Fic: Mistaken for Strangers - Part 1
Title: Mistaken for Strangers
Author: interpol_ice
Fandom: Skins - Third Generation
Characters: Mini McGuinness, Franky Fitzgerald
Rating: R (for language, themes, and dark things)
Words: 19,500+
Summary: “Why do we ask so many questions? Two people shouldn’t know each other too well if they want to fall in love.” - L’eclisse (1962)
Disclaimer: Skins belongs to Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain.
Author's Notes: Found this incredibly difficult to write because I find Mini a deceptively complex character. Yeah, I actually needed four to five months to build up my take on her. It’s also indecently long (indulgence on my part)… so I dunno how it’s going to fare. I myself admit this fic is going to be hit or miss. But yeah, I’m putting it out here anyway.
Make up something to believe in your heart of hearts
So you have something to wear on your sleeve of sleeves
- The National, “Mistaken for Strangers”
* * *
Franky’s eyelids kind of flutter when she talks and really, it’s so pretty that wide-eyed models on all those haute couture spreads don’t quite cut it for you anymore.
It’s not like you’re in love with her or anything big like that.
No. Nothing like that at all.
* * *
You have a pretty good sense of who you are. Essentially, you’re the type of girl who has the kind of class and poise that can only be acquired from growing up on old Hollywood movies and having a childhood spent balancing a hardbound copy of Jane Eyre atop the head. The type of girl with a body as a reward for doing cardio seven days a week and lying belly-down at night, listing meal plans that didn’t go over the calorie-limits.
You would never dare wear anything that wasn’t pre-approved by a high-gloss magazine. To stay up, you have to keep up. You don’t put on clothes per se. You put on trends. If it isn’t the latest, it’s already late. These are the rules.
Like most girls, you do your hair, your nails, your coursework, and boys. (In your case though, there were those few times with that one boy.) You won’t go out without any makeup on and you know how to smile through the extreme pain and silliness there is in strutting around in high heels.
Like most girls, you fantasised about the opposite sex.
Unlike most girls, you didn’t get as much satisfaction from fantasising about them as you did when you were fantasising about one man. You never believed in Santa Claus but until you were about eleven, you had an imaginary friend.
You called him Dad.
* * *
Your mother thinks you're this Sim she wishes she looked like so she could feel better about her shit situation that sadly, you’re starring in as well. You look just like she did when she was seventeen and you remind her of the life she had then, before she had you. It’s the strangest thing and you’re not supposed to feel guilty but you do.
It’s dinner and she’s feeling a little bit ‘blast from the past’ and you don’t really want to eat her over-seasoned pot roast and mash in the first place.
“I remember when you were still little. You’d bawl and bawl and you’d never stop until I played that tape I found at that yard sale a year before I met Bonn.”
Bonn isn’t your father. He’s the man your mum dated a year after she found out you were growing arms and legs inside of her. She says ‘that tape I found at that yard sale a year before I met Bonn’ because she’d rather die than say ‘that tape I found at that yard sale the year I went on an insane fuckathon with your no-good-fuckwad of a father.’
Your mum gets up in a moment of nostalgia and excitement. Makes her way to the ancient cassette player, the oldest and only one in the house that still, surprisingly, works like a charm. She takes the tape out of its special place on the cabinet (by her collection of Girls Aloud CDs) and pops it in the player and the whales are having sex in the house again.
“Isn’t that peaceful?” your mum says, holding her wine glass (with Diet Coke in it) and turning, turning around your living room, dancing to what most probably inspired Moby-Dick.
You think of a whale shooting a thousand gallons of sperm into the ocean. The fishes, the seahorses, the shrimps and the lobsters. All those poor little critters, swimming around in whale come. You wonder why other underwater animals aren’t at least half-whale.
Maybe Franky could tell you.
Now, Mum’s humming along and you’ve had it right up to here. You sigh and drop your fork back onto the plate. There’s a certain resignation in the sound of the clattering it all makes. You’ve lost your appetite.
See, this is why you have a reasonable waistline. This is why you think, after you trudge up the stairs and into your room, holding your shirt up towards the mirror to see your belly-button and not a shred of fat around it, that yeah, at least your mother is good for something.
* * *
It’s summer and Liv’s mum is out for a week attending a tea-leaf reading seminar and Liv’s little sister is at fencing class. This means the house is loud with talking and Liv’s playlist booming out of the stereo.
So Gracie’s sat primly on the floor in a conservative but tasteful outfit, asking you and Liv to help her with Rich’s birthday. It’s in two weeks and falls exactly on a Saturday. Perfect for an entire weekend getaway.
“So I’m thinking Beach Party. Bonfires, surf and sand, it’ll be absolutely lovely, especially at night. Then we’ll sleep in tents just like we did in Newquay. ”
Liv catches your eye and raises her eyebrows. Right. Your thoughts exactly.
No fucking way.
“Gracie,” you start with a little laugh, not really knowing how to put this. “Do you think your boyfriend’s going to like that? Letting him out on the beach with all that sun? Remember how Kirsten Dunst died in Interview with the Vampire? So unless you wanna buy Richard an urn and then scatter his ashes at an… I dunno, an Ozzfest or whatever, I suggest… other options. Think about Rich, babe.”
Grace face goes sour. Oh, bless her and the Willy Wonka noodles she has for a brain.
Luckily, Liv helps you out on this. “Yeah, Grace. I mean, it’s all cool with us, the beach and everything, but what about with Rich? Not his cup of tea, I reckon?”
“But I’ll get the boys to help. Surely it won’t be that much of a disaster? And it’s summer for Christ’s sake! We’re supposed to be at the beach. In bikinis. With our boyfriends.”
Grace has her chin up, determined and ready to be defiant. Cute, cute, Gracie. How could you and Liv break her precious heart? It would be cruel to deny her this.
“Fine, we’re doing the beach party on the grounds that I’ll hear no lame complaining from your dearest, allergic-to-everything Richard.”
Grace starts squealing, really excited. “Oh, thank you! Thank you! It’s going to be perfect, I promise!”
“Right. Sorted,” Liv says, fixing the cushions on the couch. “By the way, I’m not bringing a boyfriend.” And then she turns to you, smirk in place. “What about you, Mins? Bringing delicious man-meat to the party?”
Oh, God. Liv is impossible sometimes. She and Grace start giggling and throwing dirty looks at you and really, their screwed up faces are most unflattering but somehow, still annoyingly pretty.
“Fuck off,” you say, smiling.
* * *
“You miss her.”
Grace has left and now it’s just you and Liv.
“Of course I do, she’s my best friend.”
Liv thinks your reply is hilarious. “I’m your best friend. Would you mope around all day if it was me spending two weeks in Italy?”
She gets up, on her knees on the couch, and takes a fencing sabre out from behind it like this is fucking magic or something. She jumps off the couch and slashes it against the air and the woosh-woosh sound of it bothers you already. She points it at you the next second and she’s only like, five steps away.
She isn’t even high but she’s already doing a nice job of freaking you out. “Liv, what the fuck?”
She smiles. “Stop being so…”-then BAM!-“En garde!” she shouts, striking a damn fencing pose thus furthering your shock.
Liv’s a fucking cow. You’re about to break down from shock while she’s there, all shits and giggles. Enjoying this more than necessary.
“Fuck you,” you say, absolutely furious and about to piss yourself.
She stands straighter, lets the tip of the sword touch the ground and she sort of makes the entire thing bend. Really though, that’s just the slightest of consolations. Then she takes a seat on the couch. It dips and you sort of sink into her space.
“We’re best mates. There’s only so little you can tell me that I don’t already know.”
That’s just Liv. On to you, right from the start.
She tosses the sabre back behind the couch. You let out a breath. “I think I’m…”
“In love with her?” Liv suggests after an eternity of your silence, being the good friend that she is and saving you the awful burden of saying it yourself.
You nod. No sense hiding it now. “How did you…?”
“How did I know?” Liv says, sniggering in between her words, being a right twat.
She puts her hand on your shoulder. Shakes it a bit in this friendly way that you didn’t realise you’ve missed. She says to you then, “Like I said, Mins. So little you can tell me that I don’t already know.”
* * *
Routine. Order. Schedules. Lists. Compartmentalization: everything where it should be. Yoga. Pilates. No sugar, please. Water, water, water. Everything else is just sugar juice in disguise. Health magazines. Measurements. Pounds, grams, calories and every conversion factor in between.
This is your life.
* * *
See, you boss yourself around. You never shut up. Your head, it just won’t stop with the instructions. Like it’s reading something from this fucking manual. How to be Mini McGuinness. In sparkly fonts. Then there’d be this gigantic rule in there that says: Mini McGuinness does not. Repeat. Does not fall in love with girls.
Well, so much for that.
You actually dread going to sleep. Once you’re tucked in, ready to fuck off to Neverland, you find yourself wondering what she’s doing, who she’s smiled at there in Italy, what you’ll do to her once she’s back and you can’t stop and you’ve always hated when you were being so excessive and weak and whiny about things.
Before all this, it’s gone so, so well. There used to be a time when you were in total control of what you felt and what you thought. You were absolutely cool and together and… fuck. Why can’t you be like that now?
Right. Firstly, it’s because of a girl. Secondly, you’re supposedly the straightest thing since the invention of the line. Of course, it all makes so much sense.
It’s a collection of vague little moments that might’ve aligned the stars and changed everything. She came along and snuck into your life, intending to stay. She did it right under your nose and you’ve never realised that until…
Well, you can’t really say. But ever since, the wiring in you brain or something. It got totally fucked.
* * *
That first day, you were determined to hate her forever. You wanted to take her down so bad and dreams do come true because within an hour, you were all over her, shoving her head into mud and grass.
Such malice. The kick you got out of it. How dare she come here and be such a fucking homo and expect you all to be fine and dandy about it. That morning in the locker rooms. Her man-hair and the big coat, the lesbian-flannel and the bike shorts and the fucking wife-beater. You were half-naked then, feeling immensely prouder about your body because there she was, head ducked low, wanting to be invisible and being the saddest little thing you ever saw.
Then, out on the pitch, her hockey stick hit your fucking shin and you went down first, thinking she fucking started it. It was the perfect excuse to just pull her in and join you on the ground. The perfect excuse to push her and hit anything you could so hard, she had no choice but to take it.
The rush was unlike anything you’ve gone through before. You didn’t know what was going on. You were angry and disgusted, distressed and then, strangely, excited. What the fuck for, you hadn’t the slightest idea then.
* * *
It hasn’t even been an entire year since you’ve met Franky.
To think that you’ve become good friends. To think that you’ve already kissed her. To think that you’ve come to lo-to care for her as intensely as you do now. That you pine for her and not the other way around…
Life punches you in the face sometimes.
* * *
The roads are twisty and horrible and Nick keeps hitting Alo in the face with a party rollie. He keeps blowing hard and you can hear the festive sound it makes as it smacks Alo’s cheek every four seconds. So it’s not long when the supplies for the party… the beer, the tents, the coal, the five bottles of sunscreen Grace knows Rich will demand for… and the rest of Alo’s shit start falling into the middle of the van and then a tennis ball whizzes past you, missing you by an inch.
This is the last thing you need.
You have to snap the book in your hands shut because your ex-boyfriend is being a tosser. See, Alo happens to have a copy of that children’s story, The Velveteen Rabbit, lying about and for the trip back into Bristol, you figure it’d make a decent read. You’ve seen a movie of this when you were a kid. It made you cry and sad for days so you apologise to your childhood gods before you hurl it at Nick. “Would you quit it, Nick? He’s driving, you fucking genius! Now look what you’ve done.”
