The Furies. Katie Lowe

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СКАЧАТЬ home-schooled?’ She raised a pencilled brow sharply, red pinpricks blooming beneath.

      ‘Kind of, I guess. But I sort of taught myself.’

      ‘No way,’ she said. ‘How come?’

      ‘I … Well, my dad died. They said take as much time as I needed, so …’

      ‘Hey!’ she said, brightly. ‘My dad’s dead too.’ She paused. ‘I mean, so, you know. I get it.’

      ‘Oh. That’s horrible. Sorry.’

      ‘No, no, it’s cool. I didn’t really know him. Mum says he was kind of an asshole.’

      ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well … Sorry anyway, I guess.’

      She smiled, looked away. In the daylight, she was freckled and long-lashed, cheeks flushed feverish in the cool autumn air. ‘Shit,’ she muttered, flinching as the cigarette burned to her fingers. She threw it on the floor and stamped it out with a silver-toed boot. From inside the building, the bell rang.

      ‘Wanna hang out some time?’ she said, turning to me.

      ‘Hang out?’

      ‘Yes, dipshit, hang out. You know. Pass time. In company. Among friends.’

      I said nothing, dumbstruck. In my silence, she went on. ‘I’m going to assume that’s a yes, because anything else would be unspeakably rude. Bus stop. Friday. 3:15. Sharp.’ She turned and walked away without another word, a cluster of sparrows scattering as she strolled across the grass, while I stood, left behind, paralysed by the encounter.

      It couldn’t possibly be that simple.

      I’d never really had friends, though I hadn’t been entirely unpopular, either. I drifted in the background, a barely-noticeable side-player, while my fellow classmates turned rebellion into a competitive sport. I, too shy, too nervous, too slow, simply lingered behind, clutching books and feeling the soothing roll of my Walkman in my pocket, pretending not to care. It wasn’t that I was incapable of making conversation, or that I was disliked, per se. I simply couldn’t work out how one crossed the boundary line from classmates, to friends, as though there were some secret code or sign one had to give to join each little group.

      And yet, mere days after joining Elm Hollow – the new girl, late in the semester, with nothing special to recommend me, no gaudy quirks or stylish clothes – I had a friend. A friend, who wanted to ‘hang out’. I wondered if I was being set up; became convinced of this, over the hours that followed, when there was no sign of the girls, nor of Annabel, whose studio was empty when I passed, the following day.

      Finally, Friday afternoon arrived, and I began the march towards the bus stop, among the hordes of fellow students, who had already focused their attentions elsewhere, now seeming not to see me at all. At the top of the hill, an old playground stood silhouetted in the afternoon light: the younger brothers and sisters of those students being collected squealed and swung, ran circles around their weary parents. I imagined my sister’s moon-white face among them, the rubber texture of her swollen skin; shook my head, searched for Robin in the crowd.

      ‘Wasn’t sure if you’d show,’ she said, grabbing my shoulders from behind, callused fingers brushing my cheek.

      ‘Why?’ I stood, frozen. It had been a long time since I’d last been touched, though I hadn’t realized it until now. My mother’s collarbones pressed against my neck, days after Dad died. That was the last.

      ‘Dunno,’ she said. ‘You just didn’t seem all that into the idea.’

      ‘Oh, no, I was – I just—’ I stopped, grateful to be interrupted by a cheer from the crowd by the bus stop; a girl dancing, whirling in circles, so fast she’d become a blur.

      Robin and I followed the thinning crowd on to the last bus, her hand still tight around my wrist. She slid in by the window, guitar pressed against her knees; I sat beside her, pressed close as the bus filled up, packed with pale limbs and stale breath.

      ‘So,’ she said, turning to me, eyes wide, an exaggeration. ‘Where’d you come from?’

      ‘Kirkwood,’ I said, again.

      ‘I know that. Let me rephrase. Tell me everything. Tell me your story.’

      I looked at her, my mind empty of all history, memory erased. ‘I … I don’t know.’

      ‘Interesting,’ she said, grinning, a smudge of mulberry brushed under stained lips. She saw me looking, raised a hand to her mouth. ‘You’re from round here?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘Makes sense, then. Boring, boring, boring.’ She paused, narrowed her eyes. ‘Not you, I mean. The town. Is boring.’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘Yeah,’ she said, leaning back against the seat. ‘Okay, let’s try something else. Pop quiz. Violet’s not talking because a) she’s shy, b) she’s got super interesting things to say but she doesn’t want to tell me, or c), she’s not that interesting after all and I’m sorely misguided. Go.’

      ‘Not c,’ I said, though I felt the sudden flash of a lie. I’m not that interesting, I thought. She’s right.

      ‘I guess a) and b) aren’t exactly mutually exclusive. So you are interesting, but you’re shy and you don’t want to tell me your secrets.’ She looked at me, smiled. ‘I guess that’s okay.’

      I searched for another way, an easier line of conversation. ‘Let’s try the other way around. Tell me about you.’

      ‘Oh, me? I’m super interesting. Fascinating. A one-woman Pandora’s box. But I’m also a lot like you. I don’t give it away for free.’ She grinned. ‘We’ll just have to take it slow, huh?’

      I smiled. ‘You play guitar?’

      ‘Horribly,’ she said, squeezing the neck of the case between her fingers. ‘Still, it makes me look cool. That’s a start.’

      ‘You are cool,’ I said, and blushed. I hadn’t meant to sound so desperate, so eager to please.

      She laughed, a bitter snort. ‘Well, I guess that’s sealed then. You’re just about the only person around here that thinks I, Robin Adams, am cool. Which I’m pretty sure makes you my new best friend.’ She extended a hand, and we shook, a comical formality that felt strangely intimate in the crowded space. ‘Come on,’ she said, nudging my arm with her elbow.

      The bus shuddered to a halt, and we edged out into the street, where the smell of the sea – something I hadn’t noticed was absent from the grounds of the school – whistled between the buildings. The sky had turned from blue to grey over the course of the afternoon, and tiny beads of rain started to fall, so imperceptibly I didn’t notice until Robin held a discarded paper over her head and gestured to me to follow, saying ‘This rain’s going to ruin my hair,’ as she bounded off.

      I followed her into the grandly named International Coffee Company, with its one dilapidated location in a quiet street, in a town the world forgot. ‘Hey, bitches,’ she said, announcing herself to the СКАЧАТЬ