Love-shy

by Lili Wilkinson

  I knew what I had to do.

  I turned on my laptop and navigated to PEZZimist. blogspot.com. And then did something I’d never done before, in all my visits to Nick’s blog. I clicked the Comment button.

  I filled in the required fields, and paused at the Username box. Then I smiled a little and wrote POPtimist.

  22:14

  Hi. It’s me.

  I am the opposite of shy.

  Things don’t make me anxious. I’m never nervous. I have a good life where both my parents love and support me. I have no trouble speaking to members of the opposite sex. But I’ve never been in a relationship. I’ve never really kissed anyone (although there have been a few embarrassing attempts).

  I’ve never been in love. I can’t imagine being in love. I can’t imagine letting myself go, losing control. Giving myself over to someone else so completely that I’d feel a part of them. I don’t think I could do that.

  I am rational. Cynical. Aggressive. Fearless. Ambitious. Confident. I don’t want anyone to ever see that I’m weak. And it means I push people away. I don’t let people get close to me because I don’t want them to beat me, or to see me fail.

  So even though I have a very different life to you, I think we might be in the same boat. We’re both alone. Even though I am the opposite of shy, I think we have more in common than I ever could have imagined.

  I’m sorry if I hurt you. I really didn’t mean to. The thing is, and it really frightens me to admit this – I did want to kiss you. I didn’t do it to play games or to hurt you. I did it because I like you. Because I’ve been reading your posts and getting inside your brain, even though you didn’t know it. And then in real life you were so different and anxious and nervous, but as we got to know each other you started to relax. And I liked that. I liked you.

  So I’m sorry. And I hope you’ll forgive me.

  I hit Post and then closed down the browser and chewed my lip for a moment before picking up the phone and dialling the number written on the post-it Dad had stuck to my desk.

  ‘Hello?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Hi, Mum.’

  ‘Penny? Is that you? Is everything okay? Is your father okay?’

  I didn’t say anything for a moment. She’d asked after Dad. She thought I was calling because something had happened to Dad. And she was worried. I could hear it in her voice.

  ‘Penny? Are you still there?’

  ‘I’m here, Mum. And everything’s fine. I’m fine, Dad’s fine. We’re all fine.’

  But I didn’t feel fine. It had been two years since I’d called my mother ‘Mum’. Two years since I’d heard her say anything about Dad. I couldn’t help it. Tears slipped down my face, big fat tears that had been waiting behind my eyes for two years.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

  I sniffed. ‘Mum,’ I said. ‘I miss you.’

  Mum was quiet for a moment too, and then I heard her voice, all quiet and wobbly because she was crying as well. ‘I miss you too, Penny. I miss you every single day.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘And Dad? Do you miss Dad?’

  Mum was quiet for even longer. ‘Of course I miss your father,’ she said. ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Then why don’t you come home?’ I said. ‘Come back. And you and Dad can be friends again. I even think you’d like Josh.’

  ‘I can’t, Penny,’ said Mum. ‘I still love your father. I don’t want to see him with someone else. And I have a new life here now. But if you wanted to, you could come here. You do know that, right? There’s always room for you here, and I know you’re starting Year Eleven next year but we could find you a really good school … ’

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said. ‘But I don’t want to live in Perth. I like it here. I like living with Dad and I like my school and … ’

  I was going to add ‘my friends’, but I thought about Nick and it felt as though something were squeezing my heart.

  ‘But Mum?’ I said. ‘I’d like to come and visit. Maybe in the holidays?’

  ‘I’d like that very much, Penny,’ said Mum. ‘Very, very much.’

  We talked for a bit longer. Mum told me about her job, and about the beach down the road from her house. It sounded nice. I told her about school, and even about Nick and the loveshy project, and my Debating meltdown.

  After I’d said goodbye to her, I lay down on my bed and had a proper cry. It felt good, letting go of stuff that I’d been holding on to for years. And once I’d let it go I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t done it sooner. Eventually I calmed down, and felt kind of wobbly still, but strong. I turned back to my laptop. It was time to write.

