Asking for It (2 page)

‘It’s weird,’ she says, and I make my face stay very still. ‘I can’t find them anywhere.’

‘Ah, no,’ Maggie says as she turns into the car park.

‘Can’t you just get a new pair?’ I ask, and my voice sounds normal. She can afford it.

‘You can only get that style in the US. I told you that.’

‘Oh yeah, I think I remember them.’ I hang my backpack off one shoulder and start rooting through it to find my Irish textbook. ‘They were a bit big for your face anyway, hun.’

St Brigid’s Secondary School lies ahead of us, a grey concrete building with square windows glinting in the sunlight, squat prefabs lined up beside it. The gym, tennis courts and car park are to the front; steep grass fields at the back, cows mooing frantically whenever students sneak behind the gym to smoke. The nuns had sold the land to fund a new convent at the other side of Ballinatoom, the remaining five rattling around the cavernous building, just waiting to die. I look around me at the hundreds of girls getting out of cars, flushed and uncomfortable. The dark grey pleated woollen skirts, grey knee-high socks and dark grey blazers are not suited to this heat, but Mr Griffin, the principal, made an announcement over the intercom yesterday that ‘the uniform must be worn in its entirety, girls, no matter what the weather. There are no exceptions to that rule.’

All the students walk forward, laughing and linking arms and rifling through backpacks and yelling out at each other to wait up. I nod at the girls passing who call my name, say hello, ask me where I got my sunglasses, or what lip gloss I’m wearing, or how I’m feeling about our Irish exam today. I smile, telling them, ‘Thanks, you’re such a pet,’ and doling out compliments in return. I imagine them whispering to themselves once I’m out of earshot about how nice I am, how genuine, how I always seem to have time for everybody, how it’s amazing that I can still be so down to earth when I look the way I do.

*

By the time the final bell rings, I am exhausted. I have to smile and be nice and look like I care about other people’s problems or else I’ll get called a bitch. People don’t understand how tiring it is to have to put on this performance all day.

‘Hey.’ Ali is lying on the concrete by the Fiesta, using her blazer as a blanket, her skirt rolled up and shirt open to catch as much of the sun as she can. ‘Did you get my text messages?’

‘No.’

I check the time on my phone, putting my hand above my eyes as I squint back at the school.

‘For God’s sake,’ I say, ‘where is she? I don’t have any suncream. I’m going to start burning if she doesn’t get here soon.’

‘Shit,’ Ali says. ‘I didn’t bring any with me. I’m so sorry. I should have thought.’

‘You
know
how delicate my skin is,’ I say, holding my blazer over my head as a shield. ‘And remember what Karen said about sun damage, she said those UV—’

‘Yeah, if I wanted a lecture from my mother, I’d ask her for one myself.’

‘Emma!’ I wince when I hear that squeaky voice. ‘Hi!’

‘Hi, Chloe.’

It’s Chloe Hegarty, her hair standing up in a halo of frizz at her hairline, breakouts all around her jaw and chin, one patch of acne crusted over with yellow pus. I wish she would go and see a dermatologist. I turn away, pretending I need to get something from my bag.

‘Ouch,’ Ali says as Chloe slinks off.

‘Whatever,’ I say. ‘Oh, thank Christ, there they are.’ I see the girls coming out from the prefab nearest to the gym. Maggie’s head is bent over her iPhone already, her fingers keying furiously, Jamie trailing behind her. ‘Hurry on,’ I call out to them.

‘Sorry,’ Maggie says when she reaches us. Her blazer is wrapped around the straps of her bag and she fumbles underneath it for her keys without looking up from her phone. It beeps again, and she lets the satchel fall on the ground, her face softening as she reads the new text.

‘Mags,’ I say. ‘For fuck’s sake, I’m roasting. Can you at least open the door first?’

‘Sorry,’ she says again. ‘Eli says he’s going to be in the park at five with the lads if we want to meet him there.’ She puts the phone on the bonnet of the car, placing the bag next to it as she searches through it. She pulls out three tattered copybooks, old tissues, a leopard-print headscarf, an iPod, Tic Tacs, a leaking lunch box and an A4 pad. ‘They’re definitely in here somewhere,’ she mutters, using a tissue to wipe away the oily residue of her tuna sandwich from her fingers. ‘Wait! Here they be.’ She opens her own door first, recoiling as a blast of hot air hits her in the face. She crawls into the car, opening the other doors from the inside.

