Dessi's Romance Read online

  Dessi’s Romance

  Dessi’s Romance

  Goldie Alexander

  CPM Publications

  CPM Publications

  PO Box 7, Briar Hill, Victoria, 3088, Australia.

  © Goldie Alexander, 2013

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Author: Alexander, Goldie.

  Title: Dessi's romance [electronic resource]

  ISBN: 9781920787219 (ebook: Kindle)

  Target Audience: For young adults.

  Subjects: Friendship--Fiction.

  Interpersonal relations--Fiction.

  Man-woman relationships--Fiction.

  Race--Religious aspects--Fiction.

  Dewey Number: A823.4

  Contents

  1. DESSI, Melbourne

  2. EMMA, Melbourne

  3. DESSI, Melbourne

  4. EMMA, Melbourne

  5. DESSI, Melbourne

  6. EMMA, Flying North

  7. DESSI, Melbourne

  8. EMMA, Gold Coast

  9. DESSI, Melbourne

  10. EMMA, Surfers

  11. DESSI, Melbourne

  12. EMMA, Surfers

  13. DESSI, Melbourne

  14. EMMA, Surfers

  15. DESSI, Melbourne

  16. EMMA, Surfers

  17. DESSI, Melbourne

  18. EMMA, Surfers

  19. DESSI, Melbourne

  20. EMMA, Surfers

  21. DESSI, Melbourne

  22. EMMA, Surfers

  23. DESSI, Melbourne

  24. EMMA, Surfers

  25. DESSI, Melbourne

  26. EMMA, Surfers

  27. DESSI, Melbourne

  28. EMMA, Surfers

  29. DESSI, Melbourne

  30. EMMA, Surfers

  31. DESSI, Melbourne

  32. EMMA, Surfers

  33. DESSI, Melbourne

  34. EMMA, Surfers

  35. DESSI, Melbourne

  36. EMMA, Surfers & Melbourne

  37. DESSI, Melbourne

  38. EMMA, Melbourne

  39. DESSI, Melbourne

  40. EMMA, Melbourne

  41. DESSI, Melbourne

  42. EMMA, Melbourne, three weeks later

  43. DESSI, Melbourne, a week later

  44. EMMA, Melbourne, mid-February

  45. DESSI, Melbourne, a fortnight later

  46. DESSI & EMMA, Texting

  47. EMMA, that same night

  48. Epilogue

  Books by Goldie Alexander

  For Adults

  The Grevillea Murder Mysteries: A Trilogy. ebooks. Bookpod, 2010

  Mentoring Your Memoir: Memoir as a literary form, Bookpod, 2010

  Body and Soul, Indra Publishing, 2003 (Republished as Lilbet's Romance, an ebook for young adults)

  The Business of Writing for Young People (co-written with Hazel Edwards)

  For Young Adults:

  Mavis Road Medley, Margaret Hamilton Books, 1991

  My Australian Story – Surviving Sydney Cove, Scholastics, 2000

  (Republished in UK as My Story – Transported, 2002)

  Killer Virus and Other Stories, Phoenix Education, 2002

  The Youngest Cameleer, Fivesenseseducation, 2010

  Extract from the South Melbourne Gazette October 12th.

  Yesterday was another horrific day on Victoria’s roads. Just after 3 pm yesterday, a car carrying three young people avoided crashing into another car by veering into a tree. Though the driver and one passenger escaped with minor injuries, the third passenger, Desiree Lawrence-Cowan, was taken by ambulance to hospital after being trapped in the car for over an hour…

  1. DESSI, Melbourne

  I prop my right leg onto a stool and poke a knitting needle inside the walking-brace boot. It’s early. Just after nine. My mother, Hannah, is at work. My father, Graham, is hammering in the backyard. My brother, Jeremy, is at school. The silent TV flickers between commercials and scenes from a bloody terrorist attack. For all I care, it could be announcing the start of World War Three...

  A fortnight ago all I had to worry about is which university will give me a place. But last day of school, backpacks crammed with books and files I never wanted to see again, we were halfway home when the skies opened up. Wet hair plastered across her face, my best friend, Emma, glimpsed Jon McKenna’s beat-up car and signalled him to stop.

