It's happening, I thought, and felt sick. This is it. “No.”
He glanced around us; no one was sitting at all near us yet. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Well, I didn't want to. Actually, what was I thinking? Yes, I did want to, because then I wouldn't have to constantly worry about how he was going to react. I'd know.
I took a deep breath. “Something happened on Friday,” I told him, in the moment completely forgetting my beautifully worded confession. “And I can't stop thinking about it.”
He nodded slowly. “Something to do with work again?”
I had been about to say, 'no', when I remembered that Gemma was from work, and technically Sarah was my employee.
Henry interpreted my silence as 'yes' and thought twice about asking any further questions. “It's okay, you don't need to tell me details, I know your project is strictly confidential,” he reassured me. “So how would you like me to help? It must be so stressful not being able to talk to anyone about it. Especially in your first management position.”
I slumped, and I think Henry mistook that for me relaxing. No, Henry, it’s not my project, I thought a bit helplessly. I didn't say that, though, because he was already trying really hard to think of ways to make me feel better. Unsuccessfully, but I didn’t want to interrupt him anyway.
“Maybe we could plan our next holiday? That always makes me relax,” he helpfully suggested. “Well, that and having grand visions of staging a really dramatic resignation.” He smiled at me, offering me some popcorn. I shook my head and only managed a really weak smile in return as he continued. “How do you feel about New Zealand? Because, personally, I'd really like to visit. Maybe we could go right after your project's finished? You could really use the break, and I'm sure you can negotiate a week or two off once it's signed.”
He had to stop when a couple made to get past us, because he needed to stand up and hold the pram box in a way that they could squeeze through. The three of them laughed a bit at the box, and Henry said, “Just practising taking the kids to the movies for later,” with a big smile on his face.
“Three kids?” the lady joked with him as she edged past me. She was older than we were and she probably actually had kids. “I hope you're not planning on ever having any money again.”
Henry put his arm around the box. “Just the cost of this pram alone pushed back our plans for another couple of years.”
The couple laughed politely and went to go sit up the end of the row. Henry set the box back down against the seat beside us, and then sat down himself. “Actually, that's why I'm doing this for Alice,” he told me. “She and Zhang could never afford to spend $1500 on a pram.”
I was still stressing about the fact he so easily talked about 'our' kids, completely oblivious to the fact I'd pashed a girl on Friday night. As I was working up the courage to butt in with my, 'I need to tell you something', Henry turned to me and said, “Actually I need your help with this.”
My help with the pram? I must have looked confused, because he winced and said, “Yes, I'm not planning on actually telling Alice that I bought it, because they're both a bit iffy about me showering them with presents. So, obviously I can’t say I spent $1500.”
“You're going to tell them it cost less?”
He shook his head, still looking guilty. “I'm going to tell them I asked around work and found someone with a pram they can use. Which unfortunately means I need to assemble it before I drop it off later tonight. I was hoping I could do that at your place...?”
He was looking at me like he actually felt bad about that, and, despite how stressed out I was, I couldn't help myself. “Henry, you're a terrible person,” I said in a complete deadpan.
He had a pained expression. “You see, this is one of those times that I can't tell if you're joking or not.”
I balked. Was he kidding? “Of course I'm joking, Henry, why would anyone think that was bad?”
He made a face. “I know it's not bad, I know. I just wish I could tell her how lucky I feel to be able to be generous to my little sister. I think part of her would love to be told how much money her big brother is happy to spend on her, you know?” He shrugged. “But I guess everyone always worries if they're doing the right thing or not...”
I stared at him. “Henry, are you fucking serious? I wish you could hear yourself,” I said quietly. “Listening to you stressing about this making you a bad person is an insult to everyone with actual moral dilemmas.” Like me, for example. “You're like the perfect guy, I'm still trying to figure out what the catch is. You're too nice.”
He laughed wryly, relaxing a little. “You're right, I'm probably gay.”
I was glad I hadn't eaten any of the popcorn, because I would have choked on it. “What?” I said in the top register of my voice. Around the cinema, people stopped watching the trailers to look at me. I shrank a little in my chair.
He took one look at my expression and laughed. “Min, I'm not gay, I promise,” he reassured me in a whisper. I must have looked very sceptical, because he laughed a bit more. “Why are you looking at me like that? You of all people should know I'm not!”
Except that he of all people didn't know that I probably was. “Because your line is that people don't say things out of the blue, so based on your own logic you must have thought about it!”
He shrugged, casting a furtive glance around us to make sure there was no one sitting close enough to hear him. “I was actually just following that old trope of 'he's too perfect, he must be gay' that is repeated so often in movies and TV, but in the spirit of full disclosure, I suppose it has crossed my mind a couple of times.” He touched my hand. “But for me it’s one of those things that’s better in theory than in reality. I have no particular interest in it. So, yes: not gay.”
I had so many conflicting thoughts about what he'd just told me, so many. I couldn't get Gemma and Friday night out of my head, though. If he'd thought about it the way I had about Gemma... “But you’ve thought about it?”
He frowned. “Yes, I frequently fantasise about pushing Sean Frost off the balcony on level 36, as well, but I definitely won't be doing that,” he whispered. “It doesn't make me a murderer, does it?”
