What's a Girl Gotta Do? (14 page)

twenty-three

Amber held out her overflowing wine glass and yelled: “I demand a toast!”

Evie and I looked at each other. Amber was pissed. She had a red-wine smile and her hair was drooping.

“To what?” I asked, louder than I thought. Maybe I was a bit drunk too.

“To not getting caught today!”

Will's own wine glass came veering into my hazy vision. “I'll drink to that,” he said. “And, I now have enough video evidence to send you all down. You have to be nice to me for ever.”

“I'll toast to this,” I said.

“Me too,” Evie said.

“Me three,” Megan slurred. She was so tiny and slim I think the wine had made her ten times more wasted than the rest of us.

“Okay then.” Amber's glass swayed mid-air, slopping some down onto her hand. “Come on then – here's to NOT GETTING ARRESTED TODAY!”

“HERE'S TO NOT GETTING ARRESTED!” We all clinked in the middle, and yelling it made me realize just how relieved I was.

I leaned back in the big leather armchair and let the warmth of the wine flow through me – regenerating the parts of my body that had been sacrificed to adrenalin throughout the day. We'd managed to pull off the entire feminism shopping extravaganza without a hitch. At the clothes shop, Amber had started fake-crying in the changing rooms, yelling, “I CAN'T FIT EVEN MY CALF INTO THESE JEANS EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE A TWELVE. I'M A FAT COW.” It'd been quite a beautiful moment actually. Almost all the female shoppers had flocked to her – telling her she wasn't fat, that the jeans were cut funny, cooing that she was beautiful. “THESE MIRRORS MAKE ME NOTICE CELLULITE I'VE NEVER NOTICED BEFORE,” she'd continued wailing, while Megan and Evie filmed it all on their phones.

Meanwhile, I'd pulled out the Special T-Shirts Megan had made, and Will and I had dashed from skinny mannequin to skinny mannequin – shoving them over their heads. They were branded with #Vagilante and said things like:
I'm too thin to menstruate.
We were just getting noticed when we'd sped off to the toy shop. While surrounded by neon plastic bleeping things, we'd swapped the sign over the
Toys for Boys
aisle with the
Toys for Girls
one – so the boys' section was full of dolls, and the girls' was full of Lego and pirates. Then –
finally
– we'd finished up at the bookshop, inserting Post-its into the books we found most offensive. I slipped some Post-its into the latest novel by a famous male author, known for his “smart romantic comedies” that always won loads of awards, saying:
If a woman had written this, it would be called chick lit and win nothing
. We also hit the children's books – particularly the activity books. There was a display of colouring-in books – one was called
The Beautiful Picture Book for Girls
and the other
The Brave Picture Book for Boys.
Lots of Post-its went on there (
Boys can be beautiful too! Girls can be brave too!
And, the old favourite for good luck,
Gender is a social construct
). Now, exhausted, we'd crashed into a pub Will knew about that didn't ID. It was a proper old man's pub – all burny fire in the corner and old leather chairs and shaggy dogs lying with their heads between their paws.

Though Will had confused all of us by ordering two bottles of Merlot.

“No one our age is supposed to drink Merlot,” Evie said. “I don't even know what Merlot is. But I know I'm too young to be drinking it.”

But two bottles had become four bottles and we'd warmed to the taste of red wine. It was cold outside and it got dark so quickly. The wine just felt right in my stomach as I stared out into the blackness and wondered how we'd managed to get away with everything.

“So, Will,” Amber said, her voice all loud from drunk. “How have you found it spending the week with feminist freedom fighters?”

He eyed her over his glass, taking in her red-wine smile. He seemed very sober, even though he'd had the same amount as us.

“I've got good footage today, that's all that matters.”

“Yeah but…” Amber swirled her glass in the air. “Aren't we showing you things to think about? Changing your mind a little bit? Just a little?”

“No,” he answered simply.

“How not? With everything Lottie's pointing out?”

“Don't bother,” I called over the table.

Will shot me a look that I couldn't figure out. He picked up his glass, all sophisticated, sipping it like a proper grown-up, and turned to Amber again.

