The Wrong Girl Read online

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘No, really, I mean it . . . She’s pretty awesome, Lil.’

  Lily swivelled out of bed and stood up, her arms crossed. She looked down at the black lump that was Pete.

  ‘I mean get out of my house.’

  ‘What, why? Lil, what’s going on?’

  ‘Are you SERIOUS, Pete? We just had sex. You and me, after being friends for, what, three years? That’s a big thing for me, Pete. And then, as you cuddle me, in my own bed, you tell me in great detail that you think you might have fallen in love with another girl. Another girl whom for all I know you were sleeping with less than twenty-four hours ago. I know you’re a pig, that you screw your way around this city like it’s your profession, but to do that to me? Unbelievable,’ she hissed, grabbing her favourite grey hoodie from the top of her laundry basket.

  ‘Where’d all this come from?’ He sounded genuinely baffled, which pissed Lily off even more. ‘We’re just fooling around. I didn’t realise you were into me like that.’

  ‘Oh, don’t flatter yourself,’ she mocked, mustering up every ounce of disgust she possessed. ‘It’s basic human decency, Pete.’ And she stomped out of the bedroom and down the stairs.

  Once in the kitchen, she leaned on the bench to steady herself. She was shaking and the tears were pooling dangerously in her eyes. Pete, of all men. She thought he might actually have been one of the Good Ones. But no, just another pig.

  Footsteps descended the stairs so she quickly turned her back to him and put the kettle on. She needed a cup of tea quite desperately. And a shot of vodka.

  She heard him putting his boots on and collecting his keys and (empty) wallet, and then walk towards her. Her skin prickled, knowing he was nearby.

  ‘Can we just talk about this for a sec? I don’t understand why you’re flipping out.’

  Quiet.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry you’re pissed off. I’m – I still don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry.’ He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder and she whirled around savagely, shaking it off as she turned.

  ‘What happened just then is that you slept with me, and then told me you were in love with another person. And then expected me to workshop that with you! If you can’t see what might be upsetting to me about that, then you are an even bigger piece of shit than I initially thought. I don’t want you as a boyfriend, Pete. I don’t need to even explain that, surely, but I’m not just some girl you fuck and then leave behind while you go back to your girlfriend.’ She angrily resumed the very important task of water-boiling management.

  ‘I thought it was just a bit of fun!’ His voice was distressed, urgent. ‘I had no idea you – you never told me you felt that wa—’

  ‘I don’t feel this way! I just don’t treat sex as something as nothingy as you do! Now can you just go?’

  He waited a few moments before turning and walking out the door. When Lily heard it close, she gulped back tears. Not only were all men DEFINITELY scum, but she had just lost one of her mates, too. What a terrific fucking start to the fucking year.

  3

  Lily woke up and stared at her ceiling. Instantly, things felt wrong. Physically, emotionally, everythingly. For starters, it was about 900 degrees in her sauna of a bedroom, which would be ideal if she were small pieces of marinated lamb, but instead she was a sad, hungover little human. Her brain was haggling desperately with other organs to get some water in order to function, but there was none to donate. Her stomach felt queasy and vulnerable, like it might need to spend a bit of time launching things up and into a toilet. Lily rolled over and smushed her face into the pillow. She smelled the faint trace of Pete’s aftershave lurched and up onto her knees as if stung by a bee. The insistent pounding in her head was titanic, but she could not spend a second longer in sheets that had enabled sexual relations with Pete ‘The Dog’ Barnett.

  She leaped off the bed, and as she did so, her left foot got tangled in the sheet. She hopped once, twice, desperate to stay upright, grabbing her wobbly, too-light wicker washing basket to steady herself, which of course leaned and fell, and they both came crashing down, Lily smacking her shoulder hard on the corner of her tallboy as she did.

  ‘FUCKING FUCK FUCKSHITFUCK!’ she screamed. She kicked the sheet once, twice, but it was now even more twisted around her foot. She gave up, and the tears flowed in streams down her cheeks. She was in huge amounts of unfair pain, she was embarrassed; she was officially the biggest loser in Sydney.

