Chapter 8
Parties (and their less attractive siblings, gatherings) have always oriented around sunsets here – ice-cream skies the main attraction, or at least the entertainment, though it is often the people and their spectacles that eventually pull focus.
Tonight’s has all the markings of a hall-of-famer.
Peachy orange has not come to play, folks.
She has no intention of being upstaged by any member of the pink family, not when she contrasts so well with the sky’s cerulean blue.
She knows her colour theory, and it is all complements from where I am standing.
I, meanwhile, feel as though my heart has been ricocheting around my ribcage all afternoon, ready to burst free.
My panic attack has spawned an army of mini panic attacks, and they are working together, orchestrating a coup.
This is my first public event, the first time I will be around people to whom I am not related, since I lost my noodle, one might say.
And that is enough to manage, but it is not even the part I am giving myself potentially lifelong, non-reversible heart damage about.
After weeks spent mostly indoors, hiding, keeping odd hours, and one chance encounter with his inferior brother, every cell in my body is now aware of how likely I am to see Fran tonight.
And I want that almost as much as I know I will not handle it well.
While my conscious mind has been busy avoiding this point, my subconscious, or perhaps my body, my cells, have been signposting to this night since I arrived home.
The neighbourhood Christmas party. We loved this tradition, and then as we got older we loved skipping it, together.
Perhaps he will skip it tonight, but I could never.
Fran does not know it, but we are locked in a game of emotional chicken, being played out entirely in my head.
I do not necessarily have the capacity to handle seeing him, but I want him to want to see me.
Or, I want to have seen him, for it to have gone well.
Or, I do not want to do any of this at all, and it is still external expectations running the show.
I don’t know – don’t ask me, I’m mental, remember?
I half hope a brutal stomach bug has swept through his entire family, Martin having had to dash to the toilet and remain there since our little chat, that I will not have to see him, nor be the one to chicken out, or have him not want to see me.
This is what social interaction does to me when I am feeble; I am not cut out for navigating the nightmare of being perceived. And people do this for fun.
Olivia offers to do my makeup; she must sense that I would appreciate one less task.
I love the feeling of the different brushes on my face, and the metallic particles that fall from my eyelids to the tops of my cheeks like snow as she blends.
We do not talk much, the acidity of the day still lingering, both in need of some recharge time.
She holds up a small mirror when she is done, and I admire her work without looking directly at it.
‘You have a very even skin tone,’ she says.
‘Do I?’
‘Obviously you do. Just take the compliment.’
‘Okay, thank you.’
People’s praise seems to communicate a lot more about what they value, or are concerned with, than anything to do with the recipient.
I find it interesting, as a sociological study, but bewildering on a personal level when the focus is something I have never considered.
And I worry my mounting silence is communicating Olivia’s lacking in this area; the initial compliment perhaps only a mode of transport to this subject in the first place.
‘You also have very . . . even skin,’ I finally say.
‘Thanks. Pregnancy pigmentation absolutely wrecked me, but I’ve been working on it,’ she replies.
I watch her, wondering if she is being seen and known as much as she would like.
Maybe no one has noticed the work she has put into evening up her skin tone until now, and maybe it is not even about skin tone but about all of the work she has put into becoming this new postpartum version of herself, a rebirth after birth. I wonder.
‘I brought down a dress of mine I thought you might want to wear,’ she says, packing up her makeup bag to head back upstairs.
‘Thank you,’ I reply.
‘You’ll just have to figure out what to do with your hair. That’s above my pay grade.’
With a smile, she leaves, though her energy lingers.
My hair has dried with an abundance of frizz – that is always the trade-off for avoiding the heat and noise of a hairdryer.
I run my straightener through the layered ends to try and give them the right kind of shape.
What felt edgy and fun in Melbourne feels unkempt and embarrassing here, particularly in contrast to the overall sleekness of my sister.
Cleo had talked me into it; this grown-out wolf cut now all that remains of our friendship.
I leave my hair loose, much like the floral sundress Olivia has laid out on the bed.
It looks fitting for a neighbourhood get-together, and I trust she knows better than I do how to dress appropriately for an event.
I will not fill it out in the same way she does, and I am sure I will look uncomfortable, so there is no need for reflected confirmation.
I am comfortable with the version of my image I hold in my head.
Light makeup, a floral dress, I am keeping things simple and comfortable.
Gorgeous, too, of course, but I have no need to be the one who notices that.
I recall the last time I dressed up, and the wedding guest who said I looked like that actress from the horror movie.
He went on and on about it, actually. No doubt it was a compliment, the actress being quite pretty, and nothing to do with her intensity or developing insanity.
That was the film plot; he only said we looked alike.
Anyway, these last few weeks at home have been healing; I am healed.
I am grounded – still quiet, still awkward, still interesting, but no longer in that frenetic, scary kind of way.
I am the safe kind of interesting now, and the endearing kind of awkward.
I have enough self-awareness to be sheepish about seeing Fran for the first time since moving back, but enough confidence to carry myself with care.
We meet as equals, and I am emotionally adept and agile enough to be able to apologise without making him feel uncomfortable or upset.
He will be moved, genuinely, and surprised by that.
A lot has changed, we will agree. Time has worked its magic.
‘Nora, time to go,’ Dad calls through my window.
I am sucking on my vape like it is filled with life-giving oxygen rather than quite literally the opposite.
We convene on the front lawn, and Mum does not make a comment about my appearance.
She has offered a silent treaty; the absence of a negative remark a positive, and my desire to offer pithy commentary on the more-is-more pirate-booty haul of gold jewellery she is wearing likewise disappears.
We walk together to the Kingstons’, Maeve in her stroller pointing out birds and bats soaring overhead, and the cicadas serenading us as we go by.
They have chilled out a little, or perhaps this is a different sub-species.
The air is warm and soft, the sky an ever-changing painting, and I can breathe for a minute, as long as I don’t think too hard about anything.
Mr Kingston is waiting at the top of the drive, pouring arrival drinks and making jokes in front of his unfortunately colourless but nonetheless beautiful home.
He pretends to offer Maeve a glass of champagne, and she is confused for a minute, because of course she would like to get her small hands on the crystal and the bubbles, and she does not laugh with the rest of the group when he pulls it away.
I do not laugh either. Olivia pulls out Maeve’s sippy cup and we all do a cheers with her to make up for it.
People do not include children enough. As though they won’t one day grow into adults.
As though they are another thing entirely.
I pick Maeve a pink hibiscus from the bush by the letterbox, and she smells it, breathing in deep with her eyes closed.
She already knows it all. So much of growing up is forgetting, I think.
‘Everyone’s around the back,’ Mr Kingston says, directing us down the garden path like a flight attendant, his arm out straight.