How to Be Second Best

by Jessica Dettmann

  I must have gone oddly quiet, as I try to breathe my way through the envy and the sudden panic that this is it, that I’ll never leave Shorewood again, because Philip says, ‘Emma, I’m sorry, I really am distracting you from your work. I’ll let you get back to it.’

  Reluctantly I agree. ‘I suppose I had better figure out if a trundler is a person or a type of bowling. Maybe I’ll see you at Wanda’s book launch, if we ever get there?’

  ‘It will happen,’ he says confidently. ‘She will pull it all together in the end. And I think a trundler is an old, slow bowler. Someone who’s a bit past it.’

  The call leaves me a bit dejected. I think I’m a trundler. I’m certainly not getting through the cricket book at any great speed, and I can’t stop thinking about all the places in the world I haven’t travelled and probably never will.

  I give in to all distractions now, and by two-thirty I have done three loads of laundry and hung them out, made a chicken pie, stalked Helen on Instagram and Adam’s wife, Ilse, on Facebook. I’ve not edited nearly enough pages.

  As I go to leave the house to pick up the kids, my phone buzzes with a text. It’s Adam. I get a crazy little jolt of joy.

  Hey Emma, do you know Suze Someone-Someone at the school? She has got me involved in a Fun Run thing. Are you helping too? It would be more fun if you were. A.

  Well shit, I think. No sooner have I escaped Suze’s clutches than I need to find a way back into them. I realise two things: I’m going to have to execute a human version of a reverse swing bowl, and I’ve learned more about cricket in one day than I have in thirty-six years.

  * * *

  After school, I spot Adam in the playground. I head over and hand him Bon’s hat.

  ‘Bloody hell, where did you find that? Bon said he looked everywhere for it.’

  ‘He didn’t look in the Lost Property.’

  ‘I’ve already bought him a new cap, but I suppose it’s good to have a back-up.’

  A cap. Bon’s got a cap. He’s a whole year younger than Tim but he has a parent who hasn’t taken a lunatic stance against caps and so now he’s going to be a cool kid.

  Tim, on the other hand, is being raised by me, and for some reason I’ve decided that this is the parenting hill I want to die on. I don’t know why I get my mind so set on things like this. Maybe it’s in my DNA. Dad’s been known to drive to three different supermarkets if they don’t have the brand of spreadable butter he likes.

  But it’s not too late to change, is it?

  ‘Yeah,’ I say to Adam, very casually. ‘I think I might get Tim a cap too. I’ll just have to get him to learn to reapply sunscreen to the back of his neck before recess and lunchtime. And really properly rub it into his ears. I think the boys might have won this round.’

  ‘What round? What do you mean “they’ve won”?’

  ‘They chucked their daggy hats away so we’d have to buy them new ones, because they decided they both wanted caps.’

  ‘Did they?’ Adam sounds quite delighted. ‘The little pair of shits!’

  ‘It’s not really a laughing matter. This may be the start of a slippery criminal slope,’ I say.

  ‘It might be. From here they might start not giving back all the change from their lunch orders.’

  ‘Or deliberately leaving the caps off pens.’

  ‘Or swapping sandwiches with kids who have white bread.’

  ‘Now you’re just being silly. Nobody brings white bread to this school. I think it’s banned, like nuts and weapons.’

  He laughs and I engage in a little internal air-punching.

  ‘Oh,’ I tell him. ‘I got your text about Suze Albion-Davies. She’s pretty ferocious. I think I’m helping out too, with the Fun Run.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he says. ‘Sounds like it will be more fun with a friend. And I’ve also been meaning to ask you — are you guys going on this family camping thing? Is that something worth doing?’

  The family camping thing is something I’ve been mulling over. It’s a completely optional camping trip that’s vaguely organised under the auspices of the school. The school doesn’t really have much to do with it but it’s advertised through the newsletter and it’s just families from the school who go.

  The venue is a bit of bushland on a river, several hours’ drive west. We didn’t go last year, but Tim’s been asking about it a lot lately. A few kids from his class are going, and some families from our street. It takes place on a weekend when I’ll have the kids. There’s no real reason why we shouldn’t do it. Unless you count the fact that camping with children is completely awful as a reason. And that I would be, I think, the only single mother going.

