by Sarah Ayoub
I shake my head, caught completely off-guard.
‘Do you mind?’ Charlie steps in. ‘This is a private moment.’
‘How about just a sound bite?’ she says.
‘A what?’ I ask, flustered.
‘God, do they want to film you doing a poo as well?’ someone behind me asks, snorting and laughing with their friends.
I redden, but shake my head. ‘Please leave,’ I whisper to the reporter and cameraman.
Inside, our hour-length ceremony is one of speeches (boring), award presentations (predictable — the same people come first every year) and lessons on the real world (looong). And then — the awarding of the St Jerome Medal — which is pretty much the high-school equivalent of winning the lottery.
It goes to Charlie! I literally whoop with joy, rising up out of my seat as she goes up to accept it.
She smiles and gives the shortest award speech I’ve ever heard in the six years I’ve been at this school. It’s just a thank you to the teachers, thanks to her mum and stepdad and a thanks to the women who inspired her to make something of herself.
‘I hope every girl graduating today doesn’t let society diminish her inner spark,’ she says, finishing with the peace sign and a quip of ‘Girl power!’
A few people in my grade exchange looks. I love that she’s never at a loss when it comes to making a statement.
We walk out of the school hall for the last time, to the applause of all the younger students, and out into the sunshine where we throw our hats in the air, hug one another and take photos with our family and friends. I pose with Sammy and Elliott, and Sammy says he was so happy to come see me become ‘a growed-up’. After a few snaps, Elliott tells me it’s time for him to take Sammy home. I give Sammy a big kiss and thank him for coming to watch me. He wipes his face where I kissed him, and then gives me a super huge hug goodbye.
A second later, the reporter and the cameraman are back.
‘Gillian, how do you feel about your parents not being here?’ she asks, as he shoves the camera in my face.
‘Oh my God, you’re all over her like a wet suit,’ Charlie says, coming over before I can respond. ‘She’s totally fine; stop ruining her graduation.’
The man gives her a dirty look and she sticks her tongue out at him. I look on with amusement. Then the reporter and cameraman walk away, muttering to each other.
I turn back to Charlie. ‘So I don’t actually think I am fine with the fact that my parents aren’t here,’ I tell her. ‘It kind of sucks. I mean, what was the point of them even having kids if they’re not going to invest time and effort into raising them?’
‘Gill, don’t let it ruin your day,’ Charlie says, rubbing my back. ‘It’s not worth it.’
I look at her sadly.
‘Cheer up,’ she says. ‘You’re not the only one. Here comes Matty. He’s probably been waiting around the gates, hoping that his mother would turn up.’
‘It is finished,’ he says, smiling at us. ‘Even I don’t have a song for this feeling.’
We hug him excitedly and ask where he was earlier.
‘I came late,’ he whispers. ‘I slept in. I thought, Screw it, what does it matter now? I need the rest.’
‘Can’t argue with that,’ Charlie says. ‘So, Gill tells me you’re not going to that party either?’
‘Either?’ I exclaim. ‘Wait — what? You’re not coming?’
She looks at me as though I’m stupid. ‘As if I would.’
‘Puh-lease,’ I beg. ‘I really wanna go!’
‘God knows what for,’ Matty says.
‘I’ll see,’ Charlie says, relenting. ‘But you should come over before the party. Help me pack my mum’s hospital bag. She still hasn’t done it and her due date is in two weeks.’
The crowd starts to dwindle and I realise I haven’t snapped a photo with my friends yet.
‘Selfie time!’ I squeal, gathering them close. Matty shakes his head and tries to escape, but Charlie grabs him.
‘If I’m doing it, so are you,’ she growls.
I take a few photos, Charlie and Matty grimacing in all of them.
‘Any more pictures or can I go now?’ he asks.
‘Yeah, let’s get one with Lauren Pappas so that when I’m so happy and successful in the future I can look at it and remember to come back down to earth.’
‘Ahem,’ Tammi says, coming up behind me. I crack a smile and bite my lip.
