34
A FEW WEEKS later, I sleep in longer than usual on a Saturday and when I go downstairs, I find Hayley in the lounge room holding a crying baby. It takes me a second to realise it’s Birdie.
I almost say, what’s she doing here? But referring to a baby as ‘she’ feels much too passive aggressive. Or maybe aggressive aggressive.
‘Hi,’ I say, bending down to her. She keeps scream-crying.
‘Sorry, we’re babysitting for an hour while Joel goes to the dentist and Bianca has a physio appointment,’ Hayley says. ‘I was hoping she’d be gone by the time you woke up.’
‘It’s okay,’ I say. I’m not going to implode in Birdie’s presence. Well, I might if she keeps crying at this volume. Hayley stands up and starts pacing, bouncing and shushing in a rhythmic way.
Birdie is not enjoying any of it.
I sit on the couch and watch Hayley pacing.
‘There’s a position you can hold babies in that makes them stop crying,’ she says after a minute. ‘I heard a girl at work talking about it.’
‘A position?’ I repeat. I have no idea what she’s talking about.
‘Can you look it up?’
‘What am I searching exactly?’
‘Doctor’s one magic trick position to stop baby crying. Something like that.’
‘That sounds like a scam headline that I’ll click on and then they’ll somehow have my bank details.’
‘Just type it in!’ Hayley sounds like a woman on the edge.
I search it, and she’s right, there is a video of a man weirdly lying a baby face down along his forearm.
‘This baby looks smaller than Birdie, you have to hold her on your arm,’ I say.
‘Doesn’t matter, just show me,’ Hayley says. Her tolerance for baby crying is lower than mine. And mine is pretty low.
She holds Birdie in the magic-trick position, and it seems to both enrage her and give her more power. She sobs and screams and flings herself around.
‘Should we call the mums?’ I say.
‘No,’ Hayley says. ‘Absolutely not.’
She’s right. They’d never let us live it down.
‘Can you hold her for a sec?’ Hayley says, after a few more shushing and jiggling laps of the room.
‘No,’ I say.
‘Please. I just need to get Luke.’
‘Where is he?’
‘It was his idea to babysit so he better be here somewhere.’
‘Okay. Fine. I’ll hold her.’
Hayley passes her into my arms. ‘Is her neck still an issue?’ I say.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Does she still have a floppy neck?’ This is all I know about babies, really, that their heads are too big for their necks, and can snap. Or, not snap , but their heads need to be supported. And there’s a soft spot too, on the top of their head. Everything above the shoulders is risky, basically.
‘No, she’s okay, she’s not a newborn anymore.’
‘Oh good.’
‘But you still need to, like, support her body.’
‘Obviously.’
Hayley leaves the room, and I feel very self-conscious. My mind is blank. I cannot think of a single thing to say to Birdie. Small talk with a baby is even harder than small talk with an adult. But, miraculously, she has stopped crying.
‘Hi, Birdie, how has your morning been?’ I say.
Do I do her voice talking back? No, that is creepy. That is for pets. I let the question hang there. Birdie looks back at me with curiosity. She’s even cuter than she was the day I saw her in the bookshop. Her dark hair is magnificent. She has a dimple in her left cheek. Trust Joel to have an adorable child with dimples.
I jiggle her on my leg and she gives me a delighted smile. I do it again. Another smile. I do it a third time and now she gives a kind of gurgling giggle. Oh. Okay. I’m getting it. I see the appeal. I smile back at her.
I look up to see Luke watching me.
‘She’s not crying,’ he says, as Hayley appears behind him.
‘He was hiding,’ Hayley says.
‘I was installing the new showerhead.’
‘Very convenient timing,’ Hayley says, and she then turns to me. ‘How did you get her to stop?’
‘She just stopped,’ I say.
‘Hayley,’ Luke says. ‘You can’t make Anna look after her ex-boyfriend’s baby.’
‘Exactly. This is traumatising,’ I say, still jiggling Birdie and watching her smile.
‘I’m sorry. Is it really?’ Hayley says, and looks worried. She’s not sure if my traumatised comment is a joke or not. I’m not either.
‘No, it’s okay. I think. It’s less traumatising than listening to her scream.’
