by Erin Gough
My phone buzzes again.
Still waiting to hear from u about Arthur’s keyboard player. Formal’s really soon!!! B xx
When I look up from the phone, Will has me in her gaze. ‘Can you tell me exactly what’s stopping you from making that complaint?’
I take my time putting my phone in my bag. I think about the Sports Committee meeting earlier, and Coach’s innuendo about the new change room. I grimace. ‘I’ve already told you. So many things,’ I say to Will.
‘Like?’
I cross my legs and uncross them again. I straighten the sheet on her bed. ‘Mostly it just seems petty,’ I say. ‘It was such a minor thing. I’d feel so … vexatious. He’s said plenty of worse things to other girls, and no-one else has complained. And besides, what’s the point when I know the school won’t do anything about it, anyway? Except for making my life difficult. It’s like what you said about our charity cake stalls. It’s not worth the bother.’
‘I can’t remember saying that about your cake stalls,’ says Will. ‘But if I said that, I was wrong. And I think you’re wrong now.’ She readjusts her hand on the pile of pillows. ‘To begin with, just because it seems like a minor thing in comparison to more horrible things, that doesn’t make it right. That’s like saying breaking and entering is okay because murder exists. Secondly? It matters that you speak out because if you don’t, this kind of thing will keep happening. Not to you, maybe, but to other students. Possibly worse things. You realise that, don’t you?’
‘Of course,’ I say softly.
‘It might not always feel like it, but you’ve got power when others don’t,’ she says. ‘Which means that even if what Hadley said to you wasn’t haunting you, which it clearly is, and even if there was no-one else at risk, when there clearly is, you’re in a position to say something where others aren’t.’
If only it were as simple as Will makes it sound. ‘I still don’t know,’ I murmur.
Will bounces her head against the pillows to the rhythm of the hospital monitor. Beep. Thud. Beep. Thud. Beep. ‘I’m sorry for getting so heavy on you,’ she says. ‘I just hate it when things drag on without a resolution.’
She is gazing at me again and there is heat in her voice. ‘I know it’s crazy.’ Her words have thickened. ‘I don’t even know why I feel this way. You annoy the shit out of me most of the time.’
A thudding starts beneath my ribcage. Everything I’ve been concertedly trying not to think about presses obstinately against my skull. ‘Will. Don’t,’ I whisper.
‘It makes less sense than pretty much anything.’ She laughs before a shadow of gloom sweeps across her face. ‘Oh, what’s the point? I wish you and Edie a very comfortable life.’
My heartbeat quickens. Why have I put myself in this situation again? I should never have come to the hospital. Why did I rush over before thinking it through? ‘I should get going. My mother is expecting me home for dinner.’ I pick up my school bag.
‘You never talk about her, you know,’ Will says.
I place the bag over one shoulder. ‘My mother?’
‘That’s not who I meant.’
‘If you mean Edie,’ I say, not meeting her eye, ‘I talk about her all the time.’
Will shakes her head. ‘I didn’t even know you had a girlfriend until I specifically asked you. And when you do talk about her, it’s all – logistical – like you’re in a business partnership or something. “I have to meet Edie at five.” “Edie and I have training this afternoon.” “I promised Edie I’d pick up muffins for her fundraiser.” That stuff doesn’t count.’ ‘I don’t see why not.’ My mouth feels dry.
‘If you told me you’d devised a cartoon so she wouldn’t be marked down in English – that would count. Or if you told me you cornered her at lunchtime every day outside a place you knew she hung out – that would count. Or if you told me you planned an entire ruse involving an American photorealist and domestic air travel to help cure her of a weird-ass phobia –’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘What do you think I’m trying to say?’ Will’s words are fierce.
‘I – I do stuff for Edie as well.’
Will pounds the starch from the sheets with her functioning fist. ‘Okay. You’re nice to everyone. I get it. But when Edie does this, how does it make you feel?’ She grabs my hand and tugs me towards her, bringing her face so close to mine that our noses are practically touching. I feel her breath on my lips and she looks at me with such strange softness that my heart crashes against its cage. And the most peculiar thought occurs to me.
