‘She’ll get over it,’ Liv said, her feet on the tram seat beside me. ‘She’s just pissed off.’
‘Yeah, well, she didn’t need to take it out on me. In front of everyone. I mean, Jesus, who does that shit? You’ve seen Jed with me before; you’ve seen how he hangs around me. It really pisses me off that she then flips everything to make out like I’m the one hanging off him. If anyone was a bad smell, it was her. I mean, seriously, that was embarrassing when she said that whole thing about Gregory Peck, don’t you reckon?’
Liv frowned a little. ‘I don’t know about the Gregory Peck thing.’
I stared at her. ‘Are you joking? When we were round at Yumi’s before Jed’s. How could you not have heard her? You know, we were watching Roman Holiday? And Wilder was laughing because we were all crying – well, except you – and she said she was crying because Gregory Peck reminded her of Jed. Even though they look nothing alike.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘You know. Before the party?’
‘Yeah. I didn’t hear it. I can’t remember. Anyway, she’ll get over it. Don’t worry about it.’
I felt a stammer inside my head. How could Liv not have heard Anouk’s comment about Gregory Peck? She was there. In the room.
‘You know, just before we went upstairs to get dressed,’ I pressed.
‘Yeah.’ Liv shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’m not saying she didn’t say it. I just didn’t hear it.’
That annoyed me. She must have heard Anouk. Anouk had been so obvious. ‘And like I said,’ I continued, ‘I’m really pissed off that she made out like I’ve been chasing Jed, when he’s totally been after me all this time.’
‘Yeah.’
‘She’s always had a problem with me,’ I went on, chewing on my lip and feeling more and more outraged at the unfairness of it. ‘Ever since I started at Whitbourn.’
Even though I’ve known Yumi since we were in kinder, and Liv ever since we moved in next door to her in Grade 2, I hadn’t started at Whitbourn Grammar with the two of them until Year 9, when I was awarded a scholarship.
That first year at Whitbourn, we had to do a project for health class that we worked on at our own pace. Everyone did something different – choosing whatever it was they were interested in – and we had to regularly update our progress on our own blog. One of the girls trained for months to do a twenty-one-k mini-marathon. Yumi built a skateboard.
I did this thing where I got photos of celebrities then erased all their make-up, pulled their hair back in a ponytail, dressed them in normal clothes, and photoshopped them into different street scenes with normal people, as a way of showing that celebrities, when you strip everything back, are the same as all of us.
Political statement, consider yourself made.
Anyway, at the end of the year there was a prize for the most popular blog. And Anouk got shortlisted.
She’d fostered a seeing eye dog, a puppy, and her year-long project had been to train him and care for him, bring him to school, take him everywhere with her, and at the end of the year, give him back to the seeing eye dog people, so they could finish his training and give him to a blind person.
Of course her blog was super-popular. It had a puppy in it. What did you expect? And hey, props to her.
But on the day the shortlist was announced, when I gave her a hug and said how well she’d done, how much she deserved those props, she looked at me all fake-modest, and said in her best fairy-floss voice, ‘God, no, I’m so shocked I’m on the list.’ And then she’d added, ‘I mean, I can’t believe you didn’t get shortlisted.’ And yeah, inside myself I was secretly a bit disappointed too, but it wasn’t really a big deal. But then she’d added, ‘And you didn’t even make the longlist, which you definitely should have.’
Longlist? I hadn’t even known there was a longlist.
That was the day I recognised that the competition I’d felt between Anouk and me was real; that I hadn’t been imagining it. There’d been other small things here and there, but that little dig about me not even getting on the longlist, that was when I knew for sure.
‘And I mean, if things were the other way around,’ I went on now to Liv, as the tram rumbled along its tracks, ‘I wouldn’t go all psycho about it. I get that she’s upset Jed’s not into her, but she doesn’t need to go off at me about it. That’s got nothing to do with me.’
‘Yeah.’
