He was right, of course. And it’s not just looks, either. When she was at school, Terri was one of those students that private schools dream of: she was a straight-A girl, a member of the varsity tennis team and junior varsity field hockey, a good enough piano player to be picked for every music competition, an elected student council rep in Year 12. In fact, she was—is—the kind of person with so many talents and gifts that you’d expect a little selfishness, a little arrogance, in her, as a matter of course.
But that’s the thing about Terri that I find most difficult of all, even though I know I shouldn’t. Because she just doesn’t have a speck of meanness in her. She’s warm, and friendly, and generous; and she always sees the best side in other people, never doubts there’s something good there. She’s just all-around . . . nice. You can’t help liking her; you just can’t. Even I can’t.
Which is usually the last thing I want to be reminded of when I come back from my run, trying desperately to hang on to that wonderful, fleeting feeling of well-being . . .
Once I’m in the house I walk quickly through the kitchen, not saying hello to Dad or Terri. I ignore my reflection in the mirror opposite the kitchen countertop as I walk through to the hallway. The last thing I want to see after feeling so good back there on the street is my face, pudgy and red, and the way the tops of my arms are so round and . . . flabby.
Because that’s when the questioning, the noise, starts up again in my mind: meditation time well and truly over. Tell me, tell me: why is it that no matter how fit I get, my body doesn’t seem to look any more toned? At twenty, thirty miles a week I’d be almost as fit as the girls on the athletics team by now, surely. Yet I look—and feel—as wobbly as I always have.
And I’m hungrier than ever, too. I don’t know what’s wrong with me: all this exercise hasn’t killed my appetite at all. I eat my bowl of muesli in the morning (a third of a cup of muesli, and enough milk to moisten it, but no more; and if no one else is in the kitchen, I thin down the milk with a little bit of water, to make it less fattening). But by ten o’clock in the morning, I’m starving. Sometimes the last lesson before lunch goes so slowly that I’m actually shaking with hunger by the time the bell goes . . .
And I feel so guilty for being so hungry. Whatever happened to discipline? To will? Don’t I have any self-control at all?
I tell myself, over and over, that I just need to exercise more. Or to eat less, so that my stomach has the chance to shrink.
Or maybe, maybe, I just need to be less greedy . . .
chapter twelve
Secrets
Something strange happened this month. My period didn’t come. I waited and waited, thinking it might be late. Now June has come and gone, and there hasn’t been a sign of blood—not even a trickle.
Of course, they’ve been drumming it into us at school since Year 7 that when a girl’s period stops it’s one of the first symptoms of anorexia. Every year, they hand out these pamphlets in health education, which say that losing your period is a sign that you’ve lost too much body fat, that your body is starving. Apparently, all the calcium in your bones gets leached out; it’s to do with hormones, like estrogen or something. According to the pamphlets, it can even cause osteoporosis later.
One in every hundred girls, Mrs. James, the health ed teacher, always says to us warningly. It could be your friend next. Or YOU.
Well, there’s a girl in our class who had to go to the hospital last year because she was anorexic. Jessica Fuller, her name is. I remember watching her as the year went by: she came back from the Christmas holidays looking heaps slimmer than before, and then, incredibly, she just went on losing weight. By the middle of the year, she was so skinny you could see all the vertebrae in her spine poking out, right up to the top of her neck. Her shoulder blades stuck out through her sweater like the sharp edges of an ax, and her cheekbones were steep ridges in her face. She weighed seventy-five pounds, or something amazing like that.
And she’s not the only one. There are other girls at school whose skirts hang off their hips. I mean, let’s face it, it’s hardly a rare disease.
So . . . so much for our wonderful health education classes. So much for all that great information they gave us about periods. None of that stopped Jessica and Co., did it?
