Chapter 17 #2
“How’s Bella?” Danika asks. She doesn’t want to presume there was no fallout from her reconnection with Cami. It’s a strange age, nine, not a small child, the fight for independence already starting, but not yet full of hormones and the influences they bring.
“Good.” Kim’s face lights up, her eyes shining in the low light.
“Those months when she refused to see Cami, she wasn’t herself.
It was like a piece of her was missing—strange, when the girls had only met so recently.
But Bella…floated. Sort of lost. She refused to play soccer.
Her excuse was that she might run into Cami, but I think it was more that she was dissociating herself in the fullest way she knew.
She hated netball—the alternative she chose—but she’s stubborn.
She wouldn’t give up. Now though, she glows. She’s got her confidence back.”
“I’m so glad,” Danika says. “You know, when we told the two of them, I worried it would be Cami who took it hard. But no. She was so happy. I think it was that she lost her dad, but suddenly, there was a piece of him, a piece of family, that she’d gained.
She was devastated when Bella refused to see her. ”
“I’m sorry about that. But I had to let her decide.”
“No apology necessary.” Danika places her hand on Kim’s arm. Her skin feels good. But it’s the fact that she notices this that startles her.
She touches Mirza all the time, her mum, other friends. She doesn’t notice how their skin feels. But Kim is smooth, soft, maybe from lotion, maybe she just is. Danika flexes her fingers experimentally. Kim has fine, sun-bleached hairs on her forearms. They, too, are soft. She removes her hand.
She takes a breath and tells Kim a story about her work.
One of the two orthopaedic surgeons she works for—a brilliant man, but austere and intimidating—had two patients, both called John, having the same operation on the same day.
Somehow, the surgeon muddled the notes, so that John One’s report talked about his left knee, and John Two about his right. But it was the other way around.
Danika had noticed and had to summon her courage to email him about his mistake. Surprisingly, the doctor had thanked her, and then sent a gift voucher because she’d saved him from embarrassment.
“Did he actually operate on the wrong knee?” Kim stares wide-eyed.
“No. There are many checks to ensure that doesn’t happen. It was just in his dictation.”
“Do you like that?” Kim rests her chin on her hand. “Typing medical reports?”
Danika shrugs. “It’s work. I can do it at whatever time of day I want, and it pays quite well.
But no, it’s dull at times. There’s a lot of repetition.
I’d go for another job—some other sort of medical admin work—but I’ve worked for this practice for nearly twelve years.
I doubt I’d get the same money if I had to start over elsewhere. ”
“Job security is important. That’s something I have little of. My business suffered the first couple of months after Chris went missing. After all, sorting through someone’s mouldy winter coats was simply not important compared to a missing partner. Now though, I’m back where I was.
“The hardest thing is storage. St Kilda’s a lovely place to live, but sometimes, I end up with things that the owner doesn’t want, and they’re sellable.
My contract states that anything that isn’t wanted becomes mine to dispose of or sell.
I’ve had to let extremely good furniture go to the op shop because I had nowhere to put it while I ran an ad or arranged for an auction house. ”
“That’s one reason I like where I live,” Danika says. “Lots of space. House blocks are big—especially in old houses like mine. And I like the green space and the trees.”
“I know what you mean. We used to go camping sometimes, before—” She stops. Takes a mouthful of wine. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to keep harking back to Chris. My ties to him are unravelling so fast. But yeah, we used to love going camping.”
“Where did you go?”
“Our favourite place was down in the Otways west of Melbourne. A grassy area by a wild beach. We’d try to go during the week so it was less crowded.
Bella loved it. She’d run along the beach, the wind lifting her hair, her arms outstretched like wings, fingertips fluttering.
She said she was trying to touch the wind. ”
“I love that visual.” Danika, too, takes a mouthful of wine. “I’ve never been camping, nor has Cami. We booked holiday units and so on for our holidays, ones with a solid roof!”
The server arrives with their meals and places them in the middle of the table.
Danika spoons some curry onto her plate with rice. “I’d offer to share, but…meat. I’m sorry; I should have ordered something vegetarian.”
“Don’t be. I have plenty here. Make sure you try some.”
They chat while they eat the food and sip the wine. Snippets of their lives to date, holidays they’ve had, and hobbies they intend to take up when they have more time. For Danika it’s pickleball. Kim wants to try kite surfing while she still has the core muscles to make it possible.
Danika pushes back from the table, pats her stomach. “I’m full as a goog. Can’t eat another bite.”
Kim laughs. “Me too.” She pours water from the carafe on the table and drinks.
Danika does the same. “Where’s the wine bar you mentioned? Do we walk or call an Uber?”
“It depends on how energetic you feel. It’s in the next suburb, Elwood. It’s a small place just back from the beach. A great wine list, very rustic. Soft music. I like it. It’s maybe a fifteen-minute walk.”
