by Kate Gordon
Viggo peered at me, his mouth set in a thin line. I knew I was going to get yelled at, big time, as soon as we were alone.
And Jed would be mad at me, because I would have to tell him I couldn’t go to movies.
How did I always manage to stuff things up so badly?
“I think I’ll actually get a wolf, like from the Sonata Arctica album covers.” Jed’s voice snaps me back to the present. “I’ll save Eddie or Vic for when I get a real tattoo. I’m listening to Sonata a lot at the moment, so it makes sense that I get a tattoo reflecting that.”
“I like Sonata,” I say tentatively, and I’m pleased when he smiles.
“I know you do, Connie. You have great taste.”
I feel myself blushing at the compliment. Jed always knows how to make me feel good about myself.
“Well, I’m getting the Australian cricket team logo,” Dad grumbles. “With a big cross through it.”
“I want a butterfly,” Mum says wistfully. “I always thought if I got a real tattoo I’d get a butterfly.”
“Is Saffron going to be able to do all these?” I ask Jed.
“Yeah. She’s awesome.”
“Runs in the family,” I say.
Jed reaches over and takes my hand. Squeezes it.
It feels nice.
Forty-Two
As our henna dries, we sit outside Saffron’s tent in the camping ground. We cradle mugs of hot, milky chai tea, which she made from scratch on the campfire stove.
“I’m glad you came over, Jed,” she says. “We missed you yesterday. And I’m glad you brought Connie-girl. It’s been far too long, little sister!”
My chest fills with warmth.
“Mum and Dad were saying they missed you too, Connie-girl. They said it’s been ages since you came to visit. When they heard I was catching up with you today—”
“Wait,” Jed interrupts, his face stricken. “You told them you were meeting us? Me? Were they … are they …”
“Completely furious?” Saffron grins. “Of course they are. You know Mum and Dad. They were so unchill that you bailed during the Buble-a-thon and didn’t join us for the traditional eggnog, charades and Queen’s Message evening. Well, they were until I spiked their eggnog. Then Mum suggested we change the game to strip charades and Dad said the Queen reminded him of a bulldog with a wig on. It was the best Christmas ever.”
“So they’re not going to …” Jed gulps. “When I get home, it’ll be okay?”
“I’ll come with you,” Saffron promises. “I’ll make it okay. And Connie should come too. You know they’ll be fine with anything as long as Connie’s involved.”
“They really like me that much?” I ask softly.
Another memory flashes into my head—one I didn’t tell Beezus—of the first time I met Viggo’s parents.
Forty-Three
Memory 22
It was October. I’d wanted to meet Mr and Mrs MacDuff for … well, we’d been together since my birthday, just before Christmas. So I’d hoped to meet them for at least ten months.
Viggo always seemed to invite me over when they were out to dinner, or at work. Or on holidays in the Seychelles.
I’d asked, a couple of times, tentatively, if they might like to meet me. Viggo had blown me off. “Of course. But, you know, they’re busy …”
I’d let it drop. And months went by.
And then …
I don’t know what got into me. I knew that Viggo hated doing things he hadn’t planned. He had his schedule honed to perfection and he became intensely grouchy if it got out of whack.
But I was excited—the Bangarra bookshop had shelved their copies of a new political memoir Viggo was coveting, a couple of days earlier than it was due out. I just happened to be in the shop—gazing wistfully at a Patrick Rothfuss I knew I’d never have time to read—when I saw the memoir on the new release stand. I knew Viggo was desperate to read it, so I bought a copy and asked Dad if we could stop off at Viggo’s on the way home.
“Of course,” he said. “But I do have to go home straight away. Australia and the Windies are on the telly …”
“It’s fine, Dad,” I said. “Just drop me off. I’m sure Viggo and I will end up spending the afternoon together. I’ll ask him to walk me home after, or I’ll catch a bus.”
“He bloody better walk you home,” Dad said. “No daughter of mine is getting sent home from her boyfriend’s house on public transport.”
