Girl from Mars (5 page)

“Don't know,” Laura says. As I bend over my bike, I glance up at her briefly. She's grabbing a fistful of her hair again. Her skin is pale. Her face gleams white in the daylight. “Phillip already has plans.”

I fiddle with the lock. Phillip Shmillip.

“Hey.” Laura leans toward me. “Do you want to do something?”

“Like what?”

“Go out?”

“Where?”

“Maybe to the Austerhaus?”

“That's in the city,” I say, meaning the big city. The lock finally springs open. I wind it around my handle-bars.

“So?”

“How will we get there?”

“I'll think of something.”

I'm about to ride away, but Laura is walking beside my bike.

“Where were you earlier today?” she asks.

“Slept in.” She's still walking beside me, even though her place is in the other direction.

“Ah.”

I don't know how long she intends to keep walking with me, but if I say something now she might just turn off at the next corner.

“I'm sorry about Phillip yesterday,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“Phillip is really a nice guy. Honestly. It just takes him awhile to warm up to people.”

Warm up. It's not like I wanted to kiss him goodbye or anything.

“He was the same way with me at first. Really.”

We keep walking.

“Where does he go to school?”

“Kopernikus.” A school in the city.

“And where did you meet him?” “At a party.” She looks at me suddenly. “We're not going together or anything. We're just friends.”

I turn onto my street. Laura follows me.

Maybe I should just ask her where she's going. But that would sound rude. Maybe I should just...

“Hey, do you want to come in and have something to eat?”

We're at my gate. Laura turns to me, nods and grins. She holds the gate open for me.

“What are we having?”

I close the door. “I have no idea. We'll see what there is.”

I hardly ever cook for other people. Never, actually. I just cook for myself. If Dennis is home, he cooks for himself, too, and takes it down to his room in the basement.

I look in the refrigerator. Hmmm. It's going to be tough.

“Is there anything you don't like?”

“Oh, I eat practically everything. Not crazy about offal. Or mushrooms. But that's about it.”

Good. I cut up peppers and eggplant and zucchini, put water on to boil, open a can of tomatoes. Then I brown the vegetables.

“Do you like garlic?”

She nods. Good. Okay, garlic. The water's boiling.

“Rice or pasta?”

“Pasta.” Right answer. What is she doing?

“Can I help?”

“No, it's okay. Do you want something to drink?”

“Can I have some water?”

Bottle, glass. And then we wait. The sauce simmers. The noodles are cooking. I stand there and stir them.

I hear the front door open.

It's my brother, Dennis. He doesn't say much. He's eighteen and he has his driver's license, but no car. Some of his friends do, though. He hangs out mostly with them.

And he lives in the basement. We don't have much in common. When I was little, he had to look after me a lot of the time, even though he wasn't that much older. Suse thinks he's cute, even though he doesn't have a car.

“Hi,” he says. “Everything okay?”

I nod. Then he sees Laura.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Dennis stands there and looks at Laura, then at me. Then he goes to the fridge, takes out ham and cheese.

“Can I have some of those noodles?”

“Sure.” I stir away like an idiot, while Dennis grates cheese and cuts up the ham. I drain the noodles and give him some.

“Is that enough?” Now go. Please.

“Yes. Thanks.” Then he dumps everything in a pan and goes downstairs.

I put two plates on the table. Another glass for me. The noodles and the sauce. And then we eat.

Afterwards I wash up and Laura dries. And stays.

“Is it okay if I smoke?” I get the ashtray from the living room.

“So where is your room?” she says then.

“Upstairs.”

We can hear Dennis's music humming from the basement beneath our feet.

8

It's funny seeing Laura in my room for the first time. The way she takes everything in — the books, the CDs and cassettes, my pictures and photos on the wall, the view from my window. The way she sits in my chair with a pillow in her arms and looks at me — looks at me in a way that makes me feel like a stranger in my own room, like it's really her room.

“Tell me about yourself,” she says.

“Like what?”

