It's Not You, It's Me

by Gabrielle Williams

  ‘What’s going on with you?’ the girl on the other end said, her voice husky. ‘Did your mom tell you I called, or what? Lewis told me some guy was trying to drag you into his car yesterday, is that really for real? He said that’s why you didn’t make it to the Greek. We caught up with those guys, by the way – what a waste of time that was. I hate to say your mom was right – definitely don’t tell her I said that. Are you coming tonight? Tell her you’re staying at my place. Tell her we’ll be home by twelve. It’s not fair if she doesn’t let you come.’

  All said without a gap, until now, for Holly to get a word in.

  Holly could feel the mom watching her, so she dragged the phone with her into the lounge room, away from prying eyes and, for that matter, prying ears. ‘She’s saying no,’ Holly said quietly into the receiver.

  ‘Tell her my mom’s going out, and I’m scared to stay home on my own. No, wait, if she knows my mom’s not home she definitely won’t let you stay. Tell her my mom’s going to pick us up at twelve on the dot. Promise her we won’t do anything bad.’

  Holly laughed. ‘Pretty sure she wouldn’t believe that.’

  ‘Just ask her,’ Susie Sioux pressed.

  ‘She already said no.’

  ‘Ask again.’

  Holly pressed the phone against her chest, waited a good amount of time, then put the phone back to her ear. ‘She’s still saying no.’

  ‘Doesn’t she remember being a teenager? Maybe she never was one. My mom definitely wasn’t. So what’s the deal with that guy, anyway? Was he trying to put you in his car, or what? That’s what Lewis said. Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine. I mean, I might have concussion, I think I fainted, Loolah keeps saying I’m acting weird’ – she might as well set up alibis for the future – ‘but I feel okay.’

  ‘So who was he? Did you know him? What did he look like?’

  Holly felt overcome by tiredness. She didn’t want to have to rehash the thing about the guy again. She knew nothing. She didn’t know the circumstances of it, who he was, or what he looked like. All she knew was that even if he had been trying to abduct her, he hadn’t managed it. She was fine. She was here, living this life. The guy in the car was a non-starter.

  ‘I don’t know. He must have seen me faint and then pulled over to help. I don’t remember.’

  ‘Pretty freaky if he was trying to kidnap you.’

  ‘Yeah. I don’t think that was it, though.’

  As Susie Sioux kept talking, despite herself, Holly felt herself settling into a familiar, easy rhythm. She had the sense she could tell this girl with the cool, deep voice anything. Well, not anything, of course. Not about having a head full of memories of a whole other life. Not about coming from forty years into the future. But other than that, anything.

  ‘How was your dad? Did you go for lunch? Did he give you that guitar you were hoping for?’

  Holly laughed. It sounded like Trinity was all over everything. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘A Fender Strat?’

  ‘No. A Lotus.’

  ‘Oh. Well, that’s good too. What colour?’

  As they spoke, more and more of this strange new life came into focus. Trinity and Susie Sioux and Aprilmayjune were forming an all-girl band. The guys from the Greek had said they’d help them, introduce them to people, get them some gigs.

  ‘So what happened with those guys?’ Holly asked. It felt good to be asking a question that related to this life – that proved she was who she said she was, that she knew what was going on. Even if she didn’t.

  ‘Don’t even ask. Talk about dicking us around.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But they were always going to dick us around,’ Susie Sioux decided. ‘Most guys don’t even like the idea of an all-girl band, much less the reality. Doesn’t matter. We don’t need them. Don’t need no boy band to lend us girl band a hand.’

  Holly could hear the clink of plates being put down on the table as the mom served up food. ‘I’ve gotta go,’ she said. ‘Dinner’s on the table.’

  ‘Ask her one last time about tonight. Just see if she’ll change her mind.’

  Holly used the same trick again, holding the receiver against her chest, then getting back on and saying, ‘Still no.’

