by Lia Weston
‘Touché,’ she says. ‘Hopefully it never happens in an art gallery.’
The sliding doors pull apart. Out trots the matching couple, skates over their shoulder, still holding hands.
‘Random question,’ I say. ‘Do your parents know exactly what you do at IF?’
‘They know I’m a photo editor,’ says Mica.
‘But that’s it.’
‘You want to know if I hide it.’
I shrug and poke a hole in the purple ice of my cone. ‘Just trying to put pieces together.’
‘I’m not a jigsaw,’ Mica says.
‘Didn’t you used to wear a bumblebee costume all the time?’
‘When I was a kid, yes. What’s that got to do with it?’ She looks at me quizzically, her lips tinged with pink. ‘You’re not normally curious about stuff like this.’
A school group exits the rink, shepherded by a frazzled teacher. ‘Find your buddy, please! Remember the buddy system.’ He tries to usher them all towards the bus in the car park, which is difficult when most of them are wearing puffer jackets they can’t see over. ‘Where’s Angelo? Come on, holding hands now, please.’ The children noisily locate their friends and pair up, moving along like a puffy patchwork sausage.
I tap the last of my ice slush and syrup into my mouth. ‘Did I tell you June wanted me to buy Rohan and Kain out of IF?’
‘I thought she hated IF.’
‘She did. I guess she figured that if I was working somewhere terrible, I should at least own the company.’
‘That’s . . .’ Mica thinks. ‘. . . kind of worse, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know. All I do know is that she felt that I wasn’t leveraging my potential. At least I think that’s how she put it. Then she said something about empowering myself and then my brain shut off.’
‘I thought she didn’t care you weren’t ambitious.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘You’re not ambitious. This isn’t a personal slur, it’s a fact. It’s like me getting upset if someone calls me short. Anyway, I thought June was all about the greater good, community service, meals for the elderly, that kind of thing.’
‘When it came to other people, sure. Just not when it came to me.’ I crumple up the empty cone. ‘Besides, I don’t want full control of IF. I don’t want to have to deal with finances or legalities. I just want to do the work.’ I throw the cone at the bin. It rebounds off the side. ‘Plus I probably couldn’t afford to buy them out now anyway.’
‘Not when you’ve blown all your money on snow cones. Poor Junebug.’
I wiggle my toes. The feeling hasn’t come back yet. ‘Do you still want to know what I want out of life?’
‘Tell me; it’ll be faster than guessing.’
‘I want an easy relationship with someone who doesn’t think I need to be fixed.’
‘What if the person you’re with needs fixing?’
‘Hopefully they don’t.’
‘So you want a flawless relationship with a flawless human being who also thinks you’re flawless.’
‘It sounded better in my head somehow.’
‘You want perfection,’ says Mica, neatly folding her cone, ‘which does not exist.’
‘Just because I haven’t found it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.’
‘I feel the same way about unicorns,’ says Mica.
‘For someone who nags me about my love life, when’s the last time you saw someone for more than twenty-four hours?’
‘I have no desire to get married. If I want to spend thousands of dollars on something that’s going to break anyway, I’ll buy a Thermomix.’ Mica chucks the paper holder at the bin on the footpath and scores. ‘Besides, I’ve been disappointing my parents for years – why stop now?’
The sun breaks through the bank of clouds and beautifully illuminates the matching jumper couple, who are now having a screaming match in the car park about who lost the keys.
‘Is the Grace open yet?’ says Mica.
I pull her to her feet by the hoof. ‘Let’s find out.’
CHAPTER SIX
Four attempts to put my key in the door, three missed calls from Dan on my mobile, which I’d left in the kitchen by accident.
The flat is unusually cold. I elbow on the light switch and discover that the balcony door is open. Shit. I go straight to the spare room. Respirator and piece books still on the shelf, cutters still in their rolls . . . Acetate, test boards, adhesive, paint, everything that no one is allowed to go near, especially Gen, who loves to see how sharp the cutter blades are and once nearly took off her finger. Nothing’s been touched. I must have left the balcony open this morning.
