Chapter 6: Curves: The New Skin and Bone
I’d been regretting the ice-cream binge all week but by the time Liam’s party came around I was feeling pretty good. It was one of those nights. You know, when autumn is in full swing but the evenings are still kind of mild. Mum and Dad had gone out on one of their post-massive-fight Saturday night dates and my lace dress had worked out just the way I’d hoped. I put on my favourite tomato-red lipstick and squeezed my gut into a pair of Spanx, which I know are not the most comfortable of garments, but they do make you wonder. Where does all the fat actually go?
‘Whoa,’ George said when I opened the door. ‘You look hot!’
‘Oh, I’m a bit fat,’ I mumbled, looking at the ground.
‘Sometimes you really talk shit,’ Melody said. ‘You are so not fat. I don’t know why you always think you are.’
‘Yeah,’ George agreed. ‘Don’t you know curves are the new skin and bone?’
‘You should put that on a T-shirt,’ I said.
We went inside and Melody and George sat on Mum’s new designer couch.
‘New couch?’ Melody asked.
‘Yeah. I think Mum got it from Freedom, or maybe it was Ikea,’ I lied.
‘Comfy.’ George lay back against the cushions. He was making me nervous. If anything got spilt on it Mum would seriously have a heart attack and die. The way George was lounging about, you could tell he had no idea that he was sitting on thousands of dollars worth of upholstery.
‘Want a drink?’
‘Stuff it,’ Melody said. ‘Why not?’
Mum always makes sure we have a bottle of Snow Queen vodka in the freezer. It’s her favourite brand. She loves to tell people it’s from Kazakhstan; just the right blend of exotic, edgy and authentic. Mum always drinks it straight so I followed suit and served it straight up.
‘Good lord.’ George coughed. ‘This is strong.’
‘You’ve just got to down it. Like this,’ Melody explained, devouring the liquid within seconds.
George and I looked at her in awe.
‘It’s in the genes,’ she said, deadpan.
By the time we left my house we were all pretty drunk. We staggered to Liam’s place singing old Nirvana songs.
‘Kurt Cobain was so awesome,’ George said. ‘I wish I lived back then.’
‘He was a drug addict who shot himself in the head!’ Melody said.
‘Mum says it’s a travesty that they play Nirvana on Gold 104. She said they even play it at her gym.’ I did my best Mum impersonation, which involved waving my hands about in an exaggerated fashion while rolling my eyes up towards the sky. ‘Poor Kurt would be rolling in his grave.’
We all laughed.
‘Whoa,’ George stared up at Liam’s house, unsteady on his feet. ‘Check this place out!’
Facing Princes Park, it was one of the tastefully renovated double storey terraces that I admired when I walked home from school. It was really beautiful, with a cottage garden and paved path leading to a shiny red front door. Music blared from the backyard and a couple of kids who were sitting on the balcony looked down and waved.
Melody turned to me, her shiny dark hair falling over the shoulders of her new rose print tee. She was wearing the leather leggings I made and she looked like a total rock star.
‘I can’t believe we’re here.’ I admit I was kind of awestruck.
‘Me neither,’ George said, tugging the Rob Zombie tee he’d paired with his leopard print slacks. He hadn’t been allowed out all week because of the homemade Mohawk he’d spontaneously decided to give himself. He said that when his dad saw him he looked like he was going to burst with shame and humiliation. ‘You’d think I’d murdered the next door neighbour’s new puppy,’ George said when he told us the story.
‘Down the back,’ a girl in a white hippy dress yelled from the balcony. ‘Everyone’s down the back.’
I was feeling buzzy as we walked down the side of the house. A green wall of cascading plants covered the fence, like a scene from The Secret Garden. Coloured fairy lights glistened in the courtyard. There were kids everywhere, smoking, drinking, chatting. A couple of girls were dancing to what I think was Tom Waits and a girl with a perfect pixie cut was pashing some guy in black skinny jeans over in the corner.
‘I can’t believe people are smoking,’ Melody scoffed. ‘Seriously. Who does that anymore? I mean, besides my mum.’
‘The fashion pack has arrived,’ Liam announced as he approached us. ‘You all look fab. Glad you could make it. There are some plastic cups on the table over there and I think Stella is bringing out some food. Enjoy.’
Unlike the three of us, Liam is popular and charismatic, the kind of boy who seems older than he actually is, like the twenty-something actors who play teenagers on an array of unrealistic teen soaps I won’t name here. He is tall and athletic with curly blond hair and a goofy smile, and twinkly eyes that make everyone fall just a little bit in love with him. Totally out of my league, of course, but still worthy of a fantasy or two.
‘Oh. My. God,’ George exclaimed.
‘What is it?’ I was a little worried, George was almost jumping out of his skin.
‘James just made eye contact and waved. What should I do?’
‘Go and say hi,’ Melody commanded. ‘Winter and I will be fine.’
George eyed the drinks table. ‘I’ll just grab another drink.’
