by Kate Gordon
What is going on here?
Just then, something between Jed and me vibrates. At first I think it’s some sort of electricity between us, some sort of charge …
But then I realise it’s a phone. Jed’s phone. It’s flashing in his pocket.
“You should get that,” I whisper.
“It’s just a message,” he says. The phone has lit up his face from below, illuminating it in parts, but leaving others in shadow. His eyes are glimmering. His eyelashes look even darker and longer in silhouette.
My stomach lurches.
What in the actual …
“Shouldn’t you check it?” I ask, pulling away from him. “I mean, it might be important.”
“Do you want me to check it?” Jed asks and I hear a note of hurt in his voice. But that can’t be right, can it? Jed doesn’t get hurt. Jed’s tough. He’s metal. He doesn’t get hurt feelings. Especially not by me.
“Yeah, go for it,” I say. “I’ll use my phone light to see if I can find the switches. Don’t know why we didn’t think of it before.”
“Ood-heads,” Jed says, and the playful tone is back in his voice. I’m relieved. I like this Jed better.
I know this Jed.
I’m comfortable with this Jed.
I move slowly around the perimeter of the room, hand on the wall, holding up my phone and checking for switch boxes.
Finally, after a minute or two, I find them and push. The room bursts into light.
I look around to find Jed. He’s still staring at his phone, a cheerful expression on his face.
“Let there be light!” I announce. He doesn’t look up. “What? Who’s the message from?”
“Nobody,” he says, too quickly. The smile drops.
“Ooh! Nobody!” I tease. “Is it, perchance, a female nobody?”
Jed looks back up and that face is there again.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” I say lightly. “Do I know this person?”
“Actually, you do,” Jed says, a hint of snappish in his tone. “Leah McKenzie.”
“Leah?” I wrack my brain. The name does sound familiar … And then I remember. “She was at the party. Grade eleven girl? Why is she texting you?” My mouth drops open. “Jed, you didn’t …”
Jed flashes a half-grin. “Neither confirming nor denying. Until we get to that particular memory. I assume you included a memory of the party in your twenty-five?”
I nod, trying to ignore the empty feeling in my gut. Neither confirming or denying …
Why do those words make my belly twist?
“Then, when we get to the party, I’ll tell you about Leah Mackenzie. But first, we need to skate.” Jed points at the row of inline skates and conventional ones behind the counter across the room. “And, as we skate, you will tell me the next memory. I believe it involves a certain Swedish melodic death metal band?”
“Oh yeah,” I reply. I shake myself. I’m being an idiot. After all, why should I care if Jed hooked up at the party? He’s done it before. He’ll do it again. Why tonight—or this early morning—do I care?
I don’t. That’s the answer. I’m just overtired.
“Let’s get our skates on,” I say breezily. “And I’ll tell you about Opeth.”
Seventeen
“You were there for this memory.”
“I figured I must be,” Jed says. “Considering it involves Opeth.”
“There are actually a couple of memories bundled up in this one, though. Some involve fashion.”
“I can handle it.”
“Good. Right. So, it was November. We were all starting to prepare for final exams.”
Jed laughs. “Some of us more than others.”
I elbow him in the ribs. He almost drops the skate he’s holding by its laces. “Oi!” He elbows me back. “Go on then.”
I finish tying my own skate laces in a double bow (just to be safe). “All right. So it was November and Viggo had invited me over to his house for an ‘intensive study session’.”
“I do know this one!”
“Jed?”
“Yup?”
“Shush.”
Jed mimes zipping his lips.
I close my eyes. And remember. “I’d just done something pretty drastic in preparation for this night.” I peer at my best friend, who nods mutely. “Yep,” I say. “I thought you’d remember this.”
Eighteen
Memory 8
Viggo hated the colours in my hair.
He told me how much more sophisticated I’d look if they were gone; how people would take me more seriously; how the teachers at school might even consider me for more prizes and awards if they thought I was “more committed to my education”.
“And you think they’ll think that if I get rid of the streaks?”
Viggo nodded. “Definitely,” he said. “The way you choose to present yourself has an enormous impact on people’s perception of you and your capabilities and priorities. If you chose to present yourself more … elegantly, the teachers might consider it more feasible to place their faith in you. They would consider you more reliable. They would feel less as if they’d be played for fools by investing in your education and future.”
I nodded. I did love my Paintbox highlights, but—
It might be nice to win an award. Or two. For something other than art or English.
I could be someone who won prizes.
I could be someone like Viggo.
Would it only take dyeing my hair brown to clinch it?
If so, it was worth a try, wasn’t it?
“I’ll do it,” I promised him. “I’ll make myself look sophisticated.”
Viggo’s mouth lifted at a corner. “I knew you would,” he said.
Nineteen
Memory 9
“Are you sure?” Em asked, dye brush hovering over my freshly-washed hair. Two hyperactive ferrets wrestled at our feet. “I mean, it’s not … you, Connie. It’s so … brown. So basic.”
“It’s the new me,” I declared. “I’m growing up, Em. That’s not basic. That’s life.”
