You Wish

by Lia Weston

  ‘Can’t imagine why he’d be upset,’ says Mica. She dips a tongue-pink slice of fish into the dark soy pool. ‘So you’re no longer allowed to play with Dan.’

  ‘Basically.’

  ‘That’s a bit shit.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I shrug and then can’t end the sentence.

  ‘Oh, honey,’ says Mica while I stare at my lap and fight off the burning in my eyes.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, crushing my palm into the bridge of my nose and then wincing because I forgot about my goddamned eye sockets.

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ she says. ‘Losing a friend’s a horrible thing. It breaks your soul.’

  I inhale and regain control, going back to my soup. ‘Can’t imagine you being broken by anything.’

  Her gaze skips over the floor for a few moments, deliberating. ‘I had some friends once who were like sisters to me. I thought we’d still be hanging out in our nineties, getting pissed and playing bingo, you know.’

  The tofu floats around my spoon as I watch her.

  ‘But then something changed. At first it’s just references that other people get that you don’t, then you realise they’ve been doing stuff without you, and then,’ Mica straightens up and points her chopsticks at me, ‘you get the “catch up” stuff. “We should catch up.” It’s the death knell. And it caught me out every time, like a total idiot. “Sure! When are you free?” Then you don’t hear back for weeks. And you just think they’re busy. Then you realise, no, they’re just busy with everyone who’s not you. You are toast, you are done. “We should catch up.”’ Mica shakes her head. ‘I’d rather someone just stabs me in the chest rather than say that now.’

  Bunsen yowls from inside the laundry, unfairly denied access to raw fish.

  ‘And the worst thing?’ Mica says, putting her plate down. ‘I still have no idea what I did. No idea. I didn’t sleep with anyone I wasn’t supposed to. I didn’t fight with anyone, believe it or not. In the end you kind of assume that there’s something fundamentally flawed about you, that people will discover eventually you’re not worth the time.’

  ‘You are worth it, though.’

  ‘Maybe she’s born with it,’ she says, picking her plate up again. ‘Maybe it’s Maybelline.’ The hatch has closed again. ‘Well, no wonder you were all over the place last night. Did he do that too?’ She points a chopstick at my right eye, which is now as black as the left one was. Somehow the fact that they’re not quite matching makes it look even worse.

  ‘No.’ I poke at my daikon shreds. ‘By the way, how do you know so much about concussion?’

  ‘Ex-boyfriend. He and his friends used to beat each other up all the time. It was a very strange hobby.’

  ‘Did he do it to you too?’

  She gives me a long, appraising look. ‘I keep telling you, whatever traumas I’ve suffered in my life, an abusive boyfriend is not one of them.’

  There’s a burst of electronic birdsong. Mica gets up and heads for the door. When she returns, her arms are full of orchids.

  ‘You have the weirdest doorbell,’ I say.

  ‘Are these from you?’ She looks so different, so shyly pleased, and I remember, with a trickling dread, that it’s not going to last.

  ‘Maybe.’

  Mica, slightly flushed, puts the orchids in the sink.

  When she sits back down, neither of us talks for a few minutes. Mica is still a bit pink, but is trying to remain nonchalant. I mine my brain for a subject that isn’t potentially combustible. Things feel different. I can’t shake the guilt that I took an advantage of my colleague.

  Shit, no, wait, Mica’s my employee. I had sex with my employee.

  Brilliant. That’s much worse.

  ‘Mica, I’m . . .’

  She looks up at me, eyebrows lifted.

  ‘. . . really, really sorry.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Last night. I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t mean to do it.’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t mean to throw up on me either.’ Mica delicately eats a piece of eel.

  ‘I don’t think I can ever apologise enough for that.’

  ‘Probably not.’

  I try again, though I really shouldn’t. ‘I’m concerned I took advantage of you.’

  She gives a soft laugh. ‘You think I’m incapable of saying no?’

  ‘I’ve seen you say no plenty.’

  ‘Or you think I’m just incapable of saying no to you, is that it?’

  Memories of her fingers sliding down my back.

  ‘No, but I’m still your boss.’

