by Foster, Zoe
I saw Paola still talking teething and 3 a.m. wake-ups with Janet, which infuriated me even more. With the grape-fuelled devil in me, I realised that the only thing to do right now was to leave. And so, with tunnel vision and deliberate steps, I walked out of the club, onto the street and into a waiting cab.
Josh could ask Tess where I’d gone.
ROUND 37
Angry Anderson vs Apologies
I woke up with a head that had apparently been infiltrated by a small marching band and a vague recollection of something not great happening last night. I switched on my phone and heard the tinkle of several messages come through.
Where r u? Been looking evrywr! Call me
And the second.
Jean, worried abt u, answr ur phone!
And the third:
No 1 nos where u r! uv just disappeared, pls call me so i know ur ok!!
Goodness! So many exclamation marks, Josh!!!
And from Steph:
Hun, where r u?
Nothing from Paola, which came as no surprise as she was entirely techspastic.
Next, the voicemails:
‘Jeanie? Jeanie?’ came Josh’s voice over hundreds of others, all speaking at foghorn level. ‘Are you there?’ Then Bones’s voice in the background: ‘Did she answer?’ ‘Nah, man, I think it’s message bank,’ from Josh, then click.
Twenty minutes later: ‘Jeanie? Where’d you go? I’ve been looking all over for you. Call me soon as you get this, okay?’
And once more: ‘Jean.’ A lot quieter now, with a bit of an echo. Was he in the bathroom? ‘I spoke to Melinda. I’m coming over. Listen for the front door, okay?’
I frowned. Did I really sleep through his knocking? I was pretty drunk … but surely Col would’ve heard? Maybe she was at Eric’s pretending to not be in love with him.
I chucked my hair into a low plait, noticing all the roots coming through as I did so, and opened my bedroom door. It was dead quiet. I walked past Col’s room – she wasn’t home – and into the living room. I sat down on Ken the Irregular Armchair and thought about what had happened last night. Had I overreacted? It might be that Tess was just making things up again. Or maybe not. Which meant that Tess and Josh had been seeing each other, and that Josh had omitted to tell me. I wondered how many times they’d caught up, and whether there was more to her call two weeks back when she’d rung his house.
Hearing my phone blare from the bedroom, I raced in at breakneck speed, my head pounding with each step, and grabbed it off the bed. It was him.
‘Hello?’ I sounded rough. Like I had a deeply entrenched cigarette addiction. And possibly an Adam’s apple.
‘Jean! Jesus, I thought something terrible had happened to you!’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I’m so relieved! I was at your door at 1 a.m. this morning, you know. Were you there? I was knocking and tapping on windows for a solid hour … Look, I’ve just finished training; I’ll have a shower and be right over, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘See you soon, Jeanie.’
Click.
I arranged my legs on the sofa to hide any thigh dimples and hit rewind on the CD again. Where the hell was he? It had been well over an hour, and my mind was going into overdrive. Plus I hadn’t eaten because my stomach felt a little too unsettled, which made me even more fidgety. I had dressed deliberately in little shorts I knew he loved, and a soft grey singlet, and done my hair half-up, half-down, which was his favourite style. I wasn’t sure why I’d done these things, except that I always felt compelled to look ‘sexy’ these days. Even when emotionally wounded and a little bit LIVID.
A knock at the door. I jumped up, nerves shooting through me as though they had just consumed several shots of Turkish coffee. Opening the door, I tried to maintain my best pissed-off face, but as soon as I saw his concerned blue eyes, his wet hair and his freshly shaved jaw, I had to bite my lip and turn my head to keep from smiling. He was gorgeous and I was screwed.
He pulled a delicate bouquet of flowers from behind his back. They were freesias – my favourite. He remembered! And I had told him that, what, months ago, fleetingly, at that engagement party. I scrunched my mouth to one side to hold back the tenacious smile that was pushing through.
‘This is why I’m late.’
‘Flowers only come when men have done something wrong,’ I shot back, turning and walking purposefully to the sofa.
