Flesh & Blood

A. E. DOOLAND

Copyright © A. E. Dooland 2015

First published as a weekly web
series on aedooland.com

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved
above and excluding ordinary retail purchase from authorised distributers, no
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior
permission of the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events in this story,
other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any
resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover design and art by Yue Li

yue-li.tumblr.com

Edited by Anne Farmer and
Martina Veselá

ISBN: 978-0-9941779-3-3

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
ONE

CHAPTER
TWO

CHAPTER
THREE

CHAPTER
FOUR

CHAPTER
FIVE

CHAPTER
SIX

CHAPTER
SEVEN

CHAPTER
EIGHT

CHAPTER
NINE

CHAPTER
TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER
TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER
TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER
THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you once again to Anne Farmer for her thoughtful critique, tireless support, and persistent
encouragement, and also to Martina Veselá for her sharp eyes and helpful suggestions. They both deserve a
holiday after listening to me talking about this story for a full ten months.

Thank you to
Jieun, Jude and Haley for sharing their culture with me and checking I wasn’t
getting anything about Min’s mum horribly wrong.

And finally, thank
you to my own wonderful mother for being nothing like Min’s!

***

FINANCIAL BACKERS

Sequel to Under My Skin, this story ran as a
crowd-funded weekly web series and has been collated as a novel. The following
people were major financial supporters of the story.

Firstly, a big thank you to the most generous backer, the
enigmatic ‘Mysterious Mitchell’ who is truly a pleasure to write for, and:

Becky

Miya

Manu

Aleksandra Borowska

David Goodes

David and Stephanie Jones

A. Miura

Brooke A. Steele

Tsutako

Lake McGlone

Amy ‘Bucky’ Watson

Nora

Irian and Mai

Brooke Stewart

Yue Li

Sapaen

Max

S. X.

Katie S.

Kristen Madrid

Sam D.

Liv and Tiz

Ashleigh Wickens

Ken Dibbins

Nib

Lo Lyons

***

ONE

When Bree and I pulled into the
driveway of Sarah’s house, it was dark. Not that I expected an epic fanfare or anything
upon my return, but given what day it was, what I didn’t expect was
nothing. For a couple of seconds, I actually
wondered if the GPS had led me astray – I had only just moved into Sarah’s
spare room right before I’d gone away for two weeks, after all – but then I saw
her boyfriend’s banged up ute in the
carport. This was the right house, owned by the right people, and it was dark
and empty and they were somewhere else on my birthday.

It was hard not to be
disappointed, even if I was well into adulthood now.

“Sarah and Rob aren’t
home?” I asked Bree as we got out, thinking she’d probably been here to drop
off her stuff before she came to meet me at the airport.

Bree shrugged. “I think
Sarah said they needed to go pick
something up for Rob? I didn’t really
ask.” She saw my expression as I opened the boot to get my luggage. “Don’t
worry! They didn’t forget or anything, Sarah said something like, ‘You’re
making Min a cake, aren’t you?’ just
before. They’ll probably be back soon. Here, I’ll take the smaller case.”

I handed it to her. “Oh,
well,” I said, trying pretty hard to be pragmatic about
them abandoning me on my birthday, “I suppose celebrating alone with
my girlfriend works just as well as it did for the last few years with my
boyfriend.”

Bree gave me a look as we
hauled the cases up the stairs to the back porch. “Gee, don’t sound so
incredibly enthusiastic about it,” she said. “I was going
to cook you dinner and spend all night in your lap telling you how
totally impressive and amazing you are at whatever game you
want to play, but I can always—”

“—I didn’t mean it
like that,” I said, ruffling her blonde curls with my spare hand as I
dumped my case by the back door. The porch light wasn’t even on; that was
weird.

“I know what you mean,”
Bree said, apparently not bothered by the
missing light. “I get it. You were kind of
hoping Sarah and Rob would make a big fuss over you.”

I sighed, feeling around
in my pocket for my keys. “Silly, isn’t it? I’m not a kid anymore.”

“Yeah,” Bree said,
brightening again. “You’re in your late 20s.”

I scoffed. “Please, 26 is
still mid-20s.” I stopped sorting through my keys for a second, frowning.
“Hey, don’t you think it’s kind of weird
Sarah didn’t leave the back light on for
us? She’s normally really good about stuff like that. I wonder if she’s okay.”

Bree looked blank. “I’m
sure she would have called if she wasn’t?”

Sure she would have called… “Oh,
shit!” Something suddenly occurred to me. “I don’t think I switched my
phone off Flight Mode in the airport because someone jumped on me too quickly.” I hurriedly fished it out
of my pocket so I could fix that. The second I did, a whole stream of
notifications came through, including seven voicemails from a private
number. Sarah’s number was private.

Bree looked a little impatient.
“Don’t you want to wait and do that when we get inside?”

“Nah, it’ll just take a
second,” I said, dialling voicemail and propping my phone between my shoulder
and my ear as I fit my key into the lock. “She’s left me a few voicemails, I
should listen to them in case they’re really important and—”

I didn’t get the chance to
finish because the very second I opened
the door and set foot inside, the lights burst on and a chorus of
voices yelled, “Surprise!”

I—what?

I just stood there for a
second with my jaw open.

There was a group of
people, most of whom I recognised from Sarah’s movie nights, all wearing
pleated skirts or tailored pants, blazers, school hats, neckties, and knee-high
socks. Sarah had pulled the kitchen table into the centre of the living room
for the spectacle and was standing on top of it. I didn't notice at first
because I was too distracted by all the people, but on the table at Sarah's
feet were dozens of presents. While I was standing frozen in place
and gaping at it all, everyone began to sing a cheerful, drunk
version of Happy Birthday to me.

I was just... I’d been
winding up to spend the night alone with Bree; I hadn’t thought… well, I knew
these guys, but we weren’t buddy-buddy and they had their own lives, you know? They were busy. But this… it didn’t feel real. If they hadn’t been
singing ‘Happy Birthday, Dear Min’, I don’t think I would have really believed any of it was for me.

When they were done singing, Sarah cleared her throat
ceremoniously and held up a piece of paper which looked suspiciously like a
running sheet. “So,” she addressed me, grinning. “You’re probably wondering why
there’s a bunch of 20- and 30-somethings dressed in school uniforms in my
house. I mean, apart from the fact that we’re all totally rocking them. Am I
right, guys?” Rob cheered enthusiastically, and the rest of them laughed at him
as Sarah continued. “Well, it’s for two reasons. First of all, it
is your birthday, and we all know you have a thing for schoolkids…”

I had to laugh a bit at
that. Beside me, Bree joined in. She was still wearing
her real uniform.

Sarah let me finish chuckling and then sobered. “And secondly, I
know high school really sucked for you
because you were different, and you didn’t have a proper graduation party the first
time around. You didn’t have a proper anything the first time around.
And, like, I can do better than that, Min,” she told me with a smile. “I can
make a fuss over you. So here’s the celebration you always should have had!”
She held up her beer towards the ceiling to toast me. “Congratulations on
leaving the crappiest boss on the planet, on getting into the course
of your dreams, and Happy Birthday!”

Everyone
cheered and drank deeply, and I… God, they all looked so happy for
me. They were all
smiling and toasting me, and they’d all dug up their old uniforms just for me.
And all those presents… Real
people didn’t come home to birthday parties like this, did they?

Apparently, if they had
friends like Sarah, they did. Fuck, I couldn’t tear up in front of everyone.

Fortunately, Sarah rescued
me by climbing down off the table in her scandalously short school dress and
coming to give me a big hug. “Sorry,” she said, not sounding very sorry. “But
it’s kind of compulsory to be the centre of attention on your birthday.”

I hid the fact I was
smiling and hugged her back very tightly. “If you make me cry in
front of everyone, I will kill you.”

She pulled away and
narrowed her eyes at me. “Challenge accepted,” she said. She then grabbed my
hand and towed me into the scrum of adults in school uniforms to be hugged,
patted and wished Happy Birthday by everyone.

Sarah had
invited all the people she usually had over: Liz and her husband Chris, Andrew
and Gay Matt, the other Matt ‘Smithy’, as well as Rob and one of
Rob’s friends, ‘Dazza’, who looked rough, spoke broadly and was covered in
tattoos, but seemed otherwise very friendly.

I hadn’t really wanted to ask myself the question, but
as I finished up shaking hands and getting hugs from people, I kept kind of hoping I’d see Henry’s face amongst everyone. We were very freshly broken up, and I
knew it was a serious long shot because he’d told me he didn’t know if we could
stay friends, but I wouldn’t have put it past Sarah to invite him anyway, not at all. I also wouldn’t have put it
past him to accept that invitation. It would have been nice to have him here.

When I got to the last
person, though, it wasn’t him. It was someone who was wearing a skirt that was
even shorter than Sarah’s, and while she did actually
have a very nice pair of legs, she obviously wasn’t that comfortable
with showing so much of them.

“Gemma,” I said, greeting
her. She smiled and went to hug me, but she tilted her head in the same
direction as I did and we nearly smacked noses. I had to laugh. We got it right
the second time.

“Happy Birthday,” she
wished me belatedly as she pulled away. I must have been glancing downward as I
thanked her because she noticed and went
a bit red. “Oh, god... it’s been at least ten years since I put my uniform on. I didn’t know it was going to be
this short.”

“Yes, she did,” Sarah said loudly behind me.

Gemma
looked mortified, but didn’t get the chance to say anything else
about it because I was dragged all the way back to my bedroom and deposited
there by the host. “Your costume’s in there, Birthday Boy!” Sarah told me as
she pushed me inside. “Don’t come out until you look as terrible as we all do.”
The door closed in my face, and I had to laugh at it.

My ‘costume’ was spread
out on my bed, and it turned out to be pretty much what all the men were
wearing: generic tailored pants, a white shirt and – I checked the crest – a
St. Peters Boys’ tie. Everything was in my size, too.

This is so surreal, I thought,
grinning down at the uniform. Someone had thrown a party for me, complete with costumes, and there
were actual people at it! I put my phone on the table and went
to try everything on.

There was a gentle knock
on the door while I was buttoning the shirt up over my binder. “It’s me,”
Bree’s voice said, and then she burst straight in without waiting for an answer
and practically bounced over to me. “So how cool is this whole thing? Sarah’s
been planning it for ages!”

Well, that at least
answered the question about whether or not Bree had been in on everything. “You
were part of all this!” I accused her faux-sternly, but I’m pretty sure it was
clear I was bluffing.

“Maybe!” she answered
brightly. “Sarah did all the organising, but she’s always at work and she
needed someone who could do stuff for her during the day.”

“You’re at school during
the day.”

She looked very guilty.
“Yeah,” she said dismissively, and then hung off my waist as I tried to get my
tie done. “So, did you guess at all? Like, did you think, ‘these guys are
hiding something from me’?”

“Surprisingly, no,” I
realised. “Or maybe not surprisingly, I was away for two weeks.”

She giggled. “Yeah, you
being up in Broome did kind of help, but seriously, I thought you
were going to guess when we got home just before. So I figured if I could just
keep you, like, focused on your disappointment at Sarah and Rob being ‘gone’
and everyone totally forgetting about you, you wouldn’t think of other reasons
the house might be dark.”

I stopped mangling the
knot in my tie to look at her like she had three heads. I kept forgetting how good
she was at lying; it was unnerving. “That’s one seriously well-considered lie,”
I observed, and then got straight back to fucking up the knot.

“Worth it, it worked!” she
declared, batting my hands away from my tie and fixing it for me in about five
seconds flat. Then, we both stood back to consider my reflection in the mirror.

It was okay, except my
pants had that sagging crotch thing again; story
of my fucking life. I tried to reposition the fabric. “Do you think I should
put the packer in to fill that up?”

Bree stopped posing for a second. “If you want?”

I looked back at the
mirror and sighed. “Will people think it looks weird without it,
though?"

She laughed good-naturedly
at me. "You’re overthinking again! No one else is going to notice,
seriously." She turned towards me and put her arms around my waist.
"Besides, everyone out there knows you're kind of a guy but not, like, a typical trans guy. They call
you 'she', you know? It's no big
deal." She pointed at the mirror. "So stop stressing and check out
how cute we look! See?" She squeezed my waist.

I looked back at the
reflection again. I did like how we looked together, and she was
looking especially gorgeous with that great big smile. I tapped her nose with my
index finger. “I think you do ‘cute’ enough for both of us.”

Her face lit
up at the compliment and she smiled up at me for a second or two. “I’m so
glad you’re back,” she said more tamely,
and then pulled me down by my tie into a kiss. That, I had missed; it had
been two weeks since I’d kissed her properly. Having her skype me on the
weekends from Sarah’s computer wasn’t really
the same. And since we were finally in the privacy of my own room, it meant that we could really get—

There was a loud thump on the
door. “Time’s up, Birthday Boy!” That was Sarah’s voice. “Everyone here wants
to get you drunk and give you presents,
special cuddles will have to wait!”

Bree sighed as I
straightened again, looking like she was going to whinge about not being able
to pash me more, but then she remembered
something. “Oh, the cake!” she said, “I have to get it ready!” and then rushed
back through the door.

I followed her out, and
everyone had pulled chairs into the mouth of the hallway and cheered at me when
I emerged. That was a bit confronting, even if I knew everyone.

Still, since the crowd was
waiting, I did a slow turn to present myself so they could all appreciate how I
looked in my boys’ uniform. That earned me a round
of drunken applause and a couple of wolf-whistles. Even when they’d settled
down again and stopped yelling compliments, I was still smiling like an idiot.

Sarah gave me the
once-over, impressed. “Nice. Bree got the sizes right.” She took a deep breath
and called into the kitchen, “Bree, you did something right!”

“Yay!” was the response as
Sarah led me over to the present table and sat me in an empty chair.

There were about
20 full shot glasses on the table between me and the presents. Sarah
wasn’t fucking around with the ‘drunk’ part. “Is killing me all part of the
celebrations?”

Sarah clapped me on the
back. “I’ve seen you drink. Those would hardly make you tipsy, let alone kill
you, but no,” she said. “You’ll only drink all of those if you can’t guess
which present came from who. If you guess
right about who gave you a particular present,
they drink one.”

It was actually surprisingly fun. People had brought me pretty funny presents to start
with; the ‘boy’ theme was popular, so there was a lot of typical guy-stuff like
nice leather wallet – which I actually really needed so I knew Sarah had bought
me that – a set of three novelty-patterned ties, football-scented soap, some
dog-tags which I remembered mentioning to Gemma that I liked a few weeks ago,
and various other random stuff. I guessed wrong on the ‘His First
Shaving Kit’ present because it seemed like the type of joke gift Sarah would
give me.

She looked insulted to be picked for that one. “Are you kidding?” she
said. “I’m waiting for you to decide to start taking testosterone and grow a
pretentious hipster beard like a proper art snob.” It turned out to be Rob who
had gotten that for me.

Bree patted Rob’s head.
“Good choice,” she told him as I took my shot. “Min isn’t a big fan of facial
hair.”

Which was one of the many
reasons why starting testosterone injections wasn’t very high up my to-do list, despite Sarah’s complete
conviction it’d happen eventually.

There was one particular
present I left aside; I recognised the delicately patterned and meticulously
wrapped paper. The frilly ribbon was also a dead giveaway. Apparently my
mother wasn’t boycotting my birthday after all, despite how upset she
was at me quitting my ‘perfect’ job and not being able to regularly send money
back to South Korea anymore. I didn’t want to open it in front of everyone because
I had no idea what it was. I gave it to Bree to put in my bedroom before she
presented me with hers: the enormous birthday cake.

It was flat and
rectangular and iced like a Cintiq tablet, and there were stick figures of the
guests at the party piped all over it. Everyone insisted on singing Happy
Birthday to me again so I could blow out the one candle, and then when the cake
was cut into slices, everyone fought over
which stick figure was who so they could joke about eating each other.

“I think wearing these
uniforms is actually turning
you into schoolkids,” I told them all dryly as Sarah swallowed Rob’s piece
whole and everyone leered.

“Shut up and eat your
girlfriend,” Sarah told me, nudging my slice toward me. I glanced up towards
Bree across the table, and she gave me a coy little wink as I put the piece in
my mouth; she’d undone an extra button on her school shirt for the occasion. I
needed to be reminded to chew.

Gemma had gone off to the
toilet after presents were finished, and came back to find her own slice of cake left alone on the platter.
She took it and laughed bleakly. “That’s right,” she said. “There are eleven of
us, and eleven is a prime number.”

“I’ll share my piece with
you!” Bree cheerfully offered before she even realised what she’d said.
Everyone was quiet for a fraction of a second before they all burst out
laughing, and that just made Gemma blush again. Bree looked horrified.
“Oh, no! That’s not what I meant! I just thought we could share because I made
Min’s slice really big and I’m really small, and I can’t
fit all of this in!”

She was drowned out by
more laughter, and Gay Matt prompted her, “Could you give us a demo of what you
have in mind?” I threw a scrunched up piece of wrapping paper at him.

Gemma ended up quickly
eating her own piece, thinking that’s
where the jokes would stop. She was wrong. I was
surrounded by adults acting like drunk teenagers and it
was hilarious.

As people finished eating
each other, we took a few group photos of ourselves all in our uniforms and
then everyone went to refill their drinks.

I sat back in my chair and
enjoyed the familiar feeling of alcohol setting in.

It’d normally be just me
and Henry playing PlayStation in my old apartment right now, I realised, still completely spun by the fact someone had
thrown a party for me. Henry probably would have thrown me one, but I
don’t think either of us really had
enough good friends on our own to pull it off. Henry worked too much; in fact,
he was probably still at work. I wondered what he’d be doing if he was here, because I couldn’t imagine him at a party
like this. He’d probably enjoy it, though. He was a people person.

I spent a couple of
seconds trying to guess what he would have bought me for my birthday. I didn’t
have to wonder very hard: I still had that beautiful $27,000 engagement ring in
a box in my room, never to be worn. ‘Keep
it’, he’d said quietly, even though we’d broken up. ‘It was for you anyway’.

God, I thought, remembering that whole painful night. That was the
last time I’d spoken to him. Why on earth did I think there would
be any chance at all he’d be here after what I did to him?

I sighed. Well, there were
two last shots on the table in front of me and I might as well drink them,
right? I went to scull them. I didn’t
manage to, though, because Bree’s little hands darted across the table and
snatched them and they both went down her throat.

“Hey!” I said, indignant.
“Whose birthday is it again?”

“You’ve had enough,” she
said cheerfully, and then rounded the table with the cake empty tray to plant a
kiss on the top of my head. She was being
amicable enough, but she stopped in the doorway
to make sure I knew she was serious before she disappeared into the kitchen.

Rob’s mate Dazza saw the whole thing and looked very
amused. “Why’s she allowed to keep drinking and you're not?”

Because she doesn't have the same history with alcohol that I
have, I thought, and she’s right. “Because she's the
boss.”

He clapped me on the back.
“Someone’s got you under her thumb,” he said broadly with a grin. “Although I kind of don’t
blame you, she’s gold. I only get to give it to girls like that in my
dreams.”

“Well, I’m not so much
giving it to her as she’s forcibly taking it from me."

He laughed at that, and I
hoped that was the end of the conversation. It wasn’t. I could feel him looking
at me like he wanted to say something else, and I knew what type of question
was coming next. The other guys knew me and knew how much I didn’t like doing
Min’s Gender Q&A; Dazza didn’t, and apparently Rob hadn’t given him the
101.

“How does that work, anyway?” he wondered aloud. “Is it like
lesbians for you two? I mean, because you don't have a...” He at least had the courtesy to gesture at my flat crotch
rather than say the word for everyone to hear.

I immediately regretted
not wearing the packer and I wondered if the fact I wasn't had anything to do with his question. “Actually, I'm saving myself for marriage.”

He was so drunk that for a
second he believed me. “Really?”

“Nope.”

He laughed, and I’m pretty sure he got the
message. “Hah, nice save. So, you were just up in Broome, yeah? That’s where
I’m from.” That explained his incredibly broad accent. “What were you doing up
there?”

At least art was
something I felt comfortable talking about, and despite his rough appearance,
he was very interested in what I’d painted and in which café. I ended up
talking to him for ages, and he was midway through explaining the meaning
behind his multitude of tattoos when Sarah tugged on my sleeve and inclined her
head towards the couch.

I looked over her
shoulder: Bree had fallen asleep curled in a little ball and completely
oblivious to the loud chatter and people stomping everywhere around her. This
wasn’t just an ordinary Bree-style sugar crash, either. Clearly those last two
shots she’d taken for me had finished her off. I felt a teensy bit guilty about
that; she’d hate to miss anything.

Sarah grinned. “Hilarious,
right? I mean, apart from the obvious illegality of getting a five-year-old really drunk.” I groaned, and let her gather me and everyone else around the couch
for a cheeky Facebook photo of us all posing
around sleeping Bree. The photo I was okay with; it was only when someone asked Sarah if she had a permanent marker that I
decided I should probably put Bree safely in bed before anyone could draw a
moustache on her.

“Shouldn’t you call her
parents to come get her?” one of the
Matts joked as I lifted my groggy girlfriend off the couch and carried her
towards my bedroom. I didn’t really want
to joke about Bree’s family, so I pretended I hadn’t heard him as I closed the
door and tucked Bree into my bed.

I couldn’t just dump her
there in whatever condition she was in, though, so I sat beside her for a
second, stroking the hair off her face. She didn’t seem unconscious-unconscious—at least, not to
a level that I should worry about. She’d
passed out enough times while completely sober at my apartment for me to know
there wasn’t anything too wrong.
Still, I checked her pulse, just to be safe.

It woke her up a little.
“Are you going to come to bed?” she mumbled.

“Soon,” I told her.

“Okay. Don’t leave your
binder on,” she said, and then snuggled into the doona and promptly started
breathing deeply again.

I had to smile at that. It
was going to be nice to have her in my bed after two weeks of sleeping by
myself. That was probably the only good thing about her parents
having zero interest in her whereabouts; she could stay over with me as often
as she wanted, including coming to surprise parties on school nights. That
seemed so alien to me. If my mum had even let me go to a party at 18,
she would probably have sat out the front in her car the whole time and phoned
me every five minutes.

Thinking about Mum made me
remember that I hadn’t braved her present yet. From where I was sitting I could
see it sitting innocuously on the desk, and
the room was so small I could probably just reach out from the bed and grab it.
I tested that theory, and then sat back
on the bed with her present across my lap.

The ribbon was frilly.
That was my first concern because I hated frills, and it didn’t bode well for
what might be inside. I had to get this over and done with, though, didn’t I? I
was going to have to do it at some point.

I undid that frilly ribbon
and very, very carefully peeled the edges of the sticky tape off the
paper without tearing it—Mum hated it when I just ripped into
presents and I felt like she’d just know. When the perfectly preserved
wrapping paper was folded neatly on the bed next to me and I discovered what
was inside, I was really glad I
hadn’t opened this in front of everyone else.

She’d sent me a cutesy
microwavable heat pack in the shape of a
bunny—I’d probably lose that one to Bree—and a book of wedding dresses for ‘the
tall’ woman. Real subtle, Mum, I
thought, frowning at it. It was also in Korean. I leafed through it just to
properly horrify myself, and I saw her precise handwriting inside the front
cover. ‘Henry would love some of these!’

I’m sure he would if we were still together, I thought to myself. That was about as close as I’d gotten to telling her, because she loved him. If I’d
told her we’d broken up, I’d be opening a card full of anthrax right now. Or
worse: I’d be opening the front door to her. I sighed at the book and put it
back on my desk.

In the process of doing
that, I caught sight of my phone and its little flashing LED: blue for new
voicemail. In the frenzy of the party, I’d forgotten all about those. Obviously
they hadn’t been left by Sarah like I’d
originally thought, and looking at my
phone beside Mum’s present suddenly made it very clear to me exactly
who had left me all those seven messages. I closed my eyes for a second,
exhaling. Of course, my birthday was the perfect opportunity to spend
seven minutes nagging me, wasn’t it?

Well, fuck that. Sarah had
gone to a tonne of effort to put this party together, and I was pretty sure her
running sheet didn’t have a segment dedicated to me sitting in my bedroom being
nagged and feeling sorry for myself. I was not going to be sucked
back into that place by someone who was 10,000km away: it was my birthday, this
was my first real party and I was going to fucking enjoy it.

I kissed Bree’s temple,
slipped the packer into my underwear, and
then went back to the party where I couldn't be bothered by
that little flashing LED.

TWO

I’m going to be late for work!

It was impossible to tell
what time it was in winter, and for some reason my stupid alarm hadn’t gone off—I’d
probably been drunk and forgot to set it again, my team was going
to kill me–and, fuck, where
was my fucking phone?— I had been hurriedly feeling around for my phone on
the bedside table when I realised my
table was the wrong height. That’s
weird, I thought as my eyes adjusted
to the light. Nothing made sense, I
didn’t remember getting another—

—bedroom.

I wasn’t in my apartment.
It took me several seconds of staring at an unfamiliar ceiling to remember what
had happened and where I was.

I’d quit that god-awful job.
No one was going to kill me. No one was expecting me to
be anywhere at the crack of dawn doing anything for anyone, and no
one was asking me why I no speaky Engrish or telling me to leave all that tranny shit at home. I
was in Sarah’s house, there was a formal complaint pending about all that crap,
and I could relax.

I lay my head back on my
pillow and took a deep breath. Beside me, Bree stirred. Under the doona, she
slung an arm across my stomach and buried her nose in my shoulder. “It’s okay,”
she said groggily. She was lovely and warm.

I kissed her forehead and
felt her smile against my shoulder. That made me smile, and I exhaled
at length, ready to try for another round of sleep before I realised that
it was Friday and Bree had school.

I groaned, opened my
eyes again, and clumsily felt around my bedside table for my phone so I
could hold it at my face, in the process
knocking over a framed photo of Bree smooching my cheek and probably about a
hundred other things. I read the clock at the same time as I noticed that
fucking flashing blue LED and those stupid messages I hadn’t listened to yet. I
dropped it back on the bedside table and sighed upwards at the ceiling. Clearly
I wasn’t supposed to relax this morning.

“You’re doing that teeth-grindy thing again,” Bree mumbled into my arm.

She was right, I was. I
tried to relax my jaw, but my muscles still felt all stiff. “Why am I such a stress ball this morning, anyway?” I asked her, tilting my head to
stretch my neck. “I had such an awesome time last night.”

“Because when there’s
nothing to worry about, you worry about worrying,” Bree told me sagely, and snuggled up against my arm. “Don’t
worry so much. Just relax.”

“Wow, I’m cured,” I said
dryly. “Thank you, Dr Dejanovic.”

She was peeking over the
doona at me and there was a twinkle in her eye. “You pronounced it wrong.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said, and propped myself up on an elbow. “Let’s
hear you say my name properly.”

She still had that cheeky
grin. “Pretty hard for me when you can’t even pronounce your own name properly.”

Wow. That earned
her a tickle, and I rolled over on top of her, my fingers hovering ominously
around her ribs while she struggled, laughed, apologised and shrieked—that
ear-splitting, glass-shattering sound she made when she panicked. I put my hand
over her mouth. “Shh!” I hissed, but I was laughing too hard for it to be an
effective warning.

She licked my palm to get
me to take my hand away, and it worked. At my grossed-out expression,
she shoved me. “Are you serious? You’ll let me put it in your mouth
but you think it’s gross on your hand?” she wrinkled that cute little nose of
hers. “No wonder you won’t let me put it anywhere else!”

“Didn’t you hear what I
told Dazza? I’m saving myself for marriage.”

She looked a bit coy.
“Yeah? Well, I’m not, so…”

“Oh boy, I wonder
what that means,” I said
flatly, and then leant down to kiss her.

In the grand habit of
Bree, at some point in the night her skirt and her socks had come off and were
probably buried in the covers somewhere.
I had bare legs, too, and the feeling of all that skin against mine
was not incentive to get Bree off to school on time. She was soft and warm, and her hips were resting
against mine and our legs were intertwined, and, god,
her buttons were really hard to undo with
one hand…

She helped me, and then
said in a deep voice which I think was
supposed to be mine, “’You can’t be late, Bree, that would make you a terrible
person!’”

I kissed down her neck to her
collarbones. “I’m just getting you ready for a shower,” I told her as I pushed
apart the sides of her shirt. Her breasts were falling out of her bra because
she was on her back, and that was a very, very pleasant sight. God, I
was going to need one of those showers myself: a very cold one. I
wanted that bra and those knickers off her right now.

We couldn’t start
something, though, because she needed to get to school before Christmas. I managed
to resist the allure of all that very tempting skin, and sat back off her.
“Okay,” I said breathily. “Okay, we probably shouldn’t. You need to go get ready or you will be late.”

“Fine,” she said, and sat up from underneath me, shrugging off her
school shirt and her bra, and leaning over to my phone. She scoffed. “I’m going
to be way early, you are so
ultra-paranoid about time.”

“I just wanted to make
sure you had an opportunity to use all the hot water before it’s my
turn.”

She rolled her eyes at me
and stood, grabbing her towel and wrapping it around herself. I must have been
watching a bit too hard as she did that,
because she gave me another cheeky grin before she left. “You want to come and
waste the hot water with me?”

I winced: I did, a
lot. But seeing my naked body in front of Sarah’s full-length bathroom mirror
was a big enough challenge for me even when I was alone. “I can’t,” I told her,
making a face. “I’m sorry, I just—”

“—I know,” she said
simply, and then added, “Maybe we could get you, like, a binder that’s supposed
to be swum in or something? I mean, trans
guys still want to swim, right, so they probably exist? That could be fun.”

“Doesn’t that defeat the
purpose of being wet and naked together, though?”

“No,” she said, as if the suggestion was ridiculous.
“We’ll still be in there together with all the hot water and the steam,
and I’ll be naked.” When I tried to apologise again, she cut me off.
“—Still worrying too much,” she told me, leant down and gave me a quick kiss
and another spectacular view of her cleavage, and then slipped off to have that
shower.

I had been sitting on the
bed, smiling like an idiot and imagining all that hot water and steam, but the
little flashing LED on my phone kept fucking distracting me. I gave up, threw
on some clothes, and went to see how Sarah’s house had fared after the party.

The hallway outside my
bedroom looked normal, but as I approached the mouth of the living room, there
were tumbleweeds of party streamers
gathered in corners and I nearly trod on a bottle cap. Off in the kitchen I
could see the sink had a skyscraper of dirty cake plates stacked in it, and the
number of empty bottles crammed onto the kitchen counter made it look like at
least a hundred people had been drinking last night, not a dozen. The living
room had bottles in it, too, but in addition to the bottles there was rubbish
spread everywhere—it looked like a party bomb had detonated and showered
the whole area with festive mess.

In the centre of the room,
seated at the dining table, Sarah was dressed in her work clothes and hunched
over an uneaten bowl of cereal, groaning like a creature out of Silent Hill.

She looked up at me when I
entered. “I think I’m going to die,” she said bleakly.

I laughed. “You look
like you’re already half there,” I told her, and then had to rush back to my
room to get the phone so I could take a morning after photo of her and the
house.

“If you tag that, I’m
taking you with me to the grave,” she said, waving her spoon at me. Then, she
dropped it back in her cereal, moaned and
put her head in her arms on the table. “I am way too old for this, my head
is killing me and I have a presentation this morning. I thought food
might help, but if I have a single mouthful of this cereal, I swear to god I am going to need a bucket.”

I bent over the table and
rescued a lock of her long brown hair from swimming in the milk. “On the bright
side, you threw a fucking amazing party.”

She looked up from her
forearms. “It was great, wasn’t
it? Good, I’m glad I’m not going to die in vain. And let’s be serious: you were
totally digging the chance to see me in a school uniform. I know how it is.”

I grinned.
“You’re way too old for me, Sarah.”

She pretended to be
offended. “Harsh!” she said, laughing. “Although I guess I’ve told you about a hundred times that you can’t touch me
until you put on 50 kilos of muscle, so I guess
that makes us even. C’mere.” She held an arm in the air that I was presumably
supposed to accept, so I put my phone down on the table and let her put that
arm around me. “Happy Birthday,” she told me,
and gave me a big, firm hug. “I didn’t want to say this in front of a whole
room of people, but I am pathetically in awe of you. You’re literally awesome.
Inspirational, even.”

Over Sarah’s shoulder, I
could see the LED on my phone. “’Inspirational’?” I asked a bit sceptically,
trying to ignore it so I could focus on the nice
things Sarah was saying to me.

She let me go, and I sat
beside her as she lolled semi-upright on
her chair. “Yeah,” she said. “Hear me out before you decide I’m so hungover
that I’ve lost my grip on reality. So, all the changes you’re making, it makes
a girl think about her own life, you know?” She looked a bit wistful. “What
am I supposed to be? Not, like, gender-wise, obviously, but in general. I thought about it, and even though
I’m pretty happy with my life and things are great, I don’t know my
purpose. Does that make sense? It’s not wasting away as a lowly forgotten
clerk at Frost, that’s for sure. I
mean, ideally they’d promote me—that’s what we’re all there for,
right?—but since it seems kind of obvious that’s never going
to happen, there’s no point in me hanging around and just hoping. So, I
was thinking of giving up on the whole
upper management dream, and paying off my house—that’ll probably take me
two-ish years—and then doing all that cliché self-discovery crap: taking a year
off to travel the world, and maybe spending a few months in the part of Italy
my Dad’s side is from.”

“That actually sounds
pretty awesome,” I told her honestly. I turned my phone over so I couldn’t see
the light anymore.

Sarah noticed. “Yeah, I’ve
always wanted to do that stuff, but sort of assumed I couldn’t, you know? Which
is crap, of course I can do it if I want
to. So, thank you for showing me that just by doing your thing.” We smiled at
each other for a moment, and then her smile faded and her eyes dipped to the
table. “Min. What’s going on with your phone?”

“Nothing,” I answered,
probably a little too quickly. Her eyes narrowed and, with speed belying someone who was catastrophically
hungover, her hand shot out to grab it. I got there first and put it in the
front pocket of my hoodie. “The notification light was bothering me, that’s all.”

She looked very
suspicious. “You do realise if you check your notifications they stop
blinking, right?”

“Oh my god, so that’s how
it works.”

She ignored my sarcasm. “I
thought we’d got you to a place where you actually answered your
phone when it rings?” Apparently Mum had outsourced the nagging to my friends,
now.

“Bit hard to answer it
when it’s in flight mode 25,000 feet in the air.”

Sarah didn’t budge. “…15
hours ago,” she said pointedly. “Come on, what’s the worst thing
those messages could say?”

I didn't get the opportunity
to answer, though, because Bree came bouncing into the living room, dressed and
ready, and in the middle of announcing that when she stopped. “Whoa,” she said,
surveying the damage and looking pretty impressed. “You guys went crazy.
I’m kind of sad I missed—whoa,” she
repeated when she saw Sarah. Then, she laughed. “Sarah, you look terrible.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes at
Bree. “Gee, thanks,” she said. “Whose house are you staying in again?”

Bree completely ignored
her. “Maybe you should stay home and get better? I could look after you! I
could clean up, too, this place is a mess.”

“You have school,” I
reminded Bree, and she made a face.

Sarah stood painfully.
“Hah!” she said, “Sick leave? What’s sick leave? At Frost, we only have people who show up to work and traitors.”
She gestured at Bree and began to walk towards the door. “Come on, Schoolgirl,
let’s get moving.”

Bree looked surprised.
“You want to walk with me?”

Sarah bustled her towards
the hallway. “I need someone to call 000 if I pass out on the way to the
station. Go on, get your bag, let’s go!”

Sarah may have been
joking, but I recognised those careful steps she was taking from enduring five
years of terrible hangovers. That must be one mother of a headache,
and it wasn’t like I had anything else to do today, was it?

“I’ll drive you,” I called
after them and followed them into the hallway. “Least I can do to say thanks
for the party, right?”

Sarah looked dead serious.
“I’d totally kiss you,” she said, “but with the way I feel right now, I’d probably
throw up in your mouth and that’s not a great way to thank someone.”

After we’d piled in my car
and taken off, she didn’t look much better, either. I must have been glancing
nervously towards her, because she patted
me reassuringly. “Don't worry, I’d vomit in my handbag before I’d vomit on the
leather seats of your glorious Lexus, and
my bag's Chanel,” she said with gravity. “That’s how much I appreciate you
driving me.”

Bree was sitting in the
back looking thoughtful. “I think I read something that said if you press,
like, this place in your right wrist it stops you from feeling sick,” she said,
and then she made a noise. “Or maybe it was your left wrist? I forget. I’ll
check.” Her little hand appeared over the back of my seat. “Phone.”

I took it out of the pouch
in my hoodie and passed it back to her automatically.

It took her a couple of
seconds. “Min, you have like seven voicemails,” she observed.

Here we go. “I know.”

“Well, why don’t you
listen to them? Doesn’t your car have Bluetooth?”

I could see Sarah smirking
at me from the corner of my eye. “Oh, yeah, look, here’s the symbol,” she said,
and ‘helpfully’ pointed to the little B on my dash.

I braked suddenly and they
both yelped. “Whoops,” I said flatly, accelerating again. “I guess I should really
concentrate on the road and not allow myself to be distracted.”

“I can listen to them for
you!” Bree offered. “And then I can tell you what they say!”

“That’s not going to be
very useful unless you learnt to speak Korean while I was in Broome.”

The smile on Bree’s face
faded. “Oh, they’re from your mum?” I nodded. She made a face. “Well, maybe
they’re not all from your mum? I mean, it was your birthday, maybe
some other people called, too? You should listen, just in case!”

“They’re from Mum,” I
said. “Everyone else was at the surprise party.” Well, everyone else except
Henry…

Sarah grabbed my arm and
nearly made me swerve. “Oh, no!” she said with exaggerated drama. “What if your
Mum’s calling to wish you a happy birthday?”

I sighed at her. “If
that’s all it was, I’d be fine.”

Sarah watched me for a
moment and recognition dawned on her face. She stopped smirking. “Oh. Oh,
right. She doesn’t know, does she?” I shook my head, and she sat back in
her seat and stopped bothering me. “Yeah, I thought that gift wrap looked a bit
girly. Ouch.” I didn’t say anything to that and we drove the rest of the way to
Frost in silence.

It
was weird pulling up alongside Frost International HQ; seeing the
building again up close now that I no longer worked there made me feel out of
place. Everything looked the same, but it felt unfamiliar and different,
somehow, as if it was in another dimension. It kind of was, in a way. It was in
my past, along with a series of people I never wanted to see again.

A thought crossed my mind.
“Maybe I should just drop the complaint,” I said as Sarah got carefully
out of the car.

She spun back towards me,
looking alarmed. “No!” she told me. “Your complaint investigation is the only
reason Omar’s Head of Marketing instead of Jason, and I really don’t
want Jason back as my boss!”

My eyes were probably
pretty wide. “Okay, okay! I’ll leave it!”
I said, and then passed her the not-vomited-in Chanel handbag.

She leant in the doorway for
a second as she took it. “Thanks, and thanks for the ride,” she said. I saluted
her. “Now: to go forth and not throw up during my presentation. Wish
me luck!”

“Good luck!” Bree called
out the window as we got honked at for blocking the bus lane. I pulled out of
it quickly so I didn’t kick off my holidays with a traffic infringement.

I had been thinking about
those fucking messages again when Bree interrupted me. “Will they fire him?”
she wondered aloud as I tried to figure out how to avoid the toll roads. It
took me a second to realise she meant Jason.

Hah, in my dreams. “Probably
not, but they haven’t really told me
anything.”

“Is that what’s supposed
to happen?”

“I have no idea,” I told
her honestly. “But Frost doesn’t really do ‘supposed to’, so I don’t know if
that means anything.”

At the next set of traffic
lights, Bree casually climbed through to the front seat, snuck my phone back
into my pouch, and placed her hand over mine on the gearstick. “I’m sure it’s
all fine,” she said, squeezing my hand. “I bet everything is fine. I bet your
complaint thing is going to be fine, and I bet your mum isn’t saying
anything really terrible.” She gave me a lovely big smile.

I looked across at those
rosy cheeks of hers and she edged closer to me, looking hopeful. I knew what
she was after. “I’m driving,” I told her with a half-smile. “You’ll have to
wait. And do up your seat belt.”

She rolled her eyes and
followed my instructions. “Spoilsport,” she mumbled under her breath, but she
looked secretly delighted.

Bree’s school wasn’t that
far out of the city, and it only took me a few minutes to get there once we
cleared the traffic in the CBD. She insisted I drop her off right outside the
front entrance, and then she grabbed me by the collar and started pashing me very energetically through my open
window while I blinked at her.

She was normally a lot
gentler, and I wondered if the two teachers standing on duty at the gate had
anything to do with it. They did not look impressed. “Are you sure
you want to do this with them watching?” I asked her when I’d managed to escape
for a second.

“Yes,” she said flatly.
“One of them is my Maths teacher and I want him to see me pashing a guy driving a Lexus.”

I wasn’t sure why that
was, but I let her dive right back on me for a few more seconds anyway. She
looked very smug afterwards. “Thanks,” she said. “And, seriously, you don’t
have to worry. I’m sure your mum isn’t saying anything awful in the
messages like, ‘I know you’re trans!’, or,
‘I know you’ve broken up with Henry and I have no daughter!’ or whatever.”
She made a face. “Although I guess technically that’s true since ‘daughter’ is probably the wrong word now, isn’t it?
Anyway…” She stood up and stepped away from the car. “I’m sure it’s fine.
Thanks again!”

