Challenge Accepted!

by Celeste Barber

  I lost my virginity at seventeen with my second serious boyfriend, who had as much hair on his back as he did his head. He was a footballer and a super-sensitive soul. He would cry if we had a fight and cry just as much if I told him I didn’t like parsley. We were together for three emotional years but never planned our wedding.

  I was the wingwoman at school. The go-between.

  Year 9

  Guy: Hey, Barber, can you go and ask Karen if she wants to sit with me on the way to the bird sanctuary?

  Me: I thought we were going to sit together. I’ve got a heap of new gags I’m working on.

  Guy: Nah, not today, mate. I want to feel Karen up on the way.

  Me: Sweet! I so didn’t want to sit next to you on that dumb bus anyway.

  Guy: Oh, and ask her if she wants me to spit my gum out before we pash this time. [Pash is Australian for “make out.” Let me put it in a sentence: “I totally pashed Tom Ford.” I hope that clears it up for you.]

  Me: Yep, of course I will ask her that; that seems like an awesome and considerate question. FYI, if I was pashing a guy like you, I would totally be fine with you doing whatever you want with your gum.

  Guy: What?

  Me: What?

  At first I was totally cool with this role. I knew my place, I knew my worth, and I knew my sexual appeal, and I was very happy with all of it. Until I wasn’t.

  Year 10

  Me: Um, can you start getting someone else to ask her this stuff? I feel weird doing it.

  Guy: Why?

  Me: I don’t know, maybe I don’t want to be your go-between girl anymore.

  Guy: What are you talking about?

  Me: Well . . .

  Guy: You’re not my go-between girl.

  Me: Thanks.

  Guy: You’re like a brother to me.

  Me: Awesome.

  When guys started paying attention to me, it was a whole other level.

  It took a while. I like to wear people down over years with my subtle sexuality. And anyway, going from average brother-type friend to pageant beauty overnight can only happen to one girl per school, and Kimberly Hardcastle was the queen on that throne. Seriously, she went home one day with her nondescript mousy-brown hair and came back the next morning with platinum-blonde locks and a fringe that you could surf under, and her boobs did everything mine wouldn’t—they pointed forward. It truly was an awakening for all of us. Well done, Kimberly.

  If a guy was into me, it wasn’t an overnight thing. He wouldn’t wake up one morning and think, “Shit, Celeste! Oh God, it’s always been Celeste, she has been in front of me this whole time and I didn’t even realize. Wow, the way her monobrow joins in an unintimidating way, the way her double cowlicks really accentuate her small mouth—this is everything I’ve wanted when taking a lover.” No, those weren’t my teenage experiences.

  When guys started paying attention to me, I didn’t know how to behave or what it really meant. I thought that playing hard to get was the answer, as I saw pretty bikini models do that and I figured I’d follow suit. Turns out that the way pretty girls teased surfer boys was fun and flirtatious.

  Surfer Boy: Hey, wanna go to the beach this arvo after school? [“Arvo” is horny surfer-speak for “afternoon.”]

  Pretty Girl: Um, I’m not sure. I think Cindi and I are going bikini shopping.

  SB: Oh, sweet, I’ll come and help you try on the swimmers if you want?

  PG: Why would I want that? (Cute giggle, flicks hair.)

  SB: You want an honest opinion, right?

  PG: Well, I’m just going to go with Cindi and I might meet you at the beach later, and you can give me your opinion then.

  Done, afternoon sorted.

  When I would offer up my idea of flirtatious hard-to-get banter, it wasn’t received so well.

  Year 12

  Surfer Boy: Oi, Barber, can I get a lift to the beach?

  Me: Fuck yeah. I just have to sort out my tampon first.

  SB: That’s gross.

  Me: Gross or kind of kinky? (Flicks hair, which is caught in mouth.)

  SB: No, it’s just fucking gross.

  Me: Well, if you wanted to give me a hand with it, I could change your mind.

  SB: Jesus, Barber, what’s wrong with you?

  Me: Want to watch me try on bikinis?

  SB: You’re weirding me out.

  Me: Sorry, I’ll just wear a pad.

