Am I Right or Am I Right?

by Barry Jonsberg

“Thanks,” I said. I took it off.

  There were gasps all around. Traffic screeched to a halt. Passersby stopped and stared. The only sound was of jaws hitting concrete and the smash of coffee cups as twenty waiters dropped their bundles. A caged parrot in the shop window fell off its perch.

  Actually, I’m not sure any of that happened. It might have been my imagination. You’ll have to use your judgment.

  Certainly there was a lull in the conversation. Jason froze, the cup against his lips, a thin smear of hot chocolate giving him an artificial mustache. Actually, it looked cute. Finally he put the cup back on its saucer and wiped his top lip.

  “You’re bald,” he said.

  “There’s not much that gets past you,” I replied. “What gave you the first clue?”

  Jason: It suits you. (You look like a bouncer.)

  Calma: Do you really think so?

  Jason: Sure. It’s distinctive. It’s different. (It’s shit.)

  Calma: I like to be individual.

  Jason: Did you get it done for Shave for a Cure? (Or am I dealing with someone who’s two sandwiches short of a picnic?)

  Calma: Yes. A spur-of-the-moment thing. I thought, “Hell, why not?” It’s for a good cause.

  Jason: Nice one. (I’ll create a diversion and make a run for it. With luck I’ll be able to shake her off after a couple of miles.)

  Calma: I thought you might hate it.

  Jason: Of course not. (Of course I do, you bald drongo.) It was just a shock, that’s all. (To find I was dating an extra from Lord of the Rings.) Actually it accentuates your features. (Who was that bald guy in The Addams Family?)

  Calma: Is that good?

  Jason: Absolutely. (Not.)

  You see, part of the problem is that when someone is saying all the right things, you don’t know if they are saying all the right things because they feel they need to say all the right things or whether they are saying all the right things because those are the things they want to say.

  Do you see what I’m trying to say? It’s a tricky one.

  And then I got the answer. Jason laughed. He tried not to. In fact, he was taking a sip of his chocolate and he ended up inhaling part of it. So he’s spluttering with laughter and asphyxiation, and that started me off. Some people at adjoining tables laughed as well. It was infectious. And I knew it wasn’t malicious laughter. You can tell these things. Jason was laughing because he was happy to be there. So was I.

  It took a few minutes to recover. Just when we thought we had it under control, we’d start again. Eventually, though, we got a grip.

  “So you don’t feel like you’re on a date with Uncle Fester, then?” I said.

  “Hey, one of my favorite characters. Honest, it looks wicked. David Beckham in his shaved phase.”

  “And that’s a compliment, is it?”

  “They don’t come much higher.”

  It was such a relief. I mean, I had done that rationalization business about shallow people judging on superficial appearances, but it would have hurt if he’d left me there at a coffee shop, all bald, dressed up, and nowhere to go. And if I was honest, I had to look at it from another perspective. What if Jason had turned up radically different from what I had been expecting? What if he’d had a huge boil covering part of his face? Would I have laughed it off, or would I have visited the ladies’, climbed through a back window, and slipped off into the night?

  I think I know the answer, but you can’t tell for sure unless it happens.

  We talked and he was really good company. I like the British sense of humor and he had it in spades. All the magazines I’ve ever read said a sense of humor is the biggest turn-on for women. I think that’s true. It’s certainly true when you’ve got a guy with a sense of humor and the kind of looks that turn your legs to jelly.

  The start time of the film was approaching and I got up. Jason put a hand on my arm.

  “Can you sit down a moment and tilt your face toward the tablecloth?” he said.

  “Why?”

  “There isn’t a mirror around and I need to check my hair.”

  Bastard.

  I really liked this guy.

  The film was pretty good. It had pirates, which is always a positive sign, and the swashbuckling was awesome. There was scarcely one swash that didn’t get a damn good buckle before the final credits. You can divide pirates into two categories, I decided. There was your heartthrob pirate with flashing teeth, bulging biceps, and full tights, and your unsightly pirate with missing limbs, decaying teeth, and speech impediments.

