by Kate Gordon
Viggo had—somehow—managed to wangle the best table in the restaurant. I had no idea how—the place was packed. I’d heard you had to make bookings months in advance.
“The man’s a legend,” Jed said, shrugging as we walked in. “I swear, he could sell awesome to Iron Maiden.”
I waited.
“You know the saying?” he went on, understanding the question mark my raised eyebrow was making. “Sell ice to the Eskimos? Or Inuits or whatever? Well, Iron Maiden have, like, the most awesome in the whole world, but Viggo could sell them more.”
We were nearly at the table now. Viggo had spotted us and was standing up from the table.
Standing up.
To greet us.
Who did that? Who didn’t just, like, wave? Or text “hi”.
“Your analogy sucks,” I murmured, nodding at Viggo in greeting.
“At least my vocabulary is creative,” Jed shot back. “I mean, really, ‘sucks’? Aren’t you meant to be the English nerd?”
“Who’s the English nerd?” Viggo asked.
Jed pulled out my chair for me. He always did that. It was one of his “things”.
“I am,” I replied. “Thanks, Jeremiah.” I sat down.
“Oh, yes, Jed said you’re quite the scholar.” Viggo smiled, his eyes glimmering like a summer ocean. “And you could be dux of the school if you only ‘applied yourself’.”
“I was quoting your teachers,” Jed said, rolling his eyes. “I was being sarcastic. Viggo doesn’t understand sarcasm.”
“In any case, it impressed me, Constance. It’s part of the reason I was so intrigued to meet you. A girl with brains is difficult to find these days. And one who looks rather fetching in a nice frock! And might I say, I’m glad you chose a sensible length of skirt. So rare these days.”
“You wouldn’t have liked the dresses Emily wanted me to wear, then!” I smiled and picked up the menu. It was huge—so many delicious choices! Lucky Mum and Dad were shouting me.
“Ben Folds, I have no idea what to order!” I gasped. “The pizzas look amazing, but then there’s the risotto and—oh—should we have bruschetta to start? Then, oh my God, I am so having gelati to finish, but chocolate or lemon? And—”
“Relax!” Viggo pulled the menu gently from my grasp. “I’ve saved you the quandary of deciding. I got here early and spoke to the chef- turns out he’s an old high school friend of Dad’s. He’s making us all a special, off-the-menu feast! Veal ziti and squid ink fettuccini and Torta alla Monferrina for dessert.” He kissed his fingertips. “It will be belissimo!”
I gaped at him, lost for words. For one thing, I didn’t eat veal—it was cruel. For another, squid ink pasta? Yuck! For another …
Ziti sounded like it might involve pus.
“You’ve gone white,” Jed teased. He turned to Viggo. “Connie-girl’s more of a Hawaiian pizza chick, dude. And I know for a fact she doesn’t eat veal.”
“Well, I’ll let her choose her own entree then,” Viggo conceded. “But she has to have the fettuccini. And the torta is to die for. Trust me, you’ll thank me, Constance.”
“Um, okay,” I said, looking dubiously at Jed. “God, um, thanks …”
Jed laughed. “You’ll soon learn my best friend doesn’t really take ‘no’ for an answer. He likes to be right. Almost as much as he hates it when people say ‘God’.”
My hand flew to my mouth. “Really? Are you religious? I’m so sorry.”
Viggo shook his head. “I’m an atheist. But I still believe that using the word ‘God’ as a cuss is blasphemous and uncouth. Besides, I’m sure a girl with your English skills could come up with a much more creative expletive to use in its place.”
He smiled kindly, and I felt less embarrassed. I felt as if I was glowing.
He could give me as many of those smiles as he wanted.
I cleared my throat. “Golly? Gosh? Gee-whizz? Egad? But I do tend to go with Ben Folds as an alternative to ‘God’, most of the time. He’s God in my world.”
Viggo’s brows knitted in confusion.
“Ben Folds?” I repeated. “Of Ben Folds Five fame? Only one of the greatest singers, songwriters and pianists of all time?”
When Viggo still looked clueless, Jed helped. “‘Brick’? ‘Underground’? ‘Kate’?”
