Always MacKenzie

by Kate Constable

If I’d known it was a date, I would have been nervous for days beforehand. I would have agonised about what to wear, if my hair was okay, if I should wear make-up. But because I thought I was just going to the movies with Bec, I wasn’t wearing anything special, I hadn’t even combed my hair before I’d left. No wonder Mum was giving me funny looks. At least I’d brushed my teeth. For Pete’s sake.

  What if Richard tried to kiss me? I didn’t know how to behave, what to say, where to look.

  Trust me, I was hardly what Lord Peter might call a picturesque young lady. I had stumpy legs, no waist, I could never find clothes that flattered my figure, I didn’t even know where to start. I hated shopping. No matter how my thick hair was cut, it never held a shape. And my face – well, if I scrutinised each feature individually, they seemed okay. There were no elements missing; it was the way they fitted together that was unsatisfactory. My face was quite broad. Slavic cheekbones, Dad said. But I thought I looked more like an Eskimo. When I smiled, my eyes disappeared.

  When Bec had been with us last week I hadn’t given a moment’s thought to my appearance. It had never crossed my mind that Richard was looking at me, that he might consider me that way, as a possible date. A possible girlfriend ?

  I sat stiffly in the front seat, mumbling stilted replies to Richard’s questions about what I’d been up to in the last few days (basically nothing), while my mind churned around like a whirlpool. Why hadn’t Bec warned me? Was my hair sticking out at the side? Why had I worn those terrible jeans that made my bum look huge? Because they were comfortable, which was ironic – I’d never felt less comfortable in my life.

  As I trudged alongside him through the shopping centre I thought, at least I won’t have to suffer through this again, because there was no way he would ever ask me twice. And as soon as I thought that, I relaxed and it got easier.

  Actually I rather liked the feeling of walking with a boy at my side. Richard wasn’t stunningly good-looking, and he was kind of short, not that I care, being so short myself, and his features didn’t fit together effortlessly either . . . but, you know, he was eighteen, and he was with me. And that made me feel good. Me! The Invisible Girl, nerdy Jem, on a date!

  We watched a film – he liked it, I didn’t – and we had a good argument about it over pancakes, which was better than sitting in silence, and I even found myself thinking I was having a good time.

  But on the way home I was paralysed with nerves. Would he ask me out again? Did I want to go out again? He wouldn’t ask me. No, it was over. It was pleasant enough, and it was over. I’d survived my first date, phew. No need to feel heartbroken, Richard was no Peter Wimsey. It was good practice, that was all . . .

  ‘So,’ said Richard.

  ‘So,’ I said. I already had my hand on the door. ‘Thanks. That was fun.’

  ‘No, no, thank you.’

  ‘Um . . .’ I didn’t have to ask him in, did I? Not with Mum at home! And people only did that in American sitcoms, didn’t they? He hadn’t turned off the engine. If he wanted to come in, he’d have turned off the engine, wouldn’t he? I said, ‘Say hi to Bec for me.’

  ‘I will.’ He had this kind of expectant expression and I had no idea what he was waiting for.

  ‘Okay then,’ I said finally. ‘See you,’ and I opened the car door.

  Then he leaned over and said, ‘May I call you again, Jem?’

  Now that was straight out of an American sitcom. I had to stop myself from laughing. I managed to say, ‘Okay.’ Then I banged the door shut and ran inside and it was such a relief to be safe in the house and out of that car and away from that terrible awkwardness.

  I took the phone into my room.

  ‘Guess what I did today.’

  ‘Went to the movies with Bec.’

  ‘Close. With Bec’s brother. No Bec.’

  ‘No Bec? Bec didn’t come? Why not?’

  ‘Well, she was never coming. Apparently. I just didn’t realise.’

  There was a brief pause, then Mackenzie shrieked. ‘He asked you out and you didn’t realise? Jem. The universe throws us gifts. So? Did you have a good time? Do you like him?’

  ‘He didn’t ask me out. We went to a movie.’

  ‘What do you think asking out is? Of course he asked you out. And you haven’t answered my question. Do you like him?’

  I chewed on my thumbnail while I considered Richard as boyfriend material. Mackenzie was very quiet. ‘I dunno,’ I said at last. ‘I don’t dislike him.’

