“You always seem so in control.”
“And you don’t?”
He laughed, but somehow not humorously. There was a darkness in his eyes that had nothing to do with color.
“I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m not. Sometimes I think that this life is shit. I mean, don’t you find it pathetic?”
I had never seen John like that before. I wondered if it was something new or if he hid those moods well. Whatever it was, I found it a bit freaky. My friends and I always muck around that life is shit, but none of us actually believes it.
I looked at him for a moment, finding his copper cowlick irritating and wanting to hand him a comb.
“Only when my mother comes up with excuses why I can’t go out. Or when I feel that I’ll be a nothing because socially I haven’t got a foot in the door,” I answered as truthfully as I could.
“Well, as I’m allowed to go out whenever I want to and socially I have got a foot in the door, I can’t really understand your problem.”
“So what’s your problem, John?”
“I don’t know what I want out of my life, but I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep. I don’t want my children embarrassed every time I make the wrong decision and some journalist shits all over me in the paper. I don’t want a lot of responsibility in life. Does that sound weak and unambitious? Well, that must mean that I am weak and unambitious. I don’t want to climb to the top, Josephine. I’m comfortable enough where I’m standing. But when you have a father who is a minister in Parliament, you are expected to have ambition. And when you can’t work out your ambition, good old Dad does.”
“Then tell him what you told me.”
“Okay, I’ll just go find him. I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, standing up.
I grabbed his arm and we both burst into laughter.
“It’s obvious that you don’t know my father, Josephine.”
I heard a noise behind me and winced when I saw Ivy approaching us.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” she told John, smiling. I rarely see Poison Ivy smiling unless she’s crawling to Sister.
“Just appreciating the presence of a beautiful, fascinating, exotic woman,” he said.
“Oh, really, where did she go?” she asked, giving me a sweet, insincere smile.
“So you’ve found me, you parasite. I bet it’s for a lift home.”
“You bet right, and in the meantime think of Sarah Spencer’s party. I’m not going alone.”
“I will not associate with pretentious people with nothing constructive to discuss except what kind of car they’re getting for their eighteenth birthday,” he said, looking at her with a raised eyebrow.
“Come on, John. She’s Dr. Spencer’s daughter. He’s my father’s best friend. I have to go,” she begged.
He thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. “I’ll keep it in mind. Bribes over two dollars are tax deductible.”
“Thank you,” she said victoriously. “I’ll meet you outside in five minutes.”
We watched her walk away and then he turned and smiled at me.
“Are you going to go to that party?” I asked.
He gave me a mock horrified look. “Dr. Spencer is my father’s biggest backer. Of course I’ll go to that party. I’ll even be charming to Sarah Spencer and try not to froth at the mouth when her father presents her with the keys to the Ferrari.”
“A Ferrari?” I asked, shocked. “I’d kiss the dirtiest part of the ground just for a secondhand Mini.”
“On the North Shore, in our circle of friends, the fathers all try to outdo each other. Ever since we were young. If Ivy got a ten-speed bike for her tenth birthday, my father would get me a better one. We got to the stage that if I wanted something really badly I’d tell Ivy and she’d get her father to buy it for her and I was guaranteed to get it next birthday and vice versa.”
“I didn’t realize you and Ivy were such close family friends.”
“We had no choice, but it’s worked out well because we get on,” he said, sighing and standing up. He extended his hand and we made our way back into the building.
“What do you think of the English texts?” he asked.
“Macbeth is all right. They’re going to be playing the Zeffirelli version at the cinema just for all the HSC students.”
“Would you like to go see it with me?”
I smiled up at him and nodded. “I’d like that.”
People began to file out and I spotted my mother and Sister Louise looking at me and shaking their heads. Trouble as usual.
“That nun hates me.”
“Ivy reckons she’s a living doll.”
“Yeah, a voodoo one,” I said. “I’m going to grab my mother before Sister finds something else to complain about.”
“I’ll leave you to it. It was great beating you tonight.”
“You won’t be so lucky next time,” I called out after him.
I thought about his mood swing all weekend. It depressed me for a while because I was suddenly faced with a John that I really didn’t know.
The first time I ever saw him was about two years ago during a debate. One of the girls in the debating team left to be an exchange student and I was asked to fill her place. We were both third speakers and the topic was so boring that I can’t even remember it. But I do remember him looking over at me and mouthing the words “I’m bored.”
From that minute on I begged to stay on the debating team and I haven’t regretted a minute of it. Every time we debate at the same venue we race off alone afterward and talk. It’s kind of the highlight of my boring social life.
Another interesting thing that happened over the weekend was that I got a job at McDonald’s. Anna and I had seen the advertisement in our local paper and decided to go for it.
McDonald’s is not the most glamorous job to have, but living on five dollars’ pocket money a week is like something out of The Brady Bunch . I didn’t tell Mama that because she’d have a complex.
We had a big fight after I told her about the job. She eventually backed down when I explained to her that Anna’s father would let her have the car for the two nights a week we work.
