The Year Nick McGowan Came to Stay (3 page)

I sit in French realising how bad this situation really is. In the space of an hour I've been outed as a Huey Lewis and the News fan. And I've got an imaginary boyfriend. I think about the look of horror on Nick McGowan's face when he said, ‘Do you listen to Huey Lewis and the News?' And this is not the impression I wanted to create. I wanted him to think that I was cool. Instead I look like a dork who is one fan letter away from a restraining order. I think about my room with its posters of Kirk Cameron and Johnny Depp and A-ha and Michael J. Fox and decide that this is
not
the way it's going to be.

Then I do something I've never done before. I tell Mrs Lesage that I have a dentist's appointment and that I have to leave class early. And because it's me, Rachel Hill the prefect, Rachel Hill the good girl, she doesn't even ask to see a note. She just says, ‘Copy down your homework before you go.'

‘
Oui, madame
,' I say, scribbling into my homework diary. Then I pack up my things and collect my bag from the day room and stroll out the school gates an hour before everybody else, no questions asked. It's that easy.

Except for the bit where I don't actually know where I'm going. So I walk down Lambert Road and bypass my usual bus stop on Central Avenue, and head for Indooroopilly Station. Fifteen minutes later I'm on a train to the city. On my way to Brisbane's coolest, independent record store, Rocking Horse Records on Adelaide Street. On my way to get some posters for my room that will make me look cool. On my way to buy myself some street cred.

I find Rocking Horse Records easily. Not because I've ever been inside but because I've walked past it dozens of times with Mum in the past when she was dragging me to McDonnell and East on the hunt for school uniform supplies. But as soon as I step through the door it feels like a bad idea. Me being here at two forty-five p.m. on a Friday afternoon dressed in my deeply uncool maroon school uniform –
complete with regulation maroon ribbon in my hair. There's loud tribal music playing that I don't recognise. I look around. I appear to be the only person in the room without a piercing. So I try to look like I fit in. After all, today I'm not Rachel Hill: prefect; I'm Rachel Hill: wagger. Truant. Badass. Like someone who could possibly be riddled with piercings underneath all this maroon cotton/polyester mix. And I try to look nonchalant as I wander around the store flipping through CDs and records, fiddling with cassingles with no real clue of what the hell I'm doing. I even hum as though I'm familiar with the music that's playing.

I look over at the sales assistant, a guy with jet-black hair, piercings and tattoos. He looks like one of the bad guys in the ‘Say No To Cigarettes/Bag The Fag' commercials Mrs Michaels made us watch three billion times in Year 9 Social Education.

That's when I notice the young women next to me. One is dressed in army pants and a black tank top. She looks like Lisa Bonet from ‘The Cosby Show', long dark dreadlocks, a pierced nose. The other has reddish plaits and is wearing a long floral dress and Doc Martens. They look like uni students. I watch Lisa Bonet pick up a CD by the Housemartins, turn it over, put it back.

‘Christ, this is the best album,' she says to Plait Girl. Plait Girl agrees. Then they move to the R section – so I casually follow them. They flip through some CDs. Stop. Comment on how good the Riptides were in concert at the UQ Refec last year. Keep flipping. Then one of them says, ‘It's not here.
'
The other says, ‘Go ask.' Lisa Bonet goes to the counter and asks the guy if they have
Halfway to Sanity
by the Ramones.

The Ramones. Nick McGowan's Ramones.

‘If it's not there, it means we don't have it,' says the guy behind the counter. ‘We have it on cassette.'

Lisa Bonet shakes her head.

‘Okay, well I can order you one in. You know their new one is out later this year? Do you want me to add your name to our pre-order list?'

‘Yeah,' she says. ‘Ta.' I watch the sales assistant write down their details. Then Lisa Bonet and Plait Girl wander away and I immediately know what I'm looking for.

Ten minutes later and I'm at the counter with two Ramones posters and
Halfway to Sanity
on cassette.

The sales assistant looks at my haul, then up at me.

‘Bit of a Ramones fan, hey?'

‘Fuck, yeah.'

He looks somewhat surprised. Then I hear someone go ‘tch' and I turn around to see a grandmother-type person shaking her head and clicking her tongue at me in disgust.

‘Sorry,' I say to the nanna. And to the guy behind the counter. And to anyone else who heard me drop the F word at two fifty-eight on a Friday afternoon.

‘That'll be $28.31,' says the sales guy a little suspiciously.

‘Ta,' I mumble.

I hand over thirty dollars, sheepishly take my change and head out the door just as I hear the nanna asking the sales assistant for directions to the Shingle Inn. As I walk back along Adelaide Street I begin to cheer up. Today I'm a Ramones fan. And as I head back to Central Station I can't wait to listen to their music.

I hate the Ramones. I spend Friday night listening to them and I make myself listen to every song on the tape. I find myself looking longingly over at my Bangles and Eurythmics tapes. Huey Lewis seems to be looking down at me from my bedroom wall with a look that says
traitor
. But I persist, telling myself that it's good for me. That I need to change. That I'm going to like the Ramones if it kills me.

By Saturday, listening to the Ramones nonstop has practically killed me. So I stop listening to them and instead I put on my Phil Collins
No Jacket Required
cassette (first lip-syncing in the mirror to ‘Billy Don't Lose My Number') and resign myself to just memorising the names of as many Ramones songs as I can. At least I can sound knowledgeable – look like I have something in common with Nick McGowan.

Dad walks past my door and reminds me that I can now officially move bedrooms. Caitlin is going to spew. We've been fighting over this room for years. Mum's always kept it as a guest room – mainly for my nanna, who comes to stay from Sydney for a month every year. It's the ultimate bedroom. Bigger, quieter, away from the rest of the house. And, the
piece de resistance
, it has its own ensuite.

