The Girl She Was

by Rebecca Freeborn

  Louis and Ella had just piled into bed with them, giggling hysterically. It was early, the sun barely risen, and the children were so delicious, still soft and pliant and warm from sleep. These precious, perfect moments didn’t come with the regularity she’d anticipated when she’d fallen pregnant with Louis, so when they did, Layla suspended herself within them. She knew that the kids would soon be wrestling or pinching one another, or that one of their heads would collide with hers, and she didn’t want to waste this moment. She pulled her son’s body closer and buried her face in his hair, breathing in his warm, bready scent.

  Cam climbed out of bed, hoisted Ella over his head and flew her around like an aeroplane as she shrieked with excitement. Right on cue, Louis wriggled out of Layla’s arms. ‘I wanna turn! Daddy, do it to me!’

  ‘No, me!’ Ella bellowed.

  Layla sighed and rolled away from them as Cam began to explain for the hundredth time that Santa wouldn’t bring them any presents next week if they didn’t behave themselves. When she picked up her phone from the bedside table, the words on the screen sent shock waves through her:

  Thought you got away with it, didn’t you?

  Her fragile contentment shattered into pieces around her. After her hurried exit from Glasswater Bay, she hadn’t spoken about Scott to anyone – especially not Cam – and eventually the silence became a habit. She’d been a silly girl playing at being a woman, and the whole episode was better off remaining in the past. She’d trained herself not to think about him too much, a cringe of shame only occasionally seeping through the cracks in the walls she’d built around her memories.

  And guilt, of course. The guilt had crushed her; forgetting had been mandatory or she wouldn’t have been able to get through uni, let alone have a normal life. Although, given the string of disastrous relationships she’d pinged between in her twenties, maybe it had already been too late for normal.

  ‘Who are you messaging now?’ Cam plonked back down on the bed beside her.

  Layla locked the phone and put it back on the bedside table. ‘No one.’ She rolled over, and together they tickled the children until tears streamed down their faces and delighted cackles banished the dread that had begun to leach into her again.

  *

  When Cam took the kids out to the playground after breakfast, she opened Messenger. For a long time, she studied the two messages, separated only by the dates they’d been sent.

  I know what you did.

  Thought you got away with it, didn’t you?

  Fingers trembling, she clicked on Jodie’s name and was taken to her Facebook page. She’d been assuming – hoping – that it would be locked down, but her profile was public … Every status update, every photo, every link she’d shared was there for the world to see.

  Layla enlarged the profile picture. Jodie was still attractive – same dark hair and high cheekbones, same blue eyes, same even white smile. Only a few lines around her lips and eyes gave away the time that had passed. She must be, what, forty-eight? Forty-nine? It was absurd to think that Layla had once considered her washed up at twenty-eight, when she herself was now in her late thirties. Forty-eight seemed shockingly young, especially for one whose life had been ruined before she turned thirty. Layla closed the photo and scrolled down her profile page. The first post was an ultrasound picture, shadowy black and grey.

  So proud to announce that I’m going to be a grandma!!! the caption read. My first baby is having her first baby!! Best Christmas present ever!!!!!

  Layla bit her lip. She clicked through to the photos and scrolled down the thumbnails, looking without seeing. Most of the photos were of Jodie’s children, now adults themselves. In some, Jodie stood between them, her arms around their waists, eyes shining bright with pride. Occasionally, there was a series of photos from a family barbecue, but the face Layla was seeking was never in any of them.

  She closed the app and locked her phone.

  THEN

  At home, I wondered whether Mum and Dad or my brother, Zach, noticed anything different about me; how irrevocably changed I was after kissing Scott; how he had become part of my DNA. And at school, I wondered if the boys would now see me as a potential girlfriend rather than the geeky quiet girl they’d never noticed.

  But everyone treated me the same as they always had. Even Scott. Over the following week, he didn’t mention the kiss at all, and we never found ourselves alone together during any of my shifts. In fact, he sent me home early instead of Yumi.

