Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
Alexia
Morialta Park on a late winter morning smells like eucalyptus, wet leaves and overcooked barbecue, but it works.
By the time Rhys and I finish wrestling the second marquee upright, sausages are already going, drinks cooling in the eskies, and a trestle table sagging under a potluck spread that's at least fifty per cent lamingtons and crockpots.
A cricket game has already broken out on the flat grass.
And somebody's toddler is chasing one of the wayward helium balloons we gave out.
Eighty people, give or take, are expected, the whole department and their families.
And despite the added stress of organising the outing on top of everything, I've actually been looking forward to it.
The last two weeks have been easier, quieter, in the good way.
I've been talking to the guys again, actually talking, even managing to get away for some time alone, now and then.
But never with all three. Someone needs to be with Leon, whether he thinks so or not.
But we've managed to get into a routine.
Rhys was pretty thrilled to have a reason to add an extra colour code and column to the Google calendar, and Marcus has more or less managed to stick to it.
“Lex!”
I turn towards the voice, a smile already on my face, to see Marcus and Zachary flanking a wheelchair, Leon in it looking thoroughly unimpressed with having to come to a park trapped in a chair, but still happy to be outside.
Patrick, his now regular nurse, is pushing the chair despite Leon's protestations.
I run to them, hug Marcus, hug Zachary, and crouch in front of Leon's chair with my hands on his knees.
“You made it.”
“You didn't think I'd miss free sausages because of a few measly broken bones, did ya?” Being outside has already helped bring the colour back to his cheeks. “Patrick gets an extra one. For pushing my wheelchair and not complaining.”
“I complain plenty,” Patrick says. “Just not where you can hear it.”
Rhys comes up behind me, greeting his housemates, polo sweater pushed up to his elbows, sweat along his brow from doing most of the heavy lifting. He smiles when he catches me grinning at months of planning finally coming together.
“Looks good, Alexi,” he says. “You did well.”
“We did well.” He pats me on the shoulder. It's such a small action but I feel it all through my body.
“Alexia! Rhys! Quick question—” a grad student jogs over, pointing to a delivery van with some of the extra seats we had brought from campus.
Rhys and I both point to the other. “Not it,” we say simultaneously, and laugh.
“Ugh. Fine. Rock paper scissors,” I say. “Loser sorts it out. Best of three.”
He loses, two rounds in, and huffs out something that's almost a laugh, then jogs over to the van.
“We'll go help,” Zachary says, turning out of Leon's eye line, giving me a wink and mouthing 'you look so hot' which makes me blush. He grabs Marcus's arm. “Come on, Bob the Builder.” Marcus protests, but goes anyway.
“Please help yourself to drinks or any number of the ten varieties of lamingtons that we have,” I say to Patrick, who wanders over to the food table.
“You look happy today,” Leon says, once it's just us.
I give him a playful kick in the shin. “Yeah? Well, no thanks to you. I had to spend my birthday in a hospital waiting room.”
“I never did get a thank you for my attempted surprise, by the way.” He wheels himself over to a sunnier spot and I follow. “How's everything going? In between all the nearly losing your beloved brother stuff?”
I sink into a bench, shielding my eyes as I watch a family come in from the car park and give them a wave.
“Firstly, I have three weeks until my thesis defence.
And four weeks until I'm done here. They offered to let me do it online, but I think I'll be better doing it in person.” I don't tell him I don't know how I feel about going back to Sydney yet.
Or if I'm even going to. And I certainly don't tell him why.
“I've put in a few different applications.
But the Hargreaves Fellowship submission's due in a few days.
I think I'm actually in with a chance, my application's looking a lot more filled out since Rhys helped me.” I hold up crossed fingers. “We'll see.”
“You'll get it,” he says, with so much confidence it almost rubs off on me. “Anyway.” He drags it out. “What about your love life? You're going to be Doctor Riley in a month. Somebody should probably wife you up before you get too intimidating.”
“That's not something I'm thinking about.” I keep my eyes trained dead ahead so they don't betray me.
“Maybe you're just too fussy.”
“The last thing I need is dating advice from someone who can barely remember the first name of the woman he's on a date with.” I nudge his wheelchair with my foot.
