I Am Out With Lanterns

by Emily Gale

  I wedge myself into a handy crevice and check the room to see who I know. There are a few Fairfield people here, but most of the faces are new to me. I spy Wren in the corner with Hari. Wren has a black crocheted beret on, black lipstick and a long black, strappy dress with burgundy Doc Martens. Her make-up is extraordinary. Hari has on a tiny black waistcoat with a sneak of purple bra underneath, high-waisted tight black shorts with two rows of brass buttons, and thin black socks that reach above her knees. She’s shaved one side of her head and the other is black and glossy like raven feathers. They’re laughing together. I want to be one of them so much it’s giving me grinding stomach pains.

  Or maybe I’m hungry. The rosemary on the focaccia wafts up from my bag.

  The more I look at Wren and Hari, the less sure of myself I am. I leave the main room and stand in the vast entrance way. My anxiety rises; it’s going to steal my breath. I can feel it coming. There are people in all directions, in every room and standing on the stairs. I feel a slight breeze from the open front door. Suddenly it’s such an easy choice to make.

  On the porch, a loud group of boys walk past me as if I’m a ghost. I know I’ll never go back in there. I check my watch. I’ve lasted fifteen minutes. There’s no way I can call Jean and Tracey – they’ll be ordering Japanese and choosing a movie by now.

  I open my bag and see the lump of focaccia. My mouth fills with saliva.

  I look at the time again: two and a half hours till they pick me up.

  I see the vast, empty plant pot.

  Really, Juliet, this situation was inevitable.

  This is probably not what Jean meant when she said to avoid the pot. I’ve been in here for an hour. Unless someone took the trouble to walk over and look inside, I’m just as invisible as I am when I’m standing right in front of people. It’s actually quite spacious and I’m no Polly Pocket. The surface is hard and cold, so I’ve folded my scarf into a small cushion to go under my bum, and now I plan to eat the bread as slowly as humanly possible, savouring every salty bite as if it’s my last.

  Seven minutes.

  ‘Awesome,’ I say out loud, and it echoes.

  Here comes the raging thirst. Curse my terrible lack of forward planning! There are drinks inside – so many lovely, liquidy, cold, delicious drinks – but the pot is my comfort zone. The pot and I both know I’m in here for the long haul. I rummage in my bag and find some gum – that’ll do.

  There’s a commotion outside – footsteps, panicked breathing. I sink lower into the pot as the figure looms closer, but I can see the top of someone’s head. It’s Milo Witkin. He’s looking back at the house and then down towards the street. He’s scared.

  ‘Psst!’ I whisper.

  He looks around, confused.

  ‘Psst!’

  He comes closer and looks inside the pot.

  ‘Get in!’

  I make myself as small as possible as the boy I’ve loved since approximately forever pushes himself up to the edge and swings one adorably long, lean leg and then the other over the side of the pot.

  He’s in. Milo Witkin is in my pot.

  He stares at me, blinking, panting, as we settle ourselves into comfortable balls with our feet drawn in and nothing touching. I can’t believe this is happening. The worst party in the world just turned overwhelmingly good.

  I have no idea how to handle it.

  A pack of us collide in the large square entrance hall.

  ‘We’ve lost him,’ says Jake breathlessly.

  I kid about, looking behind a vase of flowers, and call his name in a girly voice. ‘Milo! Come out now, Milo!’

  The boys laugh and follow suit, peering behind picture frames, underneath the doormat.

  ‘He’ll be hiding behind that vampire bitch,’ I say. ‘Did you see how much he was crapping himself when we chased him?’

  ‘I could hardly run I was laughing that much,’ says Will. ‘The way he moves! Such a loser.’

  ‘He’s always been unco. Come on, it’s baking in here, let’s sit by the pool.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to chuck the nerd into it, Benny?’

  ‘I’m not wasting my time playing hide-and-seek, Jake. There’s better things we could be doing.’

  Nate rams himself between Jake and I and wraps his arms around our necks. ‘Such as that.’ He indicates a couple of girls in tight dresses walking past. As Jake moves apart from us and creeps up behind them, pretending he’s going to grab their arses, Nate takes my hand and puts something tiny into it.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘To cheer you up. I had the other half.’

