2
An hour later, I stood outside Ginger’s house.
It looked like a five-year-old’s drawing of a house: acid-green hedge, triangular roof, and two box-shaped windows positioned on either side of the door, like eyes.
I met their glassy stare as I walked along a winding garden path, awkwardly tugging at the fabric on my thighs, six-pack of Cruisers clutched to my chest.
I’d driven home from the library, ditched my certificate, stripped off my Harry Styles shirt—rip—and did as instructed: dressed to impress.
I figured there’d be nothing more impressive than the outfit that won me second place in the cosplay competition a couple of years ago. Novice division, but so what?
Top hat, tails, and a bow tie that was so big it tickled my chin.
The pants were tighter than I remembered.
The vest was too, squeezed around my middle like a corset, pushing my boobs up and everything else down.
But the effect must’ve been a good one, because Ginger’s face split into a wide, earnest sort of smile as soon as she opened the door.
“Oh my God! You look amazing!”
“Thanks,” I said, even though I was quickly sweating through the layers of my too-small three-piece suit. “You look good too.”
“Good” was an understatement. Ginger looked like something out of a perfume commercial. Skirt long, eyelids shimmery, and curly blonde hair exploding out from behind her headband.
Back in high school, I’d barely ever talked to Ginger.
I told myself it was because she was one of the cool kids, and I wasn’t, and that meant I shouldn’t want to talk to her, that actually I should hate her a little.
But the truth was, I didn’t hate her. I never had.
It wasn’t popularity that kept us apart in high school; it was my backbone, or lack thereof.
I wasn’t brave enough to talk to her then .
. . and, if I was being totally, one hundred percent honest, I wasn’t sure I was brave enough now.
She’d been the one who’d started messaging me, out of the blue.
A bouncing notification icon that I thought must’ve been a mistake the first time I saw it.
Hey. You still live in town, right?
Right, I’d answered. Then, because that had seemed too abrupt, too mean, I’d followed it up with a I love it here!
which she’d laugh-reacted to, even though it hadn’t been a joke.
We’d been pinging each other every day for over a month now.
A Did you see the new Nicole Kidman movie?
here, a Why does servo sushi taste the best?
Is it the bacteria? Is bacteria spicy? there.
“What are you holding?” she asked now.
“Oh. I . . . um . . . didn’t know what to bring.
I hope this is OK.” I held up the six-pack of fizzy strawberry Cruisers.
A.k.a. sugar, water, food coloring, and vodka.
I didn’t normally go for Cruisers. When I went to the bar with Krissy, I’d just get a beer, which was a little Homer Simpson, but whatever, it was cheap.
Beer didn’t seem like Ginger’s vibe, though. She was pink and glittery, like the pen she used to sign her name in my yearbook. So I bought the pinkest, glitteriest drink I could find.
“Lucy,” Ginger said, eyes widening, voice dropping to a whisper. “It’s a tea party.”
I hesitated. “Yeah. I know. That’s the . . . the theme . . . right?”
She kept staring.
“Right?” I said again.
She glanced over her shoulder, like she half expected someone to be looming behind her. Once she’d confirmed that there were no loomers, she grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. “Everyone’s already in the other room. Go say hi. I’ll hide these.”
“Hide?”
She took the Cruisers and rushed off in a flurry of skirts. I stayed where I was, feeling suddenly, strangely small. The hallway was long, too long, too clean, and too quiet. I couldn’t hear any music, only the soft murmur of conversation through the walls.
Slowly, carefully, I made toward it, down the hall and through an open set of French doors.
I didn’t know what I’d been expecting.
Actually, no. That was a lie. I knew exactly what I’d been expecting.
Red Solo cups, designated make-out areas, and a YouTube party mix blaring loud enough to buzz in my ears for days afterward.
Instead, there were flower arrangements, macarons on a tiered cake stand, and Ginger’s mum, who’d taught cooking class in year seven.
“Oh . . . Lucy, is it?” She walked toward me, the click click click of her heels metronome perfect.
For a terrifying moment I thought she was going to hug me.