Anna and I spoke on the phone for an hour about how disgusting the McDonald’s uniform was, about all the guys from St. Anthony’s who go to that particular outlet and especially about what we’d be doing with the money.
Sportsgirl, Country Road and Esprit, here we come.
Five
I LOOKED AT myself in the mirror for the billionth time and teased my fringe for the zillionth, wishing that my neckline wasn’t so high.
My grandmother had volunteered to make my dress. Short, black and velvet with a nice neckline, I had told her. Instead it was emerald green (because only people in mourning wear black, she informed me), it came to my knees and the neckline was almost choking me.
“Josephine, why do you have to wear those low medical shoes?” Mama asked from the door.
“Maaa, they’re Doc Martens,” I informed her.
“Well, pardon my ignorance.”
“It’s the fashion.”
“You would look much lovelier if you wore your flat black shoes. It’s not that important to look like everyone else.”
I looked over to her with little patience. “I feel like the Virgin Mary with this neckline.”
“I don’t think the Virgin Mary ever wore a velvet dress to her knees. Now do something to please me and change the shoes.”
“Just say nobody asks me to dance,” I asked, getting flustered.
“Because you’re not wearing those doctor shoes?”
“No,” I said. “Because they might find me unattractive.
Just say the music starts and every girl is dancing with a boy, except me.”
“For the one hundredth time, Josie, you look beautiful. You should wear your hair down more often. I can’t believe that you were lucky enough to have beautiful curly hair and you
don’t appreciate it.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re my mother.”
The doorbell rang and she pulled me away from the mirror. “Go get your shoes and I’ll let the girls in.”
I hugged her hard and laughed.
“Thanks for letting me go tonight, Mama. I’ll never ask for anything again.”
“I want you home at twelve on the dot,” she ordered.
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“And don’t let me hear any stories and don’t be influenced by that silly Sera.”
“Okay, okay.”
It was the first regional school dance in order to bring the school community together. Apart from St. Martha’s and St. Anthony’s, Cook High was included and a Presbyterian coed private school.
“It’s beautiful,” Anna kept on saying, referring to my dress. She was wearing a white smock and blue-spotted pants and her long hair was up in a high ponytail.
“The neckline looks like it’s choking her,” Sera said as I climbed into her father’s car.
I grabbed the compact mirror from her and fixed up my hair.
“I thought you were wearing your Docs,” Lee said, looking at my shoes.
“My mother’s introducing me to individuality,” I said, fixing up her earring.
Lee has always had this sixties fetish. She wore opaque tights and a short orange dress and shoes that would have to have belonged to her mother, who was a model in the sixties.
Sera wore a tight black Lycra dress and enough makeup to supply a complete cast on a soap opera. She never wears anything that’s not short and tight except for her school uniform. She has two wardrobes. The one in her cupboard and the one under her bed. The latter is the one she changes into when she’s out of her parents’ sight.
The town hall was lit up and decorated and the crowd was cosmopolitan. Some classical, others mod. Some trendy, others casual.
I looked around for John Barton, making every deal with God so he would ask me for the first dance. Yet when I saw him standing with Poison Ivy, I wanted to tear my hair out with rage, except I’d spent so long fixing it up. It seemed as if it had been all for nothing.
“Who is this sexy woman?”
I looked up at my cousin Robert, who goes to St. Anthony’s, and he feigned shock.
“Oh my God, it’s Josie.”
“Thanks a lot, Robert.”
He kissed my cheek loudly. “You look gorgeous, woman, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
“You reckon.”
He leaned forward and smiled.
“He couldn’t get out of it,” he whispered. “She lives on the same street.”
I knew he was talking about John Barton and I hugged him.
The music started soon after.
“If we don’t get asked to dance, pretend that we’re talking about something interesting,” Anna whispered to me as soon as Lee and Sera were asked.
I nodded and then she nudged me hard in the ribs. Both Jacob Coote and a tall, well-built boy stood in front of us.
“Would you like to dance?” the tall guy asked Anna.
She nodded shyly and grinned at me.
“Take off your glasses,” she hissed.
Jacob Coote was smiling with his usual closed-mouth twitch.
“My friend is besotted by your friend.”
“He’s got good taste.”
“So how about dancing with me, Miss Vice Captain of St. Martyr’s?”
“It’s St. Martha’s, Mr. Captain of Crook High.”
So we danced to “Crocodile Rock” while I looked at everyone but him and when the disc jockey played a slow Elvis song, we fumbled around a bit before we were in the waltz position.
“Funny song to be following a fast one.”
“The disc jockey is the Presbyterian minister. A bit of a romantic perhaps,” I tried to joke.
He nodded and drew me closer.
We didn’t talk for the rest of the song. Nor through the third or fourth.
I wondered why he had danced with me when there were girls more suited to him in the room. I wondered if it was a dare or something equally hideous. Because boys like Jacob Coote, who would easily be the most popular guy in his school, didn’t ask girls like me to dance.