  As she lay on the floor, rubbing a shoulder that would soon be adorned with a walloping bruise, sniffing and holding back tears, she wondered how she had arrived at this point. On the ground in her shorts, crying. Her mind flitted between self-wallowing and self-righteousness; she was within her rights to be pissed off: he kissed her! He started it! What a prick. She wondered if they would be able to be friends after this. She sat up and slowly untangled her foot, cursing at the sheet as she did so. She inspected the large red mark on her shoulder, shaking her head and wondering whether this was an icepack-type injury or a heatpack one. She never knew stuff like that. She needed Simone, who always knew stuff like that.

  She turned her phone on and it immediately chimed with a text.

  I’m sorry for bringing Lou up at that stupid moment. Now I see my fail. I’m sitting out the front of your place smoking like a fuckwit – please come and talk? Px

  He’d sent that at one-thirty a.m., an hour after she kicked him out. Huh.

  Okay. You really hate me or you’re really asleep. Goin home now. Px

  That one was at two-thirty. She had no idea if he was lying about staying that long. It was definitely something he’d do for points, make a dramatic and apologetic gesture, or at least pretend he did. Maybe she should just call him. They were adults, grown-ups, they could move past this, surely. And maybe, just maybe – she allowed the admission to sneak into her brain, like a teenager creeping into her bedroom after curfew – she had to take some of the blame. After all, she was the one who’d dared to think of him as potentially more than a friend, even if she’d denied it to his face.

  She flopped back on the bare mattress and closed her eyes. She needed some strong painkillers and she needed some magical person to come and sort this whole mess out and make everything happy again.

  Just then, Lily heard the front door slam closed and a loud, cheerful ‘Babes?’ came from downstairs. Simone was back from Melbourne! Wonderful. She would set her straight. Together they would find some kind of There’s A Reason For Everything treasure in all of this.

  ‘Up here,’ Lily hollered, pulling on an oversized singlet that could masquerade as a dress – in female company, at least – before lying back dejectedly on the mattress. She heard Simone dump some bags and her keys on the kitchen bench

  ‘Well, someone had a party here last night . . .’ Simone called out jovially. ‘Oh, that’s right, slimy Pete was here, wasn’t he?’ Lily heard the fridge door open, and after a few minutes of unpacking what was undoubtedly almond milk, tofu and tempeh, Simone walked up the stairs.

  ‘Babe? Still alive?’ she asked tentatively as she came down the hallway.

  ‘Yes,’ Lily said, her voice low and deflated.

  Simone’s gorgeous head appeared around the doorframe, all clear eyes and tanned, radiant skin, but on seeing Lily’s face, her own crumpled with concern.

  ‘Whoa. You look like shit. Did you have some magnesium drops before bed like I said? You know they help hangovers —’

  ‘We had sex.’

  ‘NO!’ Simone said, a look of shock and delight lighting up her face.

  ‘Mm-hmm. And then a few minutes later, he told me in he was in love with some girl. Fun night in all.’ She looked at Simone with a bemused, wry smile.

  ‘I told you he was a pig! I knew he’d pull something like this on you . . . God . . . And to YOU of all people, I mean, he adores you, Lil, so that’s really saying something about what a mess he is. It’s all his stuff, obviously. No reflect
ion on you. God, he is just so cripplingly emotionally unaware.’

  Lily sighed and shuffled her legs up so she could hug her knees. She didn’t expect a whole lot of pity from Sim, who’d always disliked Pete, but she wasn’t in the mood to be enlightened.

  ‘I shouldn’t have gone there . . . Why did I go there? Why? Am I that starved for sex that I have to resort to screwing friends?’

  Simone looked at Lily as if she’d just asked to saw off her hands. ‘Ohmygod, are you insane? Pete has had a thing for you since he was, I don’t know, sperm. I know he has. I’ve seen it for years. He’s just completely uncomfortable being honest about his feelings, and so he obviously self-sabotaged the situation and hurt you as a reaction to the disappointment within himse—’

  Lily’s brain was two self-help phrases away from shutting down completely.

