The Mistake

by Katie McMahon

  ‘But what about the Botox thing?’ Kate said, now. ‘“I just think it’s a shame she’s not aging gracefully”, and crap like that.’ She finished with her cheeks. ‘And can I just say, I’m definitely getting to the age where I’m going to have to fall back on my bone structure.’

  She wasn’t looking for reassurance. That was the thing. Kate knew how beautiful she was.

  Just then, Stuart came in and said that the kids had been disposed of – they were having a sleepover with Allie’s kids; Allie’s mum was in charge – and that they both looked gorgeous and to bugger off so he could have a shower. He gave Bec a little kiss on the lips as she left. It might have been nice to return it more enthusiastically, but she was too busy crossing her fingers about Mathilda’s bed-wetting and wondering whether she’d imagined things with the fire-eater.

  Kate and Bec repaired to another – equally ‘statement’ – bathroom. After she won her scholarship – ambitious, optimistic, idealistic, fifteen was how she’d described herself in her application – Bec used to ride her bike to school past the house that was now her home. The properties along the winding, beach-front avenue always held a vague sort of fascination for her. She used to wonder what sort of homes lay behind the tasteful, electrically operated gates, and what sort of lives were lived in them.

  Now she knew. Their gate opened onto an asphalt driveway that wound through very soft, very green lawns. It passed under old European trees and around terraced flower beds to arrive at their extensively (expensively) renovated 1931 house. From the driveway, you couldn’t quite see the lap pool, the raised vegetable beds, the new trampoline, the old rose garden or the gate that opened onto a private sandy path to the beach.

  It was all very lovely, and it made her feel scared and sick.

  Her ambitious, optimistic, idealistic, 15-year-old self hadn’t known anything about enormous mortgages.

  *

  It was 9.42 p.m. Bec was feeling a bit weary.

  ‘Everything going all right?’ she asked a black-aproned waitress, who was dispensing chorizo-and-prawn skewers off a slate tray.

  ‘Yes,’ said the waitress, blandly. Clearly, she was wondering who Bec was and why Bec was talking to her. ‘Would you care for a savoury prawn skewer?’ Bec shook her head and moved through the kitchen.

  Among the round plastic tubs of ice that stood on the floor of the butler’s pantry was a rather gormless-looking girl scraping plates into a bin, and a young man called Brody, who had multiple uncomfortable-looking piercings in his face but was the owner of the catering operation. Bec asked him if he had everything he needed, even though it was clear she was in his way.

  ‘Yes thanks, Rebecca.’ Presumably he had just finished a self-help book – or a YouTube tutorial, more likely – about getting ahead by remembering names. ‘And the entertainer was just in here,’ he added. The gormless girl jerked her head up. She had her tongue out; it was curled up, touching her top lip. ‘He was looking for you, Rebecca.’

  Bec was suddenly very much more awake. She still wasn’t sure whether Ryan had been flirting with her. It was sort of impossible to believe. Or did that just indicate she was ageist and had unfashionably low self-esteem?

  The gormless girl turned back to the bin. Bec checked her reflection in the mirror inside the spare mugs cupboard and then walked out into the kitchen, stepping aside for a waitress who was carrying a tray of delicious-smelling little patties made out of something unrecognisable. The waitress looked so unconsciously young and beautiful that Bec had to admit to feeling a bit hopeless for a second. Then she saw that Ryan was standing on the other side of the bench, staring not at the waitress, but at her.

  He was at least three inches taller than the man nearest to him, and was wearing a pair of low-slung, caramel-coloured cords which had been cut and left unhemmed just above his ankles. His feet were bare. His sleeves were short. Bracelets with tiny shells and turquoise beads circled his wrists. On the floor next to him was a large black box with a faded rainforest sticker on it. He was so self-contained and so handsome and so out of place and so very young that she felt an immediate stab of foolishness that she had even considered that he might want to sleep with her. Not that she’d seriously considered it. But her fantasies crashed up against reality in a way that made her extremely glad that fantasies were private. She very much hoped Kate wasn’t watching as she said, ‘Hello, Ryan.’