“Let’s walk,” Danika says. Her legs are twitchy, restless, and she’d like to walk off some of the fantastic meal.
“Great.” Kim stands and together they go to the counter to pay the bill, splitting it evenly.
It’s still quite early, and the long Melbourne twilight washes over the street, painting the houses pink. They cut through the park, take a side road and walk in silence until Kim turns onto a busier street.
The wine bar is narrow and goes back a long way before it opens up into a courtyard.
Danika peruses the wine list and settles on a glass of pinot noir.
Kim selects a cabernet. Without debate, they weave their way to the back of the narrow room and out into the courtyard.
There are a few couples, and a solitary middle-aged man in a suit fiddling with his phone.
He looks as if he’s waiting for someone, as he keeps glancing toward the door.
“It’s lucky we revised our original idea,” Danika says. She nudges Kim companionably. “We’re not likely to meet a potential date here.”
“Wait a while. It gets busier. But you’re right. This is a sit, chat, drink fine wine sort of place. Not a pickup joint.” She tilts her head and regards Danika. “Maybe we should try speed dating.”
“No way!” Danika is sure her face reflects her horror. Trying to force a connection with someone in only a few minutes is her idea of hell. And what if at the end of it all, no one wants to match with you? “Would you do that?”
“I did once, a long time ago. I matched with two people, dated one for a few weeks before it petered out.”
“So in an ideal world, when the time is right, what sort of person would you like to meet?” Danika finds she’s really curious as to the answer.
Scratch that. She’s really curious about Kim, and in a way that goes beyond the girls and their connection through them. She wants to know about Kim, full stop.
Kim sucks her upper lip. “Curious about the world, not someone who lives in their own tiny bubble. Sense of humour.” She rolls her eyes.
“And I know that most people who want that in a partner have zero sense of humour themselves. While they don’t have to share my political or religious views, I wouldn’t get along with an extremist zealot on either side.
And of course they’d have to be open to children. ”
“What about age or how they look?”
“Honestly, I’m open. The connection is the important thing.” Kim tilts her head. “What about you?”
“Someone with their own interests. I don’t want to be smothered, and if I don’t share them at the start, that’s fine.
Maybe we’d get to enjoy them together later, maybe not.
But obviously, someone who wants to spend time with me.
Likes candlelit dinners and walks in the rainforest.” Her lips twist. “I’m joking about those.
But a man who sees me for who I am, and isn’t expecting a woman to be his servant. ”
With a start, she realises that until she mentioned gender, the description could fit Kim. But then, it could fit many people.
“Excuse me, ladies.” It’s the man who’d been sitting alone.
“I couldn’t help but hear part of your conversation.
” He smiles showing large teeth. “It seems my date has stood me up. I wonder if I could butt in here.” He focuses his gaze on Kim.
“Your list of requirements in a partner describes me perfectly. I wonder if I may join you?”
He turns toward Kim, so that Danika is looking at his back. Rude.
Kim gives a polite smile. “We’re fine, thank you.”
“Let me buy you a drink. They do a fine shiraz here. It’s mouthwatering—just like you.”
Danika eyes him. What a creep. Although she shouldn’t presume that Kim thinks the same.
“No thank you,” Kim says evenly. “We’re enjoying our evening by ourselves.”
“That’s not what I heard,” the man says. “Describing how you want a man in your life. One like me who—”
“Did I say man?” Kim says in saccharine tones. “How silly of me.”
Danika’s heard enough. She moves her chair around the table so that she’s next to Kim.
Close to Kim. She puts an arm around her shoulders and pulls her in, presses a kiss on her cheek, then winds one of the stray wisps of hair around her finger.
“You heard wrong. My wife and I are enjoying our night out.”
The man’s mouth purses then relaxes. “Let me buy both of you a drink and see where the evening goes.”
“No,” says Danika. “Please leave us alone. You’re interrupting our evening.”
With a huff, the man turns and stalks back to his table. He sits so he can watch them.
“Bloody creep,” Danika says.
Kim moves closer so that she’s snug under Danika’s arm. “Thank you for saving me, wife.”
“My pleasure. I’m very sure you could have got rid of him by yourself, but I saw red.” She sighed. “And of course, your being ‘taken’ shouldn’t be the deciding factor in his backing off. Your ‘no’ should be enough.”
Kim’s hand drops to Danika’s thigh, and she squeezes. A trail of sparks runs up her leg, fiery enough that she nearly gasps. Oh!
“You’re right, and I could have, but your way is much more fun. Except”—she brings her mouth close to Danika’s ear—“now we have to keep up the act, or go somewhere else.”
Danika is lightheaded with glee. She giggles and puts her hand over Kim’s. “I’ve nearly finished my glass, and it was such a good wine. It also was definitely not a shiraz. Would you like another glass of not-shiraz?”
“I’d love one.”
Danika stands. “Don’t talk to strange men while I’m gone.”