You’re the Kind of Girl I Write Songs About

by Daniel Herborn

  I hear him run after me and I stop. Not because I want to see him or talk to him but because I’m tired. Not just tired of running, but tired of all this.

  ‘Mandy, will you wait for me?’

  He’s just an outline in the dark. I can’t see his face, but his voice is raw and smaller than I’ve heard before.

  ‘Who is that girl? What does she mean to you?’ I say. These are not the questions I thought I’d ask.

  ‘She’s … I don’t know. She’s not even a friend, really. She’s just some girl that jumped me — there’s nothing going on at all. I thought you weren’t coming and it was just some dumb mistake … just messing around. She just grabbed me and started kissing me.’

  ‘Yeah, like you’re the victim in all this.’

  ‘You’re right, I’m not. I’m an idiot.’

  ‘Yeah, you really are. Well, that’s it for me. I wasn’t going to come tonight and now I wish I hadn’t.’

  I walk away. A beat. Unsatisfying silence.

  I move off into the dark. I don’t know where I’m going. I just want to be back in my bedroom, making out with a bottle of vodka.

  Tim

  ‘But, Mandy, it’s not like I’m in love with her.’

  Those last words hang in the night air. I didn’t mean to imply what I think I just implied, but I realise that I mean it.

  Mandy turns and now I can see her in the glow from the streetlights, and as I see her face soften, I think maybe she realises what I’ve almost just said.

  ‘Mandy, I’m a screw-up. I’m always going to make mistakes.’

  She shakes her head, scrunches the arms of her jumper around her fists.

  ‘Come with me,’ I say. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’

  She walks towards me, wary, hurt. I want to put my arms around her, but I don’t. I feel as if I am leading her back towards the school with sheer force of will.

  When we’re near the auditorium, we come across Kiera, who gets up from the steps she’s been sitting on and looks at us with curiosity. She smells like a dive bar.

  ‘Kiera, this is Mandy, my girlfriend.’

  Mandy just looks at me. Her face is unreadable. Tenderness. Confusion. Disappointment. It could be any of those things, or all of them at once.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a girlfriend,’ Kiera says, sounding bored. ‘I wouldn’t have messed around with you if I’d known. I don’t know why I wanted to, really. There’s someone else I’ve been hooking up with, anyway.’ Then, to Mandy, with a shrug, she says, ‘He is hot, I suppose.’

  ‘I am hot,’ I say.

  Mandy’s face is stony, her arms folded across her woollen jumper. It’s a weird moment, and definitely the wrong time for a joke.

  ‘You’ve been hooking up with someone else?’ I ask Kiera, simply because I can’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘Yeah, someone I met at Eleni’s party.’

  I look at her blankly.

  She raises an eyebrow at me. ‘Someone you might know?’

  And what seemed impossible a moment ago now seems obvious. Right on cue, Seb walks through the auditorium door and down the stairs to Kiera. She gives him a knowing look.

  He looks at the three of us, oblivious.

  ‘What have I done now?’ he says.

  Mandy

  The next morning I go to Alice’s house after she calls and tells me she isn’t feeling well. She’s supposed to be at uni, but can’t bring herself to go. I’m supposed to be at work, but I’ve called in sick.

  She’s lying on her four-poster bed, shielded inside a mosquito net, propped up on pillows and looking weary. She’s wearing a black wire hair band and a snow-white dress that ends inches below her knees. We talk about the movie Paper Heart, which she watched on her laptop last night, but as always with Alice, I know when she’s got something on her mind.

  ‘I haven’t been a good friend to you lately,’ she says out of nowhere. ‘But I haven’t been well. I know it’s not an excuse, but I hope you understand. I went to the doctor yesterday and asked her when I would stop feeling so bad about Liam. She said she didn’t know, but she thinks I have depression and that’s why I’m finding it hard to get up in the morning and why I’m always feeling tired and down. She gave me a bottle of pills to take.’ She gestures vaguely to her dresser, which is covered with empty glass perfume bottles and sunflowers in a vase.