God, I hoped Mum
hadn’t somehow found out. I hadn’t even thought of that, but
it would explain the seven messages... Someone honked. “You’re
welcome,” I told Bree, and then glanced in my rearview and saw a line of cars
waiting to drop their girls off behind me. Whoops. “I’d better go!”

She gave me a little wave.
“Bye!”

Mum couldn't have found out, I thought as I drove away from
Cloverfield. Henry definitely wouldn’t have told her, my Facebook privacy
settings rivalled Alcatraz and, in any case, Mum wasn’t fantastic with the Internet.
No one my Mum could possibly be in contact with would tell her, so it
wouldn’t be that.

If it wasn’t that, what
was it?

Sarah’s question rung in
my ears, ‘what’s the worst thing those messages could say?’, and the answer was
far, far too easy: ‘I got someone to mind Grandma, I’m in Sydney now and I'm
coming to visit you right this very minute!’

That actually made the
blood drain from my face. I didn’t know what I’d do if she showed up suddenly
at Sarah’s. She knew the address, so she could do it. Rob would probably let
her in, too, and when she couldn’t find me, she’d poke around in the rooms and
she’d find my room with all my artwork in it and my men’s clothes
and—my stomach dropped—the packer…

I should have worn it this morning, I thought. I should have worn it. God, what if that is what she’s saying? What if
she’s coming to visit me?

I was a few streets away
from Sarah’s place, and I kept imagining walking through Sarah’s door and
seeing Mum sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. I had no idea what
she’d say. I couldn’t even imagine it. I didn’t want to imagine it because I knew the sorts of words
that might come out of her mouth, and I couldn’t hear them, not from my own mother.
Just thinking about it was making me break out in a cold sweat, and I turned
the aircon right up because I felt like there was no fucking oxygen in this
car.

Eventually when I started
to feel a bit lightheaded, I gave up. Fuck
this, I thought, and pulled
over. Fuck this. I need to know if that’s what those messages are about,
and I need enough time to prepare for her being here if
she is visiting.

I took the phone out of my
pouch and looked down at it flashing at me.

Here goes nothing, I thought, tapped the notification and
put the phone to my ear. My heart was pounding.

Maybe they aren’t all from her, I tried to reassure myself,
listening to each agonising ring before the automated voice answered. Maybe a few of them are and then the rest
are from some other people.  Other people like Henry, I
immediately thought, and my heart lifted a little. Maybe he left me a birthday message anyway, despite what I did to
him…

“Hey, it’s me!” That
was Bree’s voice? “I have to do this really quietly because
I’m in the library and really quickly because Courtney has, like, no
credit left, but:” She proceeded to very quietly
and hurriedly sing Happy Birthday to me. Even at a whisper she
sounded terrible, but I was so fucking relieved that I laughed
out loud and saved the message anyway.

I closed my eyes and took
a deep breath while I was waiting for the next message. Maybe it is several people,
I thought. Maybe it’s not—

“Min?”
That was my mother’s voice. My breath caught in my throat. “Why didn’t
you answer? I’ll try again. Maybe you didn’t make it to the phone in time.”

There were three more
messages like that, and as my throat got progressively tighter and it got
progressively harder to breathe, the fourth one started, “I don’t know why your
phone is off, if you’re not working now you should have lots of time to answer
the phone. Don’t you want to talk to your mother on your birthday? It’s
been so long since I’ve seen you,
it would be really nice if you would answer the phone just for a moment and let
me know that everything’s okay and you’re healthy and Henry’s healthy…”

The next one was like
that, too, and the last one said, “Well, now that I think about it, maybe
you’re having a nice birthday celebration
with Henry and that’s why you’re not answering. That’s nice. He is such a
lovely man, I hope you’re not wearing
that horrible stripy blouse, the one with the puffy sleeves. It looks really
cheap and you don’t want to embarrass him. I’ll call his house and see if
you’re there.” I winced.

The automated voice
reported, ‘End of messages’, and I put the phone in my lap. I exhaled.

Okay.

Okay, so she wasn’t
visiting. I expected to be really relieved about that, but instead I just felt…
Well, I didn’t know. I wondered how many times she’d called Henry, and if he’d
answered. He didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve to be constantly reminded of a relationship he was mourning, and if I
didn’t fucking call my mother, she’d keep doing it.

I bumped my forehead on
the steering wheel a couple of times, groaning. I was going to have to call her
now, wasn’t I? There was no way around it. I sat up straight again and looked
down at my phone. Fuck.

Taking a few slow breaths,
I tapped ‘return call’ and put the phone to my ear. She’ll just talk about
Grandma, I reassured
myself. And Henry, and the ladies at Church, and she’ll lecture me a
bit and then it will be over.

After several rings I
realised she wasn’t going to answer. That was very unlike Mum, and I—oh, the time difference. Thank fucking
Christ for that.

Mum’s polite recording
invited me to leave her a message, so I put on my best Dutiful Daughter voice
and did exactly that: I thanked her for her messages,
and explained I was on a plane when she’d left them. I had absolutely no idea
how Henry was but I told her he was well anyway,
and apologised for not calling back sooner because my friends had thrown me a
party.

And I’m trans-something,
and I broke up with Henry and I’ve fallen for a penniless, white, atheist
schoolgirl, I mentally added as I hung up, dropped my phone on the passenger
side and leant against my seat. She’d
play that message to Grandma, probably, and maybe even her Church friends when
they asked about me. Henry told me once
that she kept every single message I left so she could share them with people
and tell them all about her Daughter Who
Lives in Australia.

I sighed. Well, I couldn’t
stay parked outside some stranger's house all day, could I? I put my car
into gear and drove back to Sarah’s.

Rob was still asleep when
I got home, and despite the fact Sarah always promised me he could sleep
through a hurricane, I tip-toed around the house
just to be polite. His hangover was probably at least as bad as Sarah’s.

I got stuck
into quietly cleaning up the living room and the kitchen before I
wound down enough to think clearly about what had happened this morning: I’d
freaked the fuck out over nothing and made an enormous drama over
what was essentially just my mum being my mum. She always called
repeatedly, always. And since she had no cause to believe anything had changed
other than the fact I’d left work, it stood to reason that she wouldn’t change
what she did, either. And yet, I’d been stressing over it, absolutely fucking sure the world
would end, and probably doing that ‘teeth-grindy’
thing Bree always accused me of.

I had a mental image of
Bree waggling a finger at me and saying sternly, ‘You’re worrying too much
again!’ I wanted to text her and tell her she’d been right, except that
she still hadn’t replaced her phone.

I should get her one, I thought. My final pay from Frost
hadn’t come through yet, but I had enough money from Broome— despite how many
presents I’d bought her there— that could probably get her a pretty decent one
and still have heaps left over. It was Friday night, too, so we could make a
night of it without interfering with her homework. I could give her all those
presents, get her a phone, and just generally thank her for giving me something
in my life I didn’t need to worry about.

I’d need to pick her up
from school, though, because it took her a couple of hours to get back to
Sarah’s by public transport, and we probably wouldn’t have enough time to have
a proper look around otherwise. I agonised over whether or not I should bother
Bree’s friends to pass on a message to her, but in the end decided it would be
for the last time, anyway.

I took my phone out of my
pocket, opened the Facebook app and tapped on Courtney’s portrait. “Hey, sorry to bother you, are you in class?”

It wasn’t even ten seconds
before she replied. “Oh hello there… yeah but we’re doing a group exercise. What’s
up?”

“Could you ask Bree to wait for me out the front where I dropped her off
today? I’ll pick her up after school.”

This time, Courtney took
longer to reply. “Ummm ok? If I see her, I’ll tell her :)”

I frowned. “Aren’t you two in the same classes?”

“Yeah we are but I haven’t seen her today. I kinda thought she was
spending the day with you?”

Bree, I thought, groaning. I’d
dropped her there this morning, for crying out loud.

I typed a short thanks to Courtney and then l let my hand
fall into my lap. Well, so much for having a
nice, restful afternoon relaxing
and unpacking and having nothing to worry about.

THREE

I shouldn’t have waited outside
Bree’s school, I shouldn’t have. Courtney
never messaged me back to tell me that she’d spoken to Bree, so really I had no
cause to be here because Bree obviously wasn’t. So what was I doing here?

You are trying to catch Bree in the act of hiding things from
you, Min, admit it, a voice answered me.  Which is not fair, because Bree doesn’t have
to tell you everything she does.

“Yeah, but it would be
nice if she’d tell me anything she
does,” I said aloud, and then realised I was talking to myself with my window
down, parked outside a high school, and then felt really self-conscious.

People were already
glancing nervously towards me anyway, because apparently young Asian guys
didn’t park their scary black Lexuses outside Cloverfield very often. It was
going to look even worse when she didn’t come, too, like I was some perv who
was just here salivating over the hot high school girls in their short little
skirts. I put my hands up on the steering wheel so people could see them, but
it didn’t stop all the Landrover-driving white soccer mums from frowning at me
like I had my tongue hanging out of my mouth over their daughters.

It serves you right for trying to trap Bree, I told myself.

I mean, what did I really
think I was going to do when Bree didn’t show up? Did I really think I was going to go home and confront her
over it? I couldn’t see myself doing that, because not only was it an enormous
dick move, at some point Courtney would tell Bree I’d spoken to her. Then, it
would be clear that I’d come here knowing there was the potential Bree wouldn’t
arrive for the sole purpose of trying to force a confrontation with her later.

And, Min, that’s fucked, I realised. I couldn’t force Bree to tell
me anything, no matter how much I worried about her. And yet, here I was, in
the middle of trying to convince myself that I wasn’t an asshole
prick, sitting outside her school when I knew she wouldn’t be—

“Oh my god, hi!”
The passenger side door opened abruptly and gave me the fright of my life: I’d
been looking out towards the gate.

Bree swung into my
car with a giant grin on her face, and I must have jumped a mile because she
laughed at me as she stuffed her schoolbag under her feet. “Sorry to burst in
like that, but this is awesome! I didn’t know you were going to pick me up,
too! Is this, like, payback for throwing you a surprise party yesterday? You’re
picking me up from school by surprise?”

I gaped at her for a
second. How was she....? “You’re here?”

She looked amused. “Um,
yeah? Remember how it’s a school day you and dropped me off here this
morning…?”

I was still trying to
figure out how she got here if she wasn’t at school all day. Did she
come back to school for some reason?

Bree reached across and
gently closed my jaw. “Um, you do realise that when you do something for
someone by surprise, you don’t actually need to
also be surprised, yeah…?”

I gave her a look. She was
clearly waiting for an explanation and if I told her anything other than the
truth, I was going to look pretty fucking hypocritical, wasn’t l? “Courtney
mentioned you weren’t at school, so I wasn’t sure you were going to get the
message that I’m picking you up.”

Something passed over her
face. In a second, it was gone. “Well, I’m here, aren’t I? I had some other
stuff to finish so I had to miss a few classes, but I’m definitely here! See?”
She didn’t let me ask what the ‘other stuff’ was,
because she immediately donned that coy smile and gave me some serious bedroom
eyes. “That is,” she said, pretending to be about to undo her shirt buttons,
“unless you’re just imagining me...”

Yeah, I’m fantasising you tell me what’s going on, I thought, but just sighed at her and turned on the engine.
She didn’t want to tell me, that much was
clear. Maybe it was something embarrassing, then? To say Bree didn’t do that
well at school was a serious understatement, so maybe she was taking remedial
classes or something. I didn’t want to prompt her to tell me anything that
might ruin her good mood. It was nice to see her happy.

“You look worried,” Bree
observed, watching me from the passenger seat as we left the school. “Are you
still worried about the messages? Were
they all from your mum, or…?” She was trying her very best to look innocent.

She was the opposite of
innocent, and I gave her a sideways glance. “I think you know the answer to
that, Miss Singing-in-the-Library.”

She giggled. “Oh my god, I
wondered if you’d actually listened to them or just deleted them!” she told me.
“Yeah! I was going to wait until the party to sing to you but I decided it
would actually be pretty awesome if you got off the plane and the first thing
you heard was—”

“—someone shouting at me
from across Arrivals?”

She made a face. “Well,
you were supposed to listen to it before we met up. But, yeah,
anyway. Who were the rest from? Were they from your mum after all, or, like,
did Henry or someone leave some as well?”

I sighed. “No, they
were from Mum.”

“Oh,” she said
diplomatically. “Well, what’s she up to at the moment? Busy with your grandma?”

“Calling Henry repeatedly
when I don’t answer.”

“Oh,” she repeated, this
time scrunching up her face.

“I know,” I sighed, and
then reflexively checked my phone despite the fact I was driving and it was all
sorts of illegal. “I called her this morning and left a message, but she hasn’t
called me back yet, so that’s something to look forward to...”

“It will be fine,” Bree
told me, making me put my phone away again. “It’s just your mum. She’ll just
want to wish you a happy birthday and nag you a bit, it’ll be okay. So,
anyway!” She said, changing the subject. “It’s Friday, and you know what that
means?”

“That I’m stuck with you
all weekend?”

She shoved me. “No,” she
said. “We can go out somewhere because we don’t have to get up really early!”

“Don’t you have homework?”
I asked, wondering if it would lead into a discussion about what she’d been up
to all day.

It didn’t. “Uh, nothing I
can’t leave until 9pm on Sunday night,”
she told me. “Come on, look! The city is right there.” She pointed at an
exit that was coming up on the M1 and started reeling off a long list of stuff
we could do, but I didn’t change lanes until she got to, “And think about it,
if your mum calls you back, it will be really
loud and you will be out in public so it’s not like you can have a super
long conversation with her, yeah?”

Good point. “Sold,” I
said, and took the exit. “I was actually thinking we could do something
else tonight, because we always go to the
city.”

“You always go to the
city,” Bree corrected me. “I hardly ever go, at least not until I met you.
Anyway, I love the city, and not just because it’s where I met you, but also
because it’s so full of people, you know? And half the people there are
tourists and they’re always excited and happy, and that makes for a really
great atmosphere.”

After we’d driven around
and found a park, I had to agree with Bree's assessment about the ‘great atmosphere’. While I was working at Frost, I
could count the times I’d left before five on a single hand, which meant I’d
never experienced a Friday afternoon in Sydney Central. People were leaving
work early and piling into bars and cafés for late afternoon drinks, and it was
clear from the spring in everyone’s step and the laughter from outdoor dining
areas that they were all relaxed and looking forward to the weekend.

It was weird not to be
part of that crowd anymore—not that I ever had been, really. My weekends had
always involved work, but that was because I had work. I wasn’t part
of all these people who were going home or going out to relax and unwind, but
their mood was contagious anyway. It was nice strolling hand-in-hand with Bree
through it, not wearing heels, not wearing a dress and just
generally enjoying the buzz.

“I always thought it was a
really pretty logo,” Bree said
thoughtfully, looking up at Frost HQ’s snowflake on the skyline. “Even before I
found out you worked at Frost.”

I snorted. “Pity about the
people who run it.”

“I know,” she said as we
wandered past some shop windows. “I just think it’s pretty, and it would be
cool to have a name that means something,
too, and not just one no one can spell. ‘Lee’ must be great for that.”

“Sure. Everyone takes one
look at my face and spells it L-I.”

“Still,” she said,
swinging our arms. “It’s easier than ‘Dejanovic’. ‘Bree Lee’ sounds weird,
though, doesn’t it? I’ll have to go by my full name after we get married,
Briana Lee. That sounds way more
balanced.”

After we get… I
stopped in place in the middle of the footpath. “Bree, we’ve been going out
for a month, don’t you think it’s a little early to start planning
marriage?”

She rolled her eyes at me.
“Don’t most serious relationships start
with the kind of, like, unspoken expectation that you’re looking for someone to
grow old with?”

“Yes. The unspoken expectation.”

“Yeah, well, I’m ‘spoking’ it,” she told me, not paying any
attention to the people walking around us and eavesdropping, “because it’s
silly pretending that’s not what we’re looking for, isn’t it? So, yeah, of course I expect we’ll eventually get married,
and when we do, I’ll be Briana Lee.”

I don’t know why I was
surprised Bree would openly talk about it; on what I’d come to recognise as our
first date in that enormous and expensive restaurant in Darling Harbour, Bree
had already asked me how many children I wanted, and then told me she wanted
‘heaps’. Still, with all the stuff that was going on with Mum and with Henry, I
couldn’t even fathom marrying a girl. I couldn’t fathom marrying at all, not yet. I was only
just recently free from a future where I was Henry’s wife and mother to Henry’s
children.

It was a moot point right
now, anyway. “Two females can’t get married in Australia,” I pointed out as we started walking again. “So no
one’s officially taking anyone’s name just yet.”

Bree shrugged. “Well,
that’ll change eventually,” she said. “And if it doesn’t, you lean towards ‘M’ rather than ‘F’, don’t you? So
if you decide to go through the whole thing of getting your documents changed
to that, we can.”

That was something I
hadn’t even really considered so when Bree stopped again to admire some clothes
in a shop window, I just looked at my reflection. I looked pretty ‘M’, didn’t
I? Even if ‘man’ felt a bit… well, not exactly right? It was an interesting
thought.

Bree got sick of the
clothes and tugged me along the footpath again. I drew alongside her while she
chatted about her school friends as if
everything was fine and she wasn’t hiding something from me. When
there was a break in the conversation, I commented, “You know, it’s pretty interesting what you choose to
‘spoke’ about and what you choose not to.”

“At least I’m not boring,”
she said sagely. That made me laugh.

When we passed mobile
phone store, I stopped and Bree kept walking. I whistled at her to get her
attention, and when she turned around, I nodded my head inside the shop. Her
face lit up when she saw what it was, and she practically skipped over to me.
“Really?” she said, “Really?”

“Really.”

She wrapped her arms
around me and squeezed, gushed a big torrent of thank yous and then
grabbed my arm to drag me in.

The sales clerk had
watched that whole scene and was smiling to himself as Bree galloped up to him
and said, “I need something, like, really cheap or really old!”

The clerk gave me a really
baffled look. “Well, that’s a first,” he said to me. I chuckled along with him
as he showed Bree a selection of handsets. In the end, she didn’t choose a really old phone, she just chose a Chinese
brand I’d never heard of which did fortunately
fit the criteria of ‘really cheap’. She made the clerk promise several times
that no pawn store in Sydney would ever buy it. “We don’t even do warrantees for those here,” he told her. “We
have to send them overseas to be fixed.”

It didn’t matter to Bree
that she’d gotten some shit knock-off
phone, though, she couldn’t wait to tear into the package almost the second we
were out of the store. “Oh my god, I’m coming back to the twenty-first
century!” She pulled the phone out of its package and smiled down at it. “And
it feels so totally flimsy and light,
too. Andrej won’t bother stealing it, I’m sure: it’d cost more to get a train
to the pawn store than what he’d get for it.” She hugged me again. “Why are you
so awesome?”

I shook my head. “Don’t
thank me too much, it’s mostly self-interest,” I told her. “I just want you to
always be able to tell me where you are if plans change.” I looked directly at
her and there was supposed to be an implied so tell me where you were today, but either Bree didn’t notice it, or she
just very skilfully ignored it.

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t
have had to buy me one in the first place if my stupid brother would stay out
of the fucking casino,” she said, and
sighed as we wandered into Hyde Park and settled down on the grass so she could
play with her new toy. “It sucks that you have to spend so much money on me
because of him.”

“So much?” I asked her.
“Please, that was barely a hundred bucks. Just wait until you see what I got
you from Broome.”

She looked up from her
phone, a delighted smile growing on her face. “You bought me a present?”

“Nope.” As her face fell,
I elaborated. “I did not buy you a present. I bought you several presents.”

She made a growling noise
and smacked me gently with the box. “Oh my god, I hate it when you do that,” and when I went to be smart about
the fact it sounded like she was telling me not to buy her presents, she just
threw the whole packaging at me. “And I
hate it when you do that! You
know what I mean! Stop making fun of me when I say things wrong!”

I dodged the box,
retrieved it and then lay back down on the grass while she read all about the
features of her new phone in the booklet it came with, fingers laced with mine.

It was a really beautiful early winter evening; the
grass was warm because the sun had been out all day, and as it set – a
beautiful orange and pink behind the skyscrapers— people were milling around
the fountain, taking pictures of each other in the fading light, and wandering
arm-in-arm through the park. I watched traffic on Elizabeth Street start to
turn on all their headlights, and shopfront signage begin to stand out against the darkening buildings.  And I
wasn’t at work, I wasn’t stuck in an apartment doing work, I was
lying out in a park watching the sunset with someone who was…
humming really out of tune. I chuckled to myself at that.

I was about to gently
tease her about it, but my phone buzzed in my pocket. I guessed that Bree was
pranking me so I could save her number, so I fished my phone out, glanced at it
and started to say, “You know, if you want me to save your number, you’re going to have to turn on caller ID so I
can—”

Bree was staring blankly
at me. The words died on my lips when I looked down at her phone: the screen
was blank, she hadn’t turned it on yet.

Fuck. I looked down at my
own phone. “It’s Mum.”

Bree
actually smiled at my reaction, the traitor. “It’ll be fine, I promise.”

I doubted that. “Sure it
will,” I said dryly. “Well, it’s been nice knowing you.” She giggled as I took
a deep breath and answered it.

“Min! Min, you actually
answered for once! What a nice surprise!”
My mother, the master of backhanded compliments. “You know, I keep forgetting
that you’re unemployed now, it’s been so many years that you told me to wait
until you’re home in the evening to call you…”

Of course, me being at
work hadn’t actually stopped her
calling me at all times of the day anyway. I didn’t point that out, though. It
wasn’t worth correcting Mum, it upset her and in five years down the track
she’d still be reminding me of that one time when I talked back to her as
evidence that I was a bad daughter…

The depth of surrender
must have shown on my face, because Bree
giggled and rubbed my arm.

“Who’s that? Are you with
someone? Where are you, is that traffic?”

I replied in English. “I’m
in Hyde Park with a friend,” I told her. “We’re about to have dinner,” and to
pre-empt her twenty questions, I added, “Her name's Bree, yes, she’s white, but
she’s baptised…” I looked at Bree for the answer.

“Serbian Orthodox,” she
primly recited.

“…Orthodox,” I told Mum,
conveniently leaving out that Bree was an atheist who never went to Church, as
well as that she was 18, still at school, and that she had great breasts.

Mum made a non-committal
noise. “Does Henry like her?”

What a question. I avoided
it. “He cooked as both japchae a
month or two ago and she loved it. Listen, it’s very
loud here and I won’t be able to talk to you for very long. I wanted to
know how Grandma is,” I lied, “is she doing better on her new medication?”

Predictably, Mum launched
into the latest news about Grandma, and while my eyes were rolling in my skull
and I was making encouraging sounds so she stayed on the subject, Bree sat up
and gave me an appraising look. That concerned me.

“So, Min, why won’t Henry
answer his phone?” At the mention of Henry, I snapped back to paying attention
to Mum. “I called him and called him, is his phone broken? Thank goodness for
your message this morning, I was so worried something had happened to you both,
and on your birthday, too.”

While I was quickly trying
to figure out how to answer that, Bree threw a leg across my lap and straddled
me with a cheeky grin. When I faux-glared at her, she smirked and sat
heavily on me. Then, she looked surprised. “Oh! You’re wearing the…” she
whispered, looking down between us at my
crotch.

“Min? Min? Are you there?”

I winced. “Um, yes, sorry
Mum, it’s a bit loud here,” I apologised, directing a stern glare at Bree. “Henry’s
really busy on some big projects and he’s trying not to be distracted. Sorry if
he’s not answering his phone. He’s too polite to tell you he’s busy.”

Mum bought it. “Oh, of course he is. I’m sorry for distracting him,
could you tell him sorry from me? I just
read about a horrible car accident in Sydney and when you didn’t answer your
phone I thought maybe you and Henry were in it…”

While she was telling me
about this supposed accident, Bree settled back across my lap and then
pretended to rock back and forth and toss her hair like we were openly having
sex in the park.

I made a strangled noise
and looked around us – it was probably getting a bit dark for anyone to
see exactly what we were doing – but I grabbed a hold of her to stop
her anyway. When I pointed a stern finger at her, she looked at it and then at
me. I took it away from her before she could put it in her mouth.

“Listen, Min,” there was
something about Mum’s tone of voice that was sobering, “you’re 26 now, you’re
not a child anymore, and I won't be around forever. I don’t want to always have
to worry about what’s going to happen to you. I know Henry’s been thinking
of proposing, and you need to find a way to convince him to do it. He’s very
patient with you; too patient, I think. Most men would have left you a long
time ago. You don’t treat him well and he deserves better.”

Ouch. “I know.” I
closed my eyes for a second and motioned
for Bree to get off me. When she saw my expression, she did.

“Did you open the present
I sent you in front of him? I was hoping you’d open it in front of him. Perhaps
you could leave it somewhere when you visit him, to let him know that you’re
ready and he can ask? He’d be so happy, I think. I think he really wants to
marry you. You’ve got to stop wasting that, Min.”

He did really want to marry me, I thought, remembering that
beautiful ring and the heartbreaking inscription on the inside of the box. And
then I’d broken his heart.

I switched to Korean. Bree
didn’t need to hear this. “Thank you for the present,” I told her. “But I don’t
know if he’s as ready as you think to marry me. In Australia, lots of people
date for a very long time, and some of them never actually—”

“—I know, Min, I used
to live there, I know what it’s like. Look how many white people actually stay
married, though; you shouldn’t take marriage lessons from them. I hope your
Orthodox friends with their ‘You can get divorced any time you like’ Church
aren’t giving you bad advice and that’s why you’re waiting too long.”

“No, Mum. They’re not.
It’s my fault.”

She sighed. A silence
stretched between us; all I could hear was the hum of traffic nearby. “Maybe I
should come over there for a bit,” she said eventually. “Grandma would be sad,
of course, but maybe you need a guiding hand about how to—”

All the colour drained
from my face. With every fibre of my being: no! Mum
could not see me like this! “Mum, no, please, it’s okay,” I told her,
forgetting to speak Korean. “Don’t leave Grandma when she’s so sick, I won’t
make you do that. I’ll work something out.”

“You’re my only daughter,
Min. Your future is so important, and if it takes someone with wisdom and—”

“—Mum, please don’t leave
Grandma. I would feel so guilty. Please, I’ll do it by myself, I promise.”

She made a disapproving
noise and was silent for another few moments. Despite the fact I wasn’t the
slightest bit religious, I felt like I wanted to pray she didn’t
insist on coming. Please, I begged, please,
please, please…

“Well, alright,” she said
after several agonising seconds of deliberation. “But if he hasn’t
proposed before his birthday, I think I really need to come and help.”

“I’m sure it will work
out,” I told her, without the faintest fucking idea how it was possibly
going to work out. “I’d better go to dinner. It’s lovely to talk to you.”

“Don’t eat too much,” she
told me. “Henry says nice things about not caring if you get fat, but you can’t
take any chances. Goodbye, Min.” She hung up.

I stared at my phone as
the screen went dark.

Fuck. What was I going to
do? What the hell was I going to do?

Bree cuddled up against my
side and we lay there for a few minutes while I tried to figure out how on
earth I was going to try and get out of
this.

“Is she coming?” she asked
quietly when I didn’t say anything.

I shook my head. “Not
yet,” I said. “But if Henry doesn’t propose by July…”

Bree thought about that.
“Telling her about you is, like, totally out
of the question, isn’t it?”

I nodded slowly. “She
wants to come and stay with me just to make sure Henry marries me. I don’t
even know what she’d be like if I went, ‘Mum, I’m transgender, I’ve
dumped Henry, and I’m dating a girl’.” I closed my eyes again. “Let’s just run
away.”

Bree laughed. It was
an empty sound. “I am so there right
now,” she told me. “Home’s, like, a tiny bit better at the moment
because Andrej is working and so far he’s been giving his wages to Dad. But,
like, it’s like the universe has gone, ‘Hey, Bree, things are way too easy for you right now!
We’re going to fuck shit up!’, because school is just…” I felt warm breath
through my hoodie as she exhaled. “Yeah.”

I turned my head towards
her. This was finally the right moment, wasn’t it? “Is that why you
weren’t in class?”

She exhaled, and then
looked up at me. The answer was clear. “Are you angry I didn’t just tell you?”

God, no. It was such a
relief to be talking about it. “Not angry…”

“Just worried?” When I
smiled wryly at her, she giggled a couple of times. “Of course you were.” Then,
she lay her head back in the crook of my arm. “Sorry. I’m not doing it because
I’m, like, I don’t know, lazy or—”

“Bree. I know.”

Her eyes were veiled as
she gazed across my torso, tracing the print on my hoodie with a finger. “Like,
on Monday we were supposed to do this stuff with Excel in Maths, and Mr Preston
was like, ‘Everyone take out your laptops or your tablets!’ and I don’t have my
laptop anymore, do I? So when he was like, ‘Bree, where’s your device?’ I
couldn’t just go, ‘Sorry, my brother pawned it and gambled the money’, so I
just was like, ‘Hee hee, I guess I forgot to put it in my bag this morning,
silly me!’ and then he wanted to see me after class.”

I did not like
where this was going, but I didn’t interrupt her.

“Anyway, so I stayed back
and he’s all like, ‘Bree, tell me about why you’re at this school’, and what do
you even say to that? So I just said some polite crap and then he’s like, ‘I
know there are some financial issues, and you never pay attention in class, and
you hardly do the homework, so, Bree, why are you here?’ And then he went on
this long rant about the reputation of the school and how all the other
students are dedicated and hardworking, blah blah, and he’s like, ‘I don’t
understand why you’re wasting this opportunity and not even trying, Bree.’
And, seriously, I couldn’t say anything, because where do I even start? Like,
how the fuck am I supposed
to try and learn Excel when I don’t even have a fucking computer? I
can’t even do research assignments and type my essays and stuff because I don’t
have one, and even if someone did let me borrow one, I don’t have the
Internet at home. I can’t fucking
concentrate with my parents stomping around the house, and there’s no food
there, and the phone’s always ringing because of debt collectors, and it’s
like… how do you even explain all that to someone who just looks at you and
sees a dumb blonde schoolgirl who’s lazy and gets bad marks?” She paused for a
moment and let that hang in the air
before she continued. “And when I didn’t say anything, he’s like, ‘Or perhaps
you should consider dropping down to vocational studies
that are better suited to your abilities,’ which is basically like, ‘you’re too dumb to be here’. And so I was
like, fuck this. Fuck everything. I’m not going to class, I’ll just go to the
library and read stuff that’s actually relevant to my life in there, I don’t
care. It’s not like I’d ever get into uni, anyway. None of it matters anyway
because they’ll probably kick me out soon for not paying my fees, and I’ll
never even finish my HSC.”

My lips were pressed in a
tight line for most of the time she’d been speaking. What a fucking bastard. How could he teach Bree
for years and know there were ‘financial issues’ and not be more
sensitive to the fact there was obviously more going on for her? “That was the
man by the gate this morning, wasn’t it?” I may have sounded a little
bit angry.

Bree picked up on it.
“Yeah, but don’t do anything, okay? Like, I mean it would be awesome if you
could just totally punch him, but don’t.”

The sentiment was
certainly there, but I had a better idea. Fuck
him, and fuck anyone who thought she was stupid, I thought. “Come on,” I
said as I stood, shelving the unsolvable crap with Mum for now in
favour of a problem I could actually do something about. I let Bree collect her
phone, and then pulled her up and began to drag her out of Hyde Park.

“Where are we going?” she
asked, eyes wide.

“To give you a fighting
fucking chance of proving that prick wrong and getting your HSC after all,” I
said, fluttering the button at the pedestrian crossing, and then towing Bree
across it.

“Okay…” she said, letting
me. It wasn’t until we were standing outside the yellow windows of a JB Hi-Fi
that she stopped in place and shook her head at me. “No, Min…” she said, trying
to stop me from pulling her toward the sea of laptops on display. “No, you
don’t work for Frost anymore, you don’t have much money, you can’t!”

“I have nearly four
grand,” I told her. “And Frost owes me something like seven or eight, maybe
more, and that’ll come through soon. That’s plenty.”

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t
spend it on me!” she said, “Especially not because of stupid Andrej stealing
everything, that’s so fucked. There’s no point anyway, he’ll just steal it and sell it and you’ll have wasted all
that money!”

“You can leave it at
Sarah’s and just study there,” I told her. “Come on, it’s okay.”

She actually looked really
upset. “It’s not okay,
Min!” she told me. People were starting to watch us. “It’s not okay! You’re
going to totally waste all this money and I’m going to be kicked out
anyway!”

I took her face in my
hands for a second. “Spending money on you is not a waste, Bree,” I told her
firmly. “And you were right before. How are you supposed to try at school when
you can’t even do the homework? Well, soon you’ll be able to.”

She didn’t say anything to
that—I think she was trying not to cry—and she let me take her into the store. The clerk asked her some
questions to try and figure out what she needed, and she answered them
mechanically, looking completely spun.

In the end, we left the
store with a convertible tablet that had a solid
and colourful keyboard you could attach to it. Bree chose a pastel purple one
that sparkled in the light, and she cradled the box all the way to the car.

We didn’t end up staying
in the city for dinner, we got drive-thru on the way home instead. Bree ate it
quietly in the passenger seat, hugging her two packages to her chest.

When we got back, poor
Sarah hadn’t made it home yet, but Rob was watching footy and hollered a hello
to us from the living room as we walked down the hall. I called back to him as
I let Bree into my bedroom. She sat down on the bed with her two boxes, looking
down at them.

Trying not to smile too
much, I went over to my suitcase and took out a couple more boxes. “I
think I mentioned presents…”

Her face crumpled. “No!”
she said, but laughed miserably as she set aside the tablet and her phone to
see what I had for her.

Honestly, when I was up in
Broome, I had thought I’d secretly enjoy the opportunity to have some time to
myself, and I did at first. After a few days, though, I started finding myself
in gift shops holding plush pink dugongs, named shot glasses, and other cute
things and thinking to myself, ‘Bree would love this!’, and since I didn’t have
a reason not to buy her things, out came my credit card…

The plush pink dugong was
a little over the top, and she laughed at it, hugged it, and put it with the laptop and the phone. The other bits
and pieces, she liked, too.

It was when she got to the
final present which was in a small oblong gift box that she paused. It was
clearly jewellery. “I hope it’s not expensive,” she told me, sounding stern.

I didn’t say anything, I
just grinned and motioned for her to open it. She did, looking really worried about what was inside. As she
lifted it out of the box I watched her
face closely, trying to determine if she
loved it or hated it, because it wasn’t very colourful like the stuff she normally liked.

It was a sand-coloured
pearl on a thin gold chain, simple and long enough for her to hide inside her
school shirt if she kept the buttons
done up.

“There are pearls
everywhere in Broome so I went on this pearl tour,” I said, explaining as I
helped her put it on. “And after I’d learnt all about pearls, I had a really
pathetically corny reason for getting
this for you. On reflection, it seems a
bit stupid, so…” I held the pearl up
beside her hair; it was the same colour. “Let’s just pretend that’s why I
bought it for you.”

When I dropped it back
against her skin, she looked up at me. “Tell me the corny reason,” she said quietly.
“I don’t care if it’s really stupid.”

“It’s pretty damn corny,”
I warned her, showing her how she could hide the pearl with her buttons closed.
She opened them again so she could admire it nested
in her cleavage. “The guide was saying that there are millions of pearls farmed
every year, millions, and that no two
pearls are the same. They’re all asymmetrical, and imperfect, and not quite
circular,” I told her. “And despite these imperfections, every single one of
those millions of pearls is valuable and beautiful because it’s unique.
And some lucky person is going to pick up that imperfect pearl and hold it in
their palm and realise it’s the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen, and
then they’re going to love it, and treasure it, and proudly wear it so
that everyone can see just how beautiful it is.”

Her eyes filled with tears
as I spoke and she pulled me into a desperate hug. I let her put her arms
around me as she mumbled thanks into my hoodie and didn’t emerge for a few
minutes. I could feel the material was wet.

When she finally pulled
back, her eyes were red but she was smiling. “You make me feel so good
about myself,” she told me, looking down at the pearl. “Like, everything's shit
right now, but you always make me feel like it might end up being okay, after
all.”

I smoothed the chain down
on her neck. It really suited her. “Everything will be okay,” I said,
returning her smile. “I know that because you keep telling me.”

She laughed soundlessly.
“It’s not going to be okay, though, I’m not going to finish my HSC,” she said,
sounding defeated. “You know that, don’t you? Even despite all of this? I’m
doing really badly on all my assessments and it’s nearly the middle of the
year. If my fees aren’t paid, the only reason to keep me in the school is if I
do well and raise the average marks for the school ranking. That is, like, so far from ever happening it’s
not even funny, which means I’m only still there because the school is waiting
to get paid and they think Mum and Dad have heaps of money.”

“So we have to get your
grades up,” I realised, remembering that 52% she’d showed me in April. Shit, I had to think. “Okay. Okay. Your
exams aren’t until October, right? That’s… four, five months. And if you’re
not failing your assessments, you can still do moderately well from
now on, right?”

“Yeah, if I get, like,
100% on everything. Which is totally not going to happen, by the way. I
am so behind.”

“Well, I was dux of my
school, and Sarah is smart and has some pretty smart friends, I’m sure we can
get you over the line in four months.”

Bree didn’t look
convinced. “That’s if Cloverfield doesn’t kick me out after I hand in all the
major assessment tasks at the end of semester
and they’re all shit.”

I gave her a look. “Hey,
if I can figure out how to convince my mum everything’s fine between Henry and me before
July, you can write some amazing assignments before then. But,” I said,
standing up.

Bree looked up at me from
the bed with those big blue eyes. “But?”

I put the box with the
tablet in it on her lap. “But it means you’re not leaving stuff until 9pm on Sunday night. Come on, plug that thing
in. Let’s see what we’ve got to work with.”

FOUR

In my head, I’d had all these heroic visions of helping Bree finish top of
her class to glowing praise and the ‘Most Improved’ banner across her photo in
the yearbook. Well, after we’d set up Bree’s tablet and she’d shown me some of
her homework and assignments, that idea died a swift death.

Her homework was intense. It was so intense
and so demanding that I began to slowly recall in agonising detail
all those nights I’d spent sobbing over my own books in year 12. Just looking
at all the questions on Bree’s screen was making me sweat. It was no wonder she
hadn't done any of it.

Rob wandered past the
kitchen table to grab another beer at some point and peeked over Bree’s
shoulder while we were hunched over the screen. “Jesus,” was his assessment.
“Now I remember why I dropped out.”

“You dropped out?” Bree
asked him, sounding surprised.

“Yep,” he told her as he
disappeared into the kitchen and called back, “in year 10 so I could take an
apprenticeship. And I still earn more than Sares.
Or I will when Waterbank re-opens, anyway.”

“Not helping, Rob,” I said
dryly as he walked back past with his fresh beer. He toasted us with it, and I
ignored him. “Well,” I told Bree, sitting back and crossing my arms at her
checklist of assignments. “You weren’t kidding about how behind you are.”

“It’s okay if you don’t
think you can help,” she said quietly. “I
kept the receipt, we can always return the tablet so you don’t feel like you
made a giant mistake spending all that money on me when it won’t do anything.”

I hugged her. “Stop it, we
can do this. Fuck. Okay, open the Maths homework and I’ll see if I can
remember any of it.”

Sarah finally got home
while I was scrolling through the questions, and she bustled over to the
kitchen table with a lot more energy than she’d had this morning. I glanced up
at her.  “You look better.”

She laughed once. “That’s
because I’m on every cold and flu tablet in the chemist. I think I just paid off
his mortgage. So, I’m not actually sure if I do feel better or if
I’ve just consumed so much pseudoephedrine that I’ve phased into another
dimension. Either way…” She shrugged. “My presentation was spectacular and
Sales are idiots and will definitely waste
everything I taught them. What are you guys doing?”

I passed her the tablet.
“Bree’s homework.”

Sarah scrolled up.
“From February,” she noted in
her best school teacher voice as she tabbed down the page. “Fantastic. Good to see that you’re up to date with—what
the hell.” She stopped scrolling. “What is that? It looks like a
modern art.”

Bree tilted the tablet so
she could see. “That’s De Moivre’s Theorem,”
she said. “It’s fucked.”

Sarah spent a few seconds
staring at it. “Okay,” she said. “I have a pretty good memory, and I don’t
remember that at all. Are we sure it’s maths? There are so many letters in it,
it could be English. Like, x, y and z, I’m okay with, but why does it start with an ‘i’?”

“Maybe the equation has
evolved so far that it’s become sentient?” I offered.

Bree giggled at us. “‘i’
is for ‘imaginary’. It’s an imaginary number.”

Sarah stared critically at
it. “Imaginary, right. Because it’s not as if maths could be
any less applicable in real life, now we have to teach kids pretend numbers, great. What is this,
‘Solve to find ‘I’?” She read aloud, “Please help this lost little number find
its meaning? What is this, psychology? Oh my god.”

“On the bright side,” I
said, “given that they’re imaginary numbers, maybe we could just hand in a
blank sheet of paper and tell the teacher the answers are imaginary, too?”

