Outside In (13 page)

It's announced straight after the anthem, and the sport teacher is virtually hysterical. He practically yells it into the microphone as he points into the crowd. It's Jack Delanty. Stepping up from perfection. He's made the state basketball team, and everyone feels like it's their very own achievement.

The younger basketball type kids move from their regular spots. They hang around him, back-slapping and high-fiving. Jack is nice about it. I can tell there are moments when he would like to escape, but he doesn't. He will be a role model, and my own heart swells for him too, even though I know I'm being stupid. He doesn't know I exist, and his success has nothing to do with me.

Nobody settles after that. The boring stuff gets said. The principal takes the mike and drones on, and a fly buzzes around my face, threatens to walk right into my eye. I close my eyes and another reel plays, a snippet of bedtime fantasy. I am morphed into someone Jack might notice. My legs are magically elongated, the purple patches of white skin and veins transformed into a deep, even tan. My mouth widens, and my hair, when I shake it out, is silk. And there he is, beckoning to me …

Assembly is over. I lift my backpack and wait until I can move without the crush of the crowd. Dylan steps backwards, onto my toes. He apologises, and I can see he is searching for my name in his mind. He doesn't find it.

Groups are formed upon exit. Jordan is with Jack, and something has happened, because they have
couple
stamped all over their faces. They are handing out sheets of paper to a select few. Dylan, next to me, is selected. I see that he is holding an invitation. It has rows of basketballs and nets as its border.

I can just imagine Jack's perfect home. The perfect home, the perfect venue for a party for the perfect boy.

I look down so as not to appear needy, to slide under the radar. Again.

I am interested as Jordan does a double take and walks back towards Meredith. They don't know that I heard. That I heard them talking about her behind her back. But I was there. I heard it. Surely Meredith won't forgive them. I predict that Meredith will shake her off.

It's a surprise, then, that Meredith accepts the invitation. That she shoots an imaginary basketball, and shares a laugh with Jordan. But her laugh is less exaggerated than it normally is.

Maybe they have all apologised to Meredith? Maybe they have begged her to forgive them, and she has? Or maybe she is just hiding her anger?

See, that is the problem. I have only pieces of the jigsaw, not the whole puzzle. I need to be more vigilant.

I can't see Lee, or Sam. But Cecilia is walking quickly, as though she wants to be alone. Cecilia is the one who fascinates me most. Sometimes I fancy that she is like the reverse of myself, like a me with the skin slit open. She doesn't wait for the others. Her ballerina posture is graceful as always, but her frame seems to be changing from delicate to frail. It takes away from her grace, just a little.

I am starting to form a theory about Cecilia, but it's early days. I need to investigate.

There
are
cracks in this luminous group. I can feel them. From the inside out. From the outside in.

cecilia

Cecilia folded the freshly laundered hand towel. Carefully, she placed it in the wicker basket, counting small, coloured soaps on top in a semi-circle. She stepped back. Changed her mind. She rearranged the soaps in a circle.

She looked around her ensuite bathroom. The hand towel was light blue. It matched the two bath towels that hung on the rack, all with monogrammed ‘C's. They only needed a little adjustment. They weren't hanging in exactly the same way, but that could be fixed.

She had been good lately. In one way. Strong. Willpower had kicked in, and stayed for days. She had stuck to it. A
proper
diet. An apple and a long run in the rain. Three carrot sticks traded for an hour of dance training. And celery was great, because she could burn up its calories in the very act of eating it. Extreme fat loss, as confirmed by the online calorie counter. Cecilia was in credit.

She hadn't done it, the other thing, since the night of the recital.

She walked out of the bathroom, through the walk-in robes and into her bedroom. It was frustrating to see the bumps in her doona cover, from where the sheet underneath was bunched up. Cecilia pulled the cover off entirely. She made hospital corners on the sheet, tucking them tightly under the mattress, and then re-spread the cover.

The digital clock on the chest of drawers told her the time. Cecilia stared at it. She felt that awful, messy feeling rise inside her. And it kept on coming, that feeling, no matter how many towels she folded. No matter how many times she straightened her bed. It was a feeling that couldn't be fixed.

Cecilia wished she could stop the world turning on its giddy axis. She wished that she could push back time. Take it back to when everything seemed manageable.

So much had changed. So much kept changing. Boyfriends and periods and kissing and maybe more.

Just thinking about it gave her an involuntary shudder right down her back.

Jordan and Jack. Meredith and Sam. There was only Lee left, and that was only because Jack liked Jordan and not her.

Once upon a time, the girls had felt the same.

Cecilia didn't want a boyfriend. She didn't want hands and mouths inside her. She'd had to pretend when Meredith accused her of liking Dylan. Everyone else felt that way about someone. Somehow, Cecilia had missed out on that want, that desire. She had to cover up her
lack
of it. She had to use all her resources to deflect and protect. It was a difficult combination, like the moonwalk she'd learned ages ago in dance class. Appear to be moving when you're really standing still.

Appear to be growing when you're trying to shrink.

Cecilia lay in a straight line on her bed. When she lay down like this, her breasts were flat. Thank God. If they grew like Lee's, there would be no more dance. Not the real type, anyway, with a future. Breasts and ballet didn't mix. And dance was the only oblivion, the only time she was able to forget about all the changes that were making life spin out of control.

Other than … the other thing.

