The Wrong Girl (2 page)

It was
good
, Lily admitted to herself. The sex was good. She grinned and allowed a small mist of gold dust to fall over the moment:
she and Pete had done it.
After years of being genuinely, strictly platonic, almost like brother and sister, they had done it, and it had
actually been good.
Although Nick from last summer – Mr-Slap-Your-Arse-Grab-Your-Ankles-Slide-You-Down-And-Flip-You-Over – had really set the bar quite high, she mused. God, was that her last time? It was. How disgraceful. She was a few months shy of wearing a nun's habit. She shook her head and steered her mind back to Pete, who had excused himself to the bathroom after his somewhat theatrical finale.

She pulled the sheet up over her body. Actually, she wanted her bra and undies back on; she couldn't be all nude and stuff in bed with Pete! No, no, no, too weird. She scrambled around on the floor in the dark, trying to locate two small, stringy items that had been removed with very little care for their whereabouts. She found her bra and jammed it on as she heard the toilet flush, but no knickers. Fuck! Her fingers located her shorts under the bed and she pulled them on instead, just as Pete came back into the room.

‘You can't do the post-shag dash. This is
your
house, remember.'

She fell back onto the bed, her shorts undone but at least in the right general area.

‘What are you doing? Come on, back into bed with you. I'll feel used otherwise.‘

Lily laughed, doing as she was told.

Pete kissed her shoulder softly then wrapped an arm around it. ‘You smell good, like caramel.'

‘It's my natural scent. My feet smell of fairy floss,' Lily said, smiling, relishing the human contact. Being cuddled by Pete felt oddly familiar. She tried not to let her mind race away with visions of them doing this frequently.

‘Feel better now?'

‘As in having had sex with you, or having some clothes on?'

Pete laughed. ‘It was always going to happen. You knew it; I knew it.'

Lily frowned. That wasn't what you were supposed to say when you'd finally had sex with your best friend, was it? Or was it exactly what you said and she was being too sensitive? You're
supposed
to tell them how you've been thinking about it for centuries, and now unicorns are dancing and angels are singing and everything has fallen into place . . . right? She was beginning to wig out over this, she realised. Sex always made her wig out. But she'd definitely imagined the post-sex mood between them – if it were to ever happen – would be a little more . . . 
something
.

Pete threw a casual arm over Lily's chest and turned to face her. ‘Oi. You cool? What's happening up there?' He tapped the side of her head.

‘Yeah, yeah, course, just, it's, well, I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact you're cuddling me in your undies, I s'pose.' She laughed lightly, insincerely, but he didn't seem to notice.

‘All that's missing are the cigarettes.'

She suddenly felt like he was a little too confident, a little too used to this situation. It irked her. She felt a surge of territorialism and insecurity. He noticed.

His voice softened. ‘You know, I wouldn't have guessed you were such a goer in bed.'

She flushed and cleared her throat.

‘But you've always had a hot little bod.'

‘
Jesus.
Gross. Would you stop it?'

He sighed and rolled onto his back.

Lily propped herself up on one elbow so she could look at him properly, even though the moonlight coming into the room barely illuminated enough to distinguish a nipple from an elbow. She waited, allowing him conversational space to go on.

‘So, I met a good one, Lil,' he said, suddenly. ‘Her name's Lou. We met at a gig just before Christmas. She's
really
cool, so self-contained and creative and funny . . . She has this short red hair and a
mountain
of tatts, which are two things I never rated on girls, but there you go . . .'

Lily tried to calm her explosive heart with a deep breath.

He went on, his voice tinged with adoration and wonder. ‘With her it's just so
easy,
you know? I can be myself, and we have so much fun together, there's none of the jealousy bullshit I had to put up with with Karen . . . She manages The Wolves, too, has done since the beginning, and now that they're big in the US, she . . .'

But Lily had stopped listening. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was arid. Surely this wasn't happening. Surely Lily's close friend and extremely recent sexual partner had more tact than to ramble on like a lovesick teenager about some girl he's fallen for ten minutes after HAVING SEX WITH HER.

‘Wow. She sounds super.' Her voice was equal parts sarcasm and venom.

‘It's only early days and, y'know, Kaz and I only split a few months back and I'm still dealing with some shit from that, obviously, and I need to be single for a bit probably, but it could really turn into something, Lil . . .'

Pete had missed the substantial bitterness in Lily's voice and was now observably, unashamedly daydreaming about this Lou idiot. Lily felt something brewing within her that she had not felt for some time, probably since The Mechanic, who so thoroughly messed with her that she'd seriously considered ditching men altogether, and becoming a trendy lesbian with a cool deck of cards tattoo on her neck. It was fury. Pure, industrial-grade fury.

‘Get out.'

‘No, really, I mean it . . . She's pretty awesome, Lil.'