“I tried that,” Bree said.
“And he told me I wasn’t funny and that
there’s always one student every year who tries it.”

I liked this guy less and
less, seriously. “Did you tell him he needed some imagination? Maybe your
imaginary numbers are so creative and unique he’s unable to fully appreciate
them.”

Sarah was still trying to
wrap her head around that theorem. She tilted the tablet sideways, squinting at
it. “Min, do you understand any of this crap?”

“I wrote Bree’s name up
the top,” I told her, and pointed to it. “I even spelt it right. Does that
count?”

She gave me a look and
then asked Bree, “What about you, do you get any of this?” Bree just laughed
bleakly. “That’s what I thought,” she said,
and put the tablet down on the table so she could take her mobile out of her
handbag. “I’m calling the cavalry.”

Bree looked blankly at me,
and I shook my head and shrugged.

Sarah put the phone to her
ear and I could faintly hear it ring a couple of times before someone answered.
She was grinning. “Hello, yes, I’m looking for a weirdo who does maths for a
living and has no life?” She laughed at the response. “Shut up, Gem, you know I
love you. I need you to come and do that whole maths thing over at my place,
though, because Bree is learning about fake numbers and Min and I have no
idea.” She looked blankly at us for a second as she listened, and then her eyes
narrowed. “A non-trivial what? No, I don’t know if that’s part of it. What
the hell is that word, anyway? Is that even a word?”

“Maybe it’s
an imaginary word,” I suggested.

Sarah rolled her eyes at
me as she said to the phone, “Gem, I’m way too wrecked for your long
maths words. Come over, will you? It’ll take an hour, maybe. Two, tops. See you
soon!” She hung up and smiled at us. “Guess who’s coming to visit?”

Before Gemma arrived,
Sarah and I opened a blank Frost
International Project Management Timeline, put our heads together and tried to
figure out how the hell we were going to structure Bree’s study to get her
assignments done in a month while also catching her up on all the
homework she’d missed out on.  We were still going when Gemma walked
casually through the back door. She had a big pile of textbooks under one arm
and a bottle of champagne in the other, and she put it loudly on the table
directly in front of Sarah. “Fancy a drink?” she asked with an innocent smile.
Clearly, Sarah’s hangover had been a topic at
work.

Sarah gave her a dirty look
and was about to say something when Bree piped up, “You look really pretty, Gemma!” She was looking directly
at the skin that was exposed by Gemma’s off-the-shoulder jumper and all the
freckles on it. “You have really pretty
shoulders, they look nice in that top.”

Gemma’s
alarm was admittedly hilarious, and Sarah burst out laughing.
“There’s one she hasn’t heard before. We’ll have to put that in your Tinder,
won’t we, Gem?”

Gemma recovered. “I
do not have a Tinder,” she
said, dumping several kilos of textbooks on the kitchen table in front of Bree,
deliberately not making eye-contact with her. Her cheeks were a bit red.

“Well, maybe that’s your
problem.” Sarah was still grinning. “Maybe we should make you a Tinder.”

Gemma just sighed at her.
“Can we get straight to where I help Bree with her homework and skip the part
where you mess with me?”

I couldn’t help chiming in
with a wink and a low voice. “Messing with you is the best part, though,
Gemma.”

“I wasn’t messing with
her!” Bree protested. “I just think women should compliment each other more,
and Gemma looks really pretty today!”

Gemma groaned and
put her face in her hands as she sat down beside Bree. “Why did I come, again?”
she asked no one in particular, before resurfacing and pretending to ignore Sarah and me. “Bree! Show me this homework of
yours.”

After Bree handed the
tablet to her and they’d scrolled through the whole syllabus together, Gemma
sat back and made a face. “I don’t really
use any of this stuff day-to-day in Risk, we mainly use statistics,” she said.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve studied it, but I’m going to have to brush up on all
of that before I can teach someone else how to do it.”

“How long will that take?”
I asked.

She shrugged. “A week, maybe?”
She patted the thick textbooks on the table. “This is not exactly bedtime
reading.”

I felt like I’d got off
lightly. “Well, I studied all the same prescribed texts in VCE, so I’m good to
go right now with English,” I told them. “I’m probably okay with Psychology,
too.” I didn’t say why. They probably already guessed; everyone knew Henry had
a psych master’s.

Sarah made a face. “I
guess that leaves me with Chemistry,” she said, and then added sarcastically,
“Yay! So how are we going to roster this?”

Once we’d all crowded
around the tablet for the better part of
an hour and set out who was going to be spending time with Bree and when on the
Timeline, we all sat back and stared at it. For an hour’s work, it
was very involved.

“That is one seriously beautiful timeline,” Sarah commented,
considering it. “Look at it. I think I should take it to work and make everyone
admire it.”

Across the table from us,
Bree was slumped in her chair looking really
worried. “Not that I’m not super grateful and your timeline isn’t really
colourful and all that, but why are you guys doing this? Do
you really want to spend, like, hours
and hours teaching me how to do chemical equations?”

We all looked at each
other. It had actually never crossed my mind to not help her, but I suppose it was a reasonable question to
ask of the other two.

Sarah leant forward. “I
have this thing where if my friends need help, I don’t abandon them,” she said
as if she was explaining a really difficult
concept. She patted Gemma on the back. “And Gem here has nothing else to do,
so…”

Gemma rolled her eyes.
“Just don’t rely on Sarah too much, okay?” She told Bree. “Apparently she’s
getting so much sex that it might be difficult for her to keep any of
her other commitments.”

Rob must have been
eavesdropping because he laughed loudly from the couch on the other side of the
room. “Okay, I think that’s my cue to fuck off and go to bed,” he said,
standing and stretching. “You ladies—” He gave me a bit of an uncomfortable look. “Whoops, sorry, and gentle…
person, enjoy your evening.”

“’Gentle person’,” I
repeated sceptically when he was gone. I think I was grinning a little.

Sarah chuckled. “Well,
‘Gentleman’ isn’t right, is it?” She stopped me when I went to tell her it was
fine, adding, “I’ve got it! Ladies and Gentlemin. I’m a genius. Right, who wants a
very non-alcoholic drink to celebrate that timeline? I have coke and a big selection of really pretentious
green teas.” She stood up and put her hands on her hips.

I loved how she needed to
specify ‘non-alcoholic’. “I’ll go with a pretentious tea.”

“I’ll have all the alcohol
you guys aren’t drinking,” Bree said grimly after Sarah had disappeared into
the kitchen. She was still slumped in her chair
with her chin resting on her collarbones.

“You’re going to do fine,”
I reassured her, reaching across the corner of the table and taking her hand.
“Better than fine. You’re going to do great, and I’m going to be sitting
in that audience when you get your certificate, and I’m going to clap really
loudly for you.”

I must have been smiling, because she mirrored it and laced her
fingers with mine. She didn’t look like she believed me but she nodded
reluctantly anyway, smiling up at me from underneath her long lashes.

“—Yeah, I’d better head
off, actually,” Gemma said suddenly, standing. I’d
forgotten she was still there for a
second, and I felt a bit bad about sharing a moment with Bree in front of her.
I remembered oh-so-well what it was like
to be around lovey-dovey couples all the
years I’d been single.

I made a face. “Sorry,
that was a bit insensitive.”

“We’ll stop, I promise,
we'll just be normal,” Bree added, looking worried and withdrawing her hand.

Gemma shook her head as
she carefully picked up one of the heavy
textbooks, presumably leaving the rest for us. “No, no, it’s not that. I had a
really late one because of Min’s birthday last night so I’m really tired,” she forced a smile at me, which
made me feel worse. “I probably shouldn’t have even come just now, but I’ve
never found it very possible to say no to Sarah, so…”

I laughed at that. “She
probably would have just driven over.”

“She definitely would have driven over,”
Gemma agreed, laughing with me and self-consciously tucking a strand of auburn
hair behind her ear.

“Well, sorry anyway,” I
said. “And sorry again about needing to read that again.” I nodded down at the
textbook.

She glanced down at it and
shrugged. “I actually like number theory,” she told me. “It will be interesting
to read this and go over it all again. I mean, it’s a total head-fuck, but that’s half the fun, isn’t it?”
I gave her a bit of a strange look, and she grimaced. “Yeah, okay, I think it’s
time for me to go before you try and have me committed. Bye.” She gave me a
quick hug and then showed herself out.

Bree was slumped again. “She hates me.”

“Yes,” I said casually, as
I sat back down again. “We all secretly hate you, Bree. That’s why we want to
help you get your HSC.”

“No,” she corrected me.
“They’re helping you help
your girlfriend to get her HSC. I’m just your plus one.”

“Bree,
you’re not just my plus one.”

“Yeah, you’re more like
Min’s plus-point-five,” Sarah said, carrying our pretentious teas out into the living room.

Bree looked a bit worried
that Sarah may have heard the rest of what she’d said, but Sarah wasn’t making
any indication she had. She was concentrating on not spilling our tea while she
put it in front of us. She had got to the
rest of Gemma’s books before she realised that their owner was gone. “Wait, why
are we minus one?” She looked accusingly at me. “Why did you let her go?”

“Because detaining people
against their will is a crime?”

Sarah scoffed, turning to
look at the clock. “It’s not even that late at…” She stopped, and her tone
changed. “Okay, so it’s half-past eleven and that’s pretty late.” She looked
across at Bree. “Isn’t it on your timeline that you’ll read fifty pages
of Pride and Prejudice tonight?”

Bree sighed and grudgingly
stood up to grab her tablet. “Yes.”

“Hey, none of that. Every
page you read gets you closer to that certificate,” Sarah told her. “You’re nearly
there! Focus on the prize, okay?”

“Okay,” Bree repeated,
looking directly at me.  She gave me a little smile as she retreated to my
bedroom with her sparkly purple tablet and pretentious tea.

I relaxed against the back
of the chair and took a sip of my own tea. “Thanks. I owe you.”

“Nope, she owes me, unless you need help
with your HSC, too.” She had a sip of her own tea and then looked critically at
it. “Ugh, this is gross. It had better be as good for my poor liver as it says it is.” She had another sip
and made another disgusted face. “Anyway, back to Schoolgirl: how the
hell did she get so behind? When I was at school, the teachers used to
make us get all our assignment marks initialled by our parents. And, I mean, my
parents are pretty chill, but if they’d paid stacks of dough for me to go to an
ultra-elite private school and I was getting 50% on things…” She shook her
head. “I’m guessing her folks don’t know,
yeah? How the hell is she hiding it from them?”

I winced. It was tempting
to tell Sarah the truth about how in debt they were because of Bree’s brother,
but it wasn’t my truth.
“They’re just very busy. I don’t think they’re home much.”

Sarah made a noise. “Well,
I guess that explains why she’s always staying over with you and why there’s no
one at home to help her with stuff. Maybe she’ll never need to tell her folks
at all if we can get her marks up.” Something occurred to her. “Oh, wait, that’s right!” She fixed me
with a very intent stare.

I froze, probably looking
like a deer in headlights. “What’s right?”

She inched closer.
“Speaking of telling people, how’s your mum? That’s who left those messages,
after all?”

I groaned audibly. “Great.
Thanks for reminding me.”

She sat forward, very
pointedly silent and waiting for me to tell her what was going on, so I did:
everything about that awful phone call in the park. “God knows what I’m
going to do,” I finished. “So, yeah, please don’t remind me.”

Sarah spent a few seconds
considering what she’d heard. “’By Henry’s birthday’. When’s Henry’s birthday?”

“July 19.”

She sucked air through her
teeth. “Whoa, that’s not far away.” After some further thought, she shrugged.
“Well, you’re just going to have to figure out how you’re going to tell her
about you.”

I could have choked on my
tea. “No,” I said firmly. “That would not help,
she’s really conservative. As in, ‘best friends with the pastor’s
wife’ conservative.”

“Some Churches are really
forward about this stuff,” Sarah pointed out.

I shook my head
resolutely. “Not Mum’s, and I’m an only child. She’s been planning my wedding
since my conception. I can’t tell her, Sarah, she even sent me a wedding book
for my birthday.”

“Well, what’s the
alternative, really? You can’t pretend you’re still with Henry if he’s not even
talking to you. And you said yourself you can’t get back into those chick
clothes, so, really, telling her is kind
of your only option.”

“Not if I can just figure
out some way to convince her that everything is fine and she doesn’t need to
see me.”

Sarah gave me a tired
look. “Min. I watched you march into a boardroom and roll right over two
billionaire CEOs and the manager from hell, and you can’t tell your own mum
that you’re transgender?”

“That’s different.”

“Just tell her,” Sarah
enunciated. “You’re going to have to do it eventually, why not right now and
save yourself all this stress? I’m sure her reaction isn’t going to be as bad
as you think.”

No, it’s probably going to be worse, I thought, my blood running cold at
the thought of what she’d say. “I understand where you’re coming from, Sarah,”
I began, “but it’s not as simple as you think. She grew up in the 1960s in
Korea, and she moved to Australia for twenty years to raise me
because she thought it would be better here. I can’t just go, ‘Hey, Mum, I’m
not the daughter you left your friends and sacrificed twenty years of your life
for, and now I’m going to do whatever the hell I want and I don't give a fuck
about how it affects you’.”

Sarah didn’t look completely convinced. “But if the result is you
not feeling like you can be yourself, that’s
so screwed up,” she said. “No one should get any sort of say in how you run
your life except you, not even your parents. You don’t bring a child into the
world so you can control it and live vicariously through it.”

I couldn’t
even imagine what Sarah’s family was like. Didn’t she care about what
her parents wanted for her? “Sarah, she raised me by herself as a single mum and gave up so much to make sure
I got everything she thought I needed. And I fucking hate it, trust me, I do,
but her one dream is to see me happily married to someone like Henry and with a
family of my own.”

“And one day you’ll be
happily married to someone like Bree with a family of your own?”

I wasn’t sure how to
explain it to someone with such a different upbringing, so I tried another
angle. “She loves Henry. Like, she loves him.
He even used to call her ‘Mum’ sometimes. I swear to god she spoke to him more
than she speaks to me.”

“Even more likely that
she’s going to find out you’re not with him anymore,” Sarah said emphatically.
“Min, seriously, where do you actually see this going if
you don’t tell her?”

“I don’t know!” I said,
flopping my hands on the table. “I don’t know. I just want her to live happily
up in South Korea in her little fantasy world where her daughter is marrying
this great guy and everything is normal
and fine and perfect, and I want to live my own life down here in Australia,
not stressing Mum out because I’m nothing like the way she wants me to be!”

I must have sounded pretty
upset because Sarah’s look of determination
faded to one of concern and she reached out and put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Min, I’m on your side, I
am,” she said, rubbing my arm warmly and then sitting back. “It’s just hard for
me to understand, that’s all. I’m going to have kids in, I don’t know, a few
years’ time, I guess. I can’t imagine being happy if my kids aren’t.”

“Yeah, well,” I said,
running my hands through my hair. “Mum’s only going to be happy if I marry
Henry.”

“Are you sure about that?”
she asked me, and it was a genuine question.

I didn’t even have to
think about it. “Yes,” I answered easily.
“She even says exactly that. All the time,
and she means it.”

Sarah exhaled at length.
“Well, shit,” she said. It was weird
hearing her swear, but it absolutely articulated how I felt. “Okay, I see your
point, but I still think this either ends with her finding out or you telling
her.”

“And that’s what’s
stressing me out,” I said, sighing down at the tea in front of me. “I just wish
I could figure out some way that neither of those things would have to happen.”

“What will she do when she
finds out, do you think? Will she just be very upset, or will she, I don't know, do something, or...?”

I shook my head. That
question. “I don't know, Sarah.”

She watched me closely for a few seconds and then put her tea
down. Her tone completely changed. “Okay, Toyboy,” she said. “That’s enough
talk for tonight. You need to show me how to play that annoying shooting game
you’re obsessed with.”

I looked up. “What, you
mean Call of Duty?”

She waved her hand
dismissively. “Whatever it’s called. Teach me how to play it.”

I couldn’t help smiling.
“But you hate video games.”

She grimaced. “Hate is a
bit of a strong word,” she said, and then patted my arm. “Come on.”

I wasn’t going to say no
to that, and not just because I hadn’t played for a while and I thought it
might be fun, but because I knew why she was offering. We were crouched down by
her television trying to figure out how to plug the PlayStation in when we clonked foreheads and sat back, laughing.

I originally put an arm around her to apologise for head-butting her,
but I ended up giving her a proper big hug. There was no way in which
she hadn't been there for me in the last few months. “What the hell
would I do without you?”

She was rubbing her head
and moaning. “Well, you’d have one less concussion,” she told me, but hugged me back. “Probably best not to
praise me too much. I’m so high on cold and flu tablets right now that I’m
actually starting to think I might be God.”

We spent an hour or so playing
video games – at least half of which was Sarah complaining she couldn’t
remember the buttons – and then those tablets she’d taken began to wear off and
she started to yawn and look really exhausted. I turned off the console while
she staggered off to bed, and then I put our cups in the kitchen with the
unopened bottle of champagne. I even managed to leave the bottle unopened,
despite what was going on with Mum.

I expected Bree to be
sitting up in bed with the tablet when I retreated back to my room, but she’d
tucked herself in and, predictably, had fallen asleep with her new sparkly
tablet beside her on the pillow. I was grumpy at her not sticking to the
timeline until I checked to see how close she’d gotten to the 50 pages she was
supposed to have finished; she was up to 113.

Smiling, I locked the
tablet and went to put it on my desk beside my—

—flashing phone. That
stupid fucking light was going to give me a heart attack one of these days; I
needed to figure out how to disable it. I swiped across the screen with a
finger, expecting to see ‘Private Number’ in the call log, but that wasn’t it
at all. ‘Missed call: Henry Lee 23:41PM
no message left’ was scrolling across the display.

I drew a sharp
breath. Oh my god.

I immediately grabbed my
phone and stared down at it. Why was he calling me so late? Was something
wrong? My heart lifted: maybe he was lying awake in bed and just wanted to talk
to me?

I chewed on my lip while I
tried to guess why he might be calling. I couldn’t think about this here, though,
I felt like my frenzied thinking would somehow disturb Bree. I tiptoed out of
the room, gently closed the door, and then went out onto the back porch where I
could be pretty sure no one would hear me.

I should call him, shouldn’t I? I thought, walking to the far end of
the decking and staring down at my phone. 11:41 was—I checked—nearly an hour
ago, but he was calling me so late anyway that he was probably still awake.

Maybe it’s not that he wants to talk, I decided. Maybe Mum’s ringing him continuously and he wants me to
make her stop.

“But I did that,” I told
the phone. “I already told her not to!”

After a minute or two of
painful deliberation, I decided to just call him. Maybe he did want
to talk. I tapped the little green handset icon and put the phone up to my ear,
closing my eyes for a second as it rang. I wasn’t sure which
worried me more: him answering, or him not answering.

He did answer.
“Min,” he said, and with that one word a heavy
flood of nostalgia hit me. His voice was so warm and so familiar, and it
was so good to hear it again. I
smiled ear-to-ear and opened my mouth to tell him exactly that, but he cut me
off. “Sorry to call so late, I realise how unprofessional this is. I need to
speak with you and I couldn’t do it at work.”

Unprofessional?
Okay… I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I found it unsettling. Why
would it matter if he was unprofessional with me? Our whole relationship had
been unprofessional. He was the HR
manager, after all. “That’s okay,” I said, unsure about where this was going. “I’m obviously awake…”

“Good,” he said. “Good.
Listen, Min, last week we mailed you some
information about a meeting that’s taking place and you haven’t responded to
accept the invitation. I did something else highly unprofessional and notified
management you’d accepted anyway, but I need to know if you’ll be attending or
not, or if a representative of yours will be attending on your behalf.”

I didn’t… “A meeting? I
didn’t get anything in the post. Is this about the complaint?”

“Yes,” he said, and then
made a noise that sounded conflicted. “I shouldn’t be doing this from my work
account. Here, I’ll email you a copy.”

I could hear him tapping at his phone, and then mine dinged. I quickly
checked it. ‘Directions Interview’, it was cryptically titled. I checked the
mailing address on it and groaned. “It’s addressed
to the hotel,” I pointed out. “Of course I didn’t get it, I’m living at Sarah’s
now and I haven’t been back to collect my mail from there yet.” I swore. “I should have just had
it redirected. I’ll do that tomorrow.”

“Thank you. I didn’t want
to change your address on record myself, I shouldn’t even be opening your
file,” he told me. It sounded like he was outside somewhere, I could hear pretty strong
wind. “Well, are you going to come to the meeting?”

“Of course,” I said,
thinking about the fact I’d promised Sarah I wouldn’t drop the complaint. “When
is it?” I held my phone away from my face to check at the exact moment he told
me.

“First thing on Monday
morning.”

Shit. “Yeah, so I see. Thank
you for not letting me miss it.” I wondered if the complaint would have been
dropped in my non-attendance. “Really, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he said,
and it was all so painfully formal. “I recommend you bring representation if you’re not already doing so.”

“Yeah, because I’ve
got so much money lying around for a lawyer, especially since Frost
hasn’t paid out on my entitlements yet.” I laughed, but he wasn’t laughing, so
I stopped. “No, I’m coming by myself. Why?”

“Because Sean Frost has
flagged his attendance, and given that he’s my manager, I’m in no position to
refuse him.”

The smile that had been on
my face faded. “Why?”

“Because he’s an
asshole, Min,” Henry said harshly, his professional voice lapsing for a second.
It didn’t last long. “Anyway, thank you for confirming your attendance. The
conciliator will meet you in the atrium at 9:45am
and escort you inside.”

That seemed to be the end
of the conversation, but neither of us hung up straight away and a silence
stretched between us. I couldn’t believe he would only have called to tell me
that, especially given how late he was calling and how late he’d answered to
me. I could hear he was holding his breath on the other end of the line, and
the fact that he didn’t hang up straight away seemed important, so I thought
I’d risk it. “Henry, I just want to let you know that—”

“—Please, Min,” he cut me
off stiffly. I could hear how tight his throat was. “Please, I’m sorry. Please
don’t say it. I don’t—I just can’t hear it right now, please. I shouldn’t even
be calling you, I’m so sorry. Good luck on Monday.” With that, he quickly hung
up.

“—I miss you,” I finished
to the sound of an empty dial tone. I
sighed. “And I’m sorry Mum keeps calling you, and I hope you’re okay. And, by
the way, even though I cheated on you and completely broke your heart, would
you mind helping me pretend I’m about to marry you anyway?”

I flopped against the
railing as my screen went dark. The same wind I could hear in Henry’s mic was
rustling the trees in Sarah’s backyard; it was eerily quiet, otherwise. I
wondered why he was outside after midnight, and had a really horrible vision of
him sitting in the dark by his pool with its immaculately maintained
child-proof fence. I wondered if he was drinking.

I wanted to text him, and
it took all of my fucking strength not to. I needed to give him space.

What the hell was I going
to do about Mum without him, though? He’d been helping me with her for so long.
I leant heavily against Sarah’s porch railing until about 1am, stuck in an
endless loop of worrying about Henry, missing him and wanting to talk to him,
thinking I might be able to broach the subject of Mum with him after all, and
then realising I couldn’t because Mum was no longer his problem. She was my problem. I was my problem. Everything was my own fucking problem,
and no matter how much I wanted to call him back and talk through everything
with him just like old times, I needed to leave him alone and let him heal by himself.

“Min?” I twisted; Bree was
standing in the doorway wearing only one of my t-shirts, and peering
bleary-eyed around the frame. I could only imagine how I looked, standing
outside in the dark at 1am. She didn’t
say anything about it. She just mutely padded across the porch with her bare little feet, took my hand, and led me back
so I could get ready for bed. I didn’t get to sleep for ages, though, even with
Bree cuddled up peacefully in my arms.

I kept remembering that
there was no one to make pretentious green tea and play annoying shooting games
with Henry, and there was no one to creep outside in one of Henry’s old
t-shirts and lead him back in.

FIVE

When Henry and I started dating, I
promised myself I’d never use the fact that he worked in HR for personal gain.
It was probably even more important given that we’d just recently
broken up, and yet here I was, trying to convince myself that what I was doing
was completely fine.

“Oh my god, you are so bad,” Bree said, giggling as I
drove into the basement car park of my old hotel.

“I will laugh at you if
you get your wheels clamped,” Sarah told me as I twisted into a really strange position and did a beautiful
reverse park job. “They’re going to know you don’t live here anymore. They’ll
have your rego somewhere.”

I put the car into park
and turned off the engine. “Nope,” I said with expert certainty. “Henry told me
they only check the long term area if it’s full, and…” I looked out the window:
the floor was peppered with free spaces. “Looks like I just saved $60.” I
grinned broadly at them and opened my
door.

The other two were slower
out of the car than me; Bree because she was carrying a school bag that was nearly as big as she was, and Sarah because she
was still suffering the effects of alternating between binge-drinking and cold and
flu tablets. At least, that was my
assessment, because I recognised those heavy bags under her eyes from having
seen them so much in the mirror myself when I was working for Frost. She was
better today than she’d been on Friday, though.

“I can’t wait to
see my teacher’s face when I hand in my essay on time today,” Bree was saying
as she tried to find a comfortable way to carry her heavy bag so it didn’t
threaten to topple her over. I held my hand out to offer, and she shook her
head. “Nah, I’m used to it. Anyway, I haven’t, like, ever handed anything in on
time, and I’m pretty sure she thinks I haven’t even read the book. I should
secretly film her reaction and show you!”

“You should film her
reaction when she reads it instead,” I suggested. I’d helped Bree with that
essay, and it was a work of fucking art. It contained enough Breeisms to obviously be written by her, but had the level of analysis I thought the teacher would be
looking for.

“I should film your reaction when you see what
mark I get,” Bree told me, bouncing over to me so we could hold hands as we
walked out of the car park. She was beaming up at me and the cold air had made
her cheeks and nose pink. I didn’t realise I was gazing down at her until Sarah
made a noise.

“You should both film me dry-retching
over how nauseating you two are,” she said, but she was smiling at us as we
walked down the steep hill by the hotel.

Even with a suit jacket,
it was chilly this morning. People were rugged up in their trench coats and
parkas, clutching their takeaway coffees close and breathing out in puffs of
steam. It was all so familiar: the route we were walking, the buildings, the
half-awake people in suits. I even found myself subconsciously avoiding cracks
in the pavement despite the fact I wasn’t wearing stilettos anymore.

Bree had completely bare
thighs and didn’t seem to be bothered by the temperature at all, she was just
trotting along beside me with a big smile on her face. I bent down to kiss her
again as we said goodbye, and in doing so I noticed the pearl in her cleavage.
I made her stand still while I did up all her buttons and fixed her tie so it
was hidden.

She made a choking noise.
“It doesn’t need to be that tight!” she told me, trying in vain to
loosen it and then waving goodbye to us. “I’ll tell you what my teacher says!”

Sarah was smirking at me
as we continued up towards Frost HQ. “That’s a
nice pearl necklace Bree is wearing. Is it new?”

I gave her a weird look.
That smirk was suspicious. “Yeah, I gave it to her on Friday.”

She nodded once, still
looking smug. “I bet she enjoyed getting it from you,” she said, trying not to
laugh. “But probably not half as much as you enjoyed giving it to her.”

I groaned. I
knew exactly where this was going. “Sarah, don’t be gross.”

She was laughing. “No, seriously,
Rob seems to really like giving them to me, so…”

“Ugh!” I shoved her for giving me that mental image, I didn’t care
how fucking sick she was. “That is way too
much information!” I told her, half-laughing, half-grimacing. I
was really glad Henry was never into that stuff. “I get it, I get it,
it’s a ‘pearl necklace’, very funny!”

As we walked through the
revolving doors of Frost HQ, Sarah was grimacing, herself. “Wow, I know I’m
sick when I can’t even make a dirty joke without feeling a bit—” She stopped
dead in her tracks suddenly, staring forward. “Whoa.”

I panicked. “Are you
okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, and nodded up at the wall. “Look.” I
followed her line of sight.

A five-metre-high print of
the beautiful sunset painting I’d done for the Burov pitch had been hung facing
the revolving doors in the atrium.

No one had mentioned
putting it on display, not ever, and seeing it here was the first I’d heard
about a decision to showcase it. No one had asked me; no one felt they needed to ask me, apparently. They
hadn’t even extended me that courtesy. It was like a big fucking punch in the
face reminding me where I was and what had happened to me here.

“That’s new, I swear to
god,” Sarah told me. “It wasn’t here on Friday.”

I had no trouble believing
her; this level of fuckery had Sean Frost written all over it. “Just in case I
forgot who was going to be at my meeting with me,” I said, exhaling. There was
a plaque underneath it, so I took a few steps forward to have a look. “’Marketing, Frost International’,” I read
aloud. “Of course, no credit to the actual artist.”

Sarah was shaking her
head. “Can they do that, though? Like, legally? You painted that,
after all.”

I pressed my lips together
for a second. “Yes,” I answered. “It’s in all our contracts that our work here
is property of Frost International, which
presumably means they can do whatever they want with it.”

“Yeah, but I always
assumed that clause was just to protect Frost against us leaving and stealing
their contacts and clients,” she said. “I didn’t think it was for this sort of
‘I’ll do whatever I want with your art’ thing.”

“It’s not. But apparently
they can do it anyway.” I gestured at it.

Sarah breathed out. “Wow,”
she said. “Wow. Well, your meeting is going to be interesting.” She checked her
watch as it slipped fashionably down her wrist. “Yikes, I’m going to be late.”
She gave my arm a squeeze. “Bye, Handsome! I’ll see you at lunch. Knock ‘em
dead, okay?”

“In my dreams,” I said
dryly, and then waved to her as she went through the security turnstiles. When
she was gone, I looked back up at Sean Frost’s greeting to me, expecting
to despise it.

I’d actually never seen my
work blown up to full size like this before. It had been printed at full quality with a gloss finish and set in
an aluminium frame, too: that would have cost thousands. And if I was
100% honest with myself, it… well, it looked really great. I accidentally
found myself liking it despite who’d done it and why. For a couple of seconds, I was really conflicted about that because on
one hand Sean had erected this as an enormous
‘fuck you’, but on the other, aesthetically, it looked fantastic and was a
great colour feature in the greyscale atrium. It drew the eyes, everyone was
glancing up at it as they walked in, and it looked like it had been
purpose-made for the wall, just like the beach painting I’d done in that café
in Broome.

While I was considering
it, it occurred to me that they were two similar pieces, both apparently
purpose-designed for their location. The beach one was rough, with warm colours
and choppy brushes, this one was smoother, cooler and looked like a million
dollars inside this corporate atrium.

The marketer inside me said: Min, you could find commissioners
for this sort of stuff. I raised my eyebrows, thinking that over. I probably
could, couldn’t I? Someone had to make all that corporate art.
Smiling, I took out my phone. “Thanks for the idea, Sean,” I said smugly, and snapped a few photos of the work
from different angles to include in my portfolio.

I checked the time before I slipped my phone back into my pocket: it was ages before my meeting. It had seemed
polite to accompany Sarah to work because she wasn’t feeling great, which
unfortunately meant I was here at Frost HQ at 8am
when I wasn’t due here until 9:45. None of the shops around the CBD were open yet, either, unless you
counted hotel lobbies, chemists and cafés.

Well, I needed to pick up
my mail from back at the hotel, didn’t I? I could collect it and then dump it
in my car prior to the meeting. It gave me something to do at least, so I
headed back into the cold to retrace that familiar route.

Back at the hotel, the
reception clerk didn’t recognise me and called me ‘sir’ a few times; she’d
obviously been absent in the last week I’d lived there. When she found out who
I was, she made me stand there at the reception desk while she loudly
apologised for almost five minutes over what apparently amounted
to horrible transgressions against me for thinking I was a man. I
don’t think I’d ever left that lobby in such
a hurry or with as many people staring at me.

I didn’t have as much mail
as I thought I’d have, so while I stepped into the lift and headed down to the
hotel basement to put it in my car, I started opening it.

There were a couple of
hotel receipts, a quarterly statement of the enormous payments on my
Lexus—I’d need to address that at some point, because I was pretty sure I
wasn’t going to be able to cough up $500 per fortnight for much longer—a couple
more advertisements for lawyers, and that was it, nothing else. There was no
information about the meeting that was happening today, which was the whole
reason I’d decided to collect my mail in the first place.

On the way over to my car,
I checked through the envelopes again in case I’d missed the letter from Frost
the first time. I hadn’t; it just wasn’t there. Weird.

I tossed the opened
envelopes on the front seat and was on my way out of the car park, when I
noticed a familiar shade of bottle green on a car parked off to the side.

I glanced towards it automatically;
that was the exact shade of Henry’s car. On second glance, it kind of
looked like Henry’s car, too. It was hard to see in the dim lighting and from
all the way over here, though.

No, Min, the responsible, mature part of my brain told me.  Turn around and walk out of the car park.
Whether or not it’s Henry’s car is none of your business anymore.

I made an executive
decision to completely ignore that part of my brain and go over to investigate,
and I’d only made it halfway over there before I noticed the brand of air
freshener that he liked hanging from the rearview mirror.

This was Henry’s car, and
it was parked underneath the hotel in the long term area.

What’s it doing here on a
Monday morning? I wondered as I went over to it, peeking in the window and
then being disgusted with myself for being so nosy. That was
something Bree would do. I
walked a few metres away and leant against a concrete pylon, frowning at the
car.

His car being here and in
the long term area didn’t necessarily mean he was living here; he used to park
down here all the time when he was staying with me. That’s how I learnt about
the ‘free’ parking for guests that I was oh-so-frugally making use of today
myself.

Maybe he’d just lent his park under Frost HQ to a contractor or
a client this morning? It was the type of thing Henry would do.

Or… maybe he was staying here? There were heaps
of reasons he might not have been at home: maybe he was finally getting his
kitchen done—something he’d been planning for ages—or he was getting some sort
of other renovation, or maybe there was just some other reason why he couldn’t
be at home.

Like the phone ringing
nonstop for days, for example.

Fuck. I bent double at the thought of that being it, swearing some more. It
was also something else Henry would do: it would mean he didn’t need to be
bothered by the phone and he had the perfect excuse for not
answering. It had ‘Henry’ written all over it.

I should apologise to him, I thought, taking my own phone out. I should apologise for the fact he feels
like he can’t even go home because of my mother. I’d started to thumb out a
text to him when I realised texting him was ridiculous. I couldn’t tell him
that I’d noticed his car down here and walked over to investigate, because that came across as Bree-level stalkery. Henry would forgive me because he was
Henry, but I shouldn’t take advantage of how easy-going he was to do
reprehensible things. Intellectually, I knew that. But, ugh, my chest
tightened at the thought that I was still wrecking his life and I couldn’t even
apologise for it.

Since I had my phone out,
I changed the recipient. “I’m turning
into you,” I typed out to Bree, and then explained what I’d done and sent the
message.

School hadn’t started yet,
so she replied straight away. “haha you
are!!! im contagious!!!” she followed
it quickly with, “um so I was thinking i
should probably go home tonight bc its
been a few days but i have the tablet w
me…………”

I laughed once and rolled
my eyes. “So you want me to pick it up,
right?”

“if i say yes will you totally
kill me…………………..? also i have this group
thing to do straight after school in the library so maybe at like 530 or 6? its
ok if you cant ill just stay over again”

I groaned. Well, uni
didn’t start until October, so it wasn’t like I had anything else to do this
afternoon, was it? “It’s fine, I’ll be
there at 6.” Her reply was a string of about fifty love hearts and the
same number of exclamation marks. It was difficult not to smile at her
enthusiasm.

My smile faded as I put my
phone away and was once again faced with Henry’s car. I spent a minute or two
convincing myself there was definitely nothing I could do about any of it, and
then I gave the car one last troubled
glance and left.

I wasted an hour or so
drinking a massive Red Bull underneath a gas
flame heater at a café, counting down the
minutes until 9:30am when I headed back up to Frost HQ. I arrived with a few
minutes to spare before the conciliator was due
to collect me. I wasn’t sure how long the meeting was supposed to take,
but just in case it dragged on and on, I decided to pre-emptively go to the
toilet so I wouldn’t be haunted by that Red Bull in the middle of it. I spoke
with security and got permission to use the facilities behind the lifts.

Then, I was struck with a
new dilemma. I very nearly automatically walked right into the women’s because
I’d been there so many times, and it was only
seeing my reflection in the stainless steel door that made me keep
walking past it. I looked like a guy, I had the packer
in, I should be using the men’s. It was on the other end of the short corridor,
and I was about halfway to it when a group of macho white guys—probably
clients—hustled into it, laughing to each other about the footy.

I stopped in the centre of
the corridor. Did I really want to go in there with them?
Everyone kept telling me I completely
passed as a guy and very few strangers ever addressed me otherwise, but I was
acutely aware at that second that ‘man’ was an oversimplification. It wasn’t
right, and I felt like if I went into toilets with a bunch of men like that,
somehow they’d just know. I
wasn’t sure what the protocol for men’s toilets was, either, but I had a
feeling a guy using a cubicle for a short period of time would probably be
considered weird, and what if one of them put two and two together, looked hard at me, picked me as female, and confronted
me over it?

Yeah, no. I turned and took a few steps back towards the women’s, and
then, considering the alternative, stopped again. I couldn’t go into women’s
toilets looking like this, there might be girls in there.

There were various
pictures hung along the corridor, and I found myself staring at my reflection
in the glass of one of them. Well, what the hell was I going to do? Just never
use public toilets again? Neither of those toilets was right, both of
them might cause problems for me, and I had a weird, philosophical moment where
I decided the whole idea of splitting the toilets into men’s and women’s was
ridiculous. Surely the world would save space and resources just having one set
of toilets for everyone? Still, there wasn’t anything I could do about it right
now, so I had to decide which was ‘righter’: men’s or women’s. In looking between my two imperfect
options, my eyes fell on the unisex disabled toilet off to one side.

Bingo, I thought, and went into that.

I was done in time to be
collected by the conciliator, too, so I went back out to wait for them, whoever
they were.

I’d done a few nervous
laps of the atrium before I checked my phone again: 9:52am. It was still 8 minutes to the meeting;
perhaps the conciliator had got caught up doing something and was a few minutes
late.

They hadn’t picked me up
at 9:57am or 10:01am, either, though. That was more concerning. It was
really important I made it into that meeting so that I could make sure the investigation ran its full course
and Sarah had as long as possible without Jason as a manager—that was why I was
here, after all—so I made a pact with myself to wait until 10:10am and then call HR. I hoped they weren’t
all upstairs waiting for me.

When at 10:10am the atrium was empty except for the
people at the café, I took a deep breath and called the HR switch.

“Human Resources, Frost
Group,” a cheerful voice answered.

“Hi, this is Min Lee, I
was expecting a conciliator to come down and collect me from reception at 9:45am?”

She made a noise. “Huh, I
didn’t think we had any conciliations running at the moment,” she said, “I’ll
have a look.” I could hear the scroll wheel on her mouse. “Nope, no
conciliations. Are you sure that’s what you were expecting?”

“It might not be on the main system,” I said, and then winced at having
to say it, “I used to be in a relationship with Henry Lee. You might be able to
find the appointment in Sean Frost’s calendar?”

“Oh. Well, I don’t have access to Mr Frost’s calendar,” she told me,
“but I haven’t seen him this morning, I don’t think he’s in. Henry has access,
but it’s probably not appropriate to get him involved and he’s in with the
unions all day anyway. What’s it regarding?”

“It’s about the complaint
I made. I was supposed to have a meeting that started ten minutes ago.”

“Okay, let me have a
look,” she said, and then spent what felt like a hundred
years reading the screen while I was supposed to be upstairs in that
meeting. I really hoped they wouldn’t cancel it because I wasn’t there. I
did not want Jason back as
Sarah’s manager.

“Okay,” the clerk said
eventually. “Okay, that makes sense. Our assistant manager James Chen is
running the complaint because of its sensitivity, there’s nothing on the main
database. I’ll transfer you through to him.” I made an affirmative noise and
she put me on hold.

“Min,” a man greeted me;
James, presumably. I’d spoken to him a few times over the years, but not enough
times to recognise his voice. “It’s pleasure to speak
to you again! I gather you’re calling about the complaint delaying your
entitlements?”

I blinked. “Actually, no,”
I said, trying not to sound as rushed as I was. “No one came down to collect me
for the meeting that’s happening right now. The ‘directions interview’, I think
it’s called? I’m really late for it.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding
surprised. “A ‘directions interview’? To be honest, I’m not even sure what that
is. It’s not an HR issue, are you sure you called the right department?”

“Yes, very sure. A
conciliator was supposed to come down and pick me up at 9:45am, and Sean Frost is going to be at it, too.”

There was a pause. “Uh,”
James said very politely. “That sounds… well, I’m not sure where to start.
First of all, if there’s a conciliator, it’s a conciliation, not whatever you
called it. Conciliations only happen at the very end of a complaint where the employee
doesn’t agree with our offer to settle the matter, and it’s very, very rare. We
do maybe two a year. The investigation on your complaint only commenced last
month, which is why there’s a hold on your entitlements. We’re definitely not
at conciliation stage yet.”

“Oh.” All of that sounded
reasonable.

“Additionally,” he said,
“very occasionally Sean will sit in on meetings in our department, but it’s
usually only for matters that have company-wide implications. Not individual conciliations, he’s never done that,
he just doesn’t have the time.”