It had been better before Meredith got ‘it'. Cecilia hated even the word. She wouldn't use it, even in her thoughts. Cecilia had felt more secure, then. As if maybe the two of them could escape together. But that was before ‘it' came and dragged them into a new phase from which they would never, not ever, return.

But Meredith had been stoked. She'd gathered the girls together as though she had the best news in the universe. And they had all carried on with talk and jokes about pads. Carried on as though Meredith had achieved something great, when what she'd really achieved was having blood come out between her legs. Disgusting.

Cecilia had only coped with it all by counting the number of parallel panels of wood in the section of wall behind Meredith. The door interrupted the whole lines, with panels above and below that were horizontal. She was up to 258 when Meredith noticed she wasn't paying attention to them. When Meredith pressured her, asking what was wrong.

Cecilia had lied. She'd told them there was nothing wrong. There had been so many lies lately, so many cover-ups, because there was no option of telling the truth about what she felt. About what she was doing.

Cecilia could fill herself up with lies. She could digest them slowly until she actually believed what she was saying. She was becoming a professional. The story about an empty lunchbox was enriched by leaving the crust of a sandwich inside, or the crumbs of a biscuit after she'd thrown the rest away. It was a terrible thing to do while people were starving in the world.

How could she begin to explain it to her friends? When she didn't even understand herself?

It was different for the others. They had problems, yeah, but their problems were real. They were understandable. Jordan's parents splitting up, or Lee liking someone who didn't like her back. They were
normal
problems. They could be spoken about.

Like when Meredith told them all about her mum, about why she was always jokey. Everyone had listened and understood. They had cried together, and laughed, as they unravelled Meredith and put her back together. Meredith deserved their understanding.

Cecilia checked the bills in her purse. She opened the zipper inside her bag and tucked the purse away.

Her dad had bought her the bag in Prague a few months earlier. He'd seen it in a store window on the way to conduct one of his concerts. A symphony orchestra that received rave reviews. He'd been gone a month that time. Newspaper clippings with headings like
Johann Walters reaches the zenith of creative passion
, had been laid on the kitchen table for inspection. Then came the bag.

He'd thought Cecilia would like it. She did. She liked the stark, white canvas, the China bluebirds etched over its surface. The bamboo rings hugged her shoulder. It was the perfect size, too.

For this.

Outside, the afternoon was bright. Inside the shopping centre, the light was artificial and ugly. People walked around with plastic bags, shop logos plastered all over them, filled with stuff they thought they needed.

Cecilia's bag was empty, apart from the purse. So far.

She paused outside the window of the pet shop. It was stage one of the ritual. Today, there were three puppies. Maltese Shitzus. Fluffy balls of fur. They rolled around, climbing on top of each other as though they didn't know where one finished and another began. Brothers and sisters.

Cecilia was an only child. It was a very deliberate choice. Her parents wanted to give her everything, invest in her life. Dance and school, laptops and iPods. She owed them. A loan, with interest.

Coco's Internet Cafe was dark, moody. Smelled of coffee. It was a haven from the shopping centre. Domes of dark green light fittings, fringed with black lace, hung over private booths. Cecilia took the last booth. Number ten. Very private.

The second stage of the ritual began. Cecilia fingered her wrist, her pulse, before typing words into the search engine.

The website gave her courage. It built her up. She wasn't alone anymore. In cyberspace, someone understood. Someone gave advice. Advice that was both gross and fantastic. Especially the tips on how not to get caught.

Cecilia didn't feel the need to write anything down. It was firmly implanted inside her brain.

She closed the site and went back to the home page. She slipped out of the seat, keeping her head down as she paid at the front counter. She noticed a flash of her school's uniform as someone headed down towards her booth. Legs she didn't recognise, thank God.

She looked around before she entered the supermarket. Stage three of the ritual. She kept checking as she walked the aisles. Didn't see anyone she knew.

Aisle two was the starting point. It was important to keep everything in order. Savoury first. Chips. The biggest packets were on sale. That was a bonus because she didn't like spending her parent's money
stupidly
. She knew how hard they worked for it. Three packets went into the trolley, blanketed under the canvas bag.

It was important to put her thoughts into compartments, to separate the stages. This was the time for purchasing goods. It was the flat part of the slide, where she could sit for a moment before
… whoosh …
she was off. This was the preparation, and she didn't need to think, yet, about what she was preparing for.

Maybe she wouldn't even end up doing it?

The wheels of the trolley seemed to have a mind of their own. Cecilia had to use all of her strength to swivel around the corner, to push into aisle six.

Sweet, now. Chocolate-covered biscuits. Marshmallows were perfect. Better than chips, because they were soft. Would be soft, too, afterwards.

Ice-cream was difficult. For ice-cream, she would need to use the freezer in the kitchen. For anyone to see. Better just to get one tub. Two at the max.

As she unstacked the trolley at the checkout, Cecilia was edgy. This bit was dangerous. Anyone could be in the queues, even though she'd chosen the least popular supermarket.

Just in case, Cecilia layered her bag over part of the load until the checkout chick pushed the button to move the conveyer.

‘Hello,' the girl said. She had a giant pimple on her chin that was kind of mesmerising. ‘And what do you have planned for the rest of the evening?'

Cecilia bit her lip. ‘Nothing much,' she said. ‘Nothing much.'