Unzipped

by Nicki Reed

  ‘You make it sound like heroin, the first time.’

  Heroin. Yeah. I said I’d pricked myself on her.

  ‘I want BJ—and to be happy and know it. Not the happiness I usually do, where I go: see, I was happy then, five minutes ago, last week. On the couch.’

  Ruby nods. She reckons happiness is the tiny moment before you press the button and say cheese. Happiness, Cheese, flash. You’re stunned, see silver specks floating and when your vision is back to normal, it’s gone.

  ‘One thing at a time, Pete. BJ is in France, but Mark is here. Well almost, he’ll be home in fourteen hours.’

  ‘Oh, now I understand why you’re so up—he’s coming home. I thought you’d been into the cold and flu tablets again.’

  ‘That was only once and just to see what it was like.’ She pulls up outside my house, turns the ignition off and Buttercup, her ancient Renault 12, shudders to an overrunning finish. ‘Anyhow, what do you mean, I’m so up?’

  ‘You’re jumping out of your skin and you haven’t shut up.’

  ‘Yes, I have. You’ve been crapping on the whole time. BJ this, I want her that, the couch, the couch.’

  Ruby has her hand to her forehead, reminding me of every soap-opera hospital scene I’d had to watch when I was looking after Mum. I remember deciding the daytime-TV addiction was a side-effect of her chemo.

  ‘So, he’s back tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, he’s taking me out to dinner.’

  ‘Fantastic. Where are you going?’

  I don’t say call me if it doesn’t work out.

  38.

  ‘You okay this morning, Peta?’

  ‘I had leftover pizza for dinner last night and I don’t think I should have.’ I grimace as I take my coffee from Anna.

  ‘Maybe an early night tonight, eh? Forget Dexter, I’ll fill you in.’

  I miss the episodes she catches and vice versa. She stamps my coffee card, hands it back to me.

  ‘I’ll get an early night if you do,’ I say.

  Anna never gets to bed before twelve and she’s always at the cafe by seven. How does she survive on so little sleep?

  No sooner have the Grand Final teams paraded down Swanston Street, than a photo of some celebrity holding the Melbourne Cup appears on the front page of the Herald Sun. I’m not in the mood this year. I didn’t watch the race—it takes at least a minute too long for my liking—I spent the day in the library. I’ve worked every first Tuesday in November since I left uni.

  On Oaks Day the tram ride to work is festive. The men look sharp in their three-piece suits but the women are outdoing them. They’re all wearing hats, backless dresses, halter-neck, full-length or mini, and not a coat in sight. From the outside my tram must look like a mobile garden party.

  Everyone looks refined now, but the tram ride home will be dishevelled and barefoot, smudged mascara and footy-club theme songs warbled drunk and insensible.

  I’m working back tonight.

  I’m sitting at my desk and I’m meant to be working. A couple of minutes off is okay—I’ve done nothing but work for weeks. It’s mid-November and I can’t help thinking about BJ. I could ring Loz to see if she’s heard anything. But what if whatever she’s heard is something I’d rather not? I’ll leave it.

  Today I woke up in a strange mood. I took the tram to work and the streets seemed different, louder. And my coffee tastes peculiar. I can’t drink it.

  ‘That’s three dollars I’ll never get back,’ I say to the bin.

  ‘Do you always talk to yourself, Peta? There’s someone for you in reception. I couldn’t get you.’

  Blaire breaking into a Peta-in-discussion-with-herself moment. She leans over my partition and presses a button on my phone.

  ‘There. I’ve told you before, Peta. Don’t touch the little green button.’

  ‘Sorry, Blaire, I must have bumped it.’

  She strides off. High heels, tight skirt, blonde hair, too much of it.

  At the window, looking out into the docks, Coode Island, the cranes of the West, is Justine in full courier dress. No wonder Blaire said someone like that.

  ‘Hi Jus, how’s Thunder?’

  ‘She’s downstairs if you’d like to say hello.’

  A container ship trudges out to sea. The bay and the clouds are grey, the horizon blending. ‘So, what are you doing here?’

  ‘BJ said she you sent you a letter.’

  I love Justine. She doesn’t waste a word.