  ‘The whole thing kind of scares me. I mean, I don’t feel like I’m depressed when I’m at uni and with my friends, it just sometimes sneaks up on me and all of a sudden I’m feeling sick and horrible … and the doctor said there could be strange side effects to the pills.’

  I don’t say anything, but get under the blanket next to her and rest my head on her shoulder.

  ‘When you were having a hard time with Tim, I was pretty useless, I know. I was too taken up with my own things to be any help. I’m sorry for that.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you the whole story,’ I say.

  ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘Let’s start at the end. I kind of came to a decision.’

  ‘How’d you do that?’

  How did I do that? I woke up this morning and I got to thinking about how nobody gets what they deserve, and maybe that isn’t even the right thing to hope for. Maybe, just maybe, you can get what you want and that might be even better.

  And I thought about forgiveness and how hard it is letting go.

  And I thought this: FUCK IT, I LOVE YOU.

  Tim

  Having thrown my alarm clock across the room in the early morning, I wake up late and wander down to Glebe Point Road. I couldn’t sleep last night and I still feel hazy. I’m sure there’s something I’m meant to be doing but I’ve got no idea what it is.

  I run into Seb out the front of the markets, and we get takeaway coffees from the Wedge and start wandering through the stalls.

  ‘I’ve been really busy working as your manager again,’ he says.

  ‘Well, you’ve been busy with something. Dickhead.’

  ‘What are you mad about? Me getting with Kiera?’

  ‘I’m not mad about it. I just don’t know why you didn’t say anything. I don’t like it when you’re secretive.’

  ‘What, and have you know I’m her consolation prize ’cause you weren’t into it? Hate the game not the player, Tim, that’s just how it goes.’

  ‘I hate it when you try to talk like a gangster.’

  ‘Anyway … anyway, I was going to say I’ve got a gig for you. There’s a party up at Ettalong, some place on the Central Coast, that you can play at. It’s just at some dude’s house, but it’s cool. He’s a big music fan and he’s got loads of gear, so he’s going to have amps and microphones and stuff in his backyard.’

  ‘Are you even allowed to do that?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I think so. He’s got it all sorted.’

  ‘He’s got all the permits?’

  ‘Permits … yep. He’s got all that stuff.’

  ‘What permits would they be?’

  ‘I don’t know, Tim, but this guy is legit. Listen, do you know how many bands have sent their music into the Triple J Unearthed website? There’s literally five thousand. Five thousand bands, Tim, that’s how many people you’re competing with for gigs. Plus you’ve got all the bands that are already established enough that they don’t need to go on there. Plus all the people who haven’t got their shit together yet to put their songs online but have fans from other places. It’s a crowded market.’

  ‘You know what else is a crowded market? This one.’

  ‘Ugh, your jokes are the worst.’

  We sit down on the edge of the grass with the hippies and kids in fairy costumes and hipster parents eating dumplings and drinking chai from paper cups. There’s a band playing under a tarpaulin tent, doing ‘Bad Romance’ on mandolin and double bass and violin. It sounds good, really good.

  ‘You know what, just get me a gig here and I’m going to be impressed,’ I say.

/>   ‘A gig at the markets?’

  ‘Yeah, why not? This place is practically my backyard.’

  My phone rings. It’s Ned.

  ‘Where are you, Timmy? I’ve had to deal with the morning rush by myself.’

  I knew there was something I was meant to be doing.

  ‘Oh, I just … um … how does “I forgot” sound?’

  ‘It sounds pretty rubbish, mate, if I’m being honest. Get down here, you little shit.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Ned.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry, just hurry up.’

  ‘I have to go,’ I tell Seb.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I’ve let Ned down and I feel rotten about it. Actually, maybe I should skip this Ettalong thing as well. I didn’t do my geography assignment on time this week. Things are getting a bit crazy so maybe I should just lie low and concentrate on school. That was the plan for this year, perhaps I should stick to it.’

