Perfections (3 page)

‘That’s a good enough excuse, is it?’ Antoinette retorts. ‘He gets to go out and fuck some suicide girl every time he feels insecure?’

Greta throws up her hands. ‘Did I
say
it was a good excuse? It is a
reason
, that is all, an
explanation
for what he did, not an
absolution
. Oh Ant, this is all such a mess, such a tangle and you must help to fix it, because you are a part of it.’

‘I don’t want to fix it.’

‘But you love him.’

‘I don’t care if I love him! I don’t want to love him!’

Even cushioned with anger it hurts to say the words, to hear them, and Antoinette knows with gut-sinking certainty that if Paul was standing here before her, if he had the balls to stay and plead his own case instead of sending Greta as proxy, then she would have little hope of resistance. Poised on the edge of her life here, Paul and their flat and the history that seeps from every wall, every photograph stuck careless to the fridge, every half-burned candle and guilty wine stain on the carpet, how easy it would be to close her eyes and jump, to allow herself the exhilaration of free-fall.

Easy, sure. Until the ground came up to meet her.

‘I’m sorry, Greta,’ Antoinette says. ‘I have to get going, I’m working later.’

She heads down to the bedroom, eyes blurry with nascent tears. Her hip catches on the little hall cupboard like it has a hundred times before and she swears, rubbing at the familiar bloom of pain.

Greta is close behind. ‘Please, Ant, don’t be childish. He loves you, you
know
that he loves you.’

‘Yeah? Why isn’t he here, then?’

‘He is a boy, he is too proud.’

Antoinette wrestles her largest suitcase out from under the bed, wipes off the worst of the dust, and surveys the room. So much stuff, too much even for this monstrous piece of luggage to swallow, so it’ll be just another exercise in snatch-and-grab. Not even thinking about what she’s taking, what she’s leaving behind, just filling the case with whatever comes to hand – this and this and this. How in hell has she acquired so much crap in the first place?

‘Listen to me.’ Greta pushes in front of her, hands firm on bony hips. ‘You must let him have his pride.’

A candid happy-snap is wedged into the dresser mirror. Taken just a few months ago at Abyss: Antoinette grinning drunk and red-eyed from the flash, her right hand a frozen, unfocused blur of pale skin as she reaches for Paul’s face. Paul, whose gaze is turned not to her, not to the camera, but to something across the room.

To someone.

‘He can keep his pride, Greta.’ She tears the photograph in half and half again, watches the pieces flutter lifeless to the floor. ‘Just make sure he knows, he won’t be getting any more of mine.’

Jacqueline checks the motel room lock for the third time that evening then calls home on her iPhone. There are four rings before the machine answers and her own clipped voice echoes in her ear.

This is Jacqueline Paige. Please leave your name, number and a short message, and your call will be returned as soon as possible.

Carefully, she recites the message she’s prepared for Ant. Each word chosen to show that she cares, but stripped of any intimation that Jacqueline might be checking up on her. Checking up is what their mother would do. No, Jacqueline simply wants to make sure that Ant is all right. Wants her to know that Jacqueline is here if she needs to talk. Not that she expects Ant to call back tonight. It’s after six and if her sister isn’t answering then she must have already left for work. This is a good thing. Perhaps she won’t spend the next week sulking about Jacqueline’s flat with her hair unwashed and her fingernails gnawed to the quick, mooning over her moronic boyfriend.

Her moronic ex-boyfriend. Jacqueline hopes it stays that way.

Of course, for all she knows, they might have patched things up already. Paul would only need to come crawling over with an apology and a bunch of day-old flowers for Ant to fall sobbing into his arms. Her sister is so emotional. So impulsive. Moving in with a man she’s barely known for five minutes. Paying the bills while he sits on his backside and potters away at his precious book. Ant waited tables for almost two years after high school, living at home and saving up to backpack around the world. She kept journals of all the places she wanted to visit, all the things she longed to see. Before Paul, it was all she talked about. Jacqueline never understood how her sister could give up her dream like that.

Once Paul’s novel is published, we’ll travel the world together.

