But things were already right. In a wrong sort of a way.
Sitting here in my low-riding, secondhand, woven chair, on a Sunday afternoon, wearing my vanilla perfume, obsessing over food.
My stomach hurt.
Sunday was incredibly melancholy.
And that was all right.
I just needed to put the whole incident out of my mind. I needed to focus on the plan, and keep going. I didn’t need the distraction.
He was a distraction.
The plan was one that I’d had since childhood. I’d been carefully constructing it, inserting new and more complex pieces, for over a decade. And for all intents and purposes it was working.
Francesca Moore was getting somewhere.
Since I was ten years old, I had dreamed about getting out of my banal, suburban existence. I hadn’t been like the other girls. I wasn’t interested in ballet, or jazz, or boys, or even, my hair. I’d been interested in painting. Give me the smell of oil paint and turps any day of the week. The stain of charcoal on your hands. The spattering of colours that always inevitably ended up on your clothes. The way painting made you feel – like you weren’t there anymore.
Like you had disappeared straight into that canvas.
I didn’t have many friends, and to be honest, it didn’t bother me.
It always felt like we weren’t even speaking the same language. Me and those other girls. There was no common ground whatsoever. So, I’d disappeared instead. Figuratively, I mean.
Mum was a hairdresser. She ran the local hairdressing salon, and worked most days. Colouring, cutting, blow drying and doing extensions. Everyone knew her, and most people liked her. She fitted in, she was like the rest of them. Happy with our red brick existence, the salon, and maybe a car upgrade every couple of years. The only thing that made her unhappy was her single status – which wasn’t perennial. She would circle through relationships month after month. Some would last longer – some would make it to six months, heck, some would make it to a full year, but never longer. Then there would be tears, tantrums, and new extensions. The extensions went in and out faster than you could cut a Russian woman’s hair ... and they were all, Russian hair! Then there would be the inevitable return to the dating apps, singles nights and fix-ups. Mum was a woman looking for love, or the security of a relationship.
I would watch her tapping away on her phone, swiping right, DM’ing always with her immaculate French polish acrylic nails.
Those nails became a symbol of everything Francesca Moore was not going to be.
So I crafted a plan. To get out of red brick, French polished, suburbia. 101 was not my gig. And neither was some dude, or some equally ridiculous romantic, happy ending.
Get the right grades, end up at the right university, paint, meet the right people, move into a place in the city with the right postcode, date the right guy (who could open the right doors), ... and lose the right amount of weight.
I was chubby when I was a kid, and my face was uneven. And the other kids didn’t like me.
You know what I learnt from that? If you’re the skinny girl, it doesn’t matter how uneven your face is ... people only notice how skinny you are.
Yeah, that’s what I learnt.
Skinniness is a symbol of success. It represents a level of self-control that they could never even hope to possess. The rest of them. The chubby. Average people.
Be skinny, and you won’t just be part of the right crowd, you’ll be the right crowd.
Artists were thin. They wore Kimonos over their pyjamas, they smoked cigarettes, and had strange lovers (or non-lovers).
And it was true.
Didn’t I know it.
I had enacted almost every single element of the plan ... and here I was in the right place.
But still waiting ... still fucking waiting.
For what?
I wasn’t even quite sure.
I knew what they said about me. That I was a strategic social climber. And they were probably on the money about that. But they also said, that I just wanted an in to that elite crowd, the eastern suburbs moneyed up crowd.
I wanted to be seen by them. I wanted to be accepted by them. I wanted to be like them.
That’s what they said about me.
Oh yeah, and that I was anorexic. Or bulimic. Or something in between. That I ate nothing but cotton wool soaked in orange juice to keep from feeling hungry, and Adderall. Lots of Adderall.
I’d never taken Adderall in my life. I’d never soaked cotton wool in orange juice either. The only thing I did with cotton wool, was take my nail polish off with it.
But I did starve myself. And I did force-vomit. And I did take laxatives. Lots of them.
They had the ingredients wrong, but I guess the poison was kind of the same.
The same thing went for the social climbing.
It was like in enacting the plan I had gotten lost in it. I had never intended on being some eastern suburbs chick, who only wears white linen, and has her nails done in just the right shade of coral. The on trend shade. I’d just intended on getting out and being someone.
I wanted to be someone.
An artist.
... but also someone that was observed and admired. Someone that was liked.
And then that got all messed up in my mind, and with the plan. It was like it was spun through a centrifuge ... and then all of a sudden the painting wasn’t important at all. It was the least important ingredient. It had been tossed aside, discarded, like a paper cup, or a cigarette butt.
It had been at the centre of the original plan – but now it wasn’t part of the plan at all. But had it been?
The thing was – like everyone, I was complex. People wanted a singular narrative. Francesca Moore is a social climber. Francesca Moore is a wannabe artist. Francesca Moore dates Hamish Chiel and doesn’t sleep with Benji Carroll.
But life was messy. I was messy. I didn’t have some singular fucking narrative or brand. I was a heaving mound of complicated stuff. There wasn’t a cohesive thread that you could pull through my fucked-up life.
