Unzipped

by Nicki Reed

  ‘It wasn’t making love, Peta. Stairwells and underground car parks are counter to making love. How about banging? Can we call it banging?’

  I laugh. ‘So you’re not banging Tom. Any prospects? Anyone on the bench?’

  She laughs back, a mouthful of semi-masticated foccacia on show. ‘That’s better. Meet me after work? Come shopping? Myer’s open until seven. I promise I won’t ask you what’s wrong.’

  ‘What are we shopping for?’

  ‘Nothing particular.’

  I like how Ruby shops. She’s whimsical. She never knows what she wants until she sees it. Then it’s love.

  Our coats back on, she swings her arm around my neck, ‘Last time for today. What’s wrong, Pete?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m fine. Don’t ask. I mean it.’

  I text Taylor:

  Sorry, T. Can’t babysit—staying in town on the weekend. Talk soon. P

  It’s taken all my adult life to feel this hormonal—polite way to say horny—now I know why Ruby says she has needs. Shopping, we checked out the leather jackets. Ruby was looking, I was sniffing. I got right inside a rack and inhaled. BJ.

  I bought a jacket. Five hundred dollars, plus. Picked up my car and dropped Ruby off at her place in Darebin— out of my way but I didn’t mind—and drove to the oval on Cotham Road, five minutes from home. Pulled into the car park, lights off, engine on, doors locked, and unwrapped the jacket.

  Cars drove past, their headlights illuminating me for a stretched-out second. I reclined the seat and pushed my skirt down over my hips, past my still shod feet, and lay it flat on the seat next to me. The smell of leather, the memory of BJ, hard, relentless and grinning. I pretended my fingers were hers. When I came, my foot struck the accelerator pedal, and the engine burst into life. Phwoar!

  The text says, Meet me at the McDonald’s across the road in twenty minutes?

  I type, Roger. Courier speak I’ve picked up from BJ.

  On the way out I’m stopped by our receptionist.

  There’s talk Blaire was a runway model in a past life; she certainly has the walk, the hair and the face. My theory is that she was kicked out of the army for being too rigid. She mans the reception desk like it’s a sentry post. That’s her job, but it’s the way she asks. JJ&T call her Who-goes-there?

  ‘Blaire, I’m just nipping out.’

  There is no just nipping out. Her pen is poised: ‘To?’

  I’d love to tell her the truth. She could write: At 10:30 Peta Wheeler left the office for a quickie at Maccas. She didn’t know how long she’d be but she hoped it’d be a while.

  ‘The Supreme Court Library.’

  ‘For?’

  ‘A judgment reported in Lloyd’s.’

  ‘You don’t have that?’ The arch of her eyebrow asks what kind of library it is I think I’m running.

  I’m leaning against the door. ‘I got rid of them because we had an online subscription but I’ve just had to cancel it—cost-cutting.’

  I hope BJ doesn’t think I’ve changed my mind.

  ‘And how long do you think you’ll be?’

  The weight of an ‘and’.

  ‘I should be back around eleven.’

  When I finally press the button for the ground floor I’m aching.

  At McDonald’s I take a booth towards the back with a good view of the street. I watch BJ chain her bike to a parking sign. She looks like a pirate, dirty, lawless. She looks great.

  ‘I followed you up the hill.’ She sits next to me. ‘Fuck, that’s a sexy walk.’

  She smells like cigarettes.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Horny, desperate and inappropriate look good on me.’

  She sneaks a hand between my legs. I jump.

  Her hand is sliding up my inside thigh. I close my eyes, breathe through it. Her thumb closes the distance.

  ‘You’re not wearing underpants. Jesus.’

  ‘Let’s go to the toilet,’ I say. ‘I have to touch you.’

  I never thought I’d have sex on work time. With a woman. In a McDonald’s toilet. Nobody said having an affair has to be romantic.

  Top Ten Best Things About BJ:

  I like how she walks, like a cowboy, like a criminal, like she’s got somewhere to go even when she hasn’t.

  Smoking is disgusting. It’s vile. But when BJ smokes, God, it’s sexy, makes me want to get into her mouth (I can’t believe I just wrote that).

  I like her swearing

  I like how she looks like a boy and smells like a girl.

