‘Aurora, he’ll have to know before the wedding. It’s only fair.’
Fair? She hadn’t thought much about ‘fair’ when she’d asked for a divorce via holiday postcard.
‘I want to be the one to tell him,’ I blurted out as the boutique assistant walked over to us. ‘Promise me you won’t say anything.’
‘Alright,’ Mum replied.
I could tell she wasn’t thrilled, but was willing to let me have my way if it ensured that I didn’t throw a hissy fit amongst the designer gowns. I didn’t even feel capable of a tantrum. All the air needed for shouting had been knocked out of me.
‘I want my daughter to try a few options for a bridesmaid’s gown,’ Mum said as the assistant joined us. ‘This is the colour palette I’m working with.’ She handed the assistant some samples in taupe, latte and a light blush. ‘My gown is lace.’
She already had her dress? Well, as I was yet to be introduced to the groom, it was only to be expected that my opinion wasn’t needed on the gown.
I felt like I was underwater as I watched Mum and the assistant, Annie according to her nametag, walk along the racks, pulling out dresses for me. I could see their mouths moving, but my brain couldn’t seem to process the words.
Annie nudged me into a change room with five or six dresses, and began slipping the first over my head before I could protest. I tried to do up the little pearl buttons that fastened the bodice while she zipped up the back. My fingers trembled as the NAD’s face popped into my mind. I didn’t want to tell him. I wanted to suggest to Mum that she and Carlos get married in Ibiza — that way the NAD would never have to hear about it. Or see photographs in the social pages.
And yet the NAD was the only one capable of understanding how I felt right now. Mum hadn’t wanted a family life with us, but Carlos was getting the go-ahead as husband? Hurt wasn’t the word for it.
Annie pulled the change-room door open so that Mum could see the first gown.
‘Very elegant,’ Mum said, standing up from her seat and moving closer. She touched the dress. ‘I like the length and cut, but I think I’d prefer a different material. What else do you have with the same low back?’
She and the assistant wandered away to look at further options.
We weren’t going to discuss any of this further? I mean, obviously Carlos and Mum had made up their minds, but I’d have liked some time to come to terms with the idea. Instead, I was immediately being ushered into my new role as bridesmaid. Did Mum honestly think I’d be wholeheartedly toasting the happy couple in just six weeks?
I couldn’t deal with the idea of standing around playing dress-ups for the next hour or so while my mind was close to meltdown, so I quickly slipped the dress off and put my own clothes back on. As I stepped out of the change room, I saw that Mum and Annie were in consultation over gowns on the other side of the showroom. I slipped out the door and took the lift back down to street level.
As I walked away from the arcade and towards the bus stop to go home, I felt my phone pulsing against the side of my handbag. Mum had obviously discovered the empty change room. I ignored the phone and got on the bus, slumping into a seat. Not answering was obviously going to irritate Mum, but right now I needed respite.
Unfortunately, when I got home the house wasn’t empty. The NAD, as par for the course as creative director of an advertising agency, worked crazy hours, so I was used to being home alone a lot of the time. But as I came in the door and put my handbag down, I could hear that not only was the NAD home at a reasonable time, he also had company.
‘Dad?’ I called as I went towards the lounge room.
Two women and one man, plus the NAD, all wearing white, were sitting in a circle on the carpet. The NAD had set up the Himalayan salt crystal lamp that he’d ordered from YourSacredSpace.com on the coffee table. Thankfully I’d convinced him not to order any of the unsightly oversized dreamcatchers he’d been eyeing off too.
One of the women, wearing a large turquoise pendant, was addressing the group. ‘So our aim today is to remind ourselves of the Acceptance Principles.’
‘Aurora!’
The NAD leapt up from his cross-legged pose as he spotted me in the doorway, presumably looking slightly unnerved. I’d become used to witnessing the NAD’s and Ms DeForest’s alternative practices while they’d been dating, but a group session under our roof was new to me.
‘Come join our sharing circle, honey!’ the NAD said, and the group made a space for me on the floor. ‘This is Echo, Primrose and Igneous.’
