Unzipped (4 page)

The front door bangs shut. BJ’s phone rings. I find the bathroom. There’s a glass on the bench, I rinse it and fill it. See the shake in my hands.

I can’t be with BJ if my husband is kicking around inside my head, shocked and hurt and angry. A couple of years ago, at a team-building workshop, I learned a visualisation technique. I’ll put Mark in a box.

I line the box with paper. Strands of shredded pink, like fireworks bursting. Inside the box, he is safe and out of the way. A good imagining.

Straighten skirt. Reapply lipstick.

I can’t wait to unzip her out of that jacket.

Unzip.

There is no sexier word.

She’s in her bedroom. ‘Mum, I said I’d be there. Bye.’ She switches her phone off and dumps it in a drawer. ‘God, what a control freak.’

Books everywhere. She may have more books than I do. Book towers, buildings, a city of literature on her desk. There’s a dirty bike leaning against a wall.

The jacket is second-hand, scuffed, worn, blue-black at the edges, softer than it looks. The zip-pull is thick, thumb and forefinger polished. The chrome teeth shine.

I push it off her shoulders. It lands on the floor, staying in its just-shed position. A question answered: white singlet, no bra.

BJ sits me on her bed, unbuttons my blouse, leaves me in my bra and skirt, walks to the window and draws the curtains. She plugs her iPod into its dock and turns up the volume, big guitar thumping and a beautiful voice.

‘Who’s this?’

‘Regina Spektor, “That Time,” she says. ‘It’s our song.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

She undoes her top jeans button, and saves the rest of her buttons for me. She smiles a come-and-get-it smile. I have a small second of worry. Can I do this? Can I touch her there? Kiss her there? And, what if I’m bad at it?

I pull her singlet up and over her head. Kiss her. I’ve never kissed anybody shorter than me—not like this—this must be how men feel. My hands on her shoulders. I slide them down, cup her breasts, feel their weight, softness. Kiss her again. I’m shaking. I pull away.

She’s smiling. She takes my hand from her breast and positions it on her fly. Buttons are not as easy as a zip but I have no problems. I wriggle her out of her jeans and push her down onto the bed, pull the jeans off her.

Nipples on nipples, hips on hips, my hands between her legs, my face all over her body. Symmetry. I feel like we’ve blended. Become each other.

‘Why me, BJ?’ My first after-sex question. My face is sweaty and a bruise is developing on my thigh, courtesy of a brass bed-knob and adolescent enthusiasm.

‘Way to bring reality into the moment, babe. It was the dress and heels, and your hair, those big curls. And the “come fuck me” look on your face.’

My chin is pressed into BJ’s stomach and my feet are poking through the cast iron uprights.

‘Am I that transparent?’

She plays with my hair. ‘No, but I can pick ‘em.’

‘I’m thirteen years older than you. That’s nearly two whole sets of skin cells.’

‘Oh, that’s what that was.’

I sit up. ‘What?’

‘Get back down here, I’m joking, you idiot.’

‘But, I was thirteen when you were born.’

‘Yeah, and when you’re a hundred, I’ll be eighty-seven. It’s about attraction. Age has got nothing to do with it.’ BJ waves a hand in the air, casual. ‘When I was in Year Twelve I had a massive, massive, massive crush on my English teacher. I wanted her to be my first and she must have been in her forties.’

Jealous.

‘Three massives. That’s a big crush. Was she a lesbian?’

‘It didn’t matter.’ BJ smiles and there’s a dimple I hadn’t noticed.

‘You know, when you’re being filthy, you get a dimple, just here.’ I kiss the new dimple and slide back under the doona.

BJ’s bedroom has a high ceiling, Art Deco plaster mouldings and a matching light-shade. Is the light-shade like BJ? A real original? I have never met anyone like her.
Her jacket. I want it. Even though it will never fit. I’ll close it over my shoulders and wear it cape-style in bed.

While my monogamy was round the corner having a smoke, I made love to a girl. Her lips on my nipples, her soft, hard kisses, me matching her kiss for kiss—it’s a revelation.

In the hallstand mirror: do I look the same going out as when I came in? Pink cheeks, sweaty, a little too smiley. Not quite the same.

BJ’s typing her number into my phone.

‘It’s in under Hot Lover,’ she says. She hands it back to me. She’s not joking. Up on her toes to kiss me goodbye. I push my hands into the back pockets of her jeans. I could stay like this forever but I have a husband and dinner guests to go home to.

On the doorstep: ‘Well, you know where to find me,’ BJ indicates down the hall, ‘second on the left. Anytime.’

