What's a Girl Gotta Do? (12 page)

nineteen

I was exhausted beyond exhausted when I got home. Philosophy had been a nightmare – because every philosopher ever had exterior genitalia. And I'd forgotten to tell Mr Packson that in our get-it-all-out-the-way meeting. Art had been an equal fiasco – though at least I had Amber and Megan in my class. Word had got round pretty fast in college about what I was doing.

“She hates men,” I heard a girl whisper, as I was mixing up my paints.

“It's the Lottie Show again,” her friend giggled, before Amber stood up, loomed right behind them and said, “Can I help you?”

It made it worse that it was girls saying it.

I rattled my key in my front door when I got home – having to do the jiggle-dance I always had to do to stop it from sticking. The waft of cooking hit me as I stepped over the threshold and fiddled my way out of the beaded curtain.

“Lottie, is that you?”

I picked my way through the piles of laundry Mum had folded on the living-room floor and went into the kitchen. She was stirring a pot of something that smelled fantastic. Mum went through vegan “phases” – usually if someone came and did a talk at her centre. I was always very happy to eat dead bits of animals, but vegan cooking was pretty awesome too. Especially when Mum ground up all the spices herself in the pestle and mortar.

“Hi,” I breathed, leaning against the door frame to stop myself drooping. All I wanted was to flop upstairs, but my family has this thing about always acknowledging each other when we get home.

She stirred her saucepan once more then clanged a lid down. “Hello, sweetie. How was your day? You didn't trip over the laundry, did you? I'm about to take it upstairs.”

“It was fine.” I took in the laundry and the cooking and the sparkling surfaces of the kitchen that were always like that because Mum always did them. And did another sigh… I was so exhausted, and yet…here, still, the world was calling. “I started my project today.”

Mum wiped her hands on her apron and her face pulled together in concern. “How did it go?”

I nodded. “Fine, I guess… Mr Packson gave me the go-ahead.”

“That's a relief. And all your classes went okay too?”

I thought of the humiliation of being dragged out of English – and all the other horrors of the day.

“Yeah, they went fine.”

“Any coursework?”

“Of course.”

“Well, as long as this thing doesn't interfere.”

I was going to delay bringing it up. I was going to break my own rules. But her saying that got my heckles up. So I just came out and said, “Why do you do all the cooking?”

Mum looked at her bubbling pot, confused. “What do you mean?”

I ignored her. “And the laundry, and most of the cleaning. Why is it always you?”

I'd never really thought about it. But, now, with my ultimate feminism searchlight on full-beam, I was seeing everything everywhere. Mum did basically
all
the household chores. Well, the ones I wasn't roped into doing – which was usually taking out the bins and stacking the dishwasher. She almost always cooked, she did the laundry, she hoovered, she chucked bleach around our two bathrooms, she washed up all the glass recycling ready to go in the special green bins at the end of the drive, she picked up the stray mugs and crumby plates that inevitably get scattered around a house and returned them to the kitchen… She did it all. All Dad did was cut the grass really. And you only need to do that like twice a year, right? I'd never noticed it before. Now it seemed glaringly obvious.

Mum went on the defensive, even though I was on her side. “Well, your dad has work to do.” She stirred the pot even though it didn't need stirring.

“But you work too!”

“Yes, but my job's just a bit of a side job.”

Was it? She worked hard, Mum. She had to do Saturdays as that was when most of her clients were off work. And I remember her job kept us all going financially a few years ago when Dad was made redundant. It was six months before he got the professor job. I don't like to think about that time. Dad went…dark. He sat in the house way too much. He even started watching
University Challenge
reruns on TV in jogging bottoms, where, usually, he only ever read big heavy hardback books in his special chair.

“I don't think it's fair,” I continued, shrugging.

I jumped when Mum clattered her spoon down hard. “For Christ's sake, Charlotte. Do not go dragging me into this project of yours. We're being understanding enough as it is.”

I dropped my mouth open. “But it's
not
fair. Dad should do more around the house!”

“Oh yes? How about you? Maybe instead of fussing, you could help me carry the laundry up to your room? YOUR laundry, I may add?”

