MIA
‘I’m fat!’ says Renata.
‘No you’re not!’ say Vanessa and I.
‘Yes I am. I’m a big fat pig!’
‘Renata! You’re gorgeous!’
The school dance is only two days away so the three of us are desperately shopping. We are in T***** for the 20% Off Footwear and Clothing Sale. The reason I can’t say the name of the store is because Vanessa says it’s humiliating. Normally, Vanessa wouldn’t be caught dead in T*****, but because of the 20% Off Sale, she’s decided to compromise.
‘The labels will come off easily enough,’ she says. ‘But no one must ever find out!’
We are in the changing rooms and Vanessa is lying on the floor, squirming around like a squashed lizard, trying desperately to pull on a pair of stretch-denim jeans. Renata and I are supposed to be trying on bras, but we’ve been distracted by the size of our bums in the full-length mirror.
‘Cellulite at fifteen. How humiliating!’
‘Renata!’
‘Oh well, time to start saving for liposuction.’
Buying a bra is one of those things you can’t afford to stuff up, even at twenty per cent off. Bras are more than just underwear.
The bra you choose determines the shape of your boobs. And according to Vanessa, the shape of your boobs determines everything else. A bra has to feel right, look right and send off the right signals.
‘You want to generate interest,’ Vanessa says, ‘without getting slobbered over.’
Renata and I wear regular bras, but Vanessa has a bra for every occasion. She has black lacy ones, plunging ones, see-through, boob tubes, strapless, you name it. (She has silky ones for special occasions, and she desperately wants one of those pump-up wonder bras, for extra cleavage.) Vanessa can get away with stuff like that. She’s got a great body and she knows it. She has that model’s way of walking, where she holds her head up and pulls back her arms until her shoulderblades are almost touching. Vanessa wants to be a supermodel and she’s the kind of girl who could pull it off. She’s confident. Sexy. She knows how to smile. She’s up-front and totally uncompromising.
With most of the button-fly done up, Vanessa drags herself into a standing position and starts checking herself out from every conceivable angle, doing every conceivable thing with her bum. After a long discussion, she decides to ‘maybe not buy them’, if she can ever get them off again.
Between the two of them, I swear, Vanessa and Renata have tried every diet on the planet: the low-carb diet, the low-fat diet, the low-joule diet, the liver-cleansing diet, the snack diet, the no-snack diet, the all-greens diet, the all-yellows diet. Vanessa went vegetarian for a month. She even tried going macrobiotic for an hour, but all that chewing made her jaws cramp. These days Vanessa prefers what she calls the ‘supermodel’s diet’: she eats what she likes, then she goes to the toilet and sticks her fingers down her throat.
‘It feels really good,’ she says. ‘Like cheating and getting away with it.’
If you ask me, it’s disgusting. In fact, the best advice I ever heard for losing weight is: eat less. There are fewer calories in a single scoop of extra-creamy ice-cream than a bucket of low-fat goo.
Vanessa is on the floor again now, keeping her bum in the air while Renata and I take hold of one leg each, trying to get the jeans off. We’re rolling around laughing when suddenly a giant shadow looms in the doorway. It’s the dragon lady – the change-room attendant – and she is not smiling.
‘Can I help you girls?’ she asks, frowning severely.
‘They’re stealing my pants!’ shrieks Vanessa.
WILL
There’s only one place to get your hair cut and that’s Mondo for Men. Two guys work there, Matteo and Ricki. Matteo is an artist – he does exactly what you say. Ricki is a madman – a danger to society.
Most guys won’t admit it, but getting a haircut can be a bit tense. You have to trust the guy to do what you say, so you have to be certain to say what you want. It has to sound casual and unimportant, but clear and unambiguous: Just a trim, thanks. I practise it going to sleep, then in the shower, over breakfast and, finally, on the bus. Just a trim, thanks . . . Just a trim, thanks . . . It’s best to be prepared.
I enter Mondo for Men and proceed to the plush leather couch with the men’s magazines on the tinted glass coffee table. I wait my turn, watching Matteo and Ricki, trying to predict who I’ll get. Ricki is faster than Matteo. Matteo is a perfectionist, whereas Ricki is more like a shearer, racing against the clock. He’ll take the guy before me, meaning I will get Matt. Not a problem. Just a trim, thanks.
I open a magazine and start flipping through the pages. There’s a helpful article about how to deal with stress. You have to block out what’s going on around you, it says. You have to learn to focus on the task at hand . . .
‘Next?’
With my head in the magazine, I hear the voice of doom above me. Ricki has already finished, and I’m next in line. I could let someone go ahead of me and say I’m waiting for Matt. I could get up and run from the room. But Ricki has already dusted the seat and is motioning for me to sit down.
‘How you doin’, all right?’
‘Just a trim, thanks.’
Nervously, I climb into the chair. Ricki clips a smock around my neck and tries to choke me with paper towels. He is too busy talking to Matteo to notice how uncomfortable I am: ‘She was comin’ on strong, but she was keepin’ her distance. She was hot, but she was cool, know what I’m sayin’?’
