by Sarah Ayoub
Based on his bookishness, I’d figured that Shehadie wasn’t going to be what a dancing queen’s dreams were made of, but he moves really well. It must be the wog in him, I think, but I’m still surprised. And then I remember how he told me I need to stop stereotyping people and I curse him for always being one step ahead of me.
He holds my hand and twirls me around, and for once I feel like the leading lady of a movie instead of one of the stage crew, and it makes me smile so much that my face hurts.
It’s hot and I’m clammy and sweaty, but I don’t want to be anywhere else, and I think it’s the same for him. He looks impressed and I love that I can make him feel that way. For once I feel like somebody worth seeing, and I wonder what has become of the girl who was content to live her life in the shadows.
Then the song ends … and I’m back to being me. I turn to walk away, but Shehadie isn’t having a bar of it. He pulls me back towards him and kisses me, right there in the middle of the dance floor, in front of all those girls who’ve been checking him out all night and all those boys who probably wanted to kill him. And it’s a great kiss.
‘Wow,’ I say, in shock.
‘I know,’ he says. ‘I’m good.’
I narrow my eyes at him, and he laughs and leads me away down the driveway so we can talk.
‘Why would you do that?’ I ask, looking at the floor.
His face goes red. ‘I’m sorry, Soph,’ he says, retreating. He’s quiet for a second and then he puts his hands in his pockets. ‘But fuck, you’re confusing.’
I wait expectantly.
‘Like seriously,’ he says. ‘You’re always harping on about how you’re invisible and how nobody notices you and the whole time I’m paying you all this attention and you couldn’t give a shit … I mean, what’s the point? Games are fun, but eventually they have to go somewhere, and I know you probably think I’m an arsehole, but I guess I just thought …’
And then I kiss him. It takes a moment to register what I’ve done, and even though he’s a great kisser I stop and pull back, embarrassed.
‘You’re right,’ I say, going bright red. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have given you mixed messages.’
He bends down to look me in the eye. ‘If this is how you apologise, you can give me as many mixed messages as you want,’ he says, smiling.
I bite my lip. ‘I’m kind of embarrassed.’
‘Why? This is normal. It happens all the time.’
‘Not to girls like me. To guys like you probably, but not with girls like me.’
‘That’s why I like you. And I don’t want this … I mean us, to stop tonight. I just hope you actually remember this conversation because it’s awkward enough telling you once that I like you. Can you imagine how bad it’d be if you’re actually drunk right now and won’t remember it tomorrow?’
‘It would be just your luck,’ I say, smiling at him.
When we return to the backyard, Jacob and Thomas grin at me, nodding their heads. We all gather around Joseph as he cuts the cake, with me standing in front of Shehadie and next to Jacob, Thomas, Nicole and her cousins. I think about how great the night has been, and shiver a little from the cold. A second later, Shehadie is rubbing his hands up and down my arms. It’s a small gesture but it makes me ecstatic, because I’ve stared at those perfectly tanned arms for so long and now they are giving me a comfort I’ve needed for even longer.
Later, when I’m ready to head off with Thomas and Jacob, Shehadie grabs me by the hand. ‘Why don’t you just let me take you home?’ he asks.
I give him a look that says, ‘I’m not that kind of girl’ and he knows immediately what I’m on about.
‘No silly stuff,’ he says, putting his hands up in front of him. ‘Surfer’s honour.’
‘Do surfies even have honour?’ I ask. ‘Haven’t you read Puberty Blues? Plus, I’m pretty sure you were drinking beer earlier.’
He laughs. ‘Yes, I suppose walking you home is a bad idea … I totally forgot I didn’t drive here. I only live in the next street.’ He points in one direction, then turns around and points again, pretending to be confused.
I laugh. ‘I have to go. We’ll talk later.’
He waves goodbye, and I think about him all the way home. Finally I get to feel something that I don’t have to share with anyone. Something that’s all mine, something that’s amazing. I fall asleep thinking of sweet kisses and hugs and Shehadie’s strong tanned arms. Forget ignorance, I think. This is what bliss is all about.
