Those Pleasant Girls

by Lia Weston

Rage gave her speed. Mary’s boots echoed her heartbeat. Zach. Zach. Zach. Zach. She tugged the hem of her skirt down as the sequins tried to work their way up.

  Disappointment fought with satisfaction; she had been right. Evie had forgotten her birthday. The statue, no matter how awesome, was a last-minute ditch; she had proved it by not denying it. Even Mary’s dickhead dad hadn’t forgotten, and he had already ruined her life.

  She would not cry.

  Bianca lived on the west side of Sweet Meadow. Mary took a short cut across the park. Bianca hadn’t invited her, but Bianca probably hadn’t invited a bunch of people who would show up anyway. No one would notice if Mary slipped in. All she wanted was to see Zach play. That was it. A couple of songs, then she’d leave, and nobody would ever know she was even there.

  The heat shimmered off the road ahead. A van cruised past. For a moment she thought it was Phil. That would be all she needed, another reminder that she hadn’t been to visit Mrs Beadles. What would Mrs Beadles think of Zach?

  Zach. Zach. Zach. Zach.

  On the wind, like a siren song, came a line of music. Cars littered the street. This must be the place. Mary stopped to check her eyeliner in a side mirror. She clicked her phone out of sleep mode. Nothing from Mini D or Travis. What was she really expecting, a text that just said ‘DON’T DO IT’? It was too late now. She had committed. She couldn’t go back home.

  At the end of a long driveway, a massive two-storey house shook with noise, bodies spilling out of the front door. She was late and had probably missed most of the set. Mary grabbed three coolers from an esky in the hallway and shoved two in her bag, cracking the lid on the third. Over the din, she could hear Zach playing one of her favourite songs, ‘Short Black Skirt’. She took a large swig from the bottle and winced as the icy liquid stung her throat.

  The living room was packed and smelled of cheap aftershave and coconut oil. At the far end Bianca and Therese were up on a table. Therese was lean in a tight gold dress and leather cuffs. Bianca, wearing a silver Birthday Girl sash, was about to pop out of her purple top. As the boys roared, they linked their arms around each other’s neck and started grinding.

  But then Mary saw Zach, coathanger shoulders in a dark red T-shirt, and she forgot all else. The music filled her blood with sound. Mary held the cooler bottle to her chest and pushed her way through the crowd towards him.

  ‘What’s up, Sweet Meadow?’ Zach shouted.

  The audience roared. Mary tried to whistle but found it almost impossible while grinning. She held the bottle up to him and hollered along with the others.

  ‘This last song’s for my girl.’ Zach spun back from the microphone and struck the opening chords of ‘Heart Burn’.

  As the crowd started jumping up and down, Mary joined in. He was playing her song. Bianca was still dancing on the table. Therese was drinking from a champagne bottle, holding it with both hands. Maybe Zach had finally dumped her. Maybe she was drowning her sorrows. Mary felt a flare of pity.

  ‘Heart on fire, cathedral spire’ – Mary had helped with that bit; Zach had no idea what a spire was – ‘turn me round, take it higher.’ She sang along, believing it wasn’t possible to adore him more, but with every note she fell deeper into the abyss.

  Zach went on an extended guitar solo, throwing his hair back, his face tortured. The bass player’s legs were so far apart that only his skinny jeans prevented him doing the splits. The final chords thrashed the partygoers’ ears, and Zach staggered to the microphone with the air of someone who’d just swum the English Channel. Mary felt her whole body flame in response.

  ‘I wrote that just for you, baby. Come up here.’ He looked out onto his adoring public. He knew she was there. He must have seen her come in. Mary edged her way forward, shy on the edge of the rows of bodies. ‘Come on. Where are you?’ Zach had his hand out, searching for her. ‘I’m here!’ Mary was about to say, but she didn’t get a chance. There was a flash of gold, and then there was Therese, snaking her cuffed arms around him. The audience screamed. But it was wrong. They were all wrong – it wasn’t Therese’s song, it was Mary’s. Zach made a movement, and she thought he was pushing Therese aside, but all he was doing was slinging his guitar around. He pulled Therese to him and into a head-lolling kiss.

  The bottle slipped from Mary’s hand. It hit the ground hard enough for Zach to glance her way. As soon as he saw Mary, he froze.

