My Best Friend Is a Goddess

by Tara Eglington

  The doorbell rings, making Emily jump, and she knocks the bag of flour off the edge of the bench. It hits the floor with a ‘puff’ and flour clouds up around her.

  ‘Oops.’ She looks down at her jeans and shirt, which are coated in white. ‘Could you get that? It’ll be Mum’s vegie delivery.’

  I dash up the stairs as the bell rings again. I can hardly believe that forty-eight hours ago I was slapping mosquitoes in the jungle and now I’m back in Emily’s house. I love the character of this place. It’s all high ceilings and rosewood timber, long verandahs with hammocks, and there’s art everywhere — from Isobel’s sculptures in the garden, to Native American rugs on the floors and watercolour prints on the walls. Unlike the area Dad’s chosen to rent in, which is full of identically oversized houses, Emily’s place is outside the suburbs and up in the hills, on a huge block of land — big enough for Isobel to have a separate studio away from the house and still have backyard to spare.

  As I pull the front door open, I discover it’s not a delivery person holding a box of greens standing on Emily’s front veranda. It’s Dylan.

  Dylan, my former close friend turned crush. Dylan with the dimples. Dylan who made me cry. Dylan who shows up in my dreams as some twisted wish fulfilment turned nightmare. I realise amid this insane skipping track of his name that I’ve broken my own rule. He Who Shalt Not Be Named has been named. Countless times. Maybe it’s the shock, but somehow this strikes me as hilarious and I let out a choked laugh.

  ‘Addy?’ Dylan is staring like he’s never seen me before. His eyes sweep my face, then down my body from my neck to my toes. He’s looking me up and down. The whole experience is so horrific I can’t move or form words. I’m paralysed by fear. All I know is, I will not cry.

  Dylan shakes his head, then pushes his hair back, which is what he does when he feels awkward. After all those months of hanging out, I know his gestures inside out. It enrages me. He feels awkward?

  ‘Dylan?’ Emily is by my side. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Thank god. If she invited him as some ‘reconciliation pre-first-day-back-to-school’ thing, I would be wondering if she still knew me.

  ‘I came to see her.’ Dylan looks at me. ‘I mean you.’ He looks back at Emily. ‘I mean I came to see you about her.’ He looks from her to me and back again, like he’s stuck on repeat.

  Emily looks exasperated. ‘Dylan, did you think this through before you BMXed over here? After everything we talked about?’

  ‘Yes and no. I mean, I’ve been thinking non-stop, like round and round. But some things are just instinct, so I got on the bike and came over. Anyway, this is better I think.’ He’s looking at Emily again. ‘You know how it is with me and Addy.’

  Me and Addy? Could he just drop the stupid nickname he had for me back then? Every word he’s saying is making me angrier. I’m just back in the country, I’m jetlagged and Dylan’s talking way too fast for me to process any of it emotionally. I’m at a complete disadvantage in this situation.

  He turns back to me. ‘Addy, these are for you. I wanted to send them to you overseas, but apparently where your dad was stationed was way too remote and they couldn’t even fly them in. I thought maybe they could travel via elephant, but the florist laughed at that for some reason.’ He lifts up the hand that wasn’t pushing back his hair. In my shock, I haven’t noticed the flowers he’s holding. White roses. Just like the one I … He’s handing them to me. ‘Welcome back.’

  Before Dylan can say any more, I shove the roses away from me, into his chest. Obviously rage gives me super-strength because the gesture sends petals exploding everywhere. Dylan is lost in a shower of white as I slam Emily’s front door on him.

  This is the year I’m not taking any crap.

  Emily’s Diary

  Part of me hates Dylan too for what he did to Adriana. Not only because of the ‘ride or die’ type of loyalty Adriana and I have for each other, but because if that whole thing had never happened, then maybe Daniel wouldn’t have decided enough was enough and he and Ade should leave Jefferson.

