Close Ups and Mess Ups

by Natasha West

  ‘What are you doing?’ Robbie asked, watching me try to disappear.

  I hushed him, glancing over my shoulder to check the sight lines. Ashley wouldn’t see me if I stayed right where I was. I didn’t know why I was avoiding her, exactly. I was acting out of blind panic.

  ‘Allie, who are you hiding from?’ Robbie whispered to me, kind of rolling with my request, kind of not. I promptly felt shame seep into my soul. I was hiding from someone I’d been sleeping with and my little brother was here to see it. Not my best day.

  ‘There’s a girl…’ I started to say and he nodded quickly. ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘No, it’s not like that’ I murmured, irritably.

  ‘Not like what? I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘No, but you said, ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘So you’re not trying to hide from some girl you’ve done it with?’

  Smart little bastard. ‘Oh, shut up.’

  He turned smugly as we reached the end of the queue. ‘And I’ll have curry sauce, if you please’ he told me. I put the order in and then we had to move away from the counter to wait for someone to yell out for collection. The flaw in my plan suddenly became apparent as I shuffled to the window to wait. I turned and Ashley saw me straight away. She walked out of line, walking over to me and planting a light kiss on my cheek, ‘Hey stranger.’

  ‘Ashley, hi!’ I said, trying to seem like I hadn’t seen her five minutes ago. ‘You’re sticking around for break?’

  ‘Yep. Who’s this?’ she said, looking at Robbie.

  ‘This is my brother.’

  ‘Right, you told me he was coming to visit. Robbie, isn’t it?’ she said, flashing him a charming smile. How did she remember his name?

  ‘Nice to meet you…’ he said, turning to me expectantly. But I didn’t catch on and Ashley jumped in to tell him her name. God, was I fucking this up.

  ‘How do you know my sister?’ Robbie asked.

  That little bugger, he already knew what the situation was. He was fucking with me. I was going to punch him in the throat first chance I got.

  ‘We’re friends’ Ashley said casually.

  ‘Number ten!’ yelled a man behind the counter.

  ‘I’ll get it’ Robbie said and dashed to the counter, leaving me with Ashley.

  ‘You didn’t text me back’ was the first thing she said. I wasn’t sure if she was mad or not, her tone and face were unnervingly neutral.

  ‘No’ I replied nervously.

  She nodded, still very even. ‘So that’s that?’

  That was indeed that. After I’d gone home with Cameron, it had started something up. We were seeing each other. We hadn’t talked about being exclusive, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t juggle two women. Even if I had been the kind of person who could balance multiple relationships, I didn’t have the time or energy for it. Perhaps I should have been a bit more pro-active about shutting down the Ashley thing officially, I knew that was what an adult was meant to do. But here we were instead, doing it in a chip shop, while my brother stood eating chips nearby and pretending not to listen.

  ‘Ashley, I had a lot of fun-’

  ‘God, please don’t do that’ she said with a frown, the first bit of mild emotion I’d seen during this brief yet charged discussion. ‘Don’t give me a load of clichés.’

  I looked away from Ashley, embarrassed. I didn’t like this at all. I didn’t want to hurt Ashley’s feelings but honestly, I didn’t know if there was anything to hurt. We’d been shagging and now we weren’t. If she wanted a fix of hot sex, half the school would have been happy to oblige her, I knew full well. Maybe that was what was pissing her off. Everyone chased Ashley. She’d literally driven a man mad from thwarted desire. And I wasn’t following that trend any longer. No wonder she was being a bit pissy. I was rejecting her. She’d probably never had that happen to her before.

  ‘So you’re with Cameron now, I take it?’ she asked.

  How did she know that? No one knew about us.

  ‘Saw you snogging outside the theatre’ she informed me. So that was that mystery solved.

  ‘Sorry. Or, I don’t know…’ I shook my head. I was out of my depth in this discussion. Ashley probably had this talk with someone once a week.

  ‘She’s kind of a downgrade, don’t you think?’ Ashley asked with a light sneer.

  My mouth fell open in shock. It changed to anger pretty quickly. ‘Hey, don’t talk about Cameron like that.’

  Ashley smiled thinly. ‘Whatever.’ She walked out of the chip shop.

  I’d made the right choice. Ashley wasn’t a nice person. She’d never shown me that side of herself before, but I couldn’t say I hadn’t been warned that it was there. Now I’d seen it for myself.

  ‘What the hell was all that drama about?’ Robbie asked, his mouth full of fried fish.

  ‘You don’t wanna know’ I told him.

  On the way home, Robbie kept talking about Ashley. ‘She was hot. Is that the level of woman you’re getting with?’

  I breathed through my nose. ‘Looks aren’t everything.’

  ‘Easy for you to say’ he exclaimed.

  ‘How do you do in that department’ I deflected. ‘Got a girlfriend?’

