How to Be Second Best

by Jessica Dettmann

  We all moved here because it has everything you need, but now we seem to be trapped. We go to the one pub, the six restaurants, the three cafes, the one gym, the two Pilates studios, the doctor, the dentist, the optometrist and the chiropractor. And the school. Only the people with real jobs get to leave here, and they have to rush straight back at six o’clock in time to pick up kids from after-school care and daycare.

  ‘Adam, don’t you sometimes feel like you need to get out of here?’ I ask. ‘It’s so stifling. The same people, going the same places.’ I realise he probably doesn’t know what I mean. He hasn’t been here long enough.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’

  ‘Fuck, I don’t know. Anywhere. Just somewhere that isn’t here. I have a kid-free night, I’m still young. Why aren’t I out? Like, out out?’

  ‘There’s no reason,’ he says, sounding only slightly alarmed by my sudden wild enthusiasm. ‘Let’s go out out.’

  ‘Only I don’t know where to go. I never go out out. Where do you think we should go?’

  ‘I’m new around here. I work in the city, but apart from that I’m as housebound as you are these days. We could ring someone cooler than us and ask them, but it’s getting a bit late.’

  ‘Where do the young people go, Emma?’ I ask myself aloud. ‘Come on, think!’

  I scrabble around in my bag until I find my phone. There are three missed calls from Troy but he hasn’t left a message. I don’t want to deal with whatever he has to say. Certainly not right now.

  Instead I begin mashing the keys. I’m trying to Google things like ‘cool places to go out’, but I’m all thumbs and even my iPhone, who knows my wants and needs better than almost anyone, can’t figure out what I’m asking. I know I have an app on here somewhere that tells you where to go that’s trendy and hip. I downloaded it by accident and I’ve kept meaning to delete it. I stab away at every icon that looks like the one I think I want, but the one for ordering lunch from the school canteen and the one that tracks my period both look very similar. Someone needs to invent an app that when you’ve done this much random opening and shutting of other apps and typing of words that even autocorrect can’t figure out, would kick in and disable all apps except Uber. It would flash up a screen that reads: That’s enough. Go home, you’re drunk.

  Finally I give up. ‘You know where there is booze to be had? My house. It’s still open.’

  ‘Then let’s go to your house,’ Adam says. ‘Do you think you can find it?’

  ‘It’s not guaranteed,’ I tell him. ‘It looks very like many other houses around here.’

  We head off down the road together, and when my foot catches on a piece of broken gutter and I stumble, Adam grabs me by the elbow. He tucks his arm though mine and says, ‘There,’ like something has been fixed up satisfactorily.

  The streets are very quiet. One taxi passes, heading back towards the city with its light on. An old man walking a pair of corgis nods to me and I smile back. I try to say ‘nice evening’ but it doesn’t come out sounding anything like that.

  It’s dawning on me that I’m really quite, quite drunk. I thought after I was sick at Troy’s that I’d purged all the alcohol from my system, and that I was starting again at the pub with a blood alcohol level of zero, but in hindsight that was the kind of theory a very drunk person comes up with. I feel great though. It’s a good level of drunk.

  I feel like I’m wrapped in a warm blanket, and the soft fuzziness is muffling any questions I should be asking myself, like why I’m taking a married man back to my empty house in the middle of the night. Although I think both me and my drunk self know the answer to that and to ask it would be disingenuous. We both know where this is heading, and right at this moment the fact that Adam is married to someone else is not my problem.

  I push open my rusty front gate and it makes the hideous screech it always does.

  ‘You need to get a bit of WD-40 on that,’ Adam says.

  ‘You need to get a bit of WD-40 on that,’ I say, before I can stop myself, and before I realise how poor an attempt at innuendo that is, and how if he even recognises it as an attempt at innuendo he is going to think I’m referring to my vagina, which I seem to be suggesting is rusted shut.

  Yet he’s still holding my arm. Getting the key into the lock proves more of a challenge than it should, and when the door finally gives, we stumble in over the doormat. I think I trip Adam with my foot, or I trip over his foot, because suddenly we’re falling, arms still linked, onto the floor of my hallway.

