Those Pleasant Girls

by Lia Weston

  ‘Pretty much,’ said Mini D.

  ‘So I’m doomed,’ said Mary.

  ‘Pretty much,’ said Travis.

  There were fresh marigolds in front of the gravestone. The afternoon sun slipped over Evie’s shoulder to light up the chalice and interlocking sheaves of wheat engraved on the dark granite. Father Reid’s first name was Joseph. She’d never known that. Evie held a crumpled tissue in her hand but did not need it. Her chest felt heavy instead.

  She stooped and put a bag of chewy caramels next to the flowers, tucking them behind the marigolds’ sunbursts. She touched the headstone for a moment, the granite hot under her palm, and remembered how often she had wished Nathan’s father was hers, too.

  Father Reid had visited the Bouviers once, asking Evie to play outside while he spoke to her dad. She was never allowed to know what they discussed, but her father had been even more bad-tempered afterwards, and paid even less attention to her in the following weeks. He did not, however, hit her as much either.

  Again, Evie wondered why her mother did nothing, said nothing. If Gabe had ever struck Mary, Evie would have ripped his arms off and then used them to beat him. Growing up, Evie was keenly aware where her mother’s loyalty lay. As a parent, she found it inconceivable to sideline a child in favour of a partner. The only rationale she’d ever been able to come up with was that perhaps her mother, stuck in Sweet Meadow’s insular environment, felt she had no choice. It didn’t really help. There was no point visiting her grave to ask, either; Thomasina did not have a gravesite to visit. She had insisted on cremation, no ceremony, and for her ashes to be scattered across the park she visited daily with her dim-witted Chinese Crested dog. Evie did as requested, but couldn’t help thinking that it was her mother’s final way of denying Evie any way of voicing her feelings.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Evie to Father Reid’s gravestone. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t have the chance to say it earlier.’ Oh, please let the committee be as forgiving as you were.

  Her ammunition was already set up in the hall. There was still time to kill before the meeting. Saint Sebastian’s main doors were open. Cool air rolled down the steps to settle at her feet, an invisible carpet inviting her in.

  Evie skimmed her finger through the baptismal font, tracing a strip of sacred water across each wrist. She walked up the scarlet runner which lapped down the aisle like a stream of blood. The gold eagle lectern glowered at her from the sanctuary. Evie reapplied her lipstick in the reflection of its glossy brass head and checked the rose tucked behind her ear.

  The vestry hallway was quiet, her heels knocking the dark wood floor. She silently rehearsed her casual invitation to dinner yet again, searching for the sweet spot between friendly and flirtatious, though God only knew where that was with priests. She reminded herself that it was still Nathan under the ceremonial robes. The thought of Nathan under his robes temporarily distracted her from her nervousness.

  The office door was closed. The office door was also locked. Nathan must be coming back from his rounds. Doing priestly things. Evie had only a vague idea of what priests actually did besides marry people and give sermons. She had asked Father Reid once. ‘Paperwork,’ was his reply.

  Come to think of it, what did priests’ wives do? Hopefully nothing super-religious; she wasn’t really up for that. But she was getting ahead of herself.

  Evie looked at the locked door again, her eyes drawn to the gap at the frame. It would be so easy to . . .

  No. She couldn’t. New Evie did not do this type of thing any more.

  It would take less than a minute, though. Thirty seconds, even. He’d never know; he’d just think he forgot to lock it. She needed ammunition. She knew nothing about his hobbies, his likes and dislikes. This might be her only shot.

  Evie snapped open her handbag and fished around for her driver’s licence. She carefully inserted the card in the gap below the lock and slid it up. Memories resurfaced. Breaking into the garden shed, which her father locked in the mistaken belief that it would keep Evie away from his tools. Jimmying the rear window of the sweet shop. She had learned to be careful by then; she only took what she could get away with. It took Mr Zucker five months to notice, by which time Evie and Nathan had consumed enough sugar to be bleeding pure glucose.

  The lock chocked and gave way. She looked at her hands, which were trembling slightly. The familiar rush of the forbidden awoke in her blood, still warm from visiting the treehouse. The old feeling returning, the adrenaline pull. She tamped it down. She could not afford to start again.

