One Step

by Andrew Daddo

  I don’t know how he would have found out, but if he’d been asked, he definitely would have told me. Besides, Ryan’d be fine when he found out I’d been invited. I’d tell him what happened after, but maybe not everything. Wouldn’t want it to sound too good.

  I’d just go. Anywhere was better than here.

  I checked my phone for coverage because things were very quiet. That’d change by Monday when word got out about going to Gracie’s no-dickheads party and I was one of the non-dickheads who’d been invited. I should have eaten something, but guessed there’d be food once I got there. Mum’d made me put some chips in my bag, so they’d do for now.

  I was pretty amped, in spite of what was happening at home. I felt light; possibility beckoned like a cartoon finger in front of me.

  It wasn’t quite dark enough for the street lights to cast shadows, but most of the cars had their lights on. The odd fruit bat whirled above and had me thinking of Dracula and other stupid stuff.

  Relationships, eh? Mum always said the cards never lied.

  It was a relief but not a surprise to see the boat still there. After having a look around and trying not to look too suss, I went to the back and pulled the bag of Dad’s beer out from the engine well. They were all there, and closer to cold than warm. I hadn’t really had beers before, not this many, anyway. Dad used to give me a taste of his beer at barbeques when I was little. He’d be like, ‘Me little trooper. Here you go, mate!’ And he’d give me the stubby and I’d have a sip and everyone’d laugh their heads off. Not Mum, though, she’d always be, like, ‘Really? He’s four years old.’ And Dad’d blow wind and say, ‘It’s nothing.’

  It was eight o’clock, and Gracie had said to come at eight, but I’d seen enough Pretty Little Liars to know it’s pretty awks to be the first to turn up. I sat on the kerb by the boat and cracked one of the beers, holding it as casually as possible and feeling very, very cool in an imposterish kind of way. It wasn’t quite how I’d imagined this moment to be. But how many moments turn out the way we build them up? Except for sex – I’m pretty sure that would be amazing. It will be amazing. She will be shiny and oily and hairless and I will be an awesomely buffed and an abilicious version of myself. I drank half the beer and left it on the mudguard of the boat. I was jazzed. Everything felt like it had been building to this night – who knows what might happen?

  And the beer tasted like crap.

  I had a piss on the boat and smiled at the thought that this was as close to the water as she’d been for ages. It was time to go. It would have been better to front up to Gracie’s with someone else, that was for sure. I hadn’t actually thought through the whole arrival thing, what I was going to do, or say. There were pictures in my mind of how it might pan out, that it wouldn’t be a party so much as a small get-together. It could be one of those hook-up nights, or maybe a lifesaver party. If they exist. That would be brilliant to turn up and see all the girls with different coloured lipstick – that’s the big giveaway, apparently. I don’t know if I could keep that secret when I got back to school Monday. I reckon I’d have to not shower so I could show someone all those different colours on my tool.

  The beers were in my backpack and I kept an eye out for anyone else arriving as I got closer to Gracie’s. It was a nice enough house on the corner of Augusta and Raglan; not fancy, no better or worse than our place, just different.

  It was basically dark; the front light was on, but there was no noise to speak of, no mad music blaring or live bands rocking out. From a distance, it looked like there was nothing going on.

  Why was I so nervous? I felt my armpits and the material was wet – not damp, wet. I’d have sweat patches for sure, but maybe she wouldn’t be able to see them given the material was pretty funky. They might be camouflaged.

  Out the front, I could just hear music and a bit of talking, not stacks of people, but a few. It was on. Paar-tay. I could leave all the shit from home at Gracie’s front gate and finally have a night I’d want to remember.

  Should I leave the beers in the bag or have them out ready to give, like Dad would at a barbeque? Hi, or hello or hey? I decided on just, ‘Hey, Gracie,’ and she could lead from there. I felt good, though. Not much got this exciting.

  When I knocked on the door, nothing happened for a little while, so I knocked again, harder. There was still nothing. I took a step back and looked around, and that’s when I saw the doorbell. Der. So I gave it few presses and was instantly annoyed at myself because the ding-dongs were pretty loud and it’d sound like someone desperate to get in.

