Destructively Handsome

Note from Bakewood: This short story is based in Australia and, as such, contains a number of references that may not be understood by an international audience. In order to increase your reading pleasure, we have included a Glossary of Australian Terms (in order of appearance) at the conclusion of the story.

I’m in love with my best friend’s boyfriend. Wait! Hold on! Before you write me off, I know I sound like Paris Hilton is my mentor, but not even my PhD and a sobering mortgage can distract me with perspective. This is not infatuation or jealousy, nor have I gone the drama route because I’m bored or devious. And it’s not just because he’s a great guy. I wouldn’t be in a quandary if he was just a great guy. He is the one. The reason I know this? He used to be mine.

We started going together (that’s what you did in the ‘80s) when I was 17; ancient for some folk but practically in-utero for me. He was a veteran on the dating circuit at the ripe age of 18. His reputation preceded him; full forward on the football team, leading point guard on the basketball team, captain of the chess club, fluent in French (not the language) and in possession of the almighty ‘P’ plate.* This boy could score. Physically, he was also ahead of the curve. He quiff-ed where others mullet-ed.* He Conversed while they Volleyed. He exuded the retro menace of a Causeless Rebel, all furrowed brow and tortured soul. Sigh. So, Come back to the five and dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean, come back with me. 

How our lanes even crossed is still some colossal cosmic conundrum. Genetic pools like ours usually repel. I grew up Catholic, athletic and overweight; a perverse combination. I was a strong swimmer for my age, but looked like a wombat in togs.* My swimming coach called me ‘Moby’. He must never have been a kid. Drowning in his own middle age, he couldn’t remember what it was like to be one. He probably read Moby Dick when it was on the Best Sellers List. And, even though he later explained it was because I had great lung capacity and rarely came up for air, that didn’t stop the boys miming harpoons as I swam past or the girls calling me Blubber Box or Rehab (at least that had an iota of intellect behind it). No matter how fast I swam or my refusal to breathe, I could still feel their synchronised jabs to the chant of Rehab Rehab, like some perverse cheer. Give me an arrrr! I never saw James Dean throw a harpoon, but his mates worked the trawlers. 

My face was beetroot at the conclusion of every race, which clashed perfectly with our mandatory school bathers – a ghastly red one-piece made from cellophane in one size that fits all (a one brain cell concept). No one told me you had to wear a Speedo underneath it! I won my first school swimming title in year eight with coffee-coloured high beams and an untamed bush poking through my togs; the embodiment of embarrassment, the epitome of indignity, the personification of mortification. It’s perverse how the best and the worst moments of your life occur simultaneously.

JD spotted me again on the swimming circuit three years later. It was the inter-school carnival at the State Swim Centre, and the boys’ schools came along in support – of what I’m not entirely sure. They may have wanted to see us whip some ‘South of the Yarra’* butt, or maybe they just wanted to see some butt? Either way, I cannot diminish the adrenaline rush created by their presence. I won my favourite event (400 metres backstroke) in a nail-bite slog-fest against Linda Blair (not The Exorcist, but she did cop a flogging, especially as Catholic school girls had no business watching that movie at every single slumber party).

Linda had been my long-time nemesis. Butterfly was her event, so you can imagine the physique. She was the prototype for Xena: Warrior Princess. My thighs rubbed together when I walked. However, for a nanosecond, I was the toast of the pool deck and, while I was being slapped and clapped after the medal ceremony, JD slipped in amongst the crowd. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea. Not only did all the girls fall away as if their skeletons dissolved, even the parents and teachers deferred. I looked up into his face as if it was The Sun, attempting to bask but actually squinting from its brilliance. I could feel the suction marks left by my goggles pinch my brow. He leaned down, his lips millimetres from my chlorine clogged ear and whispered…