Her front door closes and I jump off the porch clearing three steps at a time. Skip down the path and through the thigh-high gate. It’s been raining, but curtains closed, music up, my attention on BJ, I didn’t notice. I snag a rain-heavy branch of the plane tree on the nature strip and douse myself. A memory flares. Ruby and I on the long walk home from school, drenched. We glance at each other, sidelong, through our wet fringes, and try not to smile our ‘Sorry, Mum.’

Does finetuning your sexuality affect the way you drive? My car feels different, the steering tighter, the leg room shorter. Mark is in his box on the front seat next to me. Is there such a word as de-visualise?

‘Nothing to see here,’ I say to the box.

Tram tracks point the way to Mark, my house, my books, the space for my car. Not ready yet. I look over my shoulder, indicate, and pull into the kerb beside a new bottle-shop near home, run in, trying to remember the wine Mark likes. Search the labels, find it, Craiglee Shiraz, pay.

With the key in the lock, I set my demeanour: I’ve done nothing wrong, certainly nothing sexual. An hour and a half until people are due.

Mark is out of the box and in the kitchen. His beautiful smile is doing something to me I hadn’t anticipated. Cry, vomit, run like hell, I can’t decide.

‘Hey, you remembered that wine. Not bad,’ his hands out.

‘It was easy,’ I say, stepping back. I leave the bottle on the kitchen bench.

What if I smell like BJ? Sex and sweat, the sea.

‘God, I need a shower. I’m covered in thirteen years of dust, schools of silverfish.’

I fake a sneeze on the way to the bathroom. ‘Achoo!’

Mark’s barbeque is stainless steel, two metres long and he has the tools to accompany it. They’re housed in a brushed aluminium attaché. He polishes the tongs, the spatula, the trident-style fork, before he lines them up in their felt beds.

The last thing I want to do is host a dinner. I want to be left alone to persuade myself it was someone else’s bad good wife.

Taylor, her husband, David, and their kids, Sam, Gus and Miranda, are first to arrive. Mark and David head straight out to the deck with the two boys. Miranda, Taylor and I stay in the kitchen. Miranda is only four but she knows her place.

‘Hey, I got a job,’ Taylor says.

‘I thought you weren’t going to work until Miranda’s in school.’

‘We need the money. David says not to worry but I
am. Anyway, it’s hardly working. It’s sitting there looking pretty. I was approached a few weeks ago at Chadstone by a woman who runs a modelling agency looking for real women. There’s nobody more real than me—I’m wrecked, I’m stained and I haven’t slept since 1960.’

Taylor is plus size. Size ten plus a little more. She says it’s industrial strength baby-weight and she has until Miranda is five to lose it.

‘So, you’re doing it? Good on you.’

‘Going to tell me what’s going on?’

‘What?’ I haul the roast vegetables out of the oven, straighten my face.

‘You keep smiling like you’re remembering something really good.’

‘The Bombers won last night.’

‘Really? Since when do you care about the football?’

True. The injuries, the deep media coverage, every channel, every day, discouraged me seasons ago. But the footy is easy small talk in this town.

‘Hope Ruby’s not late.’

Taylor scoops the roast vegetables into a serving dish. ‘Of course Ruby will be late. She’ll have to get back home from wherever she landed last night, pick her car up from the station, get some more sleep and she’ll be here in time to sit down and eat.’

At the sink, beer bottles are lined up. A pair plus one of empty Heineken soldiers. BJ was drinking Heineken before the champagne at her house.

‘You did it again. You smiled.’

‘Look, Taylor, forget it. I’ve got to get the clothes off the line. Can you keep an eye out for Alex and Rob? Oh yeah, Ravi Junior and his parents can’t make it. They’re
staying in, trying to get him on track. They say getting him to sleep is the hardest thing.’

‘Been there. Probably won’t see them again until he’s in school.’

If Taylor has been with me for less than five minutes and noticed something is different, how long will it take for Mark to notice? Or Ruby, who may often be late but is always observant.

Maybe they’ll get drunk enough to forget about me. I can facilitate that. I open a bottle of wine, a gift re-gifted, pour one for everyone except me. Mark and David are on their way. Stories of bunkers, lost balls, chip shots, nine irons.

Taylor, Ruby, Alex and I sit at the opposite end of the table from the men. Miranda is on Alex’s lap. Alex sweeps a curl from Miranda’s face. ‘You’re getting big.’

Six months into her pregnancy, so is Alex.

