by Nina Kenwood
33
Bert and Ernie
I knock on the door, feeling oddly formal. I’ve never been inside Alex’s bedroom. I’ve walked past it countless times, I’ve looked into it, I’ve avoided looking into it, and I’ve mostly not thought about it until now, this very moment, when it feels like the scariest place in the world.
‘Who is it?’ Alex sounds gruff.
‘Me.’
He doesn’t answer.
‘Natalie,’ I say, as the door opens.
‘I know who “me” is,’ he says. He looks sleepy and rumpled, like I’ve just woken him up.
‘Can we talk?’ I say.
He nods and takes a step back and I walk into the room. I can’t make any small talk because I’ve been rehearsing what I’m going to say to Alex in my head all morning, and if I say anything else, I’ll forget the stuff I need to say.
‘How’s Lucy?’ he asks, leaning against his desk.
‘She’s good,’ I say, hovering near the door. This isn’t true. She’s hungover, still fighting with her parents, and her future with Zach is looking very shaky.
‘That’s good.’
I take a step forward and stand in the middle of his room. It’s surprisingly less messy than mine, in fact, it’s hardly messy at all. It’s clean and organised, and he didn’t even know I was coming over. Which means I need to completely re-evaluate everything I think about us both as individuals and if we are a couple. Maybe he’s the Bert and I’m actually the Ernie.
He’s looking at me expectantly.
‘Okay, so, what I wanted to say is…about us…is that we should…’
Not even a sentence in, and I’m prattling nonsensically. The monologue I had in my head pops like a bubble, gone in seconds. Alex raises his eyebrows. I clear my throat. ‘This is hard for me. You’ve done it all before, but it’s all new for me,’ I say.
‘Done what before?’
‘This. All of this. Relationships, dating, whatever.’
‘Uh, no. I’ve never done this before.’
‘Yes, you have.’
‘I’ve never been on a double-date before.’
‘Well—’
‘And I’ve never brought someone to a party before, either. Not like that, where it’s all my friends and you don’t know anyone.’
‘Okay—’
‘I’ve never liked my brother’s friend before.’
‘Sure, but—’
‘I’ve never had this conversation before.’
‘Well, you’ve probably—’
‘And the way I feel about you. It’s different from how I’ve liked other people. It’s a new feeling.’
‘A new feeling?’ This is definitely something we need to dig into a lot more deeply.
‘You think I’m some kind of expert, and I’m really, really not. I’m bad at this. Really bad. Maybe a disaster.’
‘I don’t think you’re that bad.’
‘What bits am I good at?’
Kissing, I want to say. You’re really good at all the kissing bits. ‘You’re good at the bits when it’s just you and me.’
‘I’m trying to be better at the other parts,’ he says, and he looks so earnest and hopeful I want to squish his face.
‘Well, it’s hard for you, because I’m really bad at them too,’ I say.
‘So what are you trying to say?’
I hear Zach’s voice in my head. You know what you want. Just tell him.
I take a deep breath. ‘I like you. I want us to be together. Officially, no confusion, together. I’m the kind of person who needs to know where she stands on things. I like labels, I like structure, I like things to be clear, otherwise I just obsess over things. So, what I’m saying is, I want you to be my boyfriend.’
He opens his mouth to speak but I keep going, because I can’t let the words ‘I want you to be my boyfriend’ be the last thing I say.
‘I know I’m hard work. Like the way I freaked out at the party. And the beach. That stuff is going to keep happening, probably. I’m not going to have some kind of epiphany where I realise I’m a completely different person. So you’d need to figure out a way to deal with that. And, I’m not sure if you can even be my boyfriend when we haven’t had sex or anything yet, so I know I’m probably overstepping things. Also, I’ve never been in a bar and don’t like being drunk and I’m thinking about becoming a vegetarian which would be a deal-breaker for some chefs—’
‘Wait, wait, wait,’ he says. ‘Go back to the boyfriend part.’
Now I feel shy. ‘What about it?’
‘Say that bit again.’
‘Well, I like labels and definitions—’
‘No, the boyfriend bit.’
Saying it a second time takes as much courage as the first time. ‘I want you to be my boyfriend.’
He smiles, and steps forward, putting his arms around me. ‘That’s the only part you need to say,’ he says.
I lean into him for a second, and then pull back. ‘Wait, I want to tell you one more thing.’
He looks at me expectantly.
‘I used to have bad skin.’ I rush the words out, fast, because they are the scariest words I’ve ever said out loud. Here is the thing I am most ashamed of: take it, take it.
‘And…?’ he says.
‘And, what?’
‘You had bad skin and?’ He looks like he’s waiting for me to add something else, like this is not enough of the story. I don’t know how to possibly convey to him what I actually mean. To say, this thing that you’re practically shrugging off is what has defined my life to this moment. To really know me, you need to know this.
‘And it was really hard for me. And I have lots of scars on my back, that you might see one day.’
