GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SHORT STORY PRIZE 2021/22
MATHILDE MEROUANI
‘You and the Girls’
GIRLS WITH NAMES LIKE VICTOIRE. Girls with names like Garrance, Quitterie, Sixtine, Blanche. Girls with Vanessa Bruno bags, girls whose mothers pass on Hermès scarves the girls tie around their necks or the handles of their Vanessa Bruno bags. Girls with mothers who took them to a restaurant when they got their first period, mothers who take them to the salon to get their legs waxed. Girls with subtle highlights in their hair.
*
You open the door to your cousin. She’s panting.
“The lift is broken again.”
“I know.”
“I had to walk all the way up here.”
“Sorry.”
She walks in, leaves her Gérard Darel bag on the sofa by the front door. The sheet falls down; you drape it over the back again.
“Are you not ready yet?” she says.
“I don’t know what to wear. Where’s your mum?”
“She couldn’t take us. I took the bus.”
*
Sarah goes to your mother’s cupboard and chooses an outfit. A white shirt, a thick chequered skirt, a grey blazer.
“Doesn’t it look a bit old? I’ll look old.”
“It’s the kind of thing they wear,” she says. She hands you a velvet hairband. “And take off your necklace.”
You gather your hair high on your skull; Sarah smooths out the kinks.
“You’re not making fun of me?”
“I go to school with them,” she says. “I know what they wear. Come on, get dressed, hurry up or we’ll be late. Your necklace.”
She sits on the bed. She doesn’t look away while you take off your jeans and t-shirt.
“Your boobs are bigger!” she shouts.
You smile.
“The pill,” you say. “Can I borrow your bag?”
“How did you get your mum to agree?”
“Can I borrow your bag?”
“What do you need?”
“No, I mean, for tonight,” you say. “Can I borrow your bag tonight?”
“They’ll know it’s mine.”
“Just say we have the same one.”
You put your phone and your lipstick and your deodorant and your perfume and your face powder and your face brush in her bag, underneath two bottles of wine.
“I got new lashes,” you say.
“Absolutely not.”
*
There’s a metro strike – you and Sarah take two buses to the centre of town.
At the back of the bus, you take out the pocket mirror several times – you pluck out eyebrow hairs with your nails and reapply lipstick.
“Whose birthday is it, again?” you ask.
“Sixtine. Don’t put too much on.”
“How old is she?”
“Fifteen. She’s in my class.”
“Only fifteen?”
“She skipped a year.”
“What did you tell them about me?”
“I just said my cousin was coming. They didn’t ask anything.”
“Where does she live?”
“Rue Peyrolières. Five minutes away from the lycée. She kind of lives alone.”
“What, without her parents?”
“They’re in their house in the countryside almost all the time. Sixtine only goes every other weekend – every other weekend. Imagine! They hire someone to make her food and everything.”
“So, it’s like you. It’s just so she can go to Fermat.”
“Not like me. Our flat near the lycée is just a studio nobody uses. More like a room. She actually lives there. It’s a proper flat.”
*
Rue Peyrolières, a man in a shirt and leather shoes says you are both exquisite. You thank him, and he frowns, and your cousin tells you not to look at him. You ring the doorbell of the proper flat.
“Give me the bottles,” Sarah says. “I didn’t get her a gift.”
“Can I give her the other one?”
She says you can. The door opens.
*
You press your cheeks against the girls’ cheeks; you all kiss the air. You listen when they tell you their names: you don’t want to make them repeat. You say your name loud and pronounce it well: you think they might not ask again.
“Sixtine.”
“Mégane.”
“Victoire.”
“Mégane.”
“Quitterie.”
“Mégane.”
“Garrance.”
“Mégane.”
“Blanche.”
“Mégane.”
“Do you go to Fermat? Please tell me you’re not one of those Saint Sernin junkies.”
“No, I’m Sarah’s cousin.”
