I smiled. “That’s cool.”
Lily tapped ash onto the footpath and started humming the fruit salad jingle. I walked in silence, watching my feet pass in front of each other. Finally, I stopped and my stomach dived.
“Am I going to be the best of the best?” I blurted.
Andrew handed me back my hairclip. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah.” He started to walk again and I had to skip to keep up. Around us, the city glittered. Made anything seem possible.
FOURTEEN
My debutante ball is one of those memories that refuses to be repressed.
I hovered outside Justin’s front door, playing with the buttons on my school dress. I must have stood on that doorstep a thousand times as a child, yet there I was sweating like a criminal and rehearsing my conversation.
I longed to be a kid again. A pig-tailed girl in pink shorts and bare feet. I’d just throw open Justin’s front door and skip into the kitchen like it was my second home. Inhale the musky smell of Michelle’s incense and help myself to a Sunny Boy from the freezer. The most pressing issue between Justin and I would be whose turn it was to be captain on our next Antarctic voyage.
I stood staring at the glass for a while, then sucked in my breath and knocked gingerly. Michelle swung open the door.
“Abby! How are you, darling? It’s so nice to see you.”
I smiled crookedly. “Is Justin here?”
“He’s upstairs.” Michelle put a hand on my shoulder and ushered me down the passage.
I chewed my lip. “Is he by himself?”
She flicked on the kettle. “I think so, darling. I didn’t see anyone else come in.”
I climbed the stairs slowly and tapped on Justin’s open door. He swung around in his desk chair.
“Abby. Hey.”
I mumbled some kind of greeting.
“What’s up?” he asked. “Is everything alright?”
I forced a smile. “Everything’s fine. How are you?”
“Me? I’m fine. How’s all your violin and music and stuff?”
I glanced around his room. The walls had been painted pale grey and his blu-tacked posters had been replaced with a framed surf photo. A glass cabinet stood against one wall, filled with a stereo and rows of CDs.
“Fine,” I mumbled.
“What’s up?” Justin said again. I glanced at the textbooks scattered across his desk.
“Well,” I spluttered. “I was just wondering if you wanted to go to the ball with me. Seeing as we always used to talk about going together.”
He stuck his pen between his teeth. “I’m really sorry, Abby. I’m already going with Mia.”
My mouth opened and closed and nothing came out. “Who?”
Justin took his pen out of his mouth. “Mia,” he said quietly. “You know, in year twelve.”
“Oh.” Tall, blonde, legs to her armpits Mia. Excellent.
“I’m sorry,” Justin said. “I didn’t think you’d want to go with me any more. We haven’t talked or anything in ages.” We had barely spoken in over a year. He glanced at me apologetically.
“That’s cool.” I forced a steadiness into my voice.
“I’m really sorry.” He reached for my arm, but I pulled away with more force than I intended.
“Don’t worry about it.” I forced a broad smile. “I’ll see you later.”
Rachel chased me out of the school gates. “So did you ask him? Where have you been? I was looking for you everywhere at lunch.”
I kicked a stone and watched it bounce over the footpath.
Rachel skipped along beside me. She reeked of vanilla body spray. “Well?”
“Well, I decided I’m not really interested in this whole ball thing after all.”
Her eyes widened. “You asked him, didn’t you? And he said no?” She grabbed my arm and shook frantically. “Oh my God! I can’t believe he said no!”
I pulled my arm free and swung my backpack onto my other shoulder, forcing her away from me.
“Forget about it,” I said irritably. “I said I’m not interested. Not because of Justin… I’m just not.”
“How come he won’t go with you?” Rachel pushed. “That’s so mean!”
I marched across the road. “If you must know, he’s already going with Mia. But I don’t care, okay, so stop making such a big deal out of it.”
Rachel wound a strand of hair around her finger. “So all that stuff about him and Mia is true! Katie told me about it when we were doing our science prac but I thought she was just bullshitting.”
