by Fiona Wood
‘Aren’t you waiting for your date?’ I ask.
‘Phyl’s my date,’ says Estelle, linking arms with her.
‘I assumed you asked a guy.’
‘Why would you assume that?’ she says airily, walking off without waiting for an answer.
Huh?
Fred and Lou arrive in time to see Estelle going in with Phyllis. Lou gives me a penetrating look.
‘So, large, unexpected carpe diem opportunity arises,’ she says.
‘Don’t blow it, big guy,’ adds Fred helpfully.
Gulp.
‘You two look stylish,’ I say in a feeble attempt to take spotlight off self.
‘Thanks,’ says Lou.
‘This was once the Gazelle’s,’ Fred says, pointing to his suit with tragic emphasis.
‘You’re not saying . . . ?’
‘I, too, could become a middle-aged fat guy.’
Lou looks at us with amused incredulity.
‘Middle age? Middle age? We’re fifteen. Who cares about middle age?’ she says, dragging Fred inside.
My heart starts filling with helium as I allow myself one moment to wallow in Estelle’s ‘why would you assume that?’ Why did I? But then, why wouldn’t I?
Whoever wrote the book on girls, I wish they’d send me a copy, with a full glossary of terms. I go back to ‘love you big time’ where I’ve spent lots of time recently, and I know one thing for sure: I have to kiss Estelle tonight. Or die trying. I remember my stupid cake instructions. The kiss has to happen no later than twenty minutes before midnight. It seems wrong that the timing of a kiss should be dictated by a cake order. I hope it’s not an omen.
Em has transformed the gym into another world. A smoke machine has turned the floor into a drifting cloud. Lights pick up the ground and mid space only, making the ceiling disappear. The floating mist is shot through with melting colours, purples and blues morph into pinks and reds that grow orange, golden, green and then turquoise. The colours glow, dissolve, then shatter and splinter into strobe. It’s the real deal.
Trestle tables form the ‘bar’, where the transposables are serving drinks. I look around for food but can’t see any. I ask Em if she’s noticed where they’re serving food.
‘I’m guessing it wasn’t their spending priority,’ she says.
It’s soon clear the refreshments budget has basically been spent on vodka. The transposables are busy telling people ‘lemon’s single, orange is double, lime’s triple’. Shots. They’ve spent the whole afternoon emptying part of the contents of all the soft drink bottles and replacing what they tipped out with vodka. People can’t believe their luck. The bar is being stormed.
‘Is there any food?’ I ask. I’m not hungry, just keen for reassurance there’s some alcohol absorption on its way.
‘Totally, but like way later. Gotta let everyone get their buzz on, hun,’ says Dannii.
‘What about people who don’t want to drink?’ I ask.
‘Yeah like that whole end is loser drinks,’ she says, waving a stencil manicure in the direction of one end of the bar.
I’m wondering whether I could get kicked out of school for this. I asked the transposables to take over refreshments, so does the buck stop with me? Probably. There’s not a thing I can do about it now. Getting between my year level and the alcohol would be a suicide mission. No, it’s as inevitable as an erupting volcano. I’m about to be responsible for a heavy-duty, illegal session of underage drinking. Someone might choke on their vomit and die, crowd violence could erupt, children could be conceived, and it will all be my fault. The least I’d deserve would be to get kicked out of school. But how would that mesh with compulsory attendance? Maybe they hold classes at the boys’ reformatory. Is there even such a thing as a boys’ reformatory any more? Would I literally be locked up or could I attend on a sort of outpatient basis, perhaps with an electronic ankle band?
I look around for Fred and Lou, both calm types in a crisis. Unfortunately, they are already making like limpets on the dance floor and it doesn’t look as though anything short of a tsunami could prise them apart.
So I tell Oliver about the drinks. He calmly gets on the phone and orders some cartons of bottled water to be delivered. He tells me to spread the word that they are spiked too, thereby ensuring they’ll be drunk, with any luck diluting all the alcohol swimming around.
