Am I Normal Yet?

by Holly Bourne

  We queued, paid our fiver entrance fee that was going to a local charity, and got our hands stamped. The cafeteria looked so much bigger with all the tables pushed to one side. I was pretty impressed – there was a proper stage and lights and speakers everywhere that the music tech students had set up.

  “Oooh, look, there’s a bar,” Lottie said, pointing to where pizza and chips were usually on sale.

  “It’s only for Upper Sixth,” Jane said. “The ones who’ve turned eighteen already.”

  Lottie screwed up her face. “Stuff that.” She peered over the queue. “I think I know the guy who’s working on it. He’s in my philosophy class. He’s in the year above but is taking philosophy as an extra AS level. His name’s Teddy.”

  “Teddy?” I asked. “Seriously?”

  “Deadly. His mum is obsessed with Little Women. He’s quite cute, isn’t he? If you all give me a fiver, I’ll try and get us served.”

  We all obligingly handed her money and Lottie steered through the crowd. Teddy was instantly smitten when she got to the bar, trying desperately not to look at her exposed midriff. Five minutes later she handed us all plastic cups filled with vodka and lime.

  “I think I like him,” she announced. “Just the name Teddy makes me want to bury myself into him for the world’s largest cuddle.”

  I took a sip of my drink.

  BAD THOUGHT

  How do you know the plastic cup is clean?

  BAD THOUGHT

  You’ve still not washed your hands.

  My sip turned into a gulp and I winced at the acidy nothingy taste. “Do you think he has a hairy chest?” I asked, hoping to distract myself.

  “Only one way to find out.” She grinned and chinked her plastic cup with mine, contaminating my cup further with her lip juice. Reckoning on alcohol that strong being self-sanitizing, I drained the rest of my drink, swilling it around the insides of my mouth. Like mouthwash, I guess.

  Jane opened a programme and squealed at Joel’s photo. “Look,” she said, pointing. “They’ve been given more space than anyone else.” I followed her finger and saw Guy’s face staring back at me, from the grainy depths of the bad photocopy.

  “I just need the loo,” I told them and I worked my way through to the bathroom. I didn’t need to go but a clump of girls took up all the basins, redoing their make-up in the mirror. It would look odd if I just stood waiting for a sink, so I went into a cubicle and stood there, waiting the amount of time it usually takes to wee. Then, knowing I’d be instantly washing my hands afterwards, I pulled the chain and watched the clean bowl flush itself.

  The music started just as I pushed past someone to wash my hands. A warbling, the sort that can only come from a middle class white person with dreadlocks strumming an acoustic guitar, echoed off the white tiles. I pumped the soap dispenser six times.

  How to wash your hands – the Evie way

  Pump the soap six times. One, two, three, four, five, six.

  Rub your palms together to create a rich lather.

  Concentrate first on scrubbing the thumbs, and then individually around each finger.

  Interlace your fingers and rub your palms together roughly – wincing at where the soap seeps into the few open sores on your skin.

  Rub the backs of your hands together thoroughly.

  Finish on your wrists, creating an “o” with your clean fingers to whoosh the soap around like a bracelet.

  Then rinse. First with hot. Then with cold. Then with as hot as you can stand. Turn the tap off with your elbow.

  Use the elbow to start the hand dryer and leave them under it until your hands are bone dry.

  I picked up a programme on the way back and flicked to the page with Guy’s photo. There he was. His stupid no-message-replying face all tortured and shaded and sexy. I noticed my hands shaking. I found the girls in the crowd near the front. Lottie was covering her ears dramatically while Amber laughed at her.

  “This girl,” Lottie called over the music, “needs to be told that listening to music should be a pleasurable experience.”

  We all winced as the girl onstage failed to hit a particularly high note. I looked over at the source of the noise. My guess was correct, the girl’s blonde hair was matted into dreads and she wore an actual real-life shawl. Her guitar was painted with sixties flowers.

  Amber looked over too. “I think she suffers from OCD,” she said, and my blood stopped in its veins. She paused before delivering the punchline. “Obsessive Cliché Disorder…”

  I pretended to laugh while considering going back to the loos to cry.

