by Emily Gale
I go closer. ‘Is that a photo or …?’
‘No, a painting.’
‘So realistic.’ I touch the surface. ‘Bloody hell, it looks a bit like you.’
‘It is me.’
Her voice sounds different. She’s anything but happy to find this here. I don’t know if it’s because the painting has been discarded with a bunch of junk, marked ten dollars. If there was a picture of me in here, I might feel that way too. The tears on the child’s face – Adie’s face – were they real?
‘Who’s it by?’
‘My dad. It’s called Cry like a Girl.’
I hate that phrase, but I hide my expression from her and crouch down to read the signature in the corner. Frank Ryan. When I turn, Adie has walked away and dumps her bundle of four-leaf clovers on top of a stack of shopping baskets on the way out. I follow slowly, not sure whether she’s trying to get away from the shop or me.
Outside, on the street, she’s already miles away and doesn’t look back once.
‘Wren!’ a girl’s voice calls behind me.
Milo and Sophie pull up beside me on their bikes. I feel as though I’ve been caught doing something terrible – thinking only of Adie when I still don’t even know if our dads are okay. What is wrong with me?
‘Any news?’ I ask.
‘We found my mum,’ says Milo. ‘The dads are both fine.’
‘Thank God for that.’
‘What are you doing here?’ he adds. ‘Was that Adie?’
‘I bumped into her. But she had somewhere else to be.’
‘Okay,’ he says innocently.
I’m not so innocent. There are little lies in everything I say when it comes to Adie. I haven’t even thanked Milo for what he did. ‘You were awesome today. You know that, don’t you?’
He replies in that inscrutable way that I love. ‘If you say so.’
Beside us, Sophie rolls her eyes. ‘Your mum’s been trying to call you, Wren.’
I reach into my bag. My phone screen is black, out of power again. It hasn’t been easy keeping our house of horrors going without electricity, with everything running on one small generator. Lately it feels like I have a better idea of what Mum and Dad meant when they said they grew up without phones. It’s not exactly the utopia they made it out to be.
At home that night I google ‘Frank Ryan’. He’s shortlisted for a portrait prize – a portrait of Adie and a woman. It’s the same photorealist style as the portrait of her as a crying girl. Adie isn’t crying in this one, but, if anything, she looks even more unhappy.
M: Mum wasn’t at the tennis club. We cycled around and found her walking along the high street.
D: What about Big Mike and Dougie boy – how are they now?
M: Fine. The snake hadn’t released any venom. I just wish they’d listened to me before they ran towards it. Then none of it would have happened. They’re still blaming the snake.
D: We’re not the kind of guys people listen to, we’re only the experts. Bet Wren thinks you’re a hero now. Time to move in for that kiss.
M: Maybe. She did call me awesome. Anyway, got to go. The Brearleys are coming to dinner.
D: The Brearleys Are Coming To Dinner? Sounds like a goofball comedy.
M: More like a horror movie.
D: Watch out for those horror movie tropes then. There’s always one guy who splits from the group, enters a creepy abandoned house, locates the ghoul and trips over his own feet as he tries to escape.
M: Great. Wish me luck.
I get a message from Wren. She’s going to a party at some big house in Kew later and wants to know if I’m up for it. This is a chance to see her. With all the study she says she’s doing, we’ve hardly spent any time together.
But I don’t do parties.
The two things I least want to do are happening on the same night – a party full of people I don’t know, and a dinner with people I wish I didn’t. Except one of these events has Wren in it.
I can’t, I text back. Sorry.
It’s 5.30 pm when the Brearleys ring the bell. I’m in my bedroom and the sound enters my body, churning my guts. Dad greets them loud enough for the whole street to hear. They rumble past my room and down to the other end of the house, swapping hellos and how-are-yous. Dave and Kate and Ben and Noah. Mike and Julie and Sophie. I belong in here, with Dan, not out there with them. But Dad’s already given me the talk – if I don’t at least try to come to dinner, he’s turning off the wi-fi for a week. Mum just shrugged. The house usually runs on her rules, but it feels like Dad’s making them now.
Dave spots me coming down the hall and holds out his arms. I stuff my hands in my pockets and try to smile. Everyone gets a flick of eye contact. Ben calls me ‘mate’. I hate him, I really do.
