The Long Distance Playlist

by Tara Eglington

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Goldie asked.

  ‘My lip balm. I think I left it at home.’

  ‘Use mine.’ She pulled a little tube out of the left-hand pocket on her sleeve and handed it to me.

  I took the cap off and looked at the colour. ‘It’s pink.’

  ‘It looks pink, but it goes on clear,’ Goldie said. ‘I promise.’

  I trusted her. I ran the pink stick over my lips, then handed it back.

  She popped the cap off again and put some on her own lips. She traced the tube over her bottom lip, then the top. I watched her, and a funny feeling started in my stomach. The lip gloss that had just touched my lips was now touching hers.

  How had I never noticed her lips before? They were like a little strawberry. Even though the gloss was clear, the cold had turned her lips the colour of one of those berries. As she pressed her lips together, I wondered if they’d taste like strawberry too.

  Suddenly, all I wanted to do was find out.

  For one crazy second, I almost leaned right over and made our lips touch for real. And then I realised Goldie was lifting the safety bar, looking over at me, confused as to why I hadn’t done the same, because we were at the top of the chairlift and we needed to ski off.

  I took a tumble off my board halfway down the mountain. I lay there in the snow for a moment, hoping it would cool my brain down because it felt like it was on fire.

  What is happening to me? I thought.

  I was still wondering this even after she flew home to Sydney.

  All Issy had ever been to me was my friend – a friend that I liked hanging out with just as much as Finn – but right then? She was a girl. A girl with lips that I couldn’t stop thinking about.

  Months later, when we picked up her family from the airport to spend Christmas with us, I was still thinking of her lips. There had been a few moments since she went away, where I’d wondered if that was because her lips, and the idea of kissing them, were nicer things to think about than Dad being sick, but I wasn’t sure that was the reason.

  I knew the reason as soon as she hugged me at the airport. When her arms went around me, I knew – it was her.

  And that was it – I decided that this trip, I was going to kiss her.

  That was the easy part. The hard part was I didn’t know how to do it. When to do it. What to say, or how to start.

  I wanted Goldie to like the kiss, to think it was romantic. I didn’t want her to push me away or say, ‘That’s gross, Taylor.’ I didn’t want to get the timing wrong or take her by surprise so much that she turned her head in shock and I wound up kissing her cheek by accident. I didn’t want to look stupid.

  She turned thirteen on the 30th of December. I could feel myself going red when she cut her birthday cake and the knife came out dirty, and Finn started yelling about her having to kiss the nearest boy.

  I was the nearest boy. I was so close to her our forearms were touching, and I had goosebumps even though it was thirty-three degrees. Goldie’s face was red too when she turned to look at me, and for a second, I thought she might just do what Finn was shouting about.

  Half of me hoped she’d do it, and the other half hoped she wouldn’t because everyone was in our kitchen. I couldn’t kiss her back properly, not the way I wanted to, in front of them.

  She was looking at me, and my face was burning up.

  ‘Taylor hates anything to do with kissing,’ she said loudly.

  ‘Want to bet?’ I heard Lee say. ‘Look at his face, it’s like a tomato.’

  I glared at him, and while I was doing that, Goldie turned her head and kissed her dad, who was on the other side of her, on the cheek. We all stood around eating hummingbird birthday cake. I couldn’t even taste the cream-cheese icing, I was that distracted.

  What if that was my chance? I thought, looking at her. What if I don’t get another?

  Finally, the next morning, as Mum and Dad checked the schedule for the NYE entertainment in town, I realised that night was the perfect opportunity. Everyone kissed at midnight. I just had to get her alone.

  So at 11:56pm, when her family and mine were all down at the Queenstown shoreline, I grabbed her hand and said, ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ she shouted as I started darting through the crowd like I was a character from one of my video games. I had to be fast so Mum or Dad or Vi couldn’t follow our trail.

  I felt bad about leaving Finn back there, right before midnight, but I hoped he’d understand later when I told him why I did it.

