Chapter Sixteen #2
‘You haven’t called in a long time,’ is what leaves my mouth. ‘I talk to my best friend’s mum more than I talk to you.’
‘I know, darling, but it goes both ways,’ she lets out a snide laugh. ‘It’s not like you call me either.’
‘Well, it’s Pride Month…I’m busy doing gay shit.’
She ignores this, says, ‘I’m in Brisbane today, spontaneously, to meet with a big new distributor here in the city for the wine brand and thought we could go for dinner.
My shout. I know you don’t make much at that little media company you work for.
Anyway, I need your help with something, but I’ll explain in person. ’
I feel like hanging up but also feel inclined to say yes. She helps me out with money from time to time – especially since the cost of living has skyrocketed.
More than my dad’s ever done for me, I guess.
He already has a family – my mum was his affair, and I was their result.
I went looking for him once. When I left home for university at eighteen, I found him and went down to see him in Sydney.
And just like Britney Spears’ character in Crossr oads, I was met with my biggest disappointment.
He was a stranger, not my dad. Not the guy who was meant to teach me about life.
And as hard as it’s been to swallow, if he wanted to stay, he would’ve.
‘Okay, text me the details,’ I tell her, then hang up with a sigh.
‘Will do,’ she says. ‘See you tonight.’
I feel my eyes glaze over as I walk back inside and sit across from Dan sullenly.
‘Is everything okay?’ he asks.
Am I that bad at hiding how upset I am?
‘Ugh, yeah,’ I groan. ‘Just family stuff. I don’t have the best relationship with them, and I just got a reminder of that.’
‘I’m sorry to hear,’ he says, a generous pinch of sincerity in his tone. ‘You wanna talk about it? No pressure, of course. It’s just…’
‘Just what?’ I try to segue.
‘It’s just…’ He pauses. Then, ‘I understand that family can be complicated. Mine is far from perfect.’
‘Does your mum only call you when she needs something from you, too?’ I ask.
‘No.’ Dan’s eyes drop. ‘She passed away when I was young.’
My stomach ties itself into a knot. ‘Fuck. Sorry. I’m an idiot.’
‘No, Kallen. It’s fine. It was a long time ago. But yeah, long story short, my dad raised my sister and me on his own, so I know all about unconventional upbringings.’
As much as I feel bad for Dan, it’s strange, if not refres hing, hearing that he can somehow relate, as if perhaps he isn’t a complete office douche after all. An attractive straight office non-douche. And so, I raise my glass and ask for reassurance, ‘To complicated families?’
Dan chuckles in response before lifting his glass to mine. ‘To complicated families.’
*
‘I need you to promote my wine brand at your work,’ Katherine says four hours later, facing me in the seafood restaurant she’s forced me to.
Sleek silver marble covers a majority of the interiors, and the waiters are all wearing red ties over their white shirts.
She slurps back an oyster topped with caviar, but my eyes are more focused on her big nose – the one trait she and I share.
An intrusive thought appears where I low-key hope she chokes on the oyster as it slides down her throat.
Though she swallows it with such ease. No choking. ‘I’ll pay you for it, of course.’
My face crinkles. ‘Excuse me? You have money. Why don’t you pay a bigger media outlet to advertise your product?’
‘That’s the thing, darling,’ she says. ‘After my business partner left, I’ve had to cut back.
So I can’t pay for traditional media advertising right now and I may need to sell the wine company soon.
The market is flooded. It’s all a bit of a nightmare.
Anyway, I’ll give you five hundred to promote it on your work socials. ’
A smidge of pity courses through me, but I still blurt out, ‘Five hundred?’, quickly softening to a lower volume. ‘We get a lot more t han that for an advertising campaign at Untold.’
‘And as I said, darling, I don’t have that kind of money right now. So yeah, I just need a boost until things pick up again. And I know your followers listen to the content you put up. I’ve seen it.’
‘Oh yeah? You follow our pages?’
‘Only the Brisbane Untold one. The one with two hundred thousand followers. Anyway, my new distributor is getting the wine into bars in the city, so a post or story saying this is your new favourite wine would be great.’
I sigh, think for a moment, then say without hesitation, ‘I want a thousand.’
‘Darling, no, five hundred is more than reasonable.’
‘Are you living on another planet? A thousand or it’s no deal.’
‘How about five hundred and a box of wine?’ Katherine thinks her smile is enticing, but it makes me wonder why I even agreed to meet with her in the first place. Does she really think I want to drink her feral wine? I’d rather drink anything else.
‘No. One thousand dollars and that’s it,’ I say in my best Ru Paul voice.
Katherine shakes her head. ‘You make this difficult, but fine.’
I give her a stern look, wanting to say this is the end of it, that I don’t want to see her anymore. But I could do with the money. Perhaps use it towards a holiday.
An awkward silence follows before Katherine axes it. ‘It’s my fiftieth birthday in a few weeks and I’m having a party. It’d be fantastic if you could make it.’
‘I’ll see if my schedule allows it,’ I say with a fierce finality, forking a bite of grilled barramundi into my mouth, which melts on my tongue. The only good thing to come out of this dinner so far.
‘You’ve got weekends off, don’t you?’ Katherine harps.
‘ Yes, I do, but I’m now in my late twenties and things like this need to be scheduled well in advance.’
Katherine tells me the date of the party, that it’ll be held at Aunt Karen’s place in Toowoomba.
Aunt Karen is about as bad as my mother, if not worse.
You could even mistake them as twins, the way they act.
The Christmas before last comes back to me, the way they went on about the “LGBTQ+ agenda” being out of control while I sat right there at the table with them.
I felt like telling them that who I am isn’t some agenda up for debate. But I didn’t say a word.
‘I would love for you to be there,’ Katherine nags on. ‘It’s not every day your mum turns fifty.’
‘Can I bring a friend?’ I compromise, knowing I’m very limited in the friend department, but the thought of spending time with my family sounds like I might need assistance.
Katherine agrees to me bringing a plus-one, and I’m already texting Blake to see if she can come.
She texts back by the time dessert arrives, saying she’s already planned a getaway with Connor that weekend.
My only option now is Hudson. Though, it’d be a bit weird to ask him if he wants to meet my family, given we’ve only known each other for such a short amount of time. Ah, fuck .
After dinner, Katherine tells me she’ll call me in a few days when she gets back to Toowoomba. I tell her not to worry about doing this. A text message is sufficient.
Then I go home, scream into my pillow, make myself two-minute noodles, and hope for a better day tomorrow.