“Why not?”
Jane groaned. “Not everyone has to like you, Louise!” Jane was verging on being angry.
“But what did I do?” Louise was genuinely perplexed. “She must have a reason for disliking me.”
“Says who?” demanded Jane. “Are you the ‘friends police’ now? She can dislike you if she wants. There are no rules about who you have to like.”
“But that is irrational,” argued Louise.
“So what? Lots of things aren’t rational.” Jane seemed almost smug. “But if you go tomorrow, Roxanne won’t go. Then Michael won’t go, and he is Tim’s friend.”
“Hey – if Louise doesn’t go, how will I get there?” Marie desperately wanted to be at Tim’s BBQ tomorrow.
“We’ll drive you, don’t worry,” Jane reassured Marie.
“Oh, okay,” said Marie.
“I guess I won’t go, then,” said Louise disappointedly.
“Fine.” Jane was relieved.
Louise sat there, no longer hungry, and wondered why Jane had invited her over tonight, considering her attitude all evening. Then she recalled that she had phoned Jane and invited herself. “Double ouch,” she thought.
“Well, I guess I’ll get going then,” she said, fighting back her tears.
“See ya,” said Jane, a trifle too loudly.
“Thanks for dinner.” Louise left the table and went into the kitchen. She grabbed her bag from the kitchen bench, and after a short struggle with her conscience, one of the bottles of Asti Spumante, and made her way out.
Louise felt very dejected as she drove across the Scrivener Dam road to her flat in Aranda. It was now 9 pm. “I can’t go straight home,” she thought. “I’m too depressed to be alone.” She thought of visiting Margot, but knew her visit would be unwelcome at this time of night. It had to be Vera. Louise didn’t even concern herself with calling ahead. Vera would either be there, and happy to see her, or not be there, in which case Louise would go home.
But Vera was at home and did not seem surprised when she opened her front door to find Louise standing there. “Come on in.” she invited. “Ooh – you’ve bought wine! What’s the occasion?”
“Hi, Vera,” said Louise with relief as she entered the house. “Do you have any idea how nice it is to see you?”
Vera laughed. “Oh, dear,” she said. “What’s happening?”
“It’s been a very long night.” Louise handed over the bottle of wine and put down her handbag.
They settled themselves in the lounge room of Vera’s small but elegant home. The lounge room was lined with windows on two walls, and opened onto the dining room via bi-folding louvre doors on another side. A small fireplace, filled with ferns during the summer, completed the look of casual airiness. Vera cleared away the papers she had been working on, and produced two wine glasses worthy of the spumante.
“Have I barged in on something?” Louise was unusually sensitive to her impact on other people at the moment.
Vera was amused. “No – just trying to figure out whether I should change banks to get a better mortgage rate,” she admitted, “but it is Friday night and I’d rather drink wine and chat, so it’s a welcome interruption.” She turned done the classical music she had playing. “So tell me – how are you? What’s going on?”
Louise relaxed for the first time all evening. “I don’t know, Vera,” groaned Louise. “It seems as though Roxanne has mounted a one-man campaign and she has lined up my entire family against me!”
“Roxanne?” Vera was clearly puzzled. “How could the uneducated, unattractive, older wife of a younger brother who had not distinguished himself at anything other than finding new ways to spend your parent’s money possible cause you any problems?”
Louise laughed. “Vera – that’s so cruel!”
“Cruel but fair.” Vera sipped her wine appreciatively. “Then again,” she reconsidered, “this does provide your entire family of under-achievers with a scapegoat: You!”
“Under-achievers?” Louise took umbridge at the label. “Dad’s not an under achiever!”
“No, of course I don’t mean Jim,” Vera was quick to justify her statement. “Forget your parents. Take a good look at your siblings.”
“They’re young,” Louise said.
