The Best Thing Read online

  It’s not just that sort of thing. It’s last year, and the way Mum and I coped with my little crisis with Brenner. Dad never knew a thing—it wasn’t a family matter, it was a women’s matter, and somehow that put Dad on the outer and he’s never found his way back in.

  And the stupid thing was, we didn’t have to plan anything. Two days before I was booked in to get rid of it, the baby got rid of itself. I needn’t even have told Mum. I could’ve just gone on like normal and there’d’ve been no disruption. I remember lying in bed after having been to the hospital, wishing and wishing I’d kept my mouth shut. Dad came in thinking it was just a bad period, patted my hot-water bottle, said some oh-well-better-in-the-morning thing, went out. I felt like such a fake, and I also couldn’t work out what was going on, why he couldn’t be told. ‘He’d be upset,’ Mum had said, but I didn’t feel any better for having him not be upset. Nowadays I keep finding myself on the verge of telling him, just to clear things up, just to get him in from the outer, but I always chicken out. Mum was serious, quiet, almost fearful, and after Lisa I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut when in doubt.

  Ah, here’s Dad now. Phew, now the house feels normal. Up the stairs, past my door, into the bathroom, shower on. He must be the cleanest man on earth, showering morning and night. It’s not like they’d get up to anything much dirty in the night, Mum fast asleep when he gets in.

  Oh no, they’re having a bit of a talk, Mum sounding dozy, Dad quiet. A little laugh (like, little—no happiness in it, nothing to get excited about).

  A few minutes later: now I guess they’ve settled in to sleep. What must that be like, sleeping next to the same person for twenty years? Well, sleeping next to anyone at all, through the night. Couples in the movies, it’s either burning passion or older people in pyjamas turning their backs on each other—no clues. With Brenner the idea never occurred to me. It was quick sex snatched anywhere half-private and no hanging around afterwards. I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about, certainly why girls were talking about it as if it were so important. I couldn’t see what the girl got out of any of it. I wonder about spending a whole night with Pug, though. It might be nice. I know he’d like the idea; it’d only be up to me to suggest it. Maybe if we’re still together next year, when I’m out of school and free … when life’s had a chance to get good again. I sure don’t want to add any complications now.

  Ambra Lewis gives me a weird look. I just catch the end of it before she turns back to her friends. It’s a really hard, watchful look, like she’s just properly noticed me for the first time. Did you tell Ricky Lewis, Mum? She is probably your best mate, and you tell her practically every thought in your head. Well, maybe she’s not such a great friend, if she’s blabbed to Ambra.

  Or maybe it’s on the grapevine and everyone knows about it, from Lisa or Brenner or whoever’d be creepy enough to pass it on. Maybe the rumour just hit Year 10 and Ambra’s in shock.

  Or maybe she’s always hated my guts and this is just the first time I’ve actually caught her showing it. Why should I care what Ambra Lewis thinks?! Stuff her!

  After twenty hours, two small chromosome-filled bubbles float inside the egg, one provided by the woman and one by the man. They combine to form a single nucleus containing all the genetic information needed for the creation of a new individual human person. About twelve hours later the cell divides for the first time, into two. Division and growth will continue for nine months. The cell cluster begins its journey toward the uterus, propelled on waves made by hairlike cilia that line the fallopian tube. Despite all this activity, no biological signal tells her that fertilisation has occurred.

  ‘Hey, you wanna come and sit with us, Mel?’ I looked up and Lisa had me in her sights. But nobody around her was stifling giggles; nobody seemed particularly interested, even.

  ‘Oh, okay.’ It can’t hurt, I thought. Little did I know.

  Lisa can make you feel very interesting, all of a sudden. She can be super-friendly, and stay sincere about it even if the rest of the group are cracking up around her.

  ‘You should really be in our group,’ she said. ‘You’re so clever. Compared to most of the shitheads in this place, hey. I mean, you don’t say much, but you get good marks and that, don’t you?’

  ‘I do okay.’ I fell in with this idea of ‘cleverness’-equals-good-marks.

  ‘Yeah, and you could look really great with a bit of work. Don’t you reckon she could, Donna?’

  Donna looked round blankly at me from where she was staring at James’s group. The stare stayed on her face.