“That’s sad,” she said.
“Not everyone can be The Doctor,” I replied. “Not everyone can stay young forever.”
“A) I never know what you’re talking about when you mention ‘The Doctor’,” she said. “And b) you can stay young forever. I intend to. Jed intends to. It’s all in your attitude.”
“Well, I have a new attitude.” I pulled Beezus to my chest and gave him a last nuzzle as a pink-haired person. “And it’s all about being elegant. And mature.”
“How very, very dull, bae,” Em said. But she shrugged and plopped a dollop of brown goop right on top of my head …
Twenty
Memory 10
And then, the next day, I bought a new dress. All by myself, from Country Road.
I had never shopped in Country Road before. I’d never really shopped anywhere other than the Salvos and the vintage racks at Salamanca. The only new clothes I had were the ones Mum bought me and they mostly came from Target.
I had no idea how to do Country Road. It was like another planet.
I thanked the heavens there were natives available to help, otherwise I might never have made it out alive.
“Can I help you, hun?” the sales assistant asked, straightening the collar of her burnt orange tunic.
I panicked. “That one you’re wearing? The dress thing? Is it from here?”
“Of course, hun. Staff discount!” Bella laughed. “But seriously, this would look beyond cute on you. Go get undressed. I’ll find your size.”
As I walked out into Centrepoint, I noticed Kacey Kuusela standing behind the counter of a different boutique. Another one I’d never have been seen dead in pre-Viggo. She lifted her head just as I passed and gave me a wave and a sunny smile.
The world had literally turned upside down.
I smiled back nervously, and she mimed yawning. “Come in?” she beckoned with a hand. I shook my
head apologetically and pointed at my watch. She shrugged and mouthed, “Next time.”
The world had literally turned upside-down and inside-out and been turned into an Asylum for the Daleks.
I ran a hand through my newly all-brown hair. Maybe that had something to do with why Kacey was being so nice. Because I looked normal now.
I just hoped Viggo liked me this way.
Twenty-One
Memory 11
On the bus, on the way home to complete the final part of my transformation, Viggo was all I could think of.
I wanted Viggo to approve of the new me. I wanted Viggo to like me.
Love me.
My little crush was something much deeper now.
It was as if some other girl had inhabited my body: a girl who hadn’t always been a nerdy tomboy, who hadn’t spent the better part of her life being best friends with a boy for whom fashion is whichever black shirt smells least like armpit. A girl who hadn’t ditched her Grade Ten leaver’s dinner because there was a Doctor Who special on, who hadn’t spent a year’s savings on tickets to Ben Folds with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
I knew it was bizarre. I knew I was acting so out-of-character everyone must be thinking I was possessed, but it was as if Viggo had cast a powerful spell on me. He made me feel I could be better; I could be worth something. I could be the “best version of myself”, as Viggo himself would put it.
He opened my eyes.
He made me realise there was more than mooching around with Jed, coming up with harebrained schemes. There was more than wasting all my time on some new nerdy obsession. There was more than skiving off class to go to CD shops, or spending whole weekends watching nineties’ video clips on YouTube, or brainstorming ideas with Jed for my next superhero graphic novel.
There was more to life.
More to me.
I’m pretty sure my parents thought I was on drugs. I kept catching them looking at me anxiously over the dinner table when they saw I was reading Proust instead of Gaiman; when I watched political documentaries instead of Doctor Who or Red Dwarf; when I told them I was going to study at Viggo’s instead of to Wong’s with Jed.
And Patience gently asked if I’d joined a cult.
But I didn’t care.
I liked the new “me”.
And the new me wore burnt orange dresses with peplums on the hips. The new me had all-brown hair. The new me might even … wear a hint of makeup?
As I got off the bus, I ran my hand over my makeup-free face, trying to imagine what I’d look like when I walked back out of the house in an hour or so …
Twenty-Two
Memory 12
The world had been turned upside-down and inside-out and turned into an Asylum for Daleks presided over by mad Missy and all stuffed inside a Tardis full of dinosaurs.
Or, in Layman’s terms, things were going a bit cuckoo in my world.
I didn’t even own any makeup.
Thankfully, Patience had a tonne of free-with-magazine face-stuff stored in our shared bathroom cabinet, just ripe for sneaky pilfering by love-struck big sisters.
Or, I should say, I would have been able to sneakily pilfer the makeup, had I known what half of it was for.
I had to ask Patience for help.
“Contouring is what the Kardashians do,” she explained, rolling her eyes when it was obvious I had no idea who or what a Kardashian was. “It’s kind of like shading your face,” she said. That I understood.
That was art.
“Okay. So, like, covering up the bad bits with shadow and making the good bits … brighter?”
“Kinda. I’ll show you. Priming is first, though. It’s like the undercoat you use when painting your house. Make sense?”
“I don’t want my face to look like a wall!” I cried. “I might just, um, try these.” I held out some browny-pink lipstick and a clear mascara.
“Aww, you’re no fun,” Patience teased as she carefully swiped the mascara wand over my eyelashes, biting her lower lip in concentration.