I got my period when I was twelve. It took me completely by surprise—Nat hadn’t had hers yet, and Terri, who’s a year older than me, had only just started herself. And the truth is, I was too embarrassed to tell Mum. I didn’t know what to say to her; I felt my body had let me down, betrayed me. In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone. I went to the supermarket and bought some pads with my pocket money and kept quiet. I tried to pretend it had never happened. Every month, I pretended it hadn’t happened.
Then one day, when I was fifteen, Mum came into my room while I was packing my bag for a school camp. And there it was: a box of tampons sitting on the carpet beside my bag. I’ll never forget the look that crossed her face: astonishment first, and then, bewilderingly, hurt.
“How’ve you been paying for them?” she asked at last.
I told her.
“You didn’t have to do that, Lise! You know I pay for Terri’s. They just go on the shopping list whenever she needs them.”
I didn’t say anything. I felt ashamed all over again—as if I’d let her down, both by having a body that did stuff when she wasn’t ready for it to and, even more, for not having told her. For not having shared it with her.
“You should’ve let me know,” she said, finally, getting up to leave my bedroom, the angry, hurt expression still plastered across her lipsticked face. “Did you think I’d never ask? Didn’t you think I might be worried about you?”
And, of course, I hadn’t thought of that. The idea never even entered my head. Which was yet another reason to feel ashamed of myself.
Anyway, I know it’s not anorexia that’s made me miss my period this month. It can’t be; for one thing, I’m not thin enough. Besides, I read somewhere recently that there are other reasons your period can stop suddenly—like playing a lot of sports, or being under stress. What with all the running I’m doing, plus all the studying we have to do this year and the exams and stuff, I figure there are plenty of other good reasons I seem to have missed my period.
In any case, I’m far too greedy to get anorexia. Have you ever heard of an anorexic who craves food all the time? Who thinks about it day and night? Who never stops feeling hungry? I don’t think so.
Because I’ll never forget what Jessica used to say last year if you offered her food. Even when she was really thin—even just before she went into the hospital—she’d look at you with this strange, trapped expression in her eyes. As if you were hassling her, somehow. And she’d say loudly ( just as she still does now, in fact, if you offer her something like a piece of cake or a cookie), “No, thank you. I’m not hungry at the moment.”
I honestly can’t imagine myself ever being like that. I like eating too much. I just do.
On the last day of the semester, before the midyear holidays, Mr. Garvolli hands back our end-of-semester chemistry tests. He gives them out in sadistic order, from best paper to worst. I wait as he hands them back. Counting: one, two, three . . .
There are twenty-eight people in our class, and my test comes in tenth. I used to be in the top five of the class. Always.
And at this moment—at this moment, in front of all these people—I am the closest I’ve been in years to crying. I take a deep breath. I stare at my desk, open my eyes wide, don’t let myself blink. My cheeks get hot; I can feel an ugly pink flush crawling up my neck, over my cheeks.
Don’t blink, don’t blink, don’t blink . . .
It’s not as if I don’t know why I did so badly this time: the Fear came back again during the test. It took me twenty minutes to calm myself down, to be able to hold my pen firmly enough, without shaking, to write. I had half an hour left to do the test. Half an hour: that’s not enough for anyone to d
o well in a test. No matter how hard they studied for it.
For several minutes, I struggle with myself. (Don’t cry. Don’t CRY.) But I win. By the time the bell rings, my eyes are dry, my cheeks normal. All under control. I even manage to smile at Sofia when she bumps into me in the locker room on her way to the cafeteria.
“Hey, Liso,” she says, pushing her ponytail back over her shoulder. “What’s up?”
“Nearly holidays,” I say lightly. “Let’s celebrate. What’s for lunch? Chocolate doughnuts?” (As if. I can’t remember the last time I had a chocolate doughnut.)
You see? Nowhere near tears.
Which means I’m okay for the moment; for a little while longer, at least, I’m safe. And if I can just keep following the rules—Don’t cry. Stick to your diet. Get fit. Study hard. Don’t let on who you really are—everything will be all right.
Because, I tell myself, the thing about these rules is . . . they are the things that will make other people like me. They are the things that will make me proud of myself.
