Chapter 9
Tiddas chat 3
30 July 2023
Brynn:
You’ll never guess what happened yesterday.
Dotty:
You got a job at The Paris Review.
Brynn:
I wish.
Bridie:
You got some budoo?
The incessant ringing won’t go away and it’s making my brain pound so hard it feels as though it’s going jump right out of my skull. The sound stops and I blink, wiping my eyes and then rolling onto my side and closing them again. I start to drift away, ignoring the way the room is spinning, when the ringing starts again. It’s my phone. I sit up quickly, and the room spins harder. My stomach turns in what feels like the opposite direction. I glance back at the bed where Michael—the bed covers just covering the lower half of his body—groans.
‘I don’t mean to be rude, but please, please answer that,’ he says.
‘Sorry, sorry, I’ll get it.’
The phone is in my handbag, so I scramble to reach for it, dragging my dress on over my head so I’m not standing just in a bra while I answer the call.
‘Hello?’ I say, my mouth so scratchy and dry that I can hardly choke the words out.
‘Brynn, it’s Doug. Where are you?’
‘What?’ I say, my exploding brain having trouble registering that this is my boss calling on Sunday morning.
‘Doug, from Dogue’s. You’re supposed to be at work.’
This registers and I stop trying to put my undies on with one hand. ‘What? No, I’m not. I have today off.’
‘So you’re not coming in?’
‘Doug, I’m ... busy.’ Normally I would have dropped everything for a shift when Doug called because every penny I make is helpful. But with Michael looking at me from under heavy eyes, the bedsheet low around his hips, the view is way too tantalising for me to give it up for a morning of barking dogs.
He sighs. ‘Could you do a shift this afternoon?’
I sigh. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but this is my first weekend off since I started and I have plans.’
‘Okay,’ he answers and a second later, there’s a clunk as he hangs up the phone.
Ordinarily, I would’ve stressed about what a boss hanging up on you means and wonder if I’ve just sassed my way out of a job, but when I turn back to the bed, Michael is sitting up. The sheet has slipped off his body and I’m suddenly not at all worried about whatever just happened with Doug. It’s not like I’d have done it if it was a publishing job.
‘Everything okay?’ he asks and I nod. ‘Well, can you come back to bed?’
I kick my undies into the pile of discarded clothes and shimmy out of the dress. ‘Yeah, I can stay, don’t have anywhere else to be.’
‘Good.’ He grins as I crawl under the sheet. ‘Best news I’ve had all day.’
A few hours later Michael dresses.
‘I have a case to work on in Boston for a while,’ he says as he puts his number into my phone and then hands me his so I can do the same. ‘But I’d like to do this again, yeah?’
He kisses me goodbye. I laugh as I hear him say good morning to Corey and when the door to the apartment clicks shut and I hear Michael’s footsteps disappearing down the stairs, I throw myself back in the bed.
‘Hey, get out here, lady, I want all the gossip!’ Corey’s voice comes from the living room.
Grinning, I pull my robe on and head out of my room. There’s a load of Dunkin’ Donuts treats spread across the coffee table and Corey also has a huge grin on her face. When I see her open her mouth to ask a question, I put a hand up to stop her.
‘I need to shower and then I’ll talk.’
Under the stream of warm water, I scrub the last traces of makeup off my face, and tame my tangled nest of bed hair. In the steam of the bathroom mirror I examine my face and wonder if I look any different, because I feel different. I’m energised and awake, and the sex endorphins have plumped my skin and made me look healthier and happier. I change into comfy clothes and venture out into the living room.
Corey passes me a giant cup of orange juice and I plonk down on Jenny next to her.
‘So, Michael, hey?’ she says, still grinning wildly.
‘Michael,’ I say, avoiding eye contact. An electric tingle shoots through my body and my brain treats me to a little replay.
‘You lucky bitch, he’s gorgeous,’ she says, bouncing around to face me.
‘He is pretty fine,’ I say, she falls about laughing at how the phrase sounds in my accent. ‘We had fun.’
‘And are you going to see him again?’ Corey asks.
I shrug. ‘He gave me my number, but he’s heading off to Boston for work. It doesn’t matter. Guys like that, they don’t ...’