22
I hate that heartache is always around the corner
When I wake up the next morning I’m still smiling. It had never been my plan to fall for Shehadie Goldsmith, but now that I have I can’t believe how much time I wasted pining after Zayden Malouf. I laugh at the fact that, for once in my life, the thing that went wrong has actually been the right thing after all.
I’m supposed to spend the day studying, but my mind is too keyed up to concentrate. I keep reliving the party over and over, wondering at what point I transformed from the shy, awkward girl into the girl who asked the boy to dance, and then let him kiss her in the middle of a dance floor … with other people around.
Even my History essay and its confusing questions about Albert Speer and the Nazis can’t dampen my spirits, and I find myself checking my phone every twenty minutes for messages from Shehadie. He’s probably at work. We’ve been on different shifts lately, thanks to my request for some time off to study.
So far I’ve only had one message from him, a few minutes after I got home on Friday night.
Hope u got home safe. Can I call u this wknd? Goodnight. Mr Smugness x
Evidently, I’m not the only person thinking about what happened last night, because Jacob sends me a direct message on Facebook congratulating me for doing something out of the ordinary.
It seems that everyone’s abandoning study today in favour of some social networking. People’s status updates and comments are all about what a great party it was, and there are photos of Joseph, the cake, and some dude in Year Eleven lying in the corner of the yard trashed and totally unaware he’s going to be the butt of every senior joke for the next three months.
Vanessa posts a note titled ‘Guess Who’, which comes through on my feed. I click on the thread to see a bullet list of gossipy observations from the party, thinly veiled in humour, but no doubt intended to dent the self-esteem of everyone involved. We’re meant to guess the girl who spent the entire night behind the shed with a guy from another school, the guy who spewed in the bathroom and went home early embarrassed, the girl who wore a disastrous outfit, and … the two social pariahs who became the objects of one another’s desire.
Oh. My. God. She can’t be serious.
Already people are commenting or inserting smileys and LOLs in the comments section.
My phone rings. It’s Sue. She must have been expecting an onslaught of whingeing from me because straight away she tells me to calm down and relax, that no one will know that Vanessa was talking about me and Shehadie.
‘Heaps of people were messing around,’ she says. ‘Don’t you remember Sally and Diana’s tacky dirty dancing? I’m surprised that didn’t make the list. Oh yes, wait, it’s because they’re her friends.’
‘But, Sue –’ I start.
‘Need I remind you that she classifies everyone who isn’t in her group a social pariah? Unfortunately, because she’s Queen Bee people listen to her. Still, no one’s really going to know who she’s referring to.’
‘Are you sure?’ I say. ‘I mean, not that I care, but I’m just so over her dumb antics. Who the hell does she think she is?’
‘I know,’ Sue says. ‘But who cares? You totally got the boy. I’m so happy for you! Now you can stop pining.’
‘Me? Pine? NEVER,’ I say, feigning outrage.
We both start laughing, and then I hear her gasp.
‘Sue?’ I ask. ‘Sue, are you there? What’s wrong?’
‘Um, Soph,’
she says, her tone hesitant. ‘Are you in front of your computer?’
‘No, I’m on my bed. Why?’
She’s silent.
‘Why, Sue?’ I ask again, concerned.
‘Go refresh the screen,’ she whispers.
I bolt for my computer, and it seems like an eternity waiting for it to refresh.
‘Can’t you just tell me what it is?’ I ask, exasperated.
‘No, honey, I can’t. Just scroll to the second-last comment.’
As I do, I see that it was posted by Rita, which can’t be good for the poor sucker involved.
Haha, guess who, guess what. Does it matter? It does when one social pariah desperately wants a date to the formal but the object of her desire is already going with his ex. That is, if she is his ex …
Just in case it wasn’t obvious enough, she’s posted a picture of Shehadie. He’s sitting with a group of people at the beach, a cake on the blanket in front of them. He’s grinning at a girl with long blonde hair who’s smiling back at him. Their hands are intertwined and he looks happy. Happier than I’ve ever seen him – at work, at school, at the party last night. Happier than he’s ever looked when he’s with me.