I could hear how boring I was being; the way I kept picking at the same thoughts like they were scabs. But I needed to vent, and Liv was my ventee. That was the deal we had: if one of us ever felt like being the venter, the other would be the ventee.
That. Was. The. Deal.
I opened my phone and checked to see if there was anything from Jed yet. Anything. A like or a comment or a something. A photo of the two of us. Something. Just anything. But there was a whole lot of nothing from him.
A thought slotted into my brain like a coin in a drink machine.
‘You don’t think,’ I said, testing the waters of the universe with my little toe, ‘that I shouldn’t have been with Jed, do you? I mean, what if …’ What if it meant nothing to him?
Liv looked straight at me. ‘No,’ she said, her arms folded over her schoolbag. ‘Nuh. Definitely not. He likes you. You and Jed have always got on really well. Don’t worry about it. Everything’ll be fine. Anouk will get over it.’
But now that the thought had clattered into my head, it was clanking around like so much loose change.
Imagine if I’d wrecked my friendship with Anouk over a guy.
And then the guy never called.
#
We got off the tram and walked down our street, me peeling off at my house and Liv continuing on to hers next door.
I went upstairs to my room and opened my secret Tumblr account.
I hadn’t looked at it for a good couple of years. I’d started it when I moved to Whitbourn; agirlwalksintoaschool, I’d called it. A little secret something I’d never told anyone about.
Even though I’d already met quite a few of the girls at Whitbourn through Liv and Yumi before I’d started there, it had taken a bit of getting used to, the whole single-sex thing, and agirlwalksintoaschool had been my secret way of sorting things out in my head – and much safer than a diary. A diary hidden in my desk drawer could have been found and read by anyone, but my blog on Tumblr, while in a way being the world’s most public diary, was hidden in the wood of millions of gig of data. No one I knew could ever find it. Ever.
Looking back over the old posts, I saw that Whitbourn had taken a lot more getting used to than I’d remembered:
‘Hattie is ALWAYS talking about boys – blah blah blah, boys boys boys. It’s like she’s never met a boy before. God, Hattie, THEY’RE JUST GUYS!’
And: ‘Everyone ACTS like they’re all really friendly with me, but this weekend Annick’s having EVERYONE for a sleepover’ – she was Annick back then; this was before the emergency teacher called her Anouk – ‘and it’s only because Liv said something to her that she asked me, last-minute, to come too. Yeah, thanks Annick. Real nice, EXCLUDING THE NEW GIRL.’
And: ‘I’m not going to catch the tram with Liv tomorrow. She’s being AN ABSOLUTE bitch – I think we might need to move house.’
Even Yumi wasn’t immune: ‘Yumi always kind of CHECKS with Liv about whether or not she should do something. Like, MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND, Yumi! That’s what it’s there for.’
Clearly capital letters were big for me in Year 9.
But then I’d settled in at Whitbourn, and everyone had got used to me being there, and I’d stopped going on Tumblr because I didn’t have anything major to vent about.
On this particular day, however, after Anouk had been such a heinous bitch, creating a new Tumblr post was exactly what I needed.
‘Girls can be bitches,’ I wrote. ‘Most of the time they’re great – some of my best friends are girls; hell, I’m even a girl – but, yeah, girls can be real bitches. And An
ouk is Numero Uno in that department.’
I stopped for a moment, unsure what to say next, feeling a zing of danger. If Anouk ever saw this, I’d be dead. Dead. But she’d never see it, because no one knew agirlwalksintoaschool existed except me.
Well, okay, me and my twenty-five random followers. Popular? Me? Hells yeah!
‘She’s got this cute Nordic name, which makes you think of skiing and snow and saunas, but don’t be fooled. Vikings came from Norway. And trolls. And there are probably a whole lot of other scary people from Norway who I can’t think of right this moment. Norway isn’t as great as you think it is.’
I paused, then added: ‘No offence to all you Norwegians out there.’ No point pissing off a whole nation of people.