‘And yet it’s after midday and he just left. Girl, you’re tripping if you think he only came after you ’cause he was drunk.’
‘I had fun. It was fun. I haven’t had much of that type of fun for a long while.’
The truth is, I’ve had a better time in one night with Michael than I’d had in years with Scott. With Scott it was always on the awkward side; quick, perfunctory, and over before I managed to let go enough to feel pleasure. A few times he told me he wished I’d be more adventurous, but when we made an effort to try something different, he’d get frustrated and tell me it wouldn’t work because I wasn’t built the right way.
‘You’re a missionary girl,’ he said once, which made me go off to cry quietly in the bathroom, not understanding what I’d done wrong.
A few days after that incident we met Jacq and Tim for dinner, and when I ordered a burger, Scott mumbled something under his breath about ‘eating more salad’. When the others ordered dessert, he spoke for me. ‘We’ll just have coffee,’ he said to the waiter. ‘We’re going to start being good.’
And yet Michael’s hands had made their way over all of my curves and he’d made me feel good. Pretty, even. And at one point this morning, when I thought it was time to get dressed, he pulled me on top of him, and I realised that I’m not at all ‘just a missionary girl’.
‘Must have been great,’ Corey says, nudging me. ‘You just went away somewhere else entirely.’
I shake my head to move my focus from the delicious, satisfied ache in my body. ‘It was. How was your night?’
‘Oh please,’ she says. ‘It was fine, but I went home with one of the new bartenders and he moved like a jack rabbit and now I feel like I’ve been punched in the vagina over and over all night. I brought the Dunks home because I needed a pick-me-up.’
I snort so hard that orange juice comes out my nose, and then we roll around laughing.
‘So are you going to see Michael again?’ she asks.
‘Maybe? He said he’d like to see me again when he’s back.’
‘Which means you can see other people,’ she says, clapping her hands and sitting up a bit straighter. There’s something about her right now that reminds me of Bridie. Corey holds out her hand to me. ‘Show me your Tinder profile.’
I frown. ‘I don’t have one.’
‘Hinge? Bumble? Coffee Meets Bagel?’
‘I barely know what you’re talking about.’
‘Dating apps! You should get on them. Now you’ve had your first New York fling, it’s time you got a chance to see all that the city has to offer. And believe me, it has a lot to offer.’
I snag another doughnut from the box and take a big bite to buy myself a moment. Michael was one thing but I’m not sure I’m ready to put myself out there on the apps and actually date.
‘What’s happening with your face? What does that look mean?’ Corey asks.
‘It means, I’m not great at dating. I had a pretty long-term boyfriend back home and we broke up just before my mum died. It wasn’t ... it wasn’t a great time,’ I say. It’s the first time I’ve mentioned it out loud here in New York. Jacq was the only person I talked to while I was with Scott, and even then I wasn’t specific. She thought it was sweet that Scott picked me up from uni and wanted to hang out all the time. She liked the clothes he bought me and gushed every time he showed up to pick me up at work with flowers and gifts. I tried to explain to her once that I felt like I was being smothered in his love, and she told me it was what every girl wanted.
‘Let me guess, this one was not Native, eh?’
‘Obviously,’ I say, smiling at her. I tell her all about Scott and Jacq and she looks upset as the story unfolds. Once I’ve finished, she thinks for a bit.
‘Look, I get it, I do’, she says eventually. ‘And you should never do anything you’re not comfortable with, but you know that despite what happened with Scott, you’re allowed to date and have sex and do whatever you want, right? Sex is fun and I’m all for having as much of it as possible with absolutely no shame attached. It takes a while to get past those feelings when you’ve been with a jerk like your ex, but dating will help you see that there’s much better out there.’
‘Speaking from experience?’
‘I mean, I’m a Native girl who comes from a long line of various traumas and trauma-informed behaviours, and I’m guessing some of that stuff’s very similar between the two of us.’
‘You’re also extremely self-aware,’ I say. ‘I wouldn’t have connected the way I was with him to trauma. Not in a million years.’
