Those Pleasant Girls

by Lia Weston

  The owner had not taken one eye off Mary since she entered and let in several blowflies. She was shadowed by his gaze as he stood by the counter, holding a notepad for notes he didn’t take and a phone for a call he never made.

  ‘Can I help you?’ The words were ejected through his back teeth in a tone that already said, ‘No’.

  ‘Do you have any night-blooming plants?’

  Heavy black brows met in the middle. ‘Night what?’

  ‘Plants that flower at night-time.’

  ‘There’s no such thing.’ The strands of hair plastered across his bald spot made it look like his head had been grilled.

  ‘There is, actually.’ It hadn’t meant to sound like a challenge, but as it came out, she had to admit it kind of did.

  The brows parted again. ‘You’re the Bouvier girl.’

  Mary put a card featuring a cat wearing a stick-on beard back in the rack, dislodging several spiderwebs. ‘That was my mother.’

  ‘Caused a lot of trouble, your mother. Pinched stuff.’

  Was this the part where she was supposed to say something sassy, and then the shopkeeper would laugh and say she had moxie, and bring out a secret botanical experiment that he’d hidden behind the counter, one that smelled of all the things she was looking for?

  Then she remembered that she was in Sweet Meadow now, and the only things people probably had hidden behind the counter were guns.

  ‘I’m just trying to find a plant.’

  ‘We’ve got nothing here you need.’

  One of the bloodless roses dropped a petal on the counter.

  ‘Thanks anyway.’ Zing. Pow. Take that.

  She retraced her steps past the watching eyes of the china cats. The phone in the shopkeeper’s hand rang, surprising them both. He turned away to deal with it. Wrestling with the weight of the panelled door, Mary saw a World’s Best Dad mug on a nearby shelf. She linked her finger through the handle and slipped it into her bag as she exited.

  The roses at the parish cottage were in serious need of attention. Mary would kill to be let loose here with a chainsaw. Apparently chainsaws were an excellent way to prune roses, but Mary was not going to find out whether this was true or not for several years at least, or ever, if Evie could help it. Her daughter had enough pointy stabby things to play with without adding horror movie apparatus to the mix.

  ‘You’re a nice surprise.’ Nathan’s delight in seeing Evie on his doorstep made the back of her knees sweat.

  ‘I thought I’d duck in before the meeting,’ she said. ‘If you don’t mind, that is.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Nathan. ‘Come in, come in.’

  The hallway still had the same Turkish carpet. In the lounge room the battered old couch had been replaced by a tan modular suite. There were more photographs on the walls, and the television was gone. In its spot was a surfboard, which Evie thought was sweetly optimistic, seeing as the nearest body of water for several hundred kilometres was Flackett’s dam.

  ‘I’ll get my things,’ said Nathan. ‘Hopefully my diary’s in the right spot. I keep forgetting where I put it. Won’t be a sec.’

  Evie put her basket down and wandered along the rows of photos in the hallway, trying to ignore the churning in her stomach. In between family snaps were photos of Nathan surfing, and pictures with Phil. God, they were dorky teenagers. Phil already had those massive builder’s shoulders when he was no older than Mary. The man was built like a sleepy-eyed house. As Nathan grew older and taller across the wall, his parents shrank. She stopped in front of a picture of Nathan and his dad, Nathan lighting up the frame with that gorgeous smile, Father Reid looking happy but so frail in his embrace.

  Evie turned away. She had to focus. It shouldn’t be this hard to ask someone out; other people did it all the time. She could try and vamp more, perhaps that’d help. Evie looked down and twitched the neckline of her dress a little lower. Her lipstick matched the poppies that danced across the border of her skirt. It had taken twenty minutes to perfect the flick of her eyeliner and another twenty to calm her skin down from the scrub which had made her cheeks look orbitally sanded. She hoped Nathan noticed the effort; she felt almost pretty enough today to deserve him. Please, God, let nothing go wrong, like suddenly passing out or getting struck by lightning.

  ‘Found it!’ Nathan held the diary above his head like Excalibur. He was wearing a T-shirt with a wombat stencilled on it, and she remembered how much he’d loved them as a kid, as if they were more exotic than panthers or pangolin.