‘Jesus,’ Jamie says as we get in, cranking all the windows open. ‘When are you getting your new car again, Ali?’

‘Only three months to my birthday!’ Ali takes out her iPhone and swipes through her camera roll. She holds up a photo of a brand-new Mini Cooper in baby blue, and Jamie and Maggie ‘ooh’ in appreciation.

‘I feel like you see Mini Coopers everywhere these days,’ I hear myself saying. ‘They’re so popular now.’

Ali’s hand drops to her lap, the photo still open on her iPhone.

‘Slow down,’ I tell Maggie as we drive through the narrow main street of Ballinatoom, with its skittle-coloured buildings on either side, pubs and butcher shops and greengrocers all crammed in. A group of lads from St Michael’s are clogging up the footpaths, ignoring an elderly man trying to navigate his way past them with his walking stick. Their navy V-neck sweaters are tied around their waists, showing off sunburnt arms, sweat patches on unbuttoned white shirts, and blue-and-yellow striped ties hanging loosely around their necks, brown bags of penny sweets and cans of Coke clutched in their hands. There’s a large banner strung between two buildings, in black and gold, announcing a country and western music festival. It’s the same every year, hundreds of middle-aged fans from all over the country arriving in Ballinatoom wearing cowboy boots and Stetsons, humming Nathan Carter songs under their breath. ‘Aren’t you lucky to live here?’ they ask us, breathing in the country air. Why? I want to ask them. Why are we lucky to live here? But I know the answer that I’ll get.

It’s so beautiful here, they’ll say. There’s such a sense of community. People look out for each other.

It’s true, I guess.

Within minutes we’re at Connolly Gardens. There is a square of grass with a narrow ribbon of concrete path looping around it, and a marble fountain in the middle. A curved terrace of large Georgian houses surrounds the square, all painted pastel shades. We park outside Maggie’s house, a pale azure colour with cream window frames, a black cast-iron knocker in the shape of a lion’s head on the cream door.

‘Aren’t you going to come in?’ Maggie asks as she pushes the front door open and only Jamie follows her. Ali sneaks a look at me, waiting until I shake my head before saying, ‘No, I’m good, Mags. I’ll wait here with Em.’

‘And will you get suncream?’ I call after them. I don’t want to have to talk to Maggie’s mother. The last time I called, she disappeared into her ‘client space’ to get a ‘book that I think will really speak to you, Emma’. Hannah had caused quite a stir when the Bennetts moved here from North Cork five years ago. She was heavily pregnant with Maggie’s baby sister, Alice Eve, her bump bulging underneath tight T-shirts, and she didn’t seem to care that old ladies tutted and averted their eyes when they saw a flash of swollen belly. Everyone whispered about the new arrivals, about how the mother was ‘a play-therapist, whatever that means’, and the father was ‘an accountant, and must be doing well for himself if they can afford that house – you should have seen the price of it’, and that the other daughter was twelve or thirteen, and really pretty. I had been worried when I heard that until I saw Maggie and realized that, yes, she was pretty. But she wasn’t prettier than me.

‘I hear the wife is very attractive,’ Mam said to Dad the night they arrived, passing him the mashed potatoes at dinner. ‘And I do think it’s brave of her to allow herself to go grey so early.’

‘Ready?’ Maggie says when she opens the front door again.

‘Oh, you look so cool,’ Ali says. Maggie is wearing that men’s checked shirt she bought in a charity shop as a dress and her metallic silver Doc Martens. She has a paisley scarf holding her curls back, wrapped twice around her head and tied in an oversized bow on top, almost the size of her head, and multiple silver rings on her fingers.

‘Jesus,’ I say. ‘You look like you’re Amish or something.’

Maggie takes a look at herself in the oval mirror hanging above the spindly-legged hall table. I hate that stupid mirror, with the affirmation ‘You are beautiful on the inside’ scored into it in silver cursive script. I always want to scratch it out.

‘Savage,’ she says happily. ‘I love the Amish look.’

*

Connolly Gardens is quiet at this time of day. There are three women sitting on a bench at the other side of the green, all wearing black Lycra leggings, skintight vest tops and Birkenstocks, rolled up yoga mats and brown paper bags from the Health Hut at their feet. Another woman in cropped combat trousers and a baggy T-shirt is chasing after two toddlers, holding out suncream and wide-brimmed hats; some older children in swimming togs are running around the fountain, barefoot and shrieking.

