CHAPTER 5 #2
I turn over onto my stomach. What does he know, anyway?
We have met all of three times. Most of that time has been spent ignoring me or making snide remarks at me.
Yes, okay, we turned a corner over a bottle of wine or two, commiserating together over our inappropriate horny friends.
Yes, okay, we covered a decent amount of (patchy and random) conversational ground this evening.
But that doesn’t mean we know each other.
Like, yes, I know his favourite colour (bronze, because he picked it as a child to be edgy and different and kind of feels stuck with it now), but I don’t know his last name.
I should probably suss that out next time…
No! There will not be a next time. But he didn’t even know any of that when he decided to play the fourth wheel.
He certainly didn’t know about my Grade 5 camp performance of the 10 Things I Hate About You monologue.
The pity alone after that story would surely last at least three more outings with Bee and Billy.
(I can call him Billy in my mind, where there is no one to tell me off.)
I’m getting off topic—sleeplessness does that to a person.
His absolute fucking audacity.
We don’t know each other.
I knew you wouldn’t be able to say no.
But he knows that fundamental thing about me. Is it fundamental? Most people wouldn’t say no to their friends, would they? It is a reasonable assumption that if my friend asked me to be present that I would be.
It feels fundamental.
But it’s all getting so jumbled in my head. He has so many eyes. Disgusted eyes. Kind eyes. Indifferent eyes. Intrigued eyes. But they aren’t the eyes he ended the night with. Those were pitying eyes. He knew I wouldn’t say no, and he pitied me.
I don’t think I’ve ever been an object of pity before. Would I know, though? If people pitied me wouldn’t they do it behind my back in a classy way?
No. No, I’m catastrophising like that shitty therapist once said I’m prone to do before I freaked out and never saw them again.
It’s because it’s so late and the evening was so weird.
I know better than to stay up late thinking about life and other shit.
I have conjured brain tumours for myself late at night.
I have comprehensively mapped out very real doomsday scenarios.
Not like zombie apocalypse or The Day After Tomorrow, but like what I would do when society collapses.
(Probably die quite quickly is the answer.
I don’t have any survival skills. I can’t even make a fire, so winning Survivor is out.) He made some completely innocuous comment, pushed out of him by wine, no doubt, and I have wasted several hours of my valuable life turning each word over in my head.
I should just message him to find out what he meant.
Yes. That is a great idea.
Best idea I’ve ever had.
I use my phone to block out the moon. Take that, moon. Now, I may not know his surname, but surely old mate Willy follows him. Shock horror, he’s the only Arthur in Bill’s follow list. He’s probably the only Arthur under seventy anywhere.
His grid is a bit bare and not at all good for stalking.
He’s barely in it. His last post was six months ago.
The next one, eight months. A photo of that one rock in Yosemite that everyone takes.
Two bowls of pasta and two glasses of wine.
An amusing sign outside a public toilet in Lisbon proclaiming it the best toilet in the city.
From about three years ago, there is a picture of Arthur and a woman (untagged) at the wedding of two people named Simone and Giovanni.
He is wearing a different neatly tailored suit.
And his pocket square matches her dress.
I click the little message icon in the corner.
Hi! It’s Gertrude, your fellow chaperone. This might be a weird question, but what did you mean when you said that you knew I wouldn’t say no to coming tonight?
I send it before I can overthink it, which is a mistake because now I have an indeterminate amount of time to overthink his reaction to my unhinged behaviour.
But there’s a sense of accomplishment too.
I have taken action, so surely that means I can now fall into a deep slumber, dragged under by the weight of my purposefulness. I pull the blankets over my head.
It’s a nice thought.
I sent it one hour ago. He hasn’t seen it. He is probably asleep, like a normal person.
Three hours later, he hasn’t seen it. I’ve spent that time very productively watching weird videos of Reddit stories read by robots set to baking visuals.
He sees it at nine o’clock. I have been at work for an hour already. But today I keep my phone in my pocket. No three typing dots yet.
He answers at ten.
He doesn’t have the basic human kindness not to mention the timestamp of my own message.
Jesus, why were you still awake at 3.30? The
wine knocked me out clean when I got home.
Is William still there?
I assume so. Ascertaining otherwise would have involved looking anywhere but straight ahead as I briskly walked out the door. I yawn, taking the opportunity of my open mouth to pour in more strong latte. Saves me using the muscles twice.
Also, how did you find my Instagram?
Oh, I get it. You were the sleuth who found
William for Bee. That makes way more sense.
Stop! Stop knowing everything, you insufferable omniscient git!
Then:
I don’t know.
I feel like there’s no way to say this without
coming off as an asshole. I feel that this is
major growth for us in that I care about not
being an asshole to you. I agree. But it just
kind of seems like everything revolves around
Bianca. And what she wants. Does that make
sense?
Including me, he means. I, Gertrude, revolve around Bianca. Because Bianca is the sun, and I’m like a rock in the asteroid belt.