  ‘We’ve got training in the morning. Your dad said he can always tell.’

  ‘He’s bullshitting. Come on, you’ve been foul all week. Time to have some fun.’

  Since I hurt Dad I can’t snap out of this. Apart from earlier at the Witkins’ house when he treated me like normal again, I’m dog shit on his shoe.

  I reckon I’ve also figured out why the principal called Mum that day. Milo’s undead girlfriend. I bet she made the call. Not that I got into much trouble, but I can’t stand her walking around thinking she’s got one over on me.

  She’s here tonight.

  I take the pill.

  We get to the pool and sit around one corner of it with our feet in the water.

  ‘I dare someone to put a shit in the pool,’ says Charlie.

  ‘What are you – twelve?’ I laugh.

  ‘A floater is funny at any age.’

  ‘Nah, Luca’s all right. We shouldn’t,’ says Marcus.

  Marcus is probably the only one of us that Luca actually likes and the reason we were invited. I don’t get why everyone thinks Luca is so cool. He’s kind of aloof, and he’s always pointing out if something’s ‘offensive’. I find that offensive. He’s got money coming out of his butthole and he’s supposed to be not bad to look at, but he’s ended up with the second freakiest girl at Fairfield. It makes no sense.

  Will clutches his stomach. ‘I’ve eaten too much salami.’

  ‘You know what this means.’ I hold up a lighter and the boys start chanting ‘blue flame, blue flame, blue flame’.

  ‘No way,’ Will says. ‘Last time I did that I singed all the hair.’

  Everyone cracks up and we try harder to convince Will to give us a show. There are some seven-out-of-ten Fairfield girls at the other end of the pool who can’t stop looking at us. I know for a fact that one of them’s eyeing me. I’ve seen her before; her name’s Poppy or Scarlet. Can’t remember. She’s wearing a white mesh top over what looks like two coloured bras. The top is slashed down both sides, which is pretty hot.

  I take my feet from the water and stand up while the boys fake-wrestle Will. Someone grabs the lighter from my hand, but in that moment I stop paying attention.

  I’ve spotted that girl from the tram. I can vaguely hear the boys shouting, ‘Look, Ben, he’s gonna do it!’ and I’m half-aware that Will is on his back with his legs in the air, but I don’t care any more, I need to get close to that girl.

  ‘Where are you going?’ yells Nate, when I’m halfway down the garden.

  ‘Nowhere. For a piss,’ I shout back.

  She makes her way to a dark corner of the huge garden, like she knows I’m following. There’s an impressive tree with a tyre swing. She’s wearing denim shorts and a vest and old Converse, making her pretty much the least dressed-up girl here. She could make a bin liner look hot. She’s got a wine bottle with her. She leans against the tree, pours red wine into a white plastic cup and bends to put the bottle on the ground among the tree roots. She’s got this way of holding herself that makes me think she’s a dancer or something. And she’s glancing around, drinking, as if she couldn’t care less about standing at a party by herself.

  I clear my throat. ‘Do I know you?’

  I swear she faces me in slow motion. She sips her drink. ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘You look familiar. Maybe we get the same tram or somet
hing.’

  ‘I don’t get the tram.’ There’s a ghost of a smile on her lips. She’s playing with me. She bends over to get the bottle.

  ‘Are you waiting for someone?’

  She laughs and, as she straightens, tilts her head at the sky. She doesn’t answer.

  I come closer. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Hey, Adie, there you are,’ comes a voice from further up the garden. It’s that annoying girlfriend of Luca’s – Harry or something, a boy’s name – along with the host himself. I can’t believe they’re crashing this. Adie, though, that’s her name. God, that’s perfect.

  ‘Do you want to come inside and get a drink?’ I say quickly.

  ‘I’ve got a drink.’ She clutches the bottle between her breasts and stares into my goddamn soul.

  ‘You okay?’ Luca’s girlfriend asks, when they gatecrash our space.

