‘No, really, I like James a lot. We’re going to catch up soon so he can introduce me to some people, give me a tour of this screen-printing studio his friends own.’
I step ahead of her to avoiding running into anyone. It’s a busy evening, and a crocodile of hand-in-hand couples streams down the footpath.
We pass a busy Indian restaurant, a smoky Japanese izakaya, a Jamaican café, and a retro American diner full of couples squished into pink leather booths. But for their distinctly un-coiffed hair and modern clothes, it’s like a scene plucked from the 1950s. ‘Man I love the inner west,’ says Mara. We fall back into step and she turns to me. ‘By the way, I think it’s really cool that you’re dating. It’s genuine, right? Not just to humour Paloma or your parents or something?’
‘Yeah, it’s genuine. I guess I just realised that time’s ticking. And I really should be making an effort to meet someone.’
‘So you were just being facetious back at the restaurant?’
‘Huh?’
‘As in, you don’t honestly think it’s as categorical as Fuck, Marry, Kill, right? Like, you get the concept of people being complex individuals?’ She says it lightly, but I sense a strand of concern.
‘Of course, Mara.’ I pause for a second, wondering whether to go on. It’s a heavy topic for a short walk. ‘But I suppose what’s getting me down is that I’m starting to realise that in the Venn diagram of relationships, the “marry–fuck intersection” is incredibly small, if not non-existent. I’m realising that there is no perfect person out there, and that I’ll just have to look for the things that really matter, and compromise on other aspects.’
We stop for a moment to cross the road. Gaggles of teenagers, buzzy with excitement, flank us at the traffic lights. One girl, skinny and hipless, wearing a crop-top and a chunky beanie, hangs like a sock monkey from her boyfriend’s neck. Lanky, with skinny-jeaned legs poking out from a lumberjack’s shirt, he gazes down at her adoringly. They start making out passionately, oblivious to the world around them. The lights change and we step out onto the road. The teenagers don’t move. Only when the jostling becomes too much do they extricate themselves, as if from a dream, and cross with the rest of us.
I turn to Mara. ‘Did I ever tell you the story of how my parents met?’
She shakes her head.
‘Since I was little, my dad has told me the story as a tale fit for a ’90s rom-com. They were at uni together, in the same chemistry lab. She knocked over a beaker and shattered it, and when he went over to help her clean it up, he looked into her eyes, and knew. She must have felt that same spark – or huffed too much hydrochloric acid that day, he likes to joke – because she asked him to go to an end-of-semester party with her. The rest, as he says, is history.’
‘That’s sweet,’ says Mara.
I go on. ‘So the other day my mum debunked that myth. She told me that it was just that she needed a date – apparently people didn’t go stag to anything – and my dad was just . . . there. Not a romantic interest, but a nice enough guy.’
‘Huh.’
‘Yeah, it was strange to hear her speak so matter-of-factly about it. I guess as a kid I just assumed there must have been some divine plan to bring them together, and to bring about my own existence.’
‘I’ve met your parents – they’re an awesome couple.’
‘Well, exactly. They’re the best example I know of love that’s stood the test of time. And now I find out that it didn’t actually start with some magical connection.’
‘Maybe there’s something in that,’ Mara says. ‘Same for me and Angus, in a way. I wasn’t sure whether I was really attracted to him at the beginning – he’s kind of quiet, and hangs back a lot. There was a time when I was debating whether we’d be better off as friends. But I gave it a go because I thought he seemed really . . . genuine. The kind of guy I should be with. And eventually our friendship did blossom into love.’
‘And now you’ve been together, what, five years?’
‘Yep,’ she beams. ‘And we’re crazy about each other.’ She looks at me, head tilted. ‘Seriously, Romy, I’d be so happy if you found what we have.’ Coming from anyone else, this might sound patronising, but all I can read in Mara’s saucer-like eyes is sincerity.
‘That’s the goal.’ I smile back at her.
By now we’re at Newtown Station and due to part ways. Mara gives me a hug and then, when we break, grips my forearms.
‘Also,’ she says, visibly emboldened, ‘that whole leader of the pack, type-A management consultant who does stand-up on the side that seems to be your catnip . . . it hasn’t worked out for you in the past. Remember Dickhead Adam? And Flaky Jackson?’
