Kate Thompson - The O’Hara Affair

It’s scary to see pictures and details of former friends/enemies. Revisiting the past is no fun. Some ‘friendships’ should never be resurrected, not even in a virtual sense.

I say to myself, aww fuck. Even tho I hate this person, I guess I’d better add them as my friend…I’ll take ANYONE now.

Have you noticed the weird thing is that girls seem to be way more flirtatious on Facebook than in real life. Why is that?

Scrolling through Daisy’s Facebook friends, Fleur found crazy girls, dreamy girls, beauty queens, nymphs. Princesses, preppie girls, Barbie dolls, tramps. Wannabes and It girls, Latinas and Goths. Goddesses and nerdy girls and cheerleaders and vamps. Girls with names like Tinkerbell, L’il Monkeypaws and Puss. Or plain Emily and Martha and Jennifer and Luce. The pages of Facebook were adorned with girls galore.

‘Hi, Miriam,’ Fleur murmured, clicking on a link. ‘Welcome. You had a birthday recently, didn’t you?…Come on in, Rosa. Don’t be sad about your boy breaking up with you. You have a holiday to look forward to…Hi, there, Nelly. You’ve got to get those red shoes you’ve been hankering after. If you shimmy down to Fleurissima this afternoon, maybe you’ll find they’ve been reduced by fifteen per cent…Hi, Kitten; hi, Angel; hi, Naomi; hi, Paige…’

Glancing at the time, Fleur saw that it was nearly half-past ten. Time to jump into a shower, pull on her disguise, and get her ass down to the community centre. But a new notification on Daisy’s wall made her click one last time.

Oh! Bethany had the most candid eyes she had ever seen. Her birth date told Fleur she was eighteen, but she looked younger. She had the other-worldly appearance of one of Cicely Mary Barker’s flower fairies – tousled hair, delicate bone structure, translucent skin. She was Pisces, a Friday’s child, an incurable dreamer. She loved cats and cuddles and jacaranda-scented candles. She played piano, loved to paint, and was no good at games. She adored Harry Potter and the music of A Camp and Muse. She haunted art galleries. She was partial to Dolly Mixtures. She hated polystyrene cups. She was going to be in Lissamore this weekend. She was looking forward to visiting Madame Tiresia.

And Madame Tiresia was looking forward to meeting her.

‘It is quite possible for the gazer to be able to see things in the crystal at one time and not at another. This being so, you should not be discouraged if such images fail to appear at the gazer’s command.’ Dr R A Mayne

If Madame Tiresia fails to detect your aura, there will be no charge for your consultation.

Bethany regarded the disclaimer on the placard outside the fortune-teller’s booth. It was a bit like that terms-and-conditions-apply-share-prices-may-go-down-as-well-as-up stuff that voice-overs rattled off at the end of bank ads on the radio. In other words: let the buyer beware. Still, it was worth a try. Her horoscope had told her to heed the advice of a wise woman this week, and since Daisy de Saint-Euverte had been raving about Madame Tiresia on Facebook, Bethany had to assume that this was the wise woman in question. Bethany believed in horoscopes, even though she pretended to be cynical about them.

Although they had never met in real life, she had been thrilled when Daisy had accepted her as a friend on Facebook. It didn’t matter that Daisy had thousands of friends, it still felt kinda cool. Bethany’s friends numbered just over a hundred now, but she had to admit that she was a bit indiscriminate about the friendships she’d acquired. What must it be like to be as popular as Daisy de Saint-Euverte? Bethany had never been popular at school: she hadn’t been bullied as such – just ignored. She had been in awe of those girls who seemed so effortlessly confident, whose hair swished like something out of a shampoo commercial, and who spoke in loud D4 accents. She’d never been part of a crowd that screamed and hugged whenever they met, and who threw pink pyjama parties where they necked vodkatinis and watched the singalong version of Mamma Mia while texting their boyfriends. She’d been invited to one of those dos by a cousin, and she had screamed and giggled and sung along on cue, but she had felt like a complete impostor. She had been glad the next day to return to the fantasy realms that lay beyond the portal of her Xbox.

The other reason for Bethany’s low self-esteem was the fact that she had never had a boyfriend. She reckoned it was because her boobs were too small. She’d been going to ask her parents if she could have a boob job for her eighteenth birthday, but she knew they would have pooh-poohed the idea. They’d tell her not to be so stupid, that she was beautiful as she was. They didn’t understand what it was like to be a teenager. They didn’t know that it was horrible.

A gang of girls was coming along the promenade now, a phalanx of linked arms and GHD hair and blinging teeth. Bethany knew that if they saw her vacillating outside the fortune-teller’s, she’d be subjected to their derision. And there was nothing more lacerating than the derision of teenage girls. She’d never forgotten the snorts of mirth that had erupted in the classroom when the careers guidance teacher had announced that Bethany wanted to be an actress (‘Sure after all, girls,’ the teacher had chortled, fanning the flames of her peers’ ridicule, ‘isn’t Bethany O’Brien a fine name for a thespian? With a grand alliterative name like that, you wouldn’t be after needing any talent at all, so you wouldn’t.’) At least today she had somewhere to hide: there’d been nowhere to hide in the classroom that day. Pulling aside the curtain, she ducked into the booth.

It took a moment or two for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. The tented space was lit by a single, crimson-shaded lamp. At a table covered in a star-spangled chenille cloth, a veiled woman was sitting gazing into a crystal ball in which Bethany could see herself reflected in miniature.

‘Erm, hello, Madame Tiresia,’ she said, feeling awkward. ‘My name—’

‘Sit down, Bethany,’ said the woman.

‘Oh! How did—’

‘I know your name? I saw it in the crystal. I’ve been waiting for you.’

Well, so far, so impressive. What clever trick had Madame used to get her name right? She’d try to work it out later, the way she and her parents did after watching Derren Brown on the telly. Moving towards the table, she sat down opposite Madame Tiresia.

‘Before we start, I must ask you to cross my palm with five euros.’

‘Oh – of course.’ Bethany pulled out her purse and handed over a five euro note, which Madam Tiresia slid into a manila envelope. The envelope was bulging: business must have been brisk. Bethany wondered how many of Daisy’s Facebook friends had taken her advice and sought a consultation with the fortune-teller. She’d check Facebook out later, and see what the consensus was.

‘Let me see what else the crystal has to show,’ said Madame Tiresia. ‘You sat exams recently, Bethany. You think you did quite well, but you’re scared that you may not have done well enough.’

‘You’re right.’

Hmm. Bethany guessed that that could apply to virtually every girl her age who came into the booth, since most teenagers this summer would have taken exams, and most would be feeling insecure about results.

‘What else do I see in the crystal?’ continued Madame Tiresia. ‘I see…a fish. Two fishes. What does that signify?’

‘Um. I don’t know. Maybe my mum’s going to do some kind of fish for supper.’

Madame Tiresia gave a low laugh. ‘No. The crystal is telling me that you were born under the sign of Pisces. Is that so?’