‘Oh, it’s nothing really,’ Jamie said, his speech rapid. ‘It’s just, I was having such a good time last night — you know, a few drinks, a bit of dancing—’

  ‘You were dancing?’ Who with? I wanted to add, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to sound like a possessive, jealous girlfriend.

  But … what if he’d been dancing with other girls? How could I compete?

  ‘There’s always dancing,’ he said, his tone off-hand. ‘And we got to talking, and there was more dancing, and before I knew it, it was 5 a.m. Which was about four hours past when I said I’d be home. But it was so late, and I was so tired, so I curled up in the guest room at Vaughan’s and went to sleep. And when I woke up, it was nearly eleven. I just got home, and Mum’s all over me like leprosy.’

  Sharp edges of disappointment cut into me. Why did everything have to be so hard?

  ‘Well, I guess I’ll see you when you’re ungrounded then.’

  ‘Hey, maybe you could come over here,’ Jamie said, his voice so bright I could barely stand it. I huffed through my nose.

  ‘I can’t. I’m not meant to leave the house.’ Except, why should it matter whose house I was confined to? Surely Jamie’s house didn’t have any bugs that we didn’t have.

  ‘O-kay.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Well, I guess I could come over. Hey, how much more trouble could I get in?’

  ‘Here’s your tea,’ Hannah said, appearing at my elbow as a lawnmower started up.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, watching Dad cut a stripe down the middle of our back lawn.

  ‘I’ll get the next bus, then.’

  ‘No, wait. Can I call you back?’ I pressed End before Jamie had the chance to reply, and glanced up at my sister.

  ‘Who was that?’ Hannah asked, grinning. ‘Actually, don’t tell me. I think I already know.’

  I stood up and closed the door.

  ‘Hannah,’ I said, oh-so-sweetly. ‘You know that sparkly top you keep stealing off me?’

  Hannah’s eyes narrowed. ‘What about it?’

  ‘It could be yours,’ I said, opening my wardrobe door. ‘If you cover for me.’

  ‘What? Are you sneaking out?’ Hannah’s mouth fell open. ‘To meet Jamie?’

  I shoved the top at her. ‘Here. If you tell Mum and Dad I’m having a nap and don’t want to be disturbed, then this is yours.’

  ‘What if they want to check up on you?’

  ‘Do you want the top or not?’

  Hannah held the top to her chest. It was obvious she wanted it. All I wanted was to see Jamie, and the outside world.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘if you can hold them off for even half an hour, then you can keep it. But if they find out I’m gone, then you don’t know anything, OK?’

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ Hannah said in a robotic monotone, and smirked. ‘Are you going to have sex?’

  Jamie was waiting for me when I arrived at the bus stop around the corner from our house, a shaggy rim of hair sticking out from beneath his black beret. He bounded up to me and took my hand.

  ‘How much time have we got?’

  I held up my arm, glancing at my watch.

  ‘Six hours and forty-three minutes. Where’s the car?’

  ‘Right here.’ Jamie led me across the road, and halted beside a black BMW. My mouth fell open.

  ‘Your mum lets you borrow this?’

  Jamie opened the passenger door and gave me a crooked grin.

  ‘She was in the spa when I left.’ He shut the door behind me and ran around to the driver’s side. I fastened my seat belt, my eyes fixed on the outside world. Sea, sky, freedom … yes!

  ‘What happens if she finds out?’

  ‘Then I might get super-grounded,’ he said, pulling away from the kerb. He glanced over at me and shrugged. ‘Ah, I don’t know. If my mother likes you, she might even let me drop you home.’

  I gazed at the trees ticking past my window. ‘Back at the bus stop is fine.’

  ‘What? They don’t know you’re here?’

  ‘They think I’m having a nap.’ I wondered how Hannah was going at putting my parents off the scent.

  Jamie whistled.

  ‘Oh, the plot thickens.’ He put his foot down, accelerating through an orange light, and turned up the radio. ‘Hey, it’s “Downtown”,’ he said, and began to sing.

  I smiled.

  CHAPTER 8

  SERENDIPITY

  Twenty minutes later, Jamie pulled into the cobblestone driveway of a two-storey villa, cream weatherboards with a gunmetal-grey roof. He jumped out of the car and ran around to open my door.