  ‘It’s on my dresser.’

  ‘I think you should read it.’

  ‘Obviously. What about you and Stuart?’

  ‘He’s still there. Maybe he’s waiting for me, I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right to be falling in love when my sister needs me.’

  ‘I forgot you have a sister. She’s not well?’

  ‘Ali, she has depression. When are you going to read the letter?’

  ‘When I’m ready.’

  ‘I don’t suppose anybody has told you this, but you have an amazing way of avoiding issues. It’s a talent. You look plugged-in, like you give a shit, but in fact, you’re a flat-out chook.’

  I picture a flat-out chook. Black tyre-tracks, laminated to the road, the odd off-white feather sticking up.

  ‘Jus, could you go now?’

  ‘Come on, Peta, you can do this. You took on BJ, you were straight, married, on-track. But you went with it. You were as brave as fuck.’

  I’m too tired for this. I’ve been wrecked all day and I’m not going to get an early night tonight. I’m planning to sleep on the tram.

  She keeps on: ‘I mean it, Peta. You two went your own way. It was brilliant.’

  ‘Until I fucked it up.’ Yes, I said the f-word in reception in front of Blaire with the hair. I used to be a rebel. Justine says so.

  ‘By sleeping with your husband?’

  ‘I was talking about working too much and making her think I didn’t need her. How do you know about Mark?’

  ‘I catch up with Ruby on Mondays at the pub. Sports trivia. She’s not bad.’

  The pair of straightshooters—I should have known they’d become friends.

  ‘So you’ve been workshopping me with my sister?’

  ‘She cares, I care. And I care about BJ.’

  ‘Is there anybody you don’t care about, Justine?’

  ‘Yeah, Nicolas Cage and Mia Farrow.’

  ‘Look, I’m going to Ruby’s for dinner. So I’ll read it late tonight or tomorrow morning. Okay? Promise.’

  I walk Justine to the lift, consider going downstairs to see Thunder, decide not to be an idiot, and go back to my desk.

  Ruby cooks a lamb roast. I smell it as I walk up her driveway. Mark lets me in. His answering the door isn’t lost on me. He is with Ruby.

  On the kitchen bench are lamingtons and yo-yo biscuits. I grab a Coke from the fridge and see a triple-chocolate cheesecake.

  ‘Do you have something to tell me?’

  Ruby cooks when she’s thinking.

  ‘After dinner. I don’t want it to get cold.’

  ‘So Mark, when do you move to Chicago?’

  ‘I’m not. Things have changed.’

  ‘Oh. Well. That’s good.’

  Is that supposed to mean he has changed? Just in time for Ruby?

  ‘Yeah, I’m reconsidering a partnership. The hours aren’t good for my health.’

  ‘I think I remember saying something like that. Excuse me.’

  Ruby’s toilet is one of those in-the-bathroom jobs, like the one I cracked in half with my head at BJ’s. I close the door, turn the key, put the lid down and sit on the toilet.

  A knock.

  ‘Pete, you okay? Dinner’s ready.’

  Flush. ‘Yeah, Rube,’ I say over the rushing water.

  The cooperative manner in which Mark and Ruby pass each other the salt, the pepper, the mint sauce, is disgusting. Sitting opposite my ex and my sister, I gaze in the direction of the front door every ten seconds.

 
I stand up. ‘I feel sick. I’m going home.’

  ‘Mark, you have to tell her.’

  I sit down, musical chairs for one.

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘Hang on.’ Ruby leaves the room and comes back a half a minute later.

  ‘Is that the French letter? How did you get it?’ I can’t be bothered getting angry about the invasion of my privacy. She stands it between the salt and pepper. It looks like it’s waiting for a bus. It can wait.

  ‘I used Mark’s key.’

  I’m getting my locks changed.

  ‘Why can’t people leave me alone about this letter?’

  ‘Pete, BJ knows about that night.’

  He can only be talking about one night.

  ‘How does she know, Mark?’

  He takes a breath. He starts saying he’s sorry.

  I stop him. ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘When we were having sex, your phone rang, well, it lit up and vibrated. It was BJ. I’m sorry, Pete. I pressed the button. I don’t know how long she listened for but she would have heard enough. You were facing the other way. We were making a lot of noise. Remember?’