I cringe. She presses on. ‘You should go for the nice guy. If you find him charismatic, bonus. But charisma doesn’t cook you spaghetti puttanesca when you’ve had a shitty day at work, or do a proportionate share of household chores.’
8
The directions hearing goes off without a hitch, but by the time I arrive back at the office, Graeme is in a flap. The hotel management company has ignored our advice that firing their philandering CEO carries the risk of a wrongful termination suit, and are demanding that we find a way for them to let him go. They have also informed us that they’ve contracted their private investigator to get more damning photos.
‘How much clearer do we need to make it?’ Graeme rails. He rummages through the mess of papers on his floor, and truffles up my original research memo. It’s unnervingly damp. He motions for me to close the door as he punches Paula’s number into the phone.
‘Paula, Graeme from Birchstone McCauliffe, how are you?’ He doesn’t wait for a response before powering on. ‘Look, Paula, I can only tell you that I doubt termination is legally defensible in the circumstances. That might be a commercial risk you’re willing to take. But as for the private investigator shenanigans, they’ve got to stop. The evidence doesn’t help your legal position. What are you going to do, blackmail him?’
‘Well . . .’
Graeme’s face pales. He hits the mute button and barks at me, ‘Go pull up the Crimes Act and check if that’s blackmail!’
By the afternoon, Graeme is composing an email to the company informing them that we can no longer act for them, because to carry out their instructions would risk breaching our professional and ethical duties. He’s about to send it off when an email comes through from Paula, copying their accounts department. It turns out the CEO has been misappropriating company funds for the last year, the tip-off being the $14,200 recently charged to Cartier and $1200 to La Perla. ‘Can we get him on this?’ Paula writes. Graeme breathes a sigh of relief and closes his draft email. ‘Thank god. Now this, we can work with.’
At 6 pm on the dot, I pack up my things. I consider popping my head into Graeme’s office to say goodnight, but decide the risk of attracting some last-minute task is too great, and slip out the door instead. I cross the street to our local watering hole, The Martin, where I can see Paloma and a bunch of others from work already getting stuck into Friday night drinks. The golden age of firm-sponsored drinks and office whiskey carts is long gone, but you wouldn’t know it from the Birchstone bunch.
‘We’re celebrating!’ Maria, a fifth-year lawyer and my Birchstone ‘Women at Work’ buddy, glides over to me, fresh glass of bubbles in hand. ‘Jason told me this arvo – I just got moved up to senior associate!’
‘Congratulations!’ I almost shout, mirroring her excitement levels. I pull her into a hug, genuinely excited for her. Maria has waged a long and arduous campaign for promotion – consistently pulling fourteen-hour days and working weekends, contributing to business development by writing articles and attending networking events, and proving that she’s engaged in the broader firm ‘community’. Just last month she was hospitalised while running a marathon with the corporate team; her collapse mid-race was hardly surprising, coming off the back of five years at a full-on office job with no time to exercise.
&nb
sp; I gulp down some sparkling wine and assess the room. It occurs to me that most of my peers, although still graduates, already have their eyes set on the senior associate prize. Paloma, for example – over the other side of the room, chatting with a couple of the special counsel from her team – is determined to be one of the youngest promoted. Whereas I’m still teetering on the brink; still hoping that something will click and inspire me to commit to commercial law.
I glance down at my empty glass and make a beeline for the bar. I’m determined to have a fun, carefree evening, and I suspect alcohol is the only thing that’ll get me there.
I crack open my eyes and grimace at the sunshine pouring through my half-closed curtains. I feel disgusting; my tongue sits dry and thick in my mouth, and a dull ache grips my temples. Visions of drinking glass after glass of sparkling wine swim into view. I throw off my doona, aware that I’m feverishly hot, and notice that I’m still in my clothes from last night. The waistband of my tights digs into my stomach, and the metal zipper of my dress presses in a painful line down my back.
I push myself up, unsteadily, and feel my heart rate quicken. Another memory of last night comes unbidden; of getting up from the table, knocking a near-full drink to the ground, apologising profusely and then stumbling to the bathroom to calls of ‘Taxi!’. I spy an empty packet of strawberry sour straps on the floor, and realise I must have bought and inhaled them on the way home, soaking up minimal alcohol and contributing to the churning feeling in my stomach. Yuck.
