Playing the Field

by Foster, Zoe

  ‘Fuck off, Cam.’

  I had lost a little weight, actually. I’d become more conscious of what I ate, and had been taking Dave for runs, as opposed to half-arsed walks. If I was honest, I felt I needed to look good to make Josh look good. The expectation was always there, lingering in the back of my mind, warning me that People were watching, weighing me up, making sure I was good enough for him. I knew the non-verbal transaction by heart now: people see Josh, their eyes flash with recognition and then fly over to me. Up. Down. Up. Back to Josh. Flicker between the two of us. Then back to me. Make internal summation that Josh could do better – should have an actress or a model on his arm, not this pale-faced little imp. Continue on way.

  My morphing into a textbook WAG hadn’t blown into a fully fledged issue yet, but I was aware that it might at any second. The day I wore heels and full makeup to the airport at 7.30 a.m. would be the day I had gone too far. That, or the day I succumbed to acrylic nails.

  ‘Touchy, aren’t we? Must be all that starving yourself. Makes people terribly cranky, you know, starvation. Just ask an Ethiopian.’

  ‘Actually, I could quite go a chicken wrap. Why don’t you go buy me one, if you’re so worried I’m fading away?’

  ‘Get it yourself.’

  ‘Pleeeeease? Please Cam? It’s three shops down, and I’ll be stuck in this queue for ages. I’ll give you the money.’

  I saw his eyes soften. He sighed, and his head dropped to one side. He was adorable when he lost the tough-guy, teasing-brother shit. I grinned, took a tenner from my wallet, and held it out to him.

  ‘Thanks, Cam. Feel free to pick yourself up something pretty with the change, won’t you?’

  ‘When are you going to repay me for all of the kindness I have bestowed upon you? You realise you owe me, don’t you?’

  I scribbled ‘I Owe You. Signed, Jean Bennett’ on the back of my ticket and held it out with the money.

  ‘There: documentation. Happy?’

  ‘Very,’ he said, taking the note and money from my hand as I beamed triumphantly.

  ‘I’ll make you pay one day, you wait.’ He looked me in the eyes, nodding, smiling mischievously.

  ‘Whatevs. Chop chop with that chicken wrap already.’

  With his back to me as he walked towards the door, Cam let his jeans slide so that all of his boxers and half of his thighs showed. I laughed hysterically as the bored, distracted bankers frowned disapprovingly. As much of a pain in the arse as he was, Cam did make me laugh.

  ROUND 30

  Rage vs Reprieve

  Laughing at his impersonation of Dave trying to get a back scratch, I pushed Josh off me and stood up to make us some tea. He was staying over – a rarity – so I was trying to make him feel accommodated and looked after, in the hope of tricking him into doing it more often. I was sick of staying at his house because it usually meant him dropping me home – still half-asleep and in a bra-less T-shirt, tracksuit bottoms and barefoot combo – at 6.30 a.m. on his way to training. Aside from the uncomfortableness of it all, I always seemed to run into gung-ho joggers on the pavement outside my place; they’d look at me unpleasantly, all iPodded and judgemental.

  As I turned the kettle on, I heard Col’s key in the door. I inhaled sharply: I hadn’t seen her since we’d had the fight about Eric the other morning and I knew she was pissed at me, because she hadn’t called or texted once. Our only communication had been two rudimentary notes about Dave being fed.

  Walking into the living area, she spotted Josh first.

  ‘Oh, hey, footyhead. How are you?’

  I could hear Josh getting up to greet her with a kiss. Such good manners, I thought, simultaneously pleased with my perfect boyfriend and excellent Suzy Homemaker tea-presentation skills. As they made small talk, I waited to see whether Col would come into the kitchen on the way to her room, or walk straight past.

  ‘Hey, Jay.’

  I turned to see her standing at the kitchen entrance. She looked tired and a little washed out.

  ‘Oh, hey, Col. Want some tea?’

  My voice was high, nervous; a failed attempt at playing it cool and normal.

  ‘Nah, I’m good thanks. I’m beat – going to bed.’

  And she was gone.

