Ocean Pearl

by J. C. Burke

  'Towards the end of my panel interview, a bee flew into the room,' Laura said. 'That guy with the beard yelled out how he was allergic to them and didn't have one of those EpiPens on him.'

  I didn't know what Georgie and Micki were thinking but their faces looked how mine felt – what kind of a spin was this? Georgie was an idiot for inviting Laura in. She was playing head games with us.

  'I swear, this is the truth,' Laura said, looking back at us with big goggle eyes. 'I promise. I know it sounds random but wait till I get to the good bit. Then you'll understand.'

  'Okay,' Georgie offered on our behalf.

  'So, the adults are running around trying to shoo the bee out of the window and the guy with the beard, who was sitting the closest to me, put his clipboard down on the table and said, "I better leave the room." I was just sitting there thinking: this is awkward.'

  Georgie gave a snort.

  'There were sheets of paper on top of his clipboard. His writing was in thick black pen so I didn't even have to look that closely.'

  'What did it say?' I snapped.

  Laura raised her hand. 'Easy! I'm coming to that bit, Kia,' she answered. 'It said, and this is not exactly word for word, but pretty close: "Team one and team two seem to have a natural affiliation with one another, in and out of the water." There were a few names after that, not ours but. Then after the names it said "recommend these teams be kept in place as they are working well together and that in itself is a" – a time something. It may've said "time saver". I couldn't read it.' Laura shrugged. 'That's it.'

  Georgie was nodding. But I'd seen her nod like that before. It didn't always mean she agreed or believed. Georgie was good at psych-out games too.

  'It makes sense,' Zena said to us. 'Me and Jussie and Steph have competed heaps together. So have Kia and Georgie. We know each other's style and what we're good at, what we can't handle.'

  'That's true,' Micki answered. 'And if you think of it like in our team Ace and Georgie are the powerful big-wave surfers and in your team Laura and Jussie are. So team one and team two, the way they are now, each has a surfer for every condition. Big, small –'

  It was hard to tell my mind to slow down because the excitement was starting to fizz in my toes. Maybe, just maybe, the Starfish Sisters could stay together.

  Georgie karate chopped my hopes in two. 'What that bloke wrote may've been just his opinion. It doesn't prove the whole panel thinks like that about team one and two.'

  'That's true,' Zena agreed. 'I didn't think of it like that.'

  No, please, please. Make what Laura says true and what Georgie says not. Please, please. Let us Starfish Sisters stay together.

  My doctor would probably tell me they weren't healthy thoughts because healthy thoughts were meant to make me feel good, not choked up with hope and nerves that made me want to do horrible things to myself – like I had wanted to the other day.

  I couldn't take on the stress for the Starfish Sisters, not if it turned me back into being that girl again. But my therapist and doctor probably never had friends like the Starfish Sisters. They didn't know what it was like to hope for something so badly.

  'Your info now,' Laura reminded us. 'What was that spat about? Did Ace punch you?'

  'Nooo!' Georgie replied. She pulled the hood of her coat over her head and hid there for a while. Maybe she hoped Micki or I would do the talking. But I wasn't going to make it that easy for her.

  There were still moments, maybe in the surf or having a meal in the dining room, when I'd suddenly feel so angry that Georgie had done this to us. I couldn't bring myself to say to her, 'Hey, Georgie, isn't it funny the way you hooked up and I got my periods, all at the same time?' That was a joke I'd had with the old Georgie and it didn't feel so funny anymore.

  'Well, cough up,' Laura pressed us. 'Come on, Georgie. Nothing for nothing. The deal was you'd tell us what the catfight was about. Let's play fair. No Megans here.'

  Georgie's expression caved into her forehead at Laura's comment. But in true Georgie style she managed to recover. 'Ace, um, found out that, um, Jules and I are . . . together.'

  'What? Like boyfriend and girlfriend?' Laura burst out laughing. I bet Georgie wished she could hide under the bed now. 'What are you talking about?'

  'Jules and I are – together.'

  'Huh?'

  'Look, I know what you're thinking, I must be the biggest two-faced bitch ever.'