  18

  I DIDN’T WANT TO GO TO the social. I didn’t want to see all the people I went to school with who weren’t my friends. And they weren’t. Oh sure, they respected me. But they weren’t my friends. I’d never hung out with any of them just … normally, at their house, or out to see a movie. Only for extracurricular stuff and big parties that everyone was invited to. I hated the fact that everyone knew I had no friends.

  I hadn’t spoken to Rin, Hugh or Nick all week. I hid in the library at recess and lunch, and kept my head down in all my classes. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to them – I was just scared of what they might say. Scared they might reject me.

  I wasn’t really needed at the social anyway. Someone else from the paper could take photos of the best and worst outfits – that was all people wanted to read about. Nobody had cared about the piece I wrote last year on the spiking of the punch, and the effect that alcohol has on the teenage brain. Or the piece the year before about the meningitis epidemic that hit after everyone made out with everyone else. There was no point in being a journalist, all people wanted was gossip and trash.

  So I wasn’t going. I didn’t even go to school on Friday. I stayed home in my pyjamas and watched daytime TV. When Dad and Josh arrived with about seventeen different types of curry, garlic naan and a jigsaw puzzle of the Eiffel Tower recreated in cheese, I dragged myself off the couch and settled happily at the table with a steaming plate of saag paneer.

  I’d told Dad about my phone call with Mum. He knew I was still pretty upset about everything that had happened, and he’d clearly told Josh too, because there were no probing questions about my love-life, and no raised eyebrows about my pyjamas and unbrushed hair. We chatted about stupid things and laughed. Josh told us about how he’d tried to help the old lady in his apartment building to take her rubbish out, and that she’d called the police and accused him of being a thief and stalker. Dad told us about how one of his contractors had picked up a Portaloo from a film-set, but not checked to make sure it was empty first, and had driven the film’s star actress all the way to the sewage processing plant, locked inside.

  I was considering a second helping of chicken makhani when there was a knock at the front door. Dad and Josh both looked at me, so I poked my tongue out at them and went to answer it.

  It was Rin. She was wearing an explosion of pink and white lace with a short tutu skirt, and about forty strands of pearls around her neck. Her hair was all twisted up and curled around her ears, and she wore dainty pink slipper-like heels.

  ‘You look amazing, Rin!’

  ‘You weren’t at school today,’ she said, taking in my pyjamas and curry-stained fingers. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I just didn’t really feel up to school today.’

  ‘But you’re coming to the social, right?’

  I glanced down at my pyjamas and fluffy slippers. ‘Um. No. Not feeling very social.’

  Rin frowned. ‘But you have to come,’ she said. ‘You organised the whole thing! It’s not the social without you. And anyway, my parents are only letting me go if I can go with you. They think you’re responsible and a good influence on me. And the thing is … ’ She took a deep breath. ‘The thing is, Hamish kind of asked me to go with him.’

  ‘Hamish did what?’

  Rin nodded, blushing. ‘
He asked me for my phone number last week at school, and then he called me on the weekend and we talked for like an hour. Did you know he’s really into manga? Anyway, he asked if I wanted to go with him. And I said yes! I mean, I know he’s strange and talks about weird stuff all the time. But he’s just shy. Like me! And he’s into anime and has seen all of Miyazaki-san’s films. And I like him. And I want to see him at the social, and dance with him and then maybe he’ll kiss me and be my boyfriend, but I can’t do that if I can’t go to the social, and I can’t go to the social if you don’t come with me.’

  Wow. Hamish and Rin. That part of the plan had actually worked. But I still couldn’t go. There was a chance that Nick might be there. Or might not be there. And I would feel anxious either way. I thought back to the conversation Nick and I had had about fear. I’d told him that nothing made me anxious or afraid. What a terrible lie.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I just can’t.’

  Rin’s sweet and shy expression hardened, and her lips pursed. She grabbed me by the upper arm and steered me back into my apartment.