I haul myself up and shuffle into the kitchen, where Anna is standing at the stove, stirring something beige and gunky that smells like earth. ‘How’re you feeling?’ she asks.
‘Ugh, a bit dusty,’ I say. ‘I ended up having a pretty big one last night.’
‘Oh I know,’ she says, grinning. ‘We got home at the same time . . . luckily, because you kept dropping your keys. You wouldn’t stop talking about how you’re not fit enough to run a marathon. And something about La Perla? Anyway, I put you to bed.’
I cringe. ‘Thank you. And sorry about that . . .’
‘You’re fine,’ she says. ‘We’ve all been there.’ She points to the pan. ‘Want some? It’s vegan scrambled eggs – tofu, garlic powder and nutritional yeast.’
I feel my stomach heave again. ‘Thanks, but I’m not sure I can eat right now.’
I choke down a couple of glasses of cold water and steady myself against the kitchen bench, breathing deeply, trying to pull fresh air into my lungs. I retrieve my phone from the fruit bowl, where I must have dropped it last night, and see that I have eighty-seven new Tinder matches and thirty-seven new messages. All of which arrived sometime between 8 pm and 2 am. I groan as I remember Cameron goading me to show a bunch of other grads my profile, and taking my phone off me at one point for a round of swiping.
I flump down onto the sofa and start half-heartedly scrolling through the messages. Most of them are vulgar iterations of ‘Down to fuck?’ or ‘Hey’ spelled in the most creative ways (the number of e’s and y’s increasing as the night wore on). But, just as I’m about to close the app, one message catches my eye.
It’s from a guy called Hans, commenting on my photo from Barcelona; devoid of spelling mistakes and prurience. Barcelona for the Gaudi, the football, the sangria or the tapas?
I open his profile. Five photos, with no beer bongs, Bintang singlets or drugged tigers in sight. One photo shows him punting under the Bridge of Sighs at Cambridge. Another couple with friends; one at the Rainbow Mountain, Peru. His profile picture is a close-up of him with a Miniature Schnauzer. I don’t think much of the dog – though it’s cute, I’ve never been an animal person or one to correlate affection for animals with compassion generally – but he looks good in the photo. Clean-shaven, cheerful smile, and dare I say kind blue eyes?
I shoot back a message about the life-altering experience that was La Sagrada Familia, Casa Batlló and the albondigas. I don’t try to be cute, I’m far too hungover for that. I close my eyes and will myself to fall asleep, knowing that in my current state I’ll achieve little more than lolling around like a slug, and that it’s something only sleep has a hope of curing. Or maybe a huge coffee, if I can be bothered to move from the couch.
Later in the day, Hans messages and we start texting back and forth. I learn that he’s from Germany, that he studied there before moving to the UK for a master’s degree, and that he is newly arrived in Sydney for work. He’s well-travelled in the way most Europeans are, and interesting in the way most guys I’ve chatted to on Tinder aren’t. Though the thought of drinking anytime soon makes me retch, I agree to meet him for a Sunday afternoon drink.
I close my eyes, and my lips curl into a smile. So far, so good – no obvious deal-breakers. I allow myself to feel hopeful. Maybe Hans will have the three traits I’m after. Maybe we’ll end up dating, and it’ll turn into something serious . . . like what Mara and Angus have, and my parents have. Maybe Hans will be more agreeable, less novelty-seeking, and more emotionally stable than anyone I’ve dated before. And if that’s so, he’ll be my best chance of happiness.
It’s just before 5 pm when I make my way down to the Opera Bar where Hans and I have agreed to meet. Set into the lower concrete concourse of the harbour, the bar offers a postcard-worthy panorama: Harbour Bridge, expanse of ocean and sky, dramatic white sails of the Opera House. It’s an obvious tourist draw, and I usually steer clear of the rambunctious crowds, overpriced drinks and harried waitstaff. But this evening, for some reason, a sense of calm prevails. The bar feels quieter, softer; in tempo with the chalky blue and pink of dusk.