  ‘No’ he said, miserably. ‘Don’t have time with all the schoolwork I gotta do. Also, girls don’t like me’ he added matter-of-factly.

  ‘I like you and I’m a girl’ I said, realising quickly how weird that sounded. ‘You know what I mean’ I amended with an eye roll.

  ‘Let’s skip over the creepy implications of that and go straight to the bit where you’re supposed to like me because I’m your brother.’

  ‘No I don’t. I have to love you, yeah. But liking you? That’s not in the brother/sister contract.’

  He shrugged but I could tell he was touched. ‘Maybe.’

  Later, after we’d eaten our chips, we went back home to find Zara and Mike in the living room, thankfully not mid-coitus. They weren’t in the middle of a row either so that was a minor miracle. They were usually doing one or the other.

  ‘Is this your brother?’ Mike asked and got up to give him a manly handshake. Robbie was taken aback by that, I could tell. People don’t usually shake hands with teenagers. But Mike was Mr Manners. ‘I’m Mike, this is Zara.’

  Robbie’s eyes nearly fell out of his head when he saw Zara. But if she noticed, she didn’t seem to care.

  ‘So, you think you might come to BSF at some point?’ Mike asked Robbie.

  ‘Oh, no, I doubt it. I’m not really creative, at least not like that. I think I’m going to be a teacher.’

  I looked over at him, shocked. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You never said.’

  ‘You didn’t ask’ he shrugged.

  I went quiet. How did I not know that? I thought I knew everything in Robbie’s life. But at some point in the last six months, he’d made a major life decision and I’d missed it. Considering the last few months, I realised we’d stopped Skyping. I’d always been busy with school, as well as other things. I figured I’d make it up to him on this visit.

  The doorbell rang. Mike jumped up to get the door and Zara looked at my brother, assessing him unabashedly. ‘You two look different.’

  ‘Different mothers’ I explained.

  Zara nodded, losing interest instantly. She did this all the time, started conversations that she immediately got bored of. I wondered how Mike felt about that. It was probably the reason he was either arguing with her or having sex with her all the time. It was probably the only way to keep her interest. It sounded exhausting.

  Mike walked back in. ‘Cameron’s here’ he announced and in she walked.

  ‘Oh! Cameron’ I exclaimed as she walked in behind Mike. ‘Did we have plans?’

  ‘No, I was just passing. Sorry, is this a bad time?’

  I looked back and forth between Robbie and Cameron, unsure of what to do. I’d been planning this weekend for a while. I probably shouldn
’t let Cameron hijack it, however accidentally. But then again, I didn’t want to offend Cameron.

  ‘Actually, Cameron, I want you to meet my brother, Robbie.’

  Robbie waved at Cameron. Cameron’s eyes went wide. ‘Oh, this is a bad time, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s fine’ I assured her.

  ‘Nope, I’m a party crasher so I’ll go’ she said assertively. ‘Robbie, nice to meet you.’

  She ducked back out and I looked to Robbie with an apology and stood. ‘Just gonna see her out’ I told him.

  At the door, I caught up with Cameron. ‘Hey, come back in.’

  ‘Nah, it’s fine. Have fun with your brother.’

  ‘You sure you won’t stay?’ I asked, slipping my hand into hers. She smiled and shook her head. ‘Let’s make plans once he’s gone.’

  ‘Alright, I’ll call you’ I said as she slipped out the front door.

  I went back in to find Zara sitting next to Robbie. Sitting close. ‘So you’re sixteen? That’s the legal age for a lot of things in this country, isn’t it?’ she was asking him. I didn’t like the way she was asking it, not remotely. Looking at Mike, neither did he. ‘Leave him alone, Zara’ he said, gently yet firmly.

  ‘Why? Are you jealous?’ Zara asked Mike.

  Mike inhaled deeply. Robbie looked unsure. He’d just become the next thing that Mike and Zara rowed about. And I wasn’t having Zara use my brother in her sick little sex game with Mike.

  ‘Robbie, why don’t we go up to mine for a bit’ I said, shooting Zara a warning look. She shrugged and smiled. He stood but I wasn’t altogether sure he wanted to be parted from Zara, even though he was smart enough to know something was weird about the situation. He was, after all, still a teenage boy being paid attention from a hot French girl. However grim the thought, I had an inkling that Zara had just acquired a permanent position in my little brother’s spank bank.

  Upstairs, Robbie turned to me and said, ‘What was that?’

  ‘She’s playing with you.’

  ‘What for?’ he asked me, confused.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What’s the point of doing something like that? I mean, she was trying to wind her boyfriend up, I get that. I just don’t see the point. Is that what girls are like?’

  ‘No, not always. And don’t pin the games just on girls. I know boys who do that sort of thing as well.’

  ‘Like the girl in the chippie, is she like that? Is that why you broke it off?’