“Anything.” She pulls up her leg and hugs her knee.

“There's nothing to tell.”

“Are you in love?”

What? What business is that of hers?

“No.” I'm standing somewhere in the middle of my room and I don't know what to do. I look at Laura, then away, pull a few leaves off my fig tree. They're yellow. I should water it more often.

“So, have you ever been in love?” she asks.

There are a couple of leaves lying on the floor. I
pick them up and throw them in the wastebasket.

“Have you ever been in love?” she says again.

“I don't know.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don't, that's why.” So there. But I should be nicer, so I turn and smile at her.

“But you'd know if you were in love,” she says.

“Okay, then, I haven't.” I go to the bookshelf to get another CD. Laura is looking out the window. “What about you?” I ask.

“I think so, yes.”

I reach for a CD. PJ Harvey,
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
.

“But you're not sure?”

“Who knows?” She grins.

PJ Harvey. Polly Jean. It's a nice name.

“Laura's a nice name,” I say.

“Miriam's a nice name.”

“Miriam is a boring name.” I put in the CD.

“What do people call you, then?”

“Who?” My CD player always takes a while to find the song.

“Everyone.”

“Miriam.”

“Really? Not Miri?”

“Miri is dumb. What do people call you?”

“Laura. Lala. Mostly Laura.” She looks at me again. “And you...”

“What about me?”

I press Stop, Play, but I can tell from the whirring sound that it's going to take awhile, that the machine isn't finding the song.

“You're a Mi, a Mimi.”

“Mimi sounds like a senile old woman.”

“And Mi?”

Mi? Sounds funny.

“I don't know. Like what?”

She thinks about it, then she says, “Hello, Mi. How was school, Mi? Look what Mi's done! Mi's looking pretty good today.” She stands up, takes the CD case and looks at the photos in the insert. “So, how does that sound?”

I don't say anything.

“So, Mi, how does that sound?”

“It sounds... nice,” I say.

“Anything can sound nice. How does it sound to
you
, Mi.”

“Strange.”

“Strange isn't bad,” she says, as she starts singing along with the words.

9

When I look in the mirror, this is what I see.

Miriam. Brown eyes. Weird blonde hair. Not long, not short. Average weight. Not skinny, but not fat, either. And...I don't know. My face — nose, mouth, eyes, and ears, of course.

This is what I like about myself:

- my eyes are okay

- I don't have acne

- I have a small nose

What I don't like about myself:

- I have thin lips and a wide mouth

- no acne, but I do have a few pimples

- these bloody fingernails, the kind that keep splitting and breaking — it sucks

- fat stomach, fat thighs, flabby underarms

- ugly feet, but then, so are everybody's

- big ears that stick out

- then there's this big red blotch that I get on my left cheek; don't know why, it's stupid

- my teeth aren't very white

***

I've never been to the Austerhaus, the bar in the city. Suse and Ines have never been, either. Dennis goes sometimes, though.

It must be pretty good. Good music. No dress code, so I can just wear my sneakers and T-shirt and jeans.

Check the mirror again. I look like I'm dressed for school. Not for a Saturday night.

Okay, then. Tank top. Bangles. A little mousse in my hair. God, my hair looks like shit. Tuck it behind my ears? Okay.

Now what about my face? Black eyeliner. Try lipstick. Wipe it off again.

Sit in front of the television. Am I starting to sweat? Maybe? Deodorant. And maybe some...No, just deo.

On Saturdays there's nothing but crap on TV.

And now here comes Mum.

“Are you going out?”

I nod.

“Where?”

“Dancing.”

“Who with?”

“Laura.”

“How are you getting there?”

“With friends.”

“Are they driving you home, too?”

I nod. We're watching MTV.

“Do you have to watch this shit all the time?” she says

“I just turned it on.”

“Whenever I come in here, you're watching MTV. Do you have any idea how irritating it is?”

I say nothing. It's a new Madonna video. Madonna's always good.