Dad passes Dave a beer. The men are loud and keep laughing at anything the other one says. I try to listen out for what’s so funny, but I don’t get it. My friends must have a different sense of humour because I’m always laughing with them. Mum and Kate are quieter. Noah and Sophie head down the hall to her room. I don’t know where to put myself.
‘Ben, you having a beer tonight?’ says Dave.
‘Just one. I’m training tomorrow.’
‘Good boy,’ says Dad. ‘Milo? How about you?’
‘What?’
‘Beer, mate?’
‘No.’ My dad has never asked me if I want a beer before. ‘You training tomorrow too, mate?’ says Dave. He grins and winks at Dad.
‘I don’t train.’
They look at me and I look at my shoes. By the time I look up, the adults are in the garden. Ben sits on the sofa and puts his feet on the glass coffee table. I’m standing with my hands in my pockets, feeling like I don’t belong while Ben Brearley makes himself at home. That is some talent.
He chugs back his beer. I’m never going to drink. My aim in life is to lay low. What if I have alcohol and forget all the hard work I do on a daily basis to not get laughed at? It’s difficult enough without a fuzzy head and the sudden belief that I’m awesome, which is my loose understanding of the way beer makes you feel.
‘Where’s that freaky girlfriend of yours?’
‘She isn’t a freak. And she’s not my girlfriend.’
‘Just as well. I’ve never seen anyone that ugly in the flesh.’
‘Don’t talk about her like that.’
‘Why? She’s disgusting.’
‘Shut up, Ben. I mean it.’
‘Shut up, Ben. I mean it.’ He laughs in an ugly way.
I sit at the kitchen bench with my back to him.
‘Oi, knobhead, where did my brother go?’
I don’t answer. Ben sets the empty bottle down on the bench in front of me and goes off to torment Noah instead.
We sit down to dinner. Dishes are passed around the table like chess pieces, glasses are refilled; the men’s noses and Kate’s cheeks have turned the same colour as their red wine. Mum’s pretending to drink hers. I watch her raise it to her lips and put it back down, still the same level.
‘So how’s Year Ten so far, Milo?’ asks Dave.
‘All right.’
He nudges my dad. ‘Not too late to get him a place you-know-where.’
‘Milo’s very happy where he is,’ says Mum. ‘We don’t want upheaval.’
I was at Dad’s old school in Prep, till Mum moved me.
Dave and Kate look at me again. I know what those looks mean – they think they’re looking at autism. They’ve got their microscopes out. They think I’m a condition. They think autism is a disease.
‘Well, you can’t blame me for trying,’ says Dave. ‘Ben’s going great guns there. And we had a ball, didn’t we, Mikey? I’d go back to school in a heartbeat if they’d let me!’
I picture Dave squeezing his belly into a pair of grey shorts, knee-high socks stretched around his massive calves. As revolting as that image is, it’s the only amusing thing about this entire night.
‘Hey, speaking of going great g
uns, did I tell you about Milo saving my life today?’ says Dad.
‘No, mate, you did not. Tell all!’ says Dave. The man cannot speak without sounding like a sports commentator.
‘Dad …’
‘Shh, let me tell them.’
I dread what’s coming. Every time Dad has told this story today, he’s got more and more details wrong. On the phone earlier, he said I’d picked up the snake. When he was telling Mum for the third time, the paramedic actually offered me a job. If I’m not sucking snake venom from his leg in this version, I’ll be surprised.
‘So, Milo finds a snake next door, right? Huge thing it was.’
‘It was a small tiger snake,’ I correct him. ‘Probably female.’
‘Oh God, not a female!’ says Dave, and throttles his fork in both hands, holding it above his head like it’s a snake about to bite his neck. If only.
‘That’s rude,’ Soph chips in.
‘Sophie!’ says Dad.
‘No worries, mate,’ Dave carries on, still smiling. ‘Ben can’t stand snakes, can ya, mate? Literally the only thing in the world he’s scared of. Anyway, as you were saying, Mike.’