I sit watching helplessly as Ricki goes to work. He starts with his scissors and a fine-toothed comb that he digs into my scalp. The scissors snip around my head at lightning speed. I’m sure he’ll nip off a piece of my ear, but I’m more worried about my hair.
To calm my nerves, I start whispering, ‘Just a trim, thanks . . . Just a trim, thanks.’
Good news. Ricki has put away the scissors and picked up the electric shears. My hair looks okay. Shorter than I wanted, but okay. Good enough. Ricki trims the hairs on the back of my neck. He’s finishing up. I’m almost in the clear. He neatens the sides, but then, before I know it, he’s shaving up and around my ears! I feel the buzz of the shears against my skull. Ricki is giving me a mohawk!
. . . Just a trim, thanks . . . Just a trim, thanks . . .
In desperation, I try tilting my head away, but Ricki simply pushes it back up again.
‘What do you think?’ he asks when he’s done.
I nod, and in the mirror the guy with the brain-surgery haircut nods grimly back at me.
MIA
‘I hate my hair!’
‘Mia! You don’t mean that.’
‘Yes I do. It’s driving me crazy. I feel like getting it all cut off.’
Vanessa looks horrified. ‘Don’t even joke about it. You have gorgeous hair!’
Renata agrees. ‘I wish I had your hair, Mia.’
‘It’s all dry and frizzy. This morning when I woke up, there were at least five strands on my pillow! I swear, I’m going bald!’
‘Mushrooms,’ says Vanessa. ‘You have to eat more mushrooms.’
‘I don’t like mushrooms. Do you know where those things are grown?’
‘How about wheatgerm and honey, as a conditioner?’
‘Sure. So I wake up screaming in the night, being attacked by a swarm of ants.’
‘Eggs.’
‘Too stinky.’
‘Tofu.’
‘Tofu?’
‘Yeah. I’m not sure what you’re meant to do with it, though.’
I am kneeling beside the ironing board while Renata combs my hair into place. Vanessa licks her index finger and it sizzles as she touches the hot iron.
‘Ready?’ she says.
‘Do I really need this?’
‘Mia! Ironing your hair is like ironing your clothes. No one likes wrinkles.’
Vanessa presses the iron down on my hair and a shot of hot steam scorches my scalp. I scream out in pain and Renata shrieks in sympathy. When I look up at Vanessa, she’s smiling her most sheepish smile.
‘Woops,’ she says, switching the iron from steam back to wool.
WILL
When my little brother Dave sees my haircut, he laughs himself stupid.
‘What happened, Will? Did you have a fight with a lawnmower?’
‘Good one, Dave.’
‘And the lawnmower won, Will!’
‘Looks like it, Dave.’
‘The lawnmower won, Will! The lawnmower won!’
Dave doesn’t mean any harm by it. It’s just his crazy sense of humour. Four years ago, when he was nine years old, Dave dived into a swimming pool and hit his head on the bottom. He’s a paraplegic now, so he’s stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. It’s good that he still has a sense of humour. Laughing is probably what keeps him sane.
A lot of people who meet Dave think there must be something wrong with him – more than just his legs, I mean. There were doctors who said the damage to his spine had affected him mentally and others who said his brain was still okay. The way Dave thinks and acts is pretty different from other kids his age. But there’s nothing wrong with him. Since his accident, a part of Dave has stayed the same. He’s thirteen now, but it’s like a part of him is still nine years old. When some people meet Dave they feel really sorry for him, which is pretty stupid. The truth is, he’s happier than most people I know.
Dave is reading The Encyclopedia of Tennis from cover to cover. I don’t know how much of it he actually reads, but he certainly enjoys talking about it.
‘Will! Will! I’m up to Bjorn Borg! I read Boris Becker and now I’m up to Bjorn Borg! It’s got all about him! He was the best, Will! He was heaps better than you!’
‘No way, Dave! I could beat Bjorn Borg blindfolded. I could beat him in straight sets: 6-0, 6-0, 6-0.’
‘You COULD NOT, Will! You’re a liar, Will! Bjorn Borg was the best!’
Like me, Dave played a lot of tennis as a younger kid. I improved only after lots of hard slog and work on my technique. Dave was the opposite. He was a natural. He made it look easy. He was the kind of kid who would either serve a double-fault or ace you. He had all the talent but none of the discipline. Stirring me about tennis is Dave’s substitute for what could have been. Dave might have been a champion, if he’d only had half a chance. After the accident, my dad, Ken, said I would have to train twice as hard. I was playing for both of us now, he said.
Dave’s accident hit our family pretty hard. It turned Ken into a personal trainer and fitness fanatic. Lyn – my mum – became Dave’s full-time carer. She helps Dave with his homework. She helps him in and out of the shower. (Not the toilet, though. Dave is very definite about that.) She gets him dressed in the mornings, then drives him to school in her specially designed car. Lyn is a voluntary worker at Dave’s school. She’s on the committee and in charge of the fundraising. She’s done lots of workshops and read lots of books about caring for the disabled. She’s had handrails and ramps installed through our house. She’s mapped out each hour of Dave’s week. It’s her way of coping, I guess.
