When Michael Met Mina (12 page)

Michael

It's the night of Sienna's party. Terrence and Fred have already had too much to drink.

‘You look like shit,' Terrence says when he sees me. ‘Cheer up, will you.' He flings an arm around me. ‘What's got into you these days? You're PMSing. We don't do that, remember?'

‘It's not Zara is it?' Fred asks, passing me a drink. ‘You missing her?'

‘Nope.' I look around and take a swig of my drink. Terrence launches into a funny story and it gets us laughing hard. For a while I'm able to rewind my life back to a time when I hadn't met Mina, when my life made sense.

We check out the crowd and complain to each other about the music. Sienna's hired a DJ and has set up a dance space in the open-plan lounge area. The bi-folding doors open up onto a courtyard decorated with fairy lights and Chinese lanterns.

Terrence soon starts chatting up one of Sienna's friends from outside school. There's nothing more boring than watching your friend try to hit it off with a girl, so Fred and I leave them at the backyard pergola and head back inside, meeting Jane and Leica on the way.

‘Hi, guys,' Jane says cheerily. Her eyes are darting around, surveying the backyard. It's obvious she's searching Terrence out. I feel sorry for her.

‘Hey, Jane,' I say. ‘Hey, Leica. Is Cameron here?'

‘On his way,' Leica says.

We make small talk for a bit. Jane's clearly fishing, the way you do when the only thing on offer is the excitement of just hearing somebody's name. But there's an art to this kind of fishing and Jane's clearly still an amateur.

‘So did you two arrive by yourselves?' Her eyes are still all over the place, and she's clearly trying to keep it together, but I can sense her agony.

Fred, trying to compensate for his general awkwardness around the opposite sex, launches into a terrifically random and irrelevant story about screaming goats as a YouTube sensation. Jane is listening politely, while Leica is clearly entertained.

Jane soon catches sight of Terrence. He's emerged from a hidden corner of the backyard with Sienna's friend. Jane's face falls and she mumbles a hasty ‘See you' to us and heads inside. The transformation in Leica is instant. A fierce look of loyalty and protectiveness flashes across her face and she runs after Jane.

‘Why she's hooked on Terrence is a mystery,' Fred says.

‘Tell me about it,' I say, shaking my head. ‘Come on, let's eat.'

The house is packed by now. Awful techno music pumps loudly throughout, and people are moving around in what they might claim is dancing but looks more like low-impact step aerobics. The main action is at the large photo booth that's been set up near the dance floor.

Fred and I sort through the retro dress-ups and props. I decide on a rainbow clown's wig, oversized orange sunglasses and a moustache. Fred goes for a neon yellow plaited wig, top hat and beard.

Something about being in that photo booth brings out the idiot in us. We pull faces and strike as many silly poses as we can think of. When our turn's over, we wait outside as the booth prints our photo strip.

And then, to my surprise,
while still in dress-up
, I turn around and see Mina, Paula, Jane and Leica together in the queue.

It's quite funny actually.

Because they're all in dress-up too: crazy wigs and masquerade eye masks.

Mina looks me up and down. She's trying to look coolly amused but it's difficult to pull off when you're wearing a pink feathered masquerade mask and 1980s punk rock wig.

It's too awkward not to say something.

I offer a ‘Hi'.

Mina glares at me. She doesn't respond, and turns to the girls and throws herself back into the conversation.

Rejected by a masquerade punk. The night can only go downhill from here.

I throw my dress-ups into the box. Fred, who has been uselessly standing beside me and perving at the girls, follows me to the food table. Terrence and some of the other guys are there, in intense discussion over League of Legend. I try to feign interest but I'm too distracted, and my contribution is limited to an occasional grunt.

I can't get Mina out of my head. I make an excuse to leave the guys. Put it down to alcohol, or a sudden surge of impulsiveness, but I find myself approaching the DJ. He has his eyes closed, head bopping to the techno beats. Interrupting his spiritual moment, I ask him to play a track by The XX. He pulls a face like I've stabbed him (freaking techno heads kill my life), but promises me he'll play it soon.