  I stepped out, wondering how he could be so energetic after partying all night. But maybe that was because I felt more slowed up with every day that passed, much as I hated to admit it.

  We’d barely set foot on the front verandah before the front door swung open.

  ‘James Orange,’ a voice said, followed by a string of words I couldn’t understand but assumed must be Norwegian.

  A slender woman with very short white-blonde hair stepped out onto the doorstep.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, her face softening. ‘You must be Alex.’ She was wearing skinny jeans and a filmy blue shirt with white polka dots. Her eyes, like Jamie’s, were pale blue and very clear.

  ‘Sorry, Mamma,’ James said, not sounding sorry at all.

  ‘Seinere,’ she said, glaring at him but beckoning me into the foyer. It smelt like wood polish and vanilla. ‘Are you thirsty? I’ve just put the kettle on.’

  ‘I’m OK,’ I said, realising I hadn’t consumed a drop of the tea Hannah had made me earlier.

  Jamie slung an arm around my shoulders. ‘So, Mamma, this is Alex. Alex, this is my mother, Astrid. Alex has come to look at my opera masks.’

  ‘Lovely.’ Astrid closed the door behind us. ‘I heard you were in hospital last week, Alex. Are you feeling better now?’

  I glanced at Jamie, then back at his mother, wondering exactly what he’d told her.

  ‘Much better,’ I lied, tugging the cuff of my sleeve over the ends of my fingers, so she couldn’t see the bandage Bonnie had wrapped around my IV. Jamie smiled and took my hand.

  ‘My room’s up here,’ he said, leading me up a wooden staircase opposite the front door. I glanced up as we ascended, taking in the family photographs on the wall. Many of the people had white-blond hair, like Jamie and his mother. One photograph showed a young couple seated in front of a pohutukawa tree. The woman was maybe in her early twenties, with very long, very blonde hair. The man was slightly older, with sandy hair and a goatie. On his lap sat a laughing baby, his sky-blue eyes sparkling.

  ‘Is that you?’ I pointed at the baby. Jamie nodded.

  ‘Yep. Apparently I didn’t have any hair until I was two years old.’

  ‘Cute.’ I looked up, noting the blue and red stained-glass window set above the landing, and wondered how old the house was — a hundred years, maybe?

  Jamie turned left once we reached the top of the landing, walking past a bathroom with a claw-foot bath, and into a spacious room with a high ceiling and a window seat.

  ‘Welcome to my room,’ he said, spreading his hands.

  I stepped inside, taking in the queen-sized bed with a black-and-white striped duvet and the desk in the corner, which was covered in textbooks, pens and screwed-up pieces of paper.

  Astrid’s voice drifted up the stairs, more incomprehensible words. Jamie grimaced.

  ‘Slapp av,’ he called back, and rolled his eyes at me.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I said, relax.’ Grinning, he pushed the door to, so an inch of air remained between the door and the doorframe. ‘She said to leave the door open. Not sure what she thinks we’re going to get up to.’ He smiled and I smiled back, feeling as though confetti floated inside my stomach.

  ‘Me neither,’ I said, my eyes falling on the wall above Jamie’s bed, on which at least twelve opera masks were mounted. ‘Wow. These are awesome.’

  The masks were painted all different colours, peacock blue and white and gold. A couple of them had jester-style hats, with pointy tips. One had an Indian headdress, another a black beret much like Jamie’s.

  Jamie pointed at the masks, one by one.

  ‘This is another one from Venice — and this one from Spain. This is from France.’

  ‘Wow, your dad gets around.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what Mum says too,’ he said, raising his eyebrows, and I remembered what he’d said about his father not being able to keep his pants on.

  ‘Hmm,’ I said, because I wasn’t sure what I was meant to say to that. Instead I sat on his bed, partly because my head was starting to spin and partly because my legs were starting to ache, as if I’d just run ten kilometres. ‘You’re going to visit him soon, right?’

  ‘On Tuesday.’ He sat beside me. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, but the fatigue was creeping up on me again, oozing through my bones and spreading tendrils through my brain. ‘I might lie down for a bit. Is that all right?’

