It's Not You, It's Me by Gabrielle Williams

Author:Gabrielle Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2021-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

5.21 pm

Holly looked down at the typewriter on her desk and placed her fingers on the keys.

All day, her brain had been consumed with trying to keep up with the faces that swarmed in front of her, the conversations between friends, the politics of the classroom, the shoplifting at the mall. But now that she was back home, getting a letter from Trinity rose back up to number-one priority. Nothing had come through.

‘Come on, Trinity,’ she said, banging on the top of the typewriter as if to wake it up. ‘Brother Orange – either of you! Write to me. I just want to know what’s going on.’

Yesterday, when the letter from Trinity had come through and she’d replied, it had felt like they were typing to each other in real time. But now that she thought about it, there was nothing to suggest that the letters were coming through as they were being written. Trinity could have typed that letter whenever. It could have been inside Brother Orange, waiting, since before the séance, even.

Which would make sense, now that Holly thought about it. The séance had prompted the start of Trinity’s letter to appear – Fuck off! – as if it could no longer contain her fury. As if it was trying to flag Holly’s attention. But then it had stopped – maybe because there wasn’t any paper in there? Maybe because it needed Holly sitting on her chair in front of it? Who knew? Holly was a novice when it came to this whole communicate-with-other-person-through-a-self-writing-typewriter business.

If Trinity didn’t know a reply was coming through, she wouldn’t necessarily have gone back to Brother Orange to check in. Maybe you needed to be near the typewriter to get a letter through? Maybe you needed to hold a séance to trigger a letter? Maybe Trinity had smashed the typewriter to pieces, just like she’d threatened. Maybe she’d never receive Holly’s letter. Maybe Holly would be stuck in this life forever. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe maybemaybemaybemaybemaybemaybe.

She needed to distract herself. She couldn’t force a letter out of the typewriter. Thinking about it over and over was sending her into a downward spiral.

She went over to lie on the bed, her back to the desk. She thought about the maths homework she was supposed to have done. That shouldn’t be too hard. She’d always been good at maths. Maths and art, opposing subjects, her two favourites. She would cook up a little something to hand in to O’Farrell tomorrow, along with the advice that he shouldn’t call her Legs anymore. She sat back up, cross-legged, and dragged her Pan Am bag over. Took the maths folder and textbook out, balanced the folder on her knees and started reading.

‘Draw pie charts to represent the following data,’ she read aloud. She loved pie charts. They were so … visual. ‘Twenty-four people divided into five different jobs: eight doctors, two nurses, six lawyers, two police officers, six teachers. Write the percentage of people who hold each job.’ That should be easy enough.

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