On my way back to the guys, I steal a glance at Mina and Paula. They're outside the photo booth, examining their photo strips and laughing. The guys are still talking about League of Legend. Eventually, after what feels like an age of techno, my song request finally plays.

I watch Mina out of the corner of my eye. It takes a few moments for her to realise what song is playing. And when she does, she turns her attention away from her friends and looks around the room. She seems to be searching me out. Her eyes eventually fall on me.

Her gaze lingers long enough for me to hope.

But then she turns away.

Mina

I beg God for forgiveness and then inform my parents that:

1. a.
   Paula and I have a joint project so important to my overall HSC performance that it requires no less than seven consecutive hours of work on it;
   
2. b.
   Paula can offer exceptional IT resources, whereas the internet at our apartment is slow and the printer regularly jams; and –
   

There's no need for a (c).

Baba agrees to drop me off at Paula's at five and pick me up at midnight.

*

As soon as we arrive I feel a rush of nerves. Sienna's older cousin introduces herself (‘I'm Janette, babysitting you lot tonight') and asks me for a letter from my parents authorising me to be served alcohol. I can't help but laugh in her face.

‘No note, no drink.'

Paula nudges me in the side and grins. ‘Here's my note,' she says, passing a piece of paper to Janette.

Back at Auburn Grove Girls High, Maha was the party animal, not me. She came complete with fake ID and a repertoire of stories to use on her unsuspecting parents who, honest to God, thought that Maha was about as innocent a girl as Our Lady of Lebanon had ever seen (the statute of Virgin Mary excepting). Most of the girls I went to school with celebrated their birthdays with a trip to the movies, dinners at a restaurant or a party at home with friends and family. It was a school population where girls spent recess swapping how-to-get-around-your-curfew ideas; where most of the tattoos you saw were henna ones; and where it became an annual competition to see who had attended the most weddings in the year.

Drinking alcohol or mucking around with guys was something you got away with, not something you did out in the open. I'd never been interested in sneaking into clubs, getting it on with a guy in the car park at Parramatta Maccas, or drinking.

Paula grabs a Redbull with vodka, I grab a coke, and we make our way through the crowd. The music is awful, but Paula's into techno and swaying slightly as she walks, bobbing her head in tune to the music.

I lean in closer to her. ‘What if I see Michael?'

‘So what?' she says firmly.

‘I really don't have the energy to fight with him again.'

‘Then don't,' she says flatly. ‘The only fights worth having are with people who mean something to you.' She grabs me by the shoulders and turns me around to face her. ‘Does he mean something to you?'

‘Of course not,' I splutter.

She rolls her eyes at me and chuckles. ‘Hopeless liar.'

Suddenly the music volume gets cranked up a notch and conversation inside becomes impossible.

We go to the backyard and bump into Zoe and Clara.

To my surprise, Zoe grabs my hand and leads me to the back fence. She pulls me down to sit beside her on the retaining wall. Paula and Clara make their way over to us. But all Zoe wants to do is talk about how I went in the
Emma
essay.

‘I can do non-schoolwork conversations as well,' I tell her.

For the first time since I've met her, she smiles with her eyes. Then she giggles, and I think she's proof that some people really do need alcohol in order to seem human.

‘I know,' she says cheerfully, her words slightly slurred. ‘But you're
so
smart! You've beat me on every quiz and essay since you started. I know you have. I sneak a peek all the time.' She giggles. ‘I have some major,' she pats me on the arm, ‘
major
competition with you. That makes me angry.' She puts on an exaggerated pout. ‘Because I've always,
always
been top of the year. That's
my
thing.' She points to her chest with her thumb. ‘Go back home, Mina. Just go. Please?' She bats her eyelashes at me.

I stare at her. ‘Okay, I get it,' I say, but I'm not angry. Hearing her expose herself like this, and knowing how badly she's going to regret it when she realises, only makes me feel sorry for her.