  It hurt. Maybe he blamed me. Maybe he thought that I’d made a move on him. I’d relived the kiss in my head over and over again and I’d been so sure he’d been the one to initiate it, but maybe I was wrong. Had he told his wife? Was she going to come into the cafe and claw my eyes out? Or maybe I just hadn’t been good at it. The idea that he was ignoring me, not because we’d done the wrong thing, but because I’d been so obviously inexperienced, seemed somehow worse.

  I got into the habit of driving past his house on my way to school, knowing he would be inside, having breakfast, getting ready to go and open the cafe. He lived on King Street, one block from the beach. The briny scent of seaweed would float in my open window on the chilly morning breeze as I cruised by, the rising sun bouncing off the perpetual silvery sheen of salt that covered the windows of all the houses this close to the sea. One morning he was outside, hose in one hand, coffee cup in the other, watering the bed of geraniums with their red, fleshy flowers and woody stems. I panicked, pressing down on the accelerator and speeding away, hoping he hadn’t recognised my car. He didn’t mention anything at work that afternoon, but then, he’d hardly been talking to me anyway.

  It was confusing, to see him and be close to him almost every day while pretending that nothing had happened. My uncertainty was a serpent, twisting and writhing in my guts until I no longer knew what I wanted. I needed to study, to keep my grades up so I’d get into uni next year, but whenever I got my textbooks out at home, all I could think about were Scott’s arms, Scott’s lips, Scott’s smile. It was pathetic. I was pathetic.

  *

  Excitement zipped around inside Daniel’s car as we drove towards Victor Harbor on Friday night. There was nothing quite like the anticipation of going to a gig, and even Daniel tagging along with us couldn’t dampen my enthusiasm. It was funny to think that only a couple of weeks ago I’d had a crush on him. After kissing Scott, he seemed insubstantial, like part of him was missing. It was hard now to pinpoint what I’d seen in him in the first place.

  ‘I can’t believe Vince didn’t want to see Spiderbait,’ Renee grumbled from beside me.

  Daniel chuckled, his eyes lifting to the rear-view mirror to look at her. ‘Acca Dacca is more Vince’s style.’

  Renee snorted. ‘Then I think this relationship is doomed.’ But she was smiling, like maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  The Crown Hotel was heaving when we got there. It was an all-ages show, and we watched enviously as the adults in the line were fitted with wristbands so they could buy alcohol.

  ‘Wish we had fake IDs,’ Shona said.

  The support band had just started when we finally made it inside, but other than a few groupies who were moshing enthusiastically in front of the stage, most of the patrons were still at the bar getting drinks.

  ‘Let’s get up the front now,’ Daniel said.

  ‘But this band is shit,’ Shona said. ‘And I wanna get a Coke.’

  ‘But if we get a good position now, we’ll be able to see everything when Spiderbait come on,’ Daniel said.

  ‘How about Daniel and I go get a spot while you guys get us some drinks?’ Renee suggested.

  Daniel smiled at her and let go of Shona’s hand. ‘Good idea. Let’s go.’

  Shona raised her eyebrows at me as we waited at the bar for our drinks. ‘Was that weird?’

  I glanced over my shoulder at Renee and Daniel, who were both laughing, then shrugged at Shona. ‘They’re just saving our spots.’

 
‘Daniel’s gonna dump me, I just know it,’ Shona said.

  ‘What? Why would you think that?’

  ‘He’s barely looked at me all night.’ Her eyes were suddenly bright. ‘Sorry. I’m such an idiot.’

  I slung an arm around her shoulders. ‘You’re not an idiot! You’re just imagining things. He had his hand on your leg the whole way here.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right.’ She swiped the back of her wrist across her eyes. ‘I’ll probably get my period tomorrow and then we’ll know why I was being such a weirdo.’

  The bartender set our Cokes down on the bar and we each took two of the plastic cups. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s get over there so your boyfriend can provide a human barricade against that lot.’ I gestured with my cup at the groupies near the stage, one of whom was attempting to crowd-surf on a group of four other guys.

  *

  By the time Spiderbait came on stage, the crowd had thickened around us. It was a living, liquid thing, pressing in around me like a swirling river, buffeting me from side to side. I surrendered to it, allowing my body to become one with it as it flowed back and forth in time to the band’s glam-rock sound. Renee, Shona and I all had our arms around each other as we jumped around and screamed the lyrics at the tops of our lungs. And when the final song finished in an explosion of flashing lights and reverberating bass, we all grinned at each other, our breathing heavy, faces flushed with elation.