‘Relax,’ she says. ‘I was just hoping I could get a picture with you guys.’
Her mum takes one of us and I ask Tammi where her dad is. ‘Working,’ she says. ‘Don’t worry, you’re not the only one.’
I give her arm an affectionate squeeze and gesture to Matty and Charlie. ‘These two aren’t coming tonight.’
‘Wait — what?’
Both of them wave their hands in front of their faces, going into all sorts of excuses.
‘Well, you should both come,’ she says. ‘You can hang with me.’
I give a snort of laughter and realise she looks offended. ‘Sorry,’ I say, clearing my throat. ‘But what about Lauren?’
‘She’ll be fine,’ she says. ‘She’ll probably be pashing everyone in celebration.’
Ryan comes up to us, beaming.
‘Charlie, congrats on the medal,’ Ryan says. ‘You deserve it.’
‘Yes!’ Tammi echoes. ‘You should be so proud of yourself. You came into the school out of nowhere and blew us all away.’
‘I’m good at that,’ Charlie says, winking. Ryan looks at her admiringly and I wish the look was enough to melt her ice-queen heart.
‘Do you mind if you take a photo of the yearbook team, Nan?’ Ryan asks his grandmother.
We smile enthusiastically — even Charlie — then take another one making silly faces.
‘David’s parents are away this weekend and he has the house to himself,’ Ryan says to us. ‘So he’s having a party. We’re raising money for Movember so there’s going to be a cover charge and it’s BYO booze, if you want to come.’
We all look at him with amusement.
‘You’re so delayed, bro,’ Matty says, tapping his chest and walking away.
I go home and change out of my school uniform before heading over to Charlie’s. She’s in the shower when I arrive, so I sit with her mum in the kitchen as she fusses about getting drinks while filling me in on the weekend away she and Stan are taking to Berry.
‘We leave tomorrow morning,’ she says excitedly. ‘It’s my first road-trip from Sydney.’
I smile at her politely. ‘Um, aren’t you worried about . . .?’
She points to her belly. ‘About this? God, no . . . Charlie was ten days overdue. I still have two weeks.’
Fair enough, I think.
Suddenly I notice an odd expression come over her face. ‘What?’ I ask.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m just curious as to how you’re going after . . . everything that’s happened.’
‘Great,’ I say, shrugging.
She looks at me with a combination of professional experience and parental concern.
‘I can’t afford you, Mrs Reynolds,’ I say.
She smiles. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she says, putting a plate of biscuits on the bench before me. ‘It’s totally normal for you to be feeling a little down. Big changes in your life, a busy family, and the whole media and blogging business — it’s gotta be tough. You’re just a kid; you deserve a chance to act like one.’
I don’t say anything.
‘Ohh, this baby is sitting on my bladder so comfortably it must think it’s a chair,’ she says, tapping her belly. ‘Baby Buttercup . . . Mummy’s bladder is not a seat. Excuse me while I go to the bathroom, love.’
She waddles away and I smile to myself, wondering how the hell Charlie could still be desperate to move to Melbourne given that she’s going to have a baby brother or sister around. I grab a biscuit off the plate then turn around and glance at the house.
&nb
sp; A picture on the wall catches my eye. It’s a wedding photo — Charlie’s mum in a super-tight ivory dress that hugs her boobs (her pregnancy attire is not any more subdued), a bunch of red roses in hand, smoothing Charlie’s hair, presumably right before she walks in front of her mother-bride down the aisle. I knew Charlie was in a bad mood on the wedding day, having just found out about the plans to move to Sydney, but I had no idea how much. It’s usually the bridesmaid comforting the bride. I laugh to myself and think that perhaps Charlie will be fine making that move back to Melbourne when the baby is born after all.
Nearby, there’s a picture of her mum and stepdad — Charlie’s mum is smiling happily, and he’s affectionately kissing her belly. Even though I can only see his profile, he looks so familiar to me. Or maybe it’s just because Justin Timberlake posed the same way with his wife’s belly. Who knows.
