A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing

by Jessie Tu

  I take the train to Stanmore, walk the five minutes to Newington where Noah and his high school friends are waiting for me. There are gold plaques and sandstone sculptures every ten metres or so, commemorating old boys. The grounds are immaculate and broad; each building carved out in reflective glass panels and laced with trimmed rose gardens. Inside the hall, men in suits and polished shoes mingle in groups, holding beer and glasses of wine. The small chamber group are gathered at the front of the stage.

  I call out to Noah when I see him. He’s holding cables in one hand, his phone in the other.

  ‘Can you text Olivia and tell her I’ll be here till late?’ he asks.

  ‘Why can’t you do it?’

  ‘I don’t want her to think I’m overbearing.’

  ‘Olivia and I aren’t talking. Hasn’t she told you?’

  He blinks. ‘I didn’t know it was that bad.’

  ‘It’s bad. I didn’t even think she’d let us see each other.’

  He winces.

  ‘She doesn’t own me.’

  The concert lasts a little under an hour. Most of the ceremony is taken up by speeches listing the names of men who’ve given large sums of money to the school. Lots of applause, and then we’re packing up again. Noah is different tonight. His eyes drop to the floor when he’s talking to me and his hair is gel-flattened and he is clean-shaven. We head to the local pub on the main road and I walk behind him, staring at the back of his head. He’s talking to a young man I’ve never met. They laugh, slap each other across the back. At the pub, we talk about our jobs, shows we’ve seen. Some people talk about real estate. Rent. Noah returns from the bar with his third beer of the night.

  ‘Great show tonight,’ he says, smiling. ‘Did you want a beer?’

  A young teacher joins us at the table. She flirts with Noah, laughing at his jokes, brushing the back of her hand across his shoulders. When he excuses himself to go to the men’s, I say to the teacher, ‘You know he has a girlfriend?’

  She opens her mouth in an exaggerated O, puts a hand over it, an expression of mock alarm. ‘It’s not you, is it?’

  After eleven, the bartender asks us to leave. The three of us walk out together.

  ‘I’m going to walk home,’ I announce.

  Noah takes a step closer. ‘I’ll give you a lift.’

  ‘But you’re not going in the same direction.’

  ‘I need to pick up that thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know, that thing.’

  It takes me a second. ‘Oh, yes. The music for that concert.’

  The teacher walks over to Noah and stands on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. ‘See you around,’ she says.

  We watch her cross the road.

  ‘Not very subtle, is she?’

  He scoffs, pulling out his car keys.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, ‘you want to go for a swim?’

  At Rushcutters Bay, everything is dark. We scale a fence near the boatshed, his hands hovering close as I weave one leg over the other. We strip down to our underwear and slip into the water, which is icy and dark. I glance down to see if my nipples are showing underneath my white bra. In the water, the chill of a new sensation. We swim around the yachts, trying to find one to board. All the ladders are retracted.

  ‘There’s one over there,’ Noah calls. He points to a medium-sized yacht about fifty metres away.

  ‘It’s a fair bit out,’ I say. ‘Can you swim that far?’

  I wade through the black liquid. He follows close behind. Soon he passes me, reaching the yacht’s ladder first. When I get there, he turns his back to the ladder, grabbing the bars above his head.

  ‘Password?’

  In the black water, it seems easy to bridge the physical gap. I hold his hip and curve one arm around his neck. He pulls me towards him, eyes fixed on my breasts.

  ‘Thank you.’ My face is wet with saltwater.

  He pushes his face close to mine, our noses colliding as the water ripples.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Then his tongue is inside my mouth, knocking against my teeth. There is no rhythm to his kissing. I tangle myself in his oral mess. The confusion is pushed to the edge of my mind, present only when I open my eyes and see he has kept his eyes open while kissing me, like he wants to be awake to what he is doing.

  We climb onto the yacht and push open the door to the galley. The urgency between our bodies is palpable. We have sex standing up against the kitchen bench. He is tall and has to bend his knees to slip in at the right angle. I grip the bulkhead for support. At one stage, as he wedges me into a small space between a cupboard and doorframe, something pierces my tailbone.