“He might have plans …” I protested.
Dad shook his head. “No plans are more important than my little girl. Jed always walks you home.”
“Jed’s not my boyfriend!”
“More’s the pity,” Dad muttered.
Then, I thought he was being sarcastic.
“Remember,” Dad called as I bounced out of the car, “he walks you home. You deserve nothing less. Don’t let him make you feel otherwise.”
And I called back, “He makes me feel amazing.”
Dad nodded. As I remember it now, though, he didn’t look completely convinced.
But, at the time, all I cared about was getting to Viggo and giving him his book.
Forty-Four
Memory 23
I raced up the steps and flung open the front door.
Again, I don’t know what came over me. I always, always, always rang the bell. Even after ten months. I’d been letting myself into Jed’s house since a couple of weeks after we met. His parents never batted an eyelid, even as I helped myself to a handful of his mum’s fancy homemade biscuits and switched on the telly to MTV.
Maybe, in my excitement, I’d imagined I was at Jed’s house instead of Viggo’s. Maybe I really didn’t think anything of letting myself in.
He was my boyfriend, after all. My boyfriend of ten months. Surely it was normal to treat his house as my own.
At least, that’s what I thought until I heard his fury.
“Constance! What in heaven’s name are you doing?”
I stopped dead in the middle of the MacDuff foyer.
I was facing not only Viggo, but his sister, Catherine, and a man and a woman.
Viggo’s dad had thick, blond hair like Viggo’s, and dark tanned skin. He looked much younger than I knew he must be. He had Viggo’s long, straight nose and strong chin.
Viggo’s mum was equally striking, with the piercing sea-green eyes that Viggo had inherited, long, shiny, chestnut-brown hair tied back in a sleek ponytail, and flawless peaches-and-cream skin. She wore a tight white tank and a short, white, pleated skirt, with a soft woollen cardigan tied around her shoulders.
Viggo’s dad was all in white, too—shorts and a polo—and so were Viggo and Catherine. They were all holding white tennis racquets.
“I’m—I’m sorry. I’m interrupting.” I backed towards the door.
“Viggo, who is this person?” Viggo’s mum asked, a tight smile not quite reaching her eyes.
“A girl from school,” Viggo said dismissively. It felt as if someone had shot an arrow through my heart.
A girl from school? I was his girlfriend. Why was he pretending I wasn’t?
“Her name is Constance,” he said. “I have no idea why she is here unannounced, but I’m certain she will understand we are just leaving …”
“Viggo …” Catherine looked at her brother accusingly. She knew I was more than just “a girl from school”. We’d been on shopping trips together! She’d taken me to posh cafes! Catherine knew me. She’d stand up for me! “It’s obvious the girl has something for you,” she went on serenely. She raised a perfectly on-fleek eyebrow at me, as if in warning. “That must be why she burst in here so rudely. It must be important for her to have done so. Hear her out.”
“I … I um—” I stammered. My face was burning. “I do … I have … here.” I thrust the book into Viggo’s hands and then turned and ran from the house.
I expected him to follow me.
I expected him to call my name and catch up to me and pull me into hi
s arms and apologise—give me a really good reason for why he had just denied my existence in front of his parents.
He didn’t follow me.
He didn’t call my name.
And I just kept running, down his garden path, down his street, past the bus stop and all the way home.
“My parents adore you,” Saffron says. “You know, they always hoped you and Jeremy would get married.”
“Shut up, Caroline,” Jed growls.
“Oh, come on, Lil Bro,” Saffron says. “You know it’s true.” She puts an arm around me. “Seriously, Connie-girl. You could get away with murder with those two. How do you think my parents would have reacted if I had dyed my hair all kinds of crazy colours and dressed like a member of Pussy Riot when I was sixteen?”
