What I Like About Me

by Jenna Guillaume

  Finally, we reached a shop that had absolutely gorgeous swimmers AND the salesperson said they carried my size. I almost felt hopeful. Almost. Then I saw the price tags. A top alone cost at least $150 and a one-piece was over $200.

  ‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ I said, and walked out.

  ‘What are you doing? They have some really nice things,’ Anna said as she followed after me.

  ‘Did you see the prices?! I told you this would be impossible.’

  Anna bit her lip. ‘Hey, I think there’s one more store we haven’t tri–’

  ‘Anna, I love you, but come on. It’s time to give up.’

  ‘No! The perfect pair of swimmers could be waiting for you in there. You won’t know unless you at least take a look.’

  She grabbed my hand and practically dragged me to the last store. I was in there for all of three seconds before I froze, staring up at two huge posters behind the counter.

  Anna looked up to see what had caught my attention. ‘Oh my god, is that your sister?’

  Yep. There was Eva, on stage, in a blue-sequined bikini and high, high heels, her tanned and toned body posed, poised and perfect, the words THIS COULD BE YOU scrawled over her flat stomach. And there was Eva again, this time in a pink strapless evening dress, a grin on her face, tears in her eyes and a tiara on her head, with the words ENTER NOW! over her perky (thanks to the chicken fillets I knew were stuffed inside her bra) cleavage.

  I spun around, walked straight out of the store and kept walking down the road.

  ‘Maisie, wait! What was that?’ Anna said, chasing after me.

  ‘It’s this ridiculous pageant they do here every year: Miss Teen Summer Queen,’ I said, affecting an American announcer voice. ‘Eva won when she was sixteen. Guess she’s part of the advertising now.’

  Anna was quiet. She knows Eva and I don’t get on, although she doesn’t know the full details of why. I’ve always been too embarrassed to tell her – to tell anyone.

  Then she said, ‘Who cares about Eva! Why don’t we go back and actually look in that shop? You never know –’

  ‘I do know. It’s not going to happen.’

  ‘You’re so stubborn sometimes.’

  I stuck my tongue out at her and she stuck out hers back.

  ‘Seriously, let’s just go to the beach,’ I said.

  ‘Okay, but . . . what are you going to wear?’

  I let out a fake-sob-that-almost-wasn’t-fake.

  ‘Look, why don’t you show me the swimmers you have?’ Anna said gently. ‘They can’t be that bad. They’ve gotta be better than those boardies you were wearing, honestly.’

  We went back to the cabin and I put on my swimmers. The expression on Anna’s face said, I’m trying to keep a straight face and, oh god, how do I say this nicely, but all her mouth said was, ‘Ummm . . .’

  ‘It’s alright,’ I said. ‘Let’s just go.’ I put my jeans and t-shirt back on over the top of my swimmers, and didn’t take them off all day.

  Not when I was sweating like pig iron on the beach, while everyone else went in the water.

  Not when Sebastian said to me for the second time, ‘You coming, Maise?’ and I said, ‘Nah,’ and then he said, ‘C’mon, aren’t you boiling?’ and I said, ‘Nah,’ while trying to subtly wipe the sweat off my upper lip with my equally sweaty arm.

  And definitely not when Beamer decided to intermittently run from the water up to where I was sitting and shake himself off above me like a goddamn dog, saying, ‘Come on, Maisie Martin, the water’s beautiful,’ before running back in.

  DJ, at this point, you’re probably wondering if Anna’s plan to talk me up and draw me into conversation with Sebastian Lee was more successful than her plan to get me into a hot new bikini. Well, I hope you don’t mind spoilers (personally, I’m torn on them: sometimes they can enhance my enjoyment, and other times they make me really, really mad), because here is a big one: IT WASN’T.

  Oh, she asked him lots of questions and tried to include me, but I was still struggling to move past monosyllabic responses like ‘nah’, ‘yeah’, ‘ha’, ‘uhhh’ and ‘mmmm’. At one point Beamer quietly said to me, ‘Are you on LinkedIn, Maisie Martin? ’Cos I’d like to endorse you for your conversational skills.’

  ‘Is anyone even on LinkedIn? What are you, a forty-nine-year-old investment banker?’ I hissed at him.

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t sprain your tongue there. That was a lot of words in one go.’

  In response, I stuck out said tongue. Beamer grinned.

