Lucy

Leo checks his watch. ‘If we hurry we can make the ten-fifteen train.’ He and Jazz walk ahead. Daisy walks to the side and Dylan shadows her so that leaves me with Ed. He’s taller than he was two years ago. His hair’s still unplanned, though. There’s still that space around him. He’s wearing a t-shirt with a rabbit reading a book on it.

‘You keeping looking at me sideways,’ he says, ‘like any second I’ll grab your arse. Relax. I got a girlfriend and for your information we had a great first date.’

‘Maybe you learnt something from how our date went,’ I tell him. Take that, mister.

‘We didn’t have a date. A date ends in a kiss, not blood and broken cartilage.’

‘Well, sure, if we’re getting technical.’

Ed raises his eyebrows then rolls his eyes. ‘For the record,’ he says, ‘she grabbed my arse.’

‘Sounds romantic.’ I pick up a stick and pretend it’s a glass blowpipe; I spin molten stars.

‘It was romantic,’ Ed says, watching me put the stick to my lips. ‘She didn’t give me some pop quiz and then slam me when I didn’t get the answer right.’

I blow a gold glass ocean. A sky. Some clouds. ‘Beth sounds like the perfect girl.’ Damn it. I know he’s grinning.

‘Never said her name was Beth.’

‘Well, all girls called Beth are arse grabbers.’ I try as hard as I can to act like that wasn’t a stupid thing to say. Trying. Trying. Nope. No good. I make a silent apology to all the girls called Beth.

‘Are all girls called Lucy nose breakers?’

‘You’re chattier than you were two years ago. I’m not sure I like it.’

‘Should I duck?’ he asks.

I don’t answer. I’m not used to people not liking me. At the very least they don’t mind me. Although, in fairness to Ed, I haven’t smacked the people I’m basing that on in the face.

I concentrate on the scenery, half-dark streets and traffic lights blinking because the grid can’t take the air conditioner surge. I use my stick to draw some things onto the world that are missing. An extra tree here and there. Some fireflies. A shadow.

‘What are you doing?’ Ed asks.

‘Drawing.’

I don’t have to be a psychic to know what he’s thinking. I put down my stick. I’ve got this hazy feeling under my lids like I’m walking through a neon dream. The heat was nuclear yesterday, too, so I didn’t sleep much last night. Maybe I’m asleep now and Ed’s something my subconscious conjured up.

Some guys drive past and hang their IQs out of the window, which is disturbing if my dream theory is true. Leo waves. ‘Friends of yours?’ I ask Ed.

‘Something wrong with that?’

‘I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I’m sure guys who moon people are very smart.’

He lifts his eyebrows and taps his hands against his legs.

‘You have paint on you,’ I say.

‘I work in a paint store.’

‘Right. Is that how you met Shadow? Does he buy supplies from you?’

‘I work in a place where little old ladies come to match paint with floral quilts. You think Shadow’s in there chatting to them while he buys his caps? Do you actually know anything about guys like him?’

‘I know about graffiti,’ I say, and the words come out like an old lady saying she likes the hip-hop.

Ed laughs.

‘Okay, so I don’t know where he buys his paint or even what you call the paint. I know I like his art. I know sometimes I’ll be on a train passing a corner overgrown with grass and pollution and then all of a sudden there’s this painting of an ocean. In the middle of factory land, there’s the mouth of the sea.’

I look across at Ed expecting him to still be laughing. He’s staring straight ahead like he’s trying as hard as he can to block the sound of my voice.

Tonight’s going to be one of those things that seem to last forever. Maybe even longer than an after-winter wax. Leo and Jazz are laughing; I hear it emptying into the street. For Jazz, at least, time’ll be moving differently. For that week after Ed asked me out and before we went on the date I felt like the world was heated glass and I was glad to be trapped.

Ed’s still tapping his hands on his legs and not talking when we reach the station. Dylan stops and points to the sky. It takes me a couple of seconds to see what he’s pointing at but finally I do and I want to cut out what I see and take it home so I can keep it close.

‘That’s one of Shadow’s?’ Jazz asks. ‘I like it.’

‘You’ll like Poet’s stuff too,’ Leo says. ‘They usually work together.’

Ed gives him a dirty look. Leo grins. Dylan twitches. It feels like something’s going on, I think loudly, and I know that Jazz hears my thought because she gives me her serious look and blows a chewing-gum bubble in my direction.

‘Everyone stop acting weird,’ Daisy says. ‘It’s freaking me out.’

An announcement tells us that the train is running five minutes late so while they walk through to the platform I stay for a bit longer. On a wall in the distance, under a light from a tower, is Shadow’s piece. It’s a painted night sky that’s faded at the edges so I can see the wall underneath it. Painted birds fly across, hit the line where the sky blurs into brick, and turn back. Their feathers glow. Moon birds trapped on a brick sky. They’re not dirtied by the world; from here they look more beautiful than the real ones flying around them.

I turn and see Ed watching me watching. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Train’s coming.’