by Nicki Reed
‘No problem, I’ll get right on it,’ I say.
Maya Croft is everything Charlene Hunter could never be. Maya Croft has class and sophistication and is interested in just about everything, whereas all Charlene brings to the table is entitlement. We could fill the MCG with people interested in what Maya Croft has to say.
The good thing about people like Brutal Betty is that I’m not on the phone for long. Yes, the venue is arranged, yes, there will be adequate seating and the food is great, yes, Maya’s production company can film the event, but we’ll have to split the rights. Mutual promises of paperwork and we’re done.
Damian is at least as busy as I am and we’re used to eating and talking with our phones on speaker. We chew when the other is talking and talk when the other is chewing. It’s a good working relationship.
‘Ruby, I loved this morning’s unmarryme action on TV.’
‘You did?’
‘Sure,’ Damian says. ‘It’s a shame about your face. Not your normal face, oh, you know what I mean. Anyway, I love that you’re sticking up for the little guy, I do. But a couple of people up here are hoping you don’t make it an everyday thing.’
I like how he says ‘up here’.
‘Are you in heaven? Tell me, what’s God really like? Did she really make the world in seven days? Can you ask her?’
‘You are a wise guy, Ruby Wheeler,’ he says, mid-chew. ‘But, listen, don’t let unmarryme take over your life. With your gala to get off the ground you don’t want anyone saying I told you so.’
It’s funny how everyone says ‘your gala’. It’s not mine, it’s Poverty Project’s, but I do act as though I gave birth to it. I’m looking after it, building it. When it comes off, it will be because of my team and me.
There’s a gap while I have a slug of water. ‘Unmarryme is an untamed beast.’
‘Well, make sure the gala doesn’t hit the skids because the beast got the better of you.’
I have got beetroot on my shirt and mayonnaise on my stapler. I haven’t stapled anything since yesterday—how did this happen? ‘Damian, it’s fine. I’ve got a campaign manager, Todd, and he’s looking after it. All I have to do is be separated and have my picture taken now and then.’
All I have to do is be separated. That’s a good one. It’s not ‘all’, it’s everything. I don’t even know where Mark is right now and I hate that.
‘Fair enough,’ Damian says. ‘Also I know you’re busy, but you need to consider taking more leave sometime soon. Get your weeks down to a regular-person level.’
‘After the gala, Damian. I’ll take two weeks off and sleep. Promise.’
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Have a good afternoon, Ruby. And keep that killer finger to yourself. I sent you an email. Can you have a look at it while I’ve still got you on the phone?’
‘Sure.’
You know you’re famous when you make it as a meme. There I am. A gif of the Ruby Wheeler Put Down. Finger goes up, finger goes in, Charlene drops, finger goes up, finger goes in, Charlene drops, finger goes up, finger goes in, Charlene drops.
‘That is priceless,’ Damian says. ‘You win the internet.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
He hangs up and I watch myself over and over and over.
21.
I swear the woman’s a vampire. Or a ghost. Does she have a Google alert set for when I go to the lift? That’s the only way I can explain her timing. Still, it’s only a ride to the ground floor, not an eight-hour drive to Sydney, and I can handle half a minute. I face the lift door and try not to breathe the same air.
‘That’s a nice bruise, Ruby,’ Cassandra says. ‘Somebody give you what you deserve?’ With her sharp hair, her silver top and skirt, she’s so asymmetrical today, she’s a zigzag.
She pressed G but I press it again to annoy her. ‘Boy, Cassandra, you really are on the descent.’ Literally.
We talk via the mirrored door.
‘You’re the one with the black eye, Ruby.’
My eye is bloodshot, the skin is black and blue, and the bruise is the shape of an eye-patch. I don’t mind. Freedom fighters can handle rough treatment. Besides, in an hour or so I’ll be home with a packet of frozen peas on my eye and a Diet Coke in my hand. ‘Whatever it takes,’ I say.
At least Cassandra doesn’t fuck about. I like my enemies to get to the point and she doesn’t leave me hanging. ‘I saw your soon-to-be nearly ex-husband, whatever, on the news last night, Ruby.’
