Saving Francesca

“You should be ashamed of yourself.”

He looks around, to see if I’m speaking to someone else.

“Are you talking to me?”

“Yes I am, Mr. Taxi Driver, De Niro. You’re a bully and I know you don’t care, but I just thought you should know that I think you’re scum. He’s probably some miserable kid with his own demons and he doesn’t need yours.”

I’m actually shouting, and I feel as if there are tears in my eyes, but I don’t care. I’m just sick of all the misery—my absolute lack of control over everything. For a moment, I catch a glimpse of shock on his face, but I walk away. When I reach the lights on Elizabeth Street, I find that he’s next to me.

“It’s my favorite film, you know.” He’s got a lazy voice that comes across as an a

At first I ignore him.

“Taxi Driver,” he persists.

“Of course it is,” I say, because it’s just too much effort to ignore him. “And I bet I can tell you what your second-favorite film is.”

He gives me one of those go-ahead-but-you’ll-be-wrong looks, and the lights change and I walk away. But after a moment I turn back, feeling challenged. He’s still standing at the lights.

I reach him, my arms folded, and I know I’m going to be right and I am as smug as he is. “Apocalypse Now.”

No reaction.

“I’m right, aren’t I? I can tell.”

He doesn’t give an inch, so I walk away for the second time.

“So what’s your favorite?” he yells out. “The Sound of Music?”

He catches up to me.

“I’m not as easy to work out as you are,” I tell him as we walk past Market Street.

“It is. I can tell. You love The Sound of Music.”

“No I don’t.”

“You’ve watched it fifteen times. You’ve jumped around a gazebo pretending you’re sixteen going on seventeen. You’ve sung ‘My Favorite Things’ when you’re sad, and every time Captain von Trapp’s voice catches during ‘Edelweiss,’ you bawl your eyes out.”

I stop and look at him, ready to deny it, but then I feel my mouth twitching. “Seems like I’ve watched it one or two times less than you have,” I say.

“Think about it,” he tells me as we sit in Starbucks, soaking marsh-mallows into our hot chocolates. “Empire magazine will interview you one day and you’re going to admit that it’s your favorite movie. At least I’ll come across dark and mysterious.”

“Do you know how many guys would pick Taxi Driver and Apocalypse Now as their favorite films? You’ll come across as a cliché.”

“I like The Princess Bride as well.”

“If you spread that around, you just might get lucky with the girls.”

“What makes you think that I’m not lucky with them now?”

I make a scoffing sound. “Dream on.”

“Bitch.”

“Just honest.”

After a moment he nods as if agreeing.

“So what do you girls talk about?”

“Nothing exciting. You guys most of the time.”

“What’s the Eva Rodriguez chick like?”

“She’s pretty cool,” I say. “What is it about her that makes everyone interested? There are better-looking girls.”

He shrugs. “Good-looking, knows her sports, uncomplicated. Doesn’t have to prove a point a thousand times a day. Like you said, cool. Maybe even Siobhan Sullivan and A

“That’s actually fu

“You do a pretty good act,” he says.

“What?”

“The Miss Mute thing.”

“I just haven’t got anything to say.”

“Yeah you do. You kind of mutter it under your breath when you think people can’t hear.”

“Really.”

“Do you want to hang out? At your place or something?”

Hanging out with Jimmy Hailler will mean that I have to say hello to him every day. I’m not ready to say hello to him every day. Too much commitment. It’s bad enough that I’m sharing chocolate brownies with him. I shake my head.

“Not today.”

“Whenever.”

He’s the foulest-mouthed boy I’ve ever come across and constantly uses the c-word. I tell him it offends me and he calls me a prude. I shrug. So be it. I’m a prude. But he says he’ll hold back when he’s around me. He talks about smoking dope, probably a lot more than he actually smokes it, and just when you think you’ve come up with some theory about him, he’ll make you change your mind. He’s obsessed with fantasy fiction and is incredibly biting about those who get fantasy and sci-fi mixed up. The constant Machiavellian grin on his face is a cover-up for some kind of yearning, which doesn’t excuse him for being rude and obnoxious and cruel, but he’s honest, and I think that deep down he’s as lonely as I am.

On the trip home on the bus, I’m vomiting out words, unable to hold them back no matter how hard I try—talking film and music and books and gossip and DVD commentaries and clothing and teachers and students and pets and brothers and loves and hates and lyrics and God and the universe and our dads.

But not mothers.

“That’s off-limits,” he tells me, and I can’t help feeling relieved and guilty.

But most of all, I feel a little less empty than the day before.

chapter 9

IT’S THURSDAY AFTERNOON, and we have sports. These are the choices for the girls: watching an invitational cricket game; studying in one of the classrooms; or watching the senior rugby league. As you can imagine, I’m torn.

William Trombal is standing on the platform of the bus in his league shorts and jersey as I step on.

“What are you doing?”

He’s speaking to me. There is something on his face I can’t recognize. It looks a bit like panic and I’m confused.

“Going to the rugby game,” I explain politely.

“I think you’ll enjoy the cricket.”

“Based on the match fixing and controversial rotating roster, I’m ideologically opposed to cricket.”

I try to step past him, but he goes as far as putting his arm across to block me. A you’re-not-going-anywhere arm.

“Is there a problem here?” Tara Finke asks, pushing forward. He has no choice but to let us on.

I get a glare the whole way there. I don’t know what it is with this guy. One minute he’s totally conceited, next minute there’s a bit of sympathy, then there’s the hostility, and today there’s everything, including a bit of anxiousness.

I’ve got to give the Sebastian boys this. They’ve got heart. But skill? After watching them play, I feel a whole lot better about the basketball game. They get so thrashed that even Tara Finke is yelling, “This is an outrage!”

But they never give in, not once, and half the time I think they’re bloody idiots and the other half I can’t help cheering if they even touch the ball. The score is too pitiful to divulge. The other side are kind of bastards and our guys are bleeding and, strangely enough, every single time William Trombal gets thumped by those Neanderthals, my heart beats into a panic.

On the way back to school, I sit facing him and he’s in his own miserable world. I actually think he wants to cry, but that revolting male protocol of not crying when you feel like shit just kicks in. He looks at me for a moment, and I feel as if I should be nice and look away, but I don’t.

“Why don’t you just stick to what you’re good at?” I find myself asking.

“I warned you,” he says gruffly.

“You didn’t say there was going to be blood.”

“You should have gone to the cricket game.”

“Do they win?” I ask.

“Every time.”

“Then why don’t you join the cricket team?”

He’s horrified. “It’s not about wi

We approach the school, and the first of the guys shuffles past and pats William Trombal on the back. He’s their leader, although half their size.

“Maybe next week we’ll be able to score, Will.”