by Kate Gordon
I was loitering by his locker. I did this every day. I arrived early so I could be there waiting for him, with a long black coffee and a cheese and alfalfa sandwich on soy and pumpkin seed bread. I made it for him at home before school. It was his favourite breakfast. Viggo ran five kilometres on his treadmill and then crammed in an hour of study before showering and heading to school. He never had time for breakfast.
He didn’t ask me to bring him breakfast. I volunteered.
This was the first morning Viggo had ever been late.
He didn’t apologise or offer any explanation. All he said was, “Excuse me, Connie. I’m in a hurry and you’re in my way.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I moved away from his locker. “Um, do you want your breakfast?”
He shook his head. “No time.” He pulled books from his locker, scooping them into a pile in his arms. When he was finished, he turned and made to move away without another word to me.
“Viggo!” I called after him.
He paused and looked back over his shoulder, his lips pursed. “If you don’t mind, I’m running rather behind here.”
“Um, sorry, it’s just … if this is about you being mad because I showed up at your house yesterday …”
“What’s ‘this’?” he snapped, his fingers making inverted commas in the air. “There is no ‘this’. I am simply late to class. So if you don’t mind—”
Just then, Kacey Kuusela rounded the corner into the hallway. “Hi, Viggo,” she said. She looked past him to me. “Hi, Connie. You look gorgeous today. I told you that shirt would suit you! Organic hemp is super-great, isn’t it? I’m so glad more designers are working with it!”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said distractedly. I still wasn’t quite used to Kacey being nice to me, but today I was much more concerned with what was going on with Viggo.
“Viggo, have you got a minute?” Kacey asked, her forehead creasing. “I need to talk to you about … um, Landcare stuff.”
“Of course,” Viggo said, without another look in my direction.
This was November. Viggo and I had been together for eleven and a half months. And I felt as if I was a piece of rubbish beneath his Ferragamo heel.
I took a sip on Viggo’s coffee and gagged. It was horrible. He’d never let me share it before, and we’d never actually gone to a café together …
For the first time, this struck me as not only strange but wrong. We’d been together nearly a year and, apart from that first meal at Ronaldo’s (when we weren’t even a couple yet), Viggo hadn’t once taken me out on one coffee date, let alone another dinner.
That wasn’t right, was it?
I reasoned that we were always busy. I told myself I was lucky Viggo made time for me at all in his busy schedule. I should be grateful I got to take up some of his time, most days.
But still. A romantic dinner wouldn’t go astray.
Maybe for my birthday? Our anniversary?
He’d have to take me out then, wouldn’t he?
I went to throw the sandwich and coffee in a bin, before catching myself. To do that would be completely wasteful, not to mention terrible for the environment. Plus, I’d put a lot of effort into that sandwich.
A girl I recognised from one of Viggo’s clubs—World War One History, perhaps?—averted her eyes as she approached.
“Hey?” I said.
She jerked and looked at me, startled, deer-in-headlights. “Are you talking to me?” she squeaked.
“Um, yes?” She was still staring. “You’re in the World War One group, right?
The girl shook her head. “American … Civil War.” She cleared her throat three times. Her face was the colour of beetroot. And then I realised. She was … nervous? About speaking to me?
“Oh, right,” I said. “Um, well, I know we haven’t talked before, really, but my name’s Connie—Constance—and—”
“I know who you are,” she said shyly. “You’re Viggo MacDuff’s girlfriend.”
“I’m Connie,” I repeated.
“Yes,” she said again, dragging the word out, as if she thought I was a little bit slow. “Viggo MacDuff’s girlfriend.”
I felt strangely deflated. Usually, being known as Viggo’s girlfriend made me happy, but just for once I thought it might be nice to be known as more than just that. To be known as Connie Chase, who was …
An unsettling thought wrapped around me. What am I if I’m not Viggo MacDuff’s girlfriend?
I shook myself. I was just tired. I’d stayed up too late transcribing Viggo’s notes on Mayor of Casterbridge. I tried a smile. “Yeah, that’s me. Would you like a sandwich?”
