The Boy/Friend

by R. M. Corbet

  The Girlfriend Fiction Series

  1 My Life and Other Catastrophes Rowena Mohr

  2 The Indigo Girls Penni Russon

  3 She’s with the Band Georgia Clark

  4 Always Mackenzie Kate Constable

  5 The (not quite) Perfect Boyfriend Lili Wilkinson

  6 Step Up and Dance Thalia Kalkipsakis

  7 The Sweet Life Rebecca Lim

  8 Cassie Barry Jonsberg

  9 Bookmark Days Scot Gardner

  10 Winter of Grace Kate Constable

  11 Something More Mo Johnson

  12 Big Sky Melaina Faranda

  13 Little Bird Penni Russon

  14 What Supergirl Did Next Thalia Kalkipsakis

  15 Fifteen Love R. M. Corbet

  16 A Letter from Luisa Rowena Mohr

  17 Dear Swoosie Kate Constable & Penni Russon

  18 Thirteen Pearls Melaina Faranda

  19 The Boy/Friend R. M. Corbet

  www.allenandunwin.com/girlfriendfiction

  R. M. CORBET

  First published in 2010

  Copyright © R. M. Corbet 2010

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

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  Australia

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  Cover design by Tabitha King and Bruno Herfst

  Text design by Bruno Herfst

  Cover photograph by Getty Images/Altrendo Images

  Set in 12.5/15 pt Fournier by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  www.allenandunwin.com/girlfriendfiction

  For Geordie and Esther

  Contents

  lost & found

  biology

  different directions

  shop till you’re dropped

  choices

  making a splash

  complications

  onions

  public & private

  creating a monster

  destiny

  spark

  hooking up

  tangled

  mixed message

  captive audience

  alterations

  hearts

  the big gig

  pressure

  maiden voyage

  support act

  closer

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  lost & found

  LOU AND I WERE OUT feeding the strays. All the tabbies and flabbies and scrawnies and toms that came by his house in the late afternoon. We were sitting side by side on his front step, watching their little pink tongues lap at the saucers of milk we’d laid out among the mountains of junk on his lawn, listening to their chorus of contented purrs.

  ‘Can you hear that, Maude? I think it’s an augmented fourth.’

  ‘Does that mean it sounds like a jazz chord?’

  ‘For jazz it would be an augmented eleventh.’

  ‘Okay then.’

  Talking to Lou could be like that. He was a musician. Musicians never make any sense when they talk about music. Most times, though, I’d know what Lou was thinking almost before he did; and augmented, diminished, demented or cemented, that flock of lost cats made me smile.

  Lou had played sax ever since I’d known him. Ever since he was big enough to lift one. He’d practise and practise for hours on end. He took his sax to school and he took it to bed. While the other kids were playing on their Game Boys, waving their lightsabers and trading Pokémon cards, Lou was busy listening to Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.

  ‘They were, like, sax players, right?’

  ‘They were like gods, Maude.’

  There were posters of Bird and Coltrane on his wall, gazing down from on high. Lou did his best to convert me, but the sounds were too random and wild for my ears. All those tweedles and dweedles and screeches and squawks. I’d been raised on Hi-5 and the Wiggles, after all.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It sounds cool,’ I’d lie.

  ‘Actually, it’s bebop.’

  Musicians can be so annoying.

  It’s hard to describe Lou how others might see him. The same way it’s hard to describe the back of your own hand. Lou was tall and gangly with a mop of brown hair that he never brushed. Bright eyes. Loose clothes. Shoelaces undone. He was all strange pronouncements and far-away gazes. There were plenty of girls who had said he was cute. To me, he was just Lou, my closest friend.

  My friend who was a boy. Not my boyfriend.

  We sat for a while without talking, watching the happy cats bask in the sun, smiling with their eyes closed and tail tips a-twitching. It made me feel sleepy, but Lou was restless. He was having trouble sitting still and his foot was tapping constantly. He shook his head, then smiled at me sheepishly. I smiled back and raised half an eyebrow. He nodded and brushed his hair back with his fingers, took a deep breath, then let it all out.

  ‘Maude?’

  ‘Lou?’

  ‘Do you want to go see a movie?’

  ‘Why? What’s on?’

  This simple question of mine seemed to completely unnerve him. He opened his mouth to speak and shut it again; then he shook his head at the complexity of it.

  ‘Does it matter what’s on? Let’s go to the movies.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘You got a problem with that?’

  ‘No. Except that it’s Friday and . . .’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘It sounds like you’re asking me out.’

  ‘I am asking you out.’

  ‘It sounds like you’re asking me out on a date.’

  ‘It’s not a date. It’s a movie.’

  Crap!

  ‘Sorry. I don’t know why I thought—’

  ‘It was just an idea, that’s all.’

  Lou gazed at the lawn. The cats had all finished lapping at their saucers. Now they were cleaning their whiskers and licking their paws. There was no point in trying to fix what had happened. It was no use crying over spilt milk.