If I could only remain in this moment, if everything else could be cordoned off somehow, if all the other portions of my life could just drop away …
But it is impossible. Will Everhart is impossible.
My phone buzzes again. I pull back.
Chapter 29
* * *
WILL
My fingers will be fine. The doctors say there’s no serious or long-term damage. But while the breaks are healing I can’t grip a paintbrush without wanting to injure someone. My major work will have to wait.
My hand is not the main problem, though. It’s Harriet.
I know there’s no point hoping for anything between us. If I didn’t already know it, Harriet made it clear at the hospital the moment she pulled her face away from mine; the moment she took her hands back from where they’d fallen on my hips.
And still, like the dumb mutt in a zombie flick who waits for food beside the newly rotting corpse of its owner, I hope.
If only I had a distraction. Some kind of hobby. I wonder how long it takes to learn how to hotwire a car.
Of course, there are things I can do towards my major work other than paint. I spend three nights in a row watching plane crash videos in the expectation it will inspire me to new artistic heights. All it does is make my nightmares worse. I soon ditch the videos and find myself back on Harriet’s Instagram account, scrolling through pictures of her having fun with other people.
Urgh.
When I’m not thinking about Harriet, I’m thinking about our botched plan. This time, we sailed too close to a particular wind called Croon. She’s probably got me on twenty-four-hour surveillance already.
It takes a while for the reality of Amelia Westlake’s demise to truly strike, and I’m brushing my teeth when it does. I stare at myself in the mirror, and a mournful loser with a toothpaste goatee stares back. With the end of Amelia Westlake, I feel like I’ve lost two important people at once.
My next thought is to wonder how a Rosemead princess and an imaginary person became the most important people in my life. There is something seriously wrong with me.
This is confirmed when trial exam time rolls around and I’m stoked about it. A week of study leave and two weeks of writing papers is just what I need to take my mind off everything else. For the first time all year, I make schoolwork a priority. I learn more about the content of my subjects through self-directed study than I have all year in class. I manage to keep my mind off Harriet for hours at a stretch.
Then something unexpected happens – the kind of ‘unexpected’ you get in zombie flicks. Dawn of the Deadstyle, Amelia Westlake shows up.
The first time I spy her is in my Legal Studies trial exam. I’m nutting out the difference between a criminal and civil penalty when I notice something scrawled on the exam desk.
Amelia Westlake wishes you good luck!
I can’t help but grin. I wonder who’s written it. Not Harriet – graffitiing desks is against the school rules. And it’s a thousand times too neat for Nat.
After the exam, I’m walking past the Drama noticeboard in the Performing Arts Centre foyer when I notice a pinned piece of notepaper waving in the breeze.
Community Notice
If you are interested in trying out for this year’s school musical production of The Boyfriend, please note the following conditions:
1. Lead role: Must be very pretty. The male lead
will be cast from our brother school and we wouldn’t want him to have to kiss someone who is less than an eight (MINIMUM). Neither acting nor singing skills required.
2. Supporting role: Must be pretty, but not as pretty as the lead role. Must be funny, but not too funny. Acting and singing skills preferable, but not as important as other requirements.
3. Chorus: Must be able to sing. Don’t worry about acting ability or how attractive you are. If this is an issue we will make you wear a paper bag or something.
Signed: Amelia ‘telling it like it is’ Westlake
Nothing about this notice indicates Harriet’s or Nat’s involvement. I sure as hell had nothing to do with it. But here’s the thing. The notice – and I don’t know how else to put it – is just the kind of joke Amelia Westlake would make.
It occurs to me that I haven’t checked her Instagram feed for weeks. I go home and log on with the password Harriet gave me.
