by Lia Weston
‘That was two years ago,’ says Mica, through a mouth full of kookie. ‘I’m far more mature now.’
‘You are wearing a T-shirt with a children’s program on it,’ says Kain. He comes over to my desk and waves the plate at me. ‘Have a kookie.’
‘Not now, Kain.’
‘You have to.’ The tinsel jitters back and forth.
I swat it away. ‘I really don’t.’
‘If you don’t, you won’t know who your Kris Kringle recipient is. There’s a note hidden inside.’
I stop batoning and swivel in my chair. ‘And what happens if somebody eats the note by accident?’
‘I don’t think anyone wou–’ Kain trails off as I point at Tarik and Mica, who have both finished their kookies and now look sheepish.
‘Well, now I’m going to have to bake more,’ says Kain, frowning at the plate.
Mica puts her hand up. ‘Can I take time off work for ingesting paper? I could get ink poisoning.’
‘If you were worried about ink poisoning, you shouldn’t have got your tattoo,’ says Kain. ‘It doesn’t exactly increase your value, you know. Not very ladylike.’
‘My value?’ says Mica, deceptively sweetly.
‘I believe he is referring to the practice of dowries,’ says Tarik. ‘In the old custom, you would be worth much gold.’
Mica tilts her head to the side and stares at Kain long enough to make him uncomfortable. ‘I like your new beard,’ she says, apropos of nothing.
Kain immediately claps his hand to his face as if his fuzzy growth may have disappeared when he wasn’t looking.
Facial hair can sometimes transform weak-chinned men (see: Mr Bean) into swashbucklers (see: Lord Blackadder). Kain, however, merely looks like he’s come to Dress As A Pirate Day. His wobbling baby’s chin cannot be hidden. The wobbling baby’s chin resists any beard, such is its power.
I break open my kookie and look at the paper. ‘Who’s Flick?’
‘It’s short for Felicity,’ says Kain, snatching it back. ‘And it’s supposed to be a secret.’ He rummages for a substitute kookie.
‘There are only seven people working here. It’s not going to be hard to pick who’s given us what,’ I say.
‘If I get you, can I have someone else?’ says Mica to Kain.
‘If you get me, I would like some of those brownies you make with the chocolate chips in them,’ says Tarik to her.
‘You’re not supposed to give homemade presents,’ says Kain. ‘You have to buy something.’
‘Rampant consumerism,’ I say. ‘Which, now I think about it, is actually the spirit of Christmas. Well done.’
‘There’s a ten-dollar limit,’ Kain says.
‘That’s just insulting,’ says Mica.
‘How much do handcuffs cost?’ Tarik asks.
‘Depends on the brand,’ says Mica without batting an eyelid.
‘Just make ten bucks’ worth of brownies,’ I say.
Kain throws another kookie at me. ‘It’s not funny.’
‘The pamphlet says otherwise.’ I wave the paper at him.
‘For God’s sake,’ says Kain, ‘haven’t any of you ever done this before?’
‘Nope,’ we all reply.
‘Kris Kringle is not really a Muslim thing,’ says Tarik.
‘Well, I’m sure you people have lots of your own traditions,’ says Kain.
‘Sometimes we dress up as horses and race around the village square. Everybody joins in. Bets are taken. It is very exciting,’ says Tarik.
‘Really?’ says Kain.
‘Of course not,’ says Tarik.
Mica and I snort-laugh.
Kain inflates and clutches the remnants of the kookies to his chest. ‘May I see you upstairs, Thomas?’
‘I’ve got a meeting. I’ll see you afterwards.’
He stomps up the stairs. There’s no real sense of victory, though; winding Kain up is so easy it’s barely a sport.
I get up to see what Tarik’s working on. A happy family on his screens, the daughter with a mortarboard. There’s a diploma in her arms: Master of . . . something. It’s obscured by her hand.
‘Master of what?’
‘Law.’ Tarik sucks on a stylus.
‘You always pick law.’
‘The parents always pick law.’ He peers at the briefing sheets. ‘But this time the daughter is the client. She did not specify the degree. I figured, why not law?’