  Somehow I didn't think that was the only thing Laura was thinking. Laura's face was creasing in every corner. I'd bet she was trying to work out the formula that defied all logic and reason. Jules, super-hot gorgeous guy, dumps Ace, stunning model with the most unbelievable body, and replaces her with Georgie, cute looking, good value but in her words 'with legs like tree trunks' or even sometimes 'a pasty blob on two fat legs'.

  'I'm not trying to make excuses,' Georgie said, pulling the hood further over her forehead. 'But they were over. Jules was about to dump Ace anyway.'

  'So you went in for the kill?'

  'No, Laura,' Georgie answered. 'Girls like me don't go in for the kill. The rejection hurts too much.'

  That line wiped the conversation off the face of the earth. At least I'd thought so in the seconds of silence that followed. But then Zena said, 'Serves Ace right. It's about time something like that happened to her. She left a killing field behind at my school – my brother being just one of her many victims.'

  'But I do feel bad, 'Georgie murmured, ''cause Ace and I were really close.'

  I took a deep breath and suggested something that could solve all our problems: 'So don't go out with Jules then.'

  Georgie shrugged. 'That's easier said than done.'

  'No it's not,' I wanted to say back. 'All you have to do is say, "Jules, I don't want to be with you", and then we can go back to being the good old Starfish Sisters. Simple.' But I didn't say it.

  'Hey, now I get it,' Laura told us. 'That's why Ace was so cool about trading her Kelly Slater hat in return for me doing her breakfast duty tomorrow.'

  'She traded her Kelly Slater hat?' Micki gasped.

  'Yeah.'

  I asked it. But as I did I knew I didn't want the answer. 'Was – was it because Ace and Georgie were . . . on breakfast duty together?'

  'Obviously,' muttered Georgie.

  I thought back to another thing my doctor had told me – to identify the triggers.

  'What are the triggers?' I'd said to her, trying to work out what a gun had to do with my problem.

  The triggers, she'd explained, were the things that set me off. The situations that made me feel like my life was spiralling out of control. If I could learn to recognise the triggers that made me feel bad and panicky and angry and hate myself, then I could have some control over these things and my life. I could either try and work with the triggers or avoid them, depending on what they were.

  I knew what was making me feel bad and panicky and angry right now. It was the same as the other day when I'd run to the bungalow to cut myself and make the pain go away. It was us. We were the triggers – the failing, fighting, lying, two-faced Starfish Sisters. I'd tried action. I'd done my best to get us talking, get us back together, get us to the way we used to be, when nothing else mattered but us. Yet I had failed, badly. So did that mean my only option left was to avoid them, my Starfish Sisters?

  It was crazy. All my bad feelings were triggered by not being able to make it work with my triggers. How could avoiding the triggers work when they were the three things I needed in my life? Georgie, Micki and Ace.

  The full-time job of being 'normal' wasn't just to please Dad and show him that I could be like that. It was also for my Starfish Sisters.

  Breathe. There's nothing you can do about it. Breathe. You tried to keep us together. Breathe. Let it go. You did your best. Breathe.

  Laura scored. She got to keep Ace's Kelly Slater cap and scammed out of breakfast duty.

  We were in a Pilates session, the sleep still crusty in our eyes and stale
morning breath floating through the air, and already it had started.

  Laura walked into the class and said, 'Ace, you've got to go and do your breakfast duty.'

  Ace was straddled over a Swiss ball. 'But we swapped.'

  'Carla told me to come and get you.'

  'Carla?'

  'Sorry.'

  Ace just about kicked the Swiss ball out the window. 'Pathetic,' she said, storming out of the room, slamming the door and leaving the windows rattling behind her.

  That's the sort of thing I used to do.

  Breathe, I reminded myself. There's nothing you can do now. Breathe.

  Last night, Micki and I had carefully sat Ace down and told her exactly Laura's story, word for word.

  But it had required preparation. So I made the plans.

  Georgie'd agreed to go for a walk as it was better if just Micki and I told her. Since our little talking to from Carla and Jake, it seemed that Ace could only behave rationally when Georgie was out of sight. The rest of the time I couldn't decide if Ace was like a green-eyed monster or a straight-out spoilt brat.