Nick turns around, sees the mess he’s responsible for and says, “Oh, shit.”
“Alo, stop the van.”
* * *
“Careful! Grace paid for all that. Imagine how pleased she’ll be when she finds broken bottles of Selvarossa Riserva and Lalande Borie…” You’re reading off the stampings on the carton, having no idea if you’re pronouncing anything right. “Do you think that shit grows on trees?”
“Technically, they grow on vines but-”
“BUT NOT NOW, NICK. Jesus!” You knead circles at your temple, completely frustrated with how they’re handling those boxes of wine. Like they’re as hardy as twenty-pound cinder blocks. Idiots.
Alo’s not fazed at all. “Hear that, good sir? We must secure the booze lest the Lady Grace take our balls!”
Nick turns mock-serious. “Aye, aye, Chief!” he says, stacking up two boxes and picking them all up in one go.
You pick up anything can fit in your hands and leave the heavy stuff to the boys. It gets considerably cleaner as seconds pass.
“I can see the floor now. That’s significant improvement… I guess.” Alo scratches the back of his head and turns to you, grins.
“So, inventory,” Nick says. He rubs his hands together like it’s going to be hard when really, all he has to do is cross out items off the little chalkboard hung on the wall of Alo’s van. On it, two lines are written, one by each of them. Beer and then Everything Else.
They’re fucking unbelievable.
* * *
It all goes to shit when Alo passes around the Rizla booklet. A couple minutes of silence and sprinkling and then you roll. Carefully. Artfully. You lick the gum edge and now, you have in your hands a perfectly thin joint.
You light up.
* * *
The windows are shut. So are the curtains. The van has fucking curtains. Real domestic, that. It’s dark and foggy in here… Like how the outside is on early mornings… You take another toke.
“I want, like, to bring this ghetto blaster. Just put in a cassette tape of shit Rich’s gonna hate. ‘Party in the USA’, yeah? That will really, really make his day. Know anyone with a ghetto blaster, Nick?”
“Mate, I’ve no idea.” He takes a puff and frowns at Alo. “What’s wrong with an iPod?”
Alo, mid-drag, manages to choke himself. He ends up coughing a frenzy and you and Nick laugh at him, being perfect insensitive twats until Nick moves in and starts hitting his back, saving him from a very near and pathetic death.
He straightens up, clears his throat. “You don’t get the fucking point, Nicholas! Does size not matter to you at all?”
“Of course it does. Nickatron likes ‘em nice and big.”
“Yeah. Nice and big… And juicy.”
Alo’s looking at your tits.
“Farm Boy. I. Will. End. You,” you threaten when really, you’re just as flattered as the next girl.
He blows out a lot of smoke. Looks at you thoughtfully. “Reckon I could cop a feel, Mins?”
Alo’s kidding but you swat his hand away when it gets too near your chest. He laughs and yeah, it’s all in good fun.
* * *
Alo has his head thrown back, tipping Coco Pops into his mouth. And you notice for the nth time just how much of a ginger he is. There’s like, a messy fire on his head and somebody has to comb that thing or put it out. He shakes the box to get the flow going and you want him to down it all away. With weed comes the munchies. Extra calories. This part you hated.
He thrusts the box to your face. “Cereal, most important meal of the day.”
You put out your joint. Reckon you shouldn’t be staying around for this. “Right, see you dicks at school.”
“But, babe. You’re high.”
“I’m perfectly capable of sitting classes and being brilliant and looking a vision nonetheless, Nick. You all think I’m dense enough as it is. I’m not a fucking tard. I’m anything but! I’ve got dreams, you pricks.”
You’re half-way out the door when Alo shouts, “But Minerva!”
“What?”
“College doesn’t start for two weeks. Screw your head back in, princess!”
They look back at you with half-lidded eyes, amused. You inch back into the van. Slam the door shut. Gone is the sunshine.
Oh.
* * *
You wonder if it’s just the drugs. You’re only enjoying this much with these guys because you’re buzzed beyond.
They’re having a lightsaber fight with glow sticks, mouths screwed up trying to make those stupid sounds. They have one for when they’re just moving them around. They have one for when their glow sticks touch. They have one that’s supposed to sound like sparks of electricity coming off from some ‘major’ parrying.
Alo pretends to die. He says to Nick, “Luke, I banged your mother so hard, she had twins.”
You all explode into giggles, the standards of your sense of humour lowered spectacularly. At this point, you’d laugh at anything. Just that blasted.
You like this. It’s easy, it’s chill. Boys make nice friends.
* * *
You weren’t prepared for this at all. Yeah, you’ve sat next to her on the entire ride to the beach, finally graced with her presence ever since she’s fucked off to Italy (you were cool then, with an admirable sense of self-restraint, willing yourself not to swoon every time she spoke) but that stuff was the tip of the iceberg, apparently.
You still have an entire day left to pretend that she doesn’t drive you mad.
You’ve all dressed down upon arrival. There’s the smell of the sea in the wind and the early sun is toasty warm on your skin. The kind of good vibes you’ll have to tweet about later.
So Franky’s there, all changed in one of those red-striped sleeveless tops and tiny board shorts. Her legs are wonderful. Pale and long and fuck… even Alo’s staring. You thought that nobody would ever be hot enough to pull off the ‘prepubescent boy taking a summer job as a life guard’ look. Ever. But here you are, seriously considering pretending to drown to see if it’d get you any action.
Fuck Baywatch, this IS the shit.
* * *
An ice cream vendor comes around and everyone acts like he’s fucking Jesus or whatever and they all race to him, loud and just really, really being vulgar with their youth. Rich is at the front of the pack, beaming like a miniature sun and inside, you feel fuzzy and quite happy that things have worked out for Grace. She’s running with him, holding his hand, trying to keep up because Rich is taking massive (rather inconsiderate) strides. The sight of this makes you wonder what their kids are going to look like.
* * *
You’re the only one who passed on the ice cream and you’re there, sitting on driftwood all by your lonesome. Of course, being the sweet angel she is, Franky plays nice and sits next to you, cone of chocolate ice cream at hand.
“Well, you’re having fun,” she says brightly, smiling at everything. Then she turns to you knowingly. Your resolve starts to crumble.
“It’s fucking hot.”
It’s a mistake to say because the next thing she’s holding out her cone to you. The polite refusal has to come next. You hate saying no to her.
“You know… Crisps, pizza, cake, burgers. You’re missing out.” To your ears, she might as well be reciting diseases.
You cross your arms. “Unlike the rest of you, I actually plan on living long enough to have a mid-life crisis… or to get Botox.”
She laughs then and God, it’s just the loveliest thing. She straightens up. “I say live fast, die young.”
Later on, you’ll find out that’s from one of her favourite songs.
“Well, don’t. Matty will miss you when you go.” It comes out of your mouth like a bullet, loaded long before the world existed.
It surprises her and you just might have said the wrong thing there but then she laughs again and yeah, it’s alright. Then you watch her finger, irritatingly fascinated. It’s scooping up a good share of ice cream and you know where this is going way before she says, “Here, have some anyway.”
Normally, you would’ve reacted by then. Would’ve jumped out of the way because this is what happens in the movies. She’s going to get it all over you, all sticky and disgusting but you’re still supposed to want it, regardless.
And here she is, reaching for you. Just going for it. She’s only an inch away now and your brain’s turning at a thousand guesses per second, wondering what it’s going to feel like when she finally touches you.
Please. Closer now. Just a little more…
It doesn’t come.
“Just kidding,” she says, drawing her hand back and then licking her finger clean.
Funny. You could go for weeks without coloured beverages and bread. If a certain diet called for a certain restriction, it’s never been a huge problem. Bearable, even. But now… Now when Franky’s fucking prancing off, so unknowing of her sexiness, you’re hit (and so weak) with this foreign hunger. You’re thoroughly convinced that if you went on a second more without her touch, you’d catch fire or something as ridiculously horrible.
* * *
It gets harder, trying to function without her flooding your head. You end up being even more mindful during your exercises than you should be and you like to think that it’s put a new edge to all your Yogalates sessions. It gets the job done, and the spaces when you’re not obsessing over her are welcome breaks.
Nothing beats what running does for you, though. It’s trippy sometimes. Just run hard. Really hard. The world flies pass as streaks and blurs, and then it’s like you’re faster than all your fears and your limits.
What you love about it, especially, is the sound you make when you’re pushing yourself. Your trainers pounding pavement, the high-speed breathing, the boom-boom of your frantic heart. You focus on pace, and posture, on everything throbbing nicely altogether and for thirty minutes, that’s all that has to matter.
Nothing else.
* * *
You chose this diner because you thought it’d be packed with people, loud and perfect for covering up the heart-to-heart you wanted to have with Grace. Since she’s the only one you know who’s truly in, like… love, maybe she could help you out a little. Get you a bit sorted before college started again.
Once inside, the place isn’t as crazy as expected so you’re there beating around the bush and saying shit that’s at the top of your head. Like, how greasy that waitress’s skirt is, or how you imagined Kate Middleton’s nipples through her Sarah Burton-Alexander McQueen wedding dress and thankfully, Grace isn’t suspicious in the slightest.
But she does cut you off when you dissect her meal and give her a major calorie-content dump. Gracie doesn’t know her charts and it’s tremendously unjust that she still has a gorgeous body. Ballet or no ballet. That just isn’t fair.
“Isn’t that nice?” she says. She’s looking at something behind you.
You turn around, ready to call on her for thinking a waffle castle was ‘nice’ but no. You turn around and don’t find a waffle castle. You see a couple.
They’re both girls. Well, you’re not quite sure why you immediately put them together as a couple but Grace clears that up for you on cue.
“See how they’re seated? They’re next to each other as opposed to in front of each other. According to Proxemics, they’re together.”
“Romantically?” And you’re guessing Grace learned all this at that posh boarding school that made her shudder every time she was forced to bring it up.
“Yes, following the principles of Proxemics. You can tell what two people mean to each other judging by the space that’s in between them,” Grace says impressively, like it’s as easy as the alphabet. She’s about to say more, probably about to give you a full-fledged lecture but then one of them starts to speak. They’re close enough to overhear and the tall, peroxide-blonde one, her blue eyes narrowed at the Styrofoam packet the waiter just put upon their table, has her lips twisted in utter distaste.
“I don’t get why they give us Polystyrene packages when clearly we’re eating in. Not only am I deeply insulted, but this is an unsolicited blow to the environment. Jesus, what do they expect me to do with this? If I had this much Styrofoam back then, the Titanic wouldn’t have fucking sunk…”
The other girl, the slight one with the red hair, rolls her eyes. She turns to the blonde one, looks at her pointedly. “Nae, babe. Trying to enjoy here.” She gestures to the food and even then, they don’t break eye contact. “And besides, you picked where to eat.”
They look at each other some more for a while. Just sitting still, doing nothing else. Then the blonde grins. Kisses the other girl. Right there. And nobody else in the diner notices.
The two of them break apart and the cherry-haired girl is smiling, not looking around and being an over-all mess. Like she’s proud of it.
Like it’s all nice and normal.
You feel your chest swell. You’re flushed. You just know it. And you turn around before they catch you gawking or something.
And you shouldn’t be so surprised that Grace’s still staring at them with that smile of hers she puts on when she’s really fascinated. This, you remember. This was Grace’s face on the first days of college, probably believing Franky was some fairy creature.
Holy Jesus. She’s just so hopeless, making googley-eyes like this. You knock your foot into her shin ‘by accident’. She jumps in her seat a little and then widens her eyes at you in a what-did-you-do-that-for? fashion.
You sigh. Audibly.
“Stop being gay, Gracie.”
