Times Like These

by Ana McKenzie

  Bianca stared unseeingly ahead and shook her head. ‘No. I would really like to go home, Merren, I’m sorry.’

  More silence, but at least they hadn’t turned off the main road, were still moving in the same direction back to the city.

  After a few minutes, Merren spoke again and Bianca suddenly felt very old and very tired. She closed her eyes.

  ‘Have I said something wrong, Bianca?’ Merren asked her. ‘I feel like I’ve done something wrong.’

  Bianca shook her head. ‘For heaven’s sakes, Merren,’ she said. ‘You’re an adult, aren’t you? You make yourself sound like a child when you ask if you’ve done something wrong.’

  The answer came after a brief pause, and Bianca tightened her grip on the arm rest.

  ‘I am an adult,’ Merren said. ‘Which is why I’m asking questions, trying to figure out what is going on.’

  Bianca shook her head. ‘I’m just tired, Merren, and I have a headache. I want to go home.’ It was more than that, of course, but she was tired. So tired, in fact. Exhausted, her body a leaden weight she could barely hold up. She just wanted to go home. Life was too much. One step forward, one step back. She sighed, shook her head.

  ‘Okay,’ Merren said, and Bianca ignored the doubt in the young woman’s tone, waited instead for the silent car to pull into her driveway and deliver her home.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Merren stood in the driveway by her car, her laptop bag in her hand, blinking at Bianca’s closed door in bewilderment.

  What had just happened?

  She shook her head. Something had. She just couldn’t put her finger on what.

  But there weren’t any answers in the blank windows of the house, and the door stayed stubbornly closed. With a baffled sigh, Merren turned slowly and opened her car door, leaning in to put her computer on the passenger’s seat and sliding in after it.

  So, she’d go home and catch up on things there. God knows, she’d been letting things slip, which wasn’t like her. It was spending so many nights away from home that was doing it – so many eventful nights. She’d taken to sleeping after sex, instead of getting up and working once Bianca had fallen asleep.

  The car rolled down the driveway and out onto the road, its silent engine giving Merren its usual lift. Everything was all right, she decided. Bianca would have said if there really was something bothering her. So, that meant she had a headache, and that was all. And of course, she was entitled to have some time to herself. It wasn’t like Merren had moved in with her, or anything.

  She coloured at the thought and turned the vehicle homewards.

  The Burrow was just as she’d left it a couple days before, except for the woman waiting outside it.

  ‘Mee-Yon!’ she said, getting out of her car and giving a puzzled glance at her watch. ‘Did I forget we were meeting, or something?’ There were no reminders flashing.

  Mee-Yon grinned and shook her head. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘I just dropped by on the off-chance you were home.’ She shrugged. ‘I was going for a run.’

  Merren looked at her. ‘You were going for a run? In this heat?’ She slotted her key in the door and pushed it open, gesturing for her friend to take sanctuary in the cool depths of the cottage.

  ‘Sweat more,’ Mee-Yon said. ‘Stay thinner.’

  ‘That’s crazy. You can’t get any thinner than you already are, can you?’ The woman was slender as a reed.

  Her friend laughed. ‘Talk to my mother and ask her that. It’s coming up Christmas, and she’s embraced the holiday with passion made of a thousand calorie-laden delicacies.’ She led the way into Merren’s living room. ‘I’m being pre-emptive on the weight front.’

  ‘That’s still crazy,’ Merren said dumping her bag and heading for the fridge. Just looking at her perspiring friend made her thirsty. ‘Drink?’ she said.

  ‘You bet. What do you have?’

  Merren wrinkled her nose, surveying the contents of her fridge. ‘Beer, ginger beer, kombucha, water. That’s it, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Beer, I think, since we’ve got something to celebrate – potentially, if we’re going, of course.’

  Two bottles of craft beer in her hand, Merren turned to look at Mee-Yon with a frown in place over her eyes. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Mee-Yon’s eyes widened. ‘You haven’t read the email? What on earth have you been doing?’ She gaped at Merren, then flapped a hand, shaking her head. ‘Oh, don’t answer that. I know exactly what you’ve been doing, judging by the way your cheeks are suddenly red. You’ve been getting your gear off for that artist of yours.’

