Self-Portraits - 13. The Firework Committee

The next Monday, Maggie has the baby. It’s two weeks early, and Dad’s away on business overnight. Mum goes to the hospital and leaves a message with the school receptionist, for Vicky and I go there after school.

It’s weird, seeing Mum standing next to Maggie’s hospital bed. It’s Mum who’s holding the baby when we walk in. Maggie looks like she’s been through a car wash but she’s smiling. The baby’s tiny, purple, squashed and asleep.

“Boy, girl, or other?” Vicky demands, as soon as we walk in.

“She’s a little girl,” Mum whispers.

“Yes!” Vicky pumps the air with her fist. “I hope she’s just like me.”

Maggie smiles. “I think I’d like that.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Mum tells Maggie. “Do either of you want to hold her?”

Vicky screws up her face. “God no. If she has a poop explosion on me, I’ll vomit.”

“I will,” I say.

Mum passes me the bundle. I look down at her microscopic features. I wonder what high school will be like for the little bundle in my arms.

I hope it’s better for her than it’s been for me. That’s my first thought. But then, almost straight away, a sensible voice in my head says, Actually, it hasn’t been that bad.

“Have you thought of a name yet?” I ask.

“Actually, yes.” Maggie glances towards Vicky. “We decided to go with Olivia.”

*

Four weeks pass, of my strange, busy life. I’m at Dad and Maggie’s nearly every day, helping out with baby Olivia. I start changing a couple of nappies, which isn’t as gross as I thought it’d be. Vicky refuses to engage in any nappy-related activity, but feasts on all of Maggie’s sordid details of what childbirth was like.

I also take Maggie and baby Olivia to a few Bad Hats rehearsals, because Harriet lives around the corner. Ironically, the music always helps Olivia get to sleep. Maggie falls asleep once, too. Harriet, Penny and Benny try not to take this personally.

At home, giant strips of canvass hang from the walls, splattered with my disturbing artwork. I move on from screaming faces to images of violence – a girl thrusting her fist into a boy’s face, a boy being impaled by the bony branches of a tree, a group of partygoers drowning in a cocktail glass of acid.

I’m thinking about Nicholas less and less. Then, out of nowhere, a day passes – a Saturday – where I don’t think about Nicholas at all.

It’s not until Sunday that I realise what happened.

I call Harriet to tell her to good news. “I think I might be cured.”

“That’s good,” Harriet says, but there’s something about the way she says it that worries me.

When I point out how weird she sounds, she says, “Okay, fine. I’ll tell you, but only so you don’t hear it from someone at school on Monday …”

And she tells me what’s happened.

*

If Harriet hadn’t been keeping me busy with the Nicholas Plan, I would’ve noticed something had been going on. But I realise now that there had been gossip on Friday. Whispers, sniggers, more kids on their phones in class than usual.

I also realise that I hadn’t seen any of the popular kids together over the last week. Whenever I’d seen Darren, Lisa, or Carrie, they’d been on their own, looking angry.

I hadn’t seen much of Nicholas at school at all. As for Stu, I’d passed him in the hallway only three days ago, and he hadn’t been his usual friendly self. He’d smiled, but there’d been something different about it.

Nicholas probably told him how I hung up on him, I told myself at the time, and never called him back, and how I’ve been avoiding him for weeks. Combine that with how rude I was to Stu at the Ball, no wonder he probably hates me now.

Now I know the truth. Stu was scared.

*

Two nights ago, on Friday, Stu had been working his shift at Sizzler’s. At the end of the night, he took two giant bags of trash to the bin in the unlit alleyway.

“Hey,” came a voice from the dark. “Faggot.”

Darren Park stepped out of the shadows – blocking the doorway back into the restaurant.

“We all found out about you and Nicholas, faggot,” Darren said.

Darren was drunk, holding a near-empty bottle of bourbon. He told Stu that Nicholas was a liar, he’d lied to Carrie, he’d lied to all of them.

“We let that faggot hang out with us,” Darren said, “but all he wanted to do was perve at us. We got changed in the same fucking room as him, you know.”

