by Bree Darcy
If you’re going to do Neil Lucas gags the whole time, we might as well cut this conversation short. I TRIPPED!
I drummed my fingers on my thigh as I waited for his reply: it looked like a ballsy move. shame it turned into real cockup. ok thats me done for now. how are u its been years
It took me a while to tap out my reply as I lacked that iGen ability of speed-texting with thumbs: “All good. It has been ages! Did you know I met your wife recently? When she was in Sydney promoting Kris Carson. She’s quite … something.
S never mentioned it, did u intro yurself
I didn’t but long story short Nikki accidentally revealed to her the annoying reporter used to be your girlfriend.
and u r still alive?
Our texting continued for another fifteen minutes until my flight was called.
I quickly keyed in my final message: Gotta go. Boarding plane home to see Mum. Take care.
Give her my luv. now I found u don’t disapper again. have 2 meet up soon
I was still scrolling through our conversation with no doubt a dazed expression on my face when the flight attendant asked me – for the second time – to please turn off my phone.
The red-eye flight definitely left me bleary-eyed. I only dozed sporadically because the woman in the window seat seemed to have a very weak bladder.
Mum picked me up from the airport but I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to scarf down some toast and juice before I crashed. By the time I woke, it was late afternoon and Mum only had time for a quick chat before she had to leave for work – as a restaurant manager at the casino complex. She grimaced as she reached into the pantry for the jar of instant coffee. Her right shoulder had been playing up for a while now but she was stuck on a long waitlist to have the necessary surgery.
As I carried our coffee mugs over to the dining table, I made a mental note to find the time to rearrange her shelves so she didn’t have to reach up so high for frequently used items.
“Who’s your admirer?” I inquired, nodding at the stunning centrepiece of pale pink orchids.
“Ken, aren’t they beautiful? He wanted to be the first person to mark my birthday.” She blushed like an infatuated teen.
Mum had met Kenneth through an online forum for older singles. Actually, she hadn’t technically met him yet. Although he lived only about an hour’s drive away, he was away working on an oil rig in the Persian Gulf. From the photo stuck up on the fridge, Kenneth looked pleasant enough, with neatly cropped white hair and the sort of distinguished face that suggested he’d have been extremely handsome in his day. He was smartly dressed in a navy suit and open-neck white shirt.
After chatting more about the charming Ken, Mum told me to have a good night with the girls and left with a real spark in her step.
* * *
While unpacking my suitcase in my old bedroom, I took a trip down memory lane. Obviously the New Kids on the Block posters were long gone but stashed away in the wardrobe, under my old denim jacket with its Greenpeace and yellow smiley face badges, was a box with my ballgown wrapped in tissue paper. Sadly, the orchid corsage, which I had pressed to help preserve it, had disintegrated further. Another box held keepsakes such as a mixtape, a magazine horoscope and a theatre ticket to Cats. I squeezed on a tarnished silver ring, trying to ignore how much older my hands looked compared to the last time I wore it.
Next I uncovered our school yearbook, which opened with addresses from the principal and from head girl Marissa, who was voted most likely to be the next Oprah Winfrey; and headboy Dan, who was voted most likely to be prime minister. I studied every photo carefully. There was a shot of bitchy Stacey and her friend Diane, pouting at the camera during a swim meet. Another of sports captain Ian inexplicably dressed as a ballerina and Dweeby Dwayne sitting at a computer – I bet he became a dotcom millionaire. And then there was me, Nikki and Dawn, in our acid-washed jeans and baggy sweatshirts, looking like rejects from Beverly Hills 90210.
Amid the good luck messages scrawled on the last page, I had taped a slip of paper. It was my five-year plan from the year I turned sixteen. I compiled it before I met Andy so it focused mainly on getting into university, having a date for the ball, and winning the doubles club championship with Guy.