  This all changed when I met my husband. I went from Liz Lemon to Amber Rose in only ten short years.

  I met #hothusband fifteen years ago. I was twenty-one and working at Dick’s Hotel in Balmain and living in Kings Cross.

  I had the greatest studio apartment in the Cross. It was big enough for a bedroom, a lounge room, and a dining area. If I’d put a wall up, it would have been a good-size one-bedroom apartment, and it was $115 a week, motherfuckers! That’s how much I pay to park at Bondi Beach for two hours these days.

  It was the best. I loved to just sit on my green velvet couch and watch Friends on my microwave-size TV while listening to junkies outside my window complain about the price of ice cream.

  Dick’s was on the other side of the city from where I lived. I’d get there around 3:00 p.m. for my 3:30 p.m. shift. I liked getting there early, as the kitchen usually had food left over from the lunch service, and I would help them with the scraps; I have always been charitable like that.

  I mainly did night shifts, but on this day I had decided to do the double shift. And thank God I did.

  Api walked in around lunchtime, and as soon as I saw him I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Holy shit, he was beautiful. HOLY SHIT.

  We looked at each other and smiled, and all the feelings that I experienced while watching Wild Things alone in my studio, I was feeling in that moment in that pub.

  I was in the middle of pouring Trevor the local drunkard’s beer (a half pint of Carlton that was $3.50 and Trevor would always, ALWAYS complain that I didn’t give him enough change from the $3.20 he gave me. Fuck, Trevor! Get your life together!) when he walked in.

  Api was wearing head-to-toe cheesecloth and had dreadlocks in a perfect Posh Spice bob circa 1998, and his smile—Jesus, that bloody smile—with his perfect teeth and his stupid sparkly eyes, I knew I was screwed. Well, fingers crossed. He smiled at me again, and I threw Trevor’s half-poured beer at him with a “don’t fuck this up for me, mate” look and got busy.

  Api’s cousin Craig was a local and would come into the pub most afternoons after work. He was dating one of the other girls who worked there and was always a good laugh.

  Dick’s was an old workers’ pub and really lived up to its name (a name that I had embroidered across my breasts). The majority of the clientele were over Trevor’s age and would be drinking in the pub when we opened at 10:00 a.m. They would leave only when their wives or children called looking for them, around dinnertime (sad face emoji).

  So Craig was a welcome relief; he was fun and had an awesome sense of humor, and we got along well.

  The weekend I met Api, he and Craig were on a bender. Just to clarify: he wasn’t on a big night out with the boys or just having hair of the dog to get through the next day. No, he was on a full-blown bender. And after seeing Api, my main aim in life was to get caught up in the bending.

  So it was on. I flirted with this Maori Adonis like it was my job and my Rent. Was. Due.

  Every time the staff had to collect empty beer glasses from the tables—a job people hated doing—I would put my hand up to do it. Any excuse to be close to him, flirt with him, brush up against him, prevent him from stumbling over, I’d take it.

  Turns out I wasn’t the only one wanting a piece of this hot magical unicorn.

  I was twenty-one and had a fight on my hands, as there was a group of women a lot older than me, around thirty-six, with my prey in their sights. One of them came up to me at the bar, ordered a vodka, and said through clenched teeth: “Step off, little one, this one’s mine.” I felt bad for them: they were a
t an old workers’ pub looking for husbands, and as soon as Api walked in it was fucking hunting season and they were in heat. Weren’t we all.

  I usually get intimidated by people who are so much older than me, because getting old is hard, but these bitches didn’t know what they were messing with. I was a horny twenty-one-year-old with a Halle Berry haircut (the short one) who had been funny her whole life and never been sexually desired by a sexy man before, so they could just fuck right off. #feminism.

  After the verbal warning from Denise, she and her friends Brenda, Carol, and Margo all went to town on him. There was gyrating, hair flicking in his general direction, and a lot of over-the-top laughing at his terrible slurred jokes. (I fucking love my husband, but calm down, ladies; he’s hot, he’s not Will Ferrell.) Like any warm-blooded human with fifty gallons of alcohol and God-knows-what-else in his system, he was playing up to their advances. Yep, my future husband was a stripper pole, and I was more than happy to watch the show. But the romance wasn’t lost: while he was playing up to the blue-rinse section’s advances, he made sure to involve me.

