Chapter Seven #2
The more people who knew our relationship existed somewhere between ‘sham’ and ‘scam’, despite its technical legality, the likelier it was that Jonah and I would find ourselves not just unemployed but unemployable.
We had to sell this to everyone .
Firstly, there were our housemates.
Jonah thought they knew us too well for us to lie to them.
‘Maybe not all of them, but we’ve lived with Van and Annie for eight years!
’ he protested, sitting on my bed, the soft glow of my lamp catching the few strands of grey in his dark hair and turning them silver, the fairy lights above him giving him a starry crown.
‘Do you know how many times they’ve asked me when you and I are going to bang it out?
’ I demanded.
He immediately turned bright red.
‘It’ll be easy,’ I said.
‘We’ll just be like, “Oh no, the thought of being separated made us realise that we’ve actually been enemies-to-lovers all this time, and now we’re rushing to the altar so we never need to be apart again.”?’
He exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose behind his glasses.
‘Plus,’ I said, unable to resist needling him, ‘what do you think they think we’ve been doing in each other’s bedrooms recently?
’
He gave me a withering look, as he turned even redder.
‘Cute, Shaw.’
‘I thought so.’
‘What about your friends?’
‘What about the Van and Annie plan did you not understand?’
‘Your other friends.’
‘Like our PhD cohort? They know what we’re like.
The enemies-to-lovers line will totally work on them.
’
‘No.’ Jonah ran his hand through his hair, the silver strands shifting and sparkling.
In this kind of lighting, it was difficult not to notice that he really was quite a handsome man.
‘I mean – your other friends. Your non-university friends.’
‘Fisher,’ I said, jamming the pad of my thumb into the cubic zirconia spikes of my engagement ring, ‘we work about the same number of hours a week, right? Are you out there maintaining a whole host of non-uni friendships? Because if you are, I give you permission to lecture me about time management.’
Then there were our siblings.
‘If it’s all right with you, I’d like to let Fiona think we’re real,’ Jonah said, once we’d finished arguing about our non-existent friends.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked sceptically.
‘I’m going to tell Elias the truth, but Fi’s already carrying so much.
The last thing I want to do is add my baby brother is entering a loveless marriage just so he can move closer to me to the pile.
’ Jonah took off his glasses and started polishing them.
‘Plus, she’s terrible at keeping secrets.
She told her kids I was moving to Hobart before I’d even interviewed.
’
Fuck me.
No wonder he’d been such a nervous wreck that day.
‘When are you going to tell Chess?’ he asked.
‘I assume you’re going to tell her the truth.
’
‘Obviously,’ I said.
‘I just need to find the right moment. But let’s talk about the biggest bridge we have to cross.
How are we going to tell your dad?
’
Jonah closed his eyes for a second, exhaling audibly.
He hadn’t put his glasses back on yet, and for a moment he looked very young, and very scared.
‘It doesn’t need to be we ,’ he said.
‘I’ll tell him.
’
‘I don’t suppose you could get your mum to…
soften him up for you?
’ Not that I could wrap my head around what a softer Professor Christian Fisher would look like.
‘My mum was one of his PhD students who dropped out to have his babies and be his unpaid research assistant.’ His tone was sharp.
‘Just how effective do you think that would be?’
I held my hands up.
‘Sorry.’
He sighed, putting his glasses back on.
‘No, I’m sorry.
That was uncalled for.
It’s just…
’
He didn’t need to finish the sentence.
I was not in the habit of being particularly sympathetic towards Jonah Fisher, but it didn’t take much to imagine just how poorly his dad must have taken it when he lost the Lyons job to me – and how much worse he was going to take this.
‘What if we don’t tell him the whole story?
’
‘Shaw, I plan on telling my dad that we’re the greatest pair of lovers since Heloise and Abelard.
If he found out we were pulling a scam like this—’
‘Not that.’
I shifted in my desk chair, uncrossing and recrossing my legs, trying to find a comfortable way to sit.
‘I mean about the partner hire. What if we told your dad that Lyons had a sudden change of heart and decided to hire us both, and wow, wasn’t it convenient that we fell in love along the way?
’
‘No.’
‘It’s okay.
Really.
He’s going to be an arsehole about you marrying me anyway, right?
If letting him think that we both got the job on merit will take the edge off—’
‘ No .’
Jonah looked me dead in the eye.
‘My dad has been trying to cut you down for years,’ he said.
‘Do you think I would really take away your opportunity to rub his nose in what you’ve accomplished?
’
I was suddenly very uncomfortable in my chair again.