  I let him continue. I don’t ask him to adjust my body, don’t ask him to loosen his grip on me, even though after a while I think my back is bleeding. I let him drive himself inside me.

  Later, I find his face in a crack of light. He is still shaking, tired, slack, a mix of elation and shame in his eyes. We swim back to the shore; the wound in my back stings in the saltwater. We pull our clothes on and drive through the empty streets back to my place. We get out of the car and he follows me to my apartment building. At the front door, I stop him. ‘Maybe don’t come in.’

  He nods.

  ‘I don’t want anything from you,’ I say.

  He shuffles his feet, taking a step back towards the street. ‘I know.’

  37

  I listen to Coldplay for five days. I eat entire blocks of chocolate in one sitting, mindlessly jamming pieces into my mouth. I order Thai takeaway each night and I stop brushing my teeth before bed. I am paralysed. Noah ignores my texts. I grab Monkey from my case and push his furry head between my legs. Nothing works. I have yet to hear any results from my audition, and it’s been two weeks. I fill my life, all its gaps, with anxieties; I push in things to worry about until there are no cracks at all. I take thirty-minute showers and emerge with my skin bruised all over. I stare at the foggy mirror in the bathroom, towel wrapped tightly around my body, wiping steam from the glass with the soft melancholy of an introspective heroine in an American indie film, looking deep into my own reflection. Feminine affliction has never looked so good. I sigh at my own face.

  Val knocks on my door and tells me I’m starting to look creepy and sad and not in a cool French way.

  She doesn’t know about Noah. To the rest of the world, I am just another girl screwed over by a boy who has vanished after a one-night stand. Nothing has shaken me up like this since the breakdown, and I don’t know why I feel so bad. Each passing hour, the horror of the reality I’ve conjured up feels frightening, a freight train careening towards me, forever a few metres away but never colliding. I’m waiting for it to kill me. I am short of breath the moment I wake from sleep. I’d gone and thrown a bomb on any chance of reconciliation between me and Olivia, the person who’d saved me from my old self. It has nothing to do with Noah at all. I realise, too late, there are lines that should never be crossed.

  ‘You’re being totally ridiculous,’ Val tells me. ‘Is it Mark? Did he do something?’

  ‘It’s not Mark. I need Ben and Jerry’s to make me feel better. Could you go and buy me some?’

  ‘I’m not your slave. You know, women like you were locked up in mental asylums a hundred years ago.’

  ‘Women like me?’

  ‘Angry and promiscuous.’

  ‘I’m mourning.’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘Stop being so dramatic.’

  ‘I can’t help it.’

  ‘Men never feel this bad. Women are always feeling bad about something. It’s called the patriarchy and you’re perpetuating it right now.’

  In the evening, she takes me to a bar on Crown Street. I pull on a wrinkled T-shirt and dark jeans.

  ‘I’ve taken the liberty of asking a few of my friends for some available dick for you. You need to stop moping around. We’re meeting my friend Sam’s new housemate. He’s just moved into their place in Darlinghurst and appar
ently he’s very tall.’

  ‘What does he do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

  ‘I don’t want to fuck a plumber.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, you’re worse than a racist.’

  ‘My prejudices don’t need a label.’

  ‘I have to Skype my parents. I’ll be in my room with my headphones on so you can be as loud as you want.’

  ‘What makes you think I’ll bring him home?’

  She orders another drink but leaves it unfinished on the bar and walks off to catch the bus when Sam’s new housemate arrives.

  Sam’s new housemate is not tall. He’s not tall enough. He does not smile much. After two beers, he gets up. ‘Coming?’

  I follow him back to his place and I let him take off my clothes in the dark of his bedroom and I let him go down on me and I let him fuck me in that ordinary way men fuck women they barely know.

