Call Me Kismet

by PJ Mayhem

  After Pig Carcass Friday, I’m feeling hopeful for another positive interaction. I’ve been trying to block the actual pig carcasses out, since I’m not sure they’re such a good sign. I mean, it’s all well and good for Google to tell me about pigs and their spiritual significance in agriculture and being symbols of fertility but what about their carcasses?

  ‘Hi, Fiona,’ Frankie says in the midst of a phone call.

  ‘Hi, Frankie.’ I look at the floor and don’t slow my step. He resumes his phone call.

  At least we’re back to our scintillating style of conversation and the choppy waters of his mood from the last visit definitely seem to have calmed.

  I start to gather the items on my list. Oh fuck! Between the salad greens and red cabbages, my first two items, I realise there’s only Frankie here. I then try to gather my senses and not spin around in circles.

  I move on with my shopping but struggle to locate things I buy every week. I’m feeling—and, I fear, looking—slightly bewildered. I know I’m meant to be having faith but panic seems to have taken over. There’s only one way out and unless I choose to drop my basket and make a run for it, I must face Frankie at the counter.

  I look around. There’s no one else in the shop and no queue so I can’t even tailgate someone for protection and not face Frankie alone. I could take A Flock of Seagulls’ ‘I Ran’ being on the radio as a sign, I think, as I hide in the deli area to try to muster some courage. Frankie is only semi-singing along—there’s none of his usual gusto.

  What’s the point if you’re going to give up now, Kismet? I remind myself that no one ever died of embarrassment or humiliation—according to Google at least.

  I steel plate my aura and gird my chakras.

  One steps, two steps … then I’m at the counter, unloading my produce opposite Frankie.

  Clunk! Crash!

  Fantastic! First I hit the wall with my basket as I turn to put it away, then I have trouble getting it to sit in the other baskets. Blame my shaking hands—well, my shaking everything.

  I turn back to see Frankie about to put my things in a plastic bag.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about a bag, thanks,’ I say, hopefully sweetly. I point to my bag.

  It’s more smog than sizzle between us right now, all awkward and stilted. The air has a monsoonish heaviness to it. Frankie seems nervous and unable to even look at me, but regardless of what’s going on inside, I’m obviously looking warm, open and friendly as he finds it in himself to say, ‘I’ll talk to you later, I’ve been really busy and …’

  Oh Great Guru, have mercy! The way things are going whatever he says next is only going to result in more humiliation. I’m about to be totally rejected and become the first person ever to die of humiliation.

  Frankie does not specifically mention the note, though I can feel his discomfort at having to say what he is saying and I’m sure he’s wishing I hadn’t put him in this situation.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. Now I feel awful for making Frankie feel bad.

  I dance my hand around my face dismissively, which is what I do when I’m very uncomfortable. ‘Oh, that’s OK, don’t worry about it. Sorry, I still can’t believe that I did it.’ I’m not quite able to keep a tremor from my voice.

  My left hand moves into my hair at my forehead and—I can’t help myself—I gather strands between my fingers and pull them down over my face. Oh Goddess, I can’t believe I’m doing this in front of Frankie. It’s as though all my ‘this is what I do when I want the ground to open up and swallow me’ traits and tricks have come out in one fell swoop.

  At least the shock of my obvious discomfort seems to put Frankie at ease. Not my usual approach to making people feel more comfortable but what would I expect? Nothing I do around Frankie is usual.

  ‘You don’t need to apologise.’ There’s no twang in his voice.

  ‘I don’t do things like that.’ I feel myself cycle from dusky pink through magenta to puce, a rainbow of humiliation.

  ‘Why not?’

  Seriously, Frankie, ‘why not’ should be obvious—look at where it has led.

  ‘I can’t believe I did that, I don’t know why I even did it. I didn’t even plan to do it,’ I babble. Then we look into each other’s eyes and I disappear into Frankie and want to stay in the moment forever. (Maybe not exactly this moment, as it is quite excruciating.)

  Even though I’m looking into his eyes, I’ve gone into my super chronic anxiety mode. My hand has moved from my hair and my little finger is in my mouth and I’m biting on it with my incisor. It’s a state that shocks people, particularly as I look like I’m going to cry.

