Take Three Girls

by Cath Crowley

  ‘Did you see the photos?’ she asks, sawing floss between her teeth.

  She takes out her phone and shows me as I spit. It’s another post on PSST, and as soon as I look, I wish I hadn’t. It’s Clem, a shot of her at the fair, running beside the pool.

  ‘What do they get out of posting that?’

  ‘She’s fat now,’ Iris says matter-of-factly. ‘It’s the truth, and I can say it because I’m her twin. No one else better say it, though,’ she adds.

  ‘She looks better in bathers than I do.’ I look away. I’ve seen enough to know there are no clues there as to who posted it, and I don’t want to size up Clem as fat or thin. She looks hunted, and I hate thinking about her like that.

  I head out of the bathroom and walk to Clem’s room. She doesn’t answer my knock, so I go to breakfast but she’s not in the dining room. I text Ady while I’m eating my toast. She texts me back immediately: Already on it. A.

  Iris takes a seat next to me with her usual breakfast – orange juice and cornflakes. Will she be eating that for the rest of her life? ‘There’s more,’ she says, but this time she doesn’t seem happy about it. Her twin protection instinct is finally kicking in.

  I don’t want to look at what the ‘more’ is. I don’t want Clem to think for a second that I was part of it, but Iris pushes the phone in front of me and I see a flash of too much skin. You can only see a small curve of her breast, a thin moon of flesh. If she were going out, wearing a dress, it wouldn’t matter. It’s seeing it in combination with her lost face that makes me feel like we’re looking at something private.

  ‘Should I do something?’ Iris asks.

  ‘Ady’s got it under control,’ I say, getting up and walking out quickly so I can’t be followed.

  I knock on Clem’s door again, but she still doesn’t open it. I see Jinx in the corridor and she tells me Clem’s ‘sick’ in air quotes.

  I decide to skip orchestra so I can talk to Ady. Making music is the last thing on my mind today. Clem is the first. The second is how to mess with PSST when the opportunity arises.

  ‘She does this,’ Iris says before I go. ‘She gets people into trouble.’

  ‘She didn’t get me into trouble. She isn’t leading me astray.’

  Or if she is, I like it.

  I don’t know Ady well, but I’m starting to know some things about her. One, if she says she’s on it then Clem will be okay. Two, she won’t want me turning up at her front door without some notice, so I head to a cafe not far from her place and the school. At the Organic Grocers, I text: Meet me?

  I’m drinking my second coffee before she texts back: On way. Stay there.

  She takes off her coat and hangs it on the rack at the front when she arrives, then looks around to find me. When I first saw Ady at school, her hair with the kind of shine I envy, surrounded by like-looking girls, I immediately slotted her into the kind of popular crowd I’d never connect with.

  ‘Coffee before speaking,’ she says, putting up her hand.

  We sit in a warm square of sun that’s coming in the cafe window until she’s had her second coffee, and then she starts talking. ‘I’m working on something to lessen the pain.’ She slaps honey on her toast and licks the drips from her thumb. I don’t push her on what it is. If Ady says she’s got it under control, then she has.

  I fill her in on what happened with Oliver and she smiles.

  ‘It’s strictly work,’ I say.

  ‘It can’t be both?’

  ‘It can be, but it’s not. Anyway, he’s probably got a girlfriend.’

  ‘Probably doesn’t mean definitely,’ she says. ‘The formal is coming up. If I were you, I’d find out if he is single and then multi-task.’ She stands. ‘I’ll take care of Clem. You go forth. Make music.’

  I use the portal again tonight, so I can meet Oliver. He lives two streets away from the school, towards the river, and I walk there. It’s dark but there are people out. I’m not afraid. The nerves are all anticipation.

  His house isn’t what I expect. It’s small, a single-storey Victorian terrace with an overgrown garden. I see a brief glimpse of narrow hallway and low ceilings when he opens the door. A vase of lilies on an old sideboard. A worn carpet runner. A dog trying to nose its way out the front door.

  ‘Good fella,’ Oliver says, pushing him gently inside, then leading me along the side of the house. There’s only room for single file. I follow behind him, careful not to trip on cracked concrete.