  ‘Hey there, Bec,’ he said. He smiled slowly, for all the world as if they’d just woken up together. She put a hand to her throat, removed it instantly, and managed to ask him if he needed anything and whether he knew where he was supposed to be.

  ‘All good,’ he said. ‘I’ll go set up.’ He raised a casual hand, and his T-shirt lifted enough for her to see his flat, tanned abdomen. ‘I’ll see you after, though, Bec.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ she said. There was a definite moment. He broke the eye contact first, but reluctantly, it seemed.

  She swallowed.

  Rebecca? said Stern Voice. May I remind you that when you sneeze, sometimes several drops of urine leak out?

  That made her pull herself together quick smart.

  Still. See you after. And he’d sounded as if he was looking forward to it.

  In the living area, she was relieved to see that the party was precisely as dim and exactly as noisy as fortieths should be. Snippets of conversation reached her ears: ‘apparently talks way too much about his own bowel flora and’ . . . ‘knows her digital footprint just terrifies me, but she’ . . . ‘No! He didn’t! She’d never even told him!’ Bec couldn’t help but notice that some of the guests were laughing as if they’d been under a lot of pressure at work lately.

  Near the door to the deck, the pretty waitress was offering prawn skewers to a handful of men that Stuart called the Old Guard. Bec could tell from everyone’s posture that they were asking her what she did when she wasn’t waitressing, or some nonsense like that. Bec sniffed tartly, even though, all things considered, she was perhaps not in a position to take the high moral ground. She went over.

  ‘Thanks so much for your help,’ she said to the young woman. Then she turned to the assembled men and said, ‘Now, Ted, what’s this I’ve been hearing about a new barbecue?’

  The waitress made brief eye contact with Bec. A man in a pair of navy-blue suspenders that cut into his chest fat took a skewer – ‘Thank you!’ – from the waitress’s tray, slid a plump prawn between his lips and contemplated her departing bottom. Then Ted talked about his new barbecue until Stuart – mercifully – arrived. He slipped his arm around Bec’s waist; his fingers rested on her tummy in an intimate, firm way that made her realise he’d had more to drink than usual.

  ‘Your lovely wife’s looking after us so well!’ said Blue Suspenders, interrupting Ted’s musings on the benefits of the six-burner system. ‘And when are you going to dance with her? It’s not everyone whose wife still has the body of an 18-year-old.’

  ‘Car park redevelopment’s as chaotic as expected, isn’t it?’ replied Stuart, in a tone that Bec recognised as being Middle Class for Shut up, cockhead, or I will deck you.

  ‘I think Miranda’s had a bit too much, just quietly.’ Blue Suspenders seemed in a poor position to criticise, but there was no doubt that Miranda – who Bec had known vaguely since university and who had once been fragile and elfin with fairy-floss hair – was very drunk. She was sitting on the edge of a potted lemon tree with her head bowed, her upper arms blotchy and her large white thighs well apart. ‘Always had a liking for the bubbly, Miranda did, just quietly,’ Blue Suspenders added.

  ‘I might pop over and see how she’s getting on.’ Bec used an amused voice, as if they were all in on a joke. She really behaved despicably sometimes. ‘Have a good night, gentlemen.’ Horrible men.

  As Bec moved away, Blue Suspenders said something else – something too quiet for her to catch – and the men (possibly even Stuart, it was hard to be sure) all laughed loud and unapologetic laughs. What were they
all even doing in her house?

  Ryan was suddenly visible over the edge of the balcony. He was standing by the terrace in the half-dark, doing something purposeful and fluid with long sticks and pieces of cloth. See you after. That had sounded very definite. Much more so than See you later.

  Once Bec had deposited Miranda safely in the front sitting room – she took the precaution of placing both a vomit bowl and a glass of water at Miranda’s elbow – she made her way back towards the noise of the party. Halfway along the corridor, Kate came fizzling out of a bathroom.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Kate said. The corridor was an oasis of quiet. They leaned against the wall, standing so close that their hips were touching.