Viggo shook his head. “Yes, to me that simply sounds like a random collection of words. But as you know, I’m more of a classical man myself. None of this mainstream music business for me.” He gestured at Jed’s Nightwish satchel.
“Nightwish. Are. Not. Mainstream,” Jed said through gritted teeth.
I’ve known Jed long enough to have witnessed more than one shouting match as a result of calling his favourite band “mainstream”, so I was glad when, just then, the entrees arrived.
Viggo had the veal ziti (which, thankfully, looked exactly like spaghetti and nothing like a dermatological disease), but Jed had bruschetta too. “You’ve got me thinking about the poor little calves,” he said, grimacing. “You’re turning me soft, Connie-girl!”
As we ate, Viggo and Jed reminisced about old times. Viggo told a story about how he won so many primary school awards that his bedroom overflowed with trophies. Jed offered to store some of them in his bedroom. “My grandmother came over one day and completely confused the p’s by saying how proud she was that I’d won all this stuff!” Jed laughed. “Mum and Dad didn’t have the heart to correct her.”
“Always riding on my coat-tails, weren’t you, Jeremy?” Viggo said, laughing.
By the time we’d cleaned our plates, the talk had moved on to the present, and Bangarra High School.
“I think I’ll fit in perfectly,” Viggo said. “Plenty of clubs to join, plenty of stimulating extracurriculars. What clubs are you involved with, Constance?” Viggo fixed me with those eyes and smiled again. I blushed as I exchanged a look with Jed. How could I explain to Captain Success that the only clubs I was in were the Manga society, the school band and the creative writing group? Even though the last one was invitation-by-teacher-only, none of them screamed “academia”.
“We are in our own Club of Awesome,” Jed said, as I mumbled, “Well, it’s early in the year so I haven’t actually firmed up …”
Viggo rubbed his hands together. “That’s excellent! A blank canvas! We can join some clubs together. Tell me, Constance, how do you feel about Australian politics?”
“Well, I, um—” I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I cared about politics, sure. I’d already decided I was going to vote Green when I turned eighteen, but something told me Viggo was not a Greens-voter, and Dad was always telling me you shouldn’t discuss sex or politics when on a date …
Not that we were on a date …
Had I really just thought about talking sex with Viggo MacDuff?
My face was turning the colour of my bruschetta.
Again, I was saved by the meal. I started to breathe a sigh of relief …
Then I saw it.
It was black.
It was a big, slimy plate of black.
It reminded me—stomach-turningly—of the wobbly tentacles attached to the faces of the Ood in Doctor Who.
I held a hand to my mouth. The walls of Ronaldo’s seemed to wobble.
Viggo rubbed his hands together. “Oh yes. This is what I’ve been waiting for!”
Jed laughed. “It looks like entrails.”
My stomach heaved.
“Or …!” Jed twirled some around his fork. “You know that Japanese movie, The Grudge?” I shuddered as I remembered the terrifying horror film we’d watched together a year ago. “It looks like Sadako’s hair—the ghost girl, remember? Don’t you think, Connie? Or—or, I know! Connie, you’ll love this! It looks like when Beezus ate that dead, rotten fish at the beach and then threw it up and … Um, Connie? You’ve gone kind of a funny colour.”
Jed was talking in slow motion.
The room was lurching like a ship on stormy seas.
I was vaguely
aware of Viggo looking at me with concern, but his face was all fuzzy.
My stomach contracted one final time, bringing my bruschetta up all over me …
And Emily’s dress …
The plate of squid ink pasta …
The table …
And a bit on Viggo MacDuff’s hand.
“Oh my God,” I moaned. “I mean, not God. I mean …”
Viggo was looking between me and his vomit-sodden cuff in total shock.
Jed held a hand over his mouth to stop himself laughing.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, tears burning in my eyes. “Your shirt.”
I wanted the Doctor to come in his Tardis and take me to another planet. Even if it was one with Daleks or even the Weeping Angels. Even if it was one that was about to implode in an hour, killing all beings that walked upon it. I didn’t care. I just wanted to go.
But then, just as I was preparing to push back my chair and run from the restaurant into the street, Viggo did the thing that made my sad little crush on him turn into something more.
