Girl Next Door - Alyssa Brugman [63]
'"A private tooter",' he says, chuckling.
'That makes no sense!' I complain.
'No, it's a new one. You were being too slow. Can you guess it?'
A man walks towards us in the gloom. He has his hands thrust deep in his pockets and his chin dipped into his jacket. We stay silent until he has passed. A taxi creeps along the road. The driver looks at us through the passenger window, but Will shakes his head, and the taxi speeds away.
'You want to have a go, Mum?' I ask.
'I'm thinking.' She leans her head back against the Perspex with her eyes closed. 'Okay. The punch line is "Only one, but it takes ten visits".'
'What is a . . .' I start.
'No, it's a light bulb one,' Will says. 'How many somethings to change a light bulb.'
'Something about a doctor?' I offer. 'I give up.'
'How many light bulbs does it take to change a chiropractor,' Mum says.
Will and I giggle. 'Don't you mean the other way around?'
'I said it the other way around,' she says.
'No, you didn't!'
'What are you talking about? I know how to play this game.'
'Never mind,' I say.
Finally a bus pulls in. It's empty. Will and I climb the steps and choose a seat. Mum pays the driver with a handful of small change.
'Okay, one more. The answer is, "I didn't".'
Neither Will nor Mum says anything for ages. I think they've stopped playing when Will says, 'That's not fair. It's too open. There's no way we can get it.' He's sitting with his back against the window and his legs stretched out across the seat.
'Wanna hear the joke?' I ask, smiling.
'Tell us,' Mum says. She's closed her eyes again. Her head rocks gently from side to side as the bus moves. The driver slows down, swerving in towards the kerb, but none of the passengers at the stop wave it in, so he turns back into the road without stopping.
'Okay, there's this vampire bat, right? And he's been out hunting and he comes in late and he has blood all over his face, and the other bats come over and they say, "Where did you get all that blood?" and he says, "Rack off! I just want to go to sleep." They keep hounding him, "Where did you get it? Where did you get it?" So eventually he takes them out and they fly along for ages, and then the bat says to the others, "Do you see that tree over there?"'
Will looks at me, waiting, and then he starts to laugh. '"I didn't." Ha! Ha! That's a good one, JB.'
No one ever called me JB before Bryce Cole. I wonder if it's going to stick?
We head down the ramp and onto the motorway. I remember this part from when I caught the bus before. There are big concrete slabs on either side of the road. Ahead there are concrete overpasses crisscrossing the way. I'm so tired that my bones ache, and my eyes are scratchy.
I pull out Declan's mobile and turn it on to check the time. Ten past two. The phone beeps, telling me I have a message. I dial the message retrieve number and listen.
Jenna-Belle, this is your father. I spoke to Declan just now. I was hoping you would be here. I wanted to . . . Then there is a gap where the message breaks up . . . See me in school holidays if I moved there. Well, it's . . . More breakup. Your mother would have to . . . Another gap . . . And neither of you are going to like that, but I think we can make it work. It's probably best if we don't live together, given the circumstances, but . . . Static . . . To give back the rental car this afternoon, so I'll be catching a train . . . Another break . . . We can talk about it in person. There is another gap, but this time it's Dad, because his nose whistles. Finally he says, I made a mistake, sweetheart. Please forgive me.
27
THIRTY-EIGHT
DOLLARS AND
SEVENTY-FIVE
CENTS
It's just after three when we climb off the bus on George Street. We walk a few blocks until we find a coffee shop that's open. We slide into a booth at the back.
'How much money do you have left?' I ask. Mum reaches into her pocket. She pulls out a handful of notes and coins. She's making little piles on the tabletop.
Watching her, I decide that you should never have to count out all the money