Cynthia flops on her face, bends her knees to lift her crotch up, and throws it hard back down onto the bed. Her dog, Snot-head, was sleeping between her knees, and now he’s flung off. He moves quickly, panting, in a hurry to readjust and settle back into sleep. Cynthia can’t breathe so much in this position, with her face shoved into the pillow, but it hardly matters. Anahera hasn’t called. Cynthia should probably text some boy. Her dad’s away on business, in Australia, and if all her dreams aren’t going to come true today, she should at least make some use of the house tonight. Snot-head lets out a big wheeze, and she breathes heavily too, out her nose against the pillow.
Snot-head snores, and she dozes. The bell rings downstairs. It twangs and hurts. Cynthia hasn’t bought anything online lately, it won’t be for her. It’ll be one of her dad’s employees, or some other ridiculous person. Still, it keeps ringing. She moves carefully, turning onto her back, this time trying not to wake Snot-head. He wakes anyway. He’s a French bulldog, fat and de-testicled. He snorts and she adores him, even though she’s not in the mood to. He wriggles under one of her knees, between her legs and up, onto her belly, lifting the blanket in a hump, then settles down to sleep again. Whoever’s downstairs is rude. They knock now. Loud and then louder.
Cynthia topples Snot-head off, and heads for the stairs. He trots after her, hoping to be fed. The knocking continues, louder again. ‘Yup!’ she yells. Down the stairs, through a big pointless area, to the door. Her dad got a peephole put in, and she leans forward to look through it. Snot-head’s butting her ankle, hungry, but she forgets him.
Standing right there, at the door, with her hair wind-licked and curling loose, is Anahera. There’s no pause, the door is open. Cynthia deep-breathes twice. Anahera’s car door’s swung wide and her lips separate. Her eyes are raw, red. She’s about to ask a big question. But then she only says, ‘Is this your flat?’
‘My dad’s house. I, um, live here.’
Anahera steps back, towards her car and her own open door. ‘Oh, ah—shit.’ Snot-head runs out and licks her toes. She’s wearing jandals. Cynthia wouldn’t have thought she’d own jandals, but there they are.
‘He’s away,’ Cynthia says.
‘I’m getting a divorce,’ Anahera tells her, then notices her car door and jogs back to shut it. When she returns she says, ‘I just decided.’
Cynthia didn’t know Anahera had a husband. It doesn’t matter, she decides immediately. She looks up at Anahera, and all she wants is to put her in bed, then make her tea and carry it carefully up the stairs. She imagines Anahera not waiting for it to cool, just talking about being alone and how it feels. Cynthia’s ready to see it burn her lips, and to understand burning. ‘What do you need?’ she asks.
Anahera glances up at the house, right at Cynthia’s window, although she can’t know that. ‘Money,’ she says, ‘to leave.’
‘Okay, me too,’ Cynthia says. It’s warm in the hall where she’s standing.
Anahera pauses, then nods. ‘Don’t ask about him,’ she says.
‘I never will.’ But what Cynthia means is, not until she’s earned the right to.
3.
Cynthia grabs Anahera’s arm, and Anahera comes through the door. It clangs and the cold’s shut out behind them. They look at each other. Anahera’s lashes are long, and her head seems to be at a more accessible height now they’re standing so close. She relaxes, she’s indoors, and she leans against the wall with a hand holding up her head. ‘Did I wake you?’
‘No,’ Cynthia starts, ‘I was just—’
Anahera laughs, so Cynthia sees her tongue. There are some stray hairs at her eyebrows, and some tiny, soft, nearly invisible ones above her lip. Her eyes are bold and black in a way that makes Cynthia peer down and feel serious. She adjusts her pyjama pants, and looks back up. There are lines under Anahera’s eyes. She’s exhausted.
‘We’ll get a boat,’ Cynthia says.
Anahera pauses, then replies, ‘I need to go somewhere,’ and that’s agreement.
Cynthia makes sure to under-react. She waits, then, ‘Okay!’
The fingers of one of Anahera’s hands pinch the leg of her pants, and those of the other pull at the collar of her shirt.
‘Okay,’ Cynthia says again. ‘I’m not sure how much I have, but we should be good.’
Anahera lets some air out in a surprised way, but that’s all.
‘We’ll take care of each other, for a while?’ Cynthia asks.
