Leaving Jetty Road

by Rebecca Burton

  It’s not that I’m not happy for her, because I am. I know how much she wanted to get a job, and I’m glad it’s turned out so well for her. It’s just that . . . I miss her.

  Now, sitting in the rec room with Nat and Sofe, I think, how can you miss someone you see practically every day? Someone who lives around the corner from you; someone who’s sitting right here next to you? It doesn’t make sense. But . . . I don’t know. It’s as if, even when Nat’s talking to me, she’s somewhere else; as if she’s absent, gone away. Won’t come back.

  We used to be so close, Nat and I.

  Just as I’m thinking this, she waves her hand in front of my face. “Wakey, wakey, Lise—anyone home?”

  I take a breath, shake myself inside. “Sorry—miles away.”

  She grins, rummages around in her schoolbag, digs out a packet of Tim Tams. “These’ll bring you back to us.”

  Oh, no.

  She grabs a couple of cookies and hands the packet over to Sofia, who takes one and offers them to me. I can smell them from here, their chocolate melting slightly in the warmth of the room. My mouth waters, and I can half taste them in my imagination.

  “No, thanks,” I say quickly, shaking my head.

  “You love Tim Tams!” Nat protests.

  “No, I don’t,” I say staunchly.

  “You do. You told me you hated your mum because she wouldn’t let you have any for afternoon tea. Remember?”

  “Ages ago, maybe,” I say casually. “Not anymore.”

  This takes great willpower, but I have to say no. I have no choice. Tim Tams are off-limits for me at the moment.

  Because I’ve finally become serious about losing weight. It’s not just Tim Tams: I’ve decided that all snacks and treats are off-limits—even, sadly, cappuccinos. (Do you know how many calories there are in a cappuccino?) Breakfast, lunch, tea—that’s all I eat now. I mean, why not? If I can stick to being vegetarian, I can stick to my diet. Surely. After all, that sticky date pudding a couple of weeks ago was the last “bad” thing I ate. Maybe creative visualization does work.

  I still haven’t told anyone about it, of course. They’d only fuss; they’d only come out with that old, old line, “But why do you want to go on a diet? You’re not fat!”

  Well, no, I’m not fat. Size 12 isn’t fat. But it’s not thin, either.

  Three meals a day: the books and magazines all make it sound so easy. But it’s not. It’s hard; I hadn’t imagined it could be so hard. The worst thing is, there are so many hours between each meal. I never noticed before how many hours there are. And I get so hungry.

  But guess what? It’s working already. When I weighed myself this morning, I realized I’ve lost a few pounds. Which means all I have to do is . . . keep going. Keep saying no.

  Sometimes I think there isn’t anything I’m really good at. I’m hopeless at sports, so-so at music, have to work my guts out to get those famous good marks at school. And it’s not as if I’m popular or pretty, either, which might make up for all of that. So I just keep thinking, anyone can be thin if they try hard enough. I read somewhere that being thin’s not a matter of genes; it’s just discipline. Will.

  If that’s all it is, I can do it. I have to do it. I know it won’t make everything okay—I’m not that stupid; I know I’ll be the same person, the same old Lise. But . . . I don’t know. At least if I’m thin I’ll have something I can be proud of myself for, something I can like about myself.

  And of all the things I want, of all the things in my life I’d like to change if only I could, this is something I can change.

  This is something I can do.

  chapter ten

  Rules

  The Fear slithers over me just as I turn the first page of the history test.

  It comes from nowhere, this feeling. It’s a feeling of panic, of dread, that curls and coils in my stomach. I focus on the blackboard, take a deep breath. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Get back to your test.

  I pick up my pen, bend my head back over the paper, and a wave of sickness crawls up my throat. I swallow once, twice; take another long, struggling breath. Keeping the sickness at bay. I grip my fingers around my pen with mad, determined tightness. Write. Just write.

  Under the table, my knees start to tremble. The trembling goes all the way through my body; even my breath starts to shake. Sweat breaks out on my forehead, under my arms, on the top of my lip. There’s a hotness in my throat again—only this time I can’t swallow.