  ‘I assure you there is no subtext; it was a drunken accident. And you know what? I’m fine. Bit messed up, because I’m always a bit messed up the day after sex and it’s been a while, but that’s it. I swear.’

  Lily was more of a boyfriend-girl than a one-night-stand-girl but the whole boyfriend thing hadn’t really been happening for her lately. The last two years, lately.

  She looked up at Simone, eyes big and earnest. If she were deeply honest, she didn’t think of Pete as boyfriend material, which made all this worse – being ditched by someone you didn’t even want.

  ‘All right,’ said Simone. ‘Tell me he was at least good?’

  ‘Way too vocal, it was grunts and sighs and “oh baby, oh baby” the whole time, but good, yes.’

  ‘So how did it happen? The bit where he ruined everything?’

  ‘We’re lying there cuddling and it’s nice and not even weird at all. And of course I’m spinning out that I’ve just had sex with Pete, and am thinking, you know, maybe would it become a regular thing, and then he starts telling me about this girl with red hair and tattoos who he’s in love with.’

  ‘Is he already with her?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I pretty much kicked him out the moment he’d finished saying what an amazing girl she was and how much fun they have and blah blah blah, pass me the goddamn bucket.’

  ‘What a sociopath,’ said Simone. Then, after a few moments, ‘He’s actually done you a favour, babe. You could’ve spent, like, another six months sleeping with him, and wondering if he was the guy for you, and the way you two carry on and hang out, you could definitely be mistaken for thinking you’d be good together, but he clearly doesn’t care about anyone but himself. It’s the Pete show all the way. You don’t need that kind of destructive energy in your life.’

  And this was why Lily loved Sim. Despite her love of psycho-babble, she knew how to extract the truth, like a straw in a horrible thickshake. Which was why it was such a pity she never, ever paid attention to her own advice.

  ‘He’s ruined our friendship. That’s what makes me sad.’

  ‘Don’t sleep with your friends next time then, idiot.’

  ‘Promise not to, especially not you. Hey, so enough about me, how was last night?’

  Simone flopped back onto the bed and sighed. ‘You weren’t the only one dealing with a complete dickhead.’

  ‘Hang on, did Mr Ferrari fly down to Melbourne yesterday too? I thought we liked him!’

  ‘We did. He was staying at the penthouse at Crown, and everything was perfect. I got off the shoot early so we had a nice dinner and went back to the room, and things were amazing, I mean, he was doing all kinds of wild stuff to me, like, kinky shit. He’s a bit sick, actually, but anyway, we were drinking Cristal and having fun . . . and then, at like, two a.m., he buzzes in not one, but TWO hookers.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘True story,’ Sim said, sitting up and shaking her head. ‘I don’t know what’s more offensive, the fact he thought I was the kind of chick who would want a foursome with two high-class prozzies, or that I was so boring in bed he had to call in backups.’

  Lily started giggling, and then the giggle built up to a chuckle, and then a full-blown, belly laugh.

  Simone slapped her on the arm. ‘It’s not funny, babe! What if I’d laughed when you told me your story?’ But she was smiling, and then, seeing Lily start to cry so hard tears fell from her eyes, she began laughing, and then she was really laughing. When Lily snorted, and the two girls shrieked and squirmed and rolled around on the bed in laughter.

  ‘I bet Ferrari would love to be here right now, with us rolling around together on the bed like this,’ Lily said, trying to get her breath.

  ‘We could call in old Mrs O’Connor from next door to make up numbers,’ Sim said between gasps, and Lily was off again, laughing and laughing, feeling the tension from the past twelve hours start to leave her body, on some level relieved that she wasn’t the only one having a shitty time with men. God, if perfect, beautiful, smart, funny, wild Simone couldn’t find a good man, what hope did she or any other mere mortal have?

  ‘Oh, God, stop, no more, I can’t breathe,’ Simone said, clutching her tiny, taut stomach, wiping tears from her face.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sim, what a fuckstick. What a bunch of fucksticks they all are. Are we in some sick reality show we don’t know about?’

  ‘Or Two and a Half Escorts?’ Sim said, trying to quieten her sniffs.

  ‘I might go lesbian,’ Lily contemplated as she twirled her long, dark hair around her finger.

