by C.J Duggan
Chapter Seventeen
There are many levels of mortification.
I turned slowly around and there he was. Scott, frozen on the footpath outside the French doors, looking at me as if he couldn't quite believe his eyes. Oh no. No. Shattering a glass had been embarrassing. Wearing the teeny tiny bikini had been humiliating. But nothing - nothing compared to the flush of mortification, the rush of horrible high school memories. I felt it in Mr Burke's Biology class when he read out that stupid note and coloured the rest of my high school experience with that stupid name. But nothing compared to the shame I felt now, in front of the Onslow Boys - in front of Toby.
Angela, Toby, the girls at the jukebox, Sean from outside and even Chris, flat out in the bar, still managed to hear over the deafening music and collective chatter. He may as well have shouted through a megaphone, it was that loud.
"I thought it was you, we were just on our way to Stevie's when Dusty said, 'Hey isn't that Tic Tac?'" Scott said. "I thought 'no way is it Tic Tac; Tic Tac Tess would never be hanging in a bar'."
Oh God, could he say that name any more times?
It was like someone punching me, again and again, punching a hole in my chest. And the worst thing was, he wasn't even trying to be malicious. To him, it was just my name.
But to me, it really wasn't. I couldn't breathe. I had to get out of there. I had to. Scott was polluting the air with his mouth, and I could feel Angela and Toby's eyes burning into the back of my head. I just gave a small smile and excused myself, darting through the crowd, straight to the refuge of the Ladies' toilets.
Again!
I slammed through the door and clutched the basin with a white-knuckled intensity, thankful that I was alone. I flipped on the faucet and concentrated on the water, its circular motion around the sink and down the drain as it made its way out into the great beyond. Oh, how I wished I could go where it was going. I didn't dare look at my reflection; I didn't want to see my scarlet flushed cheeks, or the tears that welled in my eyes. Why here? Why now? I had been doing so well. I had finally started to become something more than high school, more than that name. But then Scott thrust me straight back there. No, he had done worse than that, he had brought it into my new world, where I was not Tic Tac, I was simply Tess McGee.
I had become a girl that could hold her own, could verbally spar and even flirt with the best of them. But now it was all tarnished. As soon as I gathered myself, I would walk out of here and just go home. It was a good plan. Ellie wouldn't mind, she had Stan to hang with, and I would be home by a decent hour, and keep my parents happy. Win-win.
The door opened, and I knew it would be Ellie checking on me. But it wasn't. Angela sauntered in and propped her designer bag on the basin as she smoothed out a perfectly manicured eyebrow with the tip of her equally perfectly manicured fingernail.
I busied myself with washing my hands, a task I pretended to be so fascinated by, that I couldn't even tear my eyes from them. She was still; I could feel her watching me in the reflection of the mirror. I pretended not to notice. She tilted her head a little in my direction.
"It's Tess, isn't it?" she asked in a gentle voice.
"Yes," I managed to say.
She ran her fingers through her hair, fixing her already perfect reflection.
I could see her eyes dart to my chest, and I felt myself flush even further, if that was possible.
"You're not small, you know?"
Oh my God, this was not happening?
She turned fully to me, facing me directly. There was no denying it: yeah, this was really happening.
"He's probably never even touched a booby in his life." She shrugged and turned back to the mirror to reapply her lip gloss. "I would seriously doubt he is an expert on the subject." She pouted at herself in the mirror and scrunched her hair.
Was Angela Vickers going all deep and meaningful on me? And did she seriously just say booby? Who says that?
She cast me a fleeting smile and without a word, picked her bag up off the counter and sashayed out of the bathroom.
I stood stunned from what I could have sworn was a small act of kindness from Angela Vickers. I didn't know exactly how I felt about it.
I could do one of two things. Get Chris to sweep up my shattered ego off the poolroom floor, while I ran out the back door. Or two, I could play the 'ignorance is bliss' hand and go out and pretend that it didn't even happen, all while completely avoiding Toby for the rest of the night. I was so humiliated I couldn't even bring myself to look at him. Maybe Adam was right. I had changed, and Scott had wrenched me jarringly back down to reality. Reminded me who I was. I pulled my mobile out and began to text.
To: Adam
Fashionably late as usual? Where R U at bozo?
We're at the O Hotel.
A second later the screen lit up.
Adam
Bozo?? I'm out the front.
And with that, I gathered myself together (making sure I didn't look too pitiful) and left my refuge to hang with Adam. Instead of going with the flow, I was going to go with what I know. And I knew Adam.
We made peace. Things seemed back to normal between us as we both obviously didn't want to bring up the conversation from earlier. Turned out Adam was only home for the weekend, so I was glad that I had this time with him. We sat on the outside picnic table, sharing a packet of crisps, when we saw Angela and four of her friends pile into a car. They were way too overdressed for Onslow. They must have been heading to Redding, the next biggest city half an hour away; it was the place to go once you turned eighteen.
Adam snared the last chip.