Estelle and Janie are dancing with Phyllis and Uyen and a bunch of other girls who were at primary school together. I warn them about the amount of vodka in the drinks and remind Estelle and Janie that they can’t risk getting trashed tonight, seeing as they’re officially not here and they have to get back to Estelle’s room via a ladder, making no noise unless they want to be grounded for their natural lives.
Estelle grabs me and shouts over the music, ‘Don’t be so responsible.’
‘I can’t help it,’ I shout back.
Outside I wait for the water and worry about the kiss. Would Estelle kiss someone she sees as ‘responsible’? Isn’t that word like an official anti-aphrodisiac? And if she could get past that and consider kissing me . . . How? When? Where? Rewind. How! How can I move on from ‘how’? I don’t know how to kiss a girl. It’s a classic learning-by-doing activity. Fred and Lou seem to have cottoned on without any trouble. How difficult can it be? And there is the crux of the matter: I have no idea how difficult it might be.
If I could only put ‘how’ out of my mind for one moment, the ‘when’ is also critical. If it could be quite soon, there’s the potential for a good couple of hours of further kissing, assuming all goes well. That alone is reason enough to act decisively. But it’s here that ‘where’ kicks in and has to be faced. What if I make my move on the dance floor and am rejected or, worse, stuff it up so badly that Estelle laughs, or is sick or something, and the whole year level witnesses my pain and/or humiliation?
From another lifetime I remember the Latin word for kiss, osculum, is supposed to be somehow like kissing itself. I say it a few times. There’s some puckering of the lips but not too much, a bit of tongue movement, but again, not too much. Who says Latin is a dead language? I decide that a slow motion and, of course, silent osculum has to be as good a place to start as any.
There’s no sign of the water delivery truck. Damn it, I would seize the day, or the night, in this case. ‘How’ is osculum. ‘When’ is now. Right now. And ‘where’ is wherever Estelle is when I walk back in there. My heart is thumping as though it’s about to explode. But there’s no going back. The adrenalin is pumping. I remind myself of her note: ‘love you big time’. I can do it. I can.
The hot, dancing throng seems impenetrable. The music warps around my jagged heartbeat. Can I really do this? Then I see Estelle, as though with ninja vision. I stride over, take her hand, draw her close and kiss her. I just do it. The osculum is a perfectly good place to start, and Estelle takes it from there. She puts her hands on my shoulders, pulls me closer, and whispers, ‘About time’. After some minor nose bumping, I am sinking hard into the impossible softness of the kiss, entangled and lost. After much too short a time in the middle of this best place, Em interrupts us.
‘Sorry to break up the love, guys, but someone’s got to be out there when the water arrives.’
I have to muster all my self-control not to shout: ‘Leave us alone!’ I have to remember that I owe Em my life. I have to imagine what this night would be without her amazing work.
‘Okay,’ I say.
‘I’ll come, too,’ says Estelle. But Phyllis and Uyen arrive, ready to pull her back to the dance floor.
‘I’ll be straight back,’ I say. ‘You know getting cold makes you sad.’
‘I know,’ she agrees. ‘But . . .’ She’s wondering how I know. (It’s on her top ten list of things that make her sad.)
I kiss her again and drag myself away.
Waiting outside, I feel delirious – light years from my pre-kissing state of mind. I completely understand the point of kissing. No wonder Fred an
d Lou are stuck together as they are.
It’s impossible to sit still. I feel as though I’ve been unstitched and remade into something that feels more like me. Walking around in the cold fizzing spring air, I’m almost pleased to be out here, to have a chance to absorb what’s just happened. Something large and happy has unfolded in my chest, erupting in a smile that won’t quit. I can’t remember ever feeling so light-hearted. Or is my heart full? Or bursting? Not aching, that’s for sure.
A pizza van arrives and two guys unload piles of flat boxes. Based on the sounds coming from inside, the food is exactly what people want.
Against the sounds of cheering, an icy hand grips me. Bam. As though I’ve built a flimsy partition wall in my head that comes crashing down revealing a billboard-size fact: I have to be honest with Estelle.
