CHAPTER 9
IT TAKES SEVERAL days for my voice to truly return, the rasp at the back of my throat a constant reminder of an evening I would rather forget.
No. That’s a lie. Or…it isn’t wholly true. I don’t want to forget how freeing it was to toss around my damp and matted hair and look like an ass with no other agenda than to please myself.
I would instead prefer to forget the fact that I got a little bit of someone else’s vomit on my wrist and essentially threw myself at someone who is patently not interested because I am apparently incapable of breaking old patterns of behaviour.
I heart it, then close the app.
In the locker area at work, I am now more open than I once was to having a chat while getting ready.
The colleagues who weren’t there to witness my actual attendance at after-work drinks at Nicole’s gave me suspicious side-eye at first. Like I was a double agent or something, spying for management.
But when they saw the drinks crew chat with me like we were old friends, I fell into their easy rhythm.
Friendships move fast in hospo, Stewart tells me.
It’s a pressure cooker. He laughs at his cooking pun. I do too.
Reg burst into giggles in response to my croaked greeting.
‘What have you been doing?’ he asks, raising an eyebrow and poking a tongue into his cheek.
He has a knack for making even the tamest of situations inappropriately sexual.
I don’t answer, which he takes as confirmation. ‘Yes, Gertie! Get it!’
I probably should correct him, but it’s kind of fun to have something to gossip about, even if it is totally pretend. Reg puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘If you ever want to share details, I’m all ears. I am a sad old married man now, and I need to live vicariously through you hot young things.’
I shrug off his hand. ‘Oh, fuck off, Reg! I’ve seen your husband, he looks like a young Ricky Martin. Sad old married man my ass.’
He considers for a moment and then says, ‘Yeah, you’re right. You could probably learn a thing or two from me, actually.’
‘Feel free to share that hard-won wisdom anytime you like.’ I run a finger tenderly over my dried and cracked lips and take the lid off my lipstick and swipe it on without a mirror.
‘I can’t just be giving that shit away for free. I will accept free leftover champagne after work as payment only.’
‘Sure thing, Reggie.’ I blow a kiss, and he makes a cheesy show of catching it.
In flies Nicole, hair everywhere, uniform unironed, clutching her phone. Chaos personified. ‘I booked tickets!’ she cries.
That is the last breath that Nicole takes for the next sevenish minutes.
To be honest, I glaze over a little bit in the middle, but the gist is: Europe.
Premium economy. Four months. Three girlfriends.
Italy, France, Spain, Greece. Places I have only seen in Mary-Kate and Ashley movies.
I went to Bali when I was twelve. We mostly stayed at the resort. My passport isn’t even valid anymore.
Travelling is off the cards for a number of reasons (the number of my bank balance, the number of my direct rent debit, the number on my regular transfer to Bee for all the other bills…).
I listened to a podcast once that Bee recommended that said that comparison is the thief of joy, and I don’t begrudge Nicole her own joy, but I might be comparing a bit, and I might be envious.
Just a bit. I’ll have to live vicariously, like Reg.
So I nod and smile and push any other emotions down to my feet where they belong.
Nicole is tying her thin hair into a ponytail when Bee enters the room, typing a hurried text.
She looks busy and pissy. ‘Hurry up, everyone. We are briefing in five minutes, and you haven’t even started cutting limes yet.
’ She looks up. ‘Oh, Gertrude! William just texted saying he made a late booking at Farina. I’ll probably stay at his after, so don’t expect me home.
We can debrief tomorrow night over pho?’ She glances back towards everyone else in the room.
‘Two minutes! And go shave, Sam. You missed a giant spot under your nose.’ She walks out, leaving behind only the lingering traces of her Baccarat Rouge 540 and disgruntled looks on six of the seven faces present.
Sam thrusts his two middle fingers at her back with feeling. I look at him. He looks at me. And I think I’ve upset some very delicate ecosystem by being here to see his outburst as opposed to out there, early for the briefing and cutting limes for my best friend.
I laugh, all light and glittery, and it echoes around this tense glass box we’re in instead of shattering it.
‘Come on, guys. I told you before. I know perfectly well that my Bee isn’t your Bee.
’ The words feel a bit wrong on my tongue, like I’m betraying Bee by not coming at them with a full-throated defence.