  I like how she plays hard like a boy.

  But she’s soft like a girl.

  Her hair, it’s as dark as her eyes and everything shines so blackly.

  I like her bed. I like using every square inch, then sleeping, stuck together, until I’m late for my real life.

  I like how smart she is. Practical.

  I like her laugh, it’s bent and broken and crazy, it fills the room, seems to hang there, like helium balloons pressing into a ceiling.

  Yeah, ten is not enough.

  11. I like how she looks in her work gear, bike shorts, bike top, those clacky shoes, gloves, bike lock and radio hanging off her, she looks like she’s in the S.A.S. Yum.

  12. Yum? Grow up Peta Wheeler!

  13. I like that she likes me.

  14.

  Dinner suit, white shirt, bow tie, black shoes; it’s easy for men. Mark’s so good he can tie his bow tie himself. Doesn’t need a mirror. He’s in front of it to watch me dither.

  ‘Why don’t you want to go?’

  ‘I don’t want to get to know her.’

  I’ve invested four years in hating Carole Smart.

  Dresses spread across the bed, shoes lying at angles on the floor, belt, no belt, scarf, no scarf. I don’t care what she thinks of me. Sure, I don’t.

  ‘This one?’ Mark holds up a dress, full length, backless.

  I’ve only worn it once, in the fitting room. I bought it for last year’s Law Society dinner and abandoned it for something safer.

  Risk and I didn’t go together a year ago.

  I take the dress from him. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I’ll be a Carole Smart one day. Running the place. Do you want people hating me?’

  He has a last look about, sees his shaving kit on the tallboy, grabs it, stows it in the internal pocket of his suitcase. Chicago tomorrow. I’ve got a smaller bag in the car.

  ‘Mark, when people don’t like you, when they’re making jokes about your hairstyle and not asking you out for coffee, you’ll know you’ve made it.’

  ‘You are seriously weird. Cranky. What’s going on?’

  ‘Charade is on Universal tonight and I’m missing it.’

  I’m getting better at talking crap. Becoming good at bad excuses.

  ‘Fine, don’t tell me,’ he says. He loads his pockets: wallet, inhaler, phone, keys. ‘I’ll wait in the car.’

  Not so good then.

  I’m still holding the non—Law Society dress. It’s twenty to eight and it’s a twenty-minute drive, it will have to do. Mark hates being late and when it comes to lateness I’d rather not show up. I step into the dress, wriggle, I’m in. Have a look in the mirror. Twist. No back. No bra. So what?

  ‘Who has a birthday party in a high-rise building? I feel like I’m at work.’

  Except the view from Eureka Tower is different. I brought Jasmine and the boys here the school holidays before last. Eighty-eight floors up, Melbourne was a holographic postcard, or a railway model, still and small.

  ‘Well, you don’t look like you’re at work. If you showed that much skin you’d never get out of that library. Come here, Pee-Wee.’

  The sun’s gone down, the city is lit. Because it’s Saturday the office buildings don’t glow their night-white so much.

  He kisses my shoulder. He’s Secret Service smooth tonight, a mixture of solicitous and dashing. He’s handsome. I wish I wanted him.

  The city and sea are sky-black, yellow and white lights clu
ster the landscape, no lights on the sea make it look like a chunk of the world is missing. The party is reflected in the window: dancing, talking, heads inclined.

  Seventies music: Bay City Rollers, Sherbet, Elton John, Queen. Loud. Fifty-year-olds don’t hold back when the music of their youth is playing. I dance in my kitchen. Or I dance with Jasmine to wii Just Dance; she beats me every time but I score higher on the sweat meter. Mark dances like I do and we take to a tiny corner of the dance floor, give our best impression of people who should know better.

  ‘Want a drink?’ Mark says. He’s ready to stop. ‘Something with bubbles?’

  ‘Yes please, I’ll wait here.’ By the window, face out, I watch the party happen behind me.

  BJ?

  Must be imagining it.

  I turn from the dark mirror.

  There have to be a hundred and fifty people here. Most of the women are wearing black, an occasional dash of colour—red, emerald. The men are in dark suits. The party is black-and-white-movie sharp.

