Lottie was loved up. Since the band night she’d had a heady glow about her, and her phone kept going off. She disappeared some lunchtimes to meet Posh Boy (Tim) in the graveyard and would come back with leaves stuck in her hair. In that time, Ethan had stopped giving me Labrador eyes in sociology and now chatted everyone else up. I’d begun looking forward to film studies instead. Brian’s lack of professionalism made it easier to get to know Oli better – we now traded film recommendations like children trading football cards. And I’d dropped another 10mg on my medication. I was now down to only half a pill. HALF! I used to take three a day, plus benzos, a tranquillizer-type drug that made me sleepy all day.
“You know,” Amber said to Lottie, as we prepared to pay for another breakfast at the dodgy cafe. “You are allowed to talk about Tim. We’re your friends. We’re happy for you.”
Were we? I’d privately been more sad for myself that yet another friend had procured a boyfriend whilst I remained unlovable.
“Yes, tell us,” I said. Jealousy would get me nowhere.
Lottie blushed and ducked behind her dark hair.
“God,” Amber said, with a bit of disgust in her voice. “You’re proper loved-up, aren’t you?”
Lottie went redder and moved the dribbling sauce bottles about on the sticky tablecloth.
She mumbled something.
“What?” we both asked.
Lottie emerged from her hair. “I said, I feel bad talking about it.”
“What? Why?” Amber asked. “Evie and I can handle your gushing, can’t we, Evie?”
I nodded and put my hand on Lottie’s to stop her playing obsessively with the sauce. “Of course we can.”
“But I don’t want to be one of those girls…” Lottie put her head on the table briefly before raising it again. “You know, like Jane.”
Jane had got much worse since the gig. It was like she’d morphed into a mini version of Courtney Love overnight – backcombing her dyed hair, talking loudly in the canteen about wanting to get her nipple pierced. I’d even talked her out of getting matching tattoos with Joel. Tribal ones.
“Lottie, you are nothing like Jane,” I reassured her. “For one, you’ve not blown me off three times in the last week.”
“I know…I know…but I’m scared that if I talk about Tim with you guys then I’ll fail the Bechdel test.”
“The what?” I asked, whilst Amber nodded wisely. “Nah, you won’t. Don’t be silly.”
I was confused. “What’s the Bechdel test?” Was this something else I’d missed from school? Was it a test I was supposed to be revising for?
Lottie saw the panic in my eyes. “Calm down, Evie. It’s not an actual academic test.” She patted my hand. “It’s a feminism thing.”
“Feminism? There’s a test for that?”
Would I pass? I quickly scanned my thoughts and feelings to check them for feminismness. The pay gap makes me cross, and yet I wear make-up. I feel sick whenever I look at the front cover of PHWOAR magazine, and yet I also look at the model’s boobs and feel bad mine don’t look like that. I hate that Jane ditched me for a boyfriend and that Joel is all she ever talks about, and yet, I would really quite like a boyfriend myself…
… My brain hurt.
Oblivious to my inner conflict, Amber explained it to me.
“Have you really not heard of it? I thought you would’ve done it in film studies. It’s like a feminism litmus test for films and books and stuff. Basically, in the eighties, this super cool illustrator who I LOVE called Alison Bechdel realized that all female characters do in fiction stuff like films and books, is talk about men. So she made this simple Bechdel test. And, to pass it, a film’s got to have at least two women in it—”
Lottie butted in. “And they’ve got to have at least one conversation about something other than men. Just one conversation, that’s it. And it’s passed.”
“Ooooooh, okay.” I thought through all the hundreds, possibly thousands, of films I’d watched, thinking it would be easy. Two minutes later I had nothing. Nothing but a dawning realization of how broken the world was. “Hang on…umm…surely…surely there’s got to be some?” I said to them, feeling like my whole love of cinema had just dissolved around me, seeping into the plastic chair I was sitting on.
Lottie shook her head. “There are some films, but barely any; it’ll take you ages to work them out. Like none of the Lord of the Rings films pass, and none of the original Star Wars. Even the last Harry Potter film doesn’t have two girls having a conversation in it. It’s screwed up, isn’t it? Like, women aren’t worth a storyline unless they’re discussing men and what men do.” She wrapped her arms round both of us, dragging our heads towards the table and dangerously close to our remaining breakfast. “Still so far to go, ladies, still so far to go.”
I mulled it over some more whilst removing myself from her embrace. I didn’t like my face being so close to a dirty plate.
“Okay, I get it. But we’ve just spent half an hour discussing the best way to eat eggs. And before that, we argued about which song from a musical best sums up our lives. And, just yesterday, you were explaining The Female Eunuch to me…so, surely we’ve earned the right to discuss your new boyfriend?”
“Ahh, yes,” said Lottie, patting my head, like I was the dunce student. Which I was, compared to her, who basically snorted academia in her spare time. “But if we were in a movie, then they wouldn’t show any of that. They would just cut straight to this breakfast, to the moment you guys ask me about Tim.”
Whilst I sat there with my brain still throbbing, Amber reasoned with her.
“Come on, Lottie. We’re your friends, we care about you. We’re interested in Tim because he’s something in your life, not just because he’s a guy. I promise that you can tell us how deliriously happy you are without pooing on the sisterhood.”
“Eww.”
“So…is it love?”
Lottie visibly melted before us, her face softened around the edges like she was in a dream sequence. “He’s…he’s…” She went quiet and started playing with the bottles again. “He’s really thick…”
“Umm, Lottie?” I said. “That’s not very loved-up sounding.”
“But he’s totally cute with it,” she protested. “And I’m not being a bitch – he told me himself he’s a bit thick. Everyone at my old school calls him ‘Tim Nice But Dim’ from that old TV show or whatever…but he is very sweet and I’m smart enough for both of us anyway. And…oh God, this is going to sound REALLY bad but he’s a proper man’s man, you know? Like HURR, or something. He’s all muscly and protective and macho and sporty and everything I am technically really against, but actually, am annoyingly attracted to.”
“I hate that,” Amber said, nodding. “I know I’m supposed to fancy nice guys who only watch Ethical Porn or whatever, and will never treat you badly blah blah blah…but then…well, I fell for that football standerupper twat, didn’t I? Because he made my loins go fluttery.”
Lottie and I sniggered at the use of the word “loins”. I turned to her.
“You seem really happy, it’s nice. I can’t wait to meet him properly.”
She pulled a face. “I guess. But it’s early days, isn’t it? And I’d much rather spend this wonderful breakfast time chatting to you guys about stuff other than my boyfriend.” A grumpy waitress came over and took our empty plates. “Anyway, what’s going on with Joel and Guy’s band then?”
“You’re talking about men again,” I pointed out, as I rummaged for a tip in the depths of my purse.
“Damn it. This Bechdel test is harder than you think.”