  ‘Fine.’ Bec shrugged. ‘Just the usual. Don’t know how Stuart puts up with them.’ She adjusted her sleeve. ‘The fire-eater’s arrived.’

  ‘I saw him,’ said Kate, in that tone she could do.

  ‘He—’

  ‘Why did Stuart want a fire-eater?’

  ‘You know what Stuart’s like about parties. So—’

  Kate snorted. ‘Remember when he organised that whole Peter Rabbit thing?’

  About a year earlier, at Essie’s fourth birthday party, Stuart had organised a troupe of actors – dressed up as Mr Todd and so on – to chase the children around the garden. Essie’s little friends had been terrified; only Essie had shown any spirit. (‘Back to the burrow! Back to the burrow!’ she’d shouted, shepherding her screaming peers towards the hidey old mulberry tree.) Stuart had been infuriatingly preoccupied with something work-related that day; it was Kate, Bec and their mum who’d had to bring out the fairy bread prematurely to calm everyone down. To top it off, the actors needed to be paid cash, which Stuart of course hadn’t thought through, and while Bec was sorting that out, the radish-shaped profiterole cake collapsed. (‘Croquembouche down,’ her dad had muttered, like a fighter-pilot, which had made her mother start laughing. Bec had been far too frazzled to join in.) Still. Essie said it was her best party ever, which was great, even though all the kids said that every year, like the officials after the Olympics.

  ‘Can I just say one thing?’ said Kate. They turned to look at each other. ‘I have never slept with a fire-eater.’ She smiled her languid smile and tossed her hair.

  ‘I need to check on the deck.’ She really had no desire for yet another I’m-so-much-sexier-than-you-Bec conversation.

  See you after, she was thinking, as she walked away.

  Out on the deck, she stopped to talk to one of the school dads about the grade-six trip to Canberra, and gave a hectic chat-later-love-you smile to her parents. She was discussing how challenging it was going to be to keep internet porn away from their children with one of the book club mums, when she chanced a glance over the balustrade to the lawn.

  Ryan was standing in front of one of the terrace’s sandstone walls. The wall was lit from below with small brass lights; it loomed out of the dark lawn; his lean body was silhouetted against it. She heard herself breathe in. She felt free and reckless, like a river going over a waterfall. She was the cloud of droplets dispersed by its onward rush, the water and the spray and the plunge and the deep, dark pool at the bottom. She looked away.

  ‘And meanwhile, you’re praying they never get on a motorbike, aren’t you?’ she chirped, merrily. ‘Now, goodness. It’s ten already. And believe it or not, that means it’s time for a spot of fire-eating!’

  After that, it would be time to see him.

  *

  ‘And she’s up!’ Kate said.

  It was the next morning, and Bec had finally shuffled into the kitchen, pulling her dressing gown around her. Kate was drinking coffee at the dining table. Stuart was standing at the stove frying eggs.

  ‘Coffee?’ he said. ‘And of course you’ll have eggs.’ He was always way too chipper in the mornings. He cracked a couple more eggs into the frying pan.

  ‘Oh God, have you been for a run already?’ Bec asked him. She stood behind him and put her arms around his waist. His stomach was flat under his T-shirt, and she tried to feel appreciative: Stuart was not one of those gone-to-seed middle-aged men. ‘And yes, please.’ She kissed the back of his neck and sat next to Kate. At least the kitchen wasn’t too messy. The caterers had done a reasonably good job cleaning up.

  ‘How’d you sleep?’ Bec asked Kate. Kate had slept pretty well. They talked in a desultory, Sunday-morning way about the dancing and the left-overs and Kate’s flight back to Melbourne that afternoon and when the kids would be home.

  ‘Oh my GOD!’ said Kate, suddenly. ‘How sexy was that fire-eater?’

  ‘Not really my type,’ Bec said. She had actually practised that phrase in the mirror before coming into the kitchen. It came out pretty well. Stuart put a cup of coffee down in front of her and went back to the stove. Kate rolled her eyes.

