Faking Sweet (17 page)

In fact I successfully avoided Jess for the next couple of days, which wasn't that hard for a non ‘it' girl. In fact, I had to work harder at avoiding Nadene ‘no-friends', who seemed to be considering me as a new recruit.

There was really only one thing, one enormous thing, occupying my head: Calypso. I still hadn't spoken to her. I'd searched MSN for her. I'd tried her mobile. I'd even started to write her a letter with real paper and a pen. It didn't go well. At 2.00 am, after the twenty-third draft had been thrown across the room, I gave up. How could I put into words what I didn't understand?

Over and over I read through Calypso's lies, trying to work out why she'd told them; searching for some small clue. But there was none.

The only lie that made sense was the one about her and Scott. Did she think that if she told me Jess had cheated with her boyfriend, just like Joe had cheated with Miranda, then I would carry out her revenge without questioning anything? Did she? Well, she was right.

The last thing I thought of before I fell asleep and the first thing when I woke was what would've happened if I hadn't taken the money out of Jess's bag. The shame pulsated in the pit of my stomach. I racked my brains trying to think of ways I could make it up to Jess. But there were none. Well, none that wouldn't incriminate me. I couldn't risk looking like a snivelling, sycophantic loser. A Borachio who could be bought. Because that's exactly what I was.

All week Mum picked me up. Perhaps she thought if she didn't, I'd keep walking until I reached Melbourne and got some answers.

On Friday, just four days after my life officially ended, I found Mum in the car line chatting away to another mother. That in itself was unusual.

Then, when Mum put her arm around me and held me tight, like almost in a headlock, I became suspicious.

‘Holly.' Mum's grip tightened around my shoulder. ‘This is Mrs Flynn.'

I caught my tummy at my knees, and somehow managed to breathe it back into position.

‘Hello,' I squeaked, ‘Mrs Flynn.'

I went to open the car door so I could hide and have a silent little spaz attack, but Mum began to lean against the door, squashing my arm against the handle. Okay. Obviously I had to stand there and listen like a good daughter. Perhaps Mum even expected me to participate in the conversation. I guess I could start with, ‘Oh, by the way, Mrs Flynn, did Mum tell you how I tried to set your daughter up as a thief a few days ago?'

‘Thank you so much,' Mum was crowing. I'd never seen her so sociable. Well, not for ages. ‘I'm sorry I only called today.'

My mother telephoned Mrs Flynn?

‘It was perfect timing, really,' Mrs Flynn replied. ‘I just happened to be picking Jess up today.'

‘My husband tends to do things at short notice. Well, short notice for Holly and I, that is.'

What on earth was going on?

‘You have to act quickly,' Jess's mum said. ‘It's such a lovely house. I can't believe it wasn't snapped up at auction. My husband has worked on several heritage places in that street so he knows what to look for.'

‘He came highly recommended. It's mostly the damp we're worried about. It's such an old house.'

Now I understood. They were talking about the house Dad wanted to buy.

‘There's my Jess.' Mrs Flynn waved. ‘She's always the last one out. Too much chatting.'

Again I tried to open the car door. ‘Well, I guess we should go, Mum,' I said in my chirpiest voice. Again, Mum leaned against my hand. Harder this time.

‘Hi, everyone,' Jess sang, all teeth and hair and happiness.

Mum said hello. I grunted.

‘Jess, I was just talking to Holly's mum about Dad doing a building inspection for them. The lucky things have put an offer in on that beautiful house in Morwald Avenue.'

‘Oh!' Jess gasped. ‘That's my favourite house ever. Hey, does that mean you're staying in Sydney, Hol?'

Jess just called me Hol!

‘You're not from Sydney?' Mrs Flynn asked.

‘No.' Jess was shaking her head. ‘Holly's the girl I told you about. You know, the one from MLG?'

‘Ohhhh.' Mrs Flynn was nodding. ‘I see. I didn't realise.'

‘We've lived in just about every major city in Australia,' Mum replied. ‘Finally we might be settling down.'

‘I hate to sound like a gossip.' Mrs Flynn leaned in closer. ‘But Jess told me you knew that atrocious girl Calypso MacIntosh. We had some terrible episodes with her.'

The shame burnt within my body. My cheeks were so hot you could've had a sausage sizzle on them. I wanted to run and hide. I wanted to smash the car window, climb in and drive away. But Mum was treading on my foot and words were spilling from her mouth.

‘Oh yes, Calypso. Holly was friends with Calypso.'

Jess and her mother exchanged a glance.

‘Oh, they're not friends anymore.' Mum nudged me. ‘Are you, Holly?'

I shook my head.

‘Well.' Mrs Flynn jingled her keys. The conversation had come to a crashing halt. ‘My husband will see you tomorrow at Morwald Avenue, 11.00 am.'

‘Great.' At last Mum lifted her fat bum off the car door. I almost knocked her over as I dived onto the front seat.