I kick the spare room door shut and sit on the edge of the drafting table.
Sophia covers the wall now. She leaps across the plaster, hair whipped back, thighs sleekly muscled. She lies on a towel, denim shorts hitched up, ivory sand speckling her legs. She’s laughing, pulling down her T-shirt. She’s turning away, hands on the back of her neck, in a dress that drapes to leave her vertebrae bare. In some photos she is mere suggestion – her sneakers going up the stairs, the back of her head on a city street. It’s enough, though. I’m so familiar with her now that I can pick her by her fingers.
Yesterday’s archive offering sees her at my favourite burger joint, pulling the bacon out from her bun to eat it first, the same way I do. We also drink the same beer. Ta-da, we’re practically married now.
Mostly she runs. Runs, runs, runs, always running. She invites me to follow her, over her shoulder.
What would it be like, to throw your arms open that way? What would it be like to actually be fearless? I find myself smiling as I watch her travel my wall. Me and Sophia, among the acetate sheets.
The fridge light illuminates the torn corner of the Clash poster. (I don’t know any of their songs; I just liked the design.) Four carrots lie in the bottom of the crisper, which isn’t doing its job. The freezer is iced over. I dial for a curry and go back to the drafting table to finish cutting a new set of stencils.
Mica had decided to stay on at the pub. I’m guessing her favourite bartender’s shift was about to end. As the blade slips through the plastic, I imagine them intertwined, his inked arms slipping across Mica’s milky body.
Someone knocks. Delivery times are improving. I try to find my wallet.
When I open the door, my stomach drops. ‘Hey.’
June lifts her chin. Her tendons are tight above the fleecy collar of her jacket. She’s brought reinforcements – Ellie and another girl whose name escapes me.
‘I left some things here,’ says June, and clears her throat.
‘You did?’
Ellie and the other girl glance at each other in disgust at my inattention.
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
I have no choice but to let them in. Ellie’s nostrils flare as she passes me, smelling the beer. It’s a good thing Mica doesn’t wear strong perfume.
‘There’s, uh, there’s a hairbrush in the bathroom cabinet,’ says June to them. ‘And a Libra packet. And a copy of Eat, Pray, Love in the bedside cabinet.’
Bibles in hotel drawers. Eat, Pray, Love in others. I never look in the bedside cabinet; no wonder I didn’t see it.
Ellie and the girl nod and head for the bathroom, as if they’re a SWAT team sweeping a building. June doesn’t follow. She looks around the apartment as if she’s never seen it before. It’s fairly plain, as apartments go. Dark grey walls, white ceiling. TV on a red pine chest, a present from Dan which hides all of my ancient DVDs. Scattered prints of mine or pieces bought at exhibitions. Four chairs and a table, bought at Mum’s insistence, which never get used. Couches, which do. My bike, hooked up by the window. Beyond, a city full of people who aren’t having to deal with their ex-girlfriends right now.
She wanders in a circle, inspecting the prints, checking the furniture as if I may have gotten rid of one of the four chairs. I don’t ask her how she is, because I already know. There
’s a rash of tiny bumps across her forehead – she’s been hitting the booze pretty hard. My fault. She already has tissues tucked in her sleeve. My fault.
Someone upstairs has started playing mariachi music. I quickly cross to shut the balcony door, June circling away like a repelled magnet.
The girls are rummaging in the bathroom cupboards. There’s a clink as my razor is put in the sink. I’ll need to check the shower rail for prawn heads after they leave.
‘Well, that was fast,’ June says.
I turn to see her studying a picture on the fridge. Sophia sits on the edge of a bed, black T-shirt tied up, pointing a camera towards the viewer. It’s one of my favourite shots and I’m an idiot for putting it there.
‘That’s just for work.’
‘You don’t normally stick your work on the fridge.’
‘It’s been an odd month.’
‘Really?’ She crosses her arms. She’s ripped all of her left fingernail tips off. ‘An odd month? Is that it?’
‘I’m sorry.’
June laughs softly and starts circling the room again.