Instead, she stopped half a meter short and stared, eyes wide and unblinking, like a lizard locking onto its prey. “How are you? How’s your grandmother?”
“I . . . I’m fine, Mrs. Béliveau. Grandma’s fine too.”
“That’s lovely to hear. Truly, lovely.”
“Yeah,” I muttered dumbly as my eyes darted around the room.
I saw a dozen—no—two dozen faces. I recognized most of them from high school.
They’d been the popular girls, the smart girls, the pretty girls.
They were women now, the cheap eyeliner, acne, and not-as-invisible-as-advertised braces replaced with natural-look foundation and dresses, satin, silk, and chiffon.
Which . . . shit. Shit. This was a tea party. A real actual genuine tea party.
“What a creative costume,” Mrs. Béliveau said. “Willy Wonka, is it?”
“Oh. Um. No. The Hatter.”
“The Hatter?”
“As in the Mad Hatter?” I tried again. “You know, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?”
“Don’t you mean Alice in Wonderland?”
I fought back the urge to inform her that no, actually, I didn’t mean that, I meant exactly what I said, and smiled wider, my cheeks hurting.
“Yeah. Sure. That’s the one. I, eh, made this cospl—eh—costume a couple of years ago, with my grandma, for a convention.
I thought, what with this being a tea party and all, it would . . . it would . . . um . . .”
I looked around again, taking in the faces staring at me, smiling, all of them, with pink lips, rosy cheeks, and fluttery fake lashes. There was a lot of perfume in the air. None of it was mine.
In high school, I’d dyed my dark hair darker, painted my white face whiter, smudged eye shadow around my eyes, and called it goth. But since I’d graduated, aesthetics hadn’t exactly been a priority. Standing in that room, I was keenly aware that I wasn’t wearing any makeup, not even lip balm.
Mrs. Béliveau’s lizard stare was starting to look a touch concerned.
“I mean . . .” I tried desperately to think of something to say. “I . . . what with the . . . the theme and it being a party, on a Saturday, I kinda just assumed . . .”
“Assumed what?”
“That . . . ah . . . well . . . you know . . . it was . . .”
I was saved at that moment by Ginger, sweeping through the French doors and making a beeline straight to the table.
She picked up a cup and saucer and dinged the teaspoon against the rim.
It was pointless. Everyone had fallen silent the moment she’d entered.
Ginger had that effect on people. The ability to capture a room’s attention with just a look, a smile, or a flick of her hair.
Translation: She was beautiful.
The kind of beautiful that shouldn’t exist in small, rural Australian towns like this.
The kind of beautiful that meant she hadn’t needed to get good grades in school (even though she had) and didn’t need to be rich (even though she was) because everyone knew she was going to become a supermodel, or an actress, or something else sparkly and spectacular.
“OK, so,” Ginger began, sounding strangely nervous.
“Thank you, everyone, for coming. I know this is all a little last-minute . . .” Nothing about any of this gave me that impression.
“But with everyone back in town for the semester break I thought it would be nice to get us in the same room again, just like old times.”
A murmur of laughter crept around the room.
I joined in, though I wasn’t sure I heard the joke.
Ginger’s smile cut dimples into both cheeks. “Anyway. Yeah. Everyone, grab a cup of tea so we can do a toast. There’re heaps to choose from. I promise I didn’t put any drugs or anything in them.”
Another sprinkling of laughter, high and sweet. It sounded almost practiced.
Everything about this situation made me think of the mechanics inside a cuckoo clock. Stiff, aesthetic, coordinated, controlled. I’d never felt more out of place, standing in the middle of the room, my pants too small and my bow tie too big.
But that was OK. It was fine.
I’d expected a bigger, bouncier, boozier party, but that didn’t matter. This would be fun too. Actually, this would be better. Something new. Something nice. I hadn’t been to many nice things before.
I held on to that thought as the tide of people carried me toward the table.
I picked up a teacup when everyone else picked up a teacup, and shuffled along the line until I reached the teapots.
They were vintage, or made to look vintage.
Vintagesque. Porcelain with flowers painted along the sides.
