The Obstruction of Emma Goldsworthy

by Sean Kennedy

“Okay.”

  Emma would use the word harlot. Something biblical and full of the weight of historical reference. And she liked to think it didn’t sound as slut-shamey. Or maybe it did. But Emma was inconsolable right now. She had floated home on the wings of love, and only ten minutes later she was plummeting without anything to catch her. Why the hell was Trish back?

  “I’m going to go to bed,” Emma announced.

  “Don’t worry,” Alya said. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  She was lying.

  “Sure,” Emma said.

  Emma was also lying.

  As she stripped down to get into bed, the blare of a horn announced she had a text. She knew it had to be Jess. Trish had arrived on her doorstep not long after she left. She had actually been across the road, lurking in the shadows, waiting for the taxi to drive off. She had caught Jess by surprise, kissing her with years of built-up passion. Jess could only succumb; what else could you do? After making love would come the revelations of love and the tyranny of distance being no barrier in the long run. Then Jess would remember she had to break up with Emma.

  Filled with dread, Emma looked at the screen:

  Micah Johnson: I broke up with Todd. Not good. But at least I did the right thing.

  She couldn’t deal with his issues right now. She turned her mobile off and huddled under her doona. She thought she would never sleep again.

  It turned out stress and anxiety meant, for Emma, the sweet relief of a sleep coma. She didn’t even wake up until the sun started burning her face through the doona.

  Chapter 8

  ALTHOUGH EMMA may have slept for nine hours, she didn’t feel refreshed at all. It was best to distract herself with someone else’s problems, so she texted Micah.

  Sorry. This came in when I was asleep. You OK?

  No reply. She hoped he wasn’t pissed off. He could get fractious when he was upset.

  But when she got out from the shower there was a response waiting.

  Training. Had to wait for break. Todd didn’t take it very well. Suspected there was someone else but I didn’t tell. He’ll guess it’s Kyle. It’s always Kyle, isn’t it?

  He was talking like a doomed hero in a Brontë novel. Emma guessed she couldn’t judge, as she was victim to the purple prose herself when it came to Jess—and she had only known her personally for about fourteen hours all up while Micah and Kyle had years between them.

  Have you heard from Kyle? Emma texted back.

  Not yet. Should I be worried?

  She grinned. Such a drama queen. No. Go back to training xx

  OK, boss :) xxx

  So that had taken her mind off Trish and Jess for about seven minutes. What to do with the other twenty-three hours and fifty-three minutes of the day?

  Oh, that’s right. Practice and classes. Not necessarily in that order.

  Maybe it was just what she needed.

  THEIR TUTOR, Susan, didn’t even offer a greeting when she first walked into the room, jumping straight into the day’s events. “We’ve decided to change tack today.”

  Emma never liked the sound of that. She liked order and predictability, at least when it came to coursework.

  She could stand to have a little of it in her personal relationships too.

  “You are all probably aware that Trish Webber has just returned from an exchange program in the United States,” Susan continued.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake, Emma couldn’t escape her.

  “She’s here to talk to us today about that opportunity and encourage you to apply for it next year. Trish, would you like to come down?”

  She was here? Now?

  Everybody’s head swivelled like Linda Blair’s in order to see where Trish was. She was now making her way down the stairs of the lecture theatre from where she had been hiding up at the back. Had she been there the whole time? Emma hadn’t really paid attention when she walked in, and had entered from the bottom tier. Trish could have come through the top one at any time.

  Cool, calm, and collected, Trish took her place at the lectern and smiled out at the crowd of girls. It was then Emma noticed how much she had changed since she last saw her in Melbourne. She even seemed changed from the day before. Now she was poised, as if she’d been at finishing school in Switzerland rather than a sports academy in Los Angeles, and had aged five years instead of two.

  And then she looked straight at Emma. And smiled again.

  It seemed friendly enough, but maybe it was a cunning smile, a portent that said I’m gunning for Jess. You better just stand back.