Anahera nods, and Cynthia sees she’s waiting to be invited in further. In the living room, Anahera looks around briefly, then curls up on the couch to sleep. Cynthia doesn’t touch her at all; she sits down in a chair opposite to think.
Once, late at night when Cynthia was twelve, she looked out her bedroom window and saw a woman in a navy blue jumpsuit and bangles standing on the driveway, buttoning up her coat. Her dad wasn’t visible, but she heard him say, ‘Yeah, alright. Good. Suits me.’ Then a taxi arrived, and the woman was gone.
Before school the next day she asked him if the woman had been a prostitute. He said, Well, yeah, yeah she was, sorry. She didn’t mind, she wasn’t surprised. Her dad had always stood for long moments in the hallway on Saturday mornings before entering his home office; he’d always been a lonely man. She was proud of him for taking ownership of his needs and feelings, and she’s even prouder now, remembering. Now she knows for herself how hard it can be, and how necessary. He said she couldn’t meet the lady, and she understood.
You have to ask for love, and do anything for it. When Anahera’s eyes blink open Cynthia tells her, ‘I’m ready to do my best, and earn some respect.’ Anahera nods and sleeps more, and Cynthia watches her till she feels herself less frightened, and then completely brave. She goes to sit down at the computer in her dad’s office.
He doesn’t leave it locked, and he’s got an auto-login on his computer and a password saved online for ASB. She winces. There’s only $16,650 in his cheque account, and nothing in the others. She transfers herself $16,400, and wipes her eyes.
Anahera comes in then, and stands tilting her head side-to-side, as if to tip the sleep out of it.
‘$16,400,’ Cynthia tells her. ‘It’s less than I thought, but I think it’s enough. I took a bit from my dad.’ She’s trying very hard not to cry. She never planned to leave him with nothing. He probably has another account, she thinks, with another bank. She doesn’t know him very well in some respects, she has to remember. After she finished uni, when she was looking for a job, he said he didn’t have any contacts in the media industry. She’s at least forty per cent sure he was lying. He’ll have more money somewhere else, of course he will.
Anahera’s looking at the hedges and the lawn, and close behind them, Auckland city. She doesn’t ask another question, she says instead, ‘We’ll get jobs. We can pay him back if you want.’
Cynthia’s not really interested in jobs anymore, so she waits.
‘My husband caught me fucking a guy I used to know,’ Anahera says. ‘Everything’s ruined for me now.’
Cynthia fries bacon so the fat crackles and drips, loud. Anahera can probably hear it from where she’s sitting in the lounge, thinking, most likely about her marriage. Cynthia’s always been what you’d consider a lonely person, but also, she’s someone with a limitless sense of meaning. It wells up hot in her, and ebbs away cold, and she often does have to be careful not to get sad, but mostly she’s able to make sure she feels inspired instead. Now, with Anahera in the next room waiting for her, the feeling comes easy.
She’s made pancakes too, beautifully puffed, and she’s pleased to bring them through to the lounge, balanced on her wrist, to present them to Anahera. Anahera doesn’t want bacon, but Cynthia doesn’t mind, she just gets some maple syrup.
‘We’ll leave tonight,’ Anahera says.
Cynthia nods.
‘Or tomorrow?’
Cynthia thinks. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Okay.’
There’s a pleas
ing dab of syrup on Anahera’s lips, and a smile there too, maybe. Cynthia’s not so hungry, she’s just looking, and waiting for some nice new thing to do for Anahera, who pauses, then licks the syrup and says, ‘Good.’
Cooking is not one of Cynthia’s things, so this is an incredibly good sign. She watches the food admiringly on Anahera’s fork, then at the entry to her mouth. ‘Oh!’ She jumps up. ‘You need clothes?’
Anahera starts to say no, but Cynthia jogs off and up the stairs, into her father’s room. She takes some navy blue pyjamas, a pin-striped shirt, an All Blacks one, and a cowboy hat one of his business friends gave him in Australia.
She dumps it all in front of Anahera, looks up at her face, and straightens it into a neat pile, with the hat on the top.
‘Won’t he notice?’
‘Nope.’ But Cynthia hopes he does, and knows that she left with someone.
Anahera puts the last of her pancake in her mouth and grins, rubbing the silk of the pyjama pants with her thumb. ‘He definitely won’t notice?’
Cynthia shakes her head vigorously.
