“You are there.”
“Smile.”
“And you, let’s see…” A grin of nibs and corn kernels and black stuff slathered in wet, buttery dribble.
“Kiss me, darling!”
“Oh, mwah…”
“Actually…speaking of kissing…what’s going on with you and that Max?”
“I don’t know. I kind of think that might be…you know…done.”
“Why would it be done?”
“I think I messed it up, maybe?”
“Why? How? By leaving him in a pancake cafe?”
“Crepe, Cam. Not pancake.”
“Whatever. You did NOT mess that up. Text him now.”
“No. I dunno. I’ve got bigger things to think about.”
“ ’K. Well, you haven’t messed it up. He’d be mad to not be mad about YOU!” Cam licks her teeth. Little yellow studs of corn flick off her tongue.
“Alicia is gonna do my apprenticeship form. It’s happening.”
“BABE!” Cam grins. “That’s amazing!”
“Yeah.” I feel sick. “Is it?”
“Yes, completely amazing. What you wanted, isn’t it?”
“It is, just scary. You know…to go off the beaten track…”
“You’ve always gone off the beaten track, that’s your…you know…thing…and who wants to be on the stupid track anyway? It’s all tracks. If you can put your foot down…it’s a track and…if there isn’t a track…you make one.”
“I think I might want to go back to school.”
“No you don’t.” Cam shakes her head. “I knew this was coming. You’re just looking for the easy way out. Like you do with everything—with the gym, with Max…You know what you have to do.” She licks butter off her thumb. “Anyway, you got an A+ in art. An A-PLUS! And if you want to go ahead and be an artist you can do that whenever you want; it’s never too late. Mate, you’ve got your apprenticeship; you got what you wanted. It’s absolutely brilliant, B. You smashed it.”
Cam’s right. Maybe I did.
JAFFA CAKES
I try swimming again. Once, I saw a footballer run onto the pitch eating Jaffa Cakes, so I make sure I topple a few into my mouth before I climb into the swimming pool to look pro, like a true athlete. Dark chocolate that cracks when your teeth bite a half-moon into it, the little orange jelly disc, chewy and tangy and then the light soft cakey sponge bit underneath.
Today there are a couple of skinny women talking by the edge of the shallow end. They have their babies bouncing in floats in front of them and they are “yaaaaying” at them in between gossiping. They are both so tanned, their skin colour is like beech, their shoulders like highly polished doorknobs. I wonder if they know they have a stereotypically “better” figure than a sixteen-year-old and they’ve just squeezed humans out of their bodies. Then again, I’ve seen sixty-year-old women that have stereotypically “better” bodies than mine. I look like I’m about to give birth to kittens.
I begin to swim. I think about my skeleton. It feels like my bones are the parts of a ship. But they’re not. They are just as delicate and small as the women with the babies.
Once I watched this documentary where this little boy had this horrendous skin disorder. His skin would just eat away at itself. It looked bloody and angry. Even the touch of fabric against his skin would be agony for him. A bath was so painful. He had to constantly be covered in thick healing ointment and lubricant to stop anything rubbing his fragile raw skin. He had to be bound, the whole time, like a mummy, in a complicated dressing of cushioning and bandages….With clothes on he looked like a scarecrow—all the padding between the clothing and his skin made him look like he was stuffed. Like a child wearing a fat suit to a fancy-dress party.
I wonder if that’s how people see me if they think of my skeleton. Like it’s buried for protection. Hidden under fat.
I don’t like to climb out of the pool using just my arms like they do in adverts because I always get nervous that my arms are too weak and I won’t be able to drag myself out of the water and will end up looking like 2B does when he tries to climb up onto the high wall outside and topples backwards. Dogs get embarrassed too, you know? I use the ladder, even though the sides of it brush past my bum and the steps clank and clatter when I get out, as if I’m going to pull them off the wall. I ship water up with me. That makes people stare.
I wash stares away in spirals down the drain.
With my hair still a bit wet I peep my head around the gym. I figure with wet hair it will make it really clear that I am on my way out so Todd the personal trainer, or anybody else for that matter, can’t try to coax me onto one of the cardio contraptions.
