No Sex in the City

by Randa Abdel-Fattah

  I’m not bitter about the fact that I attend more engagement parties and baby showers than girls’ nights out, and that most of my friends and relatives are either recently married or having their first babies (I know all there is to know about pelvic floor exercises and midwives with farmers’ hands). In fact, I am genuinely happy for my friends, and the interior decorator in me secretly loves seeing coordinated crockery and linen strewn around a room filled with wrapping paper and the sound of friends laughing. As for baby showers: who doesn’t love a newborn’s singlet or a pretty basket of baby shampoo and rattles?

  And I can even handle the married girls – the ones who used to moan and groan about never finding Mr Right – jostling me and joking about how they miss the days when they were ‘free of responsibility’ and how they’re jealous of my single status – wink, nudge, giggle.

  I can definitely handle all that with grace and good humour. But for the love of God, I can’t handle these three things:

  1. being forced to watch the unedited version of a wedding

  2. being subjected to endless hours of baby talk (eg: he pooped five times today; she got out of bed at one, then two, then two-twelve, then three, then three-fifteen, then four; I mashed the potato, pumpkin and peas and added organic stock, and then I forgot myself and added salt and so I started all over again, because according to page twelve of How to Cook Organic Food for Your Baby, if you add salt you might as well add gin, that’s how bad it is)

  3. being told I haven’t found love because I’m too fussy

  So you can imagine the torture I’m enduring tonight. My parents and I are visiting old family friends. One daughter, Sevil, has just returned from her honeymoon, and another, Arzu, has just had a baby. We’ve been invited to watch the wedding video (three hours long, plus the highlights DVD).

  It’s been forty minutes, although we’re only thirty minutes into it because Sevil’s father insists on rewinding any scenes we appear in and then pausing so that we can relive the moment and drink in a shot of ourselves yawning or taking a massive bite out of the entrée, sauce dribbling down our chin.

  ‘Penang and Langkawi were perfect,’ Sevil gushes.

  ‘Did you do any water sports?’ I ask.

  ‘Esma, look at Sevil in this scene!’ Sevil’s dad cries. ‘Look at how well she dances!’

  ‘Yes, she looks great!’ I cry, then turn back to Sevil. ‘I heard the jetskiing is awesome there.’

  ‘It was fantastic, although there were jellyfish and—’

  ‘I’m not sure if I should be demand feeding or feeding every three hours,’ Arzu interrupts as she burps her baby. ‘But my nipples are seriously aching,’ she whispers, leaning closer to Sevil and me. ‘They’re all cracked, and honestly, when she latches on it’s like a million knives being stabbed into the tips of my—’

  ‘Esma! You’re not watching,’ Sevil’s mum says. ‘You have to watch this part. You remember when they lifted Sevil up onto the chair and she nearly slipped?’

  ‘Satin dress on the satin chair covers,’ my mum says, clucking her tongue in disapproval.

  ‘You’re right, Ozlem,’ Sevil’s mum says. ‘She nearly slipped!’

  ‘So you were saying about the jellyfish?’ I try again.

  ‘Oh yeah, there were jellyfish in Penang, so we were warned not to go in the water, but the jetskis looked so tempting and then—’

  ‘Did everybody hear that burp?’ Arzu exclaims.

  Sevil’s mum claps her hands and my mum beams.

  Arzu, sounding like a cross between a character from Sesame Street and a recovering alcoholic, says, ‘Did my baby princess do a burpy burp? Did she now? Did she do a fuzzy wozzy burpy burp and vomit all her milky milk onto her mummy’s new Prada top? We don’t care now, do we, baby?’

  Vomit? Did somebody say vomit?

  Sevil leaps up to get the tool kit (wash cloth, baby wipes and air freshener); Sevil’s mum goes into the kitchen to get a tea and coffee refill – ordering Sevil’s dad to pause the DVD so she doesn’t miss a minute – and I resign myself to the fact that I have no choice but to endure the next three hours. So I sink back into the couch and do what everybody does when they have a spare moment: play with my smartphone.

  I notice a text message from Ruby: Call me! Help!