  Maybe ninja training had been part of the curriculum as well.

  Emma smiled back regardless, not wanting to put her on the warpath already.

  THE TALK Trish gave was actually pretty interesting, although Emma couldn’t really see herself going to America on an exchange program. The money was too much, for one thing. Emma was already on a scholarship for the AIS, and it would probably be too much to expect that she could get it to cover her for time spent overseas. Her parents couldn’t afford it either, and even if Emma got a part-time job until then, there would still be nowhere near the money she would need. It wasn’t even a pipe dream.

  A group of excited girls had congregated around Trish already as Emma packed her bag and headed up the stairs for the upper exit so she wouldn’t have to pass them to get to the lower one.

  She heard Trish call out her name before she was even halfway up.

  Emma turned to see Trish bounding up the stairs to meet her. The group, who had been hanging on her every word, seemed affronted but disappeared quickly—maybe waiting outside the exits like Broadway fans at the stage door.

  “Good talk,” Emma said, not exactly feeling comfortable.

  “Thanks.” Trish looked almost bashful, trailing her toe along the edge of the step behind her.

  Emma waited for her to say more, but she didn’t.

  “Sorry, did you want something?” Emma knew it sounded cold, but really, did she have to go out of her way to be her best buddy? Emma wasn’t interested. And if she was after Jess, neither was Trish.

  “Hey! I thought we said we would try to be friends?”

  Emma couldn’t even remember if the word friends had been used. Unless she had just agreed to it in order to get away from Trish as quickly as possible at the beach. Emma sighed dramatically, so she got the point. “What’s up?”

  “I was just wondering if you were interested in applying for the exchange?”

  That was it? “Do you get a bonus per person who applies, or something?”

  Trish finally looked irritated. “Yeah. If I sign up enough, I can get a toaster.”

  Emma decided to give in. “So it’s a lot like lesbian recruitment, then?”

  Trish seemed at ease again. “Yeah, but I already have the toaster. I’m trying for the microwave this time.”

  “Too many points to get that. You can buy one at Kmart for fifty bucks.”

  “I guess.”

  This was the closest thing they’d had to a proper conversation in two years. And the first time Emma had been reminded how easy it was to be around her. It didn’t stop the good memories they made together from flooding back, and maybe she was romanticising it—but she could have sworn Trish looked like she was experiencing the same thing.

  It was dangerous territory.

  “I can’t afford it,” Emma blurted out. Why the hell was she telling her this? She didn’t want to let Trish know something so personal, and yet here it was, spilling out of her mouth. “There’s just no way I could go to America on exchange.”

  Trish came from a rich family. She’d never had to even think about whether she could go or not. The moment she got her acceptance her family probably wrote the cheque for her. She probably still didn’t get how some people weren’t as well-off as she was and how she could get anything she wanted as long as there was a price attached to it.

  “Oh,” Trish said, and Emma could tell she was trying to be tactful. A
nother new side to her! “There are grants, scholarships—”

  “Yeah, I know all that.” Emma couldn’t help but cut her off. She didn’t want her to feel sorry for Emma. She was the best at doing that job, believe it or not. “I’m already on scholarship. I don’t think I’ll get another one on top of it.”

  “If you have enough talent, you can get it,” Trish said. “And you’ve got the talent, Emma. It’s why you got the scholarship here in the first place. They weren’t going to let you slip through their fingers.”

  When Trish got word she had a placement at the AIS, Emma was ecstatic for her. Stupidly she thought they could still make it work. Even Micah had been sensible enough to know that he had to break up with Kyle when he was recruited by the Dockers in Perth. One minute Trish was breaking up with Emma and the next she was wondering aloud if she could get a new set of luggage out of her parents, even though she was only going to Canberra, not Monaco. Emma wondered what she tried for when she got word she was going to America. Emma didn’t know. They weren’t speaking by then.

  In fact, they weren’t even speaking by the end of that night. Emma crawled away to lick her wounds, and Trish didn’t even contact her before she left for Canberra.