  There was no welcome in his face, no happy surprise, just shock at seeing her, and she realised that the song wasn’t hers at all.

  Far, far worse, neither was Zach.

  From the bath Evie could hear the flowers in the dining room rustling, stretching. The sound whispered up the stairs like smoke, curling underneath the door, rising to flow into the tub where she lay.

  Her head throbbed in time with her heartbeat. Her hand grew hotter and hotter. She lifted it up to look, and as she did, the bandage bisecting her palm moved. Something white gleamed from the puncture mark. An ivory tip emerged, slowly opening, unfolding. It filled her hand, then dropped away. Another tip followed, and another and another.

  Heatwaves rose off Evie’s chest, floating through the bathroom to hit the ceiling, spreading out in seismic shocks. The ivory flowers bloomed and dropped, bloomed and dropped, piling up as pearly water around her.

  Evie stayed in the bathtub, slowly drowning, and her hand kept bleeding flowers.

  Mary lay among dust and debris. Bianca’s family, regardless of their wealth, did not clean under their beds. Five cooler and three beer bottles lay empty next to her, droplets gleaming on their mouths, dripping into the carpet that kept making her sneeze. Everything spun.

  She had panicked and bolted, needing to be alone, or at least as far away from Zach as possible. Every exit had been blocked; she had been forced upstairs and into the first room that wasn’t already occupied. A playlist featuring far too much Bieber rose through the floor.

  Mary pushed her knuckles into her eyeballs until the pain forced her to stop crying. She had to get out of the house somehow. It was only the second storey; if she jumped, she might just break one leg, and then at least she could hop home. Otherwise she’d have to stay hiding until everyone left. It could be days. They’d find her at Christmas, a sequined skeleton underneath the spare bed. There was no one she could call for help. Not even Phil. ‘Hi! I’m stuck in the spare room at a party. Can you come and get me?’ He’d have to give her the fireman’s lift like he gave her mum when she was stuck up the elm tree. Evie had clung to him like a drunk koala during their precarious descent, and she giggled all the way up the stairs as Mary helped her to bed. Phil had bid Mary goodnight from the bottom of the staircase with Nathan over his shoulder like a sack of wheat. Mary remembered feeling like they were the parents of a pair of adult-sized teenagers.

  The bedroom door swung open. Mary shrank back. The mob had come looking for her, ready to tear her to pieces and upload it to YouTube.

  ‘Oh my God? You, like, weigh a tonne?’

  There was a groan in reply, and then a thump as a body hit the mattress. The springs poked Mary’s skull. She stifled her yelp into her jacket sleeve.

  Bianca’s toes squeezed out of the end of her silver shoes, flesh toothpaste out of a tube. They clomped up and down in front of Mary, lumping the body on the bed into place.

  ‘I’ll find you a bucket? Okay?’

  The side lamp switched on. The door was closed again. There was silence. Mary looked around for a weapon.

  A slim arm slid into view, followed by a familiar curtain of silken hair. Mary grabbed one of the cooler bottles in defence. Then Therese gave an almighty snore and Mary realised she probably didn’t need it.

  After several prolonged minutes of Miss Rural Pastures’ snoring, Mary gathered her courage and wriggled out from under the bed, shooting out of reach, backing up against the desk, just in case it was a trap.

  There was no need: Therese was either a method actor or unconscious. Even slack-jawed and drooling, she
looked like a fairytale princess waiting to be awoken.

  Zach would come looking for her soon.

  Mary’s fingers twitched. She wanted to crush Therese’s princess bone structure into powder, feel cartilage crumpling under fist. She yanked one of the drawers open, though she hardly knew what she was looking for. Inside were permanent markers. She could write across Therese’s forehead or give her a twirly black moustache. But then Mary looked a little further and saw something better.

  Much, much better.

  The stairway was empty. People were moving outside. Mary guarded her bag and headed for the front door. She swung around a corner and stopped. Zach was in the corridor, his back to her, his posse glued around him. No one even acknowledged her. Mary may as well have been a carton of expired milk.

  The stereo had been switched to trip hop, the bass reverberating through the walls. She turned and joined the bodies heading out the back, but then got stuck in the bottleneck by the door. A bang from outside rattled the windows. Mary forced her way through the blockage of partygoers, elbowing people aside, being sworn at, not caring.

