Namedropper by Emma Forrest Page A

nights spent kicking one leg over the sheet and folding your arms under the pillow.
    Drew savours unpleasantness, unhappiness, and discomfort like a sucking sweet you take to combat nausea on long car journeys. It keeps him going, stops his stomach flipping over. If you are always miserable, at least you know where you stand. My problem is when I’m happy, I’m too happy. I’mclutching the string of a helium balloon. Manny’s crying, “Jump, jump!” but I never do because I have no sense of distance. I can’t see how high off the ground I am and what a long way down the real world is. I wouldn’t say that my emotions are extreme. I’d say they are committed. My moods are the equivalent of Madonna’s dancing: inappropriate but all-out. If I’m going to be sad, I might as well be the saddest a girl can get. And if I’m happy, I want to be the happiest. The trouble is, I feel highs so ecstatic that just being normal feels like a thousand-mile drop and being unhappy is excruciating.
    See, I was talking about Drew and now I’m talking about me. Manny says I obsess on other people because I don’t want to focus on myself. But in the end, all my crushes come back to me. All roads lead to Viva.
    I like the fact that Drew only drinks vodka. True, it is the choice of the alcoholic. But that’s good. It means Drew is drinking for nobody except himself. Vodka is the most honest and workmanlike of alcohols. It is there to make you drunk. It does not taste nice. It does not come in a fancy bottle or in an appealing colour. It holds no appeal for aficionados of smelly cheese and fine wines. There is no such thing as a vodka-tasting party. It is clean and see-through and straight to the point.
    I can’t stop thinking about him. I can’t stop relating every situation to him because I know he’d have the definitive view on every situation. Taking the rubbish out is symbolic of the human condition. Watching Australian soaps is symbolic of the human condition. Brushing your teeth is symbolic of the human condition. Have I said that his hair is in really great condition? I’ve never met a man with such soft hair. Like achinchilla. Snakes are really very soft and nice to feel too. I guess that’s why they flinch. Because they’ve got to protect their reputation. Otherwise everybody would be coming up and trying to pet them and their skin would probably go all thin from people rubbing their dirty fingers on it. It’s like those signs in art galleries: “Please do not touch the sculpture. Even if your hands are very clean you can still damage the bronze.” Drew can see the dirt that no one else can see, not even on their own bodies.
    I’ve found that if I do go to school, thoughts of Drew usually come during a Maths lesson.
    If I stay at home, under the covers, it happens more slowly, more pleasantly, descending like a fog, like a soothing aromatherapy steam bath. I feel pampered and slightly embarrassed. Manny knocks on the door and I promise I’ll get up in a minute. Manny thinks I’m masturbating. I’m not. I never do. My attention span isn’t long enough. Treena told me, “You do this and keep doing it until you
have
to keep doing it.” No household object is safe from her: cucumbers, hairbrush handles, deodorants. I hope she never wins an Oscar. And she goes on and on about it, which is one of the times with her I just have to switch off.
    â€œTry it again, Viva. Try it for longer.” It sounds too much like learning to use tampons. I just think, how stupid. I can’t even listen to my favourite two-and-a-half-minute pop song all the way to the end without having to fast-forward. I’m never going to have the patience to have an orgasm. To say, there, no there, up a bit, faster, softer. Here’s the bottom line about masturbation: sex must be humiliating enough as it is. But to make all those faces and all