You Wish

by Lia Weston

  ‘Get off! Get off him!’

  Rohan’s smile dies as he sits up again. Gen stands at the top of the stairs, blood trickling from her nose, pointing a gun at his chest.

  ‘Get. Off,’ Gen repeats.

  ‘Gen,’ I say, ‘don’t. Don’t.’

  Rohan slowly stands, making sure to first grind his knees into my elbows. My fingers go numb.

  Gen’s hands start shaking as Rohan advances towards her. ‘I’ll shoot,’ she says, backing down a step.

  ‘Will you?’ says Rohan.

  ‘Rohan, stop!’ says Kain.

  ‘I’ll do it!’ The gun wobbles in her hand.

  Rohan shakes his head. ‘I doubt it.’

  Before she can duck out of range, he strikes forward, easily snatching the gun out of her fingers. Gen cringes back against the handrail.

  ‘Really,’ says Rohan, ‘how long did you think that you could keep that up? This must be some kind of genetic Lash trait. All bravado, no brains.’

  Gen casts an anguished look at me.

  There’s a strangled roar. Kain flings himself towards Rohan, who effortlessly clocks him on the side of the head. Kain hits the ground like Thor’s hammer, clutching his face.

  ‘Surrounded by idiots,’ says Rohan. He turns and points the gun at me. ‘Look how many people you dragged into this. Efficiency was never your strong point.’

  ‘You’re not going to shoot me,’ I say.

  ‘You don’t know me at all,’ he says. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Probably not, but I know you’re not going to shoot me.’

  His jaw muscles pulse. Rohan’s finger tightens on the trigger.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Gen compressing like a coil, about to spring on him from behind. Before she can make things a lot worse, the front door crashes open and we’re dazzled by lights.

  ‘Police! Don’t move.’

  Rohan and Gen both put their hands up.

  I put my head back down on the floor.

  I kind of wish we’d gone with Gen’s hydraulic press idea.

  The paramedic lets me go. I limp across the road to the bus shelter where the others are waiting, already having given separate statements. Gen jumps up and runs towards me.

  ‘Don’t hug me, don’t hug me, I’m not kidding,’ I step back. ‘My ribs are bruised.’

  She takes my hand instead and leads me over. We make a motley crew: Kain, still in his pyjamas; Gen, with a swollen nose and purpling cheek; Mica, who looks relatively normal if you don’t count her skeleton onesie; and me, with a re-injured ankle and ribs that will soon match my eye sockets.

  ‘That was awesome,’ says Gen, karate-chopping the air. ‘I was like bam-pow-bssssh!’

  ‘Did you call the police?’ I sit down next to Mica and grunt involuntarily with the impact.

  ‘When I heard Kain, I knew something had gone wrong.’

  ‘I wasn’t yelling,’ says Kain, holding an icepack to his face.

  ‘Please, you’ve got a voice like a cruise ship horn,’ says Mica. ‘Anyway, I was just heading up the stairs when I heard Rohan come in through the back.’

  ‘How did you know it was him?’ I say.

  ‘Who else wears Cuban heels? That’s when I dialled. I doubted you were all going to hug it out.’

  ‘I take it he didn’t see you.’

  Mica rolls her eyes. ‘As if he ever comes downstairs.’

  ‘And I was behind the desk and stuff,’ says Gen, ‘and then that guy came in and he’s staring up at where you guys were like he wanted to kill someone and at first I totally freaked out but then not totally because I remembered the diversion and I threw a smoke bomb at him.’ She gets up and starts swinging on the edge of the bus shelter, dangling like a monkey. ‘He was soooooo mad.’

  ‘You’re a menace.’

  ‘I told you I was prepared. But I think I just made him madder.’ Gen pokes my knee with her sneaker. ‘He beat you up pretty easily.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I was going to like try and kick his knee out from behind but then I thought he might like actually choke me or something.’

  ‘Yeah, it was a real team effort to suck as badly as we did,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, we’re awesome,’ says Gen, dropping down and kung-fuing for good measure.

  Kain takes the ice pack off his face. ‘I don’t understand how you’re all so calm. Someone almost got shot tonight.’

  ‘It’s not a real gun,’ I say.