  In the backyard, tucked behind a shirt-filled clothesline, there’s a brick shed. He opens the door. ‘This is my studio and my bedroom,’ he says, and I walk into a room not much bigger than mine at school.

  The walls are covered with egg cartons and then soundproofing foam; even though it’s a myth that it completely blocks sound, it muffles it a little. The brick keeps it watertight. There’s a heater and a tiny makeshift kitchen – kettle, microwave, tea, coffee and a bar fridge. There’s an electric piano, an assortment of wind instruments, and Oliver’s cello next to what I guess must be his dad’s. Oliver’s computer equipment is set up on a desk in the corner. His bed has a grey cover and blue sheets, neatly made. There’s a black-and-white cat sleeping on his pillow; her name is Bach, he tells me.

  ‘I miss cats,’ I say, scratching her ears.

  He doesn’t answer, and I figure this is Oliver being nervous, so I try to get some conversation started. ‘When you said a studio, I assumed you meant, you know, not a shed.’

  ‘Let’s play,’ he says, ignoring the comment.

  And that’s when everything really goes downhill.

  The two people sitting next to each other at the bus stop, listening to music, disappear.

  Oliver tells me he wants to start by playing the song that’s on the CD and seeing if we can add to it. I’ve brought the piece of music I was playing on that day, and he’s got the music he’s playing on the CD, and we try over and over to reproduce the sound of us, but we’re terrible. First I start too early, then he starts too early, then we both start too late and when we play it back and mix, it doesn’t work.

  We try for hours and get nowhere. ‘Maybe we just need to take a break. I have to go back now anyway,’ I tell him, and he accuses me of not taking things seriously enough.

  ‘I’m taking it seriously enough to sneak out and risk expulsion,’ I say, packing away his dad’s cello.

  ‘I’ll walk you back,’ he says.

  ‘Don’t bother.’

  But I can’t shake him. He stays behind me all the way.

  He texts me later that night and says if I’m not serious I shouldn’t bother turning up on Wednesday. I don’t want to waste my studio time.

  Fuck you, I text back.

  I wish I hadn’t, but I’m glad I did, and then I can’t sleep for thinking about how to talk to Oliver. Surely we can talk if we play together like we do on the CD? But we didn’t play like that tonight. Maybe we’re a one-off? I lie awake, listening to what he and I could be, that wonky road we’re on, rolling around me in the dark.

  The music makes me feel better after a while, and that gives me an idea about Clem, who’s still not answering her door. Around three am I give up trying to sleep and decide to do something useful with my insomnia. I make her a playlist.

  1. ‘Angel Down’ – Lady Gaga

  2. ‘The Skies Will Break’ – Corinne Bailey Rae

  3. ‘Dream Girl’ – Jack River

  4. ‘Feeling Good’ – Nina Simone

  5. ‘Respect’ – Aretha Franklin

  6. ‘There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You’ – Ben Folds

  7. ‘Perfect Day’ – Lou Reed

  Monday 15 August

  I see all the photos of Clem on PSST. Images don’t die; they don’t even fade anymore. The best you can hope is that different shocking images supersede the images that are making you want to die or fade away.

  Malik starts the class in classic Malik style: ‘Doesn’t the notion of perfection depend, for its ver
y existence, upon the idea of imperfection?’

  Someone, I’m pretty sure it was Lainie, does an audible fart.

  Malik politely ignores it, but it takes a couple of minutes for everyone to settle down. Lainie’s other trick is to burp the word ‘pardon’. It’s a dilemma for teachers.

  ‘Dr Malik, all our Wellness sheets have quotes from men,’ I say.

  He looks shocked, even though he must have put them together. ‘We’ll have to rectify that.’

  And then he is straight into showing us some slides to demonstrate how much photoshopping goes into images that are published in fashion magazines, so I’m glad Clem isn’t here. It would be a bit close to the bone.

  ‘It’s up to you to reject these dated ideas, girls.’

  ‘Not so dated,’ says Jinx.

  ‘They are if we make them so,’ Malik counters.

  ‘How long did it take you to put your outfit together and put on your make-up and do your hair compared to the women teachers?’

