‘That’s not how they usually work,’ he said.
‘Well, it’s how this one’s working, apparently.’
‘How did it come up? Did she just hand it over?’
‘Basically. I visited her to ask about Melbourne.’
I’d mentioned the M-word willingly. Sticks sat up a little straighter. I was opening up and he wanted to know everything.
‘She didn’t want me to talk to him, probably knew that I wouldn’t. She sent me down to remind me of the fragility of family. Once you lose it, it’s gone for good, and doing this,’ I tapped the list, ‘will stop me losing it. I have to be the glue that holds the family together.’
He tucked his chin in. ‘Right.’
‘And it’s ridiculous.’
‘It’s very ridiculous.’
‘What do I do?’
He sighed. ‘I think you have to do it, dude.’
I had been worried he was going to say that. I felt the weight of an impossible task falling on my shoulders.
He was chewing on the inside of his left cheek. ‘I mean, odds are she’s not dying, but she wants her affairs in order, and you can’t ignore that on the off-chance she actually is . . . dying.’
It landed with a thud. Dull, persistent ache. Ow.
‘Obviously, you’ll have my help,’ Sticks said. His involvement wasn’t up for discussion. He’d already opened the closest drawer and started removing stationery.
The severity of it all sank in. I had to repair my family or face losing it forever. It was my grandmother’s dying wish.
Absolutely no pressure at all.
Sticks turned to a fresh page of the notepad. ‘You ready?’ he asked.
Absolutely not.
‘Sure.’
‘Let’s start from the top,’ he said.
1. Find your mummy husband.
The first demand was high on Ick Factor, but considering Mum was actively seeking a romantic relationship, it wasn’t as problematic as, say, trying to fix Peter or un-gaying Simon. And I was all for Mum finding a hubby. I wasn’t one of those children of divorce who lost their proverbial shit when their parents flagged the idea of getting remarried. I wanted Mum to find someone. Someone great.
‘She went speed dating on Saturday, so she’s obviously keen to get back on the horse,’ Sticks said. ‘Is there anyone you think she could –?’
I shook my head.
‘I mean, there is my uncle,’ he said, ‘but, no.’
He’d been vehemently opposed to the idea at his birthday party, but he’d never explained why.
‘For starters, we’d be related, which would be weird. We’d be cousins. I don’t like my cousins.’
‘Okay, not the strongest of reasons.’
‘And what if it doesn’t work out? What then?’ Sticks asked. ‘You can’t come over because you’re the son of the woman who broke my mother’s brother’s heart.’
‘Whoa, what makes you think my mum’s to blame?’
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s divorce. Mum’s going to take Uncle Shaun’s side. I won’t risk it, Bill. Now,’ Sticks was staring at me, wide-eyed, ‘are you sure there’s nobody else? No exes?’
I shook my head again.
‘That makes it difficult.’ He tapped his fingers against his lips and mulled it over. Every time he thought of something, there’d be a sharp intake of breath, but his shoulders would sink the moment a potential plan faltered under closer scrutiny. It was a couple of minutes before there was a sharp intake of breath without the accompanying shoulder sink.
‘Internet dating,’ he announced.
Mum was afraid of the internet. She thought signing up for anything meant someone would be able to steal her identity. There was no way she’d do it.
It was as if Sticks read my mind.
‘We’ll make a fake profile for her on a dating site,’ he said. ‘She won’t know about it at all. We’ll man it, vet suitors, find a decent guy and presto.’
‘So you want me to pose as my mum on the internet and flirt with randoms?’
‘Okay, I hear you, that’s wrong.’
‘Very.’
‘I’ll do most of it.’
He was already making notes on his pad. I still had a few misgivings about the idea. Sticks posing as Mum was less gross than me doing it, but it meant I would have no control over it. That unsettled me.
‘I supervise, at all times.’
He feigned indignation. ‘Not going to lie, I’m a little offended you don’t trust me.’
I cocked an eyebrow.
