Paper Alice (19 page)

But I was already swinging round towards the door again. It was now or never.

‘Where was she going?' I asked. ‘Which direction was she headed?'

Lily shrugged; shook her head.

‘God knows! It was . . .' She trailed off, waving a hand. ‘Going up the hill towards the medical school, I think.'

‘OK.' I caught Andy's eye. ‘You explain,' I said, over
my shoulder, ‘to Lily – about the whole stupid thing. Bye–'

‘But she could be anywhere!' I heard Lily cry behind me. ‘And you haven't had your coff–'

‘Anywhere' was right. By the time I'd rushed up the road, getting wet, glancing wildly about, peering at girls who in any way resembled me, I knew that I probably didn't have a hope. She could have gone into any of the buildings, with all their floors and hundreds of rooms.

I reached the top of the hill and stood there at the crossroads, puffing, looking around. Trying to think rationally.

Why would a UTS student come here? To meet a friend? Spiro, perhaps? I stared down the wide avenue leading in the direction of the Student Union, the trunks of the plane trees gleaming from the rain. Then back across the road at the library, a never-ending stream of people hurrying across the forecourt and entering and exiting its glass doors. Wondered if she was in there somewhere, behind those familiar walls.

I pictured the rows and rows of bookshelves, and all those people about to start stu-vac, wandering up and down between. And the banks of computers, and the lines of heads and shoulders hunched forward over the keyboards . . .

I marched across the road and headed for the entrance.

My search around the main sections of the first floor proved fruitless, and by the time I reached the second level, I was ready to give up. It was like trying to find someone in a crowded supermarket – if she did happen
to be in there she'd be sure to be right down the other end and moving in the opposite direction.

And anyway, even if I did spy her, would I have the guts to march right up to her and introduce myself? The thought gave me a spike of fear, all over again.

By the time I came out again, even though it'd stopped raining, I'd just about given up. I couldn't be bothered tramping all the way down to the union building, and a march around the cafés and bars would probably produce the same result.

I stood there, people ducking around me, wondering, with a couple of hours to kill, what to do next. With the exams only about ten days away, I knew what I should be doing, but by this stage my concentration levels were zero.

I must've looked ripe for the picking, because the next thing I knew a yellow sheet of paper was being shoved under my nose. Stand outside the library for any length of time and you'll end up being offered a dozen different flyers, for everything from heavy-metal gigs to bible-study meetings.

I stared down at it, then looked up at its bearer. A girl with a wide freckled face framed by long honey-coloured hair, smiling at me, her head cocked to one side.

‘Students as Siblings,' she said, ‘interested?'

I gazed at her blankly.

‘We're starting a mentorship program – for underprivileged kids.' She nudged the flyer closer. ‘Each participant is assigned a child to act as a kind of big sister or brother to. Sister, in your case.'

‘Oh,' I said, smiling vaguely, taking it from her and starting to move on, ‘thanks . . .'

But she wasn't being fobbed off, not that easily. She took a small step sideways, blocking my way.

‘We're having a meeting in an hour – at one o'clock. In the social sciences building first-floor lecture theatre.' Her greenish eyes sought mine. ‘It's going to be a really,
really
rewarding program, for the kids
and
the mentors.'

My gaze slid to her cloth shoulder bag, still heavy with flyers.

‘Yeah,' I said, ‘certainly sounds it . . .'

‘Great!' Her face lit up. ‘So we'll see you there?'

I glanced down at the paper in my hand – more to avoid her eyes than anything else – and gave an uneasy laugh.

‘Well, I'll think about it.'

‘Please do!' Her gaze, already straying over my shoulder for her next target, swung back to me.

‘Come and hear all about it. No obligation to sign up. But you won't regret it!'

‘OK,' I smiled politely, starting to move.

‘One o'clock,' she cried, over her shoulder. ‘Social Sciences Building – don't forget!'