  I look at the time. It’s only seven-thirty. We’ d agreed she’ d message me at eight-thirty.

  Ruby is on a date with a guy she met at a thirtieth. We’d agreed that she’ d text me if she needed to get out of the date. That would be my cue to call her and provide an exit strategy.

  The only problem is that she texted me at seven-thirty and the date started at seven.

  I get up, excuse myself and lock myself in the bathroom.

  Ruby answers on the first ring. ‘Hi, Esma, how are you?’

  ‘Are you on your way?’ I say, reciting our script.

  ‘On my way where, hon?’ she answers, feigning cheerfulness. ‘I’m out at the moment.’

  ‘You’ve got a dress fitting and you’re an hour late!’

  ‘Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry, Esma. Could we reschedule?’

  ‘No. If we don’t do the bridesmaids’ fitting today, I’m going to call off the wedding, kill the bridal party and hold you responsible. How bad is it?’

  ‘Terrible! That’s absolutely terrible. I’m so sorry, Esma, I’ll be there as quickly as I can.’

  She hangs up. I wait five minutes, during which time my mum knocks on the door to ask if I’m okay as they’re waiting for me before putting on the DVD.

  ‘Bad kebab for lunch,’ I groan from behind the door. ‘I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart, but they’ll just have to continue without me. Nature calls.’

  ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I’ll have a lemon tea waiting for you when you get out.’

  ‘Sure thing, Mum.’

  Ruby calls and I answer.

  ‘What is wrong with me that I attract these idiots?’ she wails. ‘I’ve gone out and bought nicotine gum because I’m honestly close to smoking again.’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ I scold.

  She pops her gum. ‘I’ve already thrown four into my mouth. I’m going to kill somebody! It starts out normal. We order coffee, enjoy some general chitchat. Then he suddenly says, “I have a series of questions I’m going to ask you so I can determine your personality.”’

  ‘What?’ I sit on the edge of the bath.

  ‘Then the nob asks me whether I’m a climate change sceptic, whether I believe marijuana should be legalised and my opinion on the privatisation of prisons.’

  ‘He sounds like a repressed Q&A audience member.’

  ‘I tell him I believe carbon should be taxed and he has a tantrum, throws down his napkin and asks me why I feel the need to send Australia back to the Dark Ages. Then suddenly he stops and says, “You have greedy eyes.”’

  ‘Has he escaped a mental institution?’

  ‘Then he asks me to confess to the most I’ve ever paid for a pair of shoes and I say I don’t want to, but then I tell him just for a laugh and he pushes his coffee cup into the middle of the table and says, “That is ridiculous and superficial.”’

  ‘He said all this with a straight face?’

  ‘He didn’t smile once. And then when you called and saved me and I got up to leave, he was genuinely disappointed because, according to him, “it was going so well and he felt such a connection”. Then he tried to kiss me goodbye and arrange another time to meet!’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I told him I’d check my calendar but I had a colonoscopy scheduled next week.’

  ‘Yeah right.’

  ‘He said he’ d call the week after and wished me luck as he’ d developed haemorrhoids after his last colonoscopy.’

  ‘Do we have signs painted on our foreheads, Ruby?’

  ‘Yes. Only Losers May Apply.’

  Although it’s true that I love my married friends, and their babies are the sweetest things (even if they can turn
their mothers’ brains to mush), it’s Ruby, Lisa and Nirvana that I can really be open and honest with and know they’ll understand.

  We’re meeting up for another No Sex in the City get-together. Tonight it’s Thai in Surry Hills. The food is fantastic, the atmosphere infectiously buoyant, and we’re all celebrating because Nirvana has met somebody who:

  1. has, thus far, displayed no psychotic tendencies

  2. owns his own business (financial independence: always on the list)

  3. is also Gujarati

  4. is good-looking and very funny

  5. matches Nirvana’s star sign (important in Hindu tradition)

  6. is into her (evidence: called her the day after they met and spoke for an hour)

  ‘I have it on good authority that Anil’s family’s not into joint families,’ Nirvana says happily. ‘His sister’s married and she doesn’t live with her in-laws.’

