Fifteen Love

by R. M. Corbet

  ‘Will! Will! Who’s your date for the dance tonight?’

  ‘I haven’t got one, Dave.’

  ‘Is it the lawnmower, Will? Is that who it is?’

  MIA

  As expected, Vanessa is a sensation at the dance. In her new stretch jeans and her push-up bra, she has all the boys drooling over her. Like bras, Vanessa has a different smile for every occasion. She has a friendly smile, a sympathetic smile, a dumb-girl smile, a cheeky smile, a poor-me smile, a crazy smile, an up-yours smile, a flirty smile and a full-on X-rated smile that always gets her into trouble.

  After barely an hour at the dance, Vanessa drags Renata and me to the toilets to discuss her latest boy troubles. She takes a swig of gin from the perfume bottle in her shoulder bag. Renata and I both decline.

  ‘There are two boys fighting over me,’ she says, dabbing at her mascara. ‘They think they own me.’

  Renata assures her that competition is a good thing.

  ‘It’s natural selection,’ she says. ‘Survival of the fittest.’

  Vanessa is easily consoled. ‘Yeah, and it’s just a school dance,’ she says. ‘I’m just flirting.’

  School dances can be a bit of a letdown. You put in the effort to make yourself look nice, then when you get there you realise you’re actually still at school. The band, if there is one, is usually playing its first-ever gig and the DJ, if there is one, is usually trying to show how cool he is, instead of putting on songs that people actually know. You go along hoping to be swept off your feet by a handsome stranger, but when you get there you realise there are no strangers. Everyone knows everyone else, and no one is taking any chances.

  Most of us girls are doing our best under the circumstances, but the boys keep interrupting, trying to drag things back to the Stone Age. When girls dance they want to have fun and look good, but when boys dance they just clown around. Girls close their eyes and dance to the beat, while boys play air guitar. Do they really think we care about that stuff? Do they think acting like AC/DC is going to bring girls flocking? I like it when guys are funny, but there’s a fine line between funny and goofy. Actually, it’s not a fine line. It’s more like a bottomless chasm.

  Vanessa pashes both boys in the end. Then, while the two of them are outside bashing each other’s brains in, Vanessa goes backstage with the DJ to check out his new microphone. Renata and I dance together – boy-free – until they turn on the houselights and tell us all to go home. The boys start to stomp around bursting balloons, while the girls kick their shoes off and massage their feet.

  As I’m walking out the door, I see Will Holland for the first time that night. He’s crouching in the corner with a beanie pulled down around his ears, like he’s just done a bank job or something.

  Strange boy.

  WILL

  According to The Encyclopedia of Tennis, you can learn a lot from the way people move. In the chapter called ‘Biomechanics’ there are photographs of famous players, with stick figures to illustrate how they move and the forces that affect their bodies. To draw ‘the kinetic chain’ you divide people’s bodies into feet, calves, thighs, back, shoulders and arms – each element is a straight line, connected by a moving joint.

  ‘To understand the way people move,’ it says, ‘you need to understand where their momentum starts from and how it is directed.’

  The way Mia dances is not referred to in The Encyclopedia of Tennis. There is no footnote. It isn’t mentioned in the appendix. The way Mia dances is something else. No stick-figure diagram could ever illustrate it. The way Mia dances is like the way she plays her viola. It is something to appreciate, not to analyse. The way Mia dances is just how Mia is. It was there in the way she walked into the woodwork room and sat down on the stool. It was there in the hallway when she slipped past me and walked away. There is nothing kinetic or biomechanical about it. It’s not about momentum or conservation of energy. It isn’t something you could ever hope to improve on. No theory would ever understand it. No manual could ever describe it.

  It’s very bendy.

  MIA

  As I play my viola – spiccato e maestoso – I imagine gypsies with bells around their ankles dancing, swallowing swords and walking on hot coals. I imagine my bedroom decorated like a gypsy’s caravan, with embroidered cushions and burning incense, handwoven carpets and tapestries flickering in the candlelight. I imagine an old gypsy woman with a headscarf and golden earrings, holding my palm and telling my fortune.