Two hundred and fifteen more followers! And the comments section is going mental. There’s the usual speculation about Amelia’s identity. But @amelia.westlake has been tagged in a whole lot of other pics as well.
Photographs of things Amelia has supposedly done. Things I don’t know about. Things I’m pretty sure Nat and Harriet don’t know about either.
For example: a picture of Amelia Westlake’s donation to Rosemead’s latest cupcake stall for Amnesty: a hundred chocolate cupcakes, with a note scrawled in one of the cake boxes: Great cause! Good luck, AW.
A stencil someone has sprayed on a wall in the school courtyard: the iconic outline of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, but with the initials ‘AW’ on his cap instead of a star.
An RSVP to Beth Tupman’s eighteenth birthday party:
Dear Beth,
Thank you so much for the invitation. I particularly appreciate it since I live in one of the ‘lesser’ North Shore suburbs and my father isn’t a member of your father’s golf club. I will probably stick out like a sore thumb. But I would be delighted to attend!
Amelia Westlake
My resistance falters and dies. I text Harriet.
Check out Amelia’s Insta feed.
She doesn’t text back.
Our trial exams finish on a Friday. I spend the weekend passed out on my bed with exhaustion, a state intermittently broken by thoughtful food deliveries from my mother and occasionally Graham, whose surprising adeptness at cooking pumpkin risotto initiates a low-level guilt trip about the whole hitting-him-with-a-frying-pan incident. I barely have the energy to check for texts from Harriet, although I still make the effort about thirty times every twenty-four hours. On Sunday night she finally makes contact.
Hi Natasha and Will. I hope you are well. Any chance you could meet me in the newsroom before school on Monday? I have an idea. Best, Harriet.
When I get to the newsroom I find Nat, who’s sporting some serious Arthur-inflicted gravel rash, on the moth-eaten couch. She’s in deep discussion with Harriet, who’s hovering above her.
‘We could book them online,’ Harriet is saying when I walk in.
‘No way! It needs to be untraceable.’
‘What needs to be untraceable?’ I ask.
‘Your intellect,’ Nat says, looking up. ‘Oh, hang on, it already is.’
Why is she being such a bitch to me? We haven’t even seen each other since exams started, so it’s not like I’ve had a recent opportunity to piss her off. Besides, Nat is more inclined to threaten me with water torture for a specific offence than get passive-aggressive on my butt.
‘Ha. Ha.’ I make my you-think-you’re-so-hilarious-when-in-actual-fact face.
‘You’re just jealous Harriet and I have been hanging out at her house together,’ Nat says, running a finger along her blistering chin. ‘We’re practically sisters-in-law now, aren’t we, Harriet?’
Harriet looks alarmed.
Nat switches her gaze to me. ‘We’re talking about Operation Formal, if you must know. This Friday is the night of nights.’
‘Hang on.’ I look between them. ‘What the hell is Operation Formal? I thought we agreed we had to kill off Amelia Westlake.’
I address this last part to Harriet, who looks away guiltily. ‘Well, yes,’ she says. ‘But with all this Amelia Westlake activity that’s been happening –’
‘You checked out her Instagram feed, then?’
She gives a business-like nod. ‘It’s perfect. Amelia Westlake has basically gone viral. It gives us at least a dozen alibis. There’s no way we can be linked to all of what’s happened. Which means that if we do pull off another Amelia-related prank, it’s not necessarily going to be linked to us, either.’
I take in what she’s saying. While I’ve been mourning Amelia’s death, Harriet’s been planning her revival, with one big difference. This time, I’m not invited to the party.
I can’t believe it. It was me who prompted her to check out the new activity on Instagram, and now she’s using it to sideline me. She knows I won’t be at the formal. She and Nat have probably been plotting this at leisure during study breaks on the Price’s pristine cream couches.
‘I take it you remember I’m banned from going.’
‘Of course I remember,’ Harriet says, glancing at Nat. Harriet looks nervous and excited at once. ‘That’s the beauty of this operation. This way, you can come.’