I took a moment to process
that, and when I had, it didn’t make sense. “Okay, I’m really confused, I’ve
been invited to attend a meeting about the complaint, but no one seems to know
about it.”

“Min, everything regarding
your complaint is handled by me, and I haven’t booked a meeting for you. I
think you must be mistaken about which department you need to speak to. I
can put you through to Omar in Marketing,
if you like? He’s not involved with the
complaint, though.”

“No…” I said, straining to
try and remember what Henry had said. I considered looking at the letter on my
phone while I was speaking to James, but I was worried I might accidentally
hang up on him and look stupid. “No, it’s definitely an HR issue, I’m sure of
it.”

“I’m sorry, Min, but I
don’t know anything about it. It wasn't booked by HR. Apologies for the
mix-up.”

Nothing made
sense about this mysterious disappearing meeting. “But I received a letter
about it...” I said, before I realised I
had never actually received that letter, only a soft copy of it from Henry.

He paused again, and it
was a bit too long for my liking. “Min, who sent you that letter?” there was gravity in his voice. I
think he might have guessed the answer.

I inhaled sharply. Whoops, I thought. I didn’t want to get Henry
into trouble. “I don’t know,” I answered
hurriedly. “I don't have it on me. Sorry if I seem… out of it. I’m just
confused.”

“That makes two of us,”
James said honestly. “Is there anything else I can do for you, seeing as I’m
unable to help you with that meeting?”

“No, that’s fine,” I said,
and then thanked him, hung up, and stood in the middle of the empty atrium like
an idiot.

Just... what? Why would Henry be calling me in
the middle of the night to tell me about
meetings that didn’t exist? He’d certainly believed it existed, that much
was clear, so it couldn’t have been his fault. I tabbed through to my
email and I opened the letter he’d sent me on Friday night so I could read
through it more carefully than I had at midnight. It was very specific about
the meeting being today, at this time and here. I scrolled down to check who it
was signed by, and the name made me even more confused. Printed down
the bottom of the page was, ‘Signed on behalf of James Chen, Assistant HR
Manager’.

But I was just speaking to him, I thought. Literally, he told me he doesn't know about it, and his staff clearly aren't getting involved in my
complaint, and Henry would be the only other person who would have authority to
sign things on behalf of James, unless
James is lying and—

My eyes fell on
the painting that had been hung in the atrium, and suddenly a piece of the
puzzle fell into place: Sean Frost.
Henry wasn't allowed to access my file: that's why I’d complained to Sean about
Jason in the first place. Sean was the next manager above James who had access to my personnel records,
and Sean was the next manager above Henry who'd have the authority and the
signature files to sign on behalf of James.

My hackles rose. The bastard, I thought, the fucking bastard.
Sean must have created this mess: a
fake letter for a fake meeting. After all, he’d made Henry believe he was
attending, hadn’t he? Somehow Henry had gotten his hands on that letter and,
even though he wasn’t supposed to be involved with
my file, he’d forwarded it to me and called me about it. I didn’t feel good about this,
because I was standing here, wasn’t I? I’d shown up for the fake meeting.
I did not feel good about this at all. I needed to get out of
this evil fucking building ASAP.

I went all the way up
George Street to wait for lunchtime, and I was still trying to piece it
all together when Sarah and Gemma came out to eat with me. They listened
as I explained what had happened, and then they looked at each other, mystified.

“Why do you think he would
do something like that, though?” Gemma wondered aloud.

“Because he’s an asshole,”
I said, quoting Henry. I could hardly eat, I was
still so wound up. “And Henry’s going to feel fucking
awful when he realises what’s happened. I finally have a legitimate reason
to text him and I don’t even want to break it to him.”

“Yeah, but the stuff Sean
did to you over the pitch was for something, so
what’s this for?” she asked between bites of her focaccia. “Do you
think he did it just to mess with you, or…?”

I shrugged. “Maybe he’s
still angry with me about the fact I managed to get that pitch through.”

“Maybe it’s not even about
you,” Sarah suggested, still looking as uncharacteristically pale as she had
this morning. “Because it started with Henry, don’t forget.”

I felt uneasy about that
idea. “I hope not, because I don’t really
care about Sean messing with me,” I said, “but Henry’s dealing with heavy
stuff at the moment and he’s—”

“—a grown adult,” Sarah
reminded me, stabbing critically at her salad. “He’s a great guy, I get it, I
like him a lot. But you broke up with him, Min. You need to let go. This is
only your problem to the extent that Sean is fucking with you, too.”

It was difficult to just
‘let go’ when my own mother was driving Henry out of his home, though, wasn’t
it? I opted not to tell them about that.

Sarah interrupted my
teeth-grinding by making a frustrated noise and pushing away her salad. “I
swear to god,” she announced, “I am actually dying. I can’t even eat
a garden salad, I feel like I’m going to vomit all over everyone.”

“Charming,” Gemma said,
but she was smiling. “Maybe it was something you ate?”

I had a thought. “I hope it wasn’t Bree’s cooking.”

Sarah put her head in her hands.
“You ate that, too,” she pointed out. “No, I swear, I am dying. My body is
like, ‘Sarah, you’ve had too much alcohol and too many drugs and now it’s time
to die’. Ugh!”

Gemma reached over and
rubbed her back. “You just need a holiday,” she said optimistically. “Come on,
didn’t you want to go to Thailand and Cambodia and all that? You should take
all that leave you have saved. We can go together, those places are supposed to
be amazing. It’ll be so much fun!”

“Hah,” Sarah said loudly from her forearms, “annual leave,
that’s for people who want to be on boring investment projects for the rest of
their marketing careers. Nah, I’ll save my holidays for a big payout when I
quit in a couple of years. You know, if I don’t die of everything first.”

“Oh…” Gemma looked a bit
deflated. “Well, the offer stands,” she said,
and kept rubbing Sarah's back.

Sarah didn’t lift her head
straight away, even though there was a pronounced silence while Gemma and I
glanced nervously at each other. She didn’t usually complain, and
she certainly wasn’t a fan of people fussing over her, and that made
me worry about how bad she actually felt. “Seriously, Sarah, be
careful,” I warned her. “I made myself pretty sick trying to be the model
employee at Frost.”

Sarah looked up from her
arms. “Yeah, but you’re the World’s Most Anxious Person,” she pointed out. “You
don’t count.” She groaned and put her head back in her hands. “I’m getting old,
I need to stop drinking so much.”

Since Sarah wasn’t going
to eat her food, we paid for everything and then wandered slowly back downhill
towards Frost HQ. Sarah was still complaining and hanging off Gemma. “Save me
from my project,” Sarah whinged, shaking
her. “Save me! I’m going to vomit all over my spreadsheets.”

I was watching her closely. “We can’t help you with your
spreadsheets,” I told her, and then, figuring I’d be driving past anyway,
added, “But I’m meeting Bree at Cloverfield at about 6, so I could pick you up at around 6:30, 7ish
if you want a ride home.”

“Oh my god, this is why I keep you around,”
she told me with exaggerated appreciation,
and defected from Gemma for a few seconds to hug me around the middle. It was
something that Bree often did, and it was
weird to have Sarah doing it. I pretended to ruffle Sarah’s hair the way I did
Bree’s curls, and she hissed and batted my hands away.

“In your dreams, Toyboy,”
she said, giving me a weak grin, and then draping herself all over Gemma again.
“But I will totally take you up on that lift if you promise to keep your hands
to yourself.”

I waved goodbye to them at
the front entrance of Frost HQ and
watched them disappear through the turnstiles and up into the lifts. This place, I thought, shaking my head
and looking at my uncredited painting in the atrium.

SIX

Bree was late.

I was bothered because people being
late always bothered me, but also because I’d made a decision during
the day that ‘when I had a minute by
myself’, I would let Henry know the meeting was a hoax so that he didn’t have
to hear it from Sean or James. I checked the clock on the dash: I’d already had
nine minutes by myself sitting parked outside Cloverfield, and it was getting
to the point where ‘Bree might come any second’ didn’t justify
me not doing it anymore. I sighed heavily. No more excuses, I thought, and then made a decision to leave Henry
a voicemail rather than a text. Henry always read his texts in meetings and I didn’t want to interrupt his meeting with
further breaking news about Sean being a fuckhead.

Rather than risk talking
myself out of it by meticulously planning my every word, I just dialled Henry’s
number, listened to his friendly
recording and then tried to explain in 30 seconds what happened. After the beep
had cut me off, I couldn’t remember what
I’d said which at least meant I didn’t have to agonise over it. Leaving the
voicemail made me angry at Sean again, though, and so I sat fuming in the
driver’s seat as I waited for Bree.

I was deep in a fantasy
about Frost going bankrupt when my phone buzzed in my lap. For a couple of seconds,
I thought it might be Henry, but then I saw ‘Bree’ on the screen and exhaled.
She was probably going to tell me how much more late she was going to
be. I answered it. “If you’re not calling to beg for my forgiveness I’m going
to hang up on you.”

“Sorry, the clock in the
library is slow!” she said, but she definitely didn’t commit to it. “Could you
get out of the car for a sec? I can’t see where you’re parked.”

Why was she…? “Okay…” I
said slowly, and followed her
instructions. I could have just told her where I was parked, it
wasn’t that dark yet…

I spotted some frantic
waving as soon as I closed the door. “Hey!” The phone hung up in my ear. Bree
was standing near the gate with a couple of other girls and calling out. Then,
with her enormous bag slung awkwardly over one shoulder, she came galloping
over to me. Her friends followed at a more subdued pace.

She dropped her bag at my
feet and pulled me down by my tie into a very exaggerated kiss, and then stood
back and looked me up and down. She had a big smile plastered across her face
as she reverently brushed down my lapels and straightened my tie.

When her friends arrived
at my car, they kept glancing at each other and trying not to giggle as Bree
introduced them. “Is that your car?” one of them asked a bit shyly about my
Lexus. The other one elbowed her.

I glanced back at it and
then grinned down at her. “Why, do you like it?”

“Oh my god,” Bree’s friend
said under her breath, and then giggled. She couldn’t even make eye contact
with me after that.

When they’d gone, Bree
wrapped her arms around my middle and beamed up at me, smiling ear-to-ear.

I rested my arms on her
shoulders. “Can I get back in my car now?”

“Not yet,” she said, and
stood hopefully up on her very tiptoes, coaxing
me down into a sweeter, gentler kiss. By the end of it, she could hardly kiss me properly because she was smiling so
much. She brushed the tip of her nose with mine. “Okay, now you can. Let me
just get my tablet out.”

I scoffed. “Get in,” I
told her, nodding inside. “You can get it out on the way to the station.”

“It’s like two streets
away,” she protested, but she was still smiling as she rounded the car and
climbed into the passenger side with her huge bag on her lap, taking her
sparkly tablet out and very carefully placing it on the back seat.

The station really was two streets away, and we got
there far too quickly. I’d been waiting around in the city all day to meet her,
and it was a little while before I had to pick Sarah up. I didn’t want to say
goodbye to her just yet. She didn’t get out straight away, either, she just sat
there with her hand over mine on the
gearstick, content. Her skin was warm.

“Well,” I prompted her.
“Aren’t you going to tell me what your English teacher said?”

She looked up at me. “Oh!”
she said as she remembered. “Yes!” She withdrew her hand and went rummaging
through her full bag for her mobile. After spending a few seconds flicking
through her gallery, she leant over to me to show me a photo. It was a very
staged picture of a middle-aged lady with her hand on her cheek pretending to
look really surprised. “We had to email them to her before class, so I kind of
missed the moment and asked her if she’d recreate it for you.”

I held the phone so I
could see the picture better. It was terrible, the teacher
could not act, and I had to laugh. “I can’t believe she did that. My
teachers wouldn’t have.”

Bree accepted the phone
back from me. “Yeah! She’s really cool. She’s always been okay, it’s just that
she’s super strict and kind of scary. She even said she read the
first paragraph of my essay to check it wasn’t a rush job and she was really
impressed, and when I told her you got me to do it, she’s like, ‘Ask him what
his secret is because I’ve been trying to get you do your homework on time for
years to no avail’.”

“I hope you didn’t reveal
my secret magical powers.”

“No,” Bree giggled. “I
said you look better in a suit.”

I cringed.
“You didn’t, Bree.”

“I did! And I said you’re
cute, and you’re funny, and you’re a great kisser…” At my pained
expression, she added, “Okay, not the last one. But yeah... She said if I kept
going I was heading for an ‘F’. She was just joking, though, and everyone in
the class thought it was hilarious.” Since Bree thought I was so good at it, I
let her kiss me a couple more times. “How was your meeting-thing that you needed to wear your totally hot suit to, anyway? What’s happening to the
complaint?”

I grimaced and gave her
the abridged version of the hoax meeting saga. “So, yeah, the jury is out
on why Sean did it,” I finished, making a face. “Henry’s going to
be really upset and angry when he finds out. Maybe he’ll know why, at
least.”

Bree shrugged. “Some
people are just fucked up and there isn’t a ‘why’,” she said, “I should know,
I’m related to one of them.” She then fixed me with glare and pointed her index
finger sternly. “You need to tell Henry.”

I gave her a tired look.
“Yes, Bree, I know. I left him a voicemail already.”

She stopped pointing.
“Really? Already?” She looked pleasantly surprised.

I sighed at her. “I’m
not that bad.” I neglected
to mention that I’d only done it ten minutes ago.

She wrinkled her nose.
“You’re pretty bad normally, you can never give people bad news,” she told me
as she relaxed back into her seat.

We sat quietly and watched
people spilling out of the station for a little while, and then Bree turned her
head back to me. “I had a really great day,” she said eventually. “With that
group thing I was doing just before, those girls were kind of annoyed to be put
with me last week because everyone knows what I’m like. So before school
started today, I did all the reading for the class and I wrote down a couple of
ideas about what we could do for our project, and when I told them they were
like, ‘Wow, that’s actually good!’” She was smiling again. “And everyone loves
my tablet, no one else has a really sparkly one. I was sitting there in class
looking at what people were using, and mine’s the prettiest.”

I threaded my fingers
through the soft wispy curls at the back of her neck. I could listen to her
talk like this all day. “Well, it belongs to the right person, then.”

Her face looked like it
was about to crack in half from all that smiling. She watched me thoughtfully
for a little while, before her smile
faded and she asked a bit hesitantly, “Do you… want to drop me home?”

My eyebrows went up. That
was a first. “I thought you weren’t allowed to have people around?”

She shrugged. “I’m not,
but there won’t be anyone home yet, so no one will know. Besides,” she said,
“you already know we have no money, so if there’s, like, a sheriff’s calling
card wedged in the front door or there’s red
envelopes spilling out of the mailbox I don’t have to come up with some
story about it.”

I put the car into first.
“Are you sure?” I asked her gently before I pulled away from the kerb.

It was
difficult to read her voice. “9 Christmas Court,” she told me, and that was her answer. I punched it
into my GPS and let the car direct us there.

She sat back in the seat
as we drove, watching me. At one point, she giggled. “You look excited.”

I made a face. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” she told
me. “I was when I saw your house for the first time.”

“When you barged your way
in, you mean.”

She looked very guilty.
“Worth it,” she declared. “So, what do you think it looks like? Like, when you
imagine where I live?”

I laughed at her. “I don’t
know,” I said honestly, and then looked a bit guilty myself. “I did Street View
some parts of Bellevue Hill to see what the area is like.”

She looked absolutely
delighted. “Really?” she said, and then put her hand over mine on the gearstick
again as we kept driving.

I don’t know what I
imagined; maybe a big, affluent-looking house, the kind that had two storeys
with a double driveway. That’s what I’d seen of
the suburb on Google Maps. When we pulled into Christmas Court and outside the
front of Bree’s house, it wasn’t like what I’d imagined, not at all. It was
just a narrow red brick townhouse nestled at the end of a quiet, leafy court. It
was modest and unimpressive with its mossy
roof tiles and peeling awnings, but there was something warm about it. It had
character. I could understand why Bree said her mother had fallen in love with
it: it looked like the type of house someone bought to raise kids and then grow
old in.

My windows were tinted and
it was getting quite dark outside, so I wound them down to see better. The pink
sunset was reflecting off the second-storey windows. “It’s beautiful,” I told
Bree. “The garden looks really nice, too.”

She brightened. “Thank
you!” she said, and then she looked back out at it somewhat critically. “The
hedges kind of need a trim, and probably some of those weeds could come out
too, but yeah, you should see it in early summer when all the roses bloom.
They’re white and they look so pretty against the red bricks.”

We both sat quietly for a
minute or two admiring her house, and then she turned slowly back to me, eyes
veiled. After a moment of struggling with the words, she said quietly, “We’re going to lose it soon, you
know.”

That knocked the wind out
of me; Bree. I
reached across between us and took her hand, holding it between mine and
looking into those big, soulful eyes. There wasn’t anything I could say to
that, so I didn’t try.

She didn’t speak straight
away, either. I kept stroking her hand until she took a little breath and
asked, “Do you want to come in, too?”

I winced, sucking air
through my teeth. “Yes, very much, but I’m supposed to pick Sarah up in,” I
glanced at the clock on my dash, “about twenty, and normally I’d say she could wait a few minutes, but—”

“—she’s still hungover,”
Bree finished. She sounded really disappointed. “Okay. Maybe next
time.” She withdrew her hand and began to get her bag together.

“Erm, Bree…” I wasn’t
really sure how to put it, especially after what she’d just disclosed.
Absent-mindedly, I touched the healed scar on my cheek. “Do you really think me
coming in is a good idea anyway? I’m pressing charges against Andrej for
assault, and that’s aside from, well…” I gestured down at my men’s suit.

Bree shrugged. “No, it’s
probably not a good idea.”

“Yeah,” I said, sitting
back. “I can imagine they’re probably furious
with me. I don’t think I should visit.”

She shook her head. “I
think there’s a maximum amount people can be angry before there’s no anger
left,” she told me. “And the police said Andrej probably won’t get a criminal
record if he agrees to get help for his gambling, so, you know, as long
as no one finds out about their baby boy, it doesn’t matter what
happened.” She exhaled and made a face. “Also Mum and Dad kind of don’t know
exactly what’s going on between you and me.”

That, I couldn’t believe.
“Come on, they know you sleep over at my place most nights. I think there’s
only one conclusion you can come to about that.”

“Yeah, but they still
think you’re a regular cisgender guy.”

“Oh,” I said, and accepted that for a fraction of a second before I
remembered Andrej’s jab about me ‘pretending’. “But Andrej knows I’m
not, and he doesn’t seem like the sort of person who’d offer to keep my secret,
especially since I’m, you know, pressing charges against him. He must have said something.”

“Not yet,” Bree told me.
“I mean, he said something about you, because the next time I was
home after that, Dad was waiting for me and he was like, ‘Bree, you’re dating
a Chinese boy?’ and I was like, ‘Korean’, and after everything that
happened with the assault and finding out about Andrej’s gambling and stuff, I
kind of didn’t have the guts to say, ‘Also he’s transgender’.”

My eyebrows went up. Wow.
“Out of everything, the fact I’m Korean is
the problem?”

She shrugged. “I don’t
know, he wasn’t happy but he didn’t tell me to stop or anything. There was so
much going on I don’t know what he thought about anything. But yeah, I didn’t
tell them about the other stuff.”

I didn’t even want to ask
it. “Andrej will tell them, won’t he?”

She didn’t even pause.
“Yes,” she said easily. “He will. I don’t trust him at all. I don’t know why he
hasn’t, but I know it’s better if they hear it from me.” She sighed down at her
bag, but she was gazing through it. “I think I’ve figured out how I should do
it: I want them to meet you and see that you’re completely normal first. Because, yeah, I can totally see
them not caring about anything to do with me for years, but suddenly it becomes super
important to them that I don't date a trans person, you know? Because, oh my god, what if people find out? What
if their friends back in Serbia find out?
What if the family finds out…?”

I laughed darkly at that.
She’d just described my childhood. “—Yeah, that sounds familiar,” I said.
“That’s basically the entire Korean
community Mum used to be part of down in Melbourne.”

She sighed. “Yeah, I don’t
know if they really even know what trans people are,
they’ve never talked about it. I want them to see with their own eyes
that it’s totally fine, because Mum was
really homophobic when I was younger, but there was a gay guy at her work for a
while and she liked him so she doesn’t say that stuff anymore. So I think
that’s the way to do it.”

Something occurred to me.
“Do you think it would be easier if you introduced me as a woman, then?”

She looked sceptical.
“What, like, ‘Hey, Mum and Dad, I’m gay and this is my mega butch girlfriend who has a flat chest and a silicone dick in
her pants’?”

I gave her a look. “I can
leave this at home,” I told her, nodding down at the packer. “I don’t wear it
all the time, and I’m thin enough that people would believe I’m naturally
flat-chested.”

While considering that
option, Bree remembered something and laughed to herself. “You know ‘lesbian’
is kind of true, though? At least for me. Because after that first night you messaged me back, like, my heart—” She
made a fluttering movement by her chest. “—so yeah, I thought you were a girl
back then and I was, like, imagining stuff
about you. Maybe I’m a bit gay anyway? I probably am. But not completely,
because I’m totally into you now, and if you end up on testosterone and all
that, I’ll be into you then.”

I reached out and brushed
my thumb along her cheek with a faint smile. “That’s extremely sweet, but it doesn’t answer the question of how you’re
going to explain me to your parents.”

Bree leant her face into
my hand. “Well, what do you want?”

Hah. What a question. “I
just don’t want you to get in trouble. What do you think will get them off your
back?”

She made a face, thinking.
“Honestly? I don’t think it matters what I say about you. If I’m anything other
than totally hetero they’re not going to be happy. I mean, they’re not like your mum
with the whole ‘your main purpose is to
get married and have babies right now’ thing, but yeah, it’s more like,
‘Oh my god, did you hear who the Dejanovic girl is dating? Tell everyone.’ That’s what they’ll be
thinking.” She must have seen my expression, because she added, “By the way,
none of this is your fault. I was the one who came after you,
remember?”

I had to chuckle at that;
I had been thinking it would
have been so much easier for her if she’d just fallen for an ordinary cis guy.
“Mind reader,” I accused her, and then exhaled at length and shook my head.
“Shit. It really sucks that Andrej knows. If he didn’t,
we could just pretend that I’m a cis guy and we wouldn’t have to
worry about any of this.”

Bree nodded. “Everything’s
fucked,” she said with false cheer, and then she reached over and put her hand
on mine again. “On the bright side, your mum’s going to come over to Australia in like two months and probably stop me from
seeing you anyway, so…”

“I’d never let that
happen,” I said firmly.

We sat there, holding
hands and staring forward. “Well,” Bree said eventually, forcing a smile. “I
had a really good day today anyway.”

I stroked the back of her
hand with my thumb. “Mine got a lot better about half an hour ago.”

I think that smile might even
have been genuine for a moment. “Everything will be okay,” she told me like she
was reciting a mantra, and then began to rearrange things in her bag so
she could close it. “I should probably let you go pick up Sarah.”

I made a face and nodded.
“Yeah, I’m going to be—” I glanced at the clock on the dash and realised what
time it was. “—Shit, really late. I have to go.”

Bree giggled at my
reaction. “Oh my god, you’re such a terrible person, you’re going to
be five minutes late,” she said with comical gravity.

“Quiet, you,” I told her.
“It’s respectful to be on time to places, and Sarah’s done heaps for
me, the least I can do is be on time for her.”

“Yeah, she’s totally going
to hate you,” Bree said with a smirk, finally managing to zip her bag up.
“She’ll know it’s my fault, anyway.”

Even though I’d seen Bree
take the tablet out, I double-checked it was still on the back seat just to be
safe. “Are you going to be okay to do your homework without the tablet?”

She nodded as she opened
the door. “Yeah, there’s just some Psych reading on my timeline and I printed
it all out, I can probably even read it all before everyone gets home. And if
anything really gets me I can just google it on my phone without wasting
too much data.”

“Well, make sure you don’t
get distracted,” I told her as she got out. “I know what you’re like with
Google.”

She rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, ‘Dear Google, how do I stop my boyfriend nagging me?’” She knelt back on
the passenger seat to give me one last kiss before she ducked out and hoisted
her bag on her shoulder. “I’ll be good,” she told me. “I promise. Oh! By the
way, my timeline says I’m supposed to do Chem homework tomorrow, but I’ll need
help with that. Sarah said she would go through it with me, so can I come over
tomorrow night?”

You can get back in my car and come home with me right now, I thought, already regretting not just locking the doors and
driving home with her. “Sure, see you then.”

She waved goodbye to me as
I hurriedly chucked a U-ey and headed back out onto the main road.

I actually was really
late. It was a good ten minutes past the latest I said I’d be to pick Sarah up,
and I was probably another twenty minutes out of the city in this traffic.
While I was parked at the lights, I tried to frantically text her—getting
myself honked at when the lights turned green and I didn’t notice—and nearly
swerved and hit a parked car when I went to send it.

It didn’t take her long to
text me back, and it was three green sets
of lights before I hit a red one and could read it. “I’m standing on a train platform. I’ve been abandoned by everyone. I am
going to die alone, wedged between two business dudes on their smartphones.
They won’t notice. It’s been nice knowing you xx.”

I felt awful, because it made me laugh. At the next
set of red lights, I replied, “I am so so
so so sorry. If you want to wait somewhere,
I can pick you up anyway.”

She replied before the lights went green. “Nah, it’s actually fine. It’ll take me less
time to get home on the train than it’ll take you to get here. I need to drop
past the chemist and grab something anyway, so it’s no big deal.”

She didn’t seem upset at
all, and in two text messages she hadn’t mentioned throwing up all over
everything. Although there was a strong possibility she was headed to her
chemist for the sole purpose of buying them out of anti-nausea pills, I felt
better. Maybe I could just offer to ferry her to and from work for the rest of
the week as penance.

After I’d pulled into the
driveway, somehow having miraculously avoided crashing horribly as a result of
texting behind the wheel, I spent a few seconds holding my phone and thinking
about the red brick townhouse with Bree in it. It was just so much to process,
all of it. That beautiful house, her fucked family. No wonder she
could hardly study there.

I mulled over it for
a few seconds and then texted her. “You know you can stay over with me as much
as you like, don’t you?”

It wasn’t long before my
phone buzzed in my hands. “yeah i know thanks
<3 <3 <3”

“Then why are you there,
Bree?” I said aloud and sighed, but didn’t ask her that. I just texted, “I hope you’re okay.”

“i will be…………. :) :) :)”

I gazed at those cheerful smileys
for a couple of seconds, and then slipped my phone back into my pocket, grabbed
Bree’s tablet from the back seat, and headed inside.

I figured I must have
beaten Sarah home after all, because
nothing was on inside except the hall light, and Rob
was always forgetting to turn that off. The house was quiet, and I
think I might even have been humming to myself as I put the tablet on my desk
and hung up my tie and blazer. If I was quick, I could probably have my shower
first before Sarah got home.

I had been undoing my
cufflinks and trying to work one of them out of the little hole when I rounded
the corner into the bathroom and nearly collided with the person who was
already in there.

Sarah was standing
there in front of the mirror, still in her work clothes.

“Sarah!” I half-laughed,
putting a hand to my chest and taking a
deep breath as I leant heavily against the doorframe. “Fuck, I had no idea you
were even home! Sorry about charging in here without checking that it
was…” The words died on my lips when I realised I was doing all of the talking.

She was just leaning
against the vanity with a stricken expression, white as a sheet. It was so
quiet I could hear the clock ticking from the living room.

My stomach knotted. She’d
been fine when she’d sent me that message half an hour ago, but now she looked
like she’d just seen a ghost. “Sarah…?” I took a couple of steps towards her.
“Fuck, are you okay? Are you still feeling sick?”

She swallowed, opening her
mouth, but closed it again when nothing came out of it. In the end, she just
shook her head once and showed me what she’d been holding. It looked like a
white pen, and it was shaking because she was. When I looked harder at it,
though, it was too flat to be a pen and it had a window on the end of it.

In the window was a little
blue cross. All the blood drained from my face as I realised what the device
was and what that cross meant.

Sarah had clearly only just seen it. She looked up at me,
still numb with shock. “Min, I’m pregnant.”

SEVEN

“I just thought I’d check…” Sarah’s
eyes dipped again to that little blue cross. “I didn’t even think… Shit.” She exhaled, and placed the white
test stick beside her on the vanity. “Shit.”

I stood stiffly against
the doorframe. I had no idea what to say to her. What did you say to
someone in this situation? Honestly, discovering I was pregnant was right up
there with my worst nightmares.

From Sarah’s expression,
it looked like it might be pretty close to the top of her list, too. “What am I
going to do?” she asked aloud. Rhetorically, I hoped, because I didn’t have
anything resembling an answer for her.

I swallowed. “U-um.
Where’s Rob? Should I call him for you?”

She exhaled and shook her
head. “He and Daz were helping some friend with a reno job and they’re probably
out having drinks now, thank god.”

“Thank god?”

She sighed at that
question, glancing up at me. “He’s going to want me to keep it, Min. I just
need to think.” She ran a hand over her face for a second. “I just need to
think.” I watched her eyes track across the floor as she did that. After a
moment, she came to some sort of decision. Standing up straight and pushing off
the vanity, she picked up the pregnancy test and tossed it into the rubbish bin
in one smooth motion. “Okay,” she said. She sounded calmer. “Okay. The first
thing I need to do is go and get it confirmed.” She went to walk past me.

I stepped back into the
hallway as she powered through to the living room. When she returned, she had
her handbag over her shoulder and her car keys in her hand and she was striding
towards the door, her heels clicking purposefully on the floorboards. She still
looked very pale and unwell.

It was ridiculous, letting
her go by herself to something like this. I stopped her. “I’ll drive you.”

She shook her head.
“Thanks, but it’s fine. I don’t have an appointment, it might be a while.” She
went to pull away from me.

I didn’t let her. “I don’t
care if it takes all night.” When she went to say something else, I talked over her. “I’ll sit in the car and wait there
if you want. But I’ll drive you.”

After a moment, her
shoulders relaxed. “Okay,” she said. “But I hope you realise I’m going to throw
up all over your nice car.”

I smiled faintly. “Then
I’ll clean it up while I’m waiting for you.” I ducked into my room to grab my
suit jacket and then let us out of the house.

Sarah didn’t actually
throw up all over my car. She just sat tensely in my passenger seat with her
eyes glazed as we drove all the way to her doctors’. Because her work hours
were as ridiculous as mine used to be, the clinic was this 24-hour one that
was miles away. I was glad I’d offered to drive her, because I couldn’t imagine driving this
far if I was unwell and preoccupied.

We were sitting at a
particularly long set of lights and half-listening to pop radio when I
realised she was watching me. I looked quizzically across at her, and she said,
“You probably think I’m really irresponsible, don’t you?”

I scoffed at her. “Yeah,
nothing more irresponsible than religiously taking contraceptive pills every
morning.”

She smiled in
appreciation, but she didn’t look convinced. She shook her head. “I should have
used condoms. I know I should have.” She sighed again.

We’d turned off the main
highway and gotten through two or three more obnoxious
pop songs before she said anything else. “You’re
being unnervingly quiet, Min.”

I chuckled. “As opposed to
unobtrusively quiet?” I glanced across at her again. She looked drawn and
restless, and she kept checking her phone and fiddling with the aircon. I
looked back at the road again, thinking. Bree would have been able to easily fill up the car with her light-hearted
small talk; I felt wholly unqualified for the job. I tried to think
of something relevant to say instead. It came to me immediately, but it took me
a minute or two to convince myself to actually say it. The words felt really
strange to me. I’d never said them before. “I thought I was pregnant once.”

Her whole demeanour
changed. I don’t think she expected that from me. “Wow. Seriously?”

I slowly nodded. “It was
after I’d just started sleeping with Henry. You know how pregnancy tests say
you have to wait a week after your missed period for them to work? Well, I
didn’t really know when that was, so I panicked and did them every morning—and
some lunchtimes—for two full weeks until I was 100%, definitely sure I wasn’t. Then I did one a week later just to be
safe.”

Sarah laughed, and it was like I’d hit the
pressure valve. “You crack me up,” she said, relaxing back into her seat. “I’m
always irregular, too,” she said. “At least, for the last few years I have
been. It only occurred to me this afternoon that I probably should have had a
period in May, but I didn’t. I can’t even remember if I had one in April. Maybe
near the beginning? I don’t think I’ve had one since before we went up to
Broome.”

I bit my lip so I didn’t
laugh. She and Rob had been at it like rabbits while we were there.

She gave me a sharp look.
“I know what you’re thinking, Mister,” she said, and then looked twice at me
with a bit of a perplexed expression. “By the way, can I just comment how
extremely weird it is to be discussing periods and pregnancy scares with
someone who looks like a dude?”

I snorted. “Just imagine
how weird it is being the dude talking about his periods and pregnancy
scares.”

“’His’,” she observed,
“interesting.” I shrugged, and over the next minute or so, she sobered. “Broome
was nearly two months ago, wasn’t it?” She went back to anxious silence.

When we arrived at the
clinic, I slid my seat back in the car with the intention of making myself
comfortable while I was waiting for her, but she came over and surprised me by
opening my door. “I’m not trying to tell you how to do you your job, Toyboy,
but I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to open doors for me.” She
was grinning.

I got out of the car and
locked it, and then jogged a bit to catch up with her on the path to the
clinic. The temperature had taken a serious dive since sunset and it was really
chilly again. Sarah wasn’t wearing a coat, so I went to take mine off. “Can I
redeem myself by offering you my jacket? I have a couple of layers underneath.”

She rolled her eyes at me.
“Min, I drank two bottles of champagne on your birthday and I’ve
eaten an entire pharmacy since then. It’s a bit too late to be worrying what’ll
happen if I get a bit cold.”

I blinked, cautiously
rebuttoning my jacket. I had actually been genuinely worried about her because
she’d been feeling so sick, but I decided not to push the point. The clinic was
probably going to be heated anyway.

I ended up being right:
the big 24-hour clinic was heated, and being the first week of winter, it
was also busy. All the chairs were taken, full of people rugged up in
scarves coughing into their tissues. Half of the people there also had
whimpering, red-nosed kids on their laps. After Sarah had registered for the first available doctor, we went and sat
on the carpet against the far wall of the waiting room: as far away from the
crowd of infectious people as possible.

“Did they say how long it
was going to be?” I asked her as I extended my legs and crossed them at the
ankles.

“No, but I did tell you it
would be ages,” she reminded me, copying
my movement and looking down our legs. Hers
finished in the middle of my calves, and mine basically
continued out the fucking door of the clinic. She nodded at them. “Can I say
something? I always wondered why you wore heels.”

“Because when I wear a
skirt with flats, I look like I have skinny flamingo legs with flipper feet.”

Sarah couldn’t help
laughing at that, and then looked guilty.
“That’s a pretty vivid mental image,” she said,
and laughed again. “Were you always a giant, or did you shoot up in high
school?”

“I was in the back row for
school photos since kindergarten.”

Sarah nodded, settling
against the wall. “My dad’s quite tall. I didn’t get his genes, though. I take
after Mum.”

Lucky, I thought. I didn’t look anything like mine and she never let me forget
it, either. At least these days she was getting a bit rounder and a bit
saggier, so I didn’t look so huge and oaf-like next to her. I supposed my tall genes must have come from my dad, like a
lot of other stuff. It wasn’t like I could ask Mum about it, though.

“Are you close to your
parents?” I wondered aloud.

She shrugged. “I guess? I
mean, they live in Bathurst and I don’t see them that often, but they’re pretty cool.” She laughed a couple of times at
something. “Actually, they retired last year and did the whole tree change
thing which is why they’re up there. They also bought this embarrassingly
flashy caravan and they keep taking off in it, it’s so cute. I think
they’re in Port Douglas at the moment. They've just discovered Facebook on
their ‘smart mobile phones’ too, so they post photos every five minutes.” She
unlocked her own smart mobile phone and showed me a few photos of her parents and their embarrassingly flashy caravan.

They were an older couple
with big smiles and wrinkled olive skin. I tabbed through photos of them
laughing and toasting the camera, posing with a failed and sad-looking beach
barbeque, and standing together on a cliff-face with palm trees and the sunset
behind them. It was like peering through the looking glass.

“They look like they’re
having a blast together,” I commented.

Sarah smiled at that.
“Married 40 years last November,” she said, sounding proud of them. “Dad’s
heart isn’t that great, so they want to make sure they get all their living
done before they can’t.” Her smile faded. “That’s my plan, too.”

I didn’t know how to
address that, so I just gave the phone back to her and felt awkward.

She waited a couple of
seconds and then rolled her eyes at me, taking my arm and slinging it around
her shoulders herself. “You are hopeless. Remember what I told you about
reassuring girls? Hug them.”

I rubbed her other
shoulder. “I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, that’s all.”

She groaned. “I feel
uncomfortable when you sit there frozen solid and looking like you wish you
could run away. And just FYI, it’s always okay to hug me.” She rested her head
casually on my shoulder. “Besides, you don’t need to hide that you’re totally
into me. It’s so obvious. Everyone knows.”

I deadpanned. “I can’t
help it. I go wild for the can’t-keep-food-down, half-dead zombie look.” I
paused. “Also, those double-Ds.”

She made a disgusted noise
and sat up for a second, shoving me. “Oh my god, there is a line, Min,”
she said, and then lay her head back down again. I could see her grinning in my
peripheral vision while she flicked through her phone.

When the doctor called her
name, I stood so I could help her up. She let me and then shot me a haunted
look, shaking the doctor’s hand and walking smoothly into her office. The
doctor looked curiously at me for a moment, probably wondering why I wasn’t
joining them, but didn’t ask Sarah about it and closed the door.

I didn’t know how long
this would take, so I sat down again just as Sarah emerged almost immediately
from the room. I was confused about that until it was clear she was heading
somewhere else in the building. She pulled a face and held up an empty specimen
container.

I mirrored her expression
and didn’t try very hard to notice her on the way back.

I took my own phone out to
pass the time. It was getting quite late as I flicked idly down Facebook; Gemma
had uploaded another photo of her cat asleep in the fruit bowl, Bree was
notably absent—although I knew she had a blog elsewhere where she mostly
reblogged photos of food and pictures
with inspirational quotes—and some of Sarah’s other friends had posted pictures of the sunset, yoga poses, and there was one of Gay Matt and Andrew at a fun run.
They were topless, showing off their six-packs and numbers painted in zinc on
their torsos. I spent a couple of seconds staring bitterly at their gloriously
flat chests, especially when my own gloriously unflat chest was aching from
having been in a binder for approaching 16 hours. I stretched painfully and
ended up coughing as I put my phone away.

The flow of people into
the waiting room was beginning to thin as it got later. There were still a lot
of families with overtired children,
though, which made the noise level in the waiting room uncomfortably high.

One of those families was
sitting across from me. The mother looked very tired
and very ill—reminiscent of Sarah over the past few days,
actually—and had almost fallen asleep in her chair. Her three energetic young
children were buzzing around her and loudly fighting with each other right up
until Dad came back with the family iPad and a coffee for Mum. She gratefully
accepted the coffee and the kids all piled excitedly onto and around Dad’s lap
for story time. I could hear his broad Australian accent as he read to them; it
reminded me of Rob, and I spent a few seconds imagining Sarah as that Mum and
Rob reading aloud from the iPad to his excited children. It made me smile.

Sarah will probably make a great mum, I decided. She'd been open-minded
with me from the beginning, and 'open-minded' seemed like a really good place to start. I just wasn't
really sure how she was going to reconcile her tendency to party hard and work
herself to the bone with motherhood. Henry had always said he'd take a more flexible job when he became a dad—which is why
he was saving like crazy while he had a really
good income—maybe that was Sarah's intention, too.

Good, I thought. No one should
have to be a parent at Frost.

I must have been giving
out some sort of subconscious Bat Signal into the universe while I was thinking
about that, because my phone buzzed. I
took it out of my pocket, expecting it to be a text message from Bree, but it didn’t stop buzzing. The
display read Henry Lee, and the
little red and green handsets flashed at
the bottom of the screen. It was a phone call.

I took a
breath. Fuck, I really want to answer this but… I looked over towards
the doctor’s office where Sarah was. I couldn’t go outside, because I wanted to be here when she got out in case she
wasn’t feeling great. I was here to support her, after all. I ummed and ahhed
through several more buzzes and then eventually did answer it.

Henry didn’t even greet
me. “Min, what on earth did you tell James?” he said in a whisper,
sounding really stressed out. I wanted to acknowledge that and ask if he was
okay, but the waiting room of a busy clinic was no place to have a deep and
meaningful. “Jesus Christ, I just had him accost me in my office and—”

“Henry,” I interrupted him
in a loud whisper of my own, “it’s a really long story, but can I call you
back? I’m at the doctors’.”

That stopped him. “Oh,” he
said, and then I heard him swallow. I think I’d been to the doctors’ twice in
four years. Henry was the only person who knew that. “Oh dear, it’s not
serious, is it? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, it’s not for me,
it’s for Sarah,” I told him. “And no, it’s not serious. At least, I don’t think
it is. It depends on—actually, no, no, I don’t
think so. Listen, can I call you back later?”

“O-Of course…” he said hesitantly, and then let me hang up.

