Perfections

by Kirstyn McDermott

  ‘No,’ Jacqueline whispers. ‘It’s not over yet.’

  The cuts on her thigh are almost fully healed and barely itch as she scratches at them through her skirt. She forces herself to stop. To place both hands on the table and think. She will call Ryan. Explain the situation. Make sure he keeps his promise about the photos. He owes her one, she will remind him. By the time she gets back to Melbourne, Dante will have seen them. Will have seen that the central painting is near completion. And, hopefully, that it was worth the wait.

  Good. A plan. A good plan. She can fix this.

  Smooth everything over, yes.

  Jacqueline stares at her plate. The eggs have cooled, their yolks congealed. Beside the toast, fried spinach wilts in a pool of grease, topped with half a tomato. She picks up her cutlery again. Hunger may be a distant concern, but her body needs food regardless. Sustenance. Energy. Strength. Yes, to all the above.

  Still, the eggs sit thick and tasteless in her mouth. Closing her eyes, Jacqueline forces herself to swallow.

  — 10 —

  Antoinette is still rubbing dry her hair when her mobile starts to chime. Wrapping the towel around herself, she hurries from the bathroom, swearing as she jags her arm on the door handle, hard to enough to hurt, hard enough to likely leave a bruise – honestly, could she be any clumsier? – and into the bedroom where her mobile sits buzzing on the nightstand. The chiming is almost through its final cycle as she grabs the Nokia and flips it open, lifting it to her ear in one quick motion, no time to even check the caller. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Ant? It’s me.’

  ‘Jacqueline? Hey, how are you?’ Only slightly disappointed and only then because she was hoping it might be Loki, some stranger’s mobile fresh in hand and a mouth full of reasons as to why she woke up to an empty apartment yet again. Not even a note this time, the magnets securing nothing but flat, white space.

  ‘I’m good,’ her sister says. ‘Sorry I didn’t call back yesterday.’

  ‘That’s okay. Problem child giving you grief?’

  A pause. ‘Something like that. Is anything wrong?’

  ‘No, not really. Just . . .’

  And now it’s Antoinette’s turn to pause, to stall with her tongue pressed tight against the back of her teeth, because all of a sudden she hasn’t the faintest idea what to say. Everything she planned to tell her sister yesterday – about Loki and all the rest of it, about the strange and scary and utterly magical thing her life has become – all those careful words she rehearsed over and over in the fraught and sleepless dark, all of it’s gone now, evaporated like morning mist.

  ‘I miss you,’ she says. ‘That’s all.’

  Jacqueline laughs, a sound oddly flat and mirthless. ‘I’ve been away less than a week.’

  ‘I know, I just . . . I needed to talk and you weren’t here.’

  ‘It must be hard. This business with Paul.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, caught off guard. ‘I guess.’ Because it should be hard. Hard and painful and bitter as wormwood in absinthe, and yet . . . and yet. She wonders what’s wrong with her, that she has so easily pushed it all aside, a broken heart and the tattered ruins of her life, that she can no longer bring herself to care.

  Less than a week – she’s mourned dead goldfish longer than that.

  ‘Did our mother ring you as well?’ Jacqueline is asking.

  ‘Yeah, she wants me to come over for dinner on Friday.’

  ‘Really? Just you?’

  ‘Well, the both of us, but since you’re away . . . hey, how come you never told her you were off to Brissie?’

  ‘I meant to. Or I didn’t mean not to. You know how she is.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Antoinette says. Air travel has always been a source of anxiety and distrust for Sally Paige, along with doctors, internet banking, and people who own large dogs, to name but a few. ‘Do you know when you’ll be coming home?’

  ‘I – I’m not sure yet. Soon, perhaps.’

  ‘So things are going well?’

  ‘Well enough.’

