Nicola

It's June 8th 2003. I have been in quarantine for two weeks due to
the virus, during which time I received only one communication: an
unheaded, anonymous note that read, 'Jack is cheating.' I never showed
it to my parents, or to anyone else - I just folded it up carefully,
corner to corner, and hid it under my pillow until today, the day of
the exam. My only other company during this time was 'Nicola', my
favourite schoolgirl's magazine. Other schoolgirls, some my age but
often younger, send in pictures on postcards, and these are printed in
the magazine. I use them as horoscopes - they tell me what to do if I'm
feeling bewildered, or let down. Thirteen year old Peritora is my
favourite - I would always follow her advice, even if she told me to
run away from the city. After I got the note I waited and waited for
the new issue of 'Nicola' to see what Peritora wanted me to do. Her
postcard this time was of a cross girl, with red eyes, and she had
written:

"Both boys and girls are nasty sometimes. But there is no one who is a
true evil, I believe. So don't tell me 'I hate him'. Be nice to each
other."

So today I'm lining up outside the school entrance, where the police
are scanning us to make sure we're not infected. If I pass the exam,
I'll be able to study abroad, which I'd very much like to do! The note
is in my pocket, still folded like a napkin. Every so often I put my
hand in to check it's still there. It's a hot day - the clutch of
bodies wrestling for space around me are fat and sticky. Someone barges
into me.

"Uni! Hey, Uni! What's up? I haven't seen you for so long!"

Momoko bounces off me, and hits a tight-knit wall of bodies. She
steadies herself, puffs up her chest proudly, and flicks her hair back.
She is bathed in a sweaty sheen. I try to show her a happy smile, but I
must look glum, because I really feel kinda glum, and she can't see my
mouth for the blue surgical mask.

"What's wrong? Are you nervous?" she asks - then takes off her own
mask and pouts with a melony lip. "Don't worry - you'll do fine."

I step closer to her, trying to shield us off from the surrounding
crowd, and discretely hand her the note. She unfolds it and murmurs the
words to herself: "Jack?cheating."

"I shouldn't be too angry with him," I say. "Everyone makes
mistakes."

"Oh, but Uni, this is wonderful!" she yips. "It's his loss. Oh, don't
you know the rule?"

"What rule?"

"If a boy cheats on a girl, then she gets to cheat on him."

I'm taken aback.

"Really? How come I haven't heard of this rule?"

"It's an unwritten rule, silly! It's good manners to keep things even.
It happens to all the girls in soap operas!"

I take the note back from her, and look at it anew, wondering if it
could really be used as a kind of contract, a free pass to a cheat. I
didn't think of the idea before, and I'm not even sure if I like it or
not. I've been thinking mostly about the exam and Jack for months now -
I've hardly noticed other boys.

"Of course, the note might by lying," Momoko adds, "but if it isn't,
what an opportunity! You should go and find Jack before the exam and
see if he denies it?"

She trails off, spotting one of her other friends further ahead in the
queue.

"But what if he lies?" I hurriedly ask.

Momoko is already moving away into the tide, but she calls back,
"You'll be able to tell! It's easy!"

-

There isn't long left before the exam by the time I find Jack. I was
so caught up in what I'd say to him, and the day so hot, that I thought
I wouldn't get past the police scanning equipment - they said they'd
turn away anyone who has a high temperature! But now I'm here on the
other side of the gate, and I've finally found Jack. His real name's
Chihiri, but he told us we had to start calling him 'Jack' or 'Jack
Rose' because he knows it's the name of a cocktail in the west. He's so
confident about studying abroad that he's started wearing sunglasses
all the time and talking like they do in American movies. Now he's
smoking a cigarette outside the entrance to the exam hall, and he
offers me one. He's dyed his hair prune since I last saw him.

"Prune?" I say, lighting up. "Like your heart, Jack?"

"What the fuck?" he says, his smoke between his teeth.

I produce the note and dangle it in front of his face.

"You cheated on me. Your heart's nothing but a dried prune," I blow a
fine cloth of smoke out, "and the rule is that I'm allowed to cheat on
you."

"Hey, hey," leather creaks as he strokes my forearm. "Don't be mad,
baby. I didn't mean to, honestly. I got tricked into it - the boys got
me drunk."

"I'm not angry," I say (although really I am.) "Peritora told me not
to be. But I *am* going to have my cheat, so there. You know the rules,
Jack."

"You don't need to do that, baby - I'm all you need. I'll be faithful
a hundred percent from now on."

He kisses me sloppily, coldly, for a full two or three seconds, then
kisses my neck in the same manner, just below my mole. He moves his
leathery leg against my skirt.

"Sorry?" I push him away. "First, I'm having my cheat. Good luck in
the exam."

I balance my cigarette on my lower lip and stalk off, waggling my bum
at him. I hope he hates it, the bastard!

-

"Uni! Uni! How'd it go, Uni?"

I'm perched on the wall outside the school, shaking, smoking one of my
own cigarettes. I'd been too caught up in the Jack thing to worry
properly about the exam, and the effects are only now catching up with
me. Momoko bounds up onto the wall beside me, and whips a hairclip out
of her hair, so that it showers down on her shoulders.

"OK, OK," I breathe. "How about you?"

"I aced it! Can I borrow a cigarette?"

"Sure."

And we sit there for a while, quietly puffing, watching the rest of
the pupils file out and mill around, their fashionable jackets hanging
idly from itchy hands - slicking back oily fin-cuts and DA's, wiping
their crowns and necks with leftover paper, swiping at wasps.

