CHAPTER 4
‘ANOTHER DATE!’ I can hear Bee shouting down the hallway over my headphones as I watch a movie on my laptop in bed. I really should just get a TV for my room, but Bee says it’s bad for my REM cycle.
‘Congratulations! It seemed like it went well.’ The sappy look on Bee’s face has been a permanent fixture since last week.
‘It did, didn’t it? Isn’t he just the best?’
I’ve got absolutely no idea. I think I said fewer than half a dozen words to the man. He didn’t give me immediate serial-killer vibes, so that’s good, but I’m not yet willing to renounce my initial judgment. I have to hold on to some pride.
‘So we decided to have dinner here on Friday night, and I checked so I know you’ve already got Friday off.
’ Because I’m working Saturday at eight in the morning.
I wait for the subtle suggestion that I make myself scarce on Friday, deeply concerned about whether there is literally anyone in the city I’m on slumber-party terms with so I don’t have to drive an hour and a half to stay with my father in the oppressive silence of the unit he moved into following the sale of my childhood home.
Bee claps her hands expectantly. ‘Okay, so let’s get going!’
‘Going where?’
‘Shopping!’
‘Why are you buying the food now? Anything you get will be off by then. Do you even know what you’re cooking?’
‘Jesus, not for the food. For something to wear!’
I stare at the wall that I know blocks us from Bee’s frequently dam-broken wardrobe. ‘But you’re staying in, not going out. And what if I have plans today?’
Bee laughs. ‘The domestic setting doesn’t make it any less of a date!
You need to put out what you want to attract.
I told you to listen to that podcast on abundance mindset.
I’m thinking of doing the course next time it comes around.
’ She doesn’t even address the other thing.
Bee might have plans when I don’t, but if she doesn’t have plans, then I definitely don’t have plans.
There’s no point pretending we don’t both know that.
I’m fairly certain that my opinions regarding courses for attracting abundance won’t go down well, so I keep my mouth shut.
Shopping was the first thing Bee and I did together after we became friends in high school. Back then, going shopping was considered a hobby around which an entire Saturday was planned, not a utilitarian pain in the ass chore you do online unless forced to do otherwise.
Through primary school and high school, before Bee, I was technically part of a large group of friends but frankly, I think it was only because they forgot I was there.
In the organism that is a high school friendship group, the large group congregates for major celebrations, but splits off into smaller clusters for administrative ease during day-to-day friendship management.
I was invited to big events purely out of habit, but I didn’t belong to anyone: I was left standing by myself, the loser in a perverse game of musical chairs I hadn’t known I was playing.
It wasn’t that they didn’t like me. I don’t think they thought about me at all, which might be worse.
Bee changed schools in Year 10 with the unique confidence of a teenager who’d never needed prescription acne treatment.
Clear skin and nice hair are social currency at that age—and as for sophistication?
She looked as if she could unabashedly open the Dolly sealed section and maybe even know about some of the stuff inside it.
So when it came time to select a subgroup, everyone was shocked to see her latch on to me.
She invited me shopping, and I stressed about it for four days, choosing and rechoosing outfits several times before settling on a hideous combo of wide-leg jeans with an unnecessary large belt and weathered ballet flats.
I think that look is actually back in fashion now.
We walked lazy laps of Chapel Street as Bee picked out clothes for a sweet sixteen she had already been invited to, less than a month after starting school.
She said I needed something, too—because we were best friends now, and did everything together.
An invite for one was an invite for both, she said.
I’d never had a best friend before, so I had to trust in Bee’s wisdom on this.
I sometimes marvel at the simplicity of childhood friendships. Most are the result of forced proximity and rarely based on any strong foundations of shared values or lifestyle. Children and teenagers kind of just grab the person nearest who looks all right and say, ‘It’s you. You’re my person.’
Before Bee, no one had chosen me to be their person.
As the end of high school loomed, I spent a lot of time wondering what I might do with the Bee-shaped void that would soon be my closest companion.
This, in the end, was wasted time because if anything our lives became further intertwined, like inosculated trees.