I tried my hardest not to react to the names, but I couldn’t help myself with the last one. ‘Igneous?’
‘Like igneous rock, meaning “born from fire”,’ Igneous replied. ‘My ex-wife burnt the man formerly known as Ian down to nothing. Igneous was what was left in the scorched landscape that was the end of my marriage.’
I sat down numbly after the besiegement of information about the volcanic end to Ian/Igneous’s relationship. I wasn’t sure what else to do. Leaving would be pretty insensitive.
The NAD reached over and patted my knee. ‘I should explain, honey. This is a sharing circle, so Igneous is in a state of total openness right now.’
I gave him what I hoped wasn’t an uneasy smile. Obviously these people were, like the NAD, trying to come to terms with life’s disappointments. I couldn’t pass judgment on them, no matter how much the over-sharing unsettled me. After all, it was healthier to express your emotions than to bottle them up. I just felt thankful that the NAD hadn’t given himself a new name after he’d signed the divorce papers. Imagine if I’d had to start calling him Basalt or something.
Igneous let out a shuddering sigh. Obviously the scorched landscape was still in pretty bad shape.
Echo took his left hand. ‘Igneous, we are interconnected in this sharing circle, just as we are in this existence. We have all known suffering. We all have known loss. What you are feeling is part of the larger human experience. Let’s all join hands.’
Suddenly I found my hands grasped by the NAD and Primrose.
‘Coming to acceptance does not mean denying the pain we have felt in losing what was once precious to us,’ Echo continued. ‘Coming to acceptance means that we acknowledge the inherent uncertainty that is life. It means letting go of our attachment to expected outcomes and letting ourselves trust in the wisdom of the greater experience.’
This was tough stuff. I wasn’t sure if I was able to trust in the wisdom of the greater experience when it came to Mum’s latest decision. Maybe I should drop the whole ‘Mum’s getting remarried!’ bomb as part of the sharing circle. The NAD was in a caring space here. We could all hold hands and get him through the initial emotional carnage.
‘She took the dog!’ Igneous said, weeping now. ‘And our Deepak Chopra collection!’
Okay, I’d wait until Igneous had finished riding the wave of loss.
‘Igneous, I know what you’re going through,’ the NAD said. ‘When Avery left, I felt like the ground underneath me had split open. The terror of moving forward kept me stuck straddling the fault line between my old life and my new one for a very long time.’
I looked at him, shocked. The NAD barely mentioned Mum’s name any more. The past was generally a no-go zone in this house. Obviously the NAD was entering fully into the spirit of the sharing circle. Maybe it was a sign from the universe that I should share too.
The moment the NAD stopped speaking, I would launch into an account of this afternoon’s events. Otherwise I’d lose my nerve.
‘The only way I came to acceptance of the situation was to see that her leaving wasn’t a reflection on my ability to be loved,’ the NAD continued. ‘It wasn’t our marriage Avery didn’t want — she didn’t want a marriage with anyone. She saw a shared life as an unwanted bond.’
I snapped my mouth shut.
In just a few short sentences, I could have sliced through the ropes of the bridge the NAD had built to carry him safely into his new life! I wasn’t g
oing to destroy his illusions while his shaky self-confidence was still recovering from Ms DeForest’s decision to dump him based on a tarot-card reading.
‘You’ve got to do the grieving work,’ the NAD said to Igneous, who was curled up into a ball with his head resting on his knees. ‘And that takes time. Appropriately mourning the loss of the relationship will allow you to slowly cut the karmic cords between you and Lily.’
Time. That was a point. I should give the NAD a while longer to mourn the loss of Ms DeForest before reopening the wounds left by my mother. After all, the wedding wasn’t for six weeks. Perhaps I could use the time to slowly start hinting that Mum was now pro legally binding ties. Make some offhand comments about how happy she and Carlos were.
Ugh. I needed some time to adjust to the idea too. It was probably best that I came to grips with my own negative emotions before I broke the news to the NAD. The last thing I wanted to do was saddle him with my pain on top of his.
