Wonderland

by Joanna Nadin

  I shiver and look away. “You can’t.”

  “Just watch me.” She smiles at herself in the mirror and shakes her hair back over her shoulders. “I’m Jude, and I’m fabulous.”

  The door opens and a man sticks his head around.

  “Oh, sorry. Jude Polmear? Two o’ clock?”

  I open my mouth but Stella’s voice rings out. “Yes, that’s me.”

  “You’re next.” He nods.

  “Coming.” She smiles.

  The door closes.

  “You see?” She hands me her bag.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I say.

  “Yes, I do,” she replies. And I know she’s right. Because I can’t. Because it’s my only way out. My last hope. Or I will suffocate. Like him.

  “So, how do I look?” she asks. But she knows the answer.

  “You look amazing.” And she does. She is beautiful. A star. How could they not want her?

  “Great. Because I am so ready for my close-up.”

  And she is gone.

  I sit on a plastic chair in the corridor. The audition room is on another floor, but somehow I can still hear her. Or me. Hear her speaking the words I have spent months learning, practicing. Feel the gaze of the panel on her, watching the way she moves. The way Isabella moves. See them nod and take notes. See an older woman whisper something to a young guy with sideburns. He smiles, his eyes never moving from her face. From Stella. Maybe I am remembering a scene from a film. The girl from nowhere, rocking their world. Whatever it is, I am in the room with Stella. I can see they want her. And I wish it were me. I wish it were me.

  Stella is breathless, face flushed. I have never seen her like this. Not cool. Not above it.

  “You are so in,” she says as she pulls me off the chair.

  “Stella, shut up!” I look around, worried someone is listening.

  “What?” She grabs my arm and runs, leading me to the lobby. “Jude Polmear is a star!” she shrieks.

  People watch as we fly out the doors. I am laughing now, breathless too. It is infectious. I pull Stella down the steps. “What did they say?”

  “I was awesome. Well, you were. Your Isabella was”— she searches for the word —“touched. That’s what Ben said, anyway.”

  “Ben?”

  “Head of first year. Thirty-something. Rockabilly sideburns. Cute, really, if you like that kind of thing. Which you probably do.” She takes her cigarettes out of her bag, lights two, and hands one to me. “Totally fancies you, by the way.”

  I inhale, then blow the smoke out slowly. And laugh. “Oh, my God.”

  “Absolutely.” Stella grins.

  “What else did he say?”

  “That you’re a bit nerdy but they can beat that out of you.”

  “Ha, ha. Come on. What?”

  Stella shrugs. “Nothing, really. Just that you’d hear in a few weeks. But you’re in. I could tell. You’re in, Jude!”

  And I want to be happy. I do. But . . . “What if they find out? About you, I mean.”

  “They won’t.” She stubs her cigarette out on the chrome L of the Lab sign.

  And she is so definite, so full of conviction, in herself, in me, that right here, right now, I believe her.

  The train runs slowly. Signal failure at Newbury. Seven hours of sweaty commuter-packed hell. I sleep. God knows what Stella does. It is past ten when we get back.

  Stella hugs me on the platform. “Remember me when you’re famous.”

  “Totally. I’ll send you a Christmas card,” I joke.

  She pulls back and looks at me. Her face has changed. Not laughing now. “I mean it.”

  “As if I’d forget you,” I say.

  She keeps staring. Then her face relaxes and she is Stella again. “So. I’m off like a dirty sock.”

  “Wait. Don’t you want a lift?”

  “What, with lover boy?” She nods at the car park.

  I look. It’s Ed. I scan the parking lot for Dad’s van. But it’s not there. Just a couple of minivans. Wives picking up late husbands. Ed must have called him, I think. Offered to do it.

  “Oh.”

  “Exactly. Have fun.”

  “But . . . what are you going to do?”

  “Dunno. Hitch. Call my dad. I have my contacts.” She shrugs.

  “Are you sure?”

  “God. Just go, will you?” She rolls her eyes.

  “OK, I’m going. But he’s not my lover boy.”

  “Whatever.” She laughs.

  “I mean it,” I say. And I do. Ed is Ed. I look at him again, leaning against the Land Rover. He waves. I raise my hand. “Stell, I —”

  “Like I said, whatever.”