I waited until we were out the school gates before I spoke. ‘What was that all about, Mum?'

‘Bill Flynn's doing a building inspection of –'

‘I figured that,' I snapped. ‘But why him, huh?'

‘Because he specialises in old houses,' Mum snapped back. ‘The estate agent recommended him. Not everything's about you, Holly. It's a simple coincidence. No need to get paranoid.'

‘I'm not paranoid.'

‘You sound like you are.'

I wanted to get mad and yell, ‘Do you know how it feels being me?' But I didn't 'cause there was something more pressing I wanted to say. ‘Mum, do you think the “terrible episode” was the shoplifting thing?'

‘She said
episodes
, didn't she?'

‘Oh yeah.'

‘Why don't you ask Jess?'

‘No way!'

‘Why not?' Mum said. ‘She knows you knew Calypso. Now she knows you used to be friends with Calypso. You just told her.'

‘No. YOU just told her.'

‘Well, I can't see the harm in it. Calypso's never going to come clean.'

‘Holly, I insist you come.' Dad was making me go to the building inspection with them. ‘It's your new house!'

‘I don't want to,' I answered through a mouthful of peanut butter toast that Mum was forcing me to eat.

It wasn't that I didn't want to check it out. It was that I was scared Jess might come along with her dad. But then, as if. She was an ‘it' girl. Jess'd have a thousand more interesting things to do on a Saturday morning.

Half an hour before, I'd been lying on the couch on my own watching
Video Hits
. Now all hell had broken loose in the house of freaks and I wanted to be left alone.

My mother was standing in front of the TV refusing to move until I'd eaten something. That was my tactic.

My father was pacing around the room wearing a t-shirt that said I
LOVE
S
YDNEY
and demanding that I get off the couch and get changed. I considered saying, ‘I'll get changed if you get changed', but I didn't. Dad did seem kind of excited, and so did Mum. This morning she didn't watch any
The Price is Right
reruns. Instead she went through house mags with Dad.

‘Right.' Dad switched off the TV then did the most disgusting thing I've ever seen: he put his arm around my mother and kissed her on the lips. ‘I heard you're not feeling too good because you've had a falling out with your friend in Melbourne …'

‘“A falling out!”' I screeched. ‘A falling out? Is that how Mum described it? How about, my life is over, ruined!'

‘Holly, don't be so dramatic.'

Why was he patting my mother's shoulder when I was the one in pain?

‘But just think of it sensibly, Holly. You can make a whole new life in Sydney. Now get dressed into something reasonable, please.'

‘I hate my life,' I yelled, as I stomped to my bedroom. ‘It's so boring.'

‘Only boring people have boring lives,' Dad called out.

‘Well, you'd know,' I replied. But I didn't slam the door.

Just before I got dressed I checked my emails. There was nothing. Six days since the ‘planting' and still not a word.

 

The welcoming party I was afraid of was waiting for us at the front door. The estate agent, the builder, and the builder's daughter Jess. Now I wished her dad had been a dentist.

‘Let's go upstairs,' Jess suggested. ‘I've been dying to check this place out. You're so lucky.'

Hmm, I wonder why I didn't feel lucky?

‘Which one will be your bedroom?' Jess was darting in and out of the doorways. I watched her like I'd watch a stranger. All this time I'd thought Jess Flynn was something else, and now I knew she wasn't; it was like I didn't know her at all. ‘Hey, wouldn't this be a great party house? Now you're staying in Sydney you should come out and meet everyone.'

‘Hi, girls.' Mr Flynn walked past with a ladder. Suddenly I had a déjà vu.

‘I'm, I'm sure …' There was a thought trying to land in my head. ‘I'm sure I've seen your dad before,' I said.

‘Probably at school,' Jess replied. ‘He does some repairs there.'

The thought landed with a thud. The three ‘it' girls squealing, ‘Hi, Daddy.'

I'd thought they were flirting. They weren't. They were just saying hi to Jess's dad.

I walked onto the veranda. It was too hard being in the same room with Jess. Of course she followed.

‘Do you remember meeting my cousin, Scott?' Jess asked me. ‘At Spotti that time?'

‘Did I?' I lied. ‘I can't remember.'

‘He remembers.'

‘Oh?'

‘Yeah.' She lowered her voice. ‘I told him you went to the same school as Calypso.'

‘Right.'

Jess leant against the railing, lifting herself up and down on her toes. She didn't say any more, and I didn't know how to fill the silence.

‘Hmmm,' Jess sighed.

‘Hmmm,' I sighed too.

‘Um, Hol, did you know I was like almost best friends with Calypso once?'

I shrugged.

‘Then things started to go wrong.'

‘Oh?' I'd almost stopped breathing.

‘She got the major, major hots for Scott, and would not take “no” for an answer. That's one of the things Mum was referring to yesterday.' Jess looked at me for a minute before saying, ‘Did you know Calypso was a bit … unbalanced?'

