What's a Girl Gotta Do? (21 page)

“Lottie?” she said. “Are you sure you're not burning out? Because I think you've just set a lot of things on fire.”

WEEK THREE

thirty-five

We were on a train to London.

“I can't believe I'm missing another day of college,” I said, as we whooshed past fields full of cows. “I've got a Cambridge interview prep session tomorrow and I've not done any of the reading.”

Amber stretched back and put her legs up on the empty chair opposite. “You are almost as relaxed about Cambridge as Evie and I are about university. Which would be fine, except IT'S CAMBRIDGE.”

“I'm not relaxed, I'm just distracted,” I argued. “And you guys are allowed to be relaxed. Your applications aren't due till after Christmas. I guess, if I don't get in, I'll hopefully get into one of my backup options. Maybe…” Or maybe I'll mess up my exams so much I won't get in anywhere.

None of us spoke about uni much – I think all of us were a little bit in denial about being separated. Well, I was the most in denial. Amber and Evie were both staying local – Amber planned to do her art foundation year, and Evie wanted to stay at home and commute to the nearby university Dad worked at “just in case of a relapse”. I was the only one being separated really, and the thought made me almost hope I messed up my interview so I wouldn't have to leave them.

“I'm nervous,” I told the girls…plus Will, who was reading the newspaper. “Evie. Please tell me the story of you and Oli getting together again to take my mind off it.”

Evie raised an eyebrow. “Again? Seriously?”

“Yes please. I need happiness to hold onto, to help me forget the fact that I'm about to humiliate myself in front of the whole country.”

Amber tried to help me breathe. I hadn't even realized my hand was flapping until she caught it.

“You'll be fine,” she said. “You're Lottie. You're frustratingly charismatic, even on no sleep. Everyone will love you.”

I looked right into Will's ever-present lens. He'd closed his paper and started filming again. “What do you think?” I asked him, through the eye of the camera.

The camera wobbled in a nod. “You're going to be fine. You've totally got this.”

My tummy wasn't just in knots, it was in those kinds of never-ending knots you get when all your necklaces decide to orgy in your make-up bag during a flight to a holiday somewhere. Sweat dripped off me, despite it being, like, minus two outside. The cows in the fields flashing past us were so cold they were huddled together like penguins, and yet the sweat still came. My heart felt like it was everywhere else in my body apart from where your heart is supposed to be.

“Evie!” I demanded. “Take it from the top!”

She sighed and started telling the story again. I relaxed as I let the now-familiar words roll over me and started to smile, watching the countryside roll on by in a blur as we chugged our way towards the capital.

After Amber and Evie told me that Operation Vagilante had exploded, we'd spent a good hour panicking about what to do. We'd then rung Will, who'd run over in Sunday jogging bottoms and made me confused by how good he looked all sweaty. Will had been amazing. Within twenty minutes he'd worked through all the calls, telling me which ones were and weren't good opportunities. “Don't ring back that one, they'll just want you to take your clothes off.”

“What, even with my hairy legs and moustache?”

“Umm…actually…”

He came more alive than I'd ever seen him. There was this manic energy to him – rather than the sloth-like arrogant judginess of a demeanour I was used to. It suited him. Plus, he'd wasted no time in making Evie and Amber wet themselves by recollecting how I'd run away from him (“like some pissed-up feminist gingerbread man”) the night before. After another hour, and many, many phone calls, I had a “publicity schedule” for the following day. We'd picked one pre-recorded TV slot that would go out that evening, one “major broadsheet” and one “tabloid with a heart”. “Let the others fight over the scraps,” Will had said, like that made
any
sense. When he'd eventually left – leaving me quivering with dread, nerves, enthusiasm and lust – the three of us were able to catch up on normal girl things. Like Evie and Oli FINALLY getting together!

Evie not-very-reluctantly told the story again to us and some nosy people in our carriage. Almost as soon as we'd arrived at the party (and I'd already been decanted to the storeroom to eat crisps and sober up), Oli had taken her by the hand, led her away just the two of them and said, “I don't want to ruin my night by spending all of it kicking myself for not having the courage to do this,” and THEN HE'D JUST KISSED HER. Like a fucking movie star! Now they were instantly together. Because, well, we'd all known they'd been effectively together the past year, since she'd got better (and he'd got better too). And they'd finally allowed themselves to embrace the inevitable.