  ‘I’m good,’ says Adie.

  The way Luca’s girl looks at me, there is no way they’re going to leave me alone with Adie.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Adie.’ I walk backwards for a few steps, deciding that if she smiles at me I’ll spend the rest of the night trying to kiss her. If she doesn’t, I might just have to kiss someone else.

  ‘What’s your name again?’

  ‘Poppy.’

  ‘I’m Ben.’

  ‘I know who you are.’

  ‘Yeah? And what are you drinking?’

  ‘Vodka. Want some?’

  ‘I’d rather taste it on your lips.’

  ‘Cheesy. Go on then.’

  Milo’s been in the pot for ten minutes and we haven’t exchanged a single word. I’m trying to stay quiet, but I think my heart is ruining it for me. It’s worse when I look at him, because he’s a beautiful raven-haired magnet and I want to kiss him quite badly, so I take out my phone. Now I’m scrolling through Instagram, looking at photos of the party I’m technically at.

  Come on, Juliet, this moment is about you and the boy in your pot. There’s a boy in my pot! A picture book Jean used to read me pops into my head, about a child telling their mother over and over again that there’s a huge yellow lion in the meadow at the bottom of the back garden, but she doesn’t believe it.

  Why can’t my memory just behave for once and not remember every last thing?

  There’s a boy in my pot!

  Can he tell that I’ve practised kissing him on my pillow?

  Don’t be stupid, Juliet. That was a private experience, with a delicate frangipani fragrance. And much too dry.

  Milo’s staring at the stars. He seems more relaxed than he did when he first climbed in, though he has to shift around a bit because his legs are a lot longer than mine. There’s no sound coming from the other side of the pot and I heard the front door close a little while ago. I make my screen black and decide to risk saying something.

  ‘Big pot, isn’t it?’

  Cracker of a chat-up line.

  ‘Like sitting in a crater,’ he replies in a low and quiet voice, peering at the dark purple sky. Such a Milo thing to say.

  ‘Who were you running from?’

  ‘A boy called Ben and his friends. They were going to throw me in the pool.’

  ‘Oh. Lucky I was able to rescue you then.’

  He gives me an odd look. Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to him that I am his rescuer. But I am. I rescued him with my giant pot.

  It’s joggling my mind talking to him in real life. Milo and I have had many conversations in my head. The upside of that is that he always says what I want him to say. So I’ve just lost control over my Milo fantasies.

  It’s terrifying and I like it.

  ‘You can stay here as long as you want,’ I say. Yes, long leases encouraged in my personal giant pot for the right applicant. ‘Are you here with Wren?’

  ‘I was, but I lost her.’

  ‘Oh no.’ I try really hard to sound like I mean that. Now he’s texting someone. I bet it’s her. I wish I’d never mentioned her.

  When he’s finished, he says, ‘What do you think this pot is actually for?’

  ‘I think it’s a status symbol. The modern version of stone lions.’

  ‘They’ve got this other thing out the back – a huge stone sphere in the middle of the garden. It’s like my mum’s exercise ball but twice the size.’

  ‘I saw something giant in the kitchen too. A huge silver knife and fork hanging on the wall. Giant things, everywhere.’

  He laughs spontaneously, and I feel giddy with power. I want to make him laugh again. He looks even more adorable, if that’s possible. Soon he’ll try to work out why we haven’t been friends all these years. It will puzzle him because of all the fun he’ll be having. He’ll start sitting next to me instead of Wren at lunch and in English. We’ll walk home together! I’ll have my first time with him and it will be like an exquisitely awkward scene in an arthouse movie. He’ll meet my mums!

  Will that be weird? My mums know I’m straight. But there’s being straight in theory and then there’s here’s-my-boyfriend straight.

  It’ll be fine! Stop doubting yourself, Juliet. And also, maybe slow down a fraction …

  ‘How long are you planning on staying in here?’ says Milo.

  ‘Till roughly midnight. I’m being picked up.’

  ‘By your mums?’

  I nod, trying not to give away how happy I am that he’s remembered one detail of my life.

