The First Third

by Will Kostakis

  Sticks pulled off his headband and scratched his head. When he saw me looking at him, he flashed a slight smile.

  ‘I don’t think I should do the list anymore,’ I said.

  He didn’t say a word.

  ‘I mean, I’ll set Mum up on this date. She actually wants to find someone. But after that, no more. I can’t. Not if it won’t make them happy.’

  ‘And your grandmother?’

  ‘She’ll just have to accept it.’

  I wore the green fitted shirt Mum had bought me for Christmas. It was some kind of witchcraft. My torso looked like it made a V from broad shoulders to waist.

  ‘Right, Bill, you’ve got this,’ I told my reflection.

  There were two dates at eight o’clock – one I had to make sure Mum got to, and another I had to actually go on myself. I didn’t have butterflies. I had piranhas.

  In my mind, I had built my date with Hayley in startling detail, right down to her regretting her choice of gelato and asking for a taste of mine. And then there was the kiss (hopefully). I had Sticks’ advice. I had to go slow, not swirl my tongue, open my mouth as much as she opened hers, be gentle, breathe through my nose and close my eyes.

  Piranhas. Eating. Me. Alive.

  I heard a key turn in the lock. I slid my hands into my pockets and stepped out into the hall.

  Mum was sifting through the mail when she walked in. She guided the door shut with her foot.

  ‘Steve Wright,’ she read aloud. ‘Never seen a letter addressed to him before.’

  She dropped the envelopes on the stairs and noticed me looking dapper.

  ‘Why are you all dressed up?’

  I could tell Damo had made up a new table to accommodate the booking. We couldn’t push our chairs out without bumping into someone else.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, hurriedly pulling my chair back in.

  ‘They’ve done this place up, haven’t they?’ Mum asked, waving the new menu.

  ‘Yeah.’ I was looking behind her, wishing the men standing at the bar would make my life easier and just turn around so I could spot the guy with the cologne-ad-worthy jawline.

  It was ten minutes past eight.

  The later Mum’s date started, the longer Hayley had to wait outside.

  My heart thumped.

  ‘You’re distracted,’ Mum said.

  ‘Mm?’ I turned back to her. ‘No.’

  ‘If you say so.’ She looked down at the menu. I recognised her horror. ‘Where’s the –?’

  ‘With the kids meals.’ I turned the folded-card menu around and handed it back to her.

  She put a hand to her chest and sighed. ‘Oh, thank Christ.’ She lowered the menu. ‘I know what I’m having.’

  I couldn’t let her order bacon-cheese fries in front of John.

  ‘Are you sure? Why don’t you get something else?’ I asked. ‘There’s so much on the menu. Like the wild Fijian albacore sashimi with the pea tendril salad and the melon cilantro vinaigrette. That sounds nice.’

  ‘I’m going to be honest, that tied a knot in my brain,’ Mum said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Then why would I pick that over a plate of chips covered in bacon and melted cheese? I know what it is and it’s delicious. Ugh.’ She adjusted her shoulder straps. ‘Why did you make me wear this? I feel like my boobs are about to fall out.’

  ‘I wanted us to look nice, that’s all.’ I was looking past her again. ‘Besides, you never know who you’re going to meet.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What?’

  She was suddenly severe. ‘Who am I going to meet, Bill?’

  The man with the cologne-ad jaw turned away from the bar. He cast his steely blue gaze across the room, no doubt searching for Mum, only a decade younger. He had one hand resting on the empty stool beside him, the other wrapped around a glass of something brown on ice.

  ‘Nothing. Nobody.’

  ‘Bill.’

  ‘Okay, promise you won’t get mad.’

  ‘Oh, it’s that bad, is it?’

  I hesitated. ‘There’s a guy standing at the bar. He’s wearing a charcoal suit. His name is John.’

  She peered over her shoulder and snapped her head back before he noticed.

  ‘You’ve set me up on a date?’ she asked.

  ‘Kind of. Yes.’

  Mum ran her hands over her face. ‘You can’t just throw me into this kind of situation, Bill.’

