What I Like About Me

by Jenna Guillaume

  Then again, it’s not like I look any better on my own. I usually avoid the beach, which is not exactly easy to do in this place, but my family has mostly given up on trying to get me out, and I think Dad secretly likes it because it gives him an excuse to hang out and watch movies with me half the time. Which just makes Mum more annoyed. The look of excitement on her face when I told her where we were headed today almost made me turn around and go straight back to bed. But making Anna happy took priority. SEE? I’m not so terrible . . . right?

  We hit the beach and spent ten minutes trying to find the perfect spot according to Anna’s exacting standards. I saw Sebastian and Beamer’s familiar old towels lying in the sand, and Anna decided that they had found the perfect spot and we should definitely crash it. I felt exactly how I always feel when the prospect of Sebastian Lee looms on the horizon: simultaneously thrilled and so nervous I wanted to vomit.

  We lay our towels on the sand and sat down facing the water. Anna started spreading sunscreen on her legs. I told her she should have applied it while she was waiting for me, since you’re supposed to put it on at least twenty minutes before going in the sun. She rolled her eyes and told me to chill, which was literally impossible for me to do at that point in time, because Sebastian Lee was heading towards us. Dripping with water, glistening in the sun. Everything felt like it was in slo-mo again, although unlike the Tampon Incident, it was aaalll good (nervous stomach pains notwithstanding). He semi-jogged up the beach, a smile on his face and his muscles on full display, a picture so hot it could make a nun forget her vows. I could just about hear a cheesy pop song playing over the top of the scene, imploring me to kiss him . . .

  *record scratch*

  Me: ‘Beamer! YOU’RE GETTING ME ALL WET!’

  Beamer: ‘Jeez, Maisie, take a guy out for dinner first, will ya?’

  Anna: ‘Seb, will you spread this cream on my back?’

  Beamer: ‘Jeez, Anna, take a guy out for dinner first, will ya?’

  Sebastian: ‘Beamer!’

  Anna: ‘Seb?’

  Me: ‘Anna?’

  Beamer: ‘Maisie!’

  Me: ‘Beamer!’

  While I was busy exchanging insults with Beamer, Sebastian spread sunscreen all over Anna’s back and they were soon heading into the water. Beamer asked if I wanted to go in too, but I just put my earphones in, hoping he’d get the hint and leave me alone. I forgot who I was dealing with. He grabbed my phone, ripping the earphones out of my ears along with it and putting them in his own.

  ‘Whatcha listening to?’

  Something as dark as my heart.

  ‘Hff. No wonder you look miserable, listening to this emo shit.’

  I’m miserable because you won’t leave me alone.

  ‘That’s better!’ Beamer unplugged my earphones and played his selection out loud. It was, of all things, Taylor Swift.

  ‘Aw, Beamer. I didn’t peg you for a Swiftie,’ I said.

  ‘I’m a man of many surprises, Maisie Martin,’ he said. And then he started dancing. Right there on the beach. He was surprising, alright. He was also really bad.

  ‘What are you doing?!’ I looked around. No one was really paying attention, thankfully. It was still embarrassing. ‘Beamer, stop!’

  He was dancing in circles around me, tucking his elbows in and flapping his arms. Oh god. He wasn’t just dancing. He was doing the chicken dance.

  ‘Come on, Maisie, I know you want to dance!’

  He reached down to grab my hands, swinging them back and forth.

  ‘I don’t dance!’ I said, pulling away from him.

  He paused and started to say something, but at that moment a strange girl danced up – I’m not kidding – danced up next to him, singing along to the song. Now, she was actually pretty good. She had rhythm, at least. Beamer looked at her for a second, and started dancing again himself. He was still bad. The girl didn’t seem to care. They faced each other and she started mimicking his awful moves. They were both laughing. It almost made me want to laugh too. Almost.

  The song ended and an ‘emo shit’ one started. I reached up, grabbed my phone out of Beamer’s hand and turned the music off.

  ‘Hey, the party was just getting started,’ the strange girl said.

  ‘Do you two know each other?’

