by PJ Mayhem
We didn’t get any further than that. My work anxiety cut through our potential and woke me.
‘Are you going out, Fiona?’ Jack says as I run by Tuesday evening, clutching my shopping bag so hard my nails are biting into my palms. I’d rushed out of work to get home, touch up my make-up, spritz, recurl my eyelashes, remove my underwear—don’t want my destiny thwarted by VPL—and change. My hair isn’t behaving itself but every day is a bad hair day lately.
‘No, just going to pick up a few things.’ I swing my bag and smile at him even though I feel like I’m about to vomit and pass out. It’s true what they say about a butterfly flapping its wings on the other side of the world and creating a tidal wave: when there’s an entire aviary of them flapping away inside your stomach it’s a tsunami of anxiety.
He goes to ask me something else, but I don’t have time to chat and I need to stay focussed. I’ve only got twenty steps left to give Alex, my anxiety, a good talking to. Of course I feel bad, brushing Jack off like that, but I’m a woman on a mission. The dream had changed my stance on things.
But only somewhat—I’m definitely not fine with Frankie forgetting my name, I realise when I step across the threshold of PGGG. I spot him and briefly wonder why his hair seems to be so much darker today. Perhaps he’s using Just for Men or something in an effort to appear younger for me in compensation for his hideously unforgivable oversight?
I pass Frankie in not just a hoity but a super hoity, you-are-beneath-me way, not looking in his direction.
‘Hi, Fiona,’ he calls even though he’s in the middle of serving someone else. It’s like he’s been waiting for me to come in, bursting to say it. He seems so eager to please that I don’t think of turning around and snapping, ‘It’s Kismet, for Buddha’s sake. Can’t you get it right, man?’
‘Hi, Frankie,’ I say instead, in my best sing-song, swoony voice and turn my head vaguely in his direction. ‘You remembered.’ I toss my hair as I strut into the fruit and vegetables.
When I get to the till he isn’t there, thank Buddha. A strutting arrival is one thing but I can’t possibly interact with him. What was I thinking? But now there’s no one to serve me.
‘Frankie, there are people to be served!’ the young casual evening shift girl yells from her position leaning against the avocados, swiping the screen of her phone. The broom next to her indicates that she should be sweeping the floor.
Not just people, sweetheart, one of them is me. The other one—in front of me—is a woman with two little boys. I sort of hide behind her as Frankie returns to the till. I look at my nails, out to the street, at the floor, at the back of the woman’s head, anything to seem like I don’t care. Only when I’m sure he won’t notice do I steal glances at him.
‘How was school today?’ he asks the boys, giving them a smile that goes all the way to his eyes. I do have a weakness for men who smile right up to their eyes, making them crinkle in the way Frankie’s just have. Dharma him.
‘What’s your favourite thing to do? Do you like your teacher?’ he continues, then he makes a comment to the mother about an item she’s bought for their lunchboxes being something he loved to eat as a child.
Dharma him again. His voice doesn’t have any of its nasal twang to it, it’s soft, warm. I feel as though I’m being wrapped in a cloud.
He says something else and makes himself laugh. I miss it, having begun my transit to Planet Swoon. Overtaken by the force that’s pulling my heart out of my chest. The most adorable person I have ever seen is in front of me (actually, a little to the left given the counter). It’s as though a whiteboard eraser has been applied to my brain—the ignoring me; the nearly always mumbled ‘hi’; the name forgetting; the swinger scenarios; the European mafia crime ring; being tethered up out the back and kept as a sex slave; the football—they’re all gone.
All I see is Frankie.
I step forward as the woman leaves. I’m so distracted, woozy and swoony that I have to lean against the counter to have any hope of maintaining an upright position. I am far more sixteen-year-old schoolgirl with a crush on her teacher than divine goddess. Every part of me is shaking. I feel like a human maraca.
I try to calm myself by wondering whether I should ask Frankie for star anise. Not that I need it but it’s a spice that’d take some time to find. The thought only seems to make things worse after the dream. I’ve been careful not to buy shallots—thank Govinda that snake beans are out of season.