  “See you tomorrow, then?” She is already walking away. I call after her. “Not if I see you first, right?”

  “Now you’re getting it.”

  And she doesn’t look back. But I know she is smiling. I can feel it radiate out, seeping into me. And I keep it there as I cross the car park to meet Ed, like a piece of Stella inside me, ready to answer his hundred questions. Not caring that they will be lies. Because Stella is right. I am a star.

  ALFIE HAS a new fish. A black one this time, called Jude. Named in my honor, apparently, for when I go away. Harry long forgotten. I am watching her circle endlessly around her bowl as I eat toast with peanut butter. It is three days since the audition. Dad hasn’t said much, just asked if it went OK. Alfie is full of questions, though. Did I see anyone famous? Did anyone try to mug me? Were there terrorists on the Tube? I say yes to all of them. He is delighted.

  Jude, the other Jude, surfaces. Gulping at the air. I wonder how long she will last.

  “That your breakfast?” Mrs. Hickman pushes past me on her way to the kettle.

  I look at the clock on the kitchen wall. It is half ten. I shrug. “Yeah. So?”

  “You could always give me a hand on the till, you know.” She smiles. Trying to needle me. Like she’s always done. But I don’t need needling now. I have Stella.

  “Thanks but . . . no.” I swill back a glass of orange juice and stand up. “See you.”

  “Put them in the sink, will you, love?”

  I stare at her. Then say it. Words I’ve heard on the telly. Have toyed with for years. “You’re not my mother. You don’t even live here.”

  Mrs. Hickman stops. Then shakes her head, wondering what happened to nice sweet little Jude. Jude who helped her make jam tarts and Christmas crackers. Jude who never answered back, who never swore, who never got drunk and threw up in her bathroom.

  She’s not here right now, I want to say. She has left the building.

  I pick up the plate and glass and clatter them into the sink, hearing the chink of breaking glass.

  “Jude,” Mrs. Hickman protests.

  I ignore her and go back upstairs to wait for Stella.

  She smells of salt and smoke and suntan lotion when she arrives, crashing down next to me on the bed, the sand in her hair covering my sheets with a fine layer of grit.

  “Stell!” I brush it onto the fading carpet.

  “Sorry. Occupational hazard.”

  “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Four, maybe.”

  I wonder where the hours have gone. Don’t remember falling asleep.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Duh. Beach.”

  “Why didn’t you call for me?”

  “So. I’m calling for you now.” She lights up a cigarette. Her tenth of the day, judging by the half-empty packet. “Don’t you want to know who I was down there with?”

  I take the cigarette from her and shrug. “Hughsie?”

  I know Stella has seen him again. Met him in a pub in town. Let him kiss her. Touch her. She says.

  “Wrong answer. Gone off him. Too old. Kept talking about Oasis and Blur. And he’s got all these wrinkles around his eyes.” She exaggerates a shudder.

  I am relieved. I hated knowing what she was doing. It felt dirty,
to be part of the secret.

  “Come on, then.”

  “I don’t know. Ed?” As if, I think.

  “No. Lose two hundred pounds and forfeit a turn. Think blonder. Richer.”

  I hesitate. Because I don’t want it to be him. But of course it is. “Blair.”

  “Ding-ding. Right answer.”

  “What about Emily?” I say.

  “What about her?” Stella scoffs. “She doesn’t own him, you know.”

  “Tell her that.”

  “Whatever.” Stella dismisses me. “Anyway, he says we’re invited to a party later. Matt’s parentals are away, so it’s an all-nighter.”

  “Really?” I am wondering why Ed hasn’t said anything. Maybe he thinks I can’t hack it. After last time. That I’m still a schoolkid who can’t hold her liquor. Who doesn’t fit into his life anymore. His world.

  “Yeah, really. You coming? Or is your social calendar too packed?”

  And I think about them. Ed, Emily, the Plastics. And I think, I’ll show them who I am. Who I can be.

  I laugh. “Well, I’d love to.” I put on my best southern belle. “But I don’t have a thing to wear.”

  “You must have.” Stella sighs.

