Am I Normal Yet?

by Holly Bourne

  Within seconds, Joel was at her side, snaking his hands around her waist.

  “All right?” He nodded at us, then kissed the top of Jane’s head.

  “All right?” we chorused back.

  “It’s mad in here,” I yelled at him over the music, in an attempt to make polite conversation. “You guys excited?”

  Joel shrugged. “It’s a good crowd.”

  “Yeah, isn’t it?”

  Joel didn’t reply as he was kissing all the way up Jane’s arm. Amber rolled her eyes at Lottie, just as a pair of hands covered my eyes.

  “Guess who?” a gruff voice growled in my ear.

  I pulled the hands off and whipped round. Guy was there, grinning at me.

  “Guy?”

  “All right, trouble? Brought your nympho boyfriend with you?” He held a beer and, from the way he was inanely grinning, it wasn’t his first.

  “No. He’s in a recovery clinic,” I deadpanned. More inane grinning. Guy banged bottles with Joel.

  “You ready, man?” he asked.

  Joel removed Jane from his person and they smooshed their knuckles in that boy way. “Mate, I was born ready.”

  Jane, not sure what to do with herself, wrapped her arms around her exposed chest and rocked on her feet.

  “What song you guys starting with?” she asked.

  “‘Die Bitch Die’,” they both said. With no trace of humour on their faces.

  Amber spat out half the warm wine she’d been drinking from a plastic cup. They all turned but Lottie covered while Amber choked behind her.

  “Wow. Powerful title,” she said. “Is it based on any real-life experience?”

  Joel didn’t notice the sarcasm. “I wrote it about my ex-girlfriend after we broke up.”

  Lottie widened her eyes and nodded. “Wow, Jane better not piss you off.”

  “That’s what happens if you fall in love with a musician.”

  Jane simpered and curled herself back round him, like Joel had said something romantic, rather than creepy and sinister.

  I looked around the hall to try and stem my inner laughter. The lead singer of the support band was wailing now, grasping his microphone to his lips so close you could hear his spittle echo about the speakers. A few of their friends, obviously there for moral support, stood near the front, nodding their heads, punching the air. The usual stuff. My ears already buzzed from the noise, which wasn’t helped when Guy leaned over and yelled right into my face.

  “What are you looking at?”

  I turned away from his mouth to protect my eardrum. “I know you’re onstage, and so you see it from a different angle,” I said. “But don’t people ‘appreciating’ music look odd to you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I gestured towards the group I’d been analysing. “Like that lot. Why can’t everyone just stand round quietly and listen? Why does pushing each other, or chucking half-filled bottles of beer in the air, or flicking your long greasy hair over each other, or making that devil worship sign with your fingers…why does that mean you enjoy the music? If I was in a band, I would want everyone to listen quietly and concentrate.”

  Again Guy laughed. I always seemed to make him laugh. He pushed his dark hair off his face and shoved a sweaty arm around me.

  “You don’t really understand metal, do you?”

  “I understand that Joel got dumped and needed to get over it by calling the girl a bitch in a song…which kinda makes him a dickhead. Is that metal?”

  He laughed again. “Nah, that’s just Joel. I didn’t think we should open on that song anyway.”

  “So why are you agreeing, you’re the lead singer, aren’t you?”

  “Because it’s got a kickass bassline.”

  I nodded to the side. “Oh, okay. That makes me feel so much better about some poor girl being publicly called a bitch in a song, just so Joel can make his willy feel bigger.”

  “You’re really something? You know that?”

  I was? He didn’t say it in the nicest way. There was a bit of awe in his voice…but a bit of disdain too. “Anyway, you going to watch me from the front?” He puffed his chest out.

  “No. I don’t like touching too many other people. I’ll stand at the back, and if you see me standing real still, and concentrating, it means I’m enjoying ‘Die Bitch Die’ in my own special way.”

  I disentangled myself from his sweaty armpit and joined the girls on a last-minute dash to the toilets.

  We squeezed back into the hall just as the support act finished. Personal space wasn’t an option anywhere and my chest tightened as I tried not to think of how much germy breath was exhaling into the stuffy atmosphere. Jane found us and pulled us through the crowd.