  ‘Oh, because you were so good at it last time. How long did that last?’

  ‘Couple of hours. But I mean it about meaning it this time. Men are so incredibly shit.’

  Simone stood up and stretched her arms, no doubt stiff from a gruelling Yogalates class.

  ‘I’m totally with you on swearing off men. I didn’t even tell you about my run-in with Michael last week either . . . He’s broken up with the Russian mail-order bride and so now he wants to’ – she made bunny ears – ‘have a chat.’

  Michael was Simone’s ex. They tortured each other constantly, regardless of geographical barriers or new partners. They made Tina and Ike Turner look functional. In Lily’s opinion Simone was still deeply, irretrievably, self-destructively in love with Michael, but insisted she was over him. Lily chose not to ask about Michael any more, such was the torment he’d caused Simone in the two years they were together. He was the genital herpes of boyfriends; persistent, unattractive, painful and there for life. He didn’t deserve any more airtime. He had ended it a year ago under very dubious circumstances, and it had taken at least six months for Simone to lift her head above the cloud of sleeping pills and booze, and show any semblance of confidence.

  ‘Seriously, think about all the effort and time and money and waxing appointments we spend on those pigs, and what do we get back?’

  ‘Confessions of love about other women, or just other women,’ Lily said.

  ‘I’ve really had enough, babe. Like, really. Maybe this is the year we reclaim, Lil. Get back to our feminine power. Clear our heads and hearts and keep our bodies pure; focus on ourselves. Realign ourselves to what and who we actually want in our lives, rather than just sailing aimlessly with no intention. Come on, Lil! Should we go on a little sabbatical? No, wait, a saBOYtical! Even just for three months?’

  Lily felt a shot of adrenalin go through her. Three months of no boys was a cinch, especially as she wasn’t exactly getting any action anyway.

  ‘Make it six, and I’m in.’

  Simone’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Really? Ohmygod, this will be incredible. This will totally make everything right. We’ll keep each other strong; we’ll smash this. It will be like my ultimate green cleanse, but for the . . . heart.’ She smiled her angelic smile.

  ‘It’ll be easy for me,’ Lily said, standing up, her stomach finally feeling ready for food of a disgracefully greasy nature. ‘I’ve got single-itis. I can’t even remember what it’s like to have a boyfriend. And I’m nearly thirty, don’t forget, Sim; this is getting serious . . . You’ll find it tough, th
ough. You’re the one who has five men a day fall in love with you and an emotionally retarded ex-boyfriend who won’t quit.’

  ‘They’re bad men. They’re not serving us. They’ve gotta go. If we want to find real love, genuine, mutually serving love, we need emotional clarity first,’ Simone mused earnestly. ‘So we’re doing this?’ she asked, hand outstretched for Lily to shake.

  ‘HELL, yes, we’re doing this,’ Lily said, shaking her friend’s hand vigorously.

  4

  To: Lily Woodward

  From: Simone Bryant

  Subject: The rules

  Hi babe,

  Bobby is coming to clean at four today. I forgot to leave cash, but just pay and I’ll pay you back tonight.

  I hope you’re feeling a bit better about Pete

  I’ve had time to think about our man-cleanse and I think we need to make some rules, or we leave it open to cheating. Or as you’d say, ‘technicalities’.

  GUY DETOX RULES

  No physical contact with opposite sex – PURITY!!!

  No dates or hanging out with guys you’re attracted to (so Kevin with the ferret from apt five is fine)

  No web misdemeanours: sexy FB chat, Tinder, Skype, email flirting, etc.

  No phone sex or sexting

  No crushes

  Anything you want to add?

  xoxo

  To: Sim Bryant

  From: Lily Woodward

  Subject: Call me Sister Woodward, please

  I don’t know what makes you think I need all this spelled out, since I am practically already a nun.

  Some additions:

  No sex with rich guys and hookers

  No pretend lesbianism

  No fantasising about One Direction

  I think that covers it. Pete sent sucky email . . . I just wb saying what we did was a mistake, I’m fine, but we should just leave it at that. And THAT’s the last contact with men I will be having for six months.