  Darlink! she says. You have a long middle finger. It means you are someone who takes life very seriously. But you have a weak fate line. It means you are unsettled about your future. The gypsy woman studies my fingertips. You are a daydreamer, she says. And you have calluses from playing your viola!

  What about romance? I ask. Do you see any romance?

  The old woman shakes her head. Your heart line is straight. It means you are waiting for something or someone. But look, darlink! The Apollo line, the line of the sun. It means you will be happy, in the end.

  WILL

  On the oval at lunchtime there are boys who line up to wrestle each other with one hand behind their backs. If you lose, you go to the back of the line. If you win, you get to be champion and take on the next guy. As an alternative to this line-wrestling game, one kid has set up a chessboard, so that others can line up to play him at chess. His name is Kevin Hunt, but everyone calls him Yorick (as in ‘Alas, poor Yorick’). Yorick is a ‘gifted learner’. He is famous as the school maths champion, but also as the kid who threw up during the life education talks.

  The day after the school dance, I sit myself down at Yorick’s chessboard. I don’t know why, exactly. I’ve played chess before, but I’m certainly not expecting to win. At least I know Yorick won’t notice my near-fatal haircut.

  Yorick hides a pawn in each hand and I choose the black.

  ‘White moves first,’ says Yorick, with a painful smile.

  Yorick and I set up our pieces and start playing. With every move he makes, Yorick announces the position: ‘Pawn to queen four’ . . . ‘Knight to king’s bishop three’. He is fast, but not totally out of my league. Gradually, I start taking longer with my moves, and Yorick begins to lose interest. But I am hanging in there. I haven’t made a fool of myself yet. It’s one of those tight games where no one wants to sacrifice any pieces. I am giving it a hundred per cent of my concentration, while Yorick picks at his fingernails and talks about mathematical theories.

  ‘Topology,’ he explains, ‘is about the connections between things in three-dimensional space. It’s about the things that remain unchanged, even after an object is bent, broken or twisted . . . Queen to bishop six.’

  I scratch my head and try to concentrate on the chess game. Yorick isn’t trying to distract me or even impress me. He’s just desperate to tell someone.

  ‘Theoretical geometry . . . ’ he sighs. ‘The possibilities are endless.’

  Slowly, with each move, the chess game becomes more complex. I have long ago lost the thread of what Yorick is saying, but it hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm. I am beginning to make a few silly moves now. I have lost a few valuable pieces. When I look up from the chessboard and see Mia Foley walk past, topology or no topology, I know I’m cactus.

  ‘What can I do?’ I ask Yorick. ‘It’s hopeless.’ Yorick surveys my pieces and sadly shakes his head. ‘When you have very few options,’ he reflects, ‘you need a bold, almost suicidal move that throws the game open.’

  After thinking about this, I pick up my knight and brilliantly capture his queen.

  Two moves later, Yorick has me in checkmate.

  MIA

  At lunchtime, there’s a note on my locker:

  Q. What’s the difference between a viola and a lawnmower?

  A. You can tune a lawnmower.

  – W.

  I read Will’s note, then screw it up into a ball and throw it away. Renata sees the crumpled paper lying there, but before she can get to it I dive on the note
and stuff it in my bra.

  ‘You should use cottonwool,’ Vanessa smiles.

  ‘It’s softer.’ ‘It’s a viola joke,’ I explain. ‘Not very funny, either.’

  ‘Ah!’ says Renata. ‘From a secret admirer?’

  ‘It’s the Tracksuit, isn’t it,’ says Vanessa.

  I nod.

  ‘Is he giving you a hard time?’ says Vanessa. ‘Watch this. I’ll fix him.’

  ‘No! No! I didn’t mean . . . ’

  But it’s too late. Vanessa hitches up her dress, flicks back her hair, then goes off in search of Will. Renata follows, dragging me with her. Out on the oval, we see Vanessa towering over Will on her long, suntanned legs. I almost can’t bear to watch.

  She sits down beside Will and they talk for a while. Then Vanessa stands up suddenly and storms back to us.

  ‘That guy,’ she announces, ‘is so gay!’