“There’s no stuff,” I snapped. “They’re just dancing together, that’s all.”
“Well, yeah… But everyone says they’re going to hook up.” Rachel’s voice began to rise excitedly. “Katie said that Mia said they’re even going to do it after the ball.”
I felt a sharp pain at the back of my throat. Rachel kept spewing out gossip.
“She’s real pretty, don’t you think? Blondie- I guess that’s Justin’s type now, huh?”
I pictured Mia flouncing around the ballroom with Justin, doing all the things I had missed my chance to do. Hatred bubbled inside me. Who the hell did Mia think she was? Justin was supposed to be my date, just like he had been my Shipwreck buddy, my underwater wrestling partner. My best friend. I blinked back tears.
“I’ve got an idea,” Rachel said brightly. “Why don’t you ask Simon?”
“Justin’s best mate? That’s just weird.”
“Seems like the perfect revenge to me.”
“I don’t want to go with Simon. And I don’t want revenge.”
“Of course you do. Ask Simon. He’ll go with you for sure.”
I got home from school the next day to find Nick sprawled on the back veranda swigging from a beer can. His shirt hung open over a hollow chest and his shorts were covered in dust. I wished he would go inside so no one from the park could see him.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I demanded.
He shrugged. “I gave myself the afternoon off.”
I dropped my school bag. “That’s a great way to save money.”
“Just don’t, Abby,” he said darkly. “I don’t need this right now.”
“What happened?”
He lay back on the porch. “Nothing. My mates are all moving to Cairns, that’s all.” He rubbed his eyes and the muscles in his arm flexed.
“Why don’t you go with them? I’m sure you could find a new job there.”
“I can’t. I have to stay on the farm. I got my reasons.”
“You hate the farm.”
He shrugged. “It’s money, I guess.”
He stayed dozing on the veranda until the sun disappeared. I joined him again later, handing him a plate of sausages and a carton of juice.
“Here,” I said. “Sarah made this for you.”
I sat beside him. He smelled like animals. Nick tipped the plate upside down so the food slid off into the dirt. A bull-ant crawled towards it.
“Not hungry,” he said. “But thanks anyway.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Nick eat. His face was thin and pale, his blue eyes like murky saucers. He took a long swig from the juice carton.
“You can come inside you know,” I said. “She’s not home. They’ve gone to some school thing with Tim.”
Nick let out a long yawn and rubbed his eyes. “I like it out here.”
We sat in silence and listened to the crickets shrieking in the bushes. Nick slid a cigarette out of his pocket and flicked his lighter. I chewed my thumbnail and listened to the washing machine clunking in the laundry behind us. I let out a dramatic sigh.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“The stupid ball. Me and Justin decided years ago we were going to do it together, but now he’s going with some skank in year twelve.”
Nick curled his feet over the edge of the porch step. His big toe poked out of a hole in his sock. “Thought you don’t talk to Justin any more.”
I didn’
t answer. Nick passed me his cigarette. I puffed into the yellow beam of the porch light. I didn’t like the stale taste in my mouth, but it was relaxing to breathe out a steady line of smoke.
“Do you want me to go and take care of them both?” asked Nick.
“Are you serious?”
“Do you want me to be serious?” He laughed to himself and pushed his blonde hair into a scrawny ponytail. Took back his cigarette and yawned again. “You’ll get a partner. You’re a good catch.”
I wasn’t worried about getting a partner. Simon had followed me home from school that day and made coughing noises until I turned around and demanded to know what the hell he was doing.
“I was just, like, wondering if you, like, wanted to go to the ball with me and stuff…”
“I’m so over the whole thing,” I told my brother. “I’m so over everything here.”
Nick nodded.
“I can’t wait to get out,” I continued, suddenly spirited. “You know this guy that I saw play violin in Brisbane, well before he came to Australia, he’d been to play in Europe and Japan. Isn’t that exciting? That’s going to be me you know.”