Hayley flops on the couch next to me. ‘I’m exhausted,’ she says.
‘She’s been here for less than fifteen minutes,’ Luke says.
‘It feels like fifteen hours,’ Hayley says.
‘Do you want her back?’ I say, lifting her towards Hayley and Birdie immediately starts crying again. She stops when I resettle her on my lap.
‘She hates me,’ Hayley says. ‘I didn’t do anything to her, I swear! I bought her an expensive bamboo cotton onesie, actually. With cute little birds on it.’
I hold her out to Luke but, again, she cries until I put her back on my lap.
‘Look, see, it’s nothing to do with you, Hayley, she just loves Anna,’ Luke says.
‘Or she hates us both,’ Hayley says.
I can’t help but feel a little smug. I am a baby-whisperer, and I didn’t even know it.
‘Can I put on the TV or will that damage her?’ Hayley asks.
‘Joel and Bianca are doing no screens before two,’ Luke says.
‘Does it count if the show I put on is for me?’ Hayley asks. ‘And we point her away from it?’
‘I think it still counts. I don’t know,’ Luke says. ‘We better not.’
‘Okay, well Anna, tell us, have you called Patrick yet?’ Hayley asks. She’s asked me this every few days since the photoshoot.
‘Not yet. I’ve been busy,’ I say.
‘Not too busy to talk to Mac all night,’ Hayley says. I can tell she’s trying to keep her voice light and neutral.
‘That’s different.’
‘How is that different?’
‘Mac and I are friends. Talking to him is just continuing an ongoing conversation. Messaging Patrick is starting a whole new thing. It’s the precursor to going on a date. That takes a different energy.’
‘That makes sense,’ Luke says, and I smile at him gratefully.
‘I only bring it up because you told me how cute and nice Patrick was after the photoshoot.’
‘He was cute and nice.’
‘And the fact that he coincidentally dropped into your life again—that means something.’
‘It does.’
‘So…’
‘So nothing.’
‘So call him.’
Birdie gives a small hiccup, and I frown at Hayley. ‘You’re upsetting the baby.’
‘Don’t change the subject.’
‘I’m not. Every time you pressure me, Birdie gets closer to crying again. She’s very in tune with my emotions.’
‘You have ghosted this cute and nice man twice now,’ Hayley says. ‘That’s the kind of situation that leads to bad karma.’
‘I have not ghosted him.’
‘You have!’
‘The first time, I didn’t reply to a text message. That’s rude but it’s not ghosting, not technically, not by the official definition. I needed to actually start communicating with him to ghost him. The second time, he left the ball in my court. I am simply taking my time. He told me to call him when I am less busy.’
‘Your book edits are done.’
‘I know.’
‘So you’re less busy. What are your plans for the rest of today?’
‘Well, I’m currently babysitting my ex-boyfriend’s baby. That’s a trauma I will need a few hours to get over. And then I need to return a library book. And water the plants we got last week. Test out the new showerhead. Make dinner. It’s a full day.’
‘I just think—’ Hayley says, and then stops.
‘What do you just think?’ I say. I can see Luke shaking his head at her in what he believes is a subtle way.
‘Nothing.’
‘Hayley. Just say it.’ Nothing annoys me more than knowing someone else has an opinion about my life that they won’t share.
‘I have nothing to say,’ Hayley says.
We stare at each other, tension building. The doorbell rings.
‘That’s going to be Joel,’ Luke says. ‘Do you want to be here, or not be here?’
‘Not be here,’ I say, but when I try to hand Birdie over, she screams.
Hayley gives me a panicked look. She doesn’t want Joel to arrive to his child screaming.
‘I’ll stay,’ I say, as Luke goes to open the door.
‘Thank you,’ Hayley says. ‘And I’m sorry I’m so pushy and interfering.’
‘If you didn’t care about my life, who would?’ I say.
‘The mums,’ she says, smiling as Joel walks into the room. He startles when he sees Birdie on my lap.
‘Hey,’ he says in a soft, tender voice, and for a brief second, I think he’s talking to me, and I’m horrified, and then I realise that’s his Birdie voice. He picks her up.
