Lenny’s an ebullient sort of guy, who tends to talk with arms flailing wildly. So I decided that was the reason he’d lost his fingertip—too much windmilling during a surgical procedure when the nurse handed him a scalpel. With that established, we said our goodbyes and were just near the steps when I heard a high-pitched voice.
‘‘S’cuse me!’
I whirled around. Oh no! There she was, in my face—the Barbie doll. Ah-ha-ah-ha-ah-ha. Just breathe, Ruthie ...
Dollface and I stared at each other for a few seconds, she, sizing me up; me, feeling downsized. Then, in a breathy Marilyn Monroe-ish voice she said, ‘I just want to tell you that I really, really admire you for having the guts to dress the way you want.’ Then she lowered her voice (and its timbre) as she added, ‘I am so fucking uncomfortable in this tight piece of shit dress.’
At first, I was dumbstruck. Then I wanted to ask her if she was also as uncomfortable in her tight face, but it would have been rude. What followed, though, was a light-bulb moment. I was overwhelmed by the sharp, unbearable, existential pain that comes of wanting and trying to fit in—a pain that had chafed as a chronic dull ache for all these years. I was struck by the futility of it all and suddenly, I felt a strange connection with this woman.
‘You know, I’m not sure that you and I are so different. I didn’t wear what I really wanted to either,’ I confessed. ‘I admire your honesty, though.’ I smiled at her empathically and turned to leave.
As Reuben and I made our way home, I sat quietly reflecting on the afternoon. I was thrilled that on this Sunday, God had finally made an appearance. Sure, it was only a cameo role; the extent of His intervention had been to guide me to the shithouse, but it was something at least. And the impropriety of the afternoon’s events suggested that Baubo was also making a comeback. Lucky me! Maybe it was because I was willing to grab the bull by the balls that both goddess and God showed up (one fouls; One cleanses).
Reuben jolted me out of my reverie. ‘What are you nodding at?’
‘I’m going to have a weekend away. The bull’s balls need palpating.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
DOCTORING
As soon as I walked in the door, I called Ralph and shared my ridiculous theory about Lenny’s missing finger. He responded in kind.
‘That’s a fairly clear-cut conclusion.’
I then gave him a brief rundown on the party.
‘Hmm ... sounds like change is in the wind, Ruthie.’
Not particularly fond of change, I felt a knot in my gut. ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that!’
‘Well, I’m not surprised. It’s a daunting prospect for someone who fears what the wind can carry.’
I laughed. How could I forget? But it was more a fear of the chaos it can bring than the phlegm. And I knew that this upheaval meant I’d be dipping into the cesspool, so I needed to rally the troops—all three of them.
‘What are you doing next weekend?’ I asked him.
The decision Ralph, Maxi, Vette and I made all those years ago for an annual getaway had never come to fruition. I’d been immersed in the constraints of married life; they lived the carefree single life. Ralph now jumped at the chance to have a few days away together.
I sent emails to Maxi and Vette, who were both overseas on business for the rest of the week. With their increasingly hectic schedules over the years, there had been little time for the four of us to even meet for coffee. It seemed, though, that the planets had aligned. They responded within a few hours and both were available and thrilled at the idea of sharing some quality downtime.
Maxi had worked her way up to editor of the magazine, and Vette had done the training program offered by Myer and was now a fashion buyer for the store. Ralph still did a bit of modelling, but he had taken himself off to university five years earlier, got a psychology degree and worked with a group of psychologists. He had long since stopped doing things in pairs, except for the doublespeak, which now took on an elitist quality because it had a university-educated edge—in other words, psychobabble bullshit2.
This time, I booked a room for each of us at a hotel in Noosa. Ralph and I got there just after lunch on Friday, Maxi and Vette came in around six and we caught up for dinner. They regaled us with stories of their recent trips, but it was an early night because both were a bit jet-lagged.
We were all happy to unwind by the pool after breakfast the next day. The four of us schmoozed for half the morning about their love lives. Serial monogamists the three of them, their experiences seemed intoxicating, where mine were jejune. As dedicated career gals, Maxi and Vette didn’t have much room in their lives for a long-term, committed relationship. And Ralph was still on the lookout for his ‘Twin Flame’. He explained that, according to Plato, a Twin Flame is the other half of each human’s soul that has split away and incarnated into the form of another.