She hesitated, peering at me as if I was crazy. I hadn’t been looked at like that since Jed and I dressed up for Costume Day as the “Empty Children” from Doctor Who. Gas masks and all. We thought we looked awesome but we made a few people scream …
“It’s Viggo’s favourite,” I added wearily.
Her eyes brightened. “Viggo eats these sandwiches? Do you think that’s why he’s so smart and great and stuff?”
“Yeah,” I said dryly. “That’s it. It’s the sandwich.”
The girl snatched the parcel from my hand. “Thanks.” She shoved the sandwich into her mouth. “You’re so lucky,” she said through a mouthful of brown dough. “Viggo MacDuff is the greatest. And you—”
She paused, her brain seeming to catch up with her mouth.
“I’m what?” I prompted, pretty sure I knew what she was going to say.
“Well, you know what everyone says,” she said, shrugging.
“No. I don’t know.”
A wicked look spread across her face. “Everyone says that Viggo picked you to be his girlfriend because he knew you’d make the perfect personal assistant.”
“What?” I gasped. “I’m not Viggo’s PA. I’m his girlfriend.”
The girl looked pointedly at the sandwich. “Mm hmm,” she said, and then walked away.
“I’m not Viggo’s personal—” I muttered to myself, just as an alarm went off on my phone. I pulled it out of my pocket. “Don’t forget to clean out Viggo’s locker,” it said.
I grimaced. I had forgotten. Viggo had been complaining on Friday that his locker had become so crammed with books he couldn’t find anything. I’d offered to clean it out for him. He hadn’t asked me to do it. I’d offered.
But still … Was it wrong that I offered? What sort of girlfriend volunteered to clean out her boyfriend’s rubbish?
The bell rang for Home Group.
I looked at Viggo’s locker. I remembered how grateful he’d seemed when I said I’d clean it for him. I thought of how disappointed he’d be if I didn’t do it.
“I’ll do it at recess,” I muttered to myself. Viggo had a meeting then anyway. I began to walk to class. “I am Viggo MacDuff’s girlfriend,” I whispered, trying to make myself feel better. It usually worked, reminding myself of that.
But now a voice inside my head insisted: You are Viggo MacDuff’s personal assistant.
“Shut up,” I whispered to the voice. “And, even if I am, being Viggo’s PA is ten times better than just being plain old Connie Chase.”
I pull myself out of my memory.
Dad and Saffron are discussing cricket, while Saffron breastfeeds Courage. Mum and Patience are playing on the floor with Gift and Miracle.
Jed is gone.
And I … I am plain old Connie Chase. And now I don’t even have Jed to make me feel better. I am all alone.
Forty-Six
Back at home, I shower and dress in clean clothes. I have to hunt around in my wardrobe to find clothes that aren’t Constance. I discover, stuffed in a bin bag, a bunch of my old tee-shirts, including one Jed had made for me a couple of years back.
“You’re the magic that holds the sky up from the ground.” It’s from a Ben Folds’ song, of course. One of my favourites. “Magic”.
It smells like dust, but I pull it over my head anyway. It’s comfortable. None of my “Viggo” c
lothes feel comfortable.
With a pang in my belly I realise this shirt feels like Jed. It feels like safety and comfort and home. And magic.
I slump down at my desk. Beezus nips at my feet. I let my eyes drift over the piles of books that litter the table in front of me. School books and books Viggo has lent me.
I guess I’ll have to get those back to him. Somehow.
And then I see it. The parcel. “Merry Christmas, Mr Sardick.”
I cringe. It’s my present from Jed. Jed, my best friend. Jed, the boy I’ve neglected for a whole year while I’ve been busy being “Viggo MacDuff’s girlfriend”.
Jed who continued hanging out with Viggo, even though he hated him.
Jed, whose parents hoped we’d get married …
My belly does that twisting thing again. I close my eyes and, for the first time since Viggo came into my life, it isn’t his face I see.
Jed’s dark coal eyes. Jed’s long dark hair. Jed’s funny big nose.