Lily swivelled out of bed and stood up, her arms crossed. She looked down at the black lump that was Pete.

‘I mean get out of my house.'

‘What, why? Lil, what's going on?'

‘Are you SERIOUS, Pete? We just had sex. You and me, after being friends for, what, three years? That's a
big thing for me,
Pete. And then, as you cuddle me, in my own bed, you tell me in great detail that you think you might have fallen in love with another girl. Another girl whom for all I know you were sleeping with less than twenty-four hours ago. I know you're a pig, that you screw your way around this city like it's your profession, but to do that to
me
?
Unbelievable,
' she hissed, grabbing her favourite grey hoodie from the top of her laundry basket.

‘Where'd all this come from?' He sounded genuinely baffled, which pissed Lily off even more. ‘We're just fooling around. I didn't realise you were into me like
that.'

‘Oh, don't
flatter
yourself,' she mocked, mustering up every ounce of disgust she possessed. ‘It's basic human decency, Pete.' And she stomped out of the bedroom and down the stairs.

Once in the kitchen, she leaned on the bench to steady herself. She was shaking and the tears were pooling dangerously in her eyes.
Pete,
of all men. She thought he might actually have been one of the Good Ones. But no, just another pig.

Footsteps descended the stairs so she quickly turned her back to him and put the kettle on. She needed a cup of tea quite desperately. And a shot of vodka.

She heard him putting his boots on and collecting his keys and (empty) wallet, and then walk towards her. Her skin prickled, knowing he was nearby.

‘Can we just talk about this for a sec? I don't understand why you're flipping out.'

Quiet.

‘Look, I'm sorry you're pissed off. I'm – I still don't know what I did, but I'm sorry.' He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder and she whirled around savagely, shaking it off as she turned.

‘What happened just then is that you slept with me, and then told me you were in love with another person. And then expected me to workshop that with you! If you can't see what might be upsetting to me about that, then you are an even bigger piece of shit than I initially thought. I don't want you as a boyfriend, Pete. I don't need to even explain that, surely, but I'm not just some girl you fuck and then leave behind while you go back to your girlfriend.' She angrily resumed the very important task of water-boiling management.

‘I thought it was just a bit of fun!' His voice was distressed, urgent. ‘I had no idea you – you never told me you felt that wa—'

‘
I don't feel this way!
I just don't treat sex as something as nothingy as you do! Now can you just go?'

He waited a few moments before turning and walking out the door. When Lily heard it close, she gulped back tears. Not only were all men DEFINITELY scum, but she had just lost one of her mates, too. What a terrific fucking start to the fucking year.

Lily woke up and stared at her ceiling. Instantly, things felt wrong. Physically, emotionally, everythingly. For starters, it was about 900 degrees in her sauna of a bedroom, which would be ideal if she were small pieces of marinated lamb, but instead she was a sad, hungover little human. Her brain was haggling desperately with other organs to get some water in order to function, but there was none to donate. Her stomach felt queasy and vulnerable, like it might need to spend a bit of time launching things up and into a toilet. Lily rolled over and smushed her face into the pillow. She smelled the faint trace of Pete's aftershave lurched and up onto her knees as if stung by a bee. The insistent pounding in her head was titanic, but she could not spend a second longer in sheets that had enabled sexual relations with Pete ‘The Dog' Barnett.

She leaped off the bed, and as she did so, her left foot got tangled in the sheet. She hopped once, twice, desperate to stay upright, grabbing her wobbly, too-light wicker washing basket to steady herself, which of course leaned and fell, and they both came crashing down, Lily smacking her shoulder hard on the corner of her tallboy as she did.

‘FUCKING FUCK FUCKSHITFUCK!' she screamed. She kicked the sheet once, twice, but it was now even more twisted around her foot. She gave up, and the tears flowed in streams down her cheeks. She was in huge amounts of unfair pain, she was embarrassed; she was officially the biggest loser in Sydney.

As she lay on the floor, rubbing a shoulder that would soon be adorned with a walloping bruise, sniffing and holding back tears, she wondered how she had arrived at this point. On the ground in her shorts, crying. Her mind flitted between self-wallowing and self-righteousness; she was within her rights to be pissed off:
he
kissed
her
! He started it! What a prick. She wondered if they would be able to be friends after this. She sat up and slowly untangled her foot, cursing at the sheet as she did so. She inspected the large red mark on her shoulder, shaking her head and wondering whether this was an icepack-type injury or a heatpack one. She never knew stuff like that. She needed Simone, who
always
knew stuff like that.

She turned her phone on and it immediately chimed with a text.

He'd sent that at one-thirty a.m., an hour after she kicked him out. Huh.