I raised my eyebrows, sitting back a little. “Okay, that's a really good point.”
He took another handful of popcorn. “You seem very invested in my answer, though,” he observed, watching me a little too intently. “Why is that?”
My heart stopped. Now's your chance, Min, I thought, tell him about Friday night.
Before I got there, though, he was already picking through what I'd said with the fine-toothed comb they handed out to him in shrink school. “'But you thought about it',” he said, repeating what I'd asked word-for-word and examining all of them. It made me really nervous. “You've thought about it,” was his conclusion, “being with another woman.”
How the fuck did he do that? I swallowed. “Actually, yeah...”
The concentration on his face looked like a frown; or maybe it was a frown. “We've talked about this before, though,” he said. “Recently, actually, right after you were worrying about that painting and the photo that you uploaded. You weren't so upset about it then, you were even joking about it, so this must be recent.” He watched me very closely. “Did something happen, Min? In the last few weeks?”
Jesus fuck he was a fucking mind reader. How the hell did he zoom in on things like that? I looked around us, even though I knew there wasn’t anyone sitting very close. Henry was being really discreet about how he was reacting, but fuck, it was a cinema. I had to tell him, though, and if I didn’t do it now I wasn’t sure I’d manage to later. God, I was shaking again. “Something happened on Friday.”
He didn't say anything this time, he was just listening intently so I was obliged to continue. “I went out with Sarah and got drunk, and one of her friends kissed me.” I couldn't read him at all. “I didn't let her keep doing it, but I liked it.” After some debate, I ad
ded, “A lot.”
His brow softened and he sat back, watching me. I saw his eyes dip to my shaking knees. “That's all that happened?” I nodded. “You didn't know her before, and you're not planning on seeing her again, are you?”
“No.” Sarah's text message was unfortunately fresh in my mind, however: 'You work in the same building,' she'd said, and 'you’re both friends with me'. I dismissed that thought. I'd never seen Gemma at Frost before, and Sarah and I had been working together for some time. Of course, Gemma hadn't had my phone number before...
He was watching me carefully, and I could see his brain ticking over. This is where I find out, I thought. This is where I find out what's going to happen to us.
His eyes were on my face, my chest and my legs. He was noticing how nervous I was. “It wasn't work upsetting you just before, was it?” he said at last. I shook my head.
Say something, Henry, I thought, anything. When he didn't, I couldn't take it any longer, so I did. “I'm sorry,” I whispered, feeling like he should really hear it. “Henry, I'm so, so sorry, I didn't mean to—”
He reached across and put a hand on my shoulder, glancing over his own at the other patrons. No one was paying any attention to us. “Min,” he said, interrupting me. “Let's talk this through.” It sounded like he already had it all figured out. “Here's what happened: another woman kissed you, you enjoyed it, you stopped her, yes?” I nodded. “You can't control what other people do, only what you do, so the fact she kissed you is kind of irrelevant. What you were in control of was stopping her from taking it anywhere else. And you did that,” he said, and let that hang in the air for a moment before concluding, “So realistically, it's the third thing you're worried about, and that you're worried I'll be worried about, isn't it: that you enjoyed it?”
I stared at him. My jaw might even be a little bit open. “How the fuck do you do that?” I asked him nervously. “Just like that?”
He broke the tension by chuckling a little. “Five years at uni and nearly a decade of working with people,” he said, and then he scrunched up his face for a moment. “Although, despite that, I did think it was work bothering you the first time around, remember?” His smile faded a little, but he didn't seem angry or upset. “Min, lots of women are attracted to other women. It's nothing to lose sleep over. And as long as you're still attracted to me, too, it doesn't worry me, either.”
I tried as much as I could to veil my reaction to that so he couldn't read it. 'Still' attracted to him?
“I mean that,” he said. “And although you said earlier that you 'couldn't stop thinking' about what happened, it really sounds like you're not planning on doing anything about that, are you?” I shook my head, and he smiled again, relaxing. “Then it's just a nice thought. There's nothing wrong with thinking nice thoughts, everyone does,” he said, and then cringed. “Although, if I want to retain some self-respect, I should probably think about what you just told me a lot less...” He reached for a handful of popcorn, and it felt like the end of the conversation.
I didn't know if he was being serious about imagining me and a woman or if he was just joking about it to make me feel better, so I didn't comment on it. I just sat there frowning at him. “Why are you okay with this?” I asked him, still not really believing it. Just like that, everything was fine?
He paused before he put the popcorn in his mouth, grinning and saying pointedly, “Because not everything is a crisis, Min.” He looked back at the screen. “The movie's about to start.”
The movie was starting, so I sat back in my own chair, staring blankly forward.
That was it? That was what I'd been tearing my hair out over? I mean, I hadn't actually told him everything, but he'd homed in like a fucking heat-seeking missile on what had been upsetting me and he didn't seem to mind it at all. I couldn't imagine why it didn't bother him, though. Then again, Henry wasn't actually the one of us who was having a sexual identity crisis, and he thought that I was attracted to him and women. I made a face.
