‘Do you like her?’
‘She’s the reason I took the job at the bookstore,’ he admits. ‘One of my mums had some clerical work going at her office, but then I saw this cataloguing job advertised at Howling Books, so I took it.’
‘Try kissing her tonight.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘Try flirting with her tonight.’
‘I’ve been flirting with her for the last year. I wrote to her this week,’ he says. ‘I left a note in the Letter Library. She doesn’t seem to entirely like it but she doesn’t seem to entirely dislike it either. I think I’ve made some headway.’
We pull up at the party, and I see Amy walking inside. ‘Do I look responsible?’
‘You are responsible,’ he says. ‘You run a bookstore.’
‘I help run a second-hand bookshop that doesn’t make very much money,’ I tell him, drawing an important distinction before I get out of the car.
The first person I see when I walk inside is Rachel. I can tell by the way she stares that I look better than I usually do. ‘I’m pleasing to the eye, aren’t I?’
‘Hard to tell,’ she says. ‘I’m blinded by your ego.’
It’s something Lola would say. The old Rachel would know that I secretly worry about the way I look and she would have made a reassuring comment. It’s more proof that things have gone off the rails between us. I don’t know how to be with her anymore.
Martin says he’s going to to look for George, and after he’s left I fill Rachel in on what he said in the car. ‘He told me he likes her.’
‘He told you or you badgered it out of him?’
‘He offered the information after some persuasive questioning.’
‘George seems very keen to avoid him. Stop trying to set them up.’
‘Are you planning on fighting with me all night?’
‘Only if you keep saying stupid things,’ she says, as we walk into the lounge room where Justin is standing. He’s in a suit, clean shaven. ‘You didn’t mention it was an eighteenth birthday,’ Rachel says, looking at the balloons. ‘Or that it would be formal.’
‘It’s not really formal,’ I say, as a girl in pink walks past.
‘I’m choking on taffeta and perfume, Henry.’ She points ahead of her. ‘Justin has revealed his face for the occasion.’
‘Lola didn’t mention it was this kind of party. But you look good in old jeans,’ I say, and she walks towards the kitchen to get some water.
Amy and Greg are in there, both of them looking like they peeled themselves off the pages of a magazine. He’s in a suit – a very cool suit, I have to admit. Her dress actually stops me breathing for a second.
Like Rachel, I’m not in formal wear. If news isn’t music-related, Lola frequently forgets to pass it on. I grab two waters and lead Rachel into the garden so we can sit away from all the formally attired people.
The Hollows are setting up on what looks like a rented stage. We sit in the front row and watch Lola intently so we don’t have to talk. After around five minutes she says into the mike, ‘Stop staring, start talking. You’re freaking me out.’
‘So, did I do anything else stupid last Friday night, apart from what I’ve already heard?’ I ask, trying to make some conversation.
‘Many, many things,’ Rachel answers.
‘Like?’
‘You sang,’ she says.
‘Troubling. What song?’
‘“I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston.’
‘More troubling. Anything worse than that?’
‘Is there anything worse than that?’ she asks.
‘I could have been wearing white leather during the rendition.’
‘No leather. Just some dramatic hand gestures.’ She does a small re-enactment that looks disturbingly accurate.
I can’t stop picking out the changes in her. I’ve been doing it all week. I used to know everything down to the scar she had on the back of her knee, a downwards-running river from where she scraped against a nail in Year 7. Now it feels like we’re getting to know each other for the first time. ‘It’s weird, isn’t it? Seeing each other again.’
‘I guess,’ she says.
‘Give me a break, Rachel. I’m trying here. Fill me in.’
‘Fill you in?’ she asks.
‘Boys. School. Friends. You’ve been avoiding questions all week.’
‘There’s nothing much to tell.’ She moves her chair back so some people can pass, and because I’m still staring at her and I haven’t dropped the subject, she says, ‘Okay. Well, there was that guy – Joel Winter.’
‘He’s your ex?’
‘Sort of. Yes. I don’t know. We left things undecided.’
‘Do you have a picture?’ I ask as The Hollows start playing.
She shakes her head.
‘Not on your phone?’
She gives in and takes out her phone. ‘He looks like Greg Smith,’ I say, and she puts the phone back into her pocket. ‘I didn’t mean to insult him. I meant he’s good-looking.’
‘Okay, you have to stop being pathetic,’ she says. ‘You have to stop thinking about Amy. Stop staring at her, stop wanting her. Just stop. And if you can’t actually do it, then you have to at least pretend that you’re forgetting her because she won’t come back if you’re chasing. That’s not Amy’s style.’
I am being pathetic, she’s right. But surely right now I’m allowed to be pathetic and my friends just have to deal with it and not point it out. ‘This is the time you tell me how great I am.’
‘You want me to lie?’
Rachel’s come back as an entirely different person. She’s rude. She’s been rude all week, and not just to me. She’s been rude to my dad, which is shitty. I decide to let her have it. ‘You’ve insulted my dad and ignored my mum. You don’t answer George’s questions and you’re rude to Martin.’
‘I’ve been driving him home,’ she points out.
‘Because my mum pays for your petrol and it means you can leave at five. You won’t let him speak in the car.’ I take a breath. ‘You haven’t written, you clearly don’t give a shit about me and now you come back and call me pathetic. And you’re complaining about cataloguing the Letter Library, telling me my dad’s having a midlife crisis – which he might well be – but that’s understandable given that he’s losing the bookshop. Meanwhile, I’ve lost Amy, George is missing Mum. What have you lost, Rachel? Apart from your sense of humour?’
She raises her middle finger at me.
‘Very grown up,’ I say, and she raises her other one.
‘If you don’t want to work at the bookshop, don’t. If you don’t want to be at the party, leave. You have a car.’
‘Thanks for reminding me, Henry,’ she says, then she tips the last of her water down the front of my jeans, and walks out.
I sit here shifting between feeling terrible about what I said to Rachel and feeling good because I stood up for myself and most of all feeling like I’ve wet myself because of Rachel’s parting move.
After about half an hour, Martin walks over and sits next to me. ‘Great party,’ he says, like what he’s really saying is, This is the worst place I have ever been in my whole life. Fuck you for bringing me here. Even when he’s being rude, Martin is polite.
‘You seemed to be saying in the car that I should make a move on George,’ he continues. ‘That, if I made a move on George, she would welcome that move.’
‘I thought you weren’t planning on making the move.’
‘I wasn’t. And then I changed my mind because we’d been talking to each other for an hour and I was making her laugh, and she was leaning close to me and it seemed like it’d be okay to kiss her.’
‘But I was wrong?’
‘You were wrong,’ he says. ‘I am definitely not attractive to her and worse, she’s in love with someone else.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. Someone who is attractive to her, presumably.’ He shakes his head a little, like he can’t make sense of the evening in any way. ‘‘You think you’re so hot,” she said. I don’t think I’m hot. I think I’m geeky. I think I’m a geeky guy who likes computers and wants to be a lawyer.’