by Nina Kenwood
‘You didn’t tell us you played spin the bottle!’ Lucy shouts at me, her voice high-pitched in outrage and excitement.
‘I didn’t play. Not really.’
Alex is watching me. His face is unreadable.
‘Do you and your friends usually play spin the bottle?’ Zach says to Alex.
‘No. It was Natalie’s idea,’ Alex says. He smiles at me. He’s enjoying this. I am not.
‘You made a party full of uni students you didn’t know play spin the bottle?’ Zach turns to me. His eyes are huge. He looks half impressed, half scared, like an alien might have taken over my body and will come bursting out of my skin at any moment.
‘Hang on. That is not how it happened,’ I say.
‘How did it happen?’ Lucy asks.
‘Well, everyone was playing a drinking game—’
‘You played a drinking game!’ Zach is being very dramatic today.
‘Calm down, Dad, and let her finish,’ Alex says.
‘Everyone else was playing the Never Have I Ever drinking game and I said I had never played spin the bottle and that’s how the game started,’ I say.
‘Why did you leave this out of your story?’ Zach says.
‘Who did you kiss?’ Lucy asks, almost breathless.
Now there is silence. Everyone looks at me.
‘No one,’ I say. My face feels very hot.
‘Who did you see kiss?’ Lucy asks.
‘It wasn’t like that. They went around the side of the house to kiss or whatever.’
‘Or whatever?’ Zach says, raising his eyebrows.
‘I don’t think anything actually happened.’
‘How do you know?’ Zach says.
‘Well, I don’t know. But they only had one minute.’
‘A lot of things can happen in a minute,’ Lucy says, in a serious tone, which makes Zach blush and Alex laugh.
‘Shut up and don’t say a word,’ Zach says to Alex.
Alex rolls his eyes, lifts his feet off the chair and wanders back inside.
‘Was he an arsehole to you last night?’ Zach asks me.
‘No.’
‘Did he look after you? I told him to look after you.’
‘You told him to look after me?’ My stomach drops.
‘Yes, of course I did,’ Zach says.
Suddenly everything makes sense. Everything that Alex said and did was out of obligation. Of course it was.
I feel a jolt of rage towards Lucy and Zach. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘We were worried about you there on your own,’ Lucy said.
‘I’m not that socially incapable.’ I am, but they shouldn’t think that.
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘Well, you don’t need to organise secret chaperones for me at parties.’
‘That’s not what we did,’ Zach says.
‘It seems like it.’
I get to my feet, and the two of them stare at me like I’m acting crazy. Which, yes, I am. But all my jittery energy finally has a focus. How dare they tell Alex to look after me? I feel stupid. Alex just sees me as his little brother’s clueless friend. None of what happened means anything anymore.
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Natalie, don’t go. I’m sorry,’ says Lucy. Nothing stresses her out more than someone being angry at her, especially me (and her mother).
But I flounce out in a huff, riding high on the knowledge I am in the right, and they are wrong, and the world is unfair and awful and out to get me, and I can blame it all on two people. Well, four, actually, because my parents have a lot to answer for too.
7
Ten Minutes of Fun
I hesitate on the front porch when I realise it has started to pour with rain and I don’t have an umbrella and the nearest tram stop is a seven-minute walk. I have to leave though. You cannot return after a dramatic storm out. I hover in the doorway, considering what to do.
Alex walks past me, shoving his feet into thongs.
‘I’ll give you a lift,’ he says.
‘A lift where?’
‘Wherever you’re going.’
‘I could live on the other side of the city for all you know.’
‘I know it’s not far. You’re here way too often for it to be miles away.’
I frown at him and cross my arms. ‘I’m not here that much.’
‘The offer disappears in ten seconds.’
He runs out into the rain, shouting over his shoulder. ‘Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three—’
‘Okay, I’m coming!’ I yell, as I run out into the rain behind him.
I open the passenger door, throw myself into the car and tell him my address. He pulls out into the street and we fall into silence. Normally I’m good with silence, but this feels like very pointed ‘we are two people with nothing to say to each other’ silence, which is the most stressful silence after ‘I am mad at you’ silence.
After a few blocks, I lean forward and try to turn on the radio, and Alex looks at me.
‘It’s broken.’
I clutch my hands together in my lap as if I am in prayer. I kind of am in prayer, if prayer involves chanting please, please, please, please, please, please, please think of something to say in your mind while a trickle of sweat rolls into your bra.
‘You’re going to have to start directing me soon,’ Alex says.
‘Keep going straight. I’ll tell you when to turn.’
I wish I could pull out my phone and pretend to text someone right now, but that would be unbearably rude. I need something for my hands to do. I slip them under my thighs. Think back to that top ten tips article, Natalie. Ask him engaging questions about himself.
‘So where do you work?’ I ask. (I know where he works, but he doesn’t know I know this.)
‘Hide Out. It’s a sort of fancy pub.’
‘Do you love it?’ I picture him in a kind of movie montage, showing off by flipping bottles and catching them, chopping carrots really fast, chatting and joking with the wait staff, looking at a perfectly arranged plate of food with deep satisfaction. (I know nothing about pubs or cooking.)
