There’s Lola who climbs out of windows to dance on tables with boys. There’s Jarrah who drinks vodka alone until she throws up. There’s Yuna who carves ruby sleepers onto her thighs with a rusty Bic blade. Here we are stamped and tarnished, poured into bikinis where the lycra is eroded by salt, just like us. Here we are skin and flesh and boys take photos and hashtag them #wouldntfuckthat.
We are not girls that they base Disney cartoons on: Jarrah’s missing a tooth and Yuna cries in the rain hunting for four leafed clover. Bunch of fucking dogs, says a burnt guy with a gut that bulges like the Harbour Bridge.
We’re limping into the blistering heel of the afternoon and the sand is lava, the ocean a bath. Lola says fuck this I need some shade and is rewarded with six glares and a mother moving her toddler away.
We flock to Bondi like the rest, because even girls who’s boyfriends committed suicide deserve a tan. Even girls who’s flesh rolls like a pile of bagels deserve the healing powers of salt.
When the wave comes, tall as a townhouse, we don’t bother to scramble up the sand like ants scuttling to escape the rain. What’s the point? we think. We’re not missable, not fuckable, who cares if we are washed away and pummelled against a jagged coral bommie? We stay recumbent instead, watchful, front row seats at the show that is thrashing survival and gluttonous self-preservation.
It seems to us that time slows and bends, like vision behind goggles or the world viewed through the curve of a water glass. Panic sees faces stretch into gummy masks of horror and feet that couldn’t touch the beach just seconds ago patter the dry scorch of sand on greedy soles. And still we watch.
It’s not so blue, water, when it is reaching for the stars: more the sludgey grey of a fogged mirror pressed dirty with lipstick smudges and slimed tears. We search the wall for our reflections and see only blocky outlines of colour. If we could see one another’s faces though, we’d see doughy expressions of unlikable girls ready to face whatever comes their way, even a prison-wall of angry Pacific. Lola cackles and Jarrah yells wooooo! like she’d riding a coaster.
We’re inside the swell, just waiting for the deluge to drown us. There’s a flat pause where a thin membrane like a child’s bubble surrounds us, then the crash when it comes is behind us. We’re bone dry and the water is sucked back out to sea.
What the fuck? says Lola. The beach is littered with towels, picnic hampers, parasols torn into fluttering ribbons though not a person remains besides us. Holy shit, says Yuna, tipping a dry cigarette from her bag. Jarrah says chuck some of this sunscreen on, will ya? and we unlikable unfuckable girls get our tan on under the watchful judgement of nobody.