Cloudwish

by Fiona Wood

  She looked up into his eyes. ‘Why do you think I’d want to dance with someone who thinks it’s cool when little birds get electrocuted?’

  He laughed in protest. ‘Way to trash a romantic moment. It wasn’t that the little bird got fried; it was the odds. I mean, what are the odds? Come on, it’s never going to happen, is it? But it did.’

  ‘Probably something like the odds of us going out.’

  ‘Nuh, that was a sure thing.’

  ‘Take a look around and see what your friends think about it.’

  Billy looked around and, of course, saw nothing but smiles. She was the one getting greased off in private.

  ‘They’ll get used it,’ he said, leaning down and kissing her.

  She pulled away. Public kissing. This was so far outside her experience, she couldn’t even begin to tell him the number of ways she was uncomfortable with it. She failed hard all the way around the social merry-go-round.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ was what she managed to say.

  ‘Right now? Really?’

  ‘Yup, well, soon, I’m being picked up.’

  He looked annoyed. A whole party had eaten him up like ice-cream, but the one thing he wanted wasn’t available.

  ‘Hey, I was lucky to be able to come at all.’

  ‘I’ll walk you out then, I guess.’

  They headed out through the house and she let go of Billy’s hand in the front garden. By the time they were halfway down the path, they were a respectable distance apart. She could see the chicken-mobile through the gate. She should have realised; of course her father and Bảo would arrive early.

  Holly came hurrying in from the street where she’d been smoking again, if smell was anything to go by. ‘Billy, there’s some super-suspicious-looking Asian bogans in a van parked right outside your place. They’ve been lurking there for ten minutes.’

  Vân Ước recognised this as another perfect test for Billy’s infatuation. It killed her to keep engaging with an idea she rejected, but surely only magic would get Billy past the social inexcusability of going out with a girl who rode in the Happy Chickens chariot.

  ‘Don’t worry; it’s my father. He works for the man driving the van. They’re here to pick me up.’

  ‘Can you say sorry to your dad if we’ve kept him waiting?’ said Billy.

  Vân Ước and Holly looked at Billy with competing levels of disbelief.

  ‘Sure,’ said Vân Ước, smiling. ‘See you on Monday.’

  ‘Should I come out and say hi?’ Billy asked.

  ‘Maybe next time,’ Vân Ước said, enjoying Holly’s gaping surprise.

  Vân Ước walked out the gate, opened the passenger-side door of the van and climbed in. Her father would never register that the tone in which the smoking girls on the footpath said, ‘Goodnight, Vân Ước,’ and, ‘See you, Vân Ước,’ was coated with insincere smarm.

  She was going home in an unapologetic pumpkin. Her clothes had been plainly inappropriate all night. But she didn’t need to rush out, or even to leave a sneaker behind. Unless the whateverthehellitwas expired over the weekend, Billy would know exactly where to find her on Monday morning.

  She was expecting to have to explain to her father, and Bảo, why her classmates were smoking on the footpath at the rowing ceremony dressed in skimpy evening dresses, so it was like getting a free kick when instead they expressed their disappointment that the teachers would smoke at an official school function. Thank heavens for too much hair and makeup. Those girls did look more like twenty-five than seventeen. And her father was clueless about what girls like these typically wore on any occasion.

  chapter 30

  Safely in her room after deflecting and half-answering her parents’ questions about the school event, she patted the winged cardigan goodnight (was that getting strange?), got into bed and did the gentle four-knock to Jess: Are you awake? No answer. Jess was ignoring her. No way was she was asleep at ten-thirty, for sure she was awake and reading.

  It felt so different having Billy as her private number-one fantasy mew, never expecting it to cross over into real life, and having Billy actually like her. The whole aura around him liking her was so insulting. How many times could she stand to encounter the face of someone who couldn’t believe Billy liked Vân Ước? Tears burned in her eyes. How dare they be so surprised? She was as nice as anyone else. And smarter. But had she really let anyone see her? Was it partly her fault for preferring to slip through as unnoticed as possible? Maybe to his friends it was as though he was going out with the invisible woman.