The way he only ever smiles with one side of his mouth. The way he twists his hair when he’s nervous. The way he pats Tallulah fondly as he walks around to the driver’s side, even though the stupid car barely ever works. The way he cuddles Beezus. The way his eyes sparkle when he’s telling me about a new musical discovery.
Jed, whose parents always hoped we’d get married.
Jed, who left his family on Christmas Day to be with me.
He wouldn’t do that just because my parents asked him to. Or just because his family were playing Michael Buble. I know Jed. I know he might act the tough guy, and his perfect parents might annoy the hell out of him, but he loves them to bits and he does get a kick out of Christmas with them, despite the twee-ness of it all. He’s told me so before. He likes his mum’s perfect roast. He likes the fancy Christmas crackers she buys. He likes his family hanging out together, just being happy.
Jed loves his family Christmas. And yet he ditched it for me. And I hadn’t even batted an eyelid. I hadn’t questioned his motives, or suggested he should go back. I just, selfishly, let him stay; let him comfort me; let him take me on all these adventures as he tried to make me see that …
What?
Why had he done it?
And, suddenly, I know.
Jed took me on all those adventures to make me see that I could do fun things without Viggo; that I could be fun without Viggo.
That I could be Connie without Viggo.
Connie-girl.
His Connie-girl.
I pick up the present. As soon as I do I know I was wrong thinking it was a CD. It’s too heavy, and too rectangular, not square and lightweight like a CD is. I carefully unstick the tape, noticing for the first time, too, that the gift is carefully wrapped, as if Jed had taken time to get it right.
“Oh,” I moan, pressing the present to my chest as the paper falls to the floor.
Jed hasn’t given me a CD, or a book about one of his favourite metal acts, or even a joke present like he sometimes gave me—a fake moustache or a Britney Spears poster.
He’s given me a photo, in an expensive-looking frame.
A photo that I know was taken not long before Viggo arrived in Bangarra.
A photo of me and Jed.
We are on the beach. There is a sunrise behind us. We look exhausted and I remember why. We’d been up all night. We’d snuck into the wildlife park not far from our houses and spent the night with the animals.
It was Jed’s idea, because I’d complained that whenever we went to the park all the best animals were asleep. The devils and bats and quolls—the nocturnal animals—didn’t show their faces during the daytime, and they were the animals I wanted to see.
So Jed suggested we climb the fence and pay a visit to those animals when it wasn’t sleepy time.
We sat, cuddled up against the cold, watching the small marsupials play and feed and conduct their secret, nighttime lives under a starry sky. Jed kissed my hair and thanked me for wishing to do this; wishing to see the animals. He thanked me for including him on my adventures.
“You’re way overtired,” I whispered back. “It’s making you soppy.”
“Nah, it’s the full moon,” he replied. “Like Sonata Arctica say. It’s making me crazy. I’ll start turning werewolf any second.”
I remembered the song. I liked it. I sang a couple of bars. “You should have locked the open door. Run away, run away, run away. Full moon is on the sky and he’s not a man anymore.”
“You know the words.” Jed’s voice was gentle. “You know, I know all the words to all of your songs, too. I know everything. I remember everything.”
“That’s why you’re my best friend,” I replied, and we lapsed into contented silence.
As the light turned from jet black to grey, we sneaked out again and ran, holding hands, to the beach, where we asked the first jogger who came by to take our picture. “So we can remember this forever,” Jed said, and I looked at him quizzically.
“Why remember this?” I asked. “We’ve done weird and crazy stuff like this heaps of times before and you haven’t required a photographic memento.
Jed shrugged. “It was the night I found out you knew all the words to the Sonata song.”
“And that means something?”
“That means everything.”
In the photograph, my pink-streaked hair is a bird’s nest. My tee-shirt—the same one I’m wearing now—is crumpled. My jeans are dirty from crawling around on my knees in the wildlife park. Viggo would be disgusted.
But, as I smile for the camera, I look blissful.
But it’s not the expression on my face that brings tears to my eyes.