  ‘Tim, Tim, Tim, let me give you some life advice.’

  ‘You are joking, right?’

  ‘Look, I know you’ve got to go, but I’ll tell you this. You’ve got to play the party. It’s who you are. You play songs for people. Be the guy who charms everyone and has chicks hanging off your arm. Sitting in your room like a little nerd, studying textbooks and cutting yourself off from everyone, isn’t your thing and it never will be.’

  It’s good advice, I suppose. Maybe this has been Seb’s way of helping me out all along, dragging me out of the house, making sure I didn’t fall off the radar completely. It was never enough, and he was pretty flaky whenever I tried to have a serious conversation with him, but perhaps it was the best he knew how to do.

  I start to walk away.

  ‘Oh, and fix things with Mandy before I steal her away from you,’ he says. ‘You’re a complete moron if you don’t.’

  ‘Thanks, dickhead.’

  ‘Anytime.’

  Mandy

  Shadows creep across the walls in Alice’s room, which smells of musk and cinnamon. We sit on her floor drinking cups of Russian caravan tea. She tells me a story about Liam.

  ‘I don’t know if you remember, but one time he took me to Coogee Beach for the day. He pointed out where there used to be an aquarium on the roof of the beach hotel, and how the pier used to go right out into the ocean and had all these little stalls on it, and he showed me where the tram would bring tourists down to the sea. Anyway, I was asking about Wedding Cake Island and he said that sometimes when the tide’s really low you can walk out there, and I said that I wished I could go out there and sit on the rocks and look out to sea. He said that one day he’d carry me out there so I wouldn’t even get wet. I thought that was the greatest thing I’d ever heard. I didn’t realise until later that it was ridiculous and you could never do that. But there was this whole other side of him that you never saw, this side that only came out when it was just the two of us. That’s what I miss the most.’

  ‘I’ll be honest with you,’ I say, ‘I always felt a little bit resentful of you and Liam, like he was trying to take you away from me. But I wish I could get him back for you, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘I don’t even know what I want any more. It’s not really him I want, it’s some old version of him that’s gone now. For a long time I had this weird feeling, like I’d be cheating on him if I was with anyone else. It doesn’t make any sense intellectually, but it was how I felt. I know I have to let it go. I guess I’ve known that for a while now, it’s just sad.’

  ‘If there’s anything I can do … God, that sounds so clichéd and useless.’

  ‘I know what you mean, but I am glad to have you here. You know, it feels like we’ve done everything together: first day of high school, first kiss, first time underage drinking in that park behind the Newtown shops. We even went to our first show together.’

  ‘And it was terrible,’ I say.

  She laughs. ‘It was. I can’t even remember the band’s name, some really arrogant guys that kept kicking their leads out. I imagine they’ve broken up long ago. But it didn’t put us off.’

  ‘No, we kept going back. We were determined, we knew we were music people.’

  It seems like a lifetime ago now.

  She scooches across the blanket and takes her school case out from under the bed. ‘So, I kind of got your birthday present early. I hope that’s OK.’

  ‘You monster.’

  It’s a whole package. Some homemade brownies with desiccated coconut on top wrapped in baking paper and tied with a bow, a silver tea strainer to replace my broken one, a copy of Judge Judy’s book Don’t Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It’s Raining and a children’s book.

  ‘You didn’t have to do all this,’ I say.

  ‘It’s just what friends do.’

  ‘Make cool, thoughtful stuff for each other? Buy each other books written by ridiculous TV judges?’

  ‘Sometimes! She is pretty ridiculous, isn’t she?’

  I look at the children’s book. It’s called Fizzlebang Wonderpops. It takes me a second to register that it’s her name on the front.

  ‘What! What is this?’

  ‘Oh, it’s a copy of a little book we had to make for class. It’s just a few pages, but we had to write and design it ourselves. I was pretty happy with it, but then we had to share it with the class.’