  He came over to me, and while I gave him his fifteenth shot of vodka (on the house), he grabbed the tip jar. With a cheeky grin, he walked back over to the seniors set and announced in a loud voice to his audience: “If you ladies give me five dollars, I’ll lift my shirt up.” With that, fifty dollars’ worth of five-dollar notes went flying into the tip jar. MY TIP JAR. He was getting ME tips. I didn’t care if he was getting me gonorrhea, he winked at me as he lifted his shirt and I was caught hook, line, and sinker.

  I’m not great around guys I’m interested in. I get weird, I insult them and play hard to get, not successfully. Unfortunately I completely buy into the stereotype that you gotta treat them mean to keep them keen. I keep hoping insults and general derogatory remarks about their pimply faces are what will win them over. However, turns out when you’re average-looking and a bit frigid, this doesn’t cut it. This attitude doesn’t get you the desired result, especially on the Gold Coast when surrounded by surfers and footballers.

  But with this guy, this future #hothusband, it was different. After my shift I kicked out the hopeful future ex-wives club, and Api and Craig stuck around to help clean up. I changed out of my uniform and into a casual cutoff denim skirt, tan suede boots with a wedge that came just over the knee, and a satin khaki singlet top with cream fringing around the bust. Hello, early 2000s; it was a look that made #hothusband say in later years that when he saw me dressed like that he knew I must have been a confident lass. Api and I hadn’t had a real conversation, but earlier in the night he was showing his lady friends his nipples to get me tips and was smiling at me a whole heap, so in horny twenty-one-year-old-speak this meant we were married.

  We headed off to the local shit pub that was open later than the shit pub I was working in. I ordered two Malibu and pineapple juices, skulled them both in an attempt to catch up, and channeled my inner Beyoncé (“skulled” is “chugged”—please take note of this as I seem to talk about skulling/chugging a lot of things).

  I went up to him, lifted his head, which was resting on the wall while he was dancing, and said, “You’ll be coming home with me tonight.”

  Yes, I fucking did, I said those words, you guys. Just straight to his beautiful face. There was no awkward talk about tampons. No jokes about how hot people don’t need to try to be good in bed—they don’t have to try to be good at anything else, so why start in the bedroom? Just straight to the point, super sexy and super cool.

  He loved it, kissed me hard on my mouth, and we sashayed away together.

  As they say, the rest is history, only it isn’t.

  The next day, as he was leaving my house, DAYUM!

  We exchanged numbers—well, I gave him my number, but he decided to give me the wrong number because he was still drunk from the night before and couldn’t remember his name, let alone ten specific numbers (well, that’s what he tells me anyway). Lucky he’s pretty, and lucky he called me two days later and we arranged to meet up again.

  He was living with his two daughters week on, week off, six hours north of me. So the weeks he wasn’t with the girls he would come down to Sydney for a week of work and Celeste. It was great.

  We kept the long distance going for eighteen months, and when his situation changed with the girls, he ended up coming to Sydney and moving in with me.

  It was the first time I had ever lived with a boyfriend, and I was super excited at the idea of him coming home to my house whenever he wanted and that he would even have his own key.

  I had it all sorted out: I was going to be a fun aunty and evil stepmum for the rest of time. I was never going to have kids, no sirree Bob! It’s not like I didn’t want them; I just didn’t think I’d be very good at the whole mothering thing and therefore thought not having them was the answer. I wanted to focus on my career and never damage my perfect size 14 physique. But sometimes the universe and heaps of unprotected sex with Api have different plans for you.

  I was living in Bondi with my best friend Jo when I found out I was pregnant with my first son, Lou. Api and I weren’t technically together at the time; we were on a break and it was hard. I loved him so much, but our lives were so different. We had been together for seven years, and after living together for four of them, the situation with his daughters changed and he needed to be with them full-time, so he moved away to be with them. I really wanted to get my career cracking, so after three years of long distance, we broke up and it broke our hearts.