  38

  A week later, I’m washing my hair in the shower when I hear my phone ringing in the bedroom. I race to get it. Between the bathroom and bedroom, I slam my right shoulder against the doorframe of my bedroom and tumble to the floor, landing on my right hip. I lie there for a few breaths, wailing quietly. Then I get up and limp to my phone on the bed. One missed call. Unknown number.

  At rehearsals, someone asks me about Olivia. I tell them she’s fine and leave it at that.

  In the afternoon, my phone rings again while I’m walking to the train station. I fumble for it in my handbag. When I answer the call, the person on the other end asks if I am Jena Lin. He has an American accent. My heart hammers against my ribs.

  ‘Jena, this is Nelson Williams from the New York Philharmonic. We met at your audition.’

  It’s been three weeks since the audition. I’d tried to forget what had happened, but the voice reminds me. Nelson. Williams. Perhaps he was the one dressed in a suit. The only member of the panel who’d smiled at me.

  ‘Yes, I remember you.’

  He clears his throat. ‘Congratulations. I have good news.’

  I stop at the entrance of the station. My chest erupts, a steel plate breaking against the surface of my ribs. I feel the hollow force of each hit, hit, hit; thump, thump, thump. A low baritone. Rolling timpani boom. I calm myself by looking up then closing my eyes. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. The sky is Play-Doh blue. Everything looks artificial.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Yes, I’m still here. I’m just surprised.’

  He laughs. It’s a warm, generous laugh. ‘It was one of the most

  impressive and powerful auditions I’ve ever heard,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Truly. We’re excited to have you join us in a few weeks’ time.’

  Back home, I put on the kettle and refill my water bottle. While I’m waiting for the kettle to boil, I call my mother and tell her the news. I move to the balcony and linger in the sun.

  ‘I thought you said you slipped up?’ She is perplexed.

  ‘I know. I thought I did. Maybe my brain is no longer working properly. I might need help.’

  ‘How strange. Could it be some sort of hoax?’

  ‘Maybe they were desperate to get me.’

  ‘Don’t think so highly of yourself.’

  ‘I don’t think highly of myself.’

  She fires questions at me. Logistics. Money. Schedules. Plans. I am thirteen again, only this time I have to take responsibility for these things on my own. ‘And who’s going to stay in your room in Bondi while you’re away?’

  I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  After we hang up, I walk into my bedroom and stand in front of the mirror, pressing my cheek to the glass, trying to see my own reflection in my pupils.

  I take a step back and measure my body, my face, my ears, my unbrushed brows. How will I manage without my mother? How will I play without Banks?

  In the evening, Mark walks out of his office building a few minutes after nine. I wait by the traffic lights outside for him to catch sight of me. He’s looking at his phone. I step in front of him. He presses a dry mouth to my lips, pockets his phone. We walk in silence, neither of us looking at the other. In a bar on Kent Street, he pats me on the shoulders, a brother to a sister.

  ‘I’m proud of you.’

  I’d texted him the news right after I spoke to my mother. ‘I leave first week of November.’

  ‘That’s good. I still have a while with you.’

  ‘You have your girlfriend.’

  ‘That’s not the same.’

  He leans forward.

  ‘Don’t let anyone tell you they’re a better fuck than me.’

  I see Mark each night, between the long days preparing for my trip. I let him take me as though nothing has changed between us and nothing will change. I arrange to pay my bills by automatic debit, get new passport photos, do an inventory of my underwear. One evening, Val asks if I want to sublet my room, tells me she won’t cover the rent by herself while I’m gone. But I don’t like the idea of someone sleeping in my bed without me. I’ll be getting a stipend from the exchange and all my travel and accommodation is paid for. I think I can cover the rent. I want my room to be waiting for me when I return, to smell only of my body.

  On the weekend, I visit Mike and Jacob at their studio after they return from Shanghai. Mike asks after my mother.

  ‘I left you a message and you never got back to me,’ he says.

  I don’t remember a message. ‘My mother?’

  ‘Val said she was unwell, that’s why you couldn’t make it to our show last month.’

  The show. The night at the Hilton.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Sorry about that.’