  Merren winced. She couldn’t deny it. ‘What email?’ she asked.

  ‘Hoo-wee, I can’t believe you haven’t seen it yet. You know the big Ethics of Exponential Technologies conference coming up?’

  ‘The one in Beijing, you mean?’

  Mee-Yon had thrown herself down on Merren’s couch and now she grinned up at her. ‘Yeah, that’s exactly the one I mean – you, and I, and Ji, and Dave have received a personal invitation from the organisers to attend.’

  Merren set the unopened bottles carefully on the coffee table and sank down into the chair opposite Mee-Yon.

  ‘What?’ she asked. ‘Why? Don’t they already have their schedule all set? Isn’t the conference soon?’

  ‘You heard me,’ Mee-Yon said. ‘Why? Because we’re awesome – well, particularly you, I’m thinking. And yes, they already have their schedule set, but some fabulous idiot pulled out at the last moment and now they have one speaker fewer than they need. Which is where we come in.’ She reached for a bottle of the beer, unscrewed the cap, and held it up to Merren in a toast, a satisfied look on her face. ‘One of the sessions is about currency initiatives, and we’re invited to particularly take part in that, exchanging ideas about how we see it leading to a more responsible, generous, secure society.’

  Merren’s head swam. ‘But that’s not even something we’ve been spearheading. We’re just one of a bunch of teams in universities all over the world working on it.’

  Mee-Yon eyed Merren over the bottle as she tipped it up to take a swallow. She wiped her mouth. ‘The email was sent by Hong Fen Chan – you know him, right?’

  That made Merren sit back in her chair. The skin on her arms prickled but she was too stunned to rub at it.

  ‘Well?’ Mee-Yon asked impatiently.

  ‘I know him,’ Merren said. ‘Of course I do. We’ve been in contact for years, ever since I emailed him out of the blue once, asking him about one of his initiatives. I’ve been wanting to go over to China to see him.’ She shook her head. ‘He’s really invited us to the conference?’

  ‘Yup,’ Mee-Yon said. ‘And I totally think we should go.’

  ‘Hong Fen invited the whole team?’

  ‘He sure did. I can’t believe you haven’t been reading your emails.’

  Merren shook her head again. ‘I’ve been busy,’ she said.

  Mee-Yon gave her a knowing look. ‘Yeah, and I bet I can figure out what you’ve been busy with,’ she said, shaking her head so that her long black ponytail flicked from side to side. ‘But that’s just a bit of fun, right? It’s not going to stop you from going to the conference?’ She picked up the beer Merren had brought her and tipped it up, peering over the bottle at Merren as she drank. ‘Because the rest of us have decided to go.’

  ‘All of you?’ Merren ran a hand through her hair. ‘When is it again?’

  ‘The week before Christmas. Next week, in other words.’

  That was very soon.

  ‘We’re ready to book our tickets, as soon as you say you’re coming.’ Mee-Yon pointed the bottle at Merren. ‘Which you’d better say within the next two minutes or I’m going to call the guys and stage an intervention until you agree.’ She put the bottle down on the table like an exclamation mark. ‘This is way too good an opportunity to miss – and it’s not going to interfere with anything else we have going on, because at this time of year we don’t
have anything else going on.’

  Except Bianca. Merren shifted in her chair. She had Bianca.

  ‘Except that older woman of yours,’ Mee-Yon said. ‘You’ve got her going on big-time.’

  ‘Her name’s Bianca.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the one.’ Mee-Yon shifted to perch on the edge of the couch. ‘You can’t turn down this opportunity over a woman, Merren.’

  A shake of the head. No, she couldn’t. Maybe if it was just her invited, but not since it was the whole gang.

  Mee-Yon was staring at her. ‘Oh my god,’ she said. ‘You’re actually thinking about not going because of her.’

  Automatically, Merren shook her head.

  ‘This is a big deal, Merren.’

