by Kate Gordon
He looks nice. Not quite like the Jed I know and—my thoughts stumble on the word—love, but nice.
“What are you doing here so early?” I croak.
“It’s eleven am,” he says, smiling. “I thought you’d be awake. But I showed up to find Patience cooking you breakfast and you—Lady Muck—nowhere to be seen.”
“I feel like muck,” I admit. I sit up. “Jed, I’m sorry about—”
“I’ll leave you guys to it,” Patience says quietly and with a little smile. She puts Beezus on the floor and the pancake plate on my bedside table. “I’m going back to Saffron’s tent with Mum to have my cards read.”
“You’re thirteen,” I say. “Why do you want to know the future? Isn’t the pleasure of being thirteen in the not-knowing?”
“The pleasure’s always in the not-knowing,” she says sagely. “I don’t believe in the cards. Mum and I just have to get out of the house because Australia is tanking and Dad’s losing the plot. And plus I want to hang out with Gift and Miracle. Those little dudes are cool. I’m teaching them about quantum physics. See you tonight.” She stops just before leaving the room. “Kiss him if he’ll let you,” she says cheekily before she disappears.
“Whoa.” Jed tries to run his hand through his hair, but it catches. “Awkward.”
“I know,” I say, concentrating on getting upright and off the bed. “What’s she on about? Crazy child.” I reach for my pancakes and take a bite.
“They look really great,” Jed says, “but would you mind not eating them all? I, um, we kind of have reservations.”
My head jerks up. “Reservations? For breakfast?”
“It’s now eleven-fifteen,” Jed says. “Lunch.”
“Oh. Um. Okay.” I take another bite and reluctantly place the plate back on my desk. “But … wait … you had a date.”
Jed looks away. “Did I say that?”
“You didn’t not say that.”
“I was angry,” he says quietly. “Leah’s nice. She’s also a lesbian.”
“Oh. Right.”
“But we did hang out last night and it was fun. I’m sorry if I made it sound as if there was more to it. I was crabby at you. We watched Star Wars together. Her girlfriend is more of a Star Trek person. They fought about it. I took Leah’s side and we bonded over a shared hatred of C3PO. That’s it. I enjoyed hanging out with her, though, Connie. You would too. You should get to know her. You’d like her. And her friends. They’re all nice. They like Pokemon. They play Magic cards, too. Now you’re not with Viggo, you can do stuff like that again.”
“Right.”
“So anyway, I thought today we’d finish listening to your memories. We must be nearly at the end. But we won’t do any more adventures. Instead, I thought we could do … nice things. Things that bastard Viggo should have done with you. Like take you out for a fancy lunch.”
“How did you …” Jed raises an eyebrow. I puff out my cheeks. “I’ll just shower and get dressed. I have a million ‘Viggo’ dresses I can wear.”
Jed shakes his head. “Not a Viggo dress. A Connie dress.”
“Oh. I don’t have many of those.”
“You have the one with the cherries on it,” he says, ticking off on his fingers. “And the one with Hello Kitty. And the one with the polka dots and—”
“You really do remember everything,” I say, looking at him in awe.
He blushes. “About you, Connie-girl, yes, I do.”
Forty-Eight
I pick the Hello Kitty dress, not because Jed likes it—though I know he does, since he helped me choose it from the Vinnies Retro Shop—but because I like it. It’s fun. It’s the opposite of every dress I’ve worn in the past year.
I wear it with my Vans and stripy knee-length socks. I rummage around in the back of my bathroom drawer and find the pot of sticky star-shaped glitter I’d shoved back there a year before, when Viggo told me it made me look “juvenile”, and I carefully paste a few stars to the corners of my eyes.
I look up at the mirror and smile. I look like Connie again.
Well, almost.
I find my nail scissors in the drawer.
“Whoa,” says Jed when I walk back in the room. “Your hair …”
“Is just the way I like it,” I say, ruffling the short fringe I’ve just cut for myself—the fringe I spent a year growing out because Viggo considered fringes “juvenile”. He likes it just past the shoulders, all one length, all one colour and long enough to be tied back into a practical ponytail with no clips or pins.