  It did the trick, though, I could hear someone coming.

  The music stopped with the talking.

  I had my face pressed to the glass and watched the warped, pixelated person come down the hall. A light came on above the front door and I backed off.

  It was Gracie. Her hair was pulled back off her face and she’d managed to get more make-up on than usual. She was still hot. She only opened the door wide enough to peek through the gap, but when she saw it was me she opened it further so she could get her head out.

  ‘Hey,’ I said.

  ‘Hey, you,’ she said back, before looking behind her and then coming out the front door and closing it. ‘You scared me. I thought it might be some peddo or something, ringing the doorbell a thousand times.’ Her cut-off shorts were short enough to let the pockets stick out from the bottom, and her singlet looked big enough to be her dad’s. I was staring, we both knew it.

  ‘Yeah, sorry,’ I said. ‘I knocked and that, but then I saw the doorbell and so, you know.’

  ‘Didn’t you get my text?’

  There had been no text. I must have looked at my phone a million times today but there was definitely no text from Gracie, just from Madison saying she wasn’t coming. ‘Yeah. Nah. Nah, I don’t think so. What was the text?’

  ‘No party tonight. It’s off. I’m pretty sure I sent you the text.’ She was looking past me to her front gate, then behind her at the closed front door. ‘Sorry, yeah. It’s not on tonight.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, like a moron.

  ‘Yeah, I know. Sorry. I think there’s a gathering up the beaches. At Avalon, I think.’ Her voice was higher than normal.

  ‘Oh. Okay, that’d be cool. I thought I heard music and talking and that. It sounds like there’s a party. A bit.’

  ‘It’s the TV – so loud. Me and Hannah are watching some crap. Yeah, Avalon. It’s a big one. It should be pretty epic.’

  How was I going to get to Avalon? ‘Oh. Okay. You going?’ I said. ‘Do you wanna, like? We could go together?’

  ‘Nah, I’m staying in. I’m, like, really tired. So me and Hannah are going to try and eat our body weight in chocolate and go to bed.’

  She nodded and smiled as she said it, making me wonder if it was an invitation. To go to bed. With her. Like, I didn’t think it was, but imagine, right?

  And I was joking when I said, ‘Best offer I’ve had all night,’ because who would say that and be serious? It’s, like, right out of Home and Away and that’s how I meant it to sound, only Gracie looked at me as if I’d said something super offensive.

  ‘Alone, actually, Dylan. Do you think I’d just ask you over here and take you to bed, like I’m what? Easy or something? Is that what you think?’

  ‘Oh, no, I was just – it was a joke, and –’

  ‘Hilarious,’ she said, before disappearing behind the front door and slamming it. The front light went off, too.

  ‘Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck,’ I breathed. It was like some serious weight had been dumped on top of me, like it was being pushed onto my head and the back of my neck, and I was folding in the middle because I couldn’t sustain the weight of it.

  How did that go so wrong? I hadn’t meant that, it was a joke, it didn’t mean anything. I never said she was easy, I wouldn’t. Why would I?

  There was noise from inside.

  A guy maybe, or possibly a couple of people talking, and then laughing. My hand lingered ov
er the doorbell as I stood still and listened some more, but there wasn’t much else. It must have been the TV. Ours was always on and always blaring and it always sounded like there were heaps of people there when there weren’t.

  I zombie-walked, trying to distance myself from my own embarrassment.

  ‘Shit fuck shit fuck shit!’ This’d play out well by Monday. This’d go great. My cool debut and I’d basically called Gracie Chilcott a slut, inviting myself into her bed. I could always deny it. I’d have to. It’s not like anyone knew I was coming, not for sure, anyway.

  I could barely breathe.

  I was so hot. Hot and wobbly, like everything was moving around me but I couldn’t quite keep up. I got about four houses away before I had to sit on the kerb to stop things spinning. No matter how I re-imagined the conversation, there was no way to make the words ‘best offer I’ve had all night’ any better. So stupid. So very, very stupid!