  I tell you, if you were a pirate in those days and couldn’t afford decent private medical insurance, you were in deep shit.

  Anyway, like I said, the film was fun. It didn’t stretch the mental faculties, but the special effects were good and few people of my acquaintance judge the quality of films by any other criterion. I saw Vanessa. She came over during the previews and asked if I’d put my hat on, since I was dazzling row H. Everyone’s a comedian these days. I introduced her to Jason in a whisper and asked if she’d like to meet up afterward, but she said no. She was going straight to her dad’s place. I have to confess I wasn’t disappointed.

  When the film finished, Jason asked if I’d like to go to a club or something. I didn’t. For one thing, the lightness in my purse was getting to me and I felt uncomfortable about Jason paying for everything. Anyway, I wasn’t in the mood for flashing lights and loud music. I had visions of standing in the middle of the dance floor, my head acting like one of those suspended disco balls. To be honest, I just wanted something quiet, so I suggested a walk.

  We strolled along the banks of the river that runs through the center of town. Plenty of people were out. It was Friday night, after all, and the riverside is the hub of social life in my city. The weather was mild. The river glittered under streetlights and a nearly full moon shimmered on its surface. Knots of people sat looking out over the city or laughing and chatting in cafés. We didn’t say much. At one stage Jason held my hand.

  We sat on a bench overlooking the water, his knee pressing against my leg. I suddenly felt nervous. Jason squeezed my hand and turned toward me.

  “Calma?” he said, looking intently into my eyes.

  “Yes, Jason?” I whispered, desperately trying to keep blood from flooding my face. I’d read somewhere that Indian mystics can control metabolism by sheer willpower. If someone can slow their heartbeat to three beats a minute, then surely I could stop a blush in its tracks. There was silence for ten loud heartbeats: about four seconds. I lifted my face to his and closed my eyes.

  “Who do you think is going to win the Premiership?”

  I scrunched my eyes tighter, as if this was an agonizing question I had been pondering the entire evening. I puffed my cheeks out and blew through shuddering lips. Tricky, tricky question. I tried to drag up the name of the one soccer club I knew. Luckily, Jason continued, which gave me more time to dredge the murky depths of memory.

  “I mean, you did say you wanted to continue the conversation about soccer.”

  I nodded violently.

  “Sure. It’s just…well, there’s a number of teams that could win….”

  “But on current form?”

  “Oh. On current form. Well, I’d have to say…and I’m sticking my neck out here, taking a bit of a punt, don’t quote me…I’d have to say…Liverpool.” The name popped into my mind at the last moment and I grabbed hold of it gratefully.

  “But they’re twenty points behind the leaders.”

  “I know, but there’s still time.”

  “With six games to go, you reckon they’ll overtake Crewe Alexandra?”

  “On current form, yes, I do!” Be confident, Calma, and keep it simple.

  “What, even though the maximum points available are eighteen and they’re twenty points behind Arsenal and Crewe Alexandra aren’t even in the Premiership?”

  There was silence for a couple of seconds. “Stranger things have happened,” I said,
on the principle that I didn’t have anything left to lose.

  He laughed and his eyes got these terrific crinkles around them.

  “Well, no. They haven’t, actually.”

  “When did you know?” I said.

  “That you didn’t know your midfield from your flat back four? Right from the start. I was cracking on about stuff and you were like a rabbit caught in the headlights.”

  “Does it matter? That I lied to you about it? I mean, I’m interested in learning and everything. If you want, you could teach me—”

  He kissed me on the lips and my stomach, previously at a cruising altitude of thirty thousand feet, plunged to a whisker above ground level. His mouth was warm and he tasted faintly of cigarette smoke and popcorn. My first kiss! (If we forget Kyle Colby in Year 5, who did it for a bet and wouldn’t talk to me afterward.) There, on the bench, by the river. It was soft, and plucked at something just beneath my rib cage. I felt dizzy.

  “Does it seem like it matters?” he said when we broke off.