Their mother was simply livid: Ant was a foolish, lovesick child, Paul a useless, exploitative deadbeat; Jacqueline should talk to Ant, should make her see reason. The phone calls were relentless and seething, but Jacqueline’s support for her younger sister never wavered. She couldn’t
allow
it to waver. No matter that she found herself in silent agreement with their mother half the time – they were
sisters
, a united front their sole defence against such maternal onslaughts. If they let slip even once, the breach would lie between them for good.

A frightening thought; Sally Paige is all too adept at handling a wedge.

Jacqueline stretches both arms to the ceiling, trying to work some of the tension out of her neck. She isn’t looking forward to tomorrow. The phone at Ryan Jellicoe’s place went unanswered all afternoon and, predictably, none of her calls to his mobile were returned. Her final message was simple: she’s here in Brisbane and will be coming to see him in the morning. To see the paintings. To see if there is anything he needs, anything at all. Because she’s here to help.

‘You didn’t have to warn him,’ Dante says when she reports in. ‘He’ll probably piss right off now.’

‘It will be worse to show up unannounced,’ she argues. ‘He’ll just slam the door in my face – if he even bothers to answer.’

‘I don’t care if you have to get a battering ram. Get in there and see what he’s up to. I want photos of the work and I want–’

‘You sent me up here to do a job, Dante. Please, let me do it.’

‘Don’t make me wish I’d gone myself, Jacks.’

She can picture him pacing the floor, teeth grinding mercilessly in time with his steps. One furious hand skimming back and forth over his platinum crew cut. Jacqueline takes a breath. ‘I’ll call tomorrow and let you know what happens.’

‘And remind him about the fucking contracts, yeah?’

‘I will. I’ll remind him.’

‘Should have made him sign them in blood.’

The phone clicks in her ear. Jacqueline switches it off. Places it on the bedside table. She’s had enough contact with the outside world, at least for tonight. She can sympathise with Ryan Jellicoe and his avoidance strategies.

At least the motel is bearable, her room small but clean. The shower leaves something to be desired in terms of water pressure, but it does run hot for the entire fifteen minutes she stands beneath it. Things could be worse, considering how strained Seventh Circle’s budget is these days. At least Dante is covering costs up front. Her own credit cards are close to maxing out and she doesn’t get paid until next week. Even then, most of it will go on bills.

Jacqueline turns off the water. Steps out of the shower. She dries herself with a towel that has seen softer days. Rubs at the line of muscle still stretched taut across her shoulders. She needs the promotion Dante has been hinting at. She needs the extra money that will come with it. If she can fix the Ryan Jellicoe situation, extract this particular thorn from Dante’s side, then the Gallery Manager job must be as good as hers. The only other option is Becca, who is surely no option at all. Fine Arts degree or not, the girl has worked at Seventh Circle for less than a year. What would she know about management?

Yet Jacqueline sees the way she fawns over Dante. The way that round, sunflower face turns to follow his every move. And how he all but glows beneath its gaze. No, smoothing things over with Ryan Jellicoe is vital. There won’t be enough blame in the world if she fails.

Jacqueline sighs, massaging the bony place where her skull meets her spine. Her head has felt strange ever since the plane. Ever since the
episode
. Foggy and full, packed with cotton wool and thumbtacks. She grabs her toiletries case, then kills the harsh en suite light and retreats to the room. Her newly-washed hair lies heavy and damp against the bare skin of her back, the ends brushing almost to her waist as she arranges herself cross-legged in the centre of the bed. The weight comforts her. It feels like armour.

She closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath. Holds it.

Imagines herself floating above the mattress. Rising weightless as helium. Her body sitting awkward and empty below. Its sharp, angular bones. Its pasty, fishbelly skin. The sags and creases and stubborn pinch of flab no amount of sit-ups can shift. Three years shy of thirty and her flesh is already giving in.

She exhales. Takes another breath. Looks closer.

Studies each curve and hollow, catalogues each fissure and epidermal flaw. Closer and closer until her body begins to lose cohesion, becomes nothing more than a discordant collection of lines and shapes. Pieces of a puzzle not hers to solve. Disassociation, disconnection, divorce.

There. Now.

Jacqueline opens her eyes.