“They’re not young anymore,” said Vera. “Even Marie is 20 years old. You are the only one who finished high school on time; you are the only one who took advantage of everything your parents offered you, by staying at home and going on to university. They all left home as soon as they could, and got low-level jobs so they could buy clothes and cars.” Vera paused to offer Louise a B&H, which she accepted. “Now, a few years down the track, they are pissed off because you are still young, with so much of your life ahead of you, and so many opportunities – all of which you have created for yourself.”
Louise was almost disbelieving. “God, Vera – that is such a different take on things to what I had to deal with tonight,” she said.
“Oh?” Vera was interested. “So, tell me!”
Louise related the details of the evening meal at Jane’s and provided some background too. “Mum has been very ‘itchy’ with me for ages now. And after tonight’s little expose, I think Roxanne is at the bottom of it. I never really thought about it before – I didn’t take it personally, but now it has gotten to the point where I simply cannot ignore it any longer.” Louise paused and sipped her wine. “I’m being ostracized by my own family.”
“Yes, you are,” agreed Vera.
“But why? So what if I have chosen a different life-path to the others. That doesn’t mean I no longer want to be part of the family.”
“In order to be married and focus on their families, the other Keats women have had to make choices. They have chosen to reject single life and live as married women. Therefore, they have rejected the life you live.”
“That’s fine – good for them! But why do they have to reject me? I haven’t rejected them!”
“But you haven’t made a conscious choice. You have just floated along in a natural progression, from school to uni to professional challenges.”
“Floated? You are kidding me!” Louise laughed at the irony of that statement. “You know how hard I have had to work to get this graduate diploma – I had to repeat half the units! I almost got kicked out of the course!” She raised her eyebrows at Pat. “I would hardly call that ‘floating’.”
“Well, you weren’t the only one who had to repeat a few units, Louise. It is a very gruelling degree – just getting into it is a feather in your cap. And you worked full-time and got promoted a few times during the whole thing.”
“I didn’t think anyone else took much notice.” Louise was thoughtful. “It has been a lot of hard work but in many ways, I didn’t feel that I had much of a choice.”
“You didn’t have to go on to graduate studies,” said Vera.
“If I want to have a career in this town I do,” countered Louise. “There is no way I would get past the lower middle rank in any decent department without a professional qualification. A ‘B.A.’ just doesn’t cut it anymore. You have to have a specialists’ degree. And since I’m not married, what else is there for me to focus on?”
“Not everyone has the option to become professionally qualified, Lou. Your sisters don’t, and neither did your mother. And Roxanne sure as hell doesn’t.” Vera refilled their glasses. “You have differentiated yourself from the pack, my dear. If you want to be well-educated and successful –“
“Successful!!”
“Shut up please while I explain this to you.”
“Sorry.”
“I should think so.” Vera continued. “As I was saying: if you want to be the brainiac of the family, at least you could be frumpy. Then they would forgive you. But you are not at all frumpy; and you are single by choice; and you are ‘making it’ in the professional sphere. Unforgiveable!”
“Unbelieveable is what it is. Do you know how much my parents were hel
l-bent on my going straight to uni? All my friends had a ‘gap year’, but Mum and Dad – especially Mum – went nuts until I agreed to go straight on.”
“She was afraid you wouldn’t make it back into the student mold.” Vera explained. “She belongs to the last generation of intelligent, middle class women who didn’t go to university and she has been disadvantaged in the workplace ever since.”
“I know that. And I respected her opinion enough that I did as she demanded. But now I’m being punished for it. And by her – of all people!” Louise was exasperated. “Mum has known Roxanne for how long – 6 or 7 years – and she is actually ganging up with her against me.”
“It does look that way.” Vera was philosophical. “It happened to me, too, you know.”
“Did it?” Louise asked.
“Oh, yes. When I decided to leave Paul, Mum was noticeably absent from my side. She figured that if they didn’t help me, I would realize the folly of my ways, stop reading Cleo magazine and go back to my husband like any sensible girl.”
“So – what is the answer?” Louise asked.
“The answer, my friend,” sang Vera, “is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind.”