Following me, he placed the freesias on the coffee table and sat down on the arm of the sofa, sighing. ‘Jeanie, Melinda told me what happened last night.’
‘I thought, you know, being pro-Tess, she would’ve kept that little performance to herself.’
‘Well, she didn’t. She’s actually a decent girl underneath all the theatrics. Tess … well, Tess kind of screwed her up, to be honest.’
So, he clearly knew Tess was a psycho and still he met with her for coffee, at the risk of me finding out! He took his hands out of his pockets and placed one on each thigh.
‘Jeanie, I did have coffee with Tess last week, but it’s not what you think. And the reason I didn’t tell you is because the circumstances didn’t even cross my mind as being inappropriate. I was at the physio for my ankle, and there’s a cafe next door. I was with Ryan, having a coffee and waiting for the doc, and she was there too, because she has a bad back from an old horse-riding accident. I put her onto my doc years back. Anyway, she came over and sat down with Ryan and me, and asked why we were there, so I told her about my ankle —’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about your ankle?’
‘Jeanie, it wasn’t intentional! It was a short week, with a Sunday and then a Friday game, and I was just so busy. I wasn’t not telling you, I just … it didn’t cross my mind. Anyway, look, I know what she’s like, and that she made it out to sound like we’d arranged to meet and I confided in her. But that’s horseshit. It was incidental, and I left for my appointment, seriously, not ten minutes later.’
I digested what he was saying. Whenever I thought I had a genuine reason to be shitty with him, he came back with a very logical, reasonable explanation, leaving me feeling ridiculous.
‘She happened to be there at the same time as me, that’s all. Jeanie, you have to remember that there were some good reasons I broke up with Tess. Her lying and her insecurity and this … this schoolgirl bullshit. Trust me, this is not the first time she’s played tricks. Not by a long shot. And, you know, that’s a big part of why I love you. You’d never pull something like this – it wouldn’t even cross your mind to do such a thing. You couldn’t be more different from Tess.’
I exhaled slowly, taking in all he had said. Really, there was nothing wrong with what he’d done. It annoyed me, but it wasn’t criminal. Tess, on the other hand …
‘So why the flowers?’
‘Because I can see how it might have looked to you. And because Tess is … well, she’s not my responsibility, but it’s because of my past with her that you’re upset. Plus, you’re my girl; I should be buying you your favourite flowers more often.’ He smiled, looking straight into my tired, red eyes, and moved artfully from the arm onto the sofa. Then a bit closer.
I looked back at him, falling unwillingly into those deep blue pools. But then a spear of anger disrupted the stillness.
‘Why does Tess … why does she do these things? That’s what I don’t understand. Is she trying to get you back? To split us up? I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve never been in a situation like this before.’
He said nothing, thinking about what I’d said.
‘I mean, how would you like it if my ex was calling me, or holing you up and making out like we still had something going?’
I looked closely into his eyes, my pupils darting back and forth between his, hoping he saw that I wasn’t angry with him, just needing his support. He moved over so that he was sitting right next to me, and took my hands in his, his dark eyebrows knitted with concern.
‘Tess is a problem, Je
anie, I know that. You’ve been an angel through all of this, and on top of having just moved here, and having to fall into the whole footy world … Even when you have the right to lose your shit, you’re still so graceful.’
A tear dropped from my eye. When he said it like that, it occurred to me that I had indeed been tossed into quite the motley little universe.
‘So you’ll be happy to know I called Tess and told her to cut it out.’
I frowned and dropped my hands from his.
‘You called her?’
‘Yeah … that no good?’
Was I meant to feel okay about that? Even if his call was to tell Tess that she needed to stop tormenting me? Was I becoming hypersensitive and super-paranoid? Where was the fucking rule book!
‘S’fine.’
His face furrowed in confusion.
‘You sure?’
I stood up. ‘Yep, it’s all good. Hey, um, I gotta get ready for work. Thanks for the flowers.’
‘Jean, wait —’
‘Josh, I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I’m just hung-over and tired.’