They are the things that will keep me in control . . .
PART III
Nat
chapter thirteen
Alfresco’s
“So what are you going to wear to the Formal?” Sofia asks me one day early in the new semester.
We’re sitting in Alfresco’s—Sofe, Lise, and I—enjoying the weekly Year 12 lesson-free afternoon (which is supposed to be for study purposes, but—come on. I don’t think so). It’s a cold, sunny afternoon, and the café is dark and deserted, the smell of hot, sweet milk mingling with stale cigarette smoke.
I don’t answer Sofia’s question straightaway. After a moment, I say casually—like the Year 11 and 12 Formal isn’t a topic I’ve been absolutely dreading ever since term began—“I’m not going this year.”
“Hey, nor am I,” Lise chimes in, shooting a surprised, happy smile at me across the table.
Sofe ignores her. “What about Josh?” she says to me.
I shrug my shoulders.
“Nat. He’s your boyfriend.
“Yes, I know, but—”
Sofe gives me a shrewd look. “He doesn’t want to go.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just—”
In fact, there are two reasons I don’t want to go to the Formal.
The first is that after last year, I swore I’d never go to a Formal again. Last year was a disaster.
For starters, Sofia’s boyfriend of the moment, Sebastian, got drunk and spewed up all over her dress just as they were getting out of the car to go in. She dumped him right there at the entrance to the hall and caught a taxi home by herself before she’d even gone inside. (“Mate, if I’d had another dress, believe me—I’d’ve put it on and caught another taxi right back again . . .”)
Then there was my partner. Simon was one of Sebastian’s mates, whom Sofia had had the bright idea of setting me up with two weeks before the Formal.
“You can’t go by yourself,” she said to me.
“Why not?” I argued. “Lise is.”
“Yeah, but that’s Lise,” said Sofia dismissively. “Now let’s go and find you a dress.”
Simon was five foot three and stank of nervous sweat; and all he wanted to talk about was how he’d taken E once, and how cool it was. Also, he couldn’t keep his hands off me. Even now, if I close my eyes, I can still feel the way his hands snaked up my ribs toward my breasts as we danced.
Finally, breathless and desperate to get free of him, I shouted over the music, “Let’s sit down for a minute, okay?” He took me over to a bench in the darkest corner of the hall, plunked himself down next to me, and kissed me. His lips were all wet and rubbery, and his knee inched its way between my legs as he poked his tongue around my mouth. I thought I was going to choke—or drown—in all that anxious, eager saliva forcing its way down my throat.
As for Lise, all I can remember is her standing miserably against the wall in a sweet old-fashioned but totally wrong flowery cotton dress, clutching a plastic cup of lemonade. She couldn’t, or wouldn’t, dance. When Simon disappeared to the toilet for a brief, blissful moment, I dragged her out onto the dance floor, and she moved stiffly around for a few seconds before creeping off again at the end of the song. Then, at 10 p.m., she left the hall abruptly to call her dad to come and pick her up. I didn’t see her again that evening.
So that’s one reason I don’t want to go to the Formal. The other is—Josh. I mean, he’s nineteen. Do I really want to remind him how much younger (and stupider) I am than him? Besides, I just can’t see him there. It’s so private-schoolish. All those evening dresses, and Year 12 guys in tuxedos and bow ties, and schoolteachers handing out glasses of Coke and orange juice. It’s the kind of thing Josh would have a field day with.
He hates private schools, Josh. He says they’re full of rich kids, the children of elitists—and he can’t stand elitists. Besides, he says, they push the belief that studying and being brainy are the only ways to succeed in life. “My dad belongs to Mensa. He’s still totally full of himself. Look what he did to my mother.”
I have a hard enough time myself trying to figure out what makes him attracted to me in the first place. I don’t want him to start asking that question. No way is Sofe going to talk me into going to the Formal this year.