That one was at two-thirty. She had no idea if he was lying about staying that long. It was definitely something he'd do for points, make a dramatic and apologetic gesture, or at least pretend he did. Maybe she should just call him. They were adults, grown-ups, they could move past this, surely. And maybe, just maybe – she allowed the admission to sneak into her brain, like a teenager creeping into her bedroom after curfew – she had to take some of the blame. After all, she was the one who'd dared to think of him as potentially more than a friend, even if she'd denied it to his face.

She flopped back on the bare mattress and closed her eyes. She needed some strong painkillers and she needed some magical person to come and sort this whole mess out and make everything happy again.

Just then, Lily heard the front door slam closed and a loud, cheerful ‘Babes?' came from downstairs. Simone was back from Melbourne!
Wonderful
. She would set her straight. Together they would find some kind of There's A Reason For Everything treasure in all of this.

‘Up here,' Lily hollered, pulling on an oversized singlet that could masquerade as a dress – in female company, at least – before lying back dejectedly on the mattress. She heard Simone dump some bags and her keys on the kitchen bench

‘Well,
someone
had a party here last night . . .' Simone called out jovially. ‘Oh, that's right, slimy Pete was here, wasn't he?' Lily heard the fridge door open, and after a few minutes of unpacking what was undoubtedly almond milk, tofu and tempeh, Simone walked up the stairs.

‘Babe? Still alive?' she asked tentatively as she came down the hallway.

‘Yes,' Lily said, her voice low and deflated.

Simone's gorgeous head appeared around the doorframe, all clear eyes and tanned, radiant skin, but on seeing Lily's face, her own crumpled with concern.

‘Whoa. You look like
shit
. Did you have some magnesium drops before bed like I said? You
know
they help hangovers —'

‘We had sex.'

‘NO!' Simone said, a look of shock and delight lighting up her face.

‘Mm-hmm. And then a few minutes later, he told me in he was in love with some girl. Fun night in all.' She looked at Simone with a bemused, wry smile.

‘I
told
you he was a pig! I knew he'd pull something like this on you . . . God . . . And to YOU of all people, I mean, he
adores
you, Lil, so that's really saying something about what a mess he is. It's all his stuff, obviously. No reflection on you. God, he is just
so cripplingly
emotionally unaware.'

Lily sighed and shuffled her legs up so she could hug her knees. She didn't expect a whole lot of pity from Sim, who'd always disliked Pete, but she wasn't in the mood to be enlightened.

‘I shouldn't have gone there . . . 
Why
did I go there? Why? Am I that starved for sex that I have to resort to screwing friends?'

Simone looked at Lily as if she'd just asked to saw off her hands. ‘Ohmygod, are you
insane
? Pete has had a thing for you since he was, I don't know, sperm. I
know
he has. I've seen it for years. He's just completely uncomfortable being honest about his feelings, and so he obviously self-sabotaged the situation and hurt you as a reaction to the disappointment within himse—'

Lily's brain was two self-help phrases away from shutting down completely.

‘I
assure
you there is no subtext; it was a drunken accident. And you know what? I'm fine. Bit messed up, because I'm always a bit messed up the day after sex and it's been a while, but that's it. I
swear
.'

Lily was more of a boyfriend-girl than a one-night-stand-girl but the whole boyfriend thing hadn't really been happening for her lately. The last two years, lately.

She looked up at Simone, eyes big and earnest. If she were deeply honest, she
didn't
think of Pete as boyfriend material, which made all this worse – being ditched by someone you didn't even want.

‘All right,' said Simone. ‘Tell me he was at least good?'

‘
Way
too vocal, it was grunts and sighs and “oh baby, oh baby” the whole time, but good, yes.'

‘So how did it happen? The bit where he ruined everything?'

‘We're lying there cuddling and it's nice and not even weird at all. And of course I'm spinning out that I've just had sex with
Pete,
and am thinking, you know, maybe would it become a regular thing, and then he starts telling me about this girl with red hair and tattoos who he's in love with.'

‘Is he already with her?'

‘I'm not sure. I pretty much kicked him out the moment he'd finished saying what an amazing girl she was and how much fun they have and blah blah blah, pass me the goddamn bucket.'

‘What a
sociopath
,' said Simone. Then, after a few moments, ‘He's actually done you a favour, babe. You could've spent, like, another six months sleeping with him, and wondering if he was the guy for you, and the way you two carry on and hang out, you could definitely be mistaken for thinking you'd be good together, but he clearly doesn't care about anyone but himself. It's the Pete show all the way. You don't need that kind of destructive energy in your life.'

And this was why Lily loved Sim. Despite her love of psycho-babble, she knew how to extract the truth, like a straw in a horrible thickshake. Which was why it was such a pity she never, ever paid attention to her own advice.

‘He's ruined our friendship. That's what makes me sad.'

‘Don't sleep with your friends next time then, idiot.'

‘Promise not to, especially not you. Hey, so enough about me, how was last night?'

Simone flopped back onto the bed and sighed. ‘You weren't the only one dealing with a complete dickhead.'