  ‘She was always so conservative,’ she told Stuart. ‘Which is just as well for you, I s’pose.’

  Bec sipped her coffee. Demure as a doctor’s wife. Ha.

  ‘Not that you’re not attractive, Stuart,’ Kate went on, to his back. ‘You’re more the hardware-store-Father’s-Day-catalogue type, though. He’s more the Gucci.’

  Stuart laughed easily. He turned, leaned against the counter so he was facing the two women.

  ‘How’s your love life?’ he asked Kate.

  ‘Fine.’

  Bec would have sworn she felt Kate start, but her voice held the trace of a shrug.

  ‘Is there someone?’ Bec said. Someone particular, she meant. ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Kate. ‘But early days.’

  No doubt about it. Kate was definitely being cagey. Not like her at all.

  ‘He should come and visit,’ said Stuart. He threw a tea towel over his shoulder and gave the pan a brisk shake. He believed fried eggs shouldn’t get too crispy on the bottom. ‘Why didn’t you bring him last night?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Bec. ‘You never bring your hotties home to meet the family.’

  ‘Are you still not into the . . . hashtag relationship goals?’ Stuart raised his eyebrows at Bec and took a mischievous slurp of his coffee. ‘Madam Kate, will you ever stop torturing poor Melbourne men?’

  ‘Or is he just not into the social chit-chat?’ said Bec, getting the giggles. ‘Better things to do with your time together? Is it more just Netflix and Chill?’

  ‘You two do realise that you talk like repressed teenagers when your kids aren’t around?’ said Kate, and Stuart and Bec had a microsecond of shit-do-we-really? eye contact.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Bec. How very mortifying. She put on her most progressive, respectful-of-all-choices face. ‘But just to say, you know, if you wanted to invite him down, we’d love to meet him. Or anyone you like.’

  ‘’Course we would,’ said Stuart. He’d always had such a lot of time for Kate. ‘Bring him down soon. What’s his name? I’ll vet him for you.’

  ‘Adam,’ said Kate. ‘All right. Maybe. I’ll ask him.’ She tilted her head, one way, then the other, as if she had a crick in her perfect neck. ‘Thanks, that might be nice.’

  The only sound was the eggs frying and the fan above the stove. Bec sipped her coffee and looked out over the Derwent.

  *

  It had been a great party. People had wondered aloud why on earth they’d never thought of having a fire-eater; she was pretty sure that Ryan was about to be besieged by Sandy Bay residents booking him for their next ‘event’. There were rhapsodies about the espresso van that arrived at eleven. At least two dozen people were dancing on the deck at 1 a.m. and several couples who’d been planning to drive home took Ubers. Even Kate – on her way to bed at almost three – commented that it was one of the best parties she could remember. ‘Which is a miracle, really,’ she’d added, with a yawn. ‘Considering who you had to work with.’

  Stuart had almost had tears in his eyes when he made his speech. He’d thanked Bec for ‘making his world’. Allie had listened with her hand flat
against her chest and her head tilted a little bit to one side. He was such a lovely husband, but listening to him, Bec had felt a wave of something else, too: something unfamiliar and unexpected. Something that was close to pity.

  Because. Even though the whole party thing was moderately satisfying, and even though people were looking at her as if she was the luckiest – and even, inexplicably, the most admirable – woman in the universe, she was really just waiting for the formalities to wind up so she could see Ryan.

  He had finished his ‘bit’ as he called it. He packed up while the speeches were going on, and then stayed to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ – it was that kind of night; even the catering staff were singing – and finally he was following her along the corridor to the front door. Even once the party noise lessened, their footsteps were inaudible on the clean beige carpet. They stood together just inside the doorway. He looked so comfortable, and somehow real against the spotless walls.

  ‘Won’t your feet be cold?’ she asked him as she was about to undo the deadlock. He just shook his head. She couldn’t help but be aware that he was standing quite close to her. Was that just what twenty-something people did?

  ‘Well, thank you again,’ she said. As brightly interested as a business-class flight attendant. And so cringingly polished, with her clever, grown-up social skills.