‘Yeah, so I dive into the room, trying to get hold of the damn thing –’
‘Haha, Mikey boy! You were always a mad bastard!’ Dave’s whole face looks sunburnt. Every time he speaks, the things on the table rattle.
‘But the bitch only goes and bites my leg!’ says Dad.
Dave grabs my mum, who’s sitting next to him. ‘I bet he loves being bitten, doesn’t he, Jules?’ He laughs with his mouth open and bits of food ooze from his gums.
‘Let him finish, Dave,’ says Kate.
‘Anyway, it bites my mate Doug too – and the poor dog, which is the size of a horse. Isn’t it, Jules? Then Milo steps in as the hero of the day and –’
‘Sticks a broom in its head!’ shouts Dave, punching the air.
‘No, mate, listen a minute. He gets rid of it and then –’
‘How’d you kill it, Milo?’ says Dave, putting his big face across the table towards me.
I watch Noah, opposite me, tug his dad’s sleeve. ‘Dad, don’t.’
‘No one asked you, Noah,’ says Ben on my right.
This is too much. I want the whole thing to stop.
‘I didn’t kill it. It left of its own accord because the environment was no longer safe for it. And it didn’t bite the dog.’
‘Yeah, yeah, hang on a second, Milo. So, Dave, listen, right? Milo gets rid of it and then everyone’s running around going bananas – kids, adults, the bloody dog. It’s chaos. But Milo here knows exactly what to do. Legend. Cool as anything, he calls the ambos, does all the right things, calms us down. You’d think he was a professional snake-catcher. Ambos said he was a hero. Said they wouldn’t mind him being on their team any day of the week. They actually offered him a job.’
‘Way-hey, Milo!’ Dave holds up his hand over the table.
I hesitate – part of me knows he wants to high-five, but the rest of me finds that idea repulsive. So I keep my hands where they are.
But then he gets up. He comes around the back of me and, before I can react, he grabs me in a headlock. I panic and lurch backwards, my knees knock the table. Cutlery flies up and a glass falls down. I struggle out of his arms and then I’m running down the hall and shutting my bedroom door with my whole body.
I can’t breathe or make my thoughts slow down. How did that happen so fast?
I’ve ruined the night in the blink of an eye. They’ll be talking about me. How I overreact, how I’m not normal.
But I’d rather be in a room full of snakes than go back out there.
I really don’t know how to be a hero.
Half an hour later there’s a knock on my door.
Mum pokes her head in. ‘Just letting you know I’m driving Ben to a party because everyone else has had a bit too much to drink. Somewhere in Kew.’
‘Studley Crescent?’
‘How did you know?’
I shrug. ‘Wren invited me.’
‘Well, that’s lovely. You didn’t say anything about it. Do you want to go?’
I picture being in our car with Ben. Me in the back, Ben in the front with my mum. Me, silent. Ben making my mum think he’s some kind of wonderful. The two of us getting out of the car. Mum, driving away. Me in a stranger’s house at Ben’s mercy.
‘I can’t.’
‘That’s fine, Milo. Stay here. Listen, I think Dave feels bad about before. He’s clumsy sometimes. Doesn’t think.’
I don’t reply. I’m still picturing Ben in the car with my mum. And now Ben at the party hassling Wren. The latest message on my phone is a photo of Wren and Hari with the caption ‘Get your arse here’. They’re making goofy faces, but Wren still looks beautiful. I want to go. I want to be with her. If I stay in this room, how am I ever going to make it happen?
‘Mum,’ I say, beckoning her in so I can ask her something quietly. ‘If the party’s no good, will you drive back and get me?’
‘Of course I will. Anything you want. Consider me on call.’
This is it: my first party as a teenager. You could call that impressive, considering I’ve been a teenager for more than three years, or you might prefer to call it what it actually is.
Keep it together, Juliet.
‘It’s a bit fancy here,’ says Tracey. ‘Is this definitely the right street?’
‘Studley Crescent,’ says Jean. ‘I think so.’
There are half the number of houses as on the street where I live because every one of these is a mansion. Hari didn’t mention that. She just said ‘Luca’s house’ and I nodded and smiled as if I knew who Luca was. From further investigation (eavesdropping), he’s her boyfriend. I know Hari only invited me because we worked on a Chemistry project together. She’s nice but suspiciously cool. It’s like she had intensive training before arriving on planet Earth, while my personality lacks gelatine. Her look is Retro-Futuristic Warrior Queen and mine is Always Ruins Clothes.