The NAD got up from the circle. ‘I’ve got some rose quartz upstairs. It’s a heart chakra crystal, so it helps clear pain related to separation and divorce. I’ll be back down in a minute.’
I stood up too and followed the NAD down the hall and up the stairs. I couldn’t stay in the sharing circle — I felt like I was lying to the NAD’s face by keeping Mum’s news from him while everyone else was laying bare their soul wounds.
‘Dad, do you mind if I excuse myself? I’ve got a history essay I have to start researching.’
‘No problem, honey. I know the circle can be an intense space for a beginner. I hope you’ll join us again sometime — we’re hoping to make it a regular Friday night thing. We’re thinking we might hold screenings of consciousness-expanding DVDs afterwards too. By the way, do you know what happened to the coffee table? I found big blocks of wax melted onto it.’
I couldn’t tell the NAD about my foiled seduction scene. Thankfully he’d been interstate for business last night, so I’d been spared the embarrassment of having him drive Hayden and me to the hospital. I was pretty close to my dad, but not close enough to share my Lethal Lips moment with him. I gave him my blankest look.
He shook his head and sighed. ‘Must have been the cats knocking things over again. I should have listened when you suggested sending Snookums to feline obedience school. It would have been worth the hefty admittance fee.’
What kind of person was I? I’d damaged our coffee table and my boyfriend’s face and let my cats take the rap.
CHAPTER 4
Despite the disaster of my second shot at kissing, I had high hopes for Saturday night. I was optimistic that a double date with my best friend and Hayden’s best friend (i.e. Cassie and Scott) would help to dissipate the awkwardness between Hayden and me. I envisioned lots of laughs as we two couples respectively cosied up at an outdoor movie. However, here we were lounging on picnic blankets and Cassie’s new shoes were closer to Hayden than I was.
Things had started well. Cassie, Scott, Hayden and I had met up at the deli and bought super-yummy picnic food, then had a great time laughing and talking as we walked through the botanic gardens and down to the bay where the outdoor movie was to be screened. Lindsay and Tyler had decided to join us at the last moment, so we’d spread out two large blankets on a slope where we’d get a good view. Cassie and Scott had immediately intertwined themselves like a pastel-coloured pretzel on one half of a rug (Cassie was wearing ice-blue jeans and a lavender jumper and Scott was sporting faded jeans and a pale blue shirt). Cass lay back in Scott’s arms and assembled Camembert cheese crackers on a plastic plate in her lap, reaching back intermittently to feed him. Even their feet were crossed over each other, so that every limb was in constant contact.
‘That’s impressive,’ Lindsay whispered to me as she pulled cups out of the Esky and started pouring soft drink for everyone. ‘A week in and they’ve got synchronised snacking down to an easy art. You watch though — there’ll be more whispering of sweet nothings and ear nibbling going on than actual eating.’
‘Ear nibbling?’ I stared at Lindsay. ‘At this stage?’
‘This is the point at which it’s worst,’ Lindsay replied. ‘It’s the novelty of finally being allowed free rein after all that anticipation. Common sense can, unfortunately, become a casualty. In my opinion, ears can be whispered into, but no tongue, ever.’
I was impressed. ‘You’re the ear etiquette expert.’
‘Time and experience teach you many things,’ Lindsay said, shaking her head. ‘The predictable course of PDAs is one of them.’
Talking about public displays of affection this way, she sounded like a long-suffering wife rather than a member of the recently reignited romance club. She nodded towards Cassie and Scott.
‘This is what I call the domino effect. Watch — she’s stroking his palm with her thumb. He’ll take it up a notch in about ten seconds.’
We watched as Scott pulled Cass’s thumb to his lips and kissed it.
‘She’ll respond in kind now,’ Lindsay said, handing me my lemonade. ‘It’s the unspoken rule of new relationships. It’s like Newton’s third law — every action has an equal or opposite reaction.’
I was seriously impressed by Lindsay’s perceptiveness. When I turned my hand to writing my dating guidebook, I was so going to use her as a consultant. I was familiar with courting rituals, but I needed to develop my expertise in new-couple practices. So far my own experiences would only provide content for a special section on ‘dating don’ts’.