We never talk about the accident. It’s not that we’re afraid of talking about it. It’s more that we want to go forwards instead of backwards, if that makes sense. Dave’s accident is there for all of us, all the time. It’s part of our family and it’s shaped us into who we are. It made us different from other families. Closer, in some ways, and more determined. It’s something a normal family wouldn’t understand.
‘Will! Will! Who’s your date for the dance tonight?’
‘I haven’t got one, Dave.’
‘Is it the lawnmower, Will? Is that who it is?’
MIA
As expected, Vanessa is a sensation at the dance. In her new stretch jeans and her push-up bra, she has all the boys drooling over her. Like bras, Vanessa has a different smile for every occasion. She has a friendly smile, a sympathetic smile, a dumb-girl smile, a cheeky smile, a poor-me smile, a crazy smile, an up-yours smile, a flirty smile and a full-on X-rated smile that always gets her into trouble.
After barely an hour at the dance, Vanessa drags Renata and me to the toilets to discuss her latest boy troubles. She takes a swig of gin from the perfume bottle in her shoulder bag. Renata and I both decline.
‘There are two boys fighting over me,’ she says, dabbing at her mascara. ‘They think they own me.’
Renata assures her that competition is a good thing.
‘It’s natural selection,’ she says. ‘Survival of the fittest.’
Vanessa is easily consoled. ‘Yeah, and it’s just a school dance,’ she says. ‘I’m just flirting.’
School dances can be a bit of a letdown. You put in the effort to make yourself look nice, then when you get there you realise you’re actually still at school. The band, if there is one, is usually playing its first-ever gig and the DJ, if there is one, is usually trying to show how cool he is, instead of putting on songs that people actually know. You go along hoping to be swept off your feet by a handsome stranger, but when you get there you realise there are no strangers. Everyone knows everyone else, and no one is taking any chances.
Most of us girls are doing our best under the circumstances, but the boys keep interrupting, trying to drag things back to the Stone Age. When girls dance they want to have fun and look good, but when boys dance they just clown around. Girls close their eyes and dance to the beat, while boys play air guitar. Do they really think we care about that stuff? Do they think acting like AC/DC is going to bring girls flocking? I like it when guys are funny, but there’s a fine line between funny and goofy. Actually, it’s not a fine line. It’s more like a bottomless chasm.
Vanessa pashes both boys in the end. Then, while the two of them are outside bashing each other’s brains in, Vanessa goes backstage with the DJ to check out his new microphone. Renata and I dance together – boy-free – until they turn on the houselights and tell us all to go home. The boys start to stomp around bursting balloons, while the girls kick their shoes off and massage their feet.
As I’m walking out the door, I see Will Holland for the first time that night. He’s crouching in the corner with a beanie pulled down around his ears, like he’s just done a bank job or something.
Strange boy.
WILL
According to The Encyclopedia of Tennis, you can learn a lot from the way people move. In the chapter called ‘Biomechanics’ there are photographs of famous players, with stick figures to illustrate how they move and the forces that affect their bodies. To draw ‘the kinetic chain’ you divide people’s bodies into feet, calves, thighs, back, shoulders and arms – each element is a straight line, connected by a moving joint.
‘To understand the way people move,’ it says, ‘you need to understand where their momentum starts from and how it is directed.’
The way Mia dances is not referred to in The Encyclopedia of Tennis. There is no footnote. It isn’t mentioned in the appendix. The way Mia dances is something else. No stick-figure diagram could ever illustrate it. The way Mia dances is like the way she plays her viola. It is something to appreciate, not to analyse. The way Mia dances is just how Mia is. It was there in the way she walked into the woodwork room and sat down on the stool. It was there in the hallway when she slipped past me and walked away. There is nothing kinetic or biomechanical about it. It’s not about momentum or conservation of energy. It isn’t something you could ever hope to improve on. No theory would ever understand it. No manual could ever describe it.
It’s very bendy.
MIA
As I play my viola – spiccato e maestoso – I imagine gypsies with bells around their ankles dancing, swallowing swords and walking on hot coals. I imagine my bedroom decorated like a gypsy’s caravan, with embroidered cushions and burning incense, handwoven carpets and tapestries flickering in the candlelight. I imagine an old gypsy woman with a headscarf and golden earrings, holding my palm and telling my fortune.
Darlink! she says. You have a long middle finger. It means you are someone who takes life very seriously. But you have a weak fate line. It means you are unsettled about your future. The gypsy woman studies my fingertips. You are a daydreamer, she says. And you have calluses from playing your viola!
What about romance? I ask. Do you see any romance?
The old woman shakes her head. Your heart line is straight. It means you are waiting for something or someone. But look, darlink! The Apollo line, the line of the sun. It means you will be happy, in the end.
