I started opening them as I got into the lift. One of them was my licence renewal, which was well-timed for a brand new ID photo. The others were an assortment of other random things, including a hand-mailed envelope containing a brochure for a law firm. I flipped it over, and there was a note on the back. “We'd like to speak to you,” it said. “Please call us on the number below.”
I would have been much more interested in how this arrived in my mail if I didn't know how many people hated Jason and probably wanted to make sure he suffered. Well, I didn't want to dredge up and relive all that crap I'd just gone through and suffer, either. I put it at the back of the pile.
The last envelope had something inside it. I felt it through the paper; it was probably a USB. Opening the envelope, I discovered I was right. When I took it out, I saw a little black and white snowflake on it, and it took me a couple of seconds to realise that it was my USB, and someone was returning it to me. That was weird.
I unfolded the letter, and the first thing I noticed was the letterhead. It was the red crest of the University of Sydney, and underneath it had the words, Sydney College of the Arts. What?
I froze. It took me a couple of seconds to bring myself to read it.
“Dear Mr. Lee,” it read in beautiful, crisp print, “It is with great pleasure that we wish to inform you that your portfolio has been accepted and we would like to extend you one of our early placements for midyear entry into the Master of Fine Arts...”
I couldn't read any further. It was like one of those dreams where you open your bank statement and unexpectedly there's a million dollars in it. Or a dream where you've won the lottery even though you haven't even bought a ticket. I nearly missed my floor staring at this letter, but I somehow made it out of the lift and into my apartment, letter and USB in hand.
I went straight to the Smart TV and stuck the USB in the side of it, trying to figure out how this had happened. I had my art all over the internet, so it was possible someone had found it. Or maybe this USB wasn't mine after all, and someone at Frost — maybe Sarah? — had sent it in to them.
The USB was full of image files of my work, and whoever had put the portfolio together clearly had an eye for composition because they were well-chosen. The last file was a PDF, and when I opened it, it was an application letter. It wasn't professionally worded enough to be something Sarah had written, and I would certainly have done a much better job, but it was polite, enthusiastic and explained how important the course was to... me? It was signed Mr. Min Lee, and that was not my signature. The second page was blank like it had been accidentally scanned double-sided, except for two stick figures right down the bottom of the page. I had to zoom right in to see them. One was tall and one was short and they were holding hands. And they both had big, lopsided smiley faces.
Bree.
I sat back, gaping at the letter. Bree had done this. Okay, so she'd forged my signature, but she'd also obviously spent hours and hours choosing examples of my work. She'd made a portfolio for me. She'd filled in the application forms and written an application letter for me. And because of that, I now had an acceptance letter in my hand. I read the letter again, unable to believe that's what it actually was. Master of Fine Arts, I read, again and again, Master of Fine Arts.
When I was a teenager, while I was lying in bed and trying not to cry over school, I'd imagine opening a letter like this. I used to imagine working hard on my painting and creating beautiful, magical, and exotic places... And one day seeing my places somewhere. In a gallery. In a movie. Turning on my PlayStation and seeing them in one of my favourite games. Somewhere where I could look at them and think, 'I did that, that's by me!'.
Mum had never let me apply for those courses, she'd insisted on something practical. But here I was, having quit the practical job that nearly killed me, holding a golden ticket in my hand.
My hand over my mouth, I looked up at the Great Barrier Reef painting through a sea of tears. This letter is real, I thought. This is real. It's happening.
I was going to be an artist, like I'd always wanted. I was going to finally do it.
I wanted to jump right up and wrap Bree in a big, suffocating bear hug for doing this for me, but I had no way of contacting her. Well, at least I knew where she was going to be tonight, right? At that second, I didn't give a fuck how crap it made me feel to be surrounded by a sea of high school kids again. I'd weather them to thank her. I'd do fucking anything to thank her right now. I couldn't believe she'd done this, and I couldn't believe I was finally going to be an artist.
I took out my phone and hopped onto the Cloverfield website, figuring that details of whatever Bree had on would be on there. I was tabbing through the calendar, thinking their website could use some redesigning, when I got to today's date. There was only one event listed, and it was Year 12 Formal, 6pm, auditorium.
I sat back, letting that sink in. Of course, I thought, Bree had been talking about this in the restaurant when I'd first met her, and I'd completely forgotten. She'd tried to segue into inviting me to it today, as well, which meant that she wasn't going with anyone. She was going alone to her Year 12 Formal because she didn't want to trigger me, and probably hadn't even asked me so I couldn't feel bad about saying no. She'd applied to art school for me. She was constantly trying to do nice little things for me. Fuck all those judgemental high school students, I was going to that fucking formal for her.
I looked up at the clock; it was mid-afternoon. That was enough time. I left my apartment and went into the city, looking for somewhere I could buy a clean suit with a jacket that wasn't blood-stained. Once I'd bought one and then hopped in my car and sat in peak hour traffic forever, I found a park nearby Cloverfield and got out of my car just as the sun was starting to set.
Everyone else was entering the school via the main gate. Rather than running a gauntlet of prestige vehicles and sobbing parents taking a million photos of their precious daughters, I entered via the side gate, shutting it carefully behind me.