"So you going to Stan's later?" he asked.
"I don't know, not fussed either way."
"Who's going to look after Ellie?"
"I think she will be right. Stan's a good guy."
"Yeah. I don't think she'd know if we were there or not, the way they're making doe eyes at each other." He shuddered.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" My seat dipped as Sean sat down next to me. Toby was right behind him, standing at the head of the table. His cool, reserved manner was back and I mentally slapped myself for the flips my traitorous stomach made at the sight of him.
Get a grip, Tess.
"We're heading off soon, there is far too much Shania Twain pouring out of the jukebox."
"The netball girls are on a bit of a rampage tonight," added Toby.
Sean stood. "You coming?"
I made a point not to look at Toby even though I could feel his eyes on me, waiting for my reply. Instead, I looked at Adam and posed the question to my best friend.
"What do you wanna do? It's your weekend."
"Hmm. Shania Twain or a party at Stan's?" He drummed his chin thoughtfully with his finger.
"I don't know how much better it will be," Sean said. "I'm pretty sure you'll be reduced to witnessing Ellie and Stan suck face all night if their actions in the bar are anything to go by."
I cringed. I'd left her alone for five minutes, and she had already publicly disgraced herself.
"One thing I can be sure of, though, there will be no chick power ballads," Sean added.
I pouted. "What? No 'I am woman, hear me roar'?"
"Definitely not!"
Either we were to stay at the Onslow with the netballers and be subjected to tabletop dancing or head to Stan's for a game of pool and semi-decent music. Deep down, okay, not even too deep down, I knew what my choice was. I knew it the second I looked up at Toby.
We walked through the night, making our way to the caravan park nearby. We gave up worrying about waiting for Stan and Ellie who were stopping every five minutes for a quick pash against a tree. I wanted to get as far away from them as possible. The rest of us walked in uncomfortable silence, and Ellie giggled and squealed followed by sucking noises behind us. Over and over again.
I felt the butterflies in the pit of my stomach. I didn't miss Scott, that was for certain, but I did miss the we
ight of a boy on top of me, making out for hours, and chaste stolen kisses on the walk home at night. I missed the heart palpitations and the strange stirrings I was only just beginning to understand. I missed being the object of someone's affection.
As we walked, Adam and Sean played footy with a crushed beer can, even going so far as to run some commentary for themselves. According to the commentators (Adam and Sean), Sean was the number one Champion in the World and Adam was the undefeated five-time Premiership Captain.
They were somewhat ambitious. I laughed at their deluded fantasies as they darted further in front of Toby and me.
And then I was painfully aware that I was walking in the dark with a boy. Not a boy, the boy. But I couldn't have him. I couldn't steal kisses from him. I shouldn't even look at him the way I do, the way I always have. Still, it didn't stop me from wanting to walk closer to him, just so I could listen to his breathing or his low laugh as Sean tripped over his own foot.
"And the World Champion goes down!" he mused.
"Oh no! The impact of his ego hitting the ground could tilt the world off its axis," I added.
"Tsunamis and earthquakes will ripple through the world."
"A crater will form and create a new lake system."
"Where are you heading? Oh, we're just going to Lake Sean."
We both lost it in dual fits of laughter at our own commentary.
"What's so funny?" Sean asked, but we were far too amused to answer.
We stopped at the gate to Remington's Caravan Park, thinking it only appropriate to wait for the host of the party to lead the way. Toby climbed onto the gate and sat, while I fidgeted with impatience and shuffled from one leg to the other. Finally, a figure appeared from the darkness. Ellie was walking, her eyes cast down, arms crossed against her chest as if stemming off a wayward chill that didn't exist.
"Where's Stan?" Sean asked.
She walked straight past us through the gate. "Who cares?" she said coldly.
Adam and I looked at each other with grim expressions.
Uh-oh.
"Is she alright?" Toby jumped down from the gate.
"Yeah, it's probably nothing," I said. Knowing Ellie, it was definitely something, so friend duty beckoned, and I followed her into the park.
I sat opposite Ellie on one of the logs that had been cut purposefully and arranged in a circle. So campers could sing 'Kumbaya', probably. It took everything in me not to so much as crack a smile as I stared blankly at Ellie, registering what she just told me. She was pretty upset so I had naturally thought the worst: that nice guy Stan wasn't actually a nice guy after all and tried to force Ellie into something back in the bushes. But as unlikely as it seemed, I was truly taken back when I found out why Ellie was actually so distraught.
"You know how I have put on a bit of weight since school stopped ?"
I didn't know or notice. Still I humoured her with patient silence, urging her to continue.
"Well, we were kissing and his hands were wandering around my back. Which distracted me and I just said to him as a joke, 'Don't touch my flabby bits' and then he said 'But I like every part of you, even your flabby bits'. Can you believe he said that?"
I cringed inwardly, not because he said what he said, but because my heart went out to the guy. What had been meant as a really nice compliment along the lines of 'I like you just the way you are' had received punishment. He had suffered one hell of a case of foot in mouth that would take Ellie some getting over.
