‘It’s a boy,’ says Dad, a delighted look on his face. Aren’t Dads supposed to be all ‘don’t touch my daughter’ protective? What happened to the Man-to-Man talk about how My Daughter is a Special and Precious Flower and If You Touch Her Breasts I’ll Remove Your Kneecaps? Parents these days, I tell you.
I grab the phone off him, push him out the door and slam it shut, just as he starts singing that ‘Ring Ring’ song by Abba.
The stupid thing? I have no idea who might be on the phone. What boy? A boy has never called me. It’s probably a telemarketer trying to sell me a dodgy phone plan. But the thing is, I have this funny, tickly, bubbly nervous feeling inside. Because even though it’s not possible, I’m kinda hoping it’s Ben, calling long-distance just to hear my voice.
I’ve never Talked To a Boy on the Phone before. What if I don’t do it right? What if he loses interest because I don’t know how to say the right things? What if he wants to … you know. Have phone sex? I am briefly consoled by the fact that Ben doesn’t actually exist, but then the bubbles come up again because I really want it to be him.
Yeah, I’m crazy. I put the phone to my ear. ‘Hello?’
It isn’t Ben.
‘Hi, it’s George.’
For a moment, I think, Who’s George? I don’t know a George. Then I realise it’s New Guy. Wizard-drawing, socks-pulled-up, biscuit-scented, long-eyelashes, Columbine-camembert New Guy.
‘Oh,’ I say, trying not to be too disappointed that my First Ever Phone Call From a Boy is not from my imaginary boyfriend, but instead from the daggy, possibly psychotic new kid who I have to do some lame project with in English. ‘Hi.’
What if Tahni is right? What if he really is a killer? What if he’s decided to fall in love with me and he’s going to stalk me and take off my skin and then eat me alive?
‘So I was thinking about our project,’ he says.
‘How did you get this number?’ I interrupt. Maybe he’s some sort of freakishly intelligent, evil hacker who’s installed a miniature surveillance camera inside my toothbrush so he can watch me pee.
There is a slight pause. ‘White Pages dot com,’ he says. ‘How else?’
I’m sure that’s what all the serial killers say.
‘So …’ he says. ‘The project?’
I wonder if Ben has seen Silence of the Lambs.
‘I was thinking that we could do something about secrets,’ he says.
I stiffen. What kind of secrets? His secret about the skinless women in his dungeon? Or does he know my secrets from watching via my toothbrush-cam? Does he know? He couldn’t possibly.
‘Secrets?’ I say. My voice goes squeaky, and I cough to disguise it.
‘You know,’ he says. (I don’t.) ‘Like how even though we’re living in an entirely connected world, where communication has never been so open and accessible, people still have just as many secrets as ever. If not more.’
I stare at Ben’s MySpace page. New Guy doesn’t know how right he is. At least I hope he doesn’t know.
‘Midge?’ he says. ‘Are you still there?’
I jerk back to the real world. ‘Yep,’ I say. ‘Still here. Secrets. Fantastic.’
‘So you think it’s a good idea?’
‘Sure,’ I say. I hear it’s a good idea to humour potential killers. ‘But what would we actually do?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ New Guy says. ‘I did a bit of googling, and found a couple of quotes. Benjamin Franklin said, “Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”’
OMG. Did he just make a threat? Is he saying he’s going to kill me? Who is Benjamin Franklin, anyway? Some dead American, I think.
‘Ben clearly had a great deal of faith in humanity,’ I say, stalling for time.
‘Maybe he told someone something important, and they betrayed him.’
‘Yeah,’ I say, laughing nervously. ‘Like that he’s a closet Star Trek fan or something.’
Oh, don’t tell me he likes Star Trek too. Could this guy be any more of a weirdo loser? A weirdo loser PSYCHO-KILLER? But he chuckles. ‘I would think,’ he says, ‘that if they had television in the eighteenth century, Benjamin Franklin’s secret TV shame would be Oprah. Or the Gilmore Girls.’
I am not sure whether I should laugh. I don’t want him to think I’m laughing at him. Don’t want to upset the killer.
‘So,’ I say. ‘Any more quotes?’