“But you’re from Toulouse, right? Where do you live?”
You say the truth, at first; you can’t think of other neighbourhoods.
“Bagatelle.”
They all stare, they all go quiet. Sarah glares at you.
“Not that Bagatelle,” you say, faking a laugh. “It’s a village in the countryside. Middle of nowhere. You wouldn’t know it.”
“I think I’ve heard of it,” Blanche says.
They go back to their conversation. They serve you glasses of vodka and apple juice. Your cousin steals most of them – she says you’re not quick enough.
When the vodka is empty you and the girls drink tequila and lick salt on the skin between thumb and index finger, and when the tequila is empty you drink Manzana. They say it reminds them of their first hangovers when they were thirteen.
When you get up, you are dizzy for a second; you want to hug them all. You walk around the flat and you smile at everything. You smile at the long sofa, as long as the wall. You smile at the other pale sofas on either sides of the coffee table; they have no creases or dips or stains in their fabric. You smile at the ice-cube dispenser on the fridge, you smile at the fireplace built in the red brick wall. You smile at the weird rusty sculpture, the weird chair no one could sit on, the weirder painting of a naked woman. You bend out the window, look at the Garonne, the Pont Neuf. You watch the people below and smile at them. You want them to see you, at this window, your window, you live here, in the centre of town. You, Mégane Garcia, go to lycée Pierre de Fermat.
*
The girls talk about Fermat boys and Fermat girls.
“Guess who I saw place du Cap, last weekend? Eugénie de Vallois.”
“You’re joking.”
“I thought they moved to Paris.”
“Who’s she?” Sarah asks.
“You haven’t met her, she’s not at the lycée, she was with us in collège. She gave a blowjob to a random guy in the corridor. Yeah, yeah, I’m not kidding. In the corridor. To a random guy! She was expelled.”
They call Eugénie a slut.
They talk about the blowjobs they’ve given – in bedrooms, on clean sheets, to their ex-boyfriends.
*
The girls are bored. The girls ask which boys they could invite.
“You don’t know any boys who could come?” Sixtine asks.
They all turn to look at you.
“Me?”
“Yeah, from your lycée. Which lycée did you say you go to?”
“Countryside,” you say.
“Oh, yeah, you said. Let’s just go out,” Sixtine says.
“We haven’t eaten your cake yet,” Garrance says.
“I don’t care, let’s go to a club.”
“Blanche and I have fake IDs,” Quitterie says. “Who else?”
The girls shake their heads.
“I thought we’d stay in. I didn’t take it.”
“I’ll get us in,” Victoire says.
You and the girls drink the last of the Manzana.
*
You had only seen place Saint-Pierre in the daylight, only a few times, only passing through. You hadn’t seen it growling, proliferating. You hadn’t seen the crowds in front of the bars, hadn’t heard the young noise, hadn’t smelled the vomit and the piss and the alcohol and the Calvin Klein CK One and the Paco Rabanne One Million.
“Which one, Sixitine?” Quitterie asks.
“Saint des Seins.”
“We’ll never get in.”
“We’ll get in,” Victoire says.
In the line, the girls talk about invented university courses.
“And you? How is prépa going?”
“It’s so hard. Last week, I got a five out of twenty on my history exam.”
Blanche and Quitterie go first. The bouncer looks at their fake IDs, their real faces, their IDs again.
“What month were you born?” he asks.
“February,” Blanche says, and smiles.
He tilts his head towards the open door, and they walk into the darkness of the Saint des Seins.
Victoire tries to follow, but the man blocks her with his arm.
“IDs,” he says.
“We’re with them,” Victoire says, pointing at the loud void beyond the door.
“IDs,” he repeats.
“I’m nineteen and they’re eighteen,” Victoire says. “I’m a university student.”
“I need proof.”
“Here’s your proof.”
Victoire lifts her blouse. She isn’t wearing a bra. Some boys, a few feet away, howl, and Victoire shakes her shoulders, her chest still exposed to the night. The bouncer’s face is unchanged.