My phone plays Mica’s distinctive quacking text tone.
‘And how is Mica?’ says June silkily.
‘She’s fine.’
‘Seen much of her lately?’
‘She’s a friend.’
‘She’s supposed to be your employee.’
Echoes of Kain, telling me off for blurring the staff hierarchy. I shove the picture of Sophia into the cutlery drawer.
‘So,’ June faces me, stopped in the dead centre of the room. ‘Do I get any kind of explanation? Anything? Because I have wracked my brain, I really have. I gave you space. I didn’t try to move in. I let you do what you wanted. But then,’ she throws her hands up, ‘kaboom! All over. No right of reply. I get bombed into the ground and then the plane flies off.’
There’s nothing like being compared to a drone attack. To be fair, it’s a fairly accurate analogy.
Flashes of her stricken face against a background of strangers.
I found the card from the artists’ agency in the pocket of my jeans this morning, crumpled and crumbling after going through the wash. For some reason, I hesitated when I went to throw it in the bin, and chucked it on top of the cupboard instead.
June folds her arms across her stomach, her bitten nails hidden. ‘I just want to know what I did,’ she says.
I remember all the times she’s been kind, her sweet nature – even though it felt like a silk straitjacket at times. There’s a weird metallic taste in my mouth.
Against the stillness, my phone pings again with a different tone.
‘Sorry.’ I pick it up. ‘It’s Gen.’
June looks martyred but waits. She starts to neaten up the sneakers by the coffee table but catches herself.
Can u come over pls?
In the middle of something, I reply, and pocket the phone. ‘You never told me how much you hated IF.’
‘I didn’t . . . I don’t hate it.’
‘Dead brides and fake babies and awful things, wasn’t that what you said?’
‘You dumped me because I said I didn’t like your work?’
‘You don’t like my work.’
‘All right, fine, I don’t. I think it’s ghoulish and manipulative and weird, but I supported you because I thought you were better than IF.’
‘And this is why you told a bunch of strangers I was resurrecting my art career?’
‘I wanted better things for you. I just thought you needed the right encouragement.’ She faces the wall to dab the corner of her eye with her sleeve.
Silence from the bathroom now, which is almost worse than the rummaging.
I get as close to June as I can calculate to still be outside hitting distance. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it that way. Not in front of other people.’
She whips her head around so fast her neck cracks. ‘So you were going to do it anyway.’
‘I –’
‘What, were you just waiting for the worst possible time?’ She tucks her thumbs inside her hands. ‘Did everyone know but me?’
‘No. No one knew. I didn’t even know.’
June blinks at me.
‘I mean,’ I try to regather my thoughts but gee there’s something about having this conversation to the tune of ‘The Mexican Hat Dance’ that’s making it kind of hard. ‘I knew things weren’t right. I knew for a while, but I didn’t admit it.’
June picks up the remote control and squeezes it as if it, too, dumped her in public. ‘Do you know what normal people do when something’s wrong? They talk to the other person.’
Mum and June have been texting. Besides, as Mica said, I’m not normal. ‘You’re better off without me anyway.’
‘Oh, a pity break-up. How big of you.’
Gen texts again.
‘Just a sec.’
‘Jesus.’ June spins on her heel and walks to the balcony. ‘I can’t even get a whole minute of your time.’ Her hair, washed and shoved under a headband, has started to dry, fluffy blonde wisps escaping.
Pls pleeeeeeeeeasse.
Not now.
Gen responds with a poop emoji.
‘You never did pictures of me.’ June’s now looking at some of my sketches on the wall, studies of Tarik, Mica’s hands, Gen laughing. ‘Everyone got a portrait but me. Why is that?’
Immediately Mica’s quacking text tone sounds.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ says June, and wipes her face with the back of her hand. ‘That’s why.’
‘It’s not, I swear.’
‘Your word’s not worth much right now,’ says June. ‘You know that, right? You can’t even give me a reason why you decided we were breaking up.’