Evie couldn't stop smiling and it took me away from my insane fear and insane jealousy. Her phone also wouldn't stop going off – with sweet messages from him. The retelling of their romantic bliss took most of the forty-minute journey to London Victoria. Megan messaged, to ask how it was going. We'd invited her along but she had a presentation she had to do for sociology and promised to try and cover for us attendance-wise. Amber was on the thinnest of margins still, and I knew I'd struggle to catch up on yet another day's missed work. Cambridge and the interview was just this blob of hardness in my guts that I kept trying to pretend wasn't there. But I had a training session the next day with Mr Packson to help me prepare, and I hoped that would be enough to pull me up to speed.

“Hoped” isn't a strong enough word sometimes…

When the train eventually groaned itself in, we collected up all the mess we'd made and emerged out of the ticket barriers into the packed arrivals hall. The others ushered me to the Tube, a coat pulled up around my head like I was a celebrity. “Just keep your eyes on the ground,” Will instructed. “There are too many armed anti-terrorist police around for you to go berserk with a horn right now.”

When we got to the Tube, the police presence decreased and I abandoned my coat enclosure. According to the electronic sign, there was only one minute until the next train. I looked down the stretch of Tube platform. Advertising billboards were everywhere.

“Amber,” I said urgently. “Sharpie.”

After a quick rummage in her bag, a pen was in my hand.

“Just keep it casual,” I said to them. “We don't want the cameras to pick up on what we're doing.”

A distant rumble signalled the train arriving, so I worked fast. A weight-loss advert for Christmas got a scribble of
You're lovely the way you are
. A poster for a new Christmas film called
Miss Claus
– depicting some blonde Photoshopped actress leaning over in a tight sexy Santa suit, with loads of minimally dressed female elves behind her – well, that got a scribble too. I drew a messy speech bubble coming out of Miss Claus's mouth that said, “
All I want for Christmas is equal pay for female actresses in Hollywood.
”

“
Voilà
,” I said, just as the rumble of the train turned into a roar.

Evie and Amber applauded politely, while Will got some quick close-ups of my handiwork. The Tube doors opened and people poured out onto us. We waited till it had emptied somewhat and clambered on.

“Where are we going?” I asked, as we sat down on the brightly patterned seats.

“Umm, Oxford Circus, I think.” Will strained his neck to look at the sign.

At Green Park, some guy got into our carriage and sat next to Evie, even though there was lots of room elsewhere. He was chewing gum, wearing some shiny suit, and without even clocking our existence, he stretched his legs right out – like he was sacrificing his crotch to the gods or something. Evie's legs instantly squished against mine as she readjusted to make room.

She looked at me.

I looked at her.

I turned to Will.

“Your camera on?”

He nodded, that same hint of a smile on his face that I'd interpreted to mean he was resenting my awesome.

I got up and lost my footing a bit as the Tube jolted. Then I walked past Evie and sat on the other side of shiny-suit man.

I yawned, all dramatically, and aggressively opened my legs as wide as my skinny jeans allowed. My legs were so wide my hip joints actually cried out in a
Lottie, we don't bend that far
way. I had the force of momentum on my side and knocked his leg out of the way, like we were playing French Bowls or something. Just to up the ante a bit, I let out a huge manly groan – all primal.

Shiny Suit looked at my incoming legs in utter shock – his eyebrows drawing up into his gelled hair, his bottom lip falling ever so slightly open.

I bet no girl had ever fought him for leg-space in his life.

We caught eyes and I nodded at him. But not normally. All lad-like,
we're all blokes here
. A macho nod.

“It's nice, isn't it?” I grunted. “Feeling like you deserve all this space?”

I could feel the seats shaking with the girls' muffled laughter.

Shiny Suit did not know what to do with himself. But he drew his legs closer together.

I used the opportunity to spread mine wider.

I was relying heavily on the fact that people in London are willing to accept just about any kind of weird or rude behaviour, just as long as they aren't late for work.

So far, it was working. Shiny Suit looked horrified, and yet he said nothing.