But we danced to the point of exhaustion and it gave me the opportunity to look at him properly for the first time. His eyes weren’t a bluey green or a hazelly green or a mixed color. They were just green.
He didn’t look trendy or casual. He just looked like himself. All things aside, my mother would probably love this guy. He was the epitome of individuality. I wondered what he was doing at this dance. Jacob Coote and company weren’t the regional-dance type, and when he caught my curious look he smiled knowingly.
“I was ordered to come tonight. Setting a good example, you know. I was promised that if I went tonight I’d never have to go again.”
“And what Jacob Coote does, everyone does at Crook High,” I mocked.
“I have that effect on people.”
“I still find it hard to believe that you’d turn up to one of these things. It’s not you.”
“You don’t know what ‘me’ is all about.”
I excused myself after the next dance and went to the ladies’ room.
“The one dancing with Coote,” I heard one girl say.
So they stared and rolled their eyes and I tried to ignore them all.
“Seven dances, Jose. Marriage next, eh?” Sera said, spraying her hair as well as the faces of people around her.
Anna grabbed my arm, shaking it hysterically. “I’m in love,” she said through her teeth.
“Did you all follow me into the ladies’?”
“He is the man of my dreams. I want to marry him.”
“You dance with him once and you decide that he will be the person to spend the rest of your life with?”
“I know it in my heart.”
“Try dancing with a few other guys and then tell me how you feel at the end of the night.”
Poison Ivy walked in and stood at the mirror next to me fixing her hair. God knows why a person with a straight, shoulder-length, flawless bob would need to fix her hair, but that’s vanity for you.
“Are you and John Barton an item?” Felicity Singer asked her. “I saw you guys pulling up in his car.”
“His father’s car,” she said. “How many seventeen-year-olds do you know with a BMW, Felicity?”
“He’s a great catch, Ivy. Think about it, captain of St. John’s with captain of St. Martha’s,” Felicity went on.
“We’re just friends,” she said in an almost patronizing, smug tone, looking at me and then back to the mirror. “We’re in the same circle of friends.”
We went back into the hall after that and danced some more and surprisingly enough I wasn’t left without a partner all night.
I saw Jacob Coote a few times, but he only stood around talking. I couldn’t bear looking over at John Barton in case Poison Ivy caught me, so I always kept to the other side of the hall. I even danced with Anton Valavic, Anna’s future husband, and almost fell in love with him myself.
But when the dance ended at eleven-thirty and everyone decided to go for pizza and coffee, I felt disappointment settle in.
My mother’s twelve o’clock time limit meant not a second after and I didn’t want to push it this time.
“Robert, I have to be home by twelve,” I told him as a large group gathered around outside.
“I’ll take a taxi with you, Jose,” Lee volunteered halfheartedly.
“Lee, I’ll really be miserable if you have to miss out too.”
“Well, what is she going to do?” Sera asked. I knew she was hoping that nobody would volunteer her because she had a car. “Her mother will go crazy if she’s not home by twelve, although I can understand why. She’s a bit paranoid about what people say.”
“Shut up, Sera,” Lee snapped.
“I’ll take her.”
So out of spite, I found myself trailing after Jacob Coote, wishing I was with the rest.
When we reached the road, I spotted John Barton and Poison Ivy and cringed inwardly, wondering what I was going to say.
“Good dance, wasn’t it?”
I nodded, knowing that both boys were sizing each other up.
I didn’t want John thinking that I had been picked up at the dance by just anyone, and I could almost hear his mind ticking.
“This is Jacob Coote. Remember, you saw him at Martin Place,” I swallowed. “Jacob, this is John Barton and Ivy Lloyd.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen you around,” Jacob Coote said, looking out on to the road. We were standing on George Street, the main road in the city. It was packed with people streaming out of the Hoyts and Village cinema centers, which were situated down the road. Most of them were heading for Town Hall station, which was beneath us.
“Are you from St. Anthony’s as well?” Ivy asked politely.
“Nope. I’m a Cook man.”
Ivy, John and I looked at each other, nodding in silence, as if we had plenty to say. Jacob Coote seemed to be preoccupied elsewhere.
“I’ll drive,” Ivy said, taking John’s keys and waving goodbye to us.
John and I continued looking at each other, and turning his back to Jacob Coote, he took my hand.
“Wished we would have danced tonight,” he said quietly. “I meant to ask, but I could never get away and before I knew it, the night was over.”
I looked at his face, which, although not as attractive as Jacob Coote’s, was so earnest and honest.
His copper hair was slicked back with gel, making his cowlick obscure. He was beautifully dressed in baggy beige pants and a paisley shirt. Compared to Jacob Coote’s black jeans, white shirt and what looked like his school tie, he looked like a million dollars.
“Maybe next time,” I said.
He nodded and looked back to where Ivy was walking toward the car.
“You want a lift? I could drop Ivy off first and we could go for a coffee.”
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