The Last Girl Read online

  ‘Hang on, I think you’re at the wrong table.’

  Our server frowned. ‘Sorry, you’re not plate o’ shrimp? For madam, green chicken curry? Young man, fried rice. Drinks are coming too.’

  Dad looked at me, eyebrows raised. ‘Did I miss something?’

  If he had I had. ‘It must be another table with the same order?’

  ‘No, madam,’ the waiter said. ‘You are table seventeen. Your order.’

  We were table seventeen. But we hadn’t ordered.

  The waiter waited.

  ‘Okay,’ Dad said, shrugging at me. ‘Well, what are we going to do? Send it away and reorder the same thing anyway?’

  As we ate, we tried to work out what had happened. Did we order and forget? Did the waiter overhear us from a nearby table? Did some acoustic trick deliver our conversation to him inside? Did we have the same thing last time we were here? We couldn’t answer those questions any more than Evan could make his Rubik’s Cube show six solid sides of different colours. But it was fun trying.

  I might’ve pondered the mystery longer if I hadn’t been so blown away by what Dad said when we got home.

  ‘Danby.’ He looked at me sternly. ‘We’ve got to look into a new school for you.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Aristotle said the sun revolved around the earth. An A-plus is great but they really shouldn’t be teaching that stuff these days.’ He grinned and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Goodnight, smartypants.’

  Dad went into the study to make a phone call. I stayed in the lounge room with a big smile on my face.

  I had to speak to Mum. Not about anything in particular. But it was like talking to her would make this night about the three of us. Give me the same feeling I had whenever I thought about my most enduring image of them as a couple. Robyn in paint-flecked overalls, Brendan with ink-stained fingers, both drinking beer from bottles as they explained how they’d made my name from their own because we’d always be together. What sucked is that I didn’t know if that was a memory or something I’d imagined.

  I reached into my pocket—then remembered my phone was off limits and up in my room. So I used our landline to call Mum’s landline. Talk about old-school.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, Mum, it’s—’

  ‘. . . you’ve called Robyn.’

  That damned pause got me every time.

  ‘I don’t want to get to the phone just now. If you know the meaning of life, leave it as a short message. If you saw my awesome flyer and are interested in turning your trash into treasure, please leave your name and number and I’ll call you back. Namaste, yo.’

  The answering machine was an ancient tape thing. It clunked and beeped.

  ‘Hi Mum,’ I said. ‘Just calling to say hello. You’re obviously out rummaging for my Christmas present. I’ll see you on the twenty-seventh. Love ya.’

  I waited till I sensed the machine was about to disconnect the call.

  ‘Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you, the meaning of life is—’

  Screeeeech.

  THREE

  I had to come clean with my friends about my social media absence on the bus on Monday morning.

  ‘I’ve been thinking the word “screen” has two meanings,’ I started. ‘I looked it up—it can mean to show or to conceal. My theory is that our whole lives we’re—’

  Blah-blah-blah: that’s what they heard.

  Jacinta said that with Finn on the horizon I’d picked the wrong week to give up social media. Emma couldn’t believe I’d actually brought pens and notebooks to school. Madison sniffed that I was being quite rude. It was so unheard of they couldn’t help spread the word. I gave up on trying to explain seriously. My friends rolled their eyes as I gave a different reason to each kid who asked me WTF. I told Marnie Vogue had called Disconnect Chic the New Black. Said to John that I was preparing for my new life in an Amish community. Claimed to Cybele that scientists had proved offline people produced more pheromones. Each of them looked at me funny and went off to make fun of me.

  When the din had died down my friends went back to status updating, voting on Instant Celebrity, and watching Amazing Coinkydinks. Without a screen, my attention was free to drift to two little kids playing a game a few seats away.

  ‘I spy with my—’ the girl said singsong.

  ‘Ambulance!’ the boy blurted.

  She laughed and nodded.

  ‘Okay, my turn!’

  He looked out the window at the world whizzing by. ‘I spy—’

  ‘Jogger,’ she said. ‘Too easy.’

  He screwed up his face. ‘Hey! You have to wait a little bit.’

  ‘You didn’t. My turn.’

