Take Three Girls

by Cath Crowley

  Malik tells us that doing something crafty with our hands means our brains will connect to everyone else’s brains in a different way because we have a shared goal. We are being altruistic and purposeful. Imagine back through the centuries to when we had to come together to build shelter. And now he’s like, when we help others (the school), we tend to feel good about ourselves. It’s a pretty tenuous link between our slave labour on the bunting and the class topic of self-esteem, in my opinion. Anyway, he says it’s also neuro-diverse, or neuro-responsive, or neuro-annoying. Words to that effect.

  So we’re cooperating on making bunting. I’m here in theory, but community arts isn’t really my thing. I’m definitely more in the auteur camp. Or, if you prefer, I’m a control freak. My kinder teacher, Ms Zink, told my parents I was aggressively expressive when it came to my art because I had a tantrum when she put her brush on my paper and ‘corrected’ (i.e. ruined) a chicken I was painting. I felt that my parents were on my side. But Clare heard about it and, being a complete smart-arse six-year-old, she didn’t hesitate to use it against me: Mu-um, Adelaide is being aggressively expressive again.

  The school should look at its own self-esteem, anyway. Private schools never stop their competitive jostling, each one trying to outdo the others. Why do they expect us to find our quiet confidence when they clearly haven’t found theirs? Malik said teenagers hate hypocrisy because we are emerging from the protective half-truths of childhood into the reality of adult life, and we don’t want any more lies. Personally, I’d make an exception for Father Christmas and fairies, but I know what he means. He means our sharp eyes are fresh and hypercritical. It’s true. He said it’s one reason we’re so harsh on our parents during these years.

  So, swear to God, despite the stupid questionnaire, Malik is quite often one hundred percent correct. It’s like when my father used to be drunk, I didn’t even really notice when I was little – what would I have been comparing him to? But anytime my friends have seen him like that in the last couple of years – even if it’s in the middle of a fun-looking party – I’m embarrassed. I am hypercritical. I do judge him.

  Clem nudges me, holding up a finished flag end to tie to my finished flag end.

  ‘So, you’re part of the loop relay at the pool opening?’ I ask, making an effort since she is in my thumb-group.

  ‘Yes.’ She looks uncomfortable. ‘It’s not like I’ve got a choice.’

  ‘Didn’t you hurt your wrist or something? Is it better now?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Try to curb that wild enthusiasm.’

  ‘I’m keen. Who doesn’t want to perform like a gibbering dolphin? I’m just out of practice.’

  ‘I don’t know how you swimmers can stand those early mornings. I can’t even pretend I’m human until around eight o’clock.’

  ‘And even then . . .’ Tash chimes in, giving Clem a dismissive look and leading me away.

  ‘We need to talk about Friday night,’ she says. ‘I mean, what the hell, Ady?’

  Her netball training at lunchtime gives me a reprieve until after school.

  Monday 1 August

  I lie on my bed, headphones on, music loud. Songs to ease the pain – ‘Never Be Like You’ (Flume), ‘Step Up the Morphine’ (DMA’S), ‘The Less I Know the Better’ (Tame Impala), song after song of Chet Faker.

  I keep looking at myself in a small mirror I borrowed from Iris. Every time I look I see myself a little less the way I saw myself yesterday and that makes me angry because, who are they to tell me who I am? Last time I checked I didn’t have a friend called fridgeman and I don’t ever plan to.

  While Iris is out of the room, I call Ben. ‘Search PSST,’ I tell him.

  He puts me on speaker and I listen to the familiar roll of his chair, the sturdy wheels on hardwood, his predictable complaining about slow internet; it’s the sound of a good, old friendship. I imagine myself into the room with him, sitting in the blue wicker chair in the corner, my feet up on the windowsill, staring at the lemon tree out the window, the green and yellow ripeness.

  I hear the small inhalation of breath when he finds the site and reads the comments. Then the wheels of his chair move as he pushes himself away from the desk and stands. ‘I would like to hit something, but I have nothing to hit.’

