The thought of all that money being spent on me makes my skin itch, but I know Ada’s not messing around. Expensive body wash, indoor plants and elegant wine glasses have already ‘appeared’ in my apartment since she got here.
“Fine,” I grind out. “I mean, if wasting money on me really doesn’t matter to you.”
“It doesn’t, and I resent you calling it a waste.” Ada slides back into bed and returns to her breakfast. “Send me the itinerary for this dogshit reunion and for the love of God, please use my credit card to reserve us hotel rooms. We arenotstaying with our parents.”
Despite myself, excitement swells in me again. “I can’t believe we’re doing this! We’re going! I love you, Addy.”
“I love you too, Cee.” She holdsup her right fist. “Who’s your right-hand woman?”
“You are,” I say, grinning as I tap my wrist to hers. Our ivy leaf tattoos touch, tiny black outlines we had inked onto our skin in a dodgy Amsterdam studio when we were twenty-two. We’d Googled ‘friendship symbols’ and, after first dismissing ivy as too clingy and toxic, realised women are always being accused of those things, and fuck that.
“Ivy has a shit reputation,” Ada said. “So do we. But Ivy’s tough and pretty and evergreen, and so are we. Let’s be each other's ivy, Cee.”
“So,” Ada mumbles through a mouthful of potato, “Will and Jenny are splitsville, huh? What’s the deal?”
“Well, your new All Black boyfriend?—”
“Shut up!”
“—said Jenny was doing the dirty on him. But it’s recent. Like, she’s still using Sharpe as her last name on social media.”
Ada snorts. “Probably scared people’ll talk shit about her the way she does about them because she’s a malicious slag.”
I nod. I hate Jenny Sharpe née Wallis, and not just because she married my high school crush and burnt my teenage dreams to ash. I was in the same class as her from kindergarten to graduation, and she’s the meanest person I’ve ever met. Not kid-mean or high-school mean,supervillainmean.
She started horrible rumours, mocked anyone who didn’t fit in, pitted her friends against each other, and called me ‘Tristan’s Sister’ and made fun of my height for twelve straight years. And having a popular brother meant I got offeasy. Jenny told everyone Ada had a boob job, a criminal record and STDs. She made so many people’s lives hell, and she did it safely behind a mask of wide smiles, student leadership positions and being aliteralSunday School teacher. Ada still swears it’s how she lost her faith.
To Jenny’s credit, she was an equal opportunity asshole. There wasn’t anyone she wouldn’t talk shit about, even Will.
I was wrestling with a tampon in the school bathroom one day when she came in with her posse of friends. I knew she and Will hadjust broken up in the on-off nature of teen relationships, which made me giddy.
I sat in front of Will in bio, and I’d been working on getting his attention all week; wearing perfume, asking if he needed a pen—he always did—giggling whenever he said something funny, a technique I’d been refining in my bedroom mirror. The movies I loved assured me that boys mightstart offdating the mean, popular girl, but theyreallyliked adorable nerds. Adorable nerds whose hidden beauty they’d see when they got past their short-sighted infatuations.
I sat on the toilet, half-wrapped tampon in hand, as Jenny listed Will’s lamentable traits—getting drunk and making her drive him home, not kissing her on the sidelines after he scored the winning try against Wesley College, and, worst of all, being ‘slow in the head.’
“Oh well,” she told her hanger-on, best mate, Hayley. “Will still thinks he’s gonna be anAll Black. He’s not even that good at rugby. Everyone knows Jake’s better. I think I’m gonna get him to ask me out next.”
This is it,I thought, shaking with excitement.This time her and Will are definitely off. I can finally make my move.
But they weren’t definitely off. In fact, they were back together by Monday. And all my practiced giggling amounted to nothing more than having a substantial number of pens stolen.
It was the first time movies lied to me, but certainly not the last.
Ada, who wasn’t allowed to watch TV when we were kids in case it gave her weird Anglo ideas, had no concept of myMean Girlsbrainwashing. She assured that me Will hadn’t asked me out ‘because he’s a boiled foreskin masquerading as a person.’ It wasn’t true, but it was at least a little comforting.
“Good thing they didn’t have kids,” Ada says, pulling me back into the present. “Jenny’s exactly the kind of twat to use them as pawns.”
“Probably true. I hope he gets the house.”
“I hope she gets Mad Cow.”
I wrinkle my nose at her.
“Cece, are you forgettingthis is the girl who wrote‘Praying the antibiotics kick in before you infect every guy in Pukekohe’on a Valentine’s Day card and put it in my locker?”
I wince. “Sorry. Wish whatever you want on Jenny Sharpe. Anyway, I’ve been stalking her online?—”
“Obviously.”