  ‘Closer to the band,’ I shouted back. When I kissed Issy, I wanted there to be music playing all around us, so it was like one of those romantic movies she loved so much.

  ‘Twenty seconds to MIDNIGHT!’ the singer on stage shouted.

  I felt sick from nerves, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

  ‘Okay, stop!’ I came to a halt near the rope dividing the stage from the crowd. I wasn’t pulling Goldie behind me any more, but I didn’t let go of her hand. Instead, I laced my fingers in hers. Because I wanted to hold her hand like this when I kissed her.

  Goldie was looking down at our hands. We’d never held hands this way before.

  ‘Ten! Nine! Eight!’ the crowd shouted. ‘Seven, six, five—’

  She wouldn’t look up at me. How was I going to kiss her if her head was down, staring at our hands?

  ‘Isolde,’ I said.

  She looked up at that. I’d never called her by her real name before. It sounded grown up. I guessed this – kissing someone – was grown up.

  There was a glow stick on her head, like a luminescent halo.

  ‘Count!’ I said. ‘Three—’

  She joined in. ‘Two—’

  ‘One!’ we said together, and then I moved my head towards hers. Slowly, because I wanted to remember every second of this moment. Her eyes were staring into mine, and they were all soft-looking, and it was magic. Another second and we’d be so close I wouldn’t be able to look into her eyes any more.

  I didn’t know what was going to happen after that.

  As that thought burst in my brain, and a firework went off above us right at the same time, I froze. I realised, these past weeks and months, I’d only thought about kissing her. Kissing. That was it.

  I hadn’t thought about what I was really doing. Changing things. We’d only ever been friends, after all. What was she going say after we stopped kissing? How was I going to feel?

  If I kissed her, and all the lie-on-my-bed-and-think-of-her feelings I’d had the last few months combined with how much I liked her, I felt like all of that, together, might have stopped my knees from holding up my body.

  At that moment I thought, I might love her. And I might never be able to stop.

  All the adults I knew were always so amazed that Dad and Louise had stayed friends after breaking up. ‘That never happens,’ they always said. Or, ‘You’d have to pay me a million bucks to hang around my ex again.’

  Who was to say that would happen with us though? If Isolde and I kissed tonight, and went out, and then she broke up with me like Louise did to Dad – what if we couldn’t be friends, or worse, didn’t want to?

  That was the worst thing I could imagine.

  I can’t let that happen, I thought.

  So instead of kissing her, I hugged her. Tightly, and I didn’t let go for thirty whole seconds because I was trying to make my face look happy. And then I pulled away and shouted, ‘Happy New Year!’ with everyone else in the crowd.

  Isolde’s hand was still in mine, even though my hand was clammy and gross from adrenaline.

  ‘Happy New Year, Taylor,’ she said quietly.

  For a second, her eyes told me she knew I was going to kiss her. They were as disappointed as I felt inside, like all the corners of me were sad, the way the corners of her eyes were right now.

  She blinked and the disappointment was gone. Another firework went off.

  ‘We’re missing it,’ she said, tu
rning her face to the sky.

  I looked up too, and I told myself over and over that what I’d seen in her eyes was only what I’d wanted to see.

  Isolde

  Sunday 6 January

  Every morning during the holiday, when I open my eyes, the first thing I look at is my birthday present from Taylor.

  Normally, back home, the first thing I would look at would be my phone, checking my Instagram notifications or rereading an email from Taylor or looking over our last DM chat. But with no reception here, that’s not possible.

  I don’t tell Taylor this in my email, but his gift is the first one I open on my birthday. Even before Dad brings it out from its hiding place, and I see that it’s huge, it’s already the one I’m most excited to open.

  Everyone lets out an ‘oooohh’ when I tear off the wrapping. It’s a photograph of seven-year-old me.

  I know the memory instantly because it’s the one Taylor referred to when he called me during the intermission of Sleeping Beauty, back in early December.

  I also know the memory like that because that afternoon in Tekapo with the lupins is one of the happiest memories of my life.