  Malik does his serious smile. ‘Point well made.’

  ‘Anyway, Dr Malik, it’s not just magazines that criticise us,’ says Lola. ‘It’s online commentary.’ She’s giving a troublemaking smile to Tash, whose look dares Lola to continue.

  Malik registers the exchange. ‘Is there any particular online content that you’re thinking of?’ he asks.

  I imagine Lola showing the Clem pics to Malik for a laugh, and know that Clem would be horrified.

  ‘All of it,’ I say. ‘Pornography, for example – it gives everyone a false idea of what genitals are supposed to look like.’ A few titters and snorts burble out. There – I’ve successfully derailed Lola, who mouths spoilsport to me.

  Malik is now treading carefully through the minefield of our genitals, making general comments about the lack of respect shown to women across a range of media platforms, and getting the hell out of porn land and back to the safe shores of us contemplating what a perfect imperfect day might look like.

  Reframing imperfection as individuality, being less self-critical, being our best selves, practicing self-love. It’s not that simple. If only we just worried that we’re not pretty enough, or thin enough, or that we’ve got pimples. For us, the message that you fail to attain someone’s idea of perfection is a wash that colours EVERYTHING. It is the air we breathe. Sure, we’re getting better at calling it, but that doesn’t make it go away.

  It’s not just stupid fashion magazines – it’s every dude checking you out and ranking you with a look on the street, every PSST post, every arse-grab. It’s everyday sexism. It’s the fricken patriarchy.

  It’s also something internalised and regurgitated by women. Again, insights courtesy of Clare, but when she told me I totally got it.

  ‘Did you see your new Malik bud on PSST last night?’ Tash asks in our mid-class stretch-and-breathe break.

  ‘Maybe her perfect day could include a fucking bikini wax,’ Lola says, apparently disgusted that such a thing as pubic hair still exists. ‘Nobody should have to look at hairy tufts sprouting from bathers.’

  ‘Nobody said you have to look.’ Even as I say it, I know it’s ridiculous. We all look at PSST.

  ‘She is carrying a lot of extra weight,’ says Bec.

  ‘It’s not like it’s a crime,’ I say.

  The three of them look at me in disbelief: of course it’s a crime.

  The difference between their reaction and Kate’s. And mine. That’s some huge distance.

  There’s no doubt that Clem looks out of condition for such a sporty star, and whoever posted has done some really mean close-ups, but it’s her face that gets me. She looks so lost – no, worse: scared. The panic in her eyes, I recognise that.

  I’d just never let it show.

  And the comments. Fat slut times one hundred variations. I feel a surge of pure hatred for the evil idiots – from Basildon, I assume – who keep this site fuelled.

  I front up to the boarding house after last period. The door is answered by a junior boarder who takes me up to Clem’s room.

  ‘Go away,’ Clem says, muffled, as I knock and walk in.

  She emerges from her doona, cried-out eyes, propping herself up on one elbow. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I came to see how you’re doing.’

  We’re both half-nervous to be in Clem’s bedroom like this, based only on some Malik manoeuvring that involved thumb lengths and ended up with us accidentally getting into trouble together. I push some clothes off a chair and sit cross-legged in it. Clem sneezes, blows her nose and chucks the tissue in the general direction of a tissue-filled bin.

  I open my folder and drop the worksheet from today’s Wellness class on her. ‘Malik’s latest. It’s a meditation on the idea of perfection. Spoiler: there’s no such thing. Tell him all about what a humanly imperfect “perfect” day would look like to you.’

  ‘It would involve no one posting horror pics of my fat bits.’ Clem flicks the A4 sheet onto the floor without looking at it. ‘Who is it doing the PSST stuff? Is it your friends?’ She sits up properly, shuffling and punching her pillows into place.

  ‘Doubt it. We’re some of the favourite targets. Could be anyone, from any year level, who took the photos. The quad was packed.’

  ‘What are people saying?’ She pulls her pyjama top up by the collar to hide the bottom half of her face. She wants to know, and doesn’t want to know.

  ‘A more polite version of what the comments said.’