  I think I’m going to vomit.

  My phone in its usual spot. Phone, wallet, keys. Easy. And he answered it. Pressed the button. Easy. I was bent over the kitchen table and he was saying things like, is that how you like it, Peta? And, you still like a bit of cock don’t you, Pete?

  I was responding, Yes, yes, yes. And BJ heard it.

  I make it to the sink just in time.

  Vomit, snot, tears, all conglomerating, I slap Mark in the face, his head, neck, shoulders, over and over. I beat him. You bastard, you bastard, you bastard. After taking it for some time, Mark stands up and grabs my hands, pushes me into a chair.

  ‘Peta, stop it! I was wrong, it was shit. The worst thing I’ve ever done.’

  ‘I don’t remember any missed call.’

  ‘I deleted it when you were in the shower.’

  ‘Why, Mark?’

  ‘I don’t know. It rang, I answered it. I’m trying to apologise. Look, I never said I was a saint, Peta.’ Mark straightens his shirt, sees the top couple of buttons have been ripped off and shrugs. ‘We’ve both learned something this year, haven’t we?’

  I imagine BJ sitting in on tonight, listening to us at Ruby’s dining table, responsible-looking, so-called adults. ‘Oh yeah, Peta, he’s the man your mother warned you about.’

  ‘You’ve got some saying sorry to do, too, you know.’

  ‘I am so sorry…’ My head on the table, I think of my cowboy girl, calling, getting through, listening to us.

  The French letter. It’s time.

  The handwriting doesn’t seem angry.

  I go to Ruby’s room.

  Mark’s things are on the bedside table: his inhaler, his tall glass of water. I don’t care. I sit on the bed and read the letter under the light of the bedside lamp.

  Dear Peta,

  Well. I don’t need to ask what you’ve been doing with yourself and I guess you do still like a bit of cock.

  Pete, I’ve got a couple of things to say. I can’t call you, I’ll cry and you’ll cry and we won’t understand each other.

  That night I wasn’t home, I know you were too afraid to ask. You were right. I hooked up with a girl from uni. The night is a bit of a shadow, I’d had a lot to drink—shots mostly—she dragged me home and we fucked. I knew it wasn’t right. She’s pretty pissed off at me.

  When I got home I felt like hell. But you and I talked and got ourselves back on track and I left for France. I should have stayed.

  Selling Thunder was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

  Harder than listening to you and Mark fucking in the kitchen, I think. I have to admit, you do something to me Pete—even when you’re fucking someone else, I want you.

  I said selling Thunder was the hardest thing. I knew if I didn’t have to come back for her, we were finished. Justine said by the look on your face, you knew we were finished too. I didn’t say any of this in the Thunder letter because I figured we were one for one.

  I loved you, Pete. I did. I still do, but you need to get yourself right. Find out what you want from your life.

  I’m staying with a woman I met on a ride. Simone’s an artist. She works with metal, large-scale stuff, sculptures like those people on the corner of Swanston Street, and practical gear, like gates, barn doors, that kind of thing. I don’t know how long I’ll stay at Simone’s, I think it’s a mutual holding pattern thing.

  There is nothing else to say.

  BJ

  I fall back on Ruby’s bed. BJ had slept with somebody else. I dry my eyes on my sleeve, fold the letter and slip it back into the envelope. I remake the bed, turn off the bedside light and join the others.

  ‘Okay?’ Ruby says from the sink, rubber gloves up to her elbows, musk-stick pink with crinkled flared edges. She doesn’t move, waiting for me to show her what to do.

  ‘Fine. I’m going home.’

  ‘Pete?’

  ‘Rube, there’s nothing else to say.’

  39.

  On the tram I sit opposite or next to the green-woolknitting woman. I’ve watched her garment take shape, the front the back the sleeve the other sleeve, and not looked at her face once.

  Bugger talking to Ruby. She’s ringing, I’m not picking up. And Mark can go to Chicago forever.

  I’m simplifying my life. Books, barcodes, online subscriptions, lunch with JJ&T, coffee from Anna, reading on the tram. I’ve shed things, it’s easy.

