Forgotten Girl

by Naomi Jacobs

  ‘Like a Christmas list,’ I joked to the coffee-making guy. ‘Never seen so much coffee in one place.’ I nodded at the list on the wall.

  He looked puzzled, gave a half-smile, and started to bang this metal thing around loudly. Nobody took any notice, so I assumed this meant the banging was normal and he wasn’t actually threatening to off me with coffee-making implements.

  He poured my drink into a glass (a glass!), squirted cream on top, and sprinkled it with tiny pink and white marshmallows.

  I sat down at a small table by the window and stared at my drink as if it was an expensive piece of art. I felt like I had to – it had cost me a frickin’ fiver!

  As I slowly sipped my chocolate, I watched the people in the coffee shop. A Muslim family came over and sat at the table next to me. As the young woman took her baby out of its buggy she smiled at me. I smiled back, and the little girl looked over at me and giggled. She was total cuteness with curly hair and big brown eyes. I mock giggled back and she buried her face into her mother’s chest. The man gave a friendly smile and I went back to my chocolate, but not before noticing a couple on the other side of them shuffling their seats slightly away, eyeing them suspiciously. Are you kidding me? I thought. What, are people, like, thinking all Muslims are bad, as if this friendly family are smuggling weapons of mass destruction in a baby’s nappy? Jeez Louise!

  Happy that the world still had some friendly people in it, despite other people’s ignorance, I finished my arty chocolate. It was time to find my way to Maeve’s house.

  Maeve seemed nice. She was tall and skinny with straight blonde hair and sharp green eyes. She made us both a hot drink, sat at the kitchen table, and rolled a joint. It took me five minutes to realize this woman was deeply unhappy. She reminded me of a character called Sad Sack from The Raggy Dolls cartoon, dolls that nobody wanted, who lived in the reject bin. Sad Sack was perpetually miserable and always looked on the negative side of life. To him, existence was doomed and there was no point in doing anything because all effort was futile.

  The more I studied her face, the more I realized she looked older than she was and had experienced way too much in her life, including an abusive partner who had a drink problem and hit her on a regular basis over the years. She had tried to leave him on many occasions, sometimes even turning up at Adult Naomi’s with a black eye or two, but in the end, she always went back to him. This was all in the diaries and Simone had told me some of it as well.

  It was difficult to hide the being a fifteen-year-old thing from Maeve, but she was too stoned to see anything was different and I managed to get a few details from her with regards what had happened to Adult Naomi after the June 2005 diary entry when everything seemed okay. She smoked joint after joint and cigarette after cigarette, and drank coffee after coffee, while reminding me of the car accident that Adult Naomi had been involved in in the summer of 2005 which had left her with severe whiplash. She’d ignored the warnings the doctor had given her and gone horse riding, where she’d got thrown off a giant horse and broken two ribs. She wasn’t able to work for more than a year and she started to lose money and get into debt. Maybe this was how she had lost her house.

  As she talked on, I’d had enough. I had to leave before the mushroom cloud of smoke Maeve existed in threatened to wipe me off the planet. I chipped as soon as possible.

  As I took a taxi to Danielle’s, Adult Naomi’s other friend, I wondered what had happened to Katie, my real best friend from school. I hadn’t found her in the diaries – or this future life – yet.

  Danielle seemed happy to see me, saying, ‘It’s been too long,’ when she hugged me.

  She was around the same height as me, had the same complexion, but was slimmer with shorter hair. I liked her immediately, until she rolled a joint. I was starting to see a pattern here and wasn’t happy. She had a daughter around the same age as Leo and Adult Naomi had known her and her family since she was pregnant. From the diaries, I knew that Danielle was like family to her and there had been many tough times when they had relied on each other as they were both single mothers with unreliable men for fathers. Adult Naomi had found Danielle hilarious, like, stand-up-comic hilarious, especially when she’d had a drink. But like family, they had had problems and disagreements as well. Still, like with Dean, I got a good feeling of déjà vu when I was around her, a kind of comfortableness you only get when you’re with family. I knew it was okay to take my shoes off and relax on the sofa with the cup of herbal tea she’d made for me. It was so different from Maeve’s. The mood was lighter, less intense. I told her of the stress Katie and Simone told me that Adult Naomi had experienced before the memory loss, but stopped before the break-up with ‘French Dude’. Thankfully, she didn’t know much about him, but we spoke about men and I was glad to hear she had left a relationship that she knew was no longer good for her. Something she had realized since the death of ‘our friend’.