‘Don’t you believe you can have more than one soulmate?’ Vette asked him.
‘Yeah. Not everything in life has to come in pairs, you know!’ Maxi and Vette had become privy to Ralph’s OCPD during our Surfers Paradise get-together.
‘Yes, I do believe we can have more than one soulmate, Vette.’ Ralph ignored Maxi’s comment. ‘But I also believe we have only one Twin Flame.’
‘Well, I’m self-sufficient, don’t need a man to complete me, so maybe mine forgot to split away,’ said Maxi.
‘I’m self-sufficient too, but I’d still like to think there’s someone out there for me,’ Vette said.
‘Do you really buy that—Plato’s theory?” I asked Ralph. “Isn’t it just the idealistic stuff of fairy tales, you know, looking for “The One”?’
‘Yeah, I do. And I think a lot of people never find theirs, and that many just end up settling.’
Ralph’s observation wasn’t aimed at me but it felt like a stab in the heart. I knew that Reuben was my soulmate, but I’d earlier thought that of Glen. Neither of them felt like the ‘Twin Flame’, though. It seemed that Ralph had just defined another source of nebulous uneasiness I’d experienced early in my marriage. It hadn’t really abated; it just stopped invading conscious thought.
‘So why don’t most of us find it?’ asked Vette.
‘Because people stopped listening to their gut and their heart so long ago, and looked outside of themselves instead. They let society make decisions for them; you know, learned to look for someone that ticks all the boxes.’
‘You listen to your gut and your heart, so why haven’t you found your Twin Flame?’ I asked him.
‘Because she’s yet to listen to hers. And until she does, we won’t connect.’ Ralph seemed so positive and hopeful.
‘Well ... I admire your confidence in that, and the fact that you’re really enjoying your single life until you do connect. All of you.’
The three of them saw their love lives as an opportunity to experience the perpetual newness of many firsts (‘first date; first kiss; first shag’, as Maxi put it). I felt stale and I told them so.
‘I envy you guys. I feel like I need to have some newness in my life.’
‘At least you have stability. There’s not a whole lot of that in an industry that’s not really, well ... real,’ said Maxi.
‘Yeah. Our lives aren’t as glamorous as they seem,’ added Vette. Then she thought of something. ‘Back in a sec.’
She disappeared for five minutes and returned with three goodie bags—samples from her trip. Vette always picked up something small for us. A scarf or a handbag for Maxi and me, and a tie or a belt for Ralph.
‘Here’s a small dose of newness for you,’ she said. ‘It’s not going to dramatically change your life, but it’ll put a spring in your step.’
I opened the bag and pulled out a little dress. Elegantly casual in a pink and orange swirl pattern, it was short and sleeveless with a crossover V-neckline and banded empire waist.
‘Wow! This is gorgeous. Thanks, Vette.’ I held the dress against me excitedly, but then sighed. ‘If o
nly I’d had this a week ago.’ I told them what I’d worn to Hayley’s Batmitzvah party.
Both Maxi and Vette gasped in horror. I was confounded by their reaction.
‘Wha—?’
‘It’s passé!’ they both yelled at the same time.
‘Why didn’t you buy something new?’ asked Vette.
‘It is relatively new. I’ve only worn it once or twice before.’
‘New as in ... in vogue!’ said Maxi.
‘I didn’t even want to go. Anyway, the point is it said “smart casual” on the invitation. All the other women were in little black dresses and stilettos! Never mind that what I wore is a little dated; does my choice of outfit qualify as a fashion faux pas?’
Vette answered. ‘It’s not a fashion faux pas as such. It’s not the wrong thing to wear ... umm ... it’s just brave or mad to wear the right thing in that particular, er, social setting.’
‘Jesus, enough with the political correctness! Just spit it out!’
Maxi clarified it. ‘You entered a JAP zone, honey.’
JAP is the acronym for Jewish Australian Princess, which is a derogatory term for the stereotype of a Jewish girl who’s overindulged, materialistic, selfish, pampered, neurotic, and usually, from a mega-rich family. A JAP is probably on a par with a WASP.
