“Dunno,” was all he said, and took a sip of his beer. “There are some things about it I like.”
I had a feeling I knew where this was going, and it couldn’t go there. We couldn’t have that kind of conversation.
“Do you want to do a dare?” I asked.
“What?”
“You know. To get your mind off things.”
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Are you chicken?”
“Chicken? Are you five?”
I shrugged, leaned back, sipped my beer.
“She just texted me back and she said it’s fine,” the girl was saying from behind me.
“That’s so great!” Saanvi’s voice.
“Fine!” he said. “Tell me, what is it?”
“Hmm,” I said, pretending to look around carefully. Really my mind was racing.
I turned my attention back to him. “See that girl over there.”
“At the bar?” he said.
“Yeah.” I leaned in close, spoke mock conspiratorially. “The one wearing black, facing toward us.”
He craned his neck to see past the bookcase. “Yep.”
“Her name is Saanvi. I used to know her.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I said, “at uni. I met her a whole bunch of times and she always forgot who I was.”
“How could she forget who you are?” he said in pretend shock-horror.
“So the dare is. Go up to her and pretend to know her.”
He cocked his head. “Huh?”
“You know how when someone says hi to you and you have no idea who they are and you just have to play along. It’ll be so funny.”
“Surely that won’t work.”
“It will. Say you did architecture with her at school—that’s what she studied.”
He looked from me, to her.
“Say...” I continued, “say you were friends with Matt Solloway. That was her boyfriend. He was one year ahead of her.”
“I don’t know.”
“C’mon,” I said, leaning even closer, “it’ll be so funny.”
“Saanvi?” he asked.
“Saanvi.”
He took a gulp of beer and got up, crossing through the screen once again.
“Saanvi!” he said.
I peered through the bookcase, and saw her look up at him in surprise.
“Hi,” she said.
“How are you?” he asked.
Saanvi looked between him and her friend, and laughed. “I’m okay.”
“Still doing architecture?”
“Yeah,” she said, looking really confused now. “I’m working for King & Dinisen.”
“That’s awesome. Good on you.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Um, and you?”
“Same old,” he said. His eyes slid from her to me and I smiled at him. “God, it’s so good to see you.”
“Yeah,” she said slowly, “you too.”
“I miss architecture school so much. Good old days, right?”
“Dunno about that,” her friend said. “I don’t remember you. Were you in our year?”
He was stricken then, but only for half a second.
“Nah, year above. I was Matt’s mate, remember? Matt Solloway.”
It was perfect. So perfect. Her face fell.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I’ve gotta go. Hot date.”
They turned to me and I shrank into the shadows.
“But we should totally catch up sometime,” he continued.
“Yeah,” she said, struggling to recover, “yeah, that would be nice.”
“Cool. Well, you’ve got my number.”
And then he actually did it. He actually leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.
He came back down and sat across from me. I put a finger to my lips, and we listened.
“Do you know him?” her friend whispered.
“Yeah,” Saanvi whispered back, “sort of. I guess I must.”
I put a hand over my mouth to stop from laughing.
“I don’t remember him hanging out with Matt.”
Saanvi didn’t reply.
“Where is Matt anyway? He was so, so good. Totally the last person I’d thought would have dropped out.”
“I think he’s in Canada,” Saanvi said, her voice sounding strained. “I should probably head home. Early start.”
I looked at Evan and shook my head.
“I can’t believe you,” I whispered. “That was so good. You’re so fucking good, it’s unbelievable.”
“I’ve got a dare for you,” he said.
“What?”
“Kiss me.”
23
I shouldn’t have done it. I knew it straightaway. Not in the moment of course. In the moment it was simple. I wanted him. I leaned over our beers, put one hand to the side of his neck and pulled his mouth to mine. His lips were warm and soft, but not gentle. We kissed each other urgently, we couldn’t get enough. There was no hesitation, no second thoughts, only butterflies and fireworks and weak knees. All the things that you are meant to feel. All the things I could never have.
We went back to the restaurant and Evan said congratulations like he meant it and Bea was smiling and Aiden was pleased. Evan grinned every time he caught my eye and I knew it was wrong but it had felt so good.
* * *
“I’ve got a present for you,” Celia told me the next morning. We were sitting on her couch, where she was telling me about one of the many marriage proposals she had gotten. I was only half listening. I couldn’t stop thinking about last night. About the kiss. About Evan.
“Great,” I said.
Celia had given me presents before. One was a record, even though she knew I didn’t have a record player. And after she’d seen me talking to Evan out the window, she gave me a black lace G-string, which may have originally been Nancy’s. Or hers.
Now she was passing me a parcel wrapped in squashy red wrapping paper. The paper was crumpled, with bits of sticky tape stuck to it. She’d obviously saved it from a gift someone had given to her.
“Thanks,” I said, and put it into my bag. “Time for your meds.”
“I already took them.”
“Why is it you always take them before I get here?”