“Your friend is about to puke,” he says.
You and the girls look behind. Sarah is holding her mouth and her stomach. She runs to a dark corner, and adds her vomit to a wall already stained with dripping urine.
“Let’s go,” Sixtine says, and she kisses the bouncer’s cheek before you and the girls walk up to Sarah.
“What about Blanche and Quitterie?” you ask.
“They’ll pretend they didn’t know,” Sixtine says, and she places an arm over your shoulder.
You follow her speed; you drop your shoulders a little with each step so that her arm never has to float, so that she might never want to remove it.
“I’m very drunk, Mégane,” she says, and she laughs into your neck.
“I like your ring,” you tell her.
“Thank you! You’re so cute. You’re very cute.”
Her breath smells of sugar and solvent.
Sixtine takes off her Marc Deloche ring.
“You can have it,” she says, and she tries several times before she slides your finger into it.
“You’re giving me a gift on your birthday,” you say, looking at the large, silver ring, at the small medal hanging from the middle. She laughs, and kisses you on the cheek.
“Do you kiss everyone when you’re drunk?” you ask.
“Only cute people. What’s going on?” she shouts at the others.
“Victoire called a taxi for Vomito.”
“Don’t you think Mégane is adorable?” Sixtine says. “Look at her cute ponytail.”
*
You and the girls wait for the taxi.
The girls ask a group of men if they have cigarettes and if they have weed. The men light cigarettes for them.
“You know what they say,” one of the men says, “he who lights it up…” and the girls laugh.
Another man says, “You don’t have cigarettes, you don’t have a lighter. You only have your lungs.”
Victoire says she has great lungs.
“I’ve noticed,” the man says.
*
When the car arrives, Sarah asks if you’re coming. She looks like she’s about to throw up again. You tighten your grip on the handles of her handbag.
You watch her, the way her eyes open and close. You turn to the girls and to the men.
“I’m staying,” you say, and Sixtine cheers, and the car drives away.
Tomorrow, you’ll tell Sarah she asked you not to come with her. Don’t you remember?
“Where are you girls going?” one of the men asks.
“Wherever you’re going,” Sixtine shouts.
*
You and the girls walk with the men through the centre of town. You look at every face you walk past; you make them look at you, at Sixtine’s arm around your shoulder, at the Gérard Darel hanging from the inside of your elbow. At the men and their suits and their sharp haircuts – they’re with you, yes, you’re with them, yes. The lights over the Capitole, yours, the blue shutters against the orange brick, yours, the overflowing bins, the sound of broken glass, yours.
You and the girls stop in front of tall black doors. One of the men shakes the bouncer’s hand, and some people complain when you all skip the queue. You smile at them before you walk inside.
*
You move underneath the pink lights. One of the men takes your hand and leads you through the crowd. When you and the girls swerve, you can see the whole line: the man who holds your hand holds Sixtine’s hand in front of him; she is led by another man’s hand in front of her.
You and the girls and the men sit down in a square of white leather booth seats – a red velvet cord separates you from the sweat of other people.
You, A Man, Sixtine, A Man, Victoire, A Man, Garrance, A Man.
Man One says things in your ear and when you don’t hear you show him your teeth.
A waitress brings Champagne in a bucket. You and the girls and the men don’t use the glasses; you pass the bottles around. You watch the way the girls angle their chins, how they lay their palms over their collarbones when they look at the men.
Man One tilts the bottle over your mouth, and you drink.
*
The girls get up and dance. The men watch them and smile. Sixtine lifts you from the seat and you mirror her moves. Your laughter is silenced by the music.
“You’re so cute!” she yells. “Little country girl!”
You and the girls dance close for the men, pretend to kiss for the men. The men join you and the girls, they separate you, take one of you for each of them. Man One makes you twirl. He sprays his fingers over your cheeks. His thumb slides down and reaches your lips, parts your lips. You bite it.