  “Guys,” she yelled. “Over here. I’ve got us a spot.”

  “That’s odd,” Amber said. “Joel’s gone and she’s suddenly all friendly.”

  “Shhhhh.”

  We crammed into her tiny gap. Bits of my body touched all different parts of other people’s bodies. I took a deep breath and concentrated on my ribcage going up and down to distract myself. Jane rambled on about the band’s chances of a record deal to an unimpressed Amber and Lottie. Everyone pushed to the front of the stage, causing tidal crowd surges to disturb the rest of us. An out-of-place looking bunch of lads stood to our left. They were smartly dressed and drinking the most expensive bottles of beer the pop-up bar provided. They stood out more than us. Not just ’cause they were our age, but they were blatantly posh too.

  “I’m so excited,” Jane stage-whispered to me. “I’ve never seen him play live before.” She grabbed my hand and I studied her face. It was filled with utter adoration. Her eyes were distant and dewy, her cheeks pink, her smile was practically tattooed on. Despite everything, I gave myself a moment to feel happy for her. My best friend was in love – I had to be glad for that much at least.

  BAD THOUGHT

  Even if no one will ever love me…

  The lights dimmed and Joel, Guy and the others shuffled onto the stage and the screams from the audience began. Guy kicked over the microphone stand whilst simultaneously grabbing the mike out of it. He clutched it right over his mouth and stood with his leg up on Joel’s guitar amp.

  “This,” he said, in a voice much gruffer than usual, “…is ‘Die Bitch Die’.”

  I was engulfed with noise. What can only be described as “a din” blurted through my eardrums, ripping holes through them, filling my brain with “oww”. The crowd surged forward but I stood firm against the tide, grinding my heels into the dusty wooden floor.

  “Let’s go closer to the front,” Jane yelled.

  I crossed my arms and shook my head.

  “Why not?”

  “No. Just no.”

  She looked to Amber and Lottie for support, but they looked as bemused by the whole gig as me. Amber’s arms were also crossed, a puzzled look on her pale face. Whereas Lottie was just sort of…sneering.

  “You gotta die now…DIE…DIE. DIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!” Guy’s voice took on a monstrous quality. Like the Gruffalo was hidden in his ribcage holding a spare mike. However, everyone else seemed to love it, and it spurred the mob on. We held our own against the crush and were somehow shoehorned to the back. That was perfectly fine with me.

  Gangs of girls screamed whenever Guy opened his mouth. He did look kind of sexy up there, I guess. What with the sweat, and the cockiness, and the attention. He caught my eye briefly and winked and my knees went a bit funny. But then he launched into their next song – the opening line of which went: “I hate you so much for breathing. I wish I could make you stop.”

  And I promptly lost interest again, staring instead at the “JESUS LOVES YOU” banner hanging limply above the stage.

  As they catapulted into their next song – a really REALLY angry one – the audience rose to a new level of mass insanity. We were pushed and jostled from all directions and I began to really not enjoy myself. The random posh blokes kept bumping into us, and
then falsely apologizing. Amber gave them her very best evil eye but they didn’t seem to care. Then one of them pushed the other, and he pushed them back, and before we knew it…

  …Whoosh…

  A bottle of beer whistled through the air and emptied itself all over Lottie’s everything.

  For a moment, she just stood there. Dripping. Her hair mangled. Her make-up smudged. Her clothes drenched.

  “Oh my God,” one of the boys said, moving forward from the group. He was tall and very clean-looking and his voice was the poshest thing I’ve ever heard. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

  Lottie glared at him. “Was this your fault?”

  “Yes. I’m dreadfully sorry. The boys, well, we got carried away.”

  He leaned in so Lottie could hear better but she pushed him away.

  “Get off. I’m SOAKED.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Good. You should be.”

  “Hang on, Lottie, is it?”

  “How do you know my name?” she demanded.

  Her face was so full of venom even I was scared. Posh Boy backed off a bit.

  “Didn’t you used to go to my school?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “I’m in the year above you, I think. I remember seeing you around but I’ve not for a while, did you leave?”