I have no idea why a person would want a composite of themselves getting a fake degree with people who weren’t their parents, but sometimes it’s easier not to ask. ‘Mum’s off-model.’
‘What?’ Tarik rolls back to the desktop. ‘How? No way. It is perfect.’
‘Eyes don’t match.’ I point to the parents in turn. ‘Mouth and nose don’t match.’
‘But . . .’ Tarik’s face is almost on the screen. He sits back after a moment.
‘Eyes or mouth. Got to match at least one.’ I know we have six mothers in the image archive that will work better, but I’ll wait for him to ask me for help. I like to facilitate autonomy. In truth, none of us likes being told what to do.
‘Shit.’ Tarik throws the stylus onto the desk and gets up. His spine audibly cracks.
‘Twenty bucks to anyone who gets Kain to sing “I’m Just A Girl Who Can’t Say No”,’ says Mica, who seems to be coming around to the whole karaoke thing.
My intercom buzzes. ‘Tom, Kain would like to remind you that he’ll be in his office after you’ve finished with Mrs Bellamy,’ says Felicity, patiently.
‘No one comes back from Santa’s Ice Fortress,’ whispers Mica.
Tarik salutes as I leave.
*
Mrs Bellamy is here to receive her finished book. I try to get to the client handovers if I can, though it depends on the job. With some, I want to see the reaction to make sure we were on the money, especially for the riskier ones. Others feel too private to be a witness to, and I wish that we didn’t have to be there. I seem to be the only person who thinks this, however. I mentioned it to Rohan once; his response was that it was like going fishing, catching tuna and then flushing it down the toilet. (He’d had so many long blacks that morning, his blood was basically caffeine.)
Mrs Bellamy holds her book for a moment without opening it, long slim fingers quivering almost imperceptibly. She hasn’t taken off her coat. Ankles neatly crossed, sheened with black stockings.
There were no complex composites required for this book, just hours of brushing, a delicate historical shift.
Mrs Bellamy finally picks a page at random. It’s one of my favourites, where she’s sitting on a couch, very like she is now, holding her grandchild, as she has before. The only difference is that she used to be this baby’s grandfather.
The room is very, very quiet as she turns the pages. Rohan is leaning forward, waiting for a response. I’m sitting back, not wanting to force anything. It would be wrong to say that we’re more careful with one client over another, but jobs like this reinforce the fact that we’re working with people’s identities. Jobs like this are also the reason why a breach of the cloud could ruin us.
Finally she looks up and smiles, and I remember that despite the endless movie requests and revenge wedding albums, a lot of IF’s work feels genuinely worthwhile.
*
Kain, whose Catholic sensibilities make him slightly at sea when it comes to transgender clients, watches from the mezzanine as Felicity shows Mrs Bellamy out.
‘I never know what to say to them,’ he says as I come up the stairs.
‘Start by not referring to her as “them”,’ I say.
He frowns and herds me into his office. ‘We have a management problem.’
This is going to be great. ‘Because you implied that Mica’s ruined her marriage prospects by getting a tatt?’ I perch on the arm of a chair and watch him suppress the urge to tell me to get off it.
‘Well, she has. It looks terrible, a tattoo on a young woman. They’re p
ermanent, you know.’
‘No kidding.’
‘Anyway,’ Kain tears his glare away from my chair-ruining butt. ‘The problem is with you. You should be setting an example. Mica and Tarik are your employees, not your drinking buddies.’
‘They can be both, believe it or not. And Tarik doesn’t drink. You should know that.’
‘You’re just egging them on. I’m a manager here as, I might remind you, are you. Start acting like one.’
‘Is there a problem with the work?’
‘No, but you need to be more professional.’
‘Just like when you referred to Tarik as “you people”?’
‘I only meant –’
‘Just like when you said Mica had a rack you could rest a beer on?’ I get up, happy to remind him of the good six inches of difference in our height. ‘You might not remember that, but I do. And so does she.’
His face mottles to beetroot. ‘I was just joking.’
‘She didn’t find it particularly funny. Did you think you were being professional then?’
Kain looks stumped.
