This Is Yr Life

Chapter Nineteen

Kyle sipped his coffee while Chloe danced.

‘I got you a present, by the way, cheesecake, like the one you had on your sixteenth birthday, remember? I can’t believe Natalie Simmons wore the same dress as you.’ He rolled his eyes and reached into the Bag-for-Life, picking out a platter wrapped in cellophane.

Kyle had been informed of Natalie Simmons the night previous, where as the night was winding down, he had found himself sitting on the sofa with Summer as everybody else was either lying on the floor somewhere in between consciousness and unconsciousness, or had retired to bed to hopefully sleep off any damage so they were half-functional the next day. Ralph, for all of his whining about needing to work, had succumbed too quickly to temptation, and had spent the last thirty minutes or so with his head in the toilet being cared for by the bathroom assistant’s soothing, quasi-human tones.

‘I never knew her,’ Summer said. ‘But Chloe would bring it up every year that we knew each other. She didn’t really care what we did for her birthday, she was just as happy chilling with me, Shaun, Rebecca and everyone else, something small you know, as she was in a bar surrounded by strangers. But, she always remembered her sixteenth, always hated, hated, resented, even, the fact that this girl bought the same dress, which Chloe had thought was one of a kind, even though this Natalie girl knew that Chloe was wearing it.’

Summer laughed, then sighed, and stared out the window.

‘It was just stupid schoolgirl stuff.’

‘Yeah, stupid schoolgirl stuff,’ Kyle said.

Plates jangled as he picked them up and placed them on the blanket that was decorated with sunny skies, rainbows, musical notes, and people that may or may not have been intended to be Kyle, his sister, and his parents.

‘My grandmother knitted it. She’s buried somewhere in here.’ He looked around searching, only slightly craning his neck, peering over tombstones, flashing screens, silent mourners clicking through birthday parties and award ceremonies, sports games. He looked back at her dancing on stage in this large concert hall, a dance he’d seen many times before.

‘Sorry, I won’t disturb you.’ He said, sitting and watching, she pirouetted, dipped and rose up on one leg, stretching the other. He knew what was coming.

‘Be careful, watch that balance.’ But as her said this, her ankle buckled slightly and she tipped to the right, nearly losing her balance. She wobbled and the crowd, silhouetted behind the spotlight on stage, slapped their hands to their mouths, gasping. In the corner of the screen, someone, perhaps Chloe’s father, grabbed and pulled at his hair in shock and despair. This was rare display of mere mortalness, of imperfection. But it only lasted a second though, and she steadied herself, improvised even, and shifted her weight to the opposite leg. There’s a mild applause to which Kyle joined in, smiling, absently bringing a cracker to his lips, and he took the greatest care not to crunch it too loudly, so he didn’t distract her..

‘You always struggle with that bit,’ he said.

He watched the dance to the very end, predicting each move and applauding every impressive step and twirl and delicate glide across the stage. The show finished and she stopped in the dead centre of the stage. She curtsied and when the camera zoomed in on her face, her eyes were glistening with the genesis of tears. Kyle joined in the applause, slapping his hands together so loudly, so enthusiastically, that it echoes through the whole graveyard, through the entire city.

‘Bravo, bravo,’ her said, despite knowing little, nothing at all, really, about ballet or dancing of any kind aside from what he had witnessed the night before. But that, he knew, was not dancing, not professional dancing like what Chloe could do anyway. The night before saw all arms and legs flail and no matter what type of song played, no matter the rhythm or tempo of what pulsed from the speakers surrounding them, much of the dancing was the same. He had always been nervous about dancing, but seeing everybody else get entirely lost in their own movements and disappear into the music, he realised that it did not matter how he looked.

It did not matter if he looked like an i***t. What would have mattered more, what would have hurt his nonexistent reputation further than it already had been, would have been to do nothing at all.

He had found pleasure in something he had never expected to find pleasure in before. As a teenager he had cast off ideas about engaging in dancing with girls, with friends, with anybody, as something that was too normal. And normality had been something that bored him.

This was back before he had fallen into the trap of normality by not doing anything to strike himself out as different, and accepted his place in the world as one where he would not matter in the long-term.

‘You so too can dance, I saw you on that dance floor last night, before I even knew who you were.’

The sun had begun to breach the clouds and pierced through the gaps of houses and into the living room.

‘When did it get light?’ Kyle asked. Summer looked out the window and then to the clock.

‘s**t, it’s nearly eight AM.’ She looked towards Kyle. ‘How the f**k did that happen?’

Kyle shook his head.

‘I am going to feel like such s**t tomorrow,’ she paused, bit her bottom lip and seemed overcome with the haunting realisation of the fact that it was already tomorrow.

‘Later today then. Fuck.’

‘Yeah, I should probably head off.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Not far, I don’t think, probably about ten or fifteen minutes in a car.’

‘Do you want me to order you a taxi?’

Chloe exited stage right and the camera moved its way through the crowd. People, still applauding, smiled and waved at the camera her back through the curtain. They stuck their faces into the screen, cheering. When the camera finally made its way through the throng, it passed through a curtain to backstage where ballerinas and ballerinos were in various stages of undress. Some were sat down drinking bottles of water. Others stood leaning against bare brick walls. Ropes hung down, bowing and looping. There were open bags, lights, props and then, way at the back, was Chloe. Upon seeing the camera, she beamed and beckoned the camera, and Kyle, to come closer, towards the dressing room. They entered a room that was barely lit with rose shaped lights lining the vanity. She stared into the mirror and started wiping away makeup, removing her earrings, pointing for the mystery person behind the camera to unzip the back of her leotard.

