Crazygirl Falls in Love

by Alexandra Wnuk

  If a guy ever did that to me… God help them is all I’ll say to that.

  “You were very mean to her!” I yell over the music.

  He looks legitimately confused. And the thing is, maybe he has a right to be. Because maybe he hadn’t been mean to Lizzy. He had refused to lie, refused to lead her on, refused to fake the possibility of a happily ever after when there was none. He had acted identically to the character from Albert Camus’ The Stranger (hence the nickname). Have you read that book? It’s a tricky one to get your head around. The protagonist has no feelings, none whatsoever. Does the fact he’s completely detached make him a bad person? Inhumane, in the sense that emotions and passion make us human?

  Boy, I never have such D&Mey thoughts when I’m sober. All this booze is really letting the creative juices flow!

  But I’m getting wa-hay sidetracked. Back to the tall, drool-worthy lad who is currently pulling my hips to lock in with his.

  “I was not mean, I was honest. I do not do relationships.”

  And before I can respond he is kissing me. A minute later he pulls away and continues.

  “And what about you, hmmm? I call you florecita.”

  “Huh?” I ask distractedly. My eyes are seeing stars, that’s how good that kiss was. I gulp down more vodka. I love this drink. I love life. How can it possibly get any better than this?

  “It mean little flower.”

  “Say what?!” I scream over the music, my mind still reeling from the passion of that latest lip lock.

  “Long hair, brown eyes. You are like sunflower, no?”

  I start laughing as I respond,

  “In that case, you should feel very privileged to play even a small part in my deflowering!”

  I stop laughing when I see the Stranger frowning, looking confused.

  “That was a joke!” I shout over the music, “You know, flower, deflower? It’s the same name? One is a pretty thing that sprouts out of the dirt and the other one is... you know!”

  I’m met with another blank expression, and realise I’m probably not explaining things very clearly to an English-is-my-second-language speaker. I try again,

  “Doing da boom boom?”

  Oh my god, stop talking Penny you are such an idiot sometimes! For once I listen to the logical side of my brain (which apparently is the right side, the left is Professor Emotional) and shut down the wave of incoherent, battered rambling I’m so prone to. Me and my big mouth are *this* close to ruining what’s turning out to be the greatest night of my life. We continue dancing and after what feels like an hour (but is probably more like a few minutes) I stand on my tippy-toes to eye the bar where we left Chloe and Antonio. There they still are, still talking. Hmmm… interesting…

  My mind wanders as the tunes switch from house to trance. The Stranger is a very good dancer, and somehow his carefree, loose moves are working with my stiff, retarded ones. I’m no Beyonce, not even close, which is such a shame because I love to shake it like a Polaroid picture. Get low! But with the Stranger even my robotic, inelegant moves work for once. We click when we move. It’s a nice rush.

  I take another sip of my drink, which turns out to be the straw that breaks this dipsomaniac camel’s back. My vision darkens as I feel the Stranger pulling me in.

  “We go back to my place now,” he purrs.

  “Damn straight!” I reply.

  Saturday - The General

  My phone howls into my ear. I jolt upright and fumble in the creases of the sofa where I can hear it ringing. What time is it? 2:00 p.m.? Oh my word. I must have crashed after that harrowing walk of shame. I find my phone and check who it is. Ah, Emma.

  “Hello?” I croak.

  “Hey sis, did I wake you?”

  “No, you’re right. I shouldn’t be sleeping so late anyway, what am I, fifteen?

  Emma laughs. She sounds happy.

  “So what’s news?” I ask her.

  “Just got back from rock climbing, and… I want to tell you but you have to promise not to judge?”

  “Okay, no judgement here.”

  “I saw Dublin last night.”

  “What?” I instinctively squint my eyes in disapproval, though there’s no one to squint at. I’m in my apartment, all alone.

  “I have needs and he fulfils them. Well, most of them.”

  Halfway through her story of how Dublin-Wanker wooed her back with a candlelit dinner, half a dozen roses and jewellery (in my opinion a total cliché, but whatev), I get a queasy feeling in my stomach, a feeling that starts to rise...