  I grabbed her arm. ‘I’m not getting in with him.’

  I claim Jon should be forced to wear a sign: ‘Beware. Accident approaching.’ Besides, ever since I refused to date him anymore - and that was only because Emma talked me into it saying ‘he’s so into you, give him another go…’ he always looked hurt whenever he saw me.

  So avoiding eye contact, I climbed into the rear.

  Emma slid into the front passenger seat.

  Jon hit the accelerator.

  Maybe if I’d sat beside him, that collision might never have happened. But he kept eyeing me in his mirror instead of concentrating on the road.

  He didn’t see that other car. Swerving to avoid it, he went straight into a tree.

  Emma escaped with badly bruised ribs.

  Jon was mildly concussed.

  But the driver’s seat slid back jamming itself onto my right leg fracturing my ankle in four places. The result was two operations, three weeks in hospital and a fortnight in a rehab inhabited by seniors having hip and knee replacements. I never got to the end-of-year parties. Never wore the silk green strapless bought specially for the Formal. And now I’m not going on holiday.

  Tears start to my eyes. I’m like this a lot. Weak and sick from pain and too many medicines, at the same time breathless with anger and frustration.

  Before my face crumples completely, Dad staggers in with an old leather chest. ‘Belonged to your great-aunts,’ he tells me.

  I rub my cheeks on my sleeve and hop over to inspect his find. ‘You going to trash it?’ He dusts the top with an oily rag. ‘Some of this stuff might be valuable. Shame you only knew the great-aunts when they were old.’

  Graham’s talking about his great aunts Ella and Lilbet. Searching inside the chest, he’s saying ‘Amazing to think how those two stayed here all their lives.’

  Mildly distracted, I say, ‘Twins, weren’t they?’

  ‘Neither ever married. They were always close.’

  I manage a tiny smile. ‘Lesos?’

  He frowns. ‘How would I know? When I was your age, sex was never discussed.’

  This time I openly grin. He’s so sensitive to any criticism of his family. ‘Good of them to leave you this house,’ I concede. Then, as if I haven’t repeated this a million times already, ‘But it’s still crap living here.’ While I was in hospital, Dad moved us from our comfortable double-storey house in East Bentleigh to this decrepit villa in South Melbourne.

  ‘Since I left teaching we need more cash,’ he reminds me. ‘So renting our old home gives us income. Meanwhile I do this house up, sell, make a profit and we go back home.’

  My eyes roll. But I’m sick of arguing. A bird squawks outside the window. A car starts up next door. Distant traffic rumbles. My gaze wanders around extra high ceilings, dingy walls, chipped paint, broken floorboards, cracked leadlight windows, an old bookcase morphed into a pantry. It’s all too awful.

  ‘I really miss my old room.’

  ‘I know. That accident was such bad luck.’

  Bad luck? Didn’t it happen because Emma was so insis
tent about getting home to her kittens... because of Jon’s crazy driving… because... because...

  Too late! He’s already out the door.

  I grab my crutches and hop down a narrow passage cluttered with cartons to the most basic of bathrooms. Though the shaving mirror sits high, I’m tall enough to see a girl with dark very curly hair, a high forehead, hazel eyes, pronounced cheekbones, the short distance between her nose and lip giving a soft vulnerable look now emphasised by a sickroom pallor.

  The only positive is losing the three kilo I put on while studying.

  I peer at my teeth. At least they’re still straight and white.

  Exhausted by even this tiny effort, I hop back down the hall, settle into a chair, and wait for this ankle to stop aching.

  How to fill in the rest of the day?

  I know I’ll sit here angry, frustrated and tearful. I know I’ll end up brooding about not going to the Gold Coast, and how much I’ll miss Emma.