The room is spacious and white. And quite empty. There are rows and rows of the same thing. Hideous shiny machines, sniffing and panting and showing their high-tech muscles. I imagine what it must look like full: everybody moving their bodies at the same time, like ants. It must look like some Daft Punk music video. Full of robots. Silvers, greys and blacks. Dizzy pop music tries to lure me in, enticing me to step onto one of the machines and try my luck as my reflection pings all over the zillion corridors of mirrors. I look about, wondering what to do with these giant coloured blow-up bubblegum balls. I realise then that the gym is an electronic futuristic playground made for the same people that take double shots in their coffees.
I rinse my mouth out with water at the fountain and leave.
On my way out I walk past a room full of people cycling really fast on stationary bikes to really loud music, disco lights spitting off the walls.
A gym person walks past with a clipboard. It’s a young guy, not Todd; he has acne scars on his face.
“What on earth’s that in there?” I ask.
“That is spin class.”
“Why don’t they just go for a bike ride outside?”
He laughs but he doesn’t find it funny. It’s not a real-life laugh. “They could, but I don’t know if you sweat as much. Plus, the music is all part of it; see how they go up and down and left to right? Can’t do that on the road.”
I watch some more. It looks fun. I think I’ll say that out loud.
“It looks fun.”
“You should try it,” he suggests, but his tone feels rife with sarcasm.
“Fine. I will,” I reply boldly. “When’s the next class?”
“Tonight. But you have to get here early. It tends to fill up quick.”
“Well, I’ll see you tonight, then.”
And I walk feeling like I’m in a music video and the gym boy with the acne scars is thinking, Wow, oh my days, that girl is so cool. But I think he probably isn’t.
I start to run through all the reasons I can’t go to the spin class tonight:
I’ve already been to the gym once today. I don’t want to look like an addict—good reason.
It’s too hot and sunny today—another good reason.
My room needs a tidy—completely acceptable reason.
My trainers are a bit old, they might not be so spinnable—valid reason.
I should spend some time hanging with Dove— Hmm…I think she’d prefer I was here, to be honest.
GREEK SALAD
“Hi, munchkin.” It’s Mum. My phone screen is already sweaty. “I’m going to be held up a bit at work today; are you able to pick up some food for us?”
I pull the phone away from my ear and growl silently into the darkness. Why does she think because I’m at home that I’m automatically her PA/slave? It’s so annoying. I don’t have an endless stream of money, Mum, actually, and I also don’t have buckets of time on my hands.
“Are you there?” she continues. “I was thinking a nice Greek salad: feta, olives, tomato…”
“I KNOW what goes in a Greek salad, Mum.”
“Great. Is that OK? I would ask
your dad but he’ll never get the right things. I’ll give you the money back when I get home.” She never does.
“I can’t,” I say. “Sorry.”
“Why not? What you doing, then?”
I breathe in deep. Because once I’ve said it, I can’t take it back.
“I need to buy a sports bra.”
“A sports bra…a…OK? That sounds…adventurous.”
“Don’t annoy me or else I won’t go.”
“All right, calm down. Where are you going, then?”
“I’m…going to spin class. At the gym.”
“Oh! Well, that’s…that’s brilliant!” Her voice sounds a bit too happy. It annoys me MORE.
“Yeah, so sorry, I won’t be around to get your Greek bits.”
“No, no, course not, don’t you worry. I’ll get that and you enjoy…spin.” Her voice tingles. “Go, girl!”
Well…here we go, then.
ENERGY DRINKS
They are probably my food hell. I know it’s not technically a food but I think they are gross. I just can’t understand why anybody would need an energy drink on a normal day when we’ve been all right up until now as human beings living on just actual real-life food. People were giving birth, climbing mountains, hunting, making fires, writing novels, painting the ceilings of buildings, making sculpture out of marble, smashing the living daylights out of a…I don’t know…harp or whatever and inventing things, all without energy drinks. I’d understand it a bit more if they tasted good, like how chocolate tastes good, but they taste like 2p coins and blood and make your breath stink. I can’t believe how many kids I see drinking them. Like, actual twelve-year-olds just banging an energy drink. When we were twelve, if anything, we needed a tranquilliser.