‘One from Sophocles,’ New Guy says. ‘“Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all.”’
I’m confused now. All this double-speak. He says Sophocles with a bit of a strange accent, and I remember that Mrs Church called him George Papadopoulos and figure that he must be Greek.
‘Sophocles also not a fan of the whole secret thing,’ I observe.
‘No,’ says New Guy. ‘Maybe that’s what we should try to prove? Whether secrets are good or bad?’
I think about this. Secrets are harmless when they are about an imaginary English boyfriend, right? It’s only bad when you’ve killed someone and hidden their body. ‘Animals have secrets,’ I say. ‘Like where a nest or a den is, or where a dog has buried a bone.’
‘Right,’ says New Guy, who I suppose I should think of as George (or psycho-killer George). ‘So there is a biological protective urge to keep secrets.’
I’m not entirely comfortable with Talking to a Boy on the Phone about Biological Urges. I wonder what Ben would say if he knew. Would he be jealous? What are you allowed to talk to Other Boys about when you’re in a relationship? Where is the line between Having a Conversation with a Boy and Phone-Cheating? And where do Biological Urges lie in relation to that line?
‘Let’s brainstorm,’ says (psycho-killer) George. ‘Think of common secrets.’
Imaginary boyfriends. Psycho-killer. Imaginary boyfriends. Psycho-killer. Imaginary boyfriends.
‘Surprise parties?’ I manage to squeak out.
‘Great,’ he says. ‘What about secrets that are to do with not admitting something? Like: I broke the vase.’
‘Or: I hate your new haircut.’
‘Or: I ate the last Tim Tam.’
This is kind of fun. ‘There’s no Easter Bunny,’ I say.
‘I have a crush on someone,’ says (psycho-killer) George, and I immediately feel uncomfortable again.
‘Um,’ I say. ‘I think I’m all out of secrets.’
(Hah. That’s a ginormous lie.)
(Psycho-killer) George is silent for a moment.
‘What about big secrets?’ he says. ‘Like: I cheated on you.’
‘I only have six months to live.’
‘Your father is Darth Vader.’
I laugh. ‘And that girl you just kissed is your sister!’
‘I live a secret life,’ says (psycho-killer) George.
A secret life as a murdering cannibal. I know your story.
‘Like Superman and Clark Kent?’ I ask.
‘Maybe,’ says (psycho-killer) George. ‘But I meant something else … like I have another family or something.’ Yeah. Another family. Right. Maybe before he became a psycho-killer cannibal. Now his other family are chewed-up skeletons buried beneath the vegie patch.
‘I prefer secret superpowers,’ I say.
‘Yeah, me too.’
I take a deep breath. ‘How about the opposite?’ I say. ‘Instead of having a secret life or a secret superpower, a part of my life that seems real is actually fake.’
‘Like what?’
Why am I saying this? Why am I practically confessing my terrible terrible shame to a murderer? ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Like an imaginary friend or something. Pretending you have this great … job, when you’re unemployed. Or pretending you’re rich and live in a mansion when you’re homeless.’
‘Yeah …’ says (psycho-killer) George, thoughtfully. ‘Or that you have this perfect life with a perfect partner and perfect kids, when in fact you’re all miserable.’
I swallow. ‘Somethi
ng like that,’ I say.
This is very weird. I just came really close to telling the crazy psychotic serial killer socks-pulled-up New Guy that I have an imaginary boyfriend.
‘You know what I think?’ says George.
‘What?’
‘I think that Sophocles would have been totally addicted to Big Brother.’
5 chi·me·ra
–noun; an unreal creature of the imagination; a vain or idle fancy.
– A Wordsmith’s Dictionary of Hard-to-spell Words
After a fortnight of fake emails and MySpace comments, I am ready to break up with Ben. But I don’t want to do it straight away. It has to be believable. So I plant little seeds. I sigh as Tahni and I eat our sandwiches at lunchtime. Ben writes me long and tortured emails about how much he misses me.
It’s strange, because I’ll miss him when we’re broken up. He’s the perfect boyfriend – except for the whole Not Being Real thing. That’s a bummer. But still, I could certainly do worse.