Then he made it a million times worse by reaching over and touching the back of my hand with one finger, pressing lightly between my knuckles.
‘Thank you, though,’ he said, ‘for offering.’
‘’sokay,’ I managed.
My body was determined to react, but I repressed it as forcefully as I could.
God, I was going to have to get myself under control, and fast, or Jonah was going to notice.
‘My dad needs to respect your achievements, Shaw,’ he said.
‘That’s worth more than my pride.
’
A couple of nights after Jonah broke the news to his parents that he was marrying an upstart overrated nobody and moving to Tasmania with her on a partner hire, we went round to the Fisher family home for dinner.
‘They insisted,’ he told me apologetically.
‘They seem to think I’m playing some kind of practical joke.
’
‘Are you a practical joke kind of family?’
He snorted.
‘What do you think?’
I was genuinely very curious to see where Jonah had grown up.
Considering how often his dad liked to use the words ‘vulgar’ and ‘cliché’ when he described the books I studied, the Fisher family home should have been an elegant Grand Designs -esque architectural wonder.
It wasn’t, though.
The house our Uber pulled up to in Watsons Bay was a garden-variety McMansion, no different from the other McMansions on the street.
We were both wearing our own variety of armour.
I’d pulled my hair back severely, put on my favourite don’t-fuck-with-me black jumpsuit, and sung Vigilante Shit quietly to myself as I applied eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man.
Jonah had combed his hair back, trimmed his beard and put on a tweed blazer with leather elbow patches.
It was a sultry summer evening – far too hot for him to be wearing tweed.
I didn’t think it was the heat, though, that was making him look faintly sweaty as he rang the doorbell.
His dad answered.
He stood there for a long moment, looking us both up and down.
Instinctively, my right hand curled into a fist.
‘Jonah,’ he said.
‘Ms Shaw.’
‘ Dr Shaw,’ Jonah and I said at the same time.
Over his dad’s shoulder, I caught his mum’s eye.
She, at least, had the good grace to look apologetic.
I looped my hand around Jonah’s bicep.
Thank God he’d turned down my offer to minimise my accomplishments, because I didn’t think I had it in me not to dunk on this man.
‘Considering I’m marrying into the family, Christian, you can call me Sadie.
’
A muscle in Professor Fisher’s jaw twitched.
I resisted the urge to smirk.
‘It’s nice to meet you, Sadie,’ Jonah’s mum said, offering me her hand to shake.
That was the most pleasant thing either of them said to me for the entire night – and, notably, pretty much the only thing his mum said at all.
If I’d doubted anything Jonah had told me about his family being poison before, I sure as hell didn’t now.
No wonder Fiona had ended up where she was.
In her shoes, I too might have married the first man who offered if it meant not having to sit around this table.
‘So, tell me how you were hired over my son, Sadie ,’ Professor Fisher said as we sat down to dinner.
It was impressive, really, the way he could make my name sound like an insult.
He was a hair’s breadth away from bellowing are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?
!
‘She has an outstanding research track record and exemplary teaching performance,’ Jonah said.
‘Did I ask you, Jonah?’
I was tempted to parrot exactly what Jonah said back into his dad’s face – I have an outstanding research track record and exemplary teaching performance – but in the interest of being an adult, I opted for a slightly more conciliatory approach.
‘Lyons was looking for a popular fiction specialist.’
That muscle in Professor Fisher’s jaw twitched again.
‘They don’t see popular fiction studies as specious and pointless,’ I couldn’t resist adding, ‘unlike some other, more short-sighted institutions.’
‘I thought they were looking for an early modernist,’ Professor Fisher said to Jonah, turning his head to make it very clear I was no longer being addressed.
‘It was one of the other desired specialisations.’ Jonah passed me the beans.
‘Rory Worland made it to interview too.’
That must be the Shakespeare bro who’d leapt and punched the air when he walked out of his job talk, in the single most transparent attempt at psyching out the competition I’d ever seen.
‘Perhaps that split the vote in the hiring committee,’ Professor Fisher mused.
‘That happens sometimes, when they interview two people with the same specialisation.’
‘Or perhaps,’ Jonah said, ‘they hired Sadie because she was the best choice.’
His dad ignored him.
‘I know the Head of Humanities at Lyons. Sofia Vargas. Awful woman. Terrible scholar.’
Professor Vargas had been the head of our hiring committee.
I’d liked her immediately – and, reading between the lines of this particular tirade, she’d probably been the one who made sure ‘popular fiction’ appeared on the list of desirable specialities.
‘An old chum of mine started there last semester, though,’ Professor Fisher continued.