  Mark is at the bar talking to a woman I don’t know. He’s miming the time he stacked his bike because he was trying to light a cigarette. I’ve seen this story before. The woman laughs. She’s looking at him like she might eat him and she’s disappointed when he leaves. Mark’s big gestures, his laugh—he’s built for entertainment.

  I hear: ‘That’s bullshit.’

  Loud, hard-line. BJ? But it’s dark, mostly down lights and, unless you’re in a beam, you’re hidden, shadows, silhouettes. I don’t see her.

  Mark returns. ‘Here you go. Who are you looking for?’

  Sip. God, it’s dry. I like my bubbles sweet. I look around the room. Nobody in dark blue jeans and black leather. Are her boots here?

  ‘Hold this?’ I pass my champagne to Mark, drop to the floor and crouch, checking out the shoes, stilettos, wedges. No Doc Martens. I’m on my hands and knees in an expensive dress. Since the couch, I’ll do anything.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing. I dropped my serviette.’

  He nudges me, a knee in my side. ‘Carole Smart’s coming.’

  I stand, smooth my dress, ready.

  ‘Hello, Peta. How long’s it been? Six months? You look good.’

  ‘Thank you, Carole. So do you. Happy Birthday.’

  ‘They say fifty is the new forty, but I think it’s the new thirty-eight,’ she says.

  Carole Smart reminds me of Bette Davis, tough, but feminine, like she might carry a gun in her purse, a small, pretty one. I half expect a Humphrey Bogart type to lean across to light her cigarette and ask where she’s been all his life.

  It’d be stupid to go on about the hours Mark is working, or the frequency of his overseas trips.

  ‘What have you been reading lately, Carole?’

  I want her to say something less than literary, Jackie Collins crossed with Dan Brown, a vampire thrown in.

  ‘Moby Dick. Again.’

  It’s all I can do not to stamp my foot.

  ‘I get seasick when I’m reading that book,’ she says. ‘Water, wood, sails, men. There’s not a lot of quiet is there?’

  ‘I had quite a Moby Dick phase last year,’ I say. ‘Read the book, saw the movie, almost booked a holiday whalewatching in Perth but went to a conference instead. Research and Remembering and the Death of the Book. I don’t think books are dead.’

  ‘Yes, but you can’t bump into lost friends at the online bookshop.’

  Mark rescues me. ‘When Peta starts buying e-books we’ll get two rooms back and be able to fill them with kids.’

  Some rescue.

  ‘Speaking of children,’ Carole Smart turns away from us. ‘Belinda?’ She reaches out to a woman with her back to us. The woman turns around.

  ‘Peta, this is my daughter Belinda.’

  BJ is Carole Smart’s daughter.

  I’m blushing. Hot face. Dry mouth. My lips are sticking to my teeth. I swig my champagne. Drain it.

  BJ is short for Belinda something.

  Did she know who I was?

  Who Mark is?

  BJ smiles. She’s always smiling at me.

  I shake her familiar hand. Squeak: ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

  How did this happen? I am having an affair with my husband’s boss’s daughter. Inappropriate with a capital HELP. Husband’s boss’s daughter. BJ sounds even younger when you say it like that. As if she’s in pigtails and I’m in a fast car.

  ‘What have you been up to?’ Mark sips his beer, casual, like he’s got all day for this, and I wish I was dead. ‘I’ve never seen you looking so ladylike.’

  ‘Well, I could hardly break out my, if you’ve got the time, I’ve got the face T-shirt at Mum’s fiftieth.’

  ‘There’s no need to speak like that, Belinda.’

  ‘Do I comment on what people are wearing? Did I say to Mark, your missus looks hot in that dress?’

  Now Mark is smiling. ‘I’m sorry, Belinda. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. You look beautiful is what I meant.’

  She does. She’s amazing in her platinum dress. Highnecked and sleeveless. I could never wear it, my breasts are too big. Open-toed strappy shoes. No wonder I didn’t see her. Her hair is messy but toned down, it’s neat-untidy. She will have spent an hour on it. She thinks her hair is her best feature. It isn’t.

  A waiter swings past with a tray of salmon involtini. I snatch one and push the whole thing into my mouth. I’m not saying anything. Somebody’s champagne is on a table next me. It looks untouched, no lipstick, just bubbles, mist. Mine now. I hide in the champagne. When I have a chance I push BJ’s foot with mine, indicate in the direction of the toilets.

