Chapter 16
Ada
No matter where I am, it’s mid-afternoon at Pukekohe High. There’s ninety minutes until chemistry ends, and I can go home, but the bell never rings. I’m stuck, surrounded by assholes, watching the clock to eternity.
I drink, but I can’t get drunk. I vape, but I don’t get high.
I sleep, but I never rest. Mostly, I do what I’m doing now; lie flat on my back in bed, my arms crossed over my chest, and listen to depressing sonatas.
I pretend I’m a vampire hiding in my crypt, waiting for a sign that it’s safe to emerge.
Nothing comes.
The reunion kicks off tomorrow. Cece and I are supposed to drive to Pukekohe tonight. I haven’t even started packing. How can I? I’m dead.
From the speaker on the dresser, Spiegel im Spiegel plays, the mournful notes stretching across the room like they’re trying to hold me in the semi-darkness. I let them penetrate my mind, send my misery soaring.
Jake calls. He texts. He says the same things in writing he said in person. It all means nothing. I can’t think of him without thinking about her. Jenny fucking Wallis. The clotted, piss-soaked tampon that just won’t flush.
She got my Instagram account banned. A thirty-day suspension for posting ‘sexually explicit content’ and a warning that further infractions would lead to its deletion.
As most of my professional contacts reach out over Instagram, Queen Twat has me over a barrel again.
Big fucking surprise. She’s got the luck of the devil, and I’ve got the luck of used cotton balls.
If I needed any more proof, it came yesterday.
Betty called to say our investigation into illegal labour at Thompson Farms is dead in the water.
She used every trick she had to access Thrasher’s payment system, but apparently, it’s more encrypted than NASA.
So is his bookkeeping program and every other online entity associated with the farm.
Suspicious? Sure.
Proof? Fuck no.
Betty’s torn Thrasher’s public records apart, but there’s no paper trail or shady payments we can dig into. The online stuff I was following, the gross party photos and the warnings written in Fijian on labour-hiring websites, are dead ends too.
I’ve messaged every fruit picker or farm employee with an active social media account, but no one’s messaged back, let alone agreed to talk. Who can blame them? Why would they risk deportation—or worse—over an amateur investigation going nowhere?
So that’s it. Betty and I collectively have about a thousand theories and zero evidence. Unless I want to drive to Thompson Farms, sprint through the front door and demand to know what the pickers are getting paid at knifepoint.
But Betty thinks that’s a bad idea.
“I asked Mum to come up with some reason to go into Thrasher’s office,” she said on the phone yesterday.
“But right now, she’s almost as scared of Thrasher as the pickers.
Supposedly, he’s in a cunt of a mood. Stomping around the farm, cracking heads and telling everyone they’d better shut up if they want to keep their jobs. ”
I don’t think it’s self-flattery to say I might be responsible for a lot, if not all, of Thrasher’s bad mood. Which means I put him on red alert. Which means, I loaded a Remington, pointed it downward and shot myself in the foot. As per fucking usual.
Nothing short of a miracle is going to bring down Thompson Farms now.
I stare up at a crack in Cece’s ceiling as Arvo P?rt’s violin drifts above the piano, the melody barely holding itself together. Same, I think.
I hear Cece moving around the kitchen, probably making me another baked potato.
Don’t get me wrong, I love baked potatoes.
I could live on them. I am living on them because Cece’s healing philosophy appears to be ‘the carbs will continue until morale improves.’ But even the Autistic have their limits.
In the wake of what Jake did, she’s ramped up her mum behaviour to full Carol Brady. Last night she brought me a bottle of Tempranillo, and we got tipsy in front of the TV.
“Davis wrote me a business proposal,” she told me mid-Real Housewives. “For my urban hotel.”
I tried my best to look surprised. “Is it any good?”
“I haven’t opened it. It’s too scary. Did you tell him that was something I’m interested in?”
I winced. “Maybe in passing. Sorry, Cee.”
“That’s okay, it doesn’t matter. But it’s weird he’s so invested in me? Like, he’s overstepping, yeah?”
Maybe, but that’s not the real issue. The real issue is Will Sharpe.
He’s texting her every day, he’s sent more flowers, and Cece’s wetting her pants about seeing him at the reunion.
I’d imagine it’s hard to get excited about running an urban hotel when you’re secretly planning to move back to Pukekohe and ride Will Sharpe’s mediocre dick forever.
If I were at my full strength, I’d be coordinating a counterattack with Davis.
But I’m not. I’m tired to my bones and barely able to drag myself out of bed to research Thompson Farm rabbit holes that go nowhere.