‘Stop here,’ I say, pulling us behind a large tree as if I’ve found a parking space. We’re on foot. We don’t even own a car. One mum is hopeless around machinery (Jean) and the other gets everywhere by bike (Tracey). I think Tracey would’ve been happy for me to find my own way here, but Jean makes these kinds of decisions. It’s how it’s always been. So, to confirm, I’m arriving at my first teenage party on foot, with both parents.
So far so good.
Behind this tree, we can remain unseen until Rachel arrives. Her dad’s dropping her off. Rachel and I sit next to each other in orchestra. We’ve never spoken without a violin in our hands, let alone outside of school.
As we’re waiting in silence – I don’t think anyone wants to say anything to jinx this – Adie Ryan comes towards the house from another direction.
Jean squints. ‘Is that her?’
‘Yes, it’s her,’ says Tracey.
They look at each other and then at me.
‘I didn’t know she was going to be here,’ says Jean.
‘What does it matter?’ I say. ‘She still doesn’t remember me. And I’m not going to remind her. Even I have more self-respect than that.’
‘You should have buckets of self-respect,’ says Tracey. ‘But, you’re right, it’s best to avoid her for now.’ She takes another quick look at Adie. We go quiet again. My nerves ferment.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I blurt out. ‘I want to go home.’
Rachel pulls up alongside us in a blue car and waves.
‘Too late,’ says Tracey. ‘Listen to me, Juliet. You’ll be fine. It’s just a party. You’ve got this. We’ll pick you up in this spot at midnight.’
‘Final checklist. Don’t drink,’ says Jean. ‘Keep out of Adie’s way. No need to –’ she glances at Tracey ‘– upset yourself. Avoid the pot. Phone if you need us.’
‘She won’t need us,’ says Tracey. ‘And I don’t think they call it “pot” any more. And, Jean – Jean,
look at me –’ she pokes Jean in the arm and they exchange a sweet look ‘– you’re not to phone her either.’
I swore that, this year, I’d get out from under my mums’ feet every once in a while so they could be alone. I needed a better reason to leave the house than plain old being the world’s least successful teenager, because that fits me like old trackie bottoms – saggy and faded at the bum but hopelessly comfortable.
I’m doing this for them.
Rachel’s dad kisses her goodbye and drives back out of the crescent. My mums kiss me – one cheek each – and walk away holding hands.
‘They’re dispatching us into a war zone.’
‘Uh, sure,’ says Rachel.
She looks as sick-green as I feel. We walk through the gateway and up the steps. The front garden has actual tiers – grassy slopes that lead up to the next level and then the next, to a wide concrete area that has two giant plant pots. Chest height! Bizarre.
I look inside one of them. ‘They’re empty. You could almost live in one.’
‘You know, Juliet, you’re kind of strange out of school.’ The front door is ajar and the music blares from inside, lights flashing in the narrow gap. Rachel pushes it hesitantly with one finger.
Here we go.
This is actually not that bad. There are so many people here that I can slink around unseen. It’s dark too. And the music is so loud that I don’t have to talk to Rachel. Just as I realise this, she sees someone she knows and rushes off towards them without even glancing my way. I miss her instantly. Come back, Rachel!
There’s a huge bookcase behind me. I must not, must not, must not look at books at this party where people are drinking and dancing and kissing and laughing. It will only draw the wrong sort of attention.
Oh my word, they’ve got the collected works of Emily Dickinson. Emily’s here! Now I’ve got a friend. My hand reaches out to touch it. Nope, too tempting. Move away from the books. I make myself cross the room to where the food tables are. The last party I went to was all fairy bread and party pies – this is a banquet. There are olives with slices of lemon nestled in them. Focaccia, cold meats and cheeses, bruschetta, arancini. Whose party is this again? Luca. Okay, that makes sense. These people know how to be Italian. I’m the only one standing by the food. I take a slab of focaccia and put it in my bag, hoping to nibble it discreetly at some point.