That, I thought, and the fact Henry was being patient enough about me being into girls. I wanted to leave it there for now and not push my luck.
Sarah brushed some mascara on her lashes, and I think she took my silence as an invitation to elaborate on her twenty-first century comment. “In the meeting just before, I gave my report—which I got done on time, by the way, because I'm awesome—and then I offered to make a chart and a table so the stats were easier to read because some of the team were having trouble following them. It's a small team, so the meetings always feel kind of informal. Anyway, I went to the lead, 'is there anything else you'd like me to make while I'm at it?' and the asshole went, 'Yeah, a sandwich' and the whole fucking team including Jason thought it was hilarious and they all laughed. Then for the rest of the meeting they kept making references to it, and at the end, Jason said, 'I'll expect that sandwich on my desk by lunchtime'.”
I had been watching her while she told the story, when I had a Henry moment. “That's why you're fixing your eyes,” I said, feeling my stomach drop. “Because of that.”
She stopped what she was doing and took a breath. “You'd think I'd be used to it by now, wouldn't you?” Then, her eyes welled up. While she was trying desperately to rescue her fresh makeup with a tissue, I just watched her helplessly.
I should have been used to it as well, but I wasn't. Each time it happened it was still fucking humiliating, and it was awful to think of Sarah who wasn't exactly a fountain of emotion being so upset about what happened that she'd come in here to cry. It was pretty secluded; there were only five women who worked on the floor. All the rest were egotistical marketing fucks who’d been using women’s half-naked bodies to sell shit for most of their careers. It was no wonder they turned out like Jason.
Fuck Jason, I thought as I watched Sarah tilting her head back to stop her tears from falling. Fuck him. I had that fantasy again where I waltzed into work dressed like a boss and just punched the fucking daylights out of him. Why couldn’t we have a manager who was more like Henry?
When the immediate threat of tears had passed, she stopped for a second and looked at me. “Just a word to the wise,” she told me when I didn't do anything. “When a chick cries you're supposed to hug her.”
“I see,” I said, and then kind of awkwardly put my arms around her. “Do you want me to tell Henry? Not as a formal report of course, but—”
“No,” she said firmly. “I can deal with it. I’m just freaking out because our project pitches in two weeks and this other project I’m on is about a month behind and we have maybe eight weeks’ worth of work to cram into four. Rob would normally be really great about everything but he’s on the other side of the country at the moment. It’s hell.” She patted my back, taking a deep breath as she stepped away from me. “Screw everything, I've had enough of today. Want to come and get lunch with me up the road?”
After she’d opened up to me like that, the last thing I was going to do was say no to anything at all she wanted from me, on a personal or professional level. So we went a safe distance up George street to a café that definitely didn't have any Frost employees in it and Sarah instituted a No Work Talk rule. It was relaxing, I listened to her chat about Rob while we sat in the sun and waited for our lunch. Around our feet, huge flocks of pigeons and sparrows were also patiently waiting for our food to be delivered.
I laughed at their reaction to lunch arriving. “If Bree was here half her food would be inside them by now,” I told Sarah as I threw a couple of crumbs on the pavement to watch them all swarm like piranhas on it. “No wonder she's so small.”
Sarah smirked at me. “Is she why you keep checking your phone?”
I stopped chewing for a second. I hadn't realised I'd been doing it that much. “No comment.” Sarah's eyebrows flickered at me, but she didn't say anything, so I did. “Anyway, since you're convinced there's something going on between me and Bree, doesn't it bother you about Gemma?”
Sarah shrugged. “You kissed her. I'm not expecting a wedding invite. She isn't, either. She just thinks you're really nice and really hot.” She took another bite of her lunch and swallowed it, thinking. “Having said that, though, knowing Gem she'd probably still get drunk and jump you again, and if it turns out Henry's up for that threesome...” Sarah looked very entertained by my expression, and then made it even worse. “I told her about that little blonde schoolgirl you're definitely not sleeping with anyway.”