  Frankie appears a bit traumatised. ‘I’ll talk to you later,’ he says again.

  Kill me now a trillion times over—the rejection must be so bad he can’t bring himself to do it now.

  I step away. We’re still looking into each other’s eyes. There are words floating between us but now I’ve got one foot on Planet Swoon and one on Planet Kill Me Now if I Don’t Die of Humiliation Immediately, I don’t register what they actually are.

  I have to force myself to turn away from him and walk out of the store and when I do, I fucking well go in the wrong direction! (Get over the swearing, Spirit—I have bigger fish to fry right now.)

  At first I think, Oh, I’ll just run with it, head up the street and go home the back way so it’ll look completely intentional. But after one step I decide I’m just going to run straight home, so now I look like I’ve totally lost the plot.

  I realise I still haven’t told Frankie the note was a quote from a book and that I’m not so up myself that I wrote it about me. Although, there’ll be time to clear that up ‘later’, I think, in an effort to deescalate my internal situation.

  I dump my stuff home. Even though it’s 8.15pm, I’ll implode or explode or something if I don’t keep moving. I take myself for a walk around the park to try to expend some of my energy and emotion and clear my head (insofar as that is going to be possible).

  When I get home, I reflect on things in place of sleep.

  It’s interesting timing, there being no coincidences and all, that just last week Lionel and I worked specifically on me feeling that I can’t look people in the eye if I like them or am uncomfortable with them or intimidated by them, or I’m upset with someone, or afraid of them, as I don’t want them to see my softness. If they see it, they will hurt me.

  And Lionel also just happened to feel the need to tell me that if a man likes someone he’ll find shyness and clumsiness endearing, if not then he won’t. So simple with men really sometimes.

  Amethyst has been priming me along those lines too: ‘Don’t ever lose that shyness—lose its power to debilitate you, but don’t lose the sweetness of it.’

  And I can’t overlook the message from Amethyst’s guides about appealing to Frankie by showing him my vulnerability. I think that box has been ticked. And I did succeed at looking at him in the eye.

  Even Katy my old kinesiologist said I would always be sweet and self-conscious when guys fancied me—not that we have any evidence that Frankie really does.

  38

  For fourteen days I’ve been stuck in an Adidas-adorned-feet desert. My life is a nasal-twang-free zone, devoid of bald spots, apart from Desmond’s, which is definitely not the one I want to be seeing. At work Tiffany and Angela—and everyone really—have been unbearable, nagging me to ‘Just go on a date with Suparman, for God’s sake, Fiona, what’s it going to hurt?’

  I’ve kept them at bay by claiming I’m too busy, which I am. Of course being busy isn’t the only reason. Even though the post-note visit to PGGG was torturous, there was still something sweet and comforting in his response when I went all haywire that means I just can’t shake that Frankie feeling.

  I’m sitting at my desk on a short trip to Planet Swoon when my office phone rings.

  ‘Centre for Strategic and Financial Excellence, this is Fiona,’ I answer, distracted.

  ‘Fiona, Fiona John
son?’ a timid-sounding male voice asks.

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘I believe from my friend Mitchell that I should meet you.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘My friend Mitchell said I should meet you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’ But then the penny drops. I know exactly what’s going on here and I know exactly who is responsible! He’s talking about Meet My Friend. ‘I’m awfully sorry, there seems to have been some mistake,’ I say and get him off the phone as quickly as possible.

  ‘Angela! Tiffany!’ I scream across the office. Heads pop up over petitions like meerkats and follow me as I march to their desks.

  They’re doubled over, laughing.

  ‘I will not be prostituted for your amusement and entertainment, ladies.’ I try to keep a straight face but their laughter is contagious. ‘Take it down now, please.’

  Tiffany smirks. ‘Only if you agree to go on a date with Suparman.’

  ‘No. You can’t hijack my love life. I can’t believe you’ve done this. It’s an invasion of my civil liberties.’ I’m still laughing so it does detract from the force of my demand but, honestly, as if Mum and Catherine hadn’t been bad enough with Grant (who, as it turns out, wasn’t Tindering at all; he’d just got back with his wife).