‘So until there’s actually a problem with the work, you don’t get to tell me to do anything.’ I open the door. ‘Try not to tell “Flick” she’s got an ass like a fine ham.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
In an attempt to expand my cooking repertoire, I have made an omelette. Actually, it turned into scrambled eggs when I tried to flip it over, but it began as an omelette, so I’m considering it a win. I may have a baffling occupation, but if I meet someone new, it would be good to have at least three things I can cook before they realise that’s as far as it goes.
Sophia could be vegetarian. Or vegan.
Perhaps I need to rethink the eggs.
Want company? Gen’s bored & I have to go out. Mum doesn’t waste valuable time on extra words, unless she’s doing a social media post about why olive oil is not the enemy.
When?
Tonight.
I chase bits of egg around my plate. Sure.
See you in 30.
Out of habit, I check my email. New briefs, five messages from Kain that I don’t bother to open (sample subject: COFFEE CUPS STILL IN SINK), and more images from Mica and the archives. Two new backgrounds and a bonus picture of Sophia. She’s sitting in a window seat, wrapped in a grey hoodie, leaning forward with her hands in her lap. Over her shoulder out the window, I can see the edge of a distinctive metal shape. Beyond that, several blocks away, is the roof of the Art Deco cinema, which was restored a few months ago. I drop my fork. I know that apartment block. It’s covered with a facade of steel leaves; there’s nothing else like it.
I abandon the eggs and go to the study. There are shots of Sophia in different rooms, but I never considered that they could be connected. I scour them like a crime scene. The walls are the same, as is the quality of the light. A battered watch she’s wearing in one photo reappears in the background on the bedside table in another photo. The volume of poetry she was reading sits on a low shelf in a separate shot. The Superman pyjamas can be seen folded on a chair in the fourth photo, the Ramones T-shirt hanging in the wardrobe. I match the tiny things that she’d use every day. It’s not a studio or borrowed space, it’s her actual apartment.
She is literally just a few streets away.
Gen mooches around the kitchen, opening and shutting cupboards. She’s wearing the Cramps T-shirt I got her for Christmas a few years ago. It was huge back then, but fits her now. She’s almost as tall as Mum, not that Mum is tall, but it’s another way Gen can irritate her.
‘You haven’t got any food.’
By ‘food’, she means ‘chips’.
‘There’s stuff in the fridge.’
‘Yoghurt. Bleargh. Can’t believe you eat yoghurt.’
‘There are carrots in the crisper.’
She stops texting to give me the same look she gives Mum when Mum’s trying to push apples as a viable dessert option.
I’m also on my phone, looking up pictures of Sophia’s building. But even if I’ve discovered where she lives, now what? Do I just hang around and hope to bump into her? Run endless loops around the block? Take time off work and sit out the front? Wait, that’s stalking. Or is it? I’m about to google whether sitting vigil outside someone’s place constitutes stalking when I realise that if I have to look it up, it probably is. If only I could head out for a run now, just in case . . . But I can’t, now Gen’s here. Fuckity fuck fuck. I sigh. One more day won’t hurt.
‘So what’s Mum doing tonight?’ I say.
Gen rolls her eyes. ‘Girls’ night. She’s like all dressed up. Even heels.’
‘Where’s Dad?’
‘Perth on some conference or whatever.’
Having exhausted the kitchen, Gen slouches into the lounge room and examines the remote control because it’s not like we can actually have a conversation and I’ve just realised I sound like my mum please kill me.
‘Do you want to watch something?’
‘Yeah, something intellectual.’ Gen looks lofty.
‘How about Long Dull Conversations with Alain de Botton?’
‘Who?’
‘Philosopher. Big on Proust.’
‘Who?’
I put on a Bowie CD instead.
Gen leans over the back of the couch and chews her gum in time to ‘Fame’. She checks her phone again. It’s becoming a tic. ‘Why don’t you have streaming TV?’
‘I have no idea how to set it up.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be good with that kind of stuff?’
‘Being good with graphics doesn’t mean I’m good with other things. I wouldn’t know code if it bit me in the ass.’