The rest of the day goes by in a blur. I don’t remember hanging up the phone with Sue, or logging off my computer. All I remember is shoving my headphones into my ears and listening to depressing Adele love songs which bring on an avalanche of tears. Later, I move from sadness to anger, and so does my music selection – Linkin Park, Taylor Swift and Simple Plan remind me that life is never simple. And neither are people for that matter.
Marie comes in and asks me to listen to her reading homework, and I use all my emotional strength to put on a brave face. When we’re done, she kisses my cheek and I pat her on the head. She already has more sass than I do. She’d never let Dad rule her life, or let a boy break her heart.
She must have told Mum that something’s up, because minutes later Mum appears with some yansoon, a comforting tea that is the Lebanese answer to life’s many ailments.
‘What’s wrong, hayeti?’ she asks me, brushing my hair away from my face.
She really has made us her entire life. I wonder what she was like at my age.
‘Mareeda, I think,’ I say, ‘I must be sick. I feel like I’m going to vomit.’
She moves the garbage bin by my desk closer to me. ‘I shouldn’t have let you go to that party in the cold,’ she says. ‘Or so your dad keeps saying.’
I sigh. ‘Dad will say anything to avoid me going out.’
‘When I was your age, my dad wouldn’t let me go make tabouli at my cousin Shereen’s house because her brother was home from army camp for the weekend and her parents were dead,’ she says, smiling. ‘He was afraid that people in the village would talk and no one would marry me because I had spent time in a house with a man.’
‘We don’t need to live in a village for Dad to think that way about me,’ I say. ‘Times have changed since you were young. I refuse to believe that I’ll be ruining my marriage prospects if I go out with my friends. And I wouldn’t want to marry a guy who thought like that anyway.’
‘My darling,’ she says, ‘our community is a village. A big gossipy village, where everything is everyone else’s business. Your dad has his reasons for wanting to protect you.’
Yes, but he’s protecting me from living my life, I want to say, but instead I roll onto my back and clutch my stomach. Mum looks concerned and I love her for it.
‘Get some rest,’ she says. ‘I’ve taken the phone off the hook in case you want to sleep.’
‘Thanks, Mama,’ I say. ‘You’re the best.’
I spend the rest of the day drifting in and out of sleep, cursing Shehadie for making me feel emotionally and physically sick.
I don’t go to school on Monday. I don’t have the energy for it. By 10 am, I receive a text from Shehadie.
Ignore whatever you’ve seen on Vanessa’s FB note. Give me a chance to talk to you. There’s a lot to explain.
I respond with a simple:
I have nothing to say to you right now
I spend the rest of the day watching re-runs on Foxtel, trying to block everything out of my mind. But I can’t, and I’m embarrassed by how often I check my phone. Part of me never wants to see or hear from him again, but a larger part wants him to call me so I can yell at him to my broken heart’s content. But he doesn’t try to fight for me. He just leaves me alone.
‘I can’t figure out if that’s worse,’ I tell Sue when she rings to check up on me.
‘I can totally understand you wanting a confrontation,’ she says. ‘But to be honest, I think you may need to hear him out. He looked really bummed today, like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.’
‘That’s not my problem,’ I say, hardening myself in preparation for facing him tomorrow. ‘You play with fire, you get burnt.’
‘Um, okay,’ she says.
We chat a bit about homework and then hang up.
By Tuesday, my anger has turned into a far scarier rage and I walk to school with an attitude that says I don’t give a damn. That said, I don’t want a confrontation – with liar boys or bitchy girls – so I keep to myself for most of the day. I go to the library at lunchtime for some journal-writing time, but Sue and Nicole track me down and drag me outside to our usual spot.
‘I don’t want to sit here,’ I say, as Nicole dumps my bag on the grass.
‘You need some sun. You look scary,’ Sue replies. ‘Not kidding.’