  ‘Nup,’ Beamer said, raising his chin in the strange girl’s direction. ‘Beamer – nice to meetcha.’

  ‘I’m Leila,’ the girl replied, with one of the most beautiful smiles I’ve ever seen.

  ‘This here’s Maisie Martin.’

  ‘I can speak for myself, thanks, Beamer.’

  ‘Of course you can, girl!’ Leila said, sitting down on Anna’s towel next to me.

  Beamer went and grabbed his and Sebastian’s stuff from nearby and then stretched out on his towel on the other side of me.

  Leila grinned at us. ‘Well. Tell me your life stories!’

  I just stared at her.

  Beamer snorted. ‘Not much to tell.’

  ‘Beamer lives with his gran,’ I volunteered, and then immediately regretted it. It felt like a betrayal, although of what I don’t know.

  ‘Maisie’s a dancer,’ Beamer blurted out.

  I shot him a sharp look, but his face remained placid.

  Leila laughed. It was a great laugh.

  ‘And here I was thinking you were the dancer around here,’ she said to him. I laughed at that, and she looked at me. ‘So why weren’t you dancing just now? I was lying over there just casually minding my own business when I saw this guy making a fool of himself and I thought, he’s in desperate need of some backup. But you were here the whole time. I shouldn’t have interrupted. Sorry. You guys just looked like fun.’

  ‘Oh . . . no, it’s totally fine!’ I said, at the same time as Beamer said, ‘We are fun!’

  ‘So why weren’t you dancing?’ Leila persisted.

  ‘We’re at the beach, for one thing,’ I said.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And . . . I don’t dance anymore.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Jeez, she didn’t stop. I wanted to kill Beamer. I looked at him, hoping he’d bail me out of the mess he’d created. He just raised his eyebrows, the picture of innocence, and said, ‘Yeah, what do you mean? I thought you loved dancing.’

  I sighed. Because what he said was true. I loved dancing. Loved, as in past tense. I mean, it was hard to do otherwise when I was a kid. Mum had me and Eva dancing practically before we could walk. Jazz, ballet, tap . . . you name it, we learned it. Mum had always dreamed of being a dancer herself, but her parents didn’t have the money or care factor to get her any kind of lessons. I reckon half the reason she had kids was because she wanted to be the opposite kind of parent. An actual Dance Mom.

  It worked out with Eva, the perfect little dancer who happily attended classes every day of the week and gave up her weekends to training and competitions and more training. It didn’t work out so well with me. Instead of Eva 2.0, Mum got lumped with a far-from-perfect kid who was just never good enough, no matter how hard I tried. And boy, did I try. Until one day it wasn’t remotely fun anymore. And I stopped trying. And then I stopped dancing altogether. At first, Mum tried to force it – ‘Think of your health! Your confidence!’ – but eventually she gave up, finally recognising I was a lost cause. Which meant Mum could devote all her time and energy into Eva and her oh-so-promising talent, without having to give me a second thought. They should have thanked me, really.

  Leila and Beamer were both looking at me expectantly. ‘I got over it,’ I said. I turned to Leila. ‘What’s your story, then?’

  She smiled. ‘Well, I’ve lived here my whole life. My parents own a B & B just up the road. I help Mum in the mornings and the rest of the day I’m off the hook. I spend a lot of time working on my designs, but I needed some inspiration today. I want to be a designer, you know? I make my own clothes. I made this! What do you think?’

  Over her swimmers she was wearing a loose,
flowing cover-up in a brilliant blue, purple and green pattern, with these pompom things around the edges. She looked a bit like a peacock who’d had a run-in with my grandma’s knitting basket. It was kind of a lot, but she pulled it off.

  ‘You made that?! Coooool,’ I said, genuinely impressed. Even Beamer murmured a sound that was something like approval.

  Leila grinned and kept talking, spilling out her whole life story in rapid succession. Here’s the gist: her parents moved here from Lebanon before she was born; she has two older brothers who are completely useless; she turns eighteen in four months; she has a crush on a guy named Alex at her school; when she’s not in her room working on her designs she likes to read romance novels and hang out with her friends (who had mostly abandoned her today to work in their various retail/hospitality jobs in town, which was why she had been available to ‘adopt’ us – her words); she broke her arm one time when she was seven; she’s petrified of flying but loves driving. I could go on (she did) but that would defeat the purpose of the ‘gist’.