  ‘Ow, fuck!’ he says. He lets me go and rolls onto his back, his leg pulled up to his chest, rubbing his knee where he has smacked it into the umbrella stand, which contains two hobby horses that neigh when you bump them.

  The neighing doesn’t stop for a full minute, because the hobby horses are from Aldi and are beginning to malfunction. We lie on the floor, dazed, listening to the just-out-of-synch mechanical whinnying. As romantic soundtracks go, it’s a long way behind Barry White.

  Once the horses fall silent again, I prop myself up on my elbow to look at Adam, and almost without realising I am about to do it, I kiss him. Adam Cunningham. My old author. Bon’s dad. Ilse’s husband, for God’s sake. My drunken brain catches up and for a moment I am flooded with panic, but then he puts his arms around me and returns my kiss and there is nothing but skin and breath and feelings of plain desire such as I had forgotten I could feel. The kissing seems to anaesthetise the part of my mind that houses any remaining inhibitions, and we lie down on the hard floorboards, and kiss with an increasing urgency.

  There’s no way to tell how long this has been going on when we pause to catch our breath. Five minutes? An hour? I need to wee, but I fear that if we stop for any real length of time we’ll lose our nerve or come to our senses. Adam seems to feel the same because he gets to his feet, and pulls me up. He holds me close and whispers, ‘Shall we go to your room?’

  ‘That is such a good idea,’ I whisper. He pulls my hair back, kisses my neck and my knees almost buckle.

  Then something happens that is so rare, so unlikely, that it takes me a moment to figure out what it is. The home phone starts to ring.

  Chapter Thirteen

  My home phone never rings. I don’t even know why I still have a home phone. I think maybe the number came with my internet deal and I haven’t bothered to get rid of it. I’m never more than about two feet from my mobile phone. I suppose the home phone could be useful if I had a heart attack while sitting on the toilet looking at Facebook and I dropped my phone in. The kids could call an ambulance on the home phone. Though I feel like my iPhone preservation skills are so instinctive now that I’d manage to place it on a safe, dry surface before I collapsed and tumbled, dead, onto the bathroom tiles.

  But my home phone, which sits, utterly neglected, on a small table just inside the living room, is now indisputably ringing. Adam and I spring apart like the adultery warning siren has just gone off.

  I lurch into the living room and, fumbling mightily, I grab the handset. I don’t even know if you have to press the on button to answer it.

  ‘Hello? Hello?’ I say loudly into the receiver.

  ‘Emma?’

  It’s Troy. Something terrible has happened. I know it in my soul. Why else would he be ringing me at this time of night, using the phone that is only for terrible emergencies?

  ‘Troy? What’s wrong? What’s happened?’

  ‘Where the fuck are you?’

  I’m very confused. Obviously I’m at home. This is my home phone.

  ‘Who is it? Who’s hurt? Troy, tell me.’

  I hear him sigh. ‘Well Emma, it’s nice that you’ve finally answered your phone. I’m at the hospital.’ He pauses and years are stripped from my life. ‘It’s Freya.’

  Oh no. Not my baby. My heads begins to buzz in fear. I don’t think I can listen to what he’s about to say.

  ‘She’s been vomiting all evening.’

  Relief floods through me. She’
s vomiting. Vomiting means alive.

  ‘She started just after you left, and we couldn’t get her to keep any liquid down. Then she went all floppy and tired and so I brought her up to casualty about an hour ago.’

  ‘She’s all right though? It’s just gastro?’

  ‘Well, no, she’s not really all right,’ he says, sounding profoundly irritated. ‘She’s not feeling well at all, Emma, and she’s been asking for you. I tried calling your mobile sixteen times. Sixteen times, Emma. And I’ve been calling the home number. Where the hell have you been?’

  Now is not the time for this. ‘Troy, has she stopped vomiting? Can she talk to me?’

  ‘Yes, she’s stopped now. They gave her an injection. She’s keeping down some Gastrolyte. But you need to get up here. You’re supposed to be her mother, for God’s sake.’

  I start to cry. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ll get in a cab straightaway.’