I manage to move my items forward for his convenience and, ever the helpful one, replace my basket behind me.
‘Hi, Fiona,’ he says and smiles as I turn back.
‘Hi, Frankie.’
One of us should say something more surely, but we just stand there looking at each other. Even though I have no recollection of pulling a fifty-dollar note out of my pocket and handing it to him, he’s getting my change, my items already bagged. We’ve been looking at each other the entire time.
Devo’s ‘Whip It’ comes on, as though Spirit wants to expose me. I begin to overheat.
When Frankie touches the bottom of my right middle finger—yes, a single finger—the jolt of electricity that shoots up my arm and through my body is so forceful I jump as though I’m in an electric chair. The coins he’s handed me fall from my hand. We both reach for them, but I’m so embarrassed that I race to scrape them up first.
‘Ta!’ I grab my shopping bag and scurry away like one of the rat family from my ceiling, not turning back.
By the time I’m home I’ve rewound back to Frankie’s greeting as I entered. I do a little squeal of delight and dance around my apartment to Florence + the Machine’s ‘Spectrum (Say My Name)’, Tove Styrke’s ‘Say My Name’, Peking Duk’s ‘Say My Name’, (No Destiny’s Child’s ‘Say My Name’—I don’t want to draw in that cheating-man energy), the Ting Ting’s ‘That’s Not My Name’ and then the ‘Say My Name’s again until YouTube has eaten up my remaining data. The tornado of happiness spinning around inside me sweeps away everything else, even the voice that had berated me for running off like that. I spin until I go to bed and finally get to sleep.
In the pre-dawn silence when I wake, my mind zig-zags all over the place. I replay Frankie’s ‘Hi, Fiona’ so many times it starts to become flavourless, like over-chewed bubble gum. Then I think about the coin dropping and the way I ran out, which furls at the edges of my happiness.
Surely Frankie sending Ms Middle-of-the-Road careening off course like that, blowing a tyre every time I see him, means he can’t be good for me?
23
‘Sorry about last night,’ I say to Jack. In the moments that I hadn’t been caught up thinking about Frankie, I’d felt bad about striding past him. ‘I was just in a hurry.’
He looks at me like he isn’t sure what I’m talking about and continues frothing milk.
I begin my usual routine of flicking through the paper, but I can’t really focus—I’m feeling a little dizzy. Too much spinning last night. Jack still doesn’t speak. He seems distant, as though he’s pretending not to be upset.
‘Do you want to come out, I mean to a party, on Saturday night?’ he eventually blurts.
Saturday—that’s this week. Am I being too available if I say yes without checking?
But I owe him a direct response after last night. ‘Sure.’
‘Great.’ His face lights up and he’s back to sweet, smiling Jack.
Before we can say anything more, someone else comes in, though Jack winks as he hands me my coffee.
Am I ready for this? It feels way too fast and has disaster written all over it. Beyond caffeine complications, it’s sheer stupidity mixing men who work less than fifty metres from each other. But then, all Frankie did was say my name. And it’s not like I’m marrying Jack. It’s not even really a date, which is a good thing because I hate dates. My modus operandi with relationships has been to get to know someone until we’ve drifted into being a couple. But this is just going to a party together.
&nb
sp; It’ll be fine.
On Thursday night, Jane calls. My intuition was spot on. Mr Mural has been occupying her energetic field, not to mention other parts of her, which, Jane tells me, he does exquisitely.
‘And what else has been happening? What of Operation Baby Jane?’ I still can’t quite imagine Jane with a child.
‘Still exploring my options. There’s only certain countries that are single-parent friendly—China, Colombia, India, Bulgaria. There are a few others but their wait time is so long I’d be more like an adoptive grandmother.’
When Jane asks me what progress I’ve made with Frankie I can’t tell her about Monday night. That would involve having to explain the backstory and her doing something like cutting Frankie’s tongue out with his own Stanley knife for forgetting my name let alone not apologising. And then she’d get to work on me.
‘I’m going to a party with Jack on Saturday,’ I tell her chirpily.
‘Christ, you should have told me to sit down. How did that come about?’