‘Show me,’ he says.
We just look at each other for a long moment. I swim through a thousand excuses in my mind and tell myself be brave, be braver than you’ve ever been and I turn away from him, and hold the bottom of my T-shirt in my hands and then lift it up, all the way, so it’s around my neck and he can see all of my back and shoulders, all of the marks, indents and lumps. All of the brutal ugliness. I stand like that for a second, maybe two, maybe three, listening to him breathing behind me, and then lower my T-shirt back down. I turn around to face him, and my hands are shaking so badly that I want to shove them in my pockets.
He takes my shaking hands in his, folds them up, presses my fingers to his lips.
‘Do you know why I was afraid to kiss you at Benny’s party?’ he says.
‘No.’
‘And why I’ve been kind of freaking out ever since?’
‘I didn’t know you were freaking out.’
‘Because I’m this guy who’s not at uni, who doesn’t even have a job anymore, who has no idea what he’s doing. And you, you’re so smart—you just got into one of the best universities in the country—and you’re funny, you’re gorgeous, you’re beautiful. I don’t give a shit about those scars. I knew everyone would tell you that I wasn’t right for you, and what they would really mean is, you can do better. I thought they would say, “Gee, it’s a shame she couldn’t be with someone more like Zach.”’
He’s talking so fast, I can hardly catch all his words. I want to tell him, go back and say it all again, slowly, really slowly, then let me go away for an hour to process everything.
I also want to hug him and tell him a thousand nice things to make him feel better about himself. It’s shocking to me, the thought that I could do that, that I might do that one day, that he might need me to do that. I’m so used to being the broken one.
‘Okay. So now what?’ I say.
‘Now, I’m your boyfriend,’ he says, smiling a little.
‘I guess you are,’ I say, leaning forward and kissing him.
Probably everything will be terrible and we’ll never last, but right now, right this second, it feels like it could be something wonderful.
34
A New Plan
‘Th
at’s not going to fit,’ Zach says.
‘That’s not going to fit,’ Dad yells.
‘It’ll fit,’ Mum and Alex yell back in unison.
Lucy and I are watching the four of them grappling with a very old sagging-in-the-middle couch we bought online and haggled the owner into delivering for free.
Lucy and I are moving out together.
The thought of Mum and me sharing an apartment, while she may or may not be dating, while she may or may not be having sex, possibly with Eric, was too much for me. The same goes for Dad. The plan of me living at home only worked with them together, I realised. It only worked in our house, with everything as it was before. Now they’re out there forging new lives for themselves, and I have to try to as well.
Mum and Dad are helping me with rent, but I need to find a part-time job. If I can’t earn enough money to cover my expenses, then I’ll have no choice but to move in with one of them. I have two interviews at cafes lined up for next week. My dream is to transition from waitress to retail worker to bookseller over the next three years, while I study. That’s my plan. My new plan.
I still can’t really think about university, even though it’s looming right around the corner. Picturing myself walking into a lecture theatre, on my own, for my first lecture, is so scary it makes my palms sweaty. But no one has ever died from sitting alone in a room full of people. That’s what I keep telling myself.
Lucy has deferred uni for a year. She is going to work full-time and take the year to figure out what she wants, and hopefully save up enough money to go backpacking around South America for a month. Maybe with Zach. Maybe not.
Lucy and I are renting a rundown house that has an ancient oven that possibly hasn’t been cleaned in a decade, a back door that lets in the slightest draught, a bathroom with a sink and mirror that’s far too small for anyone with needs beyond brushing their teeth, and a permanent dank smell in the laundry area. We have another roommate, a girl our age called Samira who described herself over email as quiet and mature, wanting to focus on her studies, but greeted us with a scream when we first met her. She runs an Instagram account featuring her girlfriend’s pug dog, and she owns what appears to be more than fifty pairs of shoes. I already mostly love her.
Zach leaves in a week, and he and Lucy still don’t know what they’re going to do. Possibly try long distance, but they might break up, or take a break, or something between the two that they’ve both tried to explain to me and I can’t make sense of. (‘We’ll still be together emotionally,’ Lucy keeps saying, and I keep nodding.)
Alex is very excited that I’ve moved out.
‘How many nights a week should I come over?’ he asked as soon as we found a place. He’s been my boyfriend for five weeks and two days, and I think things are going pretty well. He got a new job last week, which has made him so much happier, even though the chef in his new kitchen also yells a lot, but Alex says it’s a different kind of yelling, the funny kind, the tolerable kind.
I am still getting used to the idea that we’re together. Sometimes, I’ll just think of him, of us being together, and I’ll want to shout with happiness. Other times, it feels like my life would be so much easier if I didn’t have to be vulnerable in this new way.
Alex can be annoyingly slow to respond to text messages, he wears his shoes indoors constantly, and we have opposite taste in music, but the other night he leaned over to me and said, look at this, with a big goofy grin on his face, and held up his phone with a picture of someone’s pet rabbit wearing a bowtie and top hat at their wedding, and I looked at him and thought, I might love this guy.