  The song finished, followed by half-hearted applause. “Thank you,” dread-girl said, beaming. She tried to bow but was pushed offstage by the next band. They were a group of guys, all wearing smart suits with skinny ties.

  “Wait,” I said to the others. “It’s Ethan.”

  Amber and Lottie’s faces both whipped round to the stage. “I didn’t know he played the drums,” Amber said as Ethan settled down behind his electric blue drum kit.

  I shrugged, watching him play about with leads and twizzling his drumsticks. “Yeah, he does. And violin too. I wonder where he finds time amongst his sex rehab.”

  “Is that the guy you brought to Anna’s party?” Jane asked, her phone still surgically attached to her hand.

  “Yep.”

  “He is cute, isn’t he?”

  “Yep.”

  Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the vodka. Maybe it was seeing Ethan’s annoyingly-sexy ferret face up on a stage – but I went a bit hot and woozy. The lead singer came up to the mike and said, “Hey everyone, we’re The Imposters.” And they launched into a rip-roaring cover of “Back in Black”.

  “AMAZING,” Lottie yelled, her face swelling with excitement. “Music we can dance to.” Before any of us had time to think of valid excuses, she’d pulled us towards the front and began dancing crazily.

  It’s hard not to dance to a decent AC/DC cover and everyone around us had the same problem. It’s also hard not to dance to AC/DC like a pissed old person at a wedding and everyone else had the same problem. We dipped and twirled and formed a girly shrieky circle where we all flicked our hair about to the “hey hey hey hey” bits. Mid-flick, I looked at the stage and met Ethan’s eyes. I grinned and he winked at me. I stuck my tongue out and returned to my hair flicking. It was then I noticed Amber. She wasn’t joining in. She had her arms clutched around herself as she awkwardly nodded her head. I joined my hands with hers and waved them about, grinning madly to get her to smile back – but the moment I dropped them, her hands fell back to her chest. Which meant, to be honest, that I’d dirtied my hands for no reason.

  “What’s up?” I yelled over the music. “Why aren’t you dancing?”

  “Nothing wrong,” she said in that girl way meaning there’s definitely something very wrong indeed.

  “Tell me.”

  “I just hate dancing. I’m too tall. Everyone’s looking at me.”

  I looked around at the room full of people not looking at Amber. “No they’re not.”

  “Yes they are.”

  “Back in Black” finished and the band lurched into another rock-a-cheesetastic cover of “Walk This Way”. Everyone screamed and cheered.

  “Come on,” I yelled at her. “It’s Aerosmith. Lottie is attempting to moonwalk.” Lottie cleared a space on the dance floor and was wiggling backwards while Jane took pictures on her phone.

  Amber gave a strained smile. “I’m fine. I’ll go get us some more drinks.”

  I tried to feel bad for her but the band was too good – the music too infectious. I shuffled over to Lottie and started a weird hip-hop move that had everything to do with alcohol and nothing to do with dancing ability.

  “Woooo, go, Evie,” Jane yelled, and I pulled her in and we wiggled around each other – jumping up and down. I was having so much fun I didn’t really log I’d now touched two people’s hands.

  “I love cover bands,” Lottie
said, her matted hair swish-swishing. “It’s so much better listening to music you know.”

  “Yeah, but a cover band can’t win, can they?” Jane said, leaning in close so we could hear her. “That’s not fair. Joel’s band writes all their own songs.”

  “I’m sorry, Jane,” Lottie said smiling. “But ‘Die Bitch Die’ ain’t a dancey number.”

  Even Jane laughed. Until Amber stormed back, looking even more miserable.”Your mate wouldn’t serve me,” she said to Lottie, her face as red as her hair again.

  “Fret not, I will mend this,” Lottie said, and she sauntered over to the bar, doing her own hop skip. The three of us watched her dazzle Teddy into submission. He kept laughing at her and pushing his dirty blond hair off his face. Then Lottie crawled over the countertop and dropped to his side of the bar, helping herself to drinks. He just laughed harder and helped her pour. She planted a dizzying kiss on his lips before leaping back over the counter, clutching four plastic cups between her fingers.

  “Voilà,” she announced, handing us each a cup of ill-gotten gains.

