The Anti-Cool Girl (14 page)

The first act went fine. I had all my funny lines and stole most of my scenes with the kind of improvising that irritated everyone onstage but got me a lot of laughs from the audience (#teamplayer). During intermission the director came backstage to see if I was okay, and to tell me once again that I didn't have to do it if I didn't want to, to which I once again responded that I definitely would, knowing full well I already had calico undies on beneath my costume.

When the scene got closer, I suddenly remembered the whole ‘acting' side of it. I'd been so worried about admitting to anyone that I was too scared to go naked that I'd completely forgotten I also had no freaking chance of reaching the emotional level the scene required. ‘Oh god,' I thought, waiting to go on. ‘This is going to be fucking humiliating.'

I approached Don Juan, putting as much ‘emotion' into the scene as I could by yelling everything I said. All of a sudden I was regretting not taking the chair-seducing classes seriously.
And why the fuck had I refused to be a sexy dolphin?
Why had I laughed at every acting exercise we ever did? Now I was standing onstage, yelling at some guy, feeling no better than Tabitha in
Passions,
and in approximately ten seconds I was going to rip off my nun's habit and disappoint everyone by wearing undies.

I yelled my final, ‘this is the cue for the lighting guys that I'm about to get naked' line, adding in what I felt was a very dramatic head turn at the end. Then, in one swift move, I ripped off my nun's habit and stood onstage. Brave, defiant, broken, naked. Except in my undies.

In fairness to me, I was fully topless, so at least my tits were out for all to see. I hoped that at least made me
half
a brave actor. To be honest, I was just relieved that nobody saw my little belly. I had strategically ripped the undies in certain places so that some people might get a bit of a look at my vag, but mostly I chickened out of a nude scene, because I was embarrassed about not having a six-pack. Like nuns have six-packs anyway.

I was never offered another lead role after that, and left drama school halfway through my final year because I couldn't afford the ridiculous fees anymore. I was sad not to graduate, but I hardly think it made a difference to my career. A year later I enrolled at the University of Technology, Sydney, to study creative writing, and realised that's probably what I should have been concentrating on all along. All I'd ever wanted to do was write funny skits and perform them, without the pressure of meeting an emotional crescendo that warrants the ripping off of a nun's habit. I just wanted acting to be fun. And my idea of fun was not seducing chairs and pretending to be a sexy dolphin. Although that would make a great fucking skit.

When I was nineteen, I peed my pants in Coles. Granted, I was a little (very) intoxicated. I hadn't yet built up the kind of tolerance that comes from the regular consumption of cheap vodka and even cheaper wine. I was at a party within walking distance of my house, and I managed to convince the long-suffering Josh that I could get from said party to my bedroom on my own with no hassles or delays.

So off I trotted, heels in hand, headed towards a warm bed (by which I obviously mean the crawl space next to the toilet). What Josh didn't count on was there being a Coles between point A and point B. And everybody knows that when walking home from a big night, Drunk Brain takes over Regular Brain and leads the body towards food instead of home.

I can't remember the exact details, but what I do know is this: at some point during what should have been a five-minute
walk, I ended up in Coles looking for crumpets and Fanta. And I peed my pants.

It was pretty close to closing time, and I must have looked an absolute mess, because the security guard stared me down with a worried/puzzled look on his face the second I walked in the door. Of course, Drunk Brain assumed he was staring at me because I looked fabulous, and that put a pretty confident spring in my step. The fact I was carrying my heels instead of wearing them, and one of my false lashes was dangling off my face, also didn't register with me. I sauntered through that entrance like I was walking a red carpet.

I then proceeded to aimlessly wander the aisles for twenty minutes.

It was somewhere between deciding on the crumpets but still not sure about the Fanta that I got the feeling. Like my bladder was suddenly, and out of nowhere, overflowing to the point where it had decided to start pushing out liquid whether I agreed to it or not.
That
feeling.

I ignored it at first, and continued with the more pressing decision of which fizzy drink I should buy and cuddle up with in bed. (And again, if the story includes me being drunk, feel free to assume the word ‘bed' means ‘toilet'.) But it got worse. And worse. I even tried that subtle manoeuvre of pretending I was looking at something on the bottom shelf so I could crouch
down and try to use my foot as a plug, but to no avail. This wee was happening. And it was happening now.

At this point I had three options: I could leave immediately, find some bushes outside and do my business; I could go right there in the aisle, which although a public place, I currently had to myself; or, option number three, I could attempt the impossible feat of reversing a waterfall, proceed to the counter and buy my desperately needed items, risking the very real possibility I would wet myself in front of a security guard and terrified check-out guy.

It was 2am and I was crouching down in the dog food aisle with no shoes on. A decision clearly needed to be made. Guess which option Drunk Brain chose?