  ‘Please.’ I turn pleadingly to Angela, always a softer touch.

  She opens up my profile immediately. Oh Great Govinda, I really must get some sleep. The photo Tiffany had snuck of me was hideous. I wouldn’t have ever found anyone decent with that. And they called themselves marketers!

  ‘Angela, we agreed,’ Tiffany barks. ‘Fiona, this is officially an intervention.’

  Angela’s hands fly off her keyboard just as she was about to hit delete.

  ‘OK.’ I glare at Tiffany. ‘I’m not promising anything but I’ll call Suparman tonight and just see what happens.’

  But first there’s something I need to do.

  ‘Hi, Fiona,’ Frankie says when I walk into PGGG that evening.

  It’s not like I’m giving Frankie one last chance but if nothing tangible happens tonight I will go on a date with Suparman, if he asks.

  ‘Hi, Frankie.’ My nerves steal a little of the sing-song from my voice. I can’t quite look at him. Neither of us seem to know what to say. ‘Have you got any ground ginger?’ I blurt, mortifyingly forgetting a ‘please’. I’m not asking for the ginger just for the chance to appreciate his physicality, although I won’t be complaining when he reaches up to get it; I’m throwing it in all my food these days because it’s supposed to help with queasiness.

  I focus on trying to turn this encounter into something, anything, other than the ‘later’ Frankie mentioned last time. I’d prefer to forget the note ever happened and not have it, or any fallout from it, ever mentioned again.

  ‘Have you been busy?’ I ask, eyes on his torso as his head disappears behind the spices.

  ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘always two thousand things to do.’

  I love it that he doesn’t say an ordinary hundred or even a thousand or million. Another item for my mental list of Endearing Things About Frankie that I resurrected after post-note-fiasco night.

  ‘Oh, not two thousand and ten?’ I tease.

  I see his body relax. He gives a little laugh but maybe he’s just putting on a front. I immediately worry that he’s thinking I’m having a go at him. But if we’re worrying about sensitivity, Frankie choosing to sing along to The Human League’s ‘Don’t You Want Me’ when it comes on doesn’t get a top score.

  I’m the one suffering here, Frankie. If allowances are to be made for anyone’s behaviour right now it is mine, so don’t go sulking about my dysfunctional synapses and what they make me say when I’m around you, I think, hoping to transmit it mentally.

  It’d help if I could figure out his star sign but I can’t. He’s too much of a chameleon for me to pin him down.

  With visibly shaking hands I pass over my cash and we look into each other’s eyes—a medium length but still delicious gaze.

  My right shoulder moves of its own accord, giving him a coy shrug as I leave.

  ‘See ya, Frankie.’ I flick my hair, look back and smile at him.

  Arrgghh. I can’t believe I get so dharmaed girly around him, not to mention my body taking on a mind of its own.

  I don’t want anything or anyone to break the Frankie bubble I’m in, but still a promise is a promise and surely one date with Suparman has to be better than random callers from Meet My Friend.

  And so it is that on Friday, Tiffany, Angela and I are gathered at my desk, preparing for my lunch date with Suparman. Tiffany is coaching me in suitable topics of conversation and what to order in front of a man (she insisted), while Angela is doing my hair in a half-up/half-down style (which will make the most of my ‘to die for cheekbones’ apparently), when Rosemary Hatchment limps up.

  ‘No Dr Cybil again today, I gather?’

  There’s no hostility in Rosemary’s voice but I start making excuses—I don’t want her telling Broomstick we’ve taken to holding virtual slumber parties in her absence.

  ‘We’re priming Fiona, she’s going on a date,’ Tiffany says over me.

  Rosemary smiles. ‘Good for you, Fiona, you deserve some fun. My advice: if your toes don’t curl when he kisses you, he’s not for you.’

  Rosemary winks and lurches off, leaving Tiffany, Angela and I gaping at each other.

  At 12.30 I meet Suparman outside a café a few blocks from work. I didn’t want him to be able to find me again.

