How It Feels to Float Read online

  We hunker down to do the assignment. That is, some of us do the assignment; some of us daydream. The new boy pulls out a book and reads it behind his laptop screen.

  Fans flick-flick above us. A trickle of sweat moves down between my boobs. I stare at my computer.

  I don’t much like to write about myself. It’s not my thing, discussing any part of me. Over the years, Mum has suggested we go see people because Dad is dead, but then we put it off. I did sit with a man once, when I was seven and a half, in a room with yellow-painted walls and framed cat pictures. The man had round glasses like Harry Potter. He laid out paper and blunt colouring pencils and said to draw, so I did. Then he hummed and ha-ed and said, ‘I’ll just speak to your mum now, okay?’ and when Mum came back out, her eyes were really red, so I didn’t draw for anyone else after that.

  The cursor blinks on, off.

  I take a breath, and dive in.

  My Alter Ego: A meditation/poem, by Elizabeth Grey

  Consider the Ego / The ego is defined as a person’s sense of self / Which includes but is not limited to self-esteem, self-worth and self-importance / Don’t we all think ourselves important, that we matter? / We are matter, this part is true / But do we? / And / Is it possible to have an alter self / I.e.: an opposite, matterless self?

  No / Such a thing cannot exist / The universe is made of matter / And if I am alter or other then I would be lacking matter or a sense of matter and as such cannot be in the universe / And if I am outside the universe, that makes me a singularity, a concept impossible to imagine / Therefore, my alter ego is beyond my capability for imagining / And thus, cannot be described.

  The End

  P.S. Some say God is a singularity, but people imagine God all the time / They think he looks like someone’s white grandpa, or Santa Claus / God’s Alter Ego is sometimes called a Dog / (Sorry) / It should be added that Dogs exist and have the potential to exist throughout the known universe / So it is possible that my earlier hypothesis is wrong.

  I close my laptop, look up at Mr Birch, who’ll get to read this masterpiece tonight. What a lucky guy!

  The bell rings.

  ‘Please email me your essays by midnight!’ calls Mr Birch over the scrape of chairs, the shoving of laptops into bags, the clatter of our bodies beelining it to the door.

  Now it’s recess.

  At recess and lunch, I always sit with Grace—and Evie and Stu and Miff and Rob and Sal. The Posse, they call themselves. I should say: We, as a collective, call ourselves The Posse. I am in The Posse. I am an integral member of The Posse, I think.

  Grace and I have sat with The Posse since the first day of Year 9. We were both new. Evie saw us hovering uncertainly in the schoolyard, and decided we belonged to her. She brought us over to the bench under the tree by the fence. There, everyone interviewed us. What bands did we like? Did we prefer a day at the beach or inside? Had we read The Communist Manifesto? Had we seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? Did we like it? Did we have a tattoo? If not, what would we get and where?

  The group made the questions sound like conversation. But I could feel everyone marking us invisibly. Tick, tick, cross, tick, tick.

  I let Grace answer first and watched everyone’s faces. I crafted my answers the way their smiles went.

  In the end it was okay. We could stay. But of course we could stay! The Posse is inclusive! The Posse is Love Incarnate!

  We would have more people in The Posse, but most people are stupid, says Miff. We, The Posse, agree.

  Before I came to this school, I was never in a group, so being in one—especially one with a name—was quite the novelty. It still is, because, I mean, I belong to six other people and they say they miss me when I’m not there. I’ve sat on the bench under the tree by the fence for just over two years now, laughing and saying things I think I’m supposed to.

  And almost every second of every minute I’m with them, I feel like I’m seeing the scene from somewhere else. In front of a screen maybe, watching someone else’s life.

  I walk to the lockers. Grace is standing by mine.

  ‘Hey,’ I say.

  ‘Hey,’ she says. She smells like lavender—it’s from the moisturiser she gave me for my birthday, then borrowed two months ago and forgot to give back.

  I open my locker. I put in my books.

  ‘Hey,’ I say again. My hands are actually shaking, which is stupid, because this is Grace, my best friend, who lives down the street and one left and two rights away from me. Grace Yu-Harrison, who knows all the songs from the Beatles’ White Album (like me), loves The Great Gatsby (like me), and the art of Alexander Calder, especially his mobiles, which move when you blow on them. (We did this, one Sunday in Sydney, when the guard wasn’t looking. The wires trembled at first, then danced.)