The toiletries case is right by her ankle. With careful fingers, she slides the razor blade from its wrapping. The metal is thin and double-edged. It warms beneath her touch. Half a sigh drifts from her lips. Her inner thighs are pale and smooth, cross-hatched by fine lines even whiter than the skin they have scarred. The freshest, still blushing pink near the edges, are on her right leg; Jacqueline lowers the blade to her left.

Draws it slowly across. Once, twice, and once again.

Tonight, three will be enough.

She watches the slow bead of blood. Concentrates herself around the burn in her thighs. Feels herself drifting away from herself. She needs this. Needs to dismantle the artifice, however briefly. To cut through the costumes and taxing displays of survival. So pure, this release bestowed by the blade. By the delicate taste of blood on her fingers. Pure and secret and hers alone to savour. No one to see, no one to know.

No one to judge.

She knows what people think of her. Those fleeting lovers and infrequent friends. Even Ant must think it at times. The words hover behind their eyes:
snow queen, ice princess
. But snow melts, ice cracks. Far safer to be rock. Granite or black-mirrored obsidian. Impregnable and solid, slow to erode.

Jacqueline, the stone maiden, etching away at herself.

— 3 —

In the kitchen, the message light on the answering machine is flashing red and Antoinette pauses for a second, heart beating hard, before she presses the button. But it’s only Jacqueline, her tone cheerful and light, passing on the name of the motel and her room number just in case, and asking if it wouldn’t be too much trouble for Ant to finish off the double-chocolate ice cream in the freezer. Jacqueline feels bad about leaving it on its own; she wouldn’t want it to feel abandoned.

Antoinette smiles despite herself. Did she really expect the message to be from Paul? Worse, did she
want
it to be?

‘No,’ she mumbles. ‘Only a little.’

It’s past two in the morning, but sleep will be a while coming yet. Her mind is too wired, her thoughts strung-out and tumbling strong; never mind the exhaustion that seeps through her bones, or the bright caustic ache in her feet. Antoinette grabs a glass from the sink and stalks into the living room, pulls open the door of the drinks cabinet. It’s well-stocked – it’s always well-stocked, even though she hardly ever sees her sister drink anything from it – and the bottle of Smirnoff is almost full.

The vodka burns down her throat and she’s tempted to cut the next shot with ice, but no. Because fire is what she needs right now. Fire, to cleanse her mind and scorch away all the moon-eyed, idiotic musings that have sauntered through her brain all night. With no less than three orders misheard and a bottle of wine smashed on its way from the bar, she was nearly in tears when Michelle finally hooked her arm.
You see to that tame lot in the corner
, the older waitress instructed,
I’ll handle your pricks at Table 9
. But Antoinette’s focus was shot, her concentration wavering in less time than it took to navigate from one side of Simpatico to the other and, at the end of the night, Michelle was waiting by the back door.
I’m taking your shift tomorrow night
, waving a hand as Antoinette started to protest.
Get yourself together, girl. You’re back on Monday and don’t think Ronan won’t sack you on the spot if this shit happens again.

Antoinette grimaces, splashing more vodka into her glass, over her hand, as she slumps onto the couch. Tomorrow, she’ll get herself together. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. She picks up the remote and turns on the television, flicks through sport replays and music videos, late night movies and infomercials, before sending the screen back to black. The flat is quiet and empty. Antoinette shivers; she hasn’t felt this lonely in a long, long time and she wonders what Paul is doing right now. Out clubbing maybe, writhing about with some perky-cute gothling beneath the flash and stutter of strobes, or maybe back at home already. Maybe sleeping, maybe alone. Maybe neither.

Antoinette bites her lip. She is
not
going to start crying again.

Standing up instead, too fast, swaying across the room on less-than-steady feet to slide open the glass balcony door. Colder than she expected, close to freezing or so it feels in her thin polyester blouse; she won’t be staying out here for long. But the view of the bay is so beautiful, even at night. The reflection of lights on water, the moon a scarce shave off full – does Jacqueline know how lucky she is? Antoinette could never afford the rent on a place like this, not on waitress wages. Not even now, without Paul to support.

‘I don’t want to be a waitress.’

