Ocean Pearl

by J. C. Burke

  I had stood there for about two minutes with my mouth wide open while my brain tried to convince my throat that it was okay to scream. And did I scream!

  My mobile said 8.47 am. The other thing about today was that it was my last chance to have a decent sleep-in. From Monday onwards we'd be up at six am every day for almost two whole weeks. Except on the weekend, when we'd possibly be allowed to sleep in until the outrageous hour of eight am – wow, aren't we the lucky ones!

  My phone beeped. It was a message from Ace.

  'Leaving in 15mins. Prob c u 12. Ur place or Kia's? So xcited. Luv u Axx'

  'Kia's', I typed. 'Cant w8. Luv u 2.'

  As I stared at Ace's reply – 'Starfish sisters r back!' – that heavy feeling, aka 'the brick', settled inside my tummy.

  Still, I sent back, 'Go team starfish!' 'cause I couldn't send nothing.

  Ace not making the team hadn't got any easier.

  I'd played out every moment of surf camp in my head at least ten thousand times but I always reached the same conclusion. Ace had stuffed up and there was nothing we could've done about it.

  While the rest of us had surfed and trained until every muscle in our body felt like it'd been pulled and stretched until we'd never feel normal again, Ace had been sunbaking by the pool, running off to meet her loverboy, Jules, or just playing the role of the only sponsored Ocean Pearl surfer and model superior.

  It didn't make me feel good thinking like that but it was the truth. Sometimes it made me feel so mad with her, like I wanted to scream and shake her and tell her that she ruined everything, that she single-handedly destroyed the Starfish Sisters. And we'd warned her!

  But I couldn't turn against her like that. I was the only one who knew how badly she'd beaten herself up over it. I even knew that her own body had turned against her.

  About two months after camp, Ace called me in a real state. I was going through some heavy stuff with Kia and when my phone went off and I saw Ace's name I was like, Thank God, someone I can talk to without having to watch everything I say.

  'I am so glad it's you,' I'd blurted. 'Don't you feel like sometimes you're the only normal person in the world?'

  But when her voice answered mine with, 'Oh?' – just one word – I realised this was a different kind of phone call.

  Ace's voice was so soft. Way back in her throat I could hear the tiniest tremble.

  'Are you . . . okay?'

  'No,' she whispered. 'Not really. I bumped into Tim tonight, at this Ocean Pearl promo thing.'

  'And?' I swallowed.

  'He said to me, he said' – Ace's voice turned sharp and stinging – '"Heard you weren't selected for the training team." But it was the way he looked at me.' Her whispering tremble was back. 'He looked at me like . . . like . . .'

  'Like what, Ace?'

  'Like I was some kind of loser.'

  Silence.

  'And it's true. It's –'

  'Ace, who cares what Tim thinks! He's out of your life now,' I said, banging the bed with my fist. 'You are not a loser. You're –'

  'Georgie, I am. I totally, totally stuffed up. You know it too.'

  'Ace?'

  'Last Sunday I stayed out in the surf till my lips were blue and my fingers and toes looked like shrivelled-up sultanas, 'cause I kept thinking how Jake said that the reserve had to prepare mentally and physically in case they were called up.' Ace made a noise. It was something between a moan and a squeak. 'But who am I kidding? Huh? It's not going to happen. I'm not going to be called up suddenly to join the team. I blew it and you guys tried to tell me.'

  'Oh Ace, I'm sorry. I wish it wasn't like this.'

  'Do you have any idea how bad I felt that day? Do you know what it was like to have everyone watching you because you weren't selected? It's like they were waiting for me to have some tantrum so they could run off and ring all their friends.' The sharp sting returned, this time louder. 'Oooh, guess what, Courtney McFarlane didn't get picked for the Australian Training Team!'

  'It wasn't like that, Ace.'

  But I may as well have said nothing. 'You don't know what it's like, Georgie,' she spat. 'People watching you, rubbing their hands together waiting for you to fall.'

  'Well, they're the losers if that's the way they think.'

  'They don't see it like that.'

  'Well, who cares what they think?'

  'I do!' Ace shouted.

  Silence.

  'And yet I hate myself for caring about it 'cause the worst thing about not making the training team isn't people talking about me. The worst thing – and this is God's honest truth, Georgie – is not being with you guys. I'll never forgive myself for letting you all down. Never.'

