Love You Two

by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli

  We sit quietly. I think everyone’s wondering ‘what now?’, until the back screen door slams, which makes me jump. Another familiar voice yells out, and I want to hide behind the lounge. But the voice is less confident, less acted, than what I’m used to.

  ‘It’s only me.’ She walks in, carrying two heavy supermarket shopping bags, one of food in Tupperware containers, and another with her clothes. For a long second, before she realises I’m there, I see who she really is. I see what she wears and how little she paints her face when she doesn’t have to perform. I see that she’s actually so much smaller without the high heels and the haughty chin.

  Then she sees me. ‘Oh my God!’ Her face goes pale, and she scrambles to find her tough look, her body armour, and that ‘whatever’ attitude. But there’s no make-up to chisel her features. There’s no tight jeans and tight top to display her body in. She tries to raise those sassy shoulders and push out those breasts and hips, but she’s wearing baggy pants and t-shirt, so she just looks incongruously discomforted. Who she’s pretended to be for years with me won’t come, not here, not now. ‘What are you bloody doin’ here?’ But even that wog-chick intimidator act doesn’t work.

  ‘It’s okay, Rosie.’

  She searches manically for a bench or table to put the bags onto. She finds some space on the coffee table, dumps the bags, and glares at her mother. I get the feeling the defiance is more for my benefit.

  ‘I’m just dropping off food from Nonna since you didn’t even bother to have Christmas with us. I’m not staying.’ She turns to me. ‘Don’t get the wrong idea. I avoid this hole.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask.

  ‘As if!’ she shouts, and is about to head to the front door.

  ‘Rosie,’ her mum calls wearily, as if she’s been dealing with this for way too long. ‘You know I’ve told Nonna that after all these years, if she’s not going to invite Serena, then I won’t go either. If she can still invite her ex son-in-law and his new wife, she can invite me, her own daughter, and my partner.’ Elvira sighs. ‘Please, Rosie, please sit down and chat with your friends. Get them a Pepsi or something. I don’t get to see Pina often any more and I’m so happy she’s here.’

  Rosie turns to me again, an arm extended, pointing out her mother as if pointing out a dead mouse the cat dumped on the lounge. ‘Pina, this is my mother. You’re seeing her for real now.’ She extends that arm towards Laura, with the old smirk blending with a resigned curl of the lip. ‘This is my sort-of stepsister.’ She nudges her head towards Serena but continues to look at me. ‘She did this. And I have to live with it.’ She glares at me. ‘I’m working hard not to become a dyke like her, or let her ruin my life.’

  ‘Rosie, it’s obvious you like guys,’ I say with a smile. Now I understand your obsession with them, I want to add.

  But her mum’s thinking the same thing. ‘Yes, Vic and those before, and I dare say, the multitude that’ll come after, are a bit of a litmus test,’ Elvira says with a wry smile. ‘The proof of her heterosexuality. Although why she’s so insecure about it, I don’t know.’

  ‘Mum, just cool it, okay!’ she yells. ‘I don’t want anyone at school thinking I’m not straight, because of you. Pina, don’t you dare blab about her at school.’

  ‘Hey Ro, I got enough stuff I don’t want blabbed about my family at school.’

  She looks at me dubiously. ‘What shit can stink and stick more than this?’

  ‘Can we go somewhere and talk?’ Laura says with a smile. ‘Our mothers are very quiet which means they’re listening out for all the goss.’

  The women laugh. Serena adds, ‘Say hi to your mum and Elena for me, Pina. You know, we used to go to high school together. A good Catholic girls’ school. Look how we turned out. Maybe keeping us away from boys wasn’t such a good idea.’ Elvira gives her a playful shove.

  We all laugh, except Rosie, who rolls her eyes and mutters, ‘So sick.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ I reply, ignoring Rosie. ‘Mum’s told me about you, sporty Elvira, throwing javelins, jumping hurdles.’

  Serena shrieks with laughter, then shakes her head, her greying brown hair flicking about. Elvira strokes her hair. Her own hair is long and dark, and I’m reminded of where Rosie got her black eyeliner, thick mascara and red lippy fetish.