“This is so great, isn't it?” I said. “Really airs out your bits?”

A large snort came from Amber's direction.

Shiny Suit's eyes opened wider, but still he said nothing.

The Tube slowed. “This is our stop,” Will called.

I closed my legs and stood up, staring the man down, who was determinedly looking everywhere but at me. Evie and Amber could hardly stand, they were laughing so hard.

The doors beeped and slid open, revealing a huddle of people waiting to clamber on board.

“Lottie,” Will warned.

I leaned over and said very calmly and politely to the man, “Maybe be a bit more mindful about how far you spread your legs, mate.” God knows why I'd just used the word “mate”. Acting male was rubbing off on me very quickly.

I didn't wait to see the look on his face before I turned and jumped down onto the platform, the girls and I holding each other up, we were so hysterical.

We emerged onto the polluted, crammed bustle of Oxford Street – inhaling the fumes of about ten million buses.

We were discussing the Tube episode with Will. Who was playing devil's advocate, as per bloody usual.

“I'm just saying,” he said, “I'm not sure it's a sexist thing. I mean, it's uncomfortable having…you know…”

“A penis?” I provided, and felt a surge of joy when he blushed slightly.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “And balls…” It was my turn to go red. “I sit like that all the time! It's uncomfortable having to keep your legs closed.”

Amber rolled her eyes at him as we dodged past the scrum of girls clamouring to get into the flagship Topshop.

“Yes, well, do you think it's comfortable for girls to be constantly squished up against the wall just so you can air your balls? Is your comfort more important than ours? Evie, where are we going?”

Evie, who was on smartphone-map duty, poked at her phone, looking lost.

“Erm – maybe that way?” She pointed up a side street. We took her uncertain words as gospel and followed the direction of her finger.

“That's not what I'm saying,” Will continued. “You're muddling up my words. As usual. I'm just saying I don't think it's deliberate. It's just, like, what guys do for comfort. It's not intentional.”

We'd just passed three gorgeous-looking coffee places in a row but I resisted the urge to go in. Coffee always made me over the top, and I was fizzing inside enough as it was. In fact, my stomach felt pretty determined to empty itself and I hoped there would be a loo at the BBC studios.

I was going to argue back, but decided to save my energy for the interview. With a nod of my head, I let Amber at him instead.

“It doesn't matter that it's not intentional,” Amber ranted, her hands up in the air with anguish. “This is the whole point…”

And her rant took us all the way – including a wrong turn and a backtrack – to the BBC Broadcasting House.

We all stopped and looked up at it – causing at least four annoyed business-type people to thump into us and tut.

I felt so ill.

It was huge. The building stretched upwards in a giant horseshoe – gleaming all green and curvy and important-looking.

“Woah,” Will said. So stunned the argument ended. “Lottie, this is the real deal.”

Then, without making any big drama about it, he took my hand – entwining his fingers with mine. The touch shot electrical currents all up my arm, sending tingles to everything. My heart began beating even faster than it already had been.

To distract myself, I reached out and took Amber's hand. She looked at it, smiled, then she reached out and took Evie's.

We all stood there, in a line, staring up up up at a place that had the power to tell so many more people than our tiny town what we believed in and why it was right.

“I'm going to mess this up,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. Fear rendering my vocal chords useless, which is very un-bloody-helpful when you've got a day full of interviews in front of you.

“No, you're not,” they all said, at exactly the same time, like magic.

thirty-six

“How much make-up do you use on the male presenters?” I asked the make-up artist.

“Umm, they still get a bit of powder but that's about it,” she answered, scraping my long dark hair back into a headband.

“Then that's all I want. A bit of powder.”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “You sure? I'm booked in to do you for forty minutes.”

“I'm sure. Just top my face up with powder then we're good to go.”

She picked up a teeny tiny brush and sucked on the end of it, which didn't seem very professional to me.

“Your left eyeliner flick is wonky,” she pointed out.

“It will be fine,” I reassured her.

