CHAPTER 2 #2
‘Mill!’ he exclaims, as though this is the loveliest surprise he could imagine. I feel a twinge of guilt. I should call Dad more—and not just to ask him about car insurance stuff.
‘It’s not Mill, it’s Jessie,’ she explains. ‘But Mill’s here too. Well, geographically speaking, she is here. Mentally she’s at Parliament House, hogging the photocopier or whatever it is she does up there.’
‘Hi Dad!’ I push Jessie’s arm down so the camera can see both of us. ‘I want you to know my job involves much more than photocopying. I haven’t wasted that education you worked so hard to give us.’
I poke my tongue out at Jessie. She grins back.
‘Dad, move the phone back a bit,’ commands Jessie.
Dad obeys and the frame zooms out to reveal his wonderful, crinkly face. He’s wearing the polo shirt I gave him for his birthday last year.
‘Dad, you need to tell Mill to stop working so hard. It’s not good for her.’
‘Now, Jessie. We’re all very proud of your sister; she’s very clever to be working in government.’
‘Dad, you’d be just as proud if she worked at Macca’s.’
‘Well, yes,’ Dad concedes. ‘But that’s not a bad thing, is it?’
‘She says she’ll be working for eight weeks straight.’
‘If Mill has decided to do that, then she must have a reason.’
‘This is stupid,’ declares Jessie. ‘I’m adding Maxy to the call.’
Seconds later my brother’s face appears on the screen. He’s the only one of us who got Mum’s auburn-red hair.
‘Sup fam,’ he says, grinning. He seems to be covered in charcoal dust, save for a goggle-shaped patch of skin around his eyes.
Maxy works in the mines and I’m not really sure what that entails.
I do know that he has an engineering degree and that he is always dirty, so my brain has concocted an image of him in an underground tunnel holding a measuring tape in one hand and a jackhammer in the other.
The jackhammer is there to account for the dirt.
‘Sup bro,’ says Jessie. Maxy is two years older than me and two years younger than Jessie, so has historically been the perfect middleman in our sisterly disputes. Jessie comes around to my side of the table and sits on my lap so the camera has a better view of both our faces.
‘Your bum is bony,’ I whine.
Jessie spins around and flicks my ear with her thumb and forefinger. It hurts more than you’d think.
‘Dad!’ I cry. ‘Tell her she’s being annoying!’
Despite being fairly high functioning adults, my siblings and I tend to regress in each other’s company.
‘Is there a point to this phone call?’ asks Maxy. ‘The crusher’s broken down and it’s not going to fix itself.’
I have no idea what a crusher is but it sounds important.
‘We’re staging an intervention,’ announces Jessie.
‘For Mill’s drug habit?’ asks Maxy.
Jessie laughs. ‘Yes! Dad, we didn’t want to tell you like this, but Mill’s a stoner.’
‘A whatter?’
‘A dopehead,’ says Maxy.
‘You’re a dopehead!’ I retort. It’s not my best comeback but it feels slightly more mature than I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I? which also came to mind.
‘Chill, Mill,’ says Jessie. This is one of her most oft-used phrases. She once told me she enjoyed the poetry of it. I dislike the condescension. ‘We all know you’d never be a druggo. Not even Dad’s gullible enough to fall for that one.’
I somehow feel insulted by this. She doesn’t have to insinuate I’m a party pooper. I can be cool. I’m just corporate cool.
‘If there was one person in this family who was going to be a druggo, it would be Jessie,’ says Dad.
‘What?!’ she explodes.
Dad shrugs. ‘I’m basing this off your lifestyle. You go to all those parties and you have more leisure time than Maxy and Mill. They work too much.’
‘That’s BS, Dad!’ huffs Jessie. ‘I’m an event manager. I have to go to those parties. And besides, Maxy has way more free time than me. He works seven days on, seven days off.’
‘Oh yes,’ agrees Dad. ‘I forgot. Maxy, I hope you’re not taking drugs on your days off?’
‘No Dad, I spend those days on the dark web instead.’
‘Good,’ says Dad. ‘Er, what?’
Us three kids collapse into giggles. Whenever we’re all together, it’s a constant game of one-upmanship, ganging up on each other for stupid reasons to see who will slip up first. It’s my favourite thing in the world.
‘You guys are such winkipops,’ I say, shaking my head, and we all erupt into giggles again.
‘Winkipop’ used to be Mum’s name for her arch nemesis in Masters tennis—a hotshot doctor with a killer serve. Over the years, however, the word ‘winkipop’ has been bastardised to mean ‘loveable fool’. Essentially, I could say I have a whole family of winkipops.
‘Back to the point,’ says Jessie. ‘Do you guys agree Mill is working too much?’
Maxy and Dad slowly stop laughing. Dad’s eyes dart to the left. Maxy readjusts his goggles.
Jessie nods, businesslike. ‘I’ll take that as two yeses. Mill is working too much and needs a break, and therefore she will take my spare ticket to SoulFest. It’s what Mum would have wanted.’
‘Don’t bring Mum into this!’ I snap, horrified.
Jessie twists on my lap to look me in the eye. She’s so close I can see the glitter in her bronzer.
‘Then listen to me,’ she pleads.
Her voice is too quiet, slightly too high-pitched, and I suddenly feel horribly guilty. I shouldn’t have boasted about being a workaholic. It was meant to be a humblebrag, not a cry for help. This always happens, and I do it without realising. I make my family worry.
Dad and Maxy are silent on the screen. Jessie’s expression is so earnest, her stupid bum is so bony. I don’t know how she always manages to get her own way.
‘Okay,’ I relent. ‘I’ll go to the bloody festival.’