  ‘It’s like a prop I bought from a movie,’ says Gen. ‘It can’t hurt anyone.’

  ‘Unless someone hits you in the face with it.’ Kain gingerly feels his cheekbone.

  ‘Mr Kain, why are you in your pyjamas?’ says Gen.

  Kain shifts the pack to his other hand and looks supremely uncomfortable. ‘My domestic living arrangement is currently untenable.’

  ‘Huh?’ says Gen.

  Kain sighs. ‘My wife kicked me out. I’ve been sleeping in my office.’

  ‘Bummer,’ says Gen, and then adds, ‘You go to bed really early.’

  ‘How long have you been crashing at work?’ I say.

  ‘A few weeks,’ says Kain. ‘But I’ll be staying with Alex for a little while after this.’

  We all stare at him.

  ‘What?’ says Kain. ‘He’s my nephew.’

  ‘Huh,’ Mica and I say at the same time.

  ‘I’m surprised you never picked the resemblance,’ says Kain to me. ‘We’re both redheads. Maybe you’re not as perceptive as you think.’ He raises an eyebrow and then flinches. ‘Ow.’

  ‘I guess not.’

  Mica pulls Gen down next to her and succeeds in getting a second icepack onto her face. Gen squirms but succumbs, leaning against Mica’s shoulder with a sigh.

  We watch two officers escort Rohan out of the building. Gen holds up her phone to take a photo. Rohan glances over. All his bravado is gone. He looks sad and small, his expensive hair flattened by our fight. For a moment I remember that Rohan has been my friend for a decade, and is just desperate to succeed. Then I remember him pushing Gen down the stairs. Fuck that guy.

  ‘By the way,’ says Mica, ‘where is Alex?’

  ‘Uuuh,’ I say, ‘still locked in Kain’s office.’

  ‘Go team,’ says Kain into his icepack.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ‘Good afternoon, Sanem,’ says Kain. He’s brushed his hair straight back like a bronzed badger. The beard is gone. He actually looks better, even with the facial swelling.

  She welcomes us in, clearly puzzled. We follow the peacock colours of her dress down a spotless hallway and into a kitchen where the copper pots are shinier than Felicity’s hair. There’s a magnetic letter set on the fridge, the letters in neat rows except for S, T and U placed – one two three – at head height. Photos crowd the shelf above the sink, next to a vase of flowers with the ribbon still attached.

  At the table, Tarik is bottle-feeding Umut. Kain was all business until he saw the baby. He’s now making faces at him. Okay, fine, I am too. It’s turning into a competition. Umut watches us both, his tiny hands opening and closing as he drinks.

  Sanem brings us black tea and almond-studded biscuits, and switches off the television. ‘I’ll be in the study if you need me.’

  After she leaves, Kain puts a manila folder on the table, containing documents that effectively stop Tarik talking about IF, blogging about IF, thinking about IF or opening his own version of IF. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that Ignis Fatuus is no longer in operation.’

  ‘I had a feeling you would say that,’ says Tarik, putting the bottle down.

  ‘May I?’ says Kain, holding out his hands for the baby. Tarik passes Umut over. Kain walks around the kitchen, gently tapping Umut’s back, his face softening.

  ‘How did you know?’ I say.

  ‘I am the psychic now,’ says Tarik. He laughs. ‘No, I am kidding. It was Mica.’ Tarik holds out his phone. It’s a selfie of Mica in the lobby, Gen peering over her sho
ulder, police in the background. The caption: Work imploded, Rohan arrested, Kain wears PJs with hamburgers on them, don’t come in on Monday. ‘So it is true?’

  I nod. ‘Even the PJs.’

  ‘What?’ says Kain from the other end of the kitchen.

  ‘Nothing. Anyway, yeah, on Saturday everything pretty much blew up.’

  ‘There was even a smoke bomb,’ says Kain.

  ‘Maybe you should start at the beginning,’ says Tarik.

  By the time I’ve finished, Tarik’s tea has gone cold and Umut is fast asleep on Kain’s shoulder.

  ‘What will happen to all of the composites?’ Tarik says.