“Told her what, Sarah?” I asked suspiciously, closing my jaw and throwing another few crumbs at the desperate looking birds. “There's nothing to tell, remember?”
“I actually just linked her to Schoolgirl's Facebook.”
Oh, God. I squeezed my eyes closed for a moment and groaned.
“Yeah, so,” Sarah said, getting stuck into her focaccia, “she can draw her own conclusions from it. I don't need to say anything.”
It wasn't until we had nearly finished lunch that Bree finally texted me. I turned my phone over as soon as I felt it vibrate on the table. “got something to give u...... what time u finish work???”
Sarah was smirking a little, so I showed it to her so she wouldn't think Bree was sexting me. It didn't stop her though. “I know what she wants to give to you,” Sarah said with a grin. “It.”
I sighed at her and messaged Bree back, “Just come past my work after school and text me when you're downstairs. I'll come down and meet you.”
As we packed up and headed back to Frost, I asked Sarah, “Why are you so interested in my love life, anyway? Something wrong with yours?”
She snorted. “Hell no, Rob's an Energiser bunny. I'm just nosy.” We walked through the big rotating door at the front of the building. “And,” she said, looking sideways at me and smiling, “after all those projects where you messed with me and played pranks on me, it's kind of fun to watch you squirm for once.”
Back in Oslo, I was greeted by Ian. “Where've you been?” he asked. “Jason was looking for you and he won't tell me why.”
I naturally panicked and assumed it was something serious, but when I found him smoking on the balcony with a cigarette in one hand and his mobile against his ear with the other, it wasn't. “Mini!” he yelled to me, and then said to whoever was on the phone, “Sorry, mate, secret marketing business.” He hung up and walked purposefully over to me. I felt like I was about to get blasted for something, especially given what had happened to Sarah this morning. I should have known.
“Mini, if you're going to do enormous slides, make sure you book the media rooms to deliver. The board rooms have those pissy projectors that won't get the colours right.” Then, he held up his phone again, put his cigarette in his mouth and called back whoever he'd been speaking to before.
That's it? I thought, I stressed the fuck out and swept the floor looking for you over that? Did Jason not think I was capable of making that decision myself? It was actually insulting, and I had to stop myself from groaning aloud as he got back into an animated conversation on his mobile.
'You're an asshole!' I wanted to yell, and then I wanted to yell at him for what he'd said to Sarah that morning, too. It bothered me for the rest of the day, and when I needed to go and ask Jason about an email I was planning to send to a prospective contact, I decided to defer it to tomorrow. I could just work on the slides today and relax and not brutally murder my boss. I finished another draft painting and presented it to the team. I wasn't sure I liked it.
“I don't really know what theme I want to go for,” I told everyone, giving them all copies of the pictures I'd done so far to consider. “It would be great if you guys could have a think about the research you've done and decide which Australian landscapes are going to sell pink diamond distribution contracts to a Russian multi-millionaire.”
When I finally got Bree's text to tell me she was downstairs, I was definitely ready for a break and maybe some dinner. Which would give me the perfect opportunity to have a talk with her about her Facebook.
S
he'd asked me to meet her around the corner of the building off the food court and I wasn't really sure exactly why out the front of it was a problem until she ambushed me in a really tight hug. “Hi!” she said from my stomach. “Don't worry, no one can see us here, you can relax. I’m just collected on that hug you owe me.”
I ruffled her curls because, as always, they were at perfect ruffling height. “If this is what you were planning on giving me all along, after the day I've had I may actually strangle you.”
She giggled. “I didn't think of that,” she said, pulling back and grinning up at me. “But it's not, I promise. I made you something.” She bent down to where she'd dumped her bag at my feet and rifled around in it before standing up and giving it to me. It was a coloured envelope thing wrapped in sticky tape. I looked at her for an explanation. “Well, I couldn't buy wrapping paper, so I just went on Google and looked for a graphic of it and printed it out and then wrapped it up like that. Don't open it yet, though! It’s for when I have to go home.”