Every minute that Sarah
didn’t come out of that room, though, I wished I hadn’t hung up on him. He
sounded pretty upset, and at this time of night, he probably didn’t have anyone
else to vent to. I could have had a conversation with him again. We could have
been talking, and maybe I could have apologised to him and told him about
Mum’s marriage ultimatum. But no, I had to hang up on him, didn’t I? I made a face and flopped
my head back against the wall with a thump.

I was still kicking myself
for that when Sarah emerged from the doctor’s office. She approached me looking
surprisingly normal. Maybe it was a false
alarm?

“Let’s go,” she said as I pushed
up off the floor. “I can’t wait to get these heels off, my feet are killing
me.” She began to walk briskly towards the exit.

I followed her through it,
waiting until we were outside to prompt her, “Well, how did it go? Are you
pregnant?”

“Yes,” she said. “The
doctor’s test showed positive too, and she’s taken some blood to be certain. She’ll call me on Wednesday if I don’t
need to go into Marie Stopes next Monday.”

I opened the car door for
her. “Who’s Marie Stopes?”

“It’s an abortion clinic,”
she told me matter-of-factly, and pulled
the door shut behind her, fastening her seat belt.

I stood outside her door
for a couple of seconds with my eyebrows high and my jaw open, and then closed
my mouth and went around to the driver’s side. Despite Sarah telling me hugging
her was always okay, I got the sense that it wouldn’t be okay right
now. So, I just got in and buckled up.

We hadn’t even made it out
of the carpark before she exploded with, “I can’t keep it, Min. I can’t.”

“Erm, okay,” I said,
treading carefully. “If you think that’s best.”

She took a deep breath and
exhaled. “I’m not ready at all, and even if I was, I’ve basically been fuelled
entirely by artificial stimulants for the past week. It’s probably irreparably
damaged. And if Frost finds out I’m pregnant…” She shook her head.

I knew what she meant. I glanced across at her before I turned out onto
the road, briefly touching her hand. I meant to be supportive, but I think she
misinterpreted my silence.

Flopping back against her seat, she said darkly, “You totally
think I’m a murderer.”

“Hey, now,” I said,
cutting her off before she could say anything else. “No, I don’t. I couldn’t carry a baby either.” She squinted at me as
if she expected me to follow up with something that contradicted that but, of course, I didn’t. “I don’t, Sarah.
Really.”

“Okay,” she said
suspiciously, and then was silent for the rest of the trip home. I turned on
the radio, but it hardly made a dent in how tense we were.

Sarah was through the back
door before I was even out of the car, and when I made it into the living room,
she was already in the bathroom with the shower running. I stood outside the
bathroom door for a few seconds, wanting to say something supportive, but in
the end just continued to my bedroom. I changed into a hoodie and
trackies—finally able to strip my binder off my aching chest—and then went
out and sat on the living room couch to nurse my tender ribs and take big, free
breaths while I waited for her.

She didn’t have much to
say to me when she did come back out in her pyjamas, though. Biro in hand, she
made a beeline for the dining table and
started punching numbers into her phone, pausing occasionally to scribble them
down on a used envelope.

I stood and gingerly
approached her. “Thinking of ousting Gemma as Bree’s Maths tutor?” I asked her
with a grin.

She made a noise. “No
thanks,” she told me. “Gem can keep her imaginary numbers, I’m crunching the
real ones.” She continued for another minute or so, and then sat back, pushing
the envelope roughly away. “Yeah,” she said. “I knew it. I knew I couldn’t
afford the repayments on this place with just Rob’s standby wage and whatever
pittance Centrelink gives mothers these days.”

“Frost pays full wages for
13 weeks,” I reminded her.

She rolled her eyes at me.
“Tell me you’d be able to show your face back at Frost after taking a quarter
of the year off,” she said. “They’ll put me in admin and just lean on me until
I quit because mothers have conflicting priorities, or whatever.”

“Then fucking ride them
for $120 kay per annum in admin for as
long as you can,” I told her. “Show up to work on time, leave on time, take
that paycheque home to your baby. They can suck it.”

She briefly smiled, but
only to acknowledge my support. “It’s bad enough there now and I’m in most people’s
good books,” she said, and sighed. She
was silent for a moment, deep in thought. Then, she shook her head vigorously.
“No. No, I can’t do it. I can’t. I can have kids later when I’m ready, after
I’ve done all the things I want to do and when I can afford it.” She stood,
trying to change the subject. “Anyway, I was supposed to spend all of
tonight cramming Chemistry. I need to go excavate my old textbook from the
cupboards or I’m not going to be much use to Bree tomorrow.”

Before she had the
opportunity to retrieve it, though, a key turned in the front door and someone
dumped a bag loudly in the hallway. There was whistling.

Sarah’s eyes glazed over.
“Shit.”

Rob came striding into the
living room in his high-visibility rugby shirt, shorts and Blundstones. He was
clearly a bit tipsy, but all it was doing was making his cheeks and nose pink.
“Eey!” he greeted us, presenting himself
with a ‘tada’ motion, “I just helped build a house! I feel sorry for the poor
bugger who has to live in it, though.” He
theatrically lopped his phone at the
couch like he was shooting a hoop, and cheered when it didn’t bounce onto the
floor. “Want a beer?” he asked us as he ducked into the kitchen.

Sarah and I just stood
there.

He was opening it with his
bare hands as he came back into the living room. “It was nice working in the
sun for a change, I’ll tell you that. I’m not going to want to go back down the
mines if I do this too much. What a day!” He smiled broadly at us, but stopped when he saw our expressions.
“Jesus. What’s going on? You two look like you’re on your way to a funeral.”

Sarah closed her eyes for
a moment. “Rob, I need to talk to you.”

His face fell immediately.
“What did I do?” She shook her head and walked towards him, bustling him back
up the hallway towards the bedroom. He let himself be ushered away, and the
last thing I heard before she shut him in
their room was, “Is it because I’m out late? I thought you’d probably be
working! I’ll come home straight away tomorrow, Sares,
I promise!”

After the door was shut,
the house was eerily quiet for a few seconds. I stood in place, genuinely
worried I would hear them fighting. They never fought, and even though I would
have preferred to know a lot less about their sex life than I did, it was comforting
watching a couple who’d been together for years still be actively in love with
each other. I hoped an abortion wouldn’t affect that.

So, in the interest
of not just standing there and listening for conflict, I had that shower I’d been after in the first place,
tried to call Henry back a couple of times—his phone was off for some
reason—and then deliberated over whether or not I should ‘excavate’ Sarah’s
Chemistry textbook from her cupboards myself. In the end, I decided not to.
Bree could wait a week or two to catch up on Chem. I figured Sarah would
probably be feeling less sick and be better able to concentrate after she’d
ended her pregnancy anyway.

EIGHT

Every morning Sarah got up at exactly
the same time and every morning she caught exactly the same train. I
figured it would be a piece of cake to set my alarm so I could intercept her
and tempt her out of the cold and into my heated Lexus instead. The last thing
that poor girl needed was a long walk to the train station while she was in the
throes of morning sickness.

Unfortunately, I didn’t
wake up to my alarm. I woke up half an hour earlier to the sound of the front
door being pulled very gently shut with only the old creaking hinges giving it
away. I sat up, confused.

It was—I checked—6:17am. Sarah never left this early,
she’d be at Frost well before 7am if she
did. When I poked my head out my bedroom door just to be very certain it wasn’t
Rob leaving to catch an early flight or something, I spotted his dusty work jacket still hung by the front door.
I couldn’t hear him snoring, though.

Shit, I thought, feeling uneasy and climbing back underneath my warm
doona. I really hope nothing serious had happened between her and
Rob. I turned my phone over a few times in my hands and then decided to text her about it. “Hey, are you okay? I just saw you leave.”

It didn’t take her long to
reply. “If by okay you mean definitely
about to vomit out all internal organs, then yeah, totally okay! ;) Just
couldn’t sleep and figured it was better to be up doing something productive
than lying in bed and staring at the ceiling.”

Lying in bed and staring
at the ceiling? I tapped the phone on my chin for a second and then opted to be
more direct. “You and Rob are okay,
right?”

“I guess? He wants to keep it, I don’t, and it’s my body, so yeah. He
respects my decision which is the main thing. Tell Schoolgirl I’m sorry I
didn’t get around to her Chem stuff and we might need to push it back in the
timeline a bit. Should be home by 7 :)”

Well… I supposed that
didn’t sound too bad. She seemed fine, didn’t she? I supposed the urge to
‘vomit out all internal organs’ might have a role to play in her not sleeping.
Comfortable with that, and having no desire to vomit out all of my
own internal organs, I disabled my alarm and went back to sleep for an
hour or so. Sunlight streaming through my window later woke me up and sent me
in search of caffeine.

Sarah’s house was
notoriously cold because she didn’t have central heating, so even though the
sun was up, the floorboards in my room were like ice, and when I exhaled, it
was in a cloud of steam. Even with thick socks and a big hoodie, I had to stand
directly in the thin thread of sunlight coming through the kitchen window while
I waited for the jug to boil so I didn’t freeze to death. Living in a
climate-controlled hotel for four years and working in climate-controlled
offices had apparently rendered me incapable of controlling my own internal
climate.

I was busy curling my
hands around the plastic jug and reflecting on the fact I really needed
some warmer clothes when Rob appeared
through the doorway. I glanced up, about to make a dry comment about the
refrigerator of a house we were all living in,
when I saw his face. The words caught in my throat.

He looked like he hadn’t
slept a wink. There was no cheerful whistling this morning. None of his usual
loud, booming singing that had started off as a shower solo and was now filling
up the house. He was silent, and I don’t even think he’d had a shower. He
nodded mutely in greeting instead, and took
a mug out of the cupboard to wait quietly for the jug. He wasn’t looking at me.

Poor Rob, I thought, remembering Sarah’s text. I
had a feeling that ‘he wants me to keep it’ might have been a serious
understatement. There wasn’t a single thing he could do about it either, except
respect that it was her decision because it was her body. That must have been
rough.

I held my hand out in a
‘gimme’ motion. “How do you take your coffee? I’ll make you one.”

“White and one,” he said,
and then glanced up at me, pausing for a second. “Ta.”

I nodded at him as he
passed his mug to me and left.

I made our coffees,
filling the whole kitchen with hot steam from the jug, and then carefully
ferried them out into the living room. Rob had slid the back door all the way
open and was sitting in the morning sunlight on the decking, in shorts and
apparently unaffected by the cold. I went out there and slowly transferred his
coffee to him, and I was heading back inside again when he said, “It’s warmer
out here in the sun,” and nudged the chair alongside him with the tip of his
boot.

I sat in it, careful not
to spill my coffee, taking a big lungful of crisp morning air and tiny sips
from the mug. I liked Sarah’s backyard; it was on a slope and was clearly the
garden of someone who was never at home. It wasn’t landscaped – it just had two
large gum trees that freely littered the
patchy lawn and rusted trampoline underneath them with gumnuts and leaves. Because of the trees, it felt more rural than
it was. It could have been out in the Blue Mountains and not in the middle of
Sydney’s North Shore. Rob, a country boy at heart, was clearly right at home
here, even if he looked pretty far from home this morning.

I’d nearly finished my
coffee by the time he finally spoke. “I’m being
bloody ridiculous, aren’t I? It’s a bunch of cells inside her.” From his
expression, his question was mostly rhetorical. He looked deep in thought.

Nevertheless, I turned my
head to watch him so he knew I was listening.

He was still gazing out at
the yard. “Daz has kids. Well, his ex-missus has them, but he sees them all the
time and they’re always staying with him.” He smiled indulgently for a moment.
“One of them is the cutest little thing, she’s two now. She’s into everything
she can get her tiny hands on, you can’t even keep up with her. She’s always
asking heaps of questions, and she follows Daz everywhere with her yellow
plastic hammer, pretending to bang on walls, and doors, and furniture going,
‘I fix this! Look, Daddy, I fix this!’, and I—” His voice caught in his throat.
“You know, it’s just a bunch of cells, but...”

Ouch.  I leant over
to him and put a hand on his shoulder for a second. He smiled faintly in
acknowledgement, and it was a few minutes before he spoke again. “Well, I have
to go help Daz with the gutters on this house he’s doing, so I’d better head
off.” He held the mug up for a second. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“I’ll wash the mug for
you,” I said, and accepted it from him.

He stood, but he loitered
tensely around the doorway for a moment. “Sares
doesn’t think we can afford it,” he told me. “And we can’t while I’m on standby
rates. But I’m a tradie, I can
make serious money if I need to, I’d do any job that pays. And I’d
take care of her, Min. I’d take care of them both. That kid wouldn’t want for
anything, and neither would Sares.” He
took a breath. “Can you tell her that for me?”

Rob... “I’ll
tell her,” I said, choosing not to add that I didn’t like his chances of
changing her mind. She’d been pretty certain last night.

He understood anyway.
“…But it might not make a difference,” he finished, nodding. “I just want her
to know that. I want her to know.”

He went back inside, and I
followed him in with our mugs and went to wash them in the sink. Before he
left, he came into the kitchen to edge past me and grab a couple of pieces of
fruit out of the bowl to take with him. I watched him select a spotty banana
and try to decide if it was too far gone to eat. “What do you reckon about this
one?” he asked, showing it to me.

I shook my head. “Not
worth the risk.” I stepped on the pedal of the bin so the lid opened. “Put it
out of its misery.”

He glanced at the bin and
made a snap decision to toss the decrepit fruit in his bag anyway. At my
expression, he said, “I like to live on the edge.”

I had to laugh at that—we
both did— and I clapped him on the back as he squeezed past me again. He paused
by the door as he hoisted his rucksack over his big shoulders, suddenly giving
me a really puzzled look. “Sometimes I forget you weren’t always a bloke,” he
told me, and then continued up the hallway. The door fell shut behind him,
screaming on its hinges.

I was pretty sure he’d
meant that as a fumbling compliment, so I chuckled a bit and then got back to
washing our mugs and planning my day.

There was a small shopping
centre reasonably close to Sarah’s, so I figured I’d head there and use it to
plug the holes in my winter wardrobe. I couldn’t buy too much—the
bank had withdrawn another payment for my stupidly expensive car and my balance
was under $2k now—but it would probably be safe to buy a coat and a couple more
long-sleeve tops and have enough left to live on until my severance pay came
through.

I was wandering through
menswear with an armful of potential jackets when my phone went off. Awkwardly,
I tried to fish it out of my pocket so I could read it, thinking it was
probably Henry finally getting back to me after last night.

It wasn’t, it was from
Sarah. “Okay, this might be kind of redundant because I get
the sense you’re a vault when it comes to the stuff people tell you, but can you not tell anyone what’s
going on with me? Even Bree. Thanks xx.”

My eyebrows went up, and I
dumped my armful of clothes on top of the nearest rack so I could reply. “You’re not going to tell anyone?”

“I will. Just after it’s over. People will act like an
abortion is this big deal and I don’t want a hundred people trying to
talk me out of it.”

I leant against the
clothes rack, frowning. “I don’t think
they will? As long as you’re comfortable you’re making the right decision, people
will respect that and support you.”

“Lol, if their ‘respect my decision’ is like Rob’s was, they’ll all beg
me not to do it for three hours before finally giving in and acting like I’m
some heartless baby murderer. I can’t deal with that. I do want kids, I just
can’t have them right now.”

I winced at the image of
Rob begging Sarah to keep it. I doubted he was treating her like she
was a ‘heartless baby murderer’ now, though. He’d just been sad. Sad, and
determined they could make it work. “If
money’s the problem, Rob’s a tradie and
would definitely sort something out so you two can stay in the house.”

“It’s not up for discussion, Min. If I have a kid now, I have to give up
my job, my lifestyle, my body, my sex life, my freedom, my financial independence,
and my awesome plan re: paying off the house and visiting Dad’s village in
Italy. I basically have to give up my whole future, I am so not ready for
that.” There was a pause, and then another one came through. “And not to be a bitch or anything, but what
if I do give up all that and I still fuck up majorly because I’m not ready and
my kid ends up hating me as much as you hate your mum?”

Wow. I stared at the
phone, smarting a bit. She probably wasn’t wrong about Mum making some
mistakes, but that was… I shook my head and typed. “I don’t hate her, Sarah.”

“Yeah, but you won’t even answer her vmails
and your worst nightmare is her visiting, so what’s the difference? I couldn’t
deal with it if I did that to my kid. Better not to risk it.”

This conversation was
getting way off track. “Okay,
okay, I get your point. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thanks,
Toyboy. You’re the best xxxxx P.S. I
laminated one of your old business cards and stuck it under your painting in
the atrium. Wanna place bets on how long it's up before someone mysteriously
takes it down?”

I laughed at that, but sobered as I continued shopping. It
was difficult to concentrate after that
conversation; Sarah’s comments about Mum kind of dug in and only served to
remind me that my worst nightmare would actually come true if I
hadn’t sorted something out with Henry by July 19.

Bree arriving in the late
afternoon was a welcome distraction from my impending doom and the fact Henry
wouldn’t answer his fucking phone. She dumped her bag inside the door and came
rushing over to me on the couch, and I barely had enough time to move my laptop
out the way before she hopped into my lap and kissed me soundly.

“It’s so good to see you!”
she said between kisses, wrapping her arms all the way around my neck. “Last
night was crap, I hate sleeping by myself. Plus it was, like, freezing but
Dad yells at me if I turn the heater on.”

“There’s no heater here,
either,” I reminded her.

She smiled coyly. “Yeah,
but I don’t get cold when I share with you,” she told me. “And you let me wear
your big hoodies around the house, so…” She kissed my nose. “Anyway! How was
your day?”

I grimaced. “Um.”

She wasn’t done with that
coy smile yet, apparently. It deepened. “Can I make it better?” she wondered
aloud.

I could feel her body
pressed against me. “Maybe,” I told her with a half-grin, snaking my arms
around her waist and opening my mouth to her as she kissed me again.

I had my hand up her top
and she was sighing against my lips when the back door slid open suddenly. She
leapt off me, grabbing instinctively at
her shirt. Fortunately, I hadn’t unbuttoned it yet, but her cheeks were pink
and our lips were red and it was pretty fucking obvious what we’d
been doing.

I twisted in the couch;
Rob had come in through the back door and looked just as shocked as
we were. “Er, sorry about that, guys,” he said awkwardly, presenting himself.
“I’m home. I just thought I’d make the effort to get back on time today, that’s
all.” He continued up the hallway and disappeared into his closet-sized man
cave.

Bree and I stared after him for a second, and then she started to
giggle. She wouldn't stop, either, and in the end we gave up on messing
around because it was too weird with Rob knowing what we were up to.

“I should probably do some
homework anyway,” Bree said, making a face and smoothing down her skirt. “If I
start those Chem exercises I’m supposed to do with Sarah now, I can probably
have them ready for her to look at by the time she gets home.”

I winced, remembering the
text message Sarah had sent about not being able to help tonight. I read that
part out to Bree.

Her smile faltered. “But I
have a Chem test tomorrow,” she said, and then looked hopefully at me. “Can you
help instead, maybe?”

I winced and shook my
head. “I didn’t take Chem. I don’t think Gemma did, either: we both did Physics
instead.”

Bree visibly deflated a
little, but then attempted to puff herself back up again. “Well, maybe Sarah
can still remember some of it and she won’t have to revise to help me,” she said
optimistically. “I should probably do the exercises now, just in case.” With
that, she got her tablet from my room and her exercise books from her bag, and
then sat herself down at the table and began chipping away at the questions.

Even if she had very little
idea what she was doing, I was pretty damn proud of her for trying to do her
homework anyway. One of Bree’s contagious smiles on my face, I sat across the
room from her with my tablet, making some quick sketches of all the strange
positions she was trying to study in and laughing quietly to myself about them.

When Sarah got home, she
powered through the doorway like she wasn’t as white as a sheet and put her
handbag on the table near Bree. “Hey, kids,” she greeted us casually, and then
her face fell as soon as she’d realised what she’d said. She didn’t pursue it.
I didn’t either, I just gave her a silent wave from behind my laptop.

“Hey!” Bree said
cheerfully, turning in the chair towards her. “I know you said you didn’t get
around to looking at your Chem books, but I have a…” She trailed off, frowning.
“Oh my god, Sarah, you look really sick, like really. And it’s been
days. Maybe you should go to the doctor.”

“I went last night,” she
told Bree. “And I’m fine.” She leant over the table to take a look at the
exercises Bree was working on. “What kind of formulas are you doing? Maybe I
can figure them out anyway.”

Bree wasn’t buying it. “No
way, Sarah. You are so totally not
fine. What did the doctor say? What do you have, is it bad?”

Sarah glanced at me. “I’m
waiting on the results of some blood
tests, but I promise you I’m going to be fine,” she told Bree and then gave her
a critical look. “You’re disturbingly persistent, by the way.”

Bree still looked worried.
“I know,” she said miserably. “Everyone says so. But if you care about
something, you can’t just suddenly not care
about it.”

Sarah laughed at that and pulled up a chair next to her. “So,
show me what you’re doing?”

Bree
did not look convinced that Sarah was okay and I certainly didn’t
think that was the last of it, but her concern about tomorrow’s test apparently
trumped her need to find out about Sarah’s mystery illness right at this
second. Pretty soon they had their heads together over the table, trying to
work out the exercises. I drew a few sketches of that, too.

I was in the middle of
adding some light colour to the sketch, when Rob emerged from his man cave with
a piece of paper in his hands. He walked all the way up to Sarah and presented
it to her. She accepted it from him, looking hesitant. “What’s this?” Her eyes
skimmed over the text.

Rob stuck out his big
barrel chest. “My letter of resignation from Frost Energy. Is it any good? I’m
shit at this sort of stuff.”

Sarah immediately stopped
reading and let it fall to the table before just handing it unceremoniously
back to him. “You’re not resigning. We’ll talk about this later.”

He looked determined.
“Yes, I am,” he told her. “I’ll get a job around here. Daz reckons there’s
plenty of stuff for fitters and turners on the wharves, so that’s where I’ll
go. It’s good money, too.”

“I know what you’re
doing,” she told him shortly, “we can talk about this later.”

He ignored that. “I want
to be here, Sares. I want to take care of you.”

As soon as Rob said that,
Bree’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. She looked at me in panic and then exploded with, “I have to go to
the toilet!” before standing up and running off into the bathroom.

It was pretty clear to
everyone that Bree leaving had nothing to do with the toilet, and Sarah glanced
in warning towards me.

I was already beginning to
feel like I was intruding on a deeply personal conversation, and that glance
hammered the point home. “Um,” I said, standing and jerking my thumb towards
the hallway. “I’m just going to go check on Bree.”

As I fled out of the living
room, I heard Sarah saying to Rob, “This isn’t fair. I’ve told you how I feel.
That’s it, that’s final.”

“Then why were you tossing
and turning all bloody night, Sares?” he was saying. “If you have any doubts, like
any tiny niggling doubts that maybe us two could make it work if we—”

I drowned out the sound of
them arguing by knocking on the bathroom door. “Bree?” She didn’t come out, and
I didn’t want to stand in the hallway listening to them, so I retreated into my room to wait for her there. At least
inside my room I couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other.

It wasn’t long before my
bedroom door slowly opened and Bree let
herself in. She looked deeply troubled. “Um,” she wrung her hands
nervously. “I did something. You’re going to be really angry with me.” That was
nothing new, so I sighed at her and waited for her to explain. “So,” she said,
her eyebrows knit together in the centre of her forehead. “I was worried about
Sarah. Like, really worried. And Rob is worried, too yeah? I was like, he wants
to move to Sydney to take care of her, that’s serious right?”

I watched her
suspiciously.

“I thought that, like,
maybe if the doctor gave her some medication or something that I could google
it and figure out what she had, you know? And since I was in the bathroom, and
that’s where she keeps all her other pills, I opened the cabinet to have a look
if there were any new pills in there. And there weren’t, but there was one of
those pregnancy test kits. They come in packs of two, and one was missing.” She
scrunched up her face, bracing for my reaction. “And so I kind of checked in
the bin…”

I groaned. “Bree,
you didn’t.”

“I did. And there was one
in there, and it’s positive.” She paused, her face still scrunched up. “And I
touched it.” She came and sat on the bed next to me. “She hasn’t got some
horrible disease after all. She’s pregnant, Min. That’s why she’s so
sick, and that’s why Rob wants to move to Sydney permanently.” She
turned to look expectantly at me, waiting for my reaction to the news. When it
didn’t come, she frowned, confused. “Why aren’t you surprised? Did you know
already?”

I made a face. There was
no use in pretending I didn’t know, was there? “Sarah asked me not to tell
anyone. She found out last night, I was here when it happened.”

“Oh, right…” Bree said,
disappointed. I think she’d been excited about sharing the news with me,
despite the inappropriate way she’d found out. “But why wouldn’t she want to
tell anyone? I’d want to tell everyone!” Then, she answered her own
question. “Although, I guess she has been drinking a lot. Maybe she wants to
make sure she’s not going to miscarry it, and then when it’s safe she can tell
everyone the great news? That’s probably a smarter idea. I can kind of understand
why she’d want to do that.” She finally smiled, leaning towards me
enthusiastically. “But how exciting is this! Sarah’s going to have a baby! I
bet Rob will be a great dad. Sarah will be a great mum, too. She’s heaps of
fun. I bet she’s—”

“Bree.” I could hardly
bare to listen to Bree chatter on excitedly about this, so I cut her off.
“Sarah didn’t tell anyone because she’s going to get an abortion on Monday.”

The smile fell off her face. “Oh,” she said, and then sat
back. She was silent for a second. “But I thought Sarah wanted kids?”

I shrugged. “Now isn’t a
good time for them.”

“Oh,” she repeated. Then,
she made a face. “Okay, their arguing makes much more sense now.”

“Yeah,” I said, holding
out an arm for her. “Don’t say anything. Really, Sarah’s a bit fragile right
now. She doesn’t want people to try and talk her out of it now that she’s made
her decision.”

Bree nodded, crawling
under my arm and spending some time digesting what she’d just learnt. “I
thought you’d be a lot angrier that I went snooping. You hate it when
I do this stuff.”

I’d also reached this
place of peaceful surrender where I accepted Bree was a force of nature, and
there was no way to stop her doing this kind of stuff. Plus, I’d
snooped on her recently, so it
would have been pretty hypocritical for me to go off at her. I did give her a
bit of a disapproving look, though. “People are allowed to have secrets. You of
all people should know that.”

She scrunched up her nose
and nodded again. We sat there for a few minutes, listening to their muffled
voices arguing in the living room. “In case you were wondering why I can’t
concentrate on stuff at home: this is just like my place,” she observed darkly.
“Except Mum and Dad yell a lot more. How long do you think they’ll fight for?”

I shrugged. “They haven’t
done it before.”

We lay back in bed and
listened for a few more minutes, and then Bree exhaled. “You know, Sarah’s
arguing an awful lot for someone who’s already made a decision,” she observed,
and then burrowed under my arm so she couldn’t hear them anymore.

NINE

For the rest of the evening, Bree and
I made a unanimous decision that it was too dangerous to venture back out into
the rest of the house. Bree couldn’t get to her homework, though, so we spent a
couple of hours trawling through YouTube tutorials on my phone until we found a
really good channel that did a lot of the theory and formulas step-by-step. The
teacher was interesting, too.

“She’s better than the one
at school,” Bree observed as we lay on our stomachs watching my phone and she
took notes in 2B pencil on my enormous old half-full sketch book. By the time
we fell asleep, I’d watched so many lectures I felt like I might actually be ready for
Bree’s test tomorrow.

Despite being reasonably
comfortable Bree wouldn’t fail her test, I didn’t sleep that well because of
what was going on with Sarah and Rob. Bree didn’t either, and ordinarily it was
nice having her soft body all cuddled up against me, especially in the
cold. When she was tossing and turning all night, though, all it did was
constantly wake me up. My ribs were still sore from my binder and she kept
accidentally elbowing me in them, and with the tense day I’d had, I ended up
having these fitful stress dreams where I was giving a company-wide
presentation at Frost with everyone laughing at me, and then I realised with
incredible horror that I was on stage completely topless.

I was in the middle of one
of them when Bree shook me awake. “Min?”

I struggled back to
consciousness. “What? What’s wrong?”

She was leaning over me.
“I want to have kids,” she told me urgently, sounding really worried. “At least
four.”

I stared at her. It must
have been like two in the morning. “Okay…?”

“It’s just that you never
said you wanted kids,” she told me, doing that thing where she spoke
really quickly and anxiously. “I’ve been lying here thinking about it, and I
realised that when I met you, you said Henry wanted kids, but you
never said you wanted them. And,
like, I’ve been imagining our future and
stuff, and it just suddenly occurred to me that you might not
even want children, and, like, what if we get married and I’m really
happy and then it turns out you don’t want kids? What if we end up fighting
like Sarah and Rob?”

I rubbed her back. “I know
you want kids, Bree,” I told her, carefully sidestepping the question because I
was honestly sick of it. Why was everyone so obsessed with me having kids?

She noticed, and unlike
Henry always had, she didn’t leave it. “Yeah, but do you want them?” she pressed.

I pulled her back down against me. “God, it’s way too early
for this, can we talk about this tomorrow? You sound like my mother.”

Her voice was muffled by
my pyjamas. “No, I don’t. Your mother just says, ‘You’re a bad daughter, marry Henry and have his
children right now!’” She paused “Or at least that’s what I think she’d be
saying if I could understand Korean.”

I snorted. “No, you nailed
it, that’s definitely what she says,” I told her, and then sobered. “Kids are
like…” I shook my head. “Can I not have that anvil hanging over my
head for a while? Everyone’s been trying to force all that stuff on me for
years. I don’t want to think about it. I just want to finish my master’s,
relax, and focus on myself for a bit.”

“Well, I don’t want to
hold an anvil over your head or force it on you or anything,” she told me,
still face-down in my PJs. “I just want to know if you want children. Not now;
no way, I’m still in school. Just, like, ever.
It’s okay to ask that, right? I think I’m allowed to know if you want kids or
not.”

She had a point. It was
just the whole concept of using my body to produce children felt really alien
to me, and I just didn’t want to think about it now. I wanted the topic
somewhere else, far, far away from me. “You don’t mean have them-have
them, do you?” I clarified. “Because if you want them to come out of me, then
that’s never ever—”

“—I know,” she said. “I’d
carry them. You’d be the dad.”

Oh. I lay back for a
moment, processing that. “The dad?” I said, trying it out. I hadn’t even
thought of that. It did make me wonder... “Would you use a Korean donor, or…?”

She took a little breath,
lifting her face up from my PJs. “Well,” she said, clearly well-prepared for
this question, “I was thinking that
before you go on testosterone and, you know,
before you get your uterus and stuff all scooped out—” My eyebrows went
up. “—we should harvest and freeze some of your eggs. When it’s time, we
can use some random sperm donor and I can have your children. That way they’ll
be both of ours.” Bree glanced up to gauge my reaction, saw my alarm, and then
looked a bit guilty. “Um, so, I may have thought a little bit about this…”

“You think?”

“Sorry,” she said, and cuddled into me.

I took a deep breath. I
was still stuck on the scooping and the harvesting. “Honestly,
Bree…” I exhaled through pursed lips. “We’ve
been dating for a month. Can we just… park the kid stuff for a
while? Please?”

She’d turned those big
puppy eyes on me. “It’s just I really don’t want it to be like it was with Henry and how he assumed you guys wanted the
same thing but you didn’t.”

I hugged her against me
and kissed the top of her head. “It’s not like
it was with Henry.”

She wasn’t completely
satisfied with that answer, but she relaxed a little. “Promise?”

“Yes. I just—give me time
on this one, Bree. I need some space from the last relationship I was
in where everyone wanted at my eggs.”

“Okay,” she said, but she
felt a bit stiff. She was only quiet for another minute or so before she said,
“That’s a yes, right? Like, a very distant in the future yes?”

I had to laugh at her.
“You are hopeless,” I told her, bear-hugging her and squishing her face
into me again.

“I know,” she said
desolately into my shoulder, and it was so sweet that I had to half-roll over
so I could kiss her. It was only supposed to comfort her for a moment, but she
wouldn’t let me go and we ended up lying side by side on my pillow, limbs
intertwined as we kissed. I hadn’t planned on starting anything, but when her
tongue dipped against mine between our open mouths, I felt it. I
wanted her to keep doing it. She did, and she was making noises deep in her throat and drawing
right up against me. I could feel her socks brushing against my knees, and I…
wanted to hitch her knees up around my waist and settle between them.

The trouble was, after our
conversation about eggs and babies, I
was acutely aware that my body couldn’t do the things I wanted to do
with her. It made me feel disconnected and wrong and a bit gross and
I… yeah, I didn’t want to start anything right now.

I stopped kissing her. “Do
you want to try and get some sleep now? You’ve got that test tomorrow.”

She made a face. “Okay…”

“Okay?” My stomach
tightened; I hoped she wasn’t angry at me for subtly turning her down.

She scrunched up her nose.
“I mean, yes, sort of not okay, but… well, it’s just we didn’t have
any dinner and I’m, like, dying of
hunger.”

I laughed. It
was such a relief to hear that.

We each put on one of my
big hoodies and went creeping out to the kitchen. I was zapping some leftover
rice in the microwave with my teeth chattering and freezing the
fuck to death, when Bree disappeared and returned wrapped in the entire
doona. She swallowed me into it, and then we sat cross-legged on the kitchen
floor spooning rice out of a microwave safe container, enveloped completely in fabric. Only the flashlight app on my phone
prevented us from eating in total darkness.

I was mulling over what
Bree had said about how she wanted to approach kids with me, and got stuck on
one point. “Tell me something,” I asked Bree, and she looked up from the rice.
“Why do you guys all assume I’m going to end up on testosterone and having
surgery?”

Bree shrugged. “You don’t
like your boobs, you want a more masculine-shaped body, and, like, just two or
three months ago you were saying to me, ‘No! I’ll never set foot outside my
home in men’s clothes! Never!’ And, like, now…” She gestured at me with my
short haircut in my men’s pyjamas. “Why, do you think you won’t do all that
stuff?”

I thought about it while I
chewed a mouthful. “I don’t know,” I said after I’d swallowed. “It’s just weird
to have people being able to clearly see what’s going on with me and
speculating about it, you know?” I made a face. “Sarah’s lucky,” I said. “At
least with her pregnancy, it’s something she can decide to tell people or not.”

“Not forever,” Bree
pointed out.

“Yes, forever,” I
corrected her. “After she’s gotten the abortion, there’s no way anyone can find
out, is there?”

Bree scrunched up her
nose. “I suppose…” she said, and then looked thoughtful while she had a few
more mouthfuls of rice. Eventually, she put down her spoon, brow knit. “Min,”
she said, sounding uncomfortable. “I think she wants to keep it.”

I considered that.
“Probably part of her does,” I conceded. “Not enough of her to actually keep
it, though. You have to be really ready to do this.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re
right,” Bree said, sighing. “I mean, it would suck to grow up and find out you
were an accident.” She reconsidered that, jaw a bit tight. “Or maybe it
wouldn’t? I guess if your parents actually loved you and everything, it would
be okay.”

“Mum says no children are
accidents, that we’re all part of God’s plan, or whatever.”

Bree laughed once. “Yeah,
my mum’s the same, actually. She’s one of those ‘everything happens for a reason’
people.” She tapped her spoon thoughtfully on her chin. “I wonder what the
reason Sarah got pregnant is. You know, if the world is like that.”

I shook my head. “I’m
pretty sure the world isn’t like that.”

Bree made a face. “I hope
it is,” she said quietly. “It’s nice to think that when things really suck,
there’s something amazing waiting just over the horizon for you.”

That was a very comforting
thought. “I wonder what’s waiting there for you?”

Her eyes glistened for a
moment. “I know what I want to be there waiting for me,” she said,
but she didn’t elaborate.

We finished the food and
then slunk back to bed, wrapped in the doona. Under different circumstances, we probably might have messed
around some more, but we were full of rice and I was feeling off about my body,
so we left it. Bree took my arms, wriggled right up against me, and I cuddled
her to sleep.

I took a while to go to
sleep myself, and I felt like as soon as I’d finally drifted off, Bree was
shaking me awake. “Min, can I have some money? There’s no bread.”

I wasn’t conscious enough
to connect those two concepts. “In my wallet on the table,” I mumbled, and then
I heard her bounce over there. I turned over. “Why are you up?”

“It’s half past seven and
I’ll be late otherwise?” she said, and then held my wallet up. “How much can I
take?”

“Whatever you need,” I
told her. She pursed her lips and then took out a few big notes; she probably
wanted to do some grocery shopping. As she kissed me goodbye, I did say to her, “If you come back home with a Lamborghini,
I’m going to be really upset.”

“Will you buy me one if I
ace my test?”

I felt like I was pretty
safe on this one. “Yes,” I said in complete seriousness.

She threw something at me.
I think it was a sock. “I’m going to ace it just to spite you,” she threatened
me, sounding completely unintimidating. Then she grabbed her bag, kissed me
again and headed off.

As expected, I didn’t end
up needing to buy Bree a Lamborghini. She didn’t get her results until Friday,
when she came bursting through Sarah’s back door in the late
afternoon, announcing, “I got 73!” at the top of her lungs and then launching
into my arms to squeeze the life out of me. “Thank you!”

“Thank YouTube,” I
wheezed, and then took a few deep breaths as she released me from her vice-like
hug.

“73 isn’t exactly a
Lamborghini score, but it’s good for a beat-up Toyota, right?” Bree wondered,
still bouncing on her toes. “Or, like, a Hyundai or something?”

I touched her nose. “It’s
good for the amount of money you took out of my wallet on Tuesday,” I told her
as she giggled nervously. “And there’s still no bread, by the way.”

“Yeah…” She said
dismissively, and the changed the subject. “It’s Maths night tonight!” she
announced like it was an event, and she then went and spread out all her stuff on
the table so she could do the exercises in preparation for Gemma’s arrival.

When Sarah got home, she
didn’t seem quite as impressed with Bree’s score, but she still congratulated
her. Later, when I was in the kitchen with her, she sighed and leant heavily on
the bench, examining Bree’s marked test paper. She looked drawn. “It’s my
fault,” she said stiffly, surveying all the red pen. “If I’d done what I’d
committed to do, she would have gotten a much better score than this.”

I rubbed her back. “Bree
normally scores in the low 50s,” I told her, “73 is a huge improvement for
her.”

Sarah pursed her lips.
“Okay,” she said, and seemed to accept
that. She then ran a hand over her face, turning to lean her hips on the
counter. “I can’t wait to get this stupid thing out of me,” she confessed,
looking down her body. “Look at me: I am so sick, I bet I look like I’ve
just been through my sixth round of chemo, seriously. I just want to lie down
and pass out. At least it’s Gem’s turn with Schoolgirl tonight. I don’t know if
I could face homework, you might actually have seen me cry again.”

I hugged her like she
always told me to. “Why don’t you go and have a lie-down?”

Sarah sighed deeply. “Who
do I work for again?”

I made a face. “Really?
You’re going to do work like this?”

She rubbed her face again,
nodding. “I need to try and figure out if there’s something hip and marketable
about Ghana so I can make all the kids excited about buying Ghanaian diamonds
for their O-M-G perfect
engagements. I’ve got this weekend to figure out what it is and write it up.”

That, I could do something
about. “Want some help?”

She looked at me like
there was a light shining down from the heavens upon my head. “You look so
different I keep forgetting you know all this stuff,” she said. “Yes, please,
for the love of god, help me with this awful project.” I walked Sarah back out
into the living room to get started on the research.

Gemma showed up shortly
after seven with two bottles of champagne, a bag full of munchies, and her book
full of unreal numbers. “Hey, guys!” she said as she dumped everything on the
table. “Since it’s a Friday and we’re not out at the pub for once, I figured we
could make a night of it right here, what do you say?”

We all looked up at her
from our screens, and no one answered her for a second.

“That sounds like a great
idea!” Bree said, but she was clearly just being supportive.

Gemma shot Sarah and me some serious side-eyes, and strode
off into the kitchen, returning with some glasses. She cracked open the
champagne to a celebratory pop and filled our glasses one by one with
the smoking bottle. Bree watched nervously while Gemma filled up Sarah’s glass,
but when Sarah didn’t drink from it, she relaxed a little. “Min’s going to buy
me a Lamborghini if I ace my next Maths test,” she told Gemma, shooting me a
cheeky smirk.

Gemma blinked at her for a
second, and then turned to me and pretended to whisper, “So we’re aiming for a
‘B’ right?”

Sarah’s eyes were on her
screen. “If you ace the test, you can have my car, Bree.” We all looked at her.
She was trying to conceal a grin. “Let’s be serious: she’s very sweet, but I’m
not sharing the road with someone who can’t see over the steering wheel. She’d
be accidentally writing off the whole suburb.”

Bree looked scandalised.
“My mum drives and she’s shorter than me!”

I leant over to her and
patted her shoulder. “It’s okay, Bree, ignore them.” I paused. “We’ll buy you a
booster seat, and then you can intentionally write
Sarah off.”

“All this is doing is
making me very determined to get my Lamborghini,” Bree warned us primly, and
then got back to studying with Gemma as she ploughed into her second glass of
champagne.

It wasn’t until Gemma had
finished that glass that she realised none of us had drunk our first. She
frowned. “You guys aren’t drinking?”

“I need to concentrate,
and Min is busy,” Bree told Gemma before
I could answer.