Clara hovers over us, cradling her glass as she surveys the crowd in the yard.

I stand up and offer her my seat.

‘Do her a favour and keep her away from her phone,' I tell her. ‘They obviously wrote the don't-drink-and-text rule for her.'

*

In the next hour, Paula and I try to help Leica coax Jane out of an ensuite bathroom in a spare bedroom upstairs. Terrence has apparently been seen with a leggy girl wearing an impossibly small white dress. Jane is beside herself because, like anybody with half an imagination and a crazy unrequited crush, she'd built up a fantasy about what would happen between her and Terrence tonight, which had all the realism of a Tolkien trilogy.

We finally succeed in getting her to wash her face, blow her nose and clean herself up.

Paula paces the bedroom and then claps her hands together, faces us all and proceeds to have a meltdown at us.

‘We're here to enjoy ourselves, okay? We can be sad and pathetic and make the night about boys or' – suddenly she's excitable and a little wild – ‘we can actually have fun and make it about
us
!'

Leica, Jane and I instinctively lean back, but can't help smiling at her.

‘We're going downstairs to take crazy photos of ourselves in dress-ups,' she says, firmly and seriously. ‘And then we're going to dance – and we're not going to give a SHIT if people think we can't dance because,
hello
people, we are at a party in the North Shore. Nobody can dance in this postcode. That's a racial fact. And then, Mina, you and I are going to go home. And that's that. Got it?'

None of us dares argue with her.

We dress up.

We laugh.

We are very much in the
I Am Woman
zone.

And then Michael and Fred are suddenly before us.

Crazy wigs and fake facial hair.

I try to offer Michael nonchalance. Instead, he gets angry death stare.

*

After we take photos, we just sit back and hang out for a while, because even Paula is prepared to admit that the music is awful.

We talk and laugh, and pretend that we're feminist role models, even though I can tell Jane is thinking about Terrence, and I'm secretly analysing my encounter with Michael. Then suddenly ‘Gangnam Style' switches to ‘Together' by The XX and I know, without a shadow of doubt, that it's Michael's doing.

I see him. And he sees me.

But I quickly look away, because it will take more than sharing the same taste in music for me to be impressed.

*

I spend most of the Easter holidays with my head stuck in my books, trying to get on top of my assessments. Mum fusses around me, bringing me snacks and drinks so that the only things I need to focus on are unavoidable bodily functions and being the top of my class.

Today's a big day, and a welcome break from studying. Paula has tracked down a late-afternoon poetry slam event at the Bankstown Arts Centre, an eerily spacious room with rows of bleachers and chairs, and blankets laid out just in front of the stage area, where mics have been set up for the performances. The room is crowded. Girls kiss each other on the cheeks, squealing, hugging and complimenting each other. Guys greet each other with big bear hugs and high fives. It's a flurry of activity. Paula and I walk past a long queue of poets who are waiting to put their name on the registration list so they can perform during the open mic. It's Paula's first time with this group so she doesn't know anybody.

We find a seat up at the back. Eventually there is complete silence as the hosts, Ahmad and Sara, take the stage and the show starts. Witty and sharp, they bounce off each other. Sara, in a funky turban-style hijab, is confident and sharp. Ahmad is a poster boy for tall, dark and handsome. He has the crowd wrapped around his finger. People take turns performing on all kinds of topics from the heavy (politics, gender, war, sex) to the frivolous (duck-face selfies and food pics on Instagram). The audience clicks their fingers to show their delight. The atmosphere is electric.

Sara and Ahmad return to the stage and inform us that the last person to perform in the open mic section has had to leave. They invite somebody else to come up and have a go.

Paula's suddenly out of her seat and heading towards the stage. She looks back at me and flashes me a grin. I go a little crazy and cheer loudly for her. I'm in utter awe of her courage.

Sara asks Paula to introduce herself.

‘I've never done this before,' she says, clutching the microphone closely and braving a smile. ‘Well, not in
public
. At home in front of the mirror I'm a
natural
.' The audience vibe is warm and friendly, boosting her confidence as she looks out at us all, a grin spreading on her face.