“Always these videos. This one's already been on three times today.”

“It's the first time I've seen it.”

She's huffing behind me, but I don't look back.

“Besides, there's nothing else on right now,” I say.

She sits down, takes the TV guide and starts flipping through it wildly. Grabs the remote, starts clicking channels.

Oh, goody. Rosamunde Pilcher. On a Saturday night.

“You're not serious, are you?” I say. Now she says nothing. “Hello?”

“If you don't like it, you can go up to your room.”

I look at my watch and head upstairs as she settles back in her chair to watch.

***

Laura rings the bell. There's a car waiting in the street.

“They'll drive us,” she says. I don't ask who they are or where she found the ride. “Ready to go?”

“Yes.”

As we walk out to the car, she gives me a nudge. “You look good.”

“Thanks.” We get in. The music is so loud that I don't
have to talk. That's good. When we get to the city they let us out and keep driving.

The lineup is long. Behind me this girl is talking about how she's planning to run for student council. Another comes up to her and talks about the social injustice of the last electoral term. We inch our way forward. Some guy is talking about the ethics of feedlot agribusiness. And the price of a case of beer. Laura grins at me behind his back and gives me a drink out of her can.

Before we go in, we finish the beer and set the can down beside the wall. The bouncer looks at me, looks through my bag, waves me in.

“There, you see?” says Laura. “I told you. It's way too early for them to ask for ID.” We walk through the rooms of the old warehouse with its high ceilings and metal scaffolding. Iron doors. Posters for concerts. Bistro tables.

“I have to pee,” I say. I go to the white-tiled wash-room. Have a pee, wash my hands. I see this face in the mirror.

On one side of me another girl is washing her hands. On the other side someone is doing her eye makeup. She gives me a short, blank look. I wonder what she's thinking.

I know what she's thinking. And I know what the other girl is thinking, too. I look at myself in the mirror and I know they can both tell how long I stood in front of my closet, how long I spent doing my makeup.

And through all of this, I can still see myself. I can still see me.

Laura's waiting outside the washroom. I stand beside her against the wall, sink down until I'm sitting on the floor.

“What's the matter?” she says.

“Nothing.”

“Then smile!”

The eye-makeup girl comes out of the washroom and looks down at me. Her eyes are black.

“I don't belong here, Laura.”

“Why not?” she asks.

“Because I don't fit in. Look around. I'm just fifteen...”

“But you don't look fifteen right now, you dummy.”

“Yes, but that's what I am and I know it. It doesn't matter if the bouncer lets me in because he thinks I'm eighteen. I know I'm not.”

“So why is that a problem? I'm not eighteen either.”

“But you're different.”

For a minute Laura looks as though she's going to say something. Then she slides down the wall to sit beside me.

“God, Miriam, nothing can ever be right with you, can it?”

“What do you mean?”

“There's always got to be something wrong. I mean, here you are, but you're not happy, the bouncer thinks you're eighteen, and you're mad because you're not. What is it you want, then, Miriam?”

“I don't know.” I shrug and watch the people on the dance floor.

“Okay, tonight I'm going to be your fairy godmother,” she says.

“You're drunk,” I laugh.

But she grabs my wrist and looks into my eyes.

“No, really. Today I'm your fairy godmother. Today you can make a wish, and it will come true.”

“Oh, yeah? Okay. I'll make a wish and you'll grant it.”

Laura nods.

“I want to have a good time tonight.”

“And how will that happen?”

Laura is still holding tightly onto my wrist. It actually hurts a bit.

“I'll drink and dance, and the music will be good. And I'll kiss someone and fall in love a bit. And I won't throw up.”

Laura looks at me with her big green eyes all serious, and doesn't say anything. Then she kisses me on the cheek.

“Your wish is my command.” She doesn't let go of me. Laura is quite short, even a bit shorter than I am, but she pushes her way through the crowd like a bouncer and drags me to the bar. We find a couple of spots right at the bar and she waves the bartender over.