I have to tell her about the diaries, otherwise everything I’m feeling about her is a big fat lie. And I’m unworthy of her.
I’ve screwed up by kissing her before coming clean about it.
I’ve tricked her into thinking I’m someone she’d want to kiss.
Something in my head is still trying to prop the partition up. What about what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her? I try it on for size. It’s crap. Who am I kidding? Of course it can hurt her. And haven’t I promised myself to try to be good, whatever that means?
By the time the water finally arrives, I sign for it, get it inside and spread the word about it being spiked, the pleasure of kissing Estelle has given way to the sure knowledge that once I tell her what I’ve done, I’ll never kiss her again.
We see each other and as we meet up, I blurt it out. ‘I read your diaries.’
She’s speaking at the same time: ‘Did you read my diary?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘How could you do that?’ She’s struggling to believe it.
‘I’m sorry.’ Words have never felt so inadequate.
‘So, you opened one and saw it was a diary, and then closed it? You only read what you couldn’t help seeing?’
She wants me not to be as bad as I am. She’s offering me the half-truth escape card. I can seem less scummy than I am. For some reason Howard of all people comes to mind – that serious, considering look he gives with his head cocked to one side. Have things come to this, my moral arbiter is an elderly poodle?
Apparently.
I can’t sell any of us short. I can feel my heart leaving my chest, getting out before serious damage is done.
‘I read them all.’
The look of disappointment on her face flies up and collides with my heart on its way out the door.
She walks away.
Then turns back. ‘You’re . . . you were disc boy.’
I am:
1 Scum.
2 An idiot.
3 Unworthy.
4 Bereft.
5 Aching.
6 Broken-hearted.
29
ZERO TO ONE ZILLION, and back to zero in the space of one school dance.
Things can not get any worse. So I think. Wrong again. I eat some pizza with Lou and Fred, dance a bit, try to keep an eye out for Estelle who is, reasonably enough, avoiding me. Then it’s eleven o’clock, only another forty minutes to struggle through and I’ll have to round them up and get them home. If they’ll come.
That’s when Estelle staggers back in range. She is dancing with a piece of pizza. Janie is apologetic. ‘She never drinks, I don’t know what got into her. It’s gone straight to her head.’
‘How much did she have?’
‘Two lime drinks.’
‘That’s six shots.’
‘We tried to get the ones without vodka but they all got mixed up.’
‘You’re not drunk.’
‘I didn’t have anything. Too scared to risk it. And she wasn’t going to either, then it was like someone pushed her moron button.’
That would be me.
Estelle comes over, talking to the pizza slice.
‘You idiot,’ I say, feeling only affection and guilt.
‘Juur an idiot. And juur not a lovely boys,’ she says.
‘How are we going to get you back like this? What if my mum’s home early and you have to climb the tree? Did you think about that?’
‘Think, think, think. Don’t worry so mush!’
‘Who’s going to worry if I don’t?’ The story of my life.
Then while she’s asking me what’s the big deal, why’s it my business, who am I to tell other people what they should do, she falls over.
‘Do you want some fresh air?’
‘Why?’
‘You’re pissed.’
‘Are not,’ she says. ‘Anyway juur a big liar and a spy and I hate you.’
‘Come on,’ I say.
She shoves me in the chest. Jayzo sees it, and it’s the invitation he’s been waiting for. He comes over and shoves me too. ‘Get off ’er,’ he says.
‘I’m trying to help her,’ I say.
‘Don’t juu patronise me,’ Estelle says.
Someone tells us to take it outside. I don’t ‘do’ outside, in that sense, but this thing with Jayzo has been building all term and I’m not going to get out of it. I make sure Janie and Phyllis are looking out for Estelle and go outside, hearing Estelle as I go: ‘Give ’im a pasting.’ It’s not clear which of us she’s talking to but I’m guessing it’s Jayzo. And it’s not like I don’t deserve it.