  In the mellow afterglow I told him the real story behind my hairdo. It wasn’t something I had anticipated revealing, but it seemed right to get all the little deceptions off my chest. I thought he would see the funny side of it and he did. We spent so much time laughing.

  It was a brilliant date. I mean, I know there are some of you out there who’d consider a date a complete failure without popping a pill, experimenting with some of the trickier maneuvers in the Kama Sutra, getting shit-faced on cask wine, and ending up marinating in your own vomit on the floor of the ladies’ room at the local nightclub.

  Well, call me old-fashioned, but I couldn’t imagine anything nicer than walking along the riverbank, watching the lights of the city, hand in hand with Jason. Frangipani petals were blowing in the balmy evening breeze. Cupid had my heart in his sights at point-blank range and was in the process of loosing the arrow when I saw her again.

  The Fridge.

  She was walking slowly on the path directly opposite where we were standing. On the other side of the river. Like me, she was giving all the signs of being insufferably content, bathed in her own emotional glow, gazing into the night sky as if the world had been born afresh. Like me, she was hand in hand with a guy.

  I couldn’t see who it was. She was on the outside and obscuring my vision so I only got tantalizing glimpses. Other people were strolling by and that didn’t help either. I grabbed Jason’s hand hard and looked for the nearest bridge over the river.

  “Come on,” I said, and pulled him back from where we had come.

  Jason may have been puzzled, but to be fair to him, he was game. Maybe it was all that interest in soccer, but he didn’t seem averse to a late-night sprint with a bald chick for no apparent purpose. Then again, I didn’t give him much option. I held onto his hand with a viselike grip and towed him over the bridge. The Fridge had been some distance from us when I started and I wasn’t confident we’d catch up, even though she had been wandering along like a drugged wombat.

  Sure enough, by the time we made it over the bridge, the crowds had swallowed her and her mysterious companion. I scanned faces and Jason panted for breath. Clearly his interest in sports didn’t extend to actually doing any, unless there was an Olympic category in marathon smoking.

  “I’m knackered,” he said, gulping for air. “I hate to sound like a total wally, but was there any point to that?”

  “I thought I saw someone.”

  I didn’t feel like telling him more. It was our first date, after all. Anyway, what was there to tell? I smiled at him and tried to recapture the romantic moment we had enjoyed prior to spotting the Fridge. But my smile felt artificial and I knew the evening was effectively over.

  I felt upset by the Fridge’s behavior. I suppose it was something as simple as jealousy. She had a private life, something from which I was being deliberately excluded, as if she didn’t even trust me to be pleased for her. Why would she do that? There was only one answer. Because I wouldn’t be pleased for her. Not if the guy was my dad. I didn’t see him properly, true. It’s not something that would stand up in a court of law, granted. But logic told me it had to be him. The more I thought about it, the more I felt sad. Worthless. I suddenly wanted to go home.

  I turned to explain this to Jason and my eye was caught by a figure sitting on a bench across the river. The very bench that had been the scene of my first kiss.

  Vanessa was sitting by herself, head bowed almost to her knees. Her overnight bag sat forlornly on the ground between her feet. There was something so unutterably pathetic and depressed about her posture that I knew she was crying. I couldn’t actually see it at that distance, but I knew it as surely as if I had been sitting next to her. I was tempted to make another run for it, but didn’t think Jason’s lungs would stand another pounding. What was it with this evening? I always seemed to be in the wrong place.

  Anyway, before I could even think about crossing that bloody bridge again, Vanessa got to her feet. She moved slowly, as if a weight was pressing on her and the effort of raising it was painful. She stood and wiped her eyes briefly with a sleeve. Then she picked up her bag and shuffled off along the river bank, away from me. I tell you, there was something in the way she moved that made tears prick behind my eyes. I had never seen anyone who seemed so steeped in unhappiness.

  I stood for a while watching her slow progress, unaware of Jason standing next to me examining my face.

  “What’s the score, Calma?” he said eventually.