  I tried to get as much information as possible from her about this friend when I realized this was again before the ‘3Ds’ diary period in Adult Naomi’s life. It was like piecing together a picture puzzle of a quiet storm and these were the corner pieces, the edges of the black clouds.

  ‘Beautiful’ (my nickname for her) was a mutual friend who’d died of breast cancer. Adult Naomi had grown close to her during her treatment, and they used to go for power walks and had even decided to go into business together before she grew too ill. But she had died, devastating everyone who knew her and the two children she had left behind. She had obviously had a big effect on Adult Naomi’s life because she’d been too upset to go to the funeral.

  Danielle stopped talking about her halfway through the conversation; I could see it was still too painful for her, so I didn’t push. Instead, I finished my tea and asked her to call me a taxi.

  I left feeling sad and a little bit confused about Danielle. She and Adult Naomi obviously had a history, but apart from being single parents, smoking weed and having the odd drink together, I couldn’t see what exactly they had in common and whether what they had was enough.

  Next I wanted to meet Rhonda, the second closest friend in Adult Naomi’s life, the woman she had gone to Paris with before Adult Naomi disappeared and whose description in her diaries left me slightly confused. On the one hand, Adult Naomi loved her totally, kind of needing Rhonda to make her feel good about herself. But, on the other hand, Rhonda’s controlling ways and the things she said pissed her off majorly and Adult Naomi wanted to ‘lock her off’23.

  They also seemed to have the alcoholic-for-a-mum thing in common.

  If you asked me, Rhonda’s opinion mattered way too much and, from my point of view, she seemed to give Adult Naomi some serious headache if she didn’t live up to her ‘high expectations’.

  The more I had read in the diaries about this ‘best friendship’, the more I began to realize that no one in Adult Naomi’s life particularly liked Rhonda. In fact, some (family) disliked her immensely and felt she didn’t have a positive influence on her life.

  Still, I needed to know for myself and wanted to find out if Rhonda was really the Thelma to Adult Naomi’s Louise.

  Rhonda Simpson was curvy, with curly brown hair and hazel eyes. When she smiled, her face irradiated an unusual beauty. It made me want to smile too, which was a bit weird, considering I didn’t know her, but I instantly relaxed, like I had with Danielle. This déjà vu was so strange, I decided to push it down as far as I possibly could.

  Rhonda was happy to see me initially and then scolded me for her not being able to contact me over the past weeks. I lied and told her what I thought Adult Naomi might say, that I’d needed some time to get over French Dude. She wanted to know exactly what had happened between us, but not remembering, I mumbled something about it still being too painful, which she seemed to accept.

  So instead, Rhonda spent pretty much most of the evening talking about her new boyfriend and I listened and nodded and tried to stop my mind from wandering. I knew she ha
d one child and she was at her grandmas for the night, but again, she was a single mother and again, she pulled out the papers and a bag of weed and rolled a joint. I was just sitting there thinking, What is it with all of these pothead friends?

  Her stories about this man bored me eventually; he didn’t seem to be treating her well, but it was none of my business and I gave up trying to figure it or her out. It just made her sound self-absorbed and disinterested in Adult Naomi’s life, and she seemed to hint that if it all went bad, it would somehow be Adult Naomi’s fault. I so did not get this, but ignored her and tried to remember why I had visited in the first place. It took several attempts, but I managed to steer the conversation round to the time before the ‘3Ds’ diary. I asked her about her mum.