  I know the Facebook thing wasn’t Dylan’s fault. Logically I can only be angry at him for hurting Adriana. For not reacting the way I one hundred per cent believed he would. I blame myself too, for my part in it. For being the one to suggest it to her.

  It’s just that I expected him to recognise how special she is. Straight away. Not down the line, once it didn’t matter any more. I guess that proves I know nothing about boys.

  Mum always talks about finding form within her sculptures, how underneath the chunks of rock are faces, bodies in motion. When I was eight, I remember her chipping away at this particular piece of stone for what seemed like weeks without revealing a thing.

  I said to her, ‘I think this one’s just an ugly rock.’

  Mum paused, her chisel in the air. ‘You know Michelangelo.’

  ‘Sistine Chapel.’ Duh. All we watched in our house were art history DVDs.

  ‘Whenever I’m frustrated, I think of one of his quotes — I have it stuck above my inspiration table.’

  I wandered over to look. There amongst the taped-up sketches and the chaos of creativity in progress was a scrap of paper: I saw an angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

  I’ve never looked at rocks, or anything plain or ugly, the same way since. I always wonder what’s under the surface, yet to be revealed.

  And that’s how I always saw Adriana — beyond the awkwardness, the eyebrows, the teeth — everything that everyone else judged her on. She was the angel in the rock.

  Unfortunately, at the moment she was ready to step outside her fears, Dylan wasn’t quite there yet. And as we all know from the movies, timing is everything.

  3

  EMILY

  I’m so taken aback by Adriana’s reaction I stand there stupidly, wondering who to talk to first. Adriana, who’s bolted away towards the back of the house, or white-rose-covered Dylan, who I can see through the front door’s stained-glass panel. He’s still staring at the door hopefully, like we’re going to pull it open any moment and start laughing like that scene was a big joke.

  My instinct is to go to Adriana and forget about Dylan. Though Dylan and I are still friends, my loyalty lies with her. But I have to get him to leave. I don’t trust him not to try and ‘fix things’ by going round the back of the house to talk to her. Showing up like this proves he’s lost every last bit of sense. And white roses? That’s like presenting Ade’s broken heart to her on a platter.

  I open the door and step out onto the verandah, shutting the door behind me. ‘Seriously?’ I keep my voice low. ‘Are you insane?’

  ‘I thought you said she’d be back on Sunday.’

  Dylan’s hands are bleeding. He was clutching the roses so tightly the thorns on their long stems dug into him.

  ‘I said Saturday!’

  ‘I know you said I should wait till she approached me, but I thought by giving you the roses ready for when she arrives on Sunday —’

  ‘Saturday.’

  ‘— she would know I was thinking of her. She hasn’t responded to a single email or messenger attempt, and from what you told me last week she’s burnt my letters. I had to show her that I’m sorry.’

  I give him a look. ‘But roses of all things? Seriously bad move!’

  Dylan looks back at me like I’m stupid. ‘I’m symbolically returning the gesture like a romantic hero would.’

  Dylan and his movies. There’s Hollywood and there’s real life and it’s exceptionally rare for the two to cross over, but he hasn’t learnt that yet.

  ‘You didn’t think Adriana might associate white roses with all-out public humiliation? Dylan, she’s been trying to block that moment out of her head for eighteen months.’

  It’s unnerving to see happy-go-lucky Dylan look so deflated. Even during his depression the last year and a half, he’s been buoyed by some hope. Now he looks like a dog in the pound that’s abandoned all faith of find
ing a new home.

  ‘I’ve ruined everything.’ He looks at the front door. ‘You don’t think I should try again, do you? I was thrown … not only by her being here already, but also because she looks … I mean, it’s suddenly intimidating. Not that the whole situation isn’t already intimidating, but more intimidating. She’s …’

  Now is not the moment for Dylan to start spluttering about Adriana’s transformation into a supermodel.

  ‘You need to give her some time.’

  He gives me a look the minute I say it.