  ‘I reckon so, anyway,’ said Lisa. ‘And I’m going to be a beautician, so I know all about, you know, bringing out the best in people. Like, their looks. You need to cut your hair so the curls’d spring up, you know?’ She started fiddling with my hair.

  ‘Aargh, get off!’ I pushed her hands away, laughing, feeling myself go red.

  ‘I mean it. It wouldn’t take much. You should come round to my place and I’d make you over. I’ve got a friend who can cut hair. She’s excellent. You’d look so good.’

  ‘It gets in my eyes.’

  ‘So? Is that the end of the world? Scared you won’t be able to see the whiteboard?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  ‘You should think about it.’

  And she was looking at me, assessing my potential, and I was seeing her close up for the first time. It’s true, she has got perfect skin (not even a freckle) and eyes like Michelle Pfeiffer’s set wide apart, and hair so bright it makes marks on your retinas when you look away.

  Lisa’s very beautiful. That’s why everyone does what she says, girl or boy. You can’t believe this vision, this girl who should be a model, is actually focusing on you, is speaking to you. I remember my astonishment, even if I don’t feel it now. Or I felt, Gee, why’s she bothering with all this? How can somebody who looks so good not just rise above us all? Why hasn’t she been talent-scouted away from us? Why, oh why? The sound of her giggles up the back of the room makes me feel sick, and just the sight of her hair, clipped or tied or wound up differently every time you see her, turns me wooden and stupid even when she’s on the other side of the playground, even if she’s walking away from me.

  You never see her on her own, always in a huddle with Donna and those other girls. They get a look on their faces, the whole group, and they swagger around spattering fear generally until Donna decides who to pick on next; then they come in for the kill. They’re terrifying, and whoever hangs out with them becomes terrifying. I used to be terrifying! Little invisible Mel!

  Being part of Lisa’s group gives you power. You see it the way kids look at you, move out of your way, think about what they say to you. When you stop being in the group it’s different: they all close in and push at you again, and their voices are contemptuous, glad you’re on the outer, a victim, like them.

  I smell Oriana before I see her—some strong, headachey, sweet perfume. It’s like a wind rolling down Pug’s stairs; it almost flattens my hair.

  She’s sitting on Pug’s bed fiddling with her fingernails, claws applied at a salon. She’s wearing a red suit, short and very tight, and she’s got so much hair, like hundreds of black corkscrews bursting out of her head; she crowds the room with her hair and her perfume.

  She looks up at me from under viciously plucked brows. ‘Hi, I’m Dino’s sister. Oriana. You’ve gotta be Mel.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s just takin’ a leak. Won’t be a minute. How ya doin’?’ She shifts on the bed to indicate I should sit down.

  ‘Oh, not bad.’ The scent ripples as I push into it.

  She looks me over again. ‘You’re doin’ Year 12, Dino says.’ I nod. ‘What ya hangin’ out with him for, then? Nah, just joking. He’s about the smartest one in our family.’ She snorts. ‘Not that that’s saying much.’ Pug comes in. ‘Your girlfriend’s here,’ Oriana says flatly, watching his face light up as he sees me.

  ‘Thought you weren’t
gunna get here ‘til four o’clock!’ He kisses my cheek like a husband.

  ‘I took the last lesson off.’

  ‘Good on you. I mean, it wasn’t anything important, was it?’

  ‘Sport.’

  Oriana chuckles. ‘He’s like that with you too, huh? Used to always be on at me about jigging school. Does ‘e check your homework, too?’ She dodges his swinging foot. ‘Hey, don’t mess me up!’

  ‘Mess you up? You do a good enough job of that yourself,’ he says kindly. ‘You don’t need me.’

  ‘Yes I do.’ She picks up a tiny black patent handbag hardly big enough to hold a tampon, and stands up decisively, pulling her red skirt down all round. ‘Don’t forget to talk to Dad about what I told you, okay Dino?’

  ‘Yeah, okay.’

  She blows him a kiss and waves at me. ’Ciao.’

  ‘Ciao,’ answers Pug.

  ‘See you.’ When she’s gone I blink and flap a hand in front of my face. ‘Boy, that is some pong!’

  ‘Yeah,’ Pug grins. ‘She overdoes everything, my sister.’