I have clips in my hair now. Two of them. Shaped like cherries. And my hair is now grazing my jawline, cut jaggedly with my nail scissors.
And I have a completely juvenile fringe.
“I was wondering what was taking you so long,” says Jed. His eyes are sweeping over me. He looks pleased with what he sees and I’m glad. I’m glad to make him happy. But it’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is that I am happy.
The thought of it hits me like a revelation.
The most important thing is that I’m happy with myself.
When was I last happy with myself, without Viggo’s approval?
When was I last happy with myself, full stop?
“I think I never really liked myself,” I blurt to Jed. “Before Viggo. I think I always thought I was … a bit of a loser.”
Jed nods slowly. “I know. I knew. You always used to talk yourself down. You called yourself fat and stupid and crazy. And I—”
“You always told me I was beautiful and clever and crazy,” I say, laughing. “And that if my body was ‘fat’ then fat was awesome and beautiful. I never listened to you. I just kept believing the voices in my head. And then Viggo came along …”
“And he encouraged the voices,” Jed says grimly. “Because it suited his purpose.”
“And I let him.” My head jerks up. “And you let me let him.”
“I did try to tell you.” Jed takes my hand and squeezes it. “Countless times. I asked you if you were happy with Viggo. I told you I thought you were changing and that I wasn’t sure Viggo was good for you.”
“I ignored you,” I say, remembering now. “I thought Viggo was good for me.”
“Are you …” I see Jed’s Adam’s Apple bob up and down as he swallows. “Do you feel differently now? After telling me the memories? Do you think maybe I was right? Do you think maybe Viggo wasn’t so good for you after all? Have you stopped …”
He doesn’t need to finish. I know what he’s trying to say.
Have you stopped loving him?
I don’t reply straight away. Because, truthfully, I don’t know the answer. I thought I loved Viggo. I really did. I was swept up in his greatness. I was flattered that such a gorgeous, smart, popular, brilliant, “going-places” boy would want me.
But he didn’t want me, really, did he? He wanted Constance.
And I’d thought, for a while, that was me.
I was Constance.
But then, as soon as we broke up, I put my sneakers back on. Without even thinking twice.
And the negative voices in my head didn’t go away when I took up with Viggo. They just got louder. And the only person telling me the voices were wrong wasn’t Viggo—my boyfriend—it was Jed. Still Jed. Always Jed.
Maybe I had loved Viggo. But he didn’t love me. I know that now. Otherwise he wouldn’t have encouraged me to hate myself.
Viggo didn’t love me. But Jed …
“So, Leah’s a lesbian?” I say quietly. “And you got asked out by those other girls but you said no …”
Jed lifts a shoulder. “I was waiting for a girl with mad, multi-coloured hair and Joe Cool Vans to come back from the planet she disappeared to.”
“How … how long have you felt like this?” I realise I’m still holding his hand. I squeeze it tightly.
“Oh, well, there was a Pokemon party a few years back …” Jed’s face is glowing. “But …” He clears his throat. “
Connie, I don’t know … This whole past year I’ve watched you with Viggo and it’s broken my heart. Seriously. Watching you with that guy has been the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. And you did love him. I could see it. You were completely besotted. I don’t think I can handle it if you go back to him.”
“I’m not going back to him,” I promise, and in that moment I know it’s true. My hand moves to my ribs and I wince.
“Is it time to tell me the last memory?” Jed asks, his face stony.
“Not yet,” I say. “Let’s just have a nice lunch first, at a fancy restaurant. And the whole time we’re there, let’s not talk about Viggo MacDuff.”
Forty-Nine
Lunch is wonderful.
But of course it is. Jed organised it. And Jed knows me better than anyone in the world.
Retro opened in the city not long before Viggo arrived. There were flyers up on the noticeboards at school and stuck to telegraph poles in Bangarra. It’s a fifties’ style rockabilly cafe, but its gimmick is a jukebox with music from the forties to the nineties.