When I looked back at Nick, his eyes had dropped closed. I lifted his cigarette out of his hands and ground it into the deck.
I went to Cairns with Rachel and her mum on a painful five hour shopping spree for ball dresses. Rachel tried hers on again when we got home. I sat cross-legged on her bed, staring at the sprinkling of rain across the window. Rachel flounced in wide circles so her skirt swelled around her like an omelette.
“Are you going to get drunk at the after party?” she asked.
I poked my finger through a hole in the knee of my jeans. “I don’t know. Can’t anyone think about anything other than this stupid ball?”
“Sorry,” snapped Rachel. “But I’m kind of looking forward to it.” She spun around again, gazing at her billowing white reflection. She lifted her hair off her shoulders and held it on top of her head. “Do you think I should wear my hair up or down?”
I sighed boredly. Rachel dropped her fistful of hair and turned to face me.
“Come on Abby, would it kill you to be a tiny bit excited about something other than that violin guy?”
“I’m not excited by the violin guy,” I snapped. “I’m excited by the violin.”
Rachel snorted. “Whatever.” She sat beside me on the bed. “We only get to do this once, so you might as well enjoy it. So you’re not going with Justin, big deal. It’s not like you don’t have a partner. Go put your dress on, I want to see it. I might have some jewellery you can borrow.”
“I don’t care about your jewellery. I don’t care about this whole stupid thing.”
Rachel planted her hands on her hips. “What’s your problem? If you’re going to just sit there and feel sorry for yourself all day you can do it at your place.”
I snatched my dress off the back of her bedroom door. “Fine. I’ve had enough of listening to you crap on anyway.”
I moped down the footpath. Rain drizzled over the beach, dampening the hem of my dress that poked out the bottom of the bag. I tried desperately to push away any thoughts of the ball, mentally ploughing through my new Beethoven. At the end of each line were Justin and Mia, dancing together, laughing together, breaking the promise he and I had made to each other.
A horn cut through my thoughts. Hayley’s car rolled up to the side of the road. She leant across the passenger seat and opened the door.
“Want a lift?”
“Thanks.” I climbed into the car, trickles of warm water sliding down my neck.
“What’s in the bag?” asked Hayley. I tossed it into the back seat beside Oliver.
“My ball dress,” I mumbled.
“Oh yeah, the good old Acacia Beach deb balls. We’ve all been there- though we probably shouldn’t have.” She sighed wistfully and I wondered what she was thinking. Half of me didn’t dare imagine what Hayley had gotten up to on her deb night. “Are you excited?” she asked.
I looked sulkily out the window. “No. I’m so over it. Everyone’s obsessed with the stupid thing.”
She flashed me a sympathetic smile. “It’s like that, isn’t it. I don’t want to go, but Andrew’s supposed to be there for some piano thing.”
I pushed my wet hair off my face. “You don’t want to go? That’s unlike you.”
We pulled up at the traffic lights and rain drummed against the roof. Hayley glanced in the rearview mirror. “Oliver, get out of that bag. Abby doesn’t want your dirty fingers all over her dress.”
I rested my elbow against the window and watched a swell of water wash over the windscreen. Hayley rubbed her eyes.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. Sure. Fine.”
“Ollie being a pain?” I guessed, though he had given up pawing my dress and was peacefully making handprints on the steamy window.
“Oh no,” said Hayley. She flicked the wipers onto high. “No, no. He’s an angel. Aren’t you, baby?” Suddenly, her voice was bright again. “So are you going with Justin?”
“I’m going with Simon,” I said finally.
“Oh.”
I was glad Hayley didn’t ask for an explanation.
“This Simon guy…” Her eyes began to light up. “Is he the one?”
I wished she would watch the road. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Hayley sighed teasingly. “Come on, sweetie, you can tell me. I lost my virginity after my deb ball at the rock pool with a guy named Tasso. Isn’t that a funny name? I think he was Greek or something. Maybe Spanish. I don’t know. Anyway, he was very well endowed. Made my eyes water.”