  I could go back. Just knock on the door and apologise and say it was a dumb thing to do, that it wasn’t meant in a mean way. I could tell her I like her, that might make it better. Say she looks nice, that I hope she gets a good mark for my poem and it didn’t matter that she’d used it because I’d already knocked up another one. If I tried hard I could remember most of it. Maybe I could recite it to her, that’d be something to do. I could say it was about her.

  I should just man up and make things right.

  Her house was throwing distance away. It wasn’t too late, if things didn’t have a chance to stew they were always fixable. I watched the house. I was sure a light was on at the side that hadn’t been there before. Her place was on the corner. I could do a reccy from the side fence before going back to the front door.

  Another light went on. And as I got closer, there was definitely an increase in noise from the back of Gracie’s place.

  People were laughing back there.

  And shushing. You know? ‘SHHHHHHH! Shut up, SHHHHHH!’ It definitely wasn’t the TV.

  Seriously? Are you kidding? I got wobbly again, as if I had prickles all over me, worse than pins and needles. I needed to piss and shit and thought I’d explode from being so pissed off. Like the sacrificial actor in a horror movie, I kept moving towards Gracie’s house.

  People were out the back talking quietly. The smell of cigarettes lingered and I hung in the shadow of her fence listening, trying to put names to voices, looking for a gap, wondering how I’d failed the no-dickhead rule when others hadn’t.

  ‘I feel so mean.’ It wasn’t Gracie.

  ‘Did he really say that?’

  ‘Yeah.’ That was Gracie.

  ‘Bullshit.’ It sounded like Ryan, but it couldn’t be. He would have told me he was going. How could they let him in, and not me?

  ‘He did.’ And it was Gracie, and she was laughing, and she goes, ‘I said I was going to bed and he said straight-faced, like he was serious, like he’d expect me to ask him to bed with me, and he goes, “That’s the best offer I’ve had all night.”’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘He did not!’ I’d swear to God that was Madison Ansey. ‘Dylan would never say that. He’s not like that. Is he?’

  Madison wasn’t going to Gracie’s. I’d got her text. I felt like such an idiot. Why would she do that?

  I edged further along the fence and found a gap in the timber. It was an obscured view into the backyard, but it was enough. At least Gracie hadn’t lied about it being a small party. Ryan was sitting on a step next to Isabella. He looked awkward, kind of balled up and uncomfortable. Madison was there, sitting in a hammock next to Sully.

  It was too much.

  I punched out a text. ‘Didn’t miss much at Gracie’s. Party cancelled.’

  Madison’s phone let out a gentle melody. ‘Oh, shit,’ she said, after looking at the screen. ‘He’s just texted me. He’s telling me the party’s cancelled. I feel terrible. I told him I wasn’t coming.’

  Hamish Banning walked out through the back door and hollered at the sky, ‘See you, loser!’

  If I’d been a hundred metres away I’d have heard it.

  ‘Shut up, Hamish,’ said Madison. ‘What if Dylan hears?’

  ‘He knows he’s a loser.’

  ‘No, he’s not,’ said Ryan.

  ‘He photographs his own arse!’

  ‘Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?’ said Madison.

  ‘Tell ’em, Ryan. It’s hilarious,’ said Sully. His grin was massive. I couldn’t believe it. I had no bigger secret in my life. It should have been safe with Ryan. Even though we don’t spend all our time together, he’s still my best friend. At least, I thought he was.

  A groan escaped as my throat tightened. The waterworks weren’t far away now.

  Ryan looked at him with his hands out. ‘I told you not to say anything.’

  ‘It’s hilarious!’ laughed Hamish. ‘It’s the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever heard!’

  ‘I might have exaggerated,’ said Ryan.

  Just say you made it up, Ryan, I whispered. Save me.

  ‘Bullshit. You can’t make that stuff up. Tell ’em. I’ve told everyone. My dad nearly pissed himself. My brother did piss himself.’ Hamish had the floor. I watched in horror.

  ‘Dylan’s such a cock. He’s in the change rooms at school by himself and Ryan went in, right. You did, didn’t ya?’ Hamish was nodding at Ryan, but Ryan had his head down. ‘It was that gym class. The one when I gave him the atomic wedgie. You had to get something, didn’t ya, Rhino? And Dylan was there and he had his arse cheeks pulled apart and his phone camera on and he was taking a photo of his arsehole. Wasn’t he! You saw it. Sully told me. Fuckin’ hilarious!’