WILL
On the oval at lunchtime there are boys who line up to wrestle each other with one hand behind their backs. If you lose, you go to the back of the line. If you win, you get to be champion and take on the next guy. As an alternative to this line-wrestling game, one kid has set up a chessboard, so that others can line up to play him at chess. His name is Kevin Hunt, but everyone calls him Yorick (as in ‘Alas, poor Yorick’). Yorick is a ‘gifted learner’. He is famous as the school maths champion, but also as the kid who threw up during the life education talks.
The day after the school dance, I sit myself down at Yorick’s chessboard. I don’t know why, exactly. I’ve played chess before, but I’m certainly not expecting to win. At least I know Yorick won’t notice my near-fatal haircut.
Yorick hides a pawn in each hand and I choose the black.
‘White moves first,’ says Yorick, with a painful smile.
Yorick and I set up our pieces and start playing. With every move he makes, Yorick announces the position: ‘Pawn to queen four’ . . . ‘Knight to king’s bishop three’. He is fast, but not totally out of my league. Gradually, I start taking longer with my moves, and Yorick begins to lose interest. But I am hanging in there. I haven’t made a fool of myself yet. It’s one of those tight games where no one wants to sacrifice any pieces. I am giving it a hundred per cent of my concentration, while Yorick picks at his fingernails and talks about mathematical theories.
‘Topology,’ he explains, ‘is about the connections between things in three-dimensional space. It’s about the things that remain unchanged, even after an object is bent, broken or twisted . . . Queen to bishop six.’
I scratch my head and try to concentrate on the chess game. Yorick isn’t trying to distract me or even impress me. He’s just desperate to tell someone.
‘Theoretical geometry . . . ’ he sighs. ‘The possibilities are endless.’
Slowly, with each move, the chess game becomes more complex. I have long ago lost the thread of what Yorick is saying, but it hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm. I am beginning to make a few silly moves now. I have lost a few valuable pieces. When I look up from the chessboard and see Mia Foley walk past, topology or no topology, I know I’m cactus.
‘What can I do?’ I ask Yorick. ‘It’s hopeless.’ Yorick surveys my pieces and sadly shakes his head. ‘When you have very few options,’ he reflects, ‘you need a bold, almost suicidal move that throws the game open.’
After thinking about this, I pick up my knight and brilliantly capture his queen.
Two moves later, Yorick has me in checkmate.
MIA
At lunchtime, there’s a note on my locker:
Q. What’s the difference between a viola and a lawnmower?
A. You can tune a lawnmower.
– W.
I read Will’s note, then screw it up into a ball and throw it away. Renata sees the crumpled paper lying there, but before she can get to it I dive on the note and stuff it in my bra.
‘You should use cottonwool,’ Vanessa smiles.
‘It’s softer.’ ‘It’s a viola joke,’ I explain. ‘Not very funny, either.’
‘Ah!’ says Renata. ‘From a secret admirer?’
‘It’s the Tracksuit, isn’t it,’ says Vanessa.
I nod.
‘Is he giving you a hard time?’ says Vanessa. ‘Watch this. I’ll fix him.’
‘No! No! I didn’t mean . . . ’
But it’s too late. Vanessa hitches up her dress, flicks back her hair, then goes off in search of Will. Renata follows, dragging me with her. Out on the oval, we see Vanessa towering over Will on her long, suntanned legs. I almost can’t bear to watch.
She sits down beside Will and they talk for a while. Then Vanessa stands up suddenly and storms back to us.
‘That guy,’ she announces, ‘is so gay!’
WILL
I am sitting there minding my own business when Vanessa Webb – the wildest and most experienced girl in the whole school, the girl who reduces even the toughest guys to babbling idiots – walks up to me, smiling.
‘Will?’ she says, with a tilt of her head.
Before I can answer, she sits down beside me. I feel her bare knee brush against my leg. Her face is very close now. All of her is very close. She is still smiling, but now her smile has a teasing, dangerous look about it. I know it’s a trap. I know I’m being set up.
Vanessa Webb takes a deep breath and tucks her hair behind one ear. Everything about her body is asking me to look at her, but I know looking anywhere except her face would be a mistake. My first impulse is to move away, but I stay where I am, trying hard to hold her seductive gaze.
‘Will, are you Mia’s secret admirer?’
‘Umm . . . ’ ‘Will,’ she whispers, ‘can you be my secret admirer, too?’
I try to imagine what Girlfriend might say.
In Dealing with Dangerous Women our experts suggest the following options:
1) Fight fire with fire – assume Vanessa is flirting and flirt back.
2) Let the fire run its course – sit there under a blanket until the heat passes.
3) Throw a bucket of water on the fire – do a loud fart or pick your nose.
4) Panic – break the glass and call the fire brigade!
‘You don’t need to do this,’ I say.
Vanessa frowns. ‘Do what?’
‘You try too hard, Vanessa. You’re nicer-looking than you think you are.’
I don’t know why I said it, or even if it made any sense. But for one brief moment, Vanessa hesitates. I can see a flash of doubt in her eyes. It’s just a flash, then the doubt is gone and Vanessa is looking at me as if I’m a rotting carcass and she is a gourmet vegetarian.
‘What the heck are you talking about?’ she demands.