“It's a shame, though.” He's watching Marcus and Zachary bicker over where to set up the chairs while Rhys just moves them himself once they've put them down. “That you can't date any of them. Good blokes, all of them. Just — not right for you, I don't think. As much as I love them.”
He glances back at me, something searching in it that makes my stomach drop even though he can't possibly know. “They've all got their flaws. I wouldn't wish any of them on you.”
I don't say anything. I don't trust what would come out.
“No one's good enough for you, Xi-Xi.” He squeezes my hand once.
“I mean it, I'm proud of you. All of this — the PhD, the future, holding it together while I was having just a super long nap at the hospital.
And I've liked having you around. All this time.
More than I probably say. I'm going to miss you when you go back to Sydney.”
And I can't help but wonder, at what point do we stop calling it doing what's best for ourselves and just start being selfish.
The trivia quiz is the pinnacle of our event. Rhys and I spent weeks on the concept and the prizes, but neither of us wanted to give up playing to run it, so three undergrads wrote the questions instead. Am I glad we did.
We have almost fifteen teams signed up. I end up with Leon and Patrick, the guys make up another team, there are a bunch of random groups of people who just met today, and on the far side of the marquee sits a table with Craig, his brother, and his brother's girlfriend.
It's fun, at first. So much fun. Patrick turns out to be a walking encyclopedia of useless sport and movie trivia, Leon knows all things music and travel, and pure competitiveness drags weird facts out of my head by sheer will.
Next to us, Marcus heckles us, even though his actual contribution is getting up between each round for more drinks and snacks.
Zachary's strategy is to say what isn't the answer, and eventually Rhys just calls out the answer without any consultation with his teammates. Most of the time, he's right.
By the time we get to the final round, there are only four teams left, our two, Craig's team and a table of spouses who have gotten here by sheer dumb luck.
All of us are on the same number of points. Whoever comes out ahead will win.
The quizmaster plays a two-second sample of a song and whichever team calls out the name first wins.
Quiet falls over our section of the park.
Two notes kick up and before my brain can even catch onto what I'm listening to, Leon cups his hands over his face and yells, “EYE OF THE TIGER BY SURVIVOR.” Unfortunately, so does Craig's brother. Marcus calls out Roar by Katy Perry... for some reason.
After the laughter dies down, we're all waiting with bated breath.
“The correct answer is Eye of the Tiger by Survivor.” Marcus shouts a protest but gets pulled back to his seat by Zachary.
“As two teams answered correctly at the same time, we deem a tie-breaker necessary to determine the final winner. Each team will designate one player to the front. Whoever answers first wins the prize.”
My stomach drops before he's even finished explaining. I don't know why. I just do.
Craig volunteers before anyone else at his table can. I don't need to look over at Rhys to know he doesn't love it when both Leon and Patrick decide I should be the one stepping up either.
Craig nods to me when I get up to the front and I give him a tight smile. It's the first interaction we've had today except when we'd awkwardly introduced our families to each other. Leon had enjoyed his two minutes of fame retelling his tale of Kangaroo vs The Lorry for the eighteenth time.
“Final question,” the quizmaster says. “Who coined the term 'hegemony'?”
I shout, “Antonio Gramsci” a split second earlier than Craig does.
But then he shouts, “Final point to us,” and holds his arms up in victory.
I frown and say, “I said it first!”
“You wish!”
I know I should let it go, but he's been cocky all day and it's been grating on my nerves. “No need, because I said it first!”
Patrick stands up and yells that I was first by a mile, while Craig's team swears he was first by at least a whole minute.
Both are wild exaggerations, and it has the crowd laughing.
Someone yells for a coin toss, someone else starts an ironic chant of re-play, re-play, and for about ten seconds it's chaotic but good-natured.
But then the two running the quiz discuss it and come back with a verdict: that I answered a fraction before Craig did. “Alexia's team has come first!” they declare, lifting my arm up like we're in a boxing ring.
A boxing ring is exactly what this is about to become.
Craig's face changes. It's small at first, a tightening around his eyes, the smile going hard at the edges.
“Course she did,” he says, louder than it needs to be.
“You always do like coming first, don't you, Alexia?” A pause, just long enough for people to realise something is going on.
“Is that your rule with men when you date or something?
I mean, it's not like you gave me a chance to show that I could toe the line, too.”