‘He asked and I said yes.’
‘Simple as that?’
‘Yep—simple as that.’ If I disregard what was going on in my head.
‘Good on you, Kizzo. I told you nothing was going to change until you took action.’
As we end the call with a promise to catch up next week, I’m amazed at how easy it was not to ask Jane her opinion about Jack. So sensibly autumn. And really, the way things turned out there was no need to tell her the date with Jack is Lionel homework.
The next day my homework is not so easy to avoid. I really don’t want to have to broach our upcoming ‘date’ at all, let alone before coffee, but I can’t stand not knowing what’s happening.
‘So, um, are you still going to that party tomorrow night, Jack?’ I ask as nonchalantly as I can, folding a serviette into tiny squares as someone’s taken the paper.
‘Only if you’re still coming with me.’ Jack smiles a little too intensely.
‘Sure. What time should I come down?’
‘Down?’
‘Yeah, I’ll just come down and meet you here.’
‘No, if you’re coming to a party with me, I’ll come and collect you. Write down your address.’ Jack reaches for the order pad.
‘Oh no, it’s fine. I don’t need collecting. I’m so close.’ I hate giving people my address. I like to maintain my anonymity and once my door is closed on the world, that’s where I like the world to stay—out there, unless I invite them otherwise. The drop-in visit should be considered illegal, like trespassing.
‘No, I insist.’
‘Ha, you’re going to have to desist because I’m going to pop down here on Saturday and meet you. Just tell me what time.’
The metal milk jug clangs against the dark wood of the counter as Jack slams it down. Little drops of milk get caught in the hair of his forearm.
‘Don’t take it personally, Jack. It’s just how I am.’
‘It’s not how you treat a lady, to have her hike down.’
Oh, Govinda. ‘Treat a lady’? An alarm bell starts to sound somewhere deep within my brain. I ignore it. We’re going to a party. That’s all.
‘It’s hardly a hike, Jack. Please just tell me what time. I’ll come down.’ I’d tell him not to be so dramatic if I didn’t think I’d done enough damage already. I really don’t want to hurt his feelings. He’s just trying to do what he thinks is the right thing, what so many women like.
‘Seven.’
I smile. ‘Thank you, Jack. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
The next morning on my way to Diego my hairdresser (even a not-a-date requires a cut and colour—I was overdue anyway), I go into a café around the corner, out of sight of Jack’s. Substandard coffee but I need to build some anticipation.
At 6.55pm I leave home totally Ms Middle-of-the-Road right down to my outfit. One of my classic tunic tops, charcoal grey, diagonally cut so as not to sit like a tent across my hips, and jeans with underwear (not even my lucky underwear). I’ve only curled my eyelashes twice.
Jack’s is in darkness, apart from the flickering of a candle on one of the tables. There might be a power outage in this block—it happens, although the street lights are on and so are the lights in the shop next door. Deep hypno-breath. I knock.
I can smell Jack’s aftershave before he’s got the door fully open. It’s got an ‘I’ve tried too desperately hard for this date’ whiff about it that I can’t miss. If we’re going to a party, why is Jack dressed in a tuxedo with his hair slicked back? He didn’t mention it was formal.
‘Shaken or stirred?’ Jack gives the cocktail shaker he’s holding a little jiggle as I step in.
‘My dear man, there are some things that don’t mix and alcohol and I are two of them.’
Jack looks at me blankly, entirely missing my attempt at a Bond quip.
‘Um, neither thanks, Jack. I don’t really drink. I brought some soda water for the party.’ I try to sound calm, natural and not at all freaked out as I put the bag with the soda water down on one of the tables. One that doesn’t have a white tablecloth, cutlery, a flickering candle and a vase with a single red rose on it. There’s only one of those.
‘Yes, the party. Before we go I thought we might have dinner.’ He waves his arms around the café in the manner of a magician’s assistant.
Dharma it—I had a snack before I left home. Who knows with parties whether there will be food and I’m really not good with low blood sugar. I’ll just have to eat dinner though. I can’t be rude.