  Come on. Come on. Calm DOWN.

  I gulp in air. Gulp. Gulp. My heart beats rapidly, getting faster. Fear—black, irrational, uncontrollable fear—swells inside me.

  God, oh, God, ohgodohgodohgod—

  The first time this happened—the first time the Fear hit—was during the end-of-year exams last year. For a whole fifteen minutes during the last exam, I sat there, swallowing, shaking, convinced I was going to throw up or pass out. I thought I’d never make it through that exam.

  And I still don’t know, really, what made the feeling go away that afternoon. After a while, I remember, I began to breathe more easily; my heart slowed down. I picked up my pen and started writing again. I was exhausted; all I wanted to do, afterward, was go to sleep. I remember, too, how strange my writing on the paper looked when the teacher handed our exams back a week later. It looked nothing like my usual small, firm letters. This writing was faint, scrawly, out of control.

  That was the lowest mark I’ve ever gotten on an exam. Oh, I passed, but . . . it wasn’t anywhere near the kind of mark I usually get.

  The thought that this might happen to me again has terrified me ever since.

  And I’ve tried so hard, this year, to make sure it wouldn’t. A couple of weeks ago, sometime around Easter, I wrote myself out a study schedule, pinned it up on the corkboard above my desk at home. One hour of studying in the morning, before school, and three hours after school, at home. On the weekends, I study from nine to five on Saturday, and nine to one on Sunday.

  The other day, Terri wandered into my bedroom and came over to my desk, where I was sitting, trying to do a math assignment. Her eyes darted up to the corkboard, and she read my schedule.

  “What’re all those colored marks? The ones in pink and green highlighter pen?”

  “Pink’s for when an essay’s due. Green’s for tests. And the blue one’s for free time.”

  “Christ, Lise. There’s only one blue mark a week.”

  “Yeah—but it is the whole of Sunday afternoon.”

  “But why? Why d’you want to study so much?”

  I shrugged. “It’s Year 12.”

  She stared at me. “Are you mad? I was lucky if I got any studying done at all on the weekend when I was in Year 12. And as for before school—wouldn’t you rather be in bed?”

  Yeah, right, Terri. It’s okay for her to say that; she doesn’t need to study. Terri could have passed Year 12 with her hands tied behind her back. Unfortunately, I’m just not that smart.

  What I’ve been thinking is, if I study harder, I’ll get better marks, so I’ll be less worried. Which means there won’t be any reason to feel the Fear.

  I’ve stuck to it, too, that schedule. Religiously. So why, why am I feeling like this now? Why is it happening all over again?

  * * *

  But there have always been feelings like this.

  In Year 5, right at the end of the year, my best friend, Sally, left the state. Her family moved to Perth just after Christmas. We’d been friends for years.

  Year 6 was the worst year of my life. I didn’t make friends again. I don’t know why; I just . . . didn’t. I felt so alone, so silent. Waves of sickness and Fear used to wash over me as I trudged, head down, through the endless school corridors. I spent my lunchtimes out behind the art room, reading, and on rainy days I went to the school library and helped Mrs. Birchill, the school librarian, with the reshelving. She was the only person I could talk to (even if it was just about books and the weather). I’
m sure she was just nice to me because she felt sorry for me.

  I’ve always been shy. I don’t know why; I just am. But after Year 6, I stopped believing people could even like me; and, except for Nat, I’ve never been able to change my mind about that. I don’t know . . . People didn’t like me then, so why would they like me now? I haven’t changed.

  And even with Nat, I’ve always known, in my heart, that it wouldn’t last. Sofia’s arrival just proved me right.

  Once, in one of my primary school reports, one of my teachers wrote: Lise tries almost too hard. I’ve never understood that comment. I thought that trying, making an effort, was a good thing. Besides, you have to try hard—to do well, to be liked, to be attractive. If you stop trying . . . well, then people see who you really are. And they don’t like you.