* * *
It still amazes you that Professor Blood is Grace’s dad. That kind of twist never gets old. So you can’t take him seriously when he stands there with this trademark whistle (that probably has his initials engraved into it) telling you all a story of how some kids have broken into Roundview prior to the official start of college and have vandalised the common room twenty nautical miles out of recognition.
Blood informs you that the same hooligans have also stolen the foosball table and after this announcement, Liv elbows you lightly because she caught Alo sniffing and a bit wet in the eyes.
What a pussy.
* * *
In a complete turn of injustice, Blood decides to make your form repent for the sins of the mysterious troop of arseholes. Save for Grace, the entire form, upon hearing the order to paint and decorate the common room anew, groan their displeasure.
Blood’s completely awkward, face scrunched, lips pursed when Grace, his top secret daughter, voices out her suggestions to improve the ‘over-all style and impact’ of the area.
“It’d be real lovely and colourful if we take on a Mardi Gras-inspired design for this room. It’d make for a great break from classes, really refreshing for the eyes…” Grace says, trailing off because if the rest of the form’s agreeing, they’re not making a show of it. Then she turns to Professor Blood. If you look very closely, you could see it in her eyes, the ‘Dad, please back me up.’
Professor Blood is at a loss, mouth open, Mr. Articulate ironically groping for something to say. Before he can though, Franky comes in and says, “I think that’s brilliant,” in a clear, canon-loud voice. It gets the guys nodding approvingly and girls’ hair whipping around as they turn to each other, suspiciously excited all of a sudden.
Grace smiles at Franky gratefully and she grins back. Brace-face shiny smile. Like a superhero, always saving the day.
You shuffle to the side, your back to the crowd. You’re fucking hilarious because you’ve got your hand at your chest, trying to calm the rapid beating underneath.
* * *
You’ve spent the last hour working on a three-by-two-metre space of wall. You paint like you did back in Primary (with a certain lack of passion because the Roundview common room isn’t the fucking ceiling of the Sistine Chapel).
Someone stands in the way of the light and you’re about to turn around to cut a bitch but when you find Matty, hands-in-pockets judging the fruits of your labour, you can’t even come up with a decent tell off.
“Are you in love or something?” he says.
You drop your brush, get purple on the carpet. You pick it up hastily, hoping he didn’t notice it. He did and Jesus, you hate his face. “The fuck?”
“Just saying…” He takes his hands out of his pockets. “Since you’ve got a lot of…” Matty makes vague, sprinkling gestures at your work.
And you get up, step a few feet away to get a better view of the wall and see if you really did do anything wrong and oh, God… too many fucking hearts.
Well, that’s just fantastic.
“We should switch. Perhaps you’d like to join Grace and keep an eye on everything,” Matty says, nodding to the front desks, where Grace is sat, clipboard and Megaphone ready before her. He picks up a spare brush up from the table, flicks his thumb against the bristles. He makes his way to you, never breaking eye-contact. Once he’s close enough, he says, “Go on. I’ve got this.”
This is his way of telling you, You suck. Please sit over there where you can play with your Barbies. Masking his insults as favours. Sneaky prick.
Standing your ground this time meant slaving for another two, three hours on the bloody wall. This is supposed to be a way out. A good thing. But with Matty insisting to take over, you can’t help but feel somewhat defeated.
You step aside. Sashay the fuck away from him without another word.
Grace is surprised to see you coming over. You flash her a big, commercial smile. “Arts and crafts? Sorry but it’s not really my thing, hon.”
She makes Rich pull out a chair for you to sit in.
* * *
The past twenty minutes go by with you watching the back of Franky’s head, willing her to turn around. She’s too focussed on her work, her headset and her indie music probably shooting her into a creative zen. Nick comes by, taps her on the shoulder and holds up the can of red paint she asked for. She turns to him and you’re ridiculously eager to see her in profile. She gives him a smile and Nick gives her one of his own. You used to really, really love his smile.
Used to.
Your eyes are back on her again and you see things that aren’t supposed to be there. Rainbow freckles.
You grab your old friend, the megaphone. Turn it on and speak. “Francesca Fitzgerald, please proceed to the front desk for further briefing. Francesca Fitzgerald…”
Upon hearing your magnified voice, Matty’s rolling his eyes and Grace shoots you a questioning look. Franky’s got her huge earmuffs on so the announcement runs for a couple more times until Liv, who’s working next to Franky, wants you to stop. She taps Franky’s shoulder to get her attention and when she does, Liv then flicks her head towards you.
Franky turns around, sees you with the megaphone, intrigue starting on her features. While she walks to you, she takes her headset off. Her ears poke out like an elf and it’s so precious. Your heart hurts a little already, from the wanting waking up.
She stops before you. “Yes?” She’s wiping her hands with a towel. “What do you want?”
“You.”
Franky makes a face you can’t make out. This is your sneaky way of testing the waters and still, it seems to have backfired.
You reach out. “You’ve got something...”
There are tiny flecks of paint on her cheek and you try to rub them off with the pad of your thumb. She’s not moving. She’s not too stiff either. Just letting you do this. And you do it slower so you could hold her longer.
“There. All gone now.”
You let go of her and she steps back a bit, hand absently touching the same place you just did. There, a blush rises. Franky looks down immediately. Nods it away so that when she looks back up at you, shy eyes underneath the long lashes, there’s only the faint trace of pink on her cheeks.
“Thanks,” she says. Shaken. Stirred.
* * *
You don’t mean to do it on purpose but there’s something about you that makes boys cross the room to talk to you. Every party. Every night out. Every day at school. Guys want to have you like girls want to have Jimmy Choos. No one wants to know if you’re into Hepburn movies or 80s music. What they ultimately want to know is that if you’d get in bed with them.
Like they’d give a fuck about who you really are.
This is probably about the seventieth time you tell a guy to fuck off. He’s a substitute Drama teacher and he just asked you out in what he thought was a suave, subliminal, pseudo-innocent manner that if executed on another blonde bimbo, would’ve gotten a yes.
He saunters off, leaving you and Franky alone on the college green and she makes it a point to laugh in your face. “Fuck me if that isn’t the most disgusting thing I’ve seen all week.” She has her camera slung around her neck, ready to shoot at the world.
“Twisted, I know…” You laugh along, feeling for a shred of humour in this. “God, I hate it sometimes. Looking like this.” People passing by, other teachers and students, glance down at the pair of you oddly. You notice them but Franky doesn’t. She watches you with her big, hard, listening eyes.
“It’s all they see,” you say and your voice cracks a bit in the open daylight.
You smile so bitterly that Franky turns away. Won’t look you in the eye. She talks to the wind, says to it, “Yeah, you’re good-looking,” and just as soon, her words are a mile away, carried so far, so fast by her… indifference. It’s maddening.
You’re good-looking.
She doesn’t tell you this to flatter you. She says it like she’d say it’s twenty degrees outside. She says it because it’s the truth. You both know it.
And as much as you’d like to believe otherwise, no, Franky Fitzgerald doesn’t want to get in your pants.
In fact, it’s quite the other way around.
“But you see me, right? You see me?” And you’re sitting there, fingers twisting at the grass, begging please, please, please in your head.
Franky cocks her head to the side, eyes squinting at you. Examining. She tells you, “Back when you hated me, I wondered if you could ever be as good… as nice as you look.”
The bad start keeps you awake some nights. The day you met her, for example. What a shining example of true love. You wonder how you were so horrible to her. She’s actually so fucking lovely and just… how the fuck could you?
“And…?” you say, establishing the expectant silence. She looks into your eyes, grins. It’s magical.
“Turns out you are.”
* * *
She’s supposed to DJ at this new club downtown called The Equinox. Being low on capital, it being their first week as a business and all, they were looking for someone to DJ opening night. Somebody with a good heart, who’d take the shitty pay.
You’re here early, the shameless fangirl who might as well have camped out the night before. So you’re circling the foreign place, texting the others to get the fuck here PRONTO when you pass by a group of Hair and Beauty girls from college. They’re all a little blonde, a little flashy, a little you. They reek of cheap canned perfume. Of store-bought class. And you walk a bit faster before anyone could mistake you for their alpha chav.
When Franky arrives with the rest of the gang, a bit sweaty and breathless, a clear case of the nerves, you wish her luck and give her a quick kiss to the cheek.
Later, after she’s all set up at the DJ booth, she catches your eye then does a thumbs-up sign with an über-dork grin on. You’re overcome with so much pride and affection… Your eyes water and it’s tremendously stupid but it’s just one of those things you can’t rein in.
* * *
The slow start worried you but the crowd comes around by the third track.
You have no fucking idea how she’s doing it, playing songs you’ve never heard of, tastefully repeated and distorted, but she’s making each and every one of these fuckers dance like puppets on cocaine. Her eyes flick from her deck, to her laptop, to the crowd, her music making concussions high in the air and all around. It’s driving everyone wild.
You’re no exception.
* * *
Now, you’re having the time of your life. Moving with abandon and laughing with your girls. Liv’s making gun fingers and it’s awesome because “Livin’ on a Prayer” always gets her. Always.
You all calm down a bit, coming into the transition, the chorus fading out. You look up to where Franky is and Matty’s there with her. He appears to be helping, stood at her laptop and nodding in time to the beat and from far away you can see his expression as he turns to Franky for an approval of sorts. She nods right along with him, on board with whatever he’s going for.
And so the next track is dark and heavy. Something you have no trouble picturing Rich doing the Loco-Motion to. Back at the DJ booth, Matty bounces next to Franky, playful. They share a laugh and your insides drop.
A drink. You need another fucking drink.
* * *
It’s the universe rubbing this in your face. Franky’s shift is over and The Equinox is pulling off a risky move: making a live band the second act. You’re on your way to the Ladies Room when you come across a giggling Franky and Matty. You slow down and watch them. He’s doing this supposedly gentlemanly thing of holding the door to the Ladies open (it swings inwards) all while keeping his feet off the room’s tiles. Franky appears to find it cute and she smiles at him brightly before she disappears into the loo.
You catch his aura after the door shuts. Self-satisfied and shit. He’s there in a black t-shirt and in desperate need of a shave, yet he looks as if the world is his to conquer.
Matty can’t have her. You won’t let that fucking happen.
He catches you staring and if he’s as smart as they all say he is, he would’ve caught on, how you want to burn him alive. At this, Matty only winks at you.
Ugh. As if.
You make your way over to him. Give him a piece of your mind because he obviously thinks you don’t have one. When you’re within earshot you can catch the "Fucking hell..." he says that soon trails off into a little laugh. He doesn't believe this is happening. Matty's like that. He doesn't believe in much.
"Look, bodyguard. Chill, yeah?"
What he said just fires you up and you end up being the complete opposite of what he suggests. "Oh, you think you're real cute now, do you? Like, trap girls in your web of poetry and philosophy and deepness. I'd rather read Edgar Allan Poe all day."
"Really, Mini? Namedropping like that? Holy gee whiz, you’re hilarious. What now? Should I play along and pretend that you’ve actually read any of his stuff?”
The soft way he speaks. He talks like honey and his words kind of stick like it too. You’ve only read Raven and The Cask of Amontillado but so what? Matty’s probably masturbated to Poe’s entire collection for all you fucking care and could somebody please tell you where the glory is in that?
He clinks his beer bottle to yours, mocking. It makes you want to shower him in lager and a confetti of broken glass. See how he’ll like you then.
“Do all the reading you want… but listen, she’s not the kind of girl you can read about on Wikipedia.”
The door to the ladies swings open again. It’s Franky. “Hi,” she says to you.
You’re too angry to return her smile. You want more than anything for him to go away.