He follows my account. I follow back. A throat clears behind me, and Reg is there with raised eyebrows, shocked to see the normally rule-following Gertrude on her phone.
He hands me a sugary mini donut, obviously because it looks like I need it.
My eye bags probably match the blueberry jam inside.
I tuck the phone back in my pocket, eat the donut in one bite and grab the tub of glassware to bring back into the kitchen.
I love brunch events. They always have the best food. And right now, I need to eat my feelings. How many mini donuts equal one full donut? No reason why I’m asking, of course.
It isn’t unusual for me to get anxious. Heart racing a million miles an hour, even when I’m just doing standard things, like cooking dinner.
Sitting tensely behind the steering wheel, gripping it for dear life when I’m just popping around to the supermarket.
Finding myself taking deep breaths every so often because I haven’t realised I’ve been holding it.
Sometimes it’s about something specific.
Other times it is just a general feeling of foreboding I can’t quite kick.
More than once I’ve wished I was like Bee, who only needs a whiff of some essential oil blend and a collagen facemask to put her right when she’s feeling slightly off.
But one thing I’ve always known about my little bouts of stress is that they pass.
A few days of subsisting on crackers and cheese, pretending I’m capable of meditation while really just taking naps on the floor, and only showering when strictly necessary, and I’m usually back to whatever my normal is.
This won’t pass.
Light-headed from lack of sleep. Irritable. Permanent sour grimace on my face. Liable to explode if someone breathes funny. For days on end.
Poor Nicole is the victim during a Wednesday-night wedding. (Seriously, who gets married on a Wednesday?) She is minding her own business, polishing glassware in the steamed-up glass room when I enter and stub my toe on a slab of beer.
‘Oh, fuck!’ I yell. The door is still slightly ajar.
There is a non-zero chance that a guest has heard that, although at least it didn’t happen during the speeches.
‘Did you leave this in the fucking doorway?’ I get nothing but a deer-in-the-headlights stare back.
I let out a frustrated cry and passive-aggressively pick up and move the slab, nearly breaking every bottle inside.
Nicole murmurs something and leaves the room.
I only realise hours later that I need to apologise. Nicole probably didn’t even touch the beer. Not that there’s any excuse.
I ignore the monthly call from my mother too, but that’s not a big deal.
My mother sets herself up with an Aperol spritz and a cigarette and talks about herself for half an hour, then ends the call.
If I don’t answer, she calls whoever is next on her list. It’s less about the call or caller and more about the smoko.
I can’t even muster up half the energy my interjected hmms about the politics of the local farmer’s market would require.
Perhaps most shocking is my very first argument with Bee. Shocking to both of us, really.
We have barely seen one another all week, which is probably why she has so far been sheltered from my tempest. I don’t know if that’s because she has been with Bill (unchaperoned!
Gasp!) or because of work. But on Friday morning, I manage to fall asleep at around four, which gives me a few precious hours before the sun ruins it all again.
Or would have.
Poor Bee. She doesn’t even know what she’s walking into.
Of course some would argue that walking into anyone’s room at six in the morning without explicit permission is the very definition of poking the bear.
It’s me. I am some who would argue that.
And she doesn’t just enter. She bounces into the room in crisp black activewear, a slick high ponytail and a smile, looking exceptionally well rested, and all I want to do is wipe that smile off her face.
Bee starts saying something, and over the buzzing filling my ears I catch words like William, drinks, maybe Sunday.
‘No,’ I spit. I pull the covers back over my head. Bee pulls them back down, leaning over me.
‘What? Gertrude, were you even listening to me?’
‘Of course I fucking wasn’t.’ Hurt flashes across Bee’s face, and I’m a little bit satisfied. Which I’m aware isn’t a good thing. It hasn’t been a great week for me. As quickly as it appears, it is replaced by another smile, though I’ve known Bee long enough to see that it is not fully genuine.
‘Oh, I forget how crabby you can get in the morning.’ She pats my head. Honest to God pats my head.
‘Maybe I’m crabby because I want to go back to sleep. Leave.’
‘But…’
‘I’m serious, Bee. Get out. If it’s so important, text it to me or wait until I have actually gotten out of bed.
’ As with most people when put in a completely unfamiliar situation, Bee doesn’t seem to know how to respond.
Her eyes dart around, as though looking on the floor for my dropped marbles, but she certainly doesn’t find them.
So she gets up, quietly mutters something about bringing back a coffee after Pilates, and leaves the room.
Well. I’m certainly not getting any more sleep now. Every time I close my eyes I see the hurt on her face.
I text my apology, I send her a voucher to that fancy facialist in Hawthorn.
I make homemade parmas for dinner that night, and she smiles weakly at my effort, saying that if we can eat it on the couch watching Love Island, then all will be forgiven.
I think it’s implied that we have to watch it without my shit-talking it the whole time, which I do, so we’re fine.
But I can’t continue like this. What I need is to get to the root of this problem.
Luckily, I follow him on Instagram.