‘No. I kind of hate it, actually.’
‘Oh. Why?’
‘My boss is the worst, the hours are long, there’s lots of yelling, and my feet hurt.’ He turns and smiles at me as he says all this, but the smile looks a little bit pained.
‘But everyone thinks you’re cool for working there, right?’
‘My friends do until I tell them I can’t get them free drinks.’
‘Oh.’
‘Nah, it’s not that bad. But I thought I would love working in a pub, and I don’t.’
‘You seem like the kind of person who would love working in a pub.’
‘What kind of person is that?’
‘A person who likes to be out, doing things, talking to people.’
‘I do like to be out doing things and talking to people.’
‘I like to be home, not doing things, talking to no one.’
He laughs. ‘I thought you had fun at the party last night.’
‘I did. I had at least ten minutes of fun.’
‘Which ten minutes?’
‘When Owen peed in front of me.’
‘Of course.’
I decide to be brave. ‘I also liked the part when we talked,’ I say, and then feel excruciatingly embarrassed the second the words have left my mouth.
‘Me too,’ he says, which surprises me. And makes my heart speed up.
We look at each other, then away again, quickly.
‘Turn here,’ I say.
‘What? Here? Right here?’
‘Yes.’
‘A little warning next time.’
‘That was plenty of warning.’
‘I almost missed it.’
‘Because you were slow to react.’
‘My reaction times are faster than average. It’s proven.’
‘By who?’
‘My soccer coach.’
‘When did he tell you that?’
‘Right before our under-11s grand final.’
‘Did you win?’
‘Well, no, but we came close. It was a very proud moment in my sporting history.’
‘It’s this one here.’
‘With the white fence?’
‘No. A bit further. With the wooden fence. I was giving you extra warning.’
He makes a face at me and pulls up in front of my house.
I could ask him to come in. I should ask him to come in. I am an adult now (sort of, kind of, not really). Deep breath. I could do this. But if I ask him in then he would see inside my house. I need days to prepare for the idea of a guy coming into my house. Weeks if we’re talking about my bedroom. Months if the guy in question is Alex.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ I say.
‘No problem,’ he says. There’s a beat of silence, and I very slowly undo my seatbelt, trying to give him time to say something else.
‘All right, then. Goodbye, Natalie.’ He makes eye contact as he says my name and it makes me flustered. I turn and open the car door with a little too much force, and it swings wide, slipping out of my hand, and banging into a light pole right next to us.
‘Oh, my god,’ I say.
‘It’s okay.’
‘I’ve scratched your car,’ I say, leaping out to look at the door.
‘It’s Mum’s car.’
‘That’s worse.’
‘I know.’
I squat down and look at the door. It doesn’t look scratched.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Alex says.
‘I feel so bad.’
‘If it’s scratched, I’ll tell Mum I did it,’ Alex says.
‘No, tell her it was me.’
‘Yeah, that’s a better plan, she’s less likely to yell at you.’
‘No, I’ve changed my mind, don’t tell her it was me.’ I must maintain my status as Mariella’s favourite.
‘I backed into the garbage bins the other day. It’s fine. She has three more sons who will be driving this car. It has many scratches in its future. Especially with Zach behind the wheel.’
Zach is an especially terrible driver, even worse than me. He got pulled over by police when he was on his L-plates for going too slow, which is now one of his family’s favourite stories.
‘I think it’s okay,’ I say, standing up.
‘Good.’
‘Okay, I’m going now.’
‘Bye.’
‘Bye.’
I walk to my gate and then turn back. He’s sitting in the car. He hasn’t started it. He winds down his window and waves me back to him.
‘You can text me next time you need a ride, if you want.’
I have no idea what he means. ‘Are you an Uber driver on the side?’
‘No! I mean I can maybe pick you up if you’re coming to my house and you need a lift and you have no other way of getting there. Like, as a favour. Or whatever. Don’t even worry about it.’ Now he looks flustered.
‘Okay,’ I say.
What is happening?
Later, I sit on my bed and look at my phone and will a text message from him to appear on my screen, but it doesn’t.
I text Zach and Lucy and apologise for being dramatic and awful. Lucy texts me back rows of hearts, and Zach sends me the thumbs up. I then hide my phone in my cupboard for an hour, to stop myself from checking whether Alex has texted me (even though he has no reason at all to text me), and then after the hour is up, I rush to look at it.
Nothing, of course.
I hate that desperate clutch of hope before you turn your phone over and then the feeling of sick disappointment when nothing is there.
8
Sun and Sand and Girls in Bikinis
‘This is going to be so much fun,’ Lucy says, for maybe the tenth time.
‘I know.’
It’s New Year’s Eve, and we’re at Zach’s family’s beach house. It’s a ramshackle two-storey weatherboard in Queenscliff, inherited from a great aunt, and Zach’s family share it with a bunch of other family members. They’ve spent a week here every summer for the last ten years.