  Grace lives with her mum and stepdad, who are workaholics. I’m not exaggerating; they literally can’t seem to stop sitting in their offices, going to meetings and conferences and dinners with other workaholics, and coming home late. Grace has a lot of time to herself. Her dad lives in Wagga Wagga, which is so far from the sea it may as well be fictional. She has a pool and a hammock that fits two—we often swing in it after a swim.

  Grace is also stunning, the kind of gorgeous most people try their whole lives to be. She has kissed five and a half guys. Half because one guy turned and vomited two seconds after their lips touched.

  ‘It was disgusting,’ she said. ‘He nearly threw up in my mouth!’

  I haven’t kissed anyone else but her.

  In the four-minute walk from the lockers to our bench by the fence, Grace usually talks. She says we should dye our hair, but not blue because everyone’s doing that, so maybe silver? And she tells me about the drawing she did of her dream last night, and about Suryan in Year 12 sending her a photo of his penis, which she calls a dick, and which I say is unfair to all the people called Richard, and Grace laughs.

  At least, that’s what she said on Friday, when I saw her last, before I went over for a swim in her pool and she lay on the grass afterwards—her eyes closed, her hair glassy-smooth—and that’s when something lurched inside me and I leaned over and put my mouth on hers.

  ‘Hey,’ says Grace again, and I’m back, by the lockers.

  We could do this all day, I think, but then she stands squarely in front of me, so I can’t move. She pins me with her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I begin, which is what I said after I kissed her, and again, when she tried to say how she liked me but not that way, but I was so mortified I took off. I’m a thousand feet tall and when I run I look like a giraffe, so imagine me, hoofing it down my street in just my swimmers, school bag in one hand, uniform and shoes in the other, the neighbours gawking at me from their front windows. I must have been quite the sight.

  ‘Biz,’ says Grace. She puts her hand on my arm. ‘Seriously, it’s okay. It was nice, you know? I haven’t been kissed in ages and you’re not a bad kisser. I’m just not—’ She pauses. And takes a long breath in.

  I fix my eyes on the lockers, the floor, anywhere but Grace’s hand on my arm.

  She steps closer, so now we are just two pairs of eyes, floating. ‘So. Here’s the thing, Biz. What I want—ah—what I’m wondering is’—another big breath in—‘Biz, areyoubiorallthewaygay?’

  I blink. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Bi? Or gay?’ Grace asks the question like she’s standing with a clipboard in a shopping mall, asking strangers for orphan money.

  I gawp at her.

  ‘Because,’ she says, ‘I was thinking over the weekend—which sucked, by the way—Dad called and I had to fly to Wagga for some great-aunt’s funeral, did you get my text?—and we went to his girlfriend’s farm for fuckssake—it’s got no wi-fi, no signal, how’s that possible?—and we ate lamb, which is seriously disgusting—and he kept saying how I have to get my shit together this year or I wo
n’t get into uni—God, that man’s a nightmare—But anyway—back to you, Biz—I was thinking about who might be good for you instead of me, and whether guys are a no for you or still a possibility, because Evie said Lucas Werry might be keen—but if it’s girls you’re into, we can go in a whole other direction. That’s cool. Like, unless—as long as you’re not hung up on me, in which case’—she pauses—‘that could be a tragedy of Shakespearian proportions.’

  Grace finally stops talking. She smiles, sort of, and waits for me to answer.

  I can’t speak. I can feel the pistons of my heart moving, feel my lungs filling, emptying, my pores clogging. I feel the movement of the stars and I can hear the echo of all the black holes consuming everything—

  and then, just like that, my head clears.

  It’s Grace. Just Grace. (Look, Biz.)

  Here she is, her hand still on my arm. My best friend.

  (Come down to earth, Biz. Everything is going to be okay.)

  I blink slowly, and feel myself waking.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t think I’m hung up on you. As mesmerisingly beautiful as you are, Grace, I actually don’t think you’re my type.’ And as I say it, something untangles in my chest. Oh my God. It’s true. I think?