I shook my head. “That's not what this is about.” Though I felt guilty for not taking my laundry up. Or, like, doing it, ever.

“Your father does LOADS,” Mum insisted. “Please don't bring us into this…thing of yours.”

“I can't help it,” I said, honestly.

“Well try.” She picked up the spoon again and turned back. Taking the hint, I slinked out – picking up my pile of clean clothes on my way up the stairs.

I couldn't concentrate on coursework. I turned my music up loud to try and drown out the carousel of stuff whirring around my head.

The humiliation of my English lesson…the anger at Teddy, the boys he hung around with, and those girls in my art class…the annoying stirring I got when I thought about meeting Will's eye in the cafeteria…Mum's face…Mum's anger. I was supposed to be sketching some still life for art, and I had all the fruit set up. But I'd not really got around to actually drawing it and it was starting to go a bit puffy. This wasn't like me. I took homework very seriously – I always did it straight away. The overly sweet smell emanating from the carefully arranged bowl of oranges suggested otherwise.

I didn't like it when I saw moral gaps in my own parents…

I'd grown up thinking they were so wise. Led mostly by Mum, we'd spent most of my childhood summers trekking around amazing countries, learning about balance and breathing and “Energy” – capitalized and put within speechmarks – and all the other superior
what-life-is-all-about
stuff. But I was starting to see cracks. Hypocrisies. Cognitive dissonances, I guess. I was an only child. I was all they had. Their one shot at raising a human – and stuff like “balance” and “values” were starting to get chucked out the ethical window. I'd never even considered feminism and how that related to them either… Until today. Now I saw my entire childhood flash back really fast, and memories popped out, tapping me on the head, yelling,
Lottie, come on, remember this? It will ruin your day even more, and you're deffo in that kind of mood!

Memories like…whenever the cricket was on, which was a lot, Dad wouldn't even let us talk in the house – and Mum, even though she'd be knackered from fitting in her work around looking after me, would have to take me swimming. “That's just the way your dad is with the cricket,” she'd say, like that made it okay… And how, whenever they had friends over, even supposedly “enlightened” friends from the centre, Mum would exhaust herself, running around, asking people what drinks they'd like, making sure all the food was coming out on time, whirling and twirling, while Dad just chatted and laughed with everyone, and didn't even say thank you or help with the washing-up afterwards, but declared himself exhausted and took me up to bed… How we all sat around the table and talked about Dad's job and what was going on with it all the time…but never really Mum's. And if she started sharing a story about an interesting client, I could see him glaze over and not quite take it in… Plus I'd never once seen him clean the toilet…

Could it be that my forward-thinking parents, the ones who tell me to reach for the stars and mend the world and believe in equality for all, my parents who flipped an actual coin to decide whose surname I'd take to make it fair, despite all that…could they be in an unequal relationship?

My phone beeped, and I jumped at it. Grateful for the distraction, any distraction, from all the treacle-like thoughts my brain was determined to wade through.

It was Evie.

You okay, Lottie Bottie? You kicked extreme ass today. But that usually means a day has been hard. Call me anytime. E x x

A hint of a smile made its way onto my face. It spread wider when my phone beeped again. Amber.

I think I've got repetitive strain injury from honking my horn too much. You are my hero, Lottie. Now will you please come over and massage my achy palm?

As the light faded into blackness outside my window, I messaged them back and forth. I heard Dad come in. Mum called me for dinner. I ate in silence, listening to Dad blah on about some academic paper he was trying to get published, staring down at my plate.

I was less than twenty-four hours in, and my spirit was waning.

Back in my room, I tried to catch up on the work I'd missed from my day off with Megan. Eventually I heard my parents' getting-ready-for-bed noises – the click of the bathroom light, the thud of their bedroom door, a low murmur of voices, then silence.

I'd sketched approximately half an orange.

With a heart so heavy I was surprised it wasn't pushing down on my bladder and making me wee, I picked up the little flip-cam Will had lent me, turned the lens on myself, and started to talk…

twenty

It was shopping day.

