Ocean Pearl

by J. C. Burke

  3. That Georgie will forgive me coz I know she hasn't yet.

  Every time the springs of Georgie's bed squeaked, I opened an eye to check if she was sneaking out to meet Jules. But all she seemed to do was roll over or snuffle and snort like some variety of bush pig.

  There was a question I wanted answered. What did Georgie have that I didn't? Yeah, she was funny, she was easy to talk to, she listened, but – but she was no supermodel!

  Not that I could believe it, but I had been dumped twice now in the same year! Tim dumped me, but that was an age thing. So what was it with Jules? Did it start all the way back when Jules wouldn't sleep with me? But I wasn't a loser now. So what was it? There must have been something I'd missed.

  I started to dissect every conversation I'd had with Georgie and every conversation I'd had with Jules since I'd been here at camp. But I hadn't really had that many chats to Jules while I was here. It was mostly texting 'cause he was always running off to training. The last decent conversation Jules and I had must've been before I came to camp.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. If I could remember what I was wearing when we'd had that phone call then I'd be able to work out where I was and when it was.

  Yes! Quietly I punched the air. Jules had called me. I was on my bed, rubbing Daryl's hair growth stimulation tonic into my bald patch. It was night-time. I was wearing my Peter Alexander dressing gown with the angels and love hearts on it. Jules was getting all tooshie 'cause I kept putting the phone down so I wouldn't spill any tonic on my chest. Daryl had warned me to be careful: 'We don't want to stimulate any hair growth where we don't want it!'

  Jules'd started whinging about how I never went surfing with him and how I kept promising I would. So I told him I'd get Georgie – hang on! I sat up straight.

  I didn't say I'd get Georgie to give Jules a surfing lesson. It was Jules's idea! He'd asked me to text him Georgie's number. He said seeing she was around the corner at camp maybe he'd ask her to teach him how to surf.

  How long had they been together, sneaking around behind my back? Sometime between tonight and maybe even before I'd got to camp, Jules and Georgie had started an affair.

  Is that why Jules'd been so agreeable when I asked him not to meet her that morning at the beach? Georgie wasn't down in the dumps about how badly she'd surfed that day in front of Andy Wallace. She was like that because she hadn't got to see Jules. She'd been so cocky the night before. Maybe too cocky, so they'd decided to play it down so I didn't get suss.

  They were horrible, horrible two-timers.

  Jules could have her. They deserved each other. Who was he, anyway? Some unknown Canadian baseball player playing in a country that didn't even play baseball!

  I lay back down, smoothing the doona over my chest. My heart was starting to ache and my jaw was feeling heavy. What about Georgie? Why had Georgie done that to me? She was my best friend. My Starfish Sister. The only one who knew everything about me because I had wanted to tell her. I had wanted Georgie to know the real me. Not the Ocean Pearl girl.

  GEORGIE

  Two and a half days to go until the team was announced and I was scared I'd blown it. And if Laura's theory was right, then I'd blown it for the others too. All those gym sessions and Swiss ball classes, nutrition talks, wave selection lectures, 'You can do it' pep-up programs, video analyses until my eyes were popping out of my head. And that wasn't even counting the hours and hours and hours with crinkled, numb fingers and toes in the freezing surf.

  Jake, Carla and Shyan ushered the four of us into Carla's office. All the signs said 'bad bad bad'. Carla's office was where Megan was given the news.

  'I suppose I should ask you first why the four of you think you're here?' Carla had the I'm-mad-but-I'm-going-to-keep-it-together voice in operation. 'That's what I would ask adults. Not that I think your behaviour has been very adultlike.'

  I volunteered the obvious. 'Is it about the . . . scene, in the bungalow last night?'

  'That's correct, Georgie,' Carla said. 'Would any of you like to say anything about it?'

  'It won't happen again,' whispered Kia.

  'No, it won't happen again,' Carla repeated. 'Because we will not tolerate animal antics here! This is an elite sports institute. Some kids bust their guts every year to make it here but never will. You three have been picked twice now.' She pointed to Ace. 'Three times for Courtney. We expect one hundred and ten per cent focus and application from you. Especially now, at the highest level – a chance to be selected for the national team and to represent your country. Do you girls understand that?'