I spend the rest of the morning moving my stuff. Books, cassettes, all my clothes. It takes me an hour to move all my stuff downstairs and another four hours to reinvent myself via my bedroom walls. I create a look that says
Ramones lover
, enigma, someone who's cool. And then Mum knocks on the door and asks if I want another Milo.

At one p.m. on Saturday I ring Zoë and invite her over for a swim, and to look at my new boudoir. She arrives ten minutes later.

‘Here it is,' I say, ushering her into my new, bigger, air-conned bedroom.

I watch Zoë take it all in. I watch her eyes move from the bed to the bookcase to the posters on the walls. And then she turns to me, hands on hips and eyebrows raised.

‘What?' I fold my arms across my chest.

‘Since when do you listen to the Ramones?'

‘I've always loved the Ramones,' I say, perhaps not quite as convincingly as I would have hoped.

‘Name one of their songs.'

‘
“I'm Not Jesus”.'

‘Really?'

I nod.

‘Hmmm, okaaay. Then name two of their albums.'

‘
Halfway to Sanity
and
Animal Boy
.'

Zoë purses her lips and narrows her eyes, as though she suspects I'm wearing an earpiece and am being fed the correct answers by some outside mole.

‘What's the name of the lead singer?'

She's got me, dammit. I bite my lip.

‘Umm . . . dunno.'

That's when the penny drops. ‘This is the band that Nick McGowan said he liked. You're doing this to impress him. Nick McGowan. You're whoring your music taste to impress Nick McGowan!'

‘Okay, fine. Maybe I am. But there is no way he was going to see the Kirk Cameron poster I had up in my room.'

‘Now just hang on a second. There is nothing, I repeat, nothing wrong with Kirk Cameron. That was a great poster. His eyes followed you around the room. I always felt like he was trying to hit on me.'

‘Oh, God.' I flop down onto my new double bed. ‘I'm screwed.'

‘You keep saying that.'

‘Well it's true. Yesterday I made a complete dick of myself in front of Nick McGowan in the library.'

‘Sure,' says Zoë.

I sit up. ‘You're not supposed to agree with me. You're my friend. You're supposed to say that things aren't as bad as they seem, that there's a solution here. That everything will work out okay.'

I lie back down.

‘But you made up a pretend boyfriend.'

I sit up again. ‘I know I made up a pretend boyfriend. And thanks for your help, by the way.
Your “he could beat the hell out of you” contribution made it sound like I was dating Jack Nicholson's character in
The Shining
.'

I lie back down.

‘You know you're gonna have to find yourself a boyfriend.'

I sit up again. ‘I
know
.'

I stay up. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and stare at Zoë on the floor. Zoë, who is currently balancing my Hello Kitty pillow on her forehead.

‘The question is, what am I going to do about it? And take my Hello Kitty pillow off your head. You'll get make-up on it.'

Zoë does her best horizontal volleyball spike and Kitty's fat little cat head comes sailing up towards me.

‘Look, it's no biggie. All you have to do is break up with your pretend boyfriend some time next week. End of story.'

‘Right. Right. Of course. Break up with him. That's easy enough. I'll just casually drop into a conversation next week that Paul and I have broken up.'

Now it's her turn to sit up. ‘
Paul
? Your pretend boyfriend is called
Paul
?'

‘What's wrong with Paul?'

‘It reminds me of Paul Fitch. Remember how bad he was at sport in Year 9? Remember how everyone used to call him Cerebral-Paulsy?'

‘Uh, no. I remember how
you
used to call him Cerebral-Paulsy. And it was disgraceful. And – now that I think about it – you also convinced everyone to start calling me Ratshit.'

‘Sozzy,' she says. ‘I thought we were going for a swim?'

‘We will once Mum and Dad get out of the pool. How about Hamish?'

‘Hamishhh. Hamishhh. It sounds like a rash.'

‘That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.'

‘Oh, this coming from the person who once said the name Malcolm reminded her of cucumber.'

‘That reminds me,' I say grabbing the piece of paper out of my pocket. ‘No cheese and onion sandwiches.'

‘Huh?'

‘I'm making a list of ground rules for my parents. No cheese and onion sandwiches, no Mum calling me “Pumpkin” in front of him, no Dad coming to the breakfast table with just a bath towel wrapped around his waist. Ground rules, Zee. It's the only way I'm going to get through this year emotionally unscathed.'

Zoë snatches the pen off me. And she starts to give me one of her famous lectures. She tells me that I'm panicking too much about this. That I'm acting like Nick McGowan is Johnny Depp or something. He is, she says, just some kid from Middlemount. I should take down the Ramones posters, tear up this list of ground rules and just be myself.

Naturally, I tell her she's wrong. The Ramones aren't going anywhere.

‘Fine. But Nick McGowan is lucky to be staying here,' she says. ‘He should be grateful. And your parents are about as normal as they come. Out of everyone's parents, yours are the best.'

‘They banned me from seeing
Fatal Attraction
when I was in Year 10.'

‘Rach, everybody's parents banned them from seeing
Fatal Attraction
. The point is your parents are – as far as parents go – pretty cool. They are
not
going to embarrass you.'

I look up at Zoë, ashamed, and say, ‘You're right.' I crumple up the list.

And then my dad saunters past the window wearing thongs, a straw hat and a pair of too-tight Speedos. Too-tight Speedos under a too-big belly. He looks like he's smuggling his lunch down his pants.

Without saying a word, without even taking her eyes away from the window, Zoë hands me back the pen and I smooth out my sheet of paper to add rule number twelve.