  Her time here at camp with Georgie was almost over. Ace just had to play the game until announcement time on Friday. But her resentment of Georgie seemed to be growing by the second and the hard bit was that you couldn't really blame her for it.

  Micki did the talking as I wasn't sure I could keep my voice calm. The idea that Ace might say 'If being selected means being with Georgie then forget it!' had me feeling like I was about to pass out.

  It was them or us. That's pretty much how Micki explained it. Ace got it too. She nodded the whole way through the story and even used the same logic, that it made sense to have big- and small-wave surfers in a team. She'd agreed that it sounded right and not some invention of Laura's. Plus Ace could even confirm the bee allergy, as her interview had been straight after Laura's and she remembered Laura making a comment like, 'The dude with the beard left the interview 'cause he's allergic to bees.'

  So if Ace understood all that, then why – why – had she just made a scene over something as pathetic as doing breakfast duty with Georgie?

  I was finding it a challenge to stay straddled on my Swiss ball too. I wanted to jump off and kick it across the room, then storm out so I could catch Ace before she got down to the kitchen. I'd point my finger in her face and tell her, 'Ace, this is not just about you. Remember, there's no I in team. There's an M and a G and a K too!'

  But that wouldn't make me look very normal. So I didn't.

  The waves were like raging three-headed monsters that charged with open mouths before smashing their teeth together and dumping their victim. But every now and then a mammoth set would come through that didn't just close out. That's why Ace and Georgie were out there.

  Micki and I watched them. They weren't talking. They were just surfing.

  The second those two started paddling it was like a bolt of electricity hit the water. They charged from the take-off, flying like maniacs down the line, using the speed to slash the wave to pieces.

  'Do you think this is their way of making up?' I asked Micki while I squeezed the rope that sectioned off this part of the beach. 'Do you?'

  'Could be,' she answered. 'But I reckon they're doing it for us too.'

  Since I was about eight years old, I'd stood here at the roped-off part of Coolina beach watching the elite camp surfers and hoping so hard that I'd get to stand on the other side of the rope some day.

  Now, stepping back from it felt like one foot to freedom. It was like leaving a war zone.

  The crisp afternoon air filled my lungs and suddenly I felt like I could breathe without telling myself to.

  'You ready?' Micki asked me. 'Or do you want to walk first and warm up?'

  'Nah,' I answered, stretching my arms out in front of me. 'It's getting cold. We might as well start running.'

  The wind whipped the sand across our ankles.

  Micki was hopping from foot to foot. 'Shall we do the soft sand?'

  'It'll be more sheltered.'

  'I was thinking, Kia, maybe I could ask someone at Ocean Pearl about you doing work experience there. I mean, when I get to know them and stuff.'

  'Really?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Cool.'

  Micki and I reached the top of the beach, where the sand was soft, meaning double the workout, but at least it was less blowy and the path was level. With every challenge comes a reward – except at surf camp I wasn't so sure that theory applied anymore. But I hoped it did.

  Micki and I started up a jog. Soon we fell into a rhythm – our feet, our breath – pounding and puffing along a beach that wasn't our home break and yet it knew our stories. It had heard us confess, laugh, argue, sob and make empty promises to the stars above.

  'Can you believe it's all going to be over tomorrow?' I said to Micki.

  'Yes and no,' Micki replied. 'In some ways Megan leaving seems like yesterday but then it also feels like months ago.'

  'It's weird when time does that. Like being inside a barrel can feel like an hour when it's only seconds.'

  Like holding the tip of the scissors to your skin, before you push them into your flesh – in that moment you feel as though the world has stopped turning.

  I sucked the air up.

  'What?' Micki said. 'Are you okay?'

  'I wanted to cut myself the other day.' Micki's feet slowed in the sand but I took her hand and kept running. 'But I didn't.'

  'You didn't?'

  'No,' I answered. 'It was after you told me about being the Ocean Pearl girl.'

  'Oh, I'm sorry.'

