Chapter Eight Sadie
Chapter Eight Sadie
‘I can’t believe you’re leaving me in two days!
’ Chess exclaimed.
‘God, Sadie. This has all gone so fast.’
The movers had come that morning.
Almost all the worldly goods Jonah and I owned were now somewhere in a shipping container en route to a storage facility in Hobart, ready for us to unpack once we found a rental.
The rest of my stuff was in a carry-on suitcase, sitting in Chess’s spare room.
I was going to spend tonight and tomorrow at her place before our flight.
Tonight, I’d be spending the night as an unmarried woman.
Tomorrow, though…
My left thumb went instinctively to my ring finger, looking for the spikes of my ring.
It had become a tic over the last month, a grounding technique, jamming the pad of my thumb into them.
But this time I found nothing.
My engagement ring was in the inside pocket of my handbag with the three-for-$12 packet of wedding rings, one of which I was due to slip onto Jonah Fisher’s finger at 4pm the next day.
And I still hadn’t told Chess.
One of the things you had to do all the time as an academic scrounging for jobs and fellowships and grants was craft the narrative of your research career.
It was usually called ROPE – Research Opportunity and Performance Evidence – and you had to talk about how much you’d achieved relative to the opportunities you’d had.
I’d taken that concept a step further and crafted a narrative for myself, one that I’d told to myself, sold to myself, over and over again.
It was the story of the ultimate underdog.
Sadie Shaw had come from nothing and been excellent despite it.
Sadie Shaw had created opportunities where there were none and made much more than the most of them.
Sadie Shaw had kicked down the doors of the ivory tower and made everyone who told her she couldn’t do it rue the day they’d crossed her.
Sadie Shaw was a badass.
But she was a badass who was very, very scared of what her big sister was going to say when she found out about the wedding.
‘How soon is too soon for me to come and visit?’ Chess asked.
She’d pulled an especially fancy bottle of wine out of the cupboard she liked to refer to as her ‘cellar’ and was rummaging around for a corkscrew.
‘I don’t want to be clingy – I know you’re going to need time to find a place and get settled and everything – but I’m genuinely worried I’m going to fall apart without you nearby.
’
‘Um…’ I lectured to hundreds of people regularly, and yet my voice sounded like a scared eight-year-old’s.
‘When were you thinking?’
‘I’ve got a ton of leave saved up.
’ Chess deftly levered the cork out.
‘I could come whenever you want. I could even fly down next week and help you house-hunt, if that would be helpful.’
I had a sudden, horrifying vision of what that would look like.
Chess, crashing on the couch of the serviced apartment the university was temporarily putting Jonah and me up in.
Her, me and him, in the same space.
‘The next few weeks will be a bit chaotic,’ I said.
‘Starting work and all.’
‘You just let me know when you want me to come and I’ll be there.
’ She sniffed her wine, then took a long sip before making a sound of satisfaction.
‘God, that’s so good.
’
‘What is it?’ I asked, because I was the world’s biggest coward, taking the easy way out of a difficult conversation as soon as it presented itself.
‘This is the Bibliophile Noriko, their reserve pinot noir.’ Chess turned the bottle around and showed me the label, which had an artfully drawn picture of a messy stack of books on it.
‘I first picked up a bottle of theirs a few years ago because the label reminded me of you, but their wine is so good that I joined their wine club. I get a half-dozen sent to me every three months.’
I took a sip.
It might have been the best wine in the world or the worst.
I couldn’t tell.
My whole mouth was numb.
‘Bibliophile is Tasmanian, actually.’ Chess smiled at me over the rim of her glass.
‘Based in the Coal River Valley. Super close to Hobart. Maybe I’ll surprise you one day.
Turn up on your doorstep and kidnap you so we can go wine-tasting.
’
It was the smile that broke me.
She’d smiled that smile at me a million times before.
Don’t worry, sweetie.
Everything will be okay.
I’ll make sure of it.
And she would.
She’d cleared the way for me.
She’d swept all the debris out of the path between me and the ivory tower, fought all the monsters, cheered when I finally kicked down the door like she hadn’t done anything at all.
She would do anything in the world for me.
She had done everything in the world for me.
‘Chessie,’ I whispered.
I was choking on how much I loved her.
How much I would never, ever be able to repay her.
Suffocating on it.
‘Oh God, don’t cry!
’ She was beside me on the couch in an instant, an arm wrapped around my shoulders.
‘If you start, I’ll start.
’
I put my wine down.
I was going to contaminate it with my tears otherwise, or spill it all over Chess’s beautiful floor, the floor she’d worked so hard for, to make sure we never went hungry or thirsty again.
‘Can you, um, can you…’
‘Can I what? What do you need?’
‘Can you get out of work early tomorrow?’
‘Of course!’ she said, almost laughing.
‘I’ll have to rearrange some meetings, but that’s okay.
I could take the whole day off, if you like.
’
‘I…’ My thumb went to my ring finger again, searching.
‘I, um, have plans. But I… I…’
Chess put her wine down too and turned to face me on the couch, taking my hands in hers.
‘What is it?’
I looked at our hands.
If I looked at our hands, I didn’t have to look at her face.
‘Could you meet me in the park tomorrow at four? The one near the share house? Under the fig tree? Do you know the one?’
‘I know the one. Do you want to have a picnic? I could order another one of those fancy cheeseboards.’
‘No.’
I swallowed once, twice.
If Chess hadn’t had such a firm grip on my fingers, I would have reached for my glass and knocked all that expensive wine back like a shot of tequila.