‘Good luck!' Ahmad says and they step aside.

Paula closes her eyes for a moment as she loosens up her shoulders and draws in a deep breath. The audience is quiet and she begins.

See, I never asked for the white mansion

With the manicured gardens and heated swimming pool.

See, I never asked for the New Zealand skiing trip and the European summer holidays

With you on laptops click, click, clicking and me on the guided tours

I would have been happy pitching a tent, listening to stories of where you went

See, I never asked for the nanny and the cash you used to silence my tears, placate my fears

Fears that I would become a shadow, somebody to pass by in the house sometime

See, I long to collide with you

Crash into you

Give me a chance to woo you

Remind you of how I feel, smell and sound

See, you spend days and nights in your offices with the harbour views and the delivered dinners and the text messages you don't respond to and the leave a message voicemail that you ignore because I'm not your client

Tell yourself you're doing it for me, you're doing it for us, you're doing it because we must give our lives up to something bigger

But see the bigger that something gets, the smaller I become

Until pretty soon I'm invisible

Alone

With a voice so large that it wakes up the world

Except for you

You who have forgotten the sound my voice makes, the love it takes

To actually be a parent.

Paula takes a bow, grinning out at an audience who have been clicking throughout. They offer her a big round of applause. My chest is bursting with pride but there's a massive lump in my throat as Paula's words reverberate in my head.

‘I'm so sorry, Paula,' I tell her, on our train ride home. ‘I didn't realise you were hurting so badly.' I fix my eyes on her. ‘You're not invisible. And you're
not
alone. I'm here for you.'

She returns my gaze and mulls over my words. Then her lip curls into a bright smile. ‘Thanks.'

We sit in silence for a moment. The couple sitting behind us are in an intense discussion about a new reality TV show.

‘Your mum has your photo as her phone screensaver, you know,' I say casually.

‘Huh?'

‘It was next to me on the kitchen bench when we were eating lunch. I caught a glance of it.'

Paula raises an eyebrow at me. ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?'

I let out a small laugh. ‘Yeah. Sometimes the little things are just as important.'

Paula smiles, but it's a charitable gesture. ‘She works all the time. So does Dad. You know my favourite Wilde quote?
To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness
. Isn't that brilliant?'

She goes on before I can answer. ‘See, he has a point,' she says breathlessly. ‘Maybe I'm just not enough for them.'

‘I don't believe that for a second.'

She smiles at me again but doesn't look convinced. My heart aches for her, but I'm confused too. I can't imagine what it must be like to feel like you need to fight for your parents' attention; compete with their work. But a part of me sympathises with them. Maybe they're passionate about what they do. Things wouldn't change for Paula if that were taken away from them. They'd probably just start to slowly wither inside, like my mum.

I don't know what to tell Paula. I've seen a lot in my life but there's nothing as complicated as family.

‘I still can't believe you stood up there and laid yourself bare like that,' I say eventually.

She suddenly breaks out into a goofy smile. ‘I can't believe it either. Thanks for coming today. I've been dying to try it out but wasn't brave enough to do it by myself.'

I nudge her with my elbow, glad to see the full smile on her face. ‘Don't mention it. Any time – well, let me amend that. Any time it fits within my mother's curfew laws.'

She chuckles.

The driver announces the next stop: ‘
Get excited, people, because next stop is Campsie.'

We
look at each other and the other passengers on the train and burst out laughing.

The driver continues his cheerful commentary with each stop, making us all chuckle. ‘
Welcome aboard, Dulwich Hill peeps, thanks for bringing along the cool breeze . . . Next stop Sydenham. For those of you who are leaving, I'm sad to see you go but I understand your reasons.'

When we say goodbye it's as though we both know we've crossed a threshold into that wonderful, intense and slightly terrifying place only true friends can enter. Some things in life you have to work hard to find. But my friendship with Paula has fallen into place.

There is no nightmare for me tonight. Only sleep hugging me like a friend.