  ‘Well that would be great, if it’s not too much trouble. You know, if you’ve finished whatever it was that was so important you couldn’t answer the phone—’

  I cut him off. He can berate me when I get there. ‘Troy, I’m hanging up and getting a cab.’

  He keeps talking. ‘You know, Emma, you make such a big deal about being the primary parent, but where are you when things get hard? Nowhere to be found.’

  ‘Troy, stop talking, please. This isn’t my mobile. Call me back on the mobile if you have to keep yelling at me. I need to get in the car.’

  With that, I hang up. I feel completely sober, but I know I’m not. It’s just adrenalin, I’m aware of that. The same adrenalin that just nearly convinced me to shag someone else’s husband is now doing its best to convince me I’m fine to drive my car to the hospital, which I’m very much not.

  Adam is leaning against the wall in the hallway. He’s cradling his phone with his shoulder and buttoning his shirt back up, while he phones for a cab for me.

  He hangs up and asks, ‘Do you want me to come?’

  ‘No, God no,’ I say, horrified at the thought. ‘The last thing I need is Troy knowing why I wasn’t answering the phone. He’ll have DOCS round here before I know it.’

  ‘Emma, that’s absurd. You’re single. He’s married to someone else.’

  ‘So are you.’ I almost tell him I know Ilse is coming back. But something stops me.

  His expression hardens. ‘Right. I’ll go. I’ll suppose I’ll see you round then.’

  ‘Oh shit, Adam, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . . well, I don’t know how it is with your wife. I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have . . .’

  He sighs. ‘No, probably not.’

  A beep from the street stops us. This can wait.

  * * *

  We don’t live very far from the hospital. This has come in handy over the past few years, as Tim, in particular, is something of a strife magnet. Since he was four he’s broken his arm falling out of a tree, knocked out two baby teeth sliding down a slippery dip on a friend’s skateboard, and had his foot stitched up after a run-in with some oyster shells on rocks at the beach. He’s not a daredevil as such, he’s more just got an avid curiosity that is unmatched by any sort of physical prowess or judgement. He has tested the limits of his body by weaving his arm through stair bannisters, and the limits of nature by wrongly assessing which variety of hedge can bear his full weight.

  Freya, on the other hand, has never been in hospital. The poor little thing will be freaked out. She thinks injections and operations are the same thing and I can’t imagine she’s being a particularly good patient.

  It’s half past eleven by the time the taxi drops me off at emergency, and I rush through the waiting room, which is filled with the typical Saturday night assortment of people who’ve fallen over pissed, taken something they shouldn’t, and the ones who thought their sports injuries from earlier in the day were okay until they tried to go to sleep. There are also several parents holding small children and sick bags.

  The triage nurse waves me through to the paediatric emergency ward, which is much quieter than the waiting room. Fewer sports injuries and drug-taking mishaps, I suppose. The nurse on the desk here directs me to bed nine, where I pull aside the cubicle curtain to reveal a tiny wilted Freya, fast asleep on the bed, and a rumpled-looking Troy.

  ‘Nice of you to make an appearance,’ he says, running a hand through his hair and rubbing the back of his neck. ‘Sorry to drag you away from whatever you were doing that was so much more important than your child.’ There is no sign of the man who kissed me earlier today.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, sincerely. ‘Has she been very upset without me? I’m sure you did a great job.’

  ‘Of course I did a great job, I’m her father. That’s not the problem, Emma. I was fine with her here, but that’s left Helen at home alone with Tim and Lola.’

  The penny drops. Of course. They’ve probably all got whatever this bug is. How horrendous.

  ‘Shit, are they all vomiting? Oh, poor Helen.’

  ‘No. They’re not. But that’s not the point. They could start spewing at any moment, and how’s Helen meant to handle that by herself, with me stuck up here, dealing with a sick little girl, and doctors who don’t even bloody speak English? One of them asked if she wanted an ice lolly, and I didn’t know what that was.’

  For a moment I pause, confused. So, everyone at home is fine, he is fine, Freya’s on the mend, but I’m a bad person because I wasn’t here to relieve him just in case Helen had to deal with a bit of vomit at home? Seriously? I deal with the only part I understand.