  ‘I’m fat. I should kill myself, apparently.’

  ‘Ooh. Which reminds me . . .’ I’d almost forgotten why I’d bothered to schlep into boarding house land.

  In my parents’ study there are boxes and boxes full of postcards bought in handfuls from every museum and gallery they ever go to anywhere in the world. I figured they wouldn’t miss a few.

  I rummage in my backpack for the cards, get up and let the ones I’ve chosen rain down on her. Clem picks them up, looking at each one in turn. A series of beautiful women, all shapes and sizes, painted by Raphael, Renoir, Modigliani, Matisse, Bonnard, Manet . . .

  ‘Jaysus, she’s got an owl between her legs,’ says Clem, picking up a postcard of a marble figure by Michelangelo. She turns it over and reads: Allegorical figure of Night, tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici. Weird breasts.’ She looks at me. ‘What is this? Another Malik idea? Visit a fatty?’

  ‘I’m sick of all the little anonymous judges waiting around to do a stacks-on about nothing. I bet none of them has a trophy. Besides, what is fat? Maybe you’re not super-fit-you at the moment, but so what? And who gets to say what the right size is?’

  ‘Easy for you – you are the right size.’

  ‘Well, that’s a boring idea. And who cares? I like all sizes. I like the dance companies that let people be big or little or round or square or whatever, not the boring identical starved same-samies who look like robots with skin. And that’s who I want to wear my clothes. Everybody. Every. Body.’

  ‘Your clothes?’

  Oops. ‘The stuff I make. If I ever get to do it as a job someday.’

  Clem picks up the cards and puts them together in a pile. ‘Thanks for coming. This was a nice thing to do.’

  She still looks a bit suspicious. But only a little bit. She opens the drawer of her bedside table and gets out two Fantales, chucking one to me.

  ‘Are you coming back to class tomorrow?’

  ‘I guess. I mean, if I don’t then it’s all like, oh it’s such a big deal, she’s so cut up about it. And I kind of am, but I don’t want anyone thinking that.’

  ‘Good call.’ I unwind myself and check my phone. Ten messages from Lola and five from Tash. Three from my mother. Zero from Rupert.

  As I walk home, the rain holds off despite broody mauve clouds. I don’t want to call Tash back. She’s been asking lately when my parents are going to have their next party. Since Year 8 we’ve all floated around at those parties snitching drinks and good food and watching the grown-ups misbehaving.
Maybe she smells blood.

  I’ve also been refusing all shopping invitations to hunt for formal dresses, seeing as I’ve been told not to spend any money on clothes and to find something at home or make something for the formal. Even when Tash is peak-happy she just wants to bitch about every single person we hate and every single person we like, and gleefully unpack and pick over all the latest PSST crap. My bestie loves nothing more than finding someone’s weak spot and poking at it till something breaks.

  When I get home there’s a car in our driveway. I freeze, watching unseen from the other side of the garden as my father gets in the back seat and the car reverses out. My mother puts a hand up in farewell. She turns and heads back towards the house. I’ve never seen her look so tired. Things are getting less perfect by the minute.

  Monday 15 August

  It’s nine pm. I’ve been deep into doona-land. It’s the only place for me. As well as being Fat Clam I have a shitty headcold and the world can go fuck itself. I have to meet with Gaffney tomorrow. I don’t know what to tell them. I’ve got ‘issues’. I’m self-sabotaging. I didn’t want to swim the stupid loop so I didn’t. I am no longer a team player. Why? Why is the sky blue? Why do birds sing? The thing is that by the end of Sunday – cold aside – I was almost feeling okay about things. Not swimming, cutting out, it felt like a statement. Then Jinx came in and told me about the photos. She said I shouldn’t look at them – but how could I not? FAT CLAM’S WALK OF SHAME. The photos were bad, but the comments were brutal – people calling me Orca, saying I was so fat I should kill myself, so ugly I should be raped (WTF?).

  Iris turned up after dinner with a mug of soup and a bread roll. She just sat on my bed and stared at the carpet

  ‘Stop looking like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like you feel sorry for me.’

  ‘But I do feel sorry for you.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want you to.’