  But she knew it was more than that, worse than that. It was their rejection of Billy slumming it with someone so far removed from his born-to-rule class. There. She’d used the word. It was a class thing. Which also meant a money thing. And they were both related to the refugee thing. Their judging and ranking made her hackles rise. Part of her relished the idea of standing up in front of all the people she least liked at school, and shouting, He wanted me, but I rejected him. Because I’m not buying into that bullshit.

  She rolled over, untwisting her nightie as she turned, flipping her pillow over to its cool side. She gave it a good punch and thought through it all again – it was running on a loop – the whole preposterous, fallacious, spurious basis on which Billy liked her. That was some bullshit she was readily buying into, she coolly observed of herself, from the disapproving outside.

  Well, it’s not as though he’d like her in her own right, would he?/ Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Good one/Of course it’s the wish hoo-ha.

  How could her pride allow that to stand? It couldn’t, clearly. Or not for long. But why shouldn’t she have a couple of weeks knowing what it felt like to go out with Billy? Was she even more superficial than that? Did she just want to go out with ‘a’ Billy?

  She buried her face in the pillow. She knew it was a cheat. No way would Jane approve.

  It was like the day in primary school, year three, when her father, in an unprecedented move, had brought home a big bag of gummy bears and she’d been allowed to take them to school. She had instant sticky friends for playtime and lunchtime. She knew they loved her for her gummy bears, but she still enjoyed it while it lasted.

  chapter 31

  On Monday morning the locker room seemed to have been waiting for her to arrive. There was a picture of a chicken stuck on the front of her locker, which she decided to ignore and take down when the area was less populated.

  Holly made a clucking noise when Vân Ước opened her locker to put her bag in. Billy arrived to hear the clucking. He walked over to Holly.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What’s this?’ Billy ripped the chicken picture from Vân Ước’s locker. ‘Who the fuck put this here?’

  People turned away and got busy with doors and books and bags and locks.

  ‘I’m going to guess it was the person clucking then.’ Billy handed the screwed-up ball of paper to Holly.

  ‘Billy, are you for real?’ she asked. ‘Since when did you get so weird and lose your sense of humour? You would have been making the same joke back when you were normal.’

  Vân Ước took a deep breath. ‘If you want to joke about it, go ahead. My father works in a chicken-processing factory. He doesn’t drive, or own a car. His boss offered to drop me at Billy’s and pick me up on Saturday night. I was lucky to be allowed out at all. My parents don’t particularly believe in students having a social life.’

  Holly didn’t say anything else, but her face was set in a sneer.

  Billy held Vân Ước’s hand, but he was looking at the assembled group. Ben walked in to hear him say: ‘What a pack of losers. Do you really think that because your parents have money, or their parents did, that you’re better than Vân Ước or her parents? You didn’t make the money. It’s random. It’s dumb luck. Let’s see what
you do yourself. Let’s take a look in ten years.’

  He directed the next comment squarely at Holly. ‘And it’s pretty easy to see that some people are so pathetic that all they will have done is buy clothes and prance around like idiots. Talking about clothes. With other idiots.’ Vintage mean-Billy.

  Ben had been looking on with apparent incredulity as things blew up. ‘Lighten up, dude,’ he said.

  ‘Fuck off, dude,’ Billy said.

  ‘What about you, Billy? Won’t you just be another dull doctor who briefly went out with a povvo Asian girl at school to piss off his parents?’ Holly’s voice was shaking. She obviously felt she had to retaliate, but she clearly didn’t feel comfortable turning against someone like Billy, even in self-defence.

  Billy looked at Holly with freezing disdain. ‘Wrong on both scores. Surprise, surprise.’

  Holly gave Vân Ước a look of pure hostility as she walked past, as though to say, Look at the trouble you’ve caused.