But I justify it in real time by reminding myself that she doesn’t much like them either. It’s a mutual non-admiration society.
And I want so badly for them all to like me.
I feel dirty.
‘Sorry, Gertie,’ Reg offers. ‘We know that she’s your friend…’
‘And housemate,’ Nicole adds.
‘And housemate,’ Reg agrees. ‘But it’s like you said, she’s just our manager. And frankly a pretty shit one a lot of the time. We try not to talk about it in front of you.’ He glares over at Sam, who flinches.
‘Mostly because at the start we thought you’d be like her, or you’d dob on us to her out of loyalty or whatever,’ Mariana says from up the back.
‘But we know better now, right?’ Nicole says, face daring anyone to contradict her. No one does.
I could try a bit harder to bridge the gap.
As I shut and lock my locker, I say, ‘I really think if you could all get to know each other on a social level you’d change your minds.
Maybe we could invite her to stay for champagne one night?
’ My hopeful tone is met with sceptical looks. There won’t be any changing of minds.
I push it off with a shrug of a shoulder.
At least I can say I tried. I slip my phone into my pocket and say, ‘We should probably get going. Or everyone who isn’t me is going to get in trouble for being late to the briefing.
’ I could get high off the feeling of making people laugh just because I said something funny.
The next time I hear from Arthur, it’s in a group text with Bee and William (assuming the unknown number is his).
It features a link to a spreadsheet populated with expenses from karaoke.
The numbers all wash over me, but the upshot is that I owe Arthur $168 (including dinner at the pub) and he provides his bank details for the transfer.
Bee and William have each left a thumbs-up. I am left to spiral.
After Arthur said he’d already paid, I somehow failed to process the fact that karaoke night would cost anything extra, and that every call on the magic phone that brought forth alcohol was accompanied by the cash register’s ding.
I don’t have $168. I will have to dip into my savings, meagre as they are, or wait until payday on Friday.
Surely Arthur could hold off for a few days?
If he can’t, I can maybe swing it if I nick some of Bee’s food and eat a lot of the bulk rice we got from Costco that time we took Bee’s mum’s membership card.
Bee is hardly home at the moment anyway.
(William lives alone, so his apartment is more convenient.) If anything I’d be liberating the food and preventing food waste like a good global citizen.
Waiting is the preferred option of the three. Unless Arthur gets weird about it. There is nothing more fundamentally uncomfortable than having to have a stilted, awkward chat about money and one’s lack of it in an owing situation.
Hey, is it okay if I hold off on transferring until Friday when I get my pay?
Waiting for an answer is torture. It has been fourteen seconds.
Thirty-two.
Fifty-six.
Three dots. Then nothing. Dots again. Then nothing.
Yeah, of course!
A moment later:
How are you going, by the way?
Then the triple text:
I was thinking ice skating next time. Do you
reckon you’re sporty? They have a pop-up
rink with those winter igloo things on the
foreshore. You can get charcuterie boards and
wine flights after. How does that sound?
It sounds expensive. It sounds like the gurgling drain at the bottom of my bank account.
That’s my first thought. Then I think of hands touching hands, fingers intertwined and wonder why he’s still pushing this when there’s a perfect out for him to let this slow-fade into nothingness.
Then I imagine those same fingers resting on the ice and then being cut clean off by a swiftly passing blade.
The contrast of the red blood on the white ice looks quite artistic in my head.
I rub my hands together, definitely not checking that my fingers are intact.
I could use that fear to my advantage and get out of it…
But there’s no way of knowing if his next suggestion would be even more outlandish. Better to kick it down the road a bit.
That could be fun! Maybe in a couple of weeks?
William and I were thinking next Sunday?
You’re not working, right?
No, I’m not working.
So, you’re free?
He isn’t making this easy, and now I’m in a corner. Well, it isn’t like my dignity is any part of the chat at this point, anyway. What’s another layer of humiliation?
I can’t do so many $$ activities in a row.
The emoji makes me sound light-hearted and fun.
Sorry, I should have asked! Are things tight
this month?
Things are always tight for me. I’m a waitress.
My phone starts vibrating. He is calling me. What kind of self-respecting man is he, making a voluntary phone call in his thirties?
‘I’m sorry,’ he says by way of greeting.
‘You already texted that,’ I reply.