Then Matty puts his arm around her and she eases into him. Franky gives you a small wave before they walk away to the dance floor. You watch their backs. From here they’re roughly the same height.
That fucking hobbit. He thinks he’s so special…
Really though, fuck him and his intellectual elitism.
* * *
There’s a sound of a lock sliding open and from the mirror you can see Liv emerging from one of the cubicles in the toilets. She holds out these tiny paper bags with a triumphant grin. She mouths what it is. MD.
You hurry to her, taking one, two, three bombs. “You’re a fucking saviour, you know that?” you tell her, about to take a fourth when she closes her hands.
“Leave some for the rest.”
Seconds pass with the both of you still, eyeing the other.
“Fuck the rest.”
You paw at her hands, trying to prise them open. It’s not long before she sighs and her grip loosens.
* * *
It’s a high-speed dream and you’re racing on fucking rainbows. The music: louder. The people: touchier. You’re cr-cr-crazy and this is gonna take a while.
This is the best night in like, fucking ever.
Liv slaps another bomb into your hand.
* * *
Turns out it was the last one and the comedown happens about an hour later but it’s horrible. You and Liv take a booth and sulk like pussies until this guy squeezes in next to you and offers to buy a round of shots. And then another. And another. You and Liv, you’ve got your heads tipped back, the liquor plenty and setting fire to your throats. Next thing, he’s grabbing your tit.
You kick him out of the booth. Literally. He’s going to hate four-inch heels forever now because of you.
Liv, though still in a bit of a drunken stupor, gets up in alarm. She stumbles out of the booth to find the guy still on the floor. She gives him another kick. “Stay down, bitch. Thanks for the drinks by the way.” Liv blows him a kiss.
She takes hold of your wrist and you both clumsily run for the exits.
* * *
Franky’s there when you get outside. She’s sharing a smoke with Matty. They move apart when you and Liv burst through the door.
Somebody’s turned on the Reality Channel again.
You laugh, loudly. “Ha. Ha. Ha. Oh, sorry. God, Liv. We’re such arseholes, aren’t we? Interrupting such a special moment…” You’re vaguely aware that you just sent some spit flying but you’re shaking so hard you’re more worried about staying on your feet.
You turn to Liv for support. She’s leaning against the brick wall. Worse for wear, no better.
Matty’s staring with those damned psycho eyes and Franky’s looking at you like you’re an extremely difficult mathematical theory she had to prove.
You want to flip them off but your legs give way before you can do it so you grab on to Liv and end up dragging her down with you as well. That’s how you and your best friend become officially useless.
Matty takes Liv and Franky chooses you because it wouldn’t work any other way.
* * *
You pass out with your arm around her shoulders and hers around your waist. The rest of the night is a black cloud.
* * *
Some time at daybreak, your alarm goes off and you’re surprised to find yourself in your own room. Your stomach’s alarmingly empty and your arms and legs feel like they’re not even yours. The sun’s out and slicing through your butterfly curtains. The clock’s stopped ringing. You were supposed to go for a run fifteen minutes ago.
Screw it.
You snuggle deeper into the duvet.
* * *
It’s this pleasant morning chill, here in the backyard. You like eating outside because you watch what you eat and it would be great if the rest of the world helped and watched along with you.
The hangover is dying down when your mother steps through the sliding doors, closing her bright orange “Garfield” bath robe with the tacky tiger stripes tighter around her. There’s a scorched area at the hem from that one time you actually tried to burn it because ‘yes, Mum. It’s just that unforgivably ugly.’
“My girlie,” she says through her tired smile. She stands there and looks at you. Eyes small, head tilted to one side. “He was quite the looker, hmmm?”
“What?” Some nut flies out of your mouth. You close it, chew and swallow. Then open it again to ask, “Who?”
“That boy who brought you home. Dark hair, nice smile.”
She’s being a fucking cougar again and it makes your breakfast swim in your stomach. In a way you don’t like. And fuck no. You’re not having this conversation right now. Not about Nick.
“He’s a bit tiny though, isn’t he sweetie?”
Then the gears turn faster in your head. She wasn’t talking about Nick at all.
* * *
You like how her clothes are tailored to fit her now. Sort of… another set of skin. Compared to last year, her clothes aren’t as oversized and it’s like she’s not hiding anymore. The jackets and the trousers hug her nicely and she looks better than ever, fashion-wise. She’s still the girl who wears men’s clothes but the reception is different these days.
She walks by and the girls at college eye her hungrily and you want to shove your fingers into their sockets so they’d stop.
* * *
Men are quick to fire up your cigarettes and you’ve never found yourself in need of carrying a lighter around. Just like that. You never had to buy your own drinks either. Being good-looking. It’s a whole other currency.
So you’re here tonight at The Thekla and every man aged teen to forty is looking at you as is expected. There’s this one guy, probably married, probably in his mid-life crisis, in a suit. And he’s pleased with you and seeming very capable to pay for things. You meet his eyes, hold them.
One, two, three… and then slowly look away.
You pop out a hip (only the greatest women know how to do this while seated) and pout. This is all for better measure and like an easy puppet he’s next to you in seconds, all “Would the lady like a drink?”
“A cosmopolitan then,” you say, because it’s how pink probably tastes. “Please.”
And then the drink’s in your hand and now he thinks he’s earned the right to sit on the barstool next to you. To his disappointment, you take a small sip and gingerly hop out of yours. You thank him and leave, not really knowing what to do if he were to come after you.
Still. You go on and hold the drink well, despite the moving and drunk bodies. And she’s there across the room and laughing with Grace and being so effortlessly bright and you’re just so drawn to this, this air around her. And what an unstoppable force you are, expertly clearing people out of your path. You have Moses on your side, parting seas of every kind.
Alo bursts to his feet when you reach them. “McGuinness! We’ve missed you.”
You playfully push him down into his seat again. Pat his head and say, “That’s sweet, Farm Boy.”
You slide up to her. Knock shoulders like it’s an honest mistake and she turns to you with an enormous grin on and it makes your knees a little less reliable.
“Hey, babe. Drink?”
She takes the glass from you and you remember earlier this night, you went through four wardrobe changes before you chose to wear a skirt. And when Franky’s squeezing your knee with her free hand as thanks, it was actually a really good call... losing the tights.
* * *
The mass of rugby jocks pass by in purple and yellow, appearing to be in no hurry for their next class. They’re about to go into the locker rooms and it’s times like these when you remember that you used to date Nick. You still have no idea what he was on. Quitting the team.
Rider does a stupid thing with his eyebrows at you and you make sure to roll your eyes twice.
When they’re all gone you spot someone left on the rugby pitch. It’s Matty and he’s sitting, writing something… furiously… onto a sketchpad propped on his lap. You’re quite a distance away but you can see that he’s muttering to himself. God, he’s so fucking weird. You’d only feel safer if you knew he was locked up in Azkaban.
Grace waves at him.
“For fuck’s sake, Grace,” you hiss. “I don’t want you getting caught in his black magic shit. He’s doing voodoo, obviously.”
You turn on your heel and walk the opposite direction, expecting Grace to be tottering behind you any second.
* * *
It’s a Friday and Grace invites you over to her place because her parents are going away for the weekend for some fancy conference in London so she has the large, magnificent Blood Residence at her complete disposal.
While you and Liv are mixing drinks for later, Grace and Franky cook dinner. An hour and a half passes until you’re all sat around Grace’s massive dining table and having an impressive meal of prawn salad and croutons, caramelised veal, and hazelnut and raspberry meringue. The wine flows in earnest, as does the conversation.
* * *
The Blood’s have a hot tub out in the back deck and each of you have a back to each side. Franky’s sat across you, her wifebeater is wet and clinging to her. It’s become sheer and you can see that her bra’s black underneath and you find this incredibly sexy.
Liv slams her shot glass down onto the edge of the tub. “Ladies, I think we’re running out of fuel.” She taps at the empty tequila bottle, reaches over for another pitcher and pours what’s left of it in her glass. “To go,” she explains, rising out of the water.
Franky takes a sip of her drink, rum and coke, and says, “Where you going?”
Liv steps out of the hot tub and pulls a towel off the rack nearby. “I want a highballer as well. Grace, be a dear and help me out?” Liv’s looking at you while she asks this and now even Grace is looking at you, confused and thinking she must’ve heard Liv wrong because she has yet to respond to Liv’s request.
Your best friend gives you a final imploring look before turning to Grace and saying, “Come on, then. I want to see Headmaster Blood’s real liquor stash.”
So it’s just you and Franky now and you finally realise that this is probably some ploy of Liv’s and you now understand why she kept making those meaningful faces just then.
Liv, you cow.
You were a chatterbomb a minute ago but now you can barely face Franky. You’re being obvious and inside, you’re heavily chastising yourself for being so… uncool. You smile at her in desperation and you just know it’s showing, how nervous you are. She returns the smile but it’s quick and she’s sipping at her rum and coke again.
Gracie’s got her BlackBerry hooked to a set of speakers and you recognise the intro of a song you like. It’s Britney Spears’ “Till the World Ends”.
Usually, you keep yourself in check. But your piña colada glass is four sips away from empty so you mouth along to the song when the chorus kicks in. Whoa oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ohhhh. You turn to her and think that you want to be closer.
So you take your piña colada, get up, wade through the water, and sit beside her. Question, “Have you seen the video for this?” anyway, knowing full well that Franky isn’t that interested in pop culture.
But then she surprises you, answers, “Yeah, once. It was cool. How they made it… I mean, the effects. Lots of light flares… Kind of fascinating, really.”
She says things like that about music videos charged with trashy orgy vibes and excessive body pumping.
You’ll never understand the logic in that but then again, you never did with special people.
You look at her, trying to figure her out.
“What?” she says, defensive. “Jeff’s a fucking fan. He listens to her all the time.”
Her embarrassed smile pulls you in and then you kiss her. You pull away and it’s fine. She’s smiling. The bubbles are rich around the both of you. The water is warm and scented lightly with Mrs. Blood’s milk salts from Thailand.
This is what you taste on Franky’s lips.
You decide to go in for another one.
She giggles against you this time around and you can feel her puffs of hot air on your face. She presses her lips to yours playfully and yeah, it’d be a good idea to just take what you can get right now but you’re serious and wanting to get your point across. You grab at her shoulder and pull her in closer. It’s the roughest you’ve ever kissed her and you’re there in your underwear, in a hot tub, not really believing any of your luck.
It’s short-lived, though, because a moment later, against your better judgment, you yank her wifebeater up. You get it above her ribcage and she makes a strangled noise that you can feel because your mouths are connected. That’s when you think too far, you’ve gone too far.
You try pulling her top back down, repair the damage, but she’s already pushing you off. Water sloshes out of the tub violently. “You’re taking the piss, right?” she says and oh, God she still thinks this is all a joke to you.
“Franky…”
You try for more words but it’s as if her name’s the only one left in your vocabulary.
She gets out abruptly. Grabs one of Grace’s purple towels on the rack. Franky storms off. Leaves a wet trail on the deck as she goes.
You fumble for your piña colada. Take out the tiny umbrella and toss it away angrily. You throw your head back and instead of the ‘four sips to an empty glass’, you finish it in one go. Her little footprints are still on the hardwood floor, half-dry.
Shit.
* * *
The next day, at college, you’re both in the library for free period. She catches you staring and it’s a breath or two before she turns away and frowns. You can sense her frustration from across the room. A split second later, her expression changes and she’s obviously clueless as to what to do with you. At last, she settles on gracing you with a crooked smile.
You’ll think about this confusing exchange for another two weeks. You will lose sleep. You might even lose a couple of pounds…
It’s going to fucking kill you.