‘How was I to know that in advance?’
‘Plastic surgeon. Loads of money. Lives in a mansion. Who do you think they’re gonna rub shoulders with?’
‘Plastic surgeon; plastic friends,’ Ralph chimed in.
‘I didn’t even give it a thought. But are you saying if you had been invited, you would have worn a little black number like the rest of them?’
‘Hell no! I woulda worn a fire engine red mini and fuck-me boots! If you’re gonna make a statement, you want it to scream slut, not wishy-washy vanilla.’
Maxi’s words hit home. I’d become the thing that had caused me to feel nauseous for most of my life: vanilla. But I was also torn. ‘Don’t you think something conveying slut is a little tragic at our age?’
‘No. B-laaaaand is tragic.’ She drew the word out to make her point. ‘It’s anaemic. Ruthie, you’ve got a gorgeous body, you’re not old—we are not old—and you look about ten years younger than your age. You could pull it off.’
Tell that to my mirror.
‘She’s right,’ Vette agreed.
And maybe the mirror had it wrong. All four of us were trim, unlined and had no grey hair (we all dyed). And thanks to Jennifer Lopez—rising star, inflated booty—having a fat arse was a desirable commodity that girls the world over wanted, so Vette was finally happy with hers. But the thrust of Maxi’s comment about dressing like that came down to confidence, and clearly, she hadn’t lost her pizzazz. She broke my train of thought.
‘What’s that look on your face, Brill? You imagining me in that get up?’ She smirked.
Ralph stammered, ‘I ... er ... er ... ’ Then he composed himself. ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’
He gave her a feigned smile. She didn’t respond, and just as well she didn’t notice him redden as he looked away from us and awkwardly rummaged through his beach bag for presumably nothing in particular, because he came up empty-handed.
‘I’m going for a swim.’
Despite Ralph’s unfailing openness with me, he had been enigmatic at times lately. As Maxi and Vette lay back, eyes closed, soaking up the sun, I watched him as he gracefully dived in. He swam about ten laps then emerged from the shallow end of the pool, model-like—stretching his lean body, facing sunward, and running his fingers through his hair, which he wore in a medium-length slick-back that curled up ever so slightly at the bottom. If he had the longer locks of his youth, he probably would have swung his hair from side to side in slow motion, like in a shampoo commercial.
‘What a wanker.’ Seems Maxi had also been watching. Her murmured words gave voice to my thoughts.
Ralph slowly strutted the length of the pool as women on either side shifted their attention from their magazines and ogled him while he pretended not to notice. He grabbed his towel off the chair and, facing the spectators, made a show of patting dry his waxed chest and belly. So much for the self-professed man of depth—Mr ‘I’m-a-member-of-the-intelligentsia’, my arse! I wanted to yell ‘DROP AND GIVE ME FIFTY!’ to shake him out of this ridiculous posturing of his younger days. It wouldn’t have made much difference; Ralph would have complied. He’d see it as an opportunity to showcase his buns ‘n’ guns, which were still ripped and taut from regular workouts. Anyway, at least he’d worked off whatever was bugging him. At the same time, it seemed he’d worked up an appetite.
‘You girls wanna go get a coffee and something to eat?’
‘Good idea.’ It had been two hours since breakfast and I was also hungry.
We found a little café on Hastings Street, the main drag. After our double shot lattes and friands arrived, Vette turned to me.
‘So, apart from you wearing the wrong thing, or the right thing at the wrong time, how was the party?’ Both she and Maxi knew Lenny from our younger days.
They were in stitches as I told them every little thing. Then, just after the waitress handed us the bill, I casually announced, ‘I want to have a makeover.’
The trendsetters rubbernecked, and then Ralph gave me a Mona Lisa smile. Vette cheered me on with ‘Yay!’ and Maxi air punched, ‘Yes!’ She stared at me for a bit, squinting her eyes and drumming her fingers.
‘Okay. First, the hair. We gotta do something with the hair.’