  'Yes, Carla' mumbled and muttered from our mouths.

  Every now and then I caught a glimpse of Kia's profile as she rocked back and forth on the soles of her feet.

  'I really hope you do, girls,' Carla continued, 'because it would be a terrible loss to everyone if you don't. By everyone I don't mean just us and yourselves, but all those kids who will never be good enough to make it here but will keep trying.'

  Carla was putting us through a total guilt trip but I was sucking it up. It would've been fine with me if she'd slapped me across the face and given me a thousand push-ups. In fact, I'd have welcomed it. It might have even made me feel better. At this moment I was feeling like it was all my fault.

  'Shyan, did you want to say anything to the girls?'

  'No, Carla. I just hope the girls are hearing you because they've all been given very special gifts.'

  'Jake, I know you want to speak.'

  It was like the four of us suddenly stood up straighter. I'm sure the floorboards creaked. This was the talk that was really going to hurt. Jake wouldn't focus on the general waffle. He'd go straight to the home truths.

  'I don't care what's going on in your personal lives. That's not why you're here. Four other girls could've taken these spots, you know. Remember Natasha? She was close to being here. So was Jaime. As for you, Ace, you came in as a reserve. If anyone should be focusing on the job it's you.'

  I waited to hear Ace pipe up and defend herself. She'd probably been dying for an opportunity to tell the adults what the fight had been about.

  But she didn't. She just kept staring at her feet.

  'You girls do whatever you have to do in your private lives – scratch each other's eyes out for all I care – but here at this camp you will behave as a team and respect one another. Is that clear?'

  'Yes,' chimed down the line.

  'It was very disappointing that last night occurred. We know you're all under a lot of pressure and stress, and believe me, we are trying to be understanding about it. Some girls we wouldn't bother with but it's different with you Starfish Sisters.'

  I felt myself flinch at Jake's last two words.

  'Do you know why? Ace, do you?'

  'No.'

  'As a team of surfers, you girls are exceptional.' I expected Jake to smile but he didn't. Instead he looked at us like we were the biggest brats he'd ever met. 'So Starfish Sisters,' he spat. 'I suggest you start getting on. Show us what you're really made of.'

  Kia and Micki stomped up the walkway. Behind them was me. Behind me was Ace. Part of me wanted to turn around and tell her how sorry I was. But was I sorry? Really? I was sorry Ace was hurt. I wasn't sorry I had Jules.

  Megan had cheated, but did what I'd done make me like Megan? Megan had cheated intentionally. I hadn't. Jules had fallen for me. Ace had to learn that she couldn't just treat people the way she did and expect them to hang around like obedient lap dogs.

  Carla had given us fifteen minutes to get ourselves together. Then it was down to the beach for one big, happy team surf.

  'Right.' Kia was straight into it. I knew she would be. 'We better get some kind of plan in action or we're all stuffed. Thanks for letting them know that Micki and I had nothing to do with it. You do realise that you two are taking us down with you?'

  'Kia, I don't think starting a fight is a good idea,' Ace said. 'Do you? And by the way, I had nothing to do with this either. I wasn't
the one playing my friend's boyfriend. I'm just as innocent as you and Micki.'

  This was part of my punishment. Not being able to tell Ace how it had happened. That Jules had made the first move. That he was going to dump her anyway. I had no choice but to stand here and listen to anything Ace wanted to throw at me.

  'Ace is right,' Micki said, furiously rubbing Kia's back, probably in the hope that it would keep Kia's voice down at an acceptable level. 'Fighting is only going to get us in more trouble and we can't afford that. It's serious now. The camp is almost over.'

  'Can I just say something?' I asked the girls. I shoved my hands in my pockets and concentrated on getting it right 'cause they were looking at me like whatever I was about to say better be good. 'Maybe the rumour that Laura spun is true.' Three pairs of eyes were giving me the death stare. 'Did – did anyone else get the impression that Jake was saying it's going to be them or us when the selections are announced on Friday morning? 'Cause I did. He kept referring to us as a team.'