"So did you talk to Jack?"

"Uh huh."

"And?"

"He admitted it. Said he got too drunk."

"What a lame excuse! So?who you gonna cheat on him with?"

I survey the shimmering pools of people, trying to find one that might
catch my eye. Maybe it's the nicotine, maybe the heat - I don't know,
but I can't make myself interested. It's been such a long time building
up to this day - now I just wanna get on a plane and start my studies
abroad.

Momoko nudges me playfully. She doesn't seem to mind the heat - or the
sweat, for that matter. She lets it form around her neck and shoulders,
and sizzle on her stomach, like butter in a frying pan, below where
she's tied her shirt tails. There are transparent pools too at the tops
of her breasts, so they look like surfacing nectarines.

"What about Kito?" she asks, jabbing excitedly in the direction of a
tall, hawk-eyebrowed specimen. "He used to be in my chemistry class -
he's always talking about all the girls he's had, so he should be easy,
and I bet he knows how to give you a really wild time."

"He's probably just boasting," I say, moody as hell now because of the
sun like a rack on my body. "I bet he's still a virgin."

"He isn't, Uni. Trust me, "she nudges me again. "Go on! He's
cute!"

"No, Momoko. I don't like him - he's too angular."

"Picky, picky, picky," she laughs, and kicks her legs off the wall.
"You wanna walk back to mine then? We could watch a video or something
while we talk about your options."

"Sure."

"Great! Come on then."

We get out our masks and slip them over our mouths.

On the way to Momoko's flat I pick up the new issue of 'Nicola.' It's
been out a few days now, but I decided to hold out for a while, stick
by the advice in the old one. Besides, I never know if Peritora's
latest picture is going to be in it or not, so the new issue might be
untrustworthy. I read it on the bus, trying not to breathe too much - I
don't want to come down with the virus now the exam's out of the way.
Takes me a while to find me pre-teen sage, but when I do, I'm very
relieved. Below a smiling girl in a pink top, the message reads,
"Standing on my tip-toes, I saw a different world from usual. Maybe
it's a good idea to change your point of view."

-

"You want any ice-cream, Uni?"

Momoko crouches down in the lemony light of the open freezer. Her
kitchen's got an electric wall fan, and all the stress of the day is
behind me, so I'm finally beginning to cool down and relax.
Nevertheless, I wave my copy of 'Nicola' in front of my face, and sigh
a weary, "Yeah, please."

Momoko tugs out a box of strawberry ice cream, grunting and sending a
small zephyr of ice crystals into the kitchen. Then she stands up and
butts the freezer door shut with her behind.

"Got any more ideas?" she asks, scooping the ice cream into white
china bowls.

"Nah," I reply, gloomily.

She slides a bowl in front of me. The spoon sticking out of my ice
cream makes me think of a broken leg, with bone splinters coming up
through the flesh. Guess it's all the war on the television.

"Come on, Uni. Don't worry about it now - you've got plenty of time to
think it over."

I nod, and enclose the sharp spoon in thumb and forefinger.

"Let's just enjoy the rest of the day," says Momoko. "You wanna go out
on the balcony?"

"I guess."

So we go out on Momoko's twelfth floor balcony, clutching our ice
cream. It's a tiny balcony, with just enough room for the two of us to
sit and gaze out at the city through the railings, striped with their
thin shadows. White dust engulfs everything below us like a fast-moving
mist, scarfing the other tall buildings and bursting up toward the
cloud formations in tidal waves. Sirens and horns decay into the dust
and people flit around in it like sooty moths. Momoko has planted a
couple of irises beside the railings, but they aren't growing properly.
She tries feeding them a small spoonful of ice cream each.

"I can't wait to get out of here," she sighs.

"Me neither."

We sit and wait a while, dipping spoons into our softening dishes,
raising them up to our mouths and back down again. Then Momoko tells me
to lie down on my front.

"There isn't room," I say.

She shuffles back, leaving enough space for me to lie lengthways
across the balcony, if I bend my legs. Then she picks up a corner of my
t shirt and starts to peel it upward. I let her help me out of it - I'm
still uncomfortably hot, after all, and my clothes are thick with
sweat. When it's passed over my head, ruffling my hair in the process,
I do as Momoko instructed - lie face down on the balcony. At once, I
feel a cold slap on my back, and look up to see the empty cradle of
Momoko's spoon moving back to the bowl.

"Don't," I say. "Get it off."

But she just leans over me, and pushes it around with her fingers,
first in small circles, then down the length of my snaking spine. She
lets it swirl at the hilly base of my bum.

"It's all over my back, Momoko."

She swizzles the last of it into an icy puddle, which runs under my
shorts and between my legs. I feel awkward. I start to get up, but
Momoko lays a hand firmly on my shoulder, keeps me prone. From the
corner of my eye, I now see her bend down further. Then I feel her
tongue in the groove of my back.

"Momoko!"

"Shh," she purrs, between laps. "You've got your cheat in hand,
remember, and you're just too picky picky for boys."

Her mouth moves like a competition ice skater.

"Was it you who sent me the note, Momoko?"

"No, no, Uni. I didn't know anything about that until this
morning."

But it was, you see. I knew it was Momoko who sent the note from the
moment I received it, because I recognised her handwriting. It didn't
really matter to me that much. My tongue flinches stiffly in the hot
air, like a fish in death spasms. Air passes in and out of my lungs in
a croaky hush, until I at last manage, "Oooh."

"Soon we'll be out of the city, Uni. Soon."