Unzipped (6 page)

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 cluster 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 walls 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.

My breath curls onto the glass.

Fairy lights in the trees, headlights, brake lights. Horse and carriage lights bump up the hill. Collins Street is a two-way roller-coaster. I follow the stop-start-stop progress of a tram, its cables sparking blue and white and silver.

I want to cry into a big pillow.

A king-size bed is a holiday. When Mark rolls into bed, I feel it from a distance. His hand on my stomach, he pushes into my side.

‘Pee-Wee…’ he breathes beer, wine, cigars.

I’m not having sex with anyone, that’s how this thing started.

‘No, can’t, feel sick.’

He’s snoring before my words are out.

‘You’re quiet,’ he says. ‘Are you missing me already?’

I’m picking at my porridge. ‘Yes, Mark.’ That’ll do. ‘And I’m worried we’re becoming a little too good at you not being home.’

He’s unattractive when he scowls. ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s all I ever hear from you, Peta.’

‘If you’re home to hear it.’

‘You’re never home either,’ Mark says. ‘What about last Saturday?’

BJ’s. Her iPod up loud. I don’t hear the rain. Her hands on my breasts, her tongue flat on my nipple. I don’t have to worry about that anymore.

Mark has had two pancakes and is on his third.

‘Okay, I’m missing you already,’ I say. ‘Remember our fight at Safeway?’

We’d had an aisle nine flare-up that continued through the register and the walk home. A fast temperature drop and raindrops the size of fifty-cent pieces. Expensive rain, he’d said, like your biscuits. I’d stopped walking. Come on. No. The bags filling up, drizzle in plastic. He dropped the shopping, soft to the footpath. Kissed me. My T-shirt and shorts clinging. His hair, dark and glossy, reminding me of Superman.

‘I remember,’ he says. He puts his hand on the table palm up, I rest mine in it. We fit. It’s usual, comfortable. All history and yesterdays, we can be so easy.