Louise forced a laugh. “Don’t give up your day job, dear.”
“No – really, though, Louise, you have to step out of this negative environment. This sort of thing will sap not only your emotional energy, but your self-esteem. It is very destructive and you can do nothing to control it.” Vera had years of experience as a ‘Life-Line’ volunteer, and Louise was always impressed with her analysis of – well, almost everything.
“So – what do I do?”
“You walk away,” Vera advised. “You leave them too it. Refuse to be ‘taken’ by Roxanne. If she is seducing your family – and she is – by drawing a moustache and devil horns on the family pin-up girl, remove the poster. At the moment, she is the bully and you are the enabler.”
“Well,” Louise was entertained and getting nicely sozzled. “We can’t fucking well have that!”
“No, we can’t,” agreed Vera. “By the way, you can sleep in the spare room here tonight,” she said as she re-filled Louise’s glass.
“Thanks.”
“You might have to share it with the cat, though.”
“That’s fine.” Lousie stroked Bronte, Vera’s blind and rather sweet pussy cat, affectionately. “So, I just stop visiting my family, do I?”
“You stop visiting them; calling them; thinking about them; and planning your life around family events.”
“Wow!”
“Yes, wow,” said Vera. “And then you work on filling in the spaces.”
“The spaces?”
“Well, I imagine you currently spend a fair amount of time hanging out with your parents and your sisters.” Vera said. “You need to identify the times you normally do things with them, and make sure you have arranged to do other things at those times. It is really no different to breaking up with a boyfriend. Sometimes when you break up with someone, you have to find a whole new set of friends.”
“But at least when you break up with a lover, you still have your family to fall back on.” Louise complained. “I don’t have a boyfriend and now I won’t have a family either.”
“It’s tough, I know,” Vera commiserated. “But at least you don’t have young kids; and you do have friends like me, and you have work.”
Louise saw what she meant. “How did you manage, Vera, when you had no friends, no family support, no job and a young son? How did you get through that?”
“It was very hard and very frightening,” said Vera. “I was so young. too. I joined a babysitting co-op, and started playing netball with some other women. Then, I went back to school and met people at college. And now I am working so many hours I barely notice that I’m alone.”
“Do you feel alone?”
“Sometimes,” Vera said. “But even happily married women with large families feel alone at times.”
“That’s true, I suppose.” Louise was thoughtful.
Vera was cheerful again. “I love my life now and I hated the idea of being married to Paul. It wasn’t just that I was too young it was all so sudden and unplanned; I was constantly being criticized and put down. I was treated like a criminal, and I would have to be grateful to him for the rest of my life.” Vera paused, then said, “I wouldn’t risk putting myself in that situation again. Ever.”
“Vera!” Louise sat up with a start. “Do you realize that the movie starts at 9.30? That’s barely two minutes!”
Vera was startled by Louise’s outburst. “What? What movie?”
“Top Gun!” Louise hurried to turn on the television while Vera switched off the stereo.
“Oh – is that on TV tonight?” asked Vera. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“Well, my friend, you are in for a treat. Quick – turn off the lights” Louise turned up the sound as the film began. “It is the only film ever made with not one, not two, but half a dozen really hot guys, all of whom we get to see sweaty and shirtless!”
“Really?” Vera smiled.
“Oh, yeah, baby – bring it on!” Louise enthused. “It is like watching back-to-back Gillette commercials.” And Louise started to sing as she mimed being in the shower “Gillette! The best a man can get! Gillette!”
“Shhhhh!” said Vera. “It’s on!” And they sat engrossed in the pure beefcake eye-candy that was Top Gun.
Chapter 6
It was Louise’s turn to host a dinner party, and she was having last-minute-jitters. Her basement flat comprised a bedroom; a kitchen; a combined lounge/dining room and a tiny bathroom which included the loo and the washing machine. Very compact.