  I’m not. She isn’t.

  Right?

  Thank God?

  Grace looks hugely relieved. Which makes me laugh. And I keep laughing, and suddenly everything is fine.

  Right?

  Thank God?

  ‘I don’t actually know what I am,’ I say, and I think that’s true. Am I bi? Am I gay? Am I something else? It makes my head fog to think about it.

  ‘I mean, I wasn’t planning to kiss you,’ I say.

  She smiles. ‘I am pretty irresistible.’

  ‘You’re the only person I’ve ever kissed, Grace. I’m seriously inexperienced. Maybe I should kiss more people to figure it out? Maybe we can line them up. Or lay them out on a tray like a taste test.’

  ‘So we can see if you’re into pepperoni or anchovies,’ says Grace.

  ‘Both are animal products, so therefore—’ I begin, and then see Grace smirk. ‘Ah, gross, Grace!’

  Grace laughs. She starts walking outside. I walk beside her. We head for the tree, the bench under the tree, The Posse sitting beside the fence. And Grace is already pulling her phone out, already texting Lucas-Werry-who-might-be-keen, and asking him over to her house for a swim.

  Which will be good.

  Right?

  Dad saw Mum for the first time on a jetty in Palm Beach. He was swinging his legs off the edge, eating chips. She was fishing.

  Technically, she wasn’t fishing. She was standing on the jetty watching her boyfriend fish. The boyfriend was all: ‘Me strong. Me good at fishing. Me have muscles,’ and Mum was putting together the words she needed to break up with him.

  So she broke up with the guy, right there, and as a parting shot she said, ‘Also. I don’t like fishing. It’s inhumane.’

  And the guy said, ‘They’re fine! I chuck them back in!’

  And Mum said, ‘Not before you rip out their insides with that hook.’

  And the boofhead said, ‘Ah, fuck off.’

  So she said, ‘That’s not nice, Barry,’ and she took his fishing rod and threw it in the water.

  Then the guy got all feisty, so she shoved him in too.

  Dad watched the whole thing and thought to himself, Get yourself a girl who can catch and release.

  That’s how Dad puts it, anyway, when he tells the story. Most recent retelling: last Thursday night.

  I was trying to study and Dad leaned beside the window saying, ‘And she marched off like Wonder Woman, Biz. And then I saw her at the bus stop waiting for the bus, and I went up to her, and said, “Excellent technique.”

  ‘She said, “Thanks, I’ve had practice.” And then I said . . . well, I couldn’t speak, because boom, there she was, smack dab in my heart. We never looked back.’

  Dad grinned.

  It was a great story. But I was distracted, trying to figure out a polynomial.

  ‘That’s great, Dad. Don’t suppose you could be of use, and help me with my maths?’

  When I looked around, he was gone.

  I often think of a bubble when I think of Dad. He’s sort of see-through, but when he talks about Mum, or me as a baby, his colours fill out.

  It’s kind of beautiful to watch. If I don’t say anything, he’ll totally float there for hours.

  Lucas Werry is not even slightly interested in me. I’m not sure where Evie got her information, but in Grace’s pool on Friday afternoon he keeps paddling after Grace like she’s catnip.

  Afterwards, we can’t help but laugh. Lucas heads home after the swim, clearly disappointed when Grace tells him he has to go. She says we’re going out to dinner with her parents tonight (a lie), and they’re taking us to an expensive restaurant in Sydney (also a lie), and he needs to leave so we can get ready (lie! Lie! So much lie! We are going to eat hummus and carrots for dinner and watch The Great Gatsby for the twenty-eighth time, and we might even study. This is what we call a party night).

  ‘He wanted you, Grace,’ I say. ‘Did you see?’

  ‘I felt it, Biz,’ Grace says, making a face. ‘He pressed it against me!’

  I’m showering in Grace’s bathroom when I realise nothing would appeal to me less than Lucas pressing any part of his body against mine. So what does that mean?

  ‘Grace,’ I say when I go back to her room, towelling my hair dry.

  ‘Yeah?’ Grace bounces across her bed and looks up at me.

  ‘I was in the shower and thought of Lucas pressing his penis against me and nearly threw up.’