  Every night I run, dressed in black, head to ankle, white runners, iPod. I listen to instrumental music, not songs—they’re almost always about love. I dug up my old Jean Michel Jarre CDs and put them onto my iPod.

  I’m tired but I don’t care. Tired is better than sad.

  I run under bridges, across railway tracks, along shopping strips closed for the evening, the lights of their milk-bar fridges ghostly. I come home and plunge myself into the shower, standing in the heat, my body turning from cold red to hot pink. I have toast and fruit for dinner most nights and I’ve smoked the last of BJ’s cigarettes.

  I’m making a BJ pile in the spare room—it’s growing fast.

  ‘What time are you going to bed, Peta? You look wrecked.’

  Taylor has a handle on wrecked. And now I know why she talks about it so much. I’m not asking her about Glen—she’ll tell me if she wants—I know what it’s like to be dragged into conversations you’d rather not have. Yes, I’m tired—my eyelids feel like they’re sticking to my eyeballs—but I didn’t think I looked that bad. ‘It’s stress, work, Ruby, BJ. A culmination. Maybe my blood pressure is off. Maybe I’ll go to the doctor.’

  ‘Not maybe, I’ll drive you. We’ll push our way in.’

  We were going to the movies, to see whatever romantic comedy was playing, but Taylor’s a take-charge kind of girl and I’d hate to disappoint her.

  Dr Cahill listens to me complain. He takes my blood pressure, looks into my eyes, ears and mouth. He asks me about sleep, then asks for a urine sample. Stage fright: I’m not used to weeing on demand. Success.

  Dr Cahill’s office has changed little in the eight years I’ve been seeing him. If anything’s changed it’s the family photos. His eldest in graduation robes looks to be the most recent.

  Back at his desk: ‘Peta, you are pregnant.’

  All the colour from my face is in my toes, I know it. Dread looks like an unready woman discovering she’s pregnant.

  ‘But…’

  ‘When was your last period?’

  My cycle has been irregular for most of the year. My body is doing an interpretation of our public transport system and my period comes when it feels like it. Mark was supposed to withdraw, pull out, deal with it. I thought he did. I don’t remember. Is this prom night?

  Dr Cahill has a due-date calculator. It looks like a colour wheel interior decorators use. The wheel turns. I’m about ten-weeks pregnant. It’s
early December, the baby is due in July. We book an ultrasound.

  ‘You don’t look like you planned this.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘What about Mark?’

  ‘We’re separated.’

  ‘Would you like to discuss options?’

  I stand up, smooth my skirt, shoulder my bag. ‘Dr Cahill, I don’t need an abortion or Mark.’

  ‘Well, that explains the tiredness. It doesn’t explain the weight loss, though. You’re going to have to start looking after yourself. You can still run, but you have to eat more. Why don’t you come and stay with me for a few weeks.’

  ‘Taylor, I can take care of myself.’

  Not that I have, but I’m about to start.

  ‘It’d be nice to have another girl in the house, between Gus and Sam, David and the dog, Mirrie and I feel overrun.’

  The windscreen is clean, unscratched and the car ahead of us is a Volvo. It has two kids in the station-wagon part facing us, one of them gives us a thumbs-up sign. Cute.

  ‘I’ll stay at mine tonight. But I’ll come over after work tomorrow with some clothes and we can pretend we’re a couple of girls on camp over the weekend.’

  ‘I don’t love it, Pete, but I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  She drops me off and waits until I’m through my front door. After a dinner of steamed vegetables, a can of tuna and two glasses of milk, I fire up my computer and Google pregnancy, two months, Australia.

  Pregnancy: tiredness, mood swings, fundus, cord blood donation, meconium. Too much information. And I like research. I switch off my computer.

  The water hurtles out of the tap. I need bubbles. I overdo it and the bubbles are twice the height of the bath. I step into them. There’s water under here somewhere. I lie back and I’m gone, disappeared inside a cloud, cumulus wettus. Bubbles popping, soft, crackle. I can’t believe there are two of us in the bath. I don’t look any different, don’t feel any different. Tired, but I’m meant to be. It says so on the internet.