‘I feel better now,’ Anahera says. ‘Thank you.’ She puts the hat on, and Cynthia begins to nod again, encouragingly. This is who I’ll love, she thinks, then knows. Anahera stands up and does two very good lunges, tips her hat, and grins.
‘I got into the postgrad thing I applied for,’ Cynthia says, lying and surprising herself. She didn’t apply. ‘But I’d much rather come with you.’
Anahera does one more lunge, which isn’t perfect because she’s confused. ‘Okay, good,’ she says. ‘Will we take some food?’ She gestures to the pantry, which Cynthia’s left open.
‘All of it.’
‘Okay, most of the things.’ Anahera gets up and does the dishes—all of them Cynthia’s, from when her dad left two days ago.
‘You don’t have to do that, you just put them in the machine,’ Cynthia says.
Anahera keeps washing them, then puts them in the machine. ‘What do we need to pack?’ she asks.
‘I have a solar phone charger, unopened,’ Cynthia answers proudly, ‘from when my dad nearly went camping. And I’ve got data-unlimited on my phone.’
‘Cool,’ Anahera says.
‘Other than that, we’ll be wild! We’ll abandon everything, and everyone!’
‘Canned food,’ Anahera says.
Anahera finds a gas thing in the garage, and wants to pack food, but after she’s packed her clothes Cynthia says, ‘Will you lie with me a while, I’m scared.’
Anahera looks almost relieved—she must be a little nervous too—and follows Cynthia up the stairs to her bed, even reaching up for her hand. Snot-head hears their feet and comes too.
They all get in Cynthia’s big bed together, warm like a family. Cynthia and Anahera don’t touch directly, but Snot-head wriggles against Cynthia’s belly, and he must be touching some part of Anahera too. Just in their togetherness, and their shared heat, it seems to Cynthia that they become a new place. A small home they’ll take with them wherever it is they go.
4.
They move forward in tired but certain silence. Snot-head sleeps and they let him. Cynthia picks up her duvet and sheets in a muddle, and at the car, whispering, Anahera tells her to fold them. ‘It’s easier if everything’s compact, so we know where things are.’ Cynthia finds this silly, but insignificant, so she puts everything down and picks it all up again, piece by piece, packing it neatly into the boot. They take all the food in the house except a bottle of wine Anahera says looks very decent, some bread, butter and coffee. Anahera says they should leave some canned tomatoes, but Cynthia’s father doesn’t cook. ‘Then why does he have canned tomatoes?’ Anahera asks, but it doesn’t matter, they take them.
‘The shop’s just down the road,’ Cynthia tells her. ‘He can get apples.’ She packs dog food, Snot-head’s little spiky collar, and his lead with the hearts. They’re quickly in the car and Anahera hands Cynthia some camembert from the fridge. Cynthia’s got some cranberry juice.
A bit of cheese doesn’t stay in Anahera’s mouth and Cynthia picks it delicately off her shirt, careful not to push it in, then tongues it from her finger. Anahera’s got a beautiful chewing smile, although it doesn’t make sense to chew that sort of cheese.
They drive north. Cynthia checks her phone and there are five texts from Randy, the last three extremely sulky. How exciting for him not to matter anymore! She smiles brightly and they go down an avenue, between a line of trees. ‘Both of us will become entirely new to ourselves! Just you wait!’ she tells Anahera. ‘We’ll save each other from this ugly place.’ The leaves shine in the new morning light, hanging like gems alongside the road ahead of them. It’s when they reach the end of them that Cynthia remembers: Snot-head!
‘We’ve got to go back,’ she says. ‘My dog.’
They’ve not driven far, only a few minutes, but Anahera pulls over instead of turning around. ‘What?’
‘My dog.’ Cynthia enunciates very clearly.
‘Your dog?’
‘Yes.’
Anahera sits, licking her gums.
‘There’s no way I can go without him,’ Cynthia explains. ‘There’ve been times in my life with him as my only friend. He’s always stood by me. I can’t leave him there.’
‘Cynthia, I thought we were getting a boat?’ Anahera’s using a patient, adult voice, tilting her head. ‘That might not actually be so good for him.’
‘All he does is sleep!’ Cynthia holds her voice down, carefully. ‘Sleep and love me, and he can do those things anywhere!’
Anahera sighs.
‘I can’t leave without him, simply.’ Cynthia won’t say more.