  Five boys were setting off fireworks in the walled garden. With every explosion, the shrieks got louder. She was stuck in a sea of ‘oh my God’s. Mary glanced up at the bedroom window. The lamp was still on.

  Zach’s voice rose above the noise, calling for Therese. Mary’s chest constricted. She wedged her way through the final few people and escaped into the dark down the side of the house, stumbling over the drain. Cracks thudded into the air like gunfire. The music pushed against the house from the inside.

  The side gate was shut. Mary’s frantic fingers scrabbled across the wood, finally locating the bolt. It slid back, but the gate didn’t move. Fireworks whined in her ear, detonations ripping the air in half. The neighbour’s dogs were going nuts, their barking turning husky and shrill.

  Mary turned and collided with someone. Another explosion lit the sky, framing a solid figure in a crumpled party dress.

  ‘Where’re you going?’ Ebony was slurring slightly.

  ‘Home.’ Mary looked over Ebony’s shoulder. More and more people were coming outside. She was trapped. Mary dropped her bag and shoved at the gate again, shaking it with both hands. She needed a torch, a foothold, a trampoline, something, anything. A Roman candle thunked into the air, iridescent missiles illuminating the landscape.

  ‘Secrets, secrets,’ said Ebony wonderingly. ‘Everyone’s got secrets.’

  Mary glanced behind her, and saw a bundle of hair in Ebony’s hands. She had opened Mary’s bag. The air puckered and crackled, smoke drifting into the sky.

  Ebony turned her great grey eyes onto Mary in wonder. ‘What did you do?’ said Ebony.

  Bianca’s scream pierced the upstairs window. The girls looked at each other.

  ‘Run.’ Ebony quickly stuffed the hair down the front of her dress.

  ‘I can’t. The fucking gate’s stuck.’

  Ebony took two steps and rammed the wood with her shoulder. There was a ripping sound from the party dress. The gate arced open, banging against the brickwork.

  Bianca screamed again. Shells thumped behind the house.

  ‘Run!’ Ebony threw Mary’s bag at her.

  Mary flew down the dark pathway, pyrotechnics in her head. There was no one out the front of the house. She slipped from the cover of the dark, running down the driveway, tripping and falling until she reached the street.

  She paused to look back at the party. The doors were wide open and empty, the building shadowed with explosions, fireworks thumping their fists into the night.

  Zach. Zach. Zach.

  Stifling a sob, Mary turned away for home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Evie negotiated the stairs like a sleepwalker. Mary’s bedroom was empty, her sequined skirt crumpled into the corner, the bedclothes half off the mattress. Her work shoes were missing, so at least Evie knew where she was. But this relationship with Zach Sturn could never be a good idea. Evie rubbed her face with her working hand. She had no idea what do to. Goddamned Gabe. He was like a bomb tossed into a crowd, leaving chaos wherever he went.

  The front door was half-open. Evie checked her decorations in the dining room before making sure the TV hadn’t been stolen. Nothing had been nicked. Sweet Meadow’s criminal force was either asleep or mired in ennui. Mary’s bag was still sitting on the kitchen bench. As soon as Evie walked past, the bag rang. Evie dug out the phone. Caller: Dad.

  ‘Hello, Gabe.’ Her tone was so frosty she could have used it on the cake.

  ‘Oh. Hello, Evie. How are –’

  ‘Wonderful. And you? Busy, apparently.’

  ‘Yeah.’ There was a chuckle.

  He chuckled. After everything he’d done, after leaving Mary in the lurch and triggering a fight that Evie did not know how to mend, he was amused. That son of a bitch. All of the blood rushed to Evie’s brain.

  ‘Listen to me very carefully. From now on, you are not going to make promises to my daughter that you can’t keep. I don’t care if you visit, in fact, I’d rather you didn’t, I’d rather you were covered in maple syrup and thrown into a pit of fire ants, but this isn’t about me. Mary was devastated last night. So here’s how you’re going to fix it. You are going to ring her tonight and apologise properly for standing her up. You are going to buy her the largest Christmas present you’ve ever bought anyone in your life. And if you even think about pulling a stunt like this ever again, I will find you and I will caramelise your face with a blowtorch. Okay?’

  Gabe took several stunned beats to reply. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Evie, ‘now go fuck yourself.’ She hung up.