I walked back across the road and headed towards an empty bench, swiping the raindrops off the seat with the bottom of the flyer and sitting down. I watched my would-be recruiter intercepting people, without a great deal of success. Some stopped and seemed to listen, some took a sheet and walked on, some simply waved her away. Most who took one stuffed it away; only a couple of people actually looked at it afterwards. Just about all of the papers would, of course, go into the bin unread.

And still she kept on, weaving her way about the
forecourt before finally pushing through the doors to try inside. So engrossed with her cause. I envied her passion – her ability to feel so strongly about something. My own life seemed so . . . wishy-washy by comparison: flat and bland and barely there.

I wondered if I would always feel as I did now – as though I was somehow waiting for my time to really begin. And all the people walking back and forth across the lawn and into the library, arms around their books and bags, chatting and laughing or flirting with one another, gesticulating and pushing straying strands of hair behind their ears – did they sometimes feel like this too? As though they were somehow watching life through a glass wall?

And my manic, hopeless search for Wilda hadn't helped . . .

I dug my hand into my bag. Felt the crumpled, soggy flyer and pulled it out.

You don't have to sign up, I reminded myself, as I reached the top of the stairs and saw the handwritten sign stuck on the opposite wall.
Students as Siblings
was written in texta above a big arrow pointing left. I looked at my watch – nearly ten past. But I wasn't the last; there were still a couple of people wandering into the theatrette ahead of me and someone was coming up the stairs behind.

Thanks to the small print at the bottom of the sheet – the bit about the
usual commitment
being
three or four hours once a week, possibly a fortnight –
I nearly hadn't come at all.

Once a week was quite major.
To enable a real bond to be formed
, it said.

That was when I'd stuffed it back in my bag and pulled out my phone to check my messages. After that I'd gone back into the library to look for a book I'd been meaning to get, then thought about lunch. But all the time I'd kept glancing at my watch, watching the minute hand move around the hour, towards one . . .

I knew that if I went to that meeting I'd be signed up. You know what it's like to be surrounded by a crowd of mega-enthusiastic people – it's practically impossible to say no. Week after week I'd be tied to meeting up with some disturbed kid with whom I'd have nothing in common, becoming involved with her life and problems, when it was all I could do to cope with my own. Listening to Milly's woes was enough! And I knew that ‘three or four hours' would be an understatement. There'd be whole day trips, and phone calls, plus Christmas and birthday presents–

And yet the thought of not going was somehow worse. Of letting my life run on the same, like a train chugging on across some endless plain, with no horizon in sight.

What's that physics thingy?
For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction.

And yet as my watch hand crept around, I still couldn't make up my mind. I seemed to be moving slowly and stiffly, stuck in a groove of indecision.
Go . . . don't go. Go . . . don't go.

Finally, when I'd queued for a smoothie at the juice bar, paid for it and was walking away, I'd looked at my watch one last time.

12.57.

And then I was running, or rather hobbling, full smoothie held out in front of me, for the social sciences building.

They'd been a bit ambitious choosing a whole lecture theatre, even though it was only a small one. There were no more than about twenty people there, sitting down the front. A few people who were obviously organisers, including my recruiter, were standing out the front, below the stage.

Us latecomers slid into seats (I got a smile and a little wave from my friend), then the girl in charge looked at her watch and announced that we'd better get started. She thanked us for coming, then gave a bit of a spiel about how rewarding it was all going to be, et cetera, et cetera. She said that the person who'd more or less got the program going at another uni would be appearing any minute; she was just running a few minutes late . . .

And then that person dashed in.

‘Sorry,' she said, flashing a little smile, ‘I got held up.'

I certainly didn't need the introduction that followed and barely heard a word of anything she said. Where and how she'd been involved in the whole thing – UTS must've been mentioned I suppose – or her experiences of it. I just sat there, down one end of the second row, completely still. Sure that I must be starting to glow bright red with the shock of it all. Any minute now people were going to start glancing at me . . .