  “Can you hold on a tic?” I interrupt, running to the bathroom before hearing her reply, reaching the toilet just in time. I hate hangovers and I hate myself even more for having them over and over and over again. Why do I do this to myself?

  A few minutes later I’m back in the lounge room, and feeling much better too.

  “Sorry, go on?”

  “Geez Pen, what in the world happened to you last night?” Emma’s concerned voice coos through the mobile.

  Sometimes she sounds eerily similar to me. We talk the same. Not just the same Aussie accent, but the same pitch. Although unlike me she never swears, she’s too much of a goody-two-shoes for that.

  “I had a big night, Em.”

  I describe what happened at the Loft and Fabric, then launch into the not-very-impressive shame spiral of the morning. The long and the short of it is that I woke up at the Stranger’s place feeling shockingly unwell. My unsettled stomach took over (I’m well known for my inability to hold my drink, most hangovers involve a chunder or two. Or three or four) and a few minutes later I was riding the porcelain express in the Stranger’s tiny bathroom.

  Eventually he had started rapping lightly on the door.

  “Stop that pounding!” I had yelled into the toilet bowl, my head too sore and throbby for contemplation.

  He had stopped knocking, but then whispered urgently that he plays football Saturday mornings and needed to leave shortly. I took that as my cue and left, post-haste, but not before insisting he get me some aspirin. He joined me in a glass. He was probably feeling rather fuzzy himself, considering how spazzed we both got last night.

  He had walked me out and directed me to the nearest tube station, gave me a peck on the cheek and said those devastating words,

  “Take care.”

  Take care. Take care?! I mean… really? Take care? That’s male code for ‘Hopefully see you around, NEVER’. Luckily the pain in my head and stomach were so fierce that they masked his shattering parting line.

  And oh, if only the story ended there, but it don’t. I proceeded to undertake the most horrific walk of shame in recent memory. My eyes were bloodshot and sore. My hair looked like a birds nest. I was wearing yesterday’s smelly and crumpled work clothes, with beer and vodka stains running up each sleeve of my blouse. The heel snapped off my left shoe so I was forced to limp my way along. Worse, my tights were ripped and covered in holes. I looked like a sad, pathetic junkie whore, and not in the romantic Pretty Woman kinda way.

  I sat in the corner of the train carriage, hoping no one would see that I’d been up all night doing something I shouldn’t have been doing, with someone I shouldn’t have been doing it with. Luckily there were only two other people there, an old lady and a pimply teenager.

  We reached my stop with no dramas. But as I alighted I suddenly felt that tell-tale, sickly sweet taste seeping out of my salivary glands. Uh oh... Sickeningly sweet saliva means only one thing. My body was going to spew, immediately. I looked frantically around the platform, desperate for a restroom. No luck. No toilets, no place to hide.

  A second later there I was leaning over an extremely pungent rubbish bin, it’s wafts of grossness making me throw up the morning’s aspirin-water all the more violently. It was a see-through bin too. Not cool. Totes not cool.

  And oh, if only the story ended there, but it don’t. I stood up and wiped my mouth with an empty McDonald’s paper bag I had fished out of the bin (it
was the only item left that was semi-clean and vom-free). I turned around and there was the little old lady who had been sitting near me in the carriage. Just standing there. My face went bright red and I resorted to that trite, dated, lame-ass excuse for throwing up in public,

  “I’m sorry, I’m pregnant.”

  Little old lady turned out to be a crafty little old lady, and no one was pulling the wool over her eyes. She shook her head, tutted her disapproval, and walked on.

  And oh, if only the story ended there, but it don’t. When I came home I found an empty condom wrapper stuck to the back of my head.

  Emma is laughing so hard by this stage that I have to pause. After she’s calmed down enough I begin anew,

  “So anyway, I got home a few hours ago looking like a creature dragged out of the black lagoon. I murdered four Alka-Seltzer and a Barocca, then I must’ve crashed.”

  “After that much Alka-Seltzer I’m not surprised. You’ll feel better soon. Oh I almost forgot, I have something else to tell you. Dublin’s not the only guy in town. Rusty’s back.”

  “Oh. Have you seen him?”

  I’m not sure if I’m overstepping the line, asking about the other married guy.