  2. EMMA, Melbourne

  I know how much I’ll miss Dessi while I’m on the Gold Coast. That accident was just bad luck. We had such plans: me and Dessi; Jodie and Kaz. Two lots of best friends sharing a two-bedroom apartment. Now half of me suspects I should stay with Dessi. The other half argues that it isn’t really my fault she’s got such a badly broken ankle. Maybe I should never have talked her into climbing into Jon’s car. But the rain was heavy, our bags were loaded, and I needed to look in on Myrtle’s new kittens.

  And now there’s Abdul! Abdul Malouf. How can I bear to leave this gorgeous guy a whole week? Slim and lithe, he has molasses-black eyes, the most amazing eyelashes I’ve ever seen, pitch-black collar-length hair falling in tight ringlets over a high forehead, and a tiny beard in the cleft of his chin. His skin is golden, his hands slender yet strong. He’s so… the only word I can think of is, elegant. Maybe it’s the way he fits into his designer jeans, that expensive leather belt, the way that slim shirt moulds his body.

  Only two more hours in the supermarket-from-hell, then I’m so out of here. If I ever have to unpack another carton, I’ll fire-bomb this place. If anything was needed to convince me to study hard, it’s this bloody job. No, I’m counting on getting into RMIT, where I intend becoming world famous for my mind-blowing art.

  As if!

  The only good thing about working here was meeting Abdul.

  First thing this morning I’m halfway up a ladder filling shelves, when a woman with an overloaded trolley barges straight into me. The ladder tilts. I lose my balance. Grab wildly at a shelf. Miss. And crash. Then to my astonishment, I’m cradled in the arms of this total eye-candy.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asks not attempting to let go.

  ‘I… I think so,’ I stammer.

  Meanwhile the woman with the trolley is raving on how It wasn’t her fault!

  Finally the guy lets go.

  But I stand there, openmouthed.

  ‘I’m Abdul.’ He holds out his hand.

  ‘Emma.’ I place mine in his.

  The supervisor bustles up. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Listen matey,’ Abdul chips in. ‘You should do something about this ladder. I could report you for breaking safety practices.’

  The supervisor’s eyes bulge. Abdul ignores him and turns to me. ‘What time do you finish?’

  ‘Two-thirty.’

  ‘Can I meet you out the front?’

  ‘Sure. See you then,’ I casually add and go back to stacking shelves. But inside I’m buoyant. Light as air. Did he mean it? Will he be there when I knock off? But he is. And his wide smile when he sees me, says he likes me as much as I like him.

  3. DESSI, Melbourne

  While Emma’s checkout-chicking, my bum aches and the fire-ants with permanent residence inside my boot are extra active. What I’ve discovered is that my world, the entire universe, can shrink to the size of a golf-ball. Nothing matters except coping with pain. Everything else: family, friends, getting into the right uni, even finding a great guy… all irrelevant…

  pain

  gnaws with canine teeth

  leaves its carcass

  helpless and

  calling for the grim reaper

  By the time I left the hospital and the rehab, I reckon my veins and arteries ran painkillers and antibiotics instead of blood. That meant no memory, or not much, and a general slowness to catch onto the simplest idea. At first I could hardly speak I was so angry. Then I couldn’t stop crying. I sobbed over everything; even soapies like the ones Emma and I used to wet ourselves over laughing. I still can’t think of life ever becoming normal again… can’t think what I was like before this bloody ankle stopped me in midstream.

  When the paramedics finally managed to prise me out of Jon’s car, I have only vague memories of the Emergency Ward; being sent into theatre, the overpowering medicinal and antiseptic smells; other patients’ cries; the nurses’ brisk kindness; two young doctors examining my leg; injections and more injections; being attached to a mobile drip and wheeled to X-ray; the operating room where two more doctors, faces hidden behind plastic glasses and masks placed something over my face...

  Then sliding… sliding… into darkness.

  It was waking to reality some hours later that was worst. At first I thought it was a nightmare. Then realised I was in too much pain to be a dream. No, this was real. I really was in a two bedroom ward with an old lady calling out in another language.

  I really was sick!

  My cell phone buzzes.

  ‘Dessi,’ a familiar voice shrieks. ‘You right for net-ball training tonight?’