  At her push, the door swung noiselessly inward. A desk with an empty leather chair faced the door, a sea of folders and files swimming on the top, nearly drowning the computer. Maybe Father Reid hadn’t been joking about the paperwork.

  A wireless mouse lay in pieces, disembowelled next to a pile of batteries. Evie replaced the battery and clicked the mouse together. Leaning forward to put it back, she saw a curly head past the edge of the desk and almost had a heart attack.

  ‘Nathan?’

  The head did not move.

  Evie cautiously stepped forward. ‘Hello?’ Good morning! I thought I’d celebrate my return to town by breaking into your office! Want to have dinner?

  Nathan was cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the desk, eyes closed. He wore a beatific smile and a set of headphones. No wonder he hadn’t heard her. Thank Christ.

  Evie smoothed down her suitable-for-priests skirt. ‘Nathan?’ She gently touched his shoulder.

  ‘Argh!’ Nathan jerked awake and whacked his skull against the edge of the wood.

  ‘Oh!’ Evie dropped to her knees. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. God, are you okay?’

  Nathan unplugged his earphones, wincing. ‘I thought I was having some kind of vision.’

  ‘No, just me,’ said Evie, and waved at him. ‘Hello.’

  ‘I could have sworn I locked that door.’ Nathan put his hand to the back of his head.

  ‘Let me have a look at you. That was a decent smack.’

  With her help, Nathan staggered to his feet like a newborn calf and sat on the edge of the chair. Evie parted his curls and began to examine his scalp.

  ‘Did I interrupt your pre-meeting routine?’

  Nathan gave an embarrassed chuckle. ‘I find meditating helps with the meetings.’

  ‘I would have thought church committees would be pretty laid back.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Nathan, ‘I’ve heard some of them can be.’

  ‘Is it Mrs Kalbfleisch? I bet she hasn’t forgiven you for filling her locks with Liquid Nails.’

  ‘Hey, you told me to do that.’

  ‘Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire,’ said Evie.

  ‘Are you actually quoting James 1:14 at me?’

  ‘I’m full of surprises,’ said Evie, who had spent the better part of the previous night trying to memorise bible verses just in case there was a spot test. ‘So tell me about the committee.’

  There was a pause. ‘It’s nothing, really.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Evie, working her way along his head.

  Nathan glanced up at the door and then back down to the carpet. ‘Well, actually, it’s Joy.’

  ‘Why?’ Evie could think of several reasons really, but was happy to hear another.

  ‘She’s very . . .’ said Nathan, discomfited. ‘I mean, she’s . . . She’s very nice.’

  ‘I see,’ said Evie. ‘How awful.’

  Nathan seemed to uncork. ‘Truth be told, I find her a bit overwhelming. It’s like dealing with a typhoon. She has so many ideas and suggestions, which is wonderful, but she wants everything to happen straightaway. I know she gets frustrated because I need time to process things. I’m not very . . .’ He paused to think.

  ‘Impulsive?’

  ‘It seems to be against my nature.’

  ‘Nature’s a hard thing to fight,’ said Evie. ‘But not impossible to change. Take baby steps. Try a different breakfast tomorrow. I
fixed your mouse, by the way.’

  ‘Really?’ He looked up at her. ‘I tried four different batteries and it still didn’t work.’

  ‘It was switched off.’ She moved his head back into position. ‘You weren’t kidding about your computer skills.’

  ‘And yet you never beat me at Frogger.’

  How easily they’d slipped back into their old rapport. Nevertheless, she couldn’t be a hellraiser any more. She had to be new-and-improved-now-with-bonus-cleavage!-oh-hey-did-I-mention-that-I’m-single Evie.

  ‘I hope I didn’t drop you in it with the committee invitation, by the way,’ said Nathan.

  ‘Of course not,’ Evie said, checking his skull from a different angle.

  ‘You’ll fit right in, I know. Your mum would be proud.’

  Evie frowned, unseen above his head. Proud? Disbelieving, perhaps. Ready for Evie to make a mess of it, definitely. Sometimes Evie felt as if her reinvented self were made out of rice paper, ready to dissolve under a sobering bucket of water. Father Reid’s gravestone came, unwelcome, to mind. Her fingers met a lump.

  ‘Ow!’ Nathan flinched.

