Starfish Sisters (10 page)

Because it was a Friday night, Carla organised for us to
go to a sushi train for dinner. Boy, would it be good
getting out of camp and back around people. Not that
the people out and about at 5.45 pm were going to be
that interesting. Still, there was always the chance of
the odd cute one having dinner with his family.

Of course, after yesterday, Kia and Natasha asked
me to French braid their hair. Then Natasha fully got
stuck into my make-up and used almost half of my
foundation.

Just as I was in the middle of smuggling my phone
into the loo, to check if Tim had left me a message, like
maybe a 'sorry', Tahlia popped in to our bungalow to
see if I could braid her hair too.

Tahlia's hair was like steel wool. Now I was sure I
had splinters in my fingertips.

But it was a distraction and that's what I needed.
Inside, I knew there'd be no message from Tim. I was
scared that if I stopped to think about that I'd crumble
into a thousand pieces and wouldn't be able to put
myself together again.

*

'How come we're going to this restaurant so early?' Kia
grumbled as we piled into the minibus.

The sound of her voice was really starting to get up
my nose. She was negative about everything.

'Hunter Stevenson is talking to us tonight,' Micki
said. 'I think that's why they made dinner early.'

'Aren't you hungry?' Georgie asked Kia.

But Kia, who I had decided acted a thousand years
younger than Micki, didn't answer because she was
still ignoring her. Georgie shrugged at me and went
back to looking out the window.

'Anyway, who is Hunter Stevenson when he's at
home?' Georgie asked.

Suddenly Kia decided to speak to her. 'You don't
know who Hunter Stevenson is!' This was the first
thing Kia had said, or rather spat, to Georgie in almost
two days. 'He's a sports motivator. A total guru. He's
worked with Layne Beachley, Nicola Atherton –'

'Chelsea Hedges,' Micki added.

'Heaps and heaps,' Kia had the last word. 'I can't
believe you haven't heard of him.'

'Okay, okay, forgive me,' Georgie muttered. 'I do
have other things in my life besides surfing.'

'Yeah, like what?' Kia mumbled back.

I was going to look like a complete loser, walking into
the restaurant in one long conga line. No thank you. I
was not going to do that to myself.

'I'm going to the bathroom,' I told Micki.

At least then I would avoid being seated with
everyone. Plus, I'd only had three seconds to put on my
foundation after Natasha had hogged it and I hadn't
checked if it was streaky. The way I looked in public was
very important. It was almost part of the job.

My foundation was flawless. So I put some more lip
gloss on, gave my hair a bit of a tease and counted to
fifty. Then I walked out of the bathroom and crashed,
like almost redid my shoulder injury crashed, into one
of the hottest-looking guys I had ever seen in my whole
entire life.

'Whoa, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' he said, holding on to
my arm to stop me from falling to the ground. 'Are you
okay? I'm so sorry.'

I wasn't okay. I was far from okay. My legs were like
jelly and I felt like I was about to melt into the floor.
This guy had an accent!

'Are you all right?' he asked me again.

'Yeah, yeah.'

'That bathroom door is dangerous.'

'Hmm.'

'Well, I'm glad you're okay,' he said, smiling, and
walked into the men's loo.

I ducked into the end seat next to Georgie. 'Retouched
your lip gloss, hey? Careful with the sushi or it'll slip
right off and into your lap.'

'Shut up, Georgie.' I tried to calm my voice but I
wasn't very successful. 'I have' – I took a deep breath –
'just met the hottest, like the absolute hottest guy you
have ever, I mean ever, ever seen.'

'Well, it's a shame you're taken.'

Another gasp escaped through my mouth.

'Is he here in the restaurant?' Georgie mumbled
through a mouthful.

Directly opposite us, on the other side of the sushi
bar, Mr To Die For was taking a seat next to a woman
who could not have been his girlfriend unless he had
some older-woman sickness like Ashton Kutcher.

'Ohhhh, I see.' Georgie went to point her chopsticks.

'Don't!' I whispered through a closed mouth. 'You're
making it obvious.'

'He is hot. Very, very hot.'

I stared into my miso soup wondering how I was
going to deal with this sticky situation.

'Courtney McFarlane,' Georgie sang. 'He's looking
at you.'