‘But,’ I went on, ‘she’s acting like me kissing this guy is the worst thing that’s ever happened in the history of the world, and it’s totally not. Also, Anouk, if a guy wants to kiss me, and I want to kiss him, then I should be allowed to. I don’t need your permission. He’s not yours. You don’t own him. He didn’t want to be with you. Get over it. Get over yourself. I can’t believe you blocked me. And then spent the entire day ignoring me. With friends like you, who needs enemies? Jesus, what a bitch.’
And then I pressed post.
Feeling satisfyingly vented.
Chapter 6
That Thursday, after nearly an entire school week of Anouk not talking to me, Dad rang.
‘I’ve decided to move out of Grandpa’s,’ he said down the phone.
Finally. Something going right.
I still hadn’t heard from Jed – big fat nothing. Nada. A whole lot of no-Jed. And Anouk with her no-talking was also taking up a big chunk of my headspace. It was crazy how much room two not-speaking people could take up.
But at least now, with Dad moving back home, I’d be back to some kind of normal. Me, hip-and-shouldering him out of the way of the toaster in the morning. Me, brushing my hair because I was a perfect daughter, no wreck of the Hesperus here. Me, putting my iPad down every night when he came in the door and having a chat with him about my day, his day, every day. The four of us sitting down to dinner every night. Harley not slamming around the house anymore. Everything back to normal.
‘Well,’ I teased him, ‘you’ll have to do a fair bit of grovelling, but I suppose we’ll let you move back. You can try buying my affection back with clothes, for example. I’ve seen these really nice jeans, in case you’re wondering.’
There was a beat of silence before Dad filled the void slowly, carefully, like he was treading into a watery conversation and he wasn’t sure how far he was going to sink. ‘Oh. No, MC, darling, no, sorry, I didn’t mean that. I meant, I’ve found this great house. And it’s just around the corner from you and Harley – so close, you’ll love it. I’m moving in this weekend. I thought you might like to come help me set up your new bedroom. We can grab some takeaway for dinner. It’ll be fun.’
Dad staying at Grandpa’s had always seemed like a temporary situation. A whole new house was going to make it so much harder for him to move back home to us.
‘Oh.’ My room blurred as my eyes filled with tears. ‘Yeah, no, sure, that sounds great. Okay, Dad, well, I gotta go, I’ve got lots of homework to do.’
‘Whatever you want,’ he rushed into the conversation before I hung up. ‘Pizza. Thai. Whatever you want. Your choice.’
No, it wasn’t my choice. Because my choice wouldn’t have been for either of those things; my choice would have been for him to be back home with us. But that wasn’t going to happen.
I pressed the red button and ended the call.
Because what else was there for me to do?
#
That Saturday afternoon, while Dad drove to get the key from the real estate agent, I hung with Grandpa, eating a sandwich he’d made me: thin white bread with butter, finely sliced tomatoes and salt and pepper.
Another of Grandpa’s sandwich specialties is vegemite and grated apple. Or thinly sliced cucumber, salt-and-peppered.
It’s strangely tasty, in an old-person way.
‘You’re a good girl, helping your dad move,’ Grandpa said, filling the kettle with water and putting it on the stove.
‘Yeah,’ I said, chowing down on the sandwich, ‘I’m a legend. He owes me.’
Grandpa smiled, taking a couple of cups and saucers out from the cupboard: finely floral bone china, the cups with curled handles, making a delicate clinking noise when he put them onto the saucers.
‘How’s Harley going?’ he asked, taking out the teapot and scooping wisened tea-leaves into it.
What he really wanted to say was, What’s going on with Harley? Why don’t I see him anymore? But Grandpa was never one to come at something head-on; he was much more gently, gently in his approach. Not like his granddaughter, who sat on the tram and spewed venom to her ventee when she was upset.
Different generations.
The kettle boiled. Grandpa poured water into the teapot, left it on the bench to steep – that’s what he said, ‘I’ll just leave that to steep a minute’ – and then sat back down at the table with me.