  I had just got back from a month in America trying to get some shit happening with my career. I cried every day I was over there, missing Api and sad I wasn’t coming home to him.

  The day before I went to America, Api and his little brother, Zac, were given bravery awards by the Governor General for saving their friend’s life after he fell from a cliff. It was such a special day. Even though Api and I weren’t together, his mum wanted me there, as I was still “family,” and didn’t I weasel my way back into that family. The day the bravery award was issued to the Robin boys, Api got me nice and pregnant.

  The day I found out, I hadn’t had my period for six weeks but just put it down to my body adjusting to life in Bondi, where one must appear undernourished enough that one forgets to bleed.

  Turns out that wasn’t the case.

  Before the urine hit the stick there were two bright-red lines screaming: “YOU’RE PREGNANT, WOMAN!”

  What?!?! WHAT!? Pregnant? But I couldn’t be. I mean, sure, every time Api and I would see each other we would cry about how much we missed each other over three bottles of wine, naked. But I’m not meant to be pregnant! Am I?? AM I?!? I walked out of the bathroom in Jo’s and my tiny, crappy apartment with carpet that smelled like cat urine, kicked open Jo’s bedroom door, and screamed at her: “I’M FUCKING PREGNANT.”

  Without missing a beat she got up and started jumping up and down, singing, “We’re having a baby! We’re having a baby!”

  I was happy she was stoked, because I was numb.

  I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know what to do. So, in classic Jo Cash fashion she got busy and looked after me. She told me to lie down while she made me banana and honey on toast, rubbed my feet, and booked me a doctor’s appointment. And like the perfect friend she was, she said she would go with me to the appointment. But as I had just finished watching back-to-back Sex and the City episodes on the flight back from America, I thought as a sign of independence, I should do everything on my own. Dumb pregnant feminist.

  Api had gone back home, and I knew I had to tell him but I was scared. I was more scared about telling him than I was about telling my parents. (In my mind I’m seventeen and still living at home with my mum and dad, asking if it’s OK to finish off the last bit of milk.)

  I called him, and it was horrible. It’s one of my big regrets in life.

  I’m not someone who lives without regrets. I know it’s something that some people wear as a badge of honor,
“living a life without regrets,” but I’m not one of those people. I have a list of them.

  I regret not going and visiting my sister when my niece was first born and was in the hospital for the first twenty days of her life with a rare lung disease.

  I regret not working harder when I was younger at being an extra on Friends.

  I regret leaving Sydney during the 2000 Summer Olympics because “Sydney can’t handle peak-hour traffic so I don’t know how it expects to handle hundreds of thousands of people descending on it for two weeks.” Turns out it was “the best Olympics ever,” a fact that my dad never lets me forget.

  I regret some of the ways I treated my stepdaughters when they were younger and needed me to be better for them.

  I regret not backing myself when I was younger and some boys didn’t laugh at my jokes because I wasn’t fuckable.

  I regret not asking Thomas to be in my bridal party.

  I regret the way I told Api I was pregnant with our first boy. I don’t regret having regrets. I don’t see them as things I should be ashamed of; they are things that make me work on decisions I make in the future. Next time my sister calls me and says she needs me, I’ll be there. I’m consciously trying to be a better stepmum, friend, and role model to my stepgirls. When Api and I renew our vows, Thomas will be front and center, and I’m currently working toward a guest role on the rebooted Will and Grace.

  And when I told Api I was pregnant with our second boy, it was such a lovely time. My beautiful friend Nic and I went to the local shopping center to get a pregnancy test. I wanted to go straight to the public toilet to do the test when Nic proclaimed, “No, no, we’re not sixteen.” So she drove me home; I peed on the stick, ran out of the toilet, told Nic; we jumped and hugged, then told Api, who poured himself and Nic a very large glass of something while I proceeded to eat the contents of the house.

  See? Progress!

  But the first time round, I called Api and screamed down the phone that I was pregnant and that I was obviously not going to keep it!