I looked up, pretending I was studying the sushi
train selection. He gave me a little wave. I waved back.

'Ace, you are almost married.'

'So?'

'So you're not meant to wave back.'

'Oh my God, he's coming over. Is my foundation
streaky?' I gulped.

My heart started going crazy. Suddenly I wished
I'd – oh, I didn't know what I wished for! 'Georgie,
promise you won't mention I have a boyfriend.
Nothing's going to happen. It's just some fun.'

A guy who looks like that just didn't get to walk
around an entire sushi bar without being noticed. So by
the time he got to where I was sitting every one of the
girls had seen him. Megan whistled. Typical.

'Hey.' He crouched down next to me. Georgie
elbowed me in the ribs. Why did I have to be in this big
embarrassing group? I could feel every eye of every
female watching me and could almost hear them hissing.

'I thought I better come and say hello, check you're
in one piece.' He grinned. My pulse went up by one
hundred. 'I'm Jules, by the way.'

'I'm Courtney.' Now the question I had to ask.
'Where's your . . . accent from?'

'Canada. I'm here on an exchange program.'

'Oh wow.'

'She's taken!' Megan suddenly shouted. 'Come and
talk to me!'

The girls were hysterical now. Georgie did one
of her huge trumpeting snorts that cracked everyone
up even more. Jules was smiling and having a laugh
too.

'These are your friends?'

'Sort of.' I was dying a slow and painful death.
'We're all on a surf camp. I think they're a bit excited
about being let out for the night. We've been locked up
for a week.'

'Does that mean I can't ask you out?'

'Um, no.'

'No, I didn't mean that,' Jules whispered. 'I meant,
are you taken?'

Three seconds was possibly all I had before Georgie
looked at me. I tapped my leg against Jules's and on my
knee I traced the letters 'N–O' then made a little sshhh
signal with my lips.

'Okay,' he mouthed and winked. Then he got up
and went back to his seat.

Little dishes of sushi that Georgie had saved for me
were lined up in a row. But I didn't have the stomach
for food. Now, I wasn't sure if it was because of Tim
or Jules.

Saturday was a sleep-in but I was up and down at the
beach by seven am.

There was no text from Tim when we got back from
the restaurant and still nothing after we returned from
Hunter Stevenson's lecture on 'being the best'.

'Good morning.' It was a guy's voice but with the
wrong accent. 'This is the first morning you've been
out here early.'

'I feel like a bit of a beach run this morning,' I told
Jake. 'I totally pigged out last night.'

'Are we talking about the food or the Canadian?' I
swear Jake was looking me up and down. 'Find a girl
your own age,' I felt like saying.

'Funny joke,' I said and took off down the beach.

It was true, I did need a run. A run might clear my head
of all the thoughts that were spinning out of control.
Should I have told the truth, and now I hadn't was it
too late to?

I'd managed to come up with an excuse for why
Tim's texts had suddenly stopped. But how much
longer could I keep it going?

A few times I had gone to tell Georgie but Kia or
Micki always seemed to turn up and now too much
time, too many lies had escaped. Would they hate me
if they found out that Tim had dumped me? Or would
they hate me more if they thought Tim and I were still
together and I was cheating with Jules?

I couldn't believe I had got myself into this situation.
This sort of thing didn't happen to me.

And was I even going to see Jules again? I didn't get
to finish telling him where the camp was, and how
would he know where to find me? He was from
Canada! But he'd only have to ask one person and
they'd tell him.

Every guy with brown hair who ran past was Jules
until I got up close and saw he was too short or his nose
was too big or he was lacking perfect sparkling blue
eyes.

Maybe Jules believed Megan. Maybe he thought I
was taken. Maybe he thought I was really sly and
dishonest because I didn't actually say out loud that I
didn't have a boyfriend like I had something to hide.
But that was the problem. I did have something to
hide.

Micki was reading Saturday's timetable.

'What's on after breakfast?' I asked.

'It says, "surf session-drill specific plus video",
whatever that means.'

'Then what?'

'Um, a pool-gym session, free time . . .'

Free time! Free time, that's what I wanted to hear.

'. . . eleven-thirty am.' Micki was still reading. 'Then
lunch; Hunter Stevenson sports psychology evaluation;
surf expression session –'

'How long is free time?'

