by Penni Russon
Because I knew I was being Zara and not myself, I kept dancing, even though I felt glaringly alone and self-conscious. Zara had disappeared to hang out at the couches in the dark corner (which was where I wanted to be). It seemed Zara was better at being Tilly than I was at being Zara.
As people moved to make space for me on the dance floor, I fought my fight-or-flight instinct. Every part of me was screaming to run away. People were looking at me, and not because I was being funny, but because I was – shudder – dancing. I concentrated on the music. I told myself firmly that everyone’s kind of alone on the dance floor, unless you’re one of those couples that kiss and dance at the same time. Like the couple that kept bumping into me.
I swayed around the dance floor, moving, but not too much, but I managed to bump into someone anyway. I was pretty sure Zara didn’t bump. She seemed to have an uncanny grasp of her personal space. I turned around, fighting the urge to apologise, because I thought if Zara did bump she was probably good at ever so slightly making it the other person’s fault. Anyway, it was Ivan.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered to my boobs and continued to look around.
‘Ivan! It’s me, Tilly.’
He looked again. It gave me a swelling feeling in my stomach, the good kind, to think he hadn’t recognised me. Did I really look that different? I felt different. I could feel all this air round my head and bare shoulders and my – ahem – cleavage.
Ivan frowned at me and for a moment I thought he still didn’t know who I was. ‘Is Zara here?’
I didn’t tell him that was actually a trick question.
‘She’s around,’ I said, shrugging. It was hard being cool because Ivan smelled really, really good and it was making me breathe in quick breaths. I could feel the pulse in my neck throbbing, and I wondered if he could see it.
‘She was behaving strangely,’ he said. ‘She was kind of jumpy. And did you see what she was wearing?’ His lip curled in vague disbelief and maybe a shade of horror. Or mock-mock horror.
‘Yes,’ I said, trying not to sound defensive. After all, Zara was me. So that was my outfit he was dissing. ‘But it is a theme night. What are you here as?’
Ivan blinked.
‘You could be Peter Parker,’ I said. ‘You can’t be Clark Kent because he wore glasses. But Peter Parker didn’t really have a disguise, he just looked sort of soft and gormless.’ Ivan raised his eyebrows. Had I just called him soft and gormless? ‘Or . . . I know! You could be, like, on Star Trek when they land on Earth in the past, only it’s like our present, and have to pretend to be one of the locals and try and fit in with the latest fashions.’ Suddenly I realised I was being too Tilly, I was a twittering fool. Ivan continued to stare at me. The more he stared, the more I wanted to talk. So I looked away, channelled my inner-Zara, shrugged and said, in an I-don’t-really-care-about-anything voice (you know, that voice that girls use that’s a bit like a cat yawning), ‘Or, you know. Like, whatever.’
It wasn’t just about being Zara. His expressionless face was starting to irritate me. He offered nothing. He was kind of hard work.
‘You cut your hair,’ he said finally. I was torn between being annoyed that it took him so long to notice and being all melty and puddle-like because he had noticed.
How does Zara do it? I mean she has boyfriends, right?
How does she stay so cool around them? I should ask him to dance, I thought. Would Zara do that? Or would she just beguile them into asking her? Considering I was only Zara for one night, I didn’t think it was realistic to expect beguilement. I opened my mouth to ask Ivan. But the words didn’t come. I was just standing there with my mouth open. Stuff like this would never happen to Zara.
Ivan stood looking at me for like five whole seconds (which doesn’t seem like a long time when you write it down, but it is when it’s Ivan Sutherland looking at you), then suddenly he looked away. ‘Well. Have a good time, Tilly,’ he said curtly and he walked off. Leaving me bamboozled, I can tell you. I was relieved to see him go. I couldn’t be Zara around Ivan, I just wasn’t cool enough for that. Besides, he was kind of my brother tonight and that was just icky.
But even after he left, I could still smell his aftershave, as if it was hovering, a perfect Ivan-shaped cloud of pheromones, exactly where Ivan had been standing.