  I turned back to the kettle, fuming. What the fuck was she on about? How long did she want to carry on like this? When were we going to have a grown-up conversation? I stood there, huffing and puffing and thinking about how uncool it was of her to keep on acting as if nothing had happened – or, rather, as if something had, but she was too busy to talk about it with her sister, her own sister who had come down to live with her after Eric ripped her heart out.

  That was it. I slammed down the teaspoon I’d been gripping with white knuckles and walked to her bedroom door. I was just about to knock when I heard her on the phone, crying.

  ‘I jus— I can’t do this,’ she was saying, through tears. ‘It’s too hard, and it’s not worth it to try again … Oh, sure, yeah, well that’s because you were the one who fucked everything up, not the one who had to sit by and have it happen to them —’

  Must be Eric. Had to be Eric.

  ‘HOW CAN I BE FUCKING SURE? TELL ME HOW!’

  Whoa.

  She was sniffing, sobbing. I so wanted to bust in and give her a big hug and tell her everything was going to be okay, but first she needed to hang up that phone and get the fuck away from Eric. For good.

  ‘Oh, it’s all so easy for you to say, isn’t it? Just rolls off the tongue, like all the other lies.’ Her tone was dripping with anger, spite, hurt, betrayal. Poor Col. She was clearly tormented at the idea of being back with Eric, but at the same time she really wanted it. My anger began to dissipate and I just felt incredibly sad for her. How dare he, I thought. How dare he break her heart, ruin her plans for the wedding and the rest of her life, and then, just months later, try to come snivelling back? Without so much as a bunch of flowers or a poem? He had more hide than an Easter egg.

  ‘Jeanie? You okay?’

  Shit, Josh. I tiptoed back out to the living room and smiled at him lying on the sofa, watching a re-run of Girls of the Playboy Mansion.

  I shook my head. ‘Honestly …’

  ‘What? I watch it for the classy fashion!’

  I went back into the kitchen and made two teas. I considered making one for Col and leaving it at her door, but had a feeling she might be on that phone call for a while yet. Like, maybe a month or two. I had to speak to her about all of this. I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one she’d been hiding her romantic re-run from, and she clearly needed some support. I felt like a right bitch for the way, the other morning, I’d announced that I knew she was back with Eric. Bad sister.

  As I set the teas down on the coffee table, my face must have shown my torment.

  ‘You okay, baby?’

  Josh sat up and kissed me on the cheek.

  ‘Yep, fine. Just tired.’

  I offered a weak smile. I really wanted to explain the whole situation to him, but it would have been a selfish act for me to reveal all of my sister’s problems to my boyfriend just because I was bursting with the need to speak to someone about it.

  ‘You sure?’

  I looked at him sitting there: legs apart, hair everywhere, steaming hot tea just centimetres from his face, his eyes directed at me but his whole concentration taken up with gauging how likely he was to burn his tongue if he took a sip. Suddenly, more than ever, I wanted to tell him I loved him.

  It had been on the tip of my tongue for two months, but I wasn’t sure whether it was premature. And besides, the guy was meant to say it first. Preferably with skywriting. It was killing me, though. I did love him. I did. And I wanted to be able to say it.

  I kept half-saying it, starting off recklessly then reshaping my sentence urgently before it finished: ‘I love … the way you cuddle me all night,’ I would say. ‘I love … it when you do that little crinkly dimple thing with your eyes,’ I’d say, feeling
deflated, like I’d been given the most glorious mansion in the world but no keys to get inside. It wouldn’t be long now, I thought. He loved me. He just had to find the right way to say it.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ROUND 31

  Resurfacing Exes vs Reassurances

  Mike Scott had given us the keys for his beach house for the night, and every single one of my cells was vibrating with excitement.

  The boys had played last night – a win, but Captain Jimmy had suffered a broken ankle, which had dramatically mattified the victory’s shine. I’d never seen anyone respond as fast as Paola had. One second we were refilling our wine glasses for the third time, and laughing about Paola’s sheer, nipple-revealing top; the next, Lou was yelling: ‘Paola, quick! Jimmy’s done himself an injury!’

  Paola, instantly sober, had dumped her glass and bolted outside. Her eyes were wide open, trying to make sense of the situation down on the field. Two trainers were crouched beside Jimmy, who was writhing around in pain, clutching his ankle. There was dead silence in the box as everyone paid their respects to Paola’s fallen hero.

