The Wrong Girl (19 page)

‘Sim?' Lily yelled, opening the fridge to see what magical, delicious food might have appeared since this morning.

She spied some beetroot dip and pulled it out, grabbing some spelt crackers from the pantry and diving in straight from the box, to the dip, to her mouth, like the soon-to-be unemployed, loser slob she was. She honestly had no idea what she'd live on when she moved out – two-minute rice and sweet chilli sauce, probably.

‘SCHIM?' Lily yelled louder, with her mouth full. She stopped crunching, cocking her ear for a response. There were candles burning; Simone
had
to be home. Taking a fully loaded cracker with her, Lily walked up the stairs towards Simone's room. The door was ajar and the lights were off, but when Lily got closer, she could hear quiet sniffing. Flicking the light on, she saw a tracksuit-panted Simone curled up in the foetal position on the bed, clutching a bright-pink pillow, and crying. She flicked the light off again. Oh, Jesus.

Looking around quickly for somewhere to dump her snack, Lily put it on the hallway floorboards, next to the wall so she wouldn't forget about it and trample it as she left, and rushed back into the room, turning on the bedside lamp then plopping down next to her friend on the side of the bed, placing a hand lightly on her thigh.

‘Sim, Sim, Sim, what's wrong? Are you okay? What happened?'

Lily tried to push back the thought that Sim was just coming down. She'd seen it before, and it was not dissimilar to what lay before her.

‘I – I'm, I'm so glad you're home,' Simone managed to get out as she wiped her eyes and nose and made to surrender the pillow she was gripping onto as though it were a life jacket and she was at sea. Finally composing herself, she rolled onto her back and then sat up, her back against the bedhead, her knees pulled up to her chest protectively.

She looked through her messy blonde hair at Lily and then closed her eyes tightly as she cried a few more final tears. Lily hadn't even noticed how thin Simone had become; her chest and ribs were bony and her arms were rail-thin. Whatever Simone had been doing over the past two weeks, it hadn't included much eating.

‘Sim, has something bad happened? What's going on?' Now genuinely anxious, Lily was starting to become angry at the idea that this might be caused by drugs, but at the same time she hoped it was, because then nothing
actually
terrible would have happened.

‘No, it's just, I'm being, it's all, oh, God, Lil. I am such a FUCK-UP,' and the tears started all over again. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed, Lily sitting awkwardly on the bed, her hands clasped together in her lap, no idea what to do.

‘I'm going to make you a tea. When I come back, we'll chat, 'kay?'

Simone nodded faintly and, pleased with her quick-thinking, nurturing solution, Lily took herself off the bed and into the hallway, quickly scooping up her cracker en route and jamming it into her mouth, and headed downstairs to make a pot of something herbal and soothing. There were so many boxes and jars of tea to choose from, Lily didn't know where to start. She picked one out called Divinity, which seemed to her a bit of an overstatement for tea leaves that smelled like wet dirt. She settled for one called Self-love instead, which had a nice pink box and a gentle font, and boiled the kettle. ‘Add organic oat or almond milk to taste', read the packet. Give me a break, Lily thought.

Five minutes later, using a move she'd seen Simone do a million times, she presented to her flatmate a small bronze tray with a teapot and two small Moroccan tea glasses. Placing it gingerly on a dresser overflowing with jewellery, perfumes and make-up, she poured a cup for Simone. A rush of shame washed over her; Simone was
always
making tea for Lily, always offering her a wine, or a juice or some gorgeous, earnest, homemade dinner, and Lily
never
repaid the favour.

‘Here you go. Hope I did it right.' Lily held the tiny blue and gold glass out to her shambolic friend and Simone, who had finally been granted dry eyes, took it carefully, a sad smile on her face.

‘Thanks, babe.'

Taking her own cup, Lily sat back down on the side of the bed and waited for the Big Explanation.

‘So, what's going on?'

Simone looked at Lily and tears immediately began welling again in her eyes.

‘I did a bad thing. I'm a bad, bad, terrible person.'

‘Unless you did a hit and run or something . . . oh God, you didn't, did you?' Lily's eyes were wide with fear.

‘No, no, it's nothing like that . . . I, I don't even know how to say it and I know you'll be disgusted with me, and I am, I am SO angry with myself, and I, I —' The tears were back.

‘Shh, just, relax. Take your time. I can come back in half an hour if you like? I might pop down to Nina's and get some Thai; would you be interested in anything, a soup maybe?'

Simone shook her head, eyes down, and then, in a flash, they were back up and on Lily.

‘I slept with Michael.'

Lily's left hand flew up to her mouth in shock, and she inhaled sharply.

‘Oh fuck, Sim.
Fuck
. Ohhh, that's no good. That's no good at all.'