“But am I beautiful, Mon cheri?” I asked in a poor attempt at a French accent.
“You were before,” Patience said softly. “You don’t need makeup to be beautiful.”
Did I mention I adore my little sister?
“Is this for a boy?” she asked shyly. Patience is just at the age where boys have only just made the transition from “icky” to “cute”, and she blushed as she spoke.
“Maybe,” I said, feeling every bit as bashful as my twelve-year-old sister.
“He better be really good,” Patience said. “Because you deserve good.”
“He’s the best.”
Patience grinned. “Excellent,” she said. “Because if he isn’t, he’ll have me to deal with.”
“Oh yeah? What are you going to do? ‘Nice’ him to death?”
Patience’s eyes narrowed. “Do not underestimate me, sisterino,” she said gravely. Then she smirked again. “Right. Done. Do you like it?”
I swivelled towards the mirror and my throat tightened.
I saw the person in the mirror wrinkle her brow. Then touch her face tentatively. I looked at the fingers. They looked just like mine. But the rest …
It was me. But it wasn’t.
The person in the mirror looked …
Like an überclone.
I wanted to hate it. The old Connie would have hated it. But Constance … kind of liked it.
I just hoped Viggo would too.
Twenty-Three
Memory 13
I turned up on his doorstep at precisely five pm.
Viggo appreciated—no, expected—punctuality. I’d learned this the hard way on the sole occasion when I’d been late for one of our now-weekly study sessions. His face remained impassive as ever, but he did say, pointedly, “Oh, hello, Constance. I’d assumed you weren’t coming. I thought we’d agreed on five pm?”
It was seven minutes past five.
I knew now to be on time and I also knew to ring the doorbell (knocking is “uncouth”), and only once, and then wait patiently for Viggo to answer, which he always did within thirty seconds of my ringing.
I’d timed it.
Except, this day, Viggo didn’t answer the doorbell.
And I heard, instead of Brahms or Beethoven wafting serenely up the hallway towards me, the familiar thumping of an Opeth CD.
“Have I come to the wrong house?” I asked, suppressing my disappointment. Why was Jed there? This was my time with Viggo!
“Have I opened the door to the wrong person?” Jed asked, his eyes boggling. “Seriously, what have you done with my best friend?”
“You like it?” I asked, twirling.
“I do.” I looked behind Jed. Viggo was coming down the stairs.
And he was looking at me … differently.
He was looking at me as if he really did like what he saw.
Twenty-Four
“And that’s it?” Jed asks. He’s stopped skating and is facing me, a grimace twisting his face. “Seriously, I get ten minutes of ‘I was wearing this’ and ‘my hair was like this’ and ‘Ooh, I wore mascara’ and then, boom, Viggo looks at you. And that’s the end of the memory? Or, like, five memories, or however many pointless mini-memories you bundled into one?”
“It was a meaningful look,” I call over my shoulder as I skate past him. “Our first meaningful look.”
“And there was I standing there and not even noticing.” Jed catches up to me. “I was too busy gawping at your boring hair and hideous dress.”
“And forcing Viggo to listen to Opeth.”
Jed grins wickedly. “I’d forgotten about that. He lost a bet.”
“Viggo lost a bet?” Now my eyes are boggling. I can’t imagine Viggo MacDuff losing anything.
Jed raises an eyebrow. He’s skating backwards in front of me now.
I hate how he can do that.
“You didn’t wonder why Opeth was playing in the immaculate MacDuff residence?
”
“Um …” To tell the truth, I hadn’t really thought much about it. I’d been too busy thinking about Viggo’s face; the way his eyes were caressing me, taking in my body in a way that wasn’t lascivious or sleazy but still expressed his … enjoyment. When Viggo looked at me, everything else melted away, even Mikael Akerfeldt’s devilish growl. “What was the bet?”
Jed grimaces. “He bet me I couldn’t carry a piano across the room all by myself.”
“Right. And why would he bet you that?”
Jed’s face darkens. “I can only assume because he needed a piano moved across a room and he couldn’t be bothered doing it himself, and I was getting tired of being his slave just for the sake of it, so he came up with an evil plan to manipulate me into doing it some other way.”
“Viggo wouldn’t do that!” I cry.
“Sure he wouldn’t.” Jed rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Just tell me the next memory is even a wafer more exciting than those ones? Otherwise I may have to deliberately skate into that wall and concuss myself. Hospitalisation would be far preferable to ‘Oh, and, by the way, I wore pinky-brown lipstick’.” He imitates my voice and then mimes vomiting.
“It is,” I say smugly. “I jump forward a bit in the next memory.”
“To when?”
“To my birthday.”
“The birthday?” Jed looks interested now. He stops skating again and sits down, right there in the middle of the rink. “Stop everything,” he says. “Tell me. Now.”
Twenty-Five
Memory 14
Patience was born on Valentine’s Day and I blasted into the world two days before Christmas. That’s why Mum and Dad make a special effort every year to throw us a truly great party. So we don’t feel as though our birthdays are being hijacked by other holidays.