The music hardens. The bottles empty. You all walk to Sixtine’s flat.
*
The living room is already familiar. You drop your bag and blazer on a wooden chair as though it is habit; you show Man One around while the others fit an iPod onto a base and drop ice cubes into glasses. Sixtine and Victoire do handstands on the wall. Their faces go red; their stomachs are bare. The men hold their ankles.
You open one of the living room windows and Man One says it’s a beautiful view, and that you’re a beautiful girl. You both lean over the ledge, look at each other. The sides of your two bodies touch from shoulder to hip. He kisses you. The girls whistle and whoop. You turn around and smile, and their men find each of them, kiss each of them. They dance to the music without dancing, not really, they’re moving across the room, turning the group into pairs. You and the girls and the men forget the glasses and the last drinks you all said you would have at the flat. Sixtine and Man Two kiss on a sofa, Victoire and Garrance disappear in the corridor with Men Three and Four. Two doors are shut and two keys turned.
You grab Man One’s shirt, like you saw Victoire and Garrance do, and you pull him towards the sofa opposite Sixtine. He encloses your waist in his hands, large and dry. He slides them up your sides, and your shirt wrinkles and lifts. You take it off. You can see, when Man One kisses your chest, that Man Two does the same on the other sofa. You can see the way Sixtine tries to sit up and how she lays back down. You lay down, too, and Man One looks for the zipper on your skirt. Man Two unbuttons Sixtine’s jeans, throws them on the coffee table.
“Let’s go to a bedroom,” Sixtine says, quietly. “There’s another bedroom.”
Man Two kisses her.
“It’ll be more comfortable,” she says.
He kisses her and you kiss Man One. He undoes her bra and you undo yours.
“Let’s go to the bedroom,” Sixtine says.
“I’m comfortable, here,” Man Two says, and he pins her down with a kiss.
You and Sixtine are naked at the same time. They penetrate you both at the same time.
You thought you would have to moan, but Sixtine is quiet, so you stay silent, too, even when it stops hurting.
She looks at you and you smile.
*
You wake up to the sound of cleaning. When you smell the chemical flowers, you think of your mother’s tiredness.
The room is tidy – everything in its previous place, except for a cushion flat in the middle of a sofa.
“Morning,” you say, but Sixtine doesn’t hear you.
Her back is turned. She is washing glasses in the sink.
You put on your clothes, and you walk up to her.
“Do you have anything to eat? Cereal?”
She turns to look at you, her hands still sunk in the white water.
“No, I don’t. The bakery downstairs is open on Sundays.”
She returns to the sink, washes another glass. The steam rises. She stops and turns back to you.
“I hung your bag and your jacket on the peg by the front door.”
“Can I have a shower?”
“I’ve already cleaned it, actually, so…”
“It’s okay,” you say, and you smile, and shake your head. “No worries.”
She fixes you.
“Do you want me to get you anything from the bakery?” you ask.
“I’ve already eaten,” she says.
You put on your shoes. She follows you to the entrance and opens the door, her yellow gloves still on.
“Thank you so much, I had such a good time,” you say, “let’s do it again.”
She lifts a bin bag from the bench by the door and hands it to you.
“Can you take this down with you? The bins are behind the red door.”
“Yes, of course, no problem. I had a really good time. I’ll get your number from my cousin, I’m free next weekend.”
She looks behind her, crosses her arms over her cardigan, avoids touching her clothes with her wet rubber hands.
“Do you have everything?”
“Yeah, yeah,” you say, “I’ve got my Pastel card, I can take a bus. It was so nice to meet you. I had a great time.”
She shuts the door. You throw the bag away, say hello to a neighbour.
*
The morning, inside the streets of Toulouse, above the water of the Garonne, is white, and bright, and blinding.
On the bus, you look at the ring on your finger; you play with the light reflected on the medal. You smile all the way home.