  ‘Clever you,’ said Evie, running her hand up the doorframe in a way she hoped didn’t look as if she were checking for termites. ‘While I’ve got you, I was wondering . . .’ Her voice faltered. She swallowed. ‘Fallow Halls is starting a film noir festival in March. They’re showing classic doubles every Saturday. Would you like to go? To the opening night, that is?’

  ‘Is that the weekend after next? That’d be great,’ said Nathan, and Evie’s heart floated like a helium balloon until he added, ‘but I’ll be away on a retreat, unfortunately.’

  ‘It’s on all autumn,’ said Evie, trying not to sound too desperate. ‘Maybe another Saturday?’

  ‘Hey, why don’t you ask Phil?’ said Nathan, gathering up his keys. ‘He loves film noir.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Evie. ‘Sure. Maybe you could come to dinner instead when you get back?’ She put her hands behind her back, giving the poppies a subtle swish.

  ‘I can’t say no to that,’ said Nathan. He held the front door open for her. ‘Especially if your lamingtons are anything to go by. We’ll make a date when I return. You’ll have to tell me what I can bring.’

  ‘Just yourself,’ Evie said, slithering past him and heroically not adding, ‘and your preferred choice of birth control.’

  Leading him between the unkempt roses, she tried not to wonder whether he was looking forward to her lamingtons more than her company.

  ‘Nathan,’ she said, on a whim, just as they reached the hall, ‘do you think cars have personalities?’

  Nathan looked utterly blank. For a moment, she was reminded of the cow behind the latticed fence.

  Evie smiled. ‘Never mind,’ she said.

  *

  Only ten minutes into the meeting and David had already worked his way through a whole plate of Evie’s shortbread. The table before him was a beach of crumbs. Amy eyed it with disgust.

  ‘We! Are! Haemorrhaging.’ Joy looked around the table.

  ‘Two families moving to Fallow Halls is hardly a haemorrhage,’ said Amy, tapping on her phone.

  Joy dismissed her with a fuchsia-nailed wave and turned to Nathan. ‘Now, Nathan, I know this is your first year here as our resident Father and I do understand it can be quite overwhelming, but surely even you must appreciate the fact that Saint Sebastian’s is in trouble.’

  ‘I –’ said Nathan.

  ‘Exactly, we need new ideas and ways of thinking, and at this point I might just add that despite the time and effort I spent putting my portfolio together I haven’t had a lick of feedback, don’t be shy, everyone, no idea too interesting.’

  ‘I –’ said Nathan again. He was clicking his retractable pen so constantly that Evie was sure he was going to snap it in half.

  ‘That’s right and I’m not trying to step on your toes of course but we do rather need to put a rocket under the committee, as we are, dare I say it, lacking direction.’

  ‘It’s not your committee to direct,’ said Amy. ‘It’s Nathan’s. And I hardly think rushing a bunch of half-baked ideas –’

  ‘Half-baked?’ The appliquéd tiger on Joy’s T-shirt heaved.

  Clickity clickety click went Nathan’s pen.

  Evie kept taking minutes. The fights were making for some interesting late-night transcribing. No wonder Nathan had been meditating, though it didn’t seem to be helping him much.

  ‘The reason no one’s responded to your portfolio, Joy, is that it’s completely ridiculous,’ said Amy. ‘Turning the na
tivity play into some tacky talent show is not the answer. What’s next, Dancing with the Saints? So You Think You Can Pray?’

  ‘MasterPriest?’ said David, who had suddenly perked up.

  ‘Not now, David,’ snapped Joy.

  ‘Saint Sebastian’s needs ideas to increase the congregation, not your social portfolio,’ continued Amy.

  ‘How dare you!’

  ‘Anglican Idol?’

  ‘Shut up, David!’ shrieked Joy.

  Matters were not improved with Quentin droning on about the budget. Even Joy was starting to nod off. Evie drew some stars on her pad and studied Joy. She was like a juggernaut in pink activewear. Why couldn’t people just leave things alone? Why did everything have to be stripped and changed and deleted, like Mrs Vogel’s house and the old shops on Main Street? It wasn’t as if Saint Sebastian’s was so far in debt that they had to . . .