  ‘Me too,’ he says. ‘Well, my one mum. I only have one. Julie.’ More softly, he says, ‘Julie. Juliet. Julie. Juliet.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’ Lies. I did. But I’m not sure if he thinks it’s good, terrible or meaningless that my name sounds like his mum’s. I don’t tell him that I’d be willing to change my name if he’d let me kiss his face off. (I’d change it back to Juliet straight after.)

  ‘Midnight’s still ages,’ he says.

  He’s bored of me. He wants to get out of my pot. Maybe I can get him to stay by talking about something he likes.

  ‘Is Wren your girlfriend?’ I ask. This is either a stroke of genius or self-sabotage.

  ‘No. Well … No.’

  ‘But you want her to be.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why? What do you like about her?’

  ‘Most things. Almost everything. Except that she bites her nails. She’s funny. And she knows me really well.’

  I know you better, Milo Witkin, I think to myself. And I’m funnier. I cross my arms to hide my also-bitten nails.

  ‘So what was it like when you first met Wren?’

  ‘Why are you asking?’

  ‘Just something to talk about.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. Er, the first time was nothing. She came to our house for a barbecue and hardly looked at me.’

  ‘The second time?’

  ‘Second time she was in her back garden and I was in mine. I couldn’t see her because the fence is over six feet, but I could hear her talking to herself. She was saying, “Where is it coming from?” and I looked through a hole to find her kneeling on the grass, searching through it. I asked her what she was looking for and she said, “That noise.” It was cicadas. So I told her all about them.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. She listened. It was the third time that I knew I liked her.’

  I wait, knowing that Milo will tell me how it happened if I ask him and that, once he tells me, I will never be able to get it out of my head.

  ‘Go on,’ I say.

  He hesitates, then talks to his clasped hands resting in his lap. ‘I think you like school about as much as I do, Juliet, so I can tell you this bit. All my life I’ve tried to turn over a new leaf. Every day, every class, every recess, I was trying to be new. Because the way I was being wasn’t working. But the trouble was, the old Milo kept tagging along. He kept dropping the ball or saying things wrong or not speaking at the right time. I was stuck with myself, basically.

  ‘But then Wren c
ame. And she hadn’t been here the whole time, watching me do all the Milo things that made people hate me. The third time I spoke to her, we were on the high street. A tram passed and it had stickers all over it, so it looked like it was covered in hundreds and thousands. “A fairy-bread tram,” I said. And Wren said, “What’s fairy bread?” So I said, “Are you being serious? You’ve never heard of fairy bread?” And she looked kind of angry and said, “I just got here.” So I told her about fairy bread. And she said it was very informative and I was so happy I nearly walked into a recycling bin. That’s when I knew that, with Wren, I could have a kind of … private universe. She likes me the way I am.’

  He finally looks up and shrugs. ‘So.’

  I can see in his face what he thinks of her. Why does it only make me like him more?

  They’re going to have a fairy-bread wedding cake, and I’m going to be alone forever.

  This is awkward, but it beats being thrown into a pool.

  Then again, I’m worried about Wren being inside the party with Ben Brearley. She hates him. And when Wren hates someone, they know about it. She isn’t afraid of him, but maybe she should be.

  But if I go back in, I risk public humiliation. Being inside this enormous pot is a relief, even taking into account how new it is being this close to Juliet. I’ve never heard her talk this much.

  ‘This Ben guy – he’s not at Fairfield and he wasn’t at our primary school either,’ she says, like she’s telling me instead of asking me.

  ‘No, he’s always been at The Hall.’

  ‘It was Gus Thompson who gave you the most trouble in primary, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You remember that?’

  ‘Gus was a thug. Wedgies, dead arms, stepping on the back of your shoe.’

  ‘I hated him,’ I say, and it echoes. A sensation comes back to me: my foot slipping out of my shoe for the hundredth time because someone had stood on the edge of my heel. Gus and his mates doubled over with laughter. More quietly, I say to Juliet, ‘There are dozens of my shoes on top of that primary-school gym. Every week I’d go home to Mum – one shoe or no shoes –’