I grab another biscuit, wander over to the bay window and peer outside. The sprawling yard, filled with gorgeous garden roses, is beautiful. There’s even an ivy-decorated iron gazebo with several peacock chairs arranged in it.
Charlie’s right, I think. She really doesn’t belong here. Not just in this house, but in this whole show-offy city.
Mrs Reynolds returns and joins me at the window.
‘I’d love to say it’s all me, but Stan hired a decorator,’ she says.
‘I’m trying to find Charlie in it,’ I say, looking around the house. ‘But it’s hard.’
‘She’s in the nooks and crannies,’ she replies, looking around. ‘And in here,’ she says quite quickly afterwards, putting her hand to her heart.
‘I don’t think I’m very much represented in my parents’ décor either,’ I admit. ‘Not that my dad cares about that, but Mum does. Our fridge is bare — no school awards or childhood photos. She does have pictures on the walls, but most of them are those stiff, posed kind of photos.’
She peers at me closely and I feel myself redden slightly. She seems to notice, and lightens the mood again.
‘Ah, everyone’s different,’ she says cheerily. ‘I’m sure your mother wants to keep the memories of your childhood all to herself instead of sharing them with the world.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ I say, shrugging.
‘I’m going to go check on her royal highness,’ she tells me, looking at her watch. ‘She has short hair — I have no idea why she needs to spend so long in the shower.’
‘I don’t want you to trouble yourself going up the stairs,’ I say.
‘Because I look like I couldn’t make it up there without breaking a step?’ she asks knowingly. ‘I’ll be fine. Plus we pay for the water and, more importantly, she has company she needs to visit with.’
I give an embarrassed half-smile and mumble a thanks as I watch her take each step carefully and slowly.
I head back to the window, but this time notice the little corner alcove that must be Charlie’s mum’s study. Peeking inside, I recall Charlie telling me her mum was doing a PhD on teens or something, something I had totally forgotten. I find myself staring at her bookshelves, gliding my hands over books with titles like What’s Happening to our Girls? and Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism.
I’m curious about her work. I wonder if she interviews people with a recorder, like a journalist would do. I wonder what she does with their information — is it anonymous? Does she have to get some sort of clearance to use teenagers’ information? I know my dad was once in charge of a big ‘working with children’ project, making sure that people who work with kids were properly accredited, but when I thought of those people, I always thought of teachers and camp volunteers and religious bodies who run youth-group nights — researchers never crossed my mind. I guess his work was more far-reaching than I could have imagined and for a moment I’m sad that we don’t have the sort of relationship where we could talk about it.
I finger the piles of paper on her desk and think about how far Charlie’s mum has come. Eighteen years ago, when she was unwed, pregnant and alone, she might have felt lost and terrified; now she was married to a loving, wealthy guy, practising as a psych, doing a doctorate, and about to have her second child. At that moment, Charlie’s mum’s life gives me a little hope for my own, and I like that I can look forward to something bigger, brighter and better.
Then my eyes fall onto the words ‘blogging’ and ‘social media’ and I’m suddenly more than curious. I scan the page and realise that Charlie has recounted — with extremely vivid detail — almost every problem I have had this year to her mum. My rocky relationship with my mother, my best friend who moved away to become something, the bad reputation at school thanks to bullies and the idiots who believe them, the constant trolling on public forums, even my concerns about my body image are there, spelt out as if I had no right to privacy. Gosh, I think, is this for her PhD? Are people going to read this? Will they know it’s me?
‘It’s not what you think,’ I hear Charlie say as I spin around, anger and betrayal burning my cheeks.
‘Really? It seems pretty obvious what it is.’ I hold up the paper. ‘Or maybe you’re going to try to convince me otherwise because of the way that I let people walk over me because I — here, let me read it out — have an “overwhelming desire to be liked”?’
She takes a deep breath and rubs at her temples.