  Which really made me want to show him. I turned to Sebastian.

  ‘So, Seb– Sebastian,’ I managed to get out. Then my mind went blank. Think of something, Maisie. Think. Sebastian was looking at me expectantly. ‘Uhhhh . . .’

  I heard Beamer chuckling behind me.

  ‘How’s school going?’ I finally squeaked.

  Sebastian made a face. ‘Ugh, I don’t even want to think about it.’

  ‘Oh.’ I glanced over at Anna, who gave me a tight smile.

  Sebastian sighed. ‘I’m so done with it. And Mum won’t get off my back. She’s all, “I know you’ve got a brain in that head, Sebastian, why aren’t you using it?!”’

  ‘She sounds like my mum,’ Anna said.

  ‘Really?’ Sebastian tilted his head her way, a smile on his face. ‘My condolences.’

  ‘Hey, your mum’s not that bad,’ Beamer said to him.

  Sebastian scoffed. ‘Yeah right. She won’t even let me go to Penang with Dad and the twins in February. She reckons I can’t afford to miss any school, especially with the marks I’m getting.’

  Sebastian’s family makes the trip to Malaysia every few years, and I know how much he loves going over there. He’s really close to his cousins, despite the distance. I was working up the courage to say something about this when Beamer broke in with, ‘Ah, don’t worry Sebby. I told ya, I’ll tutor you. Have you up to scratch in no time.’

  I snorted at the idea that Beamer could teach Sebastian anything.

  ‘I had to get a tutor last year,’ Anna said. ‘Mainly for maths. It’s sooooo painful.’

  ‘Right?!’ Sebastian said. ‘It’s like, when are we ever going to use this shit after school?’

  ‘Totally!’ Anna said. The two of them shared a smile. ‘Maisie’s brilliant at maths, though, aren’t you Maise?’ Anna added, looking at me pointedly. ‘And English. She’s so smart.’

  I laughed nervously. After a moment, I said to Sebastian, ‘I, um, I bet you kill it at English.’

  He scrunched up his nose. ‘Nah. That’s even worse than maths. All Shakespeare and poetry. Bo-ring. No offence if you’re into that. It just does my head in.’

  ‘But–’ I was about to protest, thinking about Sebastian’s own poetry, and then I realised he was probably saying those things because he didn’t want anyone to know about it. I swallowed the rest of my sentence.

  ‘But what?’ Sebastian prompted.

  ‘Oh. Um. Nothing.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, that bemused (or whatever the word for it is) expression appearing on his face.

  Yep. I was totally nailing this whole conversation thing.

  ‘Seen any good movies lately?’ Anna said in a loud voice. A sure sign the situation was desperate.

  ‘We saw the new Star Wars last week,’ Sebastian said. ‘It was amazing. The last five minutes . . .’

  He trailed off and Beamer started laughing.

  ‘Oh god, did you cry?’ Anna said with a giggle.

  ‘Sobbed like a baby,’ Beamer said.

  ‘Hey, you did too,’ Sebastian shot back.

  ‘I was talking about myself.’

  ‘Don’t worry, so did Maisie,’ Anna said, smiling at me encouragingly. I felt a surge of gratitude. This was my SHIT. Plus there was history there with me and Sebastian. It was perfect – I just needed to come up with a witty remark to encapsulate all of that. I was still putting my thoughts together when Anna continued, filling the conve
rsational gap I was leaving wide open.

  ‘Honestly, I don’t get it,’ she said. ‘The movie was kind of a snoozefest. And who cares if –’

  ‘Blasphemy!’ Beamer interrupted.

  ‘No way!’ Sebastian said.

  ‘Ughhhh . . .’ I gurgled. God, I was getting worse.

  ‘Have you seen the originals?’ Sebastian asked Anna.

  ‘Noooooo. Maisie tried to get me to watch them, but we got halfway through the first one and I begged her to release me. Hey, Maise?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I managed.

  Then Sebastian said, ‘Maise, remember when we used to watch them all the time?’

  I had to remind myself to breathe.

  ‘I swear, our mums would put them on every night just to get us to sit still for longer than five minutes. But then we’d be up and playing along anyway,’ he added with a smile.

  ‘Let me guess: you were Han Solo,’ Beamer said to Sebastian. He turned to me. ‘And you were Princess Leia.’