  ‘Come on, Jimmy, get up, get up!’ Paola was wringing her hands, bouncing up and down on her heels.

  ‘They should have a phone number, you know – a number of someone we can call when this shit happens. This is a joke!’ Steph said angrily.

  ‘Darl, I’ve got Doc’s number from when Camel did his shoulder – here, dial this,’ said Cassie, all trench coat and hair, nursing Ryan’s progeny on her lap while scrolling through the contacts on her pink-skinned iPhone. Paola was right: little Flynn did look like a miniature Bones. All those hits must have affected Camel’s vision.

  ‘He looks like he’s in real pain there. Sorry, hun, but I reckon it’s a break,’ offered Lou, perhaps unhelpfully.

  ‘How can I know if he’s okay? Fuck! Where do I going?’ Paola asked with urgency and irritation, before reverting to her native tongue and rambling through what I’m guessing was a long string of swear words.

  From inside the box, and without the commentators to guide us, it was hard to tell what was going on. But when Jimmy failed to get up after two minutes and the little stretcher cart raced onto the field, Paola couldn’t wait any longer.

  ‘I going down.’ She grabbed her coat and bag, and tore off before I could ask if she wanted me to come.

  She’d called me later to say that initially they hadn’t allowed her into the dressing sheds. However, once she started screaming – in a mix of Colombian and English – that she was as good as Jimmy’s wife and for them to let her the fuck in right now, they’d been frightened enough to open the sacred Players’ Entrance door for her. None of the girls had ever been into the sheds before. She was an intrepid trailblazer, a fearless South American pioneer who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  What she’d found was a delirious, distressed Jimmy, and a calm, slow-speaking doctor who had assessed that his ankle was broken in two places, and was sending him to hospital immediately.

  ‘How long will I be out?’ Jimmy had slurred.

  ‘I can’t say for sure, but maybe three, four months,’ the doctor had said.

  ‘Fuuuuuuuuuck!’ Jimmy had said.

  Despite their leader being in the emergency ward, the rest of the boys had gone out to celebrate a massive win over their archenemies. Jimmy would’ve wanted it that way, Ryan had said solemnly. (You fathered Camel’s child, I thought.) The coach had told them explicitly not to go out because it was a short week and they played again in five days. But they’d gone anyway.

  I’d gone home after one drink in the members lounge, to pack for our night away. I’d taken a cab to the game, because Josh had told me to drive his car home and then pick him up in it in the morning on the way to the beach. I was very nervous about driving his big fancy BMW, but didn’t let on.

  The thrill of walking to Josh’s big, sleek car in the car park, getting into the driver’s seat, not being able to figure out where the lights were, and turning on the windscreen wipers instead of the indicator, had been immense. Driving my boyfriend’s expensive car – even if it wasn’t yet from one beauty appointment to the next, sashaying around in stilettos, or dripping with rocks and lip gloss – I finally felt like a proper WAG. With a strange kind of detachment, I wondered if I would ever really become one of those girls.

  I flicked my hair at the lights. I checked myself out in the mirrors. Guys in the car next to me checked me out. It felt goooooood. I could get used to this, I thought.

  It struck me why women who went out with high-profile men found it hard to break out of the cycle and go out with a ‘regular’ guy. How quickly you could became used to this lifestyle: being treated as though you were ‘special’; walking around and having people notice you; enjoying free meals; getting invited to red-carpet events; and getting let off parking fines. To leave all that behind and date a plumber would inevitably feel like deprivation.

  Please God, don’t let me become like that, I prayed, trying not to notice that I had already dipped one toe into the pool: suddenly I could see the appeal of spending a lot of money on a car, even though I’d always said I’d rather go overseas for six months than buy a silly car. Seemed I was getting used to the Good Life. Must be careful, I warned myself quietly, like a detoxer in a room full of pastries. Don’t want to end up an UltraWAG.