  Right then Antoinette decides it’ll be better to wait until Jacqueline gets back before she says anything about . . . anything. Face to face with Loki, with the living, breathing fact of him, there’ll be less she will have to explain, less convincing she’ll need to do because, after all, there will be Loki. And maybe it’s because of this decision, because of the secret she now tucks away inside herself – not the only secret she’s ever kept from her older sister, but definitely the biggest – that a vague remoteness seems to insinuate itself between them.

  They chat some more, swap banalities about the weather and work and the weird dislocation of being away from home, while Antoinette finds a clean blouse – her last; she really should’ve put on a washload last night – and returns to the bathroom to scrub a stain from the hem of her most comfortable skirt. Mobile switched to loudspeaker, she pulls her hair into a ponytail, capturing escapee curls with bobby pins while they’re still damp enough to manage.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Jacqueline asks.

  ‘Um, my hair. Why?’

  ‘You sound so far away.’

  ‘I’ve got you on hands-free. In the bathroom.’ Antoinette picks up her mobile again, switches off the speaker. ‘Better?’

  ‘I should go,’ Jacqueline says. ‘I don’t want to make you late for work.’

  ‘It’s okay, I’ve got ages yet.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Silence, or nearly so. Just the sound of something which might be bad reception or might be a person breathing too heavily, too harshly, holding back sobs maybe, and Antoinette’s about to ask if everything is really okay up in Brisbane when her sister speaks again, her voice strong and clear and certain.

  ‘Well, it’s good you’re all right. Honestly, Ant, I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to ring before now. I feel terrible about that.’

  ‘You really don’t need to check up on me, you know.’

  ‘I know. But I like to. That’s what big sisters are for.’

  Antoinette smiles. ‘And you wonder why I’ve missed you.’

  After they exchange goodbyes, she makes herself a coffee before sitting down at Jacqueline’s computer. There actually is time to kill before she needs to catch a tram, time enough to browse a few real estate sites and see what local rents are looking like – because, really, once her sister gets back, this apartment will start to feel very crowded, very soon. But every click of the mouse twists her stomach into tighter and tighter knots. Anything with even a glimmer of promise is priced way beyond what she can afford on her own, and the few places within her budget seem cramped and depressing, shoebox meets studio, and she wonders how the hell Jacqueline manages to live so close to the city.

  ‘I need a better job,’ Antoinette mutters.

  She’ll have to expand her search, look further out, further even than she was living with Paul maybe, but she’s had enough for now. Instead she checks her email, deleting spam and the random newsletters she only occasionally reads, as well as a whole bunch of posts from mailing lists she can’t be bothered catching up on, finding nothing left of interest besides her shift schedule for next week and a reminder to make an appointment for her annual dental check-up.

  With a sigh, she logs onto Facebook.

  Is it possible for the blisters on my blisters to have blisters?

  Her status update from early last week, home after a late night out wearing a new pair of too-cheap shoes for the first and last time. Her fingers hover over the keyboard for a few seconds, then slide away. She can think of nothing to replace it with right now, nothing she cares to share with–

  Antoinette frowns. Her number of friends has more than halved. She opens the list and scans the names that are left. Paul and everyone who knows him, it seems, have defriended themselves s
ometime in the past week. No word of explanation, no parting message. Just gone. With the somewhat mystifying exception of Greta, who remains like the sole witness to another life, a pouting and black-lipped anachronism among old school acquaintances, work buddies, and the occasional random stranger.

  ‘Well, fuck you too,’ she says to them, the missing and the mute. ‘Passive aggressive bunch of wankers.’

  Because it doesn’t matter, and whatever Paul told them matters even less; if they can cut her loose like that, without even feeling the need to hear her side of the story, then really: fuck them all. Swallowing back a lump that definitely, absolutely bloody well is not the beginning of tears, she opens Greta’s page, starts to write a message on her wall – So why are YOU still here? – then deletes it.

  Enough, girlie-girl; they’re not worth it. They never were.