  ‘Oops. Sorry. Speaking of invitations, however, I was wondering if you were free for –’

  ‘Yoo-hoo, Nathan!’

  There came a tap-tap-tapping in the hallway. Evie felt Nathan shrink back under her fingertips. The doorway filled with a radioactive pink glow.

  ‘Do we have any more A4 . . .’ Joy stopped at the doorway and seemed genuinely thrown to see Evie standing with her hands in Nathan’s hair.

  ‘Good afternoon, Joy,’ said Nathan.

  Joy’s expression shifted from baffled to suspicious. ‘Lost something, Ms Bouvier?’

  ‘Evie fixed my mouse,’ said Nathan.

  ‘Right,’ said Joy through pursed lips. ‘So pleased to hear it. Well, everyone’s already waiting, Quentin’s quite antsy his agenda’s been messed with.’ She gestured to the corridor. ‘Shall we?’

  Nathan, still feeling his skull, stood back to let Evie precede him out of the office.

  Following Joy’s radioactive suit, Evie wondered if she should use a drink tester at the coffee urn in case Joy decided to poison her.

  The wind was picking up. Mary sneezed and hefted her backpack to her other shoulder, trying to get the grit out of her eyes. Tiny tornadoes rolled along the side of the road where the bitumen melted into dust and dirt. There was a rumble about the far horizon.

  She stepped sideways to avoid a flattened soft drink can sticking out of a patch of gravel, its label bleached. The fruitcake she had pinched from the kitchen rolled sideways inside her backpack, putting her off balance. There had been three fruitcakes on the table for Evie’s committee meeting, plump with raisins and gleaming with glaze. Choosing between thievery or the social faux pas of arriving to dinner empty-handed, Mary chose the former. Besides, she couldn’t imagine any meeting in Sweet Meadow where two fruitcakes weren’t enough.

  Stopping to adjust her bag again, Mary pulled Mini D’s sketched map out of her pocket. Past the orchard sign with the bullet holes in it, then left at the giant apple. Mini D had added a tiny Mary dancing along the road. Tiny dancing Mary, however, wasn’t carrying 1.5 kilos worth of dessert.

  The gum saplings lining the street bowed and swayed. She staggered as another gust of hot wind hit her like a slap. In the distance, the sky was beginning to bruise.

  Something could be heard above the whipping leaves. A ragged thump and electric squawk. The wind swung around to fling more dust into her face, and the sound came more clearly this time – music, lurching in staccato bursts.

  She crossed the T-junction and found the orchard sign. Twisting a green apple off an overhanging branch, she followed the noise along the verge. The trees opened up into a wide driveway. A large shed at the end had been converted to a stage. Clustered in front were benches, lounges and seats ripped out of cars, all covered in teenagers. Every girl was wearing denim cut-offs. Every boy was wearing sunglasses.

  Zach was onstage. His T-shirt was plastered to his torso through a combination of wind and sweat. Two boys flanked him in power stances. Nothing could be seen of the drummer but hair.

  Zach leaned into the microphone and sang something completely indecipherable. The girls yowled. Mary squinted, as if it could help her hear better.

  With a final murder of chords, Zach held his guitar up by the neck to acknowledge his audience’s hollering. She had to admit that he had the rock-god strut thing down, even if he sounded like a bellowing calf.

  Zach tossed the guitar to a waiting girl and jumped off the stage. He sauntered over to a nearby upturned wine barrel where Therese was wearing a yellow bandeau top and flicking through a magazine. Zach pulled her to him and hooked his thumbs down the back of her shorts. Therese continued to read the magazine over his shoulder.

  The rest of the crowd clustered around the stage and the other three boys. Bottles were opened. Several girls were taking duck-faced selfies. It looked like a Diet Coke commercial.

  So this was what everyone did on Sundays.

  A blast from a car horn scared Mary out of her wits.

  ‘Yo, bro!’

  A Gemini rolled into the driveway and blocked her way.

  ‘Zach, your girlfriend’s here,’ shouted the driver. The rest of the crowd turned to look. There were hoots.

  Mary rolled her eyes and detoured around the back of the car, nose in the air, feeling her face flame, not looking to see Zach’s reaction. She felt their stares like needles across her back.

  There was a wolf-whistle as she marched off. ‘Where ya going, baby?’

