Cherry
A car honks for you in the driveway. You tell Dad you’re hanging out with friends.
‘Nice day for it,’ he yells, hammering away at something in the backyard.
Dads don’t ask follow-up questions, not like mums do.
You slide into the backseat behind Evie and Pania, your best mates. Loose bobby pins are scattered in the footwell next to a scrunched-up netball uniform, a fraying maths book, a forgotten tube of strawberry lip gloss. The radio is set to one of the classic hits stations. Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ blares through the tinny speakers. It’s a four-hour drive to the clinic, so you stop first to fill the tank and get snacks—three Frujus, pineapple flavoured (of course).
You’ve been friends with these girls since the days of pigtails and jelly sandals, your lunchtimes spent behind tennis courts eating slices of watermelon, cheeks glossy with sticky smiles while Evie taught you swear words she’d overheard from her big brother. Then came the days of Baby-G watches and box hair dye, hunched in the back row of health class whispering about boys you liked, teachers you didn’t, while the overhead projector showed a chart comparing a baby’s growth in different stages: a poppy seed, a blueberry, a cherry … You wonder which one Evie has now, floating in her tummy next to her pineapple Fruju.
The three of you fill the drive trading gossip, describing your dream dresses for the school ball. The same ball that Evie went to last year with a boy in the form above, silhouette like a pool noodle. The origin of the cherry. The reason you’re driving to the clinic. It has to happen now before summer ripens, before Evie ripens, and she’ll want to bare her midriff, wear togs everyday, jump off the old train bridge and paddle in the creek below with her mates. She can’t do that with a cherry inside her.
At the clinic, Evie and Pania go in together. Two person limit. You wait in the car and stare at the front doors. Sun-bleached posters of carefree families and friendly GPs slide aside with the automatic doors, greeting each new person that shuffles in and then, sometime later, shuffles out again.
You wonder how she’s doing in there. You wonder if there’s any shops nearby where you could pick up a memento for Evie. I went with my friends to get an abortion and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. She’d laugh at that.
When Evie appears, she smiles but looks tired. She clutches a packet of painkillers. You ask if she’s okay. She tells you it was weird, like a little vacuum. It gets sucked out. She has a bit of cramping and bleeding. She rests in the backseat with Pania, so you’re driving everyone home, even though you don’t have your full license.
You remember what your dad said. You tell the others and they laugh, especially Evie. She does a bad impression of your dad.
‘Nice day for it,’ she says in a parody baritone, then switches to sarcasm. ‘Oh it was so nice! Make sure to tell him, won’t you?’
The car fills with more laughter, cackles, heads thrown back. You watch Evie and Pania in the rearview mirror, sitting together in the backseat, holding hands.
*
A car honks for you in the driveway.
You tell Dad you’re hanging out with Evie and Pania.
‘Nice day for it,’ he shouts, hammering away at something.
The clinic is a four-hour drive, but that’s nothing when you’re with your best mates. Best mates since the days of pigtails, jelly sandals and sticky watermelon smiles. Trading gossip, trading lip gloss, trading Frujus. Spending summers at the creek, filling the air with laughter, whispering behind tennis courts about boys you liked.
Boys like the lanky one, the pool noodle, who makes a girl’s heart race like she’s jumping off a train bridge. He takes her to the ball. Her dress is cherry red. He kisses her and kisses her until months later she stops kissing, pulls back. Tells him she has to see the school nurse. He doesn’t ask follow-up questions.
At the clinic, you wait in the car, watch the front doors, wonder how she’s doing in there.
Pania appears. She looks tired, clutches a packet of painkillers. A memento. She tells you it was weird, like a little vacuum, sucking it out. You sit in the backseat with her. Evie drives. She turns on the radio. Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ blares through the tinny speakers.
You hold Pania’s hand and ask if she’s okay. She says it’s just a bit of cramping, bleeding.
You remember what your dad said this morning. You laugh and tell the others. Evie laughs too but it’s short, sarcastic. Pania scoffs, rolls her eyes.
“They really don’t have a clue, do they?’
She leans her heavy head on your shoulder, and rests.
*
‘Nice day for it,’ shouts Dad.
He’s hammering away at something, watching you get in the car with Evie and Pania. ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ blares through the tinny speakers.
Fun for you was hanging out behind tennis courts with your best mates, eating watermelon and pineapple Frujus. Trading gossip, laughing, having a ball!
Later, fun was cherry kisses from a lanky boy, but then he broke your heart. It feels like your heart got sucked out. Feels like your heart is cramping, bleeding.
I had sex with my boyfriend and all I got was pregnant. What a memento.
But girls just want to have fun! Girls just want it to be summer, already! Girls just want to be together, all of the time, even when a friend has a cherry inside her, hammering away.
Of course they’ll go to the clinic with you.
No follow-up questions.
*
Three best mates sitting outside a clinic, holding hands. Nice day for it.
Jemma Richardson’s fiction has appeared in Turbine | Kapohau, circular, At the Bay | I te Kokoru and Salient. She lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara | Wellington and has an MA in Creative Writing from the IIML.