The Year Twelve bouncers stop anyone following us out. So here we are, just the two of us, face to face finally.
For a second I hope the cool night air will have a sobering affect on Jayzo, but no such luck. Even as I turn to speak to him, he swings a punch in the direction of my head. I duck and shove him down onto a bench.
‘We don’t have to fight,’ I say.
He doesn’t agree. He headbutts me as he staggers up. I manage to avoid the full impact but he follows it up with an almighty shove in my chest which pulls an involuntary ‘ooouf ’ noise out of me, just like you see in cartoon fights, as I fall in a sprawling heap.
He tries to kick me as I’m lying on the ground, but it only half impacts as I manage to roll out of range, grabbing his legs. He falls, landing on top of me, and starts swinging random punches at close range while I struggle and squirm my way out from under him. He lands a thudding punch in my solar plexus. I clench too late to avoid a sharp sweeping nausea. I know I have to get to my feet or he’ll be up and kicking my head within seconds. I haul myself up, retching, while Jayzo momentarily nurses his fist.
I stand there panting, energised by the rush of horrified excitement and fear.
Jayzo picks himself up slowly, never taking his eyes off me.
‘Can we stop now? I don’t want to fight,’ I wheeze. Backing off before he kills me has to be worth one last shot.
He responds by flying at me with his full body weight so we both go crashing to the ground again. My shoulder takes a fair bit of the impact and a sharp pain shoots through it as I frantically reposition myself to swing the hardest punch I can muster. Miraculously, it lands home, a direct blow to the jaw, with a gruesome crunching sound of skin, bone, vessel, tendon all impacting way too fast, under too much pressure. If it’s hurting his face as much as it’s hurting my hand, I almost feel sorry for the guy. But not for long.
Now he’s angry. And I’m shit scared. I’m no fighter, and I know it would only take a bit of bad luck here for me to end up with brain damage or a broken neck.
We both struggle to our feet again and are circling each other. I try to remember anything my dad ever told me about fighting. Avoid it at all costs. Talk your way out of it. Run. But if you need to, here’s how to throw a punch . . .
Jayzo’s a ruckman, a lot heavier than me. I’m a runner. My advantage is that I’m quick, and I’m sober. I’m more convinced by the second that I’d be dead by now if he weren’t pissed.
‘What’s this about?’ I ask, desperate to buy some time. ‘Why are we doing this?’
‘Cos you asked for it, dickhead,’ he replies.
As the diameter of our circle decreases, I’m buzzing, ready to spring, longing to spring. I position myself in front of the bench. As Jayzo lunges at me again, I jump sideways and he bashes his knee into the bench. Now he’s roaring with fury. He charges me, swinging a fist at my head. I swerve out of his path, managing to land a solid punch in his stomach. It doesn’t set him back even for a second. His next punch strikes me squarely on the left side of my face, which feels and sounds as if it’s splitting in two. He makes the mistake of pausing to enjoy his handiwork, unguarded for a moment, and I take advantage of the pause. I heave my whole body, my protesting shoulder, and every weight repetition I’ve ever endured into that punch. It lands with a sickening crack right on his nose, which starts bubbling blood.
He sits down groaning. We’re both panting and drenched in sweat.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask.
A sound escapes his blood-covered lips. It couldn’t be, could it? A snort of laughter?
‘You wimp, you don’t ask the guy you’re bashing if he’s “okay”,’ he says. ‘Don’t you know anything?’
‘Not really, no,’ I say.
I take off my shirt and hand it to him. He balls it up and sticks it under his nose.
‘I’d keep going, only I’m a bleeder,’ he says.
‘That’s fine,’ I say. I’m alive, and it feels like a miracle.
‘That was a lucky punch for a loser nerd like you,’ he says. ‘You can’t fight for shit.’
‘I know.’
While we sit, bleeding and sore, we get our breath back and talk as the music thumps on in the background and the rain starts up again.
‘What exactly is your problem with me?’ I blurt out.
‘You’re so smart, you tell me.’
‘You don’t like that I’m smart?’