  From what I can gather, last year several dads went with their kids while their wives went on a spa weekend to the wine country a little bit past the campsite, but I haven’t heard of any women doing it sans husband.

  Even thinking like this makes me want to give myself a swift kick up the arse. I am better than this. I can absolutely take my kids camping without a man. You don’t need a penis to erect a tent. And my kids deserve to experience the great Australian outdoors. They’re too cooped up where we live. Their eyes are probably damaged from never seeing faraway vistas — they will have developed suburban myopia from never being more than two metres from the next object they need to focus on. Wide open spaces are what they need, and a bit more freedom.

  I’m always with them. They never get a chance to really be independent and make their own choices about what to play with and how close to go to murky waterways and whether to put their hands into dark rotting logs or whether that is a stick or a snake and oh God this a terrible idea. No way are we going camping.

  ‘I’m considering it,’ I say to Adam, my desire to seem cool once again overriding every ounce of sense I possess. ‘It looks like it could be fun. How about you?’

  ‘I thought we might go if you guys were going. You’re kind of my only parent friend, so far.’ He looks a little bit sheepish.

  ‘I know some people who are going, but not many. They’re mostly not terrible. Shall we brave it? I think they close the bookings in a couple of days.’

  ‘Why not?’ Adam looks excited. ‘I’ll need to buy a tent. Do you have camping gear?’

  Do we have camping gear? The answer to this is yes, in spades.

  When Tim was two, just before I got pregnant with Freya, we all went camping. It was a two-night trip, and what Troy spent on equipment would have paid for a week at a five-star resort in Fiji. But it was an investment, he kept saying. He pictured us becoming one of those families who went camping all the time, at the drop of a hat. Because once you have the gear, it’s so easy! You just toss it in the back of the car, and off you go.

  Unless, that is, you’ve bought so much gear that it doesn’t fit in your car. Then you have to spend a couple of thousand bucks having roof racks installed so you can strap a sort of fibreglass coffin to the top of your stuffed car, which you fill with more camping paraphernalia.

  Because the camping gear was a year old when Troy left me, and no longer bright and shiny, he gave it to me as part of the settlement. Well, he just ditched it and moved on, really. It’s all still in the Spidery Shed of Doom that lurks in the weedy corner of my back garden. From memory, there’s a two-room, eight-man tent. I don’t know how many kids Troy thought he and I were going to have, but we certainly never discussed more than two, so the size of this nylon McMansion was and is something of a mystery to me.

  There’s also a set of camping bunk beds. Yes, camping bunk beds. They weigh about forty-five kilograms, and you have to build them when you want to use them and then disassemble them afterwards. They’re not unlike an actual set of bunk beds, except they have an uncomfortable fabric sling to lie on instead of slats and a mattress. That’s pretty much the only concession to them being camping bunk beds and not just bunk beds. They are absurd. They are under no circumstances coming on another camping trip with me, ever. I’d sooner pack the sofa.

/>   Then there is a four-burner camping stove, some collapsible chairs, a few tables, a galvanised tin washtub and a huge quantity of clattery enamelware plates and mugs, because plastic ones, while sure, you can do the washing up without sounding like you are practising the carillon, didn’t fit in with the lumberjack-shirt-wearing, neat-whisky-from-a-tin-mug, sling-up-a-hammock-between-two-trees sort of vibe Troy had envisioned. So there’s also a pair of hammocks, because when you take a two-year-old camping there’s so much chance of you both getting to lie in a hammock and gaze up at the gum leaves.

  Troy did manage to put in some hammock time, the one occasion we actually went camping and used all this stuff. He spent an hour putting it up, and then was so cranky he retired to it for the rest of the afternoon, while I scuttled around after Tim, who was going through a particularly suicidal phase, as many two-year-olds do, where he wanted to run with sharp sticks, trip over guy ropes, choke on small rocks, fall into fires and drown in rivers, preferably all at once.