  Antoinette shuts down the computer, glances at her watch and swears again. The internet has sucked away every spare minute she had and then some, her chances of catching the earlier tram now close to zero, but still she races through the apartment, shoving on shoes, stuffing pantyhose into her bag for the dinner shift and grabbing her keys from the kitchen bench. Keys which feel slightly wrong in her hand, less weighty, less bulky, her fist enclosing them too completely and she opens her fingers again, frowning at the jagged metal shapes that cross her palm. The bulbous, black head of her car key is a noticeable absentee.

  Loki.

  Her teeth are clenched so hard they hurt, and she closes her eyes, forces herself to take long, slow breaths. Inside her skull, his name ricochets like something sharp, like something keen-edged and cornered and utterly beyond control.

  Loki Loki Loki

  Finally. Jacqueline checks her watch and stands up. Shades her eyes from the afternoon sun as Ryan’s car pulls into the driveway. She’s spent almost two hours waiting on his verandah, shifting position to follow the shade as it moved around the house, for what little that was worth. She frees her skirt from the damp skin of her thighs. Wipes the sheen from her cheeks.

  ‘Hey,’ Ryan calls up to her. ‘This is a surprise.’

  Another man gets out of the passenger side. Shorter than Ryan, but with the same lean, muscular build, his bare arms bright with tattoos from shoulder to wrist. He opens the rear door and pulls out a bulky canvas bag.

  ‘I’ve been trying to reach you all day,’ Jacqueline says as the two of them climb the stairs towards her. ‘You ever answer your phone?’

  ‘Didn’t have it with me,’ Ryan says. ‘You been here long?’

  ‘No. Not long.’

  ‘This is my mate, Tim. Gonna take those photos you wanted.’

  ‘You’re Jackie,’ Tim says. ‘Been hearing a lot about you.’

  ‘Jacqueline.’ She shakes the hand he offers. Holds her smile even as the sweat slides between their palms. ‘Thanks for taking care of the photos. I appreciate it.’

  ‘No worries. Jells and me go way back.’

  She steps back to allow them to move past her onto the landing. Ryan sorts through his keys and unlocks the front door. The air inside the house is stale and still, no cooler than being outside, and Jacqueline feels foolish for having expected even a minor respite from the heat.

  ‘Ryan,’ she says. ‘Can I talk to you for a second?’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘It’s, ah, confidential.’ She glances at Tim. ‘I’m sorry.’

  The man grins and holds up two hands. ‘Secret artist business, I get it. You want me to go set up, Jells?’

  Ryan nods. ‘Yeah, cool. I’ll bring you a cold one, yeah?’

  ‘Wouldn’t say no.’ Tim hefts his bag onto his shoulder. ‘Nice to meet you, Jackie.’ He taps two fingers against his brow in a quick salute before disappearing into the back of house.

  Jacqueline turns to Ryan. ‘You told him my name was Jackie?’

  ‘He remembers what he remembers.’

  ‘And how about your memory? Anything you’ve forgotten to mention?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Did Zane use my phone yesterday? To ring Dante perhaps?’

  Ryan sucks air through his teeth. ‘I was kinda hoping nothing’d come of that.’

  ‘Well, something has,’ Jacqueline says. ‘What exactly did she tell him?’

  He shrugs, confessing that he didn’t hear much, that he only walked in right at the end while Zane was trying to convince Dante to look at her stuff. An afterthought, apparently; the girl just called Dante to see if he might know why Jacqueline passed out. In case she had a condition they should know about, epilepsy or diabetes or what have you. In case there was something they should do to make sure she wasn’t about to up and die on them.

  ‘And you believed her?’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Ryan laughs. ‘Took the phone off her is what I did, kicked her pushy arse out the door. She’s gonna go far, that girl, but she needs to smarten the hell up. There’ll be a few words to that effect, next time I run into her.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Jacqueline tells him. ‘It hardly matters now.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I’m flying back to Melbourne in the morning.’

  ‘Since when? Thought you were meant to be lighting a fire under my arse or whatever.’

  ‘Dante thinks I’ve done enough. He wants me home.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Ryan tilts his head. Rubs a paint-smeared thumb over his lower lip. ‘What if I tell him I want you to stay?’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Because it’s true.’