  The answers kept coming—‘Hospital!’, ‘Helicopter!’, ‘Playground!’, ‘Gutter!’, ‘Clown!’—before either got to the letter clue.

  Then they burst out laughing and blinked at each other like they’d just woken from a shared dream.

  ‘That was awesome,’ he said.

  ‘I spy—’ she said.

  He shook his head. ‘It’s gone.’

  I wondered how they’d done the trick and who they hoped to impress. They had no audience other than me. Virtually every kid on the bus had their face in a screen. I couldn’t see how they’d planned such a routine. Sure, some of the landmarks we passed every day, but half of the things they’d spied had been random.

  My mystery train of thought derailed when Emma poked me in the ribs because she couldn’t do it online.

  ‘Know what I saw in my newsfeed this morning?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t,’ Madison chimed in. ‘Miss Exile.’

  ‘That’s Miss Self-Exile,’ I corrected. ‘And it’s only for a week.’

  ‘Whatever, anyway, like, some maths nerd somewhere,’ Emma continued, ‘reckons in maybe a year or something, we’ll hit this tipping point and everyone on social media will know everyone else.’

  ‘Maybe not Dan,’ guffawed Jacinta. ‘By then she’ll be living on a desert island. Talking into a conch shell.’

  I chortled along at that one.

  ‘But, like, everyone knowing everyone,’ said Emma. ‘isn’t that awesome?’

  ‘Totally noisome!’ I said.

  At least one of Dad’s dictionary words had stuck.

  The girls blinked at me.

  ‘It’s means “nice” and “awesome”,’ I said with a smirk.

  I could be a real smart ass sometimes.

  That was the day Troy Burke got busted for copying Jacinta’s A-minus English essay. The question had been, ‘What’s revealed about Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell’s original title The Last Man In Europe?’ Rumour was that Troy had protested that, yo, everything he wrote, like, totally came out of his own head. His cause wasn’t helped by his admission that he hadn’t read beyond chapter three. The doofus wasn’t even smart enough to claim he’d seen Big Bro, the recent hip-hop movie adaptation about rhymin’ freedom-fighta Win-S. What no one could explain was how Troy had replicated Jacinta’s essay word for word when he was at a desk four rows in front of her. Then it was officially decreed: some ghost in the machine had merged his file with hers. Jacinta’s grade would stand. Troy would get a generous C.

  My conspiracy scenario was he’d paid someone to hack the school’s systems and the powers-that-be knew but didn’t want to: a) admit a security breach; b) embroil the school in a scandal; c) expel their best sportsman. If I was really smart I might have been theorising that his bizarre plagiarism was linked to the I Spy game and the Rubber Thaime waiter and the squabbling Grocery clients. But I didn’t even see them as dots to connect.

  After our last day at school, I took every shift I could at The Grocery, adding another five hundred dollars to my escape fund. When Jacinta and I weren’t working, we were giddily discussing Mollie’s party.

  To avoid curfews cramping our style on the big night, I told Dad I was staying at Jacinta’s and she told her folks we’
d be at my place. Oldest trick in the book. The plan was to meet at TYZ and get changed into our party clothes. But first I had to endure an early pizza dinner with my family. At least I didn’t have to worry about being interrogated. We were together in bodies only. Dad used his least-greasy finger to navigate his tablet. Stephanie read a gossip site on hers. Evan was lost in Snots on the Shades that seemed to connect with his mind better than we could.

  Me? I’d lasted six very long days without my screens but caved when I heard that Finn had friended me. Since then we’d been sharing a few snarky laughs. Tonight we’d be finally face to face. As I ate my seafood slice, I hoped he liked my last comment about LOLZ2 being for ‘Lame-O-Loser-Z-Squared’.

  Newsblurb burbled on the lounge-room wall, its fast-talking anchor taming current affairs into sixty-second segments with the help of her guest experts.

  What did the Mercury mission mean for astrology? Best-selling skywatcher Bella said we were on the cusp of a transformation! Could the humble sardine turn the tide on the great oceanic extinction and save you dollars at the dinner table? Eco-economist-turned-celebrity-chef Tenzing Gumbo had just the recipe! Was it true that Hollywood babies were being born with gray hair? Celebrity stylist Zeus had teased out the truth!