  Her tears started. It was like weeks worth of choking anger and spluttering regret suddenly burst through the phone in one big whoosh.

  'Ace,' I soothed, 'hey, don't cry. It's okay.'

  I couldn't hug her. I couldn't push tissues through the phone so she could blow her nose. I had to sit there and listen to sobbing that screamed louder than any words ever could. It was horrible. Really, really horrible. Ace was the girl who had everything – looks, the best figure, a boyfriend, a surfing sponsor. It wasn't meant to be like this.

  'And Georgie, there's, there's something else I have to tell you. My hair,' she whispered, 'my hair has started falling out.'

  It sounds dumb, but at first I didn't get what she was talking about. 'Your hair's what?'

  'My hair is falling out, like handfuls of it.'

  I got it now. 'You're not – sick, are you?'

  'No.' The tremble in Ace's voice was back. 'I told my mum and we went and saw the doctor. She said it was probably stress and that it should settle down.'

  But it hadn't. Ace'd told me that it was already so bad she'd started wearing a hat whenever she could. I could tell from her voice that she wasn't exaggerating either.

  'Lucky I'm tall.' She'd bravely attemped a joke. 'Andy Wallace was at the OP promo party too. I'm sure you've heard of him, he's the OP regional manager.'

  'Uh-huh.' Everyone had heard of Andy Wallace but they couldn't just throw his name into a conversation like Ace could.

  'The whole time I was with Andy I was saying to myself, "It's okay, it's okay, he's shorter than me, he's shorter than me, he can't see my bald patch.'' Georgie, my OP contract runs out at the end of the year and I'm getting paranoid. He didn't give Mum and me the impression he was going to dump me but – '

  'As if!'

  'But Georgie, if he knew my hair was falling out it would be one more black mark against my name on top of not making the training camp and I cannot afford that.' Then Ace had added: 'I told Mum that I trust you with my life and that you won't tell anyone.'

  'You'll be fine. I know you will.' Bad things didn't happen to Ace. Not being selected for the training team was as bad as bad luck went for girls like Ace. So I totally meant it when I said, 'Ocean Pearl would never dump you. You are Courtney McFarlane, remember. You're hot, the sexiest bikini model ever, with slim legs that go forever and you're an awesome, awesome surfer. So get over yourself!'

  Now, I pulled the doona over my head and groaned. Nothing good could come out of Ace not making the team. In fact, things had got potentially worse, much worse.

  Yesterday – like, it would have to be the day before I'm about to see Ace – Andy Wallace called and left a message on our answering machine. He didn't say much, just that he was interested in 'talking' some time.

  Mum and Dad got all excited and said stuff like 'About time you got a call from a sponsor' and 'You really deserve this'. But me? I was busy doing battle with my skin, which was trying to drain the colour from my face. Andy Wallace was possibly, no, definitely, the last person in the world I wanted to hear from. Saddam Hussein would've been preferable, if he was still alive.

  'Why does my life have to be so complicated?' I said out loud under the doona. 'Why? Why couldn't the four of us have all made the training team and gone on being the simple old fun Sta
rfish Sisters?'

  Well, one of those things was true. We weren't old and we certainly weren't simple. But we were fun. This weekend was going to be the best. Nothing was going to ruin it.

  Everything was good. Kia had forgiven me and we were speaking again; we'd used the money we raised at last camp's fashion parade to buy Micki a two-hundred-dollar voucher at the best surf shop here at Lennox. Kia, Ace and I were totally pumped about giving it to her. Kia had made a fantastic card out of heaps of photos from camp. Plus, good swell was predicted and we were off to camp on Sunday, which meant missing the last two weeks of term. Could it really get any better?

  All that bad, complicated stuff could take a big, long hike. I wasn't going to think about stupid Andy Wallace and whatever he wanted to 'talk' about. I was going to try really, reeeaaally hard not to think about saying goodbye to Ace on Sunday morning. Just thinking about it had my throat choking up almost as much as it did when I imagined my own funeral.

  Camp was not going to be the same without her. That didn't mean that I liked Ace more than Kia and Micki. But Ace and I had a special bond, which was kind of funny 'cause Ace and I really were nothing alike. Starting from the outside in!