  Empty glass back on the table. ‘Mark, I’ll be back in a minute.’

  The disabled toilets are occupied. Voices coming from both of them. What’s wrong with people? The Ladies has six cubicles. I take a middle one and wait. Footsteps. The cubicle next to mine becomes occupied. Red stilettos. Not BJ.

  More footsteps. Rush hour? Something in the stuffed mushrooms? How many of us are in here?

  Women talking.

  ‘Do you think she’s had work done?’

  ‘We’ve all had work done.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Matter of time.’

  ‘True.’

  Laughter.

  Toilet seats drop into position.

  Raised voices.

  ‘I was just saying you look good, different.’

  I recognise that voice. Mark’s PA.

  ‘And I was just saying that if looking good means having to pretend I give a fuck what you think, then thank you, I appreciate it.’

  BJ.

  Two doors slam.

  ‘Your mother would not like to hear you speaking like that, Belinda.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell her and get back to me with what she says. Now, do you mind?’

  Angry pissing. Flushing. Flushing. Flushing. Doors slamming. Water running. Hand dryer. Footsteps receding.

  I check under the stalls, no feet, except BJ’s and mine.

  ‘You’re Carole Smart’s daughter?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Sitting on the toilet, underpants round my ankles, I don’t need to go but I assume the position. ‘You should have told me who you were.’

  ‘What was I meant to say? By the way, who is your husband’s boss?’

  ‘And your name is Belinda?’

  It can’t be. She’s BJ.

  ‘Belinda Jane Nantakarn, actually. Pretty, isn’t it? I’m not the only one going by a different name. Mark’s last name is Boyd. You’re Wheeler. If he was Mark Wheeler maybe I would have made the connection.’

  ‘We have to stop.’

  ‘So she’s his boss? We’re all adults.’

  ‘Your mother could make things difficult for Mark. She’s already got him where she wants him. I feel like I’ve been tricked.’

  ‘You are not making sense. Why don’t you come in here? Talk to me without the benefit of wall
s and doors? Show me that dress?’

  ‘No. Can you take me seriously?’

  ‘Do I get any say?’

  High heels clatter on tiles. We wait while whoever it is does her business. She must have been holding on all night. Eight coffees and four wines? Paper being pulled from the roll, slide, rip. Flush. A cubicle door opening. Footsteps.

  ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ I say, watery, fragile.

  ‘What can’t you do anymore?’

  That’s not BJ’s voice.

  ‘Ah…use the half-flush button for paper,’ I say. ‘You’re not meant to, you know.’

  ‘It’s nothing to get upset about.’

  I pull my underpants up, press the button. The water churns.

  I find Mark in a group of five men, dinner suits, short hair, shoes with a vending-machine shine—a James Bond convention.

  ‘Hello, boys,’ my hand on Mark’s arm, ‘mind if I steal him for a minute?

  ‘What’s up?’

  I usually hold my own at work parties, find someone to talk to. I know my way around the safe, non-sticky conversations of the spouses.

  ‘Can we go? I feel sick.’

  ‘I can’t go now, it’s only nine-thirty. How’s that going to look?

  ‘It’ll look supportive of your wife.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  I’ve ditched the gorgeous girl I’ve been fucking.

  ‘I just need to go.’

  ‘You go. I’ll grab a taxi and meet you there, okay?’

  Suits me. I don’t need Mark to come with me; I need to look like I want him to. I can’t see BJ. Maybe she’s made a premature exit, too.

  In the car park: ‘You know the way?’

  ‘Yes, Mark. I know the way to Collins Street.’

  Cars are good for a quick cry. At the wheel, in my spot, facing the cinder block wall, ‘level five’ painted in red capital letters. Tissues in the glove box. I’ll be fine in a minute. Two minutes.

  In the Sofitel reception, high above the desk, are three of the biggest mirrors I’ve ever seen. I’m happy my tired look is out of reach.

  I dump my bag in the bathroom, have a long shower, the longest. Then stand at the window wrapped in a dressing-gown, fluffy-white and too big, it’s like I’m in the arms of a polar bear.