  And honestly? By the time she was done, I think I was a little bit in love with her. I think Beamer was too. She was loud and warm and bright, like the sun.

  A shadow fell over us as we lay there chatting, and I looked up to see Sebastian and Anna. In all the talk I’d almost forgotten about them. (But not quite.)

  ‘You’re on my towel,’ Anna said to Leila.

  Leila jumped up. ‘Oh, sorry, I promise I didn’t get it wet,’ she said, laughing. By that stage I’d noticed she ended a lot of her sentences with a laugh.

  Anna wasn’t laughing. She looked Leila up and down as we introduced them.

  ‘Do you love it? I made it myself,’ Leila said, calling out Anna’s blatant stare at her outfit.

  ‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’ I added.

  ‘Maybe you should get her to make you one, Maisie,’ Anna replied. ‘Then you won’t have to wear those ratty old board shorts.’

  Everyone was silent for a second.

  Then Beamer said, ‘Oi, make me one too. I reckon it’d look really nice with my ratty old board shorts.’

  Leila laughed. ‘I’d love to make you guys something! Come over to my place, I’ll take your measurements!’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘I mean, thank you. But it’s fine.’

  ‘No, I’m fully serious! This is what I live for. You’d be doing me a favour.’

  ‘Go on, Maisie. Do your new friend a favour,’ Anna said. She was lying down on her towel now, and Sebastian spread out on the other side of her.

  ‘Here, give me your phone, I’ll put in my deets,’ Leila said.

  I handed my mobile to her, and Beamer quietly passed his over too. She headed off soon after that, but she insisted we hang out again, adding me and Beamer on multiple social networks before she left.

  We walked into town for lunch and then returned to the beach. I’d suggested we go back to the cabin and watch a movie instead, but Beamer was the only one who was keen on that and I did not want to be stuck alone with him all afternoon.

  Instead, I sat there on the beach as the others alternated between cooling down in the water and cooking in the sun. At one point, when they were all heading into the water again, Sebastian said to me, ‘You coming, Maise?’ and I said, ‘Nah.’

  Which felt like progress compared to my usual squeaks.

  It’s a shame it paled in comparison to all the progress Anna was making. She had no problems chatting to ‘Seb’, as she’d already taken to calling him. She laughed loudly and enthusiastically at all his jokes and even asked him to teach her how to surf. He happily obliged.

  The thing is . . . Sebastian doesn’t know how to surf. I mean, he’s really athletic and all, but he never quite got the hang of hanging ten. He did try to learn when we were younger, but after one spectacularly bad attempt landed him in hospital with a mild concussion, he decided to stick to boogie boarding and body surfing, much to his mum’s relief.

  He miraculously seemed to have forgotten all about that little trauma today, though. Not to mention the minor details of a) not knowing how to surf, and b) not even owning a surfboard.

  When Beamer said to him, ‘Mate, what do you know about surfing?’, Sebastian just shot him a look and said, ‘I know enough.’

  Off he and Anna went down to the wet sand. Turns out they didn’t need surfboards for this lesson. They didn’t even need to go in the water. All they had to do was lie in the sand while Sebastian showed Anna – with his hands, of course – which body parts she had to move. When it came to her going from lying to crouching to standing, Sebastian had to get right behind her and guide her through it. There was a lot of giggling involved.

  I’m pretty sure if Anna actually tried surfing after that lesson, she’d wind up in hospital with a concussion herself.

  Sitting there, stuck with Beamer after all, I quietly burned. And it wasn’t because of the sun.

  *

  Okay, I feel bad for being so resentful earlier. I was just braiding Anna’s hair, and she said to me, ‘You know, Maise, I get why you’re so obsessed with Seb now. He is pretty great.’

  ‘Yeah. Great!’ is what I said. ‘Oh. Shit!’ is what I felt.