  Evie stopped doodling and picked up the blotchily photocopied financial reports she hadn’t bothered to read. Straightaway she spotted two mathematical errors. Two very large mathematical errors. The budget wasn’t lean, as Quentin kept saying; the budget was in debt. A lot of debt. How on earth . . .? Even as part of her brain was wondering how someone who couldn’t use a spreadsheet properly had managed to become the treasurer, a larger and more problematic thought occurred.

  If the church closed, Nathan would have no parish.

  If Nathan had no parish, Nathan would leave town.

  Evie felt faint.

  Her vision of cosy families flashed before her eyes. Sunday morning papers in bed. Quickies in the vestry. Nathan in swimming trunks. She’d be stuck, broke and marooned in a place that needed a one hundred per cent increase in horses to become a one-horse town. She’d end up having to choose between Felix next door or the man who ran the chicken shop and had a face like a dropped pie. Mary would move back to the city as soon as she got into university, and Evie would be left alone with no Nathan and a toothless husband who didn’t know what haloumi was.

  No.

  She smacked the papers down on the desk, startling the Pointers. No, no, no. She had crippled herself learning to walk in high heels. She had sacrificed her favourite clothes and a low-maintenance haircut. She had learned how to put on stockings with a French manicure. She had resisted the temptation to laugh at double entendres in good company. She had started using phrases like ‘in good company’.

  Saint Sebastian’s was going to close over her dead body.

  CHAPTER TEN

  They were running late. Mary turned the perfume bottle over, watching a bubble rise in the amber liquid. ‘I thought you didn’t like Joy.’

  ‘She’s not exactly my cup of tea, but we need to make an effort,’ said Evie, clipping on an earring. ‘Besides, there’ll be loads of other people there. You can make some girlfriends. It’ll be fun.’

  ‘I have friends.’ Mary sniffed the stopper. It reeked of gardenias.

  ‘Don’t you miss having girlfriends?’

  ‘You don’t have any.’

  Evie tucked a stray piece of hair back into her French roll. ‘I’ve got Elena and Emma and the others.’

  ‘It’s not like they call you. No one’s called since we got here.’

  Evie stopped lacquering her hair. A cloud of spray glistened in the air like a shoal of tiny fish. Mary could see her trying to justify a response. But there was no point. Mary had seen the fractures relationships left behind, especially in girls’ schools, where all the fighting was done with invisible knives. No one came out without a scar of some kind.

  Every break-up also had a ripple effect; you had to choose your side. Staying neutral meant you were penalised. Choosing incorrectly meant you were penalised. The right side also rarely correlated with the right behaviour; people stuck with whomever was prettiest, more popular, most interesting, even if that person was a horrible human being.

  The same thing clearly happened with adults. Her dad was the one who had cheated, yet Evie was the one who had ended up alone.

  Maybe it was just easier for people to not have to travel for hours whenever they wanted to hang out.

  The fish dissipated. ‘Then I’m going to make some new friends today,’ said Evie, adding a third coat of lipstick. ‘As should you. It’ll be fun,’ she repeated.

  Mary lurched off the table, shaking the bottles, and went to her room to change yet again.

  Her black gloom stayed in place all the way to the party. As the Mini, finally mobile again thanks to Phil, protestingly traversed the switchbacks, she could see the Pieces’ house looming on the edge of the valley like a giant ice temple. Mary eyed the side of the road and wondered if she could throw herself out of the car.

  They had to park a mile away. Evie delicately skirted the bitumen, her high heels keeping her pace ladylike. Mary, who was booted, trudged along behind, carrying a plate of brownies on her shoulder. The breeze rolling up the face of the valley brought an overpowering scent of vanilla and impending catastrophe. She recognised Bianca’s car, parked at a rakish angle, by its Playboy seat covers and numberplate: 2CUTE4U.

  A white stone wall led to a white iron gate with a curlicue ‘P’ in the middle, flanked by a pair of white stone lions. One lion had pink balloons tied to his paw, bobbing in the breeze like a cluster of airborne haemorrhoids. Evie paused underneath them to check her makeup in a tiny gold mirror. Mary sighed and shifted the brownies to her other shoulder.

  ‘We’re going to have a lovely time,’ said Evie, snapping the mirror shut and tucking her arm inside Mary’s.

  Mary sincerely doubted it.

  Joy was a vision, though that vision belonged to a drag queen. Her eyes could hardly be seen for lash extensions.