I tried to submerge the rockmelon-sized lump in my throat and keep my cool. But I was so far from cool that there weren’t enough frequent-flyer points in the world to get from cool to me. Surely it was far too early in the relationship to be feeling so jealous, so insecure, so distressed.
‘Have I done something wrong? I thought you’d be happy I called her to tell her off.’
‘Josh, it’s fine, I’m fine. Really!’ I smiled, walked to the front door and held it open. Frowning, bewildered, he followed me.
‘Well, okay then. So you’ll call me later? After work?’
Still offering a feeble smile, I nodded and looked down.
‘I love you, Jeanie.’ He kissed me gently on the forehead and walked out.
I closed the door and burst into tears.
ROUND 38
Disbelief vs Denial
‘Wow. I’ve never seen you look so un-hot.’
Cam was leaning against the counter, performing mouth gymnastics with a toothpick. He got all brave when Ingrid wasn’t around, staying in the shop for up to an hour at a time, annoying and baiting me and flirting with customers.
‘Shut up, Cam.’
‘Seriously, you look even worse than that day after you and Colette went to that benefit thing and ended up doing karaoke till 5 a.m., and you accidentally wore your top inside-out, and you had that mega zit on your —’
I stopped folding T-shirts and turned to face him.
‘Shut up, Cam.’
‘Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much when you know you have to work. Makes you ugly and full of gnarly lady rage.’
‘I knew I was only doing twelve till five, so I thought I would be fine. And anyway, I was home by midnight.’
‘Why so aggro, then?’
I shook my head and a mixture of lethargy, anger and upset kicked me in the throat for the fifty-sixth time that day.
‘I’m fine,’ I said irritably. ‘Anyway, shouldn’t you be in your own shop?’
‘I’m on my break.’
‘Well, take it then. Why do you have to come and annoy me?’
‘’Cos it’s fun to pick on people when they’re hung-over.’
‘Seriously, Cam, beat it. I’m not in the mood.’
Silence. Maybe he had finally got the message.
‘Is it ape trouble? Sorry – boy trouble?’
‘You know, Cam, you haven’t even met the guy. Can’t you lay off him for once?’
‘What’d he do? Grab one of the cheerleaders on the arse? Forget to include you in his post-game speech?’
That was it. I spun around and glared at Cam, a T-shirt scrunched up in one of my white-with-rage fists.
‘You know, as much as you’d like to think life is simple and all a big joke when you go out with a footballer, it’s actually a total head screw. It’s like being on another planet, and I don’t feel like I fit in most of the time, and on top of that, there are some really fucked-up people who make it very clear they don’t want me to be there. Okay? So yeah, it’s boy trouble. You happy?’
His face had dropped with each word I’d spat out. I managed to extract the scrunched-up T-shirt from my hand and refold it before storming over to the counter. Cam turned to face me, hardly daring to say a word.
‘Jay …’
‘Cam. Just go. Please?’
He paused, tapping one finger lightly on the glass counter as I entered the codes for the T-shirts into the computer.
‘I’m sorry, Jay; I had no idea. I’m sorry. Usually … usually you just throw it right back.’
‘Well, today I’m not in the mood. Sorry to ruin your fun.’
‘Can I ask what happened?’
I looked at him.
His brown eyes, usually flickering with playfulness, were concerned, unsmiling, full of kindness.
‘Jay, what’s wrong?’
I locked eyes with him for the briefest moment, but had to look away. It was too intense. It was unsettling to see him like this; it made me feel uncomfortable in an ‘Interesting … You’ve never been attractive to me before this moment, yet now I find myself looking away so as to avoid eye contact with you’ kind of way.
I cleared my throat. I was clearly not thinking straight. I was overtired and dusty from eighty-three glasses of economically sound riesling. Cam and I had become close and usually had no problems discussing dating stuff, but talking about Josh was different. Partly because I was in love with Josh, and partly because Cam had made paying out on him a sport, which put me on the defensive as soon as his name came up.
I sighed, defeated. ‘It’s not him, it’s his ex.’