‘Amazing,’ Kyle said. ‘Amazing, as usual. So elegant.’

She rolled her eyes. He reached behind him.

‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said, gazing into the reflection of her eyes. Her eyebrows arched a surprise. He looked away.

‘Here.’

From behind him, he pulled out an elaborate bouquet which he had hidden from her expertly during his stay. Blossoming from the bouquet were lilies, orchids, daffodils and, at the centre, a hibiscus, although this was synthetic, offered to him during his search for the perfect bunch of flowers. They were her favourite.

‘She always had a vase of them on her windowsill in her living room, ordered specially from overseas, Thailand,’ Summer had told him as they waited for the taxi.

‘Thailand?’ Kyle feigned ignorance.

‘Yeah, she had spent a year volunteering as a teacher up north. Can’t remember the name of it. Chiang May, I think?’

Chiang Mai. Chiang My.

‘Yeah, I remember she always loved flowers. She was so excited for Spring and

Summer, every year.

‘Proper Flower Child.’

Chloe accepted a bouquet of flowers, just not the one that Kyle had provided. Behind the camera, a sad and deflated bunch of geraniums, mega-daisies, and a single rose came into view. Chloe gasped and her hand covered her mouth.

‘Thank you,’ she said, or rather mouthed. Kyle looked away.

‘Pshhh, he hardly made an effort though, did he?’

She turned away, looking for somewhere to save the flowers for until later on.

‘What about these?’ He offered his gift up again, she pointed to the side.

‘Just here?’

He motioned to the metal cone that stood beside every gravestone in the city, perhaps every grave in the world, and slid the stems of the flowers into it.

‘I don’t know, I’m not sure if it really suits here, maybe too much.’

Chloe nodded and pointed to the other side of the screen. Kyle took half of the flowers from one pot and placed them in the cone on the opposite side of Chloe.

‘Much better, yeah?’ He stood up and stepped back, admiring the floral frame they had worked together to accomplish. Chloe, though, did not give him an answer. Instead she was occupied in getting out of the leotard, the corset, the tights, and those cramping, suffocating ballet shoes.

‘Oh, sorry,’ Kyle said. ‘I’ll give you some privacy.’

He covered the screen with his hand, leaving only the smallest gap between his middle and index finger, only slightly turning his head away and scrunching his eyes closed, peering out through his peripherals.

There was nothing to see, though. The camera man or woman, whoever was hiding on the other side of the screen, chose to turn the focus elsewhere, back to the stage, where men in black jeans, black t-shirts, the word CREW stencilled across the back dragged rope and scenery pieces, unlocked piece by piece like backwards jigsaws out of sight and into storage until next time, until it needed to be repurposed from a garden scene to a jungle, to a hedge maze, to the backdrop of lovers running through a meadow away from the scourn of their families who were adamant that this was not what they need from life. The sun setting behind them as they stop to embrace, to kiss, and to fall into the grass focused on only each other.

The camera moved back to Chloe, no longer plastered with makeup, her hair now tied loosely behind her ears, a strappy top with no bra underneath and which exposed her stomach. Peeking out from the top of her jogging bottoms which hung on the edges of her hips and showing off just the smallest tan line were petals.

‘That’s new,’ Kyle said.

But it was not new at all, and Kyle knew this.

‘Yeah, we got them together,’ Summer said, running her finger across her own tattoo along the inside of her forearm.

‘What’s yours?

‘A little gecko. We shared so many dorm rooms and bungalows with them while we travelled that I felt sad that I would never see any again, probably, so it seemed like the best choice.’

She twisted her wrist towards Kyle, urging him to inspect the picture painted onto her skin. A lizard outlined in faint blue with green as a base and small yellow dots across its back. The gecko’ tongue protruded slightly from its mouth. It almost looked as if it was smiling.

It was a small tattoo, not too big that it might ruffle the feathers of those who still, after all these years, associate tattoos with punks, layabouts, satanists, but also big enough so that there was enough detail to make it look almost real.

‘Do you have any?’

Kyle shook his head. He had always wanted a tattoo. He and Jake had spent many a breaktime on days where it was too wet outside to permit the students to have any fun whatsoever, and so instead, during their brief but typical-of-young-boys exploration into the world of doodling and then a little later artistry which primarily consisted of monsters, demons, elaborate weaponry, and sometimes alluring unobtainable women crafted with proportions that would cause considerable discomfort and disfigured internal organs, Jake and Kyle would talk about the type of tattoos they wanted when they were older. They shifted from the tribal to the bizarre, the artistic to simplistic. They muttered to each oththe er about location of such tattoo, of price, and then would argue with one another about pain thresholds; who could handle more and for longer. But Kyle had his heart set on one particular design that he was sure wouldn’t be too expensive, one that wouldn’t take too long, one that he was sure he would not regret later in life, not that such regrets mattered anymore.

He had, of course, never received this tattoo and he was unsure if Jake had undergone the procedure for his own and even if he had, would he have erased it from his skin after that night where their friendship fell apart.

Outside, a car pulled up and breathed to a halt. There was nobody in the front seat, but AUTO TAXI 4 U was plastered along both doors, five gold stars ran underneath.

‘Let me know that you got home safe. Message me, I’ll add you.’

Behind him, the door closed and he climbed into the backseat of the empty car. As they turned left onto the main road, Kyle saw people emerging from their homes to let their dogs out, to check the mail, to get some much-needed fresh air.