CHAPTER 6
I THANK ARTHUR for meeting me for breakfast, which seems weirdly formal, so now it feels like a job interview.
He says, ‘No worries,’ and opens the menu in front of him.
‘Is it just me, or does this menu feature an unnatural amount of fairy floss for any place outside a theme park?’ I envy his ability to sound like a normal person.
Maybe I could learn to do that. He’s right about the fairy floss.
The little piece of paper listing the specials has a juice stain on the corner which is important because it’s easier to focus on paper quality than jump into discussing my inner turmoil. It’s also important to warm up with small talk. ‘I like the sound of the Turkish eggs.’
He pulls the paper out of my hand and scans it. ‘Mmm. But the corn fritters also sound amazing,’ he says, referring back to the menu. ‘I’m a sucker for sriracha.’
‘That does look good.’
‘Should we get them both and split it?’
‘Sure.’
The waiter comes to take our order, another welcome distraction, and then we make more small talk as we wait for the drinks to come because hard conversations are also better done drink in hand, even if it’s just coffee.
Now I’ve run out of excuses to drag this out.
Impatience radiates off him, like he knows I’m building up to something and is getting tired of the diversions.
Clearly he can read me like a poorly written book.
He also won’t help me broach the Tough Conversation.
He just sits there, lightly smirking. Asshole.
‘You’re probably wondering why I asked you to meet me,’ I say to my coffee.
‘Yeah. I have become unused to any meal where I don’t have to supervise William and Bianca.’
Oh, wrong thing to say, Artie. ‘Of course, because anything to do with me has to come back to Bee, doesn’t it?’
Our food comes, along with the extra plate Arthur suggested, so he has a long time to consider his reply. He begins surgically dividing the corn fritters and placing half onto the plate for me. ‘Is this still about what you texted me about last week?’ he asks as he cuts up the avocado.
‘Of course it is! It’s all I’ve been able to think about! I’ve barely slept in days.’
‘I did think you were looking a little worn around the eyes.’
‘Not helping,’ I snap.
‘Not trying to,’ he replies.
‘I just…can’t talk about this with…her.’ It isn’t my best friend’s fault that I feel this way, I know that.
But somehow my lack is all tangled up with Bee’s so much in my mind, and I don’t think I could even begin to articulate that to her.
Bee of all people has no reason to understand this sense of… being nothing.
I mean, if she doesn’t already know. And she can’t know, right?
It’s the sort of thing you can’t unsee once you’ve seen it.
And if she did know, how could she possibly put up with being friends with such a sad little shadow of a human?
Although she is pretty friendly like that, so maybe…
Am I her charity case? Not that she’d articulate it that way, but that’s what it would boil down to.
Did she ask me to move in just to give me something? Anything?
Oh no. The tears are coming. I’m on the verge of tears almost constantly at this point. Arthur clearly doesn’t know what to do with this—but if he thinks our fragile friendship isn’t ready for the kind of trauma dump he’s about to get, too bad, buddy. He has no choice now.
The shift in his tone suggests he at least understands that a measure of sincerity is now required. ‘Talk about what?’ he asks.
‘I think I just realised that you were right but that you also didn’t go far enough. It’s not just that I can’t say no to Bee. It’s that being Bee’s best friend is my only personality trait. I’m a real-life NPC.’
He looks sceptical. ‘Surely you exaggerate.’
‘I literally do not have a personality of my own.’
‘Everyone has a personality of their own.’
‘Maybe most people. But I’m just a mirror, reflecting Bee back to herself and everyone else.
I’m a shell that she kindly filled up, except it’s all her.
’ I also mix metaphors. ‘There was like a little bit in my feet that was me before she did that, but it was the bad parts that sank to the bottom and occasionally floated up and out just to scare small children and cute animals.’
‘See, you keep saying you have no personality, but you really do have a flair for both words and the dramatic.’
‘Not helping.’
‘Not trying to.’ We both almost laugh.
And then I talk. And he listens. It really is the most pathetic one-sided conversation, and I don’t even finish my fritters before he takes my plate back and keeps going, like he needs to refuel to continue listening to me blab.