You like movies like Dirty Dancing. You’re smart but not curious. You represent the slow slide into inertia that I am terrified of. People always say they want you to tell them why you broke up with them, but trust me, they really don’t. Also, any of this is going to be hard to explain without getting beaten to death with a copy of Eat, Pray, Love.
Ellie and the other girl have smelled the salt in the air. They stop going through my things and emerge from the hallway.
‘Come on, Juney,’ says Ellie, holding out her hands.
June takes a final despairing look at me and tosses the remote control towards the couch. It bounces off and cracks open. She almost backtracks on her way out, her instinct to fix the problem automatically kicking in, but keeps walking.
They open the door to find a pretty girl on my step, holding a box of Indian takeaway.
‘Unbelievable,’ says Ellie to me, to the delivery girl’s bewilderment.
June is ushered past like a film star getting out of rehab.
I eat vindaloo on the balcony after checking the bathroom and bedroom for sabotage attempts, try to drown my guilt in lager, and forget to ring Dan back.
‘Whose fucking idea is this?’ Mica stands at the top of the basement stairs, brandishing a red and green flyer. She’s wearing a Dr Who T-shirt; even the Tardis looks pissed off.
‘It is Kain’s idea,’ says Tarik, not looking up. ‘For morale.’
‘Christmas in July.’ She flaps the paper at us. ‘Christmas. July.’ Never have I heard a month or holiday uttered with such loathing. ‘I don’t want to spend Christmas with my family, let alone people I work with.’
She’s so outraged I can’t help grinning.
Mica balls up the paper and kicks it at me. ‘Why are you so happy about it?’
‘Just think of all the ways it can go wrong. Tinsel fatality. Mince pie overdose. We can put Alex on top of the tree in place of the star.’ On my screens, my client’s husband is conducting the London Philharmonic, per my brief. It’s nice to be doing a book without a huge emotional load behind it. In comparison, a Christmas party feels like nothing. I angle his baton a little more rakishly.
‘Karaoke,’ says Tarik, in the tone of a man who has lived to witness great
tragedy in musical form. ‘Karaoke is where it goes wrong.’
I yawn, which sets off Mica and Tarik, so we look like a pack of chimps. Thanks to Rohan promising an eager client we’d finish their book two weeks early, we all had to stay back last night. In revenge, we used Ro’s credit card to order the most expensive pizzas we could find. Mica then spent ten minutes picking all of the seafood off hers.
‘What did you think “marinara deluxe” meant?’ I said, finishing off a piece of squid.
‘Tomato and really expensive cheese.’
‘That’s “margherita”. Which is basically what you’re having now you’ve taken all the toppings off.’
Mica held out a pale wodge of sea animal. ‘What the hell is this?’
‘Haven’t you ever had a scallop before?’
‘I grew up in a household where mashed potato came in a packet.’
Mica ended up falling asleep at her desk, a cold pile of tentacles and prawns next to her. I tucked her hoodie over her head and moved the squid scraps out of her way in case she did that thing where she suddenly twitches violently while she’s asleep. She said she did it once and punched someone in the face. I wonder if it was the bartender.
‘Ho ho ho!’ There’s a heavy tread on the stairs, inexplicably accompanied by the scent of cinnamon. ‘Who’s ready for Christmas?’ Kain thuds down into the basement, holding a paper plate edged in tinsel.
‘I’m never ready for Christmas,’ says Mica.
‘That’s not very jolly,’ says Kain. ‘Here, have a cookie. Kain’s Kris Kringle cookies for everyone.’
‘KKK cookies?’ I say. ‘You sure about that one?’
Kain’s wearing a Santa hat that almost matches his hair. ‘There are four Ks.’
‘Cookie is not spelled with a “k”,’ says Mica.
‘I baked them, I can spell them how I like.’ Kain offers the plate to Tarik. ‘Have a kookie.’
Tarik takes two and tosses one to Mica.
‘Why did you make the Nightmare Before Christmas In July on a Thursday instead of a Friday?’ says Mica, taking a bite.
‘So people will behave and not get so drunk they decide to photocopy themselves,’ says Kain, giving her stink-eye. ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten Rohan’s birthday party.’