  ‘That has to be an urban myth,’ said Hannah. ‘That’s happened in America and you read it and . . .’

  ‘It’s crap,’ said Madison. ‘Dylan didn’t do that.’ She was laughing, but looked kind of horrified.

  All eyes were on Ryan. ‘Well, he did . . .’ said Ryan. ‘It was funny. But you can’t say anything. And what Hamish didn’t say, which I definitely said to Sully, was he had something wrong back there and wanted to see what it was. So really, it’s not that bad. He wasn’t just photographing his arsehole for fun.’

  ‘He was going to put it on Grindr.’

  ‘Gay.’

  ‘Definitely gay. Told youse.’

  ‘And he wanted to go to bed with me?’ said Gracie. ‘How’s that work?’

  That was enough.

  The world was spinning at warp speed. It was impossible to process what had just happened, and even harder to work out where to go from here. It was unfixable, that was for sure.

  There was no coming back from that. I couldn’t go home to Mum’s questions because there were no answers.

  ‘How was the party?’

  ‘Orright.’

  ‘What’d you do?’

  ‘Nothin’.’

  ‘Who was there?’ she’d say.

  ‘No one. Not really. Dickheads, mainly. It was boring. I was so worked up for something big to happen, but nothing did.’

  ‘Mmmmmm,’ she’d go. ‘Something’ll happen soon enough.’

  If only nothing happened.

  I’d give everything for nothing right now. I cracked one of the beers and started walking – not home, just anywhere else. If I could have got away from me I would’ve. I skolled half the stubby and threw the frothy remains into the night. The bottle smashed on a car, setting off the alarm so I gapped it. Me and the siren stopped at about the same time, and I was thankful for the distance between me and Gracie’s place.

  My head was full of static; it was the snowstorm on the TV when the aerial’s been disconnected. But I could hear well enough. The laughing, the incredulous cries. Madison saying, ‘He wouldn’t do that, would he?’ And ‘Gay’ and ‘He wanted to go to bed with me’.

  I didn’t want to go to bed with you, you overly made-up princess. It was a joke!

  A distant doof doof, another party. I walked towards it, hearing the odd shriek a
nd laugh as I got closer. I wondered if I knew someone there – maybe I should just walk in and see. But everyone I wanted to know was behind me. I could get lost in the company of strangers, but word’d get out soon enough. I’d be an internet sensation by morning, nothing was surer. If Ryan had a photo of me, I was cactus.

  Some older kids skated past. If they saw me, they didn’t care. Dead man walking. How good would it be to be skating tonight, that mad rush of wind and fear and speed wobbles down Raglan Street. The knowledge that one little stone in the wrong spot would be the end of you, but glory beckoned from the bottom of the hill. Where was my glory now?

  Everywhere was quiet. Second-storey lounge rooms glowed blue with big TVs, all the houses at ground level had the curtains drawn.

  I should have just gone home, but necked another beer and kept walking like I had somewhere to be. The right spot would turn up. Eventually.

  It took three beers to get to the safety fence at Jump Rock. ‘Salt water heals everything,’ Dad had said. ‘It is your spiritual homeland.’

  Dad had to be right about something.

  That last step’s not such a big thing, not nearly as bad as I thought.

  I’d just have to lift one foot off the railing. To actually let myself kind of fall forward so I could get going. Get moving. One step would get that next step under way.

  I heard someone on the TV say once that running is falling forward and stopping yourself from going splat on the pavement by taking the next step – they said the fastest runners were the ones closest to going splat the most often. They said that running fast was hard unless you were prepared to fall a little, to take the risk, to lean forward, to let yourself go.

  I’m a crap runner. I’m obviously crap at everything.

  But I’d be flying soon enough.

  I’d be off and flying and wouldn’t they all talk about that.

  I’d been up there for a while now, on top of the council’s new safety fence, balancing back and forth like I was on a big fat tightrope, waiting for just the right moment. It wasn’t scary. In truth, it wasn’t even as high as the 10-metre tower I dive from in competitions.