  “Yeah, he was around for another conference on Thursday. He asked me to dinner, and once again I succumbed, and just like last time he left straight away.”

  “No spooning?” For me personally that’s the million dollar question. If a guy spoons he’s at least more decent than most of the twats out there.

  “We spooned for a little but that’s beside the point. What should I do?”

  “I dunno.” My shoulders rise in an involuntary shrug as I say it.

  Emma doesn’t reply. She’s clearly expecting something, anything, to make all the badness she’s recently been doing disappear.

  I guess I have to say something. I rack my sore brain,

  “Look, I’m your sister and I’ve got to be honest here. Sleeping with married men brings bad karma, creates lots of negative energy. Remember Lydia? She broke up that dude’s marriage and eventually he went back to his wife. Seven years later and she still has nightmares about it.”

  “I know I know, I feel like my moral compass is all wonky. First it was Rusty, but I blamed that on the weed, plus he doesn’t live in London so it was supposed to be a one off mistake, never, ever to be repeated. But then Dublin and I started hanging out, and I promised myself I wouldn’t but I’ve really fallen for him, and I know I’m screwing over his wife, who for all I know is a really nice person.”

  “Yes, all true.”

  We’ve had fights before because I consistently display an utter lack of tact and diplomacy towards my little sister. What I want to tell her is to stop immediately, that Dublin and Rusty are both pants and shouldn’t be given the time of day. Who the hell do they think they are anyway, keeping the whole perfect-family-life cover going whilst secretly chasing every piece of tail in town? What disgusting pigs. What about their wives? What about their children (if they have any, which hopefully they don’t)? I mean, yeah sure I hate kids but no one deserves a cheating, lying anus crack of a father.

  Of course, I can’t say any of this to Emma, plus it’s not really her fault. She, after all, is single. No one is putting a gun to these guys’ heads and forcing them to take her out. Emma is like me – we never, ever message first. We want to be pursued, not the other way ‘round. So I’d put money on the fact that these guys chased her down like hungry spider monkeys and her only failing was that she accepted their advances. Still wrong of her, no denying that, but my sis ain’t no home wrecker out on a mission to destroy lives. She isn’t. She’s nice.

  I’m drawing a blank with what I should say next, so I resort to my I-have-no-idea-how-to-respond response,

  “It’s a tricky situation.”

  Again she’s silent. I guess my awesome conversational get-out-of-jail-free line has worn thin over the years. So I decide to speak from the heart,

  “Em, there are so many awful men out there, single and married, that it’s too depressing to think about. Let’s just try to have a nice time during our short stint on this planet, forge great careers, earn lots of money, stay fit and read a good book every once in a while.”

  “And drink lots of wine.” She sounds a little cheered.

  “Ugh,” I moan, rubbing my eyes with my free hand, “don’t mention alcohol. And let’s stop talking about men, they’re just bits of skin attached to a penis and they all suck. I mean, the Stranger hasn’t even messaged yet and it’s already the afternoon.”

  “Relax Penny, it’s only been, what, five hours? He’ll get in touch. But sis…”

  “What?”

  “You know he’s not boyfriend material, right?”

  “Yeah, I know!” I snap, a little too quickly.

  “Your body is coursing with oxytocin at the moment, you’ll be thinking about him until the next guy you’re with.”

  “I don’t know Em, I think it might be different. I mean, between me and the Stranger. Maybe he’ll want something more.”

  She hesitates before replying,

  “Okay, if that’s how you feel I support you one hundred percent. Hey, you’re coming to salsa tonight, right?”

  I rub my eyes again,

  “I don’t know. I feel like I’ve died but no one’s bothered to tell me yet.”

  “Go for a run, you’ll feel better. You have to come out, please!”

  ***

  I pant to the rhythm of my runners hitting the track. Thump. Thump thump. Thump. Thump thump. Oh god this is hard. I try to ignore the knife-stabbing-the-jelly-tissue-of-my-brain agony but it’s bloody difficult. Feargal Sharkey sings through the headset,

  A good heart these days is hard to find, true love, the lasting kind…

  Cheesy 80s is by far the best playlist on my iPod. It’s a goldmine of washed up stars from the era of excess. Nick Kershaw, Paul Young, Dead or Alive, Go West, Chicago, Chris de Burgh, Bananarama. I’ve put Richard Marx in there too, even though technically he’s 90s.