  There was a tentative tap at the kitchen door. Evie swung around.

  ‘Er, yoo-hoo?’ said Joy Piece.

  ‘Are you sure I can’t help?’ Joy eyed Evie’s bandaged hand as she manoeuvred their coffee cups to the table.

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Evie, clenching her jaw. She managed to put the tray down on the table without dropping it, and snuck a quick glance at her palm. No flowers, no sprouting. Excellent.

  Joy took a sip of coffee. ‘You should sell your machine to Mr Weissmuller. He’d double his profits.’

  Evie gave a tight-lipped smile. ‘I’m sure.’

  Three starlings landed in the back garden and started fossicking through the mulch on Mary’s vegetable beds, scattering bark across the spotless paving, little bastards. The statue Evie stole stood silently watching them, her reading perpetually interrupted.

  There were no biscuits or sweet things to offer, unless Joy wanted a plate of gluten-free gum-paste bluebells. Evie indulged in a brief fantasy of sticking a pair of them up Joy’s nose.

  ‘A little bird told me you’re making the cake for Cameron’s surprise party,’ said Joy. ‘Have you met her? What a poppet, he seems absolutely thrilled, about time too, Nathan’s such a looker, it’s amazing no one’s snapped him up earlier.’

  Evie added lilies to the fantasy bluebells.

  Outside, the heat was building against the glass. The garden seemed to be bowing its head, except for the Billy Buttons which were standing tall like saffron lollipops.

  Felix’s radio filtered over the fence, some ancient announcer pontificating about whatever was bothering him that week – immigrants, hot cross buns, ingrown toenails.

  ‘We haven’t seen you at the committee for such a long time,’ said Joy. ‘Quentin’s been doing the minutes, so many errors, I’ve given up correcting him.’

  ‘I’ve had a lot on lately,’ said Evie. The chink of her spoon against her cup echoed in the room. She still couldn’t stir properly with her left hand.

  ‘Well, the carnival was a coup,’ said Joy. ‘Our fashion parade was quite the hit, if I may blow my own trumpet for just a moment. And talking about hits, that crockery stall, who would have guessed? Next time we need to raise funds, all we need to do is set up ten of those and watch everyone work their frustrations out, so many repress
ed emotions around here. Do you know, I had so many people talking about how the town reminded them of the places they grew up in, quite a nostalgia boom. A group of ladies were even excited about the cafe, if you can believe it.’

  Evie couldn’t.

  ‘I must admit it’s been food for thought.’ Joy’s pocket buzzed. She reached in and muted her phone, cutting off Taylor Swift mid-chirp. ‘When I first moved here, Sweet Meadow was the closest thing I’d ever seen to an actual village. I remember standing on Main Street and wondering whether it had electricity. Mind you, I’m not convinced about the bakery, she’d probably boil down a cow to make a candle if it wasn’t so labour intensive.’ Joy took another sip of coffee. ‘The town still needs modernising, don’t get me wrong, that chicken shop is an abomination, but I’ve been rethinking some of my development ideas. Perhaps you were right. We may need to keep some of our old-world charm.’

  ‘It’s fine with me if you want to bulldoze the optometrist,’ said Evie.

  ‘She’s awful, isn’t she?’ said Joy.

  For a moment the two women regarded each other.

  ‘Was that your ex-husband on the phone?’ Joy’s rings were so large she was having trouble fitting them through the handle of her cup.

  ‘Unfortunately.’

  ‘He sounds rather like my first, bit of a flashback moment there. He’s in the Seychelles at the moment with his new wife. She’s twenty-two.’ Joy studied the tabletop briefly. ‘When I saw a picture of her, at first I thought it was Therese. Rather worrying.’ Her fuchsia lips briefly compressed. ‘Not that I’d mistake them now, of course, after what’s happened.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Ebony apparently had a bit of an episode, if you can call it that, at the party last night. Chopped all of Therese’s hair off.’

  Evie put her spoon down. ‘Ebony?’

  ‘Yes, rather a surprise there. I guess I haven’t been looking after her as well as I should have. Therese does tend to command one’s attention.’ Joy gave up trying to use the handle of her cup and held the body instead. ‘Especially now she’s been shorn like a sheep. We’ve got the Miss Regional Girl competition in a few weeks, Lord knows what we’re going to do with her, I’ll have to find a wig.’