The wind lifts her words away and she rubs her arms, feeling the shiver of gooseflesh on her skin. All those tiny bumps, like a story written in braille if only she knew how to read it. If only she knew how to
write
it.

You’re not a writer, Ant. You’re nothing but a common thief.

Antoinette sips her drink, remembering the glow of triumph on Paul’s face as he stood over her shattered laptop. He was right about one thing, him and Greta both: the novel was never hers. Stillborn from the moment she touched it, a cobbled-together freakshow hybrid which could never have lived to draw breath. But so what? It didn’t mean that she couldn’t be a writer, that she couldn’t create something new, something original.

Something that would be
hers
.

She used to make up stuff all the time when she was a kid. Whimsical flights of fancy peopled with talking animals and strange, imaginary creatures, stories told simply to entertain herself – and Jacqueline too, her older sister sitting cross-legged at her side, chin cupped in hands:
And then what? And then what happened?
Finer details elude her now, yet she can almost feel the warm, delicious sensation that would unfurl within her tummy as the words tumbled from her mouth, as her tongue strove to keep up with the images flicking through her mind.

A sensation she felt once more – or very nearly, perhaps the barest shadow, the barest shimmer of it – when she began to tinker with Paul’s novel. When she began to make it her own.

Swallowing the last of her drink, Antoinette stumbles back through the balcony door and closes it behind her. The night air has chilled the room, so she makes her way down the hall, fingers sliding along the wall for balance, down to the tiny study with its fold-up futon that takes up almost every square inch of floorspace when it’s not being a sofa. Right now her suitcase is spilling its guts all over the mattress, and she sorts through the pitch-dark tangle of velvet and lace, the handful of CDs and all the junk swept from the top of the dresser back home –
home! ha!
– finds something woolly with sleeves and pulls it on.

Briefly, she considers booting up Jacqueline’s computer, but squeezing herself behind the desk with the futon still unfolded seems an unlikely possibility, and she can’t face cleaning away all her stuff right now. There’s an expensive-looking fountain pen in the desk drawer, though, along with a small stack of notebooks – all brand new, in various sizes and colours; her sister obviously has stationery issues – and Antoinette chooses one with a stiff lilac cover. Mostly because its spine is a spiral, fat and powder blue, which makes a satisfying sound when she runs her fingernail along it. Which she does, all the way back to the living room.

But the first page of the notebook proves too great a challenge. Blank and fresh and daunting, daring her to make a mark, to make it count. Antoinette doodles flowers along the edges instead, five-petalled daisies and fat black roses, their thorny stems twisting upon themselves, dripping leaves like tears. She writes her name in the centre of them, wobbly calligraphic swirls and a heart to dot the i. Writes
PAUL
underneath, then shakes her head, sharp, and turns the letters to solid inky blocks: four little tombstones, all in a row. She turns to a new page and waits, waits, waits.

For the words that will not come.

(You’re not a writer, Ant.)

‘Shut up,’ she mutters. The bottle of Smirnoff is still right there on the coffee table, the wisdom of another drink debatable, but what the hell, one in all in. No idea where she left her glass, though, and sculling from the bottle seems a level lower than she feels like stooping to even now, so Antoinette pushes herself up from the couch, wanders unsteadily into the kitchen for a fresh one. She grabs a bottle of orange juice while she’s there – continuing with straight shots is beyond her endurance – along with the tub of ice cream, and is reaching into the cutlery drawer for a spoon when the new glass slips from her overburdened grasp, falls and shatters all over the tiled floor.

‘Shit!’ Antoinette freezes, excruciatingly aware of her bare and vulnerable feet. She dumps the juice and ice cream onto the bench, well away from the edge because all she needs is for them to topple as well, then lowers herself to a crouch, one hand clutching a cupboard handle for support. The glass seems to have broken into manageable enough pieces, large and easy to spot. She gathers them together, shuffling inch by careful inch across the floor, head tilting to catch them all in the reflection of the overhead light.

Well, almost all.

It’s the blood she notices first, the sneaky red snail-smear trailing behind her. No pain at all until she sits down and turns over her foot, until she actually sees the wound sliced through the pad of her heel, white-edged and deep, the offending shard still lodged within. Antoinette grasps the tip and pulls, hissing through gritted teeth as the splinter slides loose, because
now
it hurts, the pain so fine and diamond-bright, and the resulting crimson flow brings a surge of bile to her throat; her head feels too light, too heavy, all at the same time.