‘Lachlan Petrovski. You should mention my name to him, Jonah. He’ll look out for you – when he’s not too busy sorting out Sofia’s messes, anyway.
’
‘I don’t need looking out for, Dad,’ Jonah said.
‘I’m an adult.
I don’t need a babysitter.
’
‘Is that so? Because maybe if someone had been babysitting you a bit more, you wouldn’t have got distracted .
’ The last word was a snarl, accompanied with a dismissive gesture directed at me.
‘The same thing happened to your brother. He got distracted by a girl and now he’s unemployed.
’
Oh, fuck this.
‘Elias is not unemployed,’ Jonah said.
‘He’s on his fifth—’
‘Oh wow, Christian,’ I cut in, laughing.
‘I didn’t know you had such great respect for my intelligence.
’
Professor Fisher’s glare refocused on me.
‘A scheme like that,’ I went on brightly, ‘convincing Jonah to fall in love with me at just the right moment so I could swoop in and steal this job from him – that would take meticulous planning and an incredible level of skill to execute.’
I reached over and took Jonah’s hand where it was resting on the table, lacing my fingers through his.
‘Of course, in your universe, where I’m a Machiavellian genius, I’m not sure why I’d actually marry Jonah after stealing the job that was rightfully his, but thank you for giving me so much credit.
’
Could I, I wondered, actually make Professor Fisher’s head explode, if I pushed hard enough?
The vein pulsing in his forehead was very much suggesting that I could.
‘You should be grateful, Dad. Happy, even.’ Jonah’s fingers tightened around mine, so tight it hurt a little, pressing my engagement ring uncomfortably into my knuckle.
‘However it happened, I’ve got a permanent job now – and I’ll be able to help out Fiona and the kids.
’
‘Fiona—’
‘Don’t.
’
It was the same way he’d said it that night in the kitchen, when I’d blithely strolled in, found him collapsed over the table and made some crack about him being so broke he’d need to take money from his parents.
Don’t, he’d snarled, venomous even by our standards.
‘And on top of that,’ he went on, ‘you’re getting one of the most brilliant early career researchers in the country as a daughter-in-law.
’
Oh.
Goodness.
Did he really think that?
The hairs on the back of my arm were standing up again, but more importantly, Professor Fisher’s jaw was twitching so hard it was practically humming, and I’d lost my battle with restraint.
I leant over and pressed my lips to Jonah’s jaw.
‘You’re so sweet,’ I said, rubbing my nose performatively against his cheek.
‘I can’t wait to start a life with you.
’
His dad looked apoplectic.
Slowly, Jonah smiled.
‘Me neither, darling.’
His words were warm against my lips as he turned his head towards mine.
This time, as his nose brushed mine, I couldn’t suppress the shiver.
Neither of us spoke in the Uber home afterwards.
Dinner had been a tense, unpleasant encounter, and we were both silent as we processed it.
Well, Jonah was probably processing.
I was…
thinking.
Specifically, I couldn’t stop thinking about reaching out and touching his beard.
He kept it quite short – not that far removed from stubble, perhaps a three- or four-day shadow – and I’d always thought that it would feel rough, like one of those scratchy doormats.
Against my lips, though, when I’d kissed his cheek, it had been soft.
Had that been real, or just adrenaline?
And then there had been that thing he said.
You’re getting one of the most brilliant early career researchers in the country as a daughter-in-law.
That couldn’t have been real.
That he had some level of respect for my intelligence I could believe – but that?
No.
Surely not.
He’d said it, though.
With his whole chest.
To his dad .
I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, telling myself it was the air-conditioning that had given me goosebumps.
‘Can you handle another Fisher tonight?’ Jonah asked abruptly.
Perhaps it was because I’d been thinking about stroking his beard – or perhaps it was because I’d read far too many romance novels – but my brain heard the words ‘handle’ and ‘Fisher’ and took them to a much more literal place than he’d intended.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, glad the darkness of the car was concealing the inevitable scarlet flush creeping up my collarbone.
‘How would you feel about calling Fiona with me? I should tell her myself. Before my parents do.’
Oh.
Okay.
That made sense.
With the way he’d found out about her husband and the second family debacle and whatnot.
Yep.
‘All right,’ I said, trying to repress the part of myself that had illogically decided to feel slightly stung.
When we were home, in his room, we bickered half-heartedly for a few minutes about the best approach to take before we sat down in front of his laptop, his arm around my shoulders.
‘Hi, Fi,’ Jonah said, when she answered the video call.
‘There’s someone I’d like you to meet.
’
Fiona didn’t look like I’d imagined her.
I’d seen what my father had made of my mother, how worn and beaten down and broken he had left her.