I'd made it through five whole days at college. I'd been evicted from one philosophy lesson, verbally assaulted twice, had three more meetings with Mr Packson (“Lottie, I thought you wouldn't cause trouble in lessons any more? It's not your philosophy teacher's fault that the textbook refers to God as a ‘He'”), and probably had about four thousand insults hurled behind my back. I got stares wherever I went – when I bought chips, when I went from lesson to lesson, as I walked into my art class with Amber and everyone went quiet, like they'd just been talking about me…

And I'd got a B in my still-life painting. Never, ever, in the history of ever had I ever got a B. I'd almost had heart palpitations. You can't get Bs and get into Cambridge. You may as well get Us.

Not your best work
, my teacher had scribbled at the bottom in red pen. Followed by three giant question marks. I snapped my sketchpad shut the moment I saw it, like that could contain the B and make it not spread elsewhere.

If it wasn't for Amber, Evie, Megan and the rest of FemSoc – flanking me, cheering me on, putting up posters whenever they got ripped down – I don't know what I would've done.

And now it was Saturday – precious restful Saturday – and I had to go shopping. But not until Will and I had sorted the edits of the first week's videos.

He looked quite scared when he arrived, like they all do. Mum's habit of “cleansing auras” tends to wig people out.

“Lottie,” she called. “Your friend is here.”

I pushed past the curtain and waved him up – not talking to Mum. We'd had another argument the previous night. About the B, because I'd stupidly told them… Dad had proper shouted at me.

It was very strange – seeing Will in my home. He juxtaposed perfectly with the surroundings – his hipster cool clashing with the wind chimes and the crystals decorating every flat surface. Amber and Evie had got used to mine by now, so it was almost new, watching someone see the sheer weirdness of my house for the first time.

Indeed, Will's eyebrows were raised mighty high, his smug smile pulling upwards.

I didn't say hello or offer him a drink – I just turned back up the stairs, knowing he had no choice but to follow me.

Will did a proper inspection of my room before he sat down. He stood still, taking it all in, then walked over to my chest of drawers, examining all my framed photos. My favourite was one taken at the beginning of last year, at this awful gig me and the girls went to at a church hall. We were all wearing black and holding ourselves up through laughter – none of us quite looking into the camera. Will picked that one up, his eyes examining it under the thick frame of his glasses.

I flopped onto my bed, waiting for him to stop nosing. Eventually he perched next to me – no nerves about it, like some boys have when you're both sitting on a bed.

“Your mum's interesting,” he said, still scanning the room.

“Did she cleanse your aura?”

“Is that what that was? Yeah, I guess she did.”

“I'm not sure what good it will do you,” I said. “Some auras just can't get clean…”

He laughed at that – a short burst of it, like he hadn't meant it. “I have an incurable aura?”

I giggled too. “A herpes aura.”

“That's disgusting.”

“You're telling me.”

The laughter defused the tension in the room. The tension I couldn't explain. Well, I could… It was sexual tension. I'd experienced it enough with other people to know that's what it was. But it was the worst kind – the repressed kind. Because Will was an argumentative arse-end.

“So, I've got a first cut. You want to see?”

I bounced on the bed. “Yes!”

He reached into his bag and pulled out a proper posh laptop – the new iWhatever by the looks of it. I wondered how he could've afforded it. He flipped open the screen and pulled up a page. I rolled onto my stomach to see better, my feet sticking up in the air.

“Wow, you've branded the whole channel.” I pulled the laptop closer clumsily, making him sort of jump at me to stop me being too rough. All Megan's graphics littered the screen – it really,
really
looked wow.

“So this is the rough cut.” He yanked the computer back, all protective. I smiled to myself. “I've made it private. I wanted to get your approval before making it live.”