When I walk into school the next morning, Tahni is waiting for me at my locker. Like a hungry shark. A hungry shark who is about to explode with excitement. She seriously looks like she’s about to wet herself.
‘Hey,’ I say, fiddling with the combination lock on my locker.
Tahni lets out an incoherent squeal, jumps up and down and flaps her hands. Is she having a seizure?
Maybe this is about the comment that Ben wrote on my MySpace last night: Midge, I want to see you so much. It is so hard being apart. It’s step one in my plan for us to break up. A few more of them, and I’ll be able to sigh and say that it Just Wasn’t Working.
Tahni still hasn’t managed to utter anything coherent.
‘Calm down,’ I tell her. ‘Yoga breathing, remember? In through the nose, out through the mouth.’
She takes a deep breath.
‘O.M.G.’
Maybe she met a new boy. Maybe she won the lottery. Maybe aliens took out her brain.
‘Midge,’ she says, gasping. ‘I am so sorry. This is going to sound so bitchy, but when you first told me about Ben, I kinda maybe thought that you were making him up. Because no one else had seen him, and you’ve never even looked at a boy before.’
I nod and smile.
‘And I just wanted to apologise,’ Tahni continues. ‘For not trusting you.’
Ahh, the marvels of the internet. I put my books away, stacking them in alphabetical order. Last year I ordered them by colour, which looked very pretty but was ultimately confusing.
‘So have you spoken to him yet, this morning?’
‘No,’ I say, laughing. ‘It’s the middle of the night in England.’
Tahni gives me a playful slap. ‘You don’t need to keep going on with this game,’ she says. ‘I know your secret.’
Oh, crap. How did she figure it out? Was it the MySpace page? Was the blue background not masculine enough?
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she says.
‘Um,’ I say, ready to confess.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me Ben was definitely moving to Australia and coming to our school!’
Huh?
‘Come on,’ she says, grabbing my arm. ‘Chris Stitz told me where his locker is. I’m dying for an introduction.’
I think I’m having a stroke. I wonder if I’ve slipped into a parallel universe. Or if this is a terrible cruel joke and there’s a film crew on standby, ready to catch my moment of ultimate humiliation. Why would Tahni say that Ben was here? Maybe she’s just teasing me. Maybe my imagination is so powerful that he turned into a Real Boy, like Pinocchio.
Everything goes all fuzzy, and it’s like time speeds up, because I can’t get a word out before suddenly I’m standing in front of this Boy.
He’s tall, with lovely light-brown wavy hair that is exactly the right length. He has good skin (v. important), and is toned without being muscly. He has heavenly shoulders. His eyes are exactly the same colour blue as the background on his MySpace page. He’s not exactly the way I pictured Ben in my head, but he still looks pretty good.
I think Tahni was expecting someone a bit less … well, hot. I’d described him as a cute nerd, but this guy is just plain hot. When she sees him, it’s like watching a double take from an old Warner Brothers cartoon. Her chin hits the ground. Smack. But in true Tahni fashion, she pulls herself together and summons her most dazzling smile.
‘Hi Ben,’ she says. ‘I brought you a surprise!’
She shoves me forward. The Boy looks at me, as if I’m a Transformer and he’s expecting me to turn into a Mac truck or something.
‘We were so excited when we found out Midge’s boyfriend was moving here!’ Tahni rabbits on, not noticing the Boy’s confusion. ‘She’s told us all about how you met over summer. So romantic!’
The Boy keeps looking at me, like he’s waiting for something. An explanation, probably. I want to dissolve into a puddle. This has got to be a dream. There is a terrible, terrible silence. I stare at my shoes, waiting for the inevitable. My cheeks are burning and I’m afraid I might burst into tears. That would just totally be the final nail in the already hermetically sealed coffin that is my life.
Tahni is still babbling. ‘I admit I thought Midge would never get a boyfriend. I thought she’d end up cutting off her hair and wearing polar fleece and kissing girls, or that she’d just be lonely and old with eleven cats and a caravan.’
Thanks, Tahni, for all your wonderful support.
‘When she told me she’d met this boy called Ben over summer and how he was English and sensitive, I thought she must be making it up. You sounded too good to be true.’
A flicker of understanding passes over the Boy’s face. He’s figured it out. My terrible secret shame.