‘That’s nice.’ When was he on TV? Why?
‘Yes,’ Cassandra says. ‘He looks good, your man. They were a good-looking couple, actually.’
They? ‘That’s nice.’
‘Oh, you didn’t know.’
With my face, playing it cool only lasts so long. It’s the reason I don’t go on world poker tours. ‘I’m sure you’ll tell me, Cassandra.’
‘I’ve got a screen shot on my phone if you’d care to see it.’ If you’d care to see it. Who is she kidding? Cassandra has her phone in her hand and when she opens it the shot is there.
It’s Mark, and several others, including a woman dressed entirely in pink, outside the Federal Court.
‘I love the way he’s looking at her, don’t you?’
No, I don’t, but as if I’d tell her that. I don’t like it one bit. We’re fake-separated not footloose and fancy-free. ‘He works with her. God, Cassandra is that all you’ve got? Excuse me.’ The doors open and I step into the foyer.
First thing I do when I get home is fire up Google and find the news item. It turns out that the news report wasn’t about Mark’s case; he and the others just happened to be in the background. The case was something to do with a football club.
The way all the men, including Mark, are hanging off the woman, however, does look newsworthy. And wearing a pink trench coat, it has to be Crazy Beautiful. You have to be crazy and beautiful to wear a musk-stick pink trench coat, a normal person could never pull that off. Lipstick, nails, perfect hair, stilettos that match the coat. Men in dark suits surround her and she seems used to it. Mark is the closest, and her arm is in his. It’s like a scene from Marilyn Monroe’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, or Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’; all we need is a staircase to rise up out of the ground. She whispers something to Mark and I imagine her hot breath on his neck. He smiles and nods and she smiles, too. They look like they’ve decided to take the afternoon off.
I do not wait until ten to call Mark. And I do not wait for him to say hello. ‘What the hell’s going on with you and that woman?’
‘What woman?’ They always start with ‘what woman’. It will buy a cheating husband an extra half-second to form an alibi.
‘You and Crazy Beautiful. You were practically fucking in the street.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ That’s another half-second.
‘And don’t tell me that you’ve warned her off. She was all over you and you looked like you were going to piss yourself with excitement.’
‘Can I speak now, Ruby?’
No, he can’t. And I can’t shout and sit at the same time. I stand up and my chair flies backwards. I don’t pick it up. The chair looks on its back, its legs in the air, and it’s not too much of a leap to imagine Crazy Beautiful in a similar knocked-flat situation.
‘God, it was revolting how you all clamoured around her like she held the keys to the kingdom. And you know how I found out? Cassandra told me.’
‘Well, that’s your first problem,’ Mark says. ‘Cassandra. You didn’t think to question her motives? Still I admit, it mightn’t look good.’
‘So you admit it.’
‘Yes, I admit it. Her name’s Jane Toohey. Let’s stop calling her Crazy Beautiful; it doesn’t help.’
Jane Toohey? That’s normalising. ‘You were saying you admit it?’
‘I’ve seen it and I know what you mean. Would you like to know what was really happening or would you like to behave like a green-eyed idiot for a bit longer?’
‘Let�
�s hear it.’ I sit on a chair that has the decency to do the right thing.
‘She was in the middle of telling us who she’s seeing.’
‘And you all care that much?’ Five men give a toss that some woman has a boyfriend?’
‘We’d laid bets.’
‘Does she know you pigs gamble on her sex life?’
‘Rube, she gave us odds. She’d just told us, and I won.’
Who says photos never lie?
‘God, it’s tiring being separated from you, Mark. All this running my mouth and leaping to conclusions, I need a rest. If you were here, in my bed, if I was getting pissed off with all your snoring and still picking up your clothes, I wouldn’t be thinking you were interested in other women.’
‘Tell me about it. Still, what better way to show you love me than to ring up and scream in my ear. You must love me heaps because Gumball heard you and ran out of the room like his tail was on fire.’
‘Gumball running, I’d like to see that.’ That cat is fat and old and content. Cath rescued him from a building site about ten years ago and she says he’s hardly moved from the couch since.