  The ‘mad media minutes’ raced by in a blur until one got my full attention.

  ‘They say that dogs come to resemble their owners,’ the anchor babbled, ‘but could people come to think like their devices?’

  The screen split to show another talking head.

  ‘Research shows that people are increasingly able to predict who’s calling or messaging them,’ he said. ‘We got friends to call other friends from private numbers.’

  A third pop-up screen showed folks staring into MobiFfone flexis and tablets and Shades.

  ‘Up to four times out of ten,’ he continued, ‘those on the receiving end correctly predicted who was calling or texting!’

  A stat-strap appeared: 40% predict phone peeps!

  ‘The evidence suggests our senses are evolving to understand the electronic impulses given off by our favourite devices. The implications for the future of thought-comms are staggering.’

  The newsticker summarised: Science: we sync with fave fones!

  Then the anchor was back with a report about a new service that let people 3-D print their perfect match. But I was still wondering about the last story. If there was anything to the experiment—apart from MobiFfone’s marketing dollars— then wasn’t it possible we were tuning into people instead of products? I almost always knew it was Jacinta messaging before I saw her ID.

  My phone tinkled. Finn liked my LOL comment and left a ‘LOL’. Nice irony—at least I hoped he meant it ironically.

  Then Finn’s first-ever private message popped up on my screen. ‘Wot U drink? @ Store.’

  What did I drink? Only the occasional glass of wine with Mum because it made her happy.

  ‘Pinot noir?’ I messaged Finn, hoping that didn’t sound stupid.

  His response arrived a second later.

  ‘Classy!’

  I was off to a good start because classy was the theme of the party.

  Mollie had initially tried to keep her big bash hush hush and exclusively for the interlocking flower of cool kids at the centre of our school’s Venn circles of cliques. But the secret had quickly reached the likes of Jacinta and me and then spread to even more distant points on the social circumference. The word was that Mollie had said we were all welcome if we followed the dress code and behaved ourselves. Guess she was trying to cultivate a supernice attitude to go with the supermodel looks.

  Mollie lived in an old-money suburb and she greeted us at her front door wearing a dazzling evening dress and diamond choker. She held a champagne flute in one hand and a cigarette with holder in the other. Over Mollie’s creamy shoulder I noticed her mansion was packed and Princess Hellbanga throbbed from the stereo system.

  ‘You look amazing,’ I shouted. ‘Thanks for this.’

  ‘Upstairs is VIP only,’ she said, inspecting our outfits. ‘As long as that’s clear.’

  We nodded.

  Mollie stepped aside to let us enter before shining her radiance on the next arrivals.

  ‘Can’t she afford a door bitch?’ Jacinta whispered as we walked into the grand foyer.

  I laughed. ‘Every peasant must bask in the splendour.’

  ‘Wow,’ Jacinta said, doing just that.

  I agreed. ‘Wow.’

  Where Stephanie had made our house look like a virtual mall, Mollie’s parents had turned their place into an art gallery. The walls were adorned with huge abstract paintings. Furniture and sculpture flowed one to the other. Even the rugs looked like masterpieces. More amazing was that everyone had followed Mollie’s style directive. Hoodies and T-shirts and jeans and baseball caps had been swapped for designer dresses and high heels and suits and shirts with collars and ties. None of us looked as awesome as our hostess but we’d all scrubbed up nicely. Especially Finn, who was on the other side of the gleaming kitchen, being all handsome in a charcoal suit as he drank beer with some of the sports guys.

  ‘Let’s grab a seat,’ I said.

  ‘Uh-uh,’ Jacinta replied. ‘Gotta mingle if you wanna tingle.’

  ‘Oh shut up!’

  I dragged her back into the lounge room and we perched ourselves on a pop art sofa.

  ‘Drink, ladies?’