  She glanced back at John again.

  ‘He’s handsome though, right?’ I asked.

  ‘That doesn’t change the fact I haven’t shaved my legs,’ she hissed.

  I pushed my chair out and knocked the lady sitting behind me. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Mum asked.

  ‘If you want, you can call him over, otherwise, no dramas. You order your bacon-cheese fries and leave. No one’s forcing you to have a date.’

  ‘He’s standing on the other side of the room waiting for me.’

  ‘It would be pretty mean to just leave him standing there.’

  ‘Bill . . .’

  I stood up. ‘You’re right for me to go, then?’

  ‘No, Bill, you –’

  ‘Bye, Mum,’ I mimed. I was already weaving between the tables.

  I ducked out of the restaurant. A constant stream of fake tans flowed down the footpath – the girls who pre-drank too much and struggled in their heels, and the guys who gripped their waists opportunistically – but there was no Hayley.

  I checked my phone. She hadn’t messaged me, so I figured she must be there. I peered in next door. She wasn’t in Mama Crowley’s. I walked up the Grand Parade, in case she was waiting outside a different restaurant.

  She wasn’t.

  It was almost twenty-past eight. I didn’t have her number. I had to wait for her outside Gazette in case she was on her way.

  But she wasn’t coming, was she?

  I started walking back, fighting against the tide of twenty-somethings headed for the nearest club.

  A girl broke her shoe heel and her boyfriend copped a feel when he caught her.

  Seriously? A girl had shown up for that guy?

  His mates laughed. They all had girls who had shown up to meet them. I walked faster, replaying the date we could have had over and over in my mind – hovering in front of the gelato freezer, joking and laughing, walking across the beach, brushing up against each other. And our kiss, the kiss I was so certain was coming.

  I’d thought about our date so long that I’d believed in it. But now I just felt stupid.

  I looked into Gazette. The couple eating by the window were startled. I assured them through mime that I was actually spying on the couple behind them. They weren’t all that comforted, but I didn’t care.

  John was sitting opposite Mum. She was smiling.

  My phone went off in the middle of the night. I’d forgotten to switch it to silent. I tried ignoring it, but I couldn’t get back to sleep – the spectre of the unread message hung over me. I caved, reached over and checked it. It was from a number I didn’t recognise. Sorry. It’s complicated.

  It was two o’clock. Hayley was only six hours late.

  I put the mobile back by my bedside. If the unread message was keeping me up before, it was the read message that kept me up after.

  Why had she bothered texting at two in the morning? What was that supposed to accomplish?

  Well, I did hate her a little less. But still, a message while I was standing there waiting for her like an idiot would have been nice.

  And that was the best explanation she could give me? It was complicated? If it was so complicated, she shouldn’t have agreed. She shouldn’t have said, ‘It’s a date.’ She should’ve had the guts to text beforehand.

  I could feel myself getting worked up. Getting back to sleep was looking less and less likely.

  I kicked off my sheets and got up.

  Mum wasn’t home yet. Her lamp was on and her
bed was made.

  I waited for her on the stairs. When she walked in, I’d be all like, ‘Where have you been?’ She’d appreciate the role reversal. Plus, it’d give me a chance to find out how the date went.

  Then again, it was two o’clock and she was still out, so the signs were pointing to: pretty damn well.

  I didn’t intend on falling back to sleep.

  I jolted awake when I heard a key in the lock. The door opened slowly, letting the daylight in. Mum was barefoot. She had her heels in one hand. She’d obviously counted on a stealthy re-entry. The light illuminated my face and she gasped.

  ‘Hello, Mother,’ I said in the creepiest voice I could muster.

  ‘Shit.’ She clutched her chest. ‘You scared me.’

  ‘Oh, what? Don’t like people sitting right next to the door waiting for you?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’ It turned into a yawn.

  ‘How was your night?’ I asked.

  She closed the door. As she thought about how to answer, a smile crept across her face. ‘It was really nice.’

  ‘Is it happening again?’