  ‘Your mum’s the only Italian chick that guessed I wasn’t straight, even when I got pregnant after my one attempt. She and Elena stuck by me back in those days. This Italian chick,’ and Serena caresses Rosie’s mum, ‘also knew I wasn’t straight, knew I went to all the weddings and funerals and church festas just to see her, but it took her years of marriage to an Italian Rocky wannabe before she followed her feelings.’

  Rosie rolls her eyes again and looks away from the cuddle that follows between the two women. ‘I’m meeting Lisa in an hour, so I’m outta here,’ she announces, stepping back towards the door with her bag of clothes. ‘Her parents made up again yesterday but she wants to get out of the house because today they’ll be back to normal.’ She glares at the women. ‘You know, normal.’

  ‘Ah, normal,’ Elvira says. ‘As in domestic violence, cheating, that kind of normal.’

  Rosie’s about to shout back when I interrupt. ‘Let’s go meet her. It’ll be good for all of us to chat.’ I take Rosie’s arm. ‘Come on, I haven’t done the Giuzy cruise down Rundle Street for a while. I’m hanging out to see all the Marios.’

  After Rosie’s spent ages in Laura’s room putting her street-chick self together, we head into town in Laura’s car to our fave Italian pizza and gelati café. It’s in Rundle Street East where most Italian kids from all over Adelaide congregate to stare, flirt, goss and trash each other. We don’t say much in the car, but from the way Rosie and Laura exchange some info about Christmas, itineraries and so on without Rosie’s usual abuse of Laura, I figure I’m not the only one who’s been regularly seeing Laura on the side. In fact, sounds like these two share a home half the time.

  I get my favourite pistachio ice-cream. Rosie has her strong black coffee, Laura asks for a double scoop of mango. We watch the passing parade of Giuzys and Marios, the former with hipsters getting lower, the latter with muscle t-shirts getting tighter.

  When Lisa arrives, she squeals with surprise at seeing all of us, does this long confused stare at Laura, then at Rosie with a ‘what’s going on’ look, and then orders a strong macchiato. Her mother cooked up a storm for over thirty rellies yesterday and Lisa’s feeling too fat, but will help herself to spoonfuls of our gelati. Which she does so often we begin to swordfight her teaspoon away every time we see it approaching.

  Lisa keeps grinning at me, this cool runaway who goes all the way to Melbourne after the Scott-sex saga. She also seems a little more at ease with her mum and dad.

  ‘I’ll never figure them out. I keep telling them to get divorced, and I’ll handle the nonni. But yesterday they were all over each other and said they couldn’t live without each other. He even helped her stuff the two turkeys and whip the cream for the tiramisu. And then she fed him some at lunch while my nonni asked them to please control themselves in front of the children. That’s us, the children. I mean, Jesus, who would they fight with? They called each other passionate wogs yesterday: hot-tempered and just plain hot, Dad said. Then he promised – again – to give up his screwing around. He even went to confession and Christmas Eve midnight mass with Mum and the nonni. That’s an effort, even if he did fall asleep and Mum had to shake him ’cos he was snoring. Christmas day morning, Mum promised she’d never be suspicious of him again. Then this morning, the first phone call he takes she’s hovering there, poking him in the ribs wanting to know. Then he’s off the phone and he’s pissed off at her for poking him. And it begins. Jesus!’ Lisa goes to pull her hair out but then realises some cute guys are watching us through the window from a table outside, making us out somehow through the smoke of their cigarettes and the haze of the dirty window. So she smooths it out instead. ‘So what brings Laura and Pina here?’ she as
ks Rosie.

  It’s a bit like a confession tournament. Lisa’s eyes are wide when Rosie declares her somewhat reluctant sisterhood with Laura. I’m wondering if they’ll actually pop out when I tell her my news. But instead of answering the thousands of questions Lisa has about the set-up, Rosie announces she’s over Vic and is wondering if that’s the first symptom of turning gay, no longer finding a hottie so hot any more, nor wanting to have sex with him. Laura assures her you can’t catch ‘gayness’ – look at her and Tim – and maybe sex with Vic has never been so ‘hot’ anyway.

  Then they look at me, my heart pounds, and I’m about to swing my closet door wide open when Lisa points behind me. ‘Hey Pina, your mum’s walked in with that teacher dude who’s always hanging around your family.’