  A guy in waiter’s whites materialised with a tray of what were maybe martinis. Jacinta and I clinked glasses. Mine tasted awful but I liked the warm glow of it going down. Drink in hand, boobs pushed up in my black gown, hair piled in a bun: all at once I felt very grown up. This time next year I’d be finished school and close to official adulthood. Maybe Finn and I would be celebrating our first anniversary. Maybe there’d be great angst about whether he’d go to university or travel the world with moi.

  ‘Anyway, he was soooooo hot,’ Jacinta was saying about the mechanic who’d fixed her dad’s hybrid. ‘I-totally-got-busy-on-myself-thinking-about-him-that-night.’

  ‘What?’ I sputtered, looking at my friend.

  ‘What “what”?’

  ‘You . . . jilled off about some random?’

  Jacinta jerked her head back. ‘No! What? What’re you talking about?’

  ‘But you said—’ I said.

  ‘No, I didn’t say,’ Jacinta snapped.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I get it,’ she said, cheeks red. ‘You’re being all crazy like those idiots at The Grocery. Not biting, sorry.’

  Jacinta looked past me. Mischief twinkled in her eyes.

  Delicious, I heard her say. Jacinta’s lips didn’t move, like she was trying to tell me secretly.

  ‘What’s delicious?’

  ‘Dan, give it a rest.’

  Jacinta pecked me on the cheek. Snap-him-up-or-I-will. It sounded like a whisper.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Good luck, weirdo.’

  Smiling innocently, Jacinta launched herself into the crowd and left me alone on the couch.

  ‘Does madam approve?’ Finn had appeared at my side with a wine bottle.

  Trying not to blush, I busied myself reading the label. Not that the wine words meant anything to me. What mattered was it gave me time to string together a reply. Or, at least, rip one off.

  ‘I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy,’ I said.

  Finn smiled uncertainly. I tried not to go redder.

  I patted the cushion beside me. ‘What took you so long?’

  His thigh pressed against mine as he joined me on the couch.

  ‘Your friend looked like she was in a hurry.’

  ‘Family emergency.’

  He hoisted one eyebrow.

  ‘Her mum called. Cat caught fire again.’

  Finn nodded grimly. ‘I hate when that happens.’

  Like a magic trick, he produced two glasses for me to hold as he poured the wine
.

  ‘Nice to be face to face,’ he said.

  ‘It is.’

  We clinked. We sipped.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘It has a very clean finish.’

  I didn’t know what that meant. We sipped again.

  ‘Really great to finally meet you, Danby.’

  ‘Yes, it is. I mean, to meet you.’

  We slipped into silence. This was embarrassing. Declaring my love for R.E.M. or professing anarchist tendencies would only sound desperate.

  ‘Heavy penguin,’ I blurted.

  Finn frowned at me. ‘What?’

  ‘Just needed to say something that’d break the ice.’

  Clunk.

  But then he laughed at my heirloom humour. ‘That’s a good one.’

  Finn infodumped while I drank. He was going to start a band called Godnot. He already had the logo: a crucifix question mark. He was going to write and sing really relevant songs. He had professional recording equipment. He would release everything independently. He would do it all while he got his law degree. He’d be a courtroom crusader by day and a rock ’n’ roll revolutionary by night.

  ‘I can’t help thinking outside the dominant paradigm,’ he said, refilling my glass. ‘I get the sense you’re like that too?’

  Paradigm: one of those slippery words whose definition I could never quite remember. But it was cool that we were outside of whatever it was together.

  ‘How about you, Danby? What’re you going to do at university?’

  Suddenly my plan to skip it and travel to all of those As and Es seemed aimless rather than adventurous.

  ‘Communications.’ It’s what I was still telling everyone. ‘Eventually.’ ‘Eventually?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to travel first. See as much as I can. Where I’d like to go is—’

  ‘South-East Asia,’ Finn said.

  ‘Well, yes, it’s on the list.’

  ‘I’m so going there,’ he said, nodding seriously. ‘Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. There’s just so much culture.’

  I lowered my eyes and nodded and sipped my wine, trying to look so very thoughtful about culture.

  Bullshit!-Only-place-I’m-going-is-Bali!-I’m-so-gonna-rip-shit-up-Get-my-draaaank-on!-Tap-me-some-fine-ass!