  ‘Clients who didn’t get finished books will be refunded,’ says Kain, neatly letting me dodge the fact that I spent all of Sunday downloading the remaining pictures, which now reside on about thirty USBs in a locked metal box underneath my laundry sink.

  ‘But what are you going to do for work?’ says Tarik.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I study the embroidery on the tablecloth.

  ‘Well, I’m going on holiday to Bali,’ says Kain. ‘I’ve started learning Malaysian.’

  Kain: consistent to the last.

  ‘You could begin again,’ Tarik says to me. ‘You have the software and the skills. There are a lot of people who still want to see their dreams.’

  Dreams, nightmares, it’s all a bit of a blur really. ‘I don’t think I can do it again,’ I say, and add, ‘I’m sorry I can’t offer you another job.’

  ‘I don’t mind, actually,’ Tarik says, gently taking the snoozing Umut back. ‘Sanem has been wanting to go back to engineering again. I would like to spend more time with my son. This way, we both get what we want.’ He shakes his head. ‘She has actually always hated IF.’

  ‘My wife does, too,’ says Kain.

  I take an almond biscuit. ‘Seems to be a common theme.’

  Mum lifts her hair so her assistant can fasten the clasp of her necklace. There’s that flash of muscle her trainer has sculpted out of ordinary arms and ordinary shoulders, the ones that have inspired an army of adoring hashtags.

  As AA Wellness’s last outdoor shoot was interrupted by a swarm of wasps (apparently they like maple syrup, surprise), my parents’ recently renovated kitchen is now the official studio. The blender and juicer are new, brands carefully concealed or revealed, depending on the sponsorship. The bench has been polished so hard they’ve almost recut it. The spotless oasis only extends for a few metres, however; everything else has been pushed aside. From my spot on the couch, where I have been instructed by Mum’s assistant to remain ‘outside the filming perimeter’, I make a square with my hands to block out the mess. Mum is framed between my fingers, a blonde island behind a sea of gleaming marble.

  There’s an iPad on the table so I can scroll through the AA Wellness photo feed. It’s an eye-glazing stream of aspirational pictures. Mum and Amity do yoga in the forest, hike in the hills, drink green things, eat purple things. The yoga ones are my favourite; Mum, for all of her scary cardiovascular fitness, can’t actually touch her toes. There are a lot of shots of her meditating instead. Amity, on the other hand, really can put her feet behind her ears. My instincts were correct.

  Comments seep out of people’s keyboards to litter the ground underneath each post.

  Love this!

  Wow – beautiful ladies!

  Where can I get those shorts?!

  @someone_else This is us this weekend. #fitspo

  Ur downward dog needs work.

  People pile on top of any negative comment, bodies on a rugby scrum, seagulls hovering, shrieking ‘Body shaming! Body shaming!’ Does it count as body shaming, though, if you correctly point out that someone has the flexibility of a fence post?

  Once again, I’m happy to have a job that keeps me out of the public eye.

  Then I remember that I no longer have a job.

  I am enmeshed in soft warm blackness as Amity leans over the back of the couch to give me a hug. ‘Hello, darling.’

  ‘How’s the wellness business?’ I say, once her breasts are off my head.

  She perches on the edge of a chair. ‘Got the proofs of the new book, very exciting. The pictures are wonderful. In every shot they’ve managed to hide my hips behind an appliance.’

  ‘That’s a shame. I like your hips.’

  She gives me a wink of her whiskey eyes.

  ‘Sorry if I was a bit short the other day,’ I say. ‘Work’s been pretty stressful.’

  ‘So I’ve heard,’ she says. ‘Are you okay?’

  Again, Amity is the one asking if I’m okay, rather than Mum.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Mum’s assistant finally approaches the quarantine area.

  ‘Amanda will see you now,’ says Felicity.

  Mum joins me once Felicity has properly prepared the area, which means supplying a pot of tea, an oil diffuser and a platter of fruit cut into different shapes. To my disappointment, Felicity does not kneel down to become Mum’s footstool, or tell me to turn off all mobile devices and put my tray table in the upright position.

  ‘There’s papaya in the fridge,’ says Felicity to Mum, ‘and I made your Triple Threat Bliss Balls if you need something sweeter.’