  We were staying at the Hermitage at Aoraki Mount Cook National Park. Mount Cook had been in hiding since we’d arrived two days before, and Taylor’s Uncle Bill was super disappointed. Like every other photographer that visited the park, he wanted a clear shot of Mount Cook.

  He announced over breakfast that he wanted to head down to Tekapo to take some photos, and Tobi said he’d drive.

  Taylor and I wanted to go with Tobi and Uncle Bill, so we climbed into the back seat of the four-wheel drive. Tobi put on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. He and Uncle Bill knew every single lyric because their dad used to play it all the time when they were little.

  I don’t know what makes that day one of my favourites. Maybe it’s just because of how I felt when I looked at everything outside the car window. The turquoise lakes – the blue didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen. It was so bright – ‘glowing’ was the only word for it – that it didn’t look real.

  Maybe it was Taylor’s face that made me so happy that day. He was super excited. He loved being in the mountains because, ‘Out there is snow and ice and adventure, Goldie. All my favourite things.’

  And then there were the lupins, down by the lake. More flowers than I had ever imagined, and flowers are still one of my favourite things in the world, aside from ballet.

  Taylor and I ran up to them, and the ‘Waltz of the Flowers’ started playing in my head. It’s from The Nutcracker, the Christmas ballet, but I knew the music way before I started taking dance classes. Dad says I learned the song when I was a baby because he used to play it for me in the nursery.

  I was so happy standing in amongst the lupins, that I stretched out my arms and lifted my leg right up so I was in arabesque. I couldn’t go up on pointe yet like the older girls at the ballet studio – I wasn’t allowed to because my legs and feet weren’t strong enough for that yet. So instead, I pretended. I stood as far up on the front of my right foot as I could, and I looked out over the lupins, towards Lake Tekapo and the mountains.

  ‘Stunner of a photo,’ Dad says, snapping me out of the memory and back to the beach house. ‘It’s got to be one of Bill’s. Look at that late-afternoon light streaming in around Issy.’

  He starts talking about photographic techniques, but I don’t listen to the details. I just look at myself in the photo, surrounded by all that sunshine. I’m lit up, which is how I always used to feel when I danced back then.

  Tucked at the back of the canvas print is a little note.

  This is how I always remember you. Hope you’ll like remembering too. Happy sixteenth birthday :)

  Love you, Lupin-girl.

  Xxx Tay

  I quickly hide the note so Ana or Vi can’t see it and start teasing me. Ana still does, of course. So I make sure I don’t stare at the photo too much whenever she’s around. Thankfully, I always wake up before her, so I can spend a bit of time just looking at it, up on the wall.

  The more I study the photograph, the more of myself I see.

  This photo might be the best present I’ve ever received because it reminds me who I am – right at the end of a year where I’d started to feel like all I was any more was lost. Looking at the Isolde in the picture, I think, I feel like dancing.

  And I do. Every morning, Ana and I run through our flexibility and strength work together because neither of us wants to lose conditioning over the break.

  On the fifth day of January, I plié, and I wonder what Taylor would have done for NYE. For a second, I remember the fireworks, down on the Queenstown Harbour, and the year Taylor and I ran through the crowd, his hand in mine. That same, sad feeling comes over me, the way it always does when I think about that moment, and I raise my arms in fifth position, shooing it away.

  I reflect on this year instead. It hasn’t been bad so far. Mum and Dad have stopped arguing the last few days. I don’t know if it was the shock of me screaming at Mum that did it, if she and Dad realised then that their fights were hurting Vi and me, and they decided they better play nice, even if it’s only for the holiday.

  Or maybe it’s because Tina and Joseph are here, and Joseph always makes Mum laugh, and she and Tina, who’s also in finance, get along so well.

  It kind of feels like old times – where Mum trounces us all at Monopoly almost every night, while Dad’s down to his last dollar every time he rolls the dice. He’ll pull out Trivial Pursuit, determined to win back some cred, but Vi’s the reigning champion these days. Then it’s on to Uno and screams and shouts around the table as we all fight to have the last card.