I wondered what happened to the next five-year plan, from after university graduation. I scavenged around in the wardrobe until I pulled out a special anniversary edition of Ms magazine. Tucked away inside was an envelope with a list of fifty goals, from getting a front-page byline and meeting the American president to buying a yellow VW Beetle convertible and attending bodypump sessions three times a week. Seeing in stark black and white how many of the goals I hadn’t achieved was rather sobering. I certainly hadn’t made editor by thirty or been elected a director of Amnesty International. Maybe this was a sign I needed to get serious about my career again, now the kids were older. Maybe it was time to start thinking about moving on from Starfix.
As I tossed the magazine back into the wardrobe, a sheet of paper floated out – written in huge letters in black marker pen was: FORGET ANDY.
* * *
We had barely exchanged hellos and found ourselves a table at the pub when Dawn’s phone rang. You couldn’t help but hear the wail of a screaming baby.
“You’ll need to speak up, Brooke. It’s hard to hear you,” Dawn shouted. “Have you feed her? Changed her? Rocked her? …. You have and she’s still crying. … No, I don’t know what else you can do. Sometimes babies cry for no reason and you just have to put up with it. Welcome to my world.”
Dawn had ended up marrying Corey and they had four children aged between eight and eighteen. In case Dawn didn’t get enough kid drama at home she also ran a child-care centre.
“No, you can’t put her out in the garage … I don’t care if you’re beyond tired.”
Dawn offered a bit more motherly advice before ending her call. Seeing our puzzled faces, she explained: “Brooke’s child development class has this fake baby project, where you bring home a baby doll for a week. It’s programmed to cry at random times and you have to work out what to do to make it stop. And you have to take it with you everywhere. You fail if it shows you neglect the baby at all. Apparently the scheme has an amazing success rate in putting girls off having babies too young.”
“All that squawking is precisely why I have an implant AND insist on condoms,” Nikki said.
Dawn sighed. “Well I certainly hope it puts Brooke off. She’s become such a nightmare, thinks she knows it all.”
“Why not? We did when we were her age,” Nikki deadpanned. “You were dating Corey, Kellie was madly in love with the Shrimp, and I … I was single. Not much has changed really.”
I poked out my tongue at her. “You were only single because the guys you’re into were still in kindy back then.”
Dawn pulled at the elasticated waistband of her jeans. “I’ve certainly changed. And not in a good way.” She had steadily put on weight over the years and was now around a size twenty.
“So what’s up with Brooke?” I asked.
“She’s been sneaking out to see that boy Brayden – you know the one who brazenly smoked a joint at her sweet sixteenth party. One of the women from our church has seen them together. I have no idea what she sees in him, he’s got a face full of pimples and long, greasy hair. He barely turns up to school … needless to say we’ve banned her from seeing him. She needs to forget boys and focus on her studies.”
“But you were dating her father when you were that age. Don’t you think it’s a little unfair -.”
Dawn cut me off with her hand. “The difference was me and Corey agreed to wait.”
“Which is precisely why you rushed out and got married so young,” Nikki butted in. “Why do you presume your daughter will jump straight into bed with this guy?”
Dawn sighed. “I just want to make sure she’s got no opportunity to do so. We’ve got the holidays coming up and I’m dreading the thought of trying to keep track of
where she is and who she’s with.” Dawn turned to me. “Remember that summer with Andy. We hardly saw you.” Disapproval radiated from Dawn’s face as the wrinkles intensified above her furrowed brow.
“Maybe you should heed my experience,” I said. “If Mum had tried to stop me seeing him, who knows, I might have quit school and stayed in America, just to spite her. It could be dangerous to ban Brooke from seeing him – it makes it seem like you don’t trust her.”
“I don’t trust her – and I certainly don’t trust him. And things were different for us. Kids grow up way too fast these days – sex, drugs …”
“Again sounds just like it was in our day.”
Dawn ignored Nikki and continued to address me. “Just you wait. You’ll change your tune when Ciara is older. Although I suppose you did end up getting Andy out of your system.”
Nikki stood up to get another round of mojitos. “Yeah, it’s damn lucky Kell didn’t end up with him, living in the lap of luxury, travelling the world by private jet. Would have totally stuffed up her life.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a law against women our age wearing hot pants in public,” Dawn retorted as Nikki sashayed up to the bar. “Unless your name’s Kylie Minogue.”