  She knew it was a big deal. Sighing, she leaned back and stared up at the ceiling. There was a large black spider crawling towards the central light fitting.

  ‘Of course we’re going,’ she said at last.

  Mee-Yon flopped back down on the cushions in relief. She held up her bottle in a toast. ‘You are not going to regret this.’

  When Merren didn’t answer, Mee-Yon popped back up to stare at her with narrowed eyes. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked after a good long moment’s scrutiny. ‘Don’t tell me you’re falling for this artist of yours? I’ve never seen you so wrapped up in a girlfriend before.’

  ‘We’re not girlfriends,’ Merren said automatically. ‘We’re not really dating or anything.’

  Her friend was still staring at her.

  ‘Well, we’re not,’ Merren said, wincing at the defensiveness in her voice. ‘We’ve never talked about anything like that. It’s only been weeks. We’re just sleeping together, and I’m helping her out with other things.’ She stopped talking.

  The beer bottle was pointing at her again.

  ‘You are so toast, Merren,’ Mee-Yon told her. ‘It’s way too late for you – I can see it in your face.’

  ‘See what?’ Merren shifted in her chair, sat up, reached for her drink, held the sweating bottle between her knees.

  ‘You’ve totally fallen for her. What is she? Old enough to be your mother?’

  Merren shook her head, trying to dislodge her voice from her dry throat.

  ‘You have too. It’s written all over your face – not to mention the fact that no one’s seen you for ages now.’ Mee-Yon wrinkled her nose. ‘And you’re glowing. Like you’ve been having the best sex of your life every day.’

  Her voice was still stuck down there in her windpipe. Merren shrugged instead, licked her lips, took a swig of the beer.

  ‘It’s not like that,’ she managed finally. Then backtracked. ‘Well, it is like that, a little, maybe. But honestly, we’ve just been having a good time together. It’s nothing serious.’

  A manicured eyebrow lifted in disbelief. ‘It looks serious, sitting here in front of your face.’

  Merren shook her head. ‘No, really. Bianca…she…’

  ‘She what?’

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Okay, it’s not serious for her. This is totally the wrong time for something serious for Bianca. She’s got too much on her plate right now.’

  Merren received a look of pure scepticism. ‘She’s doing well enough to have put you right on her plate.’

  A shrug. ‘I mean she’s working on getting her life back up and running; she’s not in the right space for a relationship.’

  ‘So what – it’s just fuck your brains out, then seeya later alligator?’

  Merren couldn’t help the grin. ‘That’s not such a bad deal, you know.’

  Mee-Yon rolled her eyes. ‘Sure, if you weren’t pulling your heart out of your chest and running around waiting for her to take it from you. Does she even know who you are?’ The beer bottle waggled at Merren again. ‘I bet she just thinks you’re some broke young student, am I right? Looking for a holiday job and happy to have some sex thrown in?’

  Ouch. Merren ran a shaking hand through her hair. She looked around the room, trying to find something that needed her to get up to do. There was nothing.

  ‘OMG, I’m right, aren’t I?’ Mee-Yon said. ‘She doesn’t know the first thing about you – and you, of course, being you, haven’t told her.’

  ‘She’s dealing with stuff,’ Merren said.

  ‘Well, she oughta know she’s dealing with someone who’s practically writing the script for this city’s future, and someone who also made a couple million dollars on crypto-currency before she was even out of her teens because she’s just that damned smart. Not to mention the peer-to-peer apps you’ve produced – right down to that delivery app you designed for that friend of yours, what was their name?’

  Merren shook her head. ‘Lex. But that wasn’t a big deal.’

  Another expert roll of the eyes. ‘It’s all a big deal, put together, trust me. Jeeze, Merren.’

  Merren got up even though there was no reason to. The conversation made her uncomfortable. She shook her head.

  ‘It doesn’t matter anyway,’ she said. ‘Bianca got weird this afternoon and sent me on my way, so who I am or what I might or might not feel for her doesn’t matter.’

  ‘What sort of weird?’