‘Hey, sexy.’ A boy in a baseball cap leans out of the window of a car parked at the entrance to the gardens, his friend in the passenger seat throwing his head back in laughter. We keep walking, pretending we didn’t hear. I look back over my shoulder, and of course he’s pointing at me.

‘What’s wrong?’ he calls.

‘Nothing’s wrong.’

‘Then smile a little. I bet you’re even more beautiful when you smile.’

‘Christ,’ I say, when there is enough distance between us. ‘Why is it always me?’

‘Maybe because you were the only one who looked back and made eye contact with them?’ Jamie says, and Maggie starts laughing.

‘Come on, J, don’t be so hard on her. Maybe she fancies one of them.’ Maggie presses her lips together to stop herself from giggling. ‘The guy in the white tracksuit was a total ride. Just your type, right, Em?’

‘Ha ha,’ I say as she and Jamie laugh. ‘Very funny.’

Ali doesn’t join in, turning her face away from us. ‘It’s so hard being your friend,’ she told me at one of Dylan Walsh’s parties last year. She was wasted, slumped over the toilet bowl. ‘It’s like I don’t exist when you’re around.’ She retched again, and I checked my phone to see if anyone had texted me. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘And sometimes –’ she took a deep breath – ‘I think that’s why you like being my friend.’

I told her not to be silly. I told her she was wrong.

‘To be honest, Al, I’m sick of being harassed,’ I told her.

‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘it must be
so
difficult being told you’re gorgeous all the time.’

‘It’s superficial,’ I said, because that’s what you’re supposed to say when people tell you you’re beautiful. ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’

Ali stops suddenly, Jamie slamming into the back of her. ‘Shit.’

‘Jesus, Ali. Watch it, will you?’ Jamie says, taking a step back.

‘Shhh,’ Ali says, then lowers her voice. ‘Look who’s over there.’

Sean Casey and Jack Dineen are in a corner of the park, hidden behind the fountain. They’ve taken their shirts off and are throwing a rugby ball between them, their bodies lean and tight.

‘Sean is gorgeous,’ Ali sighs.

‘Sean needs some suncream,’ I say.

He looks up at this, his face going even redder when he sees me.

‘Hey, Emma.’ He waves at me, and I wiggle my fingers at him in return.

‘You shouldn’t encourage Sean,’ Maggie told me on Skype last week. ‘You know how Ali feels about him.’

‘I’m not encouraging him,’ I answered in exasperation, ‘but what am I supposed to do? Ignore him? I don’t want to hurt his feelings.’

(I don’t want him to think I’m a bitch.)

‘I’ll check us in on Facebook,’ Ali says when we find an empty bench. I sit at one end, Jamie next to me, both of us using the shade of a small oak tree behind us to block out the sun. Ali takes off her blazer to use as a blanket on the grass, Maggie borrowing mine to do the same. She gives me the fair-trade, fragrance-free, chemical-free suncream Hannah uses, and I pour some between my palms, rubbing it into my legs. I look up to see if Jack Dineen has noticed, but he’s tackling Sean to the ground, trying to wrestle the ball off him.

‘Eh, I think that’s rubbed in at this stage, Emma.’

‘What?’

Jamie squirts some suncream on to her legs and starts to massage it into her skin. ‘Oh yes, yes, yes,’ she says. ‘That feels
so good
.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ I say. I close my eyes, the world around me fading into sound. I can hear the cars driving past, a horn blasting. ‘Do you think he likes me?’ Ali asks Maggie. ‘Has Eli ever said anything to you? Did he say if Sean ever mentions me?’ Maggie’s reply in soothing tones, breaking off mid-sentence every time her phone beeps, a fly buzzing near me that I’m too lazy to swat away, one of the mothers calling, ‘Fionn, come here right now, it’s time to go home.’ I’m only half listening as Ali tells a story about some girl in the States who had her webcam hacked while she was touching herself and she took an overdose.

‘Ugh,’ I say, screwing my nose up. ‘That is so gross.’

‘Hannah says that masturbation is a normal thing for people to do, men and women,’ Maggie says as she checks her phone again.

‘What, so you do it, do you?’ I wink at her. ‘When I rang you last night and you said you were “in the shower” you were actually rubbing one out?’

‘No!’ Maggie’s face is turning red. ‘Of course not.’

‘Hmm-mmm.’

‘I don’t,’ Maggie says. ‘I
don’t.
Hello, I have Eli, don’t I?’