"He said I was fat!"
I grabbed her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Oh Ellie, that's not what he meant."
"Well, that's what he said." She sniffed.
Oh God, how did I even begin to save this train wreck? I knew she wouldn't see reason. So I did what best friends do. I deflected.
"Scott called me Tic Tac in front of the entire bar, in front of Angela and Sean, Chris and Toby."
Ellie's eyes narrowed with sympathy. Yep, it was working.
"Don't worry, Tess, they don't know what it stands for."
I gave a half smile. "Angela knows what it means, so they'll know."
"Oh, fuck Angela," she snapped.
My eyes widened.
"Who cares, anyway, stuff them all, let's go find Adam and have a good time. We can make our own fun. You, me and Adam and my back fat."
I burst out laughing, and even Ellie joined me. We had managed to drag each other out of the depths of despair once again. We heard a snap of a branch to see Adam appear with a guarded look on his face.
"Everything okay?" His eyes flicked from my face to Ellie's.
We could only manage to nod.
"Do you need me to call Stan out? Kick his arse?"
This only made us laugh even harder.
"I'm serious," he straightened. "I could take him."
Ellie snorted which made Adam break into a smile and join us in our laughter. The kind where the outside world would look in on us and think we were mad. Though it had been a bit rocky this afternoon, we were back. We understood each other perfectly and no matter what, we would always be there for one another.
"Oh, my God! I gotta go pee, wait for me?" Ellie wandered off to find the toilet block. I wiped away tears that had emerged after laughing so hard. Adam straddled the log to sit next to me.
"Seeing as this seems to be some kind of circle of truth," he said, "I have a confession to make."
All of a sudden, I was very sober and my laughter died down as I looked into Adam's serious, earnest eyes.
"I did give you a funny look today." He started to pick at the bark on the log, a sign that he was uneasy.
"I just didn't recognise you; when I was standing on the porch at the hotel I saw Ellie walking up with some girl, and I was watching this girl, in this hot, white bikini, and I thought I have to know this girl, and then you came closer and I saw it was you, but it couldn't be you. This girl was so carefree, confident. I thought it was the sexiest thing I had ever seen. Then you looked up and saw me, and the look on your face was the Tess I knew. The goofy Tess McGee. I was a bit taken back. I saw the way Toby and Sean were looking at you, and I kind of went all Alpha male on you."
He smiled sadly.
I didn't dare breathe or think about asking what he meant by the way Sean or Toby looked at me. I just remained quiet.
"I was just being a jackass. I had only been away for a few weeks and I felt, I don't know, replaced. Pretty stupid, huh?"
"Yes," I said, "idiotic! As if I could replace you!" I kicked him. So he wasn't judging me - well, not in the way that I had thought.
"Adam, you're my best friend and that's not going to change, I can tell you that, so stop going all Alpha on me, okay? Unless you want to avenge my honour with a banana because you can totally do that anytime you want."
He kicked me back, and we were us again.
"So ? you thought I was sexy, huh?"
He threw his head back and groaned.
"You thought I was sexy." I grinned.
Adam rolled his eyes.
"You totally love me, you want to write me poetry, and ?"
Adam covered my mouth with his hand, which only made me laugh. "What is revealed in the circle of truth remains in the circle of truth."
"Nuh-uh, only if the circle of truth has a cone of silence and as you can see ?" I lifted my hands up to the sky. "Nothing."
He gave me a bored look.
It was then a delayed thought registered. "So what you're saying is the goofy Tess you know is not sexy?"
"Ugh, Tess, quit it already!"
"No, no, I want to know," I said. I pointed to myself. "You wouldn't want to tap this?"
"Right now I want to choke you."
He slid over to me and grabbed me closer to him. My smile fell from my face with the unexpectedness of it. His hands cupped my face, his lips hovering above mine.
"You seriously want to know, Tess?"
He closed the space and claimed my mouth with an urgent, hot
, delving kiss.
He smiled. "You are sexy, in your own goofball way, you're sweet and beautiful and smart and funny and, although you kiss to the point where I feel like I want to go back for seconds, you're my best friend, and that's why I don't want to tap that."
I was breathing heavily, he had wiped my brain blank, all thoughts, all smart-arse retaliation, everything evaporated from my mind. He thought all those things of me, but, above all, he valued our friendship. It was something I would cherish for the rest of my life.
There was a coughing sound, and I broke away from Adam with such speed I nearly toppled off the log. The Onslow Boys stood before us. Sean gave a wry smile. Toby was deadly serious, and poor Stan's worried eyes weren't focused on us; he had his own troubles. My eyes darted back to Toby, who unflinchingly stared back at me with a deep, burning gaze.
"Don't mind us." Sean propped himself on the opposite log. As usual, Toby chose to stand.
"Do you know where Ellie went?" Stan asked. "Is she still pissed?"
Adam answered for me. "A word of advice, Stan, let that one cool down for a bit."