Page 3 of Summer, in Between
‘Paul Lightwood,’ I said.‘He’s a chippy, like Dad.Although unlike Dad, he’s obscenely gorgeous.’
‘You know him?’Sal asked.‘How have you kept his existence such a secret?’
‘I don’t know him, he’s just a local.We’ve barely even exchanged eye contact.’
‘Cat, you need to exchange bodily fluids with that guy.It would be a crime against humanity if you didn’t.He’s almost enough for me to see a guy as doable.’
I walk towards their table, head down, ostrich-style.If I can’t see them, they can’t see me, until I hear a freakin’ skateboard coming straight at me.I’m no skater, but by some miracle of the sea gods, I manage to stop the skateboard from smashing me straight in the shins by blocking it with my foot.I put my weight on one end to flick it up and I grab it.Maybe I should be a skater.
‘Is this yours, Einstein?’I glare at the kid standing before me, a wild-haired teenager that is definitely not one of the hot ones.He smirks, lip curled.
‘Cheers.’He reaches for his skateboard.
‘What, no apology?’
He snatches it from my hand and skates to the table.
One of the older guys sits facing me, leaning back, elbows resting on the table behind him, his legs outstretched.He yanks them out of the way of the skateboard as it careens towards him, partially dislodging the girl sitting on his lap.
‘Mate, seriously?’He pulls the girl back against him.
She giggles, and as she flicks her hair, we lock eyes.
‘Oh, look, it’s Kitty Cat,’ Isabel Dillon drawls.‘Didn’t see ya last night at the Pav.Where were you?With your rich loser friends?’She’s with some random girl from town with a high-pitched giggle like a drill in my ear.They’re flicking their hair so hard it’s a miracle they stay upright.In the late afternoon I find myself standing in their shadow.If they were anyone else, I might see that as symbolic.
Isabel is like that feeling of sand in your sneakers.No matter how much you shake it, there are always annoying grains rubbing against your skin.We were friends once.We met when we were 13, both of us with a mouth full of metal.For that first summer we were inseparable, hanging out every day, both of us trying to hide our crushes on the Neanderthals.But then her braces came off, and she stopped being intimidated by them to the point where she was happier hanging out with them than me.Scrap that: she wasn’t just happier hanging out with them.She became actively nasty, vicious and vile towards me.Two can play that game.
I lift my sunglasses and make a show of looking at Isabel’s neck, a mosaic of purple welts speckled with red.
‘Classy.Which three were the unlucky guys?’Stuff the sisterhood and the very concept of female empowerment and girls supporting girls – for her, anyway.
‘You’re just jealous,’ she snarls, smirk completely gone.‘We were at the best party on the biggest night of the year and where were you?At midnight Mass?Were you praying for a personality?’
‘Maybe she was praying you’d grow some tits,’ a Neanderthal mutters.
I can’t help but laugh and Isabel gives me the middle finger salute.
‘Ooh, catfight!’The skateboarding ignoramus circles me.‘You know what that’ll turn into.Come on girls, give us a show.’He wriggles and thrusts as he skates, his hips jutting like razors from the top of his board shorts.He wraps his arms around himself and his potato face goes side to side as he smooches the air.
‘Yeah right, Steve,’ says Isabel.‘As if.Don’t you know SUBs don’t catfight?’Leaning against a Neanderthal’s legs she takes his hands and tugs until his arms encircle her bare waist.
She, like everyone else in town, calls me a Stuck-up Bitch, SUB for short, just because of the school I go to.It’s not just me.SUB is the collective noun for the girls at our school.It’s very important and significant to note that this is only given to the girls and not the boys.There’s the patriarchy hard at work.Given this is decreed by the type of girls who wear their uniform so short you can almost see their belly ring, it’s not hard to see Stuck Up Bitch as a source of pride.And look, there’s me, also a slave to the patriarchyanda snob.
I am miffed, though.It’s nice to have your presence noticed, even if it is by one’s eternal nemesis.Iwasat The Pav last night.There would have been a good two or three thousand people packed into the space that’s smaller than a football oval, but still, I’m not invisible, surely?Although I didn’t hang around long.It was too depressing, me there all alone, completely sober with every second testosterone-filled and alcohol-fuelled dipshit between the ages of 12 and 42 shoutingHappy New Yearin my face, trying to follow up with a tongue down my throat.No, thank you.
Last year, I had such a great night with my friends, but this year?Surrounded by people, I couldn’t have felt more alone.I would have killed to have my friends with me to see in the new year at The Pav.It was two hours to midnight when I saw someone give my 14-year-old brother a beer.He wouldn’t have been the only barely adolescent puking his guts out on New Year’s Eve, but still.I made my way over to him and the crowd surged as two men began fighting and wrestled each other to the ground.The people around them took the brawl as an invite to throw punches so I grabbed my brother and we pushed through the crowd to the edge of The Pav.
We took a path to the beach and laid on the sand for a while.Eventually he stopped his drunken jabbering and we watched the kaleidoscope of stars.That’s one of the best things about this place.At night on the beach, away from the streetlights, the sky forms a perfect arc filled with stars.It would have been bliss, if not for the sound of people having the best New Year’s ever.Ugh.
Every year, I promise myself I won’t let Isabel Dillon get to me, and here’s that resolution broken already.Steve keeps circling across the footpath.Skirting him, I push open Sadie’s door.I pause to let a family exit and see Isabel reflected in the tinted window, laughing with her friend who has just started a sentence with, ‘I’m not racist, but...’Steve is wheeling, swearing at the top of his lungs, and a woman holding hands with a little girl shoots him daggers before crossing the street.I step into Sadie’s and crash smack bang into the chest of Paul Lightwood, aka Sal’s Adonis come to life, the hottest of the hot, the king of the Neanderthals, a beautiful, walking surfer god.