Gemma scoffed. “Fine, Sare
will keep me company, won’t you, Sare?” She leant forward and pushed Sarah’s
glass a little closer to her. “Bottoms up! It’s that expensive French stuff
you love!”

“In a sec,” Sarah promised
Gemma, and then tapped the computer she and I were looking at. “Some of us need
to figure out what’s cool in Ghana. If we’re drunk, everything will be cool in
Ghana, so, you know…”

We all settled back to
what we were doing, and Gemma slowly worked her way through half the bottle of
champagne in front of her. I was about ready to go put on another layer under
my hoodie at the same time as Gemma’s jumper came off. In the process, she
knocked the rest of the open bottle across the table, blushed a deep red, and
we all had to quickly rescue our stuff from it while she clumsily tried to mop
it up. I didn’t think half a bottle of champagne was really enough alcohol to
have caused that mishap, but she stood up and put her hands on her hips anyway.
“I think that’s my cue to head off,” she said, gathering up her books and bags
of uneaten munchies. “Will you be okay with the rest of the exercises?” she
asked Bree.

Bree didn’t look very
confident. “Can you maybe check them over the weekend?”

“I’ll drop past for lunch on Sunday…?” she looked up
at Sarah for confirmation that it was okay, and Sarah nodded, mid-yawn. Gemma
watched her for a moment and then looked
down at the full glass Sarah had in front of her. Her eyes were veiled. “Do
you… drink something different these days?” she wondered, trying to sound
casual as she picked up the second unopened bottle of champagne from the table.
“You used to love this label at uni, didn’t you? I thought it might
be kind of fun to drive across town and buy it especially, so we could drink it
and study together just like old times.”

Sarah finished her yawn
and shook her head dismissively. “Honestly, I’m still sick, Gem. Save it for
next weekend.”

Gemma managed a smile.
“Okay,” she said, resolving to be happy with that answer. “I’ll bring it around
then.”

I escorted Gemma to the
door while Bree was tidying up all her own stuff. “You’re not driving, I hope.”

She chuckled and shook her
head. “No, I thought I’d be helping you guys drink both of these into the early
hours of the morning,” she said, sighing at the full bottle in her hands. “I’m
walking.”

I made a noise. “Alone at
nine on a Friday night? No, you’re not. I’ll drive you,” I told her, and turned
to go and grab my keys, but she stopped me.

“It’s okay, I rent a place
really close by.” She cut me off when I tried to protest, concealing a smile.
“It’s okay, Min.” She opened her arms, and I stepped into them to give her a
hug.

“Be safe,” I told her as I
stepped back and opened the door for her. She nodded, and then jogged down the
stairs.

I watched her leave for a
few seconds, worrying about my decision to give in and let her go home alone,
and then closed the door. I was going to latch
it, too, but then I realised that Rob’s boots weren’t beside it and his
closet-sized man cave was dark and quiet. He wasn’t home yet.

Sarah went straight to bed
without him anyway, mumbling something about Ghana still being there in the
morning.

Bree was frowning about it
all as we got ready for bed ourselves later. “Not that it isn’t always heaps of
fun with you guys, but everyone’s being
really weird,” she complained as she stripped so she could put her pyjamas on.

“I know what you mean,” I
told her, checking my phone one last time for a message from Henry before I
left it on my bedside table. There wasn’t one. I pulled on my own PJ pants and
hurried under the doona. “Don’t worry, though. It’ll be over after Monday.”

“Will it?” Bree wondered,
hopping under the blankets and cuddling up to me. “Because I think Rob will
still be upset about it afterwards.”

She must have been
thinking about it while we were lying there, because just as I was falling
asleep, she spoke up again. “I’m sad for Rob that Sarah isn’t keeping her
baby,” she decided. “But it’s also kind of good, because it’s so much fun
staying here with you guys, and it would suck if we had to stop.”

I was half-asleep. “Why
would Sarah not let you stay over if she had a baby?”

“It’s not that she wouldn’t
let us stay over sometimes,” she said. “I mean, I’d probably babysit for her
and stuff, but Rob’s man cave is tiny, isn’t it? You couldn’t fit a cot
and a change table in there, let alone a whole bed for an adult. So, yeah.
They’d probably need this room.”

I opened my eyes,
frowning. Wow, I hadn’t even considered that angle. It made me feel uneasy
for a second. Oh well, I thought
after a moment, dismissing that distant
what-if. I had actual stuff I needed to worry about now: like the
fact it was the middle of June and I was no closer to figuring out what the
hell I was going to tell Mum about Henry and me.

TEN

Rob didn’t come home until Sunday
night, and when he poked his head through the back door, it looked like he had
half of Sydney’s topsoil on his face and clothes. Judging by the bags under his
eyes, I suspected he hadn’t spent much of the weekend sleeping either.

I paused my game and
twisted on the couch towards him. “She’s in bed,” I told him, figuring he was
checking for Sarah. “And Bree went home.”

He nodded, slowly
wandering in and hovering restlessly by the door. “Is Sares aggro at me for
taking off for a little while?” I shook my head. He sighed, his face crumpling
momentarily. “Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not going to be a dad yet,” he said,
and then slunk off into the bathroom, presumably to have a shower.

I watched him disappear,
resuming my game and continuing to play until the couch buckled and he returned to come and sit next to me. He smelt like soap.

“What games you got?” he
asked, not looking at me.

We spent a few minutes
browsing my library, and then I passed him the second controller and we
played a few different multiplayers. I
was about to make him an account so he could use the console by himself when he gestured at the TV.

“’HENLY’,” he read aloud from the account selection screen. “Is that,
like, the Asian spelling of Henry or something?”

I winced. “Um, kind of,” I
said. “It’s more of a joke, though. ’R’ and ‘L’ are the same character in
Korean and his parents say his name like that.” I grinned remembering. “Also,
‘L-e-e’ sounds like ‘L-y’ so he just went with ‘Henly’, he uses it for
everything.”

Rob checked out the
account. “Wow. He has a lot of trophies.”

I smirked. “I have more.
Way more. He’s never been able to beat me.”

Rob laughed. “Must have
been hilarious watching him try!”

I smiled. It was, and
every time I beat him again, I
used to smugly force him to bow down on
the floor and declare me the ultimate champion. As revenge, when I was off on
business once, he’d snuck into my hotel room to desecrate my games shrine by
putting all the titles out of alphabetical order. There was a Post-it
note with “NOW WHO'S THE BOSS?”
stuck to my screen.

My smile fell away as I
looked across at Rob. “Yeah,” I told him. “It was great.”

I made Rob’s account for him and then stretched. It was late. “I’m
probably going to head off to bed.”

He nodded, looking down at
the controller. As I stood up, however, he stopped me. “Um…” I turned to look at
him. “Is Sarah still going to get the…?” He trailed off, sounding cautiously
hopeful.

I gave him an apologetic
look. “I’m sorry, Rob,” I said as he sighed down at his controller again. “You
could go with her tomorrow when she gets it done,
if you like?”

He shook his head. “She
says the nurse won’t let the partner in if they think he has different ideas
about what should happen, so, yeah…” He shrugged. “Besides, Sares didn’t really
ask me. And you know what she’s like. She’ll go off at me if I just rock up.”
He looked back up at me. “Are you taking her again?” I nodded, and he mirrored
it. “Okay. You’ll make sure she’s okay, yeah?”

I chuckled; Sarah
would hate to know two
people were talking this way about her. “Yeah, of course.”

“Thanks,” he said as I headed
off to my room.

Sarah’s appointment at Dr
Marie was in the evening after work, and Sarah’s day must have been pretty
stressful beforehand because she was a ball of fucking tension when she got
into my car. She wanted to talk through her project at a hundred miles an hour
all the way to the clinic and she didn’t stop as I was parking my car, either.

“Okay, forget Ghana. Be
honest, Min, is Bree pissed off at me?” Sarah asked suddenly from the passenger
seat as I turned off the engine. I opened my mouth to reply and she put her
hand on my arm to stop me. “Wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I’m too
stressed out.” She withdrew her hand and sat back against the seat, exhaling. Then she squinted and looked at me
again. “No, actually, I do. Is she? She was weird all weekend.”

I stared across at her. As
far as I was aware, we’d been mid-conversation about the project report we’d
co-written over the weekend; it was fine, but her dick Project Lead had handed
it back to her to re-write some sections. The next logical step was to
discuss which sections, so I had not expected the sudden
180 into a conversation about Bree. “Um. Why would Bree be—”

“—No! Stop. This is
ridiculous. I’m being ridiculous. Of
course she’s not, she wouldn’t keep trying to force-feed me ginger tea for
nausea if she wanted me to suffer.” She turned to me, gave me a critical glare,
and then shoved me. “Listen to me! You’re contagious:
I never worry about stupid crap like that. Do you think I should
re-write that intro, though? Because I swear to god
it’s like the best intro I’ve ever done.”

I blinked. “Um, okay: back
to Ghana,” I said, and then chuckled. “Honestly? I would change a few words,
maybe just alter a couple of sentences, and give it back to him and say you
worked on it all night. He’s wasting your time.”

Sarah gestured at me. “See? This is why you were an
awesome lead.”

I privately disagreed.
“Seriously, though, Sarah, you’ve got more important stuff to worry about than
some power-tripping Lead’s stupid demands.”

Her jaw tightened. “I
know,” she said, and that was a cue for her to check her watch. “6:53,” she
read aloud, her lips pressed in a tight
line. “They told me to buzz in at 7pm.”
She shifted restlessly in her seat.

I reached over and
squeezed her hand reassuringly. “You can call up and cancel the appointment,
Sarah. You don’t have to go in.”

She didn’t look very
reassured. “I know.”

“You can even make it for
another day if you think you just need some more—”

“—Min,” she said,
interrupting me with a tired eye roll. “I know.” Then she made a face. “Sorry,
I get that you’re being supportive. I’m
just…” She exhaled. “I bet I go in there and the whole thing is a total
non-event where I take a pill and then it’s all over, it was just a crap couple
of weeks.”

I didn’t know what to say,
so I just kept squeezing her hand.

After another couple of
seconds, she looked at her watch and groaned. “Okay,” she said. “Okay,
this is it. Wish me luck, Toyboy. See you in an hour or so.”

I managed a smile. “It’s
going to be fine.”

“Famous last words,” she
said with exaggerated drama on the way out of the car. I watched in the rearview mirror as she walked across the car
park to the lift. After she’d stepped into it, I hopped out of the car myself.

I figured I’d just wander
around the city a bit and then, on the off-chance I’d manage to feed it to
Sarah after the appointment, buy some light takeaway for us for dinner.

There weren’t too many
places still open on a Monday night aside from bars and restaurants, but I
wandered up the road towards George Street anyway. I figured one of the larger
malls might still have some shops open. I ended up being wrong, but I did get
the opportunity to spend some quality time practically slobbering all over the
windows at EB Games, making a few notes of titles I thought I might like to buy
later. When it started to push the 45-minute mark, I decided I should probably
start heading back in case Sarah got out early.

There was a restaurant I’d
been to a couple of times open on the way back—Henry had taken me there years
ago, I recognised it immediately—and, after several false starts, I decided
that I’d grab some takeaway from it. I
ordered a couple of things from the counter and looked around me. It had
changed a bit since I’d last been here; they’d repainted it trendier colours
and switched out the furnishings, and now it looked like the kind of place
you’d bring someone to impress them, instead of the cosy family restaurant it
used to be.

I had a bit of a wait while
they were making our dinner, and since I wasn’t sure what the traffic was going
to be like on the way home, I figured I’d just duck into the toilet.

The restaurant wasn’t big
enough to have a disabled toilet; it just had two doors, M and W. After a second
of deliberation I decided it was dark enough and my jacket was big enough to
risk ‘M’. I still found it difficult to push the door open, though. I don’t
know what I expected in a little place like this; inside, there wasn’t a gang
of men with their flies open, all waiting to out me as an imposter, there
wasn’t even a urinal. It was a bit of an anticlimax, actually. There were two
cubicles – probably just like the women’s—so I went into the free one and shut the door.

I’m in the men’s toilets, I thought,
and felt nothing. My next thought was, Min, you’re an idiot, of course
you’re in the men’s toilets.

That made me wonder about
Bree’s comment about me not being in-between at all, but being on a trajectory
towards full trans-man-dom, where I would take testosterone, have all of the
surgeries, and end up well and truly ruining my mother’s life.

There’s no way I can tell her about any of this, I thought, and then worried about
the fact I only had a month to figure out how I was going to make sure I didn’t
have to. If she thought I was marrying Henry, she’d leave me alone. If I could
even just get him to make one phone call to her…

After a little while I
realised I’d been sitting there for ages, and so I finished up and opened
the cubicle door to wash my hands and leave. There was someone standing at the
mirror fixing his tie, and I tried to keep my face turned away in case I looked
at all feminine.

I didn’t even make it to
the hand basins when the other guy took a sharp breath. My pulse jumped. Shit, I thought, he’s onto me!

He had his back to me
because he was facing the mirror, and I glanced up at it to gauge the damage.
As I did, my heart stopped. The person in it was so unexpected that I
almost didn’t believe it. “Henry?”

He gaped at me.
“Min,” he said, frozen mid-tie
straightening. For a second his face lit up, and then it wavered.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him, dimly
aware that my surprised voice was probably identifiably female.

“Um,” he said, and turned
to look pointedly back at the cubicle and then at me. “How much detail would
you like?”

I laughed, feeling a rush of
affection for him. I loved how
sarcastic he was. “How are you?” I asked, taking a step towards him
and looking him up and down; he was wearing a very nice American cut suit with
one of his horrible paisley ties, but at least it matched his shirt today. He
was also freshly shaven with a new haircut. “You look fantastic!”

His eyes clouded. “You do,
too,” he said, but I couldn’t read his tone.

Of course, I thought, catching sight of myself in the mirror. I looked very
different to how I had when I’d been with him. I was about to comment a bit
sheepishly to that effect, when someone else burst into the toilets and made a
beeline for one of the cubicles, startling us both.

We stood there awkwardly
while a whole series of crude noises emanated from the toilet, and then the guy
came back out, spent maybe one second with his hands under the flow
of the water at the basin, and then went
straight out without drying them. Water dripped off the door handle onto the
floor as the door fell shut.

Henry watched it, wincing.
“Welcome to manhood.”

I laughed some more and
washed my hands properly. “Whoops. I guess I’m doing it wrong,” I said, only to
discover there were no hand towels and
the fucking dryer didn’t work. Grimacing,
I wiped my hands on my jeans. “Or not. I guess this is my first rite of
passage. So how are you, anyway? How’s work?”

It was a very automatic question, because right at that moment I was so
delighted about suddenly bumping into him that I’d forgotten I’d been checking
my phone every day to find out about what had happened last week. His
face hardened momentarily. “The usual,” he said very, very vaguely, and then
moved right along to, “How’s Sarah? I
remember you mentioned you were at the doctors’ with her last week,” so I
didn’t even have a chance to ask him for more detail.

I was lost for a second,
I’d wanted to follow up about work.
“Sarah—? Yes, she’s okay. Well, she’s at another appointment now. I’m getting
takeaway for us.”

He smiled. “I always
wondered what it would be like to live with friends. Is it everything they
say?”

That made a big grin
spread across my face. “Yeah,” I said, remembering my surprise party. “It’s
awesome! If I’d known it was going to be this much fun living with people, I
would have moved out of Mum’s place at the beginning of uni like everyone else
did.” I made a face. “Not that Mum would have let me move out, so maybe it’s
better I didn’t know…” Something occurred to me and the grin fell off my face.
“Oh. Oh, god. I hope she’s not still calling you, Henry. I told her not
to, and I’m so sorry that—”

His pleasant smile
abruptly disappeared and he put a hand up to stop me. “She’s not.” He paused.
“Thanks. I couldn’t… well, thanks.”

After mentioning Mum, a silence
stretched between us. He was watching me, and he kept taking these little
breaths like he was going to say something, and then just exhaling. It was the
perfect moment for me to ask him something; maybe find out about what
was going on at work, or ask about his car at the hotel, or why he hadn’t
called me back or if he was okay or tell him how much I missed him
and thank him for everything he’d ever done for me… maybe it would be better to
catch up over dinner, though.  To have a proper conversation, sitting
across from each other just like we always used to.

“Are you here with
someone?” I asked him. He laughed once, humourlessly, and shook his head. My
heart lifted. “Well, do you want some company for a few minutes? I’ll have to
pick up Sarah pretty soon, though.”

“That would be—” he began
with an uncertain smile and then stopped.
He took another breath. “You know, I—” he
said, and then clamped his mouth shut again. I saw the deliberation on his
face, and I could almost track his answer from an automatic ‘yes’ to a very
forced ‘no’ as he closed his eyes shut and then vigorously shook his head.
“Min, I shouldn’t.”

My smile fell. “Why not?”

He took a moment to gather
himself before he finally spoke. “I can’t get over you by having dinner with
you.”

A knot formed in my
stomach. “Even just as friends?”

His jaw was tight. “Yes.”

“But I thought you said
that maybe after some time we could go back to—”

“—Stop. Min, I—” he began gently, and took a heavy breath. Then, he
exhaled. “I constantly wonder how you are and if you’re okay.
I constantly miss picking up my phone and telling you random little
things like how badly I slept or how irritating the traffic is. I was at Dan
Murphy’s and your favourite wine was on special, and I thought, ‘Fantastic, I
can save us some money!’ and I took a step towards the crates before I
remembered there’s no ‘us’ anymore. Even here, in this restaurant: I came in
here before, and you know what my first thought was?” I shook my head. “’I
wonder if Min remembers the time we ate here’.”

Henry… “It was the first thing I thought about when I walked through the door,” I said quietly. “You ordered chicken
parma. I had the salad. It was after your promotion and you had
this enormous smile on your face the whole time, you made all the
waiters smile. They even gave you the bottle of wine for free.”

“I couldn’t help it, I was
on top of the world that night,” he said, smiling at the memory, “I
had everything. It was one of those moments where you look at your future
and it’s so bright and so perfect, and you feel so
lucky for having it in front of you that there’s nothing you can do except
celebrate with everyone around you.” The nostalgic smile faded and he closed
his eyes.

Seeing him standing here,
hunched in the dim light of the men’s, the contrast was stark.

“You do have a
bright future, Henry,” I told him, feeling my own eyes swimming as I tried to
comfort him. “It’s going to be everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”

His face crumpled. “I wish
I could see it right now, Min.” He looked up at me and saw I was on the brink
of tears, and he folded. He took a step towards me—clearly intending to
hug me—and then stopped himself, half-turned with his hands in his hair and
crammed his eyes shut. When he looked up at me again, there was so much
defeat. “I can’t do this. Please, I—I
have such bad judgement when it comes to
you. It’s going to get me in so much trouble. Please,” he begged
me, “please, I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Excuse me.”

He brushed past me out of
the toilets, and the door creaked shut with a gentle thud that echoed off
the tiles. I could hear his quick footsteps retreat down the hallway
outside.

I stood there alone,
staring at my own shocked reflection in the mirror until I couldn’t hear him
anymore.

It was only someone else
bursting into the toilets that made me realise I couldn’t just stand there
forever, and I retraced Henry’s steps out, walking past the front counter of
the restaurant. My eyes automatically searched for him, and I spotted him
sitting along the far wall, staring blankly at his menu. As I was watching him,
I saw him pretend to pat his mouth with the napkin, but instead surreptitiously
use it to dab his eyes. He knew I was here, I was sure of it. But he didn’t
look up.

It was that dismissal—that
final, painful dismissal—that made me realise this might actually be it. That
despite everything that Henry and I had been to each other, despite the fact
we’d dried each other’s tears and shared each other’s joy for four long years,
this might truly be the end of our story.

As I walked out of the
restaurant—away from the first person who’d ever made me
feel special and lovable and valued—I tried to force
myself to accept that. I didn’t even realise that I’d left the takeaway on the
counter back there until I was two blocks away. I didn’t bother turning around
to pick it up.

Well, that was it, wasn’t
it? That was it for Henry and I. There was no escaping July 19 now: I was going
to have to tell Mum that we’d broken up. She was going to come back to live in
Australia in order to sort me out and get me married, and I was either going to
have to go back to living as a woman or face the consequences of telling her
the truth.

And as much as that meant
I basically had a month of freedom left, all I could think about was Henry
eating there at that restaurant all alone, my empty chair across from him. I
was lucky that it was dark because there were tears on my cheeks—I quickly
wiped them on my jacket sleeve at every set of lights—and I arrived back at the
clinic before Sarah was out.

There was a big pharmacy
beside it, and I went inside hell-bent on satisfying a kind of petulant desire
to buy every fucking painkiller they had in stock and just shove them
in my mouth pill by pill and go on one long bender—fuck the universe,
seriously—but when the assistant asked me if I needed any help, I managed to
just give her a tight smile and shake my head.

I went to wait in the car
instead, getting my mobile out and staring at it. I wanted to text him. I
wanted to text Bree, too, but Sarah was due any minute and if I told Bree I
didn’t feel great and then left her hanging, I’d make her really upset,
especially since she knew what I was capable of when I was feeling like this.
Instead, I just sat there and watched the lock screen of my phone fade to
black.

It was nearly 8:30pm when Sarah finally came out of the
clinic. She climbed into the passenger seat, silent. She looked haunted.

At least I didn’t have to
think about Henry anymore. “How was it?” I asked her quietly.

She opened her mouth, but
the sound didn’t come out straight away. “It’s actually a nice place, it’s
really open, all modern furniture and all that. The ladies are all really nice
and friendly.” She took a moment. “When I—when I went to have the ultrasound
they do to make sure you’re not too far along for the abortion pill, they pull
a curtain across so you can’t see the screen and get upset. But I felt like I
needed to look this thing in the face, you know? If I’m going to terminate it,
I should at least see what I’m doing. And they did a print out for Rob so he
can deal better with it, as well, so that was something…”

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate
it,” I told her, hoping it was what she wanted to hear.

She closed her eyes for a
second; I wasn’t sure what that meant. “The doctor took me into another room to answer a series of
questions, so I just basically said what I knew they wanted to hear from me,
and then she popped out this little white pill into my hand.” Her throat
tightened. “And I was sitting there, looking down at this pill and all I could
think about was how sick I feel and how fucked I’d be
without it, and I was going, ‘Sarah, swallow the damn pill, what the hell is
wrong with you’ and I—” Her eyes glazed. “—and I couldn’t lift my hand to my mouth.
I couldn’t do it. I put the little pill back on the desk in front of her. She
looked up at me and asked me if I was sure.” She took a ragged breath. “And I’m
like, ‘of course I’m not sure, what the
hell am I doing?’.” As the colour drained from my face, she turned to look at
me. “So, yeah, that’s that. My life’s
over. I guess I’m having a baby.”

ELEVEN

Neither Sarah nor I had much to say
on the way back. My brain kept circling back around to the likelihood of Henry
completely leaving my life and, as a result, my mother making the rest of
it total hell. It was lucky Sarah didn’t need my input on anything, because I was basically a write-off
for the entire trip.

While we drove, she
unfolded the ultrasound printout that the nurse had given her and spent a great
deal of time just quietly considering it. After we had parked in her driveway, she held it at
me. “Want to see?”

I leant over. It was very
grainy and featured a small crescent-shaped blob.

Sarah took it back,
frowning at the blob. “I think that part’s the baby…”

No one else was home when
we got inside. While she was changing into her pyjamas, I decided I was going
to have a shot at lighting the forgotten potbelly stove in the corner of her living
room on the off-chance that doing so would create a habitable environment for
humans.

It was harder than it
looked, and when Sarah wandered back out in her flannel pyjamas and flopped on
the couch, the pressure of her watching me made me snap a match. “If Rob was
here, he could do it…” she told me, and then sighed and flopped her head back
against the armrest. “It’s better that he’s not.”

I sat back on my haunches.
“It is?”

“He’s going to want to
celebrate, isn’t he? I’m just not feeling it right now.” She groaned and ran a
hand over her face. “God, and not just Rob, either. How the hell am I going to
tell everyone else? I’ll be like, ‘Hey guys, I’m pregnant’ while looking like
I’ve been read a death sentence and everyone’s going to know it’s an accident,
and they’re going to pat me, and apologise to me, and feel sorry for
me and just…”

“You don’t have to tell
everyone straight away, Sarah.”

She exhaled. “I probably
won’t. I mean, there’s no way I can tell work yet anyway. No way. The
project assignment period for Quarter One is coming up, and if Frost finds out I’m pregnant, I’ll be stuck on investment
projects and reporting for literally the rest of my working life.”

“Investment projects are
usually pretty cruisey, though,” I pointed out. “At least it wouldn’t be as
stressful as a project where you need to produce new material.”

She looked disgusted.
“Investment projects are boring as hell, Min, what planet are you on? No way.
There’s just no way. I’d rather be under a lot of pressure than falling asleep
at my desk. The bonuses are crap on those boring projects, too.” She
looked determined. “I just won’t tell anyone there that I’m pregnant until I
absolutely can’t hide it anymore.”

As someone who’d
previously tried and failed to keep a secret at Frost, I felt very uneasy about
her plan. I left it, though. “And the other guys? Gemma and Liz and all that?”

Sarah made a face. “I’ll
tell them soon, I just—I need time.” She let her head fall back on the armrest
of the couch and looked up towards the ceiling. After a few seconds of silence,
she said, “Shit,” and exhaled heavily, turning her head towards me. “I’m making
a big mistake, aren’t I? I should have just swallowed that stupid pill.”

I didn’t have an answer
for her. I didn’t have much at all for her, actually, which was terrible
because I wanted to comfort her. I tried to be useful instead. “You want
something to eat?”

“No,” she said firmly, but
when I got up and returned from the kitchen with a bowl full of dry cereal, she
accepted it from me and gave me a suspicious look. “How did you know that’s all
I’ll be able to stomach?”

I gave her a half-smile.
“It’s all I can eat when I’m stressed out. Cereal, and maybe plain rice.”

I went to go sit down on
the other couch, but she grabbed a handful of my hoodie and pulled me down onto
hers. I nearly spilt my cereal everywhere. “Oh, no you don’t, Toyboy,” she
said, looking directly at my own bowl. “You gave yourself dried
cereal, too. And you’re not pregnant.”

“Maybe I’m eating plain
food in solidarity with you,” I suggested as she put her legs up across my
thighs and leant back on the armrest. She gave me the longest, most sceptical
stare, and I made a face. “Or maybe I ran into Henry while you were in the
clinic.”

“Aha! I knew it
was something, you’ve been really quiet, more so than usual,” she told me, and
had a mouthful of cereal, saying through it, “So are we talking, like, ‘run
into’ as in you totally went all Bree on him and camped outside Frost hoping
he’d leave at some point because—”

“—No,” I told her. “As in, I accidentally bumped into him in the
men’s toilets of a restaurant.” She watched me raptly, and then when I didn’t
continue straight away, made a hand gesture encouraging me to. I sank back into
the spine of the couch and told her what happened.

She reached out and warmly
squeezed my arm afterwards. “Sometimes you can’t stay friends with your exes,
Min.”

I exhaled. “He seemed
really happy to see me, though. At first, anyway.”

She shrugged. “He’s
probably still a bit in love with you. Hence
the ‘I can’t trust myself’. You’ll just have to leave him alone and see what
happens long term.”

I pressed my lips
together. I didn’t like the sound of ‘long term’. “But Mum wants him to propose
to me by his birthday. And I was hoping we’d kind of be talking enough by then
for me to ask him what I should do because he’s really good with her, or to
even get his help to make her believe that everything’s fine with us…”

She did not look
impressed. “…and then you realised that asking him to pretend he’s still with
you while he’s mourning your relationship is really messed up and
totally selfish?”

I grimaced. “Ouch!” I gave her a hard look and she
shrugged. She was right, though. I sighed again. “I know,” I said quietly. “I
just kind of hoped…”

“Tell her.”

I shook my head firmly.
“Not yet. I have to wait for the right time to—”

“—spoilers, Toyboy: the
time is never right to tell your super Christian mum that you’re
trans and into the ladies. Come on, she lives in Korea. You live in
Australia. With all this distance between you, now is as good a time as any,
right? She can cool off before she has to see you.”

God, I could
just imagine Mum’s reaction to that. “She would literally have
me committed if I told her I’m trans, Sarah. I meant telling her that
Henry and I broke up. He actually said it himself: she will totally
bombard us both when she finds out.” I exhaled. “He feels like crap already
right now, and I don’t want to give Mum an excuse to fly down here so I have to
pretend to be a good daughter again. I get that I’ll have to tell her about Henry and me. Just not yet.”

She squinted at me. “Well,
okay,” she said slowly. “But I’m watching you, Mister.” She settled back down
on the arm of the couch and had another mouthful of cereal.

I had one, too. “You’re a
hypocrite,” I pointed out after I swallowed. “You don’t want to tell about
yourself for as long as possible, but you’re telling me I need to come out to
Mum straight away.”

“Maybe,” Sarah told me,
her eyes twinkling. “But I’m also pregnant and you’re living in my house, so
you’d better be careful what names you call me.”

A silence stretched
between as we finished our dry cereal and put aside out bowls so we could relax
and enjoy the five inches of house that
was actually warm. “Do you want to sleep here?” I asked her eventually. “It’s
probably more comfortable for you. I can go and get your doona.”

She stretched. “That’s not
a bad idea,” she decided, and as I lifted her legs and got up to fetch it from
her bed, she called smugly after me, “Some tea would be great, too, thanks!”

When I actually delivered
her doona and the tea she asked for, she at least looked a bit guilty.  “I
was joking about the tea,” she said sheepishly. “But thanks for letting me know
I can totally milk the fact I’m pregnant. Can I have a foot massage, too?”

“Don’t push it,” I warned
her, tucking the doona all around her and then standing up. “Do you actually need anything else?”

“Nah.” She set the tea
aside for a second and looked up at me. “Well, maybe a hug.” I bent down and
obliged. She didn’t let me go straight away, and when she did, her grin was
gone and she kept holding my fingertips. I squeezed her hand and gave her a
gentle smile. She scoffed. “God, we’re disgusting, look at us,” she said, and
pulled me back down for another quick hug. “Gross! Okay, off you go. I need to
spend some quality time sooking by myself
over how much my life is ruined.” I retreated off into my bedroom to let her do
that.

I didn’t go to sleep
straight away, either. It was way too early for me, and my mind kept ticking
back to what Sarah had said about me wanting Henry’s help with Mum.
It was fucking selfish of me to expect him to help, wasn’t it? After
I’d broken up with him, why the hell would he want to do anything for
me?

Because we were friends, I thought immediately, and then felt really
conflicted. He would help if I asked—at least, I thought he probably would.
This was Henry: he’d help almost anyone in the world if they asked for it. That
didn’t make asking him the right thing to do, though. Not after what happened, even
if we had been friends.

I remembered that last
evening on our balcony: his tears, our tears,
as we said goodbye to four long years of being everything to each other. ‘My
soulmate’, he’d called me, and put those words in silver print on the inside of
a ring box.

That drove me to dig it
out of my stuff in the corner of my room. After I found it, I sat cross-legged on the floor and brushed all the fluff
off the black velveteen cover, opening it. Inside, the beautiful solitaire
diamond he’d chosen for me sat nested and forgotten in the stuffing, framed by
the text, ‘…to my best friend and
soulmate, will you be my wife?’

I plucked the ring out of
the box, turning it in the light and
automatically slipping it onto my finger. It fit, but that didn’t matter. I couldn’t
be anyone’s ‘wife’, not even Henry’s.

I looked down at the ring.
Fuck, I was selfish, wasn’t I? What a disgusting thing for me to
assume I had the right to do: use him to help with my mother. He
was mourning not just for our relationship, but for his lost best
friend, his lost soulmate, Miss Min Lee—someone who had
disappeared from his life forever. And me? I wanted to use him to avoid a
difficult conversation with my mother.

It wasn’t just him who
needed to let me go; I needed
to let him go, too. He wasn’t my pillar of strength anymore; I couldn’t rely on
him to help me. It was no use waiting for his phone calls or wondering if he
was okay and what he was up to, none of that mattered. We’d already made our
last memories together. He was gone, and he was asking me to let him go.

It finally hit home: I was
going to have to somehow do all this without him.

I put the ring back in the
box and tucked it away, climbing into bed and pulling the covers all around me.
I felt sick, and even though there were other people who would be there for me
if I needed it and not just Henry anymore, at that moment, Henry was the one I wanted.

I needed to tell someone.
“I miss Henry,” I texted Bree, hoping
she wouldn’t take it personally.

I don’t think she
did. “it wont always hurt <3 <3 <3”

I sent her back a heart emoticon and tucked myself in.

I didn’t sleep well. These
days when I felt like crap, Bree was normally
beside me, warm and sleepy and ready to cuddle with me until I felt better. She
wasn’t tonight, and so I tossed and turned, slept through my alarm and missed
Sarah leaving.

That afternoon, the back
door opened so slowly and with so much restraint I thought it was Rob finally
coming back. It was a bit of a shock when Bree was the one who slunk in, placing her bag by the door and
coming over to wrap her arms around my shoulders over the back of the couch.
“Are you okay?”

I smiled and kissed her
temple. “Yeah.”

She put her chin on top of
my head. “Really?” When I nodded, she exhaled. “Good,” she said, sounding relieved. “I was, like, really, really,
really strong and didn’t ask about how Sarah is because you were upset, but
I’ve been seriously, like, actually dying all
day wanting to know what happened.”

I laughed a bit. “Oh,
right. Sorry, yesterday was….” I shook my head. “Anyway, she couldn’t go
through with it.”

Bree froze for a moment, as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard me
right. Then, she lit up. “Really?” she asked me. “She’s keeping it? She’s
going to have a baby?” I nodded, and her next announcement was, “I’m going to
make them a cake!”

She continued to bubble
with second-hand excitement right up until Sarah herself came home. I reminded
her that Sarah hadn’t told anyone yet and she needed to keep a lid on it, which
meant no congratulations and no surprise cakes. Bree meekly nodded.

Sarah wasn’t inviting
those things, anyway. She dumped her handbag on the table beside us and
announced, “Nobody talk to me. Today is the first day since I was like ten that
I’ve had exactly no caffeine. My head is killing me and I don’t know
what the point of life is anymore.” She flopped down on the couch and pretended
to cry loudly.

Bree and I looked at each
other, and then very quietly continued to go over her Psych homework
together. Sarah did eventually rise from the dead to check Bree’s Chem
homework, but she didn’t stay up much longer after that. After lying recumbent
on the couch and looking up hopefully each time a car passed, she eventually
sighed, conceding, “I guess he’s not coming home tonight, either,” and went off
to bed by herself.

“She hasn’t told him?”
Bree asked me later while I was trying to light the potbelly stove again. I
shook my head. “Wow,” was all she said as she went into my bedroom to retrieve
our doona and pillows and drop them on the couch. She waited for me to finish
lighting the stove and turn off the main lights, and then stood up off the
couch so I could lie down first.

“It’s really warm here
with the fire,” she observed once I was lying on my back, and then glanced
cautiously over her shoulder down the hall towards Sarah’s room. The light was
off. Comfortable that Sarah was in bed, she straddled me with a cheeky grin and
sat heavily across my lap.

I sighed at her. “Sarah
could come out for a glass of water any second,” I said, which was actually
code for ‘I don’t feel like it’. I’m not sure that the prospect of Sarah
catching us would have really bothered me if I did feel like it—I was always fully clothed when we messed
around anyway.

“The chance of getting
caught is why it’s so much fun,” Bree told me innocently,
and then proceeded to unbutton her pyjama top and let it hang open. “How about
now?”

I was a complete
spoil-sport and buttoned it back up again for her, shaking my head.

She exhaled and climbed
off me, slipping underneath the doona and lying against my side. “I thought it
might make you feel better.”

“Maybe it would if I
actually had something for you to sit on,” I told her. “Sorry.”

She tilted her head up to
watch me thoughtfully for a little while
but didn’t comment on what I’d said. Instead, she eventually asked, “You’re not
feeling too great today either, are you?” I shook my head. She considered me
some more. “Is it because you’re going to have to move out soon?”

I grimaced. “Don’t remind
me, I’m basically broke. No, it’s not that,” I told her, sighing. “I ran into
Henry yesterday.” Bree made an ‘oh’ shape with her mouth as I told her
about everything that had happened—I think my texts to her last night finally
made sense—including that I’d realised I shouldn’t enlist Henry’s help with
Mum.

“Poor Henry…” Bree
murmured, thinking on what I said. After
a moment or two, she looked at me again. “So you are going to tell
her, after all? Like, everything? Even about your gender?”

I sighed. “Well, no, but
Sarah thinks I should.”

Bree scoffed. “Sarah’s not
genderqueer,” she pointed out, “or whatever you are.”

Hearing that word was
still really jarring, and I found myself laughing nervously as a
result. “Yeah, or whatever I am.” I thought about my foray into the men’s
yesterday, before I’d bumped into Henry. I hadn’t felt victorious. I hadn’t
even felt uncomfortable. I’d just felt normal, and I wondered if that was
relevant. “Who knows, maybe you guys are right and I will end up as a
straight-up trans guy anyway.”

That piqued her interest.
“Really?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. I’m
still thinking about it.” I took a deep breath and then slowly released it.
“Mum would never accept that if I was. Especially if I got surgery.
Never. ‘God made us all perfect’, and all that.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re
so freaked out about it,” Bree suggested, cuddling into me. It was actually an
interesting point. I considered it as I lay there quietly for a few minutes,
listening to the crackling of the fire and her slow breathing. After a little
while, Bree lifted her head and placed her pointy chin on my shoulder.
“Andrej’s working a late night on Friday. Dad does evenings on a Friday, too.”

I opened my eyes. “Hmm?”

“Mum finishes on time,
usually, and she’s a lot calmer than Dad is about stuff. So,” she said, “I was thinking that maybe you could pretend to
help me carry in some really heavy books or something…?”

I made a face. “I thought
your parents didn’t like strangers in their house.”

She shrugged. “They don’t,
but you’re my boyfriend and I think they’ll kind of be okay to accept that you
might come around sometimes. I’m pretty sure they know I told you everything,
especially since Andrej hit you.”

I didn’t really like the
idea of being treated like an intruder. “Can’t I just invite them to dinner or
something?”

She shook her head. “No
way, they can’t afford it and they’re too fucking proud to let anyone else pay.
This way’s good. Mum will meet you, she’ll tell Dad you’re okay, and then I’ll
make dinner at home for everyone one night, and they’ll see you’re just a
normal regular person and that the only thing people will say about you is that I’m dating an Asian guy.”

“Until Andrej tells
everyone I’m female, that is.”

She lay her head back down
on me. “It’s not like my parents talk to him at all, so he might not even find
out you’ve been around until after we’ve
already told them.”

I
was not looking forward to the whole exercise, but since it was for
Bree, I reluctantly accepted I was going to have to do it. “Okay,” I said. “You
know them best.”

She looked pleased and then snuggled back down into me. I
had thought I probably wouldn’t sleep that well again, but the ambient warmth
and having her cuddled to me meant that I ended up drifting off with my cheek
against her hair. The scent of her vanilla shampoo was becoming familiar and
comforting.

In the middle of the
night—at god knows what time—I awoke suddenly to the sound of the back door
sliding open. My first reaction was panic and I had my hand over Bree’s mouth before
she could say or do anything; this couch had its back to the door and anyone
entering wouldn’t see us. My heart thumped in my chest and pulsed in
my ears and I was flat against the cushions clutching Bree against
me, sure it was robbers, or murderers, or kidnappers, but it was all
over in a fraction of a second when I recognised the sound of Rob’s heavy boots
on the floorboards as he walked through the living room.

I released Bree
soundlessly and exhaled at length, closing my eyes for a moment in relief. Bree
looked absolutely stunned when I opened them again. She didn’t say
anything, though. “Sorry,” I mouthed to her.

From the couch, we could
see all the way up to the end of the hallway, where Rob had turned on the light
and was hanging up his jacket a bit clumsily. While he was stumbling around
taking off his boots, Sarah appeared in the bedroom doorway in her dressing
gown.

He stood up slowly,
discarding his last boot and watching her. He swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

A silence stretched
between them.

She broke it. “Rob, I
didn’t do it.” For a second, it looked like he hadn’t heard her. That, or he’d
misunderstood. He just frowned at her while she repeated, “I didn’t go through
with it.”

He got it this time, and
his brow wavered like he still didn’t really believe what he was hearing. “You didn’t last night, or you’re not going to at
all?”

She took a breath. “I’m
not going to at all.”

He stood and stared dumbly
at her for a moment, as if he was waiting
for the anvil to drop. It never did. “You’re keeping it?” he asked tentatively,
looking afraid of her response. When she nodded, he took a step towards her,
cupping her face tenderly with his big, worn hand. “It’s still in there? Our
little baby’s still in there?” She nodded, and I could see her face crumple. He
put his other hand up to her face and tears welled in his eyes. “We’re going to
have a baby?”

When she nodded, the tears
spilt over his cheeks and he stood there for a moment, frozen and holding her
face, before something came over him and he whipped away from her, marching
back down the hallway towards us. We shrank in the couch, but he didn’t come
into the living room, he went into the kitchen instead. There was the sound of
cupboards opening, and then the fridge, and then the ring and clank of bottles
sliding and banging against each other. Sarah stepped further out into the
hallway, looking confused, as he powered out of the kitchen with a picnic
basket full of unopened beer bottles. He brushed right past her and
went out the front door; there was an almighty racket as
he poured them all out of the basket and into the recycling bin. He
came back in and dropped the empty picnic basket beside his boots.

