Fifteen Love (5 page)

‘You mean, she's not his girlfriend?'

‘Don't even
say that word
! I want you to promise not to tell anyone.'

‘But I thought you said . . . '

‘I'm sure there's a simple explanation for it. Meanwhile, you have to promise
not
to tell another living soul.'

‘I promise.'

‘
Especially
not my friends, okay?'

‘I promise not to tell a single soul, especially not your friends.'

‘But how do I know I can trust you?'

‘You could hypnotise me. Truth serum. Mind-control drugs. If nothing else works you could pay me.'

But Mia isn't laughing.

‘
Please!
' she says. ‘Just forget it ever happened.'

Two

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.