I proceeded to the check-out, with what I estimated was about thirty seconds before the urine dam exploded. Of course at this point the manager entered the scene, and decided it was imperative he count every five-cent coin ever placed into circulation and put them into little bags.

That was obviously the moment a sane individual would have made a run for it. But damn it, it had taken me twenty minutes to decide I wanted those crumpets, and I wasn't leaving without them.

So with the security guard, manager and check-out guy all within ten feet of me, I carried out what I thought was the only viable option left. With my crumpets and heels in one
hand and Fanta in the other, I decided to let that wee flow as discreetly as possible. Drunk Brain reasoned that I really wanted those crumpets, and the chances of anybody noticing were slim. Drunk Brain was wrong.

You know when you've been busting to wee for such a long time that when you finally get to go, it just keeps coming and coming? And coming? This was one of those times. Finally opening the floodgates was beyond satisfying, but within two seconds it was clear that this was no discreet operation. As the warm liquid ran down my leg and formed a puddle on the floor, I think the four of us in that Coles shared an oddly intimate moment. First, they couldn't take their eyes off me. Then they stared at each other in equal parts horror and disbelief. Then back to me. And all the while I just stood there, like I was any normal lady waiting in a supermarket line, absolutely not doing a wee.

When the stream finally receded, the manager was the first to snap out of our shared trance. ‘Can I help you?' he asked, as he motioned me over. ‘Yes, thank you,' I replied, as I held my head high and walked slowly over to the counter with an air of importance (evidently, Drunk Brain had decided the only way out of this was to maintain my dignity by acting well above my station), all the while leaving wet footprints in my wake. ‘I'd like to purchase these, please,' I said with a head toss. All three of them continued to stare at me. It was like I was a crazy person
with a bomb and nobody wanted to do anything that would make me nervous.

Everything was a little anti-climactic after that; I just paid for my crumpets and Fanta and sashayed out of there. I didn't look back, but I'm certain the three of them stood there in shocked silence for at least another minute. Then they had to decide who was taking care of that puddle. I wet my pants in Coles, and didn't leave until I had bought my crumpets.

Less than two years later, my uncle and aunt asked me to leave their home. I always wondered if they'd somehow discovered I had wet my pants at the local supermarket.

My uncle and aunt, Ben and Natasha, were crazy wealthy. They lived in a huge mansion that was like a museum – it was very clean and there was lots of expensive art that you weren't allowed to touch. Everything was white and open plan. Spilling a drink on the carpet was considered an emergency on par with a natural disaster. My uncle would spring into action with about ten different products, all the while swearing and making me feel like I'd caused thousands of dollars worth of damage with one glass of Coke. Come to think of it, given the cost of everything in their home, I probably had.

I had lived with Ben and Natasha for a little while when I was a kid, but when I went to live with them permanently at fourteen, they sent me straight to boarding school. So, for three years, I was living with them without really living with them.
All I really knew was that I wasn't allowed to put posters on my wall, and they had a dog they loved more than me. His name was Hamish, he was a West Highland white terrier, and as a rich couple with no kids, they treated him like their one true son and heir.

I fucking hated that dog. And rightfully so – he was awful. He wasn't friendly. He wasn't affectionate. I think he's the only dog I've met in my entire life who didn't like to hug. He used to bite little kids, then Ben and Natasha would get angry with the kids for ‘provoking' him. He walked around with a sense of entitlement that pissed me off – it reminded me of the boys at boarding school. It was like he knew I didn't belong. Whenever he looked at me, I just imagined him thinking, ‘Ugh, you're that Houso kid who belongs to my dad's drunk sister. Why are you here taking up my place on the couch, you commoner?'

Hamish was walked three times a day and given gourmet meals. In fact, I often got a smaller portion than everyone else at dinner ‘so that Hamish wouldn't feel left out'. ‘I'll fucking leave your stupid face out,' I used to think, as Ben and Natasha each chomped down on two chorizo sausages, and I looked at my second one sitting in Hamish's bowl.

He was basically just an all-round smug piece of shit on four legs, and I hated that my new parents always seemed more excited about having him around than me. I got back at him in small, secret ways, though. When I spilled drinks on the carpet
while I was home alone, I would cover it in the cleaning powder and then say Hamish had done a shit. Or when I was meant to take him to the park, I would walk him just far enough down the road to see the park, then I would turn around and drag him home. Ours was a fairly disturbing – although in my opinion equal – sibling rivalry.

But mostly I was at boarding school, so I could handle the uncomfortable life I had at the museum house with the shitty excuse for a dog. Just when I felt like I couldn't handle another second at school, I got to go home for the holidays. Then, just when I felt like I couldn't handle another second in a home that wasn't really mine, I got to go back to school. Until, of course, I finished high school, which meant living at home permanently.