I dithered, which is almost the same as dancing, but with less swaying. Part of me was willing to give it another shot. I had the outfit. I had the haircut. I had the make-up, the mask. Part of me really wanted this to work. But another part of me screamed to go and find Zara and beg her to trade back. Was I really willing to admit failure so soon?
‘Tilly? You came!’
I turned around. It was Sawyer. He looked amazing. He was wearing a tux, which really set off his dark-lashed eyes. Remember I said he was indie rock hot? Well, that night he was a runaway smash hit.
‘Bond?’ I guessed.
‘James Bond,’ he replied, very seriously, with a Sean Connery accent.
‘Does that really count as a secret identity?’ I asked. ‘James Bond is the most famous superspy ever.’
He looked me up and down, ‘I don’t think I want to know what you are. Wait. Yes, I do. I really do.’
‘Well,’ I said, coyly. ‘It’s supposed to be secret identities.’
‘Not telling, huh?’ Sawyer asked, with his lazy grin.
‘Wanna be a Bond girl?’
Call me slow, but it was only at that moment I realised we were dancing. I mean, I was dancing and he was dancing and he was leaning over to talk right into my ear, occasionally cupping my arm with his hand . . . so, we were dancing together. Now, that’s a big deal. It’s never happened to me before. I’ve danced near boys. But usually when I dance I do it in a group, in a big circle, and sometimes there are incidental boys in the circle but mostly I’m with the other geeky girls. And, hello? He was touching me. He hadn’t said anything for ages but his hand was still on my arm. He was smiling right at me, looking as if I was the only girl in the room. My skin under his hand felt like there were bugs crawling all over it, but in a good way. I was shy, painfully shy, but being Zara helped. I kept dancing.
‘I take it back,’ he said suddenly.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘I take it back,’ he said again, louder.
‘No, I mean what do you take back?’
‘I don’t know any girls who look like you.’
And that was when I melted into a soft goop all over the floor.
Nah, not really. We just kept dancing.
Chapter Eleven
Zara
Sitting still was almost painful. The pounding repetitive bass was revving me up, I wanted to dance, to feel the music vibrate through me as if it was driving my body, stronger than blood, stronger than my own heart, beating against that big hard bone that sits in the middle of your chest.
When I go out – to clubs or raves or parties or whatever – there are always people who sit around the edge of the room, not dancing or anything, just talking or watching. I don’t get it. How can they keep still? How can they not move? I’m like a puppet on strings once the music gets inside me. It’s not about choice. You become part of something bigger, this throng of people, all driven by the same beat, as if you all have the same blood, the same heart. You’re not you anymore, you’re just part of the music, part of the place.
It’s kind of like surfing, I guess. Except the sea’s a dance-floor that dances back.
‘No dancing,’ Tilly had instructed. ‘Sit. At the back.’
‘But what do you do?’
Tilly shrugged. ‘People-watch. Talk to other nondancing geeks like me. Eat. Stay at home with my mum and dad and do the crossword. I don’t really go out that much. Not to places like this.’ She looked defensive. ‘We don’t have to do this, you know.’
I was quick to answer. ‘I want to.’ I couldn’t explain my desperate desire to be Tilly for a night, or at least to not be Zara. Not to Tilly, not even to myself.
‘Zara. Zara.’
Ivan sat down next to me. I don’t know how many times he’d said my name. I leaned back in the chair and crossed my arms. ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked. Ivan never goes out. I mean he goes out, like, he leaves the house and stuff. But he doesn’t go out. I stared at him, and said, suddenly suspicious, ‘Are you checking up on me?’
Since when had Ivan cared what I was doing? He’s been shrugging me off since I was three years old. By the time I was ten (I’m a slow learner) I didn’t bother to follow him around anymore, I knew enough to know he’d never have time for his little sister. We weren’t close, we were never close. I had more history with Tilly or Mieke than I did with Ivan.
