Bridie

The bus was running late. Bridie checked the clock on her phone for the umpteenth time and swore under her breath. She had so much to do this evening: accelerated maths homework, a group assignment for science, for which she had ended up with most of the work, not forgetting some short answers for PE. Every minute counted.

‘It’s only Year Nine,’ Emmet was always reminding her. ‘Stop stressing.’

Her brother didn’t care about school. Bridie cared far too much. She was a perfectionist; she knew it, and her family knew it because they bore the brunt of her perfectionism. Mum was always trying to dissuade her from studying too late at night.

‘You don’t want to burn out, love. Everyone needs down time.’

Bridie had missed her mother these last few days. The atmosphere in the house was depressing. Emmet was monosyllabic even when he was trying to be nice. Dad was always tired and grumpy after work. Mum balanced out the energy in the house, keeping things upbeat. Bridie missed their random chats, even though her mother was sometimes fishing for information.

‘What are you and your friends planning for this weekend, love?’

‘Any nice boys at school? Don’t make that face! Just asking.’

‘Was that Lily you were talking to earlier? How is she?’

Lily was hanging out with Jamie Osborn, who had a reputation for being the school ‘bad boy’. She insisted she and Jamie were just friends, but she was being secretive and evasive, which made Bridie suspicious. She also seemed a lot less interested in school and studying. But Bridie wasn’t ready to confide these concerns to her mother.

Ironically, it was Lily and her parents who had inspired Bridie’s work ethic and high grades. Lily’s mum was Hong Kong Chinese and very invested in her daughter’s academic results and extracurricular activities. Her dad, originally from South Australia, was a self-professed maths nerd. The family’s ambition and enthusiasm had rubbed off on Bridie and she often found herself secretly trying to impress the Pearsons.

The bus stopped and started, stopped and started: the after-school traffic was terrible. Bridie had a headache and was feeling sick by the time she finally alighted. Despite this, she walked at a brisk pace, creating distance from the other students who had got off at the same stop.

Long strides up the hill, the sea wind slapping her face. Then, quite suddenly, tears began to pool in her eyes. She missed Lily, who used to share most of the ride home until she started staying back to spend time with Jamie. And she missed her mother, because whenever Mum wasn’t home, Bridie’s thoughts travelled to really dark places. What if Mum had actually died? What if the empty, depressing house was a parallel reality, where the treatment hadn’t been successful? What if the cancer returned and this was what the future looked like?

Stop! Mum was in Melbourne at a conference. She was alive, healthy and probably enjoying every minute of her luxury hotel.

Bridie needed to focus, get most of her work done this evening, so she could go to Lily’s tomorrow after school. For as long as she could remember, she had spent Friday afternoons at her friend’s house. They would plough through their homework, gorge themselves on dumplings for dinner, and then watch a movie or TV. Bridie usually slept over and caught the bus home mid-Saturday morning.

Fridays with Lily were more precious since Jamie had come on the scene.

Now, for some bizarre reason, she had tears in her eyes again.

~

Bridie loved the busy atmosphere of the Pearson household. Homework was completed at the kitchen table while Lily’s mum prepared dinner, the scent of fried onions and meat permeating the air. Mr Pearson worked as a data analyst for the government and would look over their maths homework once he got in from work.

‘What are you doing this week? Oh, trigonometry. Who doesn’t love trig?’ He would show them multiple ways to solve a problem and would sometimes even come up with his own quizzes so they could practise a difficult concept. It was like having a free maths tutor: a goofy fun tutor who made homework enjoyable. Mrs Pearson was also a bit goofy. Food was her love language: homemade biscuits and mango smoothies for afternoon tea; the dumplings, which she painstakingly made from scratch. Underpinning the warmth and goofiness were ambition and those high expectations. Lily was their only child. They wanted her to be successful. To be successful, she had to work hard.

‘Don’t forget your violin practice, Lily. Thirty minutes every day. Bridie doesn’t mind.’

Bridie didn’t mind: her friend was brilliant at music. The pieces she played were enjoyable to listen to. Her scales – which she declared tedious – were actually quite mesmerising.