  ‘Oh, no, call the police,’ says Mica. ‘As far as I’m aware, it’s not illegal to sleep with your boss.’ She glances at me, and her smile slips. ‘What, am I your bit on the side now?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  She puts her chopsticks down. ‘Is there someone else?’

  I don’t answer. Technically there’s not, but there could be. My hesitation is enough, though.

  After a suspended second’s pause, Mica snaps her mouth shut and looks down at her lap. ‘Right. Okay.’ She nods. ‘Okay. Wasn’t expecting that.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You should be apologising to your girlfriend, not me.’

  ‘She’s not my girlfriend, exactly.’

  ‘Oh, well that makes it all right,’ says Mica, balling her napkin up and throwing it on her plate. She sits back and looks at me, the napkin slowly turning brown in the pool of soy. ‘You know, I never picked it. Then again, I’m not good at reading minds.’

  ‘I don’t read minds.’

  ‘Lucky for you right now.’

  I look down at my bowl. ‘I’m just not in a great space at the moment.’

  ‘Well, now that makes two of us. Congrats.’

  Unsurprisingly, Mica does not give me a lift home.

  Tarik has his headphones in, Mica has called in sick, and I have had approximately forty minutes of quality sleep plus five coffees. Nothing is helping. Rohan, upon seeing my tandem black eyes, barred me from all client meetings, so I stay underground, like a troll under a bridge. Scion-Ray watches me from Mica’s desk, judgement written all over her tiny plastic face.

  ‘You know she is not there,’ says Tarik.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You keep looking at Mica’s chair. She has not become invisible.’

  ‘It’s just habit,’ I say, and go back to my screen.

  At the sound of footsteps, I have a brief irrational moment of hope before Felicity’s black d’Orsay pumps – that Draco album will haunt me forever, damn it – descend into the basement. She bears gifts, of a sort: a giant salad and a sealed envelope.

  ‘Alex insisted that I deliver his letter by hand,’ she says. ‘I have no idea why, and I’m happy not to.’

  ‘And he sent me lunch?’

  ‘That’s from me. You need some nutrients.’ She eyes my torso, which, I will admit, is looking ribbier than I’d like these days. ‘The flowers are edible.’

  ‘So is a bacon sandwich.’

  ‘Eat the salad first,’ says Felicity. ‘Then we’ll talk.’

  Alex’s letter is brief. He has news. He wants to meet at usual spot at two. I spend the next few hours splicing a client into a Taylor Swift film clip and eating nasturtiums, which make me feel like a goat.

  To be honest, I’m surprised Alex isn’t wearing a hat and false nose. He’s in the furthest corner of the cafe, huddled between the magazine rack and the handwritten Ham Croissant (No Cheese) + Medium Coffee $5 sign. He’s had nothing but tea today, judging from the leg-jiggling. Due to the size of the table, it’s going to be hard for our knees not to touch.

  He starts to greet me but stops to peer at my face. ‘Are you okay? You want some water? I’ve got aspirin, bandages, antihistamines, whatever you need, seriously.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ I try not to wince too much as I sit down. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’ve found something,’ he says.

  ‘I figured.’


  ‘But it might not be what you want.’

  The waiter puts down my flat white and retreats.

  ‘Nothing in the emails say that someone’s been getting files, but, hey, it’s not like we expected to find, you know, “Hello, I would like to break into your system, can you tell me your passcodes” kind of thing, right?’ Alex snorts. ‘Info at leaked data dot com. Hacker at ruining your life dot org.’

  ‘Alex, focus.’

  The waiter comes back with a bacon sandwich with extra bacon, and I’d kiss him if he was up for it.

  Alex waits until the waiter’s gone, then leans so far forward he’s almost flat on the table. ‘Kain and Rohan have been investigating AI.’

  ‘As in artificial intelligence?’

  ‘Sharing links, right? “This could be an option” kind of thing.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘See, that’s the thing, right. It’s normally used for like programming and analysis. Or,’ he sits up again, ‘customer service. Maybe like a chatbot for the website so Felicity doesn’t have to keep answering emails. Though then I don’t know what she’d do.’ He suddenly looks panicked. ‘They wouldn’t fire her, would they? I mean, I – I mean, we need her.’