‘She wouldn’t let anyone hold her except for Anna,’ Hayley says, sounding defensive.
‘Sorry,’ I say, even though I’m not sure what I’m apologising for.
‘Yeah, she’s very picky. She has very strong opinions about people. I should have warned you,’ Joel says. He looks at me, his face unreadable. ‘I guess she must love you.’
‘Lucky me,’ I say.
Is there always going to be an undercurrent of tension between us, I wonder. Probably. My wounds have healed but they’re still there.
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘For looking after her.’
‘My pleasure,’ I say. ‘She’s the cutest.’
I didn’t change her nappy, I tell myself later. I didn’t change my ex-boyfriend’s baby’s nappy. I still have some dignity.
That afternoon, I message Mac, not sure if I am expecting an answer since it’s the middle of the night for him, but then my phone is ringing and his name appears on my screen.
‘Hi,’ I say.
‘Hey,’ he says. His voice is rougher, huskier, than usual.
‘You’re drunk,’ I say.
‘Not terribly,’ he says. ‘A little. I just got home.’ We rarely talk during his night. He’s been doing a new play, a smaller role this time, but at a bigger venue. The run has just ended and now he’s looking for his next thing.
‘Tell me about your night.’
He tells me a long story, about friends getting lost, and a strange couple having a fight in a bar, and I can feel my whole body relaxing, listening to him. He’s chattier than usual, chattier in a different way.
‘Do you think your book will be published in the US?’ he asks me, out of nowhere.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Or maybe, but unlikely. I’ll send you a copy though.’
‘I was hoping you would come here on a tour. I could be your minder.’
‘What would that involve?’
‘Oh the usual. Dinners. Chauffeuring you around. Keeping your fans at bay. Making sure you are satisfied in every way.’
I laugh.
‘I think the most glamorous event I’m going to have is a launch with about thirty people and some cupcakes.’
‘At your shop?’
‘It’s a bit too small to hold the event, but we’ll probably hire a space and Bobbi will bring stock and sell copies. Last time I had it in a big event room at the local library. It’s nice, upstairs it has a deck.’
‘That sounds fun.’
‘My first book launch I was so nervous, I basically had an out-of-body experience and barely remember it. This time, I’m hoping to be calmer.’
Organising a book launch involves the sickening task of writing out a list of all of my friends, family and loose acquaintances, and then inviting them to cross town in peak-hour traffic to listen to me blather and then buy a book they probably don’t want. And this will be the second time I’ve asked. It’s twice as hard to get a crowd of well-wishers for your second book. I will need to ask a hundred people in the hope twenty will come. I will need to sell my soul and invite almost everyone I have ever worked with, old friends who I haven’t seen in years, people who chose Joel in the breakup, possibly even Joel himself. The thought of it gives me hives. But if I don’t do it, that feels even sadder. I need an occasion to mark the book’s entry into the world, to say, ‘Look at all the work I did’.
‘I wish I could be there,’ Mac says.
‘Me too,’ I say. ‘I’ll send you lots of photos.’
And there it is, the little thorn always in our side. The never-seeing-each-other problem. We’re not part of each other’s lives. He can’t come to my book launch, or see the bookshop where I work, or join a weekly dinner Hayley and I have with the mums, or go for a walk early on a Sunday morning for coffee. I can’t go to his play opening, or his birthday drinks, or his friend’s gallery opening. We have no plans for when we will see each other. We don’t intersect: we are two parallel lines running beside each other never touching. And that might work if we already had an established relationship, a friendship even, but when you’re at the beginning of whatever we’re at the beginning of, it’s harder. What are we doing? Why are we bothering? I don’t know, but, also, I do know, and Hayley knows. It’s the reason I haven’t called Patrick. All my dating time, all my energy for meeting someone and getting to know them, all my best stories and bits of banter, all my romantic intentions are currently entirely focused on Mac.
‘Were there lots of women there tonight?’ I ask, because I can sense his guard is down.
‘At the bar? Yes.’
‘These women…’
‘Yes?’
