Outer Space / Carry On | Michael Clifford AU

12.

Eloise leaned closer towards me. "Did you finish reading Romeo & Juliet? I need help with my closing paragraph."

"Since when do you need help? You know everything."

The compliment didn't get lost on Eloise. She flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder, a wry smile on her face. "I didn't finish the reading. I just need a few references for closing."

"I'll email you a bunch of quotes that didn't make it to my essay. Okay?"

"Thank you," she said. "I owe you one." Before I could click out of the web browser, Eloise caught an eye of my Macbook. "The old moon laughed and sang a song, as they rocked in the wooden shoe,  and the wind that - " I closed the browser and opened up a new email, attaching the list of Romeo & Juliet references for Eloise.

"Was that a poem or something?" she asked.

"More of a nursery rhyme, I guess."

Eloise scrunched up her tiny nose. "Why are you looking up nursery rhymes?"

"Never mind."

A firm hand grabbed my shoulder, and Eloise forced her face right in front of mine. "You're not... you're not pregnant, are you?"

"What?" I laughed out loud. At the desk in front of us, Kaitlyn Quinn's ears pricked up with interest. Great. Give it a day and she'd have told the entire school that Alice Zanetti is pregnant. "I'm not pregnant," I said, loud enough for Kaitlyn and probably the rest of our English class to hear. "My step-mum is about to have a baby."

"Seriously?" Eloise looked surprised. "When?"

I shrugged, "Like any minute now."

She was frowning now, possibly realising that despite us speaking to one another every single school day, we didn't really know each other at all. "You don't talk about your family much."

"There's not much to tell."

"Babies are cute. You must be excited."

"Yeah, I am, I guess." I gave Eloise a smile, just so she didn't think I was a complete bitch. It's not you, it's me, I told her telepathically. I'd grown used to keeping my family in a closed fist because I felt like if I kept them close, like a dirty little secret, then I could keep them safe. "My parents still can't agree on a name."

"How about Romeo?" Eloise asked.

"Um, no." No way.

"What's wrong with Romeo?"

"Don't you know how Romeo & Juliet ends?"

Eloise shrugged. "Personally, I was hoping for a happy ending."

"How do you get such good grades when you don't even know how Romeo & Juliet ends?" I was staring at Eloise now, realising I barely knew anything about her either.

"Just lucky, I guess."

I'd started walking home from school the last few days. Dad looked like he was having an aneurysm when I'd sat him and Joan down and told them it was ridiculous for Joan to pick me up after school when she was the size of the house. She should be resting as much as possible before the Little Monster came along.

"Besides," I'd pointed out. "Imagine if her water breaks in the car. Do you really want amniotic fluid all through the new minivan?"

Joan had insisted she didn't mind picking me up, but understood if I'd rather walk home. Dad, however, spent the rest of the night acting like I'd told him I wanted to back-pack to the moon or something: "You come straight home. Stick to the roads you know. Don't talk to strangers. Keep your phone on you at all times."

"You know I'm not seven years old, right?" I told him, with a hand on my hip and a fierce look of determination. His entire face tightened.  "You look so much like your mother," he'd said, and oddly enough, that was the end of the conversation.

I liked walking home from school. It was only a few short blocks and I spent most of them breathing in my surroundings. The dwindling patches of flowers, and the abundance of clovers. Most of the trees had surrendered to Autumn, sporting bare branches. I looked at the trees, trying to imagine them as people with twiggy limbs and ragged faces.

When I got home, Joan was waiting with tea, and macadamia and white choc-chip cookies. "I think I've officially entered the nesting stage. I've spent all day baking and washing towels and ironing sheets. And vacuuming the entire house. Twice."

"You should have been resting!" I took a bite of a cookie. They were still warm. "Besides, Bernie will be here tomorrow." Bernie came once a week to scrub the bathrooms and clean the floors. It seemed pointless to me, to pay a cleaner, because Joan never let the house get dirty but Bernie was also a single mother of three. Dad met her when his firm took on her case as pro bono. I didn't know the details, but I'd figured she'd had a rough past.

"When I was vacuuming your room... I couldn't help but notice the new drawing on your shelf. The one with the little baby carriage." Suddenly the warmth from the cookie moved up to my cheeks. Joan continued, "It's beautiful. Very different to your usual style, isn't it?"

"It's not mine." I took a sip of my tea, washing the cookie away. "It's Michael's. He gave it to me."

"Michael...?" Joan raised her eyebrows. "He made it for you?"

"I guess so." I felt a little uncomfortable. Joan had that look in her eyes. That glisten of excitement. It might as well have been a declaration of love, not a list of nursery rhymes.

"You didn't tell me you two were so close."

I took another sip of tea. "We're not, really. He's helping me out. I'm sort of in a dry spell."

Joan, who was the most polite person ever, did something entirely un-Joan-like, and spat her tea back into her cup. "Dry spell?"

"Yeah, I'm having trouble painting," I explained, reaching for another cookie and breaking it in half. "More trouble than usual."

My step-mum exhaled, her body relaxing into itself. "Oh. That sort of dry spell. I'm sorry, I thought you meant..."

Bewilderment washed over me as I got exactly what she thought I meant. "Oh, no. Definitely not. Me and Michael, we're not... we're not doing that."

Joan looked down at her stomach, probably willing herself to go into labour so that we could end this conversation. "Since we've already taken a turn down Embarrassment Boulevard, I want to say that when the time comes, with Michael or whoever, you know you can talk to me, if you need someone. I mean, it might be less mortifying than going to your Dad."

I wasn't sure how to respond. I figured Joan had no idea I wasn't a virgin, and setting her straight didn't feel appropriate. It was something I'd managed to avoid thinking about because the truth was, the months before Mum died, I was a brat. I spent most of my time sneaking out of the house - not hard to do, given that she was passed out most nights by 8pm - and hanging out with boys, when I should have been there at home with her. 

And I definitely didn't think about the fact that the night I was wasted off a few vodka shots, and losing my virginity, was the night my Nonna showed up at the house unannounced to find Mum unconscious and without a pulse, one disconcerted letter beside her. Most of it was so incoherent,  Nonna could only make out an apology until the last line where she'd written I love you. The universal you, I guessed. You was me and Nonna and maybe even Dad, all encompassed into three little letters.

I hope she knew how much we all loved her too.

"I'll be in my room if you need me," I told Joan, leaving the other half of the broken cookie behind. When I got up to my room, I grabbed a clean piece of paper. I wrote I love you too and then stuck it next to the Best Day Ever jar.

there'll be more michael and alice in the next chapter and i'm so excited