Stu tried to get past Darren, back into the restaurant, but Darren wouldn’t let him. Stu tried to push Darren out of the way. That was all the provoking Darren needed. He dropped the bottle, which smashed on the ground. Darren grabbed Stu and threw him up against the wall, his head cracking on the brick.

“Stay the fuck away from us,” Darren snarled, digging his fingers into Stu’s neck and covering his face in bourbon-flavoured spit, “and stay away from the girls. Next time, we’ll fucking kill you.”

Darren let Stu go and stumbled out of the alleyway. He made it three doors down from Sizzler’s, then fell asleep in the doorway of the bookshop. Stu’s head throbbed and he had bruises around his neck from where Darren had grabbed him.

“Apparently Darren can’t even remember being there,” Harriet tells me.

“Poor Stu.”

“Are you okay?” Harriet asks.

“I’m fine,” I say. “I know exactly what I need to do.”

*

“It’s just me,” I say, when Nicholas answers the phone. He doesn’t say anything, so I add, “It’s Richard.”

“Oh – hi.” It’s like we’re complete strangers. “What do you want?”

“I heard about what Darren did to Stu on Friday,” I say. “I just wanted to ask how you guys were.”

There’s another silence. Then he says, “You’ve given me the cold shoulder for a month. I didn’t think you’d care.”

I don’t want to explain it over the phone. “Can we meet this afternoon?” I ask. “If you want to. Maybe at Macy’s?”

Another pause. “If you want.”

“How about two o’clock?”

He sighs. “Fine.”

*

The old me would’ve worried about what to wear, but I haven’t even had a shower this morning, and there’s still flecks of paint on my face.

I get to Macy’s ten minutes early. I’m not tied up in knots worrying if he’ll get there on time, or if he’ll get there at all. As it happens, he walks in a couple of minutes after me.

Sitting across from him, I find it a bit strange that I was in love with him. It’s just Nicholas, with the pointy ears, freckles on his forehead, and that silly grin. Not that he’s grinning today.

Maybe Nicholas made a few mistakes. Maybe he should’ve realised that I was infatuated with him. Maybe he shouldn’t have stopped hanging out with me.

But now I know that he was right.

We should probably hang out with other friends, Nicholas said, that first morning by the gate, instead of just with each other all the time.

He was right about that. But this isn’t about me. It never was about me, when it came to Nicholas. That’s okay, too.

“How’s Stu?” I ask.

“Bad,” Nicholas says.

I nod. “It’s so …” I can’t think of the word. “Bad.” I sound so lame.

“What’s worse is how everyone’s downplaying it. Saying, like, Darren was drunk, it hardly left a scratch.”

“Really? Even Lisa Meadows?”

“I’m not talking to her,” Nicholas says sharply. He hasn’t touched his coffee, or the cake.

“What do you mean?”

“She called me in tears yesterday and admitted it was her fault.”

“Lisa? But Darren was the one who …”

“Lisa’s the one who opened her big mouth about Stu and me last week. So as far as I’m concerned, she’s the one to blame.” He narrows his eyes. “Before Lisa owned up, Stu and I thought you were the one.”

“The one?”

“Last week, when the rumours about Stu and me started spreading, we thought you were the one telling people. We figured you might be jealous after you’d seen us kissing. But Lisa owned up to it. She’s been a total dickhead. That whole group, they just get drunk and tell everyone’s secrets. I wanted to come out of the closet, not be, like, forced out. But they don’t care who they hurt. I’m done with them.”

“I didn’t realise that was going on,” I say.

Nicholas shrugs. “We’re even now, right? I ditched you when your parents split up, then you ditched me when all this shit started going down. I get why you did it. Fair’s fair.”

“That’s not why I’ve been avoiding you.”

“Then why were you?”

I take a deep breath. “I wanted to be your boyfriend. The truth is that, right up until I saw you and Stu kissing, I thought you and I were going to become boyfriends. I had been misreading things for a while.”