‘Did you…’
Now I’m nervous. We talk about everything but we don’t about this. For all I know, he’s sleeping with a different woman every night, and kicking her out in time for our calls. Or maybe they’re sitting there, throughout our calls, listening in, bored or amused or horrified. Maybe they are rolling their eyes and giving him the ‘hurry up’ signal.
‘Did I what?’ he says, his voice quiet. He sounds almost sleepy.
‘Did you hook up with any of them? Did you want to?’
There’s a long silence.
‘I don’t know your definition of hook up, but I kissed someone, at the bar.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Oh. What’s her name?’ I don’t know why I ask this. I need to say something, so he thinks I’m unbothered. Because I am unbothered. Totally, completely, can-barely-breathe my-chest-is-hurting unbothered.
‘Rebecca.’
‘Rebecca,’ I repeat.
I hate that it’s a name I like.
‘I think. It was definitely an R name.’
‘Wow, you’re a romantic.’
‘I just met her.’
‘Are you going to see her again?’ My unbothered questions are sounding a little terse.
‘Maybe. We have mutual friends.’
‘That’s cool.’
There’s a silence that feels undeniably tense.
‘Anna,’ Mac says.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m not in the best mind to have this conversation, I’m sorry, but just listen.’ He sounds more tired and drunk than he did at the beginning of our call.
‘I’m listening.’
‘She wanted me to go back to her apartment.’
‘Okay. Thank you for that extra detail.’
‘I didn’t go.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because.’
‘Because why?’
‘Because I was thinking about you.’
I don’t really know what to say to this.
‘What does that mean?’ I ask.
‘I think about you all of the time.’ He says it roughly, almost hopelessly.
‘I think about you too.’
There’s another long silence. I’m waiting for him to—to what? Offer me something. More than this scrap. Say something magical that will solve our problems. There’s no magic bullet of a solution that he could say, but I want him to give me more than this. More than thinking and missing. Which is selfish and desperate, and what have I given him? Nothing. He didn’t sleep with Rebecca tonight, but there’ll be more Rebeccas, more women. I want to know it all, and I don’t want to know a thing.
‘How many people have you slept with, since me?’ I ask.
‘Three.’
It’s been over four months. So less than one a month. That’s, well, normal I suppose. Probably very contained for him. I don’t know. It’s not like I wanted him to take a vow of celibacy. It’s not like we’re together . There were no promises made. We explicitly made sure of that. We made anti-promises. We were supposed to never talk again.
‘How many people have you been with since me?’ he asks.
I hesitate.
‘Well, I guess it depends,’ I say.
‘On what?’ he says.
‘On what you’ll read into my answer.’
‘I won’t read anything into it.’
‘You will.’
‘What do you read into mine?’
‘That you churn through women.’
He laughs.
‘Hey now. That word is off limits.’
‘Fine. I read nothing into your answer. It sounds fine.’
‘I slept with all three in the weeks after you left.’
‘What should I read into that?’
‘I was trying to get you out of my system. Out of my head.’
‘Did you?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Not talking to me every day would probably have been a better strategy.’
‘I know, and yet.’
‘And yet?’
‘Do you think about me, like that?’ he asks.
‘I haven’t been with anyone, since you,’ I say. ‘If that answers your question.’
‘Oh,’ he says.
There’s another long silence.
‘But don’t read too much into that. I’m not the kind of girl who tries to hook up with randoms in restaurant bathrooms or anything.’
‘No, certainly not.’ He lets out a breath. ‘Do you want me to tell you? About other women? Not details. But, like, if I’m with people.’
‘No. Wait, yes. Or no. I don’t know.’ I close my eyes. ‘Only if it’s serious, I guess.’
This is so weird, and so messy, what we’re doing. Maybe it’s normal. I only really know relationships. One relationship, with Joel. This isn’t a relationship. Or is it? Am I in an open relationship without knowing it? Or a situationship? Or are we simply friends, and I am projecting more onto it than there is. Maybe we’re forging something new. Oh, please . We’re not. We’re doing the opposite of that, because we’re avoiding any discussion of what we could possibly be. And, anyway, I don’t want anything new. I just want old-fashioned, in-person love.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Same.’
‘I should let you go to sleep.’
‘Goodnight Anna.’
‘Goodnight Mac.’