Cloverfield Ladies' College was a big historic school, just like mine had been in Melbourne. Huge, thick-trunked trees were planted all around the grandiose colonial buildings, and their leaves were turning reds and oranges with the approaching winter. I walked through the leaves, kicking them up with my new shoes.
The grounds were quiet, except for the commotion at the other end where the auditorium was. I opted to lay low until everyone was inside, so that I didn't arrive before Bree and have to stand around looking like an idiot while I waited for her.
Since I had some time to waste, I went over to a building and put my face up to the windows. It was so strange looking at these empty rooms. There were familiar things still written on the whiteboards: quadratic equations, chemistry formulae, even some Chinese characters. In another room, there were Japanese posters everywhere. The only languages at my school had been French and German.
While I was looking through the corridors at bathrooms like the ones I used to hide in, and lockers like the ones I'd get backed up against, I noticed something different.
On the walls, there were a series of posters. They were bright and colourful, showing all sorts of people of various races, and on one of them, two girls were hugging and had big smiles on their faces. Above them were two interlinked women's symbols and a rainbow flag. Another poster had what looked at first glance like a teenage boy holding up a dress in front of her in the mirror and smiling at how it made her look. 'Celebrate Our Diversity,' they read, 'Be Yourself!”
That hit me. There had never been posters like that up at my school. The word 'lesbian' was something you called sporty girls behind their backs or anyone you wanted to insult, and I hadn't even heard the word transgender until I was an adult. Even then, it was only in art house movies.
Here, on these walls, there were posters about them both. Attractive posters, and they weren't defaced. Every time a kid walked down this corridor, every time, they were reminded that it was okay to be like this. The school ac
cepted that. No, the school celebrated that.
There was no need for anyone to shut themselves away in graphics labs or hide in toilets, and there was no need for anyone to cry themselves to sleep at night for six years.
It was a lot to take in, and I had to stand away from the window for a moment because I felt like I was going to cry. Just the thought of a twelve year old with a baggy uniform and a unisex haircut being able to look at these posters and see different possibilities for themselves celebrated was incredible. It was everything I never had, and it would have changed so many things for me. I was heartbroken that this wasn't my experience, but so happy for the students for whom it was. For the kid that got to look up at these posters and know they belonged here, even if they were different.
While I was pulling myself together, the noise down the other end of the grounds was dying down as all the students moved inside the auditorium. I decided I should probably go look for Bree now, and my heart started to pound at the thought of all those students. This is for Bree, I reminded myself, and then headed across the grounds to the auditorium.
I had been standing at the bottom of the stairs trying to will myself to walk up them inside when a startled voice said, “Min?”
I looked over towards it, and Bree was sitting off to the side of the building on one of the schoolyard benches. The first thing I noticed was how completely astonished she was to see me, the second was how beautiful she was. She was wearing a baby blue satin dress and matching shoes, and she'd done her hair so the curls were larger and tighter than usual. The dress was probably a bit too small for her, but she wore it well.
“What are you doing here?” she said as she took a few steps towards me, still looking stunned.
I smiled at her. “Surprise.”
“No, really,” she said. “I thought you said this would be really difficult for you!”
I nodded, and then walked up to her, taking the letter out of my breast pocket. I passed it to her, and she read it. Very quickly, a smile grew across her face and then she looked up at me. “You got in!” she said, and then looked shocked again, grabbing my arms. “You actually got in, oh my god!”
“I didn't get me in,” I said, briefly stopping her. “You got me in.”
She looked a bit sheepish. “Well, I didn't want to tell you in case you didn't make it. Like, I did it last Thursday after you'd gone to Broome and you were feeling really bad at the time so I was like, 'no, I'd better not tell her in case it doesn't work...'” She stroked lapels on my jacket, and straightened my tie. “I just really wanted you to quit that awful job because it was really fucking you up, and so I thought if I could show you that you could be an artist if you really wanted to, it would give you something to think about...”
I smiled down at her. “Thank you,” I said. I hoped she could hear how much I really meant it.
I think she did, because she beamed up at me. “My pleasure, Min.”
Between those rosy cheeks and that big smile, I just had to lean down and kiss her. She giggled and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “I'm going to rip my dress apart if I put my arms up like this,” she said against my mouth.
“Shit,” I said sarcastically between kisses. “I really hope that doesn't happen.” My hands slipped down her body just a little; completely unintentionally, of course…
She was still giggling as I stood up again, and pulled her dress up at the armpits. I was obviously wondering about why she'd chosen it, because she sighed and said, “It's the same one I wore last year and I've put on like five kilos since then. It looks shit, I hate it. But I had to wear it anyway because formal dresses are really expensive and we couldn't afford a new one.”
“I would have bought you one,” I told her.
She nodded. “I know.” She didn't say anything else about it.
I looked around us. “Anyway, not that it's not a lovely night to be outside, but isn't the formal in there?” I pointed inside.
She made a face. “Courtney's coming with Andrej,” she said. “I was just trying to convince myself to go in, anyway.” She then turned a frown on me. “And look who's talking! You were standing at the bottom of the stairs like you were about to walk the plank.”