Will hit play, and I rested my hands under my chin to watch. He'd started it with a mini-cut of my first interview – explaining why I was doing it and what I hoped to achieve. I winced. My hair! Did it really look like that from that angle? I swear my nose wasn't so pointy usually. And my voice! Yikes! It was so deep! And I'd need proper enunciation lessons before I became an MP. But, as the interview faded into Will's montage of my first week of the project, my self-consciousness melted away. Wow. I saw his shots of me chucking the pie at the bus stop, grabbing members of FemSoc and laughing as I applied lipstick to their faces. He'd done a huge close-up on my face the moment Teddy and his ladz walked by and called us “sluts”. He'd slowed it down – and my face, the way it reacted, was so much more poignant than any thoughts I'd actually had in the moment. The next shot was a long shot, of me running after him with a pie. It'd gone from totally cinematically dramatic to totally stupid within an instant and I howled out with laughter. A pie. I'd literally actually thrown a cream pie! The rest of the week flowed into a perfectly-edited montage and I found I couldn't not smile. Without being in my own brain, experiencing the embarrassment and dread, and having all the whispers behind my back edited out, this project looked totally ace. I came across totally ace! And, most importantly, so did my message. Most of it was me and the girls laughing. I wasn't coming across bitter or twisted or unreasonable. How it looked through Will's posh lens and triumphant soundtrack was
so
different to the shitty week I'd had.

When it went black, I turned to him. “You are annoyingly talented.”

He did his wolf grin. “I'll take out the word ‘annoyingly' and accept that compliment.”

I rolled over so I was facing him, my face just…glowing with excitement.

“I mean, just…how?! How did you make it look that exciting? How did you make me come across so utterly kick-ass?”

“Well, that was the hardest bit.”

I thumped him.

I reached forward and hit play again, re-watching it. Loving it more the second time around. After losing all my confidence this week, this video had returned it in spades. I felt strong again, like I was onto something…something that could really make people take notice and realize…

After the third watch, I rolled towards him again. We were both on our stomachs now, the tips of our toes just touching. It made my feet itch in this really brilliant way, so much that I couldn't bear to move.

“You do know what you've done though?” I said. “You've made a brilliant piece of feminist propaganda here. Be careful, or people might think I'm winning you over.”

He ran his hands through his hair and made a noise of exasperation. “I made a good film, that's all. I've tried to make it as objective as possible.”

“You love feminism.” I found myself poking him. Which wasn't wise. Especially as it made the tip of my finger fizzle in a gut-wrenching way.

“I don't. I told you, I'm a—”

“Yeah yeah yeah, yadda yadda yadda, Mr I Have To See Every Incidence Of Sexism Scientifically Proven Before I Deign To Care.” I made my hand do the chit-chat thing. “God forbid you admit this project might actually be getting to you. Helping you change your mind.”

He looked right at me. “People don't like feeling like you're trying to change their minds, you know that, right?” The way he stared made me feel all red, but I rolled my eyes in reply.

“Yep. I do know that. But what am I supposed to do? Just go, ‘Oh well, people don't like having their beliefs challenged, I guess I'll just wait over there in the corner in case, by some miracle, they change their minds by themselves'? I've got to try.”

Will's expression deepened for a moment, his eyebrows arching up into…something…then the moment was lost and he smirked at me again. “You're certainly trying.”

“What I'm hoping to do is catch the floaters,” I said. “There's no point wasting my energy on people like you who just want to have an argument…”

Will opened his mouth to no doubt object and I batted him away.

“I know there's lots of people out there who just get this prickling feeling that something isn't right. They feel confused and…wrong…and confused about the wrong…and BAM, they see my kick-ass video and go ‘FEMINISM – THAT'S WHAT I NEED. I NEED FEMINISM.'”

“You do know you sound like a terrorist recruiter?”

I did poke him then. And not because I fancied him but because he legitimately deserved the pokiest of pokes.

“You know what I think?” I said. “I think you only play devil's advocate all the time because it makes you infallible.” Another poke – he tried to catch my wrist, that smile still on his face, but I pulled my hand back just in time. “But there's not much depth, Mr Deep Film-maker, to having nothing to believe in. And it's much easier to pick holes in other people's beliefs than identifying and fighting for your own.”

His reply was dry, to make it clear nothing I'd said had gone in. “Are you finished?”

“I'm never finished.”