* * *
[ Part Two ]
Author: interpol_ice
Fandom: Skins - Third Generation
Characters: Mini McGuinness, Franky Fitzgerald
Rating: R (for language, themes, and dark things)
Words: 19,500+
Summary: “Why do we ask so many questions? Two people shouldn’t know each other too well if they want to fall in love.” - L’eclisse (1962)
Disclaimer: Skins belongs to Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain.
Author's Notes: Found this incredibly difficult to write because I find Mini a deceptively complex character. Yeah, I actually needed four to five months to build up my take on her. It’s also indecently long (indulgence on my part)… so I dunno how it’s going to fare. I myself admit this fic is going to be hit or miss. But yeah, I’m putting it out here anyway.
Make up something to believe in your heart of hearts
So you have something to wear on your sleeve of sleeves
- The National, “Mistaken for Strangers”
* * *
Franky’s eyelids kind of flutter when she talks and really, it’s so pretty that wide-eyed models on all those haute couture spreads don’t quite cut it for you anymore.
It’s not like you’re in love with her or anything big like that.
No. Nothing like that at all.
* * *
You have a pretty good sense of who you are. Essentially, you’re the type of girl who has the kind of class and poise that can only be acquired from growing up on old Hollywood movies and having a childhood spent balancing a hardbound copy of Jane Eyre atop the head. The type of girl with a body as a reward for doing cardio seven days a week and lying belly-down at night, listing meal plans that didn’t go over the calorie-limits.
You would never dare wear anything that wasn’t pre-approved by a high-gloss magazine. To stay up, you have to keep up. You don’t put on clothes per se. You put on trends. If it isn’t the latest, it’s already late. These are the rules.
Like most girls, you do your hair, your nails, your coursework, and boys. (In your case though, there were those few times with that one boy.) You won’t go out without any makeup on and you know how to smile through the extreme pain and silliness there is in strutting around in high heels.
Like most girls, you fantasised about the opposite sex.
Unlike most girls, you didn’t get as much satisfaction from fantasising about them as you did when you were fantasising about one man. You never believed in Santa Claus but until you were about eleven, you had an imaginary friend.
You called him Dad.
* * *
Your mother thinks you're this Sim she wishes she looked like so she could feel better about her shit situation that sadly, you’re starring in as well. You look just like she did when she was seventeen and you remind her of the life she had then, before she had you. It’s the strangest thing and you’re not supposed to feel guilty but you do.
It’s dinner and she’s feeling a little bit ‘blast from the past’ and you don’t really want to eat her over-seasoned pot roast and mash in the first place.
“I remember when you were still little. You’d bawl and bawl and you’d never stop until I played that tape I found at that yard sale a year before I met Bonn.”
Bonn isn’t your father. He’s the man your mum dated a year after she found out you were growing arms and legs inside of her. She says ‘that tape I found at that yard sale a year before I met Bonn’ because she’d rather die than say ‘that tape I found at that yard sale the year I went on an insane fuckathon with your no-good-fuckwad of a father.’
Your mum gets up in a moment of nostalgia and excitement. Makes her way to the ancient cassette player, the oldest and only one in the house that still, surprisingly, works like a charm. She takes the tape out of its special place on the cabinet (by her collection of Girls Aloud CDs) and pops it in the player and the whales are having sex in the house again.
“Isn’t that peaceful?” your mum says, holding her wine glass (with Diet Coke in it) and turning, turning around your living room, dancing to what most probably inspired Moby-Dick.
You think of a whale shooting a thousand gallons of sperm into the ocean. The fishes, the seahorses, the shrimps and the lobsters. All those poor little critters, swimming around in whale come. You wonder why other underwater animals aren’t at least half-whale.
Maybe Franky could tell you.
Now, Mum’s humming along and you’ve had it right up to here. You sigh and drop your fork back onto the plate. There’s a certain resignation in the sound of the clattering it all makes. You’ve lost your appetite.
See, this is why you have a reasonable waistline. This is why you think, after you trudge up the stairs and into your room, holding your shirt up towards the mirror to see your belly-button and not a shred of fat around it, that yeah, at least your mother is good for something.
* * *
It’s summer and Liv’s mum is out for a week attending a tea-leaf reading seminar and Liv’s little sister is at fencing class. This means the house is loud with talking and Liv’s playlist booming out of the stereo.
So Gracie’s sat primly on the floor in a conservative but tasteful outfit, asking you and Liv to help her with Rich’s birthday. It’s in two weeks and falls exactly on a Saturday. Perfect for an entire weekend getaway.
“So I’m thinking Beach Party. Bonfires, surf and sand, it’ll be absolutely lovely, especially at night. Then we’ll sleep in tents just like we did in Newquay. ”
Liv catches your eye and raises her eyebrows. Right. Your thoughts exactly.
No fucking way.
“Gracie,” you start with a little laugh, not really knowing how to put this. “Do you think your boyfriend’s going to like that? Letting him out on the beach with all that sun? Remember how Kirsten Dunst died in Interview with the Vampire? So unless you wanna buy Richard an urn and then scatter his ashes at an… I dunno, an Ozzfest or whatever, I suggest… other options. Think about Rich, babe.”
Grace face goes sour. Oh, bless her and the Willy Wonka noodles she has for a brain.
Luckily, Liv helps you out on this. “Yeah, Grace. I mean, it’s all cool with us, the beach and everything, but what about with Rich? Not his cup of tea, I reckon?”
“But I’ll get the boys to help. Surely it won’t be that much of a disaster? And it’s summer for Christ’s sake! We’re supposed to be at the beach. In bikinis. With our boyfriends.”
Grace has her chin up, determined and ready to be defiant. Cute, cute, Gracie. How could you and Liv break her precious heart? It would be cruel to deny her this.
“Fine, we’re doing the beach party on the grounds that I’ll hear no lame complaining from your dearest, allergic-to-everything Richard.”
Grace starts squealing, really excited. “Oh, thank you! Thank you! It’s going to be perfect, I promise!”
“Right. Sorted,” Liv says, fixing the cushions on the couch. “By the way, I’m not bringing a boyfriend.” And then she turns to you, smirk in place. “What about you, Mins? Bringing delicious man-meat to the party?”
Oh, God. Liv is impossible sometimes. She and Grace start giggling and throwing dirty looks at you and really, their screwed up faces are most unflattering but somehow, still annoyingly pretty.
“Fuck off,” you say, smiling.
* * *
“You miss her.”
Grace has left and now it’s just you and Liv.
“Of course I do, she’s my best friend.”
Liv thinks your reply is hilarious. “I’m your best friend. Would you mope around all day if it was me spending two weeks in Italy?”
She gets up, on her knees on the couch, and takes a fencing sabre out from behind it like this is fucking magic or something. She jumps off the couch and slashes it against the air and the woosh-woosh sound of it bothers you already. She points it at you the next second and she’s only like, five steps away.
She isn’t even high but she’s already doing a nice job of freaking you out. “Liv, what the fuck?”
She smiles. “Stop being so…”-then BAM!-“En garde!” she shouts, striking a damn fencing pose thus furthering your shock.
Liv’s a fucking cow. You’re about to break down from shock while she’s there, all shits and giggles. Enjoying this more than necessary.
“Fuck you,” you say, absolutely furious and about to piss yourself.
She stands straighter, lets the tip of the sword touch the ground and she sort of makes the entire thing bend. Really though, that’s just the slightest of consolations. Then she takes a seat on the couch. It dips and you sort of sink into her space.
“We’re best mates. There’s only so little you can tell me that I don’t already know.”
That’s just Liv. On to you, right from the start.
She tosses the sabre back behind the couch. You let out a breath. “I think I’m…”
“In love with her?” Liv suggests after an eternity of your silence, being the good friend that she is and saving you the awful burden of saying it yourself.
You nod. No sense hiding it now. “How did you…?”
“How did I know?” Liv says, sniggering in between her words, being a right twat.
She puts her hand on your shoulder. Shakes it a bit in this friendly way that you didn’t realise you’ve missed. She says to you then, “Like I said, Mins. So little you can tell me that I don’t already know.”
* * *
Routine. Order. Schedules. Lists. Compartmentalization: everything where it should be. Yoga. Pilates. No sugar, please. Water, water, water. Everything else is just sugar juice in disguise. Health magazines. Measurements. Pounds, grams, calories and every conversion factor in between.
This is your life.
* * *
See, you boss yourself around. You never shut up. Your head, it just won’t stop with the instructions. Like it’s reading something from this fucking manual. How to be Mini McGuinness. In sparkly fonts. Then there’d be this gigantic rule in there that says: Mini McGuinness does not. Repeat. Does not fall in love with girls.
Well, so much for that.
You actually dread going to sleep. Once you’re tucked in, ready to fuck off to Neverland, you find yourself wondering what she’s doing, who she’s smiled at there in Italy, what you’ll do to her once she’s back and you can’t stop and you’ve always hated when you were being so excessive and weak and whiny about things.
Before all this, it’s gone so, so well. There used to be a time when you were in total control of what you felt and what you thought. You were absolutely cool and together and… fuck. Why can’t you be like that now?
Right. Firstly, it’s because of a girl. Secondly, you’re supposedly the straightest thing since the invention of the line. Of course, it all makes so much sense.
It’s a collection of vague little moments that might’ve aligned the stars and changed everything. She came along and snuck into your life, intending to stay. She did it right under your nose and you’ve never realised that until…
Well, you can’t really say. But ever since, the wiring in you brain or something. It got totally fucked.
* * *
That first day, you were determined to hate her forever. You wanted to take her down so bad and dreams do come true because within an hour, you were all over her, shoving her head into mud and grass.
Such malice. The kick you got out of it. How dare she come here and be such a fucking homo and expect you all to be fine and dandy about it. That morning in the locker rooms. Her man-hair and the big coat, the lesbian-flannel and the bike shorts and the fucking wife-beater. You were half-naked then, feeling immensely prouder about your body because there she was, head ducked low, wanting to be invisible and being the saddest little thing you ever saw.
Then, out on the pitch, her hockey stick hit your fucking shin and you went down first, thinking she fucking started it. It was the perfect excuse to just pull her in and join you on the ground. The perfect excuse to push her and hit anything you could so hard, she had no choice but to take it.
The rush was unlike anything you’ve gone through before. You didn’t know what was going on. You were angry and disgusted, distressed and then, strangely, excited. What the fuck for, you hadn’t the slightest idea then.
* * *
It hasn’t even been an entire year since you’ve met Franky.
To think that you’ve become good friends. To think that you’ve already kissed her. To think that you’ve come to lo-to care for her as intensely as you do now. That you pine for her and not the other way around…
Life punches you in the face sometimes.
* * *
The roads are twisty and horrible and Nick keeps hitting Alo in the face with a party rollie. He keeps blowing hard and you can hear the festive sound it makes as it smacks Alo’s cheek every four seconds. So it’s not long when the supplies for the party… the beer, the tents, the coal, the five bottles of sunscreen Grace knows Rich will demand for… and the rest of Alo’s shit start falling into the middle of the van and then a tennis ball whizzes past you, missing you by an inch.
This is the last thing you need.
You have to snap the book in your hands shut because your ex-boyfriend is being a tosser. See, Alo happens to have a copy of that children’s story, The Velveteen Rabbit, lying about and for the trip back into Bristol, you figure it’d make a decent read. You’ve seen a movie of this when you were a kid. It made you cry and sad for days so you apologise to your childhood gods before you hurl it at Nick. “Would you quit it, Nick? He’s driving, you fucking genius! Now look what you’ve done.”
Nick turns around, sees the mess he’s responsible for and says, “Oh, shit.”