  ‘I know, you’ve given her eighteen months already. But that’s eighteen months at a distance. You need to give her a chance to adjust to being back before you throw everything you want to say at her. It’s about patience. Little by little is the key, like a wave carving a rock.’ I’m quoting my mother now? ‘I’m heading back inside. Go home and find some disinfectant for your hands.’

  ‘But in the movies, girls never want the guy to give up.’

  ‘You’re not giving up. You’re temporarily retreating as you’ve been wounded in the field.’ Maybe a military metaphor would drum it in. ‘We’ll talk later.’

  Dylan’s shoulders slump as he heads back to his bike. I pick up all the rose petals and dump them in the outside bin, then head back inside in search of Adriana.

  She’s on the back verandah, in the hammock. Her legs are so long she can’t stretch them out fully; she has to hang them over the side to trail to the floor. She must be six foot now. I climb in with her. There’s no hope of my feet being able to touch the floor.

  ‘I don’t want to go back.’ Her eyes and mouth have the stubborn look they wore in the car.

  ‘To the front door? Don’t worry, I’m not going to make you.’

  ‘To school.’

  Darn you, Dylan. I knew Ade would inevitably freak out about facing everyone, but I’ve been hoping it wouldn’t be until tomorrow night. Now she and I will both feel bad on the last day of the holidays.

  ‘It’s not just about Dylan,’ she says. ‘Everyone who was laughing at me back then will go straight back to laughing at me the moment I set foot in that place.’

  ‘I think things will be different this time around.’ I’m not just saying that to reassure her, I honestly mean it. There is nothing about Adriana’s appearance that any of those idiots can pick on any more. ‘The Tens are in shambles. Your return won’t even be a blip on their radar.’

  ‘I mean it.’ Her voice is louder now. ‘I’m not going back. I’ll just keep going with home schooling.’

  ‘Ade.’ I feel like begging. ‘We’ll do this together, like we always have —’

  ‘You don’t understand.’ She gets out of the hammock. ‘It was never as bad for you as it was for me. Going back will prove I haven’t changed a bit in the last year and a half. I’ll be as pathetic as I was back then.’

  ‘Hey, don’t talk about my best friend like that.’

  Ade looks close to losing her temper. Her response to stress has always been tears, not anger, so this is surprising.

  Her mobile rings.

  ‘What?’ she says, answering it.

  I can tell it’s Daniel.

  ‘That’s completely stupid!’ she yells.

  I jump out of the hammock. What’s happened?

  ‘I can’t believe you told them the wrong date!’ She’s still shouting. ‘If you hadn’t sold our home, we could have gone back there instead of having to rent some place that won’t have power till Tuesday!’

  I don’t understand why she’s getting so upset. She loves staying at mine, and we’ve planned to be here together until Monday anyway, so what’s another night?

  ‘I don’t care.’ Adriana’s words are a rush of emotion. ‘I’m not going back to school, and I’m not staying in Jefferson. I want to go back to Borneo!’

  My jaw drops open. She seriously wants to go back?

  Mum comes walking up the path from the studio. Adriana pushes the phone towards her, then runs inside the house. I hear an upstairs door slam.

  Mum speaks into the phone, looking concerned. ‘Hi, Daniel … Okay, if you’ve got no power, come over here … Don’t be silly, there’s no need to go to a hotel, you can have the downstairs guest room. You two are like family. Plus, it would be good for you to be here with Adriana before she heads back to school. She’s feeling a little unsettled … Good. We’ll see you in fifteen minutes.’

  Mum ends the call and turns to me. ‘The energy company’s made a mistake with the date to switch the power on. Apparently they thought it was this Wednesday, not last Friday. The earliest they can put it on is Tuesday. Daniel was going to go to a hotel, but I’ve suggested he comes here.’

  ‘Okay.’ I’m still feeling unsettled by Adriana’s sudden desire to go back to Borneo. She isn’t serious, is she? I guess I’ve assumed she wants to come back as much as I want her to come back. That Tatiana, Dylan and everyone else at school don’t matter as much as us being able to hang out every day.