Tears began rolling down Simone's face, and she had to relegate her tea to her bedside table to manage the salty streams. Lily noticed with disappointment that Valium, Xanax, Phenergan and some other unidentified foil packets were all fighting for space on the small surface area.

‘I just, I don't even know how it happened. He was at Town having a few drinks with his mates last night and I was there having dinner, and we, we hadn't seen each other for ages, and I was in a really good mood cos I'd just got back from this awesome Hawaiian trip, and so we were chatting, you know, and we were both talking about our partners and just being normal exes. No funny business. And I don't know, maybe because he was being so normal, I, well, I started to feel familiar old feelings, and I SWORE to myself I wouldn't be with him again, Lil, not
ever
 . . . So I wanted to go home, because if I'm being totally honest, I could sense something maybe happening, but I couldn't find Skye anywhere, and so he said he'd drop me home in a taxi, and I
shouldn't
have agreed, but then we . . . we went back to his place and I am so ANGRY at myself, Lil, I am such an
IDIOT
. Why do I always do this? Why can't I be strong for once in my fucking life?
Why?
'

She began sobbing uncontrollably, her whole body shaking; her head on her knees, hair covering her legs, her body looking roughly as small as she probably felt. Although Lily knew it was unkind to think so, Simone deserved to feel like shit. This was a girl who had been lucky enough to have all of the magical attributes to attract Jack Winter, and then she cheated on him. With Michael, the world's biggest nightmare. No, the hot steaming
shit
of the world's biggest nightmare.

Lily was furious with Simone, but she held it in. She also reminded herself she shouldn't be feeling more sorry for Jack than one of her best friends, even if all the evidence herewith suggested she was within her rights to.

‘Oh, Sim . . . how could you let that dirty dog back into your pants . . .'

‘Babe, trust me, if I could rewind the clock I'd take it back. I would give anything to!'

But Lily wasn't so sure. Simone had a history of this precise kind of fail, and she just didn't seem to learn the lesson. She seemed
predisposed
to messing things up just as they seemed to be going well, and life was normalising. She was a serial self-saboteur.

Lily took a deep breath and tried to calm down. After all, who was she to be judging? It wasn't like Lily was perfect. And yet all she wanted to do was scream at Simone, and say that maybe if you didn't drink so much and do so much coke, and take so many drugs, maybe you wouldn't make such shitty decisions. And
maybe
, maybe if you were more invested in your relationship with Jack, you wouldn't be out getting shitfaced every weekend; you'd make time to see him instead of stumbling out of clubs with your ex-boyfriend in tow. Jack was handed to you like a goddamn gift,
and you're chucking him away!

‘I feel for Jack. I know you don't want to hear that but I'm sorry, I do.'

‘Babe, can you not? It wasn't like I wanted this to happen, fuck!'

‘I know that, Sim. I do. But, well, you've got to take responsibility for this. You can't blame it on the alcohol, or drugs or whatever. You know that. It's never an excuse.'

‘I know, I know . . . I just, oh God, I can't believe I did it. And now I've probably ruined the one
really
good, normal relationship I've ever had.'

‘So you'll tell him?' Lily asked, because it wasn't a given with Simone. Despite her waxing lyrical about being true to yourself and honesty setting you free and acai being the answer to everything, she took a slightly different tack when it came to her own life.

‘Jack is such a good guy. This would kill him.'

That was a no, then.

Lily fought the temptation to yell that Jack deserved the truth, and furthermore, unlike Tom Cruise in
A Few Good Men
, he could handle it. She took a deep breath and said nothing.

‘How are things with Jack anyway?' Lily asked, clearing her throat as she did. As far as she could ascertain, the shiny gleam of their relationship had become more matte of late. But for Simone to even be chatting to and hanging out with Michael, let alone sleeping with him, showed evidence of big cracks. Huge.

‘Yeah, fine. I mean, obviously we've both been away lately, but we've texted heaps . . . He's just so . . . decent, babe. So good and nice and kind to me.'

‘It kind of sounds like you're saying those like they're negatives,' Lily said, thinking back to her conversations about ‘nice' Byron with Alice.

Simone looked at Lily, thinking. She roughly wiped her nose with the back of her wrist and thought some more.

‘I don't think I'm used to it. The more perfect he is, the worse I feel about myself. Does that make sense? I'm not on his level, babe. I'm not who he needs. Maybe that's why I've been acting up lately; it's having this weird reverse effect on me, because I think deep down he knows he can do better, so why try to prove him wrong? Why should I change who I am when he won't stick around once he gets to know the real me anyway?'