  Look, I’m not gonna lie. Last night was made in heaven. And yes, if you’re wondering, he did spoon (be still, my beating heart…). But that’s not the point! The point is that I went home with a guy who has never asked me to dinner, who has a history of treating women with scorn and contempt, and now I’ve been oxytocin poisoned. Nice going old girl. What happened to the Penny with her head screwed on straight? The one who had stated, ‘I’m not one night stand material’ just a few hours before doing just that with a sexy Spanish lothario?

  Faster Penny, lift those knees! I urge myself on. Faster circulation might get him out of my system sooner. I have absolutely no scientific basis for that theory but Emma’s right, it’s better than mooching about at home. I pick up the pace. I’m close to the oak tree, my halfway point where I always stop to stretch. As I run I go into a mind trip as I remember the Stranger’s perfect face, his body, his hair, his smell. Will he text? Will he call? God I hope he does. Please God.

  Almost there, c’mon! I’m fast approaching a bench that’s a few hundred meters before the tree. I smile when I see the General and his dog sitting there. The General lives in the apartment below mine. He walks to Hyde Park every day and sits about, chatting to people as they come and go.

  “Morning Mr Harold!” I say loudly, jogging up to the bench, “hey Captain.”

  I squat to pat the pooch on his shiny head. He’s a huge mutt with lots of grey hair and bald patches, and judging by his out-of-breathness isn’t taking too kindly to this nice summer’s day. For me, an English summer is the same as a Melbourne winter, so I’m good.

  “Top of the morning to you, m’dear!” The General yells.

  Looks like he’s forgotten to put in his hearing aid again.

  “How are you today?! And how is Captain!?” I yell back.

  “Marvellous, just marvellous. But I say young Callaghan is a riddle t’be sure. Can’t make head nor tail of his jolly old decisions, isn’t th
at right Captain?”

  The General is over ninety years old and isn’t really with the program anymore. He sometimes thinks it’s the 1940s, sometimes the 1960s. Sometimes he’s convinced he’s back in the war, and clutters around his apartment assembling artillery shells from saucepans and measuring cups. Anyway, there’s no point telling him the year. I always play along with whichever era he believes us to be in. I’m almost certain he’s currently referring to 1970s PM James Callaghan.

  “You’re dead right Mr H, politicians are all knobs as far as I’m concerned. But I gotta get back to it, need to keep the heart rate up!”

  I start jogging on the spot.

  “Jolly good, you have a splendid morning won’t you?”

  “Sure will. Keep it real.” And we pump fists. I taught him that move a few years back when I first moved into our block. Told him I was initiating him into the Melbourne Hood. He had loved it. Or maybe he hadn’t, it’s difficult to tell, he’s always so lovely and pleasant and polite.

  I sprint away. Only a few hundred meters to go. Feargal has been replaced by Michael Jackson who is wrapping a ribbon on You Are Not Alone. Don’t you just love his Lisa Marie era? I know I know, that’s strictly not 80s either. In fact, lots of the songs in Cheesy 80s aren’t actually from that decade at all. I probably should rename this playlist ‘Blatantly Inauthentic Manufactured Pop Tracks That I Find Really Easy To Run To’.

  MJ finishes and to my delight Glenn Medeiros comes on. I love this song.

  Nothing’s gonna change my love for you, you outta know by now how much I love you…

  Ugh, finally! The oak is a few meters away. I slow down to a stop, place my hands on my knees and bend down. I am officially out of breath. Breathe through it. Breathe… Breathe...

  My music is so loud I don’t hear him approaching. I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around.

  Oh you gotta be fucking kidding me.

  “Hi,” Blue says, smiling.

  I take in the barely-there tiny strapped muscle tank top tucked into the highest, shortest, tightest, yellowest lycra shorts I’ve ever seen. Gee whiz, it looks like tightly packed supermarket fruit down there! I look him up and down, from the fluffy aqua headband down to the knee high socks squeezed under a pair of battered Converse All Stars. His outfit is a running wardrobe malfunction.