  'Actually, that's the impression I got too,' answered Micki. 'And I don't know about you three, but I really want this. The only thing I have focused on for the last six months is making the national team. Nothing else has mattered and nothing else will.'

  'I'm sorry, Micki,' I whispered.

  'I don't care, Georgie. You and Jules. Ace and Jules. Whatever. But I do care about making the team and if it means us or them then we – I mean you, you and Ace, have got to get your acts together.'

  'Georgie,' Kia said, scowling, 'do you understand what Micki's saying?'

  Did Kia think I was an idiot? Of course I knew what Micki was saying. Just having to look at Micki's face made me feel about one centimetre tall and about half a centimetre wide.

  'I want to make the team too.' I offered the words to Micki. But Micki didn't smile. She was right. It was serious now. Ace and I had to get our acts together.

  'Ace?' Kia asked.

  'You'll get cooperation from me. I'm not being left out again. Not like last time. That'll never happen to me again.'

  Twelve months with a person who hates you is a hell of a long time. But I had known what I was getting myself into.

  'Ace, if we make the team that means we're going to see a heap of each other,' I uttered.

  'Well, that's too bad for you and Ace!' Kia spat it back in my face. 'You guys don't get to decide this. Jake said our private lives have to butt out; that – that while we're a team and surfing –'

  'Exactly,' Ace said, looking at me like I was something her cat had regurgitated. 'We only have to speak to each other when we're in the surf or having a team meeting.'

  'Let's make the team first,' I suggested.

  Ace flashed me a narrow-eyed 'drop dead' smile. This was going to be tough.

  'Our fifteen minutes is up,' Micki said and walked out the door with Kia following behind her.

  Ace was wearing her Kelly Slater hat again. She was down at the water's edge waiting for Micki to finish her round in the surf. It was hard not to watch Ace's tall and regal frame as she stretched from side to side, a long graceful arm extending over her head, cutting such a perfect figure that you wanted to draw it in the sand, measure its angles, admire its form.

  Ace was beautiful – the golden hair, the pearl-like teeth, the sparkling eyes and flawless, bronzed skin. She was perfection. Jules and she were like a couple out of a Calvin Klein ad. They made girls like me want to vomit with envy and find the nearest cliff.

  But Jules wanted more. He'd told me. He'd said, 'Georgie, you have to believe that.'

  Being sent off on my errand to collect Ace's photo album and tell Jules he was 'a dickhead' had started off as quite a challenge. I was so excited about seeing him it'd been hard to coordinate breathing and walking at the same time. It was like my bottle of water had been spiked with some drug that had me hypnotised in a giddy love daze. I probably would've walked past my own mother and not noticed her.

  But then the brick landed in my guts with a thud and I suddenly came to. Across the road, sitting on the wall next to the shops, was Jules. He was turning the pages of Ace's photo album. It was different to how he'd done it the first time. That day he'd almost flicked through the photos in disgust. Now he was lingering on each page, staring just that second too long.

  Run away. Just run! my head instructed. Stuff getting Ace's album. Have some self- respect.

  Too late. Jules had seen me and had tucked the album under his arm and was crossing the road. My shoulders straightened. I took a deep breath and walked towards him. Whatever he was going to say I'd have to handle. My dreams, or rather my delusions, were about to come crashing down. At least we'd hooked up. That'd be some comfort for all the nights I'd be stuck with the creeps in late-night chat rooms.

  'Georgie!' Jules's perfect mouth smiled and then, before I knew it, it was pressing up against mine. 'I just had to do that!' He laughed. 'Are you okay? You're looking stressed. Is Ace being horrible?'

  'I'm . . . fine.'

  'So, here's my plan,' he said, taking my hand and crossing back over to the shops. 'We could buy a lighter and burn the album or slip it in with the Playboy magazines and see if some pervert finds it.'

  'You're joking, aren't you?'

  'No.' Then those beautiful white teeth flashed at me. 'Yeees.'

  'Ace said I had to check that all twenty-seven photos are there.'

  'I promise you there are twenty-seven photos in there,' Jules said.

  'So, you haven't taken just one?' I grinned and winked. I wanted Jules to think I was joking. I wasn't. But I didn't know how to ask him why he liked this excuse for a girl standing next to him and not the totally hot babe in the photographs.