“What are you doing,
Rob?” Sarah asked him, half-laughing.

“Chucking out all my
beer,” he said, and then looked her up and down. “If you can’t drink, I won’t either. I won’t eat
any of that stuff you can’t have, and if you’re too sick to eat anything, I won’t eat anything. If
you’re going to suffer, I’m going to suffer with you, every day, every day
until you have the baby and every day after,” he said, and then took both her
hands. “I will do everything for you. I will do everything for you, Sares. You
won’t regret this for a second, I’ll make sure of it.”

“You great big oaf,”
she told him, but I could hear her voice was muffled by tears as he wrapped his
arms around her and they kissed soundly, stopping once or twice to smile at
each other. Eventually, they moved back
into the bedroom and closed the door.

Bree and I sat there for a
moment in the fading firelight, digesting what had happened. Bree had tears on
her cheeks, and when I brushed them away with my thumbs, she looked up at me.
“Some people do get happy endings,” she murmured. “Just think about how loved that
kid is going to be. It’s going to be the happiest kid in the world.”

“Don’t jinx them,” I
warned her, and lay back down with my heart still pounding as Bree curled up
peacefully against my side.

TWELVE

“Do you think they’re going to have a
boy or a girl?” Bree asked, gazing wistfully out of the window of my car.

We were parked outside a
playground near her house while we waited for her mum to drive past; Bree’s master plan was that we then
follow her at a distance and ‘bump into her’ at the house as I dropped Bree off
so she could introduce me. That way Bree wouldn’t get into trouble for inviting
people around when she wasn’t supposed to.

We, uh, may have been a
little early, though. And by a little early, I meant nearly half an hour. I was
just worried there might be traffic.

Bree was watching
some children play during our stakeout. “It’s an interesting question,
don’t you think? Boy or girl? Like, why is it the first question people always
ask?”

I cast her a sideways
look. Did I have an opinion about Sarah’s baby being a boy or a girl?
No, no I didn’t. Not at this second. The ‘boy or girl’ question was a little
bit too fucking real for me right now, and not because of Sarah’s baby, but
because I was about to meet my girlfriend’s mum for the first time. She
could not guess I was anything other than a regular cis guy or it
would create a lot of trouble for Bree.

It was pretty rare that
people did guess; I
normally read as a boy in his late teens—thanks to my height, otherwise I’d look 12—and honestly
people only pegged me a female when I’d forgotten to be vigilant about keeping
my voice low. But once people suspected I wasn’t a guy and they looked hard at
me, all the signs were there: softer skin with no sign of stubble, wider hips,
fuller thighs, and my Adam’s apple wasn’t sharp enough… things that my
clothes generally hid or that weren’t obvious enough to bother me as much as my
chest and my groin did. No one usually
noticed them. I usually
didn’t notice them. But right at this second, waiting to meet Bree’s mum, I was
hyper-aware of them and they made my skin
crawl. I might as well have been sitting in my car in a frilly dress with high
heels on for how wrong and gross and disgusting I felt. The lump of silicone in
my pants felt like a weird overcompensation, and my binder was—god—really tight. I tugged at it
and coughed. “She’s going to look at me and know, Bree.”

Bree didn’t seem very
concerned. “Nah, I don’t think Mum even really knows what ‘transgender’ means.”

Not convinced, I stared at
my reflection in the sun visor. “I should have worn my big hoodie,” I told her.
“And my baggier jeans. These are too tight.”

She twisted back towards
me in her seat. “You look great in them! You don’t need to wear a tent to look
like a guy.” She gave me a cheeky grin and her eyes dipped to my groin. “Plus you can see the packer better when
they’re tighter...”

That made me feel
even more self-conscious, and I hated that feeling. I
thought I was past it, honestly. I
shifted in my seat. The last thing I wanted was to draw any sort of
attention at all to my crotch, or my hips, or my—

“Min,” Bree said,
laughing, and completely abandoned the window to lean across the car and give me an awkward hug. “Oh my god, chill,
it’s going to be fine.”

“What if it’s not,
though?” I asked her. “Even aside from the fact I’m trans, what if she’s really
angry that I’m visiting when I’m not supposed to, or she’s angry about Andrej
and the police stuff, or something else, what happens then? I’m not sure I
could handle being yelled at by your mother.”

Bree was still wrapped
around my middle across the handbrake. “Nah, she wouldn’t yell at you. She
wouldn’t say anything. She’d just tell Dad later when he got home from night shift. Nothing will happen to you, I
promise.”

I didn’t miss the
deliberate way she’d phrased that. “What will happen to you, though?”

Her eyes glazed as she sat
back up and shrugged dismissively. “Nothing, because it’s totally going to
be fine. Do you actually think I’d, like, intentionally put us in a situation
that’s likely to fuck up and backfire and make everything worse for us?”

“Well, not intentionally.”

She poked me. “Hey!” she
said. “Like, seriously, I understand why you’re so worried, but Mum’s not scary
or anything like your mum. Like, she’s nothing like your mum, and she will
assume you’re a guy. Just wait and see.”

The worst four words in
the English language, I decided, watching the kids bounce around with each
other in the playground while I scrutinised their parents. Some of the
fathers had bigger boobs than I did, and all the men were different shapes. No
one was questioning if they were
guys or not.

Bree’s right, I thought, taking a few slow breaths. I needed to calm the
fuck down. I was going to meet Bree’s mum for literally a minute, if that, and
short of Bree accidentally using the wrong pronouns for me, her mum wasn’t
going to guess I was female. Come on, I’d sold multimillion-dollar contracts to
people in broad daylight who’d never suspected I wasn’t male. The fact I felt wrong didn’t mean I looked wrong.

Probably the biggest
hurdle for us wasn’t even my gender at all—at least, not on this first meeting— it was Bree’s blanket
ban on inviting people over. That was why Bree had engineered a legitimate
situation for me to need to be dropping her off: she’d borrowed half the school
library and piled it all into her bag. It seemed reasonable enough. All I had
to do was apologise to her mum, shake hands, and leave. I could do this, I
decided. I could definitely do this. I’d taken a lot bigger risks in my life.

So, now all we needed to
do was wait for Bree’s mum to drive past. I checked the clock on the dash;
she’d be past any minute. My pulse leapt.

While I had been idly
wondering what kind of person Bree’s mum was and whether she’d like me, Bree
had been quietly watching the kids outside again. She turned back to me. “I
kind of don’t want to ask,” she said a bit hesitantly. “But are you ever going
to be able to introduce me to your mum?”

I made a face. I could
imagine how that would go. “As a friend, maybe.”

“Would it help if I learnt
some Korean?” she asked. “You know, to be polite?”

“The only thing that would
help is if you were Korean,”
I told her, and leant over to kiss the top of her head. “Mum’s English is fine,
but she thinks white people are basically sin
incarnate.”

“Oh,” she said, and then
peered down at her ample cleavage and the pearl nested in it. Looking a bit
sheepish, she did a couple of buttons up and brushed her skirt smooth to cover
more of her thighs. Unfortunately, with her strained buttons, she still
couldn’t help looking like sin incarnate. “Well, maybe one day you can
introduce me, anyway.”

“Maybe,” I said, not
really liking the chances but also not wanting to hurt her feelings. Mum
wouldn’t approve of her, and she probably wouldn’t try and hide her disapproval
which would hurt Bree’s feelings. While I was trying to figure out how I would
go about it, something caught Bree’s attention.

She looked up in the
rearview mirror and then spun around in
her seat. A beaten up old grey commodore rattled past. “That’s Mum!” she said,
pointing. “That’s her car!”

My heart pounded.
Here we go, I thought, my hands shaking as I twisted the ignition.

Bree’s mum’s car wasn’t
difficult to follow; it stood out amongst the expensive four wheel drives and
prestige cars parked along the side of the road. It was loud, too—it obviously
hadn’t had a service in a while and the exhaust pipe was spluttering. The
biggest challenge wasn’t keeping sight of it, it was keeping enough distance
between us so it wasn’t clear I was following her.

Bree looked a bit
embarrassed as we passed yet another family piled into their new
Merc. “We used to have nice cars,” she told me. “Before everything. I mean, not
Mercs. But nice ones.”

“I’m not judging you,” I
told her. “I can’t afford this one. I’ll need to get rid of it soon and replace
it with something like your mum drives.”

“Oh…” Bree said, and then
absent-mindedly stroked the butter-soft leather seat beside her legs.

We lost Bree’s mum in some
side streets close to her house, and then Bree just directed me back home
herself, figuring she’d get there before us anyway. Concerningly, though, when
we pulled into Christmas Court, the grey Commodore wasn’t outside the front of
her house.

Bree only looked a bit
annoyed. “Well, she can’t be that far away. Just pull up near the front and
we’ll wait and pretend we just arrived.”

I did as she instructed,
and we sat there and waited for a couple minutes. The sun had well and truly
set, and all the streetlights were
starting to come on. Another car pulled into the court—it was too dark to see
what type—but it parked up near the mouth of the court anyway.

“Maybe she went to the
shops first?” I suggested, when after more waiting she didn’t come.

“There are no shops around
here,” Bree told me, making a face. “And she wouldn’t be visiting anyone, not
after work.” She twisted around in her seat and looked out the back window. “I
wonder where she went?”

We were sitting there
wondering what to do, when the car that had parked up the mouth of the court
suddenly turned its headlights on high beam, flooding the interior of my car
with light. Then, it accelerated really loudly
and really quickly directly towards us—I instinctively grabbed Bree
and yelled, trying to shield her from the impact—but it stopped in a
screech before it hit us, leaning heavily on the horn for a good
three seconds right next to my door. In the rearview
mirror, I could see the roof of the car lit by the streetlights: it was grey.

Bree noticed at the same
time I did. “What’s she doing?” she asked me in a frightened shriek, “Why
is she doing this?”

I couldn’t answer. As the
car reversed, I was terrified it was going to accelerate forwards
and plough into us—at least it would be me who got hit and
not Bree—but it just swung around and parked very close behind us and honked at
length again.

When we didn’t move, a
tiny and plump woman with frizzy blonde
hair and a very distressed expression surged out of the drivers’ side of the
Commodore, coming right up to my window and thumping on it.

“Stop bothering my
family!” she shouted through my tinted windows. She had quite a strong accent.
“Do you hear me? Go! Get away from here! Stop bothering us!” She wasn’t looking
at either Bree or me; clearly she
couldn’t see through the dark glass.

I sat there, frozen solid,
my heart hammering my ribcage, with one hand protectively on Bree and
the other on the ignition. I had no idea what was going on. How did
she know this was my car…?

Bree looked absolutely
horrified for a few seconds while her mum thumped and shouted at us,
her mouth wide open like she had no idea what was going on, and then,
suddenly, something occurred to her. “Oh my god!” she said, breathing a sigh of
relief. “Oh my god! Of course,
you’re driving a black sedan: she thinks you’re a debt collector!”

Without waiting for me to
say anything, she undid her seat belt and opened the door before I could grab
her.

“Mum!” she called,
rounding the car. “Mum, it’s okay! It’s me! It’s just me! Min was dropping me off because I have a really
heavy bag today!”

Her mum stopped drumming
on my car and took a step back, looking from Bree to my window, confused. She
didn’t say anything straight away, but when she did, it wasn’t in English. Bree
didn’t reply in English, either, which sent my eyebrows way up; I had
no idea she could speak any other
languages. Maybe I should have guessed; she was Serbian, after all, and her
parents migrated here just like mine did.

While I was watching them,
Bree turned and made an enthusiastic gesture to me to get out of the car. Her
mum didn’t look so happy. My legs felt weak, but somehow I managed to push
the car door open and step out shakily onto the road beside them.

Bree’s mum was tiny, even
shorter than Bree was, and she looked like an older, plumper version of Bree.
The most obvious thing about her was how tired she looked, though,
especially next to her energetic daughter. Tired and withdrawn, and she had
big, deep bags under her eyes.

“Mum, this is Min, my
boyfriend,” Bree said in English, presenting me to her mum. I nodded politely
at her. “Min, this is my mum.”

She didn’t make any sort
of move to shake my hand, so I had no idea if I was supposed to do that or not.
For a second she just stared up at me, and I realised she was looking at the
new scar along my cheekbone. The scar her son had given to me. “Erm,” I
managed, “Pleased to meet you, Mrs Dejanovic.”

“Vera,” she corrected me, as if there was any fucking chance in hell
I’d ever call her by her first name.

I wasn’t sure if I should
mention what just happened, but it seemed ridiculous to pretend everything was
fine. “I’m sorry we scared you.”

She didn’t say anything to
me except giving me the shallowest, most suspicious nod, and then turned and
said something to Bree in Serbian. For my benefit, Bree replied in English. “No,” she said. “No way! Min just thought
it would be rude if he dropped me off and there was no one home, especially
since he hasn’t met you.”

Mrs Dejanovic looked back
up at me, her eyes travelling from my face to my shirt to my shoes. All the
colour drained from my face as she inspected me. Any second, I thought, any second she
was going to find evidence of what I was hiding from her. She didn’t out me as an imposter, though. After she’d
given my Lexus the same scrutiny, she just nodded, and there was
something really guarded about her. “Okay,” she said, and waved her hand at the house. “Help
Briana.” Then, she slumped a little and headed back towards the Commodore to
get her own belongings out.

When she turned away, I
felt like an enormous weight had been lifted from me, and I
practically sighed with relief. God. I was shaking, I had no idea how I was going to carry Bree’s heavy bag in
for her. I somehow managed to hoist it up and sling it over my shoulder,
scaling the five stairs up to the front door as Mrs Dejanovic let us in.

Bree’s house was
unremarkable inside; through the door to the living room I could see unwashed
mugs and dirty plates by the armchairs—Mrs Dejanovic moved ahead to quickly close that door as I went
past—and I think I spied a sink full of dishes in the kitchen too, but that
door was also quickly closed.

“I’m sorry I can’t invite
you to stay,” Mrs Dejanovic told me shortly, standing in front of the closed
door. “I have errands to run. I hope you understand.”

I smiled politely and
nodded at her, and then let Bree lead me past many doily-laced side tables
covered in glass bowls and porcelain knick-knacks, up a narrow flight of wooden
stairs to the second storey. The carpet was short-weave
and old with roses on it, and the whole house had mismatched antique furniture
with pretty, ornate decorations. There was something fiercely European about
that.

Compared to the rest of
her home, Bree’s room was very different: when she ushered me in, it was bright
and cheerful with colourful printouts Blu-tacked all over the wall. She closed
the door behind her, turned around, and let loose a muted squeal. “We did it!”

I dumped her bag on the
floor and sank down onto her bed, still shell-shocked. Her reaction
made no sense to me, I was still shaking like a leaf.
“You’re cheering about that?”

She presented her room.
“You’re here, aren’t you? It worked! I didn’t think she’d actually let you
inside!”

I could hear my pulse in
my ears. I shook my head incredulously at her. “I thought you said your dad is the scary one?”

Bree bounced over to me.
“Don’t worry about Mum,” she told me. “If she hated you, she wouldn’t have let
you in. Obviously, despite that whole car-thing,
she’s okay with you. You should probably go pretty soon, though. She’ll get
nervous if you hang around too long.”

I was already too nervous
and I’d been in here for thirty seconds. There was no way I could relax
here, this house felt tense. The hallways were like long display
cases full of delicate, fragile items, and everything felt dark and quiet like
a museum. Bree’s room was the only exception; the only thing missing was a lock
on the door.

“So, what do you think?”
she said, doing a spin.

I cast my eyes around her
room; it was big and airy with a single bed, a bookcase full of books, and a double-mirrored
wardrobe that was covered with hundreds of stickers. Most of the activity was around her bed, though, which was pushed up
against the window. Her three plush animals were tucked into an old hand-made
patchwork quilt, and the wall behind the
foot of her bed was covered in art printouts. Some of them were
magazine cut-outs, there were a few that looked like someone had drawn Bree as
an anime character, and the others… “I
recognise these,” I said with a grin. The rest were all mine. It was the first
time I’d seen many of them printed out.

“Here,” she said, pushing
me down on the bed and squishing in beside me on the tiny mattress so we were
lying facing the wall. “See? When I lie here at night, the streetlight hits
them and I can look at them as I go to sleep, especially the forest one.” She
pointed at it. “That one’s my favourite. There’s something really peaceful
about it. When I look at it, I
can feel the quiet and the solitude of it. It’s really
relaxing.”

I remembered painting that
one; it had been an exercise in filter-down light, I hadn’t thought much of it.
That someone had printed it out and gazed at it every night was… well, it was
beautiful. It gave the painting new life, somehow. It gave it spirit. “I did
that years ago,” I realised.

Bree smiled. “Yeah. I was
too shy to talk to you back then.”

I turned my head towards
her. “You?” I asked. “Too shy?”

She giggled and was about to say something about
that, when suddenly her smile fell and her body stiffened. She turned her head
towards the rest of the house—I didn’t realise what was happening until I heard
footsteps on the stairs. They paused at the top of the staircase near Bree’s
door, and for a second, all I could hear was the sound of my pulse as Bree held
her breath.

Any moment, I expected the
door to swing open and Bree’s mum to catch us lying together in Bree’s bed.
What would happen if she did, I didn’t know. She certainly knew how to shout; I’d discovered that in my car. She’d
been hammering on the window, too. I didn’t doubt that her arms, however short, were strong enough to grab me and
drag me out of her daughter’s bed.

After a tense few seconds,
the footsteps continued up the hall, presumably to another bedroom.

Bree let out her breath.
“You should probably go,” she said. “I think Mum really meant it when she told
you to be quick.”

I exhaled. My heart was
still going. “How can you live here?” I asked her as we both sat up. “I think
I’d literally have a heart attack.”

She shrugged and didn’t
explain. She just carefully tucked her haggard
old plush toys back under the quilt after we’d disturbed them. When she was
done, she stood and looked hopefully at me. “Before you go, can I get a photo
of you on my bed?”

I gave her a strange look.
“Um?”

She went and grabbed her
phone out of her bag. “Please?” she said, holding it and watching me. “It’s
surreal, you being here. I spent so long lying in that bed imagining you were
there with me.”

Well, there seemed to be
no real reason to say no to that, so I hesitantly lay back down again. At least
she was asking this time. “Erm. What do you want me to do? Just lie
here?”

That cheeky grin returned
to her face. “Do I have options?” she asked innocently. I gave her a tired
look, but I must have been grinning a bit as well, because she said,
“Stop! Yeah! I like it when you do that!” and snapped a couple of pics.

When she showed them to
me, I figured it was my kind of sly half-grin she liked, but it was difficult
for me to focus on that because with my legs crossed at the ankles, the packer
was pushed upwards in my pants. “Fuck,” I said, and immediately reached down
and pulled at the fabric of my jeans. “I look like I have a semi.”

“Only in the photo,” she
said with a smirk as she gazed indulgently at it. “I know you have mixed
feelings about that thing, but it really gets you over the line. There was no
way Mum was going to guess. She won’t know about you until we tell her.”

God.
After today, I was not looking
forward to that conversation. Not at all. Especially if her dad
was worse than her mum.

At her bedroom door, I
took her hands. “Are you sure you don’t want to come home with me tonight?”

She shook her head. “How
weird would that look? You drop me over and then we leave again? Nah, it’s
fine. And she won’t tell Dad that she yelled at you and made a fool of herself
because then he’ll get angry with her, so…”

I winced. “I don’t like
you staying here, Bree. Honestly, you could move into my room at Sarah’s. She
wouldn’t mind.”

She shrugged. “I’m not
here that often anymore, anyway,” she pointed out. “Plus, all I have to do
tonight is some homework and watch a movie for English. Andrej won’t be home
until way later, and Dad won’t be home until after midnight, and he’ll probably
go straight to bed. I’ll be fine.”

I still felt uncomfortable
with it, even if I knew she’d be over tomorrow to spend the weekend with us at
Sarah’s. “Okay,” I said, and went to give
her a quick kiss goodbye. She didn’t let me get away so easily, and our kiss
only ended when I made a strangled noise because she grabbed my packer and
surprised me.

“Sorry,” she said, but she
was batting her eyelashes and not looking at all sorry as she opened the
bedroom door to lead me out.

Mrs Dejanovic was standing
in the bathroom opposite the stairwell trying to flatten the frizz out of her
hair just like Bree did every morning, and she locked eyes with me in the
mirror. She had bobby pins in her mouth. I smiled more out of shock than
anything else and nodded my head once,
respectfully. Her face softened as Bree lead us down the stairs.

Mrs Dejanovic shouted
something to Bree in Serbian—not angrily, but the shouting in front of me was
still weird—and to my surprise Bree shouted back at her. My Mum would have
seriously killed me if I’d shouted at her, especially in front of a
guest, but Bree didn’t seem worried at all.

“What did she say?” I
quietly asked Bree, when we were at the door.

“She told me to take the
rubbish out, and I asked her if I could maybe take you out first,” she
translated, like talking back to her parents was completely normal and
ordinary.

After she’d opened it, I
glanced towards the stairs to make sure it was safe, and then kissed her
briefly again. “Thanks for having me,” I said automatically.

She laughed. “Thanks for
not, like, actually dying after Mum pretended to be about to ram your car, and
then yelled and banged on your window.”

I kissed her once again, and then tried to walk steadily down her
front stairs with my wobbly legs and get into the car. After what had happened
I didn’t want to spend any time sitting there, so I immediately started it and
drove off. Bree was waving at me from the doorstep with a peaceful smile.

It wasn’t until I was out
of the suburb that I was able to relax at all, though. It was like Bree’s home
had a menacing aura around it because of what I knew had happened there; such a
pity, because it really was a very
beautiful house. I wondered how long they were going to be in it before it got
foreclosed on.

I felt horribly, horribly guilty that I hoped it would
happen soon so Bree could just move in with me. I didn’t sleep well knowing she
was alone in that house, and now that I knew it was every bit as tense as Bree
had described it to me, I was even keener to get her out of there for good. I
wanted her somewhere safe where she could focus on her study, even if for
some completely fucking inexplicable reason she wanted to
go back there all the time.

I exhaled as I merged onto
the M1 on the way back to Sarah’s. Now that Sarah was keeping her baby, I had
to move out of her place at some point in the near future anyway, didn’t I? It
occurred to me that maybe I could lure Bree out at the same time; if Sarah was
due in November or December, it would be
after Bree’s studies were finished, and a really great time to start fresh in a
new place, with our pasts behind us.

That was an unexpectedly
really pleasant thought… at least, right until the part where I realised there
wouldn’t be any way I could explain living in a one-bedroom apartment with Bree
to Mum. We couldn’t just get two bedrooms to avoid that, either: this
was Sydney. I’d be lucky if I could afford a place with both
electricity and a roof.

God, and why was I even thinking about
November anyway? I only had until July 19 to either come clean to Mum about Henry, or make her think everything was okay
for long enough so I could figure out what the hell I could do to prevent
her from coming to Australia.

And I had three weeks to figure
out how the fuck I was going to do that.

THIRTEEN

I successfully managed to avoid Mum’s
calls all weekend—I was a fucking Phone Tag Champion, I swear to god—but my
luck ran out on Monday, when she stopped trying to catch me and just started
leaving passive-aggressive voicemails again instead. I spent twenty minutes
mentally preparing myself to call her back, but when I did, in the middle of
lecturing me about ‘being a better communicator’, Grandma knocked something off
a surface in the background and she had to go.

Since I’d braved
actually talking to her, I didn’t feel obliged to listen to her
stupid messages, so I left my phone on the table where I couldn’t see it
flashing, and went to sit by the potbelly stove with Wedding Dresses for the Tall Woman. I was flicking through it and
hoping some ingenious idea of how to handle Mum would come to me when the back
door slid open.

Sarah gave me a bit of a
weird look about the book, but was
obviously having her own crisis. “Min,” she said, standing in the middle of the
living room facing me. She gestured to herself, and announced with shocking
gravity, “One of the pricks from Marketing asked me if I ‘have a new bra
on or something’ today.”

I was struggling to
understand how this was different from every other day. “This just in: Frost
Marketing Execs Are Sexist Wankers?”

She rolled her eyes. “No,”
she said. “Well, yes, but no. My boobs are getting bigger. I can feel it,
they’re so fucking sore. Obviously people can see it, too. Shit,” she
said, holding the fabric of her top against her front. “What do you think, is
it noticeable?”

Feeling a bit
uncomfortable, I considered her chest. “Um,” I said. Unsurprisingly, they
looked big. “I don’t know, they’ve always been big anyway?”

She sighed at me and
flopped down on the other couch. “You’re no help. Ugh. My favourite blouse
is too tight, which doesn’t make any sense because I’ve hardly been eating. Not
unless my rack is exponentially bigger and I’m becoming a milk whale. I’m
retaining all the water in the ocean, my ankles are the size of tree-trunks,
and I hate everything. I can’t even have a wine.
I can’t have anything except those disappointing pretentious teas that smell
amazing and taste terrible. All the joy in my life is gone forever.”

I reached over and rubbed
her leg. “You don’t look any different than you did last week, Sarah,
honestly,” I told her. “Besides, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard people say there’s
a lot of joy to be had in motherhood.”

Sarah opened her eyes just
enough to squint at me. “I am deeply suspicious of those people,” she said.
“Especially right now, with my enormous sore boobs. God. The internet
told me I had at least a couple more months that I’d be able to hide it—but not
if I’m going to swell up like a water balloon. And if people can’t tell by
looking at me that I’m pregnant, they can seriously just take one look at Rob:
he’s practically swinging from the
chandeliers. The clock is really ticking on how long I can keep this under
wraps, at least around friends and family.”

I gazed down at my book.
“I hear you on that one,” I said, joining her in a sigh.

At that, she turned her
head towards my couch and frowned at me. Her eyes were travelling between Wedding Dresses for the Tall Woman and
mine. “Okay, I don’t know Korean but I’m pretty sure I know what that is. From
Mummy Dearest?” I nodded and stood for a second to pass it to her. She flicked through
it. “Well, I can read this at least,” she said, holding the cover at
me, where the only word Mum had written in English letters was ‘Henry’. She
passed it back to me. “July 19’s his birthday, right? What day is it now? Like…
July 4?”

I put the book aside.
“Yeah.”

Sarah rested her head back
on the couch. “Well, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but that’s screwed up,
just randomly buying your daughter a book of wedding dresses. Why is she so
totally obsessed with marriage, anyway?”

I shrugged. “She’s just
traditional. Plus, she’s had a really hard life and she’s just doing what she
thinks is best for me so I don’t have one too.”

Sarah wasn’t buying it. “I
had a few Asian friends in uni with traditional folks who’ve had hard lives,
but they weren’t anywhere near as hardcore as your mum. What’s her deal?”
Something occurred to her, and she sat up a bit. “Wait, maybe she knows already?
Like, about your gender stuff?” I looked alarmed and shook my head. She sat
forward, still frowning. “I don’t know, Toyboy, it just seems a bit too
hardcore to me. That’s all I’m saying.”

I just shrugged again.
Honestly, the topic of my mother exhausted me. I couldn’t stop
fucking thinking about it.

“Anyway, I’m going to go
put on something comfier.” She heaved herself upright. “Where’s your
Schoolgirl, anyway? Isn’t Monday night Chem night?” she called back to me as
she went up the hallway.

I didn’t answer her until
she got back in her dressing gown. “Her dad’s off night shift, so she needed to go home and eavesdrop on her parents
to find out what her mum thought of me.”

“Ah,” Sarah said, sounding
interested. “How did it actually go? Is her mum crazy, too? I’ve been
wondering about the type of family that produces someone like Bree. I bet they’re all a bit nuts.” She’d stopped in the
middle of the living room and was looking at something on the table.

I made a non-committal
sound. I wasn’t telling her Bree’s secrets. “They’re okay.”

Sarah went to collect what
had caught her attention from the table and placed it innocuously on the arm
beside me. It was my phone and my LED was still flashing from before. She
didn’t mention it. “Come on, dish! Have they been Facebook-stalking their
daughter’s boyfriend, too? Did they already know everything about you? Bree’s
got basically no boundaries, she must have got that from somewhere.”

I looked back up at her;
that was an interesting observation, but she didn’t get it from her family.
“Actually, no. Bree’s mum looks like her, but that’s where the similarities
end.” I paused. “Besides, Bree’s getting better with all that. She asked me
before she took a photo of me on her bed. She never would have done that a few
months ago.”

Sarah missed the important
part of what I’d said and zoomed right in on something I should have kept my
mouth shut about. “A photo of you on her bed,” she repeated, looking amused.
“Gee, I wonder what she wanted that for.”

I groaned aloud. “Sarah.
It was pretty innocent,” I told her, not mentioning how interested Bree had
been in how my packer looked.

She smirked. “I have some
photos like that of Rob,” she said, holding her phone up and waggling it.
“They’re ‘pretty innocent’ too. Want to see?” Her eyes were twinkling.

I sighed at her. “I would
say ‘fuck you’, but I think that’s gotten you into quite a lot of trouble
lately.”

She laughed and put the
phone back in the pocket of her dressing gown. “I’m kind of disappointed in
you, Min. The door was so totally wide open for you to say ‘go fuck
yourself’.”

I made a strangled noise.
“Thanks for the glorious mental image. I don’t think I’ll be telling
you to do that.”

She looked up at me with a
grin. “Oh, you don’t need to,” she said faux-sweetly. “And apparently, you
don’t need to tell Schoolgirl, either.” She winked.

I groaned and
jammed my eyes shut. “Thanks for that!” I told her sarcastically, granted with
a really intrusive image of Sarah doing exactly what she’d just hinted at.

“Serves you right,” Sarah
told me, picking up my flashing phone and dropping it in my lap. I jumped.
“Stop putting things off, Mister.”

As she fished a USB out of
her handbag and sat down at her computer presumably to do work, I twisted in
the seat. “I’m not putting things off. I actually already spoke to
Mum, Sarah. Those are just the two voicemails she left before I did.”

“Uh huh, you’re not
putting anything off at all, not Min Lee,” Sarah said, glancing up at me
from her laptop with a smirk.

Now she was just messing
with me. I rolled my eyes. Well, if she was going to do some work now, it meant
that the bathroom was free, and I was free not to hang around here and be
messed with. I stood. “I’m going to have a shower.”

“I know what you’ll be
thinking about in there!” she called oh-so-innocently after me, basically
guaranteeing that I would switch the colour-coded caps on her shampoo and
conditioner again.

Unlike Bree’s bedroom,
Sarah’s bathroom had a lock. I can’t even explain how much of a relief it was
when I moved in and discovered it; I’d never had locks on doors in the tiny
little flat I’d lived in with Mum when I was growing up.
Mum always barged into the bathroom to go to the toilet while I was
in the shower.

A bathroom lock was like a
godsend. It made a loud noise when I latched
it, though. I paused for a second afterwards, wondering if Sarah thought I’d
locked the door because I was in here masturbating like she was teasing me
about. I caught sight of my female figure in the mirror and made a face at
it. As if, I thought,
turning on the water. What the hell did I do with that, anyway? I
had zero desire to interact with it, and the only time I’d ever
even considered touching myself was when Henry had asked me if I’d do
it for him once. When I said no, he’d never asked again. Just the idea of doing
it made me feel a bit gross and wrong and uncomfortable.

After I'd switched Sarah's
shampoo and conditioner so she'd mix them up and get annoyed, I had assumed
that’s where thinking on the subject ended. I was wrong. While I was standing under the flow of warm water, my brain kept
wandering back to the thought of Bree using that photo of me to imagine us
having sex. If she did, judging from the way she’d responded to my packer being
so obvious, she was probably imagining
that I had a dick.

I looked down my body; at
my breasts, my hips, and between my legs. I didn’t blame her for imagining it differently, because I certainly did. I pressed
my breasts flat against my ribs for a couple of seconds and considered that
change. I wasn’t particularly bothered by not having a dick, but I still wasn’t
happy with the shape of my body elsewhere.

Testosterone would fix that, I thought, and for just a second I seriously
considered starting the process of getting injections. Then I remembered I’d
lose my androgynous voice—something I could definitely not hide from Mum—and that my
smooth body would get all hairy. Testosterone wouldn't fix my chest, either,
only surgery could fix that. Surgery was seriously a last resort, though. Not
only because I hated doctors, but also because Mum's habit of
constantly walking in on me all the time—“You really think your own mother has
never seen you naked before?”—meant she would pretty quickly find out.

I let go of my breasts and
leant my forehead against the warm tiles to consider all that. I wondered
if that body, the reconstructed one, was the one that Bree imagined
when she fantasised about us. Was her
expectation that I might end up being a trans guy at least a little bit
motivated by wanting me to
end up being a trans guy? And was her thing about my packer kind of indicative
of not really liking what was already there? Maybe, I thought. Then again, even though I’d never let her touch
me beneath my underwear before, she’d wanted to, and she’d quite enthusiastically
offered to go down on me more than once. It didn’t seem like something she’d
offer unless she was actually happy with what I had.

The question was eating me
up, and since my phone was in the pocket of my hoodie on the bathroom floor, I stepped
out of the shower for a second and dried my hands so I could text her about it.

“haha where did that question come from????” she replied. “yeah i
guess i do imagine you have a dick
sometimes??? not always though
because you dont and its nice to think about what i could do for you when you let me…….. :) :)”

I made a face, reading
over that answer as I sat on the edge of the slippery bathtub. “Would you prefer if I had one though? You seem to really like my packer…”

“yeah of course because its
something you actually let me touch!!! but id touch whatever was there if i
could…….................. ;)”

I turned the phone over in
my hands. But you never try to,
I thought, and couldn't decide if that was because she was being sensitive about how
uncomfortable I was with my body, or because she actually wasn't that
interested. “Please be honest with me,
Bree, I mean it: are you just saying that
to make me feel better or is it actually true?”

“omg why do you think im lying to you??? i never lie to you about this
stuff  :( :( :( i promise im not........ :( :( why are you suddenly so
worried about it??? did something
happen???”

That was a lot of sad
faces, especially when she'd started off with happy ones. I winced; that was my
fault. “I’m sorry to grill you, I didn’t
mean to suggest you’re lying.” I had a think for a bit before I
decided how to continue.  “Nothing
really happened, but I'm just stressed out in general because I still have no
fucking idea what to do about Mum. I
don't know if I CAN do anything.”

“ooohhhhh” she texted me, and then followed with, “would she really come back here though?? shes not just saying it to scare
you into marrying him??”

I wouldn’t have put it
past Mum to try scaring me into doing something, but I didn’t think that’s what
she was doing this time. “No, she means
it.”

“how does she think that will help though seriously?? its
not like she can physically force you to marry someone you broke up with...
will she just nag you or shout at you or something??”

God. I didn't know how to
explain her. “There are so many ways to
force someone to do something.” Bree sent me a series of question marks, so
I replied, “Once in primary school I was
friends with this girl who had parents that were really hippy and alternative. Mum didn’t like it, so she hassled the
teacher, and the principal, and the girl’s parents, and eventually everyone
just got sick of her and wanted nothing to do with me.” That was only the
beginning, too. I had so many fucking examples. Immediately after I
sent that message, I started another one with, “And another time she didn’t like that I got a job while I was at uni,
so she came and just sat in the store and stared at me until I had to quit
because she was creeping out the other employees and customers.” I was sure
Bree couldn't read as fast as I was typing. “And she wouldn’t let me fucking go anywhere. And when I’d tell her
that, she’d gesture to the door and be like, ‘Go then! I’m not stopping you, go
wherever you want!’ but we lived way out in the South-Eastern Suburbs and I
could only get to places by train, and she never gave me any money to do that.”

It took Bree a minute or
so to read through it. “wow… :( :(
:(”

I sighed. “Yeah. Sometimes I used to think maybe I
should just change my address, and my number, and not answer her calls again. I
can’t now because she’d hassle Henry until she found me.” I sighed aloud
and put my damp face in my hands for a second. Who was I kidding? “I can’t do that anyway because there’s only me, Mum and Grandma, and Grandma’s old
and sick. I am literally the only family member who’s really left, I can’t just
fucking disappear on her. Especially since she gave up everything and her whole
life to come here and give me a brighter future and a good education. I mean,
she’s a qualified accountant in Korea, but here she had to work as a cleaner
for 15 years. She did all of it for me.”

“and so you feel like you owe her??"

Feel like? “I DO owe her.”

“no one owes anyone so much that they should marry someone theyre not in love with.... or like pretend to
be someone who theyre not :( :(”

I laughed bleakly. The
sound echoed off the tiles. “And yet I
managed to do it for years.”

“yeah and you were fucking miserable min,”
she reminded me, “you were so fucking
miserable when i met you...... i dont
want to watch you go back to that..... i dont care who she is :( :( i dont
want to watch you go back to pretending to be a woman and pretending to be
happy but actually being miserable and suicidal just because you feel
guilty... ”

I sighed. “I don’t want that either, trust me. But I
don’t know what to do. On one hand, she’s made these enormous sacrifices for me
and she would honestly do anything for me, anything. She paid my private school
fees and my $40,000 uni fees on a CLEANER’S wage while she was supporting us
both. But it works the other way, too: if she thinks something is bad for me
and will wreck my future, she doesn’t care who she affects around me or what she has to do to stop it.”

“well i dont care how she affects
me because im not leaving you,” Bree told me valiantly.

“Your school is an inch away from chucking you out,” I reminded her.
“You don’t think some crazy woman showing
up and ranting at the principal might speed that up?”

Her defiance may have been
wavering, but I couldn't read any sign of that in her reply. “still wouldnt
leave you!!!!!!!”

I sighed. “Great, and then I get to be responsible for
you not getting your HSC, too.”

“well on the bright side i probably wasnt
going to get it anyway despite how awesome you and your friends are...... im too far behind and my family is too fucking
pov................. :( im seriously
just waiting to be called into the principal’s office….. semester 2 fees are
due in like 3 weeks and i dont know if my marks are high enough yet to
let me stay…………”

I felt more hopeful than
she did; no school would want to be responsible for ruining their student’s
future, and Bree obviously cared about hers now. I was sure they’d take that
into consideration. “I bet that your
marks ARE high enough for you to stay, Bree. You've been working so hard.
You'll get there! :)”

She didn't reply straight
away, and it gave me the opportunity to sit back on the edge of the bath and
stretch. I was opposite the mirror, of course. It was jarring. I felt so much
better in big, baggy clothes, and I wanted to put them on straight away, but I
wasn’t done with my shower and the conversation with Bree didn't really feel
like it had come to a proper end.

I tried to fix that.
"Anyway, sorry about the enormous,
essay-length walls of text just then. I hope I didn't fill up your internal
storage complaining about my mother.”

"haha nooooo.... i was just asking google what we should do
about your mum but the results are stupid and not very helpful :/  but
seriously though i know youre like imagining your life is over and all
that but thats worst case yeah??? best
case is she doesnt even come..... and
probably what actually happens is something in the middle because thats how things always work :)”

That actually felt like
really good advice—good advice from Bree, which was even more jarring than
the skinny chick in the mirror—and I felt better after I read it. I climbed
back into the shower to wash my hair and shave, and just for good measure, I
filled Sarah's soap dish with water so her soap would be all slimy and gross,
and then snickered about that to myself for several minutes.

Bree was probably right,
it wasn't likely to be as bad as I thought, was it? I always stressed
myself out over shit. I was really,
really not looking forward to getting back into stockings and a dress—I
couldn't face the thought of it, honestly—but Mum couldn't live here
because Grandma was really sick and not eligible for Medicare. I wasn’t even
sure they’d let Grandma on a plane. So maybe Mum would come here for a while,
interfere a bit, and then leave without being able to do
any major damage. I’d just have to deal with it, somehow. I laughed a
bit darkly to myself and wondered if Bree would forgive me for drinking again
if Mum did come. Henry had always quietly handed me
a big glass of wine when Mum was being really insufferable, but he
wouldn’t be there to help this time.

Maybe I should just tell her about Henry and me, I thought as I got out of the shower and buffed my hair dry with the
towel. Maybe Sarah's right and I
should just tell her. At least then I'd know what she's going to do when she
finds out and I don’t have to spend weeks fucking stressing about it. I
toyed with the idea while I was brushing my teeth and moisturising my face, and
then when it was time to get dressed, I picked up my phone off my hoodie.

I should tell her, I thought. Right now, so I don't talk myself out of it.

Being stupidly impulsive,
I dialled her number, my heart pounding in my chest. I mentally rehearsed what
I was going to say—“Mum, I have some bad news…”—and listened to each ring and
the long pause between them. Frustratingly, it went straight to voicemail.
I didn't bother leaving her one.

I made an angry noise, put
my clothes back on, and went to go and zap myself some dinner.

While I was watching the
microwave slowly turn my food and the numbers ticking down to zero, I kept
second-guessing my decision to tell Mum about Henry and me. I had this
nightmare image of her exploding at me and jumping straight on a
plane to come over… but that wasn’t really that realistic, was it?
She couldn’t just jump on a plane straight away because of Grandma.
And she didn’t always handle things
terribly. I remembered once when I was sick and I had a big exam to study
for, she drove all the way to the other side of the city to buy me a particular
laptop table so I could be comfortable in bed while I studied. She’d scrimped
and saved so I could have a new haircut at a top salon for my internship
interview at Frost even though hers hadn’t been cut all year. And on the night
she left Australia to go live with Grandma in Korea, I saw
her weeping over her packed suitcase and clutching one of my stuffed
animals to her chest.