About how I went to uni with Bee, but I never went to the parties for the science faculty but instead tagged along with Bee, so any friends I had were really Bee’s friends, and I was just the plus-one.
I’m not in touch with anyone from uni. Then after uni I wasn’t having any luck getting jobs, because science is a very general degree, but I wasn’t passionate enough about anything to go postgrad, so Bee got me the catering job because it would be fun to work together.
We’ve never even really worked together that much. Our hours are mostly opposite.
It was meant to be temporary while I figured myself out.
Cheeky cash to help me save up to move out.
That was over six years ago. And then I just never left because, well, money, and it was just so much easier than going for job after job and getting ghosted after attaching my CV and then filling out a bunch of boxes in the online application with identical information they could easily find if they opened the attachment.
And literally all of my boyfriends had some connection to Bee, which was a depressing realisation once I’d gone over my dating history.
I thought one or two had been my own thing.
And they really had ended very close to the end of Bee’s relationships, so Bee was never the single one, even though I often was.
I didn’t go out without Bee, because what would I do?
So, I spent so much time in that bloody apartment that I could barely afford, playing games because that was the only time I could get away with that before Bee would drag me away to do something else.
But at least I was getting my money’s worth on the rent.
Maybe Bee is doing me a kindness because she knows I have nothing interesting to say.
And that is an absolutely sobering realisation to have in a kitschy fake-rustic cafe on a non-descript Sunday.
‘And do you know how surly and rude I’ve been this week since I had this great epiphany?
What if that’s the core of this personality you’re so convinced I have?
What if the only part that’s actually me is the shit part?
I mean, you should know best. You saw it when we first met!
That’s the only explanation if my instinct in the face of adversity is just to become a raging anxious bitch. ’
He appears to be a bit further away now—has he actually inched away in case this spiral is leading towards violence? I should be used to that apprehensive look on people’s faces by now.
He says, ‘No one is just the shit part of themselves. Except like, dictators.’
I don’t dignify that with a response.
At some point, I don’t know when, Arthur clearly decided that we need to share some fairy-floss confection as a ‘dessert course’ for our breakfast. He also ordered me a camomile tea, which is presumptuous given that a coffee and tea order is a very personal thing but also smart because I really don’t need more caffeine.
My heart feels like it has beat enough for ninety years’ worth of life.
Does a heart have a finite number of beats?
If I use them all before my time’s up, will I just topple?
I can imagine the headline: Generic white woman passes away from natural causes. Except it would never make the news.
‘Sorry,’ he says through a mouthful of candied hotcake.
He swallows and I watch the lump travel down his throat.
What is he sorry for? What is that strange little grimace of guilt for?
He exhales. ‘I didn’t…I didn’t think. It would be a cop-out to blame the booze.
There’s a good lesson here about understanding the power of words and wielding them thoughtfully. ’
Is he serious? I trot out a decade of psychological intrigue and he’s like a walking inspirational-quote poster. ‘I’m so glad that this could be a teachable moment for you as well.’
He throws a piece of fairy floss at me. ‘Hmm, maybe you are just a nasty piece of work.’ There’s no heat in his words. It’s so different from how he spoke to me that first night.
‘Shut up. Okay, so now we’ve had all these revelatory revelations, what are we going to do about it?’
‘Was the heartfelt apology you just received—and entirely ignored, BTW—not what you were after here?’
‘I need you to fix me!’
‘What? Why me?’
‘Why the hell not you? You’re the one who did this to me! You opened up this box, and now you have to help me close it!’
Silence stretches between us. We’ve had terse silence. Ignoring silence. Calm and peaceable silence. This one is a plotting silence. I quite like that he’s not dismissing me out of hand but instead actually deeply considering what I have to say.
‘Right. So. What are your hobbies?’ he asks. Given the length of the silence, I was expecting a little more than this, but perhaps demanding for him to become my personal personality Yoda with no prior experience is a tall order. Maybe I should cut him some slack, see where he takes it.
‘I couldn’t even tell you.’ I’m aware I’m not giving him much to work with.