Amelia Westlake Was Never Here

by Erin Gough

  Crapping maloney. Has Harriet really been so stupid?

  Palmer is clearly pleased with herself. “It’s definitely shortened the odds on some of our contenders, let me tell you. There are only six people in our year who live in Mosman. Prisha, Beth Tupman, Lorna Gallagher, Harriet Price—”

  I bite the inside of my cheek. “Does Nat Nguyen know about this analysis of yours?”

  Palmer nods. “She’s cross-checking our findings against some tests of her own. She’s pretty confident we’ll be able to narrow it right down. Which means we’re only taking bets for another two days. Come on. It’s your last chance.”

  “I don’t have any change on me, sorry.” I turn back to the front.

  Beth Tupman, who is Harriet’s lab partner, is one of the last to arrive. Usually they arrive together, but she’s by herself.

  Mr. Van begins class. Still no Harriet.

  Twenty minutes into the lesson, her empty seat stands out like a human ear grafted on a mouse.

  Where is she?

  She isn’t in biology on Tuesday. I do a few walk-bys of the year-twelve common room. Nothing.

  Where the hell has she disappeared to? Is she sick? Injured? Did something happen at the airport after I left? Is that why she tried to call me eighteen times? Maybe she tripped over a baggage carousel and shattered her kneecaps. Maybe she was abducted by a drug cartel to smuggle illegal substances inside her body.

  Or maybe she’s been at school the whole time but with a new haircut so I haven’t recognized her. Has she finally seen sense and ditched the Butterscotch Blonde?

  The other possibility is I’ve forgotten what she looks like. I think about it. Other than the hair, I can’t remember any particular facial features. Has all her talk of Chuck Close triggered some kind of empathetic face blindness?

  I want to ask somebody if they’ve seen her—Beth Tupman, Millie Levine, anyone—but with so many people on the Amelia Westlake trail, not to mention Palmer’s new damning clue, the question would be suspicious.

  On Tuesday afternoon, out of sheer desperation, I take a casual walk down to the tennis courts. They’re empty, so empty that it feels like the sign of a coming apocalypse. I’m beginning to feel desperate enough to text her. Then I remember I deleted her number.

  I climb into the umpire’s chair to think. From up here you can see the whole school empire: the gymnasium, both ovals, the classrooms, the Performing Arts Center, the architectural-award-winning staff building, girls wandering down pathways and across lawns in pairs, in groups, alone. None of them is Harriet.

  I take my phone out of my pocket.

  To be clear, Instagram is for narcissists. The only reason I keep a personal profile there is to follow the feeds of my favorite art magazines. Other than to check out Amelia Westlake’s feed, I haven’t been on it for months. I’m hopeful that Harriet does not share this mindset.

  I type in her name and voilà, up she pops, plenty of personal information freely available for any ax murderer to see. Harriet Price: Sydney, Australia | Rosemead student | Tennis tragic | The Sphere fan. Followers: 1,096.

  Like anyone could possibly know that many people.

  I look at her profile picture. She’s in her Tawney Shield tennis whites with her arm around a girl in matching gear, presumably School Captain Edie.

  Harriet’s face looks so familiar on the screen that I wonder how I forgot it. I study Edie. She is pretty, but to be honest—okay, honest and extremely superficial—I reckon she’s punching above her weight.

  See? This is why I hate social media. It turns you into a horrible person.

  It’s probably just a bad photo of her and a really good one of Harriet. Or maybe it’s because I know Harriet and that makes me see her as more beautiful.

  Beautiful in a bland, preppy kind of way.

  After dinner at home I look at a few more Instagram photos of Edie and Harriet, just to be sure.

  Then I look at a few more photos of just Harriet.

  Then I log out of Instagram and image search Harriet through a couple of different search engines and look at those pictures. Harriet on skis. Harriet in tennis gear. Harriet with Arthur and their horrible-looking Ken and Barbie parents.

  I hear the key in the front door, which means Mum is home after a night out with Graham. I check my watch.