At least she and Rob have stopped wearing matching clothes. Maternity wear can be difficult for a man. They met at the fireworks on the Yarra, saying good morning to 1999, wearing matching Pearl Jam Tour T-shirts. Then kept looking like their best idea of each other. Yuck.

‘She’s going to be four next month, aren’t you, Mirrie?’

Miranda looks like her mum. It’s as if her mother has been photocopied at a seventy-five per cent reduction. She has the same hair, dark blonde and wavy, blue-green eyes and the I’ll-do-it-my-own-way attitude.

‘I wanna be five. Hannah is five.’

‘Hannah’s her friend at preschool. She’s not five, she’s lying about her age.’

‘Honey, hop off Aunty Al, go and see if we brought your
Ice Age
DVD with us, it should be in your backpack.’

‘I don’t care about age. You’re only as old as the woman you feel.’

‘Been feeling many women then, Alex?’

I choke. Wonder if people can smell BJ. I washed my hair, scrubbed my fingernails, and I’m sure I can. Lady Macbeth has nothing on me.

‘Yes, all night. I brought her home as a present for Rob, watched him open her, and when he was done I continued.’

Ruby catches my eye and makes her
did you get a load of that
face. While she has my attention she mouths,
what’s wrong?

Shake my head. Nothing.

‘Jesus, Al,’ Ruby says. ‘Have another drink.’

‘I’m not drinking.’ She pats her tummy. ‘It’s all me.’

‘I’m happy Miranda’s not here for this. You are gross.’

‘And sexist,’ Ruby says.

‘Women can’t be sexist.’

‘Are you mad?’ Up a notch on her insolence meter, Ruby pours herself another. The plan is working. ‘Women are more sexist than men.’

‘It’s jealousy,’ Taylor says. ‘Ask me. Motherhood is the worst, biggest race you’ll ever get in.’

‘At least lesbians don’t have to worry about competing.’ Alex stands her empty glass on the table. Thunk.

‘Maybe they don’t worry about what people think. They’ve already done the hard yards. They’re a minority, it gives them strength.’

‘I didn’t know you’d thought about this, Pete,’ Taylor says.

I did for book club (before work became too busy for book club—now I’m my own book club). But book-club thinking is distanced thinking. I hadn’t thought about it properly until the long-way, radio-up-loud, drive home from BJ’s place.

‘I saw something on
Insight,’
I say. ‘And last year I read
The Hours.
It had beautiful sentences and, among other things, women loving women.’

‘Can’t you say lesbian, Peta?’

How do I get myself into these things?

‘Don’t bother lending it to me.’ Alex proving herself.

‘Was it juicy? Lesbians, eh, it’d be twice as juicy.’

I don’t know where my sister gets her sense of humour. It’s broad and smells like the gutter. ‘God, Ruby, you’re foul. It wasn’t like that.’

Being with my friends has never been stressful before. What’s happened to me?

‘Why are we talking about this again?’ Taylor, asking the question I want answered. She and I had got Mirrie organised in the spare bed and walked back into the lounge room to lesbians.

‘There’s nothing cooler than lesbians.’ Rob on his seventh beer. He’s a builder, an Aussie bloke of the fifties mould. Un-reconstructed in construction. Why are we still hanging out with Alex and Rob? School? Knowing them forever?

‘As long as they let you watch.’ Shades of golf-trip Mark in my lounge room.

‘I’d rather be locked in a hotel room with a lesbian than a poof.’ David at his most normal. Taylor cringes.

‘I’m gonna put that on a bumper sticker,’ Rob says.

‘I love how you think a poof might be interested in you, Dave.’ That’s Mark.

Ruby whispers in my ear, ‘His wife can’t stand him.’

We’re cleaning up. Mark’s emptying the dregs into the sink. The beery-wine swirl down the plughole reminds me of every eighteenth I ever attended.

I should have known. Mark only helps in the kitchen if he has something to tell me. He’s wiping the bench when I’m informed he has to go to Chicago for two weeks.

‘Again? Tell me, Mark. What’s in Chicago?’

‘My other wife, Cheryl-Bobb. She’s six foot four and used to be a man.’

‘Oh, that’s why you never call when you’re away. Never text, hardly drop me an email. She’s not into sharing?’

‘Peta, you know what’s in Chicago.’ His head office, advancement, the please-wear-your-seatbelt, fast-track to a partnership. ‘And you know I can’t be calling every minute of the day, especially with the time difference.’

Two weeks with no Mark.

What is the word for thrilled to pieces and scared to death?

I bet the Germans have one.