  Thinking about how devoid of feeling Trish had been towards her, sparked Emma’s anger again. “Yeah, but you didn’t have a problem with that.”

  Trish’s eyes widened. “Oh. Wow.”

  “Yeah,” Emma mimicked back to her. “Oh. Wow.”

  “That was two years ago,” Trish said. She actually looked a little apologetic, but Emma refused to let it sway her. “I have changed a lot since then.”

  “Not my problem.” Emma turned on her heel and started her way back up the stairs again. “I just hope everybody else here feels the same way.”

  “Wait, what does that mean?” Trish called after her.

  Emma didn’t answer.

  OKAY, SO she had been childish. But she was hurt. She couldn’t stand Trish ignoring everything that had happened between them and pretending they should all be hunky-dory with that. She had no right to think Emma could bend to her will just to make it easier on her.

  And if Emma was honest with herself, she liked bearing a grudge. Hopefully a ghostly Japanese boy wouldn’t crawl his way under her covers that night.

  Making her way across campus to the hockey field, she checked her phone. A message from Jess and one from Micah. Jess first, of course.

  Doing anything tonight? Or too much work today?

  Emma smiled before she could stop herself. She knew it was a big goofy smile and its intent would be obvious to anybody who could see her.

  What do you feel like doing? she texted back.

  Waiting for her response, she opened Micah’s message:

  Kyle still hasn’t spoken to me. Left messages etc.

  Okay, that was weird. She had just thought Micah was being too impatient this morning, but it was now early afternoon. Kyle wouldn’t deliberately avoid Micah’s texts. It wasn’t in Kyle’s nature. Unless—

  She wasn’t jumping to conclusions of accidents or sporting incidents, but it was enough to worry her.

  Then, in a particularly deus ex machina moment, the man himself appeared before her as he exited a lecture theatre.

  “Oi, Kyle!” she yelled.

  He turned to look at who was yelling, and as soon as he saw it was her, he reddened.

  He knows he’s done something wrong.

  “Emma,” he said pleasantly enough. “How are you?”

  “Oh, fine, now what’s going on?” Emma didn’t believe in softening the blow.

  “About what?”

  “I know we’re jocks, but don’t play dumb. Last thing I heard you were going to become footloose and fancy-free just in time for you to shack up with your next boyfriend, who’s actually your ex-boyfriend, but you’ve apparently gone off the grid.”

  “If I was off the grid, you obviously wouldn’t have seen me.”

  Damn, he was being so evasive.

  “Did Micah send you after me?” he asked, on the defensive.

  “I’m not his attack dog. I do the attacking on my own terms. Why are you avoiding him?”

  He took her by the arm into a quiet little alcove where an uncomfortable stone bench lay. They both sat down, genteel-like.

  “Well?” Emma demanded.

  “Shouldn’t I speak to Micah first?”

  “Stop answering questions with questions.”

  “Okay.”

  She glared at him and waved her arm for him to continue.

  “Oh,” he realised, and started to tell his story. “I was going to tell Richard straightaway. I arranged to meet him for coffee after Micah left—”

  “Classy,” Emma murmured, and he shot her daggers.

  “—and we took takeaway lattes to the park—”

  “Not wanting him to cause a scene in the café.”

  He at least had the decency to look embarrassed—because there was no other way to get around it. He wanted as clean a break as possible from Richard so he could go straight to Micah without any worries. It may have been mercenary, but it was probably the best way to do it.

  “Yeah,” Kyle admitted. “I did love him, you know? He’s a really good guy. It’s just Micah… well, he’s Micah.”

  “I never thought Micah was in love with Todd.” It had always seemed a comfortable relationship—one where they genuinely liked each other but kind of knew deep down it wasn’t “the one.” Did Micah and Kyle believe they were? God, they were all so bloody young. Emma included. What the hell did any of them know, really?

