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The walk through the terminal is long and Mark is chatting enough for both of us. At the bookshop he buys the latest Matthew Reilly. He’s read them all and only on planes.

I walk him to the gate and that’s when I cry.

‘Don’t cry, Pee-Wee,’ he says. ‘Two weeks isn’t even long enough to develop a new bad habit.’

Yes it is.

‘Mark…’

I want to tell him we’re over, tell him I need him to stay home, try harder, help me fix this. I want to tell him I don’t know what to think anymore. But I can’t let him step onto a plane worrying about his future. He has work to do, a partnership to claim. And he’s right. Two weeks is nothing.

I wipe my eye on the turn of my wrist. ‘It’s airports. Unless you’re on your way, you’re being left. Besides, it could go down.’

‘Pete, no plane crash jokes in the terminal. Look, it says so on that sign.’

I can’t laugh with him.

Mark is at the gate. He’s waiting to be frisked by either the big bloke with no neck or the blonde woman in the tight, white blouse. He’s hanging back. It works. He has the woman. He waves a happy goodbye.

I wave, smile.

I’ve paid twelve dollars for forty-five minutes’ parking. I’m about to pull out of my spot when I receive a text from Mark.
Plane delayed two hours. Typical.
It’s also typical he doesn’t say I love you. I want him to, don’t want him to. That’s not typical.

Get home, dump my bag, do the washing, hang it out in the early-evening chill. Do ironing for the week. Polish shoes. Mrs Dalloway is asleep on a jumper Mark has left on a chair. Check phone, no texts from BJ. Good. Not good. Make toasted ham and cheese sandwich for dinner, burn it, eat it anyway. Still no texts.

Pack bag for Monday.

Take shower, brush teeth, set alarm, lock doors.

My phone beeps a text.

Run to it, heart in mouth.

The text is from Mark:
boarded.

Will. Not. Cry.

Go to bed.

With the internet, and most documents available digitally, what is it bike couriers carry? BJ said a bloke in a firm on Lonsdale Street has a ham and salad on rye delivered to his office every day. That’s eighties behaviour.

Couriers lie about in clusters outside 447 Collins Street, 35 Collins Street, 600 Bourke. Turns out they’re not on a break, or having lunch; they’re waiting for work. They don’t get paid unless they’re moving.

Before BJ, I didn’t see cyclists unless I was seeing red. Didn’t know about the disabled toilets at McDonald’s. Didn’t know it took only twenty minutes to drive from my place in Balwyn to hers in Northcote, another world less than half an hour away.

I’ve spent days trying not to think about BJ, being annoyed she hasn’t texted and relieved she hasn’t texted.

I tram to work, answer emails, run up to the Supreme Court library—it is the season for unreported judgments—
obtain obscure case law from the US, and perform a raid for unreturned books during Tuesday lunch. Processing, cataloguing, loose-leaf filing. I share a lift with a bike courier. A giant, in sunglasses, helmet, gloves, with his radio up too loud. I almost ask if he knows BJ, decide not to. Of course he does, then what?

Tram home.

Watching TV makes me think of BJ—she has one— reading makes me think of BJ—she has books on her desk. Her desk is at a ninety-degree angle to her bed. Her bed is the place where we went from accidental to deliberate.

The tick, tick, tick of the zip on my laptop bag
being
the exact feel of the unzipping of BJ’s jacket. I can’t leave it alone.

Three weeks since the couch, I brush my teeth and think of her. I didn’t stay there but I saw her toothbrush in her bathroom. I miss her.

Friday afternoon, the relocating complete, smooth, a week of work, and nothing but missing BJ behind me, I act. I made a stop at the florist on the way to work this morning. It’s after lunch and most of my floor is in the boardroom saying goodbye to Ron from accounts. I’ll join them when I’m off the phone.

‘Jumbo Couriers. This is Liz.’

‘Um, hello, I’d like to book a courier.’

‘Do you have an account with us?’

I’d checked. We use CityFast, only cars, no bikes.

‘No, I’ll pay cash on delivery. I have a few stipulations, this might be a bit out of the ordinary.’

Liz sighs, get on with it, ‘Picking up from?’

‘Botanical Bounty, the florist, they’re at…’

‘We have their address,’ the clipped tone of a busy Friday afternoon, ‘What are we picking up?’

‘A bouquet of irises in the name of Peta Wheeler.’ BJ’s favourite: the deep purple plume, the yellow throat, the green tallness of the stems.

‘Deliver to?’

‘Umm, the north-west corner of William and Bourke streets at ten past five?’