  I lose the Blanche DuBois. “I don’t. I’ve worn that black dress to death. . . . Can’t I borrow something of yours?”

  Stella sits up, her face lit with a eureka moment. “I have a better idea.”

  “No, Stella . . .” It is going to involve stealing, or something illegal, I know it. Neither of us has any money.

  Stella looks at me as if she has discovered a cure for cancer. “Charlie.”

  “What?” I don’t get it. I think she means coke, cocaine. But it’s not. It’s something else. Just as dangerous.

  “Charlie. Your mum. Eighties poster girl. There must be tons of her stuff from photo shoots stashed away.”

  Then I know what is coming. “Yeah, but . . .”

  “But nothing. Oh, God, I bet she has a Lagerfeld.”

  “Um. Maybe.”

  “What? You don’t know?”

  I don’t. I was still a kid when they were packed away. Miniskirts down to my ankles and heels so big I would wade around the house, clopping like a country horse. But Dad didn’t like seeing me in them. Reminding him of what he didn’t have. Of what happened. So now they lie mothballing in the attic.

  “Jude! You’ve got your very own Dixie’s in the house and you’re wearing a T-shirt that cost three pounds.”

  “I don’t know, Stell.” But I do. I want to see. Want to dress up again.

  And she knows it.

  “It’s a waste of good fashion, otherwise. Come on. She’d want you to wear them. Pretty please . . .” She pouts.

  I can’t argue. She is already backing out of the door, and I follow her, like I always do.

  I feel like I’m opening the Ark of the Covenant. Sitting in the dust of the attic floor. Not sure what angels or demons are going to fly out of the trunk and possess me. I pull aside the catches, rusting now, and slowly lift the lid, half expecting golden light to pour out, shining from the treasure within.

  And it is treasure. Westwood. Dior. Galliano. The names wink at me, saying, I told you so. I touch a violet minidress. The smell of her wafts up, overpowering. Like someone packed her into a case and shut the lid on her. Preserving her for me to find now that I’m sweet sixteen.

  “Oh . . . my . . . God!” Stella looks like she has won the lottery. She pulls out a boned strapless thing, tiny waist, miniskirt billowing out like a tutu. “Gaultier. It is so going to fit me.” She holds it against herself and strikes a pose. “How do I look?”

  I stare at Stella draped in iridescent blue silk and black lace, standing among the trunks and boxes and broken things of the attic. But all the time I am seeing her. Mum. Getting ready for a Christmas party. I must have been six or seven. Alfie not even inside her yet. She is coming down the stairs with a champagne glass in her hand, singing “The Stripper” as she high-kicks for me. Dad and I laugh and cheer, and he wolf-whistles as she blows him a kiss. I don’t want her to have it. Stella, I mean. It’s mine.

  “I’m wearing it.”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s what I’m going to wear. That dress. The Gaultier.”

  Stella lets it fall, but still holds on to it, not relinquishing it without a fight. “But it’s so me. And you haven’t even looked at the rest yet.”

  “Please, Stell.”

  She throws it at me. “Whatever . . . jeez. But I’m having a Westwood.”

  “Fine,” I reply. And it is. I don’t care about the other dresses. Just this one.

  I can hear Dad and Alfie playing Trivial Pursuit in the front room. Alfie knowing who was the first man on the moon and the third James Bond and the last king of Scotland. I am standing in the hall, wearing the Gaultier, cleavage out, lips red. The color of blood. Of sex.

  I walk in.

  And I wait for the Ark of the Covenant to open again and hell and damnation to rain down on me. Dad stares, trying to work it out. And then he gets it, and I see a flicker of recognition across his face. He can see her — that night — and he is mesmerized. Caught in the memory.

  Alfie is delighted. “I can see your boobs.”

  “Shut up, Alfie.” Because what he thinks doesn’t matter. I don’t want him spoiling this.

  But Dad is lost, frozen in another place and time.

  “So?” I say impatiently. Daring him to tell me to take it off.

  “Where did you get it?” he says finally.