“Lise isn’t going, either,” I remind Sofia now. “You’re not making a fuss about that.”
“Yeah, well,” she says, looking mildly bored. “Lise never goes to anything.”
There’s a sudden, short silence. I think: Oh, no. I wish Sofe wouldn’t get started on Lise.
“Well, she doesn’t, does she?” Sofia says. She turns to Lise. “You wanna go out with me and Nat next weekend, Lise?”
Lise stares impenetrably down at her coffee—a long black—and stirs the teaspoon round and round in her cup. Eventually, she says quietly, without looking up, “I’ve got to study next weekend.”
Sofia rolls her eyes. “See?” she says to me. “Tell me the last time she went to a party with us, or thought about going to a nightclub, or slept over, or—”
“I came out with you today,” says Lise, almost inaudibly.
“To coffee,” says Sofia disgustedly.
“And I slept over with you both at Nat’s for New Year’s.”
“That was six months ago!”
Lise traces tiny, endless patterns in her coffee cup. She’s sitting with her legs crossed under the table, and her top foot swings agitatedly back and forth, nudging the plastic leg of the spare chair opposite her.
“I can’t afford to go out anyway,” she says, her voice still barely louder than a whisper. “I don’t get much pocket money.”
“Then get a job, like the rest of us!”
“But I have to study . . .”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Lise,” says Sofia wearily. “Just—get a life.”
We all shut up after this. Lise looks down, avoiding our eyes, her foot worrying away at the chair leg. Sofia sighs heavily, scrapes her chair back, stands up.
“I’m getting a gelato,” she says roughly. “Anyone else want one?”
I shake my head out of loyalty to Lise, whose face, as Sofia stalks off to the counter, is tense and sucked in over her empty cup.
“Lise?” I ask carefully. “You okay?”
She takes a quick breath, doesn’t look up at me. “Yeah.”
“Sure?”
“I’m fine.”
I try to feel my way forward. “I’m sure she didn’t—Sofe can be a bit—” I pause, trying to think how to put it, how to stay loyal to both of them. “You do know she didn’t really mean it—”
Her hair swings across her face, corkscrew curls covering her eyes. “I said, I’m fine.”
I glance over at Sofe, standing at the counter by the coffee machine, talking away cheerfully to the waiter, acting like nothing ever happened, like she’s forgotten the argument already. (To be fair, she probably has. Sofia never holds a grudge.) Then I look bac
k at Lise. Her teeth are clamped down on her lip; her hand clenches her coffee cup. She looks anything but fine.
Sofe forgetting, Lise stewing. This is how it always is after one of their arguments. With me sitting in the middle of them—thinking, glaring, wishing.
I hate it when they argue. I’m just not into conflict resolution (sorry, Mum): I just don’t want to get involved. I mean, whose side would I take? So instead I always sit there and worry about what would happen if they really got started. I’m scared of what Sofia would say to Lise, and I’m scared of the look I’d see on Lise’s face—that look of silent, intractable hurt. I’m scared they’d end up never speaking to each other again.
The thing is, where would that leave me? They’re both my friends. I want it to stay that way; I want us all to be friends.
chapter fourteen
Saturday night
These days, I don’t call my parents on Saturday nights after work to say I’ll be late home. I don’t have to. They already know: Saturday night is Josh night.
Most Saturdays, we make our way down to the beach after work. Josh loves the beach—the water, the sand, the air, the sky: the wildness of it. (“Despite the litter,” he always says grimly.) We walk along the sea’s edge, where the sand is compact and firm, and he holds my hand, gazing out to the horizon. In the cold late-afternoon air, his cheeks get all red and—kissable.
When we reach his house, Josh cooks dinner for me. (“Don’t you get sick of cooking?” I asked him once. He shook his head: “Never.”) Some evenings he switches on the back-porch light while he cooks, so that while we’re having dinner at his round pine table we can look through the glass sliding doors to the tiny lit-up backyard.
Leaving Jetty Road Page 7