  ‘Thank you, Felicity,’ says Mum. ‘I just need a few moments.’

  Amity and Felicity head outside, Felicity peeking back all the way down the corridor in case Mum has any last-minute requests for a white-noise machine or glass of unicorn tears.

  ‘I should have made an appointment.’ I pick up a star-shaped piece of pineapple.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Mum says. She sits down and then has to get up again to kiss me on the cheek, realising she forgot to do it earlier. She’s wearing TV make-up, cheeks contoured like sand dunes. She looks disturbingly different; close but not quite right, like a wax model of herself. I wipe off the lip imprint when she checks her phone.

  ‘It must be nice to film without swarms of things.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she nods vaguely. ‘Have you tried matcha tea? Lots of antioxidants, lots of chlorophyll, very good for you.’

  ‘I thought that was green tea.’ I point at the cup in front of me.

  ‘Matcha tea is green tea.’

  ‘So this is matcha tea?’

  ‘No, it’s different.’

  ‘Right.’

  I wait for her to mention IF, but she doesn’t. Dad, who sometimes has an instinct for these things, rang me the day after everything happened. Surely he would have told her. Then again, maybe they’re not talking and Dad is sleeping in his office at work like Kain. That is, if Dad still has an office.

  Mum looks at her phone again.

  I try to see her as Rohan would have – stylish, driven, energetic . . . and my mother. The perfect target upon reflection. The shock of discovery has worn away, leaving not much more than pity. If revenge was Mum’s objective, what’s going to happen when she finds out there was no need? Or perhaps this has been building under the surface for fifteen years, and it was inevitable anyway. I’m surprised at my lack of anger. Maybe I don’t have any emotional room left after everything that’s happened. I just feel sorry for her, and sorrier for Dad if he ever finds out.

  ‘Rohan’s been arrested,’ I say. ‘In case you were wondering why he’s not returning your texts.’

  ‘Yes, your father told me.’

  She waits for me to elaborate, but I’m actually kind of tired of being the peacemaker, so I don’t.

  There’s silence. Mum’s toes wiggle in her gladiator sandals. (Sandals: yet another topic that IF has left me knowing far more about than any man outside the fashion industry should.)

  At the thirty-second mark, she cracks.

  ‘I just went out for a girls’ night. That’s all I wanted,’ she says. ‘I didn’t recognise him.’

  ‘You’d met him before.’

  ‘Years ago.’

  To be fair, I introduced Mum to Rohan when he was in his schnitzels-and-sneakers phase, and
even then I don’t think she was paying a huge amount of attention.

  ‘I was just having –’ starts Mum.

  ‘You don’t have to explain it.’ Because, suddenly, selfishly, I don’t want to know the details. I don’t want to hear who approached who, what they said, where they went, what they did. I don’t want to have that information in my brain.

  There’s another long pause.

  ‘When you came to visit me at work, you weren’t really visiting me, were you?’ I say. ‘You’d already got together.’

  ‘I thought you’d pick it up,’ she says quietly.

  I don’t bother to tell her that I had no idea until I saw her disappearing into Rohan’s car. What’s the point?

  I let the silence refill the room, and watch her try to work out where to go from here. It’s strange, deliberately letting someone flounder who’s normally in control. I feel like that woman in Titanic impassively watching Leonardo DiCaprio drown when there was clearly room for two on the board.

  ‘Sometimes I look in the mirror to make sure I’m still here.’ She stares at the heart-shaped pieces of apple on the plate. ‘I could disappear and your father wouldn’t notice.’

  ‘Of course he would.’

  ‘I left hints, you know. I left my phone out so he could check my messages. I wore my best clothes. I would have cut my hair off but we need to do pick-up shoots for the book and continuity would have been a problem.’ Mum pulls a chunk of it forward and then flicks it back dismissively. ‘If I came home late, he didn’t ask where I was, who I was with. “Did you have a good time?” That was it, that’s all he’d say. He wasn’t even curious.’

  ‘Because he trusts you.’

  ‘Because he’s not interested.’ Mum drops her gaze again, chewing on the manicure that Felicity will now have to repair.

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘You’re not married to him.’

  ‘Then why aren’t you telling him this instead of me?’