  My phone beeped with a message from Kia.

  'Should Micki or Ace have blow-up mattress?? I can't decide.'

  'Ace 2 tall. Give it to M,' I texted back and jumped out of bed.

  We were the Starfish Sisters and we had been hanging out for this weekend.

  I jogged around my bedroom punching the air. The girl coming to camp instead of Ace was a freak surfer called Megan de Raile. Megan was the kind of girl I loved to hate. She made me want to win. She made me hungry. That was the only good thing about her being there.

  'Bring it on!' I shouted to the mirror, thumping my chest with my fists. 'Starfish Sisters number one!'

  KIA

  'Kia, I found the blow-up mattress in the garage.'

  'I want to do the pumping, Mum,' Charlie said, jumping on the sofa bed we had squeezed into my room. 'I'm the pumper!'

  Only my five-year-old brother would think pumping up a mattress was the most exciting thing ever. The problem was that it took both his chubby little legs to make the foot pump work so I knew that job was going to be mine. Good exercise, I s'pose.

  'So, honey, have you worked out who's sleeping where?' Mum asked. Again.

  'Yep.'

  'And – and you're feeling okay about everyone coming and –'

  'Mum, do I look like I'm not feeling okay? You know I've been counting down the days for this.'

  'I know, I know,' she sighed back. 'I'm being silly. I'm just starting to feel a bit – a bit – funny about you being away for two weeks.'

  'Mum!' I tried very, very hard not to groan. 'Mum, I'll be fine.'

  Mum wrapped her fingers around her neck, her second finger doing this kind of rubbing stroke against her chin. I watched, knowing in a few seconds her whole hand would grasp tightly around her neck. The first few times I'd waited, terrified that her face would turn bright purple. It never did. I knew that now 'cause I'd seen her do it so many times at the psychiatrist's.

  I wasn't mad at Georgie anymore. But for a while I'd hated her.

  The pact we'd made that January night at camp, that moment when the four of us had placed our hands on top of one another's and shouted 'To the Starfish Sisters', had been broken – by me and only by me. If anything, Georgie had protected me by not telling the others. But because of that I knew she felt like she had broken the pact too.

  'Are you going to tell Ace and Micki?' Looking back, it was so pathetic that straight after, that was the only thing I'd said to Georgie. But I couldn't help it. I was scared they'd be angry with me and hate me.

  'I'm not going to tell them,' Georgie had replied, her bottom lip quivering. 'Because you need time to get better, Kia. You need help.'

  'What would you know!' I spat those words out at her.

  After I said that to Georgie I didn't speak to her for almost three months. And I was good at it too.

  She'd see me walking towards her at school or the beach and her eyebrows would rise and she would half smile or even open her mouth to say something – but she would be cut to pieces by my razor-sharp glare.

  I'd keep walking. Not a flinch. Not a millisecond's hesitation in my step. Instead, I'd stride away feeling powerful and feeling the hate burn through the ridges on my thighs.

  She dobbed me in, I'd say to myself. She dobbed me in and ruined my life.

  But I'd been an idiot. I'd got caught. Or, as I started to think as time went on, maybe I hadn't been. Maybe I knew exactly what would happen. I wasn't strong enough to do it but Georgie was.

  Getting a product sponsor was meant to be the greatest thing ever. It's what I'd wanted. It's what I'd dreamt about. But this product sponsor, which made a 'surprise' arrangement with my dad to come and watch me surf in round one of the regional titles, was Seahorse Girl, one of Australia's leading manufacturers of – bikinis.

  That's when everything started to spin out of control. Or rather, that's when I started spinning out of control.

  Dad was beyond excited. He couldn't stop hugging me. I could barely cope with him, let alone the overly bubbly, in-your-face Fiona, Seahorse Girl's surf scout, and her offsider, Rebecca, who kept saying she had 'big plans' for me.

  So a week later when I walked into the Seahorse Girl office in Brisbane to be welcomed by Fiona's and Rebecca's big smiles plus a desk overflowing with bikinis, it was more, much more, than I could take.

  Ten seconds later, I was charging down the corridor, kicking open the toilet door and spewing so hard I had to press my hands into the walls to stop myself from falling.

  I couldn't help it.

  At least it got me out of having to try on any swimming costumes.