  ‘Oh, she’s fine, still the same.’ She paused. ‘Have you spoken to yours yet?’

  ‘My mum?’ I questioned. ‘Oh no, not since . . .’ I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I know, so bad what she did, so naughty.’

  ‘I know.’ I tried not to look clueless. ‘But you know . . .’ I hesitated. ‘I’ve just got to, you know, like, build a bridge and get over it.’

  Rhonda looked shocked. ‘Get over her telling you your dad isn’t really your dad?’

  I almost dropped the cup I was holding. ‘What?’ I spluttered. Was she joking? ‘What . . . what was she thinking, mad woman?’ I tried to give a half-laugh and shake my head.

  ‘Hmm.’ She raised one eyebrow. ‘Well, whatever she was thinking, to tell a lie like that is beyond forgivable.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed. So frickin’ Jekyll and Hyde offensive, bogus smeggin’, majorly, majorly unforgivable. It was all starting to make sense. This was why she wasn’t in Adult Naomi’s life; it had to be. But why? Why would she say something like that?

  I suddenly wanted to leave and to be with Leo and Simone, so I finished my drink, listened to Rhonda talk some more about her new boyfriend, called a taxi, and left. By the time I got back to Adult Naomi’s house I decided I didn’t want to phone and disturb Simone or Leo and could wait until I saw Simone to ask her some more about what had happened to Adult Naomi that summer.

  Instead I lay in bed that night, thinking about her friends, what she had written about them in the diaries and how through her experiences they had ended up in her life. I thought about the car accident Maeve had spoken about and how upset Adult Naomi must have been, knowing she was going to lose her business. I thought of what Danielle said about ‘Beautiful’ dying and couldn’t imagine what that must have been like, to be friends with someone you really respect and admire and eventually get close to them, only for them to be gone a year later. To top it all, having an alcoholic mother who had that many unresolved issues with Art that she felt the need to take it out on Adult Naomi. My dad wasn’t my real dad! Was she for real?

  I felt well sad and really sorry for Adult Naomi, and kinda sorry for her friends too. But it was obvious from being around them that Katie, Simone and Dean were her true friends. The others? Well, is that why she got so stoned around them? So that she could ignore the obvious fact that they had nothing in common?

  They were really different from the friends I had back home – sooooo different – and Adult Naomi really didn’t fit in with them. I could see this from the diaries and the things she went through with them, but why couldn’t she? It was all so confusing.

  I closed my eyes and searched my mind for the familiar darkness of the house. It was still there, and the faint light still shone in the window. Finally, I could see the whole window, the bigger picture. Adult Naomi had given up on herself.

  Why?

  I turned towards the house.

  The door was open.

  8

  Butterflies and Hurricanes

  It’s like you get stuck, you feel trapped and you can’t see a way out,

  and then a storm comes and beats you up,

  knocks you back down.

  But when it’s gone and you’re lying there beaten,

  you realize you’ve become unstuck.

  In all of the chaos

  the storm has released you from the trap.

  N. C.

  I woke up feeling a mega sadness about everything I had read and heard so far.

  Not just for Adult Naomi and the stuff she had been through that summer, but for her friends as well. What they had told me wasn’t good and they all seemed to be struggling with some deep stuff of their own, with their only answer being to get high and put themselves in seriously smegged-up relationships. Was this happening to some women in the world? Were things that bad? Was this, like, because of the way the magazines were? Or this reality TV that so wasn’t real life? It was all, like, one big personality contest, and whoever could humiliate the hardest and sex-tape the biggest and airbrush the best won the biggest prize. Everybody watching them.

  I felt the opposite; I did want people to see me, but if they did, I didn’t want to embellish or bandage – no, I wanted to stand at the top of the highest mountain and scream to everyone that would listen: WAKE UP WORLD! THIS IS SO NOT RIGHT!

  Instead I did what I reckoned most people did. I retreated into my own world.

