How to Be Second Best

by Jessica Dettmann

  ‘Are we old?’ he asks.

  ‘I think we might be,’ I say sadly.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve got to collect Bon from my sister,’ he says. ‘Another time?’

  ‘Definitely,’ I tell him.

  * * *

  Walking home in the dark after the meeting, I’m struck by how rarely I do this. I almost never leave my house after sunset any more. Back before I had kids, Troy and I went out all the time. We saw movies and went to gigs, and we ate out far more than we ate in. After Tim was born I still went out with friends from mothers’ group once in a while for a dinner, and then there was all the night pram-walking.

  Now I can’t even pop out for a litre of milk once the kids are asleep. The night has become a strange and foreign place to me. Even when the kids aren’t with me I rarely go out at night. It’s just habit now that I’m almost always tucked up by half past eight.

  I have to remedy this. I feel like this is not an attractive character trait, this reclusive thing I’ve got going. If I were Adam, and I were possibly looking for someone to replace my (hopefully) estranged wife, I wouldn’t be turned on by someone who is so out of practice at leaving the house at night that she keeps dashing between the pools of darkness on the footpath where the trees block the streetlights and the well-lit middle of the deserted street. I can’t decide if it’s safer to walk in the dark where no potential attackers can see me, or in the light, where all the potential attackers but also perhaps witnesses can see me. I’m very glad I only live five blocks from the school.

  * * *

  I lie in bed, scrolling through Instagram while keeping one eye on the laptop screen, on which a reindeer herder is making the gruesome discovery of nine severed arms trapped under a frozen lake. It’s going to fall under Tilde’s jurisdiction and it’s exactly what she doesn’t need right now.

  Idly, I switch to Facebook and see a notification. I click on it and read, with horror, that Ilse Cunningham has accepted my friend request. Ilse, Adam’s wife. What the fuck have I done? I looked up her profile a few days ago, but it was all locked down so I couldn’t see anything other than her name and picture. I must have clicked the wrong button and sent her a friend request and now she’s accepted it and what on earth am I supposed to do? Why has she accepted? That’s odd. We don’t have any mutual friends. Adam isn’t even on Facebook.

  Oh God. What if they’re one of those couples who share a Facebook profile? No, surely they can’t be. Only the over-seventies do that. And they always have a hybrid name: LynnGraham Page, or something like that. This must be just Ilse.

  I breathe slowly and try to think rationally. I know. I’ll write her a message introducing myself and say that our kids have made friends with each other at school and I just wanted to say hello, and tell her what a nice son she has. That’s all right, isn’t it? It’s the best I can do. Or I could just unfriend her and hope she never realises I have any connection with her husband or her child.

  That’s probably a better plan. But before I do, I might as well have a look at her profile. If I look for two minutes, then unfriend her, she’ll never know I was here.

  My hand shaking, I scroll through her timeline. She’s a vegetarian — maybe even a vegan — that much is immediately apparent from the stories of animal cruelty she’s shared. There are a few pictures of her posted recently, in bars, with other hot Dutch people.

  Then I see a message someone called Stijn has posted that mentions Sydney. I can’t read the rest because it’s in Dutch, but I press the translate button beneath it and it now reads, Hello Ilse, your mother says in a few weeks you are going to Sydney to live. I hope you have a lot of rooms for your aunt and I!

  God bless uncles who don’t understand the difference between direct messages and wall posts, I think. But what’s this ‘in a few weeks’ business? Adam has definitely not mentioned that.

  I scroll a bit more, before losing my nerve. I click ‘unfriend’ and close the app as fast as I can, as if that will make this all go away.

  My phone buzzes in my hand and my heart leaps in fear, as if it’s going to be Ilse, demanding to know who I am and what I want from her. But it’s only a message from Helen, thank God.

  Hey hun, sorry for late notice but having a little bday bbq for Troy tomorrow 1 pm. Do come. +1 welcome. Then there’s a sausage emoji and a winking face emoji.