‘Harley’s fine,’ I said.
Although who knew? I couldn’t really tell. All I knew was that he didn’t hang out with Wilder anymore, he acted strangely with me, was hardly ever home, and wasn’t talking to Dad.
‘Bring him with you next time you come over,’ Grandpa said.
As if Harley would trot along behind me like an obedient dog.
‘For sure, Grandpa,’ I said. ‘Definitely.’
Grandpa chewed carefully on his sandwich, as if he didn’t want to dislodge any teeth. Then he pushed back from the kitchen table and stood up.
‘I’ve got something to show you,’ he said, walking out of the room and coming back in with a photo album. ‘I was looking through this the other day.’
He opened the album and pointed at various photos, the wonky top-joint of his finger making me feel wistful and sad because it made me realise that things change and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Even fingers change. Shift out of shape.
I looked at photos of Harley and me in pyjamas lifting our freshly unwrapped Christmas presents up above our heads so they could be snapped in all their glory by the camera; Harley sitting on Mum’s knee; me sitting on Dad’s; me lying as a three-year-old flat on top of Grandpa as he lay on the couch and tried to snooze; Harley scrunching up the newspaper as he sat on Grandy’s knee.
‘When Grandy died,’ Grandpa said, tapping with his crooked finger on the photo of Grandy and Harley, ‘remember how you both stayed the night to keep me company? We all slept together in my bed, and you both talked through all the things you loved about her until we fell asleep.’
I felt tears come unexpectedly into my eyes. I didn’t need to think back over sad times – I was living through plenty-enough sad times right this moment.
‘That first night,’ he said, and his chin rumpled like an old sheet, ‘that very first night, you both made me laugh with the things you said. I cried a lot, but I laughed a little, too.’
I took another bite of my tomato sandwich, hoping the bread would soak up the sadness that seemed to be welling inside my mouth.
‘My point is,’ he went on, ‘sad things happen. And you don’t know when you’re going to feel better. But you will. You’re going through a bit of a rough trot at the moment; you and Harley both are: Mum and Dad breaking up, Dad now moving into a new house. But everything will get better. I promise you. It always does.’
He patted me on my shoulder.
I didn’t answer. Just kept on trying to swallow the clump of chewed-up, damp, tomatoey bread.
#
Dad’s new house was a lace-trimmed weatherboard cottage, freshly painted, with a rose climbing along the verandah. Pretty, was the word that sprang to mind.
Pretty. Sweet. Lovely.
Dad’s house. It felt strange thinking it. His own separate digs. While he’d been a
t Grandpa’s, it had still felt like we were keeping him in the family. We were still all together, but slightly apart. But now, with him moving into his own house, just him on his own, I worried that he was in danger of sliding off down side streets and freeways and away, away, away from us.
I’d just finished sorting out my bedroom – new bed, new pillows, new doona, new sheets, new bedside table, new lamp; ditto on the new bed et cetera for Harley (good luck with that, I felt like saying to Dad, as I was pretty sure Harley wasn’t going to be sleeping there anytime soon) – when there was a knock on the front door.
Dad stopped in my doorway on his way to answer it. ‘You’ve done a good job,’ he said, hugging me to him and kissing the top of my head. ‘Hungry?’
‘Starving.’
‘You go get the dishes. I’ll get the pizza.’
His first guest: the pizza guy. It seemed very single-dadish, and I felt lonely for him. Every night he was going to be here on his own, without me, without Harley or Mum, without even Grandpa for company.
I went into the kitchen and took out knives and forks. Plates. And then I looked up as Dad and the pizza guy came into the kitchen.
Only it wasn’t the pizza guy.
‘I wasn’t sure what to get,’ Tosca said, holding white plastic bags aloft, bracelets clinking, the house filling with the smell of green curry and whatever else she had in there. ‘So I got a selection.’
My Life as a Hashtag Page 7