  ‘She’s friendly enough.’

  ‘Yeah. Careful what you say to her, but. She’s a real motor-mouth. Like, she’s probably ringing my mum up right now to say she’s met you.’

  ‘It’s okay. I didn’t let anything slip. So what do you have to talk to your dad about?’

  ‘Oh, don’t ask,’ he groans. ‘Whether she can stay out later, some shit. She wants me to work on the old man.’

  ‘Must be handy, having siblings.’

  ‘It’s a bloody nuisance, if you ask me.’

  ‘What does she do for you, in return?’

  ‘For me? Nothing. Oh, she buys me awful stuff for Christmas. Clothes, you know, that cost a bloody arm and a leg and make me look like an idiot. I mean, you seen what she wears. Same stuff, only for guys. Stuff to go to discos in,’ he finishes witheringly.

  ‘Very you.’ I’m enjoying seeing him uncomfortable, entangled in his family. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to meet the rest of them? No, no, no. Me in a houseful of Orianas? I’d fade away to nothing, turn into a piece of wood, a skirting board or a broom handle, something completely mundane and invisible. There’s not enough of me to hold out against the personalities; I don’t have a strong enough smell.

  Scene: Lisa’s bedroom. LISA and ME sit at opposite ends of her bed, LISA painting fingernails.

  ME: Lees, do you ever look at your hands and wonder if they belong to you?

  LISA: Uh, no, Mel, I can’t say I do. (Shoots are-you-losing-it look at ME.)

  ME: Like, do you ever wonder how they got to be these hands, your hands, from just being little fat baby hands, same as everyone else’s?

  LISA (shooting another look): Um, never had a problem with that, Mel. You feeling okay?

  (They both laugh, releasing LISA’s built-up puzzlement.)

  ME: I mean it! Don’t you see them doing things in front of you and just think, ‘It’s amazing! What’s behind all this? Who told them to move like that? How did they know to grow into these skinny, bony …’ (Waves hands to show, lost for words.)

  LISA: You’ve got nice hands. (Snort of laughter.) Your head’s a bit weird, but your hands are fine. (Looks proprietorially over at them.) You keep your nails too short, and you could moisturise more often, but basically, good hands.

  ME: You’re hopeless. You’ve missed the point completely. (Falls back across pillows, giving up.)

  LISA: Well, when you go and get all religious on me … (looks up, spreads hands, polish brush held delicately)… well, who wants to know, babe?

  A condom spilling honey, a streak down the door where it was pushed through the ventilation slots, drizzling down a pile of new textbooks. I feel eyes through the after-school scramble, a silence at the far end of the locker aisle. There is no honey, I tell myself. There is no condom. I pack my bag, maintain the rhythm of packing as I grab up the sticky condom in some tissues and stuff it into the bag as well. I close the locker door and leave, past bent backs shaking with giggles.

  I always get Pug to tell me how he’s spent his week—he used not to be able to remember, but now he tries really hard—he thinks it’s really funny that I’m interested. He’ll be up to Tuesday and he’ll say ’You don’t wanna hear about this boring shit!’ He can’t believe me when I say I do, and force him to go on about the latest feud in the Magnini family, or the fight he saw Thursday night.

  Always after spending time with Pug I feel like coming home and writing everything down, to hang on to the feeling. Our house is so boring, so not-happy, so flat, and when I’m over at Pug’s I seem to be all-over alive, awake as I never am at home—brain and body both. He looks in my eyes as if he wants to suck my brain out through them.

  I just enjoy touching him, walking down grotty old Erskineville Road or somewhere, his hand in my back jeans pocket, his voice in my ear. Living in a family is so un-sexy—how does it get to be like this? It had to start off better, didn’t it? Mum’s told me about it. She sounded as if she was in love with Dad, back then. Why does that seem so ridiculous now? Definitely those two are not in love. I wouldn’t even say they love each other. I wouldn’t say either of them are crazy about me, even. We remind me of three trains running side by side along parallel tracks. We never look at each other, we hardly touch, we never do anything together, unless you count the supermarket shopping—whoopee. We never talk more than we have to: ‘Can I go on the excursion, Mum?’ ‘Sure. Here’s $10’. It’s weird, when you think about it. Are all families like this?