I find a space on the stone bench seating that wraps around the water’s edge, and text Hans my whereabouts. I watch the operagoers arrive; well-dressed older couples, silvery and discreet; tourists in cut-off khakis, weary from a day traipsing around The Rocks and taking photos of Bondi. I arrange and rearrange my hands. Tuck my hair behind my ears. Resist taking out my phone.
I recognise him immediately from his pictures. Wending his way through the milling crowd, he’s about a foot taller than anyone else. Wheat-blond hair, Statue of Liberty nose, a wide smile. He has a strong jaw but, paradoxically, dimples. His eyes are an even brighter blue than his photos suggested; piercing like a Siberian Husky’s, just close-set enough to defy the otherwise perfect golden ratios of his face.
I stand as he nears, and he greets me with a bright ‘Hallo!’. I can’t help but crack a smile at the unalloyed cheeriness. I’d always thought of the German accent as heavy or throaty, but his has a certain lilt to it – he pronounces my name ‘Ro-mee’. When he stoops to kiss my cheek, I catch the clean scent of mandarin and bergamot.
We find drinks, then return to the stone bench. We sit side by side, bodies turned slightly inwards so that we can watch the ferries pull lazily in and out of the harbour, and study each other’s faces.
We settle into familiar first-date chat – where we’ve come from, what we’re doing, where we’re going.
He’s from a rural area in Bavaria, he tells me, in the Black Forest. He talks about growing up on a hobby farm, with glossy black chickens and little chestnut Haflinger horses. Of going to school some forty minutes’ drive from his tiny village, in a town boasting some of Germany’s highest waterfalls, and the world’s biggest cuckoo clock. Of summer days spent fishing for trout and climbing hills with his father and brothers; sometimes, a wagon of beer in tow.
When he speaks, Hans holds himself taut; shoulders stiff, hand gestures rare and even then, purposive. But his face lights up and he smiles easily, and the joy in his voice transports me to his idyllic, fairytale-esque homeland. When he describes exploring the forest I can almost see the densely wooded evergreens, the shafts of golden light struggling to peek through their canopy.
After finishing school, he tells me, he studied ‘Informatik’ – Computer Science – at the Technical University of Munich, and then did a master’s in software engineering at Cambridge. ‘I loved studying there,’ he t
ells me. ‘The people at my college, my professors, taking a bike everywhere. Early mornings rowing on the River Cam; the sun rising and melting away the fog, feeling like I was waking up with the day.’ He tells me that one of his best friends at Cambridge was Australian. ‘From Melbourne. Very funny guy – he was always wearing multiple fleeces and complaining about the cold, but also never wore any shoes but flip-flops. He was always talking about how he missed the sunshine, and good coffee, and brunch with “smashed avo”.’
‘He sold you on Australia, then?’
‘Yes. That and all the pictures I’ve seen of your beaches and wildlife. When the company I work for offered to second me to Sydney, I was easily convinced.’
‘And so far, what do you think?’
‘Absolutely beautiful,’ he says, holding my gaze.
I trade him my spiel; the one I’ve honed for first meetings. Of an easy childhood in Newcastle, growing up as the only child of two doting parents, a stone’s throw from the beach. Of an exciting move to Sydney for university (skipping over the painful memories of college), and five years of study. A clerkship at a decent law firm, a smattering of overseas travel, a guaranteed graduate job, a coveted rotation in the employment law team.
‘You enjoy it, being a lawyer?’
‘Sure.’ I nod and smile mechanically. I’m not sure that I can quite explain my hesitation to completely embrace the identity of lawyer or, even if I could, that I should on a first date.
‘Is there anything else you imagined you might be doing instead?’ His tone is curious, no hint of effrontery. Either he’s intuitive or my practised enthusiasm is less convincing than I thought.
‘I don’t know. I mean, I like law in theory – as this framework that underpins social interactions and gives people order and certainty. But in practice, it’s a bit messier than I anticipated. But every job has its benefits and pitfalls, right? It’s a bit like dating – it’s a mistake to think that there’s one perfect job out there. You just have to do your best to find one that suits your temperament and interests. And working as a lawyer is interesting, and fast-paced, and the hours aren’t that bad . . .’ I pause, wondering if Hans was just expecting me to say ‘professional cellist’ or something.
Love, in Theory Page 8