In the three years I'd spent living at the College, the bullying I'd experienced had taken a lot out of me. When I finally escaped that situation and had time to decompress, the depression, anxiety and PTSD started. I mostly relied on Josh to get me through it, but that didn't stop Ben and Natasha from wondering what the hell had happened to the promising young bookworm they'd sent to boarding school three years earlier. I was withdrawn, quiet, weird. I'd stay at Josh's for days at a time. I dropped out of university after a month. They never knew that I had tried to kill myself, but they did see I was depressed, and they paid for me to go to therapy, which was incredibly generous of them.

I think they thought that throwing money at the problem was going to fix it, but it wasn't that easy. My first suicide attempt after boarding school was only the beginning of the long and difficult journey of dealing with my childhood trauma, and I was not easy to deal with during that journey. By the time Josh and I broke up, Ben and Natasha were married and had two kids of their own, and were itching to live life as a family. A family that didn't include the weird, withdrawn niece who dropped out of uni and hid in her room all the time. I was the odd one out. The ‘spot the random'. They had promised to be my parents, but I could feel them pulling away.

I first realised they were frustrated when Natasha approached me about my therapy one day. ‘So, Rosie,' she asked. ‘How much longer do you think you'll be going to the psychiatrist for?'

‘Um, I don't know,' I replied hesitantly. ‘I hadn't really thought about it.'

‘It's really expensive, you know.'

‘I know,' I said.

‘And you've been going for two years now. Isn't it time to start winding it up?'

I stood in silence, a little gobsmacked. Was she telling me I had to give up therapy? Was she telling me they were sick of paying for it?

‘We help you pay for drama school. We pay for all your psychiatrist sessions. You live here for free. It's a lot, you know.'

After that conversation, I freaked out. I wanted to be what they wanted, happy and together and successful and perfect. But I couldn't do it. I tried, but I just couldn't do it. The memories and the thoughts would always come back. The knife under the door. Dad in the back of the paddy wagon. Grandpa screaming. I couldn't get my brain to do what I wanted it to do, and even though I knew it frustrated Ben and Natasha that I was so different from what they had hoped for, I just didn't feel I could control it.

The more I felt them pushing me away, the more anxious I became. I started trying to be a cool kid with the wrong kinds of people. Every weekend involved getting wasted, and often fucking some guy in a bathroom. I just so badly wanted to feel wanted, I would hook up with whoever would take me. I got home one night in the middle of winter and realised I had forgotten my key, but rather than wake up Ben and get in trouble, I slept on the doorstep, under the doormat for warmth. I had a bunch of friends stay over while Ben and Natasha and the kids were away, and a few days later Natasha noticed that money was missing from one of the girls' moneyboxes. Those were the kinds of ‘cool kids' I was hanging out with.

The hard partying was making my depression and anxiety worse. I had a job and went to drama school, but when I was at home I just hid in my room, crying and sleeping, staring at the walls, watching hours of TV then having no memory of
what I'd seen. I had fallen into a cycle of binging and purging and starving myself, so I was hiding food and vomit all over my room. I started having panic attacks in class. I was falling to pieces without Josh.

And Ben and Natasha had no freaking clue what was going on. I feel for them, I really do. I was severely depressed, and can't have been easy to live with. To them, I think it just seemed like I was a belligerent, self-destructive twenty-year-old, with no gratitude for everything they'd done for me.

The last straw was when I got my period all over an expensive pair of Natasha's undies. When you're constantly fighting thoughts of suicide, you hardly think about doing washing, so I snuck into Natasha's wardrobe one day and took a pair of her knickers. And of course, when you've borrowed someone else's knickers, the universe decides to unexpectedly give you your period so you get blood all over them. I freaked out. These were nice, expensive undies. And I had wrecked them. There's no way the stains were going to wash out. So, I hid them in my room and hoped that Natasha would forget she'd ever owned them.

She didn't forget.

I came home from work late one night and found an envelope taped to my bedroom door. Inside was a letter from Ben, about five pages long, listing all the things that he and Natasha were pissed off at me about. All the things I had been
doing wrong. All the ways in which I was selfish and awful to live with. Staying out late. Being withdrawn. Not doing my dishes. Never talking to them. Sleeping all day. Taking Natasha's undies and staining them with period blood.

The letter was fair. Everything he said in it was true. He may not have taken the time to try and understand the causes of my behaviour, but everything he said was accurate, and that sent me into a total meltdown. I don't think I said one word to either of them for the next two weeks. I could feel my second set of parents slipping away, and one wrong move was going to destroy everything. I figured if I could just stay out of their way and try not to fuck anything up, I wouldn't piss them off again and they wouldn't ask me to go.