  I let that one slide. Oh, come on; it’s not like you haven’t noticed Alex’s giant crush. ‘I don’t think that’s the plan.’

  ‘But there’s heaps of stuff AI is doing now,’ he continues. ‘All these new areas, man, not just robotics or narrow AI.’

  ‘Narrow?’

  ‘Like when your phone talks to you. Strong AI is when there’s actual sentient intelligence.’

  ‘So Kain would be narrow AI.’

  Alex frowns. ‘He’s not a robot.’

  ‘Yeah, but – never mind. Anyway, you have no idea why Kain and Rohan would be checking out this kind of stuff?’

  Alex’s fingers rap Morse code on the edge of the table. It seems to have the effect of keeping him calm while his mind goes into overdrive. ‘Nuh-huh,’ he eventually says.

  Excellent.

  Alex’s phone suddenly gives a whistle. ‘Crap,’ he says, and dives under the table.

  I take a bite of my bacon. ‘Should I ask?’

  ‘Rohan’s nearby.’

  ‘Is this like a Harry Potter scar thing?’

  ‘Got an app,’ comes the voice near my knees. ‘Notifies me when people are within a certain distance.’

  Sure enough, Rohan strolls past the cafe.

  ‘He’ll know, I know he’ll know. Oh, man. I’m really bad at lying. Don’t let him ask me anything.’

  On a whim, I text Mum. Are you home? Got some stuff for Gen.

  She replies almost instantly. In town for a meeting.

  I consider replying that I know exactly who she’s meeting, but don’t.

  *

  Rohan doesn’t come back to work, so I wait until early evening – when I assume Mum will be heading home – to call him.

  ‘How’s your face?’ he says when he picks up.

  ‘Fine.’ I ignore the tone in his voice, the one that is enjoying what he thinks is a secret tryst at my expense. Motherfucker. Oh God, that’s a literal insult now. Kill me. ‘Just wondered if you’ve handled the Mr Pyne problem yet.’

  ‘Are you still worrying about that? I told you I’d take care of it.’

  ‘Yes, I’m completely reassured by your vague statement.’

  He sighs. I can hear him undoing his tie. It’s amazing he’s still wearing it. Wait, don’t think about that too much. ‘I gave the client a formal apology on behalf of IF, and a compensatory payment.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Enough to keep him happy.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘What do you care? You’ve never given a shit about our cashflow.’

  I do now.

  I try to log on to IF’s online banking and then can’t remember the password. I’m about to phone Felicity when I realise how weird it will sound that I don’t know this basic piece of information. Instead, I search through the scraps of paper in my drawers, wallet and pocket. I finally find the password on a scrap of paper in with the takeaway menus.

  IF’s account lists myriad transactions. Most references I recognise. I search for Pyne but don’t find it. One incoming payment catches my eye, however. It’s almost three times larger than the ones preceding and following. The reference is CONTEXT and then some numbers. Is it a typo? Regardless, why is it so big? I quickly search online for Context, but come up with dictionary definitions and a handful of businesses, nothing relevant to IF.

  Further searching on our accounts reveals four more payments from the same place, all with different number references. I sit, staring at the monitor, wondering what else is going on that I don’t know about, until my phone rings.

  Mum doesn’t even say hello. ‘Is Gen with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shit,’ says Mum uncharacteristically. ‘Shit shit shit. I don’t know where she is.’ Her breath sounds high and tight, compressed in my ear.

  ‘When did you see her last?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘Yesterday?’

  ‘She left a note saying she was staying over at a friend’s house.’ Mum blows her nose. ‘But she hasn’t come back and we don’t know whose place she went to. We’ve tried everyone we can think of. No one’s seen her. Oh God. What if she’s been kidnapped?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s been kidnapped, she left you a note. Is she answering her phone?’

  ‘It’s here.’ Mum gives a sob. ‘She left it in the fruit bowl.’

  I hang up and grab my coat and keys.

  Mum is alternating between crying and running outside to call for Gen, neither of which is exactly helping. Dad is working his way through Gen’s phone contacts. I start hitting potential hideouts.