My eyes were wide. “Uh, okay, thanks?” I said, and then looked back down at it. It was too small to be anything too crazy, and since she didn't have any money to buy jewellery, it couldn't be that, either. I guessed I'd know soon enough, so I put it in my handbag. “How are you, anyway? Is everything okay?” She looked well, but, then again, she usually did.
“I didn't fail my stats midterm,” she said cheerfully like it was an achievement. “So that's good. I even had two points to spare.”
I had to laugh at that. Mum would have killed me if I'd gotten less than ninety on anything. “Congratulations,” I said, making sure I didn't mention her parents. “How are you planning to celebrate?”
“Don't know,” she said. “Killing people is illegal, isn't it?”
I gave her a pained expression. “I was going to suggest 'by having dinner with Min'. It's not as cathartic, but it's much less likely to get you thrown in jail.”
She laughed and wrapped herself around my arm. “Okay, let's do that instead.”
I stooped to pick up her bag and then herded her into the food court. “I'm glad you said that,” I told her. “Because we need to talk about your Facebook.”
While I was ordering us two Souvlakis, Bree was hanging off me and looking very sheepish. “You found my Facebook,” she said. “You saw my albums too, yeah?”
I gave her a look.
“I probably should have warned you about that,” she decided, accepting her Souvlaki as we sat down. “They're kind of... well, I know you don't really like it when I show skin.”
“Show skin?” I repeated before I took a bite. “You show so much skin that I feel like I should be giving my credit card number to someone before I'm allowed to look at them, to be honest.”
She looked thoughtful as she considered what I’d said. “Really? You think people would do that?”
Was she fucking serious? I swallowed my mouthful way too early just so I could reply immediately. “No, Bree,” I told her, abandoning my dinner. “I don't even care what your reasoning is. Just no. No.” The more I thought about it, the more abhorrent the idea was, and Bree really didn't look like it bothered her in the slightest. It was unnerving. “Are you seriously thinking of doing that? I swear to god I'll find a way to shut down any site that has pictures like that of you. I cannot let you do that to yourself, and I really wish you'd take down all those photos from your Facebook, as well.”
She had been mostly ambivalent about everything until I started ranting at her. Then, she smiled. “I like it when you do that,” she said, looking charmed.
“What, give myself high blood pressure by stressing out about you?” My heart was pounding.
She made a face. “Well, not that part, but the rest is nice.”
She was just sitting there smiling at me as she picked at her dinner. To make matters worse, she'd loosened her school tie so she could undo the top button of her shirt again, as if her tiny skirt wasn't bad enough. It was driving me nuts. I’d had it with her.
“Come on,” I said, standing up and taking her by her arm. “You're coming with me.”
“I am?” she said as she let me drag her away from the table. “But what about dinner?”
“We can eat later,” I said, and led her down the road to the shopping centre.
I took her upstairs to one of the slightly more upmarket and funky clothes stores, and we went inside. Then, just like she'd done when she was choosing clothes for me, I chose a whole stack of clothes for her. She didn't look very impressed by my selection.
The sales clerks had been eyeing us a little cautiously since we'd come in, but eventually one of them ventured over to ask, “Hi, can I help you?”
“That depends,” Bree said, giggling at what I was doing. “Does this place sell burqas?”
“Bree,” I warned her, and then said to the clerk before he retreated, “Thanks, we'll be fine.”
I'd taken a big stack of clothes over to the dressing rooms and pushed Bree into one, but she pulled me in behind her and shut the door. “How do you plan on seeing how they look if you're out there?” she asked, and then slipped off her tie and looped it around my neck.
“You're supposed to open the door and show me the ones you like,” I told her as she unbuttoned the rest of her school shirt and shrugged it off her shoulders.
I immediately looked straight up at the ceiling; her bra had cupcakes with cherries printed on it, and it was bad enough I had to look at myself in the mirror, let alone her wearing something like that. We looked so strange together when I was dressed up as a woman, anyway. Like two people who would ordinarily never have anything to do with each other. I didn't like it, and I wished I could change. We look so much more balanced when I was in my guy clothes.