“Alo, stop the van.”
* * *
“Careful! Grace paid for all that. Imagine how pleased she’ll be when she finds broken bottles of Selvarossa Riserva and Lalande Borie…” You’re reading off the stampings on the carton, having no idea if you’re pronouncing anything right. “Do you think that shit grows on trees?”
“Technically, they grow on vines but-”
“BUT NOT NOW, NICK. Jesus!” You knead circles at your temple, completely frustrated with how they’re handling those boxes of wine. Like they’re as hardy as twenty-pound cinder blocks. Idiots.
Alo’s not fazed at all. “Hear that, good sir? We must secure the booze lest the Lady Grace take our balls!”
Nick turns mock-serious. “Aye, aye, Chief!” he says, stacking up two boxes and picking them all up in one go.
You pick up anything can fit in your hands and leave the heavy stuff to the boys. It gets considerably cleaner as seconds pass.
“I can see the floor now. That’s significant improvement… I guess.” Alo scratches the back of his head and turns to you, grins.
“So, inventory,” Nick says. He rubs his hands together like it’s going to be hard when really, all he has to do is cross out items off the little chalkboard hung on the wall of Alo’s van. On it, two lines are written, one by each of them. Beer and then Everything Else.
They’re fucking unbelievable.
* * *
It all goes to shit when Alo passes around the Rizla booklet. A couple minutes of silence and sprinkling and then you roll. Carefully. Artfully. You lick the gum edge and now, you have in your hands a perfectly thin joint.
You light up.
* * *
The windows are shut. So are the curtains. The van has fucking curtains. Real domestic, that. It’s dark and foggy in here… Like how the outside is on early mornings… You take another toke.
“I want, like, to bring this ghetto blaster. Just put in a cassette tape of shit Rich’s gonna hate. ‘Party in the USA’, yeah? That will really, really make his day. Know anyone with a ghetto blaster, Nick?”
“Mate, I’ve no idea.” He takes a puff and frowns at Alo. “What’s wrong with an iPod?”
Alo, mid-drag, manages to choke himself. He ends up coughing a frenzy and you and Nick laugh at him, being perfect insensitive twats until Nick moves in and starts hitting his back, saving him from a very near and pathetic death.
He straightens up, clears his throat. “You don’t get the fucking point, Nicholas! Does size not matter to you at all?”
“Of course it does. Nickatron likes ‘em nice and big.”
“Yeah. Nice and big… And juicy.”
Alo’s looking at your tits.
“Farm Boy. I. Will. End. You,” you threaten when really, you’re just as flattered as the next girl.
He blows out a lot of smoke. Looks at you thoughtfully. “Reckon I could cop a feel, Mins?”
Alo’s kidding but you swat his hand away when it gets too near your chest. He laughs and yeah, it’s all in good fun.
* * *
Alo has his head thrown back, tipping Coco Pops into his mouth. And you notice for the nth time just how much of a ginger he is. There’s like, a messy fire on his head and somebody has to comb that thing or put it out. He shakes the box to get the flow going and you want him to down it all away. With weed comes the munchies. Extra calories. This part you hated.
He thrusts the box to your face. “Cereal, most important meal of the day.”
You put out your joint. Reckon you shouldn’t be staying around for this. “Right, see you dicks at school.”
“But, babe. You’re high.”
“I’m perfectly capable of sitting classes and being brilliant and looking a vision nonetheless, Nick. You all think I’m dense enough as it is. I’m not a fucking tard. I’m anything but! I’ve got dreams, you pricks.”
You’re half-way out the door when Alo shouts, “But Minerva!”
“What?”
“College doesn’t start for two weeks. Screw your head back in, princess!”
They look back at you with half-lidded eyes, amused. You inch back into the van. Slam the door shut. Gone is the sunshine.
Oh.
* * *
You wonder if it’s just the drugs. You’re only enjoying this much with these guys because you’re buzzed beyond.
They’re having a lightsaber fight with glow sticks, mouths screwed up trying to make those stupid sounds. They have one for when they’re just moving them around. They have one for when their glow sticks touch. They have one that’s supposed to sound like sparks of electricity coming off from some ‘major’ parrying.
Alo pretends to die. He says to Nick, “Luke, I banged your mother so hard, she had twins.”
You all explode into giggles, the standards of your sense of humour lowered spectacularly. At this point, you’d laugh at anything. Just that blasted.
You like this. It’s easy, it’s chill. Boys make nice friends.
* * *
You weren’t prepared for this at all. Yeah, you’ve sat next to her on the entire ride to the beach, finally graced with her presence ever since she’s fucked off to Italy (you were cool then, with an admirable sense of self-restraint, willing yourself not to swoon every time she spoke) but that stuff was the tip of the iceberg, apparently.
You still have an entire day left to pretend that she doesn’t drive you mad.
You’ve all dressed down upon arrival. There’s the smell of the sea in the wind and the early sun is toasty warm on your skin. The kind of good vibes you’ll have to tweet about later.
So Franky’s there, all changed in one of those red-striped sleeveless tops and tiny board shorts. Her legs are wonderful. Pale and long and fuck… even Alo’s staring. You thought that nobody would ever be hot enough to pull off the ‘prepubescent boy taking a summer job as a life guard’ look. Ever. But here you are, seriously considering pretending to drown to see if it’d get you any action.
Fuck Baywatch, this IS the shit.
* * *
An ice cream vendor comes around and everyone acts like he’s fucking Jesus or whatever and they all race to him, loud and just really, really being vulgar with their youth. Rich is at the front of the pack, beaming like a miniature sun and inside, you feel fuzzy and quite happy that things have worked out for Grace. She’s running with him, holding his hand, trying to keep up because Rich is taking massive (rather inconsiderate) strides. The sight of this makes you wonder what their kids are going to look like.
* * *
You’re the only one who passed on the ice cream and you’re there, sitting on driftwood all by your lonesome. Of course, being the sweet angel she is, Franky plays nice and sits next to you, cone of chocolate ice cream at hand.
“Well, you’re having fun,” she says brightly, smiling at everything. Then she turns to you knowingly. Your resolve starts to crumble.
“It’s fucking hot.”
It’s a mistake to say because the next thing she’s holding out her cone to you. The polite refusal has to come next. You hate saying no to her.
“You know… Crisps, pizza, cake, burgers. You’re missing out.” To your ears, she might as well be reciting diseases.
You cross your arms. “Unlike the rest of you, I actually plan on living long enough to have a mid-life crisis… or to get Botox.”
She laughs then and God, it’s just the loveliest thing. She straightens up. “I say live fast, die young.”
Later on, you’ll find out that’s from one of her favourite songs.
“Well, don’t. Matty will miss you when you go.” It comes out of your mouth like a bullet, loaded long before the world existed.
It surprises her and you just might have said the wrong thing there but then she laughs again and yeah, it’s alright. Then you watch her finger, irritatingly fascinated. It’s scooping up a good share of ice cream and you know where this is going way before she says, “Here, have some anyway.”
Normally, you would’ve reacted by then. Would’ve jumped out of the way because this is what happens in the movies. She’s going to get it all over you, all sticky and disgusting but you’re still supposed to want it, regardless.
And here she is, reaching for you. Just going for it. She’s only an inch away now and your brain’s turning at a thousand guesses per second, wondering what it’s going to feel like when she finally touches you.
Please. Closer now. Just a little more…
It doesn’t come.
“Just kidding,” she says, drawing her hand back and then licking her finger clean.
Funny. You could go for weeks without coloured beverages and bread. If a certain diet called for a certain restriction, it’s never been a huge problem. Bearable, even. But now… Now when Franky’s fucking prancing off, so unknowing of her sexiness, you’re hit (and so weak) with this foreign hunger. You’re thoroughly convinced that if you went on a second more without her touch, you’d catch fire or something as ridiculously horrible.
* * *
It gets harder, trying to function without her flooding your head. You end up being even more mindful during your exercises than you should be and you like to think that it’s put a new edge to all your Yogalates sessions. It gets the job done, and the spaces when you’re not obsessing over her are welcome breaks.
Nothing beats what running does for you, though. It’s trippy sometimes. Just run hard. Really hard. The world flies pass as streaks and blurs, and then it’s like you’re faster than all your fears and your limits.
What you love about it, especially, is the sound you make when you’re pushing yourself. Your trainers pounding pavement, the high-speed breathing, the boom-boom of your frantic heart. You focus on pace, and posture, on everything throbbing nicely altogether and for thirty minutes, that’s all that has to matter.
Nothing else.
* * *
You chose this diner because you thought it’d be packed with people, loud and perfect for covering up the heart-to-heart you wanted to have with Grace. Since she’s the only one you know who’s truly in, like… love, maybe she could help you out a little. Get you a bit sorted before college started again.
Once inside, the place isn’t as crazy as expected so you’re there beating around the bush and saying shit that’s at the top of your head. Like, how greasy that waitress’s skirt is, or how you imagined Kate Middleton’s nipples through her Sarah Burton-Alexander McQueen wedding dress and thankfully, Grace isn’t suspicious in the slightest.
But she does cut you off when you dissect her meal and give her a major calorie-content dump. Gracie doesn’t know her charts and it’s tremendously unjust that she still has a gorgeous body. Ballet or no ballet. That just isn’t fair.
“Isn’t that nice?” she says. She’s looking at something behind you.
You turn around, ready to call on her for thinking a waffle castle was ‘nice’ but no. You turn around and don’t find a waffle castle. You see a couple.
They’re both girls. Well, you’re not quite sure why you immediately put them together as a couple but Grace clears that up for you on cue.
“See how they’re seated? They’re next to each other as opposed to in front of each other. According to Proxemics, they’re together.”
“Romantically?” And you’re guessing Grace learned all this at that posh boarding school that made her shudder every time she was forced to bring it up.
“Yes, following the principles of Proxemics. You can tell what two people mean to each other judging by the space that’s in between them,” Grace says impressively, like it’s as easy as the alphabet. She’s about to say more, probably about to give you a full-fledged lecture but then one of them starts to speak. They’re close enough to overhear and the tall, peroxide-blonde one, her blue eyes narrowed at the Styrofoam packet the waiter just put upon their table, has her lips twisted in utter distaste.
“I don’t get why they give us Polystyrene packages when clearly we’re eating in. Not only am I deeply insulted, but this is an unsolicited blow to the environment. Jesus, what do they expect me to do with this? If I had this much Styrofoam back then, the Titanic wouldn’t have fucking sunk…”
The other girl, the slight one with the red hair, rolls her eyes. She turns to the blonde one, looks at her pointedly. “Nae, babe. Trying to enjoy here.” She gestures to the food and even then, they don’t break eye contact. “And besides, you picked where to eat.”
They look at each other some more for a while. Just sitting still, doing nothing else. Then the blonde grins. Kisses the other girl. Right there. And nobody else in the diner notices.
The two of them break apart and the cherry-haired girl is smiling, not looking around and being an over-all mess. Like she’s proud of it.
Like it’s all nice and normal.
You feel your chest swell. You’re flushed. You just know it. And you turn around before they catch you gawking or something.
And you shouldn’t be so surprised that Grace’s still staring at them with that smile of hers she puts on when she’s really fascinated. This, you remember. This was Grace’s face on the first days of college, probably believing Franky was some fairy creature.
Holy Jesus. She’s just so hopeless, making googley-eyes like this. You knock your foot into her shin ‘by accident’. She jumps in her seat a little and then widens her eyes at you in a what-did-you-do-that-for? fashion.
You sigh. Audibly.
“Stop being gay, Gracie.”