‘Hang on, did Mr Ferrari fly down to Melbourne yesterday too? I thought we liked him!'

‘We
did
. He was staying at the penthouse at Crown, and everything was perfect. I got off the shoot early so we had a nice dinner and went back to the room, and things were amazing, I mean, he was doing all
kinds
of wild stuff to me, like, kinky shit. He's a bit sick, actually, but anyway, we were drinking Cristal and having fun . . . and then, at like, two a.m., he buzzes in not one, but TWO hookers.'

‘
No.
'

‘True story,' Sim said, sitting up and shaking her head. ‘I don't know what's more offensive, the fact he thought I was the kind of chick who would want a foursome with two high-class prozzies, or that I was so boring in bed he had to call in backups.'

Lily started giggling, and then the giggle built up to a chuckle, and then a full-blown, belly laugh.

Simone slapped her on the arm. ‘It's not funny, babe! What if I'd laughed when you told me your story?' But she was smiling, and then, seeing Lily start to cry so hard tears fell from her eyes, she began laughing, and then she was
really
laughing. When Lily snorted, and the two girls shrieked and squirmed and rolled around on the bed in laughter.

‘I bet Ferrari would love to be here right now, with us rolling around together on the bed like this,' Lily said, trying to get her breath.

‘We could call in old Mrs O'Connor from next door to make up numbers,' Sim said between gasps, and Lily was off again, laughing and laughing, feeling the tension from the past twelve hours start to leave her body, on some level relieved that she wasn't the only one having a shitty time with men. God, if perfect, beautiful, smart, funny, wild Simone couldn't find a good man, what hope did she or any other mere mortal have?

‘Oh, God, stop, no more, I can't breathe,' Simone said, clutching her tiny, taut stomach, wiping tears from her face.

‘I'm sorry, Sim, what a fuckstick. What a bunch of fucksticks they all are. Are we in some sick reality show we don't know about?'

‘Or
Two and a Half Escorts
?' Sim said, trying to quieten her sniffs.

‘I might go lesbian,' Lily contemplated as she twirled her long, dark hair around her finger.

‘Oh, because you were so good at it last time. How long did that last?'

‘Couple of hours. But I mean it about meaning it this time. Men are so incredibly shit.'

Simone stood up and stretched her arms, no doubt stiff from a gruelling Yogalates class.

‘I'm totally with you on swearing off men. I didn't even tell you about my run-in with Michael last week either . . . He's broken up with the Russian mail-order bride and so now he wants to' – she made bunny ears – ‘have a chat.'

Michael was Simone's ex. They tortured each other constantly, regardless of geographical barriers or new partners. They made Tina and Ike Turner look functional. In Lily's opinion Simone was still deeply, irretrievably, self-destructively in love with Michael, but insisted she was over him. Lily chose not to ask about Michael any more, such was the torment he'd caused Simone in the two years they were together. He was the genital herpes of boyfriends; persistent, unattractive, painful and there for life. He didn't deserve any more airtime. He had ended it a year ago under very dubious circumstances, and it had taken at least six months for Simone to lift her head above the cloud of sleeping pills and booze, and show any semblance of confidence.

‘Seriously, think about all the effort and time and money and waxing appointments we spend on those pigs, and what do we get back?'

‘Confessions of love about other women, or just other women,' Lily said.

‘I've really had enough, babe. Like,
really
. Maybe this is the year we reclaim, Lil. Get back to our feminine power. Clear our heads and hearts and keep our bodies pure; focus on ourselves. Realign ourselves to what and who we actually want in our lives, rather than just sailing aimlessly with no intention. Come on, Lil! Should we go on a little sabbatical? No, wait, a saBOYtical! Even just for three months?'

Lily felt a shot of adrenalin go through her. Three months of no boys was a cinch, especially as she wasn't exactly getting any action anyway.

‘Make it six, and I'm in.'

Simone's eyes lit up.

‘
Really?
Ohmygod, this will be incredible. This will totally make everything right. We'll keep each other strong; we'll s
mash
this. It will be like my ultimate green cleanse, but for the . . . heart.' She smiled her angelic smile.

‘It'll be easy for me,' Lily said, standing up, her stomach finally feeling ready for food of a disgracefully greasy nature. ‘I've got single-itis. I can't even remember what it's like to have a boyfriend. And I'm nearly thirty, don't forget, Sim; this is getting serious . . . You'll find it tough, though. You're the one who has five men a day fall in love with you and an emotionally retarded ex-boyfriend who won't quit.'

‘They're bad men. They're not serving us. They've gotta go. If we want to find
real
love, genuine, mutually serving love, we need emotional clarity first,' Simone mused earnestly. ‘So we're doing this?' she asked, hand outstretched for Lily to shake.

‘HELL
,
yes, we're doing this,' Lily said, shaking her friend's hand vigorously.