My apologies.
And I hadn’t painted anything in six months – maybe more. Painting required actual physical energy, and mental energy, and I had none of that to spare.
Painting required a certain stillness, a mental clarity – and I had neither of those either.
Artists were special. They made magic.
The magic had leaked out of me ... I’d gone from red to beige, a direct arterial bleed.
He could write. That pedestrian, careless kid. And I kind of disliked him for it. Like he had stolen the art from me. Like we couldn’t both be artists at the same time. And now he’d been inside me, poking away, and thieving even the tiniest shred of magic that was left.
So you see, that was the terrible thing, men stole things.
I took another drag and blew the smoke upwards again.
I could try to convince myself that it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. But I would be lying. It was in fact the very worst thing.
The very worst.
Maybe I was depressed. Or fucking nuts. I didn’t know. The skinniness had taken over everything.
And I couldn’t stop it. It was like some giant metastasizing cancer. Taking over my body, my mind, and with it my dreams.
Nothing was more important.
Nothing made sense anymore.
Everything had to be sacrificed for it.
And at the end of the day, I was okay with that.
It was Wednesday afternoon, and I hadn’t heard anything from Francesca Moore. Not one peep. Not a single text, image or meme. Francesca Moore was not just my romantic ghost, she was also quite literally ghosting me.
When I’d woken up on Monday morning, I’d thought I’d receive something. Surely. Like maybe:
“Hey, I just wanted to clear the air.”
Or,
“Hey, can we talk?”
Or just even,
“Hey.”
Like I wasn’t expecting an ‘I’m sorry’ or anything. She wasn’t the type to apologise. And she probably didn’t think she needed to apologise either.
I kept having tiny flashes of that look on her face when she had woken up and seen me, and remembered what had happened. She’d looked angry.
Pissed at me.
That was the last look that had been cast in my direction. I was pretty sure that wasn’t a look that was followed by an apology. It was by no means a preamble.
I wasn’t even sure why she’d been angry.
Angry that I was still there? Angry that she had slept with me? Angry that I existed?
I didn’t know – but one thing was certain, she’d been – angry.
But I’d rationalised the whole thing – by Monday morning, finally sober, or almost sober, I had thought ... surely, surely she’ll realise the whole thing wasn’t my fault and her behaviour too was pretty inexcusable?
Was it too much to expect that she have some sort of selfreflection?
But then Monday had ticked by, and then Tuesday ... and now most of Wednesday, and I knew I was being ghosted.
There goes that apparition of Francesca, quivering by.
She might never contact me ever again.
Momentarily I thought about dropping out of my course altogether. You know, so I would never have to see her again. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t momentary. I had put some serious thought into it. I’d even Googled similar courses I could transfer into.
Ughh ... it was all so violently distasteful.
Yep, decidedly wretched.
5pm on Wednesday afternoon – and no contact from Francesca Moore.
It was beyond gruesome.
He smelled good: sandalwood, clove and leather. His cologne mixed with his sweat always turned me on.
Lips together, arms wrapped around me, we lay in bed trying to catch our breath. He always made me feel good. Adored even. Being with him, made me feel wanted.
Jimmy/Jamie was long forgotten, and the text-less night. It had taken on a dream-like quality. Like all of the frustration I had experienced, had happened to someone else.
Luca loved me. Sure, the circumstances were imperfect – but nothing was ever perfect.
I was still drunk from the wine at dinner, and kind of exhausted from the sex. But I couldn’t sleep. I lay next to his warm body and listened to his snores, slowly and incrementally get louder.
My phone buzzed in the background. Probably Benji. He had been in a post coital/rejection haze all week. There wasn’t much I could do to help. I’d warned him about this. Francesca could be hard and tough – she looked fragile from an exterior perspective, but inside, she was solid, impenetrable even.
Maybe I should send him a quick message. I reached for my phone, and realised it wasn’t my phone that had been buzzing. It was Luca’s. Sitting staunchly on the bedside table, screen fitfully lighting up at intervals.
It was 2am. Who would be calling him at this time? The wife. He’d told me she was on a girls’ weekend ... seemed unlikely.
I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself. I reached for his phone, and checked out the notifications.
The all too familiar black and orange Grindr notifications. What the fuck?
There were at least 10 notifications from the app on his screen. Dutifully lined up, waiting patiently to be addressed.
I almost dropped the phone. He was using Grindr? I could taste bile.
I mean I know I had been using Grindr last weekend ... but that was a desperate spiral, because he was ignoring me. Not only had we pledged exclusivity, but the guy was married. Was he even serious right now? He was the one that had wanted to be exclusive. He had told me to stop grinding on the side, and I’d agreed to it. Yeah, okay, I’d had one slip. But I was his one slip.
One.
He had demanded that I not see anyone else – kind of ironic given he was in the process of the world’s slowest divorce. He would frequently joke about me sleeping with other guys, and how I’d leave him behind because he was older. We had both laughed. I had thought he was being insecure, but maybe he was testing the waters for something a bit more open?
Pretty bloody open Luca. A wife, me on the side, and a couple of other dudes on the side of that side. Open, but just for you!