  I know he is holding it back, like the little boy with his finger in the dam, and it could go at any minute. Could burst out of him. All the things he wants to scream, to shout. And this time I want to hear it, want to know what it is that stalks him at night. This ghost that won’t leave him. Is it that I’m not her, and he wishes I were? Wishes she were here instead of me? Or is it that he’s scared I am too like her. That I am her. I will him to say it. To tell me. Now, when he’s not drunk. Now, when I am strong. Bold. Beautiful.

  “The attic,” I say, the words my sugar cube, my trail of pebbles, luring him into a trap. And it has worked. I watch as his mouth opens, wait for the words to come.

  But Alfie speaks too quickly. “Dad, can I go in the attic? Can I?” His face is alive with thoughts of hidden treasures.

  And the reverie is gone. The moment lost.

  “Jude, put something on over that.” Dad’s voice is harsh, his face set.

  “Told you,” Alfie gloats, quietly triumphant.

  I look up at the ceiling. Begging my fairy godmother to come down now. To wave her wand. But there’s just cracked plaster and cobwebs.

  I look down, back at him, waiting for an answer. “It’s too hot for anything else,” I snap.

  He tries again. “I want you home by eleven.”

  But I’m on fire. I’m burning hot, burning bright. “Don’t wait up.”

  I turn. Then I click-clack out of the room in the same heels that carried her down the stairs that Christmas. And I know each sound punctures him. Because it punctures me too.

  Ed watches us walk down the path to Matt’s. Everyone watches us. “Let them,” Stella says. “We’re bloody beautiful.”

  “Jude.” Ed reaches out to grab my arm.

  “That’s her name. Don’t wear it out,” Stella shoots.

  “I didn’t think you’d be allowed to come, after last time. Didn’t want you to get into trouble.”

  “Whatever,” I say.

  And Stella laughs as I pull her away. Looks at Ed over her shoulder and says, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”

  I have lost Stella. Last seen downing Pernod and Black — an homage to eighties tastelessness, apparently, to go with her dress. I am too hot. I need water or Coke or something. I open the fridge door and let the cool fluorescent air hit me. Breathe in the smell of salad cream and cold chicken.

  Someone reaches in and grabs a bottle. Then shuts the door, plunging me
back into the heavy heat, cutting off my air supply.

  Blair. I look at him in the half-light. Blond streaks slicing into his preppy cut. Polo shirt and cutoffs. And he’s looking right back. At the dress. At me underneath it. My heart beats faster. Fear, or desire. God, no.

  “Emily’s outside,” I warn.

  “I know.”

  He moves closer. I feel his breath on my face. “Don’t you scrub up nicely?” He touches the end of his Bud on my breast. The condensation trickles down, staining the silk. I push him away.

  “Get lost, Blair.”

  He smiles. “You’re such a tease, Jude.”

  “As if.”

  He shrugs. “I’ll get what I want in the end.”

  “What are you going to do?” I sneer. “Slip me a roofie?”

  “Like I need to.”

  I roll my eyes. “In your dreams.”

  “But you are.” He backs away, still smiling his alligator smile.

  “You OK?”

  It’s Ed, giving me this weird look as I drain a bottle of Bud. I open the fridge and take another. As if this is normal. As if this is me. “Checking up on me, are you?”

  He touches my arm. “No. I . . . I just want to see you.”

  I strike a pose. “So here I am. Seen enough?”

  “God. What’s wrong with you, Jude? You’re like . . . I don’t know . . . Jekyll and Hyde at the moment. I never know where I stand.”

  I know he’s right. And I know why. Because with Stella there’s no room for anyone else. No room for him. But I can’t tell him that. So I just push him away. Like I did before.

  “You can stand wherever you want.”

  Ed looks down, defeated. Almost. He raises his eyes. “Just don’t do anything . . . stupid.”

  I laugh, holding his gaze. Then I turn and walk straight out into the bullring.

  “Nice dress, Polmear.” Emily holds up a bottle of Bacardi to toast me in sarcasm. Dawce laughs.

  I swing around. “Yeah? Give my regards to Blair. Tell him I might just take him up on his offer.”

  I grab a glass off the table and half fill it with something. Anything. I down it. Ugh. Pernod. Like aniseed balls but worse. The alcohol pumps through me with the thudding beat of the music. The house smells sweet, heavy with dope.