Now everything is unpacked in our house and we’ve officially moved in, but Mum and Dad are reluctant to leave.
‘I don’t think the couch fits right,’ Mum says.
‘It does,’ I say.
‘It’s better where it was before,’ she says.
‘Then we’ll move it back. Later. Tonight. After Samira has seen everything.’
‘Are you sure you have enough food?’
‘Are you kidding? You’ve given me a week’s worth of meals to freeze. The freezer doesn’t even have that much space.’
I steer them both to the front door and out towards their respective cars.
‘Well, this is it, kiddo,’ Dad says.
Mum has tears in her eyes.
‘I don’t think I did a great job of teaching you how to cook,’ she says. This is true, she has taught me nothing about cooking, mostly because she herself knows very little.
‘Mum, I’m going out with an apprentice chef.’
‘Yes, but you need to know how to make stuff for yourself.’
‘That’s what the internet is for.’
‘I didn’t think you’d be moving out so soon,’ she says.
‘Well, you guys shouldn’t have broken up.’
That was a test, to see how sensitive they are to a pending-divorce-themed joke, and they both look upset, and I feel bad. But not that bad, because I’m still not over it, the ten-month lie and the destruction of our family. It’s like a little hard ball inside me, that I can ignore, that I can live with, but it’s still always there.
‘I’m kidding,’ I say. ‘This is good. This is a big step. One that we didn’t think was going to happen until I was at least thirty.’
‘You can still come home.’
‘I plan to.’
‘I mean, if it doesn’t work out.’
‘Yes, I know. I’ll have no other choice.’
‘Call us both every night,’ Dad says.
‘That’s excessive.’
‘Just for the first two weeks.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘And visit both of us every weekend.’
‘I will,’ I say. (I absolutely will not.)
This is it. There’s nothing else left to say. I open my arms, and we hug, all three of us, for a long time.
Then I turn and go inside, where Zach, Lucy and Alex are waiting for me. Where the beginning of a whole new life is waiting for me.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Text Publishing for believing in my book, and for investing in young adult and children’s books through the Text Prize. Winning the Text Prize has been life changing for me, and I am so grateful that such an opportunity exists.
A huge thank you to my editor, Jane Pearson, for her calm and gentle editorial guidance, and for making my book the best it could be.
Thank you also to Michael Heyward, Penny Hueston, Shalini Kunahlan, Patti Patcha, Kate Lloyd, Jamila Khodja, Khadija Caffoor and Anne Beilby for their enthusiasm, encouragement and championing of my work, and to designer Imogen Stubbs and illustrator Giulia Rosa for the book’s beautiful cover.
Thank you to Sarah Barley from Flatiron for her support and editorial guidance.
To my first readers, Bronte Coates and Emily Gale. This book would not have been written without your encouragement, weekly emails, invaluable feedback, good humour and gossip. I’m forever thankful for our writers’ group.
Thank you to booksellers all over Australia for your passion, hard work and dedication, especially those who were early readers of this book in manuscript.
An extra special thank you to all my colleagues at Readings. Working with you has been a joy every day and has inspired me as a writer more than I could have ever thought.
I became a writer by being a reader, so I am indebted to the thousands of talented authors whose worlds I have visited throughout my life, especially the YA authors.
Thank you to Mum and Dad, who have encouraged my reading and writing at every point in my life, and supported me in every way possible, including surrounding me with books from as early as I can remember.
I couldn’t have written the family dynamics of this book without my sister, Carla, and brother, John. Thank you for providing me with many years of laughter, arguments and fun.
I am incredibly glad for my wonderful circle of friends and family, whose ongoing excitement about the
impending publication of this book has been a constant source of joy. A special shout out to Alexandria McGearey, who was by my side at John Marsden’s writing camp when we were awkward fifteen year olds and I was first dreaming of becoming an author.
To Dan, my partner and best friend. Thank you for supporting and believing in me, and for being more excited, proud and delighted than I could have imagined when we found out my words were going to become a book, and for sharing so genuinely and happily in every moment along the way. I’m so glad we chose each other.
Finally, I am writing these acknowledgments while pregnant with my daughter. I can’t wait to meet you, little one, and I look forward to us reading many books together.
Nina Kenwood is a writer living in Melbourne. She won the 2018 Text Prize for her debut novel, It Sounded Better in My Head.
textpublishing.com.au
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Swann House, 22 William Street, Melbourne Victoria 3000, Australia
Copyright © Nina Kenwood, 2019
The moral right of Nina Kenwood to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
Published by The Text Publishing Company, 2019.
Book design by Imogen Stubbs.
Cover illustration by Giulia Rosa.
Typeset in Granjon by Duncan Blachford, Typography Studio.
ISBN: 9781925773910 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925774740 (ebook)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.