Before I can answer, she stands up and storms off.
MIA
Vanessa has been with her latest boyfriend for about ten minutes when she decides that she, Renata and I should go out with the guy and his two best mates. We go to the movies together – the three of us girls and these three big work-out kings with flat heads and no necks. We sit in the back row, according to Vanessa’s instructions. When she and her new boy start pashing, Renata and I are expected to do likewise. The movie has only just started when I feel my date’s arm land heavily across my shoulder. I shrug off King Kong and try to concentrate on the movie, but five minutes later, I feel his hairy fingers crawling along my shoulder like spiders. Instead of slapping him across the face, I lean forward and offer him a Mintie: It’s moments like these.
Luckily, it’s an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie and the action is starting to pick up. Picking bits of Mintie from his teeth and laughing loudly, Kong soon forgets all about me. I look across at Vanessa, who has her hand inside her guy’s shirt – no amount of Minties will save her now – then at Renata, who is keeping her legs firmly crossed.
The way Vanessa talks about sex, you’d think being a virgin was a punishable offence. Vanessa talks big – she’s always comparing guys and saying how few of them ‘measure up’. Like it was a science project or something. But secretly I wonder if she really does jump into bed with the guys she meets.
After the movie, we sit around eating ice-creams while the Arnie-clones re-enact the entire movie for us. On the far side of the food court, Vanessa spots Will pushing a kid in a wheelchair.
‘Look!’ she says. ‘Will Holland is a male nurse. That proves he’s gay!’
Arnie A, Vanessa’s clone, thinks this is hilarious. ‘Homos helping the handicapped!’ he roars.
‘It won’t be long,’ says Arnie B, ‘before they give queers their own parking places, too.’
‘Imagine the signposts,’ snorts Arnie C. ‘They’d be pink, wouldn’t they?’
‘Boys are like parking places,’ says Vanessa. ‘All the good ones are taken and only the disabled are left.’
Everyone laughs except Arnie A. ‘Are you calling me a crip?’ he says.
‘Don’t call them that,’ I say. ‘It could happen to you one day.’
No one says a word. Vanessa looks embarrassed, but Arnie A just smiles. When he speaks, his voice is softer and his eyes have started glazing over.
‘If it did happen,’ he says, ‘I wouldn’t just sit around like a crip, feeling sorry for myself. I’d work out, day and night, till I could walk again. There’s nothing you can’t overcome if you try. It’s all about willpower and never giving up.’
Stupid people say stupid things, so I don’t know why it upsets me so much. According to Arnie A, if you were disabled, it must be your fault somehow.
‘You’re only saying that,’ I tell him, ‘because you don’t want to think about how it would feel, being stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of your life.’
WILL
Dave and I go to SportsWorld and buy two pairs of Adidas tennis shoes. Dave always says he’s going to buy something different, but when he sees the shoes on me he changes his mind and insists on a pair of the same. You might think it’s weird, spending a hundred and fifty bucks on shoes for a kid who can’t walk, but I think it’s brilliant. For starters, they’ll never wear out.
Decked out in our new shoes, Dave and I go to the food plaza for a donut. With stunning girls walking past us every five minutes, it isn’t long before Dave is whispering to me across the table.
‘Have you got a girlfriend, Will?’
‘No, Dave. Have you?’
‘Will! I’m being serious!’
‘There’s this girl at school,’ I say, trying to sound casual.
Dave is shocked. ‘Do you like her, Will?’
‘I don’t know, Dave. I don’t know what to do next.’
Dave is impressed. ‘You could take her horseback riding, Will.’
‘I can’t take her horseback riding, Dave.’
‘Sure you can, Will! Girls love horses!’
‘This girl is different, Dave. She likes . . . actually, I don’t know what she likes.’
‘Then maybe she does like horses! All girls love horses, Will!’
‘Dave! I am not taking her horseback riding, okay?’
‘Ponies?’
‘Not horses or ponies or camels or llamas!’
‘Don’t be stupid, Will! Now you’re just being stupid.’
‘I’m not sure about this girl, Dave. I’m not sure if she even likes me.’
Dave shakes his head and looks at his new shoes.
‘You could ask her to the tennis, Will.’
‘The tennis? No way!’
MIA
I am in the library looking for information about beagles. I want to know when Harriet will stop being such a baby. When will she be an adult? Will she be a teenage dog first? Will Harriet get an attitude and start acting like I don’t own her anymore?
Through a gap in the bookshelf I see Will Holland in the next aisle. I look away before he sees me, but then something pulls me back, and instead I take down a book to make the gap bigger.
‘What’s the difference between a viola and a lawnmower?’ I whisper.
Will spins around, startled, but when he sees my face in among the books he laughs. ‘One makes an awful noise?’
‘And the other is used for cutting grass.’
One by one, Will and I remove more books so we can talk face to face.
‘How’s Vanessa?’ he grins. ‘Is she still mad at me?’
‘She thinks you’re a chess nerd with a bad haircut.’
‘Is that all?’
‘She also called you a gay nurse in a smelly tracksuit.’