  Perfect timing. Mum and her strega magic at work again. I turn around and there’s Mum and Nathan looking very serious, exchanging a few words, ordering coffees at the counter, then heading for a table. They sit, heads down, talking quietly. Trust Mum to be hanging out at this joint, just like she wanted to when she was our age but was never allowed to.

  ‘We should go over and say Merry Christmas,’ Laura says.

  Obviously they don’t see it. But surely they must be able to hear my heart and see the clammy sweat glisten on my palms and forehead.

  ‘Your mum looks unhappy. She must be telling him about the divorce,’ Rosie says. ‘And if your parents are getting divorced, then there’s no hope for anyone.’

  ‘They’re not getting divorced. Far from it.’ But I don’t know how to proceed from there. I want them to keep seeing Mum like this because, well, this is Mum, but …

  Lisa points her spoon in their direction and contemplates, ‘You know, if my dad caught my mum sitting close to another man like that, they’d be throwing things till we’d had to call in a demolition team to take away the wreckage!’

  She’s cleared a little path for me. I take a deep breath, feel like I’m going to faint. The objects of my announcement are even conveniently nearby, providing the visual prompt and exhibit. But the words that could follow, that I have scripted and rehearsed all morning, that I deliberately came here with my best friends to declare, just can’t get said: ‘My dad knows they’re more than friends. He loves her. So does Nathan. And my mum loves them both.’

  What would happen? I’d have to push my ice-cream cup under Lisa’s eye sockets to catch them spurting out, and buy her a dozen packs of cigarettes to calm her down. Rosie would sit there, her head turning from me to Mum and Nat several times like one of those sideshow clowns whose mouths you throw balls into – although her mouth would be pursed with disgust and fury. Laura would look confused. I remember her thinking this was impossible. Now there it is in front of her, so being the logical Laura, she’d be working on matching the reality with its impossibility.

  I take another deep breath and sit back, fascinated to hear what will come out of me now. ‘All’s cool again. My parentals worked it out.’

  I can’t tell them, not yet. It’s too much just seeing my mum and Nat together, and too much also knowing why they look so serious and so sad. Then trying to explain, answer their questions, battle the ingrained stereotypes … too much hard work.

  ‘Told ya,’ Rosie says. ‘Your mum would never cheat.’

  My friends’ eyes wander casually to my mum and Nat, then back to some ‘hotties’ outside.

  ‘No, she wouldn’t,’ I say. At least that’s a truth.

  ‘Let’s go say hello to her,’ Laura says. ‘I don’t like her looking so sad. She doesn’t deserve not to smile when she’s a smile incarnate for the world.’ The others groan at the Laura-ism as they stand.

  I stand up too, scraping my chair noisily in the hope that Mum will turn around and see us. I hope my eyes tell her that they don’t know and to play it cool.

  Now they’re chatting to my mum, who breaks into her usual grin, gushing her hellos and how-are-yous, asking about their mums and their holidays. Now and again she looks at me and figures out they have no idea. But even if they did, this is how my mum would be with them anyway.

  Nat spends a lot of the time looking at me, smiling sadly, shyly, gratefully, while fielding jokes from my friends about what teachers find to do with themselves when they’re on holidays away from ‘the little cherubs’. I smile back, fighting the awkwardness hovering so thickly between him and me.

  ‘I got a present for you from the St Kilda markets –’ and then my voice sticks.

  He nods and his face lightens a little. ‘Thank you. I have a present for you too. I’ll get it to you. Good to see you again.’

  ‘Yeah …’

  Mum rescues me. ‘Well, I know you’ve got more exciting things to do than humour us olds, so off you go.’ She waves a hand towards the café entrance to where the boys are hanging out.

  The usual passeggiata down the street with my closest friends, closer now and yet further apart, the closet doors swinging open and shut like Western cowboy saloon doors. Even Rosie’s been outed about her mum and she can start liking Laura again. But I still can’t share my secret. So this is kind of what Mum’s been going through for years. Afraid of losing more than you’ll find.

  Rosie’s nudging us not so subtly, smiling flirtatiously but mockingly at a gang of guys who, possessively, supposedly alluringly, are lounging all over a fiery red Ferrari. They stare back at her with what’s meant to be a studly smile. ‘There’s a few potential hook-ups in that lot,’ she says as we walk by.

