Being Kalli(9)

“It’s fine,” she mumbles, probably into sleep.

“Now, Mary-friggin-Jane. Get to bed now.”

“Oh,” she says, wiping the flyaway hairs back again. “Yeah, bed. Thanks for reminding me.”

At that, we both stalk back to our respective rooms like zombies.



• • •



I reach for my phone out of habit before I sleep, then decide to start a text to Nate. I close it just as fast and try to sleep. I even count the fine hairs on Scout’s forearm under my bedside-table light. I give up after forty-three hairs.

So, again, I pull out my phone, open a text to Nate and breathe.

In. Out. In. Out.

All I can remember is Scout boggle-eyed over my admission. I don’t see the big deal. I’ve kissed her, kissed him. Why is it suddenly weird that we did something that involved more?

Kalli: Ey, Mary Jane came home 10 mins ago. That pretty much explains that situation. But want to make sure we’re all cool n stuff? I’m all for winning bets ;) but wanna know we’re still cool? All good? K so yeah. Morning.

Pressing send must shoot an automated response that makes my body thrum with electricity. I can’t even close my eyes without wanting to snap them open, and my fingers are itching to fiddle with something. I should want to sleep after being up for two hours short of a day. However, this morning’s events haven’t exactly been sleep-inducing.

I don’t know how much time passes but I end up at my desk writing some sheet music to play on the violin. I write down several bars, hum it back to myself, and each time they become increasingly less stupid.

I’ve been playing the violin since I was seven. Back then, Mum and my aunty Nicole were still talking, and it was her who suggested I start since I loved music so much.

I focus on my song and stop thinking. Just stare. I feel the beat in my head then play an imaginary violin as I always do. My eyes glaze over and so does my focus on this room.

That’s when I feel the rhythm I need. I was mixing thoughts, thinking about pop while trying to write music with the feel of my favourite Bach pieces.

From here on out, the writing is easy. Twelve years of playing, talking, breathing this language comes much easier than sleep. Sleep can induce nightmares, making me a sobbing ten-year-old girl, ashamed of myself. Music makes me someone I’m proud to be.

At some point I realise the time. Sort of. Scout is waking, and I know this means it’s much later than I think it is. I look to my radio clock and it reads 8.05 am. Scout, being a light sleeper, moans a bit and says in this zombie tone, “God, Kalli! God.”

“My shit singing voice got you again, didn’t it?”

She stuffs an extra pillow under her head and her eyes focus on me. I must seem awake and vibrant, and so unlike what I should be after our night.

Her eyes pop a moment before she says, “What happened?”

“Mary Jane happened.”

“Ohh.”

“Yeah, you know how she left the boys? She got in at six.”

“Did you rip into her?”

“The usual.”

“Maybe she needs help, you know? Not a beating.”

“A beating,” I whisper to myself.

“Huh?”

“Oh,” I say. “Just gotta go for a sec.”

I storm down to Mum’s bedroom. Her clothes are strewn everywhere as if she were the nineteen-year-old in this house. Light streams in between the curtains and the sides of the window, and illuminates the room enough to see her splayed out, with one leg curled out of the bedspread.

You know, I can still smell her: perspiration mixed with smoke mixed with the sweetly sick smell of weed. It’s just a hint, like a spray of air-freshener in a room twenty minutes later, but it’s there. And it fuels my rage.

I shake Mum until she’s lucid, and then say, “Sit up. Now.”

She takes a while to stay awake, understand my words and prop herself up, but she does.

“Oh, Kalli. I’m in bed? My head hurts. I have to make it u—”

My finger to her lips, her voice shuts down. And I take over.

“This is a strike. This strike means you fuck up like this a couple more times and you’re out. You know baseball, right, Mary? That’s right. How could you forget? Chester is a fanatic. You remember way back then when your ex taught you the rules? Same applies here, except I don’t get to forget about you; you’ll always be in my life.

“I don’t know what I’ll do when you strike out, but mark my words: get close to leaving your four-year-old boys alone through the night again and I’ll make sure you don’t see them anymore.”

Mum’s pretty lucid by the end of my spiel. She doesn’t have wrinkles yet, but her skin looks looser than it should for someone at thirty-seven. Her eyes used to be a bright blue but they’re now dull, slowly seeping colour as a result of the drugs she’s flushed through her system for years. It’s a damn shame to ruin a pretty woman’s face as she has.