Lots of the people in spin class are swigging from energy drinks before class. I feel like I’m doing something wrong with just my bottle of water. I am wearing tiger-print leggings and a violet sports bra with a T-shirt on top. Didn’t realise everybody planned on dressing quite so gloomy. I feel eyes looking at me, taking in my size. I am, by far, the fattest person in the room. Still, we board these bikes. Some people take an age, fiddling around with the rusty seat and adjusting the height. I jump on mine. I feel the saddle squash into my bum cheeks, losing itself in the crush of me. My thighs are clamped around the bony ridge of it. We wait for the instructor to enter, lots of awkward coughs and sniffs. A few “stretches” from people “prepping.” One woman is wearing a visor. A visor. What the hell? Tour de France, is it now? And then she enters. She is NOT the man I saw before. It’s Ibiza leading the class. Oh HELL! Her tadpole brows are stuck in a constant frowning glare. She greets us like we are a room of snotty babies who have just vomited squashed carrot all over the floor. I am already dreading her “tunes.” I turn the pedals of my bike. They are stiff. The pressure of my feet won’t turn the wheels. It’s like churning concrete. Sticky. It MUST be broken. STOP! STOP! CLASS DISMISSED, MY BIKE IS BROKEN. The bike screeches back in agony like a disgruntled mule screaming GET OFF ME!
And she begins. Shouting at us over some hideous, as suspected, scribble of dance music, a white noise of frantic chaos that’s clearly been designed by somebody who hates ears. Some kind of demonic dance-floor hell of programmed sound that deafens me senseless. The lyrics, aimless throwaways of “let go” and “hold on” and “lift me up.” Not to mention the spinning. It’s HARD. Tireless, unbearable turns of a wheel that doesn’t want to turn no matter how hard you turn it. And we are sinners repenting for our midnight snacks and bus rides and drive-thru stop-offs. I want to unscrew my ankles and get new ones.
And then we’re meant to lift up and then sit back down and up again. HOW? HOW ARE PEOPLE DOING THIS? HOW ARE THEY SMILING? Why do my arms ache and my abs howl when my legs are the ones doing all the turning? And I am dripping in my salty sweat that is running into my eyeballs and stinging them like murdering a slug with salt and I can feel the veins throbbing out of me and my bones feel twisted like they might pop out of the skin like in a gory horror film where a bone just busts out of a limb like a hot dog in a bun. I feel as though my feet might bulge out of my trainers. And MORE sweat is POURING from places I didn’t even know owned sweat glands. Panting. Coughing. Round and round. Struggling. Lifting bulk. My bum. My ill-fitting knickers, wedged up my bum crack. The seat: DRENCHED. Is everybody dead or just me? My fleshy thighs are burning in purple swells. I’ve drunk nearly all my water and my feet are strapped into these stupid stirrup buckle things, locked into the torture. Cramping up.
And the terrible, terrible music just goes on and on. RE-LENT-LESS.
“Right,” the instructor says, “that’s the warm-up done.”
CUCUMBER
“I can’t believe you faked an asthma attack.” Dove bites her lips, loving that I was so naughty.
“Dove, it was hell. I had to get out of there.”
“Weren’t you embarrassed?”
“No, that was the last thing on my mind.”
“You shouldn’t do that, B. It’s bad karma.”
“I think I’ve had enough real asthma attacks in my lifetime to warrant pulling a trump card.”
“You’re still bad, though.” Dove bites a snag nail. “I actually bum-shuffled up these stairs today.”
“Well done.”
“Cheers.”
Dove and I lie on my trifle with our feet stacked up on cushions and cucumber circles over our eyes. Dad made Dove this makeshift bamboo stick thing with a fork stuffed in the end for her to scratch her legs with.
“Do you have to scratch so vigorously?” I ask.