I glare at her, but feel better once I sit down on the grass with my friends, soaking up the gorgeous weather. I even manage to laugh a few times. Winter is beginning to waste away and a light spring sun hangs in the sky.
‘So …’ Jacob says, peering at me, ‘Sophie seems to be keeping strong.’
The others nod in agreement as I death-stare him.
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ I say.
‘Well, you were kind of obsessed with him.’
I shove him. ‘I was not.’
‘Come on, Soph,’ Nicole says. ‘We were all waiting for it to happen.’
‘To happen like this?’
‘No, of course not!’ she says.
‘Well, nothing’s going to happen now,’ I say, unwrapping my sandwich with such ferocity that they laugh.
‘We’ll see,’ Jacob says. ‘Maybe not right now, but I have a feeling the next instalment isn’t too far away.’
‘What’s the girlfriend like, anyway?’ Nicole asks. ‘Or ex-girlfriend. Or whatever she is. With Vanessa and Rita, you never know what’s true and what isn’t.’
‘Didn’t you see the photo?’ Sue says. ‘Whatever she is, she’s blonde and attractive.’
‘And probably tall,’ I say. ‘Just to compound my suffering. Next I’ll find out she’s a model.’
They smile at me.
‘Let’s do American teen-movie comparisons,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry, I can handle it.’
‘If you’re sure,’ Sue says, and looks at the others.
‘Well, if this were an American teen movie, the blonde girl would be captain of the cheer squad,’ Thomas says.
‘And who would Sophie be?’ Nicole asks.
‘Erm, the girl with the glasses and braces and messy hair?’ Sue asks, puzzled.
‘Sue, I am the girl with the glasses and braces and messy hair,’ I say. ‘And, best of all, a dad who won’t even let me go to the mailbox without asking when I’ll be back.’
‘Don’t exaggerate, Sophie,’ Jacob says. ‘Didn’t your mother teach you not to lie?’
‘I’m not exaggerating. My sister Angela jokes that I’ll meet my future husband in the front yard, get married in the backyard, and move into the shed. That’s how much faith she has in the removal of my perma-curfew.’
‘The curfew doesn’t matter,’ Thomas says. ‘You wouldn’t be invited anywhere anyway.’
‘Well, at least I don’t go around begging for invi
tes,’ I say, swatting at him and missing.
‘Sophie might turn out to be the character who brings a gun to school because she’s tired of being neglected,’ Sue says, teasing me. ‘She and that bloody journal of hers would be immortalised.’
I bury my head in my hands. ‘Awww, why me?’
‘I didn’t think our Soph was capable of such a thing,’ Thomas says. ‘But now … well, I’m not so sure.’
‘You guys are so slack,’ I say. ‘Seriously, I’m over him and his stupid girlfriend, and his stupid muscly arms and his stupid tan and his stupid smiling eyes. OVER HIM. Time to move on.’ I put my hands in my lap to signify that I’ve made a decision.
‘Over him?’ Thomas says, cracking up. ‘Yeah, right.’
‘And here I was thinking you guys were good friends. Silly me,’ I say, slapping myself on the forehead.
‘Seriously, Soph? You won’t be over him in a million years,’ Thomas says. ‘Come on! You pashed him at a party with complete disregard for the fact that it could get back to your dad. From the moment you did it, you were floating on a cloud, and as soon as you found out there was another chick in the picture you started plotting his death, speaking in tongues and thinking of ways you could get a dead bird into his locker.’
‘Tom has a point,’ Sue says.
I put down my sandwich, tired of fighting them, of fighting it. ‘What’s the point, honestly? I wouldn’t like someone to steal my boyfriend so why would I do it to her? That’s assuming I even stand a chance …’ I start to tear up.
Sue rubs my back. ‘Well, for starters, you like him. And secondly, it’s not as if he’s going out with the girl, he’s just taking her to the formal. And before you say anything, I know you were looking forward to going with someone, but for all you know, so was she. And he was probably her high school boyfriend, but he broke up with her because he met you.’