“I’m going more for Four Non-Blondes,” I say, grinning. “But I’ll pay that. And are you telling me you weren’t a rebel when you were sixteen, Saff? Because I seem to remember a certain dreadlocks incident …”
“I grew them for six months,” Saffron says wistfully. “I hid them by tying my hair back and wearing sun hats. But Mum cottoned on eventually …”
“And made you cut them off,” I finished. “The bob suited you though.”
“It wasn’t a bob. It was a bowl cut,” Saffron protests. “I looked like an extra from Oliver. But you see my point? I grew dreadlocks and as punishment I got a bad haircut and a month’s grounding. You could turn up at our place dressed like Jack Sparrow and Mum would say your new look suited you. When I moved to Nimbin, I think she was relieved. But then you disappeared too and she was devastated.”
“I didn’t disappear!” I protest.
“You did. Mum told me. You went to Viggo-land.”
I look at my family for support.
I don’t find it.
“It’s true,” my mum says, shrugging. “When you took up with that boy—”
“He’s not ‘that boy’! He’s Viggo!”
Mum ignores me. “You did disappear. Your life became all about him. And you became the girl he wanted you to be. You changed so completely, Connie. We were all worried about you. In fact, if you and Viggo hadn’t broken up—thank God—your father and I were going to stage an intervention.”
I look at Mum, open-mouthed. “A … what now?”
“We were going to try and convince you how toxic your relationship was.” Now I’m staring at Dad. Toxic relationship? Since when had my father started reading Cleo?
“Your father has been devouring every parenting book he could get his hands on, trying to come up with a solution to this,” Mum explains. “We both have. We were desperate for a way to fix you.”
“Fix me?” I gasp. “But I’m not … broken.”
Mum’s voice is gentle. “The only one who couldn’t see it was you. Jed agreed with us. He offered to help us. We called him Christmas Day and—”
“Wait.” I hold up my hands. “You called him Christmas Day?” I turn to Jed. “You only came over because Mum and Dad asked you to? You wouldn’t have come otherwise? And, so, what is all this? The memory stuff? The adventures? Is this all something Mum and Dad asked you to do, because they read it in a parenting book?”
Jed looks stricken. “No, Connie! I wanted to see you. I wanted to hang out with you. I’ve been wanting to hang out with you this whole past year, but you’ve been too busy with Viggo …”
“Because God forbid I should be happy!” I cry, throwing my hands in the air. “God forbid I should like someone and be liked back and try and make myself into a better version of me. I can’t just stay the way I was because that’s how you liked me.” I look at Jed and Mum and Dad as I say this.
“And besides,” I say to Mum and Dad, “you were always making fun of my hair and my clothes and my music. So I changed and then you didn’t like me that way, either.” Tears are running down my face now. “I changed and I thought you’d be happy. I thought Viggo would be happy. The only person I knew wouldn’t be happy was Jed, but that didn’t matter, somehow, because the way I was before he never liked me as much as I wanted him to, anyway …”
The words are flying out of me, but it feels as if my brain’s not in charge. I never really thought these things, did I? I never really thought Mum and Dad didn’t like me. I never really thought that Jed didn’t like me … enough for what?
He is my best friend. That’s all he is.
What do I mean he doesn’t like me enough?
“Connie …” Mum grabs my hand. “Connie, you know none of that is true. Your father and I adore you, crazy hair and clothes and music and all. We teased you, but it was only in fun, same as we tease Patty for loving Taylor Swift. We love every little thing about you. I have no idea where this is coming from.”
“We are so proud of everything about you, Connie!” Dad says, ruffling my hair. “We even grew to love your music. Although Ben Folds is not a patch on Jimmy Buffett. Or the Twelfth Man.” He winks at Jed. “But he’s not bad. I’ve been listening to old Foldsy a lot, lately, since you haven’t been listening to him as much. I’ve missed him. Connie, you’re perfect, just as you are. And if we thought you really wanted to have boring hair and wear those boring suits and listen to boring classical music, we would have loved that about you too, but we never really believed you wanted it. We always knew you were just doing it for that boy and—”
“What do you mean I never liked you enough?” Jed interrupts.
