was a pause. ‘Rev's from school.' She smiled. ‘He found your phone.'
Her dad's hand flew to his coat pocket. ‘Must have fallen out.' He took it. ‘Good lad.'
He saw Mareka's smile aimed straight at me. His jawbones worked through his tanned cheeks.
‘Why don't you get Rev a drink, love? He looks hot.'
‘Sure.' Mareka dropped her bag and turned into the house.
Mareka's dad swivelled the ice in his glass. He sipped slowly and swallowed. ‘That was a good thing you did. Honourable. You don't find that too often these days.'
‘Thanks, I …'
He grabbed my collar with his free hand and lifted me from the ground. ‘If you mess with my daughter, I'll mess with you.'
‘Okay.' I would have said more but I was finding it hard to breathe.
‘Good.' He dropped me to the floor and hugged me for a second before he let me go. He brushed out my creased collar. ‘I find it's better to be straight right from the start.'
Mareka snuck out from behind him and handed me a juice.
‘There's my angel.' He kissed her on the head.
His phone rang. He looked at the screen. ‘Better get this. Don't be long, honey. You'll be late for training.'
I'd imagined being alone with Mareka for so long, pictured every second. Now that it was happening, I was too scared to speak in case I wrecked it. I downed the juice in one go.
‘You were thirsty.'
‘Yeah.'
Silence.
‘I should go,' she said.
‘Okay.'
I handed back the glass as slowly as I could without seeming super-creepy, and headed for my bike. ‘See ya.'
‘Hey.'
I almost tripped over my feet, I spun round so fast. ‘Yeah?'
‘You're the guy from the library. The one who gave me that chemistry book.'
I could think of nothing more to do than blush and say, ‘Yeah.'
She walked over. ‘Thanks for handing back my dad's phone. Most of the jerks I know would have stolen it in a second.'
‘Really?' I tried to sound genuinely shocked. I knew heaps of kids who'd trade in their gran for a new phone.
I shook my head. ‘People amaze me sometimes.' I was aiming to impress with my philosophical side, which was mostly Dash's philosophical side that I borrowed when I thought it would be useful.
‘Me too. Rev, isn't it?'
And there it was. The smile that made me realise we were destined for each other.
I heard birds sing.
‘Yeah. Rev.'
God don't let me die in the next few seconds.
She snuck a look back at the house. ‘It'll mean a lot to my dad. That you gave his phone back. He's had a hard time lately. People letting him down. The police coming round and saying if he makes one wrong move, they'll get him. They're obsessed with him. My dad's a good man. One of the best, but I know what some people say about him.'
I couldn't let on that I'd heard most of it. ‘He seems like a good guy to me. Even gave me a hug.'
Mareka threw her hands over her eyes. ‘Oh, did he? Sorry about that. He's big on hugs. He didn't kiss you, did he?'
Her dad opened the door. ‘Mareka, let's go, sweet pea.'
‘I'll see you at school.'
She ran to the house. My heart skipped after her. Lost forever. Father and daughter stood on the doorstep. His arm around her. They waved. Happy families.
I knew I had to save Mareka's dad from making that one wrong move.
* * *
The Drop Off
I wore black. It seemed fitting. Black jeans, skivvy, beanie and sunglasses, although the glasses made it hard to see and I crashed into a wire fence, so I had to ditch them.
I was in the fish yards. Rows of sheds lined up next to each other, clustered like barnacles at the edge of the harbour and mired in the inky smell of the sea and hosed-out fish guts. A wharf reached out into the murky waters, empty – all the boats having long gone for night fishing. Trucks'd be here in a few hours ready to ice the morning's catch and crate them all over the state.
I'd snuck out, which probably wasn't a smart move since Mum was still angry at me for not making it home in time to help out with dinner. I hated disappointing her but if she knew it was for love, she'd understand. She was a real softy.
The lights from the city ricocheted off the harbour and saved the yards from being a total ad for depression. A skinny bulge of moon gave me all the light I needed to look around. I pressed the light on my watch. 11:45 pm. Almost time.