‘Fine.’
We moved on to the second point on the list.
2. Have Simon girlfriend in Sydney.
Sticks sighed. ‘This one’s a little trickier.’
‘Oh, you think?’ I asked. ‘She wants me to make Simon like girls.’
I knew about Simon before he told me. It wasn’t how he dressed or the music he listened to. It was the way he’d speak about someone he liked. It was that moment’s pause before each pronoun as if it had to pass through a filter and change on the way out. It was the feeling that he wasn’t completely honest, completely happy.
He came out after high school and it ushered in a new, bolder Simon. He instantly became an open book, an extrovert who articulated whatever inappropriate thought crossed his mind, and who freely imparted fashion advice. (‘Yeah,’ Sticks said, ‘because now he’s qualified.’) My brother was unrecognisable, but I didn’t care. When he spoke about someone he liked, there was no pause before the pronoun.
Mum reacted to it as I’d expected. She denied it, grieved it, got over it and then vowed to kill anyone who wronged him. She did ask one thing though: that he not tell Yiayia.
And that was a whole thing. He said she was trying to hide who he was; she said Yiayia was from a different generation and wouldn’t understand. I thought it was all pointless, because he hadn’t exactly been subtle. Yiayia knew something was up.
She tossed girls (who we were probably related to) his way at weddings. Didn’t work. She asked about her impending great-grandchildren. His replies were non-committal. She took to surprising him at work and cleaning his room in the hopes of innocently stumbling upon something illuminating. She became a regular, ethnic Miss Marple, trying to crack the case of why Simon didn’t have a girlfriend. But before she could, he’d moved away.
She said the list would make everybody happy. Making Simon like girls wouldn’t make Simon happy.
Sticks slid the list back over to me. ‘You’re looking at it all wrong.’ He pointed at the demand. ‘Yes, there’s the “girlfriend” bit, but ignoring that, what do you think Yiayia really wants?’
I hazarded a guess. ‘Him in Sydney?’
‘Exactly. She wants him back.’
It made sense. ‘And bring the family back together.’
Sticks nodded. ‘Now, tell me about his life up there.’
I held up both hands.
‘Seriously?’ he asked. ‘You’ve got nothing?’
‘He doesn’t really talk about it.’
‘Find out,’ he said. ‘Find a reason for him to leave and if you can’t, give him a reason to move back. If he happens to fall in love with a girl . . .’
‘I’m not un-gaying my older brother.’
Sticks laughed. ‘It would be pretty funny,’ he said, jotting down our plan of attack for Simon. ‘Right, next.’
3. Fix Peter.
‘Yeah, you’re on your own there,’ Sticks said. ‘That kid is a butt-load of crazy that I do not understand.’
I barely understood Peter either. We had been close growing up. We’d shared a room and most mornings when he was little, he would climb out of his cot and into my bed. I would pull the sheets over our heads and narrate the lives of the characters sewn into them. And there was never enough time. He always wanted to hear one more.
When he learned to read, it was my turn to listen as he told me stories and my job to help him out when words in those stories gave
him too much trouble.
He got older, he moved into his own room, he ditched picture books for PlayStation, but when it came time for multiplayer, he would always thrust a controller into my hands. I’d let him win and make a big deal when he did.
I couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he changed and I couldn’t explain why. It felt sudden, but maybe I just hadn’t been paying attention. He built a wall and whatever we had before was lost.
‘You’ll need to get close to him,’ Sticks said. ‘Find out what’s wrong.’
‘How? I enter a room, he exits. And he’s been like this for years. If something’s wrong, surely it would’ve come up, like, “Hey, you ate the last ice block in 2010 and I’ve been pissed off ever since!”’
‘Something has to be wrong.’
‘But why would he tell me now?’
‘Well, there has to be a way.’ Sticks gave it some thought. ‘Peter’s really into fitness, yeah?’
‘Jogs every morning, gyms every arvo.’