  For a hundred reasons this text gives me the shits. Starting with ‘hun’. Editors have pet hates, and we are generally pernickety about language to a degree that makes normal folk never want to open their mouths around us, never mind send us anything in written form. But the abbreviation of the word ‘honey’ to ‘hun’? For me that’s a crime up there with putting an apostrophe before an s in a surname to signify a plural.

  If you have to call anyone honey at all — and I’d argue fiercely that you don’t, and certainly not your husband’s ex-wife — surely the shortened form is ‘hon’. The Huns were warlike Asiatic nomads. I am a very white middle-class Australian who never leaves her suburb and says yes to everything. I am about as far from a warlike Asiatic nomad as it’s possible to get. You should never steal an editor’s husband. You’ll be judged on your spelling, vocabulary and grammar for the rest of your life.

  Who else is going to this barbecue? Text message invitations are awful because you can’t see who else has been asked. That’s why all good and right-thinking people use Facebook, so that their guests can judge the quality of other invited guests before making up their mind. I was well brought up, I promise, but who can resist the lure of waiting to see if anyone good is going before saying they’ll attend an event? Not me, that’s who.

  The chances are this barbecue will be full of Troy’s old mates. Who used to be my old mates. People who came to our wedding. We went on overseas holidays with some of them. I’ve been on more weekends away with them than I have with my own family. Every single one of these people dropped straight off my radar screen very shortly after the Helenpocalypse occurred, mostly without so much as a voicemail to explain themselves.

  They don’t need to explain themselves, really. I know that. Generally speaking, you take out of a relationship the people you brought into the relationship. The lawyers divide up most of your assets, but the friends sort themselves out.

  For the most part, I don’t miss them. With one or two exceptions. There were a couple of old university mates of Troy’s, both called Dave, funnily enough, who married women I really liked, Kate and Sofia. Those relationships began just before Troy and I got together, so I suppose I thought the rules might be different with them, since they knew me for almost as long as they knew Troy.

  Sadly, both Kate and Sofia remained loyal to Troy, and I haven’t seen or heard from them since, which was a bit of a blow. I didn’t think that much about it at the time, because after being dumped by Troy, losing a couple of friends was like getting a paper cut when you’ve just been shot in the stomach.

  I imagine they’ll be at his birthday barbecue though, and I imagine it will be quite awkward to sit around in Troy and Helen’s garden with them drinking boutique beers and eating grilled snapper, which is what Helen serves at barbecues. Poor old Troy can’t even steal someone else’s steak any more.

  That fact makes the sausage emoji, and the smutty wink, even more troubling. Plus-one welcome, indeed. She’s obviously referring to Adam, and I’m about as likely to invite Adam to this nightmare as I am to get back together with Troy. Even if I did, for some mad reason, invite Adam, I wouldn’t get to talk to him because I’m pretty sure I’ll be expected to be on kid duty the whole time. That’s why they want me, really. As a free babysitter, just like always.

  But then there’s the extreme lateness of the invitation. Who sends an invitation fourteen hours before an event? Someone who doesn’t want you to come. That’s enough reason for me to say yes.

  For etiquette reasons alone, this invitation should be declined. It should also be declined because the last place I want to go is Troy’s bir
thday barbecue. It’s not like he’s turning a milestone age or anything. He’ll be forty-four. It’s intriguing, though, that I’m being invited at all, and so late. What are they playing at?

  Perhaps Troy wants to show everyone his ‘before’ and ‘after’ wives? Or maybe it’s something to do with his therapy? An attempted reconciliation of parts of his old and new lives? Is that a thing?

  I think I’ll go. If it’s completely horrible I can make my excuses and leave. But this is too intriguing to pass up.

  I text back: Thanks! Sounds great. What can I bring? A dessert?

  She replies, Just bring yourself! which everyone knows is code for ‘I hate your cooking’.

  Fuck you, Helen. I hate your cooking too.

  * * *

  I can’t get to sleep once I know what tomorrow holds. I need to figure out what I’m going to wear.

  Casual, cool, and relaxed, but better than Helen — that’s the look I’m going for. Quite how I’m going to achieve that is anyone’s guess, given that Helen is a Pilates-toned sylph and I am an editing-toned . . . well, I don’t know what I am any more. I was never a sylph. I suppose I’m just person-shaped. There’s nothing ethereal about me. I’m the sort of person whom Dove might use in a campaign about ‘real women’.