‘I could teach you.’ Gen bounces on the cushions. ‘I’m first in my year for Computer-Aided Design.’ She flops down on her back and starts flicking through my current piece book, examining the sketches that haven’t yet formed into pictures.
I begin trying to prise a bag of peas out of the freezer and hear my phone ping.
‘What’s “I got Kain” mean?’ calls Gen.
‘What?’
Gen’s arm extends above the back of the couch, my phone on the flat of the palm like she’s feeding an apple to a horse. ‘You’ve got a message from Mica saying I got Kain FMD.’
‘It’s a work thing.’ My Kris Kringle recipient ended up being Alex. I have no idea what to get him. Does a laptop brush cost less than ten dollars? Moreover, does a laptop brush actually exist?
‘Hey, what’s culture jamming?’ says Gen.
‘Anti-advertising. Sort of.’
‘Is that like those old flash mob things?’
‘Less public dancing, more graffitiing billboards. You’re essentially puncturing an established idea.’
‘Is that what you do?’
‘I don’t make public statements, so no.’
‘I like this one.’ She holds up a sketch. ‘It’s cool. Have you painted it? Can we go see it?’
I stop prising and look at what she’s found. ‘I’m doing it this weekend.’
‘Why not now? Let’s do it now!’ Gen closes the piece book and rolls off the couch.
‘I thought you were hungry.’
She’s already zipping up her jacket. ‘Duh, I’m always hungry.’
At Gen’s insistence, I take her on an art tour on the way to the intended site. We skulk – she prefers skulking to walking – down side streets, along stretches of warehouse walls and up alleyways. My pieces tend to have a good run, mostly because they’re small and not in high-traffic areas. Tom’s private gallery collection. A mob of avocados armed with tiny axes, climbing up a drainpipe into a vegetarian cafe to avenge their fallen brothers. Hopscotch by the school, with the numbers out of order. The row of otters who watch the fishmonger from across the road, paws steepled and whiskers pricked.
‘Did you know a group of otters is called a romp?’ says Gen, jumping off a bench.
The mouth of the next alleyway breathe
s the scent of noodles and star anise, then shifts to dark and sugary beef from the slow-cook joint a few doors down. In a window surrounded by graffiti, a dishwasher works between stacks of nutmeg-coloured plates, his sweat-beaded hairline matching the condensation inside the glass.
We come to the piece that June ruined with her early morning phone call. The wall with missing bricks, transformed into a Space Invaders game, marked with red overspray. Gen doesn’t notice the mistake, but I do. Seeing it again provides some evidence at least that I made the right choice instead of a monumental fuck-up.
We head left at the drycleaner and down the cobblestones towards a tailor, the after-hours shop sign lit in neon. The tailor has a cat that spends most of its time snoozing in its window. Thanks to me, it now sleeps next to its portrait on the wall, fluorescent pink to match the sign.
Gen traces the paint with her fingers. ‘Who’s it for?’
‘The owner.’
‘It’s a present.’
‘I guess.’
‘But he doesn’t know it’s from you.’
‘None of them do.’
‘So why do you do it?’
I shrug. ‘Something nice, I guess.’
‘Random acts of art,’ says Gen, straightening up. ‘I wish I could do that.’
‘Nothing stopping you.’
‘You won’t let me use your cutters.’
‘You bled all over the floor, remember? Mum thought you were self-harming.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Gen says. She tucks her hands inside her jacket. ‘She doesn’t know what you do, does she?’
‘Just you and Mica.’
‘June didn’t know? For real?’
‘No,’ I admit.
‘It’s weird you didn’t tell her. I guess that’s why you broke up, huh.’ She bounces a few steps without waiting for an answer. ‘So where are we going?’
‘Not far.’
Against the rising breeze, paper lanterns cast shadows that stretch and bend. Girls hug their bags to their chests. My backpack keeps the worst of the wind off, but we could have picked a better night to do this. Then again, it’s Melbourne in June; there’s never really a good time to be outside.
We pass by Sophia’s building. I don’t exactly expect to find her by the front door doing hip flexor stretches, but I check just in case. Gen doesn’t notice me swivelling; she’s too busy looking up at the fairy lights strung over the trees, texting or skipping on and off the footpath.