  'No! No, it wasn't that. See, I knew about Georgie and Jules. It was like – like everything was going wrong. I was about to burst. You know, sometimes it feels like my body's going to go bang and explode into a million pieces.'

  'But you didn't cut yourself, Kia.'

  'No.'

  'You got through it. That's all that matters. The secrets and all that, it's not –'

  'But we made a pact. Remember? Then Georgie told me about her and Jules and I – I couldn't deal with the mess.'

  'That was hardly a secret!' Micki said, panting. The sweat trickled down her forehead and dripped off the end of her nose. 'I'm not saying I knew but I sussed it out. It wasn't such a surprise. They were texting each other the whole time.'

  'Why am I so dumb? I never see that stuff.'

  'Maybe you do.'

  'Really?'

  'But maybe you don't want to.'

  'Yeah?' I shrugged. 'I just don't know what happened . . .' I couldn't finish the sentence. My voice froze midway. I was embarrassed by how pathetic I was, that was part of it, but mostly I didn't want to hear the truth. If I listened to the truth and it turned out to be not what I'd hoped to hear then I'd want to change it and if I couldn't, I'd freak out. And I was still learning what do with that feeling.

  Micki was right. I shoved things away in the back of my head 'cause I didn't want to know. But I couldn't help it. I wasn't like Micki. She didn't live in fantasies where everything had to be neat and perfect. Maybe she wanted to. But Micki had to stay in reality or who would tell her dad what day of the week it was?

  'What were you going to say?' Micki asked. 'You went, "I just don't know what . . ."'

  'Yeah.' I sighed. 'I just don't know what happened to the Starfish Sisters.'

  'Maybe they never existed,' Micki replied. 'Maybe we weren't as great as we thought we were.'

  Micki and I slipped into the zone. At last our bodies and minds had hit that point where the pain goes and you can keep running and running. The camp was now a dot way, way down the other end of the beach.

  The sun had begun to sink. The harsh winter blue of the sky was sliding away and the afternoon air chilled the sweat on our skin.

  If you looked hard enough, somewhere in the shadows of Coolina beach, you could just see two figures jogging at the top of the sand, their feet and breath in time with each other.

  We did exist. L
ike this day existed, so did the Starfish Sisters. And if we could make it through tomorrow, then perhaps, just perhaps, we could exist again.

  MICKI

  Shyan's treasure box needed a sign on it that said 'Enter with caution. I'll probably make you cry.' Ace, Zena, Kia and now Georgie were in tears. We'd had heaps of bad singing in here before but I don't think the rec room had ever quite heard the sound that was climbing up its walls this minute – the sound of humans choking with pressure.

  Shyan was moving around the room, touching the head of each sobbing girl, saying cringy things like 'You're releasing the stress' and 'It's okay to cry.'

  Maybe in Shyan's books it was okay but obviously not in Jake's. If I'd had magic binoculars I reckon I'd have been able to spot smoke spiralling from his ears. He was standing up the front with his arms crossed looking at the girls like they were the biggest bunch of wusses.

  Laura looked like she was bored with the dramatics. She just wanted tomorrow to come. She had her new acquisition, 'her' Kelly slater cap, pulled over her eyes and was tapping the floor with one foot. I couldn't take my eyes off her, not because she was interesting but because the sight of her, the way she sat slumped in the chair, was making something nag in my brain.

  Family drug group meetings, that's what it was. Laura reminded me of one of the boys that'd been there last year. He was probably about fifteen and lived with his grandparents 'cause his mother was an addict. His gran was talking about their daughter, his mum, and she was crying. Then the grandpa started crying too. The boy just sat there, his cap pulled over his forehead, one foot bouncing up and down on the spot.

  I always tried to be a good girl in those drug meetings and not cry. But I wasn't sure I knew how to cry. Not then.

  It was different now. I had never cried so much as these last couple of weeks. But through my tears I had found lots of answers. Answers to practical stuff like would Dad be okay without me and what do I bring to Kia's. But answers to other things too. Things I'd never been able to wrap my tongue around. Would I find Miss Micki at camp and who was Miss Micki, that's what I really wanted to know. Was she a joke, was she some character I rolled out for camp, or was she real?