I turn away from Dad. Everyone else fades away and all I can see is him.
My Jed.
With his ridiculously long hair and big nose and dark, intense eyes.
Staring at me.
And I think it again. You never liked me enough. Not as much as I wanted you to.
The thought scares me. So I push it away.
“Of course you didn’t like me enough,” I snap. “You didn’t like me enough to come over when you first found out Viggo and I broke up. You didn’t like me enough to even stay at my party longer than five minutes this year, because it wasn’t cool or ‘metal’ enough for you. If you’d stayed, you would have been there when Viggo and I … You would have been there to … But instead, you show up two days later, only because my parents ask you to. Some best friend. You don’t like me enough, Jed. You came to my party, got with some girl—” a pain goes through my chest as I say this, “and you left without even saying goodbye and when—when it happened … I came looking for you and you weren’t there. And the next day, when I needed you to come and make me feel better, you weren’t there and—”
“You weren’t there for a year, Connie,” Jed says. He’s standing up. “For a whole year you had no idea what was going on in my life. You had no idea I joined the band. You had no idea Meg got a job. You had no idea my dad lost his job and is now working at a call centre while he looks for something better. You had no idea that two—two—girls asked me out but I said no to both of them. You had no idea I came—” he holds two fingers close together, as if he’s about to pinch me, “—this close to failing maths. You had no idea I got pneumonia, for Pete’s sake. I was off school for two weeks and you didn’t even notice. And you had no idea I came to loathe, loathe, loathe Viggo MacDuff. And all because you were so fricking obsessed with the guy. You couldn’t see what an arsehole he actually is—sorry, Patience and Chase parents.”
My mum and dad nod dumbly. Patience says, “I said douchebag before. It’s okay.”
“You said what?” Mum asks.
“Later,” says Patience. “You were saying?” she asks Jed.
He shakes his head. “Or maybe you could see what a shit person he is and you stayed with him anyway. I don’t know. What I do know is, in this past year I’ve lost all respect for Constance Chase. Connie Chase was my best friend. The clone you became when you took up with MacDick isn’t her. And when your parents called to tell me you were upset and they thought it might be something to do with Viggo, yeah, I did think ‘hurray’, because I hoped you’d broken up. I did pray to the gods of me
tal that that was the case. I hoped, actually, that you’d done something really bad to piss Viggo off. I hoped you’d broken that motherfu—” He glances at Mum and Dad. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Dad says, and he sounds like he means it.
“I hoped you’d broke his heart. But I called him and you know what he said? He said, ‘I don’t care, Jeremy. She never meant anything to me anyway. She was a project. But then she started to really irritate me. She didn’t know how to keep in her place.’”
“That motherfu—”
“Steve!” my mum gasps, whacking Dad on the arm.
My face is burning. My throat feels scratchy and my belly feels hollow. “He really said that?” I whisper. “You’re not just saying that to make me … to make me …”
“What? Despise him like I do?” Jed shakes his head. “I was hoping you’d come to do that all by yourself but, it seems, you’re not as clever as I thought you were. You’re not the person I thought you were at all, Connie. You might have the skate shoes back on. You might have wicked blue hair. But you still want to be Viggo’s ‘Constance’. And if he walked back in here right now, you’d go back to him in a second, wouldn’t you?”
“No, she wouldn’t!” Patience declares. She looks at me, eyes wide and questioning. “Would you, Connie?”
“I …”
“Forget it. You don’t have to answer.” Jed begins to back away. “I’m just going to head off. I got a text from Leah asking if I want to catch up and … you know what? I think I do. See you back at home later, Saff. See you, Patience. Bye, Steve—good luck with the rest of the test. Thanks for coming out, Lesley. Hope you had fun.”
And then he turns and walks away.
He doesn’t even say goodbye.
And, for some reason, my heart aches worse now than it ever has before.
Forty-Five
Memory 24
It was the Monday after my humiliation at Viggo’s house.