  The other thing is, the shyness is worse—much worse—with boys. I clam up in the company of them, go as stiff as a board. For one thing, I don’t have any experience of boys: I’ve never spent any time with them. At home, there’s just Terri and me. All my cousins live out of state; my parents aren’t friends with any of the neighbors; and, of course, I go to an all-girls school.

  But it’s not just that. Boys don’t like me. Instinctively they don’t like me, I mean. They look at my face, and—even more than most people—they see something in it that makes them walk away. I tell myself it’s because I don’t wear trendy clothes or makeup; because my stupid curly hair won’t stay tied up; because I’ve got big thighs and a flabby stomach. Let’s face it—I’m not exactly Miss Australia.

  “Just don’t worry about it, Lise,” Nat said to me impatiently the last time we talked about it. “Sofe’s not exactly a model, either, and look at her record with guys.”

  “They think I’m ugly,” I said, trying to explain. “And fat. And . . . boring.”

  “Well, of course they’ll think you’re boring if you don’t say anything,” she said, exasperated. “Who wants to talk to a brick wall?”

  When she saw the look on my face, she was horrified. She almost fell over herself trying to apologize.

  “I didn’t mean it like that! I didn’t. I just meant—relax. Just be yourself, and everything’ll be okay.”

  But that’s my point. Brick wall. That’s exactly what I am. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

  Other girls seem to follow all these complicated unwritten rules I don’t know anything about. With boys, especially . . . but with other things, too. They just seem to know what to wear, what to say, how to act. It comes naturally to them, somehow; it’s something they were born knowing.

  And I feel so awkward, so heavy, so out of place. Sometimes I think that if I knew the rules—if I could learn them somehow—I’d be all right.

  But it’s not just that I’d be all right. If I knew all the rules, I’d be normal.

  chapter eleven

  Running

  As the rain grows heavier and the wind gets colder—as we wrap up in our tartan winter-uniform skirts and blazers—I take up running.

  There’s no doubt about it: exercise helps you lose weight. I’ve lost ten pounds now, since Easter—which is more than I’ve ever managed to lose in my life. Even my mother, who’s the queen of dieting (that is, the queen of yo-yo dieting), would be proud of that number. And people have started to notice, believe it or not. For the first time ever, I’m getting all these compliments.

  One day in the rec room, even Sofia says, “Being vegetarian really seems to suit you, Lise. You look great.” Then she grins, leans over to me, and whispers conspiratorially, “So tell me your secret, Miss Mawson.”

  I’ve lost ten pounds . . .

  “I don’t know,” I lie. “Maybe all those lentils and tofu are good for you after all.”

  “Hmm,” she says, a look of distaste crossing her face. “Think I’ll stick to pasta and cheese.”

  The bell rings then, three times. I stand up, stretch, glance out the window.

  “Look at the way Miss Stirling runs,” I say to Nat and Sofia, pointing through the window across the schoolyard to a figure hurrying toward the staff room.

  “Late again—”

  “The woman’s always in a rush.”

  “No, but look at the way she runs,” I say impatiently, trying to get my point across. “She barely lifts her feet off the ground. No wonder she’s such a pathetic gym teacher.”

  Nat empties orange peels out of her lunchbox into the rubbish bin. “Since when are you the expert on running?”

  “I run,” I say indignantly, before I can stop myself. “Every morning, before breakfast.”

  Sofia and Nat look at me in astonishment.

  “You must be joking.”

  “Since when?”

  I can see what they’re thinking. Is this Lise we’re talking to? Round, lazy Lise, who took up piano in Year 11 so she could avoid after-school athletics?

  “It’s good for you,” I say crossly, and walk away.

  But the other thing about exercise, apparently, is that it kills your appetite. That’s what all the health magazines say. I have to admit, I thought that was as good a reason as any to get serious about it.

  What gave me the idea to take up running—as opposed to something else, I mean, like swimming or cycling—was Nat’s mother. I was over there one day a few months ago and Mrs. Jordan came into Nat’s bedroom to say hello. She stood in the doorway, chatting, asking me how I was, what was going on in my life—all the things she usually asks me when I’m over. She was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, and she had a headband around her forehead, so I asked her if she was going off somewhere to play sports. The question just came out, without me even thinking about it. It’s always been like that for me with Nat’s mother: I’ve never felt remotely shy with her. I don’t know why. Somehow, she’s just so easy to talk to.