Bee is a proactive type, always organising, buying tickets, securing a great deal.
I couldn’t have let go even if I wanted to.
Now, sitting on the boyfriend chair outside the change room holding a green supermarket bag filled with Bee’s new purchases, it feels like déja vu.
Or time travel—or maybe I’ve just been sitting on this couch for the last decade watching the world move in a blurry haze around me.
Because although certain things may have changed in a decade, I’m still sitting around waiting for Bee to reveal the next option from behind the curtain.
You’d think after all these years I’d have learnt to bring a snack.
‘Do you need anything to wear on Friday?’ Bee asks, swaying from side to side in front of the mirror to check all angles on a satin midi skirt she already has in three other colours.
‘To watch a terracotta warriors documentary with my father on the couch while actually watching Twitch streams on my phone? I think my trackies will do.’
‘What? No! For the date!’
‘Surely trackies will also suffice for hiding away in my room while you woo William with your heretofore undiscovered culinary skills?’ Or my culinary skills, whichever.
Later, I’ll be embarrassed that it takes me this long to figure out what she is trying to say.
‘It’s another double! Arthur is coming too.’
One date with chaperones is weird. Two is just bizarre.
‘Come on,’ she says, ‘you’re a better cook than me!
’ I am, apparently, a rat in a chef’s hat.
‘Seems a bit rude to ask you to help me cook and then not let you stay to eat.’ That’s true, it is.
‘And plus it then becomes a dinner party, which is just way more sophisticated. William’s like thirty-five; he’s used to fancy shit like that. ’
‘Because at twenty-eight we’re basically children.’
‘Excuse me, I’m still twenty-seven. Come on!’ She drags out the on. ‘Have a grown-up dinner party with me! Please?’ She drags out the please too.
Who could say no to that?
It isn’t uncommon for us to see something on a cooking show and become convinced that we could do it ‘way better than them’—be they reality-show contestant or Michelin-starred professional chef—and, as with any creative endeavour, the results are mixed.
The steamed whole barramundi with papaya salad and a sticky chilli ginger sauce was a winner.
The Skittle vodka technically worked but looked cooler than it tasted.
If I ever wanted confirmation that Skittle flavours are a scam, that did it.
And after the incident, we banned each other from ever using dry ice again.
Past culinary adventures notwithstanding, logic would suggest that when inviting for dinner a gentleman in whom one is interested, the woman in question would choose something simple but tasty, low on auxiliary clean-up, something that wouldn’t take five hours to prepare, plus overnight marination.
Logic? We’ve never heard of her.
At nine a.m., we’re in the kitchen preparing dessert. Every spoon we own is used in this endeavour.
By eleven o’clock, we’re drinking mimosas and dancing along to an old Zumba playlist. (‘I can still do the merengue!’ I yell before spilling my mimosa on the floor.)
By one o’clock, we’re drinking iced coffees, and the sink is full—both sides.
By three o’clock, everything is prepped, and Bee has abandoned the kitchen to prep herself. I’m left standing in the sticky patch of my spilled mimosa, cursing both of us for choosing an old apartment with no dishwasher.
At five o’clock, the kitchen is clean, the table is set, and all the dust and grime in the house seems to have migrated to my skin and hair. How am I still so sticky?
At five-thirty, Bee comes barrelling into my room.
She is wearing a crisp pair of blue jeans with the new jumper she bought the other day paired with ballet flats, all artfully chosen to look like she has just thrown them on.
Apparently this is something called ‘quiet luxury’ and is somehow related to Gwyneth Paltrow.
The velcro roller is still in the front of her hair, giving her the appearance of a startled modern angel, and she clutches a mascara wand. How is she still not ready?
‘Gertrude! We have to get the chicken in the oven! And put the charcuterie together!’ I look down at the towel covering my body, then look at Bee’s fully dressed form.
In the kitchen, I pour the first of what will likely be many glasses tonight if I’m prepping in the nude.
‘And don’t forget to arrange the salami like little roses the way I showed you!’ Bee yells down the hall.