‘Nurse?’
‘We saw you, yesterday, at the shopping centre. You were pushing a kid in a wheelchair.’
Will nods. ‘That’s Dave.’
‘It made me think, you know. I mean, it must be good to have a job like that. Just to be doing something useful.’
‘It’s not a job. Dave’s my brother.’
‘Oh . . . I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t feel bad about it. Dave will love it when I tell him. He’s always wishing he had someone to order round; he’s got friends at his school who have their own nurses. It’s a status thing, like having a butler or a chauffeur.’
‘Can’t he come to our school?’
‘My family thinks he needs special support.’
‘And what do you think?’
Will shrugs. ’I think we’re still coming to terms with it all.’
‘So,’ I say. ‘A secret for a secret. Except I don’t suppose your brother is a secret. I just wanted to say thanks, for not telling anyone about my dad.’
‘Who would I tell?’
‘I’m pretty sure it’s nothing, by the way. My dad wouldn’t do something like that.’
Will nods diplomatically. ‘So we’re officially talking again?’
‘We were never officially not talking.’
‘I guess we were never officially anything,’ he says.
WILL
Ken is not happy. ‘Keep your head still and both feet on the ground,’ he says. ‘Rotate your upper body. Throw to the peak of your reach and strike when the ball reaches the apex. Remember, a low toss gives you more time to hit the ball, not less.’
Ken isn’t just my dad – he’s also my coach.
He says I’m throwing the ball too high. The higher you throw the ball, he says, the faster it comes down, so the harder it is to hit. It sounds good in theory. But in practice, old habits die hard.
Ken shows me how to do it several times, using different ways of holding the ball. I copy him with every throw and we do it over and over, until the ball reaches the right height. We try it with my throwing hand to the side, cupping the ball with my fingers. We try it with my throwing hand down, holding the ball gently between my fingertips. In the end we go back to the way I’ve always done it – the way most people do it – with the ball balanced in my open upward palm.
Now I am throwing the ball to the right height, but I can’t hit it properly. I feel cramped and off balance. I’m serving the ball short, without speed or accuracy. And Ken is not happy. He’s from the old school, the McEnroe–Connors–Lendl era of the huge serve and power game. He thinks that I’m serving like a ballerina.
‘Let’s try the towel trick,’ he says.
Ken gets a plain-white towel and wraps it around my head, covering my face so I can’t see. Dave, who’s been watching on, thinks this is hysterical.
‘You look like a mummy, Will!’
Ken’s theory is that throwing the ball should be automatic.
‘Watching the ball only confuses you,’ he says. ‘To throw the ball to the height of the outstretched racquet, you shouldn’t have to think about it.’
I am starting to think Ken has seen too many Star Wars movies: Use the Force, Will . . .
The towel feels heavy and lopsided on my head. I can’t see a thing and the muffled hearing is upsetting my balance. After six complete misses, Dave is crying with laughter.
Ken, on the other hand, has gone into Darth Vader mode.
‘Concentrate!’ he says sternly.
‘I thought the idea was not to concentrate.’
This time, when I throw the ball, it comes down and hits me on the head. I tear off the towel and throw it onto the ground. Dave goes into hysterics and almost falls out of his wheelchair. I’ve had enough.
‘I can’t do it. It’s a stupid idea anyway.’
‘I wanna do it!’ shouts Dave. ‘Please, Dad! Let me do the towel trick!’
Ken looks at me and shakes his head.
‘Go on,’ I say. ‘Give him a go.’
‘Come on, Dad! Give me a go!’
Together, we tie the towel around Dave’s head. We watch as he throws up the ball, then grips the rim of a wheel to steady his chair as he brings down the racquet with his other arm. Blindfolded, he hits the ball cleanly over the net and into the middle of the service square.
‘Right on target, Dave!’ I yell.
‘See!’ Dave laughs. ‘You should be coaching me, Dad!’
MIA
Strained smiles and whispered conversations. Harriet barking endlessly because she hasn’t been walked. Empty wine bottles with only one glass. Takeaway food, again.
Dad working late, again. Mum watching junk TV, again.
‘Are you okay, Mum?’
‘I’m fine, darling.’
‘You don’t look fine.’
‘I’m just tired, that’s all.’
I can’t talk to my mum about it. I’m not sure there’s anything to talk about, anyway. I’m not a hundred per cent sure she even knows what’s happening.
When Dad gets home, they argue about petty things: the old-fashioned rug or the print on the wall.
‘You said you liked it,’ she says.
‘I said I could live with it,’ he says.
‘Isn’t that the same thing?’ she says.
‘No,’ he says. ‘In fact, it’s the opposite.’
I go to my room to practise The Four Seasons: ‘Winter’. It’s cold and bleak – freddo e tetro – and my head is numb with unanswered questions: Did my parents ever love each other? Why did they get married? Is it possible to love someone, if they don’t love you? Is love like the chicken or the egg? Or is it just a burnt chicken omelette?