  WILL

  I am sitting there minding my own business when Vanessa Webb – the wildest and most experienced girl in the whole school, the girl who reduces even the toughest guys to babbling idiots – walks up to me, smiling.

  ‘Will?’ she says, with a tilt of her head.

  Before I can answer, she sits down beside me. I feel her bare knee brush against my leg. Her face is very close now. All of her is very close. She is still smiling, but now her smile has a teasing, dangerous look about it. I know it’s a trap. I know I’m being set up.

  Vanessa Webb takes a deep breath and tucks her hair behind one ear. Everything about her body is asking me to look at her, but I know looking anywhere except her face would be a mistake. My first impulse is to move away, but I stay where I am, trying hard to hold her seductive gaze.

  ‘Will, are you Mia’s secret admirer?’

  ‘Umm . . . ’ ‘Will,’ she whispers, ‘can you be my secret admirer, too?’

  I try to imagine what Girlfriend might say.

  In Dealing with Dangerous Women our experts suggest the following options:

  1) Fight fire with fire – assume Vanessa is flirting and flirt back.

  2) Let the fire run its course – sit there under a blanket until the heat passes.

  3) Throw a bucket of water on the fire – do a loud fart or pick your nose.

  4) Panic – break the glass and call the fire brigade!

  ‘You don’t need to do this,’ I say.

  Vanessa frowns. ‘Do what?’

  ‘You try too hard, Vanessa. You’re nicer-looking than you think you are.’

  I don’t know why I said it, or even if it made any sense. But for one brief moment, Vanessa hesitates. I can see a flash of doubt in her eyes. It’s just a flash, then the doubt is gone and Vanessa is looking at me as if I’m a rotting carcass and she is a gourmet vegetarian.

  ‘What the heck are you talking about?’ she demands.

  Before I can answer, she stands up and storms off.

  MIA

  Vanessa has been with her latest boyfriend for about ten minutes when she decides that she, Renata and I should go out with the guy and his two best mates. We go to the movies together – the three of us girls and these three big work-out kings with flat heads and no necks. We sit in the back row, according to Vanessa’s instructions. When she and her new boy start pashing, Renata and I are expected to do likewise. The movie has only just started when I feel my date’s arm land heavily across my shoulder. I shrug off King Kong and try to concentrate on the movie, but five minutes later, I feel his hairy fingers crawling along my shoulder like spiders. Instead of slapping him across the face, I lean forward and offer him a Mintie: It’s moments like these.

  Luckily, it’s an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie and the action is starting to pick up. Picking bits of Mintie from his teeth and laughing loudly, Kong soon forgets all about me. I look across at Vanessa, who has her hand inside her guy’s shirt – no amount of Minties will save her now – then at Renata, who is keeping her legs firmly crossed.

  The way Vanessa talks about sex, you’d think being a virgin was a punishable offence. Vanessa talks big – she’s always comparing guys and saying how few of them ‘measure up’. Like it was a science project or something. But secretly I wonder if she really does jump into bed with the guys she meets.

  After the movie, we sit around eating ice-creams while the Arnie-clones re-enact the entire movie for us. On the far side of the food court, Vanessa spots Will pushing a kid in a wheelchair.

  ‘Look!’ she says. ‘Will Holland is a male nurse. That proves he’s gay!’

  Arnie A, Vanessa’s clone, thinks this is hilarious. ‘Homos helping the handicapped!’ he roars.

  ‘It won’t be long,’ says Arnie B, ‘before they give queers their own parking places, too.’

  ‘Imagine the signposts,’ snorts Arnie C. ‘They’d be pink, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Boys are like parking places,’ says Vanessa. ‘All the good ones are taken and only the disabled are left.’

  Everyone laughs except Arnie A. ‘Are you calling me a crip?’ he says.

  ‘Don’t call them that,’ I say. ‘It could happen to you one day.’

  No one says a word. Vanessa looks embarrassed, but Arnie A just smiles. When he speaks, his voice is softer and his eyes have started glazing over.

  ‘If it did happen,’ he says, ‘I wouldn’t just sit around like a crip, feeling sorry for myself. I’d work out, day and night, till I could walk again. There’s nothing you can’t overcome if you try. It’s all about willpower and never giving up.’