Nicholas stares at me for a moment. He leans back in his chair. “Wow. Okay. I didn’t realise that. I thought you might’ve been getting the wrong idea a few months ago, but then you said we were on the same page, so I figured we were fine. But … wow. Okay.”

I push on. “That was why I needed time away from you. That’s what the last month has been about. But as soon as I heard about what happened to Stu, all of it felt trivial by comparison. I just want to be your friend again. Yours and Stu’s.”

As I say that, I know it won’t be easy, spending time with them. But I also know that they need friends more than I need things to be easy. Harriet can help me with a Nicholas- Friendship Plan.

Nicholas sits there for another second. He pokes his cake with a fork.

“I’ll ask Stu what he thinks about hanging out with you. Like I say, last week, we thought you were the one who spread the rumours. We’re not really sure who to trust right now.”

“Of course. But the offer’s there.”

Nicholas has a couple of sips of coffee and a tiny nibble of his cake. We chat about other things – how his parents reacted to him coming out, how his parents reacted to Stu, how bad things are going to be for him at school tomorrow.

We talk about things to do with Nicholas, because that’s how our friendship is. That’s how it’s always been.

“The only good thing that came out of Friday night,” Nicholas says, “is that, afterwards, Stu and I said I love you to each other.”

“Oh, that’s cool.” There’s a mustard taste in my mouth. “I’m happy for you guys.”

Of course, I’m not really happy for them. It hurts.

But I’ll live.

*

Back home, there are three cars in the driveway – Dad’s, Cheryl’s and Rosemary’s. Inside, I can hear Cheryl loudly dictating cocktail ingredients, over the sound of baby Olivia wailing.

Everyone’s crowded in the kitchen.

“You’re doing so well,” Rosemary’s marvelling at Maggie. “You don’t even look tired.”

“It’s ninety per cent make-up,” Maggie insists. “We haven’t slept a wink.”

“Will you have a cocktail, then?” Cheryl asks, already spilling vodka on the counter.

Maggie laughs. “Perhaps I’ll hold off on the cocktails for now.”

“I’ll have Maggie’s cocktails!” Vicky says.

“You’ll have no such thing,” Mum says. “You’re supposed to be making a salad.”

“I did!” Vicky insists, pointing to a bowl of impatiently-torn lettuce.

Dad’s pacing back and forth with his screaming red-faced newborn, looking equally red-faced.

“The resemblance is uncanny,” I tell him.

“Can you take her for a second?” Dad says, handing her to me. “I’m dying for a pee.”

I take the baby bundle in my arms and, within a few seconds, her screwed-up purple face goes still and silent. Olivia stares at me with black eyes. She looks suspicious.

“You’re a baby whisperer,” Maggie says, visibly relieved. “You’re not letting go of her until we leave. In fact, you’re coming home with us.”

“Take him, he’s yours,” Mum says.

“Oh, thanks a lot,” I mutter.

I sit in the corner of the kitchen being stared at by baby Olivia, while the others make cocktails and salads. The doorbell rings.

“Vicky, answer that, please,” Mum says.

“I’m making a salad.”

“No, you’re not. You’re just standing there trying to steal sips of cocktail.”

Vicky drags her feet to the front door.

At first, I don’t recognise the booming voice. “Young lady! You’re a lady full of character, I’ve heard. Full of character! Victoria, I believe, also like the Queen. The second longest-ruling monarch, did you know? It’s an honour to meet you, Your Majesty.”

“Mum!” Vicky screams. “Help! There’s a crazy man at the door.”

“Invite them in,” Mum says.

Them?

I’m surprised to see Barry Hayes stride into the kitchen, having to stoop to miss the doorframe. He’s followed by Kevin, bespectacled and polite, then Harriet, who looks as though she’s ready to murder her parents.

“Harriet?” I say. “What …”

“Harriet called looking for you,” Mum explains, “and I told her you were out with Nicholas, but that you’d back for dinner, and I thought, why not invite them all over? There’s going to be plenty of food and it’s been so long since we had such warm weather.”

“Nicholas?” Harriet mouths his name at me.

“I’ll tell you later,” I mouth back.

“Your kitchen is charming!” Barry booms.