I wish I was as deaf as Beethoven, so I didn’t have to hear them fighting. I wish my bedroom was a flotation tank with sound-proofed walls. I could float in absolute darkness, hearing nothing. Seeing nothing, smelling, tasting and feeling nothing . . .
WILL
Dear Mia,
Q. What’s the difference between a viola and a lawnmower?
A. A lawnmower sounds better in a string quartet.
It was good talking to you the other day in the library. That’s the problem with us going to the same school – it’s usually hard to talk without feeling like you’re on candid camera.
Are you busy this Saturday? If not, here is a free ticket to the tennis (at the big stadium in the city, do you know it?). It’s short notice and I know you don’t even like tennis, but if you want to come that would be great. (Don’t worry if you don’t because my dad got the ticket for free.) We could have lunch there. (I’ll pay!)
Let me know if you can make it.
– W.
MIA
A tennis match?
When I see Will at school the next day I thank him for the ticket and say I’ll try to make it, but we both know there isn’t much chance. I’m not sure if I’m ready to go out on a date with Will yet. And when I am ready, I think it should be something we both want to do. Something more romantic than watching sport. And, anyway, it is short notice.
I wimp out, in other words.
When I wake up on Saturday morning, Mum and Dad are at the breakfast table. Dad is reading the Financial Review and Mum is reading Vogue.
I say ‘Good morning’.
My father says something about health insurance premiums.
My mother says something about getting the chairs re-upholstered.
When I open the back door, Harriet jumps all over me. Outside it’s a beautiful day, but inside the barometer reads cold and icy. I have to get out of the house.
I look at the clock and think about Will’s ticket, pinned to my noticeboard. The tennis I can take or leave, but at least there will be blue skies and sunshine. And Will is a blue-sky expert.
I have a quick shower and throw on some clothes.
‘Where are you going, darling?’
‘Out.’
‘What about Harriet? Can’t you take her with you?’
‘Harriet is a dog, Mum.’
Sweet revenge! Without looking back, I shut the front door and head off to the bus stop. As soon as I’m out of the house my mood changes completely. No wonder tennis is such a popular sport! It gets people out of the house!
My bus is late, so I miss the connection with my train and have to wait half an hour for the next one. There are clouds in the sky now and the day is not as summery as the dress I’ve chosen. What’s worse, in my hurry to leave I’ve forgotten my glasses. There is no point turning back, though. What revenge would there be in that?
My train finally comes and I sit down opposite two boys who spend the whole trip trying to impress me with stories of their ex-girlfriends. (Boys just do not get it, do they?) It’s not long before I am staring out the window, thinking about viola jokes and hoping Will will be pleased to see me.
In the city, trying to make up for lost time, I run for a tram and snap a heel. I twist my ankle and it hurts so much I want to cry. I wait for the next tram to the stadium, then I limp across to the St John Ambulance guys to check that I haven’t broken anything. The heel is unfixable and those shoes weren’t cheap. By the time they have bandaged my ankle it’s after twelve and I’m sure Will thinks I’m not coming. I hobble up to the gate to present my ticket, but the lady sadly shakes her head.
‘I’m sorry, madam, but this is the centre court. Your ticket is for court number two.’
‘But I’m supposed to be meeting someone. There must be some mistake.’
‘I’m sorry, madam. All the seats are taken.’
Court number two is half-empty. I’m shown to my seat and guess what?
No Will.
Even without my glasses, I can see the game on court two is pretty ordinary. Most of the spectators are eating lunch or chatting.
I wait for half an hour, but Will never shows. The tennis match finishes and the players shake hands across the net. I am cold and hungry. My ankle is painfully swollen. Too miserable for words, I get up and catch a taxi home. I swear, tennis is such a stupid sport. I have no idea what people see in it.
WILL
It takes a lot of nerve to ring up a girl. You can’t just sit down and dial the number. You have to be prepared – physically, mentally and emotionally. You have to be relaxed, but alert. You have to make like it’s no big deal, but you can’t be too offhand, either. If she wants to talk about bank profits and Third World debt, you might suddenly be in over your head. Ringing any girl is tricky enough, but ringing the girl is like taking a bathysphere to the bottom of the ocean.
To ring up a girl, what you need more than anything is privacy – preferably your own bedroom and preferably at the far end of the house from your family. The door to the room must be solid enough to prevent eavesdropping and/ or forced entry. Ideally, it should be lockable, but a suitable barricade like a heavy chair or desk will do. The windows should be shut and the curtains drawn. Lighting should be subtle and unobtrusive. All electrical appliances – radios, computers, alarm clocks, et cetera – should be switched off. Even the faintest noise can be a distraction.
I close my bedroom door and go into the wardrobe, just to be on the safe side. Feeling nervous and terribly underprepared, I practise pulling up the number. I clear the screen, clear my throat, take a deep breath, then dial again – this time for real.
The phone rings once, twice, three times. I am just about to hang up when Mia answers.
‘Hello?’
‘What’s the difference between a viola and a lawnmower?’
‘A viola never lets you down.’
‘I can explain.’
‘Where were you?’
‘I was there.’
‘No you weren’t.’
‘I saw you. I waved, but you didn’t see me.’