Simone looked at Lily with her swollen, red eyes and Lily's heart broke. Here was a beautiful young woman, a genetically flawless, smart, spiritual, positive, kind, successful, generous, fun woman, who had no clue just how rare she was, and what a good person she was. Lily's eyes welled with sorrow for her friend, for the demons that continued to plague her.

‘Sim, no more, “I'm not good enough” talk. There is no one like you. No one. You have it all, anything you want to be, have or do; it's yours. You gotta start practising that self-help shit you spout. And as for Jack, or
any
man, of course you are good enough for him! He is lucky to have you.
So
lucky. He knows that. I know that. Do
you
know that? I fear you really don't, Sim.'

Sim sniffed and tucked some hair behind her ear, and seemed to process what her friend was saying. Lily knew Simone had tried to bluff her way into self-confidence a million times, but the truth was she would never feel good enough. Never feel as pretty as people said she was. Never be as successful or young or fit as the next girl. Never be the ‘perfect girlfriend'. She had to work hard, harder than the others to stay afloat, and she always would. It was crushing, this pressure, and it was what propelled her need to escape so often.

‘I have to go back on my antidepressants, I think. Can't sleep or relax without a few barbs and I can't feel good without something helping me up.'

Lily was quiet. Simone hadn't been on antidepressants for years.

‘Have you, would you talk to Jack about this stuff?' Lily thought Jack would be the perfect ear for this, Michael stuff notwithstanding. He'd been down his own path of addiction after all.

Simone laughed. It was a bitter, unhappy, sarcastic laugh.

‘Oh yeah, cos confiding in boyfriends worked a treat with Michael!'

‘Oh, come
on
. They're incomparable, gender aside. What about that therapist you had? Mrs Whatsername, with the big nose?'

‘Do you know Michael hasn't even called or texted since last night?'

It was becoming obvious that while Simone was upset, she wasn't exactly remorseful. She seemed to view the whole episode as inevitable. And it pissed Lily off. She wasn't going to enable this any more. She stood up and walked around to the other side of the bed. She snatched the foil packets from the beside table, and then, yanking open the drawer underneath, found a few more telltale white pharmacy boxes and packets, and small plastic bottles, and snatched them up, too.

‘What are you
doing
!' Simone shrieked, a mother having her baby stripped from her.

‘Don't take those! I need them to sleep – they're nothing, those ones, people use them all the time, on planes and whatever, babe, what are you
doing
!'

Lily cradled the packets in close to her chest, lest Simone lunge at her.

‘I can't change the way you think about yourself, Sim, but I can tell you that I no longer support this. It's dangerous. I won't stand by and watch it any more. I support you, I love you, but you need to sort your shit out.'

With one last look at Simone – a small, shell of herself, outrage and disbelief flashing in her puffy eyes – Lily sighed and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Lily stood in the shower, slowly massaging the shampoo through her hair. Her day loomed ominously in front of her. She planned to tell Sasha she was leaving today, and on top of that she would be forced to work with poor Jack, whose girlfriend she knew had cheated on him.

She hadn't heard or seen from Sim since last night; her bedroom door remained closed, but the sound of thumping to the bathroom and back earlier this morning reassured Lily that her housemate wasn't in the wrong/tragic/eternal kind of slumber. Lily was pissed off that she had to think like that at
all
, before remembering she needed to be there for her friend, not judge and admonish her. She'd said her piece last night; Simone knew where she stood.

On set an hour later, Jack was making pork belly, and for some reason, even though it was a meal Lily loved, and one often used in her and Alice's game of Death Row Meal, today it was making her nauseous. The syrupy caramel scent of the sauce was burning her nostrils, and the look of the uncooked pig was turning her stomach. The segment was sliced in half for an ad break, and Mel and Rob started chatting to Jack as he prepared the cabbage and chilli side dish. They were in remarkably good spirits despite being ‘let go', but rumour was it they were being paid out handsomely for the remainder of their contract. Mel winked at Lily playfully as she was wont to do, and Lily realised just how much she'd miss them. She'd miss all of them. Especially Jack.

At that very moment Jack looked up at her, and they locked eyes. The knowledge of Simone's misdemeanour felt like an enormous clown nose on Lily's face, and she immediately looked away. She was being a shitty producer this morning, absent and distracted, but she couldn't seem to normalise. There was far –
truckloads –
too much going on in her head to hang around the kitchen bench and chinwag with the talent today. They'd all understand once the news got out.

‘Lily?'

Lily spun around to see Sasha, a picture of layered, ruffled perfection with emerald-green earrings and vibrant red-orange lipstick.

‘I got your email, what's up?'

‘Oh, um, I just, I needed to speak with you about something.'