‘I’m getting married,’ I whispered.
Chess went completely still.
‘What?’ she said at last.
‘I’m getting married.
At four.
Tomorrow.
In the park.
’
Another moment of silence.
‘Sadie,’ she said, ‘I don’t understand.
’
‘Remember how you looked at my contract?’ I still couldn’t look at her.
‘And there was that provision for partner hire?’
‘Ye-e-es.’ She stretched out the vowel sound.
Her fingers were completely motionless in mine.
‘But that doesn’t apply to you.
You don’t have a partner.
’
‘What if…’ I swallowed again.
‘What if I did, though?’
‘Well, first I’d ask why you didn’t tell me sooner.
You’ve introduced me to every boyfriend you’ve ever had.
Or at least I think you have.
’
‘I have,’ I said miserably.
‘Then what’s going on?
’
She let go of one of my hands and tipped my chin up, forcing me to look her in the eye.
‘Whatever’s going on, you can tell me.
’
The words came out in a rush.
‘Remember how I told you about Jonah’s sister?
’
It took a second – maybe two seconds – but an entire novel played out on Chess’s face as she put the pieces of the story together.
‘Tell me you’re not serious.
’
‘It’s not romantic.
’ Now that I’d started talking I couldn’t stop, an avalanche of words pouring out of me.
‘Obviously, it’s not romantic.
But what was I supposed to do, when I heard that story?
I couldn’t just do nothing, not when I could do something .
And it’s not going to be any different from how things already are between us – I mean, we’ve been housemates for years, and trust me, it’s going to make living in Hobart so much cheaper and easier – and there are so few permanent academic jobs, this is kind of like putting one over on the system, and—’
‘Stop.’
I stopped.
Chess let go of my hand and folded her fingers in her lap.
‘What have you signed?’
‘The wedding’s not until tomorrow, so not much, not yet.
’ Why was she so calm?
‘The Notice of Intended Marriage form. A stat dec for the university.’
‘What did you say on the stat dec?’
‘That we’ve lived together for eight years and now we’re getting married.
’
She let out a long breath.
‘Okay. Okay. Not great, obviously, but we can work with that.’
‘What do you mean, “we can work with that”?’
‘I can get you out of it.’ She reached for her wine, took a long sip, then set it down again.
‘There are a couple of approaches we can take. There’s irreconcilable differences, obviously, but if you really do feel badly enough about the thing with his sister that you’re willing to undergo an entire ridiculous charade to ensure that this man gets a job he doesn’t deserve—’
‘He does deserve it. Just as much as me.’
‘No, he doesn’t, or he would have got the job,’ Chess snapped.
‘But if you’re determined to do a solid for him, you don’t have to marry him.
There’s no way anyone can legally prove whether you are or aren’t engaged.
’
‘Lyons would get pretty suspicious when we kept postponing our wedding. Plus, we already made it pretty clear that we’d be married by the time we got there.
’
‘Sadieeeee.’ My name came out of her in a groan.
‘Why did you wait until the last minute to tell me? You must have filed the notice of intent weeks ago! Why are you only telling me now?’
She pinched the bridge of her nose, hard.
‘This would have been so much easier to get you out of if you’d just told me.
’
‘I don’t want you to get me out of it.
’
‘So you actually want to do this?’
I didn’t know how to respond.
‘You actually want to marry him.’ It was a question that sounded like a statement.
‘This man. This fucking private school boy. That’s who you want to marry.
’
‘He’s not that bad.
He’s…
he’s…
he’s nice, really, once you get past all the tweed.
’
Chess scoffed.
‘And it’s not that I want to marry him, exactly.
It’s…
it’s—’
‘Sadie, if you want to fuck him, just fuck him.’
My mouth fell open.
‘I’m serious.
’ Chess drank the remaining half of her glass in one gulp.
‘Arguing is friction. Hate sex is a real thing. If it’ll help you get it out of your system, I will sacrifice one of the last two precious nights I have with you so you can go and fuck him.
’
‘I don’t want to fuck him!
’
‘But you want to marry him?’
‘Stop lawyering me!’
I wanted her to shout.
It would have been easier if she’d shouted.
Instead, though, she reached out and pushed a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
When she spoke, her voice was soft.
‘Sweetie, I’m just trying to look after you.
’
‘Stop!’
There were no spikes for me to push my thumb into, so I had to clench my fists instead, driving my fingernails into the palms of my hand.
‘This is why I didn’t tell you!
’ I exclaimed.
‘I’m an adult now, Chess!
I’m thirty-one years old!
I know what I’m doing!
But you still treat me like I’m a little kid you need to look after!
’
‘I’m your sister .
’ There was a sharp edge in her voice now.
‘And I love you.’
‘Too much!’
I knew – even before I saw the words hit her like a slap to the face – that I’d said something unforgivable.
But the brakes were off now, a month’s worth – years’ worth, a life’s worth – of pent-up feelings pouring out of me.
‘I love you, Chess, and I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.
But I’m not a little girl anymore, and sometimes – God, sometimes being loved by you is exhausting.
’
Francesca Shaw always knew what to say.
That had been true my whole life.
Chess knew what to say.
Chess knew what to do.
No matter what the situation was, Chess knew how to handle it.
Silence fell.
Chess sat there, on the couch, still as stone, and said nothing.
‘I, um…’ I stood, legs shaking beneath me.
‘I think maybe I should leave.’
She didn’t stop me.