“Hello,” Kevin says.

“Who are these gorgeous men?” Cheryl demands, momentarily forgetting her cocktail. “And why haven’t we been introduced?”

“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree, darling,” Rosemary mutters.

Mum, Rosemary, Cheryl and Maggie meet Harriet, Barry and Kevin. Then Dad comes back from his pee, and Kevin, Barry, and Harriet meet Dad. Then Kevin, Barry and Harriet meet Olivia.

Barry insists on holding her. To everyone’s relief, Barry’s a baby whisperer too; Olivia remains silent.

“Harriet was an extraordinarily silent baby, too,” Barry says. “Except for the farting.”

“Dad!” Harriet looks mutinous.

Baby-free, I escort Harriet out of the kitchen into the living room. I tell her what happened with Nicholas.

“I haven’t relapsed,” I reassure her, “but I’ll need all the help I can get with a new plan if Nicholas and Stu take me up on my offer to hang out with them.”

Vicky comes into the lounge to join us, having successfully stolen a cocktail from Cheryl. Within minutes, Vicky has Harriet in stitches with impressions of the teachers’ faces on the night of the ball protest.

Olivia starts crying again. Rosemary marches into the living room with her.

“You’re back on duty.” Rosemary plants Olivia back in my arms, where she again falls quiet.

Outside, Rosemary, Dad, and Kevin all hover around the barbeque, assessing the cookedness of sausages and steaks. Inside, Mum finds our old baby clothes to give to Maggie. Cheryl spills her cocktail over them.

After dinner, Dad asks Mum, “What happened to that old box of fireworks?”

At everyone’s insistence, Mum finds the box and brings it out. “They’re all ancient,” Mum warns everyone. “I doubt they’ll even light.”

“Let’s tie all of their fuses together,” Vicky insists, “and set them all off at the same time!”

“That would be extremely dangerous,” Harriet says. Then adds, “But I am curious.”

Maggie, Mum and I sit on the back porch, watching the others trying to twist all the firework fuses together. Olivia’s fallen asleep on me. Maggie begs me not to move.

After half an hour, Dad declares, “Alright, we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

There’s a bouquet of about twenty fireworks, all sticking out at different angles.

The sky has gone dark. It’s a clear night with millions of stars.

“Let’s get this disaster over with!” Barry says.

“You’d better step back,” Vicky warns Cheryl, “or you’ll catch on fire with all the alcohol in your system.”

Dad kneels down and strikes a match. Everyone rushes back to the porch.

“If we all die in this explosion,” Rosemary says solemnly, “then I’d just like to say, I’ve never liked any of you very much.”

“Look!” Harriet cries. “It’s about to go off!”

The spark curls its way up to the bottom of the firework bunch, then vanishes.

We’re all holding our breath. Nothing happens.

After a few seconds, there’s a faint whistling sound, followed by a wet sort of snapping.

Then nothing.

“Is that it?” Vicky says.

“Well, what did you expect?” Mum says. “I told you they were old.”

“That was disappointing,” Cheryl slurs.

There’s a sudden pop. We all shriek.

A jet of yellow sparks shoots into the air, a single burst of colour. The sparks barely reach the height of the roof, before crackling away into darkness.

“All our preparation for that?” Vicky cries.

For some reason, the monumental failure gives Rosemary and Barry a case of the giggles.

“Perhaps the fuses weren’t tied together properly,” Harriet says.

“I think you’re right,” Dad agrees. “Let’s take another look.”

“Be careful,” Maggie begs him. “You’ve got a newborn to take care of.”

Cheryl waves her empty glass. “I’m making another drink!”

“Wait for me!” Vicky follows her inside.

“No, Vicky, you’re not drinking anything else!” Mum shouts after her. Mum turns to Maggie and sighs. “Honestly, I never thought daughters would be naughtier than sons.”

Despite the noise, Olivia remains asleep.

The firework committee reconvenes, even though it’s clearly a doomed effort. One small bang and one burst of colour – tonight, that’s all we’ll get.

But for now, this is all I need.