I’m hot, embarrassed. I don’t know this person, nobody can see me, but this type of call is a first for me.

‘Ready for pick up?’

‘From 4.30.’

‘That’s an express service. Ten dollars, on job number 146C.’

Liz takes an I’m-saying-goodbye-now breath but I get in before her.

‘There’s one more thing.’

‘Yes.’ So sweetly, I know she’s annoyed.

‘Could I request a particular courier? BJ?’

‘It’s normally first available.’

‘I’ll pay extra. I can go to twenty, no, to a hundred dollars.’

I’m not eating much. I’m not going out, no movies, no theatre. I’m at work or in bed. I have money.

‘Relax. I’m having a lend,’ Liz says. ‘We get requests like yours all the time. Especially for BJ. She’s reliable and doesn’t take crap.’

‘So, it’s ten dollars at ten past five. Thank you.’

I’m waiting outside the shoe shop and I hear her before I see her. The static of her radio, I catch a few words, it might as well be another language.

She pulls up, snaps her foot out of a pedal, stays on her bike and leans so her foot can reach the floor. Slides her satchel to the front, it’s big, but some of the irises are squashed. She hands them to me.

‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘You shouldn’t have.’

‘No, you should have.’

She’s wearing sunglasses. She’s not making this easy and I don’t blame her.

‘They’re for you.’ I hand them back. She smooths the paper, straightens the petals.

‘You know florists have people who can deliver this stuff? Interflora? Heard of them?’

‘I needed to see you.’

The city smells like traffic and McDonald’s.

‘Obviously.’

‘Can you take your sunglasses off? I want to see your eyes when I beg forgiveness and ask you to dinner.’

She removes them, hooks them into the top of her helmet. Better.

‘I don’t want any dinner.’

Can’t stop looking into those eyes.

‘What, forever?’

‘What do you want, Peta?

‘I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re in my head, walking around in your underpants and singlets. Give me another chance.’

‘What about my mother?’

‘So she’s Mark’s boss? A woman like that has to be somebody’s boss. And you’re right. We’re all adults.’

‘That’s the spirit.’

BJ gets off her bike, speaks into her microphone: ‘Twoseven.’

‘Twenty-seven.’ A man’s voice, tired, scratchy.

‘Clear west, Vic. See ya Monday.’

We head towards I don’t know where. She’s walking her bike, one hand in the middle of the handlebar. She slips her other hand into mine. I hold it tight. Who cares who’s looking? She’s back.

‘One thing.’ She stops walking.

I knew I got away with it too easily.

‘Yeah?’

‘When we go to dinner, can you wear that dress, the backless one?’

We share a packet of salt and vinegar chips on the tram and don’t make it to dinner. Junk food is all I eat these days. Junk food and coffee. We fall into her bed—sooner or later I’m going to have to stop thinking of her bedroom as the scene of the crime—and she’s still got her work gear on. Radio, straps, buckles, clips, buttons. I have fetishised her work clothes and I take my time getting her out of them.

‘I missed you,’ she says, unbuttoning my blouse, sliding it off my shoulders, reaching behind me to unhook my bra.

‘No, I missed you.’ I want to do this all night but I’m tired and I’ll have to go home at some point.

It’s as if she can read my mind: ‘You can stay if you like. I’ll drive you home tomorrow. Stay.’

This is one of those moments where you could stop what you’re doing and go back to your life. I could hop in a taxi, go home, feed Mrs Dalloway, have a shower, call Mark. It’d be six in the morning in Chicago, but he’d be awake. I could say hi, how’s it going, miss you, take care.

‘I’d love to stay,’ I say, and we start again.

‘Did you just kiss your bike goodnight?’ I switch the bedside lamp off.

‘No.’ She’s on her side, the back of the spoon.

‘I saw you.’ I switch the light back on and sit up. ‘You kissed your bike goodnight.’

‘Okay.’ She’s blushing. In the small light of the bedside lamp she is abashed and beautiful. ‘I always kiss Thunder goodnight.’

‘Thunder? Your bike has a name?’

‘I’m a cyclist, it’s what we do.’

‘So Justine does that? Kisses her bike? And her bike has a name?’

‘Justine’s bike is Phoenix. I know, it’s daggy, but it used to be her dad’s. She had it resprayed, bought new wheels.’

‘And that gigantic bloke you work with, Ox, he kisses his bike? I’m going to ask him next time I see him.’

‘How about you shut up and give me a kiss.’