I'd done my own make-up that morning and was determined to stay looking like me. Not some professionally-coiffed version of whatever the media wants a young feminist to look like. Also, I needed a lot of attitude and eyeliner – to look like Lottie. The few times Mum and Dad had made me groom properly for a wedding or something, it was always terrifying to look at myself. I'm pretty – the sort of pretty that feels unfair. Like I've lucked out too much. If I didn't backcomb my hair and shovel eyeliner on, I looked so symmetrical and as-girls-are-told-they-should-look that even
I
hated me. I did not want that version of me all over the papers and TV. I didn't want to be a “pretty” feminist. I didn't want to make it that easy for them.

I'd been to the toilet twice, and still felt like I had another four trips in me. Getting inside the BBC had been like entering a spaceship. Glass walls grew up to higher than I could tilt my head back. We'd had to give our names at this ginormous desk, sign in, get given special visitor IDs and wait for “Jane” from “Hospitality” to let us through the security doors.

Shortly after, I was separated from my friends.

“Girls, Will, come with me. You can see Charlotte afterwards. We've given you front row seats.”

“What? They can't come with me?”

We'd hugged ferociously, and I'd welled up – like we were saying goodbye for ever.

“You're going to be amazing,” Evie whispered, with me and Amber in a headlock of a hug.

“You will,” Amber promised.

I held onto their words like they were precious pearls. But backstage, all alone, I felt them roll out of my hands and get lost in the corridor.

Will had given me a stiff hug goodbye, and I'd hung on longer than was probably appropriate. “You'll be fine,” he'd said into my ear, making all the hairs on my neck stand up. “Just be the annoyingly intelligent, charming, rampant feminist that I know you are.”

And I'd clung even tighter, and made myself very confused about something that had nothing to do with the fact I was about to go on national television.

Now I was being powdered and told I wasn't going to meet the presenters until the moment of the actual interview. Some lady dressed all in black explained what questions they were going to ask. She'd clapped me on the back when I'd explained my project and said, “Brilliant, I wish I'd had the guts to be you at school,” which filled me with a temporary glow that everything might be okay after all.

But now, with a bored make-up artist sitting on the chair in front of me, I was beginning to lose faith.

“So, why you here today?” She began the laborious process of putting all her brushes and pots back into her giant case.

“They're, umm…I've been doing a project,” I said. “A project about feminism. And, well, our hits are almost at one hundred and fifty thousand.”

The lady – through my haze of nerves I vaguely remembered her telling me her name was Gill – carried on packing up her stuff.

“I'm not a feminist,” she said. Just like that – straight out there with it.

“Oh, can I ask why not?”

She glanced up, but looking at me differently, like suddenly it wasn't so friendly any more.

“Because don't all feminists hate men?” she said. “I don't hate men. I love them! I love my boyfriend, I love my dad—”

I interrupted her. “Feminism isn't about hating men. It's not about that at all. It's just about equal rights.”

She didn't look like she was listening, or maybe she was listening but not taking it in. She was very trendy – with a pierced eyebrow and tattoos all up her arm. “I guess I just don't feel the need for it, you know? But good luck with your interview.”

I looked at this woman. This perfectly nice woman who also happened to perfectly disagree with everything I was about to go on TV to say. And I knew there'd be others like her out there. And they might not be as polite. And they'd be watching and disagreeing and thinking I was disgusting or wrong or messed-up or lonely or mentally ill or bitter or a slut or a prude or a killjoy or a whinge-bag or a bra-burner or a yeller or a lesbian or a man-hater or an attention-seeker or maybe just even a teenager. Either way, whichever bullshit label they wanted to give me, they were going to stick it on me. I wasn't in my nice little Spinster Club bubble any more – where the only people who didn't agree with me were a spurned rugby player, girls like Jenny, and some arrogant cameraman who really needed to stop being so annoyingly attractive. I was about to walk onto a stage, in front of a camera that would transmit the very essence of what I believed as a human person all around the country to other human persons who might just think I was an uptight idiot.

I wasn't sure I was ready for that.

To be judged. Tested. Held up as a shining beacon of what I cared about the most.

What if I screwed it up? What if I didn't make sense?

“Oooh, love, we need to touch up your powder already, you're dripping.”

The lovely-but-unfeminist make-up lady came at me with a poufy brush, dabbing my damp forehead. The edges of my vision vanished.

“Are you okay? Hang on, help! I think she's going to…”

Everything went black – just like they tell you it does when you faint.