“Do you want to count the pills in the bottle? You can if you like. While you’re at it why don’t you smell my breath to make sure I’ve brushed my teeth and inspect my bottom to make sure I’ve wiped.”
“That’s just gross.”
“Is it time for our walk?” she asked.
“Okay,” I said. I got out my laptop and opened up Facebook. I went to Mel Moore’s profile page. I visited it so often, it was almost automatic. I scrolled down through the changes to her profile picture, the dumb comments in French that I’d already Google translated. I went to the picture of Mel standing outside a house, the caption reading My new home. Mon Amour! I studied the house again, although I knew it so well I could probably draw it from memory. It was two stories, painted a crisp white, with a blue door and two circular windows on the second level. I opened Google Maps. Keying in the train station Mel had mentioned in her tweets, I switched over to Street View. We panned up at the building, then began moving down the street.
This was another one of Celia and my routines that we’d somehow fallen into. Every few days, we’d take a “walk” on Google Maps. I knew Mel’s house must not be too far from the station. We just had to find it.
“Let’s turn off at Rue Saint-Hubert today, Ava-babe.”
“Alright.”
The apartments were so different to anything in Melbourne. Set close to the road and four stories high. All the tiny balconies had ornate railings, some with plants trailing down from them. A man
leaned out from his balcony, his face blurred. A woman crossed the street, frozen in midstride. As we ventured farther down we saw cafés with seats outside the front, all facing out to the street rather than toward each other. I wondered if Mel ever sat in those chairs. I wondered if she ever looked at the passing crowd and thought of how she got to live in such a beautiful place. Thought of how it wasn’t luck, it wasn’t skill. It was because of me. Because of what I’d done all that time ago. What I’d done after the party, in the weeks before we graduated high school.
“I went to France once,” Celia told me. “It wasn’t really my cup of tea, but I think you’ll enjoy yourself.”
“Yeah, one day.”
My phone buzzed and I looked down to it. A text from Evan: Movie tonight?
“Who was that?” she asked, trying to look over my shoulder at the screen.
I slid the phone back in my pocket.
“Do you want to play cards?” I didn’t want to answer her question. I just needed some distraction, for a moment; everything was spinning too quickly. Before she could answer I got the packet of cards and moved to sit down on the carpet on the other side of the coffee table. I began stacking the cards into piles. It was a game called Spite and Malice, or Cat and Mouse. Celia had been the one to teach me, and we played it together often now. It was a bit complicated, but definitely beat Snap.
“Ready?”
“Yes.” She picked up her cards and held them close to her nose so she could see them.
“You can go first.”
She nodded and put an ace down in the center.
I put mine next to hers, trying to focus on the game and not the thoughts pinwheeling in my head. I wanted Evan. I wanted to run over to his house and into his room and push him into bed and climb onto him and kiss him and never stop. I wanted to walk down the street hand in hand. I wanted to be the good, nice, normal person he thought I was. But I wasn’t. If I let him in, he’d see that. He’d see what I really was. The thought of it made me feel sick.
I looked up at Celia. “Can I ask you something?”
“You just did. But you can ask me something else too, duck, as long as it’s something interesting.”
I swallowed. “Do you think it’s obvious to people what I’m really like?”
“And what are you really like?”
“I mean, do you think people can tell that I do things like—” I waved my hand toward the image of the Parisian street on the screen. “Like that. Do you think I’ll ever be able to be like everyone else? Be normal?”
She put down three of her cards, when she was only meant to be playing one at a time. She was cheating, right in front of me, but I didn’t care. Once she’d inspected her new hand, Celia surveyed me, pursing her lips, which she’d painted a dark maroon to match her bra straps that were peeking out of her low-cut top.
“I’ll tell you something, Ava-babe. It’s important, so make sure you’re listening. When I was a kid they called me different. When I was a teenager they said I was wild. When I was a young woman they called me eccentric. When I turned sixty I was batty. Now they say I’m demented.”
She leaned forward, her perfume so strong up close it stung my nostrils, and whispered, “I don’t think I’m the right person to ask about being normal, but I’ve always thought the best way to live is to embrace your crazy. I’ll tell you now it’s always a hell of a lot more fun.”
* * *
I went by the grocery store on my way to Saanvi’s to buy bleach. It was Saturday, which was usually when she did her washing in the machines in the basement of her complex. Just one load of all black.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Evan again: I downloaded Spellbound. I imagined it, sitting with Evan in his warm house. Eating crappy food and making jokes. Maybe leaning into him on the sofa, feeling his warm stomach against my back, his breath on my neck. I closed my eyes, focused.
That wasn’t who I was.
I went around to the back of Saanvi’s apartment block. Found my spot in the laneway, expecting to find her as I usually did: sitting in front of her computer, eating bad takeout. I’d do something to her, and I’d feel better. I’d get a release from the pressure that had been building up in my skull all day.
But Saanvi wasn’t alone. The girl from the bar was with her. They were playing that godawful Selena Gomez song up loud, drinking red wine out of tumblers and packing Saanvi’s things into large cardboard boxes.