  I stood up and grabbed my bag. For the first time in my life I had no idea what to say to my best friend.

  ‘See you tonight, then,’ I said.

  Lou’s was the last house on Willowbank Road, just across the park from the Merri Creek. I didn’t feel like going home just right then, so I wandered my way along the water’s edge. All the sleepy old weeping willows had been cut down and replaced by baby gum trees inside plastic boxes. The greenies had put up a big sign explaining how it was good for the ecosystem. The problem was, right then it looked like a logging disaster.

  I sat down on the stump of a favourite old tree, in the place where the stream widened into a pool. Lou and I had used to sneak off there all the time. It was our secret place, beneath our secret tree. Once upon a time, when we were kids.

  If I squinted my eyes I could still see it that way: how we’d sat on the bank
with our toes in the sticky black mud, watching the ducks dive and dart on the pond; or kicked off our jeans on hot days and squelched round in the slime, searching for treasures and dinosaur bones, catching tadpoles and beetles to keep in glass jars. Then we’d tramp back to Lou’s place to hose off the mud. We’d towel ourselves down and I’d borrow his clothes, while mine were hung out in the sunshine to dry.

  I sat on the willow-stump, remembering. Somewhere in the distance I heard a dog bark. Then the faraway sound of a saxophone practising. I got up and brushed my school uniform down.

  It’s not a date, Maude McNaughton. Get a grip.

  My house was number nine Willowbank Road. Lou’s was number nineteen. His was downhill on the bendy bit. Mine was uphill on the straight stretch. Unlike Lou’s clutter of saucers and mess, our house had a neat lawn where cats weren’t allowed. Rows of begonias. The hose tightly rolled. The lawn clipped and whipper-snipped within an inch. Mum would be in the kitchen, preparing a tasty, nutritious meal. Dad would be home soon from another hard day at the office.

  Feeling a sudden need for privacy, I sneaked in the back door and tiptoed upstairs. I slipped into my bedroom, shut the door softly behind me, and frowned at myself in the wardrobe mirror.

  Maude McNaughton: only child.

  I kicked off my school shoes and fell on my bed as I scrolled through the contacts in my phone. There was no one I wanted to message right then. I plugged in my iPod and ran through my playlists, till I found something happy to drown out the world. Something that wasn’t tormented or augmented. Not quite the Wiggles, but something upbeat.

  Something that didn’t have saxophones.

  The local cinema was just a short walk from our street, along the Merri Creek bike path then up to the main road. It was a grand old art-deco theatre with plush seats and red velvet curtains. Lou and I had used to go there for birthday parties. We’d eat ice-cream cake and drink red fizz, then run around screaming till we felt like throwing up. I must have seen Finding Nemo there at least seven times.

  Being there with Lou on our date that wasn’t a date, a part of me still felt like running around screaming, to let off some nervous energy. It wasn’t like I had much to be nervous about. I knew Lou. He knew me. We both knew the score. We had agreed to the terms and conditions. Sure, it was a Friday night. But we were there to see the movie, whatever it was. Why? Because Lou had suggested it.

  It was all very simple and straightforward.

  I wondered why part of me felt like throwing up.

  Lou queued for our tickets while I bought the popcorn. It was general admission. There were plenty of seats. Instinctively, we both made our way to the centre block – the seats with the best view of the movie. Lou chose the row and I followed him in. I watched him sit down, and for one crazy moment I thought about leaving a seat vacant between us.

  I didn’t, of course.

  The movie? The movie was okay. The truth was I hardly noticed it. Sitting beside Lou in the darkness all that time, with nothing but an armrest between us. Staring straight ahead at the big screen, passing the drink and the popcorn. Feeling his warm shoulder rub against mine. In the quiet, I could hear his soft breathing; could sense every small movement that he made, getting closer, then moving away again. How could I concentrate on the movie?

  We watched till the end. We watched all the credits. The names of the prop guys and personal assistants. The stuntpeople. The drivers. The caterers. The assistants to the assistants. We watched all those names without speaking.

  ‘Feel like a hot chocolate?’ he said.

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  Lou got our hot chocolates while I found a table in the cinema’s café. I sat down. He came and sat down. It was a very small table. There was just enough room for our hands and our drinks.

  We tried to talk about the movie, the way that you do, but the conversation never got out of first gear. Lou said the main actor had been on the news for abusing the paparazzi. I said I’d heard he’d been in detox. Lou wondered if he’d had a facelift. I said his accent was all wrong. We agreed that the movie was okay, and we both gave it three-and-a-half stars out of five, like the critics do when they don’t know or don’t care.

  With that out of the way, there was a hole in the conversation. Not a great gaping hole, but a hole nonetheless. Normally, such holes are filled with small talk, but Lou and I weren’t good at small talk. Likes and dislikes? Hobbies and interests? We already knew all that stuff. Instead, we sat sipping our hot drinks and watching the people around us. The couples who’d come on a date to the movies. The ones making plenty of small talk.