  ‘Is that right? Lucas’s fine body did not appeal to you in the slightest? Those abs? Those arms? That enormous, throbbing—’

  ‘No,’ I cut her off. ‘But here’s the thing.’ I lay the towel over the back of her chair and look at her. ‘I’m not sure I want anything pressed up against me. Boobs, penises, abs, vaginas. Not sure about any of them.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ She beams. ‘Interesting!’

  Grace’s project becomes ‘Solving the Conundrum That Is Biz’s Sexuality’.

  The number of girls and boys she points out to me at school becomes a little exhausting. Before I even walk through the school gates, she’s texted me a list of people to check out that day. I draw the line at some girl called Maddie in Year 8.

  ‘I’m not Nabokov, Grace,’ I text her in English class.

  ‘Sorry,’ she texts back. ‘I got carried away.’

  Her text arrives with a bright PING! just as Mr Birch is telling us about an assessment we’ve got to hand in next Friday. Everyone looks up from their notes and swivels their heads—twenty-three owls noticing the rustle of a poor mouse who has forgotten to silence her phone.

  Mr Birch says, ‘Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth.’ He shakes his head sorrowfully. After the alter-ego assignment, his ambitions for me must have significantly lowered. Mr Birch walks over and holds out his hand.

  School Policy: use of smartphones in class is expressly forbidden, even when you’re in Year 11 and should be permitted to self-govern.

  Shit. I will now be without a phone until Friday. It’s Wednesday morning.

  I hand my phone over and see the new boy smile. The one who read a book behind his screen last week when we were supposed to be working—a full miscreant move, I might add. I’m not sure he even submitted his essay. I make a face at the new boy and Mr Birch thinks I’m making it at him.

  Turns out Mr Birch has quite the temper. An anger management class would do that man some good.

  Mum is not pleased. She thumps around the kitchen, opening and shutting cupboard doors, picking up saucepans and banging them down.

  ‘Who gets detention in Year 11? Ser
iously? And your phone confiscated? This is some primary school shit, Biz.’

  ‘Mum!’

  Mum keeps forgetting the twins are six and easily influenced.

  ‘Shit!’ says Dart, doing homework at the kitchen table.

  ‘Mum said shit!’ singsongs Billie, sitting opposite him. And the two of them start chanting, ‘Mum said shit! Mum said shit!’ over and over until Mum burns her hand on the side of the kettle because she’s distracted, and she swears again (‘Mum said fuck! Mum said fuck!’) and Mum slams the fridge door shut because there are no veggies in there besides one limp zucchini and a cauliflower with mouldy patches, and her eldest is turning to the dark side, and the twins have mouths like fishwives, and what did she do to deserve this?

  Poor Mum. I give her a hug. ‘Let’s go get Thai food,’ I say.

  She sniffs—a bit weepy—and agrees.

  We go to the local Thai place and eat until the twins’ bellies swell and we order too much satay, which is wonderful because we love leftovers.

  And the ratio evens out.

  Shit to Wonderful. 1 : 1.

  Mum fell in love with a movie when she was twenty. It was about a woman who caught a train and didn’t catch a train. When the woman caught the train, she walked in on her boyfriend having sex with another woman. When she missed the train—doors sliding shut a second before she reached them—she didn’t catch the guy having sex, and the universe split in two.

  ‘It’s the best,’ says Mum. ‘You follow Gwyneth in two lives, so it’s all, I wonder what happens if she catches the train; what happens if she doesn’t? Will she end up in the same shitty life? Will she ever be happy?’

  ‘Mm-hmm?’ I say.

  I’m in the shower, back from a swim at the beach with the twins. Mum’s on the toilet, peeing. Mum has told me about this movie before. We actually watched it years ago. Mum doesn’t remember.

  Mum’s in a very good mood. She had the day off work and she’s been having drinks with friends. Mum is pretty chatty at this point. I got home from the beach, stepped into the shower, pulled the curtain, and seconds later Mum opened the bathroom door, hopped on the toilet, and started talking. First I heard about her friend Jamie’s haircut, then about the guy who tried to chat them up. Then, it was nonstop Gwyneth. Mum’s been on the toilet a while.