  ‘Tuesday.’ She was full-on grinning now. ‘Any other secret dates in the pipeline?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Good.’ She placed a hand sleepily on my shoulder. ‘Now, go to sleep.’

  She sauntered towards her bedroom. I pushed off the step with one hand. It slid back on an envelope. I blinked down at it. Steve Wright’s letter from the Flippant organisers.

  I’d wanted to read it the moment Mum put it down, but coaxing her into coming to Gazette had taken priority. And when I’d arrived home, I’d been so deflated by being stood up that I could barely think straight, let alone remember an ­envelope on the stairs.

  ‘Bill, go to sleep.’

  I waited for Mum’s bedroom door to click shut before tearing the letter open.

  I started work on my Flippant routine the next morning.

  In a matter of days, I would take the stage as Steve Wright – not the corner of a pub, an actual stage. I’d researched the theatre. At capacity, it held four hundred people.

  I had to make them laugh. And I had to make the judges laugh. There were sixteen semi-finalists. Only six of us went through and I wanted to be one of them. After years of not knowing what I could be after high school, one night at the New Pavilion had shown me a potential future.

  It was mine for the taking.

  I paced around my bedroom, vocalising my thoughts in the hope one might germinate into a five-minute stand-up routine.

  I mined every recent experience, hoping there was something there – getting stood up, finding out Dad was raising a new family in Melbourne – but they were more disheartening than they were funny.

  I went further back, drawing on my days stacking shelves at a stationery superstore, but talking about it was just as boring as stacking shelves at a stationery superstore.

  I had nothing.

  I kept trying, but no idea got to a fifth sentence let alone a fifth minute.

  It was pushing midday when my mobile rang.

  ‘I’m outside,’ Sticks said. He hung up.

  He was waiting on my doorstep, wearing a tracksuit and a sweat headband.

  The last thing I wanted to do was walk into another Peter tantrum. ‘No. Not again.’

  ‘Psych!’ Sticks said. He pointed one crutch back behind him.

  His father was standing on the nature strip with a bike propped up against his waist. He gave the bell a ring.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come on.’ Sticks had already started walking over. ‘How did your mum’s date go?’

  ‘Well. She got back this morning.’

  ‘Ooo! And your date?’

  I had hoped he wouldn’t ask. My chest felt heavy as soon as he did. ‘It didn’t happen.’

  He scrunched his face. I was going to have to clarify.

  ‘She stood me up.’

  Sticks laughed but quickly caught himself. ‘Sorry,’ he said. We stopped in front of the bike. ‘What do you reckon?’

  I didn’t understand. ‘You bought me a bike?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s Damo’s BMX,’ he said.

  Mr P was a boulder of a man. He had been a rugby prop in his heyday. He pushed a helmet into my chest. ‘Chuck that on,’ he said. ‘You’re going to learn to ride a bike.’

  Sticks shrugged and settled himself on the curb. ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘I really don’t –’

  ‘It’s a dad’s job to teach you to ride,’ he said. ‘Consider this a loan.’

  Mr P walked me and the bike onto the road.

  ‘I’m expecting tumbles, by the way,’ Sticks added. ‘You flipping over the handlebars at least once.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ I muttered, adjusting the strap under my chin.

  ‘Ignore him,’ Mr P said.

  I didn’t have much to do with Sticks’ dad. He kept mostly to himself, occasionally emerging from his study to drive us to the movies or raid the fridge. I didn’t know quite how to talk to him. The only men his age I encountered were teachers.

  ‘How are you going with that helmet?’ he asked.

  I released the strap and it sagged forward.

  ‘Not well, then.’ Mr P let the bike’s weight fall onto him and held out his hand. ‘Come around.’ I walked over. He took the strap and tinkered with it. ‘The trick is . . . There.’ He laid one palm on top of the helmet and tested its sturdiness with a few hard shakes. It didn’t budge.

  ‘Thanks for this,’ I said, before he turned away.

  ‘The helmet? It’s no big deal.’

  ‘No, I mean, for coming to teach me.’