Hares & Hyenas is a bookshop on Johnston Street. It’s not exactly on the way from BJ’s place to mine, but I love a bookshop and don’t mind the diversion. The shop has beautiful wallpaper, a high, high ceiling and a gilt-edged mirror. There’s coffee. It’s Saturday, so it’s busy.

Right in front of me is
Married Women Who Love Women.
I’m out of here.

‘Can we go? Maybe this isn’t my sort of bookshop.’

‘Peta,’ she doesn’t even look up from the book she’s checking out, ‘there are gay bars, gay medical clinics, gay accountants, gay travel agents. And you know what they all have in common?’

I’m getting taught something, I can feel it. ‘No, what?’

‘People. You don’t need to label it.’

‘You’ve labelled yourself.’

‘No, Peta, you have.’

‘But you’ve never been with a boy.’

‘Maybe I haven’t met anyone I like the look of. Except Ethan in Classical Mythology. He has the best laugh. If he was a girl, he’d be gorgeous.’

‘Ethan? Who’s Ethan?’

‘God, you’re easy.’ She smiles and then her expression becomes serious, ‘Do you really want to leave?’

‘I just want to be with you, BJ.’

‘Well, this is where I want to be right now. Can you handle it?’

The table closest to the window has three men at it. There’s a little kid looking at the children’s books while her mum talks to the bloke behind the counter. An old dog is sniffing around my shoes. There are birthday cards, wedding cards, sympathy cards, I love you cards. Cards for people.

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

It’s four in the morning, black outside. I’m up and dressed and I’ve brought BJ a cup of tea and toast. She keeps her Vegemite in the fridge. Weird.

‘Wake up, come on, breakfast.’

She pulls the doona up over her shoulders, moans: ‘Noooo.’

‘Babe, you don’t have to come.’ I won’t mind if she doesn’t. It’d be easier.

‘I want to meet him.’

She sits up and takes the cup of tea. I make a space on the bedside table for her toast. I switch the lamp on but turn it away from her, towards the wardrobe.

I assemble her clothes on the end of the bed—lots of layers—and tiptoe into the hallway for her boots and jacket.

‘You’ll have to sit in the back seat, is that okay?’

‘Course,’ she says, her mouth full of Vegemite toast, ‘I wouldn’t expect an old man to sit in the back.’

‘He’s not an old man. He’s Keith.’

Keith is on his doorstep when we pull up. He’s on the footpath by the time my ignition is off. He lets himself in, sits next to me. I lean over and kiss his cold cheek.

‘Keith, this is BJ. She’s a friend.’

Why did I say friend? If you have to introduce someone as a friend it signals the person isn’t.

‘Hello, BJ.’

He reaches across and shakes her hand.

Keith would never judge and he always gives the benefit of the doubt. He waits and sees. I’d love to tell him what BJ is to me, but I think when I do, he’ll know already.

‘Morning, Keith. Nice day for it.’

It’s too dark to know what kind of day it is for it.

‘I’m glad you could come, Peta.’

‘Dad, you know I wouldn’t miss it.’

‘You might miss next year’s. I’ll be away, in either Broome or Esperance.’

‘She said yes! Brilliant. I don’t know her but I love her already.’

‘I might love her a little, too.’

I can’t hug him because I’m driving, but I squeeze his knee.

Anzac Day is our day. Or our morning, since Keith normally meets the remaining men from his unit and goes to the pub with them after the service.

We get as close to the flame as we can. Everything is orange. There’s a wind whipping up St Kilda Road.

Keith has Vietnam service medals, his wife died nearly thirty years ago, his unit has shrunk in size—it gets smaller year after year—and he’s spending his morning with me. I tuck my arm into his.

The sky is pink, purple, blue, rests at grey. Keith finds the men of his unit, a couple of them recognise me.

‘Morning, Peta.’

‘Hello Frank. Hi Dennis. This is my friend BJ.’

Friend again. The men are lining up for the march.

I kiss Keith goodbye. He looks us over.

‘Goodbye, BJ. Thanks again for coming, Peta.’

‘Thank you, Dad.’ I’m thanking him for more than just Anzac Day. Something is making me want to cry.

‘Be careful, Peta.’

‘I will, Dad. I will.’

Keith kisses me. His lips are soft, he’s shaved but he’s missed a bit near the cleft in his chin, it scrapes on my cheek. The march commences; it’s a slow walk down the road. He’s out of sight and I can still feel his kiss.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Ruby stands over me.

‘I’m having lunch.’

‘I can see that, smartarse. Why did I just see you kissing some boy?’