‘Can we speak now?' Lily couldn't tell if Sasha knew what was going on and was being deliberately nonchalant, or if she genuinely thought Lily wanted to discuss something insignificant, such as Jack's need for more fancy Le Creuset casserole dishes, which the budget, like everything fancy he asked for, wouldn't permit.

Lily flashed a look at the set, which was due to light up with live, porky magic in sixty seconds. Sasha knew better than to interrupt mid-segment. She clearly hadn't put two and two together yet.

‘Um, is it okay if I come and see you after the show?'

‘I'm around til eleven. Come by my office.' She nodded towards the set. ‘And if there's any of that pork belly left, do bring it with you.'

Lily smiled. ‘Of course.' She would miss Sasha, she realised with regret and a stab of fear about making the wrong decision. She'd wanted so desperately to impress her and advance and advance and advance, and she'd failed. She'd come to
The Daily
full of hubris and entitlement, expecting a promotion in six months, and to be on her track to EP within two years, and she hadn't even been able to beat a twit to series producer.

Lily tried to smile, focus and enjoy the remainder of the segment, but all she saw was a blazing red FAIL sign. At least she had Greece. Greece would be exciting, inspiring, sunny, invigorating. Maybe she would even have a summer fling . . . Mimi was always banging on about how gorgeous the Greek boys were. The less blonde-haired and blue-eyed the better, frankly. She checked her phone for the time; Mimi would already be at the airport, soaking up the cheese and champagne in the business-class lounge, all decked out in her finest travel cashmere tracksuit. Good for her. She knew how to live.

A text buzzed in her hand as she was replacing her phone.

She was still alive, Lily thought, releasing a breath she didn't even realise she'd been holding. Thank fuck for that.

She wondered when Sim and Jack would speak, and whether Simone would tell him what she'd done. She figured she might feel compelled to since Lily knew, and might just pull the moral-crusader, I'll-tell-him-if-you-don't card.

Lily walked back down the hallway, past the kitchen, to check her emails before meeting with Sasha, pork in hand, and taking a guillotine to her job.

‘Woodward!'

Jack's voice rang out from the kitchen. Shit. She really didn't want to face him right now.
Fuck fuck fuck.

He was casually sipping on a coffee from the gleaming new coffee machine Nikkii had insisted on, and looked exactly like the kind of guy you wanted to take you to a movie and then snuggle on a lounge with. Especially on this kind of disgusting day.

‘Hey,' she said, popping her head back into the kitchen and smiling in what she hoped was a convincing manner.

‘Everything okay? You seemed a bit . . . distracted this morning?'

‘Oh, yeah, totally, no, everything is fine, totally.' She stayed outside the kitchen to signal she wasn't up for a chat. No light chats with Jack today. No, thank you.

He frowned slightly.

‘You're quitting, aren't you? I saw you chatting to Sasha.'

Why today, why
everything
today! Lily exploded internally. And how could he tell from that tiny moment she and Sasha shared this morning. It was nothing! Pork belly chat! Lily's unnaturally fake chirpy demeanour buckled, and her chest slumped. She looked down. He was disappointed in her and it felt horrible.

‘I wanted to tell you, but I, well, I needed to tell Sasha first, which I'm about to do now. And
then
I was going to tell you. I've thought about it a lot, Jack, and it's the right thing for me to do at this time. I know you don't agree with it bu—'

He smiled and chuckled, his eyes softening.

‘What I think doesn't matter. What you're doing is brave in its own way.'

‘Well,
you've
changed your bloody tune.' She exhaled in surprise and relief, but couldn't help feeling a little bit disappointed he no longer felt compelled to fight for her to stay.

‘I'm starting to understand your reasoning, I guess you could say.'

Aha!
Perhaps he was starting to feel the squeeze of Nikkii's vulgar tentacles. Maybe
he
would even leave too . . . Lily couldn't decide if that was a good or bad thing; at least if he was here she could still stalk him easily. She looked down, suddenly remembering what awaited this poor guy when he next caught up with his girlfriend. As if reading her mind, Jack spoke up.

‘I know you need to go, but just quickly, is Simone okay? She's sent some very . . . odd texts over the past couple of days, but then her phone rings out. I was thinking of going over to yours tonight – if she's home, that is?'

A tiny gulp involuntarily slid down Lily's neck. She might have to hijack whatever Alice was doing tonight, freezer yoga or erotic book club or whatever it might be.

‘Yes, I think she'll be there. Um, maybe give her some notice though.'

Jack's eyes searched Lily's for what that might mean, but she wasn't giving away a thing.

‘ 'Kay, well, see you Monday, I guess . . . Wish me luck,' Lily said, and ducked off to her desk. She had to get her game face on. And she
definitely
had to stop her mind from skating over to the fact that Jack might well be single again soon. It was irrelevant. No-go zone.
Enough
.