  ‘It’s an icy pole, Troy. An ice lolly is what the English call an icy pole.’

  ‘Well if English doctors are going to come here and take jobs from Australian doctors the least they can do is call a bloody icy pole an icy pole.’

  ‘Right,’ I say, wanting to get back to the matter at hand. ‘But what were you saying about Helen and the kids? Are they sick or not?’

  ‘Not yet, Emma, but gastro is very contagious. Extremely. Freya was sick all over our sofa, before we moved her to the bathroom. After that it was pretty contained because I kept her in there with me and the others went to bed, but they’ve all been exposed. I don’t know how long the incubation period is. What happens if all three of them get sick while I’m not there to help? Helen needs me there. I don’t know what you’re playing at, Emma. Is this about this afternoon? Is this your way of trying to sabotage my marriage? First you kiss me, and now you try to make me look bad by leaving Helen at home to deal with this by herself? Because if that is what you’re trying to do, ignoring your own sick child is a pretty disgusting way to go about it.’

  ‘Deal with what by herself?’ I shout, losing my calm completely. ‘There’s nothing to deal with — you just said that. Everyone’s fine there. I honestly do not understand what the fuck you are talking about.’

  Troy looks alarmed.

  ‘I was out, Troy. My phone was on silent. I wasn’t ignoring anyone. And do you know what? If one of the other kids had been sick, or if Helen had, she would have dealt with it the same way I have dealt with it every time our two kids have been sick for the past three years. She would deal with it by putting them in one bed so there aren’t as many sheet changes, and using lots of buckets, and bleach, and giving them Gastrolyte. But the difference, Troy, is that Helen would only have to deal with that alone for about two hours, until you get home. Unlike me, who has to deal with it alone, every single fucking time, Troy, because you fucked off.’

  He tries to interrupt me but I’m in full furious flight.

  ‘And, Troy, let’s not forget that right now Tim and Lola are not sick. They are fine, you just said so. They are probably fast asleep, and so is Helen. You’re just pissed off because you aren’t, and that, you utter shit, is just one of so many reasons you are such a bloody weapons-grade dickhead.’

  I’m sure the whole children’s ward can hear me. But I’m so far past caring. I move away from the bed, and stand outside th
e cubicle, gathering myself. The nurses are watching me, but no one says a word. I’m fully expecting to be told off at any moment, but although the staff are all clearly listening, they continue to type, and shuffle papers together, and one gets up and writes on a whiteboard. Two young doctors bury their heads in clipboards of patient notes.

  I hear a little voice say, ‘Mummy?’ and turning round, I see Freya’s awake. She’s very pale, with dark circles under her eyes, and her fine hair is matted into a bird’s nest at the back. With the most impeccable timing and aim, she rolls onto her side and vomits all over Troy’s shoes. I can see the nurses have been giving her Gastrolyte, probably the lemon-lime flavour.

  ‘Good girl,’ I tell her, and reach for a tissue to wipe her mouth. ‘Troy, go get her nurse.’

  * * *

  Three hours later, in the darkest, quietest hour of the night, I take Freya home. A rehydration IV and some more anti-nausea medication, along with a few icy poles, have done the trick and she’s flat but all right. She’ll need a day or two on the sofa, with a high dose of Peppa Pig, but she will be fine.

  Troy’s at his house, having left the hospital shortly after the spewy shoes incident. He didn’t quite storm out, because he cares too much about his image for that. He put on a show of good humour for the nurses, and accepted a pair of elasticated blue surgical shoe covers to wear home. He carried his soiled Converses in a red plastic bag emblazoned with warnings of biohazardous waste contained within.

  Before he left, he informed me — as if it were some massive favour — that he would keep Tim until Sunday night, as agreed, unless he also started vomiting.

  At home I tuck Freya into my bed, then set about covering the floor in old towels, in case this is merely a lull in the vomiting. If there’s one thing parenting has taught me, it’s never to trust a stomach bug. The moment you let your guard down is the moment it rears up. I crack open the window in the hope that the fresh air will blow away the contagion, and collapse onto the bed beside her. She curls her little body into mine and together we try to sleep off the illness, the shame, the guilt and the anger. And all the wine.