‘What did I say to you that day we first met? The house that intergenerational trauma built. The way we behave around men—white men especially—the shit we take, a lot of it comes from that. Learned behaviours.’
‘Maybe it’s different for you because you grew up in culture,’ I say. ‘My great-grandparents died when my nan and her sisters were real young, and they’d moved around so much that we are pretty much disconnected from our mob. I got kicked out of a bunch of stuff when I was in school ’cause Mum didn’t have papers, and we only just got the official stuff back when she was pregnant with my stepbrother, Matty. She didn’t want him to grow up disconnected like we were.’
‘Papers? Like status cards? We gotta have them to say we’re Indian. And, yeah, don’t get me started, they still say Indian on them.’
‘Yeah, kinda like that. They call it COA, or community recognition,’ I reply.
‘Okay, so hit me if this is the wrong thing to say, but you needed to prove status even looking like ... you do?’
I run my right hand down my left arm, picturing my mum and her skin that was much fairer than my own light brown complexion.
‘My dad was mixed race too,’ I say. ‘Not Aboriginal, but he lived here. In New York.’
Corey’s eyes widen. ‘Girl. You are a woman of mystery. So, he’s here? Do you know him?’
‘We’re Facebook friends but we don’t know each other. He’s in California, though.’
She takes a deep slurp of her juice. ‘You want to know what I think?’
‘Always.’
‘You need to throw yourself into life here a bit more. I know the money situation sucks, but you need to start going out on dates, get over that douchebag from home.’ She picks up a doughnut and points it at me. ‘You’ve got business to attend to and I reckon once that’s all sorted, things will start to fall into place.’
‘You’re on about New York magic, again, aren’t you?’
‘Well, yeah, but between you and me, I don’t actually think it’s magic. I know it’s the Ancestors. This isn’t my Country and it’s not yours either, but there’s so much about us that binds us together, I believe that all our Ancestors are watching out for us. Sure, New York’s a bit magic, but I never tell the colonisers that I’ve always thought my New York magic was the Ancestors laying down tracks for me.’
‘And dating is imperative to whatever business the Ancestors have for me?’ I tease.
‘Sex is imperative to everything, my friend.’
I wrinkle my nose at the idea that my Ancestors would also be guiding me into a sex life. ‘So, to change the subject, I think I lost my job this morning,’ I say with a dramatic flourish of my cup.
‘How?’ she reaches up and tugs the elastic out of her hair. It falls out in a silky cascade and even though she’s makeup-less and dressed in grey sweats, she still looks to me like she’s stepped out of the pages of a magazine.
‘Because my ridiculous boss rang at seven in the morning and asked me where I was.’
‘But you had the whole weekend off? You checked the schedule, right?’
‘I swear I did. But then ... look.’ I hold out my phone to show her my name scheduled for today.
‘So, I remember this happens to Hilde sometimes. Apparently, he shifts the schedule around a lot. I don’t know why he does it, but she’s had calls like that too.’
‘Why would he do that?’
She shrugs. ‘He wants you checking the schedule every day? He probably added the shift yesterday.’
‘What a strange way to run a business,’ I say.
‘I don’t think you’ll have lost your job, but if you have, I know something else will come up,’ she says, ever the optimist.
I tilt my orange juice at her. ‘I appreciate that.’
Later while Corey dozes on the couch, I get on WhatsApp and fill Dotty and Bridie in on my night.
Tiddas chat 3
30 July 2023
Bridie:
Sis, I love you, but if you leave me hanging for one more second, I swear to Biame...
Brynn:
Soz. yes, there was budoo involved in the last 24 hours.
**incoming video call for Tiddas chat 3**
I race down the hall to my room and answer the call. As soon as it connects, Bridie starts screaming and I scramble looking for my headphones. By the time I’ve shoved them into my ears and to the phone, Dotty has connected, and I’m greeted with the sound of both of them screaming.
‘Okay, tell us everything,’ Dotty says.
‘Yes, everything. Who owns this budoo? Was it a nice one? Have you touched it?’ Bridie says. Even on the small screen split between the two of them, I can see she looks flushed and excited. She loves to talk about sex but I’ve never been one to share. Mostly because I wasn’t ever comfortable with what me and Scott were doing: it didn’t feel like something fun to gossip about.