  ‘Times the feeling by a million,’ I say.

  I wait for him to say something that will make me feel better. If anyone can say something Ben can because he’s known me forever. The words aren’t out there, but I hope for them anyway.

  There’s so much quiet on the other end, and I’m about to let him off the hook, when he says my name. Just my name. Spoken in his sensible voice, his gentle way, it reminds me who I am.

  After we hang up, there is a new comment.

  BenTran: Kate Turner is the greatest person I know.

  I focus on Ben’s comment and not the loser who asks if Ben is ‘doin’ me’.

  What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

  What are some practical ways to improve my self-esteem? I start making a list.

  At the top of it: Find the fuckers that run PSST and shut them down.

  Monday 1 August

  I have an annoyingly confusing final period of Maths. I do dummy maths and still it’s hard. My pals do brain maths. Although, let’s be frank, Lola can only keep up with help from a private tutor. I cannot wait to graduate from dummy to zero maths next year. It’s simply not the way my brain is wired. I’m chill-blasted for the five-minute walk between school and Muse, our near-school cafe. When I see Lola and Tash and Bec sitting there in a cloud of self-righteousness masquerading as concern, I’m tempted to brave the cold again.

  Kate is sitting at a corner table where Max has just arrived and is unscarfing and settling down next to her. I give them a wave. Max is not wearing a school uniform – my dream – because she goes to MCA, Melbourne College of the Arts, a specialist secondary school where students get to exercise a bit of freedom instead of being slowly asphyxiated by a thousand and one rules.

  I drop my coat, scarf, gloves, and order a hot chocolate.

  Tash is the lead inquisitor. ‘I hope you caught up with Rupert. He was so sad on Friday night.’

  ‘Yeah, he came over yesterday.’ I don’t mention that I asked my mother to come upstairs and make a little mother speech about leaving my bedroom door open. ‘I think he’s recovered.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘I told you – it was just spur of the moment. Anyway, I don’t even know Sam that well.’

  ‘But that’s a reason to go, to get to know your boyfriend’s friends.’

  ‘It looked weird that you weren’t there,’ says Lola.

  ‘Like you two were fighting or something,’ says Bec with a worried frown.

  ‘We weren’t. I know it. And Rupert knows it. And you guys know it.’

  ‘And you were really with her?’ Tash asks, glancing over at Kate and Max.

  ‘Yes.’ I eat a half-melty pink marshmallow from my spoon. ‘Her. Kate. She’s . . .’ I think of all the nice and unusual things Kate seems to be, and how you certainly couldn’t summarise her in just one word.

  ‘Weird,’ Tash finishes for me.

  ‘Look, it morphed from our Malik thing. We had coffee and then we went back to my place –’

  Tash nearly chokes on her coffee. ‘You invited her to your place?’

  ‘Sure.’

  They all give me the side eye of disbelief. I know. I don’t really believe it myself. If you’d told me a week ago I’d be hanging out with Kate, I would have laughed. ‘So, how was the party?’

  Significant looks.

  ‘I think I might like Sam,’ says Lola.

  ‘You love him,’ Bec tells her.

  ‘Great,’ I say. Great, the heat’s off me. ‘So, let’s all do something together at the weekend. I’ll ask Rupe.’

  I look over to where Kate and Max are sitting. Max is offering Kate a
n earbud to listen to something.

  ‘Hey.’ Tash waves her hand in front of my face. ‘Do you want to go over and sit with your friend?’

  I need to smooth the feathers a little more.

  ‘I am sitting with my friend,’ I say, putting on my best happy face, giving her a hug and tuning in to whether Lola should ask Sam to the formal or wait for Sam to ask her.

  Wednesday 3 August

  I stop thinking about myself and focus on practical things. Other people are being wrecked by PSST, and I can help them. Step one: look for clues. Idiots always leave clues.

