An Odd Kind Of Wonderful

Chapter Fifteen

    "I'm sorry."

    "Thank you," I say, and fiddle with a curl at the back of her neck.

    "Nathan?"

    "Will you ever learn to swim?"

    "Hmm," I think, "Will you teach me?"

    "Yes." Raisa looks up at me. She's quite short, I realize. Her head comes up to just under my neck. "Lesson one, stop worrying." She reaches up and touches my forehead. "We've got to smooth out these worry wrinkles."

    I laugh and bat her hands away. "I don't have worry wrinkles."

    "You do. You see, this is why you must worry less. Were you not listening?"

    -

    "This doesn't look like the lookout." Raisa says dumbly.

    "Shut up." Joel says and flips her his middle finger over his shoulder. "Obviously, this is a shortcut."

    I grumble a, "clearly it's the bush," that goes unheard. Joel has led us past the harbour and into a pathway which had transcended into Dark and Gloomy no less than fifty meters ago. But just as Raisa's patience is tried by Joel's promise of the perfect fireworks spot, he delivers, accentuating his achievement with a sweep of his hands and a cry of, "I was right!" We find ourselves in a clearing, where it gives way to a cliff, and just a little beyond the cliff is the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

    "Okay, okay, you win this time." Raisa allows.

    Joel bows exaggeratedly. "'Tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh."

    She gives him a look.

    "What?" He defends. "It's from Romeo and Juliet. Act I., Scene I. Sampson and Gregory—servants from the Capulet family—are in the marketplace, discussing how good they are in bed."

    "No." Raisa says sternly. "That's not what Romeo and Juliet is about."

    "I think you'll find it is."

    "Joel," I say, "If I may interject, I would like to congratulate you on proving me wrong."

    "On which point?"

    "That you didn't have to capacity to understand Shakespearean sexual references," I smile at him.

    "Well, you know what they say," he says. "Set the bar low, and you're always achieving something."

    We sit, in the clearest bit of the clearing. Joel's guitar makes a distressed noise as it hits the ground. "Where'd you get the Shakespeare?" Raisa asks.

    "I am an actor." Joel announces. Raisa snickers. "No, don't laugh! I really am an actor. Last year I did my HSC for drama. It's legit."

    Raisa nods, failing to veil her laughter behind her hand. "Do you know anything else?"

    "Uh," he says. "I have lost myself; I am not here. This is not Romeo; he is some other where."

    There are three reasons why I don't hear the end of that line. One, I stayed home for most of year nine (there is no convincing way to say this but getting out of bed was the most difficult thing in my entire life) so I have never studied Shakespeare, therefore that could have been the end of the line and I'd never have known. Two, Joel's voice wanders off, sort of, as a great rumble appears somewhere behind me. Three, the line is forgone and we all run out of the way of a car driving into our clearing.

    "What do you think you're doing?" Joel instantly yells, running up to the driver's window. I can hardly see anything except for the bridge, for the lights. In the clearing, the only part of the car I see are the headlights and the illuminated face of those within it; vaguely memory-triggering.

    Joel's jaw goes slack. "You're the bloke who stole my car," He hisses. He mimes winding down a window. "You stole my car! You actually—" he trails, squinting his eyes to see the number plate.

    "I'm sorry, sir," the driver—not older than Joel himself, says, "I don't know what you're talking about."

    Raisa enters the scene, observing it for a moment: "No, you're definitely the kids from the 7-11 at Leichardt. What do you think, Nathan?"

    My head might explode. A car just drove two centimeters away from our fragile human bodies and she's expecting me to take sides?

    "Nathan..?"

    I cough, "Yeah, that's, you're the guy, definitely."

    The driver smiles innocently. "There must be some mistake, my friends and I only wanted to watch the fireworks from our lookout. We've driven from the other side of Sydney."

    "Bullshit." Joel says, and bangs on the driver's door. "Get out of my car. Do you want to see my license?" He digs through his pockets for his wallet, from which he produces his license. "Okay, you see this bit, here? That paper I've stuck onto it? That's my license number. What's yours, I wonder?—" I see the two guys in the backseats have flashes of fear on their faces. Joel squints at the license plate. "Oh, funny, that's the same as mine."

    There's a great moment there, where the inhabitants of Joel's Commodore swap this amazing look; I estimate it to roughly translate to, let's get out of here. A bird squawks. Joel breathes heavily.

    "And don't you dare reverse out of here," Joel mutters, loud enough. "Because there's a pile of sharp sticks and rocks my friends here and I avoided and if you take the way back to the car ferry, presumably where you've come from, then you'll get a flat tire, and we'll come after you, and God help me if I don't kick your face in."

    Commodore-Stealers swap another look: go, and they scramble out. Legs tangling and arms flailing, they run. And run. Until we can't see them anymore, and then some, as we hear them, and then it's like they were never here at all except for the ugly tire tracks they've left.

    Joel motions for us to get out of the way. He climbs back inside the car, turns his key in the ignition, and drives forward a meter, positioned about a foot from the edge of the lookout.

    "It's my lookout," he announces, turning the engine off. "I found it when my dad took me sailing, and I wandered off, and I found this spot. It's my spot. You guys, come in here if you want." We start walking, but he halts us. "Wait, better idea." He shuts the door and jumps up on the roof of his car. "Sit on the bonnet or up here if you like."

    Raisa smiles, all freckles and teeth and some kind of glint in her eyes that will inspire every poem I write for as long as I live.

    -

    "Cigarette?"

    "No, thanks," Raisa waves off Joel's offer from the car's roof. He offers me one, too, but I'm too busy staring at my watch, as it's spinning and I'm hypnotized.

    "How long now?" Asks Joel.

    "Three minutes."

    A few birds rustle in the tree above us, and wide, green leaves fall onto our heads. The moon has come out from beneath the cloud, so this time I can see properly. Raisa grabs one of the leaves and takes the Sharpie out of her bag, lying crumpled beside her. She scribbles something on there, and hands it to me.

    THIS IS A GOOD KISS SPOT.

    I find a leaf next to me so I take her pen and do the same.

    IT IS.

    Her response is: WILL I SEE YOU AGAIN?

    My next leaf says, DO YOU WANT TO?

    YES.

        MAYBE.

    MAYBE?

    "Guys!" Joel flicks the Sharpie from my hands. "Nathan, time?"

    "Eleven fifty-nine."

    "Watch."

    And we do, eyes locked on the harbour, framed by the trees, and Raisa whispers in my ear: kiss me when the first firework goes off.

    "Why?"

    "Your new year's resolution." She explains, and takes my hand. "Drowning is preventable."