  ‘Hi, Mr Drummond,’ she said grimly. ‘Hi, Josh. Please excuse us for a moment.’

  She frogmarched me into my bedroom and flung open my wardrobe door.

  ‘Hmm,’ she said, flicking through shirts and jeans. ‘There isn’t much to work with here. You get in the shower, I’ve obviously got a lot to do.’

  I blinked. And then I did as she said. It had been a very long time since anyone had told me what to do. It was kind of refreshing. Making my own decisions and bossing other people hadn’t always worked out well for me. Maybe it was time for me to be bossed around for a while.

  When I came back into my bedroom, Rin was standing over a pile of clothes, holding a purple chiffon monstrosity I’d worn as my cousin’s bridesmaid a few years ago.

  ‘I hope you’re not seriously expecting me to wear that,’ I said. ‘It looks like a shower loofah.’

  Rin smiled. ‘Of course not.’ She reached inside the dress and yanked out the purple slip I’d worn under it. ‘You’re going to wear this.’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘But it’s underwear.’

  ‘Trust me.’

  Rin found my one and only non-sports bra (conveniently also purple, as it had been purchased for the aforementioned wedding), and some black leggings and ballet flats. While I was getting dressed, she vanished back to her own apartment, and returned carrying a gold cardigan-shrug thing, a tonne of jewellery and a giant sack of makeup. She put gold stuff on my eyelids, and applied mascara and eyeliner, and then gave me some purplish lip gloss. Then she put a handful of apricot-scented gunk into my hair and scrunched it around.

  ‘There,’ she said when she was satisfied. ‘Look in the mirror.’

  I felt like a little kid playing dress-ups, and I was sure I was showing too much cleavage. What if someone said something? Or a boy stared at my boobs? They were always prominent, and now they were on display. It was too embarrassing.

  What was wrong with me? I was sounding like Nick. His anxiety and fear of embarrassment had rubbed off on me.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Rin, beaming.

  I looked again at my reflection. The thing was … I felt like an idiot, but a pretty idiot. Not romantically pretty, the way Nick liked. Not beautiful. I didn’t have long flowing hair or starry eyes, or lips like rosebuds, or alabaster skin. My figure wasn’t willowy or slender. But I was still pretty, in a confident, no-nonsense kind of way. Maybe even kind of … sexy? I looked different, but I still looked like me. Rin had turned me into a pretty, little-bit-sexy, interesting version of myself. I smiled at her. Maybe living inside a glass globe really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  ‘We’d better go,’ I said. ‘We’re already late.’

  Rin squealed and clapped and threw her arms around me. ‘Yay! Let’s go! Let’s go!’

  Our SRC decorations budget had been spent well, if ‘well’ means ‘on pink and black helium balloons’. The problem with school dances was … well, they were always lame. No amount of hired lighting and silver streamers could ever hide the fact that you were spending a Friday night at school, in the Ben Chifley Memorial Hall, surrounded by teachers.

  But everyone was doing their best to pretend they were having a good time. The social had been in full swing for a couple of hours by the time we arrived, and people had got over their too-cool-todance-ness and were wriggling and bumping hips on the dance floor, as the Year Nine kid perched on the stage and did a pretty respectable job as DJ.

  Judging from the amount of smeared mascara, stained lips and pashing going on in dark corners, the punch had definitely been spiked.

  ‘Oh!’ said Rin. ‘I see Hamish!’

  I did too. His outfit – a long-sleeved white shirt and black pants – was actually bordering on cool. Simple, but when you were as much of a dork as Hamish, simple was best. He spotted Rin and his eyes widened. She did look pretty spectacular.

  Rin started towards him, then hesitated and looked back at me. ‘You go ahead,’ I said. ‘It’s not like I don’t know anyone here. I’ll be fine.’

  Rin kissed me on the cheek and bounced off.

  I sidled to a quietish corner of the room and tried to disappear. I’d just stand here. Observe. I’d be fine. I only had to stay for an hour or so, then I could slip out. Rin could get home without me.