'An hour. Eleven-thirty am till twelve-thirty pm.'

One hour to search the beach, maybe even try to get
up to the shops. There was the lagoon too, but he
didn't seem like the type who went fishing.

'You were up early this morning.' Georgie came up
behind me.

'There was absolutely no surf so I went for a run.'

'Jake told me it'll pick up with the tide this afternoon,'
Micki said as we followed her into the dining
room. 'That's when our expression session is. Do you
think they score us on that too?'

Georgie and I shrugged. That was the furthest
thought in my head.

'Ace?' Georgie whispered, letting Micki go ahead in
the queue. 'There's free time at eleven-thirty am. I
reckon we should see if we can talk to Carla then about
the parade.'

How could I tell Georgie I had other plans for that
hour – like Jules detection. What a shame you couldn't
hire a machine, like a metal detector that you could
program to find 'hot Canadian guy, answers to the
name Jules'.

'I was going to have a lie down,' I lied. 'I feel like I'm
getting my period. I've been getting the worst cramps
all morning.'

'You shouldn't have gone for a run, you idiot.'

'Oh, they started after that.' I swallowed. 'I probably
pushed it too hard.'

'Don't flush your tampons down the toilet,' Georgie
told me. 'Apparently one of the Seahorse girls has
already blocked the system.'

'Don't worry, I'll try to have better hygiene habits
than Kia.'

'Hey?'

'Kia is disgusting with her periods. I knocked the lid
off the bin and she'd left this bloody, disgusting . . .'

Georgie stopped suddenly. I almost tripped on her
heels. 'Kia doesn't have her periods!'

'But she must.'

'She doesn't.' Georgie frowned. 'She'd tell me. I'm
her best friend.'

'She must've got them here at camp.'

'That's why she's been so weird.' Georgie put her
second piece of bread back in the basket. 'I feel awful
now.'

'You weren't to know.'

'Okay, don't worry about us speaking to Carla
today,' said Georgie. 'I'll spend that free time with Kia.
We're obviously due for a D and M.'

'Absolutely,' I encouraged.

Hello Jules!

All morning I tried to catch Kia's attention so I could
give her a smile but she was looking everywhere except
at me. It felt stupid seeing we were virtually sleeping in
the same bed. But my oldies could go for days without
talking to each other and they slept together.

At eleven-thirty I saw Kia heading back to the
bungalow.

I told Ace to tell Micki not to go up there. But Ace
was acting so vague and giggly that I wasn't sure she
took any of it in.

Kia was sitting on the bed. It almost looked like she was
hugging her wetsuit.

'Hey?' I waved at the door.

Kia stood up and started walking to the bathroom.

'Kia?'

'What?'

'Can I talk to you for a sec?'

'I'm about to go for a surf.' She stood at the entrance
to the loo, rocking back and forth on the soles of her
feet. 'So make it quick.'

'I need to ask you something.'

Kia leaned into the doorway doing her best at
looking bored.

I knew launching straight in with the big question
was not the way to do things with her. I'd had enough
practice.

'I thought I'd finish writing up the bikini prices,' I
started. 'You probably need to check them 'cause I can't
remember how much a metre that red lycra was.'

'Eight dollars,' Kia answered like a robot.

'Oh?'

Kia was giving me a stare that said, 'You are the
greatest waste of space on this planet.'

'Anything else?' she muttered.

'Kia?' I folded my arms and came straight out with
it. 'Did you, did you get your periods?'

'What?'

'Did you get your periods?'

'No!' Kia's face had suddenly gone from bored to
very alive. 'Why are you asking me that?'

'Ace said that she –'

'Ace?' Kia walked back into the room and tossed
her wetsuit on the bed. 'So you and Ace have been
discussing how I'm about the only girl in our year who
hasn't got them. Nice one, Georgie. What else have you
been telling her about me?'

'Nothing!' My hands landed on my hips. 'You didn't
seem to have a problem discussing with Ace how I was
the only one out of our friends who hadn't properly
hooked up.'

'You were there when we had that conversation,
Georgie. That's different.'

'You're being paranoid.'