  ‘Did people love it?’

  ‘Not really! Not at all, actually. Almost everyone in my class hated it. Someone called it “totally heteronormative”. It’s about a shy hare who lives inside a hollow tree and makes these fantastical magic lollies for the children who live in his town. I wasn’t trying to make a political statement! I bonded with another girl who wrote a chick-lit story called Do My Boobs Look Big in This? and people reacted as though it was about eating babies. I thought it was funny.’

  Tim

  I’m lying on my bed strumming my guitar when Mandy appears in my room. Normally Ned makes visitors wait for me at the door, but I’m glad he made an exception this time. And I’m glad to see her.

  She’s wearing a plain black hoodie over a white dress and it looks dull and unworthy on her slim frame. She doesn’t say anything but from the way she looks at me I know I have her. I’ve been trying not to think of her all day, but she’s been there in my head, that uncertain look she gave me when she left last night.

  ‘So, I finally added you as a friend on Facebook,’ I say.

  ‘It seems about time, I guess.’

  ‘And I said we’re in a relationship, so you should probably not leave me hanging.’

  ‘I think people usually become friends online before they do that, but yeah, I can probably confirm that.’

  ‘I know it’s weird,’ I say, ‘but whatever. We did everything out of order. I cared about you before I got to know you. We trespassed on someone’s property to have sex before I knew where you lived or what job you did.’

  ‘Well, it sounds bad when you put it like that.’

  ‘I was writing songs about you before I really knew who you were. Is that all just strange?’

  She sits on the bed with me. ‘I don’t think it’s that weird. I think it’s weird we spend so much time worrying about things that don’t matter. We spend years at school learning stuff we forget the next week. So you didn’t know what stupid job I do, or my address — who gives a shit? I always felt like you knew the most important things about me right from the start.’

  ‘You know, I felt so bad that I put you through all that stuff, that you saw me acting like such an angry prick at that gig and … I don’t know, I felt so guilty that I didn’t stop my dad hurting my mum. I wished there was something I could have done. After that, it’s been so hard to trust people, I feel so suspicious of everyone. Even when I like someone, I have this voice in my head telling me not to trust them, not to think they’re a good person just because they seem that way.’

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ she says.

  ‘Sure.’

&nbs
p; ‘All those friends you’ve got, did they help you last year?’

  ‘What do you mean, “all those friends”?’

  ‘You’ve got, like, nine hundred friends on Facebook.’

  ‘Mm, but that’s stretching the meaning of the word “friend” a bit, isn’t it? Most of them I don’t know that well, they’re just classmates or people I played a show with once, or random girls that met me at a party or whatever. So the answer is no, I guess. I found out who my true friends were at that time.’

  ‘Who are your true friends?’

  I don’t answer. I just play with her hair.

  ‘I feel really lucky to have Alice,’ she says. ‘I just wish I had a couple more friends like that.’

  ‘Trust me, you’re better off with one Alice than a hundred randoms.’

  She turns to look at the wall behind her, where people have written messages and quotes in texta. There’s one that reads: To hurt yourself playing guitar while falling around on stage is far more noble than to be sitting weeping to yourself somewhere — Guy Picciotto.

  ‘Who’s Guy Picciotto?’ she asks.

  ‘He was in this great band in the eighties called Rites of Spring. I don’t think they ever got huge, but a lot of people ended up really digging their stuff and ripping them off years later.’

  ‘I’ll have to look them up. You know, I always feel a bit ripped off when someone mentions a band I don’t know.’

  ‘That can’t happen that often, you know a lot of bands.’

  ‘It feels worse than getting a wrong answer on a test or something.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t know that record you lent me. It’s really great.’

  ‘TV Colours?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s awesome. It’s, like, this concept record about how shit it is growing up in Canberra and how he wants to get out. It reminds me a lot of Hüsker Dü, but then it’s got this whole other thing to it as well that I haven’t really heard before.’