  But that was a long time ago. My current situation has three distinct advantages over my life back then: Tim is six and very sensible; Freya is three and not at all like Tim was at two; and Troy won’t be coming. I think it might be time to reclaim camping, starting with getting a much, much smaller tent.

  ‘I have some camping gear,’ I tell Adam. ‘But I’ll need to get a new tent. Apart from that, I’m pretty much set. How about you?’

  ‘We don’t have any of our stuff with us, but I’ll get a little tent, and a couple of sleeping bags and I reckon that’ll do,’ he says. ‘If you’ve got a stove, maybe we can join up and split the catering? I mean, it’s only one night. A few cans of baked beans and some frankfurters, a box of cereal and some long-life milk, that’s basically it, right? Oh, and those shake-up pancakes where you just add water.’

  He makes it sound easy. And fun. This is not the camping preparation I remember. Where are the elaborate braised meat dishes to be cooked over coals for hours and hours in a cast-iron camp oven? What about lugging separate containers of flour, baking powder and eggs to make waffles in a vintage campfire waffle-iron Troy sourced from www.insufferablehipsters.com?

  I can do this. A small tent that I can put up easily by myself, and a selection of the least ridiculous items from the Spidery Shed, and we’ll be on our way. Without the car roof coffin.

  It’s not a date, I remind myself. Of course it isn’t. He’s married. But the idiot butterflies in my stomach won’t be told. Sometimes I think those butterflies are only interested in one thing.

  * * *

  In one of those weird moments of synchronicity that come along every so often and make you wonder if perhaps there isn’t a force other than chaos arranging things here on earth, when I drop Lola home that evening after her gymnastics class, Troy asks me about our camping gear.

  ‘Is that all still in the shed?’ he asks, sipping a foul khaki-coloured juice as he stirs a barley risotto on the stove. ‘Oh, and do you want to try this? It’s a new smoothie combo we’re trialling: pineapple and pea. We’re going to call it Peanapple.’

  That is a terrible name. Who is in charge of marketing in that place?

  ‘No, I’m okay, thanks,’ I say. ‘Do you mean is it all still in my shed? Because yes, it is, on account of how it’s now my camping gear.’ Troy brings out the very pettiest part of me, every time.

  ‘I know it’s yours, I was just wondering, if you aren’t going to be using it, if we could borrow it — not this weekend, and not the next one, but the one after that.’

  For a second I’m sure that’s the school camping weekend. Surely he’s not planning to go on the school camping weekend? But then I do the maths and realise that’s a week earlier. He’s talking about the weekend of the Fun Run.

  ‘Where are you going camping?’

  ‘There’s this amazing festival on down south,’ he says, and takes another sip of juice. There’s the smallest grimace as he swallows. ‘I’m a sponsor, so we thought we’d take the kids and camp there.’

  I’m suspicious. ‘What kind of festival? Like a music festival? That doesn’t sound very child-friendly.’ The last time I went to a festival the image I was left with was a girl leaning over to vomit, her skirt accidentally hitched up into her G-string, while her friends used her back to spread out their map of the festival grounds. It’s not quite what I had in mind for my kids just yet.

  ‘It’s amazing — totally family-friendly. In fact it’s designed for kids. You’ll have heard of it — it’s called Yeah Baby Yeah Festival?

  I have not heard of it.

  ‘Is it new?’

  ‘No, they ran it last year, and it was huge. It totally blew up on Instagram.’

  Oh, that’s where it’s famous.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Tell me more about it.’

  ‘Well it’s just like the festivals we used to go to, but there are no drugs, the booze is really good quality — like there are about nine artisanal gin companies coming, and all these microbreweries — amazing food trucks, mass yoga classes, cool bands, and then all this brilliant stuff for the kids, like jumping castles and face-painting, and everyone dresses up and you camp in a big field beside it. It’s just overnight.’

  ‘Sounds right up your alley. How does Helen feel about taking care of three kids for the weekend, because presumably you’ll be networking and selling juice to people a lot, won’t you?’

  ‘She’s looking forward to it. She loves the kids, you know that. And I won’t really be working — I’ll be there to help. So, can I grab the camping stuff for it?’