I’ve never been to the beach house before. Last summer, I was invited, but I made an excuse not to go, in part because I was working most days washing dishes in the kitchen of a local cafe and in part because I hate the beach. Of course I hate the beach. It’s the next logical step after hating summer, and I hate summer. It’s not a blanket hatred. I like sunshine. I like looking at and walking alongside the ocean. I can appreciate that some people like sand. I understand that it’s nice to be warm. I sometimes even like being in the ocean (not over my head, and not if there is any seaweed or waves). But hot weather and the beach means wearing bathers, which means revealing my body, with all its scars and stretch marks and other flaws.
I hate the beach because I hate being the only person wearing a T-shirt in the water.
Winter is my season. Long coats, boots, big jumpers, puffer vests, beanies, giant scarfs, jackets with hoods. These are the safety blankets for anyone who is uncomfortable in their skin. On a really cold, wet day, you can hide everything but a sliver of your face. It is a joy. A freedom that people who aren’t anxious about their bodies cannot understand. Only people with nothing to hide love summer. Plus, when it’s cold and raining, no one questions why you want to stay inside and read.
But this summer I don’t have a job. The cafe I worked in closed down and, despite me dropping my resume into every shop and cafe within walking or public-transport distance, no one wants to hire an awkward eighteen-year-old with dishwashing experience and not much else. I have no money, no commitments and no excuses.
So, here I am. If nothing else, I’m away from my parents, and that’s becoming a major plus. I can’t stand the way they talk to each other now. All faux-politeness, careful discussions, phrases straight from therapy and looking at me with concerned eyes after every conversation to gauge how much they might be damaging me, even while they congratulate each other on having such a drama-free break-up. The nicer they are to each other, the less I’m allowed to feel sad and angry about what’s happening, and that makes me feel even more sad and angry. Honestly, it’s infuriating. Some days I can feel a hot, tight resentment building in my chest when I look at them, which can’t be good for my long-term health.
Lucy and I are sharing a double bed in an upstairs room. Anthony and Glenn are sharing another room upstairs, and Zach has a room to himself downstairs, with Mariella and Sal in the main bedroom downstairs. Alex isn’t here because he has to work tonight, and probably every other night too, I’m guessing. I haven’t dared to ask if he’s coming down, because I’m hyper aware that every question I ask could sound suspicious.
Tonight, Zach, Lucy and I are going to walk down to the beach, where there will be a big bonfire and fireworks, and Lucy has insisted on doing my makeup in the bathroom before we leave, because she lives in an alternative universe where a cute guy might pop into my life at any time and fall in love with my smoky eyes.
‘Look down.’
I look down, and she gently presses the eyeliner pencil against my lid.
‘Now look up.’
The thing is, I hate fuss but I like being fussed over.
‘I have a favour to ask,’ Lucy says.
‘Yeah?’
‘Will you swap beds with Zach tonight? Not for the whole night. Just a couple of hours.’
‘Do we need to switch? Why don’t you just go into his bed?’
‘Well, his parents are downstairs. We’d feel better in the upstairs bed.’
‘So you’re okay with Zach’s brothers hearing you have sex but not Zach’s parents?’
‘Gross, no. No one is going to hear anything. But you know what Mariella is like. She’s a very light sleeper and the further away from her we are the better.’
‘I’m happy to switch.’
‘Thank you. I love y
ou.’
Lucy doesn’t turn eighteen until February, and Zach not until March, and because they’re both only seventeen and also for a multitude of other reasons, they’re not allowed to sleep in the same bed. Lucy’s mother only agreed that Lucy could come to the beach house if she and Zach weren’t sharing a room, and Mariella was brought up as a strict Catholic and is squeamish at the thought of any of her sons in a bed with any girl. Her worst nightmare is one of her sons getting a girl pregnant, and Lucy’s mother’s worst nightmare is Lucy’s life not going to plan, so they’re in sync when it comes to thwarting opportunities for Zach and Lucy’s sex life.
It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Mariella or Lucy’s mother that Zach and Lucy have spent countless afternoons locked together in his bedroom after school or in the den on a Saturday afternoon, doing whatever they like to each other. I know Lucy often lies to her mother and says I’m there too when I’m not. I don’t mind. I’m happy to facilitate Zach and Lucy’s plan to be together. It’s probably sad (scratch that, it’s definitely sad), but it makes me feel more involved. It means I’m still needed in our group.
I saw Zach falling in love with Lucy before anything happened, so I knew it was coming. But before it started happening, there was a moment of something almost happening between Zach and me. It is one of those things I have always felt certain of, but I have never discussed it with anyone, and I have no real evidence, other than my own feelings.
It was the school holidays, Lucy was away for two weeks, and Zach and I were watching The 100 together. We had five seasons to get through at the time, and so we were spending all day together, lying on the couch, saying, ‘Let’s watch one more,’ and sharing packets of liquorice. The couch was long enough that we could both lie stretched out, with our heads in the middle on a pile of cushions.
One afternoon, I was lying with my hands tucked under the pillows, and Zach must have put his hands under the pillows too, because our fingers touched momentarily. Only the slightest touch, for a moment. But after a few seconds, Zach’s fingers bumped against mine again. The first time was probably an accident, but the second time felt like it couldn’t be an accident. His hand had touched mine, moved away, and then moved back. Our fingers were now resting against each other.