  How can it possibly already be eleven thirty?

  I hit FOLLOW under Harriet’s profile and go to bed.

  I check Instagram as soon as I wake up the next morning. Nothing. At lunchtime, in a last-ditch effort to hunt Harriet down, I decide to go to the storeroom on the off chance she’ll swing by. The first thing I do is check out the shelves for any sign she’s been there recently.

  Everything looks to be in order: my tea and coffee, my novelty mugs, and my art books. Harriet’s weird little collection of trinkets: air freshener, a selection of health bars, a fire extinguisher, and a fire blanket with the price tag still dangling from it. On the bottom shelf are the embroidered cavalry jacket, vest, pants, and shirt in a pile that have been there all along. I settle into my usual chair to wait. I start eating my falafel roll.

  It’s strange being here by myself. As infuriating as Harriet is, I guess I’ve become used to her.

  I’m dabbing hummus off my chin when I have a thought.

  I look at my pile of art books again. American Portraiture in the Twenty-First Century is missing. It was definitely there last week.

  Okay. This can’t be a coincidence. If I remember correctly, there’s a chapter on Chuck Close in it. Harriet must have taken it to research her little taxi speech.

  Why haven’t I thought of this before? Harriet clearly has no personal interest in art. She must have looked up all that stuff. What Harriet did was work out a topic that would interest me as a way of getting me to think about my phobia.

  Which is completely deluded. But kind of nice.

  Something on the bookshelf catches my eye. A set of note cards. The top one is stained on the corner. It looks like vomit.

  I pick them up and take a sniff.

  Definitely vomit.

  I read the twelve cards one by one.

  CARDS FOR WILL

  TOPIC: HOW TO FLY ON A PLANE IN TEN SIMPLE STEPS

  1. Arrive at the airport.

  2. Go through security.

  3. Buy a coffee and drink it slowly.

  4. Go to the boarding gate.

  5. Complete this crossword (see over).

  6. Board plane.

  7. Read magazine (enclosed).

  8. Listen to playlist on iPod (enclosed).

  9. Eat snack (also enclosed).

  10. Get off plane.

  I can see what she’s done. Or tried to do. She’s broken it down for me just like Chuck Close breaks down his paintings. It’s nice. Really nice. In fact, I can’t think of a nicer thing anyone has ever done for me.

  She was nice, too, when I pretended to sprain my ankle. And the night of the newsroom break-in, offering to come around and administer first aid, texting me to make sure I made it home all right.

  I finger the bandage on my arm.

  If I wasn’t so certain that we weren’t friends, I’d say Harriet Price is one of the best friends I’ve ever had. Over the last couple of months I have shared more with her than I have with anyone.

  Suddenly I can’t think of why I’ve been angry with her. I overreacted when she was simply trying to help me out. What I want, I realize, is to make things up to her, and it’s burning a hole in my chest.

  I hear a click and the door opens.

  In the summer before year ten, Dad took me to see the Great Barrier Reef. I insisted we needed to visit before the short-sighted interests of successive money-grubbing governments made it extinct. On the second day, I snorkeled too far down and had to paddle like a demon to reach the top before I ran out of breath. I still remember breaking the surface, that first clean taste of air. It’s the kind of relief I feel now.

  She’s wearing tracksuit pa
nts and a polo shirt with the Tawney Shield emblem on it. Now I understand why I haven’t been able to find her. Tawney Shield prematches take up a good part of a week and are held off campus. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” I say.

  She opens a Tawney Shield sports bag and begins to fill it with items from the shelf.

  “Harriet, wait.”

  I put a hand on her arm. She flinches.

  “I wanted to apologize. I overreacted on Sunday.”

  Harriet is still facing the shelf.

  “What you tried to do for me at the airport—it was completely ridiculous and embarrassingly naïve. But also sweet.”

  Harriet throws her air freshener into the bag.

  “More than sweet. Really sweet.”

  Harriet throws her health bars into the bag.