  I hop out of bed and stand in front of the full-length mirror. God, it’s filthy. When did I last clean this? Come to think of it, when did I last look in it?

  After giving the mirror a quick once-over with a wet washer, I look again. It’s hard to assess my figure though my pyjamas. I take them off and stand, chilly and feeling foolish, in only my socks.

  I don’t like what I see. Actually, it’s more that I don’t recognise what I see. I suppose what is reflected is all right, you know, if it were someone else’s body. It’s just not what I remember as my body. There are extra handfuls of me that didn’t used to be there. My breasts have the distinct look of empty IV fluid bags. There’s something approaching a belly overhang that I look away from very swiftly. Unless I stand like I just got off a horse, there is no fashionable thigh gap. I venture a small jump and it’s a while before everything stops moving.

  The phrase ‘let yourself go’ leaps unbidden into my head. It’s a phrase that’s only acceptable in relaxation classes. It makes me cross to think about it. ‘Just let yourself go,’ yoga teachers say, but in real life, under no circumstances should you let yourself go.

  I suppose I have let myself go. I’ve had good reason for that. I’ve been too busy keeping two children alive and scrabbling around trying to gather up all the shattered pieces of my heart and life to be worried about bouncing back to my pre-baby body.

  Be kind, I tell myself. Beating yourself up isn’t going to make your arse any smaller before one o’clock tomorrow. Nevertheless, I lie down on my bedroom carpet, naked except for my bedsocks, and do twenty penitent stomach crunches. Then I roll over and hold myself in a plank position for thirty seconds.

  That’s enough of that. Opening my wardrobe, I survey my options. Back in my old life, I had work clothes, casual clothes, and going out clothes — roughly equal quantities of each. Now I’d say my wardrobe is thirty per cent easily washable T-shirts, sixty per cent jeans with a high stretch factor, and ten per cent historical clothing artefacts that I rarely wear, probably can’t fit into any more, yet can’t bring myself to part with.

  Nothing in here will convey to anyone that they are a fool to have let me go.

  It’s time for a panicky text to Laura: Need a smart casual outfit to make men want me and women want to be me etc.

  Why? is her response.

  I don’t want to tell her. She will disapprove. None of your business.

  You’re not going to something for Troy’s birthday, are you?

  Laura has an astonishing gift for reading my mind. She can put fragments of information together and come up with the truth in a way that would make Sherlock Holmes look like Forrest Gump. There is no point lying to her.

  Yes, BBQ, don’t ask any more please. Just help re clothes.

  There’s a thirty second pause, then: Weather will be 24 degrees and partly cloudy. Wear floral ASOS midi-dress you ordered at Christmas when you were pissed, denim jacket, black ankle boots. Hair down but blow dry it properly. Plenty of makeup. No red lippie.

  She’s a terrifying force, my sister.

  There’s one more text: No sucky-in undies, they make you too cranky. Go for a run in the morning. And remember he is a fuckwit who doesn’t deserve to like your boots.

  I think that’s a typo, that she means he doesn’t deserve to lick my boots. But neither does he deserve to like my boots.

  My heart warmed by Laura’s righteous indignation, I can rest now.

  Chapter Eleven

  I always assume it’s the kids who make me late for things, but when I ring the doorbell of Helen and Troy’s house at a quarter to two the next day, I have no one to blame but myself. I’ve just forgotten how long it takes to make yourself look really nice.

  I got up at a reasonable time this morning, went for a jog, as per Laura’s orders, but by the time I’d done the grocery shopping, unpacked it all, showered, dressed, blow-dried my hair and applied a quantity of makeup that would have been adequate for the whole cast of a Broadway musical, I was running very late. Whatever effort I’ve been making lately to look good in case I run into Adam pales in comparison to this. If I did this regularly my children would never get to school. How do people do this every single morning? Maybe they get faster with practice.