  Jacqueline stares at him, attempting to gauge these bolder rules. ‘I don’t think that would help at all,’ she says. ‘But if he gets those photos this afternoon, then I might still have a decent chance of keeping my job.’

  ‘See, now I feel like a right shit.’

  ‘Is that a step up or a step down from being an arsehole?’

  He smiles. ‘Touché.’

  ‘Just make sure those photos are good ones, all right? Dante needs to be reassured that there’s still a viable show here.’

  ‘Why don’t you stick around? Pick the shots you want to send to him, and later we’ll go out and have a drink. Tim knows this bar, says they got a tree growing right in the middle of the place. For real.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘Nah, it goes up through the roof. There’s a skylight or something.’

  ‘I mean, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have a drink with you.’

  ‘I knew what you meant.’ He steps closer, places a hand on her shoulder. ‘Just . . . this is gonna sound like a line, but I really don’t want you to go.’

  ‘Ryan, I–’

  He kisses her. She could have dodged. Could, with some grace even, have slipped sideways, moved beyond his reach. Instead, she allows his mouth to find hers. Notes the firm, insistent press of his lips, the scrape of his stubble against her chin. His dreads fall gently against her face, their now familiar scent clear and sharp. Not eucalyptus, she realises at last, but ti-tree oil. A short-lived cure de jour from her childhood, their mother dabbing it on scratches and scrapes and mosquito bites for one whole summer before moving on to some other miraculous all-natural alternative.

  Ryan slides his hands to her hips, tries to pull her body closer, but Jacqueline steps away. From him, and from the nascent warmth between her thighs. The time for playing that particular game is over; too many complications sit between them now, and she has too little interest in disentanglement.

  ‘Enough,’ she says, crossing her arms.

  ‘Really?’ Ryan asks. His eyes gleam. ‘I got the feeling there was maybe a little something going on here.’ He flicks his index finger back and forth between the two of them. ‘Did I get that wrong?’

  Jacqueline consid
ers the possible scenarios. The possible outcomes. Leverage. Complications. Consequences. Narrows down the response most likely to flatter and please. Most likely to keep him onside. ‘Perhaps not entirely wrong,’ she says. ‘But I still have to leave tomorrow, and you’re still a client. I don’t see too many ways for this not to end in a mess.’

  Ryan grins. ‘I like mess.’

  ‘You like distraction. Procrastination as well, it seems.’

  ‘No, I like you.’ He taps his forehead. ‘I like how you make me think.’

  ‘Now that sounds like a line.’

  ‘Maybe. Don’t mean it isn’t true.’ His smile softens. ‘Come on, girl, you can’t say you don’t feel something happening here.’

  Jacqueline isn’t sure how to respond, so elects to say nothing. Simply stands with lips pressed close together, arms still crossed over her chest. Holding his gaze, unblinking, as the seconds swell long and slow between them.

  ‘Okay,’ Ryan says at last. ‘But how about this: after the show, when the monkeys have danced and the organ grinders have counted their pennies and packed up their music boxes, how about you let me take you out to dinner?’

  ‘I don’t–’

  ‘No expectations, and no more of this client bullshit getting in the way. A clean slate, yeah? A do-over, you and me.’

  ‘Fine,’ Jacqueline tells him, if that’s what it takes, then fine. Because she’s exhausted. Because her bones feel like undercooked spaghetti, spongy and brittle all at the same time, and it’s easier to simply agree, then worry about wriggling out of it later. Right now, all she wants to do is wind up this disaster of a trip and crawl back to Melbourne. Face up to whatever fire and brimstone Dante has brewing for her, and hope she can finagle her way back into his good graces.

  ‘You promise?’ Ryan is asking. His right hand carves the air between them and she pauses only briefly before meeting it with her own. He squeezes her fingers. Circles his thumb slowly over the back of her hand.

  ‘I promise,’ she lies.