“It’s only a shirt,” he said, looking down at the cuff. “In fact, it’s only a shirt I don’t like very much. My sister Catherine bought it for me online. I mean, just because it’s a Tom Ford shirt and cost two hundred dollars … that’s beside the point. The point is, are you all right?”
My heart swelled.
He didn’t care about the shirt. He cared about Me.
The thing is, I’d never really had a boy care about me before. Apart from Jed, of course, but he didn’t count. He was Jed. He wasn’t a boy, to me. Not a proper, gorgeous, green-eyed, smart, high-achieving, floppy-haired, beautiful boy …
Like Viggo MacDuff.
Of course I cared that Jed cared. I loved that he did little things to show it, like buying me Ben Folds memorabilia when it came up on eBay, or bringing me Wong’s takeaway when I was sick. That was awesome. And I thought he was the bee’s knees, but to have beautiful Viggo care …
Wow.
“Um, thanks …” I murmured.
Viggo passed me his fabric serviette. “You might want to give yourself a little wipe-down,” he said gently. “You’re a bit—”
“Covered … in … spew …” Jed could barely talk, he was laughing so hard.
What was I saying about caring? Slitheen-head.
“I’ll order you another main, if you feel up to eating,” Viggo went on. “Whatever you like. As long as it’s not Hawaiian pizza.”
I nodded. “Chicken pizza?” I said quietly. “It’s free-range.”
“Connie cares about that stuff,” Jed said. “Animals and stuff. She isn’t only a vomiting weirdo.”
I poked my tongue out at him.
“A social conscience can be a valuable attribute.” Viggo smiled. “If channelled wisely. Good girl, Constance!”
“I’m a girl who’s covered in vomit,” I said mournfully. “I’m a wreck.”
Viggo raised an eyebrow. “We’ll take care of that,” he said. “We’ll fix you.”
Seven
Jed and I are walking back to my place from Wong’s.
Tallulah, Jed’s ancient, beaten-up old Gemini, is “resting” in the Wong’s car park and, since it’s Boxing Day (and also nearly midnight), there are no buses. Luckily, Wong’s is only a half-hour walk from home, so I’m not hating Jed too much.
I’m too busy hating myself.
“It’s not helping,” I mutter.
“Talking about Viggo?”
I nod. “It’s just making me think about him more and how much I miss him and how badly I stuffed up.”
“Was what you did really so bad?”
I nod mutely.
My body is exploding with the pain of it. Everything inside of me aches for Viggo.
“Connie?” Jed reaches out to touch me and I flinch instinctively away.
I place a protective hand on my ribs. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I miss him so much. And at the same time, it was like it was never even real, you know? Like a dream.”
“Like finding a TARDIS in the middle of the Bangarra Mall?” Jed smiles. And I can’t help smiling, a bit.
“Yeah, like that.”
It’s just one of our many ideas for how to escape Bangarra and our own ennui. Amongst others: starting the world’s first nineties’ indie pop/power metal fusion band; or directing a film in which Daleks appear in Tasmania and start attacking people at Salamanca market and are taken down by an army of Ewoks who’ve joined forces with a pack of mutant Tasmanian Devils; or creating a new superfood …
We’re not even sure what our superfood will be, only that it will be glittery and we’ll get Karen Gillan from Doctor Who to endorse it and we’ll make one million dollars.
I never told Viggo about our plans. He would have thought they were stupid.
Because they are.
Viggo is sensible. Viggo is mature. Viggo cares about things that matter.
He used to care about me too.
And now he is gone, gone, gone, like just about every nineties’ band that was ever any good. And he won’t be coming back because the only nineties’ bands that ever come back are crap ones like Steps and S Club 7.
I miss him like you miss a really good dream, when you wake up to reality.
My wallowing is rudely interrupted as my feet move from crunchy gravel to soft sand.
There is no sand on the way to my house.
“Jed, where have you taken us?” I peer around in the darkness. I can see the moon reflected off gentle waves. I can hear splashing and seagulls and, distantly, a dog howling.
We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
Or anywhere near my house.
“You really were in your own little world,” Jed says.
“My own planet.”
“Planet Viggo?”