‘Where were you?’
‘Are you okay? I saw you limping.’
‘I hurt my ankle.’
‘I’m really sorry. Is it too late? Can I come over and explain?’
‘What? Here? To my house? Now?’
I hear the sound of voices through the muffled receiver, then Mia’s mother comes on the phone.
‘Mia needs to rest,’ she says. ‘She’s had enough disappointment for one day.’
Then she hangs up.
When I try dialling back, there’s no answer.
I emerge from my bedroom cupboard a nervous wreck. I can’t just wait until Monday. By Monday Mia will have told her friends and the whole school will be convinced that I’m a creep.
According to The Encyclopedia of Tennis, a scrambler is a player who manages to get the ball back somehow, though not very stylishly.
I have to visit her. I’ve got no choice.
It’s after nine by the time I get to Mia’s house – not the ideal time to visit. It doesn’t look like the kind of house where people drop in uninvited, especially not nervous guys who have been told to stay away. There is a light on at the back of the house, but not the kind of light that makes you feel welcome. It’s the kind of light you leave on when you want to look out for burglars.
But I have no choice. I have to clear things up.
I walk up to the front door. The doorbell light glows orange; my finger hovers above it. I start rehearsing my apology: Mrs Foley, I’m sorry to disturb you. I know it’s late . . . From inside the house I hear footsteps coming down the hall. And I haven’t even rung the doorbell yet! In shock, I turn and run out the gate. I’m halfway down the street before I stop and look back. I need a better plan. I need to avoid Mia’s mother at all costs.
I consider leaving a note in the letterbox, but I don’t have a pen or paper on me. I consider ringing the fire brigade and reporting that a neighbour’s house is burning, but having the whole street come out to watch is no guarantee that Mia and I will get to talk. I have no other options. It is time to do the scariest and most clichéd of all the Hollywood love scenes: I will have to serenade Mia outside her bedroom window.
I climb the gate and sneak down the side of the house. When a dog suddenly starts barking, I freeze with dread. Mia never mentioned having a lovable pit-bull, or a rottweiler that secretly dismembers visiting tradesmen and buries their bones in the garden. Barking madly, the dog comes bounding towards me out of the darkness. There is nowhere to hide so I jump into the garden, trampling a bed of daffodils. As I try to run, the dog leaps up at me, barking loudly enough to wake the whole street. I fall to my knees, but instead of ripping my throat out the dog paws and licks me. It’s not a rottweiler, it’s a beagle! I wrestle it to the ground, then smack its bottom hard so that it yelps and runs away.
There are two windows on this side of the house, but only one with a light on. Through a crack in the curtain I can see Mia sitting on her bed, dressing her swollen ankle. Her ankle isn’t the only part of Mia that needs dressing. She is only wearing knickers and a T-shirt. Her ankle looks pretty bad, but the rest of her looks pretty good. I am mesmerised. I can’t look away. It’s like I’ve been granted the first of three wishes and if I wait, Mia will soon move on to wish number two. Then I realise what I’m doing. I came to serenade Mia, but I’ve ended up as a peeping Tom outside her window!
But how do I serenade her? I don’t even know where to begin.
Using a loose definition – i.e. to serenade means to get her attention – I start tapping on the window as lightly as I can. I try tapping more like a friend than an axe-wielding maniac, but all tapping on windows sounds pretty much the same, in the middle of the night. And when Mia hears it, she dives off the bed and switches off the light.
‘Who’s that?’ she whispers.
‘It’s me, Will! Open the window.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I had to see you, to explain about today. How’s your ankle?’
‘Go away!’
Suddenly, there is a knock on her bedroom door.
‘Are you all right, darling? Did you want something?’ says her mum.
Mia jumps into bed as the door opens.
‘I . . . just called out goodnight, that’s all.’
‘Goodnight, dear.’
‘Goodnight, Mum.’
When Mrs Foley is gone, Mia opens the window. She is wearing her dressing-gown now. Her face is so close, I could reach out and touch it.
‘I won’t stay long, I promise.’
‘I don’t care what excuse you’ve got. I don’t want to hear it. This is not a love scene, okay? This is not Romeo and Juliet and you are not Leonardo DiCaprio. I don’t even like Leonardo DiCaprio! I’m sure you’re sorry. I’m sure you’ve got a good excuse. But that doesn’t mean I want to elope with you, okay?’
‘I’m sorry about today. I was there. In fact, I waved at you. If you’d worn your glasses you would have seen me.’
‘I don’t need my glasses to see someone sitting next to me,’ Mia hissed.
‘I was there on the court, right in front of you.’
‘What? Were you chasing tennis balls?’
‘Kind of . . . I was . . . ’
‘Look, I’ve had a miserable day. I don’t know why you invited me to the tennis –I hate tennis! I don’t know why I bothered . . . All I want to do now is forget it. So could you please leave me alone!’
Before I get another chance to speak, Mia closes her window and draws her curtains. The last thing I hear from inside is the sound of her falling onto her bed.
A double-fault: two wrongs don’t make a right.