  Lottie was still glaring at him, but I could see her thawing a bit.

  “I’m sorry,” he continued, still waving his hands, all posh. “Let me make it up to you… Can I get you a drink?”

  “You know what? I’m doing okay on the moistness front.”

  “Some peanuts then?”

  Lottie gave him a look.

  “Crisps?”

  She looked to the band and back again. Joel was in the middle of a five-minute guitar solo whilst Guy lay on his side, pushing himself round in a circle using his legs. Lottie swept her wet hair off her face. “Yes. Multiple bags of crisps might do it.”

  Posh Boy steered her through the crowd towards the bar whilst Amber and I looked at each other and shrugged. Jane, oblivious to all the drama, screamed, “I LOVE YOU, BABY!” through her hands. Posh Boy’s mates didn’t bother trying to make small talk and were swallowed by the crowd. The guitar solo made way for a five-minute drum solo…

  I was getting bored. This was a problem. Boredom leads to worrying.

  The clashing of the cymbals twitched my brain. The banging of the drum sped my heart. I imagined everyone’s breath coming out into this airless hall. The spent carbon monoxide, the droplets of germs floating through the air after people coughed. My heart started giving the drummer a run for his money.

  Most bugs aren’t airborne. Most bugs aren’t airborne.

  But most are carried by touch. And it felt like half a million people had touched me in the last half-hour. I pictured the bacteria multiplying on my exposed arms, spreading down to my wrist and up my palms and fingers.

  My throat went tight.

  Trying my best to hide my inner wobble, I leaned over to Amber’s ear and yelled, “Can we take a break?”

  She smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Leaving Jane in a love-struck trance, we elbowed and jostled our way out. My heart thudded the whole time and it seemed to take ages. But eventually we pushed through the double doors into the lobby and were engulfed in calm. There was space. And oxygen. And clean air streaming in from the entrance. I shivered with relief and delight.

  “Where’s Lottie then?” Amber asked, her voice a bit too loud, not yet adjusted to the lack of screaming music.

  I looked round for her. “I dunno. Probably killing that guy somewhere. Did you see how wet she got?”

  “I’m just jealous she had a reason to leave sooner.”

  “Music not to your taste?”

  Amber winced, making her freckles blodge together on her nose into one brown lump. “No. Not at all. Do you ever worry you’re being a teenager wrong?”

  I thought of the last three years. “I KNOW I’m being one wrong.”

  “I mean, what’s wrong with finding songs glorifying domestic violence offensive? What’s wrong with finding live music too loud? What’s wrong with a nice cup of tea and a chat?”

  I giggled. “You sound like my mum.”

  “You see! I’m doing it wrong. But sometimes, like tonight for example, I really don’t bloody care.”

  We made our way to the bar slowly, taking our time so we could delay going back in. There wasn’t a queue – just some underage drunk girl half-passed out on a giant cushion in the corner, being forced to drink water by the staff.

  “I can’t see Lottie,” I said. “Isn’t that guy buying her crisps?”

  “Maybe she’s drying herself under the hairdryers in the bathroom?”

  We went back to the toilet. She wasn’t there.

  “Outside?” Amber suggested.

  The air was even cooler and crisper outside. A hint of autumn winged around me, making goosebumps ripple up my arm.

  “Lottie?” I called softly.

  Getting a bit nervous, I called again. No answer. What if the posh drink-chucker was actually a psycho and the drink-chucking was an elaborate ploy to get Lottie away from her friends? What if he was killing her right now?

  We crunched in the gravel round the car park, towards the church, and my worries were stopped in their tracks.

  Lottie’s body was pressed up against the wall. By Posh Boy’s body. Lottie’s face was pressed into Posh Boy’s face. Lottie’s hands were on Posh Boy’s arse. An unopened bag of crisps lay at their feet.

  I looked at Amber, who’d spotted them at exactly the same time.

  “Looks like she’s forgiven him,” Amber whispered.

  “Looks like it.”

  We turned away and crunched back alongside the church, which was all lit up in eerie beauty by floodlights.

  “Evie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Would you think I was being a teenager wrong if I said: ‘Can we go home now, please?’”