‘I don’t suppose we have to worry about you going on Make My Daybreak again,’ Mark says. ‘You might as well have burned the joint down. Still, it was riveting. Maybe they’ll give you your own show, Splitting Heads with Ruby Wheeler.’
‘Boydy, they’d have to televise an all-in divorce for unmarryme before I went anywhere near them ever again. Though, that’s not a bad idea.’
‘How come you sound so weird. Kind of hollow?’
‘I’ve got my jumper over my head. I’m hiding.’ It’s a red jumper, I can see through it, and the whole place looks red, reminds me of a darkroom.
‘From what?’
My prank caller, but I don’t say it in case he offers to come back again. I didn’t make a fool of myself on TV for nothing. ‘I’m hiding from everything except you. Tell me about your life, Mark. What did you have for dinner? How much do you love me? I miss you. I miss your ears, and your feet, I miss your crap all over the table.’
‘I miss you,’ he says. ‘I had a pre-packaged spaghetti bolognese thing. It was okay. They don’t look anything like they do on TV.’
‘Nothing does, trust me.’
‘Shhh, I’m talking! And I had vanilla yoghurt. Plus an apple.’ I think he wants me to clap but I’m scared to interrupt. ‘Work’s good, busy, the usual. But listen to this, I love you so much that if my love for you was a star there be no sky left.’
‘That’s exactly how I feel about you.’ I say, imagining a star-ridden sky, all twinkle and no dark. ‘Mark, I have to go to bed, I’m wrecked.’
‘Sure you don’t want to stay up? Magnum Force is on tonight.’
I like movie shoot-outs, and San Francisco, and Clint Eastwood’s hard-soft eyes, but not tonight. ‘I can’t. I’m way too tired.’
‘All right, Rube. Goodnight.’
‘I love you.’
‘Sames.’
Yeah, sames.
The phone rings, it seeps into my dream, rings and rings and rings, before I wake up to answer it. Has he forgotten to tell me he loves me? I’m sure he said that sames thing. Is he ringing to tell me Dirty Harry got the bad guy? I know that: Harry Callahan always gets his man.
I fumble for the phone, bring the handset under the doona. ‘What?’
‘Homosexuality is a sin.’
‘So is swearing. Now fuck off.’
I chuck the phone on the floor.
22.
I’m often recognised on the street. People give me this weird one finger wave. It’s a bit like what a cricket umpire does when somebody gets out, and like what AFL footballers sometimes do when they kick a goal. I don’t do it back, but I thank them for their support and offer them a sticker.
Of course, not everybody wants a sticker.
I turn up for work this morning to a group of people with their own unmarryme placards. There’s a big red slash across the unmarryme logo, like a no-smoking sign. When I walk up, they point. ‘There she is.’
I’m not in the mood. Monday morning I want to fire up my computer and get on with it, but I can see the group is filming so I’ll have to play nice.
‘Ms Wheeler, marriage is an institution under God.’
‘Okay.’ What else can I say? If I start, I won’t be able to stop. I’ll get cranky and make unmarryme look bad. Besides, the safety of Poverty Project is only twelve floors away.
‘Ms Wheeler, gay marriage denies a child a father and a mother.’ She has her little kid with her. He’s snuggled up in his pram while his mother does her thing.
‘Ahah,’ I say. Celeste has two mothers, a stepmother, and one father and I reckon she wins, but I’m not going to say that, either.
A well-dressed bloke with glasses and an umbrella steps into me. His eyes are wide and his fists are clenched. His ragged face goes against his smart appearance and I’m scared of what he might do.
‘Homosexuality is a perversion.’
I take a step away from him and back into someone, feel my heel slide down a shin. I’m afraid to look but I turn. ‘Sorry,’ I say.
It’s Don, from my team. Don doesn’t care about marriage equality. I’ve been meaning to talk to him for months but I couldn’t find a quiet time, and anyway, it’s unprofessional to drag personal politics into the workplace. Yes, I was the one who put the unmarryme postcards in the tearoom.
‘Sir,’ Don says to the well-dressed man. ‘If we could just enter the building to get to our workplace? Please excuse us.’
‘Homosexuality is a perversion.’ The well-dressed bloke says it again, louder.