  ‘Nah – Chewbacca,’ I said, as nonchalantly as I could.

  Everyone laughed, including Anna, because even she knew who that was.

  ‘Why the hell would you be that big furry thing when you could be a princess?’ she asked.

  ‘Hey, Chewie was the best!’ Sebastian said, grinning at me. ‘You can’t have Han without Chewie. And Maisie can do brilliant Wookiee noises.’

  I returned his smile. His words were finally making me start to relax, and even feel a bit warm inside.

  ‘Go on, let’s hear ’em then,’ said Beamer.

  ‘Go on, Maise,’ said Sebastian.

  Which is how I wound up sitting on the beach, in front of my best friend, the boy I’m in love with and Beamer, and making WOOKIEE NOISES. ’Cos nothing screams sexy like WOOKIEE NOISES.

  (Okay, look, they probably scream sexy to some people, no judgement, but oh god, not coming from me, not in front of these people.)

  I knew I’d made a mistake when, while Sebastian and Beamer were laughing and trying to make the noises themselves, Anna was subtly doing a ‘cut it out’ gesture with her hand below her chin.

  Uh-oh. I had to get back on track. I swallowed, took a deep breath, and said, ‘Hey, remember that time we tried to make rootleaf stew, like Yoda eats?’

  Which made Sebastian grin again. Phew. Maybe I could do this after all.

  ‘Aw, yeah, it was festy!’ he said. ‘We put bark and leaves and mud and god knows what else in hot water and actually tried to eat it.’

  We were all laughing again. Feeling quite proud of myself, I said, ‘It was so gross! I swear I got actual worms from it.’

  Which made Sebastian and Beamer laugh more, while Anna widened her eyes and mouthed What?! at me.

  Maybe I could not do this after all.

  ‘Hey, speaking of movies,’ Anna said, pulling out that trusty old segue even though we weren’t strictly speaking about movies anymore, ‘I saw a poster for some kind of outdoor cinema thing in town this morning. It sounds really fun.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, Beachside Cinema,’ Sebastian said. ‘It’s pretty cool. They set up a big screen in the park down by the main beach.’

  ‘Oooh, awesome.’

  ‘Hey, why don’t we go tonight?’

  ‘Great idea, Seb.’ Anna smiled at him and glanced over at me. ‘Sounds perfect.’

  It did sound perfect. So perfect, in fact, it was something I’d actually fantasised about doing with Sebastian on multiple occasions (sure, we had been together a couple of times – but somehow with both of our families in tow it wasn’t quite the same).

  I mentioned as much to Anna as I was doing her make-up later. I’m really good at make-up, thanks to countless hours sucked into YouTube beauty tutorial wormholes. I hardly ever wear it – usually I just play around with it at home – but tonight Anna suggested we both go all-out.

  ‘I knew it,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘I never told you, though. How did you know?’

  ‘Because I know you, Maise.’

  By the time I was finished doing our make-up, I was pretty excited, despite the horrors of the morning and the errors of the afternoon. Anna looked absolutely stunning, and I wasn’t feeling so bad myself.

  When we met up with the guys to walk over to Beachside Cinema, we apparently made a pretty good impression. Sebastian Lee let out a small ‘wow’, and handed me and Anna a flower each. I practically swooned on the spot. I could tell he’d picked them from the bushes near the beach path, but it was the sweetest gesture. Even Beamer didn’t ruin my mood when he whistled and said, ‘Don’t youse scrub up alright?’ I said, ‘Ew, don’t use youse.’ But I couldn’t stop grinning. The night was off to a very good start.

  Then I saw what was playing at Beachside Cinema.

  ‘Dirty Dancing?!’ Suddenly my dream evening was turning into a nightmare.

  ‘I’ve never seen it,’ Anna said.

  ‘That worked out well, then,’ Sebastian said with a smile. The two of them stepped forward to buy us all tickets with the money our mums had forked over.

  ‘Awwww, why are you pouting, Maisie Martin?’ Beamer said with mock sympathy. ‘Isn’t this, like, one of your favourite movies?’

  ‘I hate this movie, actually.’

  ‘What? I thought you were obsessed with it. You and your sister –’

  ‘That was a long time ago. I know it’s hard for you to believe, but some people mature after the age of twelve.’

  ‘Look, this isn’t exactly my favourite movie, either. Should we bail?’ He held out his hand as though I might actually take it.