  ‘Okay. Well, she’s officially ruined your life. Anyway, we’ll see you tomorrow. At least that’s one thing your mom can’t get annoyed about. Unless she’s anti us studying together. Ha ha.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Holly felt a bubble of anxiety rise in her stomach at the thought of the two of them sitting together studying. Talking to Susie Sioux on the phone was one thing, but seeing her in the flesh, eye to eye … ?

  Holly wasn’t sure what they were supposed to be studying tomorrow, or where, but she could guarantee that she wasn’t going to be there.

  7.42 pm

  Holly looked around her bedroom. It was chaos. The way this girl lived was outrageous: clothes junked everywhere, papers all over the desk, piles of books and records and other general detritus everywhere.

  She needed to Kondo. Except there wasn’t even such a word, because there was no such person as Marie Kondo yet. Holly wasn’t going to Kondo. She was going to tidy up. Simple as that.

  She picked up an album from the floor. It was Blondie, Parallel Lines, speaking to how she felt – parallel lives running inside her head. She pulled the record out of the sleeve and put it on the portable blue turntable that was also, unsurprisingly, on the floor. Turned it to side one. The first song was ‘Hanging on the Telephone’.

  While Debbie Harry sang, Holly picked up clothes and started folding or hanging. Baby-pink cigarette-leg jeans. A Godzilla T-shirt. A black dress with cut-outs at the waist. An orange singlet dress, which she put on just to see how it looked (good). She experimented with differently coloured belts, put on all the necklaces that were hanging on a hook. Looked at herself in the mirror behind the wardrobe door and had to admit that really, being so young, life didn’t get much better than this. She wished she’d appreciated it more the first time around – when she was living her own sixteen-year-old life, rather than someone else’s.

  It had been two days now of living Trinity’s life. Holly stood in the middle of the bedroom and fiddled with the bangles she’d put on. They jangled as she moved her arm up then back down.

  She was struck by a thought: if she’d been thrown into this life, then where did that put Trinity?

  A wave of nausea ballooned as she realised there was a very big chance that Trinity was stuck inside this body as well somehow, watching Holly’s every move – lunch with the dad, playing guitar, talking to Susie Sioux on the phone, trying on her clothes, bracelets jangling – all the while screaming to get Holly’s attention. Like those people who said they’d been conscious for an entire medical operation – that the anaesthetic hadn’t worked properly and they were very much awake and feeling every cut of the surgeon’s scalpel, listening to every word said in the operating theatre, aware of every step of the process as it was happening, but unable to alert anyone to the fact.

  Was that what was happening here? Holly didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to think about it. But that was what cowards did, right? She couldn’t ignore Trinity if she was inside this body.

  Holly walked over to the mirror and stared at herself. It was a shock, again, always, to see this completely different body she was in. She stepped closer to the mirror and stared deep into her own eyes. People said the eyes were the window to the soul, so if Trinity was in there, Holly should have been able to see her. She craned closer to the mirror, as if trying to step inside the irises that stared back at her.

  There was nothing. No conflict. No awakeness. Trinity wasn’t here.

  But it still didn’t answer the question of what had happened to Trinity. Or maybe it did. Maybe Trinity was anaesthetised, with no clue what was going on – her soul sleeping, while Holly took over for a while.

  There was a light tap at the door and the mom came in, looking around
with surprise at the tidied floor, then clocking the orange singlet dress Holly had changed into. She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Trinity. You’re not planning on going to that party tonight, are you?’ she asked, crossing her arms. Readying herself for a fight.

  Holly shook her head. ‘No. I was just trying different things on. Seeing what they look like.’ She looked down at her body. ‘Testing out different belts.’

  The mom looked as though she didn’t believe her.

  ‘I’m not going,’ Holly repeated. ‘I’m grounded, remember? Besides, you might not believe this, but I’m fine with staying home. You don’t need to worry. I’m not going. I don’t even want to go.’

  The mom’s features relaxed ever so slightly, but still held the tension of her suspicions. ‘Why don’t you want to go? Is everything okay?’

  ‘Everything’s fine. I’m tired. That’s all.’

  The mom looked around the room. ‘Why’s everything so neat?’

  Holly laughed. ‘I’ve been tidying up.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that. My question is, why?’