  I opened my bag. ‘How much do I owe you?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll pay.’

  ‘Seriously, how much?’

  ‘No really. It’s fine.’

  ‘You can’t pay. That would be wrong.’

  ‘Why would it be wrong?’

  ‘It would make it too much like a date.’

  ‘What if it was a date? What difference would that make?’

  What DIFFERENCE?!

  ‘I don’t know. It just feels . . . strange.’

  ‘I’m a boy. You’re a girl. What’s so strange about that?’

  ‘I’m a boy. You’re a girl? Who are you – Tarzan?’

  Lou stared at the ceiling. ‘Why are you making this complicated?’

  I let my hair fall across my face so he wouldn’t see the heat in my cheeks. ‘You said it was just a movie.’

  ‘It is just a movie.’

  ‘So why are you paying?’

  Lou looked sad. ‘Forget it. Forget everything.’

  ‘How about if I pay for us next time?’ I suggested.

  ‘It’s not like you owe me,’ he said.

  We sat there in silence, playing with our hot chocolates. Mine tasted too sugary to drink, but I didn’t want him to think I was ungrateful. I was confused now. If Lou wanted this to be a date, why lie about it earlier? Wasn’t that tricking me here on false pretenses? Was he scared? Of me? Why was I making everything so hard for him?

  The truth was, I didn’t know why. All I knew was, it felt weird between us. Very, very weird.

  And what had he meant by forget everything?

  We headed home once we’d finished our drinks. It was a clear night, and not very late. Merri Creek sounded gentle. The moon was half-full, or maybe half-empty. Plastic bags glowed like silver lanterns in the trees. We had stopped trying to talk. Both of us were lost in our own thoughts. I could have mentioned the stump of our old willow, but it hardly seemed like the best time.

  When we got back to his place, he stopped at the gate.

  ‘Did you want to come in?’

  He didn’t mean anything by it. He was being polite. But suddenly it felt entirely different from the thousand times he’d said it to me before.

  ‘I should get home,’ I said. ‘Thanks for a fun night.’

  ‘Do you want me to walk with you back to your house?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, and we left it at that.

  I walked past a few houses, then turned and looked back. Lou was watching. We waved. Then I went on my way. I had a strong impulse to look back again, but I knew that would only be stupid.

  Back in my bedroom, I dug the movie ticket out of my pocket, scrunched it up into a tight ball, and threw it in my wastepaper basket. I felt drained. Gutted. My head hurt when I tried to make sense of it all. The different things I might have done or said. The things I wished I hadn’t said. Or more to the point, wished he hadn’t said.

  What would this do to our friendship?

  Under my bed was a locked wooden box filled with all the treasures I’d found by the creek over the years. There were marbles, old copper coins, bird feathers and bottle tops, polished stones, fragments of china and glass. Extra-precious things were stored in plastic zip-bags – dragonflies, white moths and shiny green beetles – airtight, safe and protected. Each treasure had its own story. Each one a small reminder of that
secret world I’d shared with Lou, once upon a time, when we were kids.

  I rescued the movie ticket from my bin, unscrunched it and pressed it until it was flat. I placed it inside the wooden box, then I locked the box and slid it back under my bed.

  Not a treasure, exactly, but something worth keeping.

  Something that had its own story.

  biology

  ‘GOOD MORNING, LADIES. Please take out your books.’

  The biology lab was a spooky place. Dissected animals floated inside glass jars on the windowsills. Mice, rats, lizards and snakes. They looked like props from the House of Horror.

  Our teacher, Ms Webb, was more wax museum than horror. Her face was a blank and she never smiled. (Unless she was talking about her purebred Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.) I heard a soft groan from the back of the room as she switched on the data projector.

  Not chromosomes again.

  ‘In most mammals, the Y chromosome contains the gene that triggers embryonic development of the male . . .’

  I could feel my brain turning to mush.

  I’d started Year 10 at an all-girls’ school in the city three months ago. I got in on a part-scholarship. It was my parents’ idea, not mine, but it’s not like they’d forced me at knife point – I’d jumped through the hoops and walked on hot coals. My parents were so proud when they heard the news, I’d thought they would burst. Mum bawled and Dad wiped a tear from his eye. The fairytale ending. The happily ever after. I was the Eliza Doolittle of Willowbank Road.

  I knew there would be strings attached.

  Being on a scholarship meant being branded. Teachers expected you to set an example. Rivals competed to be smarter than you. Some girls resented you for getting a free ride. Others assumed you were poor. A cultured pearl. That you looked like the real thing, but weren’t.

  Lou and I had started out at the same high school. For three years we’d been inseparable. Now, whenever we compared notes, we’d always end up arguing. He’d assume my new school was the opposite of his, which was unfair and mostly untrue. Sure, my school cost lots of money to go to. It was a bus ride away while his was just around the corner. My school had gardens, where his was all concrete. He had no uniform, whereas I could get detention for having a single button undone. Plus his was co-ed and mine was Girls Only.