I laid back, and took a messy swig from the wine glass on the bedside table. I semi missed my mouth, and half of it found a resting place on his expensive white linen sheets. Good, I thought. Explain this to your wife when she gets home.
The bloody nerve of this man. He was so disrespectful. We were in his home in Rose Bay, sleeping in his bed. He probably hadn’t even changed the sheets. His wife’s imprint was fresh within them. And besides that, he was grinding. It was almost like he wanted to be caught. He walked so close to the line.
Did he want to blow up his life? Or had he become complacent with all the lying?
When I got here, I thought he’d loved me. He was always so effusive with his emotions. So vigilant and loving. Maybe it was just an elaborate ruse. I felt like screaming at him – what type of person acts like this? Are you incapable of thinking about how your decisions can affect others? How can you just lie like this and think it’s ok? How are you fucking sleeping so soundly?
I felt heart palpitations coming on. My jaw clenched. I closed my eyes and tried to push the thoughts out of my head.
“Idiot. Stupid. Moron. You’re such an idiot Leo. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”
The words came out of my mouth. But they were lost amidst the cacophony of snoring. Even here, I was unheard.
Why the hell would you stay with this guy? My mental dialogue had hit fever pitch now.
Because you don’t deserve any better.
It took you this long to find someone that was interested in you for anything other than sex. Jimmy/Jamie/STD hunk didn’t want anything more than sex. None of them wanted anything more than sex. But to find someone that would be interested in anything more than a primitive use of me, was so rare, it was so exceptional for some guy to go for someone like me.
Rolling onto my back, I stared at my roof, and then closed my eyes. I tried to block out the noise. The waves of infinite criticism that threatened to wipe everything away. But the thoughts clambered over each other.
You are worthless. Disposable. The only guy I do deserve is one that plays fruit ninja with my emotions.
But even the thought of finding someone else, was daunting. It seemed easier to not even bother, too much of an impossible task – the effort, rejection, feelings of worthlessness ...
This wasn’t the first time I had thought about leaving Luca. But I was crippled by what lay on the other side. Loneliness. Grindr. “No Asians.” On constant repeat.
I was born and raised here, in this country. But to them I was just an Asian. They wanted muscular and white. Yeah, they wanted white. And I would never look like them, or be like them.
I was Asian. And it seemed like we were still battling stereotypes from decades past, and men hadn’t evolved their thinking about ‘Asian heritage’. They still viewed us as less than, more feminine, less desirable ...
It was exhausting to think about. About planning how I could change things – when I couldn’t really change things. I couldn’t change my features, my skin colour, who I was.
I would if I could, but I can’t.
And so this is what it came to, putting myself in situations, which felt wrong, and I knew were wrong. But the loneliness muddled my thoughts, and pushed aside the idea of wanting something more. I was resigned to the fact that I couldn’t do any better.
The bottles of red were catching up to me, but it would be rude not to finish my glass. I was done with the day, and ready for the booze to take it all away. It was easier that way.
Drink and forget.
Drink and sleep.
A dull ache along the base of my spine woke me up. Two bottles of wine would do th
at to you, I suppose. I didn’t want to open my eyes. There was nothing that could make this morning bearable. I feigned sleep. Luca lay next to me, his hand on mine, his other hand stroking my hair.
It felt nice and wrong all at the same time.
Then I heard the familiar, and hated, sound of a phone buzzing. Luca moved his hand from mine, and leant over me to collect his phone from my side of the bed. Eyes closed, I could feel the heaviness of his movements.
He was messaging someone. Who was he messaging? Was he messaging those guys on Grindr? How long had he been doing this? We weren’t using protection.
Fuck, I’d have to go and get myself tested.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
The four letters circulated in my mind on repeat.
This thing now, this jealousy, this knowing was not going to go away. It couldn’t be forgotten.
I fake yawned, pretending I was just waking up.
“Morning monkey,” he chirped. It was supposed to be endearing, a diminutive term for my cheekiness. But I hated him at that moment, and I hated the word monkey and everything it represented.
But I smiled anyway, because I too was used to pretending. Pretending that I didn’t care, pretending it didn’t hurt – that sort of thing.
“Gosh someone had too much to drink last night. You’re getting old monkey, like me.”
Was that why he was chatting to other guys? Was I getting too old for him?
“I’m twenty-two years old Luca. But I’m allowed to be hung over.”
The pretending was not going so well that morning.
He didn’t notice. “When I was your age I was drinking till 4 in the morning. I’d have an hour’s nap and then be back at it.”
“That’s why you have so many wrinkles,” I said sharply.
“You’re such a bitch,” he laughed. He didn’t realise I’d meant the comment to sting.
I propped my head up on a cushion and examined him more carefully. His dark hair, and heavy-lidded eyes. The wrinkles around the corners and the perennially rosy cheeks. I had thought him handsome at a certain time ... now I just found his face, lecherous.
“Maybe you can teach me a thing or two about partying then. We’ve never been out together before, let’s do it.” It was a loaded statement.
The Overthinkers Page 10