  Mr P shrugged it off. ‘No worries.’

  ‘Stop bonding and start falling!’ Sticks called from the curb.

  Mr P flipped him the finger. ‘You want to have a go?’

  ‘At flipping him off? No, I do it all the time. Oh. At this. Yeah, okay.’

  He set the bike up in the middle of a traffic lane.

  I hesitated. ‘Shouldn’t we . . . ?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he assured me, ‘cars will avoid you.’

  That didn’t fill me with a whole lot of confidence, but we were so far away from any intersection that if a driver did hit us, they were clearly so terrible that they would’ve hit us if we were on the footpath.

  Mr P adjusted the seat low and told me to sit. I did. My feet still touched the ground.

  He stood to the side with one hand on the right handlebar and the other pressing down on the back of the seat.

  ‘Now, the thing to remember – riding a bike is all about balance. You lose it, you fall. You think about it, you fall. You have to keep the pedals moving,’ he said. ‘And that’s about it, really.’

  ‘Okay.’ I gave the bell a quick ring.

  ‘When you’re ready.’

  Sitting on the bike, legs splayed out, I waited for further instruction. Mr P interpreted it as fear.

  ‘I’ve got you, you won’t fall,’ he said. ‘I want you to try to get one foot on the pedal.’

  I raised my left foot slowly and forced it under the pedal strap.

  ‘You’re doing great,’ Mr P said with a half-smile.

  ‘You’re making fun of me.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  Concentrating hard, I raised my grounded foot. My weight shifted and the bike began to tilt. I bailed and planted the foot back on the road.

  ‘Don’t rush it,’ he instructed.

  I took a breath and tried again. There was wobbling and Mr P pressed his weight down to steady the bike. Without the whole balance thing to worry me, the second pedal was a piece of cake.

  ‘There. Easy, isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘Now, you’re going to pedal.’

  ‘Don’t let go.’

  ‘I’m not going to let go.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I pedalled forward slowly. Mr P walked with me. The bike swayed.

 
; ‘Just focus on pedalling. Don’t worry about your balance, I’ve got you,’ he said, raising his hand off the back seat and placing it on my back. ‘Go faster.’

  ‘Don’t let go,’ I warned him as I quickened the pace.

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘I know your game. I’ve seen this on TV,’ I said, voice laced with panic. ‘You push them while they’re riding and you say you’re going to hold on, then secretly you let go and see how far they get.’

  ‘I would never,’ Mr P said, releasing the handlebar and giving me a push.

  ‘Wait! No! You shifty –’

  ‘Look forward! Don’t stop! Keep pedalling!’

  The bike jerked forward. I tried straightening the front wheel with the handlebars, but I could already feel the bike tilting to the right. I tried compensating for it by leaning to the left. Didn’t work. Instead, I just fell to the left instead of the right. I pulled my feet out of the pedal straps, hoping to catch myself. I didn’t, but I did manage to scrape the back of my calves against the chain on my way down.

  There were expletives. I heard Sticks cackling from a little way up the street.

  ‘You thought about it,’ Mr P said, pulling the bike off me. He held out his hand and pulled me up. ‘When you rock or tilt or wobble, just pedal and you’ll be fine. You’ll regain your balance automatically, just focus on keeping momentum.’

  I inspected the backs of my calves. There were small reddening piercings all the way down. ‘I’m cut up,’ I said. ‘Don’t do that again.’

  He did it again.

  ‘Sadist!’ I howled as I lost my balance and crashed.

  ‘But you went further.’

  I pushed the bike off me. I leaned back and twisted my legs around so I could survey the damage to my calves. They looked like I’d been mauled by a dozen cats.

  ‘Again?’ Mr P asked.

  Sticks didn’t leave with his father. Instead, he fought a battle with Mum’s temperamental espresso machine and won (barely), then sat with me at the dining table. He wanted to know about the night before.

  I shrugged. I didn’t know what to tell him.

  Hayley and I clicked. We felt real in a way that Maria and I never had. We hadn’t waited a year between meetings, for one.