‘I didn’t want another night with Mum and Dad in the caravan,’ Ivan said. ‘I thought I’d see what was happening here. Not really my scene, though.’
‘Why don’t you leave then?’ I was being a bitch, but I couldn’t work out what he was really doing there. I had an uncomfortable feeling that he knew about the text messages. What if he told Mum or, worse, Dad? I didn’t want anyone to know about them. It was bad enough I had to read them. But to think of Dad reading those things – Zara Sutherland is a pricktease – made me shudder. And, like I said, since when did Ivan care?
Ivan looked at me with this wounded-dog look.
‘See ya, Zara,’ he said. And he did leave. I remembered I was supposed to be Tilly. I felt bad. She wouldn’t have treated Ivan like that, especially not her own brother. But before I could follow him, some other guy sat down where Ivan had been.
‘Pretty amazing view,’ he said, leaning in towards me and raising his voice over the music.
I was about to shrug. I felt my face close over, that seal of boredom taking over my features. But I was Tilly. Suddenly I was furious with Ivan, it was his fault. He’d made me be Zara again.
Tilly talked to anyone and everyone, young and old, ugly or not. Not that this guy was ugly. He was all right, just ordinary looking.
‘Yeah, it is,’ I said. ‘Amazing.’
‘Not dancing?’ he asked.
‘I’m not much of a dancer.’
‘Me either. Is that a costume?’
I looked down at myself. ‘Kind of,’ I said. ‘What about you?’ I nodded at his clothes, an ordinary shirt and jeans.
‘I’m in the witness protection program,’ he said.
Okay, it was kind of clever. I know Tilly would appreciate it, so I laughed politely.
‘Do you want a drink?’ he asked, raising his own glass as if to demonstrate what a drink was.
I shook my head. Tilly was way too sensible to let a strange guy buy her drinks.
‘If you don’t dance and you don’t drink, what do you do?’
‘I don’t really know,’ I said. I looked around, hoping to find someone else to talk to. There was something about this guy that made me uncomfortable. Where were the groups of geeks that Tilly said she talked to? There were a few groups but I felt funny about inserting myself into one of them. It’s not like I have trouble making friends, but usually I don’t think about it. Somehow being Tilly was making me self-conscious.
It was then that I noticed Tilly was leaving. She was heading off the dancefloor, and I hoped for a moment she was coming this way. But she wasn’t alone. She was with a guy. It took me a moment to recognise it was Sawyer, the waiter, looking all studly in a tux. He had his hand on her back and was steering her protectively through the crowd and out the door onto the deck. Tilly was in a daze.
Suddenly it was me that was feeling protective. Tilly wasn’t used to guys like Sawyer. What if, when she was pretending to be me, she ended up doing something she might regret later? But I couldn’t just barge out there and demand to know what he was up to. I didn’t want to embarrass her. Then I remembered I was Tilly. Would Tilly come looking for me? I thought about the night before, how she was waiting for me when I came out of the surf.
Witness Protection guy was saying something to me.
‘What?’
‘I said it’s loud in here. The music.’
‘Yeah, it is,’ I said. ‘I’m going outside.’
He followed me. It wasn’t till he started walking that I realised he was drunk. He was mostly fine but he stumbled out the door onto the deck. There were a few couples out there and a group of girls, but I couldn’t see Tilly and Sawyer.
‘What’s your name, anyway?’ he asked.
I hesitated. ‘Matilda,’ I said.
‘Waltzing Matilda,’ he said.
‘Yeah, like I’ve never heard that one before.’ I knew Tilly got it all the time. ‘Look, I’ll see you later. I’ve got to find my friend.’
‘Okay,’ he said. But he didn’t leave.
I walked to the edge of the deck and looked out. The path was lit intermittently between the club and the beach but I couldn’t see them.
