The Summer of Second Chances

Written by Nadia King

She said it would be an adventure, but Frankie knew that was a lie. Frankie kicked at the passenger seat, a seed of irritation lodged painfully in her throat. Without even glancing up, she knew her mother was staring at her in the rear-view mirror. Her mother sighed, carefully controlling the air as it left her mouth, trying not to sound exasperated. She was tiptoeing around Frankie again.

Frankie’s latest school report stated comprehensively and in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t coping. She was disruptive and withdrawn. She hadn’t settled in. Frankie wondered if teachers knew what ‘settled in’ meant. Did it mean taking out folders, worksheets, and textbooks during class? Did it mean opening her textbook to page 164 or whatever page the teacher was droning on about from the front of the class? Teachers who leant against whiteboards or edges of desks, looking at Frankie but never seeing. Did ‘settled in’ mean not sitting in class with her headphones on and chewing gum with Panic! At the Disco blasting her eardrums?

A sigh escaped from her mouth; she always sighed when she thought about school. Unlike her mother, Frankie sighed properly banishing air from deep within her lungs. Her chest rose and fell, and an audible moan left her body. Her mother raised her eyebrows.

The window of the car was cool from the AC, Frankie leant her forehead against the wind ow staring out at the passing landscape. The Indian Ocean was a thin blue line in the distance, and grey green scrub lined either side of the road. The scrub had thorns and scratchy leaves that if ever they stopped for a break would give her a rash if she brushed against them with bare legs. The drive was mind-numbingly boring, and Frankie wondered how her mother drove the long, straight road without even sighing properly. She was listening to an audio book while she drove. Frankie caught a word or two between I Write Sins Not Tragedies and The Ballad of Mona Lisa.

Her mother loved Agatha Christie’s Poirot. She said the stories were relaxing. Frankie’s mother and her stupid audio books gave Frankie boringitis. She cringed, thinking how she’d rather take long slices off her forearm with a potato peeler than listen to Poirot expound about his theories of human nature. She sobered as unbidden thoughts of death slammed into her mind.

The long straight road cut a line through red dust. Frankie spotted an emu racing in the distance. She blinked. When she looked again, there was nothing, no emu nor any other living thing and she wondered if she had imagined its existence. After driving for three hours, her mother abruptly turned off the highway.

‘I thought we’d stop and see the Pinnacles.’

Frankie snorted. It was the most noise she had made since leaving Perth. Her mother took the snort for agreement and handed $12 to the kiosk attendant. Frankie tried not to listen as the attendant explained the route of the 4-kilometre loop that could be walked or driven.

‘We’ll drive, Mum.’

Frankie snuck a peek at Dad’s bonsai tree. They couldn’t leave it in the car. Without air-conditioning, the car would soon be a furnace. Her mother nodded in agreement as she glanced at her watch; there was still another two hours of driving until they reached their destination.

Her mother eased the Spanish Red BMW 328i onto the sand trail. Sand stretched around them covered in intricate patterns and ripples sculpted by the wind. The timeworn, limestone pinnacles peppered throughout the landscape were spectacular. They stood proud; some tall, some short, some joined but most apart, all impervious to visitors. All regally erect. Frankie wondered what it would be like to be alone in the early hours of the morning with the pinnacles all around her. Her feet would leave faint footsteps in the cool sand. In the sky, a soft blush would brush across the horizon and the stars would be reluctant to leave. Frankie wanted to soak up the silence alone. She wouldn’t even bring her headphones, she would just wander amongst the ancient relics trying to better understand time.

Once a long time ago, Frankie was ‘settled’ at school. Not at this new school. At her old school with the navy and grey checked school dress and white straw hat. It was before the fog; it was the time when she was Form Captain and awarded the Science Prize every year. It was the time when she played water polo and rode her horse twice a week. It was the time when Frankie lived in a modern architecturally designed home overlooking the Swan River and it was the three of them; her mum and her dad and her. They were two now and there was quite literally nothing left of her old life. Just her mother’s Spanish Red BMW 328i and Dad’s bonsai tree sitting quietly and patiently like an old man biding his time.

Frankie wondered how everything could change in an instant. One split second and her life had changed course entirely. It had zig-zagged across the street in a haphazard flight. And BOOM! Almost all the moments before counted for nothing – zero, zilch, nada, rien, res, nulla, nic, nishto, nihilum, and NICHSTEIN. Nothing. After that instant, when life decided to completely and utterly shit itself, she knew she had been derailed and nothing would ever be the same again.

Frankie never spoke of time. Not to the counsellor who she saw at the beginning of her new life. She had sat mute in the counsellor’s office and had not shifted her eyes from a small bonsai on the counsellor’s well-ordered desk.

For a while, Frankie’s mother had disappeared too. It was like watching a swimmer caught in a rip. Frankie watched her mother’s head go under a few times and wondered if she would reappear and swim back to shore. She had. Eventually. The time of the fog stretched forever, and Frankie couldn’t remember what it was like not to wade through thick mist. Every morning, she wakes to a short-lived clarity and then almost immediately a black heaviness descends. The fog swirls around her and the numbness starts at her toes. By the time she has pulled on her school uniform, her face is numb.