As the waitress came back to clear the table, Maxi asked her for the name of a good hairdresser in the area. We paid and Ralph went off to buy a sunhat while we three girls found the recommended salon across the road on the next block down, and tried to secure an appointment. Troy had a cancellation for two o’clock; we grabbed it and briefly conferred with him and the colourist, Helen. I wore my hair long—about six inches past my shoulders and side parted—in a sitting-on-the-fence shade of brown. The five of us pored over the colour chart, and after the four of them agreed on a colour, they turned to me.
‘What do you think?’ Vette asked.
Although this was an open question—the kind that begins with what, why or how and expects, or at least allows, a long-winded response—it was only dressed that way. It was actually a closed (do-you-like-it?) question—one that requires a short answer: yes or no. Even more than this, it was an open-and-shut ‘Sylvia’ question—non-negotiable, demanding only one acceptable, monosyllabic answer. This time, I rebelled! I stretched it out to four syllables.
‘Um, yeah. Why not?’
They were all thrilled, and decided I could also lose a couple of inches off the length.
We caught up with Ralph, and he and Maxi went back to the hotel for a swim. Vette and I dropped into a couple of the little boutiques to check out the clothes. She vetted everything I chose, and we settled on two statement-making dresses. Now, with time to kill before my appointment, she and I went back to the pool. Ralph and Maxi had reserved two extra chaises longues in the far corner of the pool area.
‘There’s nobody here; plenty of chairs around. Why are you sitting so close to the toilets?’ I asked.
‘Just in case you need to take a dump; wouldn’t want you doing it in your pants on the way there,’ said Maxi. The three of them roared with laughter.
‘I was six years old!’
‘Well, I had totally forgotten about it. You shouldn’t have reminded us, and now it’s come back to bite you on the bum.’ More laughter.
‘Speaking of bums, do you remember when we used to play doctors and nurses at your place?’ I segued.
The house Maxi grew up in was on a deep block. Its enormous, untended backyard was a wild, tangled mass of vegetation. Maxi’s father said he loved walking out the back door and looking at his ‘primitive forest’. We just thought he was a lazy gardener, but he was probably too wasted to tend to the grass because he was smoking it. He was no doubt stoned wh
en he built the large cubby house in the far corner of the yard for Maxi and Ronnie. Ronnie had already lost interest in it when Maxi, Vette, Ralph and I were playing doctors and nurses down there. And when Maxi and Ronnie’s younger brother, River was old enough to enjoy it, he couldn’t. He had allergies, and he was an indoorsy type of kid, anyway.
This cubby house of theirs was an arresting, sturdy structure on stilts. Built for cyclonic conditions, it was maybe a little over-engineered, but it was something that the three little pigs would have been proud of.
‘Hmm ... ’ Ralph obviously felt the need to comment at this juncture. He paused and rubbed his chinny chin chin. He was ‘ralphulating’ (Ralphulate [ral-fyoo-late] verb [intransitive]: to ralph + to speculate—to throw up an idea that you’ve chewed over). Because Ralph did this so often and in his unique way, we finally decided it needed its own name. He looked at Maxi.
‘It’ll always be a special place for me. It’s where we devirginised each other, remember?’ Ralph continued before she had a chance to respond. ‘It really was a most appropriate setting, you know.’ He paused again before the delivery; we waited. ‘This hidden cubbyhole surrounded by the thick bush of virgin woodland ... As I recall, I huffed and I puffed. But then I blew and brought the whole erection down.’
Maxi, Vette and I laughed, rolled our eyes, shook our heads and then left it at that. Sometimes Ralph’s cleverness stunned us into silence, and sometimes there was just no point in indulging him too much because then he wouldn’t shut up (this hadn’t changed over the years).
This cubby at the edge of Maxi’s backyard forest was also a most appropriate setting for our doctor-nurses games. Ralph fittingly nominated Vette and me as ‘scrubber’ nurses. He always played the doctor because ‘I’m male’ he’d said (all of us were advocates of equality: each equally suckered into gender stereotyping because he decreed and we agreed). And Ralph always insisted that Maxi should be the patient. She was already his secret love interest even though he had planted a caterpillar on Gwen’s pudenda a year earlier, and still did things to her in that little clearing. ‘I like to play the field’ he said of his al fresco sexual explorations (maybe a precursor to his al frescoing in front of the relatives five years on).
Odyssey In A Teacup Page 21