  The school grounds are empty and all the buildings are locked.

  The skate park has one kid attempting to nail a kickflip. I show him a photo of Gen. He shakes his head.

  The Shatterleg lookout car park contains three cars but Gen’s not in any of them, only a bunch of now very annoyed people.

  The cinema auditorium is deserted except for an ancient cashier, and the only way I know Gen’s not watching a film is because it’s a documentary on the evils of sugar and she’d never sit through it.

  I’m not panicking yet. Gen’s not stupid. She’d have a plan, a spot already staked out somewhere. I just have to find it.

  I drive past the botanic gardens again, triggering flashes of a woman in an emerald coat. The gates are closed. I’m pretty sure Gen’s either too lazy to try to climb the spiked fence or smart enough to realise she’d impale herself.

  I trawl the bridge, doubling back twice. There are plenty of small dark shadows, but not the one I’m looking for.

  After checking the mall, the art museum, the fountain by the art museum, the train station, and the river again, I’m running out of ideas.

  I have one last resort.

  I swallow my pride and dial.

  ‘You tried the cinema, right?’ Mica’s face is pressed to the window. ‘Slow down a bit.’

  ‘She’s not there.’ I brake and wave an arm out the window to the car behind me that’s honking. ‘Go around, go around, fuck off, fuck off.’

  ‘Art museum?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I figured you would have started with the comic book arcade, so that’s probably no good.’

  I swear and swing into a U-turn.

  To her credit, Mica says nothing.

  The arcade’s wrought-iron gates look closed, but on closer inspection are only pushed together. I hold one open and Mica ducks through. Our footsteps echo between the dark shopfronts. The globe lights reflect off the glass, turning the red-tiled floor gold. If you’re ever looking for a romantic and secluded spot, try your local arcade after hours; lots of dark corners and privacy, though you will need a blanket, a thermos and a defibrillator.

  We hit the s
econd level. At the furthermost end, at the foot of the zombie in the window of Mad Rabbit Comics, is a small still bundle in a hoodie. I accelerate without thinking, hopping when my ankle stabs me. If she’s bleeding or unconscious, if someone’s hurt her, I’ll find them and kill them. The hoodie lifts. At the sight of me, Gen bursts into tears.

  ‘For fuck’s sake –’ I start, until Mica whacks me in the stomach.

  Mica drops to her knees to embrace Gen, making sure she’s all in one piece. ‘Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay. Boy, are we glad to see you.’

  Gen just cries and cries.

  I scoop and pick my sister up as best I can. Her hands feel sub-Arctic.

  We make our way downstairs – me, with one arm on the railing and the other holding up Gen, Mica gently stroking Gen’s back and carrying her backpack, making soothing noises.

  Mixed in with my relief is a wish that I could be forgiven so easily.

  I go out to the balcony to call Mum.

  ‘Oh, thank God. Oh. Is she okay?’ She muffles the phone and shouts something to Dad.

  ‘She’s fine, just cold and freaked out.’

  Inside, Mica emerges from the kitchen with what looks like every single piece of chocolate I own.

  ‘We’ll come straightaway,’ says Mum.

  ‘Actually, you might want to hold off. She’s going to stay with me for a bit.’

  ‘What? She can’t do that.’

  ‘It’s school holidays next week. I can look after her.’

  ‘You can’t look after her. You can’t look after anything. Remember what happened last time? You taught her Tool songs. I ended up with a five year old who knew the lyrics to something called “Hooker with a Penis”.’

  (Only the chorus.) ‘That was years ago.’

  ‘I don’t care. She’s coming home.’

  ‘Mum,’ I say, ‘she doesn’t want to.’

  There’s a long pause. Mum inhales. ‘All right, fine. But you’d better keep an eye on her.’

  ‘I promise.’

  *

  Mica has built Gen a blanket fortress. Gen, a head in a pile of mismatched fabrics, drinks hot chocolate while gazing adoringly at her hero.

  ‘Let me know if you need anything.’ Mica scribbles down her phone number and tucks the scrap of paper into Gen’s hand.