Eerie limestone pillars hold their own secrets. Theories of their secrets abound. Scientific theories of dissolutional remnants of Tamala Limestone; tree casts whose roots became groundwater conduits resulting in indurated calcrete; and something to do with a glut of plant roots dying and calcium rushing to fill the space. It reminded Frankie of Pompeii and 2,000-year-old ash creatures caught with their mouths open crying for help. She’d watched a documentary on Pompeii once with her dad.

Frankie didn’t cry. Sometimes she wished she did. Maybe crying would help the fog to lift. She wondered what it felt like to be a pillar of limestone. Better a pillar of limestone than a pillar of salt. She smiled wryly, and Frankie’s mother clocked her daughter smiling in the backseat adding it to her mental list of Frankie’s frowns and smiles.

The 4-kilometre loop ended and for the next two hours, Frankie’s mother drove resolutely with Poirot for company. Finally, they arrived. Frankie yawned. She stepped out of the car and stretched her cropped t-shirt rose up her torso. A guy across the carpark was watching and she hastily put her arms down. The guy was leaning against a wall, a lit cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. His eyebrows were thick and dark, and an intricate design was inked up one arm. He wore his entire sleeve like a god.

Frankie’s mother slid on her high heels, swiped on lippie and fluffed up her hair.

‘I won’t be long. I’ll let them know we’re here, grab the key and check out the office. You’ll be okay?’ Frankie stared. The guy was slouched against a building, one leg bent at the knee, his foot on the wall.

‘Francine!’ Frankie nodded.

She rested against the side of the car, pulled out a water bottle and swilled water. The guy looked on. She swiped at the screen on her phone. Shit. Out of charge. Frankie watched as a gull circled overhead, the sea wind buffeting its body, feathers fluttering in the breeze.

Her mother came out of a squat, square building gesturing with her hands while trying to stop the sea breeze from blowing her hair all over her face. Frankie saw her mother lean towards a tall man; she was trying to make a good impression. God knows they needed the money. Frankie’s mother waved. Frankie sighed, scuffing her boots on the gravel as she made her way over with her head bent down.

‘This is Frankie.’ Her mother’s voice was too bright. The tall man shook her hand.

‘Hi, Frankie. I’m Len. Thanks for giving up your summer. We need your mum’s help to sort out the books.’

She nodded. Her gaze slid to an empty space where the guy had been. There was a stubbed out cigarette on the ground and the smell of tobacco lingered in the sea air.

The accommodation passed. Just. In former times it was the type of place they wouldn’t have even glanced at. Now it was home for the summer with its 70s décor—not in a hip, retro 70s way—more like a ‘we haven’t given a shit since 1974’ way. The night passed tediously. Frankie and her mother shifted boxes and suitcases into the house and Frankie pretended to unpack.

The house didn’t improve overnight. Frankie sighed as she checked her phone and sauntered out to the kitchen. A stiff breeze blew in from an open window, and a note half-shoved under Dad’s bonsai fluttered on the kitchen bench top; her mother had already left for work. Frankie generously spooned Milo into a mug and poured over cold milk.

She padded outside, blinked in the harsh sunlight and sat on the front step. Her black painted toenails glinted furiously in the sunlight and her favourite song pounded in her eardrums. She closed her eyes, tasted the malty chocolate milk as it slid down her throat and waited for the chorus.

‘You dig FOB?’ A deep voice startled her. Frankie spluttered out Milo and found the guy from yesterday inches from her face.

‘What the fuck?’

‘Nice. Love a chick with a foul mouth. Not.’

He smirked and she crossed her arms protectively over her chest.

‘What are you doing and who the hell are you?’

He leant over and held out his hand.

‘Dillon. Lennie sent me to show you around Gero. You know, this being your first time and all, and you being a city chick with a foul mouth. He thought it might be nice but maybe he was wrong.’

Dillon raised his eyebrows as Frankie scowled at him. She looked like she might hit him or something. He hoped it was something.

‘D’ya want me to show you the sights or you wanna get comfy here?’

Frankie scrambled to her feet.

‘I’m not even bloody dressed.’

‘I’ll give you five. If you’re not out in five, I’ll take it you’d rather hang out here all day by yourself.’

Three minutes later, Frankie’s hair was in a messy bun, and she was dressed in denim shorts, a check flannel shirt, and scuffed, ankle-high leather boots.

‘Good, a chick that doesn’t take long to get ready.’

‘Frankie. My name’s Frankie and I’m not a chick.’

‘Could have fooled me.’ Dillon’s voice was suave like velvet and his gaze lingered. Frankie’s face grew hot.

‘C’mon, let’s get going.’ Dillon gestured to a battered ute parked out front where an old collie dog stood wagging its tail and panting.

‘Portia meet Frankie. Frankie, Portia.’

‘Portia. You called your dog, Portia?’

‘She’s Lennie’s. Lennie has a thing about cars when he’s not sprouting on about abalone and aquaculture.’

Sliding into the passenger seat, Frankie snuck a glance at Dillon. His hair was tousled and jeans hung low on his hips. Hell, he looked like a member of a boy band, only hotter. And he had a way of looking at her which made her feel like maybe the fog could lift one day.

Sitting in the passenger seat of the ute, with the window down and the sea wind rushing in, Fall Out Boy on the stereo, and Dillon resting his arm on the car door, Frankie was more alive than she had been in months. Maybe this summer would be an adventure after all. Maybe she could start to live life again. Maybe, just maybe, she could reset time, take her finger off the pause button, and give life a second chance.