Winter of Grace (4 page)

‘She does, but I think … maybe it's because I'm not there.

And, you know, I miss her, too.'

‘I know you do, darling. It's a shame Mish and Paul got it into their heads …' Mum stopped herself. She turned round and leaned on the bench. ‘Maybe you should see this as an opportunity to make some new friends? Not to replace Stella; you and Stella will always be friends, I'm sure.' She could see me opening my mouth to protest. ‘But you could broaden your horizons, meet some new people.'

‘There aren't any new people, it's the same old people, I know them all already,' I grumbled. ‘Couldn't I just try St Marg's and see? We won't know till we do the experiment.' That was Mum's usual line when she was coaxing me to try something new, but it didn't work this time.

‘It's halfway through the year, Bridie, it's too disruptive.'

‘Change is good,' I said. ‘It'll keep me on my toes, challenge me to adapt.' I shadow-boxed round the bench. ‘Adapt or perish, isn't that what you say in biology?'

‘I'm not sending you to St Margaret's,' snapped Mum. ‘You can put that idea right out of your head.'

I stopped boxing. ‘Why?'

‘Because I'm not. Or any other religious school, for that matter.'

‘So if …' I searched my mind for the most prestigious girls' school I could think of, ‘if
Brookings Hall
offered me a scholarship, you'd say no?'

‘Yes, I would.'

‘What's wrong with religious schools?'

‘I don't believe in them, on principle. I believe in state-funded, secular education. If people want to teach their children lies and superstition, let them do it at home.' Mum's voice rose, and two red spots glowed in her cheeks.

‘But—'

‘Bridie, I'm not discussing it. I wouldn't send you to St Margaret's if it was the last school on earth. End of story.'

‘But can't we at least
talk
about it?'

‘Bridie, I said
enough
.' Mum hadn't spoken to me in that tone of voice since I was about six.

‘Right,' I said. ‘Fine.' I stalked to the bathroom, fuming. I showered and flung on my school clothes, still silently raging.

How dare she just shut me down like that?
End of story
. She couldn't order me around any more, I was sixteen now. Didn't I get any say in my education, in my own future? My mother was just as bad as the politicians and the dictators, plunging us into war in spite of all our protests.
End of story
. Was that what the Prime Minister said when he made the decision?

The whole world had let me down. Even Mum wouldn't listen to me; how could I expect to stop a war by putting my hand up? Even my best friend was more interested in a boy she'd only just met than in the screwed-up state of the planet. But at least I knew Stella would
listen
to me.

I yelled ‘Bye' to Mum as I grabbed my toast and slammed out of the house but I pointedly didn't kiss her before I left. I couldn't wait to talk over the unfairness of it all with Stella. I walked faster and faster to the bus stop where she'd be waiting.

It wasn't till I reached the end of the street that I remembered that Stella was at St Marg's now, that I'd have to get through the whole stupid day without her.

WHEN I GOT home, I felt wrung out. There wasn't anyone at school I could talk to, not properly. No one cared about the war as much as I did. As for the fight with Mum, I couldn't discuss that at all; it would have been kind of insulting to say I wanted to go to another school. Not that I
wanted
to leave, I just wanted to be with Stella. But I knew there was no point bringing it up with Mum again. When she used that voice, the subject was not negotiable. It was so unfair.

Mum didn't get home till late on Mondays. I was supposed to cook dinner but I usually made something pretty lame, like toasted sandwiches. Today there was a sheaf of mail clogging up the letterbox, mostly for Mum, but there was one envelope addressed to me. I was juggling the mail and my schoolbag and wondering who my letter was from, when the phone rang.

‘It's me.' Stella was breathless and slightly muffled, trying not to be overheard by Scarlet and Tark. ‘He's sent me a
card
.'

I looked down at the square envelope with the unfamiliar handwriting. That was that mystery solved, anyway. He was certainly quick off the mark. I let the envelope drop to the carpet, and flung myself onto the couch. ‘What's it say?'

‘It says,
Dear Stella, I wanted to thank you for your help on
Saturday. I really appreciated your assistance
– he's spelled it with five ‘S's, how cute –
I hope we can keep in touch. Best wishes,
Jay Ridley.
He wants to keep in touch!'

‘That's good,' I said.

‘His address is on the envelope, I need you to search the net so we can find his home number.'

Stella has to fight Scarlet and Tark for the internet at home and their computer is in the big back room where anyone can walk past. So any private research like this is my job. ‘Okay, hang on.' I could see Jay's address on the back of my own envelope: an outer suburb. At least it was on our side of town. I rolled off the couch. ‘I'm switching the computer on now.'

‘Did you ask Lisa about swapping schools?'

‘She said no way.'

‘Oh, nooo! Will you try her again?'

‘No, she means it.'

‘Bummer,' said Stella, regretful but not devastated. Her head was so full of Jay and his card and his phone number, there wasn't room for anything else; I couldn't burst her bubble by telling her he'd sent me a card too.

‘I've got the White Pages up now.' I started to type in the Ridleys' address before Stella read it out.

‘Where
is
that?'

‘North. Way north. End of the train line north.'

‘At least it's our train line,' said Stella cheerfully.

‘Well,
nearly
our train line.' I read out the phone number.

‘Yay, thanks so much, Bridie. I'm so excited!'

‘What are you going to say when you call him?' I had to admire her guts; she wasn't even thinking twice about it.

‘I'll wait a couple of days; I don't want to look desperate. Then – this is a genius idea, Bridie – I'll invite him to Bailey Hahn's party.'

‘Do you think he'll want to go to a party when he's just been beaten up?'

‘He'll have had a week to recover, he'll be all right.' Stella can be ruthless.