  ‘But is he hot? Do you want him?’

  That’s not a question Bec or Iris would have asked, about any boy, in a million years. I didn’t know if it was even a question I would have asked myself. Mackenzie put it so bluntly. We were so different, our worlds were so different. Mackenzie had probably had sex. I’d never been remotely near it – no, hang on, a boy had asked me out.

  I was getting nearer by the minute.

  I said, ‘He asked if he could call me.’

  Mackenzie let out a long breath. ‘So he wants you.’

  ‘No-o-o! No, no, no.’

  ‘Obviously he does. Trust me, I know all about boys.’

  She sounded strange; I guessed she’d begun to comprehend, too, how different we were, how naive I was, what a child. I wished I hadn’t told her.

  Mackenzie said briskly, ‘So the big question is, do you want him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘No – not yet, anyway.’

  ‘Good answer,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Sometimes it takes a while to realise that you’re attracted to someone. Then all of a sudden, when you least expect it, bam, it hits you. Like a truck. And nothing’s ever the same again.’

  ‘Because you’ve been squashed into a two-dimensional object.’ I was trying to make her laugh; she sounded – weary, jaded, as if she’d had her heart broken a million times. Maybe she had. I was too shy to ask. I couldn’t imagine it, though; much more likely that she’d broken a million hearts.

  She did laugh, and I felt better. She said, ‘Promise me one thing, Jem. Don’t rush into anything – anything physical, will you.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s much chance of that. Believe me, this was not the world’s most passionate date. I don’t think he’ll ring. He was just being polite. He’s very polite.’

  ‘Really?’ Mackenzie sounded brighter. ‘Well, you never know. I bet he does ring. Wait and see.’

  And then of course he didn’t.

  For a few days my heart seized up when I heard the phone, but it was never Richard. I couldn’t ring Bec, in case he answered (Bec’s parents refused to buy her a mobile till she turned sixteen). But after a while I stopped expecting him to call. I knew he was just being polite. I knew he wouldn’t ring. So I could hardly be disappointed.

  But it was still . . . humiliating.

  ‘Well,’ said Mackenzie. ‘You didn’t want him anyway. It’d be much worse if he did want you, and he was hanging around with puppy dog eyes and you couldn’t get rid of him and you just wanted to kick him in the teeth.’

  ‘This is something that’s happened to you?’ I had to laugh, she sounded so vicious.

  ‘Oh, God, yeah.’ Poor Mackenzie, tormented by all her rejected boyfriends. It was lucky Bec and Iris couldn’t hear her.

  ‘Mackenzie?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Are you – are you going out with anyone now?’

  ‘Are you kidding? You think if I was going out with anyone I’d have time to crap on to you on the phone every night? No way. No, I’m not going out with anyone. Anyway, as if I wouldn’t have told you!’

  ‘Mm.’ Of course she would have told me. If you really like someone, you can’t keep it a secret.

  ‘School tomorrow.’

  ‘Can’t wait,’ drawled Mackenzie. She yawned. ‘Better get our beauty sleep. Enemies forever.’

  ‘Enemies forever. Bye.’

  april

  ‘Hey, Martinic.’

  ‘Hey!’

  I’d been nervous about se
eing Mackenzie again – not throwing-up nervous, just butterflies. I kept jumping, and laughing too loudly, and trying to be casual and relaxed, in case she came up behind me while I wasn’t looking. Then she came up behind me when I wasn’t looking.

  I’d forgotten how golden she was.

  ‘Isn’t it weird to be back,’ she said.

  ‘Everything looks the wrong size. Too big. Or too small. Like everything’s grown while we were away.’ What was wrong with me? I was prattling like a fool.

  But Mackenzie smiled. ‘Or shrunk.’

  ‘It’s like when the aliens kidnap someone and replace them with an identical replica. Everything in the school’s been replaced with identical replicas.’

  ‘But the replicas can’t be exactly identical or we wouldn’t realise they were replicas.’

  ‘No, the aliens must get it slightly wrong . . .’

  This was the sort of discussion that Iris and I could keep up for hours. Why was I having a conversation from deep, deep nerdworld with Mackenzie Woodrow? Because suddenly she was Mackenzie Woodrow again, and I’d forgotten how to talk to her. I was an identical replica of myself, and so was she.