‘I wasn’t.’ Truth.

‘I saw you on Collins Street. You were walking like you had Madonna playing live in your head. I thought, where’s she going walking like that? So I followed you.’

‘It wasn’t a boy.’

‘A girl? It didn’t look like a girl.’

Ruby pulls out a chair, sits down.

‘So we’re doing this now?’ I might be relieved, you never know.

‘You were kissing a girl and letting her feel you up?’

‘God, how long were you spying on me for?’

‘Don’t bother trying for any moral high ground, Peta. I knew you were fucken lying to me. What about Mark?’

Her face scrunches. It’s strange how close to smiling crying can look.

‘Ruby, don’t cry. You know I can’t cope with seeing you cry.’ She shrugs my arm off. ‘Come on.’

‘Come on? I don’t want to come on. Take it back, undo it. You and Mark, you meant something,’ she says, screwing her tissue into a ball, tossing into an ashtray. The tissue unscrews, like it’s a living thing.

‘Don’t cry, Rube.’ This time she lets my arm stay there.

‘Are you a lesbian now?’

‘It’s not about women, Rube, it’s about a woman. BJ.’

‘BJ? What kind of a name is BJ? What does that stand for? Blow Job? Better Just hang on to your wife?’

‘Stop it. It’s short for Belinda Jane and she means something, too. Or I wouldn’t have let her meet Keith.’

‘She’s met Keith? Are you mad? God, I wish I still smoked.’

I wish she did, too. I’d play with the packet, slide my finger between the plastic and the box, make it concave. She hated me doing that. I’d have something to look at other than the hurt in her face.

‘How did this happen?’

‘She was at the pub on my birthday. I didn’t say one thing to her until I asked her if she needed a lift.’

‘Jesus, you’re a dickhead. What do you reckon happens when you go round offering lesbians a ride?’

I wrap my sandwich in a serviette. I’ll eat it at my desk.

‘Ruby, I didn’t think about it. I drove. She talked about uni, her opinionated mother who lives not far enough away, and her Thai father who lives in Bangkok. A few weeks ago I found out her mother is Mark’s boss. That should stop me but it hasn’t. She asked me in. I was on
her couch and when she kissed me, well, I flew.’

‘But he’s so great. Don’t you love him anymore?’

She has a takeaway coffee from another cafe and I’m anxious about being told to leave.

‘I don’t know, Ruby. He’s never home, neither am I, who knows what we think of each other. I have BJ’s mother to thank for that.’

Ruby is smirking. Now what?

‘I have to ask, have you gone down on her?’

‘Yes. Is there something wrong with that?’

‘No, there’s nothing wrong with it. I suck cocks. You can suck all the clits you want but you’re going to fuck up your marriage.’

‘Ruby, there is only one clit I want to suck. God, listen to me. I sound like you. Don’t worry, I’ll figure this out. It’s probably a phase.’

I don’t have phases. I have me being regular and depend- able and I only get on couches to sit.

‘And I’m going to join the Liberal Party. Try to have Tony Abbott’s next illegitimate child. Imagine it, Pete, his ears, my personality.’

Ruby is impossible but she makes me laugh.

‘You’d be running the country in your bathers. Rube, I can’t do this if you’re not with me.’

‘Does it have to be me?’

‘You know it does,’ I stand and pull her up. ‘Come on, Stavros is coming to hassle you about your coffee. Or he’s going to ask you for your phone number again. I’ll walk you back.’

‘So it’s serious?’

‘Feels like it.’

Top Ten Ways With Nipples:

1. Until I met BJ I’d never thought about nipples, that sizes may vary with the size of the breast.
   
2. BJ’s breasts are smaller than mine, her nipples are smaller and darker than mine.
   
3. BJ says she loves my nipples.
   
4. When we’re in bed and our nipples squash against each other—and even though we’re warm, very— I shiver.
   
5. I didn’t know I could orgasm from having my nipples sucked.
   
6. I have never come with Mark like that.
   
7. She was sitting at the kitchen bench watching Blondie clips on her laptop, I was standing next to her when she unbuttoned my blouse and pushed my bra up, started kissing my nipples, took a nipple into her mouth. I turned into her. Teeth clenched and holding my breath. She kept sucking. Her mouth burned, my nipple burned. Aching. I felt like a kid, like an idiot. I pulled her hair, opened her legs with one of mine so I could squash myself onto her, and I came in her kitchen, my pants done up, no hands below the waist.
   
8. That’s all I’ve got.
   
9. I don’t know much about nipples.
   
10. But BJ does.