On the upside, I know I’m entirely safe here with Jack because everyone who should happen to walk past can see us. Unfortunately the fact makes me uncomfortable rather than reassured, because what if Frankie sees me here on what is so obviously a date-date with Jack? I put the thought out of my mind immediately. If Frankie wanted to ask me out on a date-date he could have. I’m here with Jack and I am going to enjoy the evening. We’re at a table at the rear of the café, my back is to the door and my hair is up as Diego’s apprentice had blow-dried it too big, which always makes me self-conscious. Frankie probably couldn’t tell it’s me anyway.
Maybe I should go home and change. Not to dress for dinner but Jack’s outfit and the way he’s slicked back his hair is a far cry from the sort of party I imagined we’d be going to. Before I’ve got time to ask him, Jack is pouring the contents of the cocktail shaker into a couple of martini glasses, complete with olives. Regardless of my earlier comments, he hands me one, which I immediately put on the table. I hate martinis and after cocktails with Jane, my no-alcohol stance is even greater.
‘I’m just going to—’
Oh my Buddha, if he says, ‘Slip into something more comfortable,’ and comes out wearing a James Bond–style dressing gown I will walk the 195 steps right on out of here back to the sanctuary and comfort of home immediately.
‘—put on some music.’
Ed Sheeran fills the room and I have to hold in a snort. But I must act with grace and give Jack a chance. The fact that I hate this sort of music more than anything is beside the point. Again, I’m really to blame. If I hadn’t been so focussed on John Farnham after the PGGG incident, I would’ve also thought to add ‘Does not listen to Ed Sheeran’ to my What I Want and Need in My Next Male Love Relationship list. I should have also added Sam Smith and now I’m thinking on those lines both the Justins (Beiber and Timberlake) should’ve been on there, along with James Blunt and Norah Jones, as well as with Barry White, Michael x 2 (Buble and Bolton) and Celine Dion to be sure I cover those in the upper age range! If I’d done that, Jack was bound to have picked up on it energetically. Frankie’s music is pure gold compared to this.
Back at the table, Jack pulls a chair out for me to sit down. I fight my instinct to bat him away and tell him I can do it for myself. That sort of thing makes me uncomfortable but I remind myself of Lionel’s advice to ‘be kind to myself’, which I understand means letting other people be kind to me too.
Jack sits op
posite and takes a sip of his martini.
I feel the need to fill the awkward silence that pervades the room despite the music. ‘You’re looking very dressed up, Jack. Are we off to an awards ceremony or taking a stroll on a red carpet after this?’
‘No. I don’t know anyone famous, do you?’
‘Not really. I was …’ I trail off and go to pour myself some water.
‘Here, I’ll do it.’ Jack practically flings himself across the table and wrestles the jug from my hand. It’s like he’s read a 1950s etiquette manual on How to Woo a Lady and is following all the essential steps. I feel so bad. He’s eager to please but there’s none of our usual easy banter. It’s as though by taking it beyond the coffee exchange we’re all at sea.
‘It’s OK, Jack, thank you, that’s very sweet, but I can do it.’ If I don’t tell him, how can I expect him to know?
‘I might get our entrée.’ Jack disappears out the back again, just long enough to pick up a couple of plates. He places six oysters au naturel, shells bedded in rock salt, in front of me.
Oysters—I can’t actually swallow an oyster, they make me gag. There’s so much I could read into his choice if I wasn’t busy panicking.
Jack looks at me expectantly.
‘Wow, you’ve gone to so much trouble, Jack. This is lovely.’ I poke at an oyster with the special little fork. He really has thought of everything, apart from asking what I do and don’t eat—I don’t mean to sound unappreciative but I have very particular tastes.
He’s still watching me. There’s no way around it, I have to put the oyster in my mouth. I slide it between my teeth and my cheek and pretend to swallow. As Jack pops an oyster in his mouth I bend down so my head is sort of under the table (I hope I don’t give him any ideas), take a tissue from my handbag and spit the oyster into it. It’s gross but there’s nothing to do with the tissue other than put it back in my bag.
‘Sorry, I just had to check my phone, my … my mother’s not been that well.’ I sense a bout of bad karma on its way.