The young guys leaning up against the bar didn’t have a problem with Nikki’s hot pants, admiring her butt as she squeezed past.
“Anyway,” Dawn turned back to me. “Hopefully this baby assignment will teach Brooke she’s not ready to grow up just yet. Her generation, they don’t seem to have a sensible bone in their bodies.”
“Talking babies,” I said. “Do you want to hear what a friend of Adele’s did for her birth last week? She hired a photographer for the delivery room.”
“You’re kidding me,” Dawn said. “He wasn’t taking photos down the business end, was he? Why would you want photos of yourself in labour? It’s messy, you’re grimacing. I can’t think of anything worse.”
“I’m serious. When her contractions started, she called her photographer first, before the obstetrician. Once the baby was born, she tweeted a close-up of the baby emerging from her whats-it.”
“Literally her crowning moment,” Dawn laughed.
* * *
I had stashed our yearbook into my bag and we were chortling over its contents.
“Dan Hunter was such a dreamboat,” Nikki swooned. “I always thought he looked like that guy from Sixteen Candles. Don’t give me that face Kellie, you can’t deny he’s gorgeous. Oh, look at Stacey Big-ones in her string bikini. I’m surprised she wasn’t voted most likely to be a Playboy centrefold.”
“Most likely to be a slut, more like,” Dawn said bitterly. I had forgotten Dawn had been close to Diane, who had a spectacular falling out with Stacey when she caught her so-called best friend giving her boyfriend an in-depth anatomical lesson.
Nikki was in the midst of reminiscing about the boys getting caught peering through a skylight into the girls’ bathroom when Dawn thumped the table to gain our attention. “Oohh, ooh,” she squealed. “I forgot to tell you. Guess who I saw on Monday?” She didn’t bother to wait for us to guess. “I had to take Cuddles to the vet, the usual urinary tract infection.” She sighed. That cat had racked up enough vet bills during its lifetime to fund a trip into space aboard a Virgin Galactic flight.
“But I couldn’t go to our usual vet since he’s away, trekking the Kokoda Trail. So I had to drag poor Cuddles all the way to Brentwood, to see a different vet. Some jerk in a van had blocked off the carpark so I had to park at the plant nursery and lug Cuddles’ cage from there.”
“Just give the cat some cranberry juice and get to the point,” Nikki said.
“You’ll never guess who the vet was. Jeff!” Taking in our blank faces, she explained further. “You know, from that band Andy used to play with. The singer who looked like Doogie Howser’s friend.”
She paused while she took in our now interested expressions.
“And get this. On his wall was a framed photo of him with the band. When I asked about it, he told me all about how he helped AJ Dangerfield get his start in music. Taught him everything he knows apparently.”
If Jeff had taught Andy anything, it was how not to be a lead singer.
Dawn triumphantly pulled a folded piece of paper from her purse and passed it to me. It had a signature scrawled on it.
“He gave you his autograph?” I couldn’t believe the gall of the man.
“He certainly did. Without me even asking for it!” Dawn burst into laughter.
“Knowing him, he probably added a signing fee to your bill,” Nikki scoffed. “Oh, how I wish I could tell Andy about Jeff boasting about him.”
He would find it hysterical. My fingers itched to text him.
I looked around at my friends, the girls I’d grown up telling everything to. Well, almost everything. Should I tell them about Andy getting back in touch? I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Because it wasn’t a big deal. This story about Jeff gave me the perfect opportunity to mention it but then Nikki would probably hyperventilate and Dawn would break out her disapproving wrinkles again. Nah, I’d leave it, maybe bring it up casually later in the week.
I excused myself to the bathroom and on my return, Nikki was in a giggling fit, reading out a text message from Curtis and her reply on my behalf:
Hope you arrived safely. Can’t wait to see you again.
Bought some crotchless knickers, can’t wait to see you either big boy.