  ‘Knock yourself out,’ I say. ‘The kids will be experts by then, because as a matter of fact I’m taking them actual camping, in the bush, the weekend before that. With no food trucks. You’ll have to wait until after the Fun Run, though, before you head off.’

  ‘Oh shit, is the Fun Run that weekend?’

  ‘Yes it is. Tim’s really excited to run it with you.’

  ‘Right, cool, yeah we’ll go after the run. Wouldn’t miss running that with my boy. And thanks for the loan of the camping gear. You’re the best.’

  ‘Well, second best,’ I say.

  Troy’s smile fades and he gives me a look I suspect he means to be longing and wistful. ‘Hey, don’t be like that. You know how hard this has been for me.’

  A few months ago, I would have, if not melted, then at least defrosted a little at this sort of thing. But those days are over.

  ‘No it hasn’t. You can knock off that bullshit, Troy. You moved on. End of story. Don’t try and string me along, and don’t try to get my sympathy. I’m done with that.’

  He looks genuinely surprised. ‘But you know I love you, right? Nothing’s ever going to change that.’

  ‘Are you insane?’ I ask him. ‘You divorced me and married Helen. That changed it.’

  ‘Not for me,’ he says softly. ‘Part of my heart will always belong to you, Emma.’

  I feel a bit sick. I don’t think he’s right in the head. Thank God he’s finally started seeing a counsellor.

  ‘That’s a weird and wrong thing to say to your ex-wife, Troy. If that’s really how you feel, and I actually doubt it is, it’s something you need to discuss with your therapist. It’s not something you can mention to me, ever again.’

  ‘Love is never wrong, Emma.’

  I have to get out of here. He’s just going to keep saying things like that until I do.

  ‘Tim, Freya! We’re going,’ I call.

  Helen walks into the kitchen, carrying her laptop. ‘Emma, I didn’t know you were still here.’

  ‘I’m just heading off. I was hearing about the festival.’

  Troy interrupts, ‘Hellie, Em’s cool with us taking the camping gear. She’s going camping the weekend before the festival too, so she can troubleshoot any tent issues or whatever.’

  ‘Are you?’ says Helen. She raises an eyebrow. ‘Who with?’

  This rankles. Why assume I’m going with anyone?
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br />   ‘The school,’ I say. ‘A bunch of families from school.’

  ‘Including Adam?’

  ‘Who’s Adam?’ Troy asks.

  ‘Adam’s Emma’s new friend,’ says Helen, in the tone of a person who is quite close to chanting something about being in a tree and K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

  ‘Adam Cunningham,’ I say. ‘You won’t remember him, Troy. I edited his book years ago.’

  ‘Why are you going camping with one of your old authors?’ Troy asks.

  ‘I think he’s a little bit more than an old author, right, Emma?’ Helen says.

  What is this woman trying to do?

  ‘He’s now a parent at Tim’s school and his son is a friend of Tim’s. And yes, they are also going on the school camping trip, along with about forty other families.’

  ‘They, as in he and his wife and their kids, or . . .?’ Troy is trying to look casual.

  ‘He seems pretty footloose and fancy-free to me,’ says Helen. ‘And he seems to really like you, Emma.’

  Why is she acting like we’re best friends? Having Helen comment on my potential love life is unnerving.

  ‘Tim, Freya, I am leaving right now.’ I don’t think I can handle much more of this.

  I turn to Helen. ‘As I was just saying to Troy, you’re welcome to the camping gear the weekend after that, but you can’t go until after the Fun Run on the Saturday. I’d better get the kids home now — they’re always starving after watching the gymnastics class. Goodnight, everyone.’

  * * *

  My kids are starving when we get home, but not because they’ve been watching Lola’s gymnastics class. We didn’t go to Lola’s gymnastics class. In fact since we skipped ballet yesterday, we’ve gone on a bit of a class-wagging bender.

  Today we didn’t go to her French class in the morning, and that didn’t seem fair to Tim, who was at school and missed out on the good times, so we bunked off gymnastics this afternoon too.

  The girls and I spent the morning in a graveyard. I love a good graveyard, and after we dropped Tim at school and collected Lola, I said to Freya, ‘What do you want to do today? What would you do, if you could do anything?’