‘Okay, we can work with that.’
‘We can?’
‘Join him on his jogs, establish mutual interest, maybe he’ll open up to you,’ Sticks said. ‘But then again, you’re getting brother relationship advice from me. All the inroads I’ve made with Damo have come from reading his messages when he’s in the shower and blackmailing him.’
‘I’ll save that for Plan B.’
He flashed a smirk and noted it down. ‘So you’ll try to re-establish some sort of a relationship and, if all else fails, resort to blackmail. Sorted.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Wait.’ Sticks scanned his eyes over Yiayia’s list. ‘Where are you?’
I felt due for a terrible joke. ‘In your house?’
He pulled a face. ‘I meant the list. Why aren’t you on it?’
‘I dunno. Because I’m perfect?’
‘Hm.’ He was inspecting it closely. ‘Who wrote this? This isn’t your grandmother’s usual penmanship,’ he said, mimicking Yiayia’s shaky handwriting in the air between us.
‘Hayley.’
‘And who’s Hayley?’
‘This girl who visits Yiayia’s roommate.’
Sticks was smiling.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘What?’
‘It’s nothing, she’s just entangled in your adventure, is all,’ he said.
‘I don’t think –’
‘Oh, come on. Yiayia could have written this stuff down herself, if she really wanted to.’
That was true. It wouldn’t have been half as legible, but she could have done it. She’d never been a stickler for legibility.
Yiayia had seen how smitten I’d been with Hayley on Sunday. She’d struck up a conversation with her while I was in Melbourne. She’d told her all about her grandson, Billy.
‘Mark my words. This,’ Sticks waved his hand over the list, ‘isn’t all she wants done.’
I went past the hospital on the way home. Yiayia was asleep. I leaned against the frame of the doorway and exhaled, turning the piece of paper over and over in one hand.
I had so much responsibility, but so little power. I could have just put the list on the table beside her and left it at that. Part of me wanted to, but a lot of me knew that I couldn’t.
Growing up, my grandfather had been the one in and out of hospital. My grandmother had stood beside him, stout and invincible, bringing better food from home and feeding him.
We joked that she’d outlive us all and I’d believed it.
Now, reality was creeping closer. Yiayia wasn’t made to last forever. She was seventy-nine. Age had made her features droop and her hair like wire.
I didn’t want to imagine a world without Yiayia Filyo in it, but it was coming. Maria had said it and Yiayia was preparing for it.
She didn’t want to leave a mess.
I had to complete the bucket list.
Mum was setting the table for three when I reached the top of the stairs.
‘Hi.’
She had instilled fear in me from an early age, so she didn’t even have to accuse me of anything to make me nervous.
I swallowed hard. ‘Hey.’
She didn’t look up from the cutlery she was laying out. ‘Everything okay?’ she asked.
‘Yeah.’
I sounded suspicious, and if I was going to sound suspicious, I might as well do suspicious things.
I messaged Sticks. Go.
We had spent the afternoon working on the first of the bucket list’s demands – finding Mum a husband.
After assessing the different free-to-use dating websites, we settled on eSingles, the one with the most features and the least depressing stock images on the homepage.
I let Sticks build Mum’s profile, hovering over his shoulder every so often to say things like, ‘That is not going to be listed as one of her hobbies,’ and, ‘She would kill you,’ for quality assurance purposes.
We then browsed the potential candidates. Successful bachelors were chosen based on the three ‘A’s – age, aesthetics and ability to spell. We interviewed them using the site’s instant messenger and decided on Patrick, an investment banker.
I had asked Sticks to hold off on messaging him Mum’s number though. I had to make sure she didn’t ask him how he knew her.
‘I saw Yiayia today,’ I said.
I took my seat behind a bowl of spaghetti bolognaise that was coated in Parmesan cheese. Mum asked how she was.
‘Good, I guess.’
‘Good.’
Mum sat at the head of the table and called Peter to come up for dinner.