Cam’s ears pricked up. ‘What about her?’
‘She bailed me up last night, and made out that her and Josh were still hanging out.’
‘Are they?’
He had moved down to my eye level, with his elbows on the counter, and was looking at me closely. I’d never noticed before how long his lashes were; they were incredible. Camel-esque.
‘Well no, but …’
‘But what?’
‘Well, they did, but it was accidental.’
He raised one eyebrow then guffawed. ‘What, as in he fell on top of her in a club?’
‘No! Nothing like that. Look, he explained it all, and it’s all fine, I just … I don’t know, I don’t like that they have a past, and that Tess is utterly insane and purposefully tries to get me riled up. And, you know, he wouldn’t be having coffee with her in the first place and not telling me about it, innocent as it may have been, if he was truly over her. Would he.’
To say Cam looked unimpressed would not even be approaching the truth; he looked as though I’d just told him I’d walked in on Tess and Josh screwing, and had believed Josh when he’d told me they were only performing an ancient Hindu sheet-cleaning ritual.
‘You’re fuckin’ kidding me.’ More disbelieving air-exhalation noises. ‘He’s lying about seeing her?’
‘No, no. Well, yes, but it’s not what you think … Forget it. It’s fine.’
I dismissed the situation with my hand, as if the gesture would physically make Cam forget what we were talking about and start ribbing me about my plaits again.
‘Uh, no. It’s not.’ He shook his head, his eyes bulging with anger and disbelief. ‘You like this guy – God knows why, but you do – and he’s so fuckin’ lucky to have you. I mean, any guy would kill to have a girl like you, Jean – you’re one in a goddamn million. He doesn’t even understand what he’s got, and then he lies to you? And he’s seeing Tess on the side?’
Pause. Rewind. What? Any guy would kill to have a girl like me? From which crevice did that fall? Cam’s job was to pay me out, not shower me with compliments. I quickly installed my mental stop sign to avoid thinking about what Col and Ingrid had always said about him having a ‘thing’ for me. He was just Cam. Annoying, panama-wearing, musk-eating Cam.
‘Cam, I t
hink you’re overreacting a little. You don’t know the full story.’ I started to clean up the credit-card receipts in a terribly busy and efficient manner, to symbolise that this conversation was over.
Sensing he may have tiptoed over the invisible boundary of The Jean and Cam Show, he stood up, bunching his mouth over to one side in thought.
‘Jean, just promise me one thing.’
‘Mmm?’ I was far too busy performing Visa Receipt Management to give him a proper answer.
‘That you won’t get so caught up in that whole world that you forget how you deserve to be treated. You said yourself that it’s all a headscrew. Well, that shit can be contagious, believe me, and you’re far too smart and far too beautiful to fall into that kind of cesspit.’
I absorbed Cam’s sincerity and his wisdom, not daring to look at his face, instead continuing to stare at the small pile of paper in front of me. When I finally looked up, he was standing there with his hands jammed into his preposterous neon pockets. It was endearing, I decided, the way he was being so protective. Yes, protective – that’s the way I would mentally classify today’s behaviour. Protective, like any brother or male friend would be.
‘Sure thing, Cam. Will get it tattooed onto my wrist so I don’t forget.’
He shook his head, disappointed. ‘You’re a loser,’ he said, only he didn’t smile like he usually did when he signed off with an insult. Before I could say anything else, he turned and walked out, the chain from his wallet swinging against his jeans pocket the only thing to puncture the silence.
I looked at the spot where he’d stood and tried to make sense of what had just happened. And how my perception of him had been quietly disarranged.
ROUND 39
Accolades vs Anger
‘Geez, Louise, would you look at these earrings!’
I was sitting with the girls in Cassie’s backyard, where Cassie was hosting a barbecue for Camel’s birthday, and handing out the pieces I had made for the girls. Cassie was doing her best impersonation of ‘casual’, in tall wedges, tiny white shorts and a tight blue singlet. Her blonde hair smacked of mousse and upside-down flips, and her bronzer application was neither stingy nor precise.