  “Kind of amazing, actually.”

  Harriet throws her fire blanket into the bag.

  “Can you look at me for one second? Please?”

  I touch her arm again. This time she throws it off so violently that my fingers hit metal shelving. I wince. “Harriet…”

  I hear a click.

  Someone’s coming in.

  In the whole history of our secret storeroom meetings, nobody has ever come in.

  Harriet turns in surprise. I glance around the storeroom. A pile of leftover neon-pink arrows is on the shelf in plain view. Our cartoons are up on the wall. We’re here as well, among it all. Whoever walks in the door in five microseconds, four microseconds, three microseconds, will know everything at a glance. They’ll know who we are. They’ll know who Amelia Westlake is. Harriet Price and Will Everhart in a storeroom together—it’s so unlikely that there’s no other possible explanation.

  Unless.

  Two microseconds. One.

  The door opens and in comes Duncan Aboud, and I throw Harriet Price against the wall of cartoons and kiss her on the mouth.

  PART THREE

  chapter 20

  HARRIET

  Madame Chair, adjudicator, audience.

  Today I will be arguing the topic “my life is over.”

  “My” pertains to me. “Life” refers to the general or universal condition of human existence. “Over” in this context means ended, finished, utterly extinguished.

  My life is over because a week ago it was ruined by the actions of one selfish and possibly deranged person called Will Everhart.

  First, Will Everhart involved me in an elaborate hoax. Second, through this hoax she implicated me in an illegal enterprise. Third, to disguise said enterprise she placed me in a compromising situation. The consequences have been irrevocable. Put simply, the life I once led is done with.

  Ladies and gentlemen: In contemporary society, great emphasis is placed on academic success, sporting prowess, and the maintenance of stable relationships. Four months ago, I had all these boxes ticked. Today, my school marks are average at best, my sporting goals are unlikely to be reached, and I have no relationship to speak of.

  I ask you, Who is to blame? Is it my teachers, who have made it their life’s work to educate the youth of today? Is it my tennis coach, who has trained me in the art of the backhand and the volley? Is it Edie Marshall, future prime minister and love of my life?

  Distinguished guests, the answer is no. Will Everhart is the reason for all of it.

  My life is over because Will Everhart cajoled me into a ridiculous series of activities that distracted me from my life goals.

  My life is over because she then decided it would be a good idea to kiss me in a storeroom in the presence of a school journalist.

  My life is over because unsurprisingly, news quickly spread that Will Everhart and I were having an affair.

  My life is over because as soon as the news reached my girlfriend, she broke up with me. BY TEXT MESSAGE.

  I ask you, Madame Chair: How much havoc can one person wreak? When is enough enough?

  But it doesn’t end there. The day after Edie dumped me, she messaged to say it would be best for both of us if we were no longer doubles partners in the Tawney Shield. Instead, she has partnered with Queensland’s under-sixteen champion, Bianca Stein.

  As a result, my lifelong dream of winning the Tawney Shield doubles, something I have been working toward for the last six years, has been completely obliterated.

  I come now to the arguments put forward by the opposition. While I acknowledge the point that I am still technically breathing and that consequently my life has not in fact ceased, I reject this argument on the basis that it is a truism and therefore invalidated by the rules of this debate.

  My opponent further argues that kisses are a metaphor for life, as in the kiss of life featured in such fairy tales as Sleeping Beauty. He reasons that I should therefore interpret Will Everhart’s kiss not as an ending but a beginning. In response I refer him to Ralph Vaughan Williams’s three-act opera The Poisoned Kiss, to Michael Corleone’s kiss of death in The Godfather: Part II, and to the kiss of Judas described in Matthew 26:47–50, which led to the demise of Jesus Christ.

  Besides, how is anyone to take anything my opponent says seriously when (a) his key goal in life is to play guitar for a garage punk band and (b) he is, since Wednesday, literally in bed with the enemy, Natasha Nguyen—the head of Rosemead’s predatory student media—who aided and abetted the prime culprit to ruin me forever?