‘Look, let’s just talk about it,’ she says. ‘I’m sure once you hear —’
‘Don’t give me that crap,’ I reply. ‘You’ve been in my ear this whole year telling me I shouldn’t let people bully me, starting with my mother and Pappas and people on the internet. But you’ve been telling me what to do and when to do it, which is almost as bad. I thought you were just being my friend, but it turns out I’m being used as a case study!’
‘Gill —’
‘You think you’re so immune from teenage bullshit,’ I tell her. ‘But you just proved to me that you’re the same as the rest of us. I can’t believe this whole time you had an agenda. I hate agendas! Couldn’t you just have asked me if I wanted to be interviewed? So I could at least have had a say in what is said about me in this thesis?’
She shakes her head but I stare her down, eyes narrowed.
‘It wasn’t about you,’ she starts to say, but I don’t buy it. Not after what I’ve seen and read. ‘It was me, she does this with all her pa—’
‘It’s so obviously about me,’ I tell her, my voice cracking. ‘Do you know how hard it’s been seeing myself reflected in the eyes of so many different people, and all those reflections being negative? My parents, those stupid PR people that work for my dad, our class? I thought that I was at least safe with you. I thought you were my friend, but you’ve turned me into a case study. In your mother’s thesis. Without me knowing.’
The more I say, the less I want to believe that, after everything I’ve been through this year, I also have to contend with this.
‘No, it’s not what you think,’ she pleads. ‘It was mostly for me, to —’
‘I just don’t know how to deal with this,’ I interrupt, my voice heavy. ‘I am panicky and hurt and I don’t even feel like I can breathe properly any more.’
‘Please, Gillian, you have to hear me out,’ she says. ‘You’re only getting half —’
‘Oh, there’s more, is there? Great, even better.’
‘No, that’s not what I’m saying.’
‘I don’t want you coming with me tonight,’ I say bitterly. ‘You don’t even wanna go, so don’t come. You broke Ryan’s heart, then mine — why don’t you go after Matty and Tammi next?’
I watch her recoil in horror.
‘You think you’re fixing things, but you just made it all worse,’ I say, scowling. And when she takes a step towards me, I realise I can’t take it any more.
‘I have to get out of here,’ I whisper. I don’t even give her a chance to respond. I just charge past her and out the front door.
Outside, I break into a run, breathing loudly and heavily as tears stream down my face. Wit
h each foot that pounds the pavement, I find my desire to escape it all growing; I wouldn’t be surprised if I suddenly had the power to never stop running.
But every runner stops when they reach their destination, and mine wasn’t just far away. In that moment I realise that I will never reach my destination because I simply have nowhere to go, and no one who cares enough to come find me anyway.
I am all alone.
Ryan
Ryan Fleming No one wants to be the Fun Police.
David DeLooka Lol Bro, I told you!
I relive the moment over and over again.
She won it. I worked for it for years and she breezed in out of nowhere and won it. It was the only thing I had left after soccer and now it was gone, and I had nothing.
Except her . . . and she was going too.
A knock at my door shakes me into reality.
‘Are you still upset about the medal?’ Nanna asks, coming into my room.
I shrug. ‘Honestly? I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘I’d be more upset if I knew what I wanted to do.’
‘Does Charlie know what she’s going to do?’ she asks.
‘Yeah, of course — she’s always so sure about everything,’ I say. ‘She’s planning on doing Law at Monash, where she’ll probably boss everyone around, make the lecturer change the course and come top of every class.’
Nanna smiles at me knowingly. ‘It sounds like you like this girl,’ she says.
I sit up. ‘Yeah,’ I admit. ‘But the thing is, she’s so complicated, and I have enough complications.’
‘But maybe it’s like maths, dear — two negatives in your life might make a positive.’
I smile. I decide to chase the positive.
I head to David’s afterwards and find a bunch of the soccer guys there, slicing lemons and limes, moving furniture and stacking drinks in tubs of ice.
‘I can’t believe she trusts you with this house — and her stuff,’ I say, looking around. ‘Does your mum know many people are coming tonight?’