Ohhhhhh.

Oh no, you are not going to pass out, you silly cow.

She forces herself to her feet, to one foot at least, and hobbles to the bathroom for gauze and antiseptic wash. Because better safe than sorrier-than-thou, as Paul would say – a fresh threat of tears served along with that thought – and Antoinette perches on the side of the bathtub, wraps the gauze around her injured heel. There’s a stab of pain as she stands, slightly woozy and putting too much weight on her bad foot, and for a moment she can almost see him in front of her, can almost feel his hands on her waist, holding her together.

Ant, baby, you’re my favourite kind of disaster area.

‘Paul,’ she whispers. ‘Paul, it hurts.’

Shhh, baby, I know. How about I kiss it better?

And
this
is what she wants to write about, this is the story she wants to tell. How it was when they first met, how it might have been, how it
should
have been. This is what she wants to pin down with words, what she wants to preserve.

Back on the couch, foot propped up by a cushion, Antoinette flips to a new page in the notebook.
Paul
, she writes again. Frowns and crosses it out. Turns the page. She closes her eyes, conjures an image behind their lids: a boy with ivory skin and irises of pale, arctic blue; a boy whose hands are always gentle, and whose wild, blue-black hair isn’t poured from a bottle every six-to-eight weeks. So clear now, she can picture him in the room with her, leaning with one hip against the wall, leather pants slung low, the crooked flash of a smile. So clear, she can almost smell the salt on his skin.

Paul, yet not Paul.

Paul as he might have been once, right at the beginning of things, or maybe only ever how she wished him to be. Paul, with all the rough edges shaved away, all the sniping and petty selfishness that set in over the past few months – the past few
years
, if she’s honest with herself; a trait there from the start if only recently aimed in her direction. Paul, without the petulant attitude and apparent inability to comprehend any point of view aside from his own.

A delicious fantasy, if one too fragile to exist beyond the pages on which she now begins to write. Paul-not-Paul: a boy who loves her, absolutely and forever; a boy who could never so much as dream of betrayal, who would sooner carve out his own heart than inflict the slightest wound on hers.

Everything she desires, everything she needs; nothing she does not.

Her hand moves fast, the ink smearing in places as she rushes to capture all that she holds in her head, and Antoinette wonders how much of it will even be intelligible later. She feels odd, like something more potent than vodka lurks in her veins. The words flow through her like smoke. But it’s not enough to merely describe him, this strange and beautiful boy. She weaves him a story as well, a past cut from old cloth with every stain and painful rip excised or hidden, tucked sly behind fresh and clever seams.

Paul made perfect –
this
is what she needs right now. Because if it’s impossible to stop loving him, to simply turn her emotions off at the switch, then maybe a sneaky bit of re-wiring will work just as well. The object of her love no longer a flesh-and-flawed boy but instead a most perfect version of him. A creature against which the real Paul will stand little chance, even if he gets down on his knees and begs her to come back.

He cheated on you, Ant.
Jacqueline, last night, a frown shadowing her usually calm features.
How can you ever trust him again?

No, she can’t trust him, but neither can she trust herself. Because if he knocked on the door right now, greeted her with outstretched arms and that slow, easy grin – Antoinette shakes her head.

Deep inside, pressure builds.

She keeps writing, ignoring the sparks of pain in her hand, the winch-tight ache across her shoulders from sitting curled over for so long. Knowing that most of it has to be rubbish, the words no better than ashes and dust, because nothing that comes this easily can possibly be any good –
can it? can it?
– but writing anyway, compelled to get everything out and onto the page.

The pressure expands within her, fills every space, pushes at her skin. It feels like dread and delirium and desire, and yet like none of these things, like no thing she has ever felt before – or nearly so: a subtle taste of the familiar lingers at the margins, coupled now with the iron-sharp flavour of threat. She is saturated, swollen, ready to split apart, to fly apart until –
oh!
– this last fleeting sensation rushes through her, quick and sudden as thought:
it is done
.