16
2014
Facebook Messenger Chat
LISS: I have an idea.
SADIE: So do I. Let’s all go out Friday and get drunk.
LISS: Impractical for Dani and me.
SADIE: Pregnant women are boring.
DANI: Hey. You weren’t so boring, if I remember rightly.
SADIE: I was not following doctor’s orders.
JUNO: You’ve never followed orders in your life.
LISS: Focus, please.
DANI: Go on.
LISS: I think we should go camping.
SADIE: Fuck no.
DANI: Fuck no.
JUNO: Absolutely not.
LISS: I bet Ginger would like it.
DANI: She’s not here to save you. Moving day.
JUNO: Leaving us for country life. That bitch.
LISS: Hear me out. My family has a place.
SADIE: Does it have a roof and walls and a swimming pool?
LISS: Ha. NO. It’s a campsite.
DANI: Your family owns a campsite??? Is there anything they don’t own?
LISS: They don’t own it. They have sites there. It’s special. Like really beautiful. Impossible to get into.
SADIE: Camping FOMO is a very specific kind of FOMO.
JUNO: I actually like camping. Did it as a kid.
SADIE: We all did it as kids, Juno, not a reason to do it again. Used to eat boogers, too.
DANI: Not our thing.
LISS: Focus, please.
JUNO: You are about to have a baby and you want to go camping?
LISS: For NEXT year. I can book it. Would love to fight with my brothers about it tbh. I think it could be our thing. Every year.
SADIE: I’ll bite. Where?
LISS: Up north. Green River. It’s by the water. On the river. You can swim. Walk in the national park.
JUNO: Swimming and walking. Two things I can do in Sydney.
LISS: It’s only an hour away. Honestly, it’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen.
DANI: Send pictures.
Incoming pictures: Golden sunset over distant escarpment. Smiling people neck-deep in clear green water. Children play on palm-fringed beach.
JUNO: Okay. It’s beautiful.
SADIE: Whoa.
DANI: Stunning. But still camping.
LISS: Think about it. Somewhere we can go, together, every year. Kids. Partners. Costs next to nothing.
SADIE: So nice of you to think of us plebs, my lady.
DANI: Hey!
SADIE: JOKING.
JUNO: It looks great. Does it have toilets? Showers?
DANI: That’s a question?
JUNO: It’s CAMPING. There are degrees of camping. Some places have pools and restaurants. Some places have drop toilets.
SADIE: I don’t see any restaurants.
DANI: LISS! Come back!
LISS: No pool. No restaurant.
SADIE: I’m sorry.
LISS: NP.
SADIE: Was trying to be funny.
LISS: All good. Has toilets. Has showers.
SADIE: Who puts up the tents?
JUNO: Who even has tents?
LISS: We plan for next year. We get tents. Men will put them up.
JUNO: Oh, please.
SADIE: What men?
LISS: Lachy, Aiden, Seb???
DANI: Maybe Seb.
LISS: Of course.
JUNO: He’s gone again?
SADIE: But the baby?????
DANI: He’ll be here for the baby.
LISS: I’ll call you.
DANI: Not now. He’s here.
JUNO: Ask him if he can put up a tent.
DANI: There’s no reality in which Seb could put up a tent.
JUNO: Then good riddance.
GINGER: Hey.
SADIE: Hey!
LISS: Hey! How’s moving day?
GINGER: I am hiding in the toilet.
SADIE: New house or old house?
GINGER: New house! We drove three hours with the goldfish on my knee.
LISS: What’s it like?
GINGER: QUIET.
DANI: That’s why you moved.
GINGER: TOO QUIET.
JUNO: Wait till the kids get settled. Not so quiet.
GINGER: I want to go camping.
LISS: Told you!
DANI: Whhhhhhhy would you say that?
GINGER: Because I’m going to miss you all and having something to look forward to will make it okay.
SADIE: You shouldn’t have moved.
DANI: I think you’ve made that point, about fifty times.
GINGER: You should see the size of this house though.
SADIE: Yeah, but a home with no friends is just a house.
JUNO: I’m sure all her old schoolfriends are on their way over with fresh-baked scones.
GINGER: I fucking hope not.
LISS: FOCUS, PLEASE.
DANI: Liss, I can’t think about camping. I’m thirty-two weeks. My brain can only think a day at a time.
LISS: Such lies, as if you haven’t got a calendar for next year with all Lyra’s kindy holidays and Seb’s visits home, and all of our birthdays.
DANI: Okay, okay.
JUNO: I guess it’s a project.
SADIE: I’m going to get a new boyfriend to come camping with us.
DANI: Please don’t.
SADIE: Hey, thanks!
DANI: JOKING.
SADIE: Jacob might come. He says we’re like Gwyneth and Chris.
DANI: Of course you are. Exactly like them.
JUNO: So when?
LISS: The summer long weekend. I’m going to ask my dad if it can be ours.
DANI: Why do I feel like you fighting with your family about camping might be your favourite thing about all this?
LISS: Can’t imagine.
JUNO: You people are so strange.
GINGER: There’s a mouse.
DANI: What????
SADIE: What??????
GINGER: Aiden just shouted through the door, there’s a mouse in the kitchen.
SADIE: Stay in the toilet.
JUNO: Kill that thing. There’s never just one.
LISS: I heard there’s a mouse plague.
GINGER: Not helpful, Liss.
LISS: Sorry.
SADIE: Okay. We’re in for camping. Why not? Can’t be that hard to put up a tent.
JUNO: Said the woman who can’t put up a beach shade.
SADIE: It was complicated!
DANI: Where do babies sleep camping?
LISS: Carrycot. They like the noise of the wind in the trees.
JUNO: That sounds like some top-level bullshit.
DANI: And the sound of the rain and storm and bushfire.
LISS: It’s an HOUR AWAY. Not outback.
DANI: Can an ambulance get in there?
JUNO: Why would you ask that?????
DANI: Practical.
LISS: Boat ambo from Pittwater. Five mins.
SADIE: How do you KNOW THAT?
LISS: My mum.
DANI: Shit.
JUNO: That’s dark.
LISS: JOKING. My brother broke his leg falling out of a tree.
JUNO: You sick bitch.
SADIE: Sounds safe.
LISS: My brother is a dickhead.
GINGER: Mouse is dead.
DANI: Quick!
GINGER: Dog ate it.
SADIE: Eeeeeeuw!
LISS: Good boy, Goldie.
JUNO: If Pudding ate a mouse Emily would totally take him for a stomach pump.
GINGER: Goldie’s a country dog now.
LISS: Okay, so we’re on?
DANI: I guess so.
SADIE: Guess so.
JUNO: Yup!
GINGER: Yesssssssss!
LISS: Cool. Going to call Dad.
DANI: Enjoy that.
LISS: Oh, I will.
EMILY: FFS guys, 143 missed messages? Don’t you people have lives????