CHAPTER 9 #2
‘No, this is a different sorry. That one was a specific sorry for not considering the ice skating, but I need to give a much wordier apology for having just dumped the cost of the karaoke on you without you even having consented to the activity and spend in the first place. I literally just spent your money without thinking. I’m sorry for being presumptuous. ’
As apologies go, that’s a pretty good one. Acknowledged the action and the hurt caused, apologised without qualifications. Has he listened to a podcast on active listening or accountability or some shit as well? There isn’t much I can do but accept it. ‘Thank you. I really appreciate that.’
And then he goes and ruins it. ‘Don’t worry about transferring me.’
‘I’m not trying to get out of paying,’ I say.
Logically, I probably should accept him at his word.
But I can’t. I wish for so many things. To be in my late twenties and have a regular job with regular hours and a respectable salary.
To not have to stress just that little bit more in winter because there are fewer events and therefore fewer hours to go around.
To be able to treat myself to a bit more cheeky takeaway or not worry about getting an Uber back after a night out (or not have to worry about the general financial implications of just one night out).
I would love to know what draws everyone to those fancy Pilates joints, but I can’t justify forking out thirty-five dollars for one class.
I wish I could take sick leave without sacrificing two hundred dollars from my pay. Or go on holiday.
I know these are not real problems. I have a home.
I have food. No needs are on the chopping block with the way I live.
But there is something about living so tantalisingly close to a certain life but not being able to reach out and grab it.
To walk out onto an Albert Park street and see little luxuries scattered everywhere, to occasionally get a taste through Bee, just enough to keep me hooked until the next hit.
‘No, of course you’re not,’ Arthur says, snapping me out of my perverse pity party.
‘Think of it as my dickhead tax. My investment in learning a lesson in douchebaggery.’ And look, he’s laying it on a little thick, swooping in like my white knight to fix a problem he caused himself.
But it’s nice to have a considerate friend.
(Just a friend.) I think of mani-pedis for some reason, but I can’t for the life of me make the connection.
‘Thank you,’ I say, partly because I can’t be bothered with the inevitable circular argument my continued denial would set in motion.
I hear him exhale deeply. Relief? ‘Do we need to stop doing all of this then and finally shove the happy couple out of the nest and into the big wide world?’
‘No!’ I exclaim, baffling myself. That’s exactly what I was angling for ten minutes ago.
‘You’re a very contradictory person. I think we’ve learnt this much about you.’
‘It’s just…I’m not ready to let go of this weird journey you and I are on together.
I really feel like it’s doing something…
or it could, if we keep going.’ As the words leave my mouth, I realise that they’re true.
More real than my anxiety over fake dates, anyway.
I should be selfless and set him free, but I think he will need to be the one to let me go.
‘It’s definitely already doing something!
’ I think I detect a hint of pride there.
‘Okay, how about this? We’ll continue, but I will now be on a personal mission to choose cost-effective or free activities.
I will also alert you to any and all activities ahead of time for the raising of objections.
You, in turn, will give me your roster so that you’re not forced to swap and cancel shifts to make this work. ’
Is it really that simple? ‘We can’t just revolve all of this around me!’
‘Why the hell not? If the others want to do something else at another time, they are more than welcome to do it themselves and stop involving us. But you and I, we will revolve around you.’
Hard to argue with that.
He sends me an honest-to-God survey to determine suitable date activities, times and budgets. I send back a gif of a nerd pushing up his glasses and make him wait two days for a response. I only cave after he sends a follow-up request because my ‘feedback matters to us’.
He then refuses to give me the results of the survey, stating that the element of surprise is still crucial to his plans.
Bee and I are instructed to be ready at ten o’clock on Sunday morning and to wear comfortable athletic wear and closed-toe shoes.
This doesn’t put my mind at ease. Will there be something that can bite my toes?
I’m driving, and Bee is texting in the passenger seat next to me. ‘William is going to bring coffee for us. Do you want your flat white?’ I say yes. ‘Did you know that he texts me “good morning” every day?’
I do know; Bee already told me twice last week.
‘It seems like you really like him, Bee. And that he likes you.’
‘I know it’s early, and you probably think we’re rushing into things…’ They are still going on chaperoned double dates. I do not, in fact, think they are rushing anything. ‘But it just feels right.’
I’m hit with a wave of déjà vu and try to keep my hands tight on the wheel.
‘I know I’ve said that before. I’ve found my happily ever after at least half a dozen times at this point,’ she chuckles, self-deprecating, with a bashful smile on her glossed lips. ‘But this feels so different to all those other times, so that’s how I know that this time it’s real.’
‘Different how?’ I ask, and I’m really not just making conversation.
I’m hanging on Bee’s every word. What I wouldn’t give for that kind of certainty—even the kind of certainty that comes from meeting The One half a dozen times in a row.
Just in case the sixth time’s the charm, I’m going to keep on asking.
Bee ponders for a moment. ‘It’s hard to say,’ she says.
Unhelpful. Uninformative. Try again, Bee.
(I don’t say this; I put on my indicator to turn left.) ‘I guess it’s just the little things.
Like wishing me a good morning, and remembering my coffee order, and genuinely listening to what I have to say.
’ Perhaps William has hidden depths beyond his first, second and third impression.
I make a commitment at this moment to try harder with him, because it seems like he’s sticking around.
‘Doesn’t hurt that he’s stupid hot, either, I suppose.’
Bee laughs. ‘That doesn’t hurt at all.’
But there is one thing that has been nagging at me. ‘You have to admit the “William” thing is a little weird, though.’
‘What do you mean, the William thing?’ Bee looks genuinely confused. Which takes me an even further step towards confounded.
‘How he refuses any kind of nickname for William. And he insists on calling you Bianca at all times.’ I really want to ask if he is that formal in bed, but the question seems a bit out of pocket. Arthur would find it funny.
‘I hadn’t really noticed.’ Oh shit, have I shattered the glass and pointed out the one thing that would annoy Bee about William forever? ‘But that’s just an adult relationship, Gertrude. You’ll understand one day.’
We fall silent again while Bee replies to William. ‘Also,’ Bee says, looking at my old black leggings, ‘We really need to get you some new activewear. That old sports bra is giving you uniboob.’
We arrive at a rock-climbing wall, and I nearly hop right back in the car to drive home.
I watch Bee run up to William, ponytail swinging in the breeze behind her, and throw her arms around his neck.
He holds the cardboard tray of coffee cups out to the side to avoid spilling them and wraps his other arm around her waist (naughtily close to her ass, if anyone asks me).
William offers her one of the cups on the tray and they stand there, sipping their coffee and chatting softly.
Mine is getting progressively colder so I join them to relieve him of another cup.
This is it, Gertrude. Time to Make An Effort with your best friend’s The One.
‘Hey, Will…iam!’ I really need to get better at that. ‘How are things?’ Titillating. Riveting. How am I not constantly at the centre of things with such telegenic conversational prowess? It truly boggles the mind.
He smiles, but if I had to read something into it (and I definitely do; there is no doubt that this is a key hallmark of who I am as a person, for better or worse), I would have thought that it was not remotely genuine.
It’s my fault, though. I haven’t given him much of a reason to warm up to me.
Which he will, now that I’m Making an Effort.
‘Things are good, thanks Gertrude.’ He tips his coffee cup at me.
‘I was just telling Bianca about my upcoming week in Hamilton Island.’
‘Oh, cool! That sounds amazing.’
‘Yeah, it will be.’ Come on, Gertie, he’s handing it to you. Just talk about him and his holiday. People love talking about themselves. He’ll be eating out of the palm of your hand.
‘So great that you’ll get to see the reef while it still has some colour left in it, right? I read somewhere there’s going to be something like eighty per cent bleaching in the next twenty years, and…’
He frowns. Wait, what did I say? How have I already fucked this up? ‘I don’t think that’s correct,’ he says.
‘I’m sure that’s what they said…’ Was it, though? Now I’m not so sure. But I said it with so much conviction, didn’t I?
‘No.’ Just no. Actually, not just no. William has now handed his cup to Bee to get out his phone. Wait, is he googling it?
And then Bee turns to me with just the worst look of condescension on her face. ‘William is probably right. He’s very well informed about current events.’
Urgh. I’m going to be thinking about this painful exchange at three in the morning five years from now.