  ‘Reckon they’ll do a second encore?’ Daniel said from behind us.

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’ Renee indicated the huge speaker at the end of the stage. ‘They’ve put the music back on.’

  Shona snuggled up to Daniel and stood on her toes to kiss him.

  I fanned my sweaty face with both hands. ‘I need water.’

  ‘Me too,’ Renee said.

  Leaning against the bar, sipping water, Renee and I watched Shona and Daniel pashing near the stage. ‘I think Vince is going to break up with me,’ Renee said in a flat voice.

  ‘Not you too! Shona said the same thing about Daniel earlier.’

  ‘Really?’ Her face changed, and she glanced over at them again. ‘Doesn’t seem like it at the moment.’

  Seeing Shona locked in Daniel’s embrace, I remembered how it’d felt to have Scott’s arms around me, his mouth on mine. And now he hardly even spoke to me.

  ‘We’ve got absolutely nothing in common,’ Renee went on. ‘And he never wants to hang out. All he’s interested in is sex … which would be OK if he was actually, you know, good at it.’

  I laughed. ‘So why don’t you dump him?’

  She looked at me. ‘Because then I’d have no one.’

  ‘What, like me?’ I tried to keep my voice light, but my expression must have betrayed my hurt, because she bumped me with her shoulder.

  ‘God, I wish I was more like you, Layla. You’re so smart and independent, and here I am crying over some dipshit who doesn’t even care about me. You don’t need a boyfriend to make you feel good about yourself.’

  We watched Shona and Daniel in glum silence. If only Renee knew how insecure I really was. My secret bulged inside me. It would feel so good to be able to talk about it, to share it with my friend. ‘If I tell you something, do you promise not to say anything to anyone? Not even Shona?’

  Now I had her attention. ‘Of course. What’s the thing?’

  ‘I’ve done something bad.’

  ‘Bad bad or boy bad?’ Renee’s blue eyes twinkled.

  I grimaced. ‘Both.’

  ‘Well, don’t hold out on me now! Did you root Rasheed or something?’

  ‘No!’ I laughed. ‘No, I … I kissed my boss.’

  Renee’s eyes bugged out of her head. ‘What? Your boss, as in Scott Telford?’

  I nodded.

  She frowned. ‘But Lay … isn’t he married?’

  I nodded again. ‘That’s why you can’t tell anyone. We didn’t plan it, it just … happened.’

  ‘He is good looking.’ She screwed up her nose. ‘But don’t you think he’s kind of … old?’

  ‘He’s only twenty-eight, Renee.’

  ‘That’s old! So, how was it?’

  ‘It was amazing. I see what you guys meant about kissing now.’

  Renee shook her head in wonder. ‘You really got back on the horse after the Rasheed disaster, didn’t you?’

  She caught my eye and we both giggled.

  ‘So, what now?’ she said after a while.

  ‘I don’t know.’ The brief warmth of sharing the experience with my friend dissipated back into nothing. ‘He hasn’t even spoken to me since then.’

  Renee studied me, her expression serious. ‘But you want to do it again, don’t you?’

  I hesitated. No matter how conflicted I’d felt over the past week, the one thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to kiss him again. But what kind of person would that make me if I said it out loud? ‘I’ve never felt this way before,’ I said instead.

  Shona and Daniel had disentangled from each other and were heading over to us, holding hands.

  ‘You know you can’t, Lay.’ The crease was still there between Renee’s eyes. ‘He’s got kids.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘It won’t happen again.’

  NOW

  The kids were on the edge of hysteria by the time they arrived at Layla’s mother’s place for Christmas lunch. Layla and Cam had been up until midnight the previous evening, wrapping presents in silvery paper and stuffing them into Christmas stockings and leaving the spoils under the tree. It was the first year both children had been old enough to understand Christmas, and the morning had felt as magical to Layla as her own childhood Christmases. But the children’s excitement had quickly turned to tears and tantrums as they fought over their presents, and Layla was relieved to transfer them to a different environment, where there were other people to distract them.