  Did that mean, deep down, Emma suspected her blooming relationship with Jess wasn’t a forever thing? Was she pessimistic or just a realist to think at the age of twenty she still had a lot of searching to do before she found her forever person?

  Why did she have to overthink everything? Why couldn’t she just enjoy the moment as it happened and bask in the glow of the experience? Micah obviously did. He just moved on if something didn’t work, and when it did, he lived it to the full—and then if that failed it was donezo yet again.

  “Maybe he wasn’t.” But Kyle knew. And that was why it was so much harder for him than it was for Micah. “But when Dick and I got to the park he was just going on about how this Christmas he wanted me to spend it with his family, and how maybe in the new year we could think about living together once I know which team I get recruited for. If I do.”

  The last sentence was just an afterthought, a secondary problem that was thankfully far enough down the track that he didn’t have to worry about it right now. He was focused on his love life, like a typical uni student.

  Emma could relate.

  “So how did he take it?” she asked.

  Kyle didn’t answer.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t tell him!”

  “I couldn’t.”

  So Micah’s fears were true this time.

  Kyle must have seen the look on her face. “No, it’s not like that. I’m going to. I just couldn’t do it right then.”

  “It’s going to be worse when he finds out that you lied to him and he thought you were really going somewhere as a couple!”

  “I didn’t tell him yes, but I was as noncommittal as possible.”

  For fuck’s sake, he was such a boy. And Emma meant a boy, a six-year-old who told his mother he hadn’t touched the chocolate cake she’d made when it was smeared all around his mouth. Wait, was that sexist? His dad could have made the cake, after all.

  “Oh, he’s never going to suspect anything now.”

  “Emma, please.”

  She was beyond being nice. “You’ve made things even worse for yourself. Now Micah’s going to be pissed because you haven’t done what you said you would, and you’re also making Richard think something is up, and he’ll know he’s been strung along when you finally tell him.”

  “I couldn’t feel any worse,” Kyle said. Looking like a little boy again.

&
nbsp; “Pfffft, wait until you tell Micah.” Emma left it on that note, feeling it was as good an exit as any. And knowing that Micah would probably interrupt her second “date” tonight with his many texts of doom.

  JESS GREETED her at the door with a very enthusiastic kiss.

  “This is nice,” Emma said. It was an understatement.

  Jess picked up on it. “Just nice? Here, let me improve upon it.”

  Knees trembled, hearts raced, and blood surged.

  “Better?” Jess asked on an intake of breath that made her sound deliciously husky.

  “Better, but still could improve,” Emma teased.

  “Cheeky!” she admonished her while locking the door.

  They set off down the veranda steps, and Emma had just taken her hand when the front gate opened and Trish walked through.

  Emma’s nightmare was coming true. The moment Trish would sweep Jess off her feet and away from her.

  “Trish!” Jess sounded surprised at least.

  “Uh, hi.” Trish stood with her hands in her pockets, taking them both in and looking unsure of herself.

  “Are you here to see Carla or Leah?” Jess named her roommates, but she looked confused, as if trying to guess what possible connection there could be between them.

  “No, I’m here to see you.”

  “You saw me the other day. At the beach.” Emma thought she added that for her benefit so she didn’t jump to the wrong conclusion and make an arse out of herself.

  “Yeah, but we didn’t get to talk.”

  The writing was on the wall. “I’ll leave you to it,” Emma told Jess.

  She tried to drop her hand, but Jess held on tightly. “No, it’s fine.”

  Trish noticed their hand-holding for the first time. “Are you two going out?”

  “Yes,” Jess said before Emma did, and she was pleased.

  But Trish didn’t look so happy. “I didn’t know.”

  “Why should you?” Jess challenged.

  “When I saw you on the beach, I didn’t think you were a couple.”

  Should Emma admit that they weren’t back then? No, it might just give her the courage to think she stood a stronger chance of getting back together with Jess. And Jess wasn’t racing to tell her the truth either, so Emma wisely kept her mouth shut.