  “I think Teddy may be a bit in love with you,” I said, taking my drink and downing most of it. We all looked over and saw him staring longingly at Lottie, ignoring the queue of thirsty people around him.

  Lottie gave a smug side smile. “Well, he’s not bad, is he?”

  “You over Tim yet?” I asked.

  She stuck her tongue out. “Who?”

  “That’s my girl.”

  “Let’s dance.”

  Ethan’s band launched into their third and final cover – Bon Jovi, “Living on a Prayer”. Everyone erupted, even reluctant Amber. I downed my drink, tossed the plastic cup over my head with abandon and did the most energetic hair flicking the world has ever known. I love love LOVED this song. It was all about making the most of what you have, and hanging on, even when the odds aren’t in your favour.

  “Take my hand,” the lead singer sang, and Lottie and Amber and I, and even Jane, put our hands into the middle of our makeshift circle and clutched at each other before releasing our fingers into the air.

  “WOAH-OOOH,” we screamed over the music.

  You’re going to make it, Evie, I thought and I lost myself in the crazy guitar solo. Vodka and wine and cheesy rock pulsed through me and I twirled and jumped and grinned at my friends.

  “OOOON A PRAYER,” I screamed at everyone, euphoria ripping through me like tearing sheets of tissue paper.

  Then I was hugged from behind and it all went dark. He whispered into my ear, so close I could hear him over the band.

  “Guess who?”

  I lifted his hands down and turned to face him. “Hi, Guy,” I beamed. I was so glad to see him. I was so glad to see anybody.

  “You look happy, gorgeous,” he yelled at me, giving me a full body scan that would’ve been leery if he wasn’t young and good-looking.

  Gorgeous? He called me gorgeous?

  “Dance with me,” I yelled back, grabbing his hand and twirling myself under his arm. But he stayed stiff and upright, giving me a weirdo look.

  “I’m not dancing to Bon Jovi. Don’t tell me you’re enjoying this crap?”

  I was, I really really was. But then I wasn’t.

  “Everyone else is,” I said, gesturing to the girls behind me who were holding hands and spinning in circles, and all the people behind them who seemed just as dedicated to screaming along to every word as I was.

  Guy did his best sneer. “I can’t believe they let an actual cover band into the competition.”

  “It’s not really a competition, it’s a charity gig at college.” I realized instantly that that was the wrong thing to say. Guy’s sneer got sneerier, his nostrils all pinched.

  “Well in that case, I don’t need you to wish me luck then, do I?” He turned and dissolved into the crowd.

  My euphoria drained out of me, like a plug being pulled in the bath, and I sagged on the dance floor. Amber’s arm was around me first. “So, what did Mr Bell-end want?”

  “Umm…nothing.”

  Lottie’s arm draped on my other side. “Wow, Evie, it’s like you’ve had an instant mood transplant.”

  Amber evilled the bit of the crowd Guy had disappeared into. “Guy is a professional mood transplanter. He should be a surgeon in mindfuckery.”

  I shrugged. “It’s fine. He just doesn’t like Bon Jovi.”

  “Which further proves his idiocy,” Lottie said. “Come on, love, there’s only a chorus left.”

  They enveloped me into a hug and screamed the lyrics so loudly into my eardrums that I thought they would burst. I giggled and sang along and pulled Jane in with us but my heart felt like one of those balloons you buy at theme parks that sags halfway to the carpet in the drab interior of your house the next day.

  The band was encored, despite it being against the rules. They pulled out “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers and there was no roof left to raise by the end of it. When they finished, the whole of college exploded into applause and wolf-whistles. The band bowed. Ethan rose up from behind his drum kit, smothered in sweat. Through the crowd he somehow found my face and, though we hadn’t talked in ages, he winked at me again.

  Surprised, I waved back.

  The lights came up and some dull background music came on whilst Ethan’s band dismantled their equipment and Guy and Joel’s band started assembling. The crowd recovered, blinking in the bright lights, and began swamping Teddy at the bar.

  Jane flung her arms around me, her body all sweaty. “They’re on next, Evie, I’m so nervous for him.”