  ‘I can mess it up again if you’d like,’ Holly teased.

  The mom’s face finally relaxed, her arms unfolding and dropping to her sides.

  ‘No. Don’t.’ She smiled. ‘It’s nice to see the floor for once. Such a pretty colour, that carpet.’

  Holly looked down at it. The sunniness of it. ‘Yeah,’ she agreed. ‘It is.’

  ‘I’ve been calling upstairs for ages,’ the mom said, remembering why she came up in the first place, ‘but you didn’t answer.’

  ‘Blondie,’ Holly explained, pointing to the record player.

  ‘Hm. I could hear. April’s on the phone.’ The mom turned to leave.

  ‘Wait. No,’ Holly said.

  She’d been pretending all day. With the mom, with Loolah, with the dad, Susie Sioux on the phone. One more act of pretence would just about break her. The mom stopped in the doorway.

  ‘I’m on a roll,’ Holly said, pointing to her bedroom floor. ‘Tell her I’ll call her back tomorrow,’ she added. ‘Otherwise I won’t finish here.’

  There wasn’t a mother in the world who would argue with that. Clean your bedroom or talk on the phone to a friend? The mom narrowed her eyes one last time before she nodded and left the room.

  Holly finished putting away her clothes, straightened up the bookcase, then looked over at the desk – the paper, the poems, pencils, a ruler, general flotsam and jetsam. And sitting innocently in the middle of it all, Brother Orange.

  She frowned, then walked over.

  There was a blank sheet of paper rolled into it, ready for typing. But she was sure she hadn’t put any in. A creepy feeling crawled up her spine. She definitely hadn’t put more paper in. The letter with Dear Brother Orange was scrunched up in the wastebasket under the desk, thrown in there this morning.

  But she must have put a new page in. She was just freaking herself out, forgetting what she had and hadn’t done. She needed to get a grip. Holly put her hands down, hovering them over the keys. She could feel heat rising from the black letters. Or maybe not.

  Probably not.

  She tore the blank page out. She was going to do an experiment. She picked up a pen and wrote on the blank page: This page is out of the typewriter. I’m not putting another one in.

  It was proof, in case she needed it. In case tomorrow she found a new page scrolled in.

  Day 3

  SUNDAY, 2 MARCH 1980

  10.38 am

  Holly opened her eyes to mid-morning light filtering in through the window, washing over the yellow-patterned walls and furnishings. She was still here in this life. Day three. She listened out for signs of the mom and Loolah, but silence pervaded. The house was quiet. Too quiet. Eerily quiet. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear she was completely alone, which wasn’t an idea she wanted to consider. She wanted the mom and Loolah around to distract her. To act as buffers between her and all the strangeness. To stop her from thinking too much.

  She recalled the page she’d found rolled into the typewriter last night. It unsettled her to think Brother Orange was somehow actively involved in all this – that maybe it was magic. Although magic was such a cornball phrase. Not magic. Supernatural. All-powerful. Scary as hell.

  Holly sat up and looked over at her desk where the typewriter sat. Paperless. She exhaled with relief at this one thing going right. Or, at least, going normal.

  She got out of bed and walked downstairs. There was definitely no one around. On the breakfast bench was a note: Dropping L off at Sharon’s then going to work from there. See you tonight. Mom xxx.

  Holly drummed her fingers on the benchtop. What was she going to do with herself all day? The cartoon tiger stared back at her from the cereal box left out on the bench. Resistance was useless.

  The silence of the house weighed down on Holly’s shoulders as she wandered into the lounge room, bowl of Frosted Flakes in hand. She needed noise, activity, something to do; otherwise she might fracture. Shatter. Maybe the television would keep her mind occupied – cartoons went perfectly with a sugary breakfast on a Sunday morning. But she’d never been a big television watcher – couldn’t concentrate on it. The ads always interrupted just as she was settling in, distracted her, made her lose her train of thought. Instead, she went over to the stereo, knelt down and pulled out some of the records stored beneath it. She always listened to music when she was painting on weekends, back in her real life – the music helped take her away from herself.