“Yes.”
We are clumsily feeding ourselves Greek salad, chewing salty black olives and blocks of feta cheese.
“Don’t tell Mum.”
“Tell Mum what?” Mum demands out of nowhere. Where’d she even come from? Damn these stupid cucumber sunglasses for blinding me. I had no choice…I had to…I lie again….
“That I had an asthma attack in spin class.” I peel the watery circles off my eyes. I say the sentence really emotionless so she can’t hear a crack of falseness in my voice. Dove flashes me an eye-piercing snarl of disapproval. I look away.
“Oh no! BB! Why didn’t you call me?” The guilt slathers on thick like cream cheese.
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
“BB! That’s not good, you have to be careful not to exert yourself.” She rubs my feet, sitting on the corner of the bed, her forehead frowning with concern.
“I know. I’m stupid.”
“Was it bad?”
“It wasn’t great,” I lie again in a croaky voice, feeling the burn of my little sister’s eyes scorching holes in me. I avoid eye contact in case I burst out laughing.
“Oh, sweetie, were you scared? Were the people at the gym good about it?”
“Yes, they were good. It’s a shame because I had to leave spin class early.”
“Oh, love, you were so looking forward to that too. How was your new sports bra?”
“Hmm…sporty. Digs in a bit.”
“Yes, they are very supportive, aren’t they?” Mum coos in empathy. “Poor you.”
Dove rolls her eyes; she can’t help herself. “Luckily I was at home to help her, Mum. I’ve taken care of her all evening.” Dove pokes her tongue out at me. Mum falls for it.
“Good girl. It’s scary when she has an attack, isn’t it? You’re a very good sister. I love my girls, always taking care of each other.” I could punch that little bird of ours right off her perch.
“That’s us!” Dove sings.
“I’ve heard spin’s awful anyway!” Mum mutters. “Meant to be the hardest of all the classes.”
“My legs feel like they are going to drop off,” I moan. Dove digs her nail into my calf.
“Your dad’s got some of that salve somewhere.
It’s what the Thai boxers use, apparently; meant to ease the muscle pain. Do you want me to get you some?”
“Yes. Well. Seeing as though I am an athlete, it probably wouldn’t hurt.” And she leaves the room to go get the magic balm.
Dove elbows me. “Athlete. Shut up. You did the warm-up of ONE exercise class. Hardly ready for the Olympics.”
“Excuse me, Dove, I’ve done swimming AND spinning in one day. I’m basically a tri-athalist…or whatever they’re called. And stop pretending you’ve been taking care of me!”
Mum comes back in. “OK, roll your leggings up.”
“She’s not been at war,” Dove sniggers.
“I’d like to see you do it,” I bark back.
“HA! SPIN CLASS! EASY!” Dove nods towards her chair.
“She does have a point.” Mum raises her brows.
“Listen, mate, this is my room and I can bum-shuffle you out of here whenever I want.”
“You couldn’t, cos you can’t even WALK after riding a motionless bike for five minutes!” Dove shoots back.
“Girls.” Mum wrinkles my leggings up. It pinches the skin.
“Ouch.”
“OK, now this will sting a bit to begin with.”
“What do you mean ‘sting’?”
“It burns a little, when you first apply it.”
“It can’t be worse than what I endured today.”
“Lie back and I’ll rub it in.”
It smells like mint but not natural, more clinical and aniseedy. A bit like root beer. It hits the back of my throat with a thwack. The sensation of it going on my legs is like Vaseline. It’s a thick balm and quite bittersweet with having the tension rubbed out of my legs but also wincing at every touch.
“How’s that?” Mum asks.
“Fine,” I say, my head in a frown.
“It’s not burning?”
“Nope. It’s…” And then it hits me. It’s like hot coals poured onto my body. Like the worst sunburn. Like…OUUUUUCH…OUUUUUUCCCCCCCCHHHHH. “GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!” I throw the cucumbers off my eyes, snapping up to sitting. Honestly, what kind of hellish day of torture is this?
My Ideal Boyfriend Is a Croissant Page 23