noticed the illustrations on my jacket and stopped walking. His eyes followed the long, hard sharpie pen lines and crosshair shading. ‘So what do we have here then?’ he asked, voice scratchy and deep. ‘A little artist. Is this me?’
‘I … yes,’ I stammered, grinning like an idiot. ‘This is you. And this is Sid Vicious. And David Roger Johansen.’
‘The New York Dolls?’ Michael asked. ‘You like them, do you?’
I nodded and nodded. ‘I love them. I love punk music.’
‘A little American punk princess.’ Michael pushed his sunglasses into his hair and took my face in his hands. When his eyes met mine, I felt like I’d been hit with something. He had unwavering, kaleidoscope eyes that saw everything – hopes and dreams, pain and fear. They were the most amazing eyes I’d ever seen and they were looking right at me.
Then Michael put one square, flat palm high on my chest, right over my beating heart. He held his hand there for a moment, then spoke to me again in his gravelly voice.
‘Do you know what?’ Then he sang. ‘I fee-eel a soul connection.’
The girls beside me swooned on my behalf.
‘You’d better come with me.’ Michael grabbed my hand, and I felt his calloused guitar-player fingers against my palm.
‘Where?’
‘To the tour bus.’ Michael pulled me across the car park and I stumbled behind him, grinning like an idiot.
‘Wait,’ I said, looking back at my new-found friends. ‘Just me?’
Michael held my hand tighter. ‘Just you, Cinderella. I’m taking you to the ball.’
Together, we walked over freezing tarmac to the tour bus.
The ground seemed to lay down under Michael’s bare feet. To glow with every step he took.
I kept glancing at Michael and giggling like an idiot. Yes, he was definitely the most handsome man I’d ever seen. A little bit careworn up close. Smaller than he looked on stage. And a lot older than me. But so, so handsome. I was in the company of music royalty. Music royalty was holding my hand.
Darcy frowns at her dinner plate. She sits on a yellow booster seat in a cute yellow sundress, yellow sandals dangling. But little-girl embellishments aside, Darcy is the most grown-up, serious four-year-old you could ever meet. Her idea of playtime is numbering all the toys in the room and then doing it again – fifty times.
‘It’s okay, Darcy,’ says Liberty. ‘You’ve had all this food before, right? Except that one. It’s called a mushroom. Remember what to do if you’re not sure? Just count the pieces.’
Darcy’s black hair is tied in a messy ponytail. Liberty did it this morning, and hasn’t done a bad job considering Darcy will only tolerate hairstyling for around ten seconds.
She won’t let Nick or me touch her head at all in the morning – only her ‘big sister Bibbity’. Hair washing must happen after 6 p.m. and only if we’re quick. Sometimes, we cut her hair while she’s sleeping.
Liberty and I watch across the dinner table, faces tense. Nick looks hopeful, but holds his knife and fork in tight fists. He’s taken a risk tonight by putting a mushroom on Darcy’s plate. She analyses it with the concentration of a surgeon: the operation is macaroni and vegan cheese with crunched-up tortilla chips on top and a sliced mushroom on the side. Everything yellow, except for the mushroom – slightly yellowed by frying, but still a grey, white colour.
This procedure is touch and go. Things could go either way.
Darcy’s meals have to look and feel similar every time, which means yellow and crunchy. Oven-ready is the go-to safe option.
If Darcy approves the meal, it could be a good evening. If she doesn’t, she’ll scream the house down and it’ll take an hour to make her calm again.
‘This is more toe-curling than your YouTube fitness videos, Nick,’ says Liberty.
Nick, to his credit, manages an amiable laugh.
Darcy says nothing. She is still concentrating.
Then we get the signal – a full, beautiful smile like the sun coming out. Darcy picks up her fork and carefully loads food.
‘One,’ she counts.
We all relax.
‘Okay.’ I pour drinks: Coke for me, Diet Coke for Nick, San Pellegrino sparkling water for Liberty (in a sophisticated stem glass, of course) and Sunny Delight for Darcy.
‘So, Liberty, good day?’ Nick asks. ‘How about those mock-exam results? How’d you do?’
Liberty cuts a mushroom into neat pieces. ‘I failed.’
I laugh.
‘I’m not joking,’ says Liberty, taking a delicate bite of food.
The room goes very still.
I decide to play along. ‘You failed drama? The girl who’s picked as the lead in every play?’
‘Failed it. Maths. English. Science. Fail, fail, fail. U grades. Unclassified.’
‘Very funny, Libs.’ I cut up food. ‘You’re the most intellectual teenager I’ve ever met. You can do a Suduko puzzle while the kettle boils. You’re an unbeaten chess champion. You read Dickens and Shakespeare for fun.’
‘It’s easy to fail when you don’t turn up to the exams,’ says Liberty.
‘You … what?’
‘I didn’t sit any exams,’ says Liberty, sipping sparkling water. ‘Except for Music. They predicted me an A-star for that.’
Silence.
Some parents worry about their children getting tattoos or leaving home to join a motorcycle gang. I worry my daughter will be a musician.
Nick looks between Liberty and me, brown eyes startled and unsure. Then he clears his throat. ‘Um … at my school sometimes the clever kids pretended to be thick so they wouldn’t get picked on. Maybe Libs doesn’t want to look too clever.’
‘Liberty,’ I say. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m protesting.’
I swallow. ‘Against … against what?’
‘I’m not taking my any more exams. Not until you let me meet him.’
I stiffen.
Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.
‘I want to meet my real father.’ Liberty looks me dead in the eye.