  ‘Netball?’ I manage a faint smile. ‘Can’t wait.’

  ‘Great. We’ll go rollerblading after.’

  My mind’s eye pictures my best friend’s thick straight beige hair and slim curvaceous figure. Emma’s artistic flair gives her that indefinable quality known as ‘style’. Browsing through op shops, she finds big floppy hats and harem pants she wears under a tube top or singlet, chunky wooden bracelets and shimmery anklets. She can even make the dull supermarket uniform look sexy. Not that she doesn’t moan about her short upturned nose, cleft chin and being short, like barely five-two. But no matter how often I tell her how pretty she is, she never listens.

  ‘Listen Cowan,’ she’s saying. ‘Rang to see if you need anything.’

  I manage a hollow laugh. ‘New ankle?’

  ‘Mind the ‘use by’ date?’

  ‘Course not.’

  ‘Right. I’ll bring it later with my new guy I want you to meet.’

  ‘But you’ve only just got to know him…’

  ‘…he’s taking me to Chapel’s tonight…’ the line cuts out. Typical, I think and stare at the cell phone in frustration.

  We talk a lot. When we aren’t talking, we’re texting or on Facebook. Sometimes Hannah stalks in to say, ‘Together all day. What do you talk about at night?’

  I shrug and laugh. ‘Everything.’

  Mostly, this is true. No one else has known me for as long as Emma. Or is as close. Before I can let myself think the worst, I remind myself that if the worst thing that can happen is listening to her rave about her latest find, our friendship is secure. All I can hope is that this time she won’t get hurt.

  Friends! What makes a decent friend? At a guess it has to be trust, loyalty and putting up with the other person’s dramas. Our mums, Hannah and Julie, have been best friends forever. But while Hannah is a total perfectionist, Julie says, ‘Fair enough is good enough’.

  Not long ago I asked Hannah what keeps them together? She was ironing. In spite of her new job she still irons everything. Even Graham’s and Jeremy’s jocks.

  The iron stayed in mid air while she thought this over. ‘I couldn’t stand anyone who’s as fussy as me.’ Then she added, ‘Friendship is like a good marriage without the sex. You like the good bits, tolerate the bad, and know when to compromise.’

  What about the aunts who left Dad this house? Was their friendship like ‘marriage wit
hout sex’? I know I should be interested in climate warming, oil spills, and refugees, stuff like that, but laid up like this, what difference can I make? A few days ago when I mentioned this to Graham I ended up with ‘a lecture on personal responsibilities now you’re old enough to vote,’ and had to think of a million excuses before I could get away.

  The old clock in the hall strikes ten-thirty. The day looms emptily ahead. Beside me is a pile of magazines, Nanna Pearl’s cross-stitch, some yet to be viewed DVD’s, my iPhone, laptop and Kindle. But all that’s mildly interesting are some books Emma brought on her last visit saying, ‘You write poetry so I thought you might like to read other women’s stuff.’ Not that my poems are any good, but without poetry I might never have coped with that accident. So trying not to brood on all the fun I’ll be missing and that new, if yet unknown, guy I’d been really hoping to meet, I keyboard:

  Guys look at my friend

  all the time

  and she looks back

  at them wondering

  which is the right one for her.

  Does any guy ever look at me?

  4. EMMA, Melbourne

  Abdul picks me up on the dot of two-thirty. While we drive home, my mind traces his hawkish profile. Meanwhile I tell him how the day after tomorrow I’m off to the Gold Coast, then about the accident, finishing off with ‘...why Dessi isn’t coming.’

  Inside the cottage, I settle him on our old couch. As he looks around, I suddenly view the room through his eyes. I know artists are supposed to rise above their surroundings, but as Abdul’s gaze takes in torn curtains, stained walls, a threadbare carpet, coffee table covered in last night’s dinner plates, I say, ‘Um… sorry about the mess,’ and whisk those plates back into the kitchen. I distract him by introducing Myrtle’s kittens. ‘This is Picasso, the tabby is Raphael and the fluffy grey is Chagall.’

  His eyebrows lift slightly. ‘You into art?’