My plan? What plan? All I wanted to do was make sure none of whatever was going on was traceable to Mareka's dad. I know it wasn't very specific, but I was new to playing hero.
At the end of the row of sheds a truck was half hidden from view. I guessed this must have been the sweet merchandise old gravelly mentioned. If the cops were sniffing around Mareka's dad, I had to get this guy out of here before they picked up his scent.
I rode closer. The driver was out to it in the cabin. Head back, mouth wide open.
I looked around.
My palms were sweating like they were leaking water. It could have been the skivvy and beanie. The wind blew cold off the ocean but I was burning up.
I climbed onto the step below the door. The window was open. I shook the guy, but he kept sleeping. I snuck another look over my shoulder.
‘Hey, mate. You gotta get out of here. You hear me?' I shook him again. ‘You gotta …'
That's when he fell. Wilted headfirst onto the steering wheel, landing on the horn. It echoed around the empty yards like a beached whale calling for help.
I cranked open the door and tried to heave him off the horn.
‘Come on, mate. You gotta help me out here.'
I jammed my foot on to the dashboard for support and hoisted both his shoulders back. He slammed into the seat, bouncing against the creaking springs.
I breathed relief at the quiet, until I realised how cold he was. Real cold.
Dead cold.
I felt his chest. Nothing. I was holding a dead man. I tried to back away but he fell against me, pushing me out of the truck and slamming with me into the ground. I lay there, head aching, this guy splayed all over me.
There was a creak. I looked up to see the truck's wheels begin to roll towards my head.
I pushed hard against the guy and shoved him off me. He landed face down but at least I knew it wouldn't hurt.
I scrambled to my feet and looked into the truck. The handbrake had been released. The guy's leg must have kicked it as he fell out. I caught hold of the door and jumped into the cabin with a little more gusto than I should have. My already sore head banged into the guy's workbag that was in a hold above the driver's seat. The bag and everything in it rained around me.
The truck was gaining speed, heading to the edge of the wharf.
My foot slammed on the brake but a tin of condensed milk had jammed in the way. At least I now knew what probably killed him. The floor was swimming with them.
Lights spilled into the yard like a Hollywood alien invasion. From out of the shadows police cars tore towards me, sirens screaming and megaphones blaring.
‘Stop the truck! Stop the truck!'
Thanks for the advice.
Spot on midnight. It was a set-up.
The edge of the wharf was getting closer. I tried to kick the tin out of the way. It wouldn't budge. I pulled on the handbrake but it was worse than useless. The truck slowed a little but by now it had gained a lot of speed. I couldn't see through the blaze of lights tearing towards me. I turned round just in time to see the engulfing black of the harbour and the reflected city lights rushing at me.
It was pretty, in a grimy kind of way.
I don't remember much after that. Just the throbbing pain in my head, something trickling into my eyes and the smell of fish as the truck hit the ocean.
* * *
All Over
The hardest part was seeing Mum and Dad so upset. I'd never seen my dad cry before. Ever. My brothers and sisters stared and hugged, like they were watching TV and were trying to work out what was real and what wasn't. Perce had managed to get the Mercedes working and he offered it as the hearse. Most of the kids from my class were there and some of the teachers. Dash stood near his mum and dad. He was quiet and when it came time to approach the grave for last respects, he threw in his copy of The Outsider. I was touched. It was the most important thing he owned.
I'd miss Dash. There was a lot of history between us.
Mareka was there too with her dad. She was wearing a black dress that clung to all her curves and she held a branch of frangipani flowers. Her dad wore sunglasses. I couldn't tell exactly, but I think he was crying. He knew from the mess of that night that he'd been set up and that I took the fall. He'd just never know how I knew. Or how I got involved. No one would.
I'd never planned on dying so young and I can think of better ways to die. Saving Mareka from a crazed killer, for instance; not quite making a huge turn in the half pipe on my bike during the world championships; or even eating a truckload of condensed milk.
Here lies Rev.
He loved his friend Dash,
Mareka and condensed milk.
A couple of guys up here told me I'd do a bit of crying during the early days. Then it'd pass. They were right. When you're sitting where I am, you know everything will be okay. With a bit of time.
Trust me!