  There’s a photo of me on the page, a shot from my old school in the country. I’m in Science class, wearing protective glasses and a white lab coat, frowning slightly in front of a Bunsen burner and holding a test tube. I’m in study mode, looking studious, which is why my old school asked if they could use the photograph. I’m the poster-girl for the well-behaved. So no clues there; anyone could have pulled my photo off my old school’s website.

  I scroll back through old posts. It’s not just about people from our school or Basildon. There are comments about girls from other private schools. There are comments about guys, too, but only the ones who don’t fit the mould. I make a list of all the private schools that are linked to the posts, and all the ones in the area, but it’s way too many to make the problem solvable.

  It could be anyone, is the depressing fact. I think it’s a guy, but all that does is narrow what it is an impossibly large field. Ben has a theory that anonymity sets the ID free. Looking at the posts and the comments, it’s pretty clear he’s on to something.

  I can’t hack it, and even if I could find out how, the source code for a site like this is basically untouchable. The simplest option would be to get the admin password. But getting that would mean I’d have to know the administrator, which I don’t, and besides, it wouldn’t do me any good without their computer. If I had the computer, I could write a plug-in, and mess with the site that way.

  I don’t have time to keep going now because I have orchestra practice this afternoon. As the Winter Fair gets closer, we’ve been having extra practices, in addition to the one on Friday. This is annoying because I’m trying to avoid Oliver. I know he didn’t say anything about me. I know he wouldn’t. But every time I see him I think about how stupid I must sound at the pool. It’s like the PSST post has coloured everything about me. I’m fighting against it, but I’m not having a whole lot of success.

  At practice, Iris is edgy because we have our tutoring session with Gregory on Wednesday afternoons and she doesn’t want us to be late. One, he doesn’t add on time at the end, and two, if he thinks we’re not turning up, he leaves. Iris told him we’d be late, but Gregory suffers from selective memory when there’s something else he has to do.

  ‘Everyone has somewhere else to be,’ Oliver tells her, suggesting she stop complaining because it only makes things worse. If I were talking to him, I’d agree.

  ‘Are you still ignoring me?’ he asks before we start.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you listened to the CD?’

  ‘Too busy being mute while having screaming sex.’

  ‘That has nothing to do with me,’ Oliver says.

  You bet it doesn’t, I’m about to say, but this isn’t Oliver’s fault.

  ‘I know,’ I tell him, and put all my focus on the music and Mrs Davies.

  After orchestra, Iris has to get a book, so she rushes out and says she’ll meet me in the library. I think Oliver’s gone too, but he’s standing at the door of the auditorium.

  I walk off. He walks off too. I’m being an idiot, so I slow down and let him catch me.

  ‘You need to play the CD.’

  ‘I really haven’t had time,’ I say, and he writes his mobile number on a piece of paper. The numbers are neat and square – like Oliver, I think – and then I remember him on the stage and now the numbers look neat and square and slightly edgy. ‘You can’t win alone,’ he tells me.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ I say, but I take the number.

  He’s got that look of fierce concentration that makes him strangely attractive, but I don’t have long to contemplate it because Iris texts: What’s taking so long? Ready to start.

  *

  I sit in tutoring, trying to concentrate on Gregory’s voice, looking at the physics on the page, but hearing Oliver’s voice and thinking about the CD. ‘Kate,’ Gregory says, and taps his pencil on the table. ‘The scholarship exam is hard. You mightn’t know as much as you think.’

  I force myself back to the page and work through the problem he’s pointing at. I’ve missed a piece of it, and my answer’s wrong. I know it as soon as I’m done and I go back to correct it. If he hadn’t pulled me up I’d have made a dumb mistake and lost marks.

  ‘He’s right,’ I say to Iris on the way back to the boarding house. The light is gone. I’d love this light if I were on the farm because I’d be inside with a fire. I’m hit with homesickness and I remind myself that I’ll be home for the long weekend in three weeks.

  ‘We’ll study together,’ Iris says. ‘Catch you up.’

  I’m grateful for her kindness.