  If Holly knew how transitory her going out with Billy was likely to be, she wouldn’t waste the frown repetitions getting angry about it. Vân Ước wished she could go home. Couldn’t she have the occasional ‘mental health day’ such as her classmates took from time to time? It seemed to be a day at home being pampered and not having to turn up to school, despite being perfectly well. Her parents wouldn’t even understand the concept. Her sick days were hard enough to come by when she was half-dead.

  Holly’s nasty comment was still stinging; she had never considered that Billy’s motivation for going out with her might simply be to annoy his parents.

  By lunchtime, things seemed to have settled sufficiently that there was another bout of the ongoing Jenga tournament. Billy was still undefeated. Vân Ước was uncomfortably aware of Holly, Tiff, Ava and Gabi vipering quietly in a huddle. No doubt talking about her – in their eyes, a thief, of cardigans and boys. An unworthy interloper. She half-watched Jenga, feeling glum, while she ate her lunch, then went to the library.

  She and Jess always ridiculed the role of girlfriend-to-the-jock on movie nights. Too sidekick to be interesting, and it turned out to be true. The concept of looking on from the sidelines, fanning and cheering, was not something she’d ever feel okay about. Plus, it was half an hour better spent reading.

  Sibylla and Lou and Michael were already in the library. Michael and Lou were playing chess, Sibylla was flicking though a pile of magazines.

  ‘Escaping Jenga?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a bit loud to read in there,’ said Vân Ước.

  Lou looked up. ‘I can’t wait till it ends, the Jenga thing. It’s the bro-dudes building the world, and destroying the world. Too much like real life to be funny.’

  Vân Ước smiled in agreement and headed to the quiet study area.

  It felt impossible that she could be more in love with Sylvia Plath, but after finding ‘Mad Girl’s Love Song’ she was. Written when she was twenty. Genius. She looked up to see Billy walking towards her and sighed.

  ‘You disappeared – I thought you were still in the common room. I remain, yours truly, king of the Jenga world.’

  ‘I’m so happy for you.’

  ‘Oooh, the Vân Ước low-key stinging sarcasm.’

  ‘Well. Jenga.’

  ‘Hey, I’m so sorry about all the chicken stuff this morning.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault. It’s not your sorry.’

  ‘I don’t want anyone being mean to you.’

  ‘And I don’t want to cause trouble with your friends.’

  ‘You’re not the one causing trouble.’ Looking at her books, he said, ‘Don’t forget, Sylvia part two, at mine on Wednesday.’

  ‘Even with your parents there?’

  ‘They won’t be home by then. Wouldn’t matter if they were.’

  ‘I don’t know how thrilled your mother would be . . .’

  ‘If she knew we were going out?’

  Wow. He’d said it out loud.

  ‘We are?’

  ‘To the extent that we can, given you’re not allowed out much, and you don’t want me to come to your place. And you obviously object to public displays of affection.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to check in with me? Ask me if I want to go out with you?’

  He looked shocked. ‘Don’t you?’

  It cracked her up that the idea of a girl maybe not wanting to go out with him was utterly alien to his experience. ‘Sure. I guess. If you can cope with all the limitations.’

  ‘That is the most excellent news I could hear. Ever.’

  ‘But don’t get too excited, because from the look on your mother’s face when we met . . .’

  Billy dismissed her misgivings with a shrug. ‘My parents don’t like anything that distracts me from study or rowing.’

  ‘Ha. My parents don’t like anything that distracts me from study or study.’

  ‘We’ve got heaps in common, you and me.’

  ‘I.’

  ‘I’m going to get the common room print done tonight. Maybe we could put it up early on Thursday.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Vân Ước was missing Jess. She dropped around after school. Jess opened the door with mashed avocado spread all over her face. She liked the occasional all-natural face pack. At least this one wouldn’t set like a rock, unlike the fateful, supposedly oil-absorbing, oatmeal pack.

  ‘Why are you mad about Billy before it’s absolutely warranted?’

  ‘Hello to you, too.’

  ‘He might be okay.’

  ‘Unlikely, but. How was the party?’