“Why do you care that I don't agree with you? Why are all of you obsessed with getting me to agree with you?”

“Why aren't you answering my question?”

He shrugged – took another sip.

Evie answered for him. “He doesn't like having opinions other people have, do you, Will?”

He raised one eyebrow, but tauntingly didn't reply. We all just glared at him, distracted only by Megan's head falling down onto the table.

“I hate men,” she declared, slurring her words messily. “You're all shits, you know that? You're all UTTER SHITS.” She leaned back, and I saw her eyes fall back into her head.

Yikes – she was proper wasted.

Amber put an arm around her, trying to hush her and stop us getting noticed. Megan buried her face into Amber's shoulder and surprised us all by breaking into sobs. Her cries came from a place deep inside of her – the kind of hollow sobs that have been suppressed for too long. None of us knew what to do. Amber pulled Megan gently to her feet, and they disappeared into the ladies' loos.

Some of the old regulars were looking at us.

Will wrinkled his nose. “What was all that about?”

“I don't know,” I lied.

Will crossed his arms. “She can't go around making generalizations like that anyway. You should honk your horn! Isn't it sexist for her to say all men are shits?”

“SHUT UP, WILL,” Evie and I said at the same time.

He crossed his arms tighter and leaned back in his chair. “Oh, I see. One rule for boys, another totally different rule for girls.”

“SHUT UP, WILL,” we both said again.

“Christ,” I said. “For once, will you stop trying to win the debating Olympics? Have you even thought what might cause Megan to say something like that?”

“Hypocrisy? Reverse sexism?” The way he tilted his head implied maybe the wine had got to him too, but I didn't care.

“Not now, okay.” And I stood up and followed Amber and Megan into the loos – leaving Evie to tend to his poor ego.

I heard the wails before I pushed open the door. Inside, I saw Amber perched on the loo, Megan's head lolling into her shoulder, crying down her front. Amber was stroking her hair, shushing in her ear, trying to calm her down. She looked up when I blasted in and nodded me forward.

“Megan?” I cooed, kneeling down on the grimy floor. “Megan, what's wrong, honey?”

She shook her head into Amber. “Nothing. I'm fine.”

Another sob signalled that she was quite the opposite.

“Megan, what is it? You can tell us. We're here for you.” I stroked her back, while Amber stroked her hair.

“Everything's just so messed up,” she croaked. “I'm so messed up. I don't know who I am any more… I… I…”

“Is it…?” I was about to ask about Max but Amber shot me a warning glance. “The wine?” I changed tack, making frantic eyebrow motions back at Amber. Why shouldn't we prompt her to talk about it?

Megan lifted her hair and I almost flinched. Her eyes were red raw from crying, her make-up everywhere. She looked so…lost. Like her entire being was a puzzle and she couldn't fit the pieces together.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm ruining everything. I'm sorry. I'm such an idiot, I'm such a stupid idiot.”

“There's nothing to be sorry for,” I cooed.

“Yes, there is. I've ruined your day… I've ruined everything… I ruin everything. No one will believe me if…if…”

My heart started beating really quickly. “If what?” I shot Amber another look.

Megan stared right into me, her eyes streaming… She opened her mouth, and I knew then…she was going to tell us, and we could tell her it was okay, that we believed her, that we'd help her go to the police, that we understood.

“I…I…I'm going to be sick.”

Like a pro, Amber swung Megan's head around so she was face-down in the loo. Just in time too. We sat on the floor, rubbing her back as she retched up over and over.

“How much wine did she have?” I asked Amber. “She's wasted!”

“I'm not sure. But before you came in, she was saying she'd not had any breakfast or lunch. She said she didn't ‘deserve to eat'…”

“That's worrying.”

“That is totally worrying.”

Another loud retch and a splashing noise.

“She needs to talk to someone,” I whispered more urgently. But Amber, again, gave me a look that made my arm hairs stand on end.

“She just needs to do whatever she needs to do in her own time.”

“She should go to the police.”