  Nirvana’s father’s mother has lived with Nirvana’s parents since they first married. For Nirvana’s mother, that’s thirty-six years with a full-time mother-in-law. Nirvana’s seen first-hand how challenging such domestic arrangements can be and is consequently paranoid about the joint family thing. She tends to throw the question into her standard first-date conversation opener: ‘So have you travelled much? Do you like your job? Do you plan on living with your parents when you get married? Are you into sports?’

  ‘So how did you meet?’ Ruby demands. ‘Rewind a bit.’

  ‘At Sunita’s wedding last Saturday. We were at the token singles’ table. I’m sure Sunita and her family set the whole thing up.’

  We quizzed Nirvana, throwing a hundred questions at her.

  ‘We clicked, the conversation flowed, there were no awkward silences. We were laughing and joking and it was very relaxed. Obviously we were both putting forward the best versions of ourselves – that’s what everybody does, right? – but at the same time I didn’t feel it was one big con job. And he was normal.’ She sighs hopefully. ‘Such a welcome change. Remember Arshpreet?’

  We all screech with laughter. Arshpreet was Nirvana’s most recent failed arranged meeting. He had a habit of referring to himself in the third person, for example: ‘Arshpreet has to make a decision about whether he’s going to open his own business or remain an employee. And Arshpreet is finding it very difficult to decide.’

  Funnily enough, Nirvana had no problem deciding Arshpreet was not the guy for her.

  ‘Anil asked for my number,’ Nirvana goes on, ‘and he called me the next day. We spoke for an hour. And we’ve been talking or texting all week. He’s taking me out for dinner tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re gushing!’ Lisa says with a laugh.

  ‘And glowing,’ Ruby adds.

  ‘And a little gaunt?’ I tease. ‘Have you been too busy on the phone to fit a meal in?’

  ‘Gushing, glowing, gaunt,’ says Lisa, popping a cashew into her mouth. ‘Ah, the signs of love.’

  ‘I’ve been eating fine,’ Nirvana says defensively.

  I snort. ‘South Beach, Dukan or North Korean prison rations today?’

  ‘Dukan,’ she says.

  ‘Animals only?’ Lisa asks.

  Nirvana nods. ‘It doesn’t give you very nice breath,’ she says, scrunching up her nose. ‘I’m always chewing gum. But it’s worth it.’

  I give her a dubious look. ‘Whatever you say, Nirvana.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know what he does?’ she says, ignoring me.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘He used to be a financial planner. Now he runs his own business. Two petrol stations!’

  ‘So he’s Indian and he owns petrol stations,’ I say with a loud laugh. ‘Not at all a cliché.’

  Nirvana giggles. ‘I’ve been running from clichés for so long, but they always track me down.’

  Eight

  My parents were deadset against me getting married before I graduated from university because they wanted me to focus on my studies. Engaged was fine. Married would have to wait. I agreed. I didn’t want to settle down before I graduated. I wanted to start working, enjoy financial independence, travel. Work out who I was and what I wanted in life.

  I had no objection to meeting someone and getting engaged. I had it all planned out: fall hopelessly in love with someone at university – maybe through the Islamic or Turkish Society, or with somebody in the same faculty as me – and then enjoy a couple of years of engaged bliss (everybody I know who’s married says engagement is like an extended honeymoon). In other words, I’d have a fiancé who took me out, spoilt me rotten with chocolates and flowers (I had fantasies of flowers being delivered to me during class on Valentine’s Day) and with whom I could build a collection of memories to share as we grew old together.

  Romantic comedies have a lot to answer for.

  It didn’t happen. Well, I did fall for a guy, Seyf, and he wanted to take things to the next level, but it didn’t work out. I met plenty of guys after Seyf, but I soon realised we had little in common, or that they were really interested in my friend, or that they wanted me to be more traditional (like Kamil, who admired the fact that I was studying but thought it was ultimately unnecessary, given my place was in the home), or less religious (like Mohamad, aka ‘Alan’, who preferred it if I drank, went nightclubbing and sneaked away with him to the Central Coast for a long weekend). Other guys I met through the traditional channels. They’d visit me at home and we’ d enjoy a formal-lounge-room date (or garden-pergola date, depending on the time of year). If I felt a click, a connection, and the guy did too, we’ d go out for a coffee or dinner.