  ‘Pretty good. His parents and his friends hate me. And we only got to kiss for about one minute before my dad came to pick me up. In Bảo Mac’s van.’

  Jess clapped a hand over her mouth in disbelief. ‘Classy move. What did he make of that?’

  ‘Didn’t miss a beat.’

  Jess raised her avocado-y eyebrows. ‘Well that’s one point for him.’

  ‘He’s been winning plenty of points. The question is, why?’

  ‘You’re not still thinking it’s got anything to do with that stupid teacher’s stupid glass vial stupid wish thing, are you?’

  ‘I think I’ve got to try and find the teacher.’

  ‘And out yourself as completely wacko?’

  ‘I was thinking more, ask a couple of open-ended questions.’

  ‘Like, “Anything strange ever happened to anyone in any of your classes evah?” ’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me how ridiculous it is.’

  ‘Don’t do it!’

  ‘I have to. Otherwise it’s the most massive cheat out. And how can I honestly let myself like someone who’s been wishmagic-ed into liking me?’

  ‘I’d have Jennifer Lawrence on wishmagic terms any day.’

  ‘You wouldn’t. You’d want her to like you for real.’

  ‘I’m not that fussy.’

  ‘You know she likes boys, right?’

  ‘Of course I know. It doesn’t really matter, seeing as how I’m not ever likely to meet her and all.’

  ‘You know the cardigan I found?’

  ‘That’s magic too?’ Jess could be very judgemental.

  ‘No, but I like to pat it. And I talk to it occasionally. It seems to have a personality.’

  ‘You’re telling me this why?’

  ‘Who else would I tell?’

  Jess got a skewer from the cutlery drawer and started gently poking it through her mask.

  ‘Itchy?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Wash it off.’

  ‘I’ve got five more minutes.’

  ‘You might as well scrape it off with crackers.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I thought about it.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But
if it’s been drawing out impurities from my complexion, I’d be eating avocado with a nice dose of impurity. Which is pus, I presume, in a best-case scenario – i.e. if it’s worked.’

  ‘Mmm, delicious. So what are we watching on Friday?’

  ‘Sally Thomasetti’s lending me Say Anything.’

  ‘Omigod, I’m dying to see that. That’s the last item on our I can’t believe you haven’t seen it list, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yup. And we can review Billy’s performance at homework club.’

  ‘And figure out how I find the creative writing teacher.’

  ‘Directory?’

  ‘True.’

  ‘But, please don’t. Dignity.’

  ‘I know. But I – I don’t know what else I can do.’

  ‘Just get back in touch with the rational girl who lives in there.’ Jess pointed to Vân Ước’s forehead.

  ‘Wise words, avocado-face.’

  ‘Hey, at least I don’t talk to cardigans.’

  Vân Ước got up and stretched, picked up her bag and headed for the door.

  ‘You study hard, now,’ said Jess.

  chapter 32

  Because her oboe teacher had been called away at short notice to attend the birth of his third child, Vân Ước had spare time after school on Wednesday before going to Billy’s. She took some David Foster Wallace essays to the part of the river where school and university boat sheds congregated, and found a bench in the shade of a plane tree.

  Billy’s crew was going to be doing sprint training, so she’d see him row for the first time, and maybe get a glimpse of what all the fuss was about.

  She got out her camera, put on a telephoto lens, and looked idly through the viewfinder. After all the rain and the heat, the riverbanks were deep green and smelled sweetly of grass. A bicycle crunched along the track. It was Billy’s coach, the head of rowing, Mr Robertson, holding a compact megaphone and shouting unintelligible things like, ‘Speed up the catch. Hughes, YOU’RE LATE. Square up earlier.’

  She trained her camera on the crew. They didn’t appear to be slacking off. These boys were working as hard as she’d ever seen human bodies work. They’d transformed themselves into a machine, made of muscle and rhythm and – what? What could possibly motivate them to push themselves like this? Ambition? Determination? Pride? Or was it enough that, to them, being dropped from the most prestigious crew in the school would be unthinkable?