“I'm starting to learn that. When are the others arriving anyway? Are you ready?”

I sighed and rolled off the bed onto my feet to get my bag sorted. “Yes, I'm ready…ish. They'll be here in a few minutes.”

“Okay. I'll just put this live then. You all right with that?”

I shot him a smile as I checked my massive Operation Vagilante rucksack. “I am very all right with that.”

There was five minutes of semi-contented silence – me pottering, him clicking away on his posh laptop. The doorbell still hadn't rung. I was a bit nervous. I was essentially going to almost-break the law a LOT in the next two hours. Technically, I'd only be breaking societal norms…but I was still terrified I'd get caught by a store detective or something. Plus I'd invited Megan, and I was worried about inviting her into the inner-sanctum of Spinster Clubness. Would it work? Would we gel?

“Right, it's all up.” Will shut his laptop with a flourish and flopped back on the bed. Seeing him on my bed, my bed where lying-down things happen, made me feel all peculiar – so I sat all upright on my desk chair.

He stared up at the ceiling, then gave my room another once-over and said, “So,
this
is Lottie Thomas's bedroom?”

I felt all my prickles go up instantly. I reached into my bag, commandeered the largest horn, then pulled it out super quick and gave a long loud honk right in his ear.

“JESUS, LOTTIE, OWW, WHATDAFUCKAREYOUDOING?”

Satisfied, I calmly returned the horn to the depths of my bag of mischief. Will was clutching half his head.

“I've told you before. Just because you're my cameraman,” I said, “doesn't mean you're immune from me.”

“That really f-ing hurt, you…”

I whipped out the horn again. “Be careful, Will.”

“You psycho…” he muttered, then ducked and missed my second blast.

“You are such a cock.” I stood up, anger pulsing through my veins. “You know that, right? You know that everything about your personal brand is total and utter cock?”

“Jeez, I didn't even say anything!”

I levelled him with my eyes. “You said enough.”

He'd implied it. That my bedroom was known about…that people had been here before… And I wasn't ashamed or embarrassed or any of the things girls are supposed to feel if boys get all judgy about the fact you may have – SHOCK HORROR – had and enjoyed sex with other people. But I was angry he'd brought it up. Because it was totally unremarkable and none of his business.

He held his hands up, like he was trying to make peace. “Look, sorry. I didn't mean it how you think I meant it.” He seemed genuine, even quite mad at himself…

“Didn't you?”

“Well…I…” He trailed off, and did actually look very ashamed of himself. “It was just a joke.”

“A sex-shaming joke.”

“No! Lottie, I don't care what you do, who you sleep with. Honestly, it's your life. I totally mean that.”

I crossed my arms. “Then why say anything…?” I added
YOU COCK
in my head.

“I actually don't know. To fill a silence, I guess.”

“It's because you're a cock.”

This time he smiled, and removed his hand from his damaged ear.

“You know what. Maybe I am. When I said that, I was being one. Sorry. Truly, I'm sorry.”

I smiled too. “Repeat the following after me, and I'll let you come on the feminism shopping trip.”

“You need to work more on your bribes.”

“Repeat after me!”

“Okay okay.” He held his hands up again.

“I, William,” I prompted.

He bit his lip but relented. “I, William.”

“Hereby declare.”

“Hereby declare.”

“That I am a massive cock.”

A pause. A grin. Then… “That I am a massive cock.”

“Which is very different from HAVING a massive cock.”

A longer pause. “Which is very different from having a massive cock.”

“And, in fact, me bringing up Lottie's sexual history is probably due to my insecurity that I don't have a massive cock.”

“In fact, me…hang on! And, hey, isn't making a joke about the size of a boy's manhood slightly…dare I say it… sexist?”

We were both laughing now. I raised the horn over my head and honked it multiple times. He looked at me, and I looked at him. And this was usually the point where I'd kiss someone who looked at me like that, because I'm quite good at just kissing people when I feel like it. But I'd be a hypocrite to end all hypocrites if I let anyone as smug as Will be allowed the pleasure of kissing me during my feminist crusade.