Melody tugged his arm. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Slurring is not sexy. Trust me.’
Because George almost always takes Melody’s advice he courageously approached James. Melody and I sat in the courtyard and drank the champagne we’d noticed in the ice-filled kiddie pool designed to fuel a night of liver smashing, brain cell-crushing underage drinking.
‘Cheers,’ Melody declared. ‘We are not here to impress anyone so let’s have fun.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Stuff it!’
And that’s when I spilled my drink all over the crotch of some random stranger who was just trying to find a place to sit down. I don’t even know how it happened. But what I do know is that the wet patch on his pale blue jeans made him look like he’d pissed himself.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. It was an accident. I’m sure I’ve got some tissues somewhere in here.’ I started rummaging through my bag. No luck.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ the wet patch boy’s friend said. ‘Mind if we join you?’
These boys were a far cry from the skinny-jeaned hipsters that were populating this party. In fact, they were refreshingly geeky and out of place.
‘I’m Nick and this is my friend Oliver,’ said the dark-haired one with dry jeans and a Star Wars tee. ‘How do you know Liam?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said to the wet patch boy, aka Oliver, again. He had ginger hair and freckles, but there was something about him that made him cute. His sparkly green eyes, maybe. Or the way he laughed and said, ‘You don’t have to keep apologising. This happens to me all the time.’
Melody nudged me. ‘He’s funny.’
It turned out the boys knew Liam from taekwondo, which surprised me as Liam didn’t seem the martial arts type. Nick and Oliver, on the other hand, were black belt geeks through and through. They told us they went to one of those high achieving all-boys schools, which they both hated but considered academically helpful as Nick aimed to get into medicine, which got Melody all animated and the two of them started talking non-stop, ignoring both Oliver and me.
‘So,’ I slurred slightly, having no idea what to talk about. ‘Taekwondo, huh? I don’t really do sports, as you can probably tell – whoa, I love this song, even though I bet they’re playing it ironically.’
‘People say Flock of Seagulls were one hit wonders, but their whole album is actually pretty good.’
I almost fell off my chair. ‘You like Flock of Seagulls? No one likes them … well, no one our age, anyway!’
‘Don’t tell anyone,’ Oliver murmured, looking concerned, ‘but I have a thing for 80s music.’
‘Please tell me you are obsessed with Talking Heads.’ I was getting excited. ‘I even love their outfits.’
‘Totally,’ Oliver agreed. ‘Though do they trump Devo? That’s the question.’
I was just about to get into the pros and cons of each band when I started to feel a little queasy. Okay, very queasy.
‘I don’t feel so good,’ I said. ‘I think I drank too much.’
‘It’s okay. I’ll get you some water.’ Oliver stumbled away to the kitchen.
If I weren’t so humiliated by the fact that I was now vomiting into a pot plant I would have been secretly thrilled that a boy was doing something nice for me. Then I heard the screams. And a crash. And someone yelling, ‘Call triple zero!’
Oliver came rushing back with the water. ‘Something’s happened in the front yard.’
‘What’s going on?’ I grabbed the water and drank it thankfully.
Everyone was rushing through the house, trampling the polished floorboards and Moroccan rugs, to find out what was going on.
‘Oh my God!’ a girl yelled.
‘Hannah! Hannah!’ screamed another.
‘The paramedics are on their way,’ someone said. ‘Don’t move her. They said not to move her.’
A white blob lay in the front yard. It was the white hippy dress girl from the balcony. She was so still she looked dead. Melody came and stood beside me with Nick. Oliver held my hand. The yard was spinning and I felt hot. ‘Sober up, sober up,’ I said to myself, a horrible vomity taste filling my mouth.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
George came rushing over, ashen-faced. ‘James and I were up there with her. There was a bunch of us. She was just mucking around, dancing and stuff, and then she fell off.’
My stomach churned. ‘Will she be okay?’
‘It depends on how she fell,’ Melody said. ‘I think she landed on the garden, which is better than a concrete path.’
The paramedics told us all to get out of their way as they rushed across the lawn toward the girl. ‘Where are your parents?’ asked a young woman, who didn’t look that much older than us. ‘Are there any adults here?’
‘They’re in the UK,’ Liam replied. ‘For another week.’
‘Is she going to be all right?’ someone cried out. ‘Please tell us.’
‘She’s unconscious. The best thing you can do for your friend right now is get out of the way and let us do our job.’
It felt wrong to stick around.
‘Let’s go home,’ Melody said.
‘We’ll walk with you.’ Oliver and Nick looked at us. ‘Make sure you get back safely.’
So George left with James and Melody and I walked with the two boys. Nobody knew what to say or how to behave. I felt sick and so tired all I could think about was my bed. When we got to my place I could barely muster up the energy to wave goodbye. I just went up to my room and passed out in my new lace dress, letting my make-up smudge the pillow while Tim Gunn stared down at me all dapper, dignified and disapproving.
Make it work.