I expected to see a woman who had been crushed.
I wasn’t wholly off-base.
Even through Zoom, there was no disguising the fatigue writ large across Fiona’s face.
But there was light too, bright behind her big brown eyes – so similar to Jonah’s, even with his glasses – a capacity for joy that I had simply never seen in my mother.
Her hands flew to her mouth when Jonah explained everything.
‘You’re joking.
’
‘We’re not.
We, um…
’
He looked at me, that unfamiliar desperation behind his eyes.
‘Fell in love,’ I finished for him.
‘Oh God,’ Fiona said.
‘Oh Jonah .’
‘It’s fast, I know,’ he said, ‘but once we finally figured it out, the thought of letting this job tear us apart… well, with the partner hire and everything, getting married just made sense.’
‘So you’re moving?
Here?
’
‘Yes. We’ve got to tie up some loose ends here in Sydney – like actually getting married – but then we’re moving.
We’ll be in Hobart in a few weeks.
’
Fiona burst into tears.
‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed.
‘I’m so sorry – God, Sadie, what must you think of me?
’
‘It’s all right,’ I said.
‘Really, it’s fine.
’
‘You just… You can’t even know what good news this is to me.
’ She rubbed her sleeve roughly across her face.
‘Everything’s been so hard, with Matt gone, and – oh, Jonah.
’
A fresh wave of sobs overtook her.
Beside me, I felt Jonah start shaking.
But his voice, when he spoke again, was firm.
‘You’re not going to be on your own anymore, okay, Fi?
I’m going to be there to help you.
’
‘We.’
Jonah glanced at me.
‘We’re going to be there to help you,’ I said.
‘Both of us.’
‘I know I’ve only just met you, Sadie,’ Fiona said, smiling tearily, ‘but I think I love you.’
Something blossomed in my heart; warm, golden tendrils snaking their way through my veins.
There.
That look on her face.
Eucatastrophe.
Joy, poignant as grief.
‘How did two people as miserable as your parents produce Fiona?’ I asked Jonah a little later, after we hung up the call.
‘She’s a human ray of sunshine.
’
‘I don’t know.
’
He laced his fingers together, stretching his arms over his head.
‘There are a lot of things I don’t know about my sister anymore,’ he said, ‘but I’m looking forward to learning.
’
It was such an earnest thing to say.
Sincerity, my research had taught me, was often seen as a vulnerability.
To earnestly express a feeling was a weakness.
It was part of the reason people – including, but not limited to, Professor Christian Fisher – liked to hang shit on romance novels.
There was something inherently earnest at their heart: a sincere love and hope and joy that readers often reacted to with the same feelings, a delicate flower that provoked some people to want to crush it.
The part of me that led with her fists should have seen this earnestness, and made a joke of it.
But there was still a honey-golden warmth snaking through my bloodstream, so, ‘That’s really nice,’ was all I said.
Jonah looked at me, and he smiled, the way he had at the dinner table.
My face heated at the memory of his nose brushing gently against mine.
‘If you want,’ he said, ‘I can help you tell your sister.’
It was like a bucket of ice water had been thrown over me.
‘No,’ I said firmly, standing up.
‘I need to do that on my own.’
I had dinner with Chess the next night.
‘Okay, I’m really pushing your boundaries here,’ I said, sliding Roomies by Christina Lauren across the table to her as my heart pounded a million miles a minute.
‘I’ve never given you a contemporary romance with this trope before, because it’s kind of fake dating and problematic paperwork all wrapped into one, but it’s good, I swear.
’
Her eyes narrowed.
‘What’s the trope?
’
I swallowed.
‘Marriage of convenience.’
She groaned.
‘Sadie, no!’
I didn’t tell her.
A few days later, she took me to a fancy new wine bar.
She got deep in conversation with the bartender about tannins and tears, and I psyched myself up to tell her.
Sure, she hated Jonah, and sure, she was going to hate the idea of me marrying him, even if it was only on paper, but it was a public place.
How apocalyptic could her reaction be?
I didn’t tell her.
Dinner at her place the next week.
Obviously I couldn’t tell her in the wine bar.
Chess had no problem making scenes in public places.
The one she’d made at graduation with Professor Fisher was proof enough.
At her place, then.
Right before I walked through her door, I took off my engagement ring and put it in my handbag.
I didn’t tell her.
‘We’re getting married in a week, Sadie,’ Jonah told me exasperatedly.
‘You have to tell her. Let me help you.’
‘No. I’m having dinner with her tomorrow.
I’ll tell her then.
’
I didn’t tell her.