  ‘For sure,’ Lisa agrees, almost salivating. ‘Which one do you want?’ She tries to light a cigarette with elegant sassiness, blowing the smoke back towards the guys, only to have the breeze blow it back in her face.

  ‘All of them,’ Rosie replies matter-of-factly, and they burst into giggles. They look back to see if they’re still being watched, which they are.

  ‘Well, you can’t have all of them, you bitch. Choose one and leave some for us,’ Lisa teases, tugging her skinny jeans even lower on her hips.

  Should I say something now that the mood’s so light?

  ‘I’m with Tim so leave me out of this. I’m not messing up with my boyfriend,’ Laura says.

  I smile at her even as my tiny bit of courage evaporates and my closet door swings shut.

  Rosie shoves her playfully. ‘I actually don’t want any right now, thanks very much. Vic’s put me off for a while. Too much work with guys who are still so immature. They think with their dicks and have no balls. Anyway, I figure if I actually get through Year Twelve, I may get to uni and meet a higher quality of male species. Like your skippy medical boy, Sister Laura who hangs out with the lesbians in the lounge room, one of whom is my mother.’

  We laugh. ‘Rosie, some skip boys aren’t any better. Look at my Scott episode.’ This return of our foursome makes me feel better and it makes me feel worse. Rosie can now joke about her mum ’cos it’s out there, said and accepted.

  ‘And uni boys aren’t necessarily nicer to women. Some of my medical boy’s mates have a lot to learn about women, and it’s not in their anatomy texts,’ adds Laura.

  ‘Well, they’re not learning with us, thank you,’ Lisa declares. She puts her arm through Rosie’s, who then puts her arm through Laura’s, who then puts her arm through mine. We’re taking up the whole footpath which means some of the boys strutting our way have to go around us. Lisa says, ‘I feel like I’m in a street scene from Sex and the City!’

  ‘Honey, this is country town Adelaide and not New York,’ Rosie reminds her.

  ‘When I was in the big smoke, Melbourne, I actually met two hotties,’ I say. I begin to tell them about Ralph and Andrew, because there’s so much else I can’t say today, or because this could be a way in.

  ‘So who you gonna choose?’ Lisa asks.

  ‘Don’t know.’ Maybe one day I’ll tell them. Maybe soon.

  ‘You have to choose one.’

  ‘I most likely will. Or maybe neither. But maybe even both. What would it matter to
you lot anyway?’ Maybe I can begin sussing them out, preparing them, with these kinds of stirs and scenarios.

  So, the afternoon is brilliantly lit with sunshine and laughter, questions and curiosity, as I share what I can share for now of my adventures in Melbourne.

  26

  A New Year and old school baggage

  WHO’S THAT WRITER MY MUM has pinned to her corner of the study – Audre Lorde? ‘My eyes are open now, I see clearly and they hurt.’ That’s what I’m thinking as I unpack my old schoolbag into my new locker.

  My maths book takes up most of my locker. All those calculations where there’s a right and wrong answer. You know if you work through some formulae, you’ll get to this unambiguous thing called the ‘solution’. Did I learn the ‘solution’ over summer? I learned that what we’re taught at school is like the frame of a jigsaw meant to contain a picture, but life spills over, has many borders. And if people could only be honest, their life’s pictures wouldn’t have so many missing pieces.

  Teachers walk by with a post-holiday lack of stress. They wear less obvious uniforms than the students. I wonder what interiors, truths and secrets teachers leave behind when they walk through the school gates?

  My own truths are only slowly emerging. I’ve an inner sense of release and peace, despite it seeming that every moment of every day will require a decision about how wide to open the doors of my closet. At school, my brother’s ribs were almost broken because he refused to break. At school, my mother learned to be two people, the wog and the Aussie. At school, my uncle found he’d be a good lawyer but not considered a good person. At school, my heart will be silenced about my home.

  But at home, during the holidays, Rosie and I talked. Really talked.

  ‘Pee, I’m sorry. There was more to what happened with Scott, wasn’t there? And we didn’t listen.’

  She nodded slowly, no pretence, no act, as I told her as much as I could.