  That’s when my dad invented the Rule of Six.

  When Yusuf (who was the only Brad Pitt lookalike I have been blessed to meet) invited me out for a coffee in Leichhardt (I was eighteen), my father sat me down and introduced me to his new policy on public ‘meetings’ (he refused to use the word ‘date’).

  ‘You must have a minimum of six people at any meeting with a boy. If it is only you and the boy, and somebody sees you, it looks like a date. That is no good for your reputation. If there is another couple with you, it looks like a double date. That is doubly no good for your reputation. But if it is six people, you, the boy and four other people, it is acceptable because six is a group.’

  There were many obvious problems with the Rule of Six. The boy would usually be bewildered by the fact that he was effectively taking five people out on a date. Those five people would very often be my sister and friends, because my father did not approve of the boy bringing somebody for support.

  ‘He is the boy,’ my father would say. ‘He doesn’t need support. Let him feel uncomfortable. You are the girl. It is all about your needs and your comfort.’

  So the boy would usually end up having to get to know me in the presence of five strangers (and shout them all coffee too). If the five chaperones used their brains and left us alone (which almost always happened, not that I told my father that), the damage had usually already been done. Either my chaperones would hang around during the awkward introductions and be so nice that they appeared to have stronger feelings for the guy than I did, or some of them would think they were doing me a kindness by jokingly reminding the guy that they’d arrange a painful death for him if he upset me. This served to scare most of the guys off because it made me look as though I came from a family with connections to Sydney’s underworld – never a good matchmaking look.

  My father eventually mellowed and the Rule of Six was, thankfully, forgotten.

  Which is why, when Yasir telephones the house on Saturday to ask me out for coffee, my father simply hands the phone to me and leaves me to sort out the details. The Rule of Six has finally given way to the Rule of Two and it’s about bloody time.

  Mind you, I have no idea who Yasir is. But the community connection network has led him to me nonetheless. Here’s how it worked:

  My dad

  Deniz (met my father in the seventies when they were fla
tmates; works as a teacher at St Clements)

  Havin (also works as a teacher at St Clements; is also Yasir’s aunt; spoke to Deniz as follows: ‘Deniz, my sister’s son wants to settle down but can’t find the right girl. Do you know anybody?’)

  Deniz (‘Yes. My old friend’s daughter.’)

  Havin speaks to Zeynap, Deniz’s wife, and gives her a number for Betul, Yasir’s mum.

  Zeynap calls Betul and vouches that I’m a wonderful catch.

  Havin calls my mum to let her know Betul will call her and that Yasir is a wonderful catch.

  Betul calls my mum.

  My mum gives Betul my mobile telephone number and the house number, just in case.

  Yasir calls my mobile. I’m in the shower at the time and don’t pick up and don’t bother returning the call because I don’t recognise the number. Everybody I want to speak to has their number saved in my phone, and anybody not in my contacts is either a telemarketer or our local Blockbuster store chasing the last season of The Wire (I swear I can’t find it).

  Yasir calls the house phone. My father picks up. He hands me the phone and ...

  ... we arrange to meet at a café in the Strand on Pitt Street Mall after work next Monday.

  We’ve added each other as friends on Facebook so at least I know what he looks like. Yasir’s profile picture is nice. He’s not drop-dead gorgeous or butt ugly. There’s a big spectrum between those two ends and he’s sitting about halfway.

  I’m wearing one of my most flattering suits and stunning high heels that have already given me blisters. Senem came over last night to do my hair, giving me some soft curls, which, she insists, suit me more than the dead-straight look. I didn’t bother arguing with her, although today’s been really hot and the roots of my hair are a little frizzy from the humidity, undoing much of her hard work.

  My make-up is minimal. Unlike Senem, I’m into natural tones and pale glosses. My skin tone is olive, my eyes and lashes dark brown, like my dad’s, and so I suit earthy colours. Senem, by contrast, takes after my mum and is pale with green eyes, loving to experiment with bright and bold tones. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing red lipstick, whereas Senem looks gorgeous in it.