  As if she’d read my mind, Mackenzie leaned forward, so her golden hair swung against her cheekbone, and whispered, ‘I hope the real Jem and the real Mackenzie are having a good time, wherever they are.’

  ‘Probably on a spaceship somewhere. Drinking space cocktails.’

  ‘Spocktails.’

  ‘Hey, you’ve been brushing up on your nerd phrase book. I’m impressed.’

  Mackenzie grinned, and for a second she wasn’t perfectly groomed, poised, polished Mackenzie Woodrow; she was just another idiot like me. We smiled at each other behind the screen of the open locker door, our faces close together. Then she pulled away.

  ‘Gotta go.’

  And she glided away down the corridor to where Rosie Lee and Phillipa and her hangers-on were waiting.

  I’d nurtured a tiny hope that Mackenzie and I might be in the same form for term two. We weren’t. But Bec and Iris and Georgia and I were, for the first time ever: Lab 5, our new home. The Year 10s were in the science wing, because we were mature enough not to turn on all the taps and flood the place.

  Not that we were acting mature that morning. Everyone was squealing and running amok (that’s a Malay word – for acting like idiots, presumably). The whole of Year 10 had forgotten how to act at school. We were accustomed to the freedoms of Heathersett River – wearing shorts and tracksuits (albeit navy blue school shorts and tracksuits), being outdoors all the time, never sitting at a desk. All of which meant we were pretty rowdy for the first week or so; for the first day of term we were practically uncontrollable.

  Bec didn’t say anything about Richard, and I was far too embarrassed to mention him. It seemed that we were going to let the subject fade away, and that was fine with me.

  The whole school gathered in the Hall for morning assembly. Usually we sang a hymn (because it was a church school), and someone gave a presentation, and then notices were announced, and the Head led a prayer, and we all filed out again.

  Trish – we had to call her Ms Wells again now, of course – took assembly. She spoke about Heathersett River, about how the whole of Year 10 had experienced a very special moment of togetherness and harmony, and how she fervently hoped that we would carry that through the rest of the year, and indeed the rest of our time at school, and who knows, maybe even the rest of our lives. ‘It was one of the most inspirational moments of my career,’ she said, and she touched the corner of her eye with her fingertip to signify strong emotion.

  There was a considerable amount of mortified foot-shuffling and murmuring from Year 10, and everyone was relieved when she finished and the Head rose majestically and started going through the notices.

  Mackenzie stopped me in the quad after assembly.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Are you going to try out?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Weren’t you listening? Miss Macmillan needs people to read poems for the concert in term three. You should audition. You can speak poetry. You’re a poet, for Pete’s sake.’

  ‘No way! I’d rather die.’

  ‘But you’d be amazing.’ Mackenzie gave me a meaningful look.

  I glanced around and lowered my voice. ‘You wouldn’t tell anyone . . . about that night?’

  ‘Of course not, never.’ Mackenzie touched my sleeve and her eyes took on a mischievous gleam. ‘I might just put your name down anyway.’

  ‘No! You can’t— I can’t perform. Mackenzie, I’d never forgive you.’

  ‘Okay, I’m kidding.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s just reading. It’s nothing.’

  I pulled a complicated face, intended to convey admiration for Mackenzie’s own gifts, and simultaneous shock and amazement at the very thought that she might entertain a glimmer of an idea that I might share even a fraction of those same gifts, and that I was running late and had to go.

  I think she got it. She was pretty good at reading my mind.

  But it haunted me, that conversation. It reminded me how precious that night on the mountain was, and how fragile; how easily she could expose it to other people, and ruin it; how easily she could hurt me, if she wanted to.

  Anyway, she didn’t put my name down. She didn’t put her name down either. But Miss Macmillan had a quiet word and more or less ordered her to audition. And when the final list of performers was announced a couple of weeks later, naturally Mackenzie Woodrow’s name was at the top.

  A week later Bec and Iris and Georgia were standing in a huddle in front of the Lab 5 lockers.

  ‘Where have you been?’ asked Bec crossly.

  ‘Nowhere.’ Mackenzie had abducted me to go to the bookroom with her. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Georgia.

  ‘Georgia’s going to a party,’ said Iris, in a tone that suggested Georgia had proposed to amputate a limb.

