CHAPTER 19 #3
‘You four girls are going to have so much fun living together!’ Nari’s mum says. ‘I remember flatting at your age—it was like a sleepover with your best girlfriends every night!’
‘Yes, and we’re truly looking forward to it,’ Brooke says. ‘But for it to start, you need to leave.’
Now they’re all being physically shoved out the door, calling out to us like a defendant being dragged out of the dock. We’ll have you all over for dinner soon! Don’t forget to wash the new towels before you use them! Gertie, do you know how to use the stove?
We shut the door, and it’s finally quiet. For the first time in about seven hours.
I think of my twelve boxes, and turn to walk upstairs.
‘Where are you going?’ Nari asks.
‘To unpack my stuff.’
‘Oh, whatever, that can wait. It’s time to shop.’
On the first night in my new house, with my new housemates, we sit on the floor looking at a laptop to pick out a couch together, using Nicole’s body as a guide to the dimensions of the space because we don’t have a tape measure, and she’s exactly five feet tall.
We drink pre-mixed margaritas from a cask and order burritos because no one can be fucked cooking.
And it’s probably not safe after all the margs.
It is a bit like a sleepover with my girlfriends. Maybe every night could be like this.
Of course, I’m grateful by day five that not every day is like that.
The first three days, we consume so much wine that my poor late-twenties body can’t take it.
We decide we’ll only drink Thursday to Saturday going forward.
I try to tell them that they don’t need to change their ways just because I’m elderly, but they insist it’ll be good for all of us.
In any case, I am immediately sobered up on that fourth day by hearing that Bee has realised I’m gone.
(Reg won the bet.) Nicole alerts me to a new story, and it’s Bee directing viewers to her new reel, which is an artful looping video of the sea near the apartment, rippling in a mesmerising pattern set to relaxing music.
Over the visual, she has written Remember that you deserve the world.
The caption is a whole other thing.
Just ruminating today on what I deserve.
From this world. From the people around me.
I haven’t shared much of this on here, but I have never before felt so let down as I have recently by some key people in my life.
My life may seem perfect. It isn’t. Social media isn’t real, and you never know what someone is going through.
Support and kindness truly go a long way, and you should never be afraid to let go of the things, or the people, who no longer serve you and your purpose.
Well, fuck.
The comments are as expected.
Thinking of you, hun. Sorry you’re going through this. We’re here for you. Is there anything I can do? Sending love and hugs. Love you so much. You deserve the world and more, gorgeous Bee.
Sad-face emoji. Heart-in-hands emoji. Crown emoji.
My nerve endings actually feel like they’re on fire as I resist the urge to do the same. Just click that little heart and turn it pink.
But I can’t bite, because that’s what she wants. That’s what Brooke says anyway, and she understands these things much better than I do.
Within two weeks, I feel like I’m catching something.
My feet are really itchy. And it usually starts when Nari talks about the grad job she’s starting next year at a big four firm.
Or Nicole talks about law school. Or Brooke talks about her teaching placements.
Or their friends doing the GAMSAT or waiting to hear back from fifty job applications for various assistant roles in marketing, advertising, sales.
They all kind of look at me. Not in a pitying way, which I’m also grateful for. But just in that way where it’s clear I have nothing to add to the conversation.
But like I said, I think it’s catching. When I go up to bed, I start looking at university websites.
How much is a degree these days anyway? Is there a way to get a professional job at twenty-eight with no experience so I can just skip the whole retraining thing?
Every night, my dreams are swimming with the different versions of me I could be.
Teacher Gertie. Nurse Gertie. Generic business professional Gertie in a black pencil dress and heels that would give me blisters.
But what would you do if there was nothing holding you back? Someone asked me that once, and I didn’t have an answer. Now I have the answer, but no asker to tell it to.
One Thursday night after a few glasses of wine, I am bombarded with a series of messages from Bee to supplement the missed calls I haven’t returned.
I owe fifteen dollars pro-rata from last month’s internet bill.
And it would be respectful to contribute something to the water bill because it’s quarterly.
And how the hell could I do this to her?
How could I be so selfish? So cowardly? So inconvenient?