She laughed at me refusing to look at her. “You are so uptight,” she told me. “Girls change in front of other girls all the...” she realised what she was saying. “Oh,” she said, just standing there in her bra as she suddenly understood. “Oh, yeah. Well, you're in here now and it's not like you haven't seen me like this before...”
She put on the jeans and one of the tops I'd chosen for her. The jeans were a bit tight, but the top looked quite nice. It was a loose, floaty shirt in gentle pastels that really suited her pale skin and blonde hair. She looked older in it, and it understated her curves. It was subtle, I liked it. She looked really pretty. Bree, however, did not look impressed.
“This looks like something you would force yourself to wear,” she said flatly. “And look how that turned out for you.”
She didn't like the next one, either. “Can we save this one until I'm, like, 50? Or maybe 60?”
To the third, she said, “Okay, just a question: whose funeral am I going to?”
She had similar comments about all of the other clothes and in the end she was just standing opposite me in the fitting room looking frustrated. “I'm sorry, Min, but I don't like any of this stuff,” she said. “I know what you're trying to do. But don't worry, I've been dressing like this since I was 14 and it's been fine.”
I'd really liked her in one of the tops, and I held it up a little mournfully. “You can love your body without sharing it with everyone on the street,” I said. “I really think you should wear this one. Are you sure you don't like it?”
“Very sure,” she said, without hesitating. “At least when I tell you to wear things it’s stuff you already like. I don’t like any of these.” She paused. “And Min, it's really weird to be talking to you and you're, like, looking everywhere else. I get that you're a guy and all but even a guy would totally be looking at me right now. Especially a gay one, a gay one would be like, 'Oh my god, you got your bellybutton pierced, that's so 90s...'.” She mimicked a stereotypical queen voice.
I did look, but only because I hadn't noticed she had her bellybutton pierced. When I looked, I discovered that she didn't.
“Psych!” she said, looking very pleased with herself. “So, can I ask a question? I really don't get
why you have such a problem with how I dress. I mean, I kind of get the Facebook thing because in half of them I obviously look like I'm ready for someone to bust on me, but even my school lets me wear my uniform like that.” She gestured at it on the floor of the cubicle.
I gave up on the nice top I'd hoped she'd warm to, and put it back on the hanger. “Bree, I would get fired if I marketed you the way you market yourself,” I said, and then thought about Frost and the people I worked with. “Actually, maybe that’s not true, maybe I’d get promoted. But, essentially, the point is you’re selling yourself as someone you’re not,” I told her. “I know you're this really sweet, really nice girl who doesn't go around sleeping with everyone. But people take one look at you dressed like that, and, well,” I shrugged, “at some point you're going to want a job, and—”
She scoffed. “Yeah, in a few years I'll need to get a job, so I'd better start covering up my boobs now in preparation,” she said. “That makes so much sense. Maybe I should start waking up earlier, too, so in a few years when I'll need to get to work by eight, I'll—”
“—Bree, this is serious,” I said, interrupting her. “You're nice, you should be—”
“Oh my god, nice girls can get their boobs out, too, Min! Watch! No one cares!”
To my horror, Bree, who was in those tight jeans she’d been trying on and was still and only wearing that very unsupportive bra, opened the cubicle door and just walked out of it.
My jaw dropped and I rushed after her. “Bree!”
I couldn't stop her though, and before I had even tried to, she was out on the floor in the store, walking casually over to the women's section as if it was the most normal thing ever. I stood at the entrance to the fitting rooms with my mouth open and my hand over it, watching her. Despite the fact that there were only a couple of other customers in the store and they looked more amused than shocked, the clerks shared my horror and then rushed over to help her.
“If you need another size you can just ask,” one of them hurriedly told Bree, trying to usher her back into the fitting rooms.
Under My Skin Page 35