  Then she said, ‘You get kinda weird around him, though. Really quiet. You’ve got to step up your game. I mean, sure, you’ve known him since you were kids, but you need to let him know you now, you know? He needs to see how special you are. Then he won’t be able to help but fall in love with you.’

  See? I should stop being so selfish. Anna vowed to help me as my designated wingwoman, drawing me into conversations with Sebastian and hopefully alleviating the whole squeaking situation.

  ‘If all else fails, just ask him questions about himself. Guys love that,’ she said.

  ‘But like . . . I already know everything there is to know about Sebastian. What the hell would I ask about?’

  ‘You can’t know everything. It’s worth a try, hey?’

  ‘I guess . . .’

  ‘And Maise, we’ve got to do something about your beachwear. Today’s look was not hot.’

  I groaned. ‘There is no look on me that is not not hot.’

  ‘Are you kidding? Look how big your boobs are! You need to get the girls out. I’m so jealous. I wish I had boobs like that instead of these pancakes.’

  ‘Yeah, too bad the rest of me is just as big.’

  ‘Stop it. You’re not fat. You’re gorgeous.’

  Even though I knew there was no truth behind Anna’s words, it made me feel a bit better knowing that she loved me enough to say them. But there was still no way in hell I was getting my boobs or anything else out on the beach.

  ‘I have nothing to wear,’ I said.

  ‘Why don’t we go shopping first thing in the morning? I saw heaps of surf shops in town when we got lunch today. They’ve got to have something.’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ If there are seven layers of hell, then swimwear shopping is the very last of them – i.e. the absolute pits (jeans shopping and bra shopping follow closely behind in layers five and six).

  But Anna looked at me with such a hopeful, pleading expression. I thought that with her support, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Then I thought, wait, I’m supposed to be acting less selfish.

  ‘Hang on a minute, I thought this summer was about making you feel better, not me,’ I said.

  ‘Making you feel better will make me feel better,’ Anna replied. And we hugged, and I felt so grateful to have her as a friend, and that’s how I ended up agreeing to go bikini shopping tomorrow morning followed by another day at the beach with Sebastian Lee.

  Which pretty much brings you up to date on Everything That Has Happened Since Yesterday. Aaaand I’ve stayed up way too late writing all this down. At least you’re looking considerably less empty than you were a couple of hours ago, DJ.

  Won’t Mum be impressed!

  Monday, 18 December

  3 things I discovered today

  1. I have to admit, writi
ng things down actually feels kinda good.

  Source: Last night’s epic vent session in this here journal lifted some of the weight off my shoulders (not literally, ugh). Just don’t tell Mum or Ms Singh, okay?

  2. Keep your expectations low. That way you won’t get disappointed.

  Source: Dirty Dancing/life.

  3. The phrase ‘sweating like a pig’ has nothing to do with pigs, but is in fact a reference to pig iron and its production process.

  Source: Some article I found when I googled ‘sweating like a pig’ while I was lying on the beach . . . sweating like a pig.

  *

  Oh, DJ, what a day. It started out bad, and it ended up worse.

  Let’s start with the bad, shall we? Don’t worry, we’ll get to the worse stuff in time.

  BIKINI SHOPPING.

  Sadly, real life is not like the movies. There was no montage of Anna and me trying on various outfits, pulling faces, dancing around and having a glorious time, while a track like ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ played over the top. There was no ‘stick you’ moment to snobby salespeople, no triumphant moment of glory when I found the perfect bikini. There was definitely no finding a magical item of clothing that somehow fit both me and Anna and would take us on adventures we’ve never even dreamed of.

  Here’s what there was:

  Anna: ‘We’re looking for some amazing swimmers for my amazing friend.’

  Salesperson: ‘What’s your size?’

  Me: *mumbles incoherently*

  Salesperson: ‘We have this piece and this piece available in that size.’

  Anna: ‘That’s it?’

  Me: *dying*

  Anna: ‘Come on, Maisie, let’s try that place down the road.’

  End scene. Repeat four times over, with only slight variations, such as:

  Salesperson: ‘Sorry, we don’t carry that size.’

  OR

  Salesperson: ‘You could try these separates? They look great together!’ (When they didn’t match at all.)