  Later, when Iris is asleep, I take the CD out of the drawer. I stare at it for a while, and think back to Oliver’s fierce look. You can’t win alone seems to suggest that I might win, if I’m not too stubborn to ask for help.

  Mum told me once in a deep and meaningful, that she worried about me sometimes. Everything comes easily to you. You’ve never had to struggle. ‘That’s a good thing,’ I said, and she agreed, to a point. I don’t remember what she said after. All I remember is falling asleep and waking to a pink sky.

  I haven’t listened to the CD because I know who’s on it: Juliette, the girl from Orion. Oliver’s message will be clear: unless you play like her, you don’t have a chance. Be like here, he’s saying. But I can’t do that. I haven’t had the experience.

  I put the music on, bracing myself for jealousy. Instead, I feel wonder. I listen to the most amazing music – wonky and rolling. A strange road built out of notes.

  It’s Oliver. I’ve played next to him for long enough to know that. A playing style is as distinctive as a voice. Oliver is stubborn and authentic.

  The other player sounds familiar but it’s not Juliette.

  I take out his number. Who’s the other player? I text.

  Finally, he texts back. The other player is you.

  WEEK 5

  CHOICES

  Week 5: The road not taken

  Provocation

  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

  I took the one less traveled by,

  And that has made all the difference.

  Robert Frost, ‘The Road Not Taken’

  Points for discussion/reflection

  • Are you a follower or a leader? Which is better to be? Which is harder to be?

  • Do you believe in fate? Are our lives written for us, or are we able to write them?

  • Discuss a time when you have taken a chance. What was the outcome?

  • Make a list of things you would like to do but don’t have the courage.

  • To what extent do you try to take the path ‘less traveled by’?

  Task 1

  Create a piece of prose, poetry or artwork in response to the language and/or themes of the poem.

  Task 2

  Look mindfully at your decisions this week. Which road/roads will you choose to take? Journal response.

  Monday 8 August

  The other player is you. I am the other player. Oliver and I sound good together. We (maybe) sound good enough to win the scholarship. At least we sound good enough to try.

  I spent the weekend pretending to study but researching Iceland and the Harpa Academy and calling Oliver to see if he could send me a sound file of himself so I could play around with some mixing.

  He didn’t return my calls, so I walk into orchestra this morning wondering if maybe the CD
was just a sympathy thing after all. Maybe he wanted me to feel better about how I played after being so humiliated on PSST.

  ‘You called?’ he asks, as I sit next to him.

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘52 times, in fact.’

  Fuck it, I’m clearly past the point of lying. ‘I’m obsessed with the audition.’

  ‘So am I,’ he says immediately. ‘I was at my aunty’s wedding in Avoca. I spent the whole night on a dark hill trying to get reception.’

  I like how Oliver’s not into pretending. He is what he is: completely and absolutely obsessed with music. He takes out a slip of paper that he says is a rehearsal timetable, but I don’t get to read it because Mrs Davies starts the practice.

  It feels like Oliver and I are playing together this morning. Alone, among the other cellists. He plays the double stops and I can feel him nodding next to me as I play them, too.

  ‘We could win,’ he says, businesslike, while we pack up. I open the schedule and read the amount of times he wants to practise: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday; Saturday and Sunday when possible.

  ‘I hire a studio on Wednesday,’ he explains. ‘On the other nights we can practise at my place. I have a sort of studio in my backyard.’

  ‘I can’t do all these times,’ I say. ‘They won’t let me out every night, for a start. I have to get full marks on the St Hilda’s scholarship exam, so Wednesday is definitely out.’

  ‘Then we won’t be ready,’ he says. ‘And there’s no point. So make a choice.’

  I have made a choice. ‘All I’m saying is you need to ease up on the schedule a little.’

  ‘Wednesday is a deal-breaker.’

  ‘It’s a deal-breaker for me, too, so maybe we could compromise.’

  ‘Compromise doesn’t get us to Iceland,’ he says.

  I know it doesn’t get us there, but all I can offer is compromise.