But nobody did. Wilda went on talking, three metres away, smiling, shrugging, frowning, making little hand gestures. Also the odd little joke – I didn't really register what they were, but people chuckled.

It was like being connected to a humming voltage that sent out occasional little zaps of recognition. Especially when it came to question time. The way she tilted her chin down slightly when she laughed, for example, resting her finger on her chin. And the way she rolled her eyes.

I'd never been very conscious of these mannerisms in myself, but they were instantly familiar when I saw them in her. It could have been me standing out there. And her skin was the same, and her hair . . .

And her fingernails! Uneven-looking, with the odd bitten nail and ragged cuticle.

My chest felt as though there was a weight pushing in on it; my hands had become slippery with sweat. I sank right down in my seat behind the person in front, hidden from her gaze.

Her clothes – the standard jeans and T with a Vinnie's-looking cardie on top – could have come straight from my wardrobe. And when I craned forward to catch a glimpse of her bag on the floor beside her, there it was. The red one, with multicoloured plaiting.

Of course there were things about her that were different. The teeth with the gap, for a start. Not that there was anything wrong with them – they just hadn't been straightened. And her accent (which certainly wasn't foreign) seemed flatter, broader than my own; her way of speaking more direct, in-your-face.

Plus her eyes . . . They were greeny-brown like mine, but there was something about them – a kind of toughness, a watchfulness. You somehow got the feeling that she wasn't getting any financial help from her family.

Suddenly the boy sitting next to me was raising his
hand to ask a question. I shrank down still further, leaning away from him slightly.

The other girl out in front pointed to him with a smile. ‘Yes?'

Everyone looked our way. Right at the same moment the person in front of me bent forward to get something out of her bag.

So there I was, exposed.

Wilda's gaze swung around. Then stopped dead.

I watched, almost with detachment, as her mouth dropped open and her gaze in an instant went from warm-hazel to steel-sharp. Our eyes met, and in those two or so seconds – it seemed more like ten – my worst fears were confirmed.

Spiro
had
told her about me and here I was, the crazy lookalike who claimed to be her sister. The weirdo who showed up at meetings, apologised on her behalf, then scuttled out like a frightened crab.

Then the girl in front straightened up again in her seat, mercifully blocking me again. Not that it was much of a relief. My heart was pounding in my ears; I felt as though I was choking.

I briefly considered doing another runner, but knew that that would only make the whole thing worse. There was nothing for it but to sit here until the end, tough it out, and try and explain.

I wondered how angry she'd be.

But she seemed rattled too – why wouldn't she be? I could no longer see her properly, but she was sounding a bit distracted, had lost her momentum. Once or twice I risked a peek at her, but shrank back down when I saw her gaze moving in my direction.

And then came another surprise.

‘Well,' I heard her announce, as though she'd just glanced at her watch, ‘I'm afraid I'm gunna have to fly; Larissa will get your details. Please – sign up!'

Larissa thanked her, there was a mini-round of applause and she headed for the door, bag over her shoulder. For a moment it seemed as though she was going to turn her head and look at me, but she didn't.

Then she was gone.

I sat there, shell-shocked. Feeling humiliated and cheated at the same time. She'd obviously decided that the best policy was to ignore me. As though I was some crazy person on the street, wild-eyed and ranting, with whom you avoid making eye contact.

I barely remember shuffling out at the end of the meeting – too agitated and demoralised to do anything about joining up. I murmured, ‘I'll think about it', to the girl. After all, they were wanting sane volunteers for Students as Siblings, not nut cases.

It was after I'd gone down the stairs, out of the building, and was wandering aimlessly back up the road, that the tap came on my shoulder.

I spun around, and there she was.

‘Hey.'

‘Hey . . .'

We stared at one another. I registered that she had the beginnings of a pimple on her chin. Wondered if she blobbed Clearasil on it at night, like me.