* * *
It still amazes you that Professor Blood is Grace’s dad. That kind of twist never gets old. So you can’t take him seriously when he stands there with this trademark whistle (that probably has his initials engraved into it) telling you all a story of how some kids have broken into Roundview prior to the official start of college and have vandalised the common room twenty nautical miles out of recognition.
Blood informs you that the same hooligans have also stolen the foosball table and after this announcement, Liv elbows you lightly because she caught Alo sniffing and a bit wet in the eyes.
What a pussy.
* * *
In a complete turn of injustice, Blood decides to make your form repent for the sins of the mysterious troop of arseholes. Save for Grace, the entire form, upon hearing the order to paint and decorate the common room anew, groan their displeasure.
Blood’s completely awkward, face scrunched, lips pursed when Grace, his top secret daughter, voices out her suggestions to improve the ‘over-all style and impact’ of the area.
“It’d be real lovely and colourful if we take on a Mardi Gras-inspired design for this room. It’d make for a great break from classes, really refreshing for the eyes…” Grace says, trailing off because if the rest of the form’s agreeing, they’re not making a show of it. Then she turns to Professor Blood. If you look very closely, you could see it in her eyes, the ‘Dad, please back me up.’
Professor Blood is at a loss, mouth open, Mr. Articulate ironically groping for something to say. Before he can though, Franky comes in and says, “I think that’s brilliant,” in a clear, canon-loud voice. It gets the guys nodding approvingly and girls’ hair whipping around as they turn to each other, suspiciously excited all of a sudden.
Grace smiles at Franky gratefully and she grins back. Brace-face shiny smile. Like a superhero, always saving the day.
You shuffle to the side, your back to the crowd. You’re fucking hilarious because you’ve got your hand at your chest, trying to calm the rapid beating underneath.
* * *
You’ve spent the last hour working on a three-by-two-metre space of wall. You paint like you did back in Primary (with a certain lack of passion because the Roundview common room isn’t the fucking ceiling of the Sistine Chapel).
Someone stands in the way of the light and you’re about to turn around to cut a bitch but when you find Matty, hands-in-pockets judging the fruits of your labour, you can’t even come up with a decent tell off.
“Are you in love or something?” he says.
You drop your brush, get purple on the carpet. You pick it up hastily, hoping he didn’t notice it. He did and Jesus, you hate his face. “The fuck?”
“Just saying…” He takes his hands out of his pockets. “Since you’ve got a lot of…” Matty makes vague, sprinkling gestures at your work.
And you get up, step a few feet away to get a better view of the wall and see if you really did do anything wrong and oh, God… too many fucking hearts.
Well, that’s just fantastic.
“We should switch. Perhaps you’d like to join Grace and keep an eye on everything,” Matty says, nodding to the front desks, where Grace is sat, clipboard and Megaphone ready before her. He picks up a spare brush up from the table, flicks his thumb against the bristles. He makes his way to you, never breaking eye-contact. Once he’s close enough, he says, “Go on. I’ve got this.”
This is his way of telling you, You suck. Please sit over there where you can play with your Barbies. Masking his insults as favours. Sneaky prick.
Standing your ground this time meant slaving for another two, three hours on the bloody wall. This is supposed to be a way out. A good thing. But with Matty insisting to take over, you can’t help but feel somewhat defeated.
You step aside. Sashay the fuck away from him without another word.
Grace is surprised to see you coming over. You flash her a big, commercial smile. “Arts and crafts? Sorry but it’s not really my thing, hon.”
She makes Rich pull out a chair for you to sit in.
* * *
The past twenty minutes go by with you watching the back of Franky’s head, willing her to turn around. She’s too focussed on her work, her headset and her indie music probably shooting her into a creative zen. Nick comes by, taps her on the shoulder and holds up the can of red paint she asked for. She turns to him and you’re ridiculously eager to see her in profile. She gives him a smile and Nick gives her one of his own. You used to really, really love his smile.
Used to.
Your eyes are back on her again and you see things that aren’t supposed to be there. Rainbow freckles.
You grab your old friend, the megaphone. Turn it on and speak. “Francesca Fitzgerald, please proceed to the front desk for further briefing. Francesca Fitzgerald…”
Upon hearing your magnified voice, Matty’s rolling his eyes and Grace shoots you a questioning look. Franky’s got her huge earmuffs on so the announcement runs for a couple more times until Liv, who’s working next to Franky, wants you to stop. She taps Franky’s shoulder to get her attention and when she does, Liv then flicks her head towards you.
Franky turns around, sees you with the megaphone, intrigue starting on her features. While she walks to you, she takes her headset off. Her ears poke out like an elf and it’s so precious. Your heart hurts a little already, from the wanting waking up.
She stops before you. “Yes?” She’s wiping her hands with a towel. “What do you want?”
“You.”
Franky makes a face you can’t make out. This is your sneaky way of testing the waters and still, it seems to have backfired.
You reach out. “You’ve got something...”
There are tiny flecks of paint on her cheek and you try to rub them off with the pad of your thumb. She’s not moving. She’s not too stiff either. Just letting you do this. And you do it slower so you could hold her longer.
“There. All gone now.”
You let go of her and she steps back a bit, hand absently touching the same place you just did. There, a blush rises. Franky looks down immediately. Nods it away so that when she looks back up at you, shy eyes underneath the long lashes, there’s only the faint trace of pink on her cheeks.
“Thanks,” she says. Shaken. Stirred.
* * *
You don’t mean to do it on purpose but there’s something about you that makes boys cross the room to talk to you. Every party. Every night out. Every day at school. Guys want to have you like girls want to have Jimmy Choos. No one wants to know if you’re into Hepburn movies or 80s music. What they ultimately want to know is that if you’d get in bed with them.
Like they’d give a fuck about who you really are.
This is probably about the seventieth time you tell a guy to fuck off. He’s a substitute Drama teacher and he just asked you out in what he thought was a suave, subliminal, pseudo-innocent manner that if executed on another blonde bimbo, would’ve gotten a yes.
He saunters off, leaving you and Franky alone on the college green and she makes it a point to laugh in your face. “Fuck me if that isn’t the most disgusting thing I’ve seen all week.” She has her camera slung around her neck, ready to shoot at the world.
“Twisted, I know…” You laugh along, feeling for a shred of humour in this. “God, I hate it sometimes. Looking like this.” People passing by, other teachers and students, glance down at the pair of you oddly. You notice them but Franky doesn’t. She watches you with her big, hard, listening eyes.
“It’s all they see,” you say and your voice cracks a bit in the open daylight.
You smile so bitterly that Franky turns away. Won’t look you in the eye. She talks to the wind, says to it, “Yeah, you’re good-looking,” and just as soon, her words are a mile away, carried so far, so fast by her… indifference. It’s maddening.
You’re good-looking.
She doesn’t tell you this to flatter you. She says it like she’d say it’s twenty degrees outside. She says it because it’s the truth. You both know it.
And as much as you’d like to believe otherwise, no, Franky Fitzgerald doesn’t want to get in your pants.
In fact, it’s quite the other way around.
“But you see me, right? You see me?” And you’re sitting there, fingers twisting at the grass, begging please, please, please in your head.
Franky cocks her head to the side, eyes squinting at you. Examining. She tells you, “Back when you hated me, I wondered if you could ever be as good… as nice as you look.”
The bad start keeps you awake some nights. The day you met her, for example. What a shining example of true love. You wonder how you were so horrible to her. She’s actually so fucking lovely and just… how the fuck could you?
“And…?” you say, establishing the expectant silence. She looks into your eyes, grins. It’s magical.
“Turns out you are.”
* * *
She’s supposed to DJ at this new club downtown called The Equinox. Being low on capital, it being their first week as a business and all, they were looking for someone to DJ opening night. Somebody with a good heart, who’d take the shitty pay.
You’re here early, the shameless fangirl who might as well have camped out the night before. So you’re circling the foreign place, texting the others to get the fuck here PRONTO when you pass by a group of Hair and Beauty girls from college. They’re all a little blonde, a little flashy, a little you. They reek of cheap canned perfume. Of store-bought class. And you walk a bit faster before anyone could mistake you for their alpha chav.
When Franky arrives with the rest of the gang, a bit sweaty and breathless, a clear case of the nerves, you wish her luck and give her a quick kiss to the cheek.
Later, after she’s all set up at the DJ booth, she catches your eye then does a thumbs-up sign with an über-dork grin on. You’re overcome with so much pride and affection… Your eyes water and it’s tremendously stupid but it’s just one of those things you can’t rein in.
* * *
The slow start worried you but the crowd comes around by the third track.
You have no fucking idea how she’s doing it, playing songs you’ve never heard of, tastefully repeated and distorted, but she’s making each and every one of these fuckers dance like puppets on cocaine. Her eyes flick from her deck, to her laptop, to the crowd, her music making concussions high in the air and all around. It’s driving everyone wild.
You’re no exception.
* * *
Now, you’re having the time of your life. Moving with abandon and laughing with your girls. Liv’s making gun fingers and it’s awesome because “Livin’ on a Prayer” always gets her. Always.
You all calm down a bit, coming into the transition, the chorus fading out. You look up to where Franky is and Matty’s there with her. He appears to be helping, stood at her laptop and nodding in time to the beat and from far away you can see his expression as he turns to Franky for an approval of sorts. She nods right along with him, on board with whatever he’s going for.
And so the next track is dark and heavy. Something you have no trouble picturing Rich doing the Loco-Motion to. Back at the DJ booth, Matty bounces next to Franky, playful. They share a laugh and your insides drop.
A drink. You need another fucking drink.
* * *
It’s the universe rubbing this in your face. Franky’s shift is over and The Equinox is pulling off a risky move: making a live band the second act. You’re on your way to the Ladies Room when you come across a giggling Franky and Matty. You slow down and watch them. He’s doing this supposedly gentlemanly thing of holding the door to the Ladies open (it swings inwards) all while keeping his feet off the room’s tiles. Franky appears to find it cute and she smiles at him brightly before she disappears into the loo.
You catch his aura after the door shuts. Self-satisfied and shit. He’s there in a black t-shirt and in desperate need of a shave, yet he looks as if the world is his to conquer.
Matty can’t have her. You won’t let that fucking happen.
He catches you staring and if he’s as smart as they all say he is, he would’ve caught on, how you want to burn him alive. At this, Matty only winks at you.
Ugh. As if.
You make your way over to him. Give him a piece of your mind because he obviously thinks you don’t have one. When you’re within earshot you can catch the "Fucking hell..." he says that soon trails off into a little laugh. He doesn't believe this is happening. Matty's like that. He doesn't believe in much.
"Look, bodyguard. Chill, yeah?"
What he said just fires you up and you end up being the complete opposite of what he suggests. "Oh, you think you're real cute now, do you? Like, trap girls in your web of poetry and philosophy and deepness. I'd rather read Edgar Allan Poe all day."
"Really, Mini? Namedropping like that? Holy gee whiz, you’re hilarious. What now? Should I play along and pretend that you’ve actually read any of his stuff?”
The soft way he speaks. He talks like honey and his words kind of stick like it too. You’ve only read Raven and The Cask of Amontillado but so what? Matty’s probably masturbated to Poe’s entire collection for all you fucking care and could somebody please tell you where the glory is in that?
He clinks his beer bottle to yours, mocking. It makes you want to shower him in lager and a confetti of broken glass. See how he’ll like you then.
“Do all the reading you want… but listen, she’s not the kind of girl you can read about on Wikipedia.”
The door to the ladies swings open again. It’s Franky. “Hi,” she says to you.
You’re too angry to return her smile. You want more than anything for him to go away.
