The problem with the bookshop is that selling makes sense. I’ve been thinking it for a while now. Mum makes a good argument, and she’s always been the practical one in the family.
The problem with Rachel is that I don’t know what to say when I see her. I don’t know if I can be her friend again if she doesn’t say that she missed me, or give me a good explanation as to why she didn’t write. I don’t have a whole lot of dignity, but I’ve got some.
I’m worrying about this when I walk straight into her. We collide on the street, and I’m in the middle of apologising before I realise it’s her.
The first thing I think is: thank God she’s back. The second thing I think is: she’s grown up gorgeous. She always was gorgeous, of course, but she’s grown up even more gorgeous than I thought she would. There’s something different about her, and I can’t stop my eyes from roaming all over her, checking out the changes – her hair’s short and bleached, she’s wearing an old black t-shirt and black jeans, she’s taller, or maybe it’s just that she’s thinner, or maybe it’s both.
‘Hi,’ I say.
‘Hi,’ she says, and then looks away, like she barely recognises me.
‘Henry,’ I say. ‘Henry Jones. Best friend for seven years. Ringing any bells?’
‘I know,’ she says, still not really looking at me.
She takes a flyer from her pocket and unfolds it. ‘I’m here for Lola,’ she says, and I can’t help feeling the end of that sentence is, ‘not you.’
‘Same,’ I say. ‘Yep. I’m here for Lola. Who is,’ I tell her, ‘my best friend now, since my other best friend left town and forgot all about me.’ I scuff at the ground. ‘How much time does it take to write a letter?’
‘I wrote letters,’ she says.
‘Yeah, thanks for those paragraphs with basically nothing in them.’
‘You’re welcome,’ she says, and points over my shoulder. ‘The line’s moving.’
We pay our money, get our wrists stamped, and walk inside. The club’s set up in the shell of an old laundromat: the machines are spread around the bar and in some corners you can still smell cheap detergent and half-dried sheets. It’s small, so I’m not following Rachel; I’m walking behind her to the bar. Still, she turns back to look at me like I’m a stalker.
I don’t understand. I’ve missed her. Even now, when she’s acting like this, I miss her. ‘How can you not have missed me? How is that possible?’
For a second I think she’s about to admit that she did. She almost smiles. But then she says instead, ‘It’s a complete mystery.’
‘You were about to admit it. You were about to say, “I missed you so much I cried at night. I kissed your photograph daily.’’’
‘I didn’t take your photograph with me,’ she says, and points across the room to an empty table. ‘Look. I see some friends.’
I’m watching her sit alone rather than talk to me when Lola walks over. ‘Have you seen her?’ she asks.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘And she was very rude. Nothing like her old self.’
‘She was always kind of rude,’ she says.
‘No, she wasn’t. She was funny and smart and loyal. A little over-organised, sure, with all those notes she took in class, and the way she alphabetised the books in her locker, but everyone’s got something and it worked in my favour over the years. I still have the notes she took for me when I was sick that time. Everything neatly labelled –’
‘Who are you talking about?’ Lola asks, cutting me off.
I point over to the table, where no one’s sitting anymore. I wonder whether I imagined her. ‘Rachel.’
‘I’m talking about Amy,’ she says, and I notice she seems worried. ‘You haven’t heard the news?’
‘What news?’
‘The bad news,’ she says. ‘The bad, bad, bad news. The extremely bad news.’
Now I’m worried. Lola’s not prone to exaggeration. In fact, she’s prone to de-exaggeration. ‘All I ask, is that you make it quick and merciful.’
She closes her eyes and tells me, ‘AmyiswithGregSmith.’
Because of the way it’s all crammed in together, it takes me a while to separate the words. ‘Amy’s with Greg Smith?’ I repeat when I finally understand. ‘And by with, you mean . . .?’
‘Holding hands, kissing. They’re on the other side of the bar.’
It doesn’t compute. Greg Smith is the kind of guy who thinks it’s funny to steal a guy’s clothes and towel after swimming and then post a picture of him on Facebook while he stands there naked, asking a teacher for clothes. Greg Smith is an idiot of gigantic proportions. Amy couldn’t like Greg Smith.
‘How do you feel?’ Lola asks.
‘Like I’ve just had every single one of my organs harvested while I’m still alive.’
‘Good to know you’re not overreacting. I have to go play. Don’t get drunk. You’re an idiot when you drink.’
It’s true. I am an idiot when I drink. But if there was ever an occasion to be an idiot, this is it.
It’s a truth, universally acknowledged according to George, that shit days generally get more shit. Shit nights roll into shit mornings that roll into shit afternoons and back into shit starless midnights. Shitness, my sister says, has a momentum that good luck just doesn’t have. I’m an optimist but tonight I’m coming around to her way of thinking.
I push my way through the crowd towards the bar and by chance Rachel’s standing there when I arrive. I’m hoping I look so pitiful that she’ll feel sorry for me and end this stupid fight. ‘I’m having a really bad week,’ I say. ‘I’m talking extreme badness.’
‘Not interested, Henry,’ she says, and walks off in the direction of the stage.
‘Is that the girl?’ Katia, the bartender, asks after I order a beer, which she lets me put on a tab because I tutored her for free in English. I started the year after Rachel left, so she knows all about us. ‘That is the girl,’ I tell her. ‘That’s Rachel, my ex-best friend.’
‘The one you secretly love.’
‘I don’t secretly love her.’
‘You don’t talk about a girl as much as you talked about Rachel if you don’t secretly love her.’
‘I love her. I’m just not in love with her,’ I say, and drink my beer fast. I order and drink another one faster because at the moment I would like nothing more than to be a bystander in my life: observing the badness but not feeling it. I order and drink, order and drink and the blur under my skin feels more than good, it feels great.
Until I turn to my left and see Amy and Greg sitting together on Laundry’s old locked-together chairs, holding hands. She seems so happy. She’s laughing and looking at him the way she looked at me that first night together in Year 12. Completely focused. Leaning close. Red hair falling loose on a long green dress.
He looks gorgeous, too, the fucker. The lights are picking up and reflecting the whiteness of his teeth and making his hair look extra shiny. I see myself in the mirror that runs along the back of the bar – my hair is doing that defeated thing and my teeth are the white of an average person. I’m in the clothes I’ve been wearing for the last couple of days – my Bukowski Love is a Dog from Hell t-shirt, and jeans.
‘No wonder she doesn’t love me,’ I say to Katia. ‘My whole body looks slept in.’
‘Shakespeare, that girl is not for you.’
‘She’s my soul mate.’
‘Then I am seriously worried for your soul,’ she says, and goes back to serving the other customers.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard that Amy isn’t right for me. Rachel never liked her. Lola didn’t either. Hiroko politely tells me it’s not her place to judge, but she makes for the door whenever Amy’s around. George isn’t so polite. She says Amy turns up at the bookshop when she’s lonely and disappears when she’s not.
It isn’t like that, though.
It’s more like she can’t stay away from me any more than I can stay away from her. I’ve always taken Amy back. I will always take her back. I might tell myself that I won’t, but when she shows up at the bookshop it feels like it’s something that’s out of my control. She’s my destiny. She’s not some total moron’s destiny.