I watched as Cass took Scott’s other hand and kissed the tip of each finger.
‘Here’s where the momentum quickens,’ Lindsay said.
Scott pulled Cass even closer, smothering the side of her neck with kisses. She giggled.
‘And here we go,’ Lindsay said. ‘It’s unstoppable now.’
Cass turned her face up towards Scott’s and suddenly they were smooching. The plate of almost untouched crackers teetered precariously on Cassie’s lap, then fell as she twisted herself backwards in the throes of the kiss.
‘Here’s where they start to attract public disapproval,’ Lindsay said, subtly pointing out an old couple who were frowning at Cass and Scott. ‘The lovebirds won’t pick up on the stares though. They’ve disappeared into a bystander-free alternate reality world where a five-minute pash equates to a quick peck in their befuddled minds.’
‘So you’re officially no longer befuddled?’ I asked. I didn’t want to pry, but I was concerned about what was going on with Lindsay and Tyler. They’d gone from verging-on-permanently-fused finger-lacing to negligible contact.
Lindsay shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t felt the high I used to since we got back together. There was the brief heady relief of our reconciliation, but since then, it’s like the buzz has gone.’
‘A relationship doesn’t have to be a rollercoaster all the time,’ I said. ‘You and Tyler have transitioned over the years. Think of it this way — you’ve become a merry-go-round!’
Lindsay gave me a look. ‘We’re the ride that triggers little to no adrenaline?’
‘No!’ I shook my head violently. ‘You’ve done the rounds of coupledom enough times to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, inside out. That’s invaluable when it comes to long-lasting love!’
Lindsay sighed. ‘I know. Nothing’s really changed about us, I just seem to have less patience or something. Like last night — Tyler got all hurt that I didn’t clap when he finished playing “Your Body is a Wonderland”.’
Tyler had been learning the guitar for three years now. It had become evident after a short amount of time that he was never going to be Slash’s successor, but Lindsay had kept the faith in his potential, buying him John Mayer songbooks on a regular basis. We were all thankful when he added that elusive fourth chord to his repertoire after some extensive practice time over the six weeks of summer break.
‘Linds, love is more than just falling in love.’ I looked at Cass and Scott, who were now indulging in
Eskimo kisses. ‘Anyone can be giddy in the first few weeks or months thanks to the way nature throws all those potent can’t-stop-thinking-about-you chemicals around, but to still get excited about seeing each other three years down the track — like I know you and Tyler do when you have a day or two apart — that’s a beautiful thing.’
‘Linds!’ Tyler called from the other picnic blanket. ‘The movie’s about to start.’ He patted the spot next to him.
Hayden, who’d been having a chat with Tyler while they cut up the bread and cheeses, got up and headed over to our picnic blanket.
‘Coming,’ Lindsay called back. ‘I better get over there,’ she said to me. ‘Thanks for the pep talk, Aurora.’
‘No problem. You know I was the biggest cheerleader for you guys during the break-up.’
Lindsay took Tyler’s drink over to him. He took it from her and put his arm round her waist to pull her in for a cuddle. Lindsay let him, but I could see she was distractedly scrolling through her phone. That was worrying. I let out a sigh.
Hayden gave me a concerned look as he sat down beside me. ‘You okay?’ He touched my bandage ever so lightly. ‘Your hand isn’t hurting, is it? I’ve got painkillers here if you need them. And some anti-inflammatories. And some burn salve if you need to change the dressing. The hospital gave me a bunch of things.’
Hayden pulled out packet after packet from his pockets. Any moment now I was expecting him to produce Dettol in a hipflask.
‘You’ve been on painkillers?’ I asked.
‘Only to help me sleep the first night or two, and to take down the swelling a little. But I didn’t want to get caught out tonight if I needed them. Sometimes chewing can trigger a bit of pain.’
My concern must have been obvious, because before I’d even uttered one syllable of ‘I’m sorry, what can I do?’, Hayden leapt to reassure me.
How to Convince a Boy to Kiss You Page 4