‘I thought we'd decided not to go to Bailey's party?'

‘Nooo! We have to undecide. It's perfect; there'll be heaps of uni people there because of Bailey's brothers. It'll be
sophisticated
. Not just a kids' party with everyone getting trashed and throwing up.'

‘Uni people get trashed, too, you know,' I said, but there was no resisting Stella in a mood like this; it was much easier to give in. ‘Okay,' I grumbled, and it was lucky Stella couldn't see my limp sprawl across the couch and my total lack of interest in the Stella-and-Jay project, or she would have sacked me as best friend in a blink.

After Stella hung up, I finally opened my own card from Jay.

Dear Bridie, I wanted to thank you for helping me on Saturday. It was
great to meet you. I hope you don't think this is out of line but if you
would like to call me some time and hook up, it would be great to thank
you properly. It's up to you. Thank you again for your help, Jay.

Did he mean
hook up
like the rest of the world meant
hook
up
?'Cause, if so, that was taking things pretty fast, too fast for me. And there was his phone number, the same number I'd just looked up on the net. The number he hadn't sent to Stella.

Oh dear
, I thought. This could get messy.

But I was too tired to think about it, and I had homework, and I had to get dinner, so I threw the card into a drawer. Anyway, it wasn't possible that Jay could like me better than Stella – Stella's the pretty one. I'm short and frizzy-haired and just generally blah. Maybe he was concussed and he'd mixed our names up. That would be it.

And anyway
, I thought.
I bet he doesn't come.

Well, I was wrong about that, too.

‘He's
definitely
coming.' Stella stretched her lips in front of the mirror and carefully painted them with gloss. ‘Is this colour all right? Do I look okay?'

‘You look amazing,' I said honestly. We were getting ready at her place, with Scarlet and Tark goggling from the ends of the beds. The deal was that Mish would take us there and Mum would pick us up and Stella would stay over at our place. We'd even swapped dog-walk days with Tark.

It was always pretty chaotic at the Kincaids'. Their house was the same size as ours, more or less, but they had to squeeze in five people and a dog, though he was a small dog. Stella and Scarlet shared a bedroom, and Tark's room was a glorified cupboard. There was always heaps of noise and kids rushing in and out. The TV was always on, though Mish would switch it off whenever she walked past. There was Scarlet tooting her flute, and Paul booming away and striding off to his next meeting, shedding papers as he went. Paul was on about a zillion committees: school council, cricket club, a charity for the homeless, something else about refugees. I guess that was how Stella got political. Which was how
I
got political.

Stella painted around her eyes. ‘Jay said his brother's dropping him off on the way to uni and picking him up on the way back, so he'll be there pretty early.'

My heart skipped, just for a second, at the possibility of seeing Jay's good-looking brother. Which was dumb, because we
wouldn't
. And he
wouldn't
stop in for a drink. He was probably on P-plates – he couldn't be older than twenty-one.

I was wearing my normal party clothes, dark jeans and a T-shirt. I'd done my eyes, and tried to slick my hair down, though that never really works, it always bounces up again. But Stella had gone all out – tights, micro-mini, plunging shirt, heaps of make-up, and everything kind of silvery-shimmery. With her pale eyes and hair, she looked like a water-sprite or a ghost. Standing side by side, we looked bizarre: one long and silver, one short and dark, as if I were Stella's stumpy shadow.

‘I look
weird
,' I wailed, though what I meant was that next to Stella, I looked clunky, ordinary.

Stella surveyed me thoughtfully. ‘That T-shirt's not tight enough. Here, try this. And you need lips. Scar, get Mum's red lipstick, you know, the RED red.'

Scarlet scrambled to obey; she was more excited about this party than I was. Two minutes later, I was a vampire with very obvious boobs. Amazing what a too-small T-shirt and a slash of RED red lipstick can do. Stella must have picked up some tips about clothes and lipstick from the giggling morons, so St Marg's hadn't been a complete waste of time.

Tark gazed at Stella in awe. ‘You look
pretty
.'

‘I don't want to look pretty, I want to look sexy. I wish I had your boobs, Bridie.' Stella frowned at her reflection, then sighed. ‘Oh, well. Let's go.'

We were way too early, of course. Even Mish looked dubious when we said we were ready to go, but Stella didn't want to miss Jay, or risk him meeting someone else before we arrived. I was still privately convinced he wouldn't show up at all.

Mish dropped us off at Bailey's respectable suburban house. Music was thumping dully from within, and two security guards and a couple of dads were stationed outside to deal with gatecrashers.

‘Stella! Jay hasn't got an invitation!'

Stella rolled her eyes at me. ‘I got one from Bailey and express-posted it.' When Stella was this determined to make something work, there was no stopping her. I almost felt sorry for poor old unsuspecting Jay. First beaten up by thugs, then steam-rollered by Stella. I didn't know which would be worse.

We presented our invites and walked inside. A knot of guests shot hostile stares at us from a corner of the almost-empty living room as we came in, and returned to their murmured conversation. We didn't know any of them. For a sinking moment I wanted to ring Mum and tell her to come and pick us up. But Stella was made of steelier stuff.

‘Come on, the action's in the kitchen.' She pushed me ahead; I felt like a tank, all lips and chest.

Stella was right. There was a noisy crush in the kitchen. Outside, guests were clustered under overhead braziers on the deck, scattered around the pool and the snack table.

‘I can't see anyone I know!' I yelled to Stella.

Stella was looking around, but of course she was only interested in finding one person and it didn't look as if he was here yet. Clearly it was really Bailey's brother's party; everyone here was older than us. I felt like a kid in dress-ups, with my stupid red lips and my stupid thrusting chest. ‘I look ridiculous; I'm going to wash my mouth off.'