  “No,” I said. “I’d think you were a legend.”

  So we sent a message to Jane and an otherwise-engaged Lottie to let them know we were leaving.

  Eleven

  Lottie was loved up. Since the band night she’d had a heady glow about her, and her phone kept going off. She disappeared some lunchtimes to meet Posh Boy (Tim) in the graveyard and would come back with leaves stuck in her hair. In that time, Ethan had stopped giving me Labrador eyes in sociology and now chatted everyone else up. I’d begun looking forward to film studies instead. Brian’s lack of professionalism made it easier to get to know Oli better – we now traded film recommendations like children trading football cards. And I’d dropped another 10mg on my medication. I was now down to only half a pill. HALF! I used to take three a day, plus benzos, a tranquillizer-type drug that made me sleepy all day.

  “You know,” Amber said to Lottie, as we prepared to pay for another breakfast at the dodgy cafe. “You are allowed to talk about Tim. We’re your friends. We’re happy for you.”

  Were we? I’d privately been more sad for myself that yet another friend had procured a boyfriend whilst I remained unlovable.

  “Yes, tell us,” I said. Jealousy would get me nowhere.

  Lottie blushed and ducked behind her dark hair.

  “God,” Amber said, with a bit of disgust in her voice. “You’re proper loved-up, aren’t you?”

  Lottie went redder and moved the dribbling sauce bottles about on the sticky tablecloth.

  She mumbled something.

  “What?” we both asked.

  Lottie emerged from her hair. “I said, I feel bad talking about it.”

  “What? Why?” Amber asked. “Evie and I can handle your gushing, can’t we, Evie?”

  I nodded and put my hand on Lottie’s to stop her playing obsessively with the sauce. “Of course we can.”

  “But I don’t want to be one of those girls…” Lottie put her head on the table briefly be
fore raising it again. “You know, like Jane.”

  Jane had got much worse since the gig. It was like she’d morphed into a mini version of Courtney Love overnight – backcombing her dyed hair, talking loudly in the canteen about wanting to get her nipple pierced. I’d even talked her out of getting matching tattoos with Joel. Tribal ones.

  “Lottie, you are nothing like Jane,” I reassured her. “For one, you’ve not blown me off three times in the last week.”

  “I know…I know…but I’m scared that if I talk about Tim with you guys then I’ll fail the Bechdel test.”

  “The what?” I asked, whilst Amber nodded wisely. “Nah, you won’t. Don’t be silly.”

  I was confused. “What’s the Bechdel test?” Was this something else I’d missed from school? Was it a test I was supposed to be revising for?

  Lottie saw the panic in my eyes. “Calm down, Evie. It’s not an actual academic test.” She patted my hand. “It’s a feminism thing.”

  “Feminism? There’s a test for that?”

  Would I pass? I quickly scanned my thoughts and feelings to check them for feminismness. The pay gap makes me cross, and yet I wear make-up. I feel sick whenever I look at the front cover of PHWOAR magazine, and yet I also look at the model’s boobs and feel bad mine don’t look like that. I hate that Jane ditched me for a boyfriend and that Joel is all she ever talks about, and yet, I would really quite like a boyfriend myself…

  … My brain hurt.

  Oblivious to my inner conflict, Amber explained it to me.

  “Have you really not heard of it? I thought you would’ve done it in film studies. It’s like a feminism litmus test for films and books and stuff. Basically, in the eighties, this super cool illustrator who I LOVE called Alison Bechdel realized that all female characters do in fiction stuff like films and books, is talk about men. So she made this simple Bechdel test. And, to pass it, a film’s got to have at least two women in it—”

  Lottie butted in. “And they’ve got to have at least one conversation about something other than men. Just one conversation, that’s it. And it’s passed.”

  “Ooooooh, okay.” I thought through all the hundreds, possibly thousands, of films I’d watched, thinking it would be easy. Two minutes later I had nothing. Nothing but a dawning realization of how broken the world was. “Hang on…umm…surely…surely there’s got to be some?” I said to them, feeling like my whole love of cinema had just dissolved around me, seeping into the plastic chair I was sitting on.