I guess I’ll just wait until the reunion, lure Will Sharpe onto the motorway and run him over.
I don’t mind going to jail for the rest of my life.
I’d get three square meals, a regular sleep schedule and plenty of alone time.
I’d always thought I’d have kids one day, but I never want to look at, much less have sex with, another man ever again.
P?rt’s composition ends. Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 begins. I turn onto my side, curling into myself like a fetus. My phone buzzes against my shoulder. I flip it over, and my stomach drops.
Hey, Ada. I need my All Blacks jersey back. I’m happy to come to the bar, or we can meet for coffee? Let me know.
I stare at Jake’s words, waiting for them to turn into the usual apologies and excuses. They don’t. Just a cut-and-dry request for a return of property.
Craving fresh air, I rise from my crypt, move to the window and pull back the curtain.
Everything’s too bright outside, as usual.
But it’s also normal. Cars are humming past, people are walking dogs and, on the corner, a woman in activewear is yelling at her toddler.
My heart stops as I watch her screaming in her kid’s face.
I don’t know what she’s saying, but I can imagine.
“You never listen,” I recite. “You don’t think. You’re so selfish. You don’t care about anyone except yourself.”
I watch the toddler crying into her tiny fists, and a hole opens in my chest.
“I do care,” I tell the activewear lady. “I care about everyone. I care about you. I just wish you cared about me. I don’t understand why everyone is so mean all the time. I try so hard to be good, but it’s never enough.”
I look at the sobbing child and imagine a rainbow projecting from my heart to hers.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “It’s not your fault.
She hates herself, and she takes that out on you.
And most people are just fucked up assholes.
It feels personal, but it really isn’t. One day, I hope you understand that. ”
Crying, I close the curtains and turn off my speakers. The silence that follows is absolute. The bell has rung. School’s been let out. The Queen of the Damned has risen. I unlock my phone and check the time. It’s half ten in the morning. I text Jake:
Café Ortolana. 12 pm?
A rapid buzz.
Great. See you there.
“Oh, you will,” I say. “But I highly doubt it will be great.”
I spend the next hour packing for the reunion. Everything I would or could need, including a set of knuckledusters my friend Sarah made for me. They’re made of purple plastic and disguised as an artsy necklace. It’s not much of a defensive weapon, but it’s better than nothing.
My alarm buzzes, telling me it’s time to go see Jake.
I throw on jeans and a hoodie and yank my hair into a ponytail.
I’m not interested in selling him some fantasy version of Ada Renaldo.
Let him see everything. Let him be grossed out by me.
I fold his jersey into a neat square and head downstairs.
Cece, Davis, and Krissy are all huddled around the bar register, whispering.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
They jolt, turning to gape at me like they’ve just been caught banging my dad.
“What?” I repeat, looking around for Jake. Him coming here instead of meeting me at a cafe is the only thing that could have inspired this reaction. But I’m wrong. Cece grips my arm. “She’s in the bathroom. She’s here.”
I immediately think of my mum, but that’s crazy. “Who’s ‘she’?”
No one says anything. I look around, but there’s only the usual huddles of elderly day-drinkers and uni students. “Seriously, what’s—”
A blonde in a sundress and heels struts out of the women’s bathroom, we lock eyes, and her face breaks into a dazzling smile. “Hi, Adalasia! You look tired.”
I blink, half-convinced my brain is lying to me, but no. It’s Jenny Wallis, swanning up to the bar, her cunty pink dress perfectly matching her cunty pink manicure and her cunty pink purse. “Are you fully fucked in the head, Jennifer?”
Jenny beams at me. “I don’t think so.”
We stare at one another, and it occurs to me that the last time we were this close, I was slamming her skull into the ground.
Maybe Jenny remembers that, too, because her freakish smile dims. “How’s the flute, Ada? Still your secret boyfriend?”
I dump Jake’s jersey and my tote bag on the bar, so I have full use of both hands.
“Mall Pig?” I say to Davis. “Throw this bitch out before I glass her.”
Jenny’s big blue eyes narrow. “You need to calm down, or I’ll call the police.”
“Call them. You’ll be talking through a broken jaw, but.”
Jenny gives a big fake laugh. “Whatever, psycho. I’m not here for you. I came to congratulate Cecelia on her wonderful bar.”
I glance back at Cece. She’s pale as paper, eyes hard, and her teeth are bared. I’ve never seen her so angry. It looks good on her. She’s like Joan of Arc on meth. I hope Davis is paying attention.