  Angela knelt down to sweep the children into her arms. ‘Merry Christmas, my little angels!’

  Louis wriggled out of his grandmother’s arms and charged up the hallway towards the living room. ‘Uncle Zach!’ he bellowed.

  Layla exchanged a smile with Cam. It was cute to see how Louis idolised Layla’s younger brother, and Zach was always good value, playing with both the kids long beyond the time most people would’ve tired of it. Ella took off after Louis, leaving the adults alone together. Angela gave Layla a brief hug, then reached out to squeeze Cam’s arm. ‘Merry Christmas, you two.’

  ‘Same to you, Angela,’ Cam said.

  They followed the kids into the living room. An anaemic-looking Christmas tree stood in a corner of the room, swamped by thick tinsel and blinking with multi-coloured lights, and with a jolt Layla recognised it as the tree from her own childhood. Had it been here every year and she just hadn’t noticed it until those messages had pried open the door to her past? Brightly wrapped presents were piled beneath the tree. Muted Christmas carols played from the stereo.

  Louis and Ella were sitting either side of Zach on the couch, both talking to him at once at the top of their lungs.

  ‘I got a skateboard for Christmas!’ Louis yelled.

  ‘Cool!’ Zach said. ‘I’ll have to teach you a few moves. I was a keen skateboarder back in the day.’

  Ella shoved her wrist, which was bristling with colourful plastic bracelets, under Zach’s nose. ‘Look what Santa got me.’

  Zach took her wrist and studied the bracelets. ‘Santa has seriously good taste.’ He looked up and gave Layla and Cam a cheerful wave. ‘Hey, Cam, hey, sis. Merry Christmas.’

  Cam and Zach shook hands then struck up a conversation.

  ‘Sounds like those two did pretty well this year,’ Angela said.

  Layla grimaced. ‘By the time we left home, Louis said he hated skateboards and he was never going to use it. Then they fought over those bracelets and broke one, and Ella screamed until she threw up. So yeah, merry bloody Christmas.’

  Cam glanced back at them. ‘I think we could all use
a drink, Angela. Why don’t you two go and open a bottle of wine while Zach and I entertain the kids?’

  Layla glared at her husband for his obvious attempt to throw her into her mother’s company, but he’d already turned back to Zach and didn’t notice.

  Angela looked quickly at Layla, then away again. ‘Come on, then.’

  There was a moment of uneasy silence when they reached the kitchen before a sudden realisation gave Layla something to say. ‘Hey, where’s Caitlin? Isn’t this whole thing for her?’

  ‘Well, it was actually so we could spend time together as a family, Layla,’ Angela said tartly.

  ‘Sorry,’ Layla said, feeling remarkably like a teenager. ‘I didn’t mean it like—’

  ‘They broke up last week,’ Angela interrupted. ‘Your brother has rubbish timing.’

  ‘You seem more upset about it than he does,’ Layla said.

  Angela got a bottle out of the fridge. ‘I liked her. She was good for him.’

  She looked more comfortable now, and that made Layla relax a little too. She shrugged. ‘Zach doesn’t know a good thing when he’s got it.’

  Her mother twisted the cap off the bottle of white wine and poured two glasses. ‘He’s got to settle down one day.’ She pushed a glass across the bench, and Layla couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘Not drinking out of a box today?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with cask wine.’ Angela waved a finger at her. ‘City snob.’

  ‘You’ve lived in the city as long as I have, Mum.’

  But this comment was a reminder of the reason they’d moved to the city in the first place, and the brief camaraderie between them dissolved. Layla sipped her wine as her mother bustled around the kitchen. Zach, Cam, the kids, work – whenever they diverted from these safe topics, things became awkward between them. And now, watching her mother slicing the avocados and getting the pink prawns and thousand-island dressing out of the fridge reminded her so acutely of the Christmas Days of her childhood that she had to swallow down the lump of nostalgia that rose in her throat. If not for her, her family might never have fractured in the first place. And maybe her dad would still be here with them, rather than opening presents and laughing with someone else’s family in Sydney.