‘Sort of,' I gulped.

‘Well, she is. She's very unbalanced,' Jess told me. ‘Calypso got it into her head that Scott liked her, and he didn't. He's not a player either. He's not the type to lead a girl on. Besides, Calypso was way too loud for Scott. Anyway, she wouldn't accept that he didn't like her. First she just started writing him notes, texting him and stuff. Then when that didn't work she started ringing his house. Like maybe twenty times on a Saturday. Then a couple of times she turned up at his house.' Jess's voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I'm the only one that knows this … but once he woke up and she was standing in his bedroom.'

My gasp escaped.

‘I know.' Jess's head was doing enormous nods and I could feel my eyes sticking out on stalks. ‘Scott was terrified of her. She started to really freak him out.'

‘But she still didn't get it that he didn't like her?' I asked.

‘When Calypso finally got it she became really nasty. Really evil. She'd go on MSN and spread all this crap about him. All lies. Total lies.' Jess began to list them off each finger. ‘Scott's a drug addict; Scott's gay; Scott tried to rape her; Scott tried to rape me; Scott had some syndrome. They're just the ones I can remember. Of course no one believed Calypso 'cause everyone knows what a great guy Scott is.'

My mouth was wide open. The only movement I could manage was to shake my head.

‘There was one really, really bad time.' Jess nudged up close to me. ‘One day, Calypso turned up at Scott's place when he was the only one home. She kept ringing the house but Scott knew she was out there so he didn't pick up the phone. He totally freaked out. Anyway Scott rang me from his mobile. Luckily I was at home, and we just live around the corner from each other. He was whispering, “She's here, she's here. She's outside the door. She won't go away.” Of course I knew straight away who he was talking about.'

‘So what did you do?' I asked.

‘I know how to get in the back way, through the neighbour's fence. So I bolted over there and snuck in the laundry door.'

‘Did Calypso see you?'

‘Not then,' Jess took a deep breath and continued. ‘Calypso was bashing on the windows, shouting, “I know you're in there, Scott.” We were so scared. She was going completely psycho. I wanted to ring the police but Scott wouldn't let me. He said if we ignored her she'd eventually go away. So we lay on the floor in his parents' bedroom. Like, for sure we thought that would be safe. I don't know how, but Calypso somehow managed to lift herself up onto the window ledge, and before we knew it her face was pasted up against the glass. She spotted us lying on the floor. She went totally, I mean totally, crazy. Luckily Aunty Pat, Scott's mum, arrived home. If she hadn't I reckon Calypso would've smashed the window.'

‘So what did happen?' I asked.

‘Aunty Pat called Calypso's parents,' Jess said. ‘Poor Scotty. Anyway, Calypso left him alone after that.'

‘Is that when she left Clemmie's and went to Melbourne?' I asked.

‘Nah. She was here for a couple more months.'

‘Oh.'

‘I tried to be nice to her afterwards 'cause I did feel sorry for her. She's obviously,' Jess made circles around the side of her head, ‘not a well puppy. But she really ended up being bad news.'

All I could do was nod in agreement. Jess had just introduced me to a whole new Calypso. To think of all those arvos I'd spent in her room with the door closed!

‘Their family moves around a lot, too,' Jess said.

‘Calypso's been to fourteen schools since Kindy.'

‘Wow!' Jess laughed. ‘No wonder she's such a case. How many have you been to?'

‘Clemmie's is my sixteenth,' I mumbled.

‘Oh? Oh, I'm not saying you're a case. You're nothing like Calypso. I still can't believe you were friends with her in Melbourne.'

I nodded.

‘But you're not friends anymore?'

I shook my head.

‘So what happened?' Jess asked. ‘I bet it's not as good as my story.'

I bet it is. I stared at my hands while a tingle of panic buzzed at my toes.

‘I guess,' I started, ‘I guess I found out she was a bit … unbalanced too.' I got up off the floor. ‘S'pose we should go downstairs.'

‘Hang on.' Jess pulled my hand. ‘Sit back down. You haven't told me what happened.'

I leant against the wall. There were things I could say that wouldn't really be lying. ‘Calypso,' I started, ‘pretended that she won this holiday and was going to take me.'

‘Yeah?'

‘She went on and on about it. Said she had the brochures. All that stuff.'

‘And?'

‘It's a bit embarrassing.'

‘No! Don't be embarrassed. I'm your friend.'

The saliva caught in my throat with Jess's last word. ‘I got really excited about it. You know, went bikini shopping; that's when I saw you. I thought about it all the time. I even made up a song about it. Anyway, the whole thing was a lie. A trick.' I shrugged. ‘That's my story. It doesn't sound like much.'

Jess was shaking her head and clicking her tongue. ‘I can't believe that girl. She is so awful. You poor, poor thing.'