  Merren rubbed her hands on her thighs and sat back down. ‘I don’t know. We were out – I managed to drag her out of the house, finally – and we were having a good time, when suddenly she has a headache and wants to go home.’

  ‘Did she have a headache?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Merren sighed, trying to replay the conversation she’d had with Bianca. ‘I asked her if I’d said something wrong, but she just clammed up.’

  ‘I hate that,’ Mee-Yon said. ‘Nate used to do that to me all the time, did you know? Man, he was sulky. You’d have thought he was a three-year-old.’ She stood up. ‘Anyway, I gotta get back. The aunties are coming over this afternoon, and Mum will not speak to me for a month if I’m not there all freshly scrubbed and smiling.’ She took the bottle into the kitchen and Merren heard her drop it into the recycling before coming back into the room.

  ‘I’ll let the guys know we’re set for the conference. You’ll be online tonight?’

  Merren guessed so, since she was home. She nodded. ‘Yeah, I’ll sign on – we can chat about it.’

  ‘Good, we’ll look up the flights, book something.’ She tapped Merren on the shoulder. ‘You write straight back to Hong Fen, and then start thinking about talking points. Get your head out from between that woman’s legs and back on track. You hear me?’

  Merren closed her eyes a moment. ‘I hear you,’ she said, and tipped a salute as Mee-Yon let herself out.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Bianca wrestled with the key in the door and let herself into her house, blinking in the dimness and dropping her keys into the bowl on the side table. She closed the door behind herself and listened to the quiet house. Then gave a self-conscious laugh.

  She wasn’t used to being home alone anymore. Somewhere along the line, she’d gotten used to having Merren around.

  On a sigh, she touched a hand to the bannister and made her way upstairs. She was confused by what Merren had said. It didn’t make sense – one of the things she’d always liked about Merren was that the woman didn’t seem to give much of a damn about art. She’d only seemed to care that Bianca could continue to be the artist that she was.

  That thought made Bianca wince. If that was the case, then perhaps she’d overreacted a bit when Merren had said what she did. Maybe she’d even misinterpreted it. Why hadn’t she asked Merren to explain herself?

  Stopping at the doorway to her studio, Bianca answered her own question. Because she was an idiot, that was why. She was still too unsteady.

  Worse, she’d come to rely on Merren. She couldn’t bear the thought that Merren wasn’t as straight-forward as she seemed. What if she really was only with her because it made her look good?

  Bianca stepped into the room, arms wrapped around herself as though she was cold. She unhooked a hand to snap the ligh
ts on and suddenly the walls lit up with life-size figures.

  Merren. Her curves. Her surprisingly muscular legs – surprising for someone who sat at a computer every day. Her beautiful, compact breasts, her long neck, her short, dark hair. Everywhere Merren.

  Backing up, Bianca felt the chaise longue behind her legs and sank down on it, staring around the room at her art work.

  It was art; even with her limited vision, and the roughness of the work, she could see that. The lines were good and strong; there was movement in them, music. They danced on the canvas, stepping out of backgrounds made of colour, great swirling sparks of it, that from her position on the chair, took on contours of their own – gardens, lawns, the patterned paper of imagined rooms.

  Bianca shook her head. Merren wasn’t spending time with her so she could look good, could be the one on the arm of the rich artist. They didn’t even go out anywhere! They simply spent their time at home, and Merren seemed perfectly happy with that.

  Bianca stood abruptly up again and left the room, trailing her fingers along the wall through the dark interior of the house. She found the stairs and made her way gingerly down them. Then shuffled down the hallway to her office, chewing on her lip as she went.

  There was one way to find out for sure whether Merren was interested in being with her for herself, or for looks. She reached for the telephone and picked up the heavy receiver, sliding onto the chair behind her desk to press the buttons to dial Merren’s number.

  The magnetic board with Merren’s phone number was still on the desk, but Bianca didn’t need to run her fingers over the plastic letters to remind herself. She dialled from memory. Then pressed her fingers to the bright plastic numbers anyway, letting her fingertips trace their outlines as she waited for the call to go through.

  Merren answered, and Bianca had to clear her throat before she could make herself speak.