  Stupid people say stupid things, so I don’t know why it upsets me so much. According to Arnie A, if you were disabled, it must be your fault somehow.

  ‘You’re only saying that,’ I tell him, ‘because you don’t want to think about how it would feel, being stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of your life.’

  WILL

  Dave and I go to SportsWorld and buy two pairs of Adidas tennis shoes. Dave always says he’s going to buy something different, but when he sees the shoes on me he changes his mind and insists on a pair of the same. You might think it’s weird, spending a hundred and fifty bucks on shoes for a kid who can’t walk, but I think it’s brilliant. For starters, they’ll never wear out.

  Decked out in our new shoes, Dave and I go to the food plaza for a donut. With stunning girls walking past us every five minutes, it isn’t long before Dave is whispering to me across the table.

  ‘Have you got a girlfriend, Will?’

  ‘No, Dave. Have you?’

  ‘Will! I’m being serious!’

  ‘There’s this girl at school,’ I say, trying to sound casual.

  Dave is shocked. ‘Do you like her, Will?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dave. I don’t know what to do next.’

  Dave is impressed. ‘You could take her horseback riding, Will.’

  ‘I can’t take her horseback riding, Dave.’

  ‘Sure you can, Will! Girls love horses!’

  ‘This girl is different, Dave. She likes . . . actually, I don’t know what she likes.’

  ‘Then maybe she does like horses! All girls love horses, Will!’

  ‘Dave! I am not taking her horseback riding, okay?’

  ‘Ponies?’

  ‘Not horses or ponies or camels or llamas!’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Will! Now you’re just being stupid.’

  ‘I’m not sure about this girl, Dave. I’m not sure if she even likes me.’

  Dave shakes his head and looks at his new shoes.

  ‘You could ask her to the tennis, Will.’

  ‘The tennis? No way!’

  MIA

  I am in the library looking for information about beagles. I want to know when Harriet will stop being such a baby. When will she be an adult? Will she be a teenage dog first? Will Harriet get an attitude and start acting like I don’t own her anymore?

  Through a gap in the bookshelf I see Will Holland in the next aisle. I look away before he sees me, but then something pulls me back, and instead I take
down a book to make the gap bigger.

  ‘What’s the difference between a viola and a lawnmower?’ I whisper.

  Will spins around, startled, but when he sees my face in among the books he laughs. ‘One makes an awful noise?’

  ‘And the other is used for cutting grass.’

  One by one, Will and I remove more books so we can talk face to face.

  ‘How’s Vanessa?’ he grins. ‘Is she still mad at me?’

  ‘She thinks you’re a chess nerd with a bad haircut.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘She also called you a gay nurse in a smelly tracksuit.’

  ‘Nurse?’

  ‘We saw you, yesterday, at the shopping centre. You were pushing a kid in a wheelchair.’

  Will nods. ‘That’s Dave.’

  ‘It made me think, you know. I mean, it must be good to have a job like that. Just to be doing something useful.’

  ‘It’s not a job. Dave’s my brother.’

  ‘Oh . . . I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t feel bad about it. Dave will love it when I tell him. He’s always wishing he had someone to order round; he’s got friends at his school who have their own nurses. It’s a status thing, like having a butler or a chauffeur.’

  ‘Can’t he come to our school?’

  ‘My family thinks he needs special support.’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  Will shrugs. ’I think we’re still coming to terms with it all.’

  ‘So,’ I say. ‘A secret for a secret. Except I don’t suppose your brother is a secret. I just wanted to say thanks, for not telling anyone about my dad.’

  ‘Who would I tell?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it’s nothing, by the way. My dad wouldn’t do something like that.’

  Will nods diplomatically. ‘So we’re officially talking again?’

  ‘We were never officially not talking.’

  ‘I guess we were never officially anything,’ he says.

  WILL

  Ken is not happy. ‘Keep your head still and both feet on the ground,’ he says. ‘Rotate your upper body. Throw to the peak of your reach and strike when the ball reaches the apex. Remember, a low toss gives you more time to hit the ball, not less.’