  In conclusion, as a result of the actions of Will Everhart and her accomplices, my life is totally and completely fucked.

  Thank you.

  chapter 21

  WILL

  I should have let her keep the art pen. That’s where this all started. That day in detention, when she held it ransom, I should have upped and walked. Instead, like an idiot, I did a deal with her—the devil in pastel—a stupid deal about a stupid cartoon. And now here we are.

  Did I mention how shitty my life is? Here’s another tale. Add this to the long-winded name, the pet fatalities, the faulty hair dryer, the charlatanizing parents, and the flying phobia: I kissed Harriet Price.

  It’s not your sympathy I’m after. What I need is a life raft.

  We kissed, and it was wonderful.

  Please send help.

  chapter 22

  HARRIET

  “Harri, can you hear me? Harriet!”

  I open my eyes onto broken light. The world is a shadow box, and each square holds a different thing: a flying bird, a wavering palm, a scrap of sky. Someone is tapping their foot in another room. Or is it a hand slapping my cheek?

  I stretch my legs the full length of the lounge chair and remove the straw hat from my face.

  “Harri,” says Arthur, peering down at me. “Are you drunk?”

  His head is freshly shaven at the sides. Gel glistens in the ferrety bit running down the middle of his scalp. He looks worried, but I don’t care.

  “Go away.” I cover my face with my hat again.

  “Is there vodka in this juice?” I hear him pick up the glass and slurp from it. “That’s vodka all right.” An arc of liquid hits the grass. “Sit up and talk to me.”

  Talking to Arthur is the last thing I want to do. He will only tell me that everything will be okay, when it won’t be, and that I will get through this, which is a lie. Even so, I struggle into an upright position, all the while keeping the hat brim over my face.

  “Look at me,” Arthur says.

  “But the glare off the pool—”

  Arthur swipes the hat from my head. “That’s better.”

  I squint at him. Witchetty white he is, king of the darkened music halls, my bandman brother, my little troglodyte. Art Juice, player of tunes, wooer of snarly women.

  “Harri, you’re muttering. Drink this.”

  I look at the glass with disdain.

  “Drink.”

  Oh, the boredom of water. I take a teensy-weensy sip.

  “What are we going to do with you?”

  I prop myself up on one elbow and face him. Why can’t he just act like a self-absorbed
kid brother rather than trying to fix my life? If he wants to do something useful, he should break up with his new girlfriend. She is the one who sent her cub reporter to spy on Will Everhart and me and then plastered the news all over the school paper’s gossip pages.

  Natasha Nguyen. What a callous bitch.

  Her only saving grace is that she hasn’t published her findings about Amelia Westlake yet. I wonder what the holdup is. If she’s carried out the handwriting tests like she said she would, then she knows the truth by now, or at least half of it.

  Perhaps she has decided that ruining my life twice in one fortnight is a step too far.

  Like she would ever be that thoughtful. Ruinous cow.

  I pull my sarong across my shoulders. “Leave me alone, Arthur.” I roll onto my back again.

  “Come on, Harri. Things aren’t that bad.”

  “Not that bad? My Tawney chances are ruined.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “My school marks—shitted on.”

  “The mouth on you, girl.”

  “Not to mention Edie and me—”

  “She didn’t deserve you,” says Arthur, pushing the glass of water toward my lips again.

  “Nice try.” I turn my face away from it.

  “Think of it this way. Now you’re going out with Will, you guys can double-date with Natasha and me.”

  I sit up again. “I am not going out with Will Everhart. We’ve been through this already. And I want nothing to do with Natasha Nguyen. She can rot in hell for all I care.”

  “Okay. You’re not going out with Will. But you could if you wanted to.”

  I scoff. How little he understands. “Will didn’t kiss me because she’s interested in me. She had other motives,” I say.

  “Like?”

  “It’s sort of complicated and difficult to explain. Anyway, I’m not in the mood.”