  I spent hours and hours on the Internet watching videos uploaded by people from all over the world. Piano-playing cats, doped-up kids from the dentist, young girls using plastic cups as percussion instruments while singing, young boys with guitars, adults with their cars, women showing you how to ‘get that look’ with make-up. Teens skateboarding, snowboarding and sandboarding, looking for a sponsorship deal. Wannabe rappers and girls with voices like Mariah on talk shows looking for record deals.

  What’s the deal?

  Then there were the UFO sightings, crop circles, conspiracy theories, secret societies, corrupt governments, radio shows, TV shows, Internet shows, podcasts, live feeds, realtime streaming . . . Downloads, uploads and loads and loads of . . . stuff!

  Everybody had an opinion on something and there was a platform for that opinion. The Internet. It just seemed to me that everyone had, like, this desperate need to be heard; everyone was saying, Look at me, can you hear me, can you see me? Am I here? Am I real? Do I matter?

  Andy Warhol was right: six and a half billion people were getting their fifteen minutes’ of fame and okay, so, having aspirations to be a famous actress as a kid, I understood a little bit. But everyone’s need to be famous had grown to a level I never would have imagined.

  Was this what had happened to Adult Naomi? Was her need to be seen, to be heard, to be acknowledged so important to her that trying too hard had made her ill?

  My only answer was to switch off the laptop and delve back into the diaries.

  I picked up the one from 2005.

  18 September 2005

  I haven’t written for a while, not since the night before the flashback. I can see the build-up to it and know what caused it. But I haven’t told anyone about it and I’m not going to. This is all about boundaries; I always feel like my boundaries are walked all over. The argument with Simone, the argument with Karl, the argument with Eve. I constantly let people in and they always do something, they always cross a line, and I end up feeling like the little girl again, lost, lonely, abused and wondering what I have done so wrong to be attacked like that. Then in my fear of ‘I need to protect myself from this, from you’, I go ballistic and get confrontational and it all ends in tears.

  It’s like Leo’s birthday all over again. The one time I ask for support from my friends and family, because Leo’s dad upset me again, and what do they do? They get drunk in my home and start having raging arguments with each other. On my son’s birthday! In my house! And then they blame each other, not taking responsibility for their actions. And when I voice my disdain, I get laughed at, told to shut up or told crap like your dad isn’t your real dad.

  I am so tired. I don’t know who to trust. I’m crying while writing this because I am so tired of it all. I wish my body didn’t hurt. I want the tension and the p
ain to stop now. I don’t want to go backwards anymore. No more bad, dark, depressing suicidal places, no more boundaryless territory, no more doing things for people in the name of what I thought was love and now know isn’t. What’s the point?

  I’m losing the business – the accident has caused so much pain. I am trying to keep it all together but the debt is piling up.

  And then to top it all, I have that god-almighty flashback and well . . .

  I stopped reading and flicked through the pages before this entry. Flashback? Flashback of what? What had happened? There was nothing, no mention of it, just one small entry, the beginnings of a letter.

  13 August 2005

  Dear Naomi,

  Little girl in the pink dress, I’m sorry that I’ve ignored you. I’m sorry that I wanted you to stay hidden and away from me and my life. I’m sorry that I have ignored your pain and your need to heal. I understand the flashbacks now, the one on the stairs yesterday and the one I had today. Today it was a smell, a simple smell, but it took me back to that flat where he lived and the way it used to smell. Stale oil, musty but sickly sweet. It isn’t quite finished, is it? And I know now that if I deny you, you will eventually push through and make me aware of the boo boo. That eventually the boo boo needs healing and I am the only one that can do it.

  What the hell is going on? I thought. Flashbacks? Little girl in the pink dress? Is this the ‘inner child’ I read about in the other diaries? Is this me? What happened?

  I flicked through the pages again, searching for answers. Nothing. Adult Naomi didn’t write about it again. What came after was the ‘3Ds’ diary and then her leaving the house and moving to Greece. I flicked the pages again and a piece of paper dropped out of the middle of the diary. I hadn’t noticed it before. It was a typed letter, thin and worn like it had been read over and over again.