‘Sir, I’m gay and I’m not actually in favour of same-sex marriage, either. If you could just let us through. Time’s up, anyway, here come security.’
How things change. Five months ago I was dodging security and hiding in bushes and this morning I’ve never been happier to see the unshaven beefcake take his feet off his desk and get involved.
‘Ruby, let’s go.’ Don grabs my arm and pulls me inside the building. Last I see of the action, the security guard is on his radio, probably calling for backup, as he’s dragged into the clutch of placards.
‘Don, I don’t get it. Why aren’t you into marriage equality?’ Since he brought it up.
We lean against the back wall of the lift. Don doesn’t look gay, if there’s a look. He wears a basic suit and tie and basic shoes and looks like someone’s dad. He is someone’s dad. He has a son, Travis, with his partner, Rob.
‘I’m not into marriage full stop. Never have been. Plus, I think way too much time and money has been spent on trying to give us something plenty of us don’t really want. We have bigger problems, being looked after in our old age, for instance. Plenty of us are left with nobody and we get stuffed into institutions where we don’t really belong.’
Fighting until the day you die for the right to be treated the same as everyone else would be exhausting. I’ve been at this for five months and there are times I wish I’d let the High Court security guards take me away. ‘I’ve never thought about that. Bloody hell.’
Don nods, smiles. ‘Perhaps in time, the next generation or so, people will be amazed that we weren’t allowed to marry.’
Maybe Celeste will grow up not remembering any of this and be amazed when she is told. Could we change things that soon? And are those idiots downstairs going to be there when it’s time to leave? They could come back, bring reinforcements, and more anti-unmarryme signs. Those signs were a kick in the guts.
‘What are you thinking about, Ruby?’
‘The future.’
The lift door opens. Level twelve. ‘The future is good, Rube. It will be. Come on, let’s put some roofs over people’s heads.’
I’m glad Don doesn’t write our copy. ‘Good idea. And, Don, thanks.’
Diamond Lou’s is almost closed, and it’s just me and Todd, and a guy at a table outside who hasn’t taken the hint. I’m
jumpy. Being on high alert, having to be ready to smile and acknowledge people, or be ready to fend off Cassandra or a prank call or a crowd of protesters, is all tiring me out.
‘You could do a blog,’ Todd says. ‘We could have ads and you could get some money out of it. It would help pay for the unmarryme merchandise. I’ve got hoodies on order, by the way.’
‘Todd, I seriously don’t have time for a blog. Anyway, this isn’t meant to be a money-spinner.’
‘Absolutely. We’re selling the T-shirts at fifteen per cent above cost and that covers the stickers and badges. If you’re worried about making sure we’re non-profit, don’t be, we break even plus the occasional fifty cents, that’s it.’
‘I suppose we could sell the badges for two dollars. What’s the feedback on the Facebook page? How’s it going?’
He puts down his coffee. ‘You don’t look at it?’
‘I don’t want to see any of that homosexuality-is-a-sin rubbish.’
‘I’d love to say we’re getting less of it, but we’re not. The page has plenty of traffic. Yes, some people hate us, but more like us.’
Does he mean like or ‘like’? I can’t keep up.
Lou drags tables and chairs in from outside. She takes a takeaway cup with her and pours the guy’s coffee into it. She hands him the cup. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr Morse.’ I finish my coffee. ‘So, nobody is offering to join me and Mark in getting a divorce for no good reason?’
Does Mark even smell the same? Does he miss me? Will there ever be a resolution to the gay marriage argument? Everyone says it will take generational change. Great, I can remarry Mark when I’m a hundred and we can honeymoon at the Stairway to Heaven Hotel.
‘It’s not for no good reason, Ruby. If it was I wouldn’t be here.’
Here: in an almost-closed cafe after dark. Unmarryme posters on the wall. All the staff wearing unmarryme badges next to their name badges. Lou says there’s been a change in the regulars since unmarryme—she says some people have left, but new faces have replaced them.
‘You’re right, Todd, but I’m tired and I’m lonely. I miss Mark. I can’t believe I used to let his interstate trips bother me. At least he was coming home.’ Now is as good a time to cry as any.