  We’re in the car now, driving home. The afternoon sun, coming in through the windows, is making us all tired, except Dad, who’s singing along softly to ‘Che Gelida Manina’ from La Boheme, his favourite. Mum’s asleep and can’t tell him to stop.

  Even though I’m sad the holiday’s over, and Ana is on her way back to Melbourne, at least Vi’s here until after Australia Day. I don’t let myself think about her leaving, or a new year of ballet classes and trying to balance all that pressure in amongst the oodles of work everyone at school says Year Ten is. It’s a shock after Year Nine, all the older girls warn.

  Instead, I focus on getting home and skyping Taylor, and telling him about the holiday. Telling him I realised yesterday that I haven’t thought of Aidan in over a week, not even at midnight on NYE.

  Instagram DM Conversation

  Saturday 19 January, 3:15pm

  Isolde Byrne: Vi finally found a dress.

  Isolde has sent you a picture

  Ana Zhang: For real, I’m going to cry. She looks like a princess from another world. Like Arwen in The Lord of the Rings.

  Isolde Byrne: I just told her that and she beamed. LOTR are her favourite books. She and Jack have put a reading from Tolkien in their ceremony, even though Mum told them it was a ‘dweeby’ idea.

  Ana Zhang: DWEEBY??!

  Isolde Byrne: Who even USES that word?!? Anyway, Vi and Jack don’t care what Mum thinks – the reading’s staying in. Don’t say anything about any of it, all this stuff is meant to be a surprise for the wedding guests.

  Ana Zhang: I wish I was with you guys :(

  Isolde Byrne: I wish you were too :( Although if I’m honest, the last week of dress hunting has been draining. Mum cried so many times when Vi was trying on gowns. I don’t know how many stores we went to, but finally, twenty minutes ago, we found THE DRESS, and we ALL cried when she came out from the fitting room wearing it. I KNOW, total wedding-movie cliché, right? But it was a nice moment all the same. Vi says she hopes Jack bawls when he sees her in it ;)

  Ana Zhang: He TOTALLY will.

  Isolde Byrne: Crap. Vi just gave me a suspicious look and said I better not be sending you pictures – she’s onto us.

  Ana Zhang: THIS CONVERSATION NEVER HAPPENED.

  FEBRUARY

  Isolde


  Friday 1 February

  Tonight, while we are in the international departures hall at Sydney airport waiting for Vi’s flight, she asks if I can do her a favour between now and June.

  I say ‘sure’ on autopilot, assuming it’s something wedding-related.

  ‘Go easier on Mum,’ Vi says.

  I just make a face, turn my back on Vi and look at a display of scented duty-free candles.

  ‘I mean it, Is.’ Vi turns around too. I know she’s looking at me, even though I’m staring intently at a scented diffuser I’ve just picked up. ‘You’re too hard on her.’

  ‘You’re the one who’s been arguing with her ten times a day for the last five weeks.’

  ‘That’s wedding stuff,’ Vi says. ‘I have to draw a line, otherwise she thinks she can take over everything.’

  ‘She’s just so full on all the time,’ I say. ‘It’s always spreadsheets and to-do lists – the whole “this-must-be- followed-to-a-tee” hyper-organisation mode, 24/7.’

  ‘She kind of has to be that way, otherwise stuff would fall apart,’ Vi says. ‘You know I love Dad, but seriously, he’s more of a kid than we ever were. It’s not easy for Mum, always having to be the grown-up all on her own.’

  I shrug.

  ‘Have a think about it,’ Vi says, gently taking the diffuser out of my hand and putting it back down on the display. ‘After all, it’s just the three of you at home now.’

  I look at my sister, who’s going to disappear down the boarding gate in twenty minutes. I know she’s worried about our family, just like I am. That she’s asking me to look out for Mum because she can’t do it from the other side of the world.

  ‘I know,’ I say to Vi.

  Half an hour later, Dad, Mum and I stand at the window, watching Vi’s plane lift off the tarmac. On the drive home, the car’s too quiet.