  Mary tried not to hunch as if expecting a blow.

  Stupid Zach and Therese, stupid girls with their stupid shorts. She repressed the urge to run.

  A few minutes later, the Gemini roared past her, honking the horn. A pink-nailed foot stuck out of the back window, no doubt attached at some point to a pair of denim cut-offs.

  Mary was so busy marching along the verge that she realised she’d passed the big apple some time ago. She kept trudging. She couldn’t go back. There’d be another road coming up soon.

  The sky gave an ominous growl.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  His hand burned on her skin, a brand imprinted on her shoulderblade. There was a tiny scar under his chin where he had impaled himself on Mr Riley’s fence post. For a small cut, it had bled as if he’d been decapitated. It was debatable as to who had screamed more.

  ‘Everyone, this is Evie.’ Nathan looked down at her. She fought the urge to cling to the liferaft of his chest. The afternoon sun filtered through the hall windows, highlighting the cobwebs in the corner. The air was hot and close, the fan in the corner barely making an impression.

  The seven other members of the Committee for the Betterment of the Church of Saint Sebastian the Meek regarded Evie with suspicion. In addition to Joy, there was a moustachioed gentleman who resembled a wire-haired terrier, a woman with an angled bob, an elderly woman in a pale blue cardigan, an elderly woman in a pale yellow cardigan, Rosemary from the Pink Ladies and a red-faced man who looked vaguely familiar.

  Evie clasped her shaking hands behind her back and smiled. It was like being a stray dog at the pound. Pick me, pick me! I’m useful, and won’t bite your kids!

  ‘Some of you may remember Evie as the Bouvier child from Cherry Orchard Way,’ said Joy.

  ‘You used to let our chickens out,’ said the red-faced man.

  ‘You egged my house,’ said the moustachioed man.

  ‘Didn’t you set my brush fence on fire?’ said the elderly woman in the blue cardigan.

  ‘That was an accident,’ said Nathan, who had, for once, been responsible for the last incident. ‘I heard. Anyway, I believe Evie will be a welcome asset. Her mother was a wonderful committee member, and I’m sure Evie can leave her mark, too.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard she usually does,’ murmured Joy.

  ‘She’s a touch-typist,’ said Nathan, who still clear
ly hadn’t gotten over this fact.

  ‘We do need someone who can type, Joy,’ said the woman with the angled bob who was sticking Post-it notes in an enormous folder. She was wearing a tailored mustard-coloured sleeveless blouse and didn’t seem to be at all affected by the heat. Evie’s thighs were sticking together. ‘No offence, Nathan, but there are better uses for your time.’

  ‘No offence, Amy,’ said Joy in a tone which said exactly the opposite, ‘but I wonder if it’s a good idea to introduce such a new arrival into the committee. After all, we know nothing about her besides the fact that she was a menace.’

  ‘She has a daughter. Strange girl. Mr Dreckig said she keeps nosing around the Rose Apothecary,’ said the red-faced man.

  ‘Mary wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ protested Evie.

  ‘Is she adopted?’ said the moustachioed man, making Evie wish she had more eggs to hand.

  ‘I’m not casting judgement, Evie may have some mental health issues which could be the cause of her behavioural problems, not that I’m saying she’s unstable of course, though who knows,’ said Joy, while Evie tried not to look offended. ‘But she hasn’t lived here for twenty-five years. Who knows what she’s been up to since then?’

  Nathan stepped in. ‘May I just remind everyone that people have the right to a fair trial?’

  Evie wanted to hug him.

  ‘Evie’s not on trial,’ said Amy.

  ‘Yes, she is,’ said the moustached man.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot, Quentin,’ said Amy, still calmly stickering the folder.

  Evie wanted to hug Amy, too.

  ‘You remember her, don’t you, Joy?’ said the red-faced man.

  ‘I must admit, I don’t,’ said Joy, ‘but that’s only because I moved to Sweet Meadow well after Evie was sent to wreak destruction elsewhere.’

  ‘She’s making me sound like a hurricane,’ muttered Evie to Nathan, who looked at the floor.

  There was nothing for it; she’d have to go for the sympathy vote. She stepped forward to address the jury, away from the protection of Nathan’s side, not that he had actually managed to achieve much.