Bridie scrolled through her phone while Lily did her practice. Afterwards, Lily wanted to go on her phone for a while; probably to message with Jamie. It was 9 pm before they set themselves up on the couch with Lily’s doona, a bowl of freshly popped popcorn and a large bag of Maltesers.

‘What episode are we on again?’ Lily asked, bringing up Netflix on the huge TV screen. The girls had been binge-watching Never Have I Ever the last few weeks. They were already on season three.

‘Episode five,’ Bridie said. It was unusual for Lily to ask; she always kept track of things like that.

Lily turned the lights down, slipped under the doona, took a fistful of popcorn. For the first fifteen minutes she watched the show intently, but then she started texting on her phone again, her face illuminated by the screen. Now she was holding the phone out in front of her; a flash of light as she took a selfie. Sitting through this prolonged phone activity, Bridie felt herself getting more and more irritated.

‘Do you want me to pause it?’ she asked pointedly.

‘No, no. It’s fine. I’m watching.’

But Lily wasn’t watching. All she cared about was stupid Jamie Osborn. Bridie didn’t get it. Jamie and Lily were wildly ill-suited. Jamie wasn’t ambitious or intelligent or even a nice guy: his bad reputation had been earned through drug-taking and numerous suspensions from school. But Lily was convinced that Jamie was insecure, misunderstood and really sweet. She also insisted that he was hot. He had an angular face, which, in Bridie’s opinion, bordered on ugly but was balanced out by his height and sixpack. Lily was half white, half Chinese, and categorically pretty; she had her dad’s expressive eyes and smile, and her mum’s high cheekbones and beautiful skin. But looks didn’t matter, everyone knew that. It was all the other stuff about Jamie: the drugs, the suspensions, the fact that he didn’t like books and would probably scoff at Lily’s violin. Bridie only fixated on his looks when she spiralled about the many other ways in which they weren’t
suited.

She tolerated Lily’s distraction for the rest of episode five, and all the way through episodes six and seven.

‘Look, would you prefer if I just went home?’ she eventually snapped.

Lily finally looked up from her phone. A pause. This was where she would apologise. She was always good at saying when she was wrong.

‘Yeah, maybe. I’m tired, you know? I want to sleep in late tomorrow so might be best if you go now. I’ll ask Dad to drop you home, okay?’

It was not okay. Bridie was fuming but too embarrassed to cause a scene. Lily had already summoned her dad from upstairs, where he had been watching something on his laptop. Her mum was already in bed.

Within ten minutes, Bridie was shivering in Mr Pearson’s car, and he was fiddling with the windscreen defogger. ‘Sorry. New car. Other one kicked the bucket. Give me a minute to figure this out.’

Bridie had been too preoccupied to notice the new car. It was a silver sedan as opposed to the previous white one. Not hugely different inside; Mr Pearson even had the same brand of citrus air freshener, its smell slightly overpowering. A few moments later, hot air was blowing from the vents, the windscreen was clear and they were on their way.

‘Can you put on the radio, Bridie? I’m not familiar with it yet. Should keep my eyes on the road, yeah?’

Bridie switched from AM to FM, and turned the dial until she hit a station that was playing Harry Styles’ ‘Golden’. Lily was obsessed with Harry Styles. After listening to a few bars, Bridie turned it off. She flicked through some other stations, mostly late-night DJs talking about something boring, until she found one that was playing Coldplay, ‘Hymn for the Weekend’.

‘This is a good song, yeah?’ Mr Pearson said, zipping through Cronulla’s side streets, weaving around parked cars and small roundabouts.

‘Yes. I’m going to their concert in November. With Mum and Dad and my brother.’

November was months away. Bridie needed to keep faith. Whatever was going on between Lily and Jamie – friendship, infatuation, attraction of opposites – wouldn’t last that long. They were too fundamentally different.

Her foot tapped to the beat and her mood lifted ever so slightly. ‘Thanks for the lift, Mr Pearson,’ she said, as he stopped rather abruptly outside her house.

‘Sorry, Bridie, still getting used to these brakes.’ He raised his hand in a tired wave. ‘See you next week.’

They were both unaware that it was the last time she’d be invited over to Lily’s house. There would be no ‘next week’. Not as they knew it.