  I looked over her shoulder at the stage. Joel didn’t look nervous, just bored by everything, which was standard. Guy wasn’t looking at me. At any of us. His lip was all pouted out like a toddler who didn’t get the Christmas present he wanted.

  Sensible thought

  Why do you fancy him, Evie?

  But the vodka pushed it away. The vodka, or lust, or love, or his carrot dangly penis or whatever.

  A sudden urge twinged in my stomach and I pushed Jane away, aware of all the things I suddenly needed to do.

  “I need to go to the loo again,” I told the others.

  “Oh, cool,” Amber said, “I need it too.”

  No no no no no no no no no.

  I smiled through my teeth. “Great.”

  She whinged on as we made our way to the college toilets and it grated on me. I was already mad at her for joining me, for ruining my plan…

  “I hate that I’m so tall, it’s like I can’t enjoy any gigs, you know? I just know everyone behind me is thinking ‘oh great, we’re behind the ginger giraffe’… And yet I can’t get served by that Teddy bloke. It’s ’cause Lottie has tits, isn’t it? But then it wouldn’t work if I had tits, they’d just be right at everyone’s eye level…”

  There was a queue, as always. Never, in the history of the universe, have there been sufficiently-sized ladies toilets.

  “That band was good though, wasn’t it? Don’t listen to stupid Guy. I’d much rather listen to covers than his crap. Oh God, they’re on next. Are you going to fall for him even more once he’s up onstage?”

  “Amber, I’m not that predictable.”

  “You’re a girl, he’s a guy onstage. Everything that happens afterwards is predictable.”

  A cubicle came free and I locked myself in, counting to sixty under my breath. It usually took about sixty seconds to pee, didn’t it? Then, without having done anything, I unlocked the door and washed my hands. But not properly. I couldn’t do them properly, especially with Amber washing hers right next to me. She didn’t even use soap. Just water. What was water going to do?

  I could hardly hear her as we emerged back into the cafeteria.

  BAD THOUGHT

  Go back, go back, you’re not finished, you need to go back.

  “…Oh look, they’re about to start. Christ, Jane looks like she’s going to piss herself. Thanks for breaking it up between us earlier. I’m sorry I was a bitc
h…she’s just so…I dunno…but I get that you’re friends…”

  “Oh no,” I gasped, whacking my hands to my face dramatically, stopping me in my tracks.

  Amber stopped too. “What is it?”

  I hit my pockets, all over-the-top. “I’m such an idiot. I think I left my purse in the loo.”

  My purse was in my clutch bag. It had been there all night.

  “Do you want me to come back with you?” Amber said. Just as she said it the lights dimmed again. A scratch of chords ripped through the air. I looked up, it’d come from Joel’s guitar. They were starting.

  “No, it’s fine, I’ll meet you there.”

  Before she could argue, I’d been swallowed by the crowd and deafening music.

  The angry start to “Die Bitch Die” echoed dimly around the toilet walls. I pumped the soap, one, two, three, four, five, six…hang on, did I count right? Stupid vodka. I sighed, scraped the soap off and began again.

  One. Two. Three. Four… Did I pump on three? Really? Was I sure? I had to be sure.

  I scraped the soap off and started again, counting out loud with each push of the soap dispenser.

  “One,” I said, slowly and deliberately. “Two. Three…” Thank God no one was in there and they were all watching the band. Then I swished and circled and rubbed the backs of my hands together and interlaced my fingers and did all the things you’re supposed to do if you don’t want norovirus if you work in a hospital.

  I felt so relieved. Yet, just as I was about to push through the door…

  BAD THOUGHT

  Do it again, Evie, just to make sure.

  That was the point where I was supposed to use my “coping strategies” – to put things through my “worry tree” again. To acknowledge the thought, bring myself back to the present moment, and walk back out into the band competition – anxious, yes, but knowing I wasn’t letting it win.

  Have you ever noticed that sentences that begin with “that was the point where” never end with someone doing the point?

  All the relief of ten seconds ago drained away, replaced with an urgent need to wash again. It was like when you need to pee so badly you’re hopping on one leg. But I knew that if I did it again, the relief wouldn’t last long. And the next time, it would last even less.