Chapter 3
931 Words
Three
Wong’s is Bangarra’s local all-you-can-eat twenty-four-hour Chinese buffet. It’s cheap and it’s greasy and that’s exactly why Jed and I love it.
And why Viggo hates it.
I haven’t been to Wong’s for more than a year; not since Viggo swaggered into my life and swept me away.
I stopped wearing my Joe Cool Vans.
I stopped staying in my pyjamas until lunchtime on a weekend, watching old Recovery videos on YouTube and eating microwave waffles.
I stopped reading graphic novels (“glorified comic books”).
I stopped dyeing pink and green bits in my hair.
I stopped singing along at the top of my voice to cheesy nineties’ pop songs on commercial radio.
I stopped spending my entire income on music magazines, art supplies and crazy outings with Jed.
And Viggo thinks Wong’s is an abomination. So I stopped eating there.
But now Viggo MacDuff hates my guts, so I can eat as much Szechuan prawn and fried ice cream as I like.
Jed is happy. “I’ve missed coming to this place with you,” he says as he loads up his plate with rice and sweet and sour chicken.
“You still come here?” I ask, surprised. I thought Jed gave up Wong’s when I did. “But Viggo hates it.”
“Viggo also hates Iron Maiden, facial piercings and boots.” Jed gestures down at his tee-shirt and clompy shoes. He raises an eyebrow and his silver stud sparkles. “And all manner of other awesome things. And I actually don’t give much of a Flying Millennium Falcon what Viggo hates.” He nods at my feet. “I’m glad the Snoop Dog Vans have made a return. You really never were a high heels sort of girl.”
“I tried,” I say, sinking into a red plastic chair. “I tried heels and skirts and a ponytail and clever books and fancy wine and no Wong’s …”
“I’m glad you’re back.” Jed grins.
“I’m not,” I mumble. “Not if it means Viggo hates me.”
“Well, I don’t think you should give a rat’s a—”
“Jed!”
“All right. Sorry. I forgot. No Jed talking. Only Connie talking. So spill already.”
“I need more satay squid first,” I say, smiling to make up for the snappishness. “Ben Folds, I miss this place.”
“I miss you saying Ben Folds instead of ‘God’.”
We walk together back to the buffet. “I never said ‘God’ when I was with Viggo either. It’s—”
“Blasphemous and uncouth,” we say, in unison.
“God, isn’t it?” I say, smiling.
“Good to see you smile,” says Jed. And that what makes the smile fall off. Because I remember why I wasn’t smiling before.
“Are you ready to tell me your next one?”
I nod and wipe black bean sauce from my mouth with the back of my hand.
Viggo hated it when I did that, too.
Uncouth …
“My next one is the night we went to Ronaldo’s. Do you—” I catch Jed’s expression. “Oh. Right.”
Jed shrugs. “My two best friends getting together? Of course a guy would remember that.”
“But we didn’t get together that night.”
Jed snorts. “Far from it, if I recall.”
I look down at my plate. “It wasn’t my finest hour, I’ll admit.”
“And yet he fell for you. Of course.”
I look up at Jed. He has rice stuck in his beard. It would be kind of cute, if it wasn’t Jed.
And, like a kick to the gut, I remember one time I had a brioche crumb on my cheek and Viggo wiped it away and his fingertips were so gentle …
Oh Ben Folds I miss him.
“Jed,” I begin quietly. “Do you really think there’s no chance—”
“Just tell the story, Connie,” Jed says at the same time. “I know I remember it like it was yesterday but it will still be hilarious hearing you relive it.” He picks up his fork again—unlike Viggo, Jed is hopeless with chopsticks—and stabs a chunk of chicken. “Come on, Connie-girl. Entertain me.”
“So I wore a dress …”
“I remember. Trust me.” Jed waggles his eyebrows. “No man alive could forget your Ronaldo’s dress.”
I punch him on the arm. “Shut up, cretin. As if you could ever think of me as anything other than geeky old Connie-girl. Besides, you made fun of me all night in that dress. And besides, it wasn’t my Ronaldo’s dress, anyway, was it? It was Em’s. And that just made it worse.”
“I’d forgotten about that. And here was I thinking it couldn’t get any worse …”
“I should have known then, Jed.” My eyes burn. “I should have known right then that I would never be good enough for Viggo. I’m not good enough for anyone.”
Jed’s jaw twitches. “Enough of that, okay, Connie? Why don’t you just tell the story?”
“Okay.” My voice cracks. I take a sip of water. My skull feels hollowed out. Everything feels hollow. I feel like I’m weightless, floating through space. I feel like I’m nothing.
“Connie. You don’t have to—”
But I do. I do. Because what else can I do?
“I’ll start from when I borrowed the dress from Em.”
“Oh, goody.” Jed rubs his hands together. “You just know how much I love fashion talk.”
I roll my eyes. “I went over to Emily’s after school …”
“Wait on,” Jed holds up a hand. “Can you describe this ‘Emily’ for me?”
“You’ve met her before, like, a zillion times.”
Jed’s lip flickers. “Well, yeah, but Connie, the girl is, like, Karen-Gillan-level hot.” Karen Gillan is Jed’s favourite Doctor Who companion, and also his biggest celebrity crush of all time. “I’m looking forward to the mental image!”
I groan but I’m finally smiling again. “Because my only goal in life is creating sexy mental images for my best friend.”
“Humour me.”
I puffed out my lips. “So, Emily Chambers is approximately one hundred and seventy-five centimetres tall …”
- Writer