Just as I was wondering what Curtis was doing up so late, my phone pinged again. Color? It was then I noticed the message wasn’t from my husband but from someone codenamed XX in my address book.
Nikki took in my ashen face as I manically typed: Sorry. Drunk Nikki on loose. Thought she was messaging my hubby. Apologies for inappropriate comment.
Nikki wrestled the phone off me. “If that wasn’t Curtis, who was it?” She took a sharp intake of breath as a reply came in: and here i was getting excited ;) “Don’t tell me you’re having an affair?”
“No, I’m not, thank you very much,” I replied indignantly, zipping my phone away in my handbag. “But I’ll only tell you what’s going on if you don’t freak out. You have to pinkie promise. Especially you, Dawn.”
The three of us hooked our little fingers together in a ritual we’d been doing since we were six.
“That message – it was from Andy.”
“Oh … my … god! The Shrimp is back!” Nikki threw her arms into the air in jubilation.
“He got in touch after the Neil Lucas thing and he …”
“He what?” Nikki prompted.
“He wants to meet up again.”
‘What, tonight?” Nikki spun around on her stool, as if Andy might be hiding behind the potted palm.
“No, of course not. He’s at home in LA. But maybe one day.”
“But you haven’t seen him since …”
“I know.”
Dawn chewed thoughtfully on a mint leaf. “Are you going to meet him?”
“I guess so. Why, do you think I shouldn’t?”
“I would so totally do him.” Nikki spoke so loudly, the group of men at the next table looked over, perhaps hoping she was talking about one of them. Nikki took in our gobsmacked expressions and corrected herself. “I mean if I was you. Not me as me because that would be totally off. But you’ve got to admit the Shrimp these days … phwoar.”
“That may be so,” I said, hoping my face wasn’t bright red at remembering those shirtless photos. “But Andy and I are never going there again. For, in case you’ve forgotten, I have a husband.” I waved my wedding ring in her face. “And he’s married too.” To a vicious, spiteful woman who probably tore out the eyeballs of any woman who as much as looked his way. “Dawn, help me out here. Inject some of your moral outrage into this conversation.”
Dawn toyed with her drink for a moment then looked me straight in the eyes. “If you want to go for it, go for it. I mean how do you know for sure Curtis has n
ever cheated. It’s highly likely he has. Most men do.”
“Hold it right there. What have you done with our friend?” Nikki rested her palm on Dawn’s forehead, as if checking for a temperature.
Concerned, I asked Dawn whether something had happened with Corey.
“Nah,” she said, tearing her drink mat into pieces in time to the thumping music.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, of course, everything’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be? Stop looking at me like that!” she snapped. “I was just talking about men in general. What do you want me to say? That you shouldn’t meet Andy. You’ll never pass up a chance to see him, no matter what I say.”
That sounded more like the Dawn I knew.
“Have you ever doubted Corey was the right man for you?” I probed. “I mean, you got together when you were so young. Younger than Brooke in fact.”
“We have our moments. No marriage is perfect, as you well know. When he’s away and the kids are running amok and everything gets on top of me, I hate him for not being there. And when he’s back and starts interfering in what’s going on, I resent him for getting in the way.”
Corey worked on a mine site in the Pilbara, fifteen hundred kilometres away, flying home for ten days every month.
Nikki piped up: “With him being away so much, surely you’ve been tempted by someone else?”
“I can honestly say, hand on my heart, no. There is not one other man out there who I’ve ever found more attractive than Corey. Channing Tatum and Neil Lucas included.”
“But you’ve never been with anyone else – how do you know for sure?”
Dawn grew misty-eyed. “I just do. It’s like a physical pain when he’s gone. And I feel complete when he’s around. Corey’s my true love, no doubt about it.”
“That’s so beautiful,” Nikki sighed sarcastically. “Well it’s obvious I know nowt about this true love business, that’s for sure. Nothing has ever compared to you and Corey or Kellie’s great love affair with the Shrimp. Remember, they were like Romeo and Juliet.”
“Except our families got on,” I said.