  ‘Of course.’ He stretched out beside me and pushed my hair off my forehead. ‘I’ll miss you, when I’m away.’

  ‘It’s only a week, right?’ I said, and sighed. ‘This week has been the worst and the best week of my life.’

  ‘That’s because you’re a paradox, SC,’ Jamie said, his eyes shiny like cut glass. And I didn’t want him to be sad, so I kissed him, and he kissed me back until I felt like I was falling again, in the most delicious way.

  Faint music drifted up to us from below, something classical. Jamie’s fingers brushed over the top of my bra, and I felt a tugging sensation in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘The door’s open,’ I whispered.

  His lips grazed the angle of my jaw and settled on the base of my throat. ‘Do you want me to stop?’

  ‘No,’ I said. This could be our final chance to be alone for a very long time, and I didn’t want to miss a thing.

  I rolled towards him, helping him unhook my bra. His hands were on my breasts, and my hands were pressing against the bare skin of his belly, his wiry hair springing against my fingers. If my head was whirling before, it was nothing compared to this. I felt powerful and powerless all at once, immortal and infinite.

  If only this could last forever. If only I could last forever.

  Right then, it felt as though anything were possible.

  ‘I love you, puss-cat,’ Jamie whispered, the delicious length of his body pressed against mine, all the way down.

  ‘I love you, too, Opera Ghost,’ I whispered back, and buried my head in his chest, embarrassed and elated all at once.

  Jamie tensed and I listened, hearing it, too: his mother’s footfall on the stairs.

  ‘I don’t want this to end,’ he said, not moving. ‘Do you?’

  Lifting my head, I looked into his eyes.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I never want this to end.’

  Our make-out session was disturbed for a while. Jamie’s mum pushed the door open, carrying a tray on which sat a pitcher of lemonade and two jam-jar-style glasses. After tugging my top down over my untethered bra, I sat up, my face flaming. Sighing, Jamie sat up, too, running his hand through his hair.

  ‘Thanks for knocking,’ he said, as Astrid set the tray down on his desk.

  ‘I’ll be back with some cinnamon rolls in a jiffy,’ she said, and walked out again, leaving the bedroom door wide open.

  ‘Det var subtilt,’ Jamie called after her.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, that was subtle.’ He took a glass off the tray and handed it to me. The lemonade was homemade, with slices of lemon and mint floating on top.

  ‘Yum,’ I said, suddenly realising how thirsty I was.

  ‘Be right back,’ Jamie said, vaulting out of the room. I heard the bathroom door close behind him. After draining my glass, I stood up to fill it again. When I turned, my eyes fell on the items sitting on top of his dressing table — a dark-blue bottle of cologne labelled Savage, Lynx deodorant, a pair of sports socks and a bottle of pills.

  I picked up the pill bottle and held it up: James Orange. Lithium 900mg. Take one capsule twice a day.

  ‘I don’t recommend them,’ said a voice behind me. Flushing, I set the bottle back down and turned to face Jamie.

  ‘Sorry.’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s not a secret. Do you want to listen to some music?’

  ‘Sure.’ I set my glass down and sat back on the bed. I was just wondering if we’d get to have a repeat performance of our make-out session when Astrid arrived back carrying a blue plate with white flowers around the rim.

  ‘Oh, cinnamon buns,’ Jamie said, pointing a remote at the stereo on his desk. ‘You are forgiven.’

  His mother held out the plate to me.

  ‘Well, don’t think you’re forgiven, young man,’ she said, giving him a withering stare. ‘Tell me, Alex, would your parents be angry if you stayed out until four hours after your curfew?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said, taking a bun and wondering how Hannah was going holding my parents off.

  ‘Mamma,’ Jamie said.

  Astrid said, ‘Door open, Jamie, or the visit is over,’ and left again. Jamie glared after her and sat back on the bed.

  ‘What’s so horrible about the lithium?’ I asked, around a mouthful of cinnamon roll.

  ‘The lithium,’ Jamie said, an odd expression flitting over his face. I got the impression he’d been trying to change the subject when he’d turned on the music before.

  ‘Yeah.’ I chewed and swallowed. The roll was still warm, and the sugar gave me a pleasant buzzing feeling in my head. ‘What sort of side-effects does it have?’