  ‘Um.’

  I turned. It was Nick. He looked amazing in a black suit with a skinny tie and Converse sneakers. He smiled at me, and if I hadn’t noticed the sheen of sweat on his brow and the slight tremble of his hands, I’d have thought he was totally in control. What was he doing here? Had he really managed to come to the social? The Year Ten Social, the most anxiety-inducing event of the year, even for non-shy kids?

  ‘You came,’ I said. ‘You’re actually here.’

  Nick nodded. ‘It was totally easy.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I narrowed my eyes. ‘How many showers did you have today?’

  Nick shrugged. ‘Only four.’

  ‘And how long did you stand outside before actually coming into the hall?’

  ‘Maybe an hour.’

  ‘But it was totally easy.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’

  ‘Well done for making it in,’ I said, and I meant it. I’d barely been able to manage it myself.

  ‘Thanks. I think I might be having a heart attack.’

  I chuckled. ‘You’ll be fine.’

  We smiled and stared at the floor for a minute.

  ‘I read your comment,’ said Nick. ‘On my blog.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Thank you. For saying all that.’

  ‘I just wanted you to know I was sorry. Am sorry.’

  ‘I appreciate it. I shouldn’t have said … those things. About you. I was hurt.’

  I nodded, and we continued our floor-staring routine.

  ‘I thought about not writing the article,’ I said. ‘About loveshyness. I don’t want to make you any more uncomfortable, or meddle any more in your personal life.’

  Nick frowned. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I-I think you should write it.’

  ‘Really?’

  He nodded. ‘You’ve gone to so much trouble,’ he said. ‘We’ve both gone to so much trouble. And I think it would help … if people knew about loveshyness. Maybe people might understand us better, and not always see us as being trenchcoat-wearing stalkers.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, smiling. ‘That’s good. Um. Because I wrote it the other night.’

  Nick laughed, and shook his head. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

  I felt myself blush. ‘I brought a copy,’ I said. ‘If you want to … ’

  ‘Are you kidding? I’m dying to read it.’

  I grinned. ‘Wait here,’ I said, and scuttled off to retrieve my bag, which I’d stashed under the drinks table. When I returned, Nick was still standing on his own, looking a little awkward and uncomfortable. But he
smiled when he saw me, and I was pleased that his smile didn’t make butterflies twinkle around my stomach anymore. I just felt … happy.

  I handed him a manila envelope. ‘I hope you like it,’ I said. ‘I think it’s … good.’

  ‘I expect nothing less than excellent.’

  I felt nervous and pleased. ‘You know, I think it is excellent. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written.’

  Nick peeked inside the envelope. ‘This is the school newspaper.’

  I nodded. ‘I took the story to Ms Tidy and she redid the whole layout so it would fit. It got back from the printer yesterday.’

  ‘What happened to The New Yorker or Vanity Fair?’

  I shrugged. ‘You have to start somewhere,’ I said. ‘Joseph Pulitzer’s first job was as a mule-hustler in Missouri.’

  ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘I can see how you could find some common ground with mules. And Nellie Bly?’

  I grinned, unreasonably pleased that Nick remembered who my favourite journalist was. ‘She got her start by writing an angry letter to a sexist newspaper columnist.’

  ‘Well, that’s definitely more up your alley.’

  ‘Definitely.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘So the East Glendale Secondary College Gazette isn’t such a bad start.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not so bad at all.’

  Actually, I was pretty sure it was the best issue of the Gazette ever published. There were some great articles in there. Articles that weren’t even written by me. Arabella Sampson’s piece about the Vegan Alliance picket was really good. I saw her standing near the DJ with Max Wendt, looking as if she’d explode if he didn’t ask her to dance soon, and made a mental note to congratulate her.

  Nick tucked the envelope under his arm. ‘I’ll read it later,’ he said. ‘When I’m alone.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I have a job interview tomorrow,’ he told me. ‘At Coles. I’m terrified, naturally.’