  He’s readjusting a frame on the wall, eyes darting between me and the silver wall clips. He tells me we’ll need to celebrate, gather with a few artists and drink to New York. They seem more excited than I am. Every time I get what I want, the thing that I want loses its power.

  Nelson Williams sends me a schedule for my first week in New York City. I buy two jackets and a new pair of boots, some sweaters and a beanie. Val makes me promise to visit her favourite Warhol works and museums.

  ‘Why don’t you just fly over and join me?’ I say. ‘It’s not like you don’t have the money.’

  She flips me off.

  I’ve made this sort of mistake before. I assume that as the daughter of billionaire parents she can do whatever she wants.

  ‘Not true,’ she tells me. Her parents keep her on a tight leash, giving her money for rent and nothing else. She is lucky to be allowed to paint.

  In the next few weeks, I see Mark frequently. We don’t leave his apartment, staying in the bedroom, writhing with some bottomless need. My head dips into a mild, persistent haze, a dream-like state, half conscious, half asleep. Drunk on sex. Drunk on misdemeanour. He takes my body and I collapse into a vortex of orgasm and spit and semen. Time is indistinct, like the period when I was a child between concerts and practice, when time seemed to halt, when the hours passed like days. When the air around me felt like it was melting, slow, dripping like a Dali painting.

  Banks calls, leaving messages, short words of congratulations. Somebody must have relayed the news to him. His calls go unanswered. I can’t escape the feeling of panic and inadequacy from the last conversation we had. The disapproval on his face. I wonder if he’d planned the speech long ago. If he knows the wound I’m still nursing.

  Silence is my most powerful weapon. He will know what I want from him, even if I can’t say it myself.

  The night before I leave, Mike and Jacob come over for dinner. We roast a chicken and make a watercress salad. They ask me specifics about the exchange and then list the artists whose work I have to see, the museums—the Hoppers at the Whitney—the arthouse cinemas and jazz clubs.

  I remind them I’ve been to New York several times.

  ‘But not as an adult,’ Mike says, skinning a piece of chicken breast on his plate. ‘It’ll be so diff
erent. Now you can drink and make love.’

  Jacob drizzles balsamic vinegar over the salad and tells me his favourite neighbourhoods. ‘Borough Park, South Williamsburg and Midwood. Midwood is crazy. The Jews call it Flatbush, but it’s not really Flatbush—the real Flatbush is somewhere you should hang out. There are a lot of Caribbeans there and the culture is way cooler. Also, don’t go to Seagate. Or Rego Park or Floral Park or Forest Hills. Though since you’re Asian, you’ll probably just get death stares.’

  ‘I’m not going to Syria.’

  He pinches my forearm. ‘It’s only going to get more dangerous if Trump gets elected.’

  We laugh, open mouthed.

  ‘I’ll drink paint if he does,’ Mike says.

  Jacob is not smiling. ‘I hope I never see you drink paint,’ he says soberly, taking a sip of beer.

  I am smug and proud and my certitude is strong. The US is about to elect its first female president, and I’ll be at the centre of it all. We’re giddy, optimistic, electrified by a new confidence. There is so much newness ahead of me. There is so much to look forward to.

  After dinner, the boys hand me a parting gift; a small framed canvas the size of a paperback. The canvas is painted black with a single white brushstroke down the centre.

  I study it for a few moments, trying to think of something clever to say.

  ‘What does it mean?’ I ask finally.

  ‘You’re the white line,’ Mike says.

  ‘But I’m not white.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘I’m a white stroke?’

  ‘Look at it carefully.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Look at the space around the line.’

  I am quiet for a moment, studying the image, then I think I see. ‘I’m alone?’

  ‘Or you could put it another way,’ Mike says.

  ‘More like, you’re this incredible aberration of a human,’ Jacob says.

  ‘A girl.’

  ‘A lonely girl.’

  ‘But you make it look cool.’

  ‘Not sad.’

  ‘Dangerous.’

  ‘Like I said, cool.’