Did I know that Brian assumes that Bee is staying at least next month because it has been a fortnight and Bee didn’t give him notice that she was moving out?
So now she has to pay the whole thing or get some weirdo in who might murder her and then there would be a podcast and a shitty Netflix documentary or, worse, one of those free-to-air Sunday night investigations.
And some calm-voiced news anchor moonlighting in a voice-over gig would call it back to all beginning when her bitch of a so-called best friend left her high and dry.
And did I know that she has already turned my bedroom into a dressing room-yoga retreat-guest room?
It’s way better now that she’s not bogged down by my daggy taste and bad energy.
I wonder if she did a sage cleansing.
While I have made many great strides in feeling my anger towards Bee and all that shit, she burrows her way in.
I am a shit person. What kind of person does what I did?
Look at me, sitting in my new room after wine with the girls just living it up while I saddled someone else with financial stress?
Disgusting. I have to turn off my phone and throw it across the room.
Then something interesting happens. With her voice in my head and the wine in my veins, I bring back up one of those university websites, and I fill out some forms before I can talk myself out of it.
Unfortunately, I’m sober when I have to tell the girls about it over smashed avo and eggs the next morning.
‘I’ve decided to go back to study next year.
I signed up for a Master of Human Resource Management. ’
I’m not expecting a bunch of twenty-one-year-olds to be excited about the glamorous prospect of a career in HR, but maybe some mild congratulations?
Instead I get yet another group hug. Is this a thing all people do, or did I just somehow end up ensconced in a group of compulsive huggers?
‘We have to throw a celebratory dinner!’ Brooke cries. ‘I’ll text Mum.’
‘But I didn’t do anything yet?’
‘You signed up, Gertie,’ Nari says. ‘You made a commitment.’
‘To a massive HECS debt,’ I say.
‘And a new future!’ We open the good bubbles left behind by Kate, which we have been saving for the ‘right occasion’.
Brooke looks up from her phone. ‘Mum’s doing a roast this Sunday in your honour. You’re not a vegetarian, right Gertie? I don’t think my mum believes in them.’
‘You’ve seen me scoff chicken nuggets at one in the morning.’
‘Yeah, but I know like five “vegetarians” who forget they are when there’s alcohol and nugs around.’
‘I eat meat. You’re fine.’ I don’t want to give away the thrill I feel at the prospect of a Sunday family roast. I’ve never had one before.
Nicole sidles up to me, squeals and grabs my hand. ‘Gertie! This is so exciting! Are you going to keep the catering job when you’re studying?’
‘I mean, I don’t really have a choice. I have to pay rent. I have to eat food.’
‘But how will you do it all?’ Her voice is smaller now, like she doesn’t want the others to hear.
‘I don’t know. I just will. Because I have to. It can’t be too bad. People do it all the time. Some people study and have kids, which seems way harder.’
I empty my glass and leave Nicole looking thoughtful as I take it to the kitchen.
A few days later, she knocks softly on my bedroom door while I’m getting ready for work. She’s nowhere near ready, and we have to leave in ten minutes. ‘Hey Gertie?’ she says. She clearly wants to tell me something but doesn’t know how.
I stay silent and try to look encouraging.
‘I’ve been thinking about how you’re going to study and work next year. And it kind of inspired me. I think I’ll stay working too once I’ve started law school.’
I’m properly shocked. ‘Are you sure?’ I ask. ‘It’s ages away. You don’t have to make a decision right now. You could decide after Europe.’
‘No, I think I need to decide now. I need to start saving so I can pay my portion of the rent while I’m away.’
I smile. ‘I think that’s great, Nicole. And, you know, if you try it and decide it’s too hard, we can just talk to your parents about it. But I think they’ll be really proud that you want to try.’
‘You think so?’
‘Yeah, I do.’
I pause a moment. ‘But also, you really need to hurry the fuck up because you won’t have a job to keep if we don’t leave in ten minutes.’
‘But Gertie, you’re just going to make us early. We’re always so early!’
‘We’re literally on time. I know that’s a new thing for you, but it’s good for you, and also necessary in the world. Now go.’
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘Don’t call me that. It’s weird.’
‘Love you!’