  UltraWAGs were the worst of all the WAGs. I preferred the High-school Sweethearts, like Kate and Morgan and Lou. Then there were the Have Their Own Profile girls, like Cassie, a Big Brother graduate and cable TV weather girl, and Trisha, a gorgeous Filipino who hosted a kids’ music show. Next there were the Whatever WAGs, like Paola, who just carried on with their lives, and often, their kids, and couldn’t give a rat’s arse about the whole football thing. If anything, they found it to be a hindrance. And finally, there were the UltraWAGs. These were the WAGs who loved being photographed, and basked in their boyfriend’s spotlight, and went to as many events and did as many magazine spreads as possible.

  Of course, there were some crossovers: Steph was a mix of Whatever WAG and UltraWAG, and Melinda acted as though she was a High-school Sweetheart, when really she was a total UltraWAG. I liked to think I was a Whatever WAG, but I knew I nursed UltraWAG tendencies. I reasoned that my motive for being photographed at events with Josh, though, was so that all the groupies and footy moles would back off – even though I knew that to them, a girlfriend or wife was about as much of a deterrent as foil on a chocolate bar to a girl with PMS.

  No, I thought to myself sternly: I mustn’t get caught up in it. I must maintain a sweet, the-simple-life-is-the-life-for-me attitude. I determined to remain the girl who didn’t view herself as above anyone else just because she had a boyfriend who played football and was in the papers all the time.

  But, when I thought about it, even Paola insisted on an Audi and complained when she had to drink cheap wine. Meh. It was a slippery slope, but my shoes had grip. I’d be fine.

  Early the next morning, I knocked on Josh’s door, even though I had his house keys along with his car keys. I felt sexy in my white ‘beach-house’ dress and tan heels. I’d applied self-tanner last night and blow-dried my hair, and felt very Jennifer Aniston.

  I knocked again, this time with force. No answer. I wondered if he could still be out. The boys often stayed out til past 6 a.m., but it was now 8.30; surely he wasn’t still at some rank bar, or at Bones’s place playing poker and talking shit. A small tennis ball of anxiety formed in my stomach. The idea of Bones and Josh out all night then ending up back at Bones’s without Bones bringing back girls seemed unlikely. I thought of all the groupies who approached Josh when I was there and then considered the volume who might pounce when I wasn’t.

  No, I was being silly. Josh wouldn’t do anything. I took a deep breath and reminded myself of some very simple facts: I had his car, and was off to a five-million-dollar beach house with him for the weekend. Perspective, Jean, perspective.

  Anyway, Josh had tol
d me that we’d leave for the coast before nine, so surely he wouldn’t have stayed out that late. After all, it was a three-hour drive, and I didn’t think he’d be making (letting) me drive. My mouth scrunched over to one side as I wondered what to do. I decided to get over it and open the door. Ten minutes was enough.

  I unlocked the door to the living room/kitchenette to find a mass of sofa pillows on the floor, an enormous blanket draped over the sofa and glasses everywhere. It smelled of smoke and spilled beer. It seemed the boys did go back to someone’s place last night, only it wasn’t Bones’s.

  I walked through the mess to Josh’s bedroom. The door was closed. I opened it a crack and was knocked back by the smell of breath laced with multiple forms of alcohol. Holding mine, I walked to the vertical blinds and flipped them open. Finally, the lump under the sheets moved.

  ‘Foxy? Wakey wakey, hands off snakey … ’

  He sat up, hair a mess, eyes bleary and bloodshot.

  ‘Wha’? Oh, Jeeeanie.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘You look pretty.’

  I perched on the edge of the bed as he lay back down on the pillow, groaning.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Well, we’re supposed to be leaving in five minutes. But I’m guessing that won’t be happening.’

  He groaned. ‘Never – drinking – again.’ He looked at the empty beer bottles on his bedside tale. ‘Or entertaining.’

  I laughed. ‘Can you maybe start with a shower? You stink. Bad.’

  His eyes rested on me, a smile spreading over his face. Then he quickly grabbed my waist and pulled me down to him. I squealed, trying to avoid his breath, even though the stench appeared to be emitting from each of his several million pores.

  ‘No!’ I pulled back and jumped up. ‘Get yourself together, Foxman! Let’s hit the road.’

  ‘I’ll be fresh as a daisy in four minutes.’

  ‘Have you packed?’

  ‘No, but what is there to pack? I’m telling you, I’ll be ready and in the car in four minutes.’