  ‘What a treat, what a treat that you could make it. Mind the step, got a bit of a kick to it, but that’s what you get with Italian builders when you don’t give them a decade to get the tiling done. You’ve brought food, oh, aren’t you sweet? Ebony will look after those, she’s bound to be around here somewhere, always lurking, sometimes I call her Lurch. Ah ah ah!’ Her plastic tiara, anchored with a rhinestone hatpin, wobbled. ‘EBONY. Come and take these things.’

  Ebony appeared in a flesh-coloured dress with a drooping ruffled hem, took the brownies and disappeared again between the bodies like a ghost.

  ‘Now, drinks, can’t have a party without a drink, can we? Don’t you look lovely, Mary? I do love your outfit, so original, and I must say that if you ever need a darling party dress or something for a special occasion, just give me a tinkle as I’m sure Fancy Lady would have all kinds of things which would look wonderful on you, and I’m happy to offer any styling advice, my friends say I have quite the eye.’

  In the main room, Michael Bublé was turned up to bellowing level.

  ‘Here you go,’ shouted Joy over Mr Bublé, handing Evie a glass of sparkling wine with a strawberry rammed in the top. ‘And here you go, Mary.’ Mary’s enormous cocktail glass was more umbrella than drink. ‘Don’t worry, Evie, it’s a darling fruit punch, not a drop of alcohol, one of those Naked Cheffy ones though he does have a bit of a thing for herbs so I took all of those out and just added cranberry juice instead, you can call it Piece’s Punch if you like. If you need a refill, just ask Jonas.’ Joy indicated the bartender. He had no shirt, six-pack abs, and a bow tie. Several women were trying to get refills of glasses which were already full.

  Before Mary could make a run for it, she found herself being towed towards the patio doors. ‘I told Therese you were coming specially, I can’t tell you how pleased she was.’ Joy didn’t even seem to feel Mary’s booted heels digging into the white shagpile carpet. ‘Yoo-hoo! Teezy!’

  There was a massive silver-tiled pool outside, with a drop-off edge that looked out over Sweet Meadow. Surrounding the pool were twenty white sun lounges occupied by twenty girls in very short, very tight party dresses. Despite the sunshine, no one was swimming. In her fraying mini and band T-shirt, Mary felt like she’d been thrown off a tour bus at the wrong
stop. Twenty heads turned in her direction. Even from behind giant sunglasses, Mary could feel Therese’s look of disgust.

  ‘Be a good hostess, Teezy!’

  There was a click as the door shut behind her, muffling the Bublé within. Through the glass, Mary tried to signal an SOS to Evie, but Evie was transfixed by a life-sized portrait of Joy recreating Marilyn Monroe’s subway grate scene.

  Mary’s shoulders dropped. The door reflected her lounging peers, all of whom had gone back to ignoring her. At least Zach wasn’t here. Yet.

  An icy bead ran down the side of her Piece’s Punch, circumnavigating the umbrella, the orange wedge, the twizzle straw and the plastic monkey to melt on her hand. As casually as possible, Mary walked the length of the patio. There was a tiny strip of fake grass running down the side of the house, finishing in a dead end against a concrete wall. She was trapped.

  Mr Bublé began anew. Feigning interest in a clipped bougainvillea hedge, knowing she would be there for a while, Mary amused herself with fantasies of drowning Teezy in the pool over and over again.

  After checking the lounge room, dining room, second bathroom, TV room, garage, third bathroom and linen cupboard, Evie came to the realisation that Nathan was not, in fact, at the party. It was as if a doona had been thrown over the day. She slouched on the edge of Joy’s bed. Now what was she going to do? Make awkward small talk with a bunch of women wearing feather boas and plastic tiaras, all of whom would no doubt have a vault of ‘you were the kid who did something horrible’ stories. Eat tricoloured cheese on stale Jatz. Find out if Jonas knew a secret escape route out of the house. Never had she so longed for either an enormous beer or a gun.

  Joy’s mirrored bedhead reflected the flamingo-pink wallpaper and swagged cerise ceiling. Why anyone, especially Joy, would want to look at themselves naked, Evie didn’t know. Perhaps Joy was one of those people who looked better without clothes. Mostly because her clothes were so horrible. She did have surprisingly good legs, though.