I knew late night swims would never be the same again. I flung open the car door before it had stopped moving.
“Thanks for the lift,” I mumbled, stepping out into the rain.
“You’re welcome, sweetie. Don’t forget your dress.”
I wished I had been more selective about my boring A-line, first-thing-that-fitted dress when Justin’s glamorous Mia swanned onto the dance floor in a strapless silk gown and pearl tiara.
“I think she looks way too glitzy,” Rachel offered as we waited at the back of the hall to be presented. The festy redhead smacked out a few chords on the piano. “You look much nicer. Plain and simple.” She squinted. “Besides, you couldn’t wear a dress like that. You don’t have the tits to hold it up.”
I could see Justin’s parents sitting on a table with Simon’s family. When they had been asked to fill out a seating preference form, my mum had written prefer to sit with strangers and they had ended up on a table with a guy from the prawn fishing fleet whose son was in year twelve.
Sarah was watching with a forced smile, eyes directed straight ahead to avoid exchanging glances with the people she knew. Dad was beaming and holding his camera at the ready under a big sign reading no flash photography, while Tim picked wax off a candle in the centre of the table. Sarah had yelled at Nick for not coming, despite his promise to grace the post-ball piss-up.
“I expected more from you,” she said. “This is a big deal for your sister.”
I replied that it wasn’t and Sarah had proceeded to yell at both of us. I decided nothing good could come of a day that had begun by poking myself in the eye with a mascara brush.
After the presentations, I plonked myself at Andrew’s table. Hayley had drunk too much champagne and was reciting the voice-over from Thriller.
“Shh Hayles, that’ll do,” Andrew kept saying. “So who pissed you off, Abs?” he asked. “You’ve got a face like a busted arse.”
I glanced across the room at Mia.
Hayley dived across Andrew’s lap and grabbed my elbow. “That Simon guy is hot like a fox!” she said. “You should go for it!”
On the other side of the dance floor, Simon was hamming it up to a group of giggling year ten girls with a spinning rendition of the YMCA. I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Hey,” said Just
in. He was buttoned into his tuxedo jacket and waistcoat, a dark blue cravat at his neck.
My voice came out brassy. “Hi.”
He flashed me a smile so casual that I felt for a second we could be at the rock pool in our bathers. “So I think I owe you a dance,” he said. “If you still want one.”
I hesitated. I ached to turn him down, to watch him walk alone back across the hall. He offered me his hand. “Okay,” I squeaked, placing my palm inside his. He squeezed my fingers and led me onto the dance floor. The band launched into a cringe-worthy Love Shack. Justin pulled me closer to speak in my ear.
“You look beautiful.” He caught my eye and I felt myself blushing.
“So does Mia,” I mumbled. Justin looked taken aback for a second. He glanced down.
“Are you having a good night?” I asked hurriedly.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m having a good night. What about you?” He paused. “How’s Simon?”
“Simon’s great,” I yelled over the music. “Really great… And he’s hot like a fox…”
Justin hesitated. “Good.” He swung my hands in his. “Listen Abby, I’m really sorry. I didn’t forget about that promise we made. I just didn’t think that you… Anyway, I’m glad you’re having fun.”
“Of course I’m having fun,” I snapped, instantly regretting my sharpness. Justin dropped my hands and our eyes met for a second.
“Are you going to the after party?” he asked.
“Are you?”
“Of course.”
“Me too.”
He smiled. “Great. I’ll see you there.”
FIFTEEN
Simon walked me to the after party, stopping for an ever-so-classy pash once outside the milk bar and once in the car park behind the pub. I strutted inside with his arm over my shoulder and my hand in the back pocket of his jeans. I ushered him onto the dance floor and we made out through two entire songs.
Music From Standing Waves Page 8