  ‘Hi. Are you hungry? I’m starving.’ I hurry him inside, not feeling anything, but then I am a bit distracted; Angela and Tiffany are only about five metres behind me. I appreciate that a lunchtime date isn’t high risk but it feels like more fun to have them on the case with me.

  ‘That table would be great,’ I say to the sweet-looking waitress, pointing at a corner table towards the back of the café. I almost throw myself into a seat that puts my back to the room.

  Angela and Tiffany are coming through the door, I can hear them. As planned, they’ll choose a table where they can see Suparman and me. I’ve got hand signals for ‘intervene immediately’ and ‘five minutes till take-off’ to give them the cue to leave.

  Suparman pulls his mobile out and sits it, screen up, on the table as soon as we’re seated. Call me old-fashioned, but if you’re having a conversation with someone or—hello—a lunch date, you show the good manners of actually focussing on them. Still, we’re all different, live and let live, we all make mistakes (random winking and note passing, for example).

  ‘Wow, you must be popular—two mobiles,’ I say as he pulls out a second and places it next to the first. I knew this was a bad idea. Suparman the fibbing non-Hawaiian wasn’t ideal but a man with two mobiles cannot be trusted.

  ‘One work and one personal,’ he says.

  Likely story. ‘What do you do for work?’

  ‘A broker.’

  ‘Oh really, that sounds—’ boring as Broomstick ‘—interesting.’

  ‘Yes, I’m an estate broker.’

  ‘Is that the same thing as a real estate agent?’

  ‘Are you ready to order?’ The waitress’s return saves him from having to answer and me from having to endure an explanation.

  ‘The risotto and a side salad for me, please,’ I say, passing my menu to her with a smile. I’ll probably hear it from Tiffany about the risotto. It’s a bit carb-heavy for date food according to her guidelines but I’m starving and pasta is definitely out—way too messy.

  ‘I’ll have the zucchini fritters.’ Suparman doesn’t look at the waitress as he orders, then puts his menu down on the table, ignoring her outstretched hand.

  She scoops it up and sails off. She’s probably used to that sort of thing but, really, how hard is it to say please and hand her the menu?

  ‘What do you do for work, Fiona?’

  Yes, I’ve told him my name’s Fiona. I mean, Kismet just took
more explaining than I could be bothered with for a one-off, which I was sure this was going to be.

  ‘Oh, admin stuff, boring.’ Normally I’d wave my hands around as emphasis but I don’t want to mistakenly make the panic button signal and have Tiffany and Angela rush over. Actually, it’s sort of distracting having them here. I can hear them laughing. It’s making me feel like I’m missing out on something.

  ‘Was it easy for you to get here?’ I ask, keeping things in neutral, Tiffany-endorsed territory, then stifle a yawn as he gives a detailed explanation of his transport connections.

  ‘Don’t you need a car as a real estate agent?’

  ‘It’s estate broker and we have company cars for work. I’m not working today.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ I say because I really can’t think of anything else.

  Suparman takes the opportunity of the lull in our conversation to play a game of One Hundred Personal Questions You Probably Shouldn’t Ask Someone You’ve Just Met. Not that I’m too fazed by them. Still, being quizzed is exhausting.

  Somewhere around question fifty the waitress arrives with our food. I’m pleased for something to occupy him other than questions, but I notice he doesn’t thank her or even look up as she delivers our meals.

  ‘This is delicious, how’s yours?’ I say after a couple of mouthfuls.

  ‘Too salty,’ Suparman says. As though to prove his point, he refills his water glass and glugs down half, which would be no big deal if my glass weren’t also empty. I don’t mean to go on about it but, hello, manners! I know I can refill my own glass and I know Jack being overly attentive put me off but when the other person’s is also empty it’s purely a matter of consideration.

  He clangs his cutlery down then sits there watching me eat. The scrutiny doesn’t bode well for a girl enjoying her lunch, not to mention good digestion.

  ‘Have you been married?’ he asks. He really did seem so much nicer on the bus but then again, I wasn’t that invested in the conversation.

  ‘No. You?’

  ‘No. So you don’t have children?’