THE GOODBYE GIRL
The brace came off on a Tuesday. Two years of metal unstrapped in fifteen minutes, and suddenly Robbie had a mouth again. He stepped out of the chair with the dizzy joy of someone who might finally be kissed. His tongue darted across his teeth as if checking a boundary fence. And in the waiting room sat Fenella Penny.
She looked up from her notes. She smiled.
“Fen!” he blurted. Delighted and surprised. “Aren’t we seeing each other this afternoon?”
“Apparently,” she said, closing her notebook. Amused, puzzled, and pleased. Serendipity had to mean something, surely. She accepted the kiss on her cheek as if she had spent more time in France than Robbie. She had.
“You’re not here for a brace, are you?” he asked, panicked. He knew from experience that metal in the mouth could get in the way of ‘tender kisses’ and such like.
“Hygienist,” she said. “Who knows what uses I might be putting my mouth to this holiday.”
He blushed. That was the point.
They went to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Robbie put his arm around her in the cinema. She didn’t lean in, but she didn’t flinch. They left talking about escape, aliens, and the fantasy of being lifted out of ordinary life. She said she’d go willingly. Like her had his fill of —“posh prison”- at his boarding school for the last two years in the Yorkshire Dales. They both laughed, but it wasn’t really funny. They were emotional cripples.
Later, in his bedroom, they sat with a copy of the Desmond Morris book ‘Manwatching’. “My mum got it for me,” he said, with no hint of irony. Fen had followed the TV series, and plenty of talk had circulated the dorm at school. She wanted to discuss “virginity” with Robbie, but his silence told her enough. He was clueless, while she was informed.
They didn’t kiss that time, but something lingered—almost.
Fen returned to the Robbie orbit after the India Armstrong-Jones disco moment had detonated every known emotional equilibrium the previous Saturday.
Quiet. Holding tea in a thermos. She curled into Robbie’s desk chair like it was an old habit. He sat cross-legged on the bed while she flipped slowly through ‘Manwatching’, again, pausing at the centre spread—“Courtship and Body Language.”
“Do you think the way you kiss differs for everyone, similar to how our voices sound when we talk?” she asked.
Robbie didn’t have an answer and hated to confess. He’d not kissed anyone properly for a while, not even much with her. Those kisses had been through his brace had been gentle, soft landings – like probes dropped into the moon’s dust, only to expire a few moments later.
He wondered if they were going to kiss.
She smiled but didn’t pursue it.
Robbie put ‘Genesis’ on his record player, the album ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’. She’d thumbed through his collection—mostly ‘Bowie’, no ‘Pink Floyd’ or the ‘Rolling Stones’. He’d hidden his ‘Carpenters’ and ‘Abba’ albums under the bed.
They sat not speaking for nearly an hour. No more flirtation. Just light, breath, stillness. He didn’t know it then, but she was regulating him. And maybe herself. Two teenagers who shared a rhythm, if not a trajectory.
Village Disco
At Stamfordham Village Hall Disco, a few days later, they didn’t arrive together. There are not quite a couple, but it is noticeable enough. He had arranged to stay at her place since he couldn’t get a lift home. She wore a navy jumper that faintly smelled of fabric softener. He borrowed deodorant from his brother Rick and didn’t overthink it. They danced once—awkwardly, politely, like extras who had just met and didn’t have to pretend to be anything other than themselves. Yet. If ever. Then, she vanished into a huddle of ex-cons on short leave – a group of boarding school boys who, unlike Robbie, were continuing into sixth form. Robbie was on his way out. Early release after the summer term made him ‘another’ or ‘the other,’ as if it were a fall from grace, certainly a decline in status in the rarefied atmosphere of class consciousness where not only attending a private boarding school mattered, but it also mattered which one you attended, with the likes of Eton, Winchester, and Harrow at the top of the pile.
Robbie watched Cece Noble glide across the floor in a ribbed knitted jumper and tailored shorts from Havey Nich’s, pretending not to care, noticing how heads were beginning to turn. They danced together, twice, but he knew she had her mind on other things, on another boy. She intended to get someone else’s attention; he didn’t know whom. She was getting lots of attention. It was her superpower, yet to be realised or put into play. That was to come.
Fenella found Robbie later, perhaps having second thoughts. Their dances became closer, followed by an exploratory kiss that became more engaging when it no longer felt like a dental probe. Canoodling outside followed. Perhaps they were on their way to something after all? A thread that tickled her fancy? Or just taking a few steps through the labyrinth of discovery.
It wasn’t over yet. A week later, they found each other at a dinner party. There was a moment on the couch. They kissed again. A lot. Not awkward. Not dramatic. Just warm. Right.
ROBBIE (2028):
We both knew the story had already ended. We were finding out about something.
After the fallout—after the dartboard chaos and Cece’s scarf and Tracey’s coffee grenade—Fenella was the only girl still writing. The only one who didn’t ghost, rage, or retreat. Her letters were intelligent, steady, and often absurd. It made Robbie laugh. They talked about the films they’d seen, the books they’d read, the looming exams. Both marooned in single-sex boarding schools, exiled to posh prison.
ROBBIE (2028):
When summer came, we tried one again. We walked through Jesmond Dene. Talked about school and university and what it meant to want without wanting to possess.
She was leaving for Scotland the next day—her grandfather’s estate near Glencoe, an annual pilgrimage with her cousins and three novels she never finished. And one she had a mind to write.
I’d just been offered a summer job—as an extra in a Disney film. Costumes, chaos, and someone unexpected.
We hugged. A long one. She kissed my cheek.
ROBBIE (2028)
“We weren’t a thing. But we were something.”
Leave a Reply