‘I don’t need so many fine details on the budoo,’ Dotty says, and her face looks a bit green. ‘But tell us about him.’
So I tell them about Michael. I’m shy at first, but when I get to the bit about the socks and the rolling bed, we’re all roaring with laughter and it feels good. This is what it’s supposed to be like in your twenties: dating and sharing stories with your friends. Gossiping and laughing. Not feeling ashamed and hiding, not pushing those friends away because deep down inside you know that they wouldn’t stand for the way you are being treated.
‘You okay?’ Dotty asks.
‘Yeah, I’m just thinking about Scott.’
‘It wasn’t like this with him, was it?’ Bridie says and I want to jump through the phone and hug her. For all her gossiping, she knows exactly when to switch gears.
I shake my head. ‘He was kind of rough,’ I say. ‘And not in the good way.’
‘If I see that guy, I swear ...’ Dotty says and I suddenly understand what people mean when they talk about a ‘fight face’. She looks like she’s ready to jump through the computer screen and defend my honour.
I look away from the screen. ‘He said it was hard for him because I was fat. Sometimes he couldn’t ...’
‘Get it up,’ Bridie supplies.
‘Yeah, and he’d say it was because I’d put on weight or he didn’t like the stretch marks on my tummy.’
Their faces are still for a moment and I watch Bridie’s already dark eyes go molten. Dotty’s cheeks are flushed with anger.
‘I hate him,’ Dotty says, her voice low. ‘Is this why you didn’t ever really talk about him with us?’
A fat tear falls down my cheek and I nod. ‘I was shame.’
‘He’s the one who should be shame,’ Bridie replies. ‘I’m sorry, sis. I never liked him but I was so scared of saying something. We barely got to see you as it was.’
‘I think he knew youse didn’t like him. That’s why he didn’t really want me seeing you much.’
‘Probably scared we’d beat the shit out of him,’ Dotty says.
‘Still a chance I will,’ Bridie says.
‘Brynn, one thing I’ve been wondering is Jacq’s part in this. I always assumed you were seeing her all the time because she’d been your friend for longer than me,’ Dotty said. ‘But there’s more to it, right?’
‘Well, I’m her bloody cousin and I barely saw her too,’ Bridie interjects. ‘Seriously, I’d be at your house, Brynn, and you’d either be out with him or—’
‘A silent lump on the couch,’ I say, my memory flaring of all those times she’s talking about. I knew Bridie wanted to see me then, but even when the family was around I went into shut-down mode. My mind was a mess: I loved Scott, I didn’t want my friends to hate him, but I also desperately wanted to say something.
‘He liked Jacq, and now I kinda wonder if it was because she didn’t stand up for me. He’d say stuff about my weight or whatever in front of her, and she’d say nothing. Or worse—agree with him.’
‘Argh, what a bitch,’ Dotty says. ‘I knew I never liked her.’
‘But it wasn’t her job to save me,’ I say. ‘I only have myself to blame for that.’
‘No, sis, she’s done some problematic stuff but he’s the bigger problem in this equation,’ Bridie says. ‘Now, you better make sure this Michael fulla treats you right, otherwise you’ll have the biggest mob on the first plane to New York.’
‘I don’t think it was that kind of a night,’ I say, laughing through my tears. ‘He’s gone away for work for a bit so we might see each other again, and we might not. And I’m good with that—aren’t I supposed to have fun?’
‘Finding a fulla with a lovely budoo is definitely my favourite way of having fun,’ Bridie jokes.
We talk for a little while longer and we’re just saying our goodbyes when I see an email notification flash across the top of my screen. ‘Your Dogue’s schedule’.
I open the email as soon as the call ends and scan it. There’s nothing that mentions the roster incident but instead I’m working practically every day for the next two weeks. So much for getting fired, I guess.
I lean back against my pillows and sigh, feeling tired, relaxed, deliciously sore and, best of all, like a huge burden has been lifted off my shoulders after talking with the girls—not just Bridie and Dotty, but Corey too.
New York magic indeed.