'I am not! You've been so up yourself since you've
been here.' Kia was rocking hard now. Her face was
stretched and her words seemed to be spitting through
teeth that were jammed together. 'I know you've been
avoiding me. Strutting around thinking you're the best
thing ever 'cause you're hanging out with Tim Parker's
girlfriend. Next you'll be thinking she's going to hook
you up with Chad Parsons.'

I almost jerked at the dirty shot she had fired.

'Your head's still fat from getting that eight-point-five
score,' Kia hissed. 'Well, I'll tell you what, Georgie,
a few of the girls have been wondering what the hell
you're doing here. Ace being one of them. They gave
you that award the other day 'cause they thought it
might boost your confidence.'

'They did not!'

'Oh, really. You're that sure of yourself now, are
you?' Kia pulled her cheeks into an ugly smile. 'Well,
how come Carla told me?'

'That is a total lie!'

'So you're accusing me of being a liar?'

'You lied about how Micki's mother died,' I told her.
'Ace knows that too. She was there when Micki told us
how her mother really died – breast cancer.'

'She fell off a verandah. I remember.'

'Well, she didn't die that way!'

'So.'

'So, you've been so mean to Micki.' My voice was
trembling almost as much as my knees. Just behind my
eyes I could feel hot tears ready and waiting to spring
forth. 'I've seen a side to you I've never seen before,
Kia.'

'I don't owe Micki anything!'

'I didn't say you did!' I shouted back. 'But she's
young and she's a long way from home. Her dad's
sick.'

'He's not sick,' Kia spat back. 'He's just a dole
bludger!'

'What is up with you?' I took a step towards her. Kia
took a step back. 'I came up here to see if you were
okay; to, to try and make up with you. But you don't
want to make up with me.'

'You didn't come up here to make up with me.' Kia
was pushing our beds to opposite sides of the room.
'You came up here being Miss Nosey. Asking me if I'd
got my periods.'

'Well, sorry!' I yelled. 'Ace said there was blood in the
garbage bin. So what was I to think? Hey?'

'I cut my heel shaving my legs.' Kia picked up her
wetsuit and hugged it around her body. 'Stay away
from me, Georgie. Unlike you, I'm here to focus on the
camp.'

Kia slammed the door so hard I almost expected the
roof to cave in.

Hot tears exploded. Big, fat pellets of salt water
bounced all over my face. Here was I feeling bad and
ready to make up with Kia when she had no intention
of making up with me.

I sat down on my bed, held my pillow to my chest
and sobbed. Ace wouldn't have said that I didn't
deserve to be here. The award I got was fair. I carved it
up that day and everybody knew it. They were just
jealous 'cause I had other things in my life besides
surfing. As if they would've given me an award to
boost my confidence. As if!

'Georgie?' Ace knelt by the bed. 'Georgie? What's
happened? What's wrong? What's your bed doing over
here?'

'Kia and I just had the most massive fight,' I blubbered.
'We have had some bad fights. But this one was
the worst ever.'

'Did she tell you about her periods?'

'She cut her heel.' I hiccuped. 'That's where the
blood was from.'

'Oh no,' Ace sighed. 'That was my fault.'

'Ace?' I peered down at Ace. She was wearing a
green scarf in her hair. She looked so pretty and I must
have looked so red and blotchy and ugly. Still, I was
going to ask her this: 'Ace, did you tell Kia that I didn't
deserve to be here?'

'No! Never!' Ace said. 'Remember I told you how I
was nervous about being here with you 'cause I'd
heard so many good things about you.'

'So you didn't say that?'

'No.'

'The lies Kia tells. They make everything so . . .
dirty.' I caught my hands wiping my arms, as if they
could physically rub away the yuckiness that clung to
me. 'Do you ever feel like that?'

'Yes.'

'Promise you won't lie to me?'

'Promise.' Ace climbed up on the bed next to me.
'Okay, um, here are two things.'

'Two what?'

'Two lies I need to get off my chest. The first one's
tiny.' Ace pinched her fingers together. 'It's not really a
proper lie. The other one is. It's a bad lie. But it's only
bad to me.'

I shrugged. 'Tell us.'

'One,' Ace began. 'I never said to Kia that you didn't
deserve to be here but I did try and pump info out of
her about what you were like. And the first time I saw
you surf I thought you were crap.'

'That's because I was.'

'And the second thing is –'

'That's not the second thing?'