‘Well?’ says Tahni. ‘Aren’t you going to kiss her hello?’
Please let this be a dream. I silently beg this Boy to put me out of my misery quickly. He still has a slightly puzzled frown on his face, and a strange little half-smile. The moment drags on forever. If time sped up before, it’s completely stopped now. It’s as if we stand there for hours, Tahni expectant, the Boy confused, and me, slowly melting into something wet and sticky, like Gatorade, but without the electrolytes. I am radioactive. No one will ever speak to me again. I’ll have to change schools. Change my name. Maybe go on Extreme Makeover, get a new face and a new identity and start again. Only then will I be able to escape this terrible, terrible shame.
The Boy opens his mouth to say something, then shuts it again. I plead with my eyes. My eyes tell him everything that’s happened and about how sorry I am and how I will never do it again, not that I will have the chance to because I will never again have friends to lie to, and can he please get this over with because I need to go home and see if there’s enough money in my piggy-bank to get plastic surgery.
I wonder what you have to do to qualify for a witness protection program?
Suddenly, the Boy speaks. To me. He speaks to me. He really is English, with this lovely soft accent that makes him sound like he’s the star of one of those English Provincial Cop Shows set in a green and floral Quaint English Village where everyone calls each other ‘guvnor’ and there is a disproportionately high rate of crime.
‘Sugar,’ he says. ‘I missed you so much.’
And then he steps forward and kisses me.
6 cock·a·ma·mie
–adjective; ridiculous, pointless, or nonsensical.
– A Wordsmith’s Dictionary of Hard-to-spell Words
I am kissing a Boy. I am being kissed by a Boy.
A real boy. A not-imaginary Boy.
It’s a little more … moist … than I expected. And I know I’m meant to stick my tongue in, but then what do I do with it? Magazines should be more specific. Also, our teeth bump a couple of times, and that’s Not Good.
My hands are on his shoulders – Ben’s heavenly shoulders – they feel as strong as they look. His hands are on my waist. I am up on tiptoes to reach him, and I�
�m going to develop a serious crick in my neck if this continues for much longer. Not to mention running out of oxygen and asphyxiating.
But who cares about breathing and neck-cricks and tongues and teeth and moistness?
I. Am. Kissing. A. Real. Live. Boy.
A small part of me wonders what everyone else in the hallway is doing. In my head, it unfolds like this:
Ben and I are kissing. There is space all around us, because people are so in awe of our love that they dare not approach us. But they are watching from the sidelines. Tahni is openmouthed with astonishment and a hint of jealousy. Hundreds of students and teachers stop what they are doing and watch. Their eyes mist over with emotion, and silly smiles spread across their faces. The camera pans around us and upwards in a spiral that reveals the enormity of our love. Music swells.
Am I wearing the pair of school tights with the hole that Mum never fixed? I think I am. All of those people, staring at the hole in my tights. And I should have polished my shoes. And they can all see the ink stain on my school dress. Did I brush my hair this morning?
Did I brush my teeth!????
I break away from the Boy, who does this adorable little sardonic eyebrow raise at me. I look around. Nobody is paying any attention at all, apart from Tahni, who is openmouthed, exactly as I imagined.
And that’s when it hits me.
I have magic superpowers. I invent a hot English imaginary boyfriend, and here he is, with his right hand still on my waist. Whatever I say comes true! I am King Midas, but with truth instead of gold. I speak and it happens. Mr Mehmet – get me another partner for the English project! It’s time to buy a lottery ticket.
What else could it be? A coincidence? Pretty wild coincidence. And if it is, then why is Ben playing along? What’s in it for him? Surely it’s more than that. You don’t kiss someone like that just because you’re playing along. I have a micro-flashback to the kissing, and my knees feel weak.
The bell rings for form assembly. Ben takes his hand off my waist and turns to his locker. I feel like I’ve had a body part removed. Put that hand back, Mister. He pulls books out of his locker.
My lips are tingling as though they’ve been sprinkled with fairy dust or washing powder or something. I want more. I’ve become a kissing-obsessed maniac in all of five minutes. How long till recess?
Not Quite Perfect Boyfriend Page 3