Saanvi was moving. She was leaving. And she looked happy. I’d failed.
If Mel was there she’d be laughing and calling me an idiot. I could hear the contempt in her voice, You loser, how are you still so pathetic?
My phone rang. Evan.
I ducked out of the laneway, answered, worried they might see the light.
“Hey! Did you get my messages? I’ve got Spellbound, corn chips and some terrifying-looking liquid cheese. Are you in or what?”
Couldn’t he see? Couldn’t he see what I was? Not only a monster, but a failure. A bitch. A creep. A psycho.
“Just leave me alone!” I yelled at the phone.
* * *
I didn’t go over to Evan’s house after that, and he didn’t come to mine. I kept telling myself it was for the best. I was protecting him from myself. Still, it felt nice to know he was close, to be able to look out my window down the street at night and see that his light was on. But that changed.
I’d just finished for the day with Celia. It had been a tough one. She’d told me the lunch I made tasted like dog shit and refused to eat it. I’d tried to give her the pain medication she was meant to have with meals, but she wouldn’t take it, insisting she’d have it once I left. It was blisteringly hot, but I was glad to get out of the stale air-conditioned air of her house. I didn’t have my sunglasses, so I was squinting into the sunlight, walking slowly up the hill back to my house. I was staring up at the bluest of skies that seemed to go on forever and ever. As I turned onto my street, I thought about how I’d pass Evan’s house. He might be in his kitchen and maybe if I looked inside, he’d smile at me. That’s all I wanted. Just a smile.
As I approached, I heard his and Aiden’s voices.
“Just one more.”
“Are you serious, Evan? There’s no way it will fit.”
“There’s stacks of room.”
“Yeah, but I need to see out the back.”
“No, you don’t. Live dangerously.”
“That’s so reckless.”
I turned the corner and stopped. My feet glued to the hot cement, my breath stuck inside my throat. I felt a coldness oozing down my arms, getting into my veins, freezing my stomach, making my skin turn to gooseflesh. Their car was packed with boxes. Aiden was by the boot, trying to rearrange the items squashed inside.
Evan came out of the house, another cardboard box in his arms.
“I’m serious,” Aiden said when he saw him. “I’m not driving if I can’t see. It’s completely irresponsible.”
“I’ll put it in my lap. Don’t stress so much, old man. God, you’re really going to miss me, aren’t you?”
Aiden was about to retort, when he stopped. He’d seen me standing there by the road, staring at them. He raised a hand in greeting. Evan turned to me. I tried to think of something to say. Anything. Something that would fix all of it. But he turned back before I could even open my mouth.
“Come on,” he said to Aiden, then got into the passenger seat, and snapped the door closed behind him.
I found out from Bea that he was moving into a share house near the city and that he’d enrolled in an accredited course. He was starting over. It was like the cards were reshuffling in the worst way. Bea left. Evan left.
Bea was only over the road, but it wasn’t the same. Mum worked nights so most evenings it was just me, alone in the house, gorging myself on photographs of Mel in Paris. Making
stupid fake plans of what I’d say to her if I ever saw her again. What I’d do to her. I knew how pathetic I was, but I couldn’t stop.
Evan didn’t text or call. He didn’t want to be my friend, and I didn’t blame him. I tried not to even think of him—it was too hard. He had allowed me some glimmer of hope, and now that had been snuffed out. Things were never going to get better for me, I’d always be broken inside, no one could fix that. The only change in my life would be for the worse.
Things changed for Saanvi too. Every few days would be another post on her Facebook. Her and two other girls sitting around a fire: Best housemates ever! Out on the town, with drunk eyes, and cheeks pressed together: It’s official! King & Dinisen promoted me! They are using my design! Who wants to come help me celebrate?
I knew I was in the past for her, long forgotten. But still, these posts felt like they were directed at me. Like she was mocking me. It was done. I couldn’t make things right, but I couldn’t move on either. Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night sweating, terrified that I’d be stuck in this lonely limbo forever.
24
Three Little Lizards. That’s what Bea’s book was called. I didn’t believe it was real until I saw the books piled high at the entrance of the store; her drawing was right there on the cover. I could recognize her style anywhere. Three lizards standing on their hind legs, wearing little hats and bow ties. Illustrations by Beatrice Berne.
The bookstore where they were doing the launch was small but inviting. It was squeezed between two Italian restaurants on Lygon Street, fifteen minutes out of the city center. Every corner was filled to the brim with books, which made fitting a crowd in difficult.
“Sorry,” someone said, as they elbowed me in the ribs.
“’Scuse me,” came another voice, right after they’d stepped on my toes.
I managed to get my mum and myself a glass each of cheap pink wine. I’d wanted to reach the whole way to the front so I could congratulate Bea and wish her luck before the speeches started, but there was no way I could make it up there. I was trying my hardest not to push as I attempted to get back to where my mother was standing.
The Spite Game Page 13