And it has special days that celebrate particular decades. Sometimes, it has nineties’ days.
Of course, I’ve been longing to go, but I never mentioned it to Viggo. I knew there was no point asking.
Jed asked me one day if I wanted to go with him. Viggo was there, though, so of course I said no.
But my heart ached.
Now, my heart is singing. It may be singing bad nineties’ bubblegum pop, but it’s singing.
“Stay there,” says Jed as we pull up outside. He clambers out of Talullah and races around to my door and holds it open for me. Viggo never did that. Viggo never opened doors for me, never carried my bags, never pulled out my chair.
And I told myself it was because he was a feminist. Because he respected women. Because he considered us equal, not weaker.
And I ignored the voice in the back of my head that said, You can’t really be a feminist, Viggo. Because you don’t like it when girls are loud. You don’t like it when we’re opinionated or confident. You want us to be seen and not heard. You don’t open doors for us because you don’t care enough to do it.
I don’t expect Jed to open my door. And I don’t need him to. Women are more than capable of opening doors for themselves.
But sometimes the gesture is nice. Because it means someone cares.
“Thank you,” I say softly as I step out of the car. Jed takes my hand.
“You’re welcome,” he says.
I can’t help laughing. “Jed?”
His eyes are searching my face. “Yes?”
“Be a bit more metal,” I say. “Be a bit more Jed.”
Jed makes his hand into a “devil horns” salute. “Satan,” he says, laughing. Then he shakes his head. “This is Jed,” he says. “It’s just fancy Jed. It’s ‘taking Connie out on a date’ Jed.”
A shiver runs up my spine. “Is that what this is?” I ask. “A date?”
Jed’s face pales. “It can … I mean, it’s not … it doesn’t have to … shit, sorry, Connie. I didn’t think. I mean, you just broke up and …”
I put my hand on his mouth. “It’s fine,” I say. “A date is fine.”
And it is. I mean, sure, it feels weird—Jed is my best friend—but … it feels right too.
Viggo felt hard and scary and uncomfortable.
Jed feels right.
“Let’s go and have a date,” I say.
“And then, afterwards, you can tell me the last memory.”
I nod, ignoring the lump in my throat. I don’t want to have to say it. I don’t want to have to relive it.
But it happened. It’s real.
And somehow I know that, when I tell it to Jed, that’s when I’ll start to make proper sense of it. It’s only seeing it through Jed’s eyes—and Patience’s too—that has made me realise Viggo MacDuff isn’t quite as awesome as I thought he was. Somehow I know it’s only through telling that final memory to Jed that I’ll know what actually happened that night at my party.
And then maybe, finally, I can let it go.
Maybe, finally, I can forget about Viggo MacDuff.
Maybe I can stop loving him.
I shiver again. Because I know, deep in my heart of hearts, that I do still love Viggo MacDuff, a little bit.
But I need to stop. I need to stop now. Because standing next to me is a long-haired metal fan who has always loved me just for me.
I take his hand. “Let’s go and eat and sing along to Steps songs,” I say.
“Maybe they’ll play some nineties’ Metallica,” he says hopefully.
“Unlikely,” I point out.
“Unlikely,” he echoes. “But I don’t really care. Because I’m here with you and that’s all that matters.”
Fifty
Afterwards, we walk out into the afternoon light, with our bellies full of sushi and cappuccino and our ears full of an assortment of nineties’ pop, indie rock and, yes, even some nineties’ metal.
I’m feeling joyful. I had the best time, eating and laughing, and nattering to Jed about all the old crap we used to talk about. Music and movies and kids from school. And how exactly we’re going to find a Tardis in Bangarra. Nothing worthy. Nothing serious or important. None of the stuff that Viggo and I would have discussed over lunch. Just fun stuff. But, somehow, it feels important. Because I’m talking about it with Jed. And it’s our fun, silly stuff.
Jed-and-Connie stuff.
Coned stuff.