The flat did, however, have an inviting garden patio at the front door, which was at the rear of the main house, so her patio looked onto her landlord’s lawn. The O’Neils were keen gardeners so, without actually having to do anything, Louise benefited from all their work.
Tonight she had thrown open the French windows and dragged the round table, which usually sat at the dining-room end of her flat, out onto the patio. Although made of a cheap formica, the table looked elegant draped in white linen as it was now. The cutlery and crockery were fairly dreadful and didn’t match but the crystal glasses detracted from their inadequacies and made the table look very dressy. Louise folded the big, white linen napkins into fans and set them at each place around the table. In the centre she placed a small bowl of snugly packed red rose buds.
Louise had realized early on that she was no great chef, and therefore had to rely on the ingredients. She could cook 3 things reasonably well: veal marsala; chicken in sour cream, shallots and white wine; and beef wellington. Beef wellington was a winter meal, and she had cooked the chicken dish last time, so it had to be the veal marsala tonight.
Being both a novice and a culinary ignoramus, Louise clutched onto any helpful hint she came across. “Never serve the same flavor twice in one meal” was one such axiom she had learned from Margaret Fulton, who had appeared on a television program designed to assist cooks who couldn’t.
“So,” thought Louise, “since the main course does not contain cream, it’s safe to serve strawberries with whipped cream for dessert.” She had asparagus spears and carrots to go with the veal.
Appetisers were a problem, though. She had no idea how to make the delicious things Kim always managed to produce. She felt panicky as she searched her small pantry. “Thank God,” she thought when she found a can of smoked oysters. “Good thing I had forgotten about those! I would have eaten them for sure!” But there were no crackers and no toothpicks.
“Toast!” Louise put some bread into the toaster and when it had popped, carefully cut them into crust-less triangles. “Melba toast – very posh!” She arranged the mini toasts around a plate, put the drained oysters in the middle, and admired her work.
Tonight she had invited Rachel and her older sister Kate who was almost Louise’s age; Simon, Kim
and Margot. She wished she knew more men to invite, but thought that they would all get along well anyway and besides – Simon would have no objections whatsoever to being the only man present.
Margot arrived first and busied herself opening the champagne she had brought with her. “It looks great, Lou – I don’t know how you do it!” Margot knew even less than Louise about “kitchen things” and was always a very appreciative dinner guest.
“Oh, thanks Margot,” Louise accepted the proffered glass of champers gratefully. “It’s not up to Kim’s standard, but I think it is edible.”
“Don’t worry about that. Kim enjoys being the best cook among us and you wouldn’t want to rock the boat. Anyway, you’ve always got me to feel superior to – I don’t mind!”
“Hip-hip!” Louise said, clinking glasses with Margot. “I think that that is the basis of every true friendship. Making the most of each others’ good points and exploiting the bad ones.”
Simon and Kim arrived next and everyone kissed everyone else. “Who else is coming?’ Simon asked.
“Kate and Rachel Fox.”
“Have I met them?”
“You have met Rachel but not Kate.” Louise looked past Simon and waved when she saw the girls walking into the patio area from the driveway. “Here they are now.”
She made the introductions.
Simon remembered having met Rachel previously and was delighted to meet the elder sister. Kate was petite and dressed tastefully and expensively in a Perri Cutten silk suit. Her dark blonde hair was straight and layered to her shoulders. She looked content without looking actually happy and made no attempt to compliment Louise on her decorating.
Simon immediately began to gently question her, sensing Kate’s natural aloofness.
“So, Kate,” said Simon, “How do you know Louise?”
Kate sipped her champagne and looked at Rachel, who answered for her. “I met Louise when she was working at Dawson & Di Bartolo, accountants. Kate and Louise met through me.”
“How do you know each other?” Kate asked Simon.
Simon had wanted to start a conversation with Kate about Kate, but answered politely “Oh, you know, mutual friends at uni.” He did not want to go into the whole Katherine story. It was bad enough being dumped by your first long-term love, but to have it discussed by three attractive women in front of your current lover was too much.
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