Each had a small cardboard label set in front of it.
Calming Chamomile. Gracious Green. Darjeeling Detox. Bountiful Boysenberry. Generous Ginger.
I went with that last one. It came out technicolor yellow with large flakes of brown floating in it.
That was normal, right? Probably. I had no idea.
I’d only ever had Grandma’s tea before, which came in papery bags and was made with water boiled in an electric kettle.
Earl Grey, except when English Breakfast was cheaper.
Someone elbowed me gently in the ribs.
“Sorry,” I said, grabbing my cup and stepping back. “Didn’t mean to be in the way.”
“You’re not in the way,” said a person with a face familiar enough that I was sure we’d been in high school together but wasn’t sure if we’d ever shared a class. One of the smart kids.
She had long brown hair, a galactic spray of freckles, and sloped sleepy eyes, like Marilyn Monroe. Her smile was like Marilyn Monroe’s too. Not the big one she’d worn when she was standing on the air vent, but the one Andy Warhol made famous. Small but knowing.
“You look cool,” she said.
“Oh. Um. Thanks. You look—”
“Basic,” she said, tugging at the purple skirt of her dress. It was satin, the waist cinched in with an oversize ribbon, the bodice artfully ruffled.
“That’s basic?”
“Fifty bucks,” she said with a shrug. “That’s pretty basic around here.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
“What kind of dog does Willy Wonka have?” she asked.
“Oh. Um. I’m not Wi—”
“A chocolate lab.”
I stood there, holding my tea.
“Get it?” she asked.
“Yeah. Um. That’s hilarious.” I forced out another fake laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Ginger asked, appearing at my other side.
“Nothing,” I said.
And just like that, Marilyn Monroe’s smile was gone.
Which . . . shit. That was . . . that wasn’t good. I tried desperately to scrounge for the words that would make this situation right. Or, at the very least, a little less awkward. But before I could find them, she turned and retreated back into the room.
“Don’t worry,” Ginger whispered in my ear. “Nicola’s shy. Sometimes, you’ll talk to her, and she won’t respond at all.”
“She seems nice.”
“Oh, she is. I love her. But she’s weird. Just like you.”
That would’ve been a good time for me to say the line.
We’re all mad here. It wasn’t actually Hatter’s line, but it would’ve worked.
If I’d nailed the delivery, I could’ve even made it sound suave.
But suave had never been my forte, especially not when Ginger was whispering in my ear, her rosewater perfume sweet and sharp in the air.
“Oh . . . um . . . yeah . . . sorry about that. Being weird.”
“No. It’s OK. I like you weird.”
My cheeks prickled as I turned to face her directly.
Ginger was taller than usual, her heels propping her up an extra couple of inches. As if she needed the help. She’d always been the tallest kid in class, her grinning pink face popping up from the back row in all the school photos, from kindergarten all the way up to year-twelve graduation.
We were twenty now. I was almost twenty-one. But I still felt small standing next to her.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“For . . . ?”
“Here’s to the end,” she said, addressing the room. “The end of the semester, the end of exams, the end of another year!”
I gave an automatic cheer.
Everyone else just dinged their teaspoons against their teacups.
There was something surreal about it. The circle of smiles, the shimmer of dresses, the chorus of stainless-steel cutlery against ceramic.
I wondered if this was going to be a memory I would have for the rest of my life.
I wondered if, perhaps, it’d be a funny one.
The time I went to high tea with the popular, posh kids dressed in a top hat, tails, and a bow tie the size of a dinner plate.
It felt like it had the potential to become one of those gently embarrassing stories adults liked to whip out at Christmas parties. A charming, slightly awkward anecdote.
“Lucy,” Ginger’s mum said, holding out her phone. “Be a dear and take a photo of all us ladies together, would you?”
Or maybe it’d be the sort of memory I’d unpack slowly, over years on a therapist’s couch.
That time I passed up 15 percent off Thai food to embarrass myself in front of a room full of people I barely knew .
. . all because I thought I was going to get drunk with the girl who wrote with a glittery pink gel pen.