Leaving Jetty Road Read Free

bring us up to deal with everything: to “talk things through.” Our family doesn’t have “arguments”; we practice what Mum calls “conflict resolution.” We don’t yell and scream at each other; we have “roundtable discussions.” When we were little, Tim and I used to spend hours trying to work out why they were called that when the only table we ever sat around was the kitchen one, which is rectangular.
    But the upbringing kind of misfired on me, I think. Now I just try and avoid confrontation altogether, especially with my family. Just the thought of all that self-analysis makes me shudder. I don’t want to talk about stuff, to think about it. I just want to
do
it. I want to
try
it, and see what happens. How else am I going to find out about life? How else am I going to
decide
?
    “What about you?” I ask Lise now. “What would
you
change about yourself?”
    She doesn’t answer. For ages, she doesn’t answer. She picks up an unopened sugar packet from the table, creases it into tiny, deliberate folds, then unfolds it again, smoothing the wrinkles out of the paper. She frowns. Then she says quietly, “I’d change everything.”
    “Everything?”
I echo.
    She nods, looking down. “My clothes. My body. My
self.
I’d like to get outside of myself and be someone else completely.”
    This is something else Lise does a lot; she says this stuff—this negative stuff—about herself. I mean, what are you supposed to
say
when someone says something like that?
    So I do what I always do (what Mum would
never
do): I change the subject.
    “How about another cappuccino?” I suggest lightly. I grab my purse, stand up. “Or a bowl of gelato? We could share one.”
    Immediately her face brightens up.
    “Yes, please.” She hands me some money. “Life’s got to be all right if there’s a cappuccino on the way, right?”
    “Exactly,”
I say, and head for the counter.
    She doesn’t bring the subject up again when I come back, and for the rest of the afternoon we talk about other things—you know, much more important things, like what movie we’ll go to see next weekend and what color Lucy Davison will have dyed her hair for the first day of term (it’s a different color every year, without fail) and who our biology teacher will be this year.
    “I can’t
believe
Mr. Schumacher got sacked last year,” Lise says. “He was a great biology teacher.”
    “Sofe says it was for ‘getting involved’ with one of the Year 12 students.”
    She wrinkles her forehead. “Like—what does that mean exactly, ‘getting involved’?”
    Our eyes dance wickedly as we look at each other across the table.
    “You think he felt her up?”
    “Or kissed her?”
    “Maybe they had sex in the lab assistant’s room.”
    “Yeah—on the desk. Next to that jar with the pickled brain in it.”
    I could have asked Lise what she really
meant
about wanting to change all those things about herself, I suppose. But to be honest, I didn’t want to know.
    I still don’t, either. Everyone wants to change
something
about themselves, you know? What’s the point of getting hung up about it? Sometimes you just have to move on from that stuff, think about something else. That’s
my
theory, anyway. I think Lise just needs to be reminded of that every now and then.
    That’s my
other
theory: maybe if I remind her often enough, she’ll remember it for herself one of these days. I mean, if I can get myself to do the reminding, surely she can start putting it into practice.
    Maybe.

chapter two
    The Wild Carrot Café
    I
f it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen.
On the first day of term, I break my news to Lise and Sofe.
    “He rang me up on Sunday to tell me I got the job.”
    Sofe gives me a quick, pleased grin. “You mean the guy at the café in Glenelg who interviewed you both?”
    I nod. “Yeah. The manager.” I turn cautiously to Lise, not sure what her reaction will be. “You remember—Michael?”
    But Lise just shrugs. “I