Amber properly rolled her eyes at that, stabbing through my feelings. “Honestly, Lottie. We don't even know it's a police issue. And what you want to do isn't always what's right for everyone, you know?”

My face burned red, my throat stuck together. Amber never told me off! We never snapped at each other. And it hurt so much I almost wanted to push Megan's head out the loo so I could take a turn retching into it.

I didn't reply. I was too stunned. Too stinging.

We stayed with Megan, not talking. I was too upset to talk – upset at Amber, at what had happened with Megan… I'd thought maybe today – her joining us – would help…

Evie came in to check on us. “Will's said sorry,” she said. “Though he prefixed it with ‘I don't know why I'm apologizing but…'” She wrinkled her nose. “Anyway, he's offered to help us take her back.”

Megan had stopped vomiting and was now just howling into the toilet bowl, wailing, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” over and over.

“Megan?” Amber asked, her voice all soft. “You think you're okay to get up?”

“I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it…so sorry…ruined everything…”

“It's okay, you don't need to worry. Can you get up?”

With aid, Megan stumbled to her feet, her jeans splattered with toilet flush and God knows what else.

“I'll go get Will ready,” Evie said, as Amber and I propped Megan up between us.

“Do you know where she lives?” I asked Amber, breaking our uncomfortable silence.

“I think she's near me,” Amber mumbled, refusing to make eye-contact. “We sometimes bump into each other on the walk into college. But I'm not entirely sure.”

“Megan?” I adjusted my weight so I could hold her up better. “Can you tell us your address?”

“Beech Drive,” she muttered into her chest, her hair falling all over her face.

“Yep, that's near me,” Amber said. “Come on, Megs, we're going.”

Evie pummelled through the doors again to tell us Will had found a back entrance. “Everyone's less likely to see us.” I thanked Will silently in my mind.

He arrived at the toilet threshold, and took her off us, putting Megan's arms around his neck and talking to her. “Hey, Megan, it's Will. Yes…I know…I'm an arsehole…yep…a giant one… shall we just go out and get some air? I don't know about you, but I'm boiling in this pub.”

“Sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. Look, here's the door, shall we go through it then?”

Just as I was marvelling at his total personality transplant into “caring individual”, Evie nudged me. “We need to get the bags.”

“You're very good at thinking of everything,” I said.

She tapped the side of her head and smiled. “Comes with the territory.”

We left them with the task of getting Megan out unnoticed, and returned to our table to collect up bags, coats, scarves and all the other bundles of paraphernalia you need when you go on an activist mission during winter. Looking at the table I felt really sad and sobered up. It had been our celebration table – our triumph table. But all the euphoria had dribbled out. I began picking stuff up, swinging three backpacks across my shoulders.

Did you really think shoving a few hilarious T-shirts on underweight mannequins would help Megan? I thought to myself. Did you honestly think pasting a few Post-its in a book would stop awful stuff happening? You're deluded, Lottie.

“You all right?” Evie asked – I'd frozen mid tidy-up.

“I'm fine.”

“You're not though.” You couldn't get any hidden emotions past Evie, she snuffled them out like an emotion truffle-pig.

I gave her a small smile. “But I will be.”

Evie picked up the glasses and took them to the bar, where the barman nodded thanks. I marvelled at her – holding them between her fingers without even going to wash her hands afterwards. What a difference a year (and meds and intensive therapy) could make.

“Evie?” I asked, as we picked up the final scarves draped around the chairs.

“Yes?”

“When you…got sick…you know? Last year?”

“Did I?” She laughed, and I laughed too. She'd been so undeniably sick it was…well…undeniable. She'd even ended up on a psychiatric ward.

“You may not remember it.” I smiled. “A minor blip.”

“Oh yes, that one. What about it?”

My face fell serious for a moment. “When you thought about everything you needed to get over to feel…well…well again…did it all seem too much?”

Evie sat down on the seat suddenly, folding the scarf she'd been holding. I hoped it was okay I was asking her about it.

“Oh yeah,” she said without pausing. “It definitely felt too much. Thus the whole…like…freefall-into-madness thing.”