'No,' Ace said. 'The second lie is that' – Ace's face
was screwed up into a ball of creases – 'Tim dumped
me.'

'What!' I gasped. I had not seen that coming.
'When?'

'The day we had the soccer game.'

'Is that why you've been crying?' I asked. 'Oh Ace,
you should've told me. I'm so sorry. Poor baby. You
must feel horrible.'

'Yes and no.' A tiny smile crept onto her face.
'There's actually a third thing.'

'A third lie!' I spluttered. 'What?'

'It's not a lie.' The smile on Ace's face was growing.
'I just haven't told you.'

'Out with it.'

'I just bumped into Jules down at the far end of the
beach.'

I actually felt my jaw drop. I tried to force some
sound out but I think I had just overdosed on one too
many shocks.

'I was looking for him and he was looking for me.
Can you believe it? He's so nice, Georgie.' Ace was
shaking my arm, almost dislocating it from my
shoulder. 'He's one year and two days older than me.
Can you believe that? Our birthdays are three days
apart.'

'Hang on. Hang on,' I said. 'My head is spinning. I'm
still trying to process that Tim dropped you, let alone
Jules.'

I was trying to grasp the where, when and how. It
was like we were on a different planet at this camp.
Interaction with non-surf-camp people didn't seem
humanly possible.

'Did Tim dump you by text?'

'Yes!' Ace thumped her fist on the mattress.

'Bastard!' we said together.

'He dropped you, then left for Indonesia. Nice one.'

'Well, actually, he hasn't gone yet.' Ace cringed.
'Sorry. That was a little white lie. I just said that to get
Kia off my back. The way she's always snooping
around my phone drives me crazy.'

'How come he dumped you?'

'He said I was too young for him.' Ace didn't speak
for a while. I wondered if there was something else she
wanted to tell me. 'It took him nine months to figure
that out' was all she finally said.

'You don't seem that upset about it. Now, I mean,' I
said. 'I'm kind of surprised. I thought you'd be devastated.'

'Jules.' Ace threw her arms in the air. 'He's so divine.'

'You hardly know him.'

'So?'

'Are you going to tell anyone about Tim and –'

'No.'

Again Ace had that look as if there was something
lingering on the tip of her tongue.

'What is it, Ace?'

'Do you think people will still, you know' – she
shrugged – 'like me if I'm not Tim Parker's girlfriend?'

Now I remembered she had asked me something
like this the day we played soccer. I never thought I'd
feel sorry for a girl like Ace. They were the ones you
thought had the perfect lives. No insecurities, no
worries.

'If you lose friends because you're not going out
with Tim anymore then what sort of friends were they
in the first place?'

'But what about here?' Ace was biting her lip. 'I
don't mean you. I mean the others.'

'Too bad what they think.'

'Yeah, you're right. But I'm not ready to say anything
yet.'

'So you're going to see Jules again.'

'Are you kidding?' She laughed. 'Try and stop me.
Would you believe he lives about five minutes away
from here?'

'You're not going to sneak over to his place, are you?
Ace, you will be so busted if you get caught. Do you
really think it's worth it?'

'Yes!'

'You're making me nervous.'

'Don't worry. I'll be careful.' Ace squeezed my hand.
'I won't even tell you when I'm going. Then you won't
have to worry about it.'

'But when could you, anyway?'

'Free time,' Ace said. 'At night.'

'Just say he's a serial killer!'

'He's not.'

'Just say he's one of those guys you were telling us
about. The ones who collect your bikini posters!'

'He's not,' Ace laughed. 'He's never seen me before.
He doesn't know I'm a model. He's only been in
Australia one week.'

'Well, if you sneak out at night, I think you should
tell me,' I said. 'Just in case you don't come back.'

Ace was really laughing now. Laughing like I hadn't
seen her laugh before. It was almost like her face was
sparkling.

The lunch bell rang, reminding me of the brick in
my stomach that I had temporarily forgotten about.

'Oh no,' I groaned. 'What am I going to do when I
see Kia? I don't feel like facing her.'

'I'll stick with you. Don't worry about her. She just
likes the drama. My friends and I used to have fights all
the time. You grow out of it,' Ace said. 'Now smile!' And
she took a photo of us with her phone.