  I sighed and sat down at my desk chair, spinning to face him. ‘You might be getting a disproportionate... It’s… I don’t know, people at school, they’re just like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘It’s hard to explain. Gameplaying is part of the culture.’

  Robbie frowned, turning that over. ‘That sounds horrible.’

  ‘You get used to it’ I told him.

  ‘But you don’t do things like that, do you?’

  ‘With someone I’m seeing? No, I wouldn’t pull that kind of shit’ I told him fervently. I didn’t want him to think badly of me, not even for a second.

  Robbie looked suspicious. ‘What about in other situations?’

  I instantly thought of the play, the way I’d spoken to that actor. I’d gamed him. But not just to get my jollies, the way Zara had done downstairs. It had been to get the best work out of someone. It was different.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ Robbie asked.

  I shook my head. ‘No, it’s nothing.’

  ‘Go on, tell me’ he insisted.

  I sighed. ‘No, it’s just, you wouldn’t get it.’

  ‘Why, because I’m not a film maker? Are you people some sort of special breed now? Us plebs can’t understand you?’

  That hurt. It was as though a hole had just opened up in the ground between us, a yawning cavern. How long had it been there? I wasn’t sure. I just knew I wanted it gone.

  ‘Robbie… No, I just… Christ, fine. There was an actor in my play and he wasn’t doing a very good job of playing the emotions on the page. He needed to be angry, but he couldn’t get there. So I made him angry. And it helped his performance.’

  Robbie’s eyes went wide. ‘That’s… Allie, that’s fucked.’

  ‘No! You don’t get it. It’s part of the process’ I told him, starting to get irritable. He wasn’t seeing this from my side. He wasn’t even trying to. ‘My teacher told me, that’s how you have to get things done sometimes.’

  ‘Then your teacher’s a shit.’

  ‘No, she isn’t! She’s just hard on me because she knows how things work.’

  ‘Are you talking about that woman who ripped your short to bits at your interview and made you cry?’

  I sat back in my chair and looked away from Robbie. ‘That was a long time ago. I didn’t get what she was trying to do for me.’

  ‘And what was she trying to do?’

  ‘Toughen me up, teach me how to take criticism’ I explained.

  Robbie looked at me for a long moment and something crept into his eyes that I’d never seen. He was looking at me as though he didn’t know me. It was awful.

  ‘Robbie, you wouldn’t understand about this because you’re not a filmmaker’ I told him angrily. ‘If you’re gonna be a dick about things, I’d rather you go home now.’

  Robbie looked at me surprised and I thought I’d shocked him into realising he was being judgemental. I thought he’d let it go, maybe say sorry.

  But instead, he called my bluff. ‘Alright’ he said finally and stood. He picked up his bag and walked out. A moment later, the front door banged.

  I wasn’t going to chase after him and beg him to stay. If he was going to take a massive shit over everything, then he could go home and stay there.

  Term Three

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Mmm?’ I mumbled, still asleep.

  ‘Allie, wake up’ Cameron demanded. ‘It’s half-eight. You’re gonna be late.’

  ‘I don’t really mind’ I told her sleepily.

  I heard a deep sigh and then felt a shove. ‘Come on, you gotta get up. Think of Kim’s face when you come in late. She’ll give you that icy glare.’

  I opened my eyes slowly and looked at Cameron, stood next to the bed, fully dressed. ‘How do you know about the icy glare?’

  ‘Everyone knows about it, Allie. She doesn’t save it up for the directors. I once got it because I stopped the lift she was in.’

  I yawned. ‘Now I feel less special.’

  She sat down on the edge of the bed and kissed me on the lips. ‘Are you up now?’

  ‘You’re giving me a hard time and it’s all your fault that I’m this tired in the first place. And not even for sex reasons! Not completely, anyway.’

  ‘You’ll be happy when you can walk in with a completed script, ready to go’ Cameron said, smugly. ‘Who else is going to have that? They’ll be scrabbling around for the next few weeks.’

  She was right about that. For once, I wouldn’t be a step behind everyone else. I had a script and a producer lined up for the final project. After Robbie had stormed off, the first thing I’d done was call Victor to ask if he was attached to anything for the final project and if not, did he want to work with me? He wasn’t, and he did.

  My second call was to Cameron, asking if she had any good ideas for a movie. She had a million and she came around straight away so we could sort through them. I picked my favourite and Cameron ran off to write it. She came back two days later with a first draft of a twelve-minute film, a horror short of course. It was her best script yet, she’d clearly learned a lot this year. After that, it was just a case of seeing ways to bring out the most visual side of the story. Cameron took every note without complaint and stayed in my room while she redrafted, showing me her work as she went. Last night had been final touches and now we had something that as far as I was concerned, was just about ready to go.

  It had been an intense few days of sc
ript development, mixed with occasional sex breaks. It was a great way to structure the work day.