  “I’m going for a run,” she told me, in answer to my question.

  I was surprised. “I didn’t know you were a runner.”

  “I used to run marathons when I was younger,” she said. Then she sighed. “I’m not supposed to run at all now, really. Bad knees—from all those marathons, no doubt. But sometimes I just miss it. Running makes you feel so good.”

  So this year, when I decided it was finally time for me to get fit, running was the first thing I thought of.

  At first I hated it. I couldn’t get my breath, had to keep stopping and starting as I passed through the streets that follow the tramlines. It was so cold, too. The mornings are freezing now: your breath floats ahead of you in a cloud, and your skin goes all rubbery and pink. I couldn’t believe how unfit I was.

  But then one day I found my rhythm. As simple as that. And it’s the most amazing feeling. Now I know exactly what Mrs. Jordan was talking about.

  These days, it’s the part of the day I most look forward to. I set my alarm for half past five, get up at twenty-five to, change into my track pants, and have a glass of water on my way out through the kitchen. I jog slowly to the end of our street, warming up, then turn the corner and speed up as I head toward the bread bakery on the corner of the main road.

  My route goes along tree-lined avenues by the tramline, past Italian people’s houses with backyards full of grapevines, and ramshackle stone cottages rented out to uni students and people on the dole. There’s a little brown dog that sleeps on the porch of a corrugated-iron cottage on the street where I turn around to go back home; he always wakes as I run past, and shakes himself. By the time I come past him on the way back, he’s waiting at the tin fence at the end of the driveway, his wet black nose poked, quivering, through the gap between the bottom of the gate and the cement. I was scared of him at first—I’ve always been a little afraid of dogs—till I realized he only wanted to see who I was.

  The thing I like about running: it’s the only time my mind switches off, feels quiet. It’s as if, for once, I’m in tune with myself. As if the world has retreated and there’s just me and this rhythm: the rhythm of my feet on the pavement. It’s almost
like meditating.

  By the time I come back, the bakery’s always well into its working day. The aroma of baking bread fills the air; it’s the most delicious, tempting smell. It makes me think of the crusty white loaves my mother went through a phase of making when Terri and I were little, before she started working full-time. She’d sprinkle them with sesame seeds and give them to us fresh out of the bread machine. And we’d sit cross-legged on the kitchen floor, tearing the bread into huge chunks, chewing and swallowing, chewing and swallowing. No matter how much you ate, you always wanted more.

  Every time I run back past the bakery, I think about this; and every time, I tell myself I should run home another way. The smell’s almost too good; it makes my knees go weak and my stomach rumble. I slow down and take deep breaths, filling my lungs with the warmth and the sweetness of it. Just as good as eating it, I tell myself as I turn the corner onto our own street.

  But the moment I reach the entrance to our white-walled two-story house, the good feeling inside of me vanishes. I stop just inside the high wrought-iron gate; do a few hamstring stretches and lunges, trying to ignore the feeling of slow dread that creeps over me. Then I trudge up the gravel driveway, past Mum’s real estate sign at the front (positioned so that people will see her name and phone number as they drive past). When I get to the back door, I walk through, hot and breathless, and Dad’s standing there in the kitchen, doing up the buttons on his shirt, his pager beeping furiously.

  The worst way of all to end the morning is when Terri’s there, too, yawning cheerfully over a mug of coffee at the countertop, telephone already cupped between her shoulder and her ear. Even in her baby-blue terry-cloth bathrobe, her eyes still puffy from sleep, she looks gorgeous. She has straight blond hair; long, slim tennis player’s legs; and eyelashes that look as if they’ve got permanent (unsmudgeable) mascara on them. I can still remember a colleague of my dad’s gazing at Terri and me across the dinner table one evening, years and years ago, and saying, in this faintly amazed voice, “They’re just so . . . different. You’d never guess they were sisters.”