  Dad drove me back to Lennox with an ice-cream container on my lap and a beach towel draped over my front. But I wasn't going to spew again. I was going to do something else. I just had to wait till I got home.

  Now I understand why I picked Georgie's place. But at the time it felt like I was simply trying to get away from Dad. His crinkly frown confused me.

  Did it say, 'I'm disappointed in you'? Did it say, 'I hope Kia's okay and that it's just a bug and not cancer'? Or did it say, 'You stupid idiot. You stuffed up and now they'll go and find someone else to sponsor'?

  At the front door, with my schoolbag slung over my shoulder and my toiletry bag safely packed inside, I stood there and lied to my father.

  'I'm going to Georgie's 'cause we have to finish an assignment that's due tomorrow.'

  'Well, how does your stomach feel? Are you up to going out? Can't Georgie come here?'

  'She hurt her ankle at soccer.' The lie slipped easily through my teeth. 'That's why I said I'd go to her place.'

  'Oh? Is she okay?'

  'Yeah.' I lied again: 'It's mostly just bruising.'

  'Well, be home by six-thirty, okay?'

  'I won't be that long.' That was the truth.

  Georgie's place was only a ten-minute walk. But when I got there I was sweating, shaking and panting like a dog that could smell a bone at the bottom of a deep hole.

  'Hey!' Georgie opened the door. 'I was just about to ring you. How did today go? You didn't answer any of my texts, slacko. But I guess now you're about to be a famous Seahorse Girl you don't have to –'

  I pushed past her.

  'Whoa, it has gone to your head,' she laughed.

  But I was busy scanning the house. There was a bathroom downstairs and a smaller one upstairs. I mostly used the one upstairs so that was the safest option.

  'What are you looking for?' Georgie asked, following my eyes up the stairs.

  'Nothing, nothing,' I answered. 'I just thought I heard Brittany laughing.'

  'It's Monday, dummy. The girls are at ballet with Mum,' Georgie said. 'You know how I live for Monday arvos. I get the house to myself for two whole hours before the pains get home and make me watch one of thei
r concerts.'

  'Can I have a glass of water?'

  Georgie started to walk towards the kitchen. 'Since when have you started asking?' she called behind her. 'Now, come on. Tell us what happened in Brissie. I was getting worried.'

  'In a sec. I'm just going to the toilet.'

  I had one foot on the stairs when Georgie came back. 'Use the downstairs loo.'

  Perhaps she was frowning. Perhaps I didn't notice. Perhaps I didn't care.

  But when I was almost at the top I heard Georgie call, 'How come you've got your schoolbag?'

  I didn't answer. At the time and for weeks and weeks after, I thought that'd been my biggest mistake.

  My right leg felt like it needed to be amputated it was so sore from pumping up the mattress. Every now and then Charlie would nag me so badly that I'd let him have a try but then the last thirty seconds of air I'd just sweated over would hiss out of the hole.

  'Kia, are you ready?' Dad called from the kitchen. 'We've got ten minutes to get to the station. Come on! I don't want Micki getting off the train and finding we're not there to meet her.'

  'Well, neither do I!' I snapped.

  I was nervous. This day had been coming for months and now it had landed whack bang in our laps. I wanted it to be perfect. For so many reasons. Not just for me and the other girls but I wanted Mum and Dad to see that I was just a regular girl having a sleepover like all their friends' daughters did.

  The schedule rushed through my head as I fumbled to jam the peg into the mattress. Micki and Georgie would be here before Ace, so we'd wait till Ace arrived to give Micki her voucher. In the afternoon it was surfing, as the local paper wanted to take photos of Georgie and me before we left for camp.

  'Kia!' Dad roared this time. 'I am leaving in thirty seconds with or without you!'

  I ripped off my T-shirt and pyjama pants. Georgie was scamming to get Micki and Ace in the photo. I told her that was her job. She could be the mistress of scamming when she put her mind to it so there were no worries there. My skinny-leg jeans had of course disappeared so I was chucking everything out of my cupboard. Tonight it was out for dinner at Thai the Knot then home to watch DVDs –

  The mirror on my cupboard door trapped me. It did that when I least expected, exposing the ugly reflection of my thighs – raised lines and deep crevices that crisscrossed and traversed each other like a river system in my geography book.