  I snapped myself out of it. I became aware suddenly that I was rigid with tension and I was gripping Jason’s hand so tightly my knuckles were white. It must have been unnerving for him. I forced another smile.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I want to go home now.”

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ll walk you.”

  And he did. On the doorstep he asked if I wanted to go out with him again. I did. I certainly did. And I told him that. But I was worried and distracted. Maybe, as a result, my tone of voice wasn’t altogether convincing. His face was puzzled and closed as I shut the door. I was sorry about that, but only vaguely.

  All I wanted to do was go to bed. It had been a very strange evening and I couldn’t help but think it was a precursor to stranger evenings to come.

  Chapter 14

  Calma hits the trail

  “Did you have fun last night?” asked the Fridge. “And why are you wearing a towel around your head?”

  It was Saturday morning and I was picking at a round of toast. The Fridge was drinking coffee.

  “Yeah, great,” I replied, ignoring her second question. “How was work?”

  “Oh, you know. Work is work. Nothing to write home about. Tell me about your evening.”

  Okay. There were two ways this could go. Let’s call the first one The Seriously Mature Daughter Tackles Her Mother Head-On About Issues Important to the Integrity of Their Relationship. The plot would undoubtedly unfold like this:

  Calma Harrison popped the last piece of toast into her mouth and gazed steadfastly at her mother. She had come to a decision. She was not going to allow their relationship to become tarnished by omissions, half-lies, and outright whoppers. The time had arrived for plain speaking.

  “Mother,” she said, “I saw you last night, in the company of a gentleman. Now, for some reason, possibly to protect me from potential feelings of jealousy and abandonment, you have kept this liaison quiet, even to the extent of fabricating alibis that you were in gainful employment during the time of these romantic trysts. I feel, Mother—and I have to be brutally frank here—betrayed by your lack of trust. I am no longer a child. If you have found a soul mate, even if it is someone I might consider to be less than the dust beneath your chariot wheels, then the very least I deserve is that you share your feelings with me.”

  Mrs. Harrison looked into her coffee cup and a tear slid down her cheek. She didn’t speak for a moment, but when she did, her voice cracked with emotion.

  “O
h, Calma,” she said, “I have been foolish not to trust you. What you have said, albeit rather wordy, has hit the emotional and intellectual target. I am, indeed, involved in a romantic association and, furthermore, have made the serious miscalculation of indulging in duplicitous practices with regard to communicating such a state of affairs with the only fruit of my loins. I stand justly accused. But Calma”—and here she raised her eyes to meet her daughter’s—“you must believe I was acting according to the dictates of my conscience.”

  “I freely acknowledge this, Mother,” said Calma, “though, incidentally, I feel a touch aggrieved at your accusation of overblown linguistic flourishes, which, coming from you, is a little akin to receiving a sermon on pacifism from al-Qaeda. But enough of that; the identity of your new amour?”

  “His name is Jerome. He is the chairman of a large multinational telecommunications company and owns apartments in Sydney, Paris, London, and New York, not to mention a luxury oceangoing yacht and a medium-sized island in the Whitsundays. He has proposed and I have accepted….”

  Let’s call the next The Seriously Pissed-Off Daughter Sucks her Thumb and Throws a Tantrum.

  “Tell me about your evening,” said the Fridge.

  “It was good.”

  “Is that it? ‘Good’? This was your first date!”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Movies.”

  “What film did you see?”

  “Dunno.”

  “You don’t know? How can you have forgotten already?”

  “Something with pirates.”

  “Was it good?”

  “All right.”

  “Come on, tell me. What was Jason like? How did you guys get on?”

  “All right.”

  You get the picture. I wasn’t in the mood. And before you start blaming me, put yourself in my position. Here’s my mother trying to get me to dish on my date, yet she couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge that she’d been on one herself. Maybe you’re a saint, but I’m certainly not. I was going to tell her bugger all. I kept the towel wrapped tightly. Everyone else might know about my shaved head, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction, even of common knowledge. She didn’t deserve it.