That was a pretty accurate description of how I felt. I could hear the number of students inside. I looked towards the door apprehensively.
She saw my expression. “If it's too much we can just go have dinner somewhere or something,” she offered. “Like, we look really nice, we could go to some really fancy restaurant.”
For a couple of seconds, I considered that. This wasn't about me, though. I wasn't here for myself. I was here for Bree. Instead of answering her on that, I just offered her the crook of my elbow. “Come on,” I said with a grin. “Let's go inside. We can suffer together.”
She looked absolutely charmed as she took my arm, walking the plank with me.
There were so many people in the auditorium. At least two hundred, I thought, and all the girls were milling around and chatting animatedly to each other while the boys stood back and looked uncomfortable. I hoped none of them would notice how much older I was than them.
Actually, no one noticed us at all. In my head, I had this vision of the entire auditorium falling silent and all swinging their heads en masse to stare at me. A few people glanced at us as we came in—mostly curious about my black eye—but otherwise, they were all busy with their own conversations.
“There she is.” Bree had her eyes fixed over on the far wall. When I looked, Courtney was leaning against it looking quite pretty herself, but there was no one with her. “That's weird,” Bree said. “If there's free food, Andrej's normally right in there. I wonder where he is?”
Before I could comment, two girls came rushing up to us. “Oh my god, Bree!” one of them said in what amounted to basically a single syllable. “You came!” They all hugged, and before Bree could introduce me, the other girl commented, “Hey, isn't that the same dress you wore last year?”
I inhaled sharply, but Bree just managed a really convincing laugh. “Hell, yes, it's the same dress!” she said, smoothing the fabric down as if she was really excited about it. “I fucking love this dress, and there was never any way I was going to wear it just once. Like, I was going through all the shops looking at all the stuff out there and I was like, all I want to do is wear this one, you know? So, whatever, there’s no law against wearing the same dress again, so I will wear it, even if it's a bit tight!”
The girl laughed. “You're fucking crazy, Bree,” she said, and then hugged her again. Both of them then looked up at me. I swallowed.
“Oh!” Bree said. “Oh, right.” She introduced us, and as she did, I was sure the girls could tell something was up with me. They clearly couldn't, though, because they just greeted me a bit shyly and then went to go and grab themselves soft drinks from the refreshment table.
Bree fidgeted a little as they left, glancing over towards the far wall. “Um,” she said to me, “I know this is really hard for you, but is it too awful if I just go over for a second to see if Courtney's okay? I’ll be really quick.”
I looked out towards the sea of students who were all largely ignoring me. “It's fine,” I told her. “Go.”
She gave me a grateful smile and made her way through the crowd over to the far wall. Courtney looked up when Bree spoke to her, and there was something about her expression. She looked embarrassed, I think, or ashamed. Bree pretended she didn't notice, and I watched her chat animatedly to Courtney as if no one had even come between them. Courtney began to visibly relax.
My heart swelled for Bree. There was no reason for her to have done that. She could have just paraded me around while Courtney was over there alone, and it would have been a glorious fuck you to her friend for choosing the flaky brother over her. She didn't, though. She went over there with a big smile and an olive branch extended.
Bree saw me watching them, and gestured at me to come over. I zigzagged through the students to whe
re the girls were, my stomach clenching as I approached them. Courtney knew me from before, and I wasn’t sure how she was going to react to me like this. Maybe Bree's told her, I thought. Or maybe she wouldn’t recognise me.
I had completely forgotten she'd seen the painting, though, and when she looked up at me, she double-took and her jaw dropped. “Whoa,” was her assessment. Bree looked pretty pleased about it.
I winced. “Hello, Courtney.”
“Hello, Prince Charming,” she said immediately, giggling. “You look different.” She stopped giggling, though, and her smile faded as she looked at the state of my cheek and eye. “Andrej did that.” I nodded slowly, wondering who had told her. She swallowed and looked a bit distant for a moment. “I guess it’s kind of better he didn’t show up tonight, then.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll keep you company instead!” Bree said quickly, and hugged her. “Would you guys like drinks? I’ll go and get us drinks! They have chocolate over there, too. Heaps of it, and all these little salmon-cream-cheese things. They look amazing. I’ll be right back,” she said, and then zoomed off to get them.
We both watched her, amused. After a few seconds, though, Courtney looked back at me. “So, like, you’re a guy now, or…?”
I grimaced and made a so-so motion with my hand. “Yeah…” I said at length, not really wanting to go into it. “Let’s just go with that for now.”
She squinted at me, looking interested in what I'd just said. I think she wanted to know more. She left it, though. “Hah, okay,” she said simply and then asked a couple more questions about how Bree was doing in general, and then that was that. She didn’t laugh at me. She didn’t ridicule me, or look disgusted, or enlist her entire friendship group to harass me. She did look a bit curiously at my bulge and I was worried she was going to ask about it, but she didn’t. It was all fine; the fact I looked like this was just an interesting quirk to her.
Bree returned with what could only be described as a whole armful of food, and took great joy in laying it all out on the bench beside us so we could select what we wanted.
Under My Skin Page 81