I sigh. “Yup. But now I am back from Planet Viggo and I appear to be at the seaside.”
“Or, as I like to call it, Planet Jed.” Jed grins.
“Explain.”
Jed takes my hand and breaks into a run. “What in the actual Cyberman?” I yell as I race—against my will—towards the jet-black waves. Jed doesn’t answer. As we get closer and closer to the border between sand and surf I realise something horrifying.
Jed isn’t going to stop.
We are going in the water.
Sure it’s summer, but it’s still Tasmania. And it’s midnight.
I’m fully clothed.
Yes, I may be clothed in my “Viggo-dumped-me-my-world-is-over-why-bother-dressing-like-a-respectable-human-being outfit of my oldest jeans and moth-eaten Regurgitator tee-shirt, but I am also wearing my Vans.
My Vans!
I haven’t worn my Vans for over a year. I do not want them all filled up with water and sand and seaweed! I don’t care what Jed’s plan is, or why he wants to submerge me in the freezing sea early on Boxing Day morning. I may love Jed dearly but I am not sacrificing my favourite shoes.
“Jed! Jed!” I cry.
“Not stopping, Connie-girl!”
“My Vans!” I scream. Jed stops abruptly.
I keep going.
Jed is still holding my hand.
I lasso backwards, landing on my bottom on the sand.
I look up at Jed. “Seriously? Ow.”
“Take off your kicks.”
“Why do you even want to go in the—”
“Take off your Vans, Connie.”
“I don’t even get why you—”
“Oh my Actual Bruce Dickinson.” Jed flops on the sand beside me and covers his face with his hands. “What has Viggo MacDuff done to my best friend?” he groans through his fingers.
“Nothing! These are just my favourite and my best!” I pull Jed’s hands away from his face and point at my toes. “See?”
“Were you wearing your lo pros when I suggested we go and see Foster and Allen play the casino?”
“Well, no, but Viggo was worried you’d incite me to heckling. Or, worse,
playing Foster-and-Allen-themed drinking games and then encouraging my drunk self to get up on stage and dance with Foster. Or Allen. And then snog them.”
“Viggo thought that?” Jed looks incredulous. I nod. “The man knows me too well,” Jed mutters. He sits up. “I know you weren’t wearing your Vans the day I suggested we hijack the school assembly by paying Craig Flemish to play Megadeth’s Symphony of Destruction instead of the school song. You were, as I remember, wearing shiny black shoes with bows on them. Did Viggo make you buy those, by the way? They were beyond lame. You looked like you belonged on the Disney Channel.”
“Shut up,” I mumble. “And no, he did not make me buy them. He might have suggested it, but that’s not the same thing. And also, in point of fact, I did say I’d consider your plan if we got Craig to play Rockin’ the Suburbs instead of Megadeth.”
“I knew you didn’t mean it. You would’ve chickened out at the last minute. You would have found some excuse. Like now with the shoes. Face it, Connie, Viggo ruined you.”
I punch Jed on the arm. “I am so not ruined.”
“Prove it.”
“How?”
Jed groans. “See? The Connie Chase I know would have said ‘okay’ before she said ‘how’? Viggo MacDuff sucked out your spirit like an überclone drinking a Diet Coke.” When I open my mouth to protest, Jed holds up a hand. “Please say you’ll let go a bit, Connie-girl. Please. Otherwise, I’m not sure we can ever go back to being best friends.”
I think for a moment.
I look out at the ocean. It does actually look kind of nice tonight—all sparkly and magical under the moonlight. “One condition. No, scratch that, two.”
Jed puffs out an exhausted breath. “Go on.”
“One: you stop saying bad stuff about Viggo. There is nothing bad about Viggo. He is perfect. Okay?”
“I’ll agree with you on that one. Viggo is perfect. But that’s not necessarily a good thing, so—”
“Agree or I walk.” Jed nods reluctantly. “Right, second … I don’t want to be Diet Coke.”
“Huh?” Jed raises an eyebrow.
“You said the überclone drank me like Diet Coke. You know I hate Diet Coke.”
Jed sits up and meets my eyes. “Connie, you might not want to hear it, but while you were with Viggo you kind of became Diet Coke.”