  The Andy-Warhol-illustrated cover of The Velvet Underground & Nico caught her eye – the distinctive, stylised banana. She turned it over and read the track list: side one, track one, ‘Sunday Morning’. And today was Sunday. In the morning. She pulled the vinyl out of its sleeve and placed it on the turntable, gingerly laying the needle on the edge of the record. The bell-like sweetness of an instrument that Holly couldn’t quite put her finger on, like a harpsichord but more angelic, came tinkling out of the speakers. She sat cross-legged on the floor with her bowl of cereal and listened to Lou Reed singing about Sunday morning, settling into the strangely optimistic feeling it gave her. The record spun on and next came the jangly, garage punk sound of ‘I’m Waiting for the Man’, followed by the distinctly lo-fi ‘Femme Fatale’ and the Turkish-inspired ‘Venus Furs’.

  As she listened to the Velvet Underground, she continued sifting through albums. Coming across the self-titled album by the Runaways, she pulled it out and had a read of the back cover. Track one was ‘Cherry Bomb’. She made a quick swap of the vinyls, and soon the thumping guitar riff and the unexpectedly deep voice of Cherie Currie filled the room. It was a song that Holly knew deep down inside her core. She turned the volume up. She was home alone, and she could do what she wanted.

  She stood up and started dancing around the lounge room, shoulders back, arms flung wide, enjoying the freedom of this body. She put on the Rolling Stones, ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, volume cranked right up, followed by the steel-stringed clang of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’, then the punk energy of the Ramones, her body responding to the colossal cool of these albums. She was fizzing like sherbet. She could dance for hours, run for miles. Gravity was no barrier. She felt boundless. The music filled her as she whipped her head around and jumped up and down, just like the person dancing up a storm alongside her.

  Holly stopped. Stared. Wait. There was another girl here in the lounge room with her.

  It was Zoe. Her best friend, alive, healthy, a teenager again, here. Holly ran over and hugged Zoe in close. The ecstasy: Zoe robust, not a skerrick of cancer, alive, alive, alive!

  But as they hugged, Holly realised it wasn’t Zoe at all. This girl was smaller, shorter: her body felt different. Heart plunging, Holly stepped back to look at the girl, who’d resumed dancing like an untamed animal, a grin of pure joy on her face.

  It was Susie Sioux. In the flesh. Her black hair was teased to within an inch of its life. Her eyes were sm
udged with thick black eyeliner. Red lipstick framed the words as she sang along to ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’. She wore a short denim skirt, canvas tennis shoes and a faded yellow T-shirt with ‘Culture’ printed across the front of it. In fact, apart from the dark hair, she looked nothing like Zoe. But her energy was the same. Susie Sioux was like a mirror of Zoe’s soul.

  Holly took the needle off the record and returned to gazing at this girl. Did it mean something, this synergy of a similarly energied friend: she and Trinity, aligned in another unexpected way?

  ‘My girl!’ Susie Sioux said, jumping over and hugging Holly to her again. ‘We missed you last night. It was a dud party. How was your night?’ She reached into her bag and pulled out a cigarette pack, fished out a slim white cylinder and jammed it into her mouth. Took a lighter out of her bag, dragged the tip of the cigarette through the flame, breathed in deeply, then offered up the pack of cancer sticks to Holly.

  After everything with Zoe.

  Holly pushed the pack away from her face. ‘No. Yuk.’ Susie Sioux took another long drag and folded her arms across her stomach as she examined Holly. ‘Who are you and what have you done with my friend?’ she asked, her head tilted to one side.

  Holly looked at her again, this girl who could be Zoe. It felt so good to see her, to be in the same room as her and feel her alive, vital. The true friendship of these two girls was undeniable. But there was something else going on that Holly hadn’t been expecting – a physical yearning at the smell of Susie Sioux’s cigarette. She ached to take one from the pack. Trinity was a smoker. But she couldn’t. Not after Zoe’s cancer. Holly waved the smoke away from her face, making a point that she didn’t want anything to do with it.

  The strangeness of the moment was not lost on Susie Sioux. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes.