CHAPTER 13 #3
That’s what I can’t quite get to. I consider it for another five or ten minutes, coming up with no viable answers, until it starts raining.
Like, properly raining. As in, I have to bear-crawl on increasingly slippery rocks to escape the beach.
When I look back, my footprints have already disappeared into the sea.
Then it occurs to me that instead of wondering, I can simply ask the one person I know who actually understands why men act the way they do.
Conveniently, she’s currently housed in the bedroom next door.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the window of the sliding door on the way. After a quick trip to the bathroom, which results in only a marginal improvement to my drizzled-on hair, I knock gingerly at Bee’s closed door.
There is any number of potential adventures from which to choose here.
I am invited in and catch a glimpse of William’s bare ass.
There is no response, so I risk it and find them smack bang in the middle of something.
Or at the start. Or the end—I don’t think there would be much difference in the resulting trauma.
Or there is no response, and I walk away without answers, easy prey for a returning Arthur to jump (probably not literally, given last night).
I knock.
‘Come on in!’ She’s way too upbeat in the morning.
When I enter, she’s also alone, sitting up in bed, scrolling on her phone. ‘Where have you been?’ she asks. ‘You look like a drowned rat.’
‘It’s raining,’ I say. ‘Where’s William?’
‘The boys have gone to get coffee. Didn’t Arthur tell you?’
‘He was gone when I woke up.’
‘Oh, okay. I told them what to get you.’ (A flat white.)
‘Thanks.’
We sit in silence for a moment, although my mind is shouting. Bee has returned her attention to her phone. I’m in the middle of mustering up the courage to bring up The Kiss to Bee, knowing that there will be a whole host of questions I don’t have the answers to.
‘How was the rest of your night?’ she asks, not looking up.
This is the perfect lead-in. Funny you should mention that, Bee.
Everything was going swimmingly, until Arthur grabbed my face and smushed it against his in a manner that was a kiss in only the strictest technical sense, and even though it was objectively terrible for all parties, I kind of want to do it again, and I am wondering if that makes me weird, and I don’t know why he did it…
Can you please solve all my life problems? Pretty please?
I chicken out. ‘It was good. We watched Never Been Kissed.’
‘Great movie,’ she responds.
‘Mmm.’
You’ve got this, Gertie. You’ve got this. All you have to do is just open up your mouth and say Arthur kissed me. ‘So, I wanted to talk to you about something. Ask your advice, really.’
Good start. It gets Bee to look up from her phone. She scans my face for a second, almost as if she’s properly registering that I’m in the room. My eyes flick towards the door. Here’s hoping there’s a line at the coffee shop so I’ve got time to get this out. ‘So, last night…’
I don’t get any further. ‘Oh my God yes, I want to talk about last night too! Do you mind if I go first?’ She doesn’t wait for a response. ‘Okay, so, you know how there was the drama with the whole one-bed thing?’ How on earth could I forget?
‘You know that there was another…’ Does she not wonder where we slept?
‘Well, that was because William and I actually hadn’t slept together yet.’
Wait, what? ‘Wait, what?’
She looks bashful. ‘Yeah.’
‘But you spend like five nights a week at his place.’ And you’ve definitely made innuendos about how good the sex is. I didn’t imagine that, right? That’s not even to mention the groping. The groping!
‘Don’t be silly, Gertrude, it’s not that much.’ It is. ‘We’ve just been taking it slow. It’s romantic.’
‘His idea or yours?’
‘It was mutual.’ His, then.
‘Well, evidently the allure of only one bed at a secluded beach cottage ended that for you last night?’ Bee just smiles like I didn’t hear exactly how it ended over and over and over. She gives a little shy nod. I don’t ask how it was because I definitely already know.
Her phone buzzes and she turns back to it, typing furiously as she bites her lip to contain the huge grin spreading across her face.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that they waited until they had chaperones in the next room to do the deed; it’s like a nice full-circle moment for them.
As long as they’re not generally into having an audience and don’t have plans for me to be said audience, I can forgive (and try to forget) the thump thump thumping of it all when she looks so happy.
I wonder if Arthur knows, if he and William talk about that sort of thing.
Oh yeah. Arthur.
Speak of the devil. ‘We come bearing coffee!’ he calls out as the ancient screen door slams.
William appears in the open doorway. ‘Here’s your cap, babe,’ he says, handing Bee a large takeaway cup. He smiles at her in that way guys do when they’ve recently seen a woman naked: happy with just a hint of smug. Then he looks at me, stone-faced. ‘Arthur has yours in the kitchen.’
I am dismissed.
I contemplate going and hiding in the bedroom. I contemplate jumping out a window and making a run for it back to the beach. In the end, I really want my coffee.
That doesn’t mean I have to look him in the eye when I get it.
I thank the air just over his shoulder. We stand there, quietly sipping, definitely not looking at each other.
Maybe occasionally sneaking glances and then looking away when the other goes in for a glance.
And then my coffee is finished, and I’m not sure what to do with my hands, so I go to the fridge and start getting out the eggs we bought for breakfast.
Silently, we work together to make poached eggs with smashed avocado. The door to the Only One Bed has closed again, but apparently daytime soundproofing is superior, because I can’t hear any creaking.
He keeps touching me.
I can’t tell if it’s even a conscious thing.
True, this kitchen is small, and we both keep moving around it, hunting for cutting boards, cups, plates, pans.
Needing to go through every cupboard to get to what we need.
When I’m in front of something he needs, he places a hand on my lower back or my hip, a silent excuse-me (because we still haven’t said anything since my thank you).
It kind of feels like he lingers, fingertips brushing across the exposed skin between my pants and top, but it’s possible that time just slows down for me with every touch.
We four of us eat without speaking, only the awful sound of mouths chewing eggs to break the silence. We clean up, we lock up, we leave. Tina Arena is our driving companion for the trip home.
And it’s only about halfway through Chains that I realise something: I never did get a chance to ask Bee for her advice. I make a plan to do so when we get home, but William and Bee exit the car hand-in-hand when we get to his place, so I once again go back to our dark apartment by myself.
I wave goodbye to Arthur. (I fucking wave.) In the dark of the hallway, I think about it a little more.
I went into Bee’s room. I told her I wanted to talk about something.
I asked for her advice. And she immediately turned it around to herself.
And look, to an extent I can forgive that, because when you’re really excited about a big development in your life, you might get a little self-centred. It’s natural.
But I’ve realised that I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times it has happened between me and Bee.
She didn’t even remember that I had something to talk about.
She didn’t care.
When was the last time she asked me a question about myself? A proper one? It might have been when she asked me to date Arthur to make her life easier. And that wasn’t really about me at all. It was about her. And William.
I’m standing here, in the dark of our shared apartment that’s really my solo apartment and her storage locker, and now I’m mad.
I’m really really angry.