Jed isn’t looking at the camera at all. He’s looking at me. And the look on his face …
“He loves you.”
I turn around. Patience is leaning on my door frame. “You know that, right? That boy loves the shit out of you.”
I don’t even think to tell her off for swearing again. I just nod. “I think I know that now.”
“And he’s awesome. So much better than that Viggo … bad person. I wanted you to get together with him all along.”
“Too late now,” I mumble, dropping the photograph on my bed. “I took him for granted and ignored him when he needed me and then he got with another girl at my party and he’s on a date with her now and besides …”
“Besides what? And if you tell me you still love Viggo MacDuff—”
“No.”
It’s out of my mouth before I have time to think about it; before I have time to question whether or not it’s true.
Is it true?
Have I stopped loving Viggo?
“Good,” Patience says emphatically. “Because I saw your ribs, and if they’re like that for the reason I think they are … If those marks are there for the reason I think they are …”
I shake my head. “You don’t understand, Patience. It was my fault.”
“Try me,” she says through gritted teeth.
I shake my head. “That’s the one memory I’m not telling.”
“Fine.” Patience reaches across me and snatches Beezus into her arms. “But you’re not getting your ferret back until you do.”
“Patty—” I protest wearily.
She’s halfway out the door before she turns. “You can not tell me if you don’t want to. But I want you to tell Jed.”
“He’s on a date,” I protest.
“Connie, he ditched Christmas to be with you. I think he’ll ditch a date.”
“Patty, you are the best sister, you know that?” I say.
Patience nods. “I know. You’re still not getting your ferret back. He’s coming with me to watch Dr Brian Cox. Oh and, by the way, Em called, like, a million times. Mum has been putting her off, saying you’re sick and you’re not up to talking—because we figured you weren’t—but she says Em is getting increasingly manic and she’s threatening to fly home from Queensland tonight if you don’t talk to her. So you might want t
o buzz her, okay?”
“Okay.” I flop down on my bed as my bedroom door clicks shut, Patience and Beezus on the other side of it.
I pick up my phone. I thought, vaguely, that I heard the bouncy sounds of “Underground”, Ben Folds Five’s ode to weird and crazy. Jed must have changed my ringtone to that from the old one, which was a tribute to Viggo. Sure enough, when I unlock the screen, it tells me I’ve had twenty missed calls. All from Em.
What the heck is going on with her? I mean, sure, I know I said I’d call back, but this is going a bit far, isn’t it? I press the green handset button to return the call.
“You have reached the message bank of—” The electronic voice begins, and then it switches to Em’s sunny tone. “Emily Chambers. Please leave a message after the tone …”
The message bank beep sounds. “Em. Hi. It’s Connie. Sorry, I know you’ve been trying to get hold of me because I didn’t call you back. I’m sorry. I’ve been kind of busy. Um, I’ll try you again later.”
I hang up and put down my phone. Suddenly, I’m overcome by overwhelming tiredness. I lay my head down on my pillow.
I don’t remember anything else that day.
Forty-Seven
I’m woken by the smell of blueberries.
I prise my eyes open. They feel like sandpaper. The light in my room is bright. Not dawning bright; halfway-through-the-morning bright. I’m stiff and I’m cold from sleeping on top of the covers all night. I’m still in my clothes. My unbrushed teeth are coated in fuzz.
I look to the side. Patience is sitting by my bed, with Beezus on her knee and a plate piled high with blueberry pancakes in her outstretched hand.
“I decided to forgive you,” she says. “Because a) Beezus missed you last night. He pined for hours. And pining for him seems to involve trying to eat my toes. And also, because b) I figured if he could forgive you, then I had no excuse.”
“He?”
Patience indicates with her head towards my open door. Jed is leaning in the doorway. He looks … strange, somehow. It takes me a moment to realise why.
He’s not wearing black.
He’s dressed in a pale blue shirt and tie and clean blue jeans, and his hair is confined in a ponytail. He’s clean-shaven, too. The five o’clock shadow is gone, and so is the little triangle-shaped goatee from his chin.