In the time it took me to finish, she’d called my younger brother four times. He was clearly not coming, so I made a start on his food. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I couldn’t leave, not until –
Mum’s mobile vibrated. It was a text message. She looked at the screen and furrowed her brow. ‘Who’s this?’ she asked herself. ‘Patrick . . . How do I know a Patrick?’
It was rhetorical, but it was my best chance to work my influence.
‘Is he from the speed-dating thing?’ I asked.
She said, ‘No,’ but she didn’t seem certain. ‘At least, I don’t remember a Patrick.’
‘There could have been a Patrick,’ I tried. ‘It was a long night.’
‘Well, I guess. He is being flirty with me,’ Mum said. ‘He says it was nice chatting to me.’
I could work with that.
‘Have you chatted with any guys and given them your number since the speed-dating thing?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘There you go.’
She started typing a reply. ‘I’m just going to ask him how I –’
‘No, don’t!’ I reached out for her phone before I realised it was probably too big a reaction. I pulled my hand back.
‘Why?’ Mum asked.
‘It’ll . . . make it seem like you just hand your number out to everyone.’ I almost sounded like an expert.
‘Well, what do I send him then?’
I didn’t have a clue. I had zero experience in flirting with middle-aged men. All I knew was, she couldn’t hint at not knowing who he was. The moment he mentioned eSingles, the jig was up.
‘Say it was nice chatting to him too?’ I offered.
‘But I don’t remember chatting to him.’
‘That’s not the point.’
She mulled it over. I was hoping that meant I’d convinced her. I hadn’t.
‘And if it wasn’t nice chatting to him?’ she asked.
‘You wouldn’t have given him your number.’ I was surprised at how well I was keeping up.
‘No. No, I wouldn’t.’
I told her it wasn’t that big a deal. She just had to get the dialogue going. I was talking completely out of my arse, but she clung to every word. I told her not to overthink it, to let it all come naturally.
‘Besides,’ I added, ‘it’s not as if you’re sending him a d
irty message or anything.’
‘Should I send him a dirty message?’
I knew the longer the conversation went, the less control I had over it. We’d gone from A to X, and there was no sign of stopping . . .
‘I think that might be a little forward,’ I said.
‘I’ll be cheeky and fun, like a Bond girl.’
‘Please don’t.’
‘Don’t be such a prude.’
It was actually happening. Mum was typing a reply.
‘Have you ever written a dirty message?’ I asked.
‘No.’ Mum finished and looked up at me. I was dreading what was coming. ‘Could you . . . ?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.’
‘Yes, I do. And, no.’
‘Please?’ She thrust the phone in my face.
I pulled away. ‘No.’
‘Just a quick look-over, make sure there aren’t any typos. And maybe write a bit.’
‘There’s a line, Mum, and what you’re asking me to do is way over that line.’
‘Come on.’
‘I’m not reading your sexy message.’
She scoffed. ‘Can’t you just pretend I didn’t write it?’
‘No.’
‘I sent you to Buckley’s so you could have a quality education. Is it so bad if I ask you to check my spelling?’
‘I didn’t know proofing erotic text messages to strangers was part of the hidden terms and conditions.’
‘At least check if I put the little curly things in the right spot.’
‘Honestly, Mum, if you’ve said it right, I don’t think he’ll care about punctuation.’
‘Then tell me, have I said it right?’
I wasn’t listening. I’d taken out my own phone.
‘I sent it,’ she said. I felt her eyes on me. ‘You’re smirking. Why are you smirking?’
‘Hm?’
‘What are you typing?’
‘Nothing.’
BillyTsiolkas
There comes a time in every boy’s life when his mother asks him to proofread her sexts. No? Just me? Okay then.
Just now
I closed the app.
‘Who did you tell?’ she asked.
‘No one.’ In particular.
She stacked my empty bowl onto hers and walked over to the kitchen. When she got to the sink, she checked her phone. ‘Damn.’
The First Third Page 7