Then Matty puts his arm around her and she eases into him. Franky gives you a small wave before they walk away to the dance floor. You watch their backs. From here they’re roughly the same height.
That fucking hobbit. He thinks he’s so special…
Really though, fuck him and his intellectual elitism.
* * *
There’s a sound of a lock sliding open and from the mirror you can see Liv emerging from one of the cubicles in the toilets. She holds out these tiny paper bags with a triumphant grin. She mouths what it is. MD.
You hurry to her, taking one, two, three bombs. “You’re a fucking saviour, you know that?” you tell her, about to take a fourth when she closes her hands.
“Leave some for the rest.”
Seconds pass with the both of you still, eyeing the other.
“Fuck the rest.”
You paw at her hands, trying to prise them open. It’s not long before she sighs and her grip loosens.
* * *
It’s a high-speed dream and you’re racing on fucking rainbows. The music: louder. The people: touchier. You’re cr-cr-crazy and this is gonna take a while.
This is the best night in like, fucking ever.
Liv slaps another bomb into your hand.
* * *
Turns out it was the last one and the comedown happens about an hour later but it’s horrible. You and Liv take a booth and sulk like pussies until this guy squeezes in next to you and offers to buy a round of shots. And then another. And another. You and Liv, you’ve got your heads tipped back, the liquor plenty and setting fire to your throats. Next thing, he’s grabbing your tit.
You kick him out of the booth. Literally. He’s going to hate four-inch heels forever now because of you.
Liv, though still in a bit of a drunken stupor, gets up in alarm. She stumbles out of the booth to find the guy still on the floor. She gives him another kick. “Stay down, bitch. Thanks for the drinks by the way.” Liv blows him a kiss.
She takes hold of your wrist and you both clumsily run for the exits.
* * *
Franky’s there when you get outside. She’s sharing a smoke with Matty. They move apart when you and Liv burst through the door.
Somebody’s turned on the Reality Channel again.
You laugh, loudly. “Ha. Ha. Ha. Oh, sorry. God, Liv. We’re such arseholes, aren’t we? Interrupting such a special moment…” You’re vaguely aware that you just sent some spit flying but you’re shaking so hard you’re more worried about staying on your feet.
You turn to Liv for support. She’s leaning against the brick wall. Worse for wear, no better.
Matty’s staring with those damned psycho eyes and Franky’s looking at you like you’re an extremely difficult mathematical theory she had to prove.
You want to flip them off but your legs give way before you can do it so you grab on to Liv and end up dragging her down with you as well. That’s how you and your best friend become officially useless.
Matty takes Liv and Franky chooses you because it wouldn’t work any other way.
* * *
You pass out with your arm around her shoulders and hers around your waist. The rest of the night is a black cloud.
* * *
Some time at daybreak, your alarm goes off and you’re surprised to find yourself in your own room. Your stomach’s alarmingly empty and your arms and legs feel like they’re not even yours. The sun’s out and slicing through your butterfly curtains. The clock’s stopped ringing. You were supposed to go for a run fifteen minutes ago.
Screw it.
You snuggle deeper into the duvet.
* * *
It’s this pleasant morning chill, here in the backyard. You like eating outside because you watch what you eat and it would be great if the rest of the world helped and watched along with you.
The hangover is dying down when your mother steps through the sliding doors, closing her bright orange “Garfield” bath robe with the tacky tiger stripes tighter around her. There’s a scorched area at the hem from that one time you actually tried to burn it because ‘yes, Mum. It’s just that unforgivably ugly.’
“My girlie,” she says through her tired smile. She stands there and looks at you. Eyes small, head tilted to one side. “He was quite the looker, hmmm?”
“What?” Some nut flies out of your mouth. You close it, chew and swallow. Then open it again to ask, “Who?”
“That boy who brought you home. Dark hair, nice smile.”
She’s being a fucking cougar again and it makes your breakfast swim in your stomach. In a way you don’t like. And fuck no. You’re not having this conversation right now. Not about Nick.
“He’s a bit tiny though, isn’t he sweetie?”
Then the gears turn faster in your head. She wasn’t talking about Nick at all.
* * *
You like how her clothes are tailored to fit her now. Sort of… another set of skin. Compared to last year, her clothes aren’t as oversized and it’s like she’s not hiding anymore. The jackets and the trousers hug her nicely and she looks better than ever, fashion-wise. She’s still the girl who wears men’s clothes but the reception is different these days.
She walks by and the girls at college eye her hungrily and you want to shove your fingers into their sockets so they’d stop.
* * *
Men are quick to fire up your cigarettes and you’ve never found yourself in need of carrying a lighter around. Just like that. You never had to buy your own drinks either. Being good-looking. It’s a whole other currency.
So you’re here tonight at The Thekla and every man aged teen to forty is looking at you as is expected. There’s this one guy, probably married, probably in his mid-life crisis, in a suit. And he’s pleased with you and seeming very capable to pay for things. You meet his eyes, hold them.
One, two, three… and then slowly look away.
You pop out a hip (only the greatest women know how to do this while seated) and pout. This is all for better measure and like an easy puppet he’s next to you in seconds, all “Would the lady like a drink?”
“A cosmopolitan then,” you say, because it’s how pink probably tastes. “Please.”
And then the drink’s in your hand and now he thinks he’s earned the right to sit on the barstool next to you. To his disappointment, you take a small sip and gingerly hop out of yours. You thank him and leave, not really knowing what to do if he were to come after you.
Still. You go on and hold the drink well, despite the moving and drunk bodies. And she’s there across the room and laughing with Grace and being so effortlessly bright and you’re just so drawn to this, this air around her. And what an unstoppable force you are, expertly clearing people out of your path. You have Moses on your side, parting seas of every kind.
Alo bursts to his feet when you reach them. “McGuinness! We’ve missed you.”
You playfully push him down into his seat again. Pat his head and say, “That’s sweet, Farm Boy.”
You slide up to her. Knock shoulders like it’s an honest mistake and she turns to you with an enormous grin on and it makes your knees a little less reliable.
“Hey, babe. Drink?”
She takes the glass from you and you remember earlier this night, you went through four wardrobe changes before you chose to wear a skirt. And when Franky’s squeezing your knee with her free hand as thanks, it was actually a really good call... losing the tights.
* * *
The mass of rugby jocks pass by in purple and yellow, appearing to be in no hurry for their next class. They’re about to go into the locker rooms and it’s times like these when you remember that you used to date Nick. You still have no idea what he was on. Quitting the team.
Rider does a stupid thing with his eyebrows at you and you make sure to roll your eyes twice.
When they’re all gone you spot someone left on the rugby pitch. It’s Matty and he’s sitting, writing something… furiously… onto a sketchpad propped on his lap. You’re quite a distance away but you can see that he’s muttering to himself. God, he’s so fucking weird. You’d only feel safer if you knew he was locked up in Azkaban.
Grace waves at him.
“For fuck’s sake, Grace,” you hiss. “I don’t want you getting caught in his black magic shit. He’s doing voodoo, obviously.”
You turn on your heel and walk the opposite direction, expecting Grace to be tottering behind you any second.
* * *
It’s a Friday and Grace invites you over to her place because her parents are going away for the weekend for some fancy conference in London so she has the large, magnificent Blood Residence at her complete disposal.
While you and Liv are mixing drinks for later, Grace and Franky cook dinner. An hour and a half passes until you’re all sat around Grace’s massive dining table and having an impressive meal of prawn salad and croutons, caramelised veal, and hazelnut and raspberry meringue. The wine flows in earnest, as does the conversation.
* * *
The Blood’s have a hot tub out in the back deck and each of you have a back to each side. Franky’s sat across you, her wifebeater is wet and clinging to her. It’s become sheer and you can see that her bra’s black underneath and you find this incredibly sexy.
Liv slams her shot glass down onto the edge of the tub. “Ladies, I think we’re running out of fuel.” She taps at the empty tequila bottle, reaches over for another pitcher and pours what’s left of it in her glass. “To go,” she explains, rising out of the water.
Franky takes a sip of her drink, rum and coke, and says, “Where you going?”
Liv steps out of the hot tub and pulls a towel off the rack nearby. “I want a highballer as well. Grace, be a dear and help me out?” Liv’s looking at you while she asks this and now even Grace is looking at you, confused and thinking she must’ve heard Liv wrong because she has yet to respond to Liv’s request.
Your best friend gives you a final imploring look before turning to Grace and saying, “Come on, then. I want to see Headmaster Blood’s real liquor stash.”
So it’s just you and Franky now and you finally realise that this is probably some ploy of Liv’s and you now understand why she kept making those meaningful faces just then.
Liv, you cow.
You were a chatterbomb a minute ago but now you can barely face Franky. You’re being obvious and inside, you’re heavily chastising yourself for being so… uncool. You smile at her in desperation and you just know it’s showing, how nervous you are. She returns the smile but it’s quick and she’s sipping at her rum and coke again.
Gracie’s got her BlackBerry hooked to a set of speakers and you recognise the intro of a song you like. It’s Britney Spears’ “Till the World Ends”.
Usually, you keep yourself in check. But your piña colada glass is four sips away from empty so you mouth along to the song when the chorus kicks in. Whoa oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ohhhh. You turn to her and think that you want to be closer.
So you take your piña colada, get up, wade through the water, and sit beside her. Question, “Have you seen the video for this?” anyway, knowing full well that Franky isn’t that interested in pop culture.
But then she surprises you, answers, “Yeah, once. It was cool. How they made it… I mean, the effects. Lots of light flares… Kind of fascinating, really.”
She says things like that about music videos charged with trashy orgy vibes and excessive body pumping.
You’ll never understand the logic in that but then again, you never did with special people.
You look at her, trying to figure her out.
“What?” she says, defensive. “Jeff’s a fucking fan. He listens to her all the time.”
Her embarrassed smile pulls you in and then you kiss her. You pull away and it’s fine. She’s smiling. The bubbles are rich around the both of you. The water is warm and scented lightly with Mrs. Blood’s milk salts from Thailand.
This is what you taste on Franky’s lips.
You decide to go in for another one.
She giggles against you this time around and you can feel her puffs of hot air on your face. She presses her lips to yours playfully and yeah, it’d be a good idea to just take what you can get right now but you’re serious and wanting to get your point across. You grab at her shoulder and pull her in closer. It’s the roughest you’ve ever kissed her and you’re there in your underwear, in a hot tub, not really believing any of your luck.
It’s short-lived, though, because a moment later, against your better judgment, you yank her wifebeater up. You get it above her ribcage and she makes a strangled noise that you can feel because your mouths are connected. That’s when you think too far, you’ve gone too far.
You try pulling her top back down, repair the damage, but she’s already pushing you off. Water sloshes out of the tub violently. “You’re taking the piss, right?” she says and oh, God she still thinks this is all a joke to you.
“Franky…”
You try for more words but it’s as if her name’s the only one left in your vocabulary.
She gets out abruptly. Grabs one of Grace’s purple towels on the rack. Franky storms off. Leaves a wet trail on the deck as she goes.
You fumble for your piña colada. Take out the tiny umbrella and toss it away angrily. You throw your head back and instead of the ‘four sips to an empty glass’, you finish it in one go. Her little footprints are still on the hardwood floor, half-dry.
Shit.
* * *
The next day, at college, you’re both in the library for free period. She catches you staring and it’s a breath or two before she turns away and frowns. You can sense her frustration from across the room. A split second later, her expression changes and she’s obviously clueless as to what to do with you. At last, she settles on gracing you with a crooked smile.
You’ll think about this confusing exchange for another two weeks. You will lose sleep. You might even lose a couple of pounds…
It’s going to fucking kill you.
* * *
[ Part Two ]