  I definitely used to be quicker at the makeup. But this morning I made the mistake of having a look at the internet to see if how I was doing my makeup was still within the realms of fashion. I was absolutely not expecting to discover that makeup application has changed utterly in the past seven years.

  When did this happen? And why? The last time I learned anything new about applying makeup was when I was about twenty-five and I read in a magazine that a little bit of shiny white eyeshadow on the inner corners of your eyes makes you appear more awake. So that’s what I’ve been doing. It seems to look all right. I didn’t realise people had moved on.

  Apparently now everyone draws on their own cheekbones using some sort of brown cream or powder. And then the shiny white business, which it seems is called highlighter, goes in various other spots to provide contrast. I watched three YouTube tutorials this morning and I could not have felt more like someone emerging from a decade living in a cave.

  I wasn’t confident enough to try any of this newfangled contouring business, for that is its name, putting on brown and white stuff so you look like a topographical map. I just stuck to the old foundation, mascara, blush on the cheeks, rosy lipstick combo I’ve been wearing my whole life. Perhaps everyone will think I look refreshingly retro.

  * * *

  I ring the doorbell even though the door is open, because I am painfully nervous. I’m not at all sure this is a good idea. The reasons for coming that seemed clear last night, and that even stayed with me as I left my house, now seem to have flung themselves into the bushes and under the neighbours’ cars and are no longer evident. Traitors.

  Helen comes darting down the hall, barefoot, in jeans of a cut that should look atrocious but of course don’t. She’s wearing no makeup at all, and an oversized grey T-shirt that is slipping charmingly off one bony shoulder. She looks like she’s just jumped up from an Annie Leibovitz shoot to answer the door.

  ‘Emma, come on in!’

  ‘Hi Helen,’ I say and awkwardly thrust at her the peanut butter chocolate cheesecake that is the other reason I am late. The one she said I shouldn’t bother bringing. ‘I had all the ingredients, so I thought why not?’

  ‘You really shouldn’t have,’ says Helen, and we both know she means it.

  This cheesecake is Troy’s favourite dessert in the world. It might even be his favourite thing in the word, present company included. It is not a food of which Helen approves. Between the crust — melted butter pr
ocessed with shop-bought chocolate biscuits — and the filling of cream cheese, sour cream, eggs, peanut butter and sugar, this recipe ticks every box on the list of foods Helen has banned from her family’s diet.

  To be honest, it’s pretty over the top and makes me feel sick after about two bites, but it’s Troy’s birthday and given all the chia and coconut-based nonsense he and Helen eat these days, he deserves a treat.

  Helen carries the cake into the kitchen as if it’s a landmine, and I follow. The house and garden are full of exactly the people I thought would be here.

  About ten kids are playing in the family room, including mine. Tim is poring over a Minecraft book with two little boys who look familiar but who I can’t quite name, and he breaks away and comes over for a cuddle when he spots me.

  Freya and Lola are being dressed up in princess costumes by two older girls, one of whom is the spitting image of Kate-Who-I-Thought-Was-My-Friend. Freya’s wearing a Snow White dress, but she’s put a tiger’s tail over the top, like a belt. There are a couple of rather beautiful young women with them. I don’t recognise them, but they’re speaking French to each other while they plait the hair of two other kids. My little girls see me but they don’t come over. They are powerless in the thrall of bigger girls.

  Outside, lunch is in full swing around Helen’s extendable teak outdoor table, which has been extended for the event.

  Holding court at the barbecue, a beer in hand, gesturing with tongs at a huge fish-shaped foil parcel on the grill, is Troy, resplendent in light chinos and a pale pink linen shirt. His trousers are fashionably rolled up and he’s barefoot. In spite of itself, my heart flutters. I ignore it, because I have long reconciled myself to the fact that Troy is, and will forever be, my idea of pretty hot. His looks aren’t a million miles away from Adam’s, come to think of it. It doesn’t make him less of a bad person, though, and I would do well to remember that.

  He spots me. ‘Emma!’

  ‘Hey,’ I call back.

  ‘I’m so glad you made it!’ He comes over and kisses me on the cheek. ‘Helen said yesterday she wasn’t sure if you were going to come but I’m so glad you did.’