What is she on about? I never said I wanted to come. Although, if it’s going to be the scene of another Amelia Westlake strike against Rosemead, I could be persuaded. But how could Harriet have possibly engineered a formal that Croon wouldn’t kick me out of as soon as I turned up? Our beloved principal will be there to make the bloody welcome speech.
‘I don’t get it.’
‘Sit down, Will,’ Nat says.
I sit and listen as they talk me through it: every aspect of the plan. Five minutes later, I know everything.
I look at Harriet. ‘This was your idea?’
She nods.
‘And you’ve asked Liz Newcomb to help?’
‘I know the charity prank ultimately failed, but it was good of her to trust Amelia Westlake with that key. Tremendous, really,’ Harriet says airily.
This is a turn-up for the books.
‘And the best part,’ Nat says, ‘is thanks to Harriet, everything is practically already in place.’
By recess on Tuesday there’s a tangible buzz in the school corridors. All the year twelves can talk about is Friday night: who’s taking who, what they’re wearing, how they’re getting their hair done, who by, what shoes they’re wearing, which pre-formal drinks they’ve been invited to, who’s having a manicure and who’s using a professional make-up artist. In summary: yawn. This type of conversation escalates during the week so that by Thursday formal talk is all that’s going on in the corridors. It gets so bad that if one more person asks me a question about Friday night, I swear I’ll punch them in the face.
Another type of chatter starts to escalate as well. Word has gotten out about the no-girlfriends rule.
‘I think it’s to be expected,’ I hear Beth Tupman telling Palmer Crichton outside the science labs. ‘It’s a school formal, not the Mardi Gras. Besides, it’s just one night. It’s not like Rosemead is saying people can’t have girlfriends.’
I wonder if Beth has shared her views with her friend, Harriet.
‘I think it’s bullshit,’ says Palmer. ‘You should be able to take whoever you want.’
Nakita Wallis nods. ‘The formal is such an important event. Symbolically, I mean. It’s end-of-school. It’s coming-of-age. It’s a single night that, for better or worse, comes to represent our entire high school experience. Excluding certain people from authentic participation is damaging.’
‘I don’t understand most of what you just said but I totally agree,’ says Daphne Chee.
I continue down the corridor with a smile, until I look up to find Fowler coming in the other direction.
‘Good afternoon, Ms Everhart,’ she greets me, slowi
ng to a halt.
‘Hi Miss Fowler.’
‘Where are you off to?’
‘Er, class?’
‘Which class?’
‘Legal Studies. It’s in Room 406, just down the hallway.’
She squints at me with deep suspicion before finally letting me pass.
It’s clear that the school staff have their eyes on me. The number of times Fowler, Hadley or Davids has struck up a random conversation with me in the corridors lately has put me on notice of that. For the remainder of the week I half-expect to be called up to Croon’s office, but she seems content to delegate her harassment of me to her minions.
And why not? She hasn’t a clue what’s about to go down. As far as she’s concerned, the formal is going ahead precisely as Harriet and her committee originally planned: with a classy dinner dance at Dish restaurant at Circular Quay, punctuated by Croon’s welcome speech and a speech by the Chair of the Board at eight o’clock. No girlfriends allowed.
On Friday morning before first period, Harriet ushers me into an empty classroom. I can hardly believe my luck.
‘I wanted you to know I’ve reserved a place for you on one of the formal buses,’ she says when the door’s closed. ‘They’re leaving from the school gates at six.’
More formal talk – how very disappointing. ‘I don’t know. I think it would be better if I got Mum to drive me. It’s probably best I don’t draw attention to myself.’
‘Nobody even knows you’re banned,’ Harriet whispers, keeping an eye on the door. ‘Except the teachers, and they’re not coming on the buses. They’ll be making their own way there. Or at least they think they will be. You know what I mean.’
I do, but it’s not what I mean. I’m the only person who doesn’t have a date. That fact alone will mean I’ll stick out.