  Lisa’s isn’t. Her dad’s a really hearty type, always making rude jokes that crack her mum up and make Lisa and Troy groan. They’re always hugging each other and pushing each other and tickling and carrying on. At least, when I knew them they were; it’s a while since I checked. Loudmouth Lisa, ex-best friend.

  The Lewises are okay, too. They don’t make as much noise as the Wilkinsons, but you can tell they’re joined. They all run together on the same track instead of four different ones, all going along when Josh’s playing hockey or Ambra’s in the swimming sports. I’d be lucky to get Mum to the school once a year on Prize Night, and Dad—well, you don’t want to know, do you, Dad? I only mention kids at school every now and again, but when I do you switch on the lectures about being an individual (a good little train running alone down the line) and not being led by the crowd. God, if only there was a crowd to be led by! There is no-one, honestly. I can say without anyone contradicting me, I have no friends at school any more. I used to have friends. I used to have a boyfriend there, even. I used to love getting up and going to school. Every evening I’d be on the phone with someone, organising for the weekend. I went out every Friday and Saturday night for nearly a whole year.

  And the years before that, school was different. There were gang-like groups, but they didn’t have much power, and they didn’t have decisive leaders like Donna-and-Lisa or James Li. New people came and changed the whole mood of the school, and other people left, like (most importantly) Natalie Begley, who was my friend and went to London with her dad. And there were also a few sensible people like Russell Daice—small, clever and very good at dissolving disagreements, so sure of himself, but so nice about it, that no-one could put him down. People like him were an antidote to all the jocks, but now there’s no resistance, and the jocks and the victimisers charge around doing what they please. Everything is likely to slip out of control there at any moment—last year some classes came so close to rioting it wasn’t funny, though I pretended it was at the time.

  I was pretty sure I was happy, last year—I’d never hung around with such a lot of people, felt so popular. It was hard keeping up the pace, but it was exciting being there when rules (spoken and unspoken), sometimes real laws, were being breached. I didn’t actually lead any break-ins, but I went for joy-rides in a few stolen cars, and picked up a few ‘bargains’ from the shops around King Street with Lisa. It was terrifying, but at least I felt awake; I wasn’t waiting
for something to happen, as it’d felt like for all my life up until then.

  Well, now it’s all shot to pieces, isn’t it? I’d rather be in a coma than in this state of fearful super- awareness all the time, watching the shreds of everything I had last year fall through my fingers. Sometimes, when things are really black, Pug seems like a kind of consolation prize for having lost everything else in the bomb blast. Here, have this unemployed bruiser, someone said, and tossed him to me.

  But I dropped the bomb myself, didn’t I? Can’t blame anyone else. I opened the bomb-bay doors (my mouth) and pressed the release button and, plop!, the bomb (the words) landed right in Lisa’s lap. Then she took it to school and laid it in the middle of the playground and detonated it. Blammo! Everything I’d had at that place was gone.

  I hate that girl. She’s evil for doing that. (I’m crying; I can’t believe I’d let them make me cry. It must be PMS. It’s about that time, I think. It must be.) But I should’ve known I’d get it wrong. After four years sitting quietly with Natalie in a corner of the yard, of course everyone knew I was pretending when I started cutting loose with Donna and Lisa. Now I figure they all saw through me. They just sat around waiting for me to blow it, and it was only a matter of time before I did. Nobody told me that if something stupid happens to you, like getting pregnant, you don’t tell your best friend, if she’s a ‘best friend’ like Lisa. I should’ve been able to see that—if I hadn’t been pretending, if I hadn’t wanted friends so badly that she wheedled the story out of me, if I hadn’t been trying to impress her with how experienced I was, if I’d bloody well thought about it! I mean, I knew that Lisa, underneath the dizzy surface she uses, is a really hard person, really judgemental. Sometimes she turns on the charm and sometimes she turns on the freezer. I remember (it hurts) how she tried to keep the charm going when I started telling her. Suddenly we were both acting. We weren’t best friends any more—some security wall, like they have in banks, had shot up between us. On one side she was staring, her eyes hard with dislike, her brain whirring; on the other side I was spitting it out, gobbet after gobbet, the stuff of juicy gossip.