  Jamie pulled a piece of dough off his bun.

  ‘It makes me feel thirsty all the time. Sometimes it makes me feel sick. And mostly, it makes me into someone I don’t want to be.’

  ‘But you’re taking it, right?’

  ‘That’s why it’s there,’ he said, a faint note of irritation creeping into his voice, one I hadn’t heard before. Sensing it was time to back off, I said, ‘So what’s this music we’re listening to?’

  His face relaxed into a smile. ‘Crash Test Dummies. Do you like it?’

  ‘The lead singer’s got the deepest voice I’ve ever heard.’ I finished my bun and lay down again, Jamie stretched out beside me. We didn’t make out this time, though, because his mother was mucking around in the bedroom down the landing, in a very non-subtilt way.

  I lay with my head on his chest and we talked about nothing in particular — concerts we’d been to, about Jamie’s trip to Norway when he was twelve, even our favourite words.

  ‘Callipygous,’ Jamie said, running his fingers down my back.

  ‘What does that mean?’ I asked, my brain slowing. Sleepy, I was so sleepy.

  His fingers lingered at the base of my spine. ‘I’ll give you a clue. You are … callipygous.’

  ‘I am … camel-like?’ I guessed, and Jamie started laughing.

  ‘It was a compliment, puss-cat.’

  I lifted my head. ‘But what does it mean?’

  ‘It means,’ he said, kissing me, ‘to have shapely, beautiful buttocks.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, feeling embarrassed again.

  I heard a cough, and socks whispering over floorboards — Jamie’s mum, on the prowl.

  Jamie retracted his hand. ‘What’s your favourite word, then?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘It’s hard to pick one word. But I think it’d have to be serendipity.’

  ‘Serendipity,’ he said slowly. ‘That means to be lucky, right?’

  ‘It’s like a happy accident,’ I said, my words feeling all stretched, like toffee. ‘Like us.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Serendipity, I like that.’ And he stopped talking, and so did I.

  When I opened my eyes, I was facing the wall, and the light in the room was dimmer. I rolled over and glanced at Jamie. He was lying on his back, one arm flung over his forehead, his breathing deep and regular.

  I watched him for a moment before scooting off the end of the bed, taking care not to rock the mattress too much.

  My bag was where I’d left it, on the floor next to his wardrobe. I pulled out my camera, took off the lens cap and adjusted the aperture and shutter speed. I focused on Jamie. His eyes flickered, dream movements behind diaphanous eyelids.

  Sleeping Jamie.

  I snapped off a couple of shots, taking care to include the mask directly above his head. When I lowered my camera, my eyes fell on the time display on the now-silent stereo: 5.03 p.m.

  ‘Oh, crap,’ I said, and Jamie twitched. That meant we must have slept for — what, two hours? I pulled my phone out of the front pocket of my bag and turned it on. It started beeping almost immediately.

  Six text messages: one from Nicole, one from Hannah, and four from Mum.

  Crap, crap, crap.

  Not to mention the three missed calls.

  ‘Everything OK?’ Jamie sat up, blinking.

  ‘Not really,’ I said, staring down at my phone.

  Hannah, 4.22 p.m.: The olds know you’ve escaped. Mum is frothing at the mouth.

  Nicole, 4.25 p.m.: Are you OK? Your mum called me to ask if you were with me. Do you need to talk?

  And then all the messages from Mum.

  4.32 p.m.: Alexandria Byrd get your butt home RIGHT NOW!

  4.35 p.m.: If you don’t come home within the next 20 minutes I’ll confiscate your cell phone AND the iPad.

  4.38 p.m.: Please come home. We’re worried sick about you.

  4.52 p.m.: If you don’t answer within the next 5 mins I’m calling the police. I mean it.

  My stomach churned. ‘The police?’

  ‘The what?’ Jamie peered over my shoulder. ‘Oh no. What are you going to do?’

  ‘I guess I’ll—’ I began, but jumped when my phone started ringing. Wincing, I put the phone to my ear.

  ‘Um, hi, Dad.’

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ he said. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine. I just — needed some space.’

  ‘We’ve been—’ he began, but my mother’s voice blared into my ear.

  ‘Alexandria Byrd, where the hell are you?’