I sort my clothes into piles: keep, donate, burn.

Most things end up in the keep pile even though it’s all stuff I’d forgotten I owned. I try on pretty much everything, struggling to remember why I bought it and convincing myself it really does look good. Who wouldn’t want an oversized jumper with a giant middle finger on the front? And those acid-wash boyfriend jeans are so going to come back in style.

‘How are you going?’ asks Vinnie, pushing the door open and peeking in.

My stack of ‘keep’ clothes has tumbled and is blocking the door. I scoop the pile out of the way.

‘What the hell are you wearing?’ she says. She pushes in further and blinks at me. ‘You’re wearing a dress.’

I look down at myself: it’s blue, floral, kind of tight and with a sweetheart neckline. ‘Yeah. It’s going into the donate pile.’

‘Looks pretty on you.’

‘Then it’s definitely going.’

I catch a t-shirt I want to ditch trying to sneak back into the ‘keep’ pile so I separate the stacks.

‘Not that I’m complaining,’ says Vinnie, ‘but what brought on this little cleaning spree?’

I unzip the dress and pull it over my head, dropping it on top of the ‘donate’ pile. ‘Just thought it was time.’

Vinnie raps her long nails against the doorframe. ‘It’s Friday,’ she says.

I hold up a pair of black jeans. There’s a rip in the knee of one leg that almost goes the whole way round. I drop it in the ‘keep’ pile.

She’s trying to look casual. Failing. ‘What are you doing tonight?’

‘Working.’

‘After work?’

‘Grounded.’

‘So you’re actually planning on sticking to the rules?’

‘Of course.’

‘Cara not doing anything?’

‘She’s grounded too.’

‘Ha! What she do? Get an A minus?’

‘Talking in class. Her third detention this month. I want to ask her mum if she still thinks I’m the bad influence.’

Vinnie eases onto her knees and starts sorting through the ‘donate’ pile. ‘This is so pretty.’ She’s holding a pink skirt Nonna bought me a few Christmases ago. Nuff said. ‘You’re keeping this, aren’t you?’

I grab it out of her hands and dump it on the ‘burn’ pile.

She sighs. ‘How about What’s His Face? I’m guessing you plan on seeing him again?’

Hey, Xavier has graduated from God Knows Who to What’s His Face. That’s a big step up.

‘I haven’t heard from him.’ All too true. And all I can do right now is wait for my genius poster idea to take effect. I expected the phone to ring straight away – even if it was just the crazies. But nothing. Not for two whole days. Which has given me plenty of time to go searching for more pieces signed with X Marks. I’ve found five, including purple-skinned girl and bird-flipping angel. The angel piece was even cooler in the daylight, with a multi-coloured geometric background and a creepy all-seeing eye just above her head.

Vinnie’s folding the clothes in my donate pile but she’s watching me.

I grip a t-shirt in my hand. It’s faded black, holes all through it but it’s one of my favourites. ‘What if . . .’

I drop the tee into the keep pile and grab another black one and pull it on. I guess I have a style.

‘What if what?’ asks Vinnie.

I try sorting through my words in my head – keep, donate, burn. It takes me a while but Vinnie just waits.

‘What if someone you knew might have done something bad,’ I say. ‘And maybe they weren’t answering their phone and no one knew where they were. Would you worry about that?’

Vinnie watches me with her forehead all crinkled. ‘Maybe,’ she says, speaking slow and careful. ‘Maybe they don’t want to be found. Maybe someone like that – someone who does bad things – is better out of your life.’

‘I’m speaking hypothetically,’ I say.

She nods. ‘Of course.’

‘And I don’t mean bad like murder or anything. I mean maybe he’s a bit misguided. Like, he doesn’t have a clear sense of right and wrong. Because no one taught him.’ I think about Bill Green. What kind of dad would he be? Would he have marched Xavier all the way to school and made him apologise to the girl whose lunch he buried in the sandbox because she used his pencil without asking first? I look at Vinnie. ‘What if part of the problem is the guy just wanted to do something nice so that I – so that people would think he was good?’

Vinnie grips hold of my hand and squeezes. ‘Whoever he is, I’m sure he’ll show up eventually. And if he doesn’t? His loss.’

She smiles and I think about asking her the biggest ‘what if’ in my head. What if he can’t show up? What if . . .

I reach for the sweetheart dress, saving it from certain death by plopping it on top of the keep pile. ‘Don’t say I never listen to you.’

She gives me a lopsided grin and pats my cheek, hoisting herself to standing. ‘That’s my girl. You just focus on what you’re going to say at that meeting and everything else will sort itself out.’

I nod. I own a blue, floral, too-tight dress with a sweetheart neckline – what can go wrong?

__________

Vinnie heads downstairs to open and I grab my mobile, scrolling through the list of numbers until I hit the one I think is Marzoli’s. So much for burying his business card in bin juice.

I stare out the window while I wait for him to answer: rooftops are my rolling hills and chimneys are my towering trees. What if, what if, what if.

Marzoli answers on the fifth ring by barking his name.

‘It’s Frankie Vega.’ My words are all hacked up with uncertainty – I am, after all, calling a cop for help. Again.

Wherever Marzoli is, there’s a lot of traffic. ‘Speak up,’ he says, voice crackling.

I shout-whisper my name, conscious of Vinnie downstairs. Conscious of my shift starting five minutes ago.

There’s a long pause and I wonder if he’s dropped out. I can hear him breathing though.

‘Can you hear me?’

‘Just wait,’ he says. In a couple of seconds the traffic noises stop and Marzoli’s heavy breathing subsides. ‘All right. Talk.’

‘My brother. Do you have any news?’

‘I’ll be there in a second, Peters,’ shouts Marzoli, not holding the phone far enough away from his face when he does. ‘Look, I’m busy here,’ he says, talking to me again.

‘Any news?’

‘No. Do you have any information for me?’

‘I haven’t seen anything about Xavier in the papers. Harrison Finnik-Hyde was booted to page six today, but it was still an entire page more than my brother had.’

Marzoli holds the phone too close to his mouth, muffling his voice. ‘Do you know how many people go missing each day? They can’t all get a front page.’

‘Just the pretty ones. And the rich ones. Are you even looking into it?’

‘Of course I am but I’ve got another burglary here, Frankie. I’m up to my neck in this.’

It sounds like a door opens – the traffic noise increases, then stops. Some guy starts yapping away to Marzoli.

‘I’ve got to go,’ he says. ‘I’ll call you if anything comes up, all right?’

I don’t get a chance to tell him I don’t believe him. I don’t get to tell him to go to hell because he hangs up.

Buttons meows from down the corridor, high-pitched and accusing, and for once I agree with him. You’re an idiot, Frankie Vega.

I go through my call log and delete the whole conversation. Like it never happened.

If only my brain was more like my phone. It would be nice to be able to touch a screen and have all my unwanted memories dragged to the trash, deleted forever. Xavier’s disappearance? Straight to the garbage. Steve Sparrow? A three-point shot for the bin. Juliet? ‘Are you sure you want to permanently erase items in Trash (You can’t undo this action)?’ Yep.

Buttons meows again. He probably wants to be fed but that’s not my job.

My job is downstairs, making kebabs.

My job is forgetting about Xavier, focusing on The Meeting, getting into uni and marrying a fat bald rich guy who’ll never cheat on me.

My job sucks.