  ‘Whose party?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly.’ Georgia looked nervous.

  ‘So why are you going?’

  ‘Rosie asked me to.’

  ‘You can’t go to a party with Rosie Lee!’ Bec put her hands on her hips and thrust her sharp little nose at Georgia. ‘You don’t know what might happen!’

  ‘Rosie asked me to go with her – to look after her.’

  ‘She’s got her own friends!’ said Bec. ‘Why does she have to drag you into it?’

  ‘Rosie needs all the friends she can get. You don’t know what it’s like for her, what she has to put up with at home . . .’

  ‘Oh, Rosie Lee and her tortured home life!’ snorted Iris. ‘Tell her, Jem. She can’t go. I’ve heard about these parties.’ She folded her arms. ‘Does your mum know, Georgia?’

  I banged my locker shut and turned the key. ‘Why shouldn’t Georgia go to a party if her mum says it’s okay?’

  ‘Thanks, Jem,’ muttered Georgia, but she didn’t look particularly grateful. She looked as if she were about to cry. Maybe her mum didn’t think it was okay.

  ‘Friends watch out for each other,’ said Bec loudly. ‘Iris and I care about Georgia, even if you don’t think it’s important.’

  I said, ‘Well, isn’t that—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Isn’t that the point? Georgia’s being a friend to Rosie, she’s going to look out for her.’

  ‘Great. And when she gets her drink spiked, and gets raped, and knifed in the gutter, and beaten up.’

  ‘Oh, for Pete’s sake, Iris. All at one party?’

  ‘You think you’re so smart, Jem, but you’ve never been to one of these parties. Why don’t you get your friend Mackenzie Woodrow to tell you what goes on?’

  ‘I will. I’m sure it’s not this – this hysterical orgy of drugs and sex and violence . . .’ A thought struck me. ‘I know, why don’t we all go? Then we can all watch out for Georgia.’

  Silence. Bec and Iris shuffl
ed their feet.

  ‘But we’re not invited,’ said Iris.

  ‘It’s my dad’s birthday dinner that night, actually,’ said Bec.

  I said, ‘And there’s that English assignment . . .’

  ‘Where is Georgia?’ said Bec suddenly.

  We glared at each other. Little Sonia Darcy pointed down the hallway. ‘She ran into the toilets.’

  We swooped in after her, but Georgia wanted Bec, even though I was the one who’d stuck up for her. That’s gratitude for you. Then the bell rang and Iris dragged me away; she was paranoid about being late.

  I would talk to Mackenzie, I decided as I ran. She’d know the drill; she could tell me if we should be worried about Georgia, if these parties were okay, if Rosie Lee was going to get Georgia into trouble. Maybe Georgia just wanted a reason to refuse without upsetting Rosie. Obviously Mackenzie had a good reason, or she’d be going to the party with Rosie herself . . .

  I slipped into the chair beside Iris feeling better now I had a plan. In terms of – I don’t know, worldly knowledge? sophistication? – Mackenzie was as far ahead of me as I was ahead of Bec. Bec had no clue, I had some clue, and Mackenzie had heaps of clue. She was the grand master of clue. She was the Clue Queen. She had more clues than Lord Peter Wimsey.

  ‘Jem? Are you with us in mind as well as in body?’ Mrs Hewlett’s beady eye was on me, and I hastily flipped to the right page and summoned my best intellectual frown, to show I was deep in profound thought and constructing a detailed historical analysis of the text.

  It was good to have a reason to call Mackenzie. She called me most nights before I could think up an excuse for calling her; I felt I should have some pretext, however lame it was. But it didn’t seem to bother her; she didn’t need a reason. She was more confident than me; she never had to wonder if the person she was calling actually wanted to hear from her . . .

  ‘Jessica Martinic! I asked you a question.’

  Gulp. Iris came to my rescue, whispering, ‘Causes of the French Revolution,’ and I reeled off the answer. Iris frowned at me. At this rate I was going to lose all my nerd credentials: running late, not paying attention in class. Next thing you know, I might get something wrong, and it would be all over. I’d be expelled from nerd-dom, thrown into the wilderness. Then what would become of me? I shivered, and stared at my textbook, and this time I really did try to concentrate.