And I realise, as we’re talking, that there was no Viggo-and-Connie stuff. No “Congo” stuff. There was only Viggo stuff.
Why the heck did I let myself disappear? Why did I become Constance?
I know why. Because Connie never felt good enough. But why didn’t she feel good enough?
I ask Jed. “I have no idea,” he says truthfully. “I told you how wonderful you are, all the time. So did your parents. And my parents. And Patience. I think …” He rubs his temples. “Connie, there’s this organisation I’ve been reading about that helps geeks with depression …”
“You think I have depression?” I ask, ignoring the part about me being a geek. I am a geek. Or at least I was until a year ago.
Jed shrugs, pushing a chunk of sticky rice around his plate. “I don’t know how else Viggo could have taken you over as thoroughly as he did,” he says without looking at me. “And, also, there’s more. I was remembering how—at primary school—Viggo used to get kids to do stuff for him. He’d pick the bullied kid, the sad kid, the awkward kid and he’d offer them friendship in exchange for … things. Services, I guess. Like getting his lunch or packing up his gear for him at the end of the day. Then, after a while, he’d get sick of them—they’d do something to annoy him or he’d just get tired of their company—and he’d move on to the next kid.” He looks up. “I never realised until recently that I was one of those kids.”
“But … you and Viggo stayed friends,” I protest. “He didn’t move on from you. And you weren’t a sad kid … were you?”
Jed shrugs again. “I think I was a sad kid. Until I met you. And Viggo didn’t have the opportunity to get sick of me, because he moved away. And I kept … providing services for him. I’d mail him over his favourite organic coffee beans that you can only buy at the Bangarra market, or articles he wanted from the local paper, or I’d provide him with gossip about people from primary school. I even emailed him the notes I took in class, so he could ‘compare our educational institutions’.” Jed rolls his eyes. “Yeah, right. I kept on being Viggo’s servant. I never realised it, though. I just thought we were being friends. I should have noticed he never gave anything back. And I should have known by then, anyway, what real friendship is. Because I had it with you.”
“Actual crap,” I breathe. “He really is a Class A Space Pig. Thank you for finally making me realise that.”
“I think maybe that was the easy part,” Jed says. “The hard bit will be getting you to realise you’r
e worth more than the way he treated you. The past year I’ve been able to work that out myself, but you were in deeper than I was. Viggo was just a childhood friend to me. He was your boyfriend. And I think the way you feel about yourself goes much further than Viggo MacDuff.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t need to. I know he’s right.
As we climb back into Tallulah, Jed says, “You know, if you’re not comfortable telling me what happened at the party …”
“I am,” I insist. I’m not really, but something tells me I have to. I have to tell the truth, to the one person I feel comfortable telling it to. “Let’s go somewhere, though. I don’t want to tell you at home. In case you get, like, really aggro and yell and Dad hears you. Because if he knows what happened, he will literally kill Viggo.”
“I might literally kill Viggo,” Jed says. He gives a grim smile. “Or I might help you work out some other way to punish him.”
“How could we possibly punish Viggo MacDuff?” I moan. “He’s already got everything he wanted. He got perfect grades so he’s going to be off to the best university. And, probably, by now he’s got some other minion to do his bidding. Hell, he’s probably taken up with Kacey Kuusela. She was always hanging off his every word. I used to think he wouldn’t go for her because she’s … not really intellectual. But if he could change me he could change her. And she already has the fashion expertise. Plus, she’s pretty …”
I flinch at a memory of Viggo telling me I could be almost pretty “when I made a bit of effort”.
At the time, I’d taken the scrap of a compliment, holding it in my heart like a warm comfort. “Almost pretty” was good, right? And he’d given me constructive criticism for how I could improve myself. That meant he cared.
“You are very pretty,” Jed says. “And beautiful. And cute. And … sexy.” His voice croaks on the last word. He covers his embarrassment by continuing quickly. “And smart and wise and funny and … everything. You’re everything, Connie-girl. To me, you’re everything.”