  But do you know what Jules did? He whipped his mobile out of his pocket and took a picture of me. 'This is the only photo I want to look at,' he said, checking out the image. 'I love those dimples in your cheeks.'

  My hand brushed across my face. I'd always thought my dimples made me look like a clown or the fat girl in a comic book.

  Jules bought us both a smoothie. We wrapped our arms around each other and walked to a park around the corner from the house he lived in. Jules had Ace's photo album in a plastic bag. He had it slung over one shoulder. Every now and then it'd swing over to my side and whack me on the back, reminding me of my deceit.

  'Do you feel bad about this?' I had to ask Jules even if it risked us deciding we both felt so bad that we couldn't go on. 'Jules?'

  'Of course I do.' He shrugged. 'But it's happened.'

  'I just – I – what are you doing with me?'

  Jules bent down to pick up a handful of dried autumn leaves. They made a crunching noise as his fist tightened around them. 'I love that sound,' he told me. 'It reminds me of home. We've got this driveway up to our house and in the fall it gets covered so thick with leaves like these. When you walk through it your boots make that crunching sound.' Jules opened his fist and fragments of gold and orange sprinkled across the ground. 'I can say that stuff to you. I couldn't to Ace. She wasn't really that interested in me. Not who I really am. You know what else, Georgie? She didn't want me to know who she was either.'

  That was the sad bit. Ace was so busy trying to be this person she thought she had to be that no one got to see the real Ace.

  'I tried so hard to be supportive when she didn't make the team,' Jules told me. 'I play sport. I know all that stuff, how bad it feels when you don't get selected. I tried to help her but Ace didn't want to know. She kind of closed down on me instead, making excuses for why she couldn't see me. I guess I just lost interest. She was pretty. So what!'

  'You don't, you know' – with each word I heard my voice getting higher and higher – 'regret breaking up with her and being with me?'

  Jules dropped the bag on the ground and put his hands on my shoulders. 'Georgie,' he said, 'it feels totally different being with you. It's like . . . it's like being home. Yeah, that's what it's like when I'm with you. It's kind of like I've known you forever. Georgie,
you've got to believe that.'

  Now Ace was touching her toes while Zena jogged up and down on the sand. They were in their zone, keeping warm and focused while they waited for the siren to blast for their heat. They had twenty minutes to show what they could do for their team. Cutties, reos, back-side barrels, whatever they could pull out of the hat.

  In under forty-eight hours we'd know which four of us had made the national team. I was leaving camp without a sponsor and maybe that was a sign that I hadn't been good enough. When I lost Megan I lost my aggro. Maybe I'd put that energy somewhere else, or rather onto someone else. It'd been so easy to hate Ace and yet she was my friend.

  The siren blew. Ace picked up her board and chucked off her Kelly Slater cap. It frisbeed along the beach towards me.

  Ace hadn't told Jules about her hair because she thought he'd stop liking her. But Jules had stopped liking her because she didn't tell him. Maybe Ace had presumed that because Jules was good looking then he viewed life with the same pair of beautiful eyes.

  Now I'd never know because Ace and I wouldn't be close like that again. I'd broken the number one rule. I'd stolen someone else's boyfriend. Worse than that, one of my best friends' boyfriend.

  KIA

  Take two, except this time Georgie had gone to the Dolphin Bungalow to try and pump the info out of Laura. I think she felt it was the least she could do seeing she'd thrown us into her mess.

  But typical Georgie was more efficient than efficient. She went one step further and brought the keeper of the rumour, Laura, plus Zena back to our bungalow.

  'She wants to cut a deal,' Georgie told me and Micki with a sneaky grin curled on her lips. 'Laura said she'll tell us what she knows and how she knows it, if we tell her what the catfight was about last night. Deal or no deal, girls?'

  'We'll deal,' Micki answered.

  'Nothing for nothing,' Laura said, grinning.

  'You first,' Georgie said.

  We sat on the floor, Georgie, Micki and I leaning our backs against Micki's bed and Zena and Laura leaning against the wall. Even now we were careful not to get too close.