  Sebastian appeared and put a ticket in Beamer’s outstretched hand, then offered one to me.

  ‘Hey, Maise, I just saw your sister,’ he said, gesturing in the direction of the ticket booth.

  I swear my heart skipped like ten beats. I was not mentally prepared to see her for at least a few more days. ‘What? Where?!’

  And then I saw it. Another one of those Miss Teen Summer Queen posters. Beamer saw it at the same time as me.

  ‘Hey, I remember that. We all went to watch,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah. It was the longest day,’ Sebastian said.

  ‘Swimsuit competition was alright though,’ Beamer countered, waggling his eyebrows.

  ‘You’re so gross,’ I said, for about the seven hundredth time in our lives.

  He laughed and glanced back at the poster, lingering over Eva’s cleavage, no doubt. ‘Jeez, did she really win a thousand bucks?’

  ‘Nah, that’s the prize if you win nationals,’ I said. ‘She came third.’

  Anna snorted. ‘Bet she loved that.’

  I laughed. Then Sebastian said, ‘Bet you’d win it,’ and for a second I couldn’t breathe. Until I realised he was talking to Anna. He’d nudged her with his arm and smiled. She let out a high-pitched giggle and said, ‘No, I wouldn’t.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, you would,’ and she said, ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ and they kept going back and forth like that until finally I said, ‘I bet I would.’

  That shut them both up. After a second Sebastian said, ‘Yeah, you’d totally own the talent competition with that Wookiee impression.’ He winked at me and my heart grew two sizes.

  He started walking towards our designated beanbags (yes, beanbags), still talking to me. I fell into step beside him.

  ‘Looks like you’re finally getting me to watch this movie, eh?’ he said.

  ‘I can’t believe you remember that.’

  ‘Remember what?’ Anna asked from behind us.

  ‘Maisie tried to make me watch this when we were younger. I think we got about five minutes in and I refused to watch any more,’ Sebastian said, smiling. ‘I promise I’ll sit all the way through it this time.’

  ‘Huh. Guess some people really do mature after the age of twelve,’ Beamer said.

  I shot him a look, and he responded with a smirk.

  ‘Thirty-four, that’s me,’ Sebastian said as we reached our beanbags. He did a little twist-jump in
the air before crash-landing on one of the middle beanbags in our little row of four. I looked at my ticket. Thirty-three. Oh god. Right next to him. I gulped and tried to sit down as gracefully as I could (hint: not very). Anna grinned at me as she took her seat (very gracefully) on Sebastian’s other side. Aaaand Beamer dropped down on my other side.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about the situation – mainly because I was feeling a lot of things. Grateful (to Anna), nervous (to be so close to Sebastian), excited (Sebastian again), hopeful (Sebastian), annoyed (Beamer, of course), terrified (of the movie and its potential to open up old wounds).

  Then the movie started, and it was weird. But in a good kinda way. Like, how is it that even when you haven’t seen a movie in years, just watching the opening credits can stir some long-dormant part of your soul? I’d avoided watching it for so long because I thought it’d make me feel angry and upset, but instead it just felt like . . . coming home.

  I know, I know, I’m talking about Dirty Dancing here, it’s not like it’s Citizen freaking Kane.

  But this movie, despite everything . . . it’s a part of me. I felt content. And a little bit emotional. I managed to make it to the bit where Baby confronts her father about how he let her down (‘There are a lot of things about me that aren’t what you thought, but if you love me, you have to love all the things about me.’), before feeling like I might cry.

  That’s when I looked over at Anna. Her eyes were glued to the screen. And, between us, so were Sebastian’s. Sebastian’s hand, however . . . it was resting on Anna’s thigh. And his thumb was drawing little tiny circles on her skin. And that’s when I noticed they both had smiles on their faces. And that’s when I felt like I really would cry.

  ‘I’m going to get popcorn,’ I squeaked before hauling myself up as quickly as I could (hint: not very. Have you ever tried to get out of a beanbag? Of course you haven’t, DJ, you’re an inanimate object. Well, let me tell you, it’s not easy. Forget looking graceful – I was about half a step away from falling flat on my face). I finally managed it and rushed away, but when I reached the food truck at the back of the park I didn’t join the queue, instead staring at the menu board without really seeing what was on it. I was too busy trying to stop the tears from falling. It made my throat burn.