You also didn't tell him about the guy-stuff, an irritating voice in my head reminded me, and I squashed it down. Henry didn't need to know that. I wasn't going to do it around him or at work or anywhere where it would impact him and therefore he didn't need to know. It was just something I could keep between me and Bree, and maybe occasionally Sarah. It was like his thing with Alice and the pram, I decided. Not knowing will make him happier, and it doesn't hurt anyone.
Fuck, though. It was crazy. I had been completely fucking myself up over the Gemma thing all night and morning, and the whole thing had just turned into an enormous anti-climax. What a waste of energy; I don't know why I always expected the apocalypse.
“I think I need to stop being so fucking paranoid about everything,” I said vaguely, loudly enough for him to hear.
He looked surprised for a second, but it melted away into affection as he chuckled to himself and leant over towards me. “Well, that is certainly one way of putting it,” he said mildly, and then continued to watch the movie.
I pretended to watch it, too, but there was so much to think about, I couldn't even get my head around it all. Fortunately we'd chosen an action flick, so I didn't really need to give it much attention. I just watched all the pretty explosions and wondered about the fact Henry seemed to be so unruffled by the idea I was thinking about women. He didn’t seem to think thoughts mattered at all, really. At one point I needed to ask him about it, so I said next to his ear, “Do you really just happily think about things like killing Sean and me getting with girls, even if it can't happen? You don't think it's, like, fucked up to fool yourself by imagining things that will never be?”
He frowned a bit, whispering, “There's nothing wrong with any thought unless you don't like it.” He kissed the back of my hand. “Think whatever you want to.”
I relaxed back in my chair, staring wide-eyed at the screen. Fuck. I felt like I'd just had an epiphany. Especially after years at a Catholic high school and having been brought up by my everything-is-a-sin mother, I felt like someone had just handed me the world and said, 'Here, go nuts', and I had no idea what I wanted to do with it.
I took a handful of popcorn before Henry ate it all and stuffed it in my mouth as I tried to cope with the idea.
I really hoped that no one would ask me what the movie was like because I didn't watch it. I could probably have made one or two observations about the environmental design—I had always been a bit partial to futuristic dystopia—but other than that, the plot went right over my head because I was paying next to no attention to it.
Henry made a few comments as we left, though, pram box under one arm. “The lead was very unconvincing,” he said. “I find it really hard to focus on the story when you can tell the entire crew is more interested in making sure an actress looks beautiful than making sure she's really selling the character.”
“Maybe she just needs better marketers,” I said, still too stuck on all of the stuff we'd discussed before the movie had started to be too interested in reviewing it.
“I don't think people who sell women are generally called marketers…” Henry joked, looking around as we walked up to the lift. He didn’t press the button straight away, though, second-guessing himself. “I think I'm on level five, but I'm lost without my phone. I usually make a note of which floor I parked on.”
I didn’t really care where he’d parked his car, because I was too aware of the fact he wasn't saying anything about what he'd learnt about me. It was like we'd never even had that conversation. It didn't feel right.
He had actually parked on level five, but it took us longer to get up there and find his car than it actually took us to drive back to my building and park under it. As we got out and went to walk over to another lift, Henry stopped by an empty parking space, looking at it.
“You moved your car,” he noted. “Did the battery go flat again?”
I gave him a look. “How the hell do you need to put a thing on your phone about where your c
ar is parked but you know where mine's supposed to be?” He shrugged, smiling, as I said, “No, I was stressing out over all that stuff I told you, and so Bree and I went for a road trip yesterday.”
“Ah,” he said as we got to the lift.
We then stood there waiting for it to collect us, and he didn't say anything else. It was driving me nuts. “Aren't you going to ask about what we did? Where we went?” I turned toward him. “After what I told you happened on Friday, aren't you worried about what I'm doing with her?”
He looked really surprised. “Should I be worried?”
I sighed. “Well, no, not about that,” I said. “But it's really weird that you're not.”
He raised his eyebrows at me, and then looked back at the lift. “Well, then.” As we stepped into the lift, he pressed the '26' button and watched me again for a moment as the doors closed. “You remember how you said you worry too much?”
I made a face. “Yeah...”
He raised his eyebrows at me. “Mmmm,” he said simply and left it at that. He did think further about what I'd said, though, which was at least a little comforting. “I've told you this before, Min: I'm glad you're making friends here. I don't know much about Bree, but despite the terrible singing voice and issues with boundaries, she seems very sweet. Sarah and her partner are nice. Do I think you're sleeping with them all because a stranger kissed you on Friday night? No, I don't.”
Well, when he put it like that, I felt a bit silly. I supposed he was right, I was worrying too much again. I cringed a bit internally about him describing Sarah as 'nice', though, because that was what she'd said about him. Sarah thinks you're nice, too, Henry. She just wants me to break up with you and get it on with girls.
“How is she, anyway?” Henry asked, changing the subject. “Bree, I mean? You haven't talked much about why she was so upset that other night.”
I made a face; I'd forgotten I hadn't given him the update. “That's because I don't know much about why she's upset, she'll hardly tell me anything,” I complained. “Like I texted you: it's something to do with her brother, but she won't say what. I think something to do with money, as well.”
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