Anahera sighs again and gets back on the motorway, in the direction of Cynthia’s house.
‘Thank you.’ Cynthia squeezes Anahera’s fingers on the wheel. ‘I can’t say how much I appreciate this. Really, I can’t.’
Anahera watches the road. But they’re going back down the avenue, and when they’re on a quiet street near Cynthia’s house she turns and smiles.
‘He’s a great dog,’ Cynthia says.
At Cynthia’s, Anahera doesn’t get out of the car. Cynthia feeds Snot-head, and waits impatiently for him to eat. He does so dutifully, staring forward for long moments after each swallow.
The car honks.
‘Yup!’ Cynthia yells back, pushing Snot-head’s bum gently with her foot. He turns and looks at her solemnly, then continues eating at the same pace. When Cynthia loses patience and picks him up, jellymeat falls from his surprised mouth onto her white pants.
They’re all together in the car, and Cynthia expects Anahera to say something. She doesn’t, she looks at the dog and turns the key. Snot-head licks at the meat stuck to Cynthia’s pants, and it falls onto the seat between her legs. He shuffles on the bone of her thigh and leans down to lick it from where it’s fallen on the upholstery. Anahera pretends not to notice, which is good.
They drive for a while. Anahera’s phone rings and she answers it. For a while she just makes annoyed noises, then she says, ‘Paihia.’ A sigh. ‘Yes, with someone. Someone I know.’ She turns and grimaces at Cynthia. ‘Do whatever you like,’ she says, and hangs up.
It must be her husband, Cynthia thinks. ‘Paihia,’ she repeats, and likes the sound of it. She’s heard of Paihia. Part of The Bachelor NZ was filmed there. Beautiful scenery, and quite a historical focal point, actually.
They drive longer. Cynthia touches Anahera’s arm, then thinks she’s been touching it too long and stops. ‘I’ve had this boy since I was fourteen,’ she says proudly of her dog. Anahera doesn’t seem that interested, but Cynthia continues anyway. ‘I definitely noticed a big change in his personality when they lobbed off his testes. Definitely.’ Anahera doesn’t ask about the change, but that’s fine. They’re together, and what that means is potential.
They pass three KFCs and Cynthia points each of them out, but Anahera says things about saving money. They’ll stop at t
welve and eat stuff from their cans, she says, but then she looks at Cynthia and Snot-head, and pulls over so Cynthia can get two bananas from the boot. They eat them leaning on the car, and Snot-head trots around it three times, then pees on a wheel.
‘Watch this,’ Cynthia says, but then Anahera is watching and she’s nervous. She hasn’t done this in a long time. The ground’s gravel, but she gets on her hands and knees facing away from Anahera. ‘Ride,’ she says to Snot-head. It seems he hasn’t heard, or he’s forgotten. She hears a rock shift under Anahera’s shoes, and she says it again. Then, suddenly, she feels his weight land with his four paws on her back. Anahera laughs, and she keeps laughing. She gets on her knees beside them and Cynthia can feel his paws pressing down while Anahera pats him. ‘Excellent,’ she says, ‘that’s just excellent.’
Encouraged, Cynthia crawls in a small circle around Anahera, careful to make slow, even movements so Snot-head doesn’t fall. Then she stops, and explains, ‘It’s really hard for him, with his weight and all, he doesn’t always make it.’ Anahera laughs again and there’s a sound of her kissing Snot-head between the eyes. The gravel hurts her knees, but Cynthia stays there till Anahera’s done patting him.
5.
Cynthia suggests mini-golf, and Anahera reminds her of the money issue. ‘But haven’t we gone insane?’ Cynthia asks. ‘I mean, aren’t we just doing whatever we like?’
It doesn’t matter. Cynthia’s never had a sister, and she thinks—Anahera will be her sister, a whole new half of her. She’s letting her money go, letting it run to Anahera like blood to a cut-off limb. She’s venturing into a new wilderness with a friend at her side, and she won’t turn back. All she wants is to be physical and real, beside Anahera’s body and entirely in her own.
On a corner there’s a big, sudden thudding noise. ‘My weights,’ Anahera says. Cynthia soothes Snot-head. They pass two more KFCs, but she doesn’t mention them. She pats her dog. They’re going away, to where no one will look at them and they’ll look only at each other. It’s such joy to see Anahera’s eyes narrowed on the road, and her hand hard on the gearstick.
Baby Page 2