  ‘Don’t take it personally.’ Mum can see straight under my skin. ‘Let’s finish the pizza and give Adriana some time to cool off upstairs.’

  ‘She seems different,’ I say as Mum and I roll out the risen dough. ‘I mean, obviously she looks different, but I’m not used to her being angry.’

  ‘It’s only been two years, remember.’ Mum spreads one of the bases with sauce. ‘Grief can make people angry. Think about how unfair it must feel to lose someone so suddenly.’

  I think about the anger I’ve felt about the hole in our lives. The sense of unfairness when everyone else’s family seems so perfect. It’s funny, I always envied Ade her perfect family. And now here she is, like me, with parts not a whole.

  People say a family doesn’t have to be a perfect unit of dad, mum and kids. Just like in Modern Family, it can be any shape and that’s okay. But it doesn’t stop you wishing your own family was a triangle instead of a two-sided abstract construction. It’s a total lie when people say ‘You can’t miss what you’ve never had’. I sure do.

  I can tell Mum is watching me. I’ve got a handful of onions, and if I hold on to them any longer they’ll start making me teary. It’s times like these that I want to speak up, to demand that she tells me something about my dad. But I know she won’t — she always refuses — so instead, I put the onions on the pizza and push away the self-pity. We’re talking about Ade now, not me.

  I don’t know what Daniel says to Adriana, but when she comes down for dinner she’s no longer angry, just a little quieter than normal. She sits next to me at the table.

  The pizzas smell better than usual. Daniel appeared before we put them into the oven, and he showed us a new topping — caramelised onion, pumpkin and goat’s cheese. Having Daniel back is awesome. You might think that being a doctor would make him boring, but he’s an amazing cook, and funny and cool — if you can call a dad cool.

  ‘I thought you might like some new clothes for the start of term,’ he says as he hands Adriana the salad. ‘I know the stakes are high with it being a free-dress school. Your T-shirts and shorts from the island have probably seen their best days.’

  Adriana shrugs. ‘T-shirts and shorts are fine for doing my work at home.’

  Obviously their conversation earlier only went so well. I’m starting to feel bummed out, despite the pizza and the niceness of having more people at the table. Often when it’s just Mum and me, she’s off in la la land thinking about a new work. Though I know complete zone-outs are typical for most artists, mealtimes can be way too quiet.

  Adriana gives Daniel a steely stare. She has to come back to school. She can’t let the Tens and the other haters get the better of her.

  ‘This is direct bribery,’ he says. ‘You get a new wardrobe for a month of trialling Jefferson again. If you hate it, you can go back to home schooling.’

  I give him a cheeky look. ‘Could you extend that offer to include some new stuff for me too?’

  ‘I’ll chip in for Emily,’ Mu
m says, shocking me. Her income varies depending on what’s been commissioned at any point in time, so she’s cautious with money. ‘I’ll drive you girls to the shopping centre tomorrow.’

  Daniel gives Mum a ‘thank you’ smile.

  Adriana looks unimpressed. I send her a pleading look.

  ‘Em, you know the clothes aren’t worth it,’ she says.

  ‘You may have to raise the stakes,’ I joke to Daniel, though my stomach is sinking.

  ‘This is non-negotiable.’ Adriana takes a bite of her pizza. ‘I already went to bloody Borneo —’

  ‘Adriana! Language!’ Daniel’s losing patience.

  My phone, which is sitting on the kitchen bench, goes off. It’s the message tone I’ve assigned to Dylan. Ding. Ding. Ding. Mum shakes her head — I’m supposed to ignore the phone while we’re eating.

  Adriana has tears in her eyes. ‘I don’t have to do everything you say! What about what I want?’

  Ding ding ding. I have to check it. What if Dylan’s got desperate and is scaling our balcony or something? I swallow my entire glass of juice and dart to the kitchen in pretence of needing a refill. I grab the phone and scan through the messages. Shocked, I scroll up and down, wanting to be a hundred per cent sure.