There were two directions they could have gone. One was down the path towards the beach, which would be bad because there were lots of little paths that came off the main path into the dunes and then of course the beach itself was huge, so the chances of finding them were slim. The other direction was back around the clubhouse to the resort, where the main courtyard and the pool were. Witness Protection followed me down the steps. I decided to try the courtyard first.
To be honest I didn’t know who I was now, Tilly or Zara, but I guess I had enough of Tilly left in me not to tell Witness Protection to piss off. Besides, he was kind of droopy and harmless looking, a bit bleary from alcohol and just sort of . . . well, like I said, ordinary.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked a couple of times, blinking.
‘I just want to find my friend,’ I answered.
‘What’s she look like?’
‘Um, she’s got short hair. She’s wearing a black top. She’s with a guy called Sawyer.’
‘Sawyer,’ Witness Protection said knowingly. ‘Eye for the lay-deez.’ He sounded like a bad drivetime radio DJ.
‘Yeah, that Sawyer.’
Witness Protection spoke very earnestly, the way people do when they’re drunk and they really want to get a point across. ‘Look, Sawyer’s a good bloke. Trust him with my life. ’S a top bloke.’ Then he made some vaguely rude gesture and said again, ‘Eye for the lay-deez.’ I quickened my pace, hoping to leave him behind.
I got to the courtyard. Damn. They weren’t there. Which meant the beach path. I turned around. Witness Protection was standing at the entrance of the path, swaying slightly. He’d pulled a small bottle of something out of a pocket, it looked like whisky or brandy, something brown and nasty.
‘Drink?’ he asked.
‘No, thank you,’ I said, stepping to one side to get past him. But he sidestepped too and blocked my way.
‘Come on,’ he leered. ‘Put hairs on your chest.’
‘Listen, I just want to find my friend. Do you mind getting out of my way?’
‘How about a kiss first? Come on, just a kiss.’ He leaned forward.
I tried to push past. He grabbed my arm.
‘I’m not kissing you,’ I said, pulling my arm free.
‘Then I’m not letting you pass,’ he said. He was still drunk, but something, adrenaline maybe, or expectation, made him stand up straighter. His eyes were bright, his voice was clearer.
Call me slow, but that was when I realised how stupid I was, coming up a di
mly lit path on my own with a drunk guy I didn’t even know. I’d felt protected, being Tilly. I’d felt safe, shielded by my dowdy costume, by my new identity. But I was still Zara. I was still this girl. Words crawled under my skin: pricktease, you want this, I’m watching you.
I shoved Witness Protection guy, hard enough that he lost his footing and stumbled back into the spiky grass growing on the sandy mound behind him. I gave him a hard kick for good measure then I ran down the path. My breath was in my ears and my jaw was set so hard it hurt. My vision was jerking around because I was running and my eyes hadn’t adjusted yet, but I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t anything. I wasn’t Tilly. I was never really Tilly. I was nothing, I felt nothing. A tightness in my chest and a cramping muscle in my leg, that’s all. That was all I was.
Memories flashed – I’d felt exactly like this the night of Kayla’s party. After I walked in on Marcus and Kayla, I’d run down the stairs and out the front door. I’d forgotten Tang Yi. I was desperate to leave. I saw Rio getting in the car with these two guys – Dante, her boyfriend, and Dante’s brother. I couldn’t remember his name then, but I know now: Lochie. He was blond, his hair stuck straight up and he had a square forehead and the bridge of his nose was really long. Actually I could picture his face right then better than Witness Protection’s, better even than Marcus’s.
‘Are you going now?’ I’d asked Lochie as he opened the driver’s door. ‘Right now?’
Lochie shrugged. ‘Yeah, I guess. Wanna ride?’
I looked at Lochie’s car, an old Toyota. Dad always said Toyotas were reliable, right?
Later I told myself I didn’t know for sure that he’d been drinking . . . but it was a lie. His eyes were bright and he was slurring his words. Rio and Dante certainly had been. As soon as they got into the back seat they started kissing; I could hear Rio moaning as I slid in the seat beside Lochie and did up my seatbelt.