Maybe I’m having this huge panic over nothing, I thought. She loves me. She
just doesn’t understand that marrying Henry isn’t what’s going to make me
happy.

The sharp buzz of my phone
vibrating in my pocket startled me.

My heart pounded. Oh my
god, it’s her, I thought, feeling shaky. I took my phone out of my pocket
and stared at it as it pulsed with Private
Number on the screen.

Do it, Min, I thought. Just do it. Then you won’t have to worry about it.

I answered.

“Min! What a lovely
surprise it is to have you be the one to call me for once!” she
greeted me. “I’m so sorry I missed your call! Do you have some fantastic news
for me?”

I grimaced. “Actually, no, I don’t. I need to tell you some
bad—”

“—Oh,” she said. “Well,
didn’t you do what I told you to: casually mentioning marriage and children
here and there?”

“I’m working on it.
Listen, I wanted to talk to you about Henry and me—”

“I was thinking about you
and Henry, too. What have you planned for his birthday?”

I sighed. “I haven’t
decided yet. I really want to talk to you about something else.”

“But it’s only a couple of
weeks away, you can’t just defer planning it because you don’t want to think
about it,” she said, sounding a bit critical. “You need to stop always putting
things off. This is important. You’d want to do something very special for him,
not just because he’s a wonderful person and he deserves to be actually treated
like one, but because you’re trying to get him to propose to you,
Min.” She paused. “You are actually
trying, aren’t you? You aren’t trying to put this off, too?”

I could feel myself slowly
deflate as all my resolve began to seep out of me. Fuck everything, I thought, just fuck it. What the fuck was I thinking? “I’m trying, Mum.”

“Good,” she said. “You
should think about what you will wear. Try to find out what he’s wearing,
because if you show up matching, it will be very romantic.” Just as she was
making some suggestions about that, the microwave dinged. I stopped it as soon
as I could, but she’d heard it and stopped speaking. “Is that the microwave?
What are you reheating?”

“Dinner.”

There was a long pause.
“You’re at home all day, with nothing to do because you’ve quit your job, and
you didn’t even make fresh food? Are you going to feed Henry that nuclear waste?”

I closed my eyes. “I’m not
at Henry’s house. I’m at Sarah’s.”

“So Henry has to cook his
own dinner?” I didn’t say anything. What could I fucking say to that? I could
hear her release a breath. “Does he wash his own clothes too?” When I didn’t
answer, she said, “So, let me get this straight, you quit your world class job
to do what, exactly?”

My jaw was tight. “I’m
about to start studying again, Mum.”

“No, you’re not. Your course doesn’t start until October. You quit
your job in May—two months ago. And besides, you’re studying Art.
It’s not the same as a real degree, there’s plenty of time to help Henry around
the house. Art may be a good hobby for a mother who is wife to a rich husband,
but you’re well on your way to not being either of those: you’re well on your
way into the gutter, and you’re not even trying.” She took a breath and
released it slowly and loudly. “It’s like as soon as I give you the smallest
amount of trust, you completely abuse it. You just have no idea, no idea. I gave
up everything I had for you, everything. Where do you think this
leads, Min, if you’re not his wife? What does
your future look like?”

“I’m 26, Mum, it doesn’t
matter if I don’t know exactly what my future—”

“—Exactly! You’re 26 and
you don’t know! You don’t even know how much it matters, Min: decisions
you make now will affect your entire life, and you will end up suffering, and struggling, and miserable,
and you just have no idea. Well, I won’t let you do this.” She exhaled. “You
need to drop out of that silly degree, it’s too much of an excuse and a
distraction to you.”

My stomach bottomed out and
I opened my eyes. “No! It’s not, it’s not!”

“You’ve been unemployed
for two months and you’re telling me it’s because you’re getting ready to
study? But what have you been doing, Min? For two months? What have you been
doing?”

The answer felt like a punch
in the fucking stomach. “Nothing.”

“Exactly. Which university
are you going to, again? I wonder if they’re open in semester break.”

She was going to call
them! “No, Mum! It’s not because of the degree, really it’s not, it’s just
that— it’s because I never had any proper
holidays and I just need some time off and some time to—”

“No, Min. Time is the last thing you need. You get stuck
in place and never do anything unless someone else basically forces
you to do it. I’ve never met anyone who was such a terrible procrastinator. You
would be 60 years old and not ‘ready’ to marry Henry,
if it wasn’t for me. This is the push you need. Do something nice for his
birthday—you know him best. Make it special, make him want to marry
you, somehow. For god’s sake, make sure you look nice for once. I didn’t give
up 20 years of my life to raise you just
to have you throw everything I did for you away when it matters the most. You
will thank me, Min, when you’re safely married to someone who will stay with
you and take care of you. You’ll thank me for being strict with my difficult
daughter.” She exhaled. “Well, that’s tonight ruined. The Church ladies are
having an event in the park—I was going to take Grandma there. I’ve been really
looking forward to it for weeks, but I don’t think I feel like it anymore,
thanks to you.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, because I didn’t know what else there was
to say. I was terrified she was going to call Sydney College of the
Arts and somehow get me ejected from the course; the course
I’d dreamed about my entire life, and finally gotten a place in.

She didn’t sound like she
accepted my apology, anyway. “The next phone call I want to get is you telling
me there’s finally a ring on that finger, Min Lee. That will finally give me
something to celebrate.”

She hung up, and I leant
against the kitchen counter, staring at my phone. My jaw was so tight it ached,
and I was still shaking.

What the fuck did I think I was doing,
thinking my mother was in any way reasonable? What the fuck was wrong with me?

I hurled my
phone at the floor in a single, harsh
movement. The screen probably cracked, but I didn’t check.

It may have been that
sound that distracted Sarah from her work. She swung into the kitchen. “I don’t
know what you’re breaking in here, Toyboy, but that smells amazing,” she said.
“I mean, not that I’m not going to totally throw it up straight afterwards, but
can I have some if I’m really nice to…” The words died on her lips as she
noticed my phone on the floor—LED still flashing—and then looked up at me.
“Whoa. Whoa. Min, are you okay?”

I couldn’t even answer
that question. I gestured stiffly at the microwave and managed, “Have all of
it. I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Yeah, suddenly neither am
I,” she said gently. She was looking at my phone, and I think she knew the
answer. “What’s going on?”

“Mum called.”

She nodded slowly. “I
figured. Did you tell her?”

I sighed deeply and shook
my head. She hopped up to sit on the bench and draped an arm over my shoulder,
resting her head on top of mine. Then, something occurred to her and she
lifted it again to look at me. “Wait a sec, Min,” she began hesitantly. “Do you
think she’ll show up here? Like, at my house?”

I inhaled sharply. God, I
felt sick. I hadn’t even thought of that, but I immediately knew
the answer. “Yes.”

She watched me, frowning.
She didn’t say anything about it; she didn’t need to. She had enough going on
at the moment, she wouldn’t be able to cope with much else. Neither would
Henry. Or Bree. And I just fucking bet Mum
would figure all that out.

FOURTEEN

I didn’t even get out of bed on
Tuesday morning. I lay on my back and listened to Rob kiss Sarah goodbye on the
way to work, the sound of her heels on the floorboards, and the door falling
shut behind her.  Then I pulled the covers over my head and just closed my
eyes.

She came home from work at
whatever time she did—I didn’t check—and knocked faintly on my door. “Min?”

I could hear Rob’s voice
from the kitchen. “I don’t think she’s home. I haven’t seen her all day.”

“She’s home,” Sarah told
him. She leant closer to the door and called in a sing-song voice, “There’s
pizza out here…”

I should have at least
answered her, but I didn’t even have the energy. I just stared at the ceiling
as she gave up and walked away from the door.

For the rest of the night,
I listened to domestic sounds of the two of them chatting together, laughing at
things on TV, and going about their lives while I lay in bed.

On Wednesday when she got
home, there was another knock on my door. “Hey, let me in?” When I didn’t say
anything, she opened the door a crack and lopped a plain sports bar onto my
bed. “Here’s some scientifically formulated sustenance so you can hate your mum
properly and with increased endurance,” she called. “You’re welcome!”

On Thursday, though, she
didn’t wait until the evening. When I wasn’t up at seven, she knocked firmly on
my door. “Open up, Toyboy!” She thumped again when I didn’t answer, and more
insistently.

I took a breath. “Yeah.”
My voice rasped; I hadn’t spoken for two days.

Sarah came in, stood at
the foot of my bed and chucked a towel at me. “This isn’t palliative care,” she
told me. “Get up, have a shower, let’s talk it through. Also, for chrissake,
message your poor girlfriend. I got a panicked call from her at some godforsaken hour of the night worrying that you
haven’t answered her and that you’re not okay. I told her what happened. I hope
you don’t mind.”

I sat up slowly and shook my head. “Thanks. My phone
doesn’t work.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” she
said, and then took a few steps over to my dressing table, presumably to pass
it to me and supervise me answering Bree. When she picked it up, though, she
paused. There was a network of big, deep spiderweb
of cracks across the screen. Even though the screen didn’t work, the fucking LED
was still flashing. “Huh,” she said, holding it up and examining. “Your
phone doesn’t work. I guess
you’ll have to email her.”

I nodded.

“Hmm,” she said, and then
just heaved me out of bed by an arm, dragged me to the bathroom and deposited
me inside it. “I’d give you a big hug, but you’re greasy and yuck. Have a
shower.” She put the towel in my hands and closed the door.

She went to work while I
was in the shower, and when I got out,
she’d hidden my phone so I couldn’t see the flashing LED. That made me smile.
But not half as much as it made me smile when she got home in the evening, and
passed something to me while I was sitting zombified on the couch with a
controller in my hand. I put the controller down to take it.

It was my phone, and it
had a brand new screen and case. I looked up at her, speechless, and she
grinned down at me and went to go get changed.

She took longer than
expected, but eventually she came to sit with me on the couch, putting her legs
across my lap. “We need to talk.”

I paused the game and
looked over at her. “If you’re going to tell me I need to stop moping and get
my act together, I know.”

She flinched like I’d
taken a swing at her. “Nope,” she said, and then sighed. “You know, ordinarily
I start these conversations by passing a large bottle of grog over. But I’ve
done enough damage to Junior already, and your deceptively sweet little blonde
girlfriend very cheerfully told me she’d fucking kill me if I let you drink.”

I had to smile a bit at
that. That didn’t surprise me.

“So I hope you forgive me
for being totally crap at this stuff sober, but I just got off the
phone,” she told me. “And I wanted to apologise for nagging you about your mum.
I didn’t know what she was like until I saw the fallout. I haven’t seen you like
this since Jason picked you apart.”

I smiled in appreciation.
“Well, at least at Frost, I could just quit.”

She pressed her lips in a
line. “Yeah, exactly.” She sat back.
“Actually, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, mainly about how fucking terrible
I’ve been. I’ve been whinging constantly
about not wanting to tell people I’m pregnant. But seriously, why? Work aside,
none of my family or friends are going to disown me. No one’s going to do to me
what your mum did to you. Look at you. You’ve been catatonic for three days
straight because at some point,
you’re actually going to have to deal with breaking the bad news to
your super crazy mum that there’s no more Mr Perfect, and that she has a son
instead of a daughter. And I’m like, Jesus
Christ, Sare, get a grip. I’m being
precious about disclosing something that’s not even a big deal.” She took a
breath. “So, broke the ice and told my mum.”

My eyebrows went up. I
hadn’t expected that at all. “You did?”

“Yeah,” she said, and then
struggled a bit to continue. “And she didn’t make me feel like crap and I
didn’t crack the screen of my phone. She was so happy, she was
crying, like, ‘I’m going to be a grandma?’ and made me wait while she went to
find Dad so I could tell him, too. They both dropped everything to drive back
to Bathurst tonight so Rob and I can stay there over the weekend to celebrate.”
She looked a bit teary. “I told Mum that I nearly had an abortion, and she
said, ‘Honey, why didn’t you tell me earlier? I would have come over, I would
have made you hot chocolate.’” She swallowed. “And the whole time I was on the
phone to them, I was thinking about what it must be like for you, not ever
having this.”

That just served to make
me feel really depressed again. “Yeah,” I agreed. “But that’s great,
Sarah. I’m really happy for you.” I was, but my heart wasn’t in it.

She reached across and
squeezed my hand. “So, yeah, sorry for being a total bitch about pressuring you
into talking to your mum, and I guess we’ll deal with it when she rocks up.”

It was a really nice thing
to say, but honestly, Sarah had no idea about Mum’s capacity to fuck
things up. I didn’t particularly want her to find out, either. I didn’t really
want any of my friends to find out. I wanted the whole situation to
just disappear. “Thanks.”

After that, Sarah went to
go pack and I went to bed. Being unconscious seemed like a better alternative
to listening to Rob’s happy whistling and their chatter about what they should
and shouldn’t take to Bathurst.

The following day
I did get myself out of bed before midday, and despite the fact I
felt like doing nothing else except playing the most mind-numbing titles on my
PlayStation, I managed to do some grocery shopping for everyone—taking my bank
balance down under $1000—and then panicked about impending poverty and opened
my tablet to put together some sort of ad for commissions. I didn’t get very
far.

Bree showed up in the late
afternoon, armed with a massive bag full of god knows what. She bounced over to
me, leant over the back of the couch and drew a big, lopsided smiley on the empty
canvas I had open. Then, she wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “Are you
feeling better now that you’ve had a few days to—” I was stiff as a fucking
board, and she noticed. “Oh,” she said,
and hugged me anyway. “Don’t worry! I have some stuff with me that will help you totally forget about your mum and we can
have a really nice, relaxing weekend!”

“Unless it’s a gallon of
wine, it’s not going to do enough,” I said darkly.

She hugged me tighter. “It
will be okay, Min,” she told me. “It will. Don’t listen to your mum. You’re
amazing. You’re better than being her slave for the rest of your life. You’ve
got this great future ahead of you and it’s going to be awesome, and I am not
just going to sit by and let her take that from you,” she told me, and then
announced, “So I’m going to cheer you up!”

I did worry a bit about
what Bree had in mind, but Bree’s first act of cheer was actually just taking
her oh my god,
cutest ever apron out of her bag and then cooking me some ‘real’
food. While I was eating it, she stood in front of me—still wearing her
strawberry-patterned apron—and solemnly recited a long list of things she liked
about me as numbered dot-points. It never seemed to end.

I interrupted her. “How long
did it take you to do that?”

“I’ve been working on it
since Monday,” she said. “Every time I’d think of something, I’d take out the
list and add it, and I’m not done yet, so shhh.”

I ‘shh’ed, looking properly chastised. There were so many things on
it—little things, like the fact I texted her when I knew she had a test to wish
her luck, and things I’d forgotten, like the time a year ago when she’d
messaged me on Deviant Art to say she was having a bad day, and apparently I’d
replied with something comforting, even though she was a relative stranger.
There was also big stuff, like how inspiring I was for standing up to the people who were awful to me at Frost,
how it made her feel to watch someone finally take a stand against Andrej, and
how she can sit in class now and not be terrified the teacher will ask her
questions. She was a bit teary by the end of it. “Basically I just want you to
know that despite how your mum sees you and the awful things she says, that’s
not who you are. You’re all of these other things, and there are people who
actually value them and can see you’re amazing, and people who think to
themselves every day how lucky they feel that you chose them, even if they
don’t really know why.”

I couldn’t watch her cry.
I put my rice aside and patted my lap, and she came and sat across my thighs
and put her arms around my neck. “Who else would spend five days writing a list
of things they like about someone just to cheer them up?” I kissed her temple.
“You’re beautiful, inside and out.”

She sniffled, smiling appreciatively at my
compliment. “I’m not sad,” she said blotting her cheeks on the long sleeves of
her jumper. “These are happy tears.”

I laughed once. “Yeah, no
better way to celebrate happiness than openly sobbing.”

She joined me in some miserable
laughter. “I am! I mean, I’m not happy that your mum is trying to wreck your
life—that’s awful—but I’m really happy that you have a life to be
wrecked, and I’m happy you’re sharing a big part of that life with me. I made
us tarts.” I wasn’t sure about how tarts
and sharing lives were connected, but I released Bree to go get them out of her
bag.

She was preparing them
when Sarah bustled through—“Hey, where’s my
invite?”—so Bree laid out a plate for her, too. Unfortunately, Sarah ended up
getting distracted needing to finish work for Frost so she didn’t have to do it
over the weekend. Rob arrived later and stoically refused to eat any dessert
because Sarah hadn’t, and then they went to bed before ten so they could leave
early on Saturday.

I was up early enough to
wave goodbye to them. Before they left, Sarah took Bree aside for a private
talk.

After they’d gone, I asked
Bree, “Did she finally tell you she’s pregnant?”

Bree looked surprised and
then laughed. “No, she asked me to take care of you. Don’t tell her I told you,
though!”

Bree’s plan for both
Saturday and Sunday was a marathon of obscure movies. Some of them
were awful, though, and I ended up with serious second-hand embarrassment
for the actors. Halfway through a particularly terrible one on Sunday
afternoon, Bree stopped playback and scrunched up her nose. “Um. Sorry about
that.”

I was laughing at her
expression. “I thought the plan was to ease my
suffering?”

“It had good reviews,” she
protested. She took a break while another one was downloading to fix us a
selection of little powdered European biscuits, passed me a Red Bull out of her
bag of tricks, and then set up the next movie.

“What else have
you got in that bag?” I asked her as I tried one of those biscuits and got
icing sugar all over me. It was a rhetorical question because I was pretty
happy with what had come out of it so far, but a few minutes into the movie I
realised Bree was watching me thoughtfully. “Mmm?” I prompted her.

She smiled slightly, and
then tried to force it off her face. “Okay, so there might be some other stuff
in there,” she said. Her cheeks were a bit pink. “Just in case. I knew you were
probably going to be really stressed out this weekend and not interested, but I
thought I’d pack it anyway…”

I narrowed my eyes at her.
Those pink cheeks meant it was something a bit naughty, and while we were
cuddling as we watched the movie, I wasn’t really up for anything else right
now. I was feeling pretty good for the first time all week, and I didn’t want
to risk feeling like shit again by doing anything that might remind
me my body wasn’t right. I… still kind of wanted to know what it was, though.
And I liked it when she blushed. “Yeah?”

She was still trying not
to smile. It seemed a bit nervous. “Um. Well, I was kind of thinking about that
conversation we had on Monday,” she said. “Where you asked me if I wished you
had a dick. I’m happy either way, but do you wish you had one? Like,
even a little bit?”

Oh. I think all the
blood drained from my face. I put the other half of the biscuit back on the
plate. “I don’t know,” I said. “Sometimes.”

“But you want to be able
to fuck me, yeah? Like a guy?”

I opened my mouth, and
then closed it again. Well, since we were being
honest, that was the reason why we
never got our clothes off, wasn’t it? I always got caught up at some point
because I expected to have something to put inside her, but didn’t. And while I
knew there was equipment trans guys could
buy to fix that, I hadn’t gotten past scrolling through web pages about it. It was too confronting, and I wasn’t sure about
the ‘trans guy’ title. She was right,
though, so I nodded.

She smiled again. “Yeah,
that’s what I thought.” She scrunched her face up. “And you never buy this stuff
for yourself because you feel really weird about it… So, yeah, I kind of used
that money I took the other week to get you something to try.”

Jesus. “It’s here?”

She nodded. “It’s in my
bag. But rather than just, like thrust it
into your hand because I know this stuff really freaks you out, I
thought I’d just ask you if you’re interested in it first.”

I had a very mixed
reaction. The part of me that always wanted to run a hundred miles away
from anything like that was, not surprisingly, suggesting that I take
Bree’s bag, put it very far away from me forever, and never find out if it
was or wasn’t what I thought it was—I had enough going on, seriously. But
another part of me was, well… a bit curious about it. Curious and terrified,
because what if I did like
it? “I think I’m interested,” I told her slowly. “Can I see?”

She brightened, giving me
a huge, nervous grin. “Okay!” she said,
and sprung up off the couch to go and
retrieve it from her bag. She returned with a sex-shop-style brown paper bag
and passed it to me. Biting her lip as a means of smothering her grin, she
nodded at it. “Have a look.”

I took a deep breath and
peeked in the bag. There was a box inside with a picture of an Asian guy wearing
briefs and proudly displaying a very prominent, very realistic erection
protruding out of the front of them. ‘FTM
Hard Packer’, the box read, confirming my suspicions about what Bree
bought. Inside, the actual packer was just as realistic as it looked on the
box. Just like my soft packer, at a glance the hard packer could easily have
been mistaken for the real thing. A really, really hard real thing. Blushing, I
realised it came with a harness: this packer had a specific purpose. It wasn’t
just for looks.

Bree reached out and
touched it again. “What do you think?”

I considered it. “It’s
kind of wide,” I said, and looked up at
her. “Maybe you should have bought a smaller size. Aren’t you worried it might
hurt you?”

She looked really
embarrassed. “Um,” she said sheepishly. “It didn’t.”

God, if I hadn’t already been blushing... I gulped a
breath. “You tried it?”

“Well, everyone says it
hurts a bit the first time, and I wanted to make sure my first time with you
wouldn’t hurt!”

…and I
was holding it. I put my face in one hand for a moment and laughed bleakly. “Oh my god,” I
said, and then laughed a bit more. It was surreal.

“Anyway, you want to try
it on? Even just under your jeans at first or something?”

Did I? “Okay...”

I took it into my bedroom
and just stood there in the centre of my room for a moment, working up the
courage to put the harness on inside my underwear. It was actually more
difficult than it looked. When I’d finally managed to secure it tightly against me and stood upright again, I had a look
at myself in the mirror. I had my jeans and underwear around my knees, and
this really aggressive-looking erection jutting out from under my
hoodie. My first instinct was that I should just take it off as quickly as
possible.

I managed to just take a few
breaths and not panic about it, though. I’d been far more freaked out by my
soft packer than I was by this now, and my soft packer and I had come to form
an uneasy truce. I could probably come to terms with this one, too, even if I
wasn’t sure about it right now. I didn’t need to feel comfortable immediately,
after all. I just needed to try it.

I followed Bree’s
suggestion of pulling my undies and jeans up over it. It was a bit of a
struggle to contain it—I’d watched Henry do that a few times, so I guessed that
was realistic, too—but when I was done, my reflection was mildly less
confronting.

Because Bree had bought it
for me, I felt a bit obliged to at least show her. It took me a few false
starts to get out the door, though. It felt ridiculous. I felt a bit ridiculous
wearing it. I was casually wearing a sex toy like it was completely normal, when any regular guy would lock himself
away until a big prominent bulge like this was gone.

I somehow made it out into
the living room to model it for her anyway. “Uh, so…” I presented myself to
her. My face was bright fucking red.

“Whoa,” she said, eyebrows
up, and spent a couple of long, painful seconds considering my groin. Then, she started giggling. “I’m kind of
not sure what to say? I mean, what’s the appropriate compliment? ‘Wow, Min,
that dick looks great on you’?”

I grimaced. “I suppose
just pretending it’s not there isn’t an option?”

She was still giggling.
“Why would I do that? It looks good, I promise! Like, I mean
it’s super obvious, and my eyes are like, whoa,
right on it, but that’s how it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? So, if you came out
here to get my opinion, I like it.”

I nodded. “Okay,” I said,
satisfied she’d had her input, and then turned around to go back to the
bedroom.

“Wait!”

I turned and gave her a
quizzical look.

“You don’t like it?”

I opened my mouth long
before I actually replied. “I think I need some time to get used to it.”

I’d only taken one more
step before Bree stopped me again. “Um, Sarah and Rob are away for the weekend.
Isn’t now, like, the best opportunity ever to do that?”

I frowned at her for a
moment. “You mean I should leave it on?”

She shrugged, wrestling
with that nervous grin again. “I’m just saying.”

That felt like more of a
subtle request than a suggestion, and so—aside from my ever-present discomfort
with genitals in general— there didn’t seem to be a compelling reason to not do it. I went and sat beside
her on the couch.

I put my arm around Bree
as she unpaused the movie, and then we sat in uncomfortable, tense silence for a
few minutes while it continued. Bree was fidgeting, though. She kept glancing
towards me and shifting in the seat, and eventually, just as the movie
was finally starting to make sense, she tugged at my sleeve.

“Um,” she asked
tentatively, “Can I see how it feels?”

I swallowed. “Yeah, if you
want.”

Hardly able to make eye
contact with me, she reached down between us, giving the bulge a quick
experimental prod, and then putting her hands back primly in her own lap.

I had expected her to do more
than that. “That’s all?”

Her cheeks went a bit
pink. “I didn’t want to freak you out.”

“I don’t think it’s going
to.”

She took a breath.
The coy little smile made another appearance. “Can I…?”

I nodded, and her hand
crept back into my lap, squeezing the bulge a little, exploring the length of
it, and then feeling all the way down to where the shaft met the harness. That
was deep in my lap, against my skin. I inhaled sharply. It made her
look up at me with her hand still there, and we locked eyes. I saw her take a
breath.

Afterwards, she tried to
sit still and keep her hands to herself as we both pretended to casually watch
the movie. It was a lost cause. I was too aware of her next to me: my thigh
against hers and her hand on top of it—slowly, fractionally moving upwards as
we kept watching—each time she took a breath, and how each breath came faster
when she realised I was looking at her. She was more engaging than the movie,
and both of us were hyper aware of the
bulge in the front of my jeans.

We made it through two
more movies before it was time to be responsible adults, stop looking for more
movies to watch, and admit Bree needed to go home. It was with a heavy fucking
heart I turned the TV off and stood up to let her go and pack up. I could have done
with some more of her hand creeping up my thigh and her little smiles in my
peripheral vision.

She was a lot less chatty
than usual as she collected her stuff, and I ducked into my room with the
intention of putting on something warmer and taking off the packer so I could
drive her around the corner to the station. I’d put on my biggest hoodie and
was trying to get to my belt latch under the long front of it, when I realised
what having a long hoodie actually meant. I had an idea.

On the way out the front
door, Bree was lamenting, “It’s such a pity that you need to take it off…” She
turned around to look up at me when I stopped.

Grinning at her, I lifted
the front of my big hoodie to show her it was still there, and then winked.

“Oh my god,” she said as a
single syllable, and then went a deep pink.

Her hand snuck back into
my lap as we drove, but she was pretending to have nothing to do with it and
innocently looking out the window. When I pulled up by the station, she gave me a breathy smile. “People can’t see into
your car, can they? Because of the tint?”

“Nope,” I said with a
grin. Her hand was under my hoodie, and her lips were parted as she tried to
breathe normally. She wasn’t succeeding. There were butterflies in my stomach;
this packer was growing on me pretty damn fast. “Do you want to stay over
instead? I can just turn around and go back…”

She groaned. “Yes,” she said. “But I promised I’d meet
Courtney before school so we could revise for Psych.” She very, very
reluctantly withdrew her hand from my lap.

I laughed. “Wow, Psych
homework. That definitely sounds like more fun that what I had in mind.”

I expected her to have
some sort of pained comeback to that, but she didn’t. She just watched me. With
her blush fading, she reached out and touched the edge of my big open smile
with her thumb. There was a peaceful smile on her face, too. “So, like, see you
tomorrow?”

I nodded and gave her a kiss goodbye. “Yeah. Good luck for your
quiz.” As she got out of the car, I stopped her, though. I’d had a really nice ‘cheer Min up’ weekend.
“Bree…” I told her as she ducked her head back in the car. “Thank you.”

She gave me the most
beautiful smile. “You’re welcome, Min.”

I waved to her and then
pretended to drive away, but secretly stopped in
a side street until I’d seen her get safely onto the train before I headed
home.

The house was quiet; Sarah
and Rob were due back earlier but were
obviously running late. My first stop was back in my bedroom to take the packer
off, because without Bree around, I didn’t really have any desire to keep it
on. I guess that’s a tick in the
‘genderqueer’ rather than the ‘trans guy’ column, I thought, remembering reading some
forum posts about trans guys feeling more comfortable wearing packers all the
time, even when they were alone. Then again, I’d silently witnessed a number of
heated arguments about genitals on various forums; there probably wasn’t a
reliable consensus on How to Be a Real Trans Guy, which meant that I was
probably still no closer to figuring out if I was one or not.

I left the hard packer out on my desk beside the soft one and then wandered out into the living room
to take my USB out of the TV. I didn’t even make it out into the hallway,
though, because it occurred to me I had two very realistic dicks chilling out
in the open on my desk, for anyone who happened to go into that room to see.

My blood ran cold: knowing
my luck, this would be the moment when Mum showed up on Sarah’s doorstep,
wouldn’t it? I was surprised the doorbell wasn’t ringing right now. I felt like
leaving the packers out in plain sight was as good as summoning her.

I had gone back into my
bedroom to hide them safely away in my case when I realised what I was doing: I
was hiding my own packers in my own bedroom from someone who was 10,000 fucking
kilometres away.

I took them out again and
stood up, frowning at them. I shouldn’t have to hide them, should I? I wasn’t
twelve anymore. I didn’t have to put up with Mum rifling through my stuff for
evidence I was a bad daughter. I was an adult, and these were part of who I
was, and I didn’t want to have to stuff them away in a fucking suitcase because
I was afraid of her magically finding them.

Planes aren’t magic, Min, I found myself thinking. You know she’s going to come here about Henry, why wouldn’t she do that
now? She could get on one and be here any minute. She’d see what you’ve
done to your hair, your clothes, and your breasts. Then she’d see these on your
desk.

I could imagine what she’d
say. I could imagine her shaking her head at me with such disappointment.
‘I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?’ And then she’d watch as she made
me throw them away, forced me into dresses again, and I’d have to
listen every day to how disappointing I was, and how she sacrificed
herself for someone who definitely wasn’t worth it. She’d tell everyone who’d
listen—the cashier, the retail assistant, ladies at Church—how I squandered my
biggest opportunity for happiness and now there I was, in my late twenties,
unemployed and with my mother taking care of me.

I grit my teeth. I
actually was that person, though, wasn’t I? Unemployed, a
procrastinator, incapable of doing anything by myself. I couldn’t run my own
fucking life: I needed taking care of.

I felt that weight descend on my chest again, the weight I’d had all week. The desire
to just open a bottle of red and drown myself
in it, or just go to bed and never get up again. What was the point? Sarah was
off being showered with adoration and
love by her family, and I was stuck needing charity from my
friends and girlfriend who were all talking behind my back about how to take
care of me. It was pathetic. I
was pathetic. I couldn’t even figure out a way to keep Mum in Korea and protect
my friends from her, so on top of taking care of me, they were going to need to
contend with her. What a great friend I was.

I sunk down onto my bed,
feeling all the energy I’d had all day just seep out of me.

It was a memory of Bree
reciting her list that made me catch myself in a spiral of self-insults and
self-deprecation. ‘You take such good care of me’, she’d said—I thought it was
the other way around, because I didn’t cook or clean for her, did I? She’d been
serious, though. She’d meant it. Bree didn’t think I was pathetic.

She’d talked about other
things too: how smart she thought I was, how generous, and the way she
described how it had felt to watch me stand up to Andrej for her, it was like
she thought I was some sort of hero. I smiled; that wasn’t even my
favourite part of that day. That had been one amazing fucking day. I’d felt weightless, and invincible,
and all because I’d shed all that pressure and all that expectation to
just finally accept myself for who I was.

Suddenly, with surprising
clarity, I realised why I felt so bad.

Mum had somehow managed to
suck me back into that place I’d been in when I was at Frost, and I didn’t fucking want to go back
there. I was happy for once. I was really happy. I’d spent all day
being cherished, and loved, and having a beautiful, wonderful girl be almost
unable to keep her hands off me, and it felt amazing. I didn’t want to go back to hating myself and subsisting
on a diet of red wine and painkillers, I
didn’t want to!

I stood up again, feeling
like I should do something. I couldn’t let her drag me back
into that place. I had to do something to stop her.

But Mum wasn’t going to
leave me alone, was she? Not until I was living exactly the life
she’d ordered me to. Well, fuck that, she could stay on the other side of the
planet and just live in her fantasy world where I was a perfect little Korean
housewife in the making.  But how was I going to make sure that happened
when she wasn’t going to leave me alone until she’d made 100% certain Henry’s
ring was on my finger?

Suddenly, something
occurred to me.

Maybe because I had my
suitcase open, and maybe because just a few weeks ago I’d been looking at it, I
had an idea.

Laying both the packers
defiantly out in the open on my desk, I knelt down in front of my suitcase and
rifled through it until I found what I was looking for: the little velvet ring
box Henry had given me.

I opened it, reading the beautiful, heartfelt dedication while the ring
quietly twinkled at me. Then, with my heart pounding, I plucked it out of
velvet and slipped it onto my finger.

This is it, I thought. This
is my ticket to a peaceful life and Mum leaving me alone.

I fished my phone out of
my pocket and held my hand up towards the light, rolling up the sleeve of my
hoodie so it wasn’t in frame. I took a
photo and added the text, “Look at what Henry gave me!! :)” and for just a
second, my thumb hovered over the send button.

There was no going back
from this. This was a pretty serious, pretty traceable lie.

And you know what? I
didn’t fucking care.

I hit send.

FIFTEEN

No sooner had I sent that message,
all the strength and defiance I’d felt a second ago abruptly abandoned me and I
was left alone staring at the timestamp on the message, the picture of Henry’s
ring on my finger, and facing the imminent fallout of what I’d done.

I took the ring off my
finger and put it back in the box, returned the box to my case, and then looked
down at my phone.

Fuck.

Well, you’ve done it now, Min, I thought. You’ve lied to your mother, and you know what she’s like. She’s going
to look at that and know. She’s going to call Henry, or she’s going to—

My phone buzzed in my
hands and I jumped.

—or she’s going to call you, apparently, I thought. Shit.

Shit, how was I going
handle this? I ran a hand through my hair, staring down at the screen as the
phone kept pulsing.

I could leave it, I thought. I
could just not answer, give myself some space to think and figure out what I’m
going to say to her.

I shook my head vigorously
and made a noise. No, I decided.
No, that wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to spend any more of my life
brooding and trying to figure out what the fuck I was going to do with my Mum.
I’d done enough of that.

It kept ringing.

Fuck! Well, if I wasn’t
going to brood over it, that meant I needed to answer, didn’t I? I swiped the
green handset icon, jammed my eyes shut, and put the phone against my ear.

“Min! This is so
wonderful!” Her whole tone had changed. No measured disgust, no derision.
“I knew that being strict was the best way to deal with someone like
you! And look, I was right, it happened! It finally happened! I’ve been waiting
for this day since you introduced Henry, and I’m so glad that it’s finally
come!” I sank down onto the edge of the bed, putting a hand over my face as she
continued. “Didn’t I tell you that leaning on him to ask would be the best way
to go?”

I exhaled. “Yeah.”

“So when should I book the
ticket to Sydney? Saturday? Would you ask him to pay for someone to look after
your Grandma for a week or two?”

I straightened. What? “Why do you need to come over?”

“Well, to help you plan,
of course! You can’t do it by yourself, and Henry wouldn’t be—”

Fuck…! “We haven’t told
anyone else yet, Mum! Henry isn’t ready to—”

“Of course he’s ready to!
He just put a ring on your finger. You should get married in early summer, I
think. I’ll need to come over so we can set a date and book venues straight
away, because—”

“—Mum, no, now isn’t a
good time to come.” I strained to think of a reason she’d accept, anything to
keep her out of Australia. “I haven’t even moved in with him yet, and getting
engaged to Henry right now won’t look good, it will look like I left Frost
specifically to marry him, and he’s the HR manager, he could get in—”

“—Nonsense, Min. I’m sure
it happens all the time. Besides, work doesn’t have to know unless your
so-called friends gossip
about you there. Anyway, as I was saying, early December is a beautiful time of
year to have a—”

I was not going
to let this happen. “Mum, it’s just not a good time for—”

She abruptly stopped,
sighing impatiently. “Why not, Min?”

Fuck, what could I say to
keep her in Korea? “He just needs some time to—”

“Well, he’s had four whole
years. Why would he need more time?”

“It’s just that—”

She cut me off with a
quick sound and then warned, “Min,
something’s wrong here. You’re not being
completely honest with me, are you?”

Oh my god. “What do you mean?”

“You’re hiding something
from me. Don’t lie to your own mother, Min, after all I’ve done for you. What’s
going on? Why isn’t he telling people? Is he ashamed of you? What are
you doing that he doesn’t want to tell people that you’re getting married?”

“I don’t—”

“Are
your friends interfering, Min? Is that it? Because if they are, maybe
it’s time we got you some new friends, real friends, ones that
don’t interfere with your happiness.”

“No! It’s not that at
all!” I searched desperately through my brain for anything, anything that
I could use to keep her happy and away from me. Henry didn’t have any
sick relatives. No one had just died in his family. Everyone was in good
health, good fortune, and there wasn’t anything that I could—

“Wait, I know what it is.”
She paused for several seconds, and for every single one of those seconds, I
felt like the next thing she was going to say would be, ‘You’re lying to me’.
When she finally spoke, she said, “It’s that sister, isn’t it? The one who married
that awful Chinese man? She’s pregnant again, when’s she due?”

I exhaled with
relief. Of course, I
thought. Alice. Henry and I had put together a pram for her a few months
ago, I’d almost forgotten about it. Christ, I thought Mum had me there for
a moment. “In September, I think.”

“Yes, I bet that’s it,”
Mum said, disapproval very audible. I bet her head was shaking. “Henry knows
that as soon as you two get engaged, his parents will be completely absorbed in
your wedding and forget about yet another set of half-Chinese babies. Yes, I
bet that’s it. Is he there? Could you put him on so I could ask if—”

“No, he’s not here. He’s
working.” Well, at least that much was probably true.

She made a noise. “Well,
I’ll call him later. Anyway, you can’t let him make decisions for her benefit
all the time. You’re his fiancée now. You need to be the person he prioritises in his decisions. What are you
going to do about her?”

Was she fucking
serious? “Nothing? She’s his sister and he’s allowed to—”

“—don’t be so naïve,
Min. I know how these things work, believe me.
She’ll be in his mother’s ear next, telling her that he needs to leave you so
she can be the centre of attention again. You need to sort her out, mark my
words.”

Sometimes I just had no fucking idea what to do with my
mother. Jesus Christ. “Okay, I’ll think about it,” I told her, because ‘You’re
fucking crazy, Henry’s family has never been like that’ wasn’t an option. Where
the hell did she get these insane ideas from anyway? It had probably
been so long since she’d had an actual functioning family, that she’d
watched way too many Korean dramas and thought that’s how people
behaved. Well, I supposed, at least she wasn’t
questioning me anymore. “Don’t call Henry. He’s not telling his
family yet and I promised I wouldn’t tell you either, and I don’t want to mess
this up.”

She made a noise that
bordered on approval. I think I’d heard it like twice in my life. “You did the
right thing to tell me anyway, Min.” She took a breath. “You know, I feel
terrible that I doubted you. I’ve been through a lot of pain in the past few
days over needing to put my foot down with you—it hurts me when you force me to
do that, Min, you know that—but it was all worth it. I can’t wait for you to be
standing at the altar with Henry in your beautiful wedding dress with everyone
admiring you. I can’t wait to look out on all our guests smiling, and know
they’re smiling for my beautiful daughter
and her wonderful husband. I’ll be smiling, too.”

Then, she proceeded to
talk excitedly about venues and dresses for ages until I had just
about gone crazy myself, and then she said she needed to have a think about
guest lists and said goodbye.

Without throwing my
phone across the room, I said goodbye to her and then hung up.

Shit.

Well, I was in pretty
fucking deep now, wasn’t I? At least she wasn’t on a plane to Australia yet,
though: that was the main thing. I put my phone next to me on the bed and leant
forward, closing my eyes.

You’re lying to your own mother, I thought. I felt sick about it,
even though I knew she hadn’t given me much of a choice, and I hated that. I hated that I felt sick over something like this. I hated how happy she’d sounded when
she was talking about my wedding, and knowing she was probably half-dancing
around her apartment with a big, satisfied smile right now, thinking about me
and Henry getting married.

I felt bad for Henry, too.
I wondered if he’d be really angry with me if he found out what I’d
done.

While I was imagining how
he’d react and reliving that last broken expression I’d seen on his face, I
caught myself. Not this again, I
thought, sitting up straight. I didn’t go through all of that misery last week
just to go back to feeling like crap now. I fucked up by sending Mum the
picture instead of telling her the truth—not that telling her the truth was
really much of an option—but it was done now, and I’d just have to manage
whatever other fallout occurred. I refused to feel like shit over
this a second longer.

I stood up off the bed and
leant over to grab my laptop from the desk, catching sight of myself in the
mirror.

After several hours of
wearing the hard packer, my crotch looked
surprisingly flat. In every other way, however, I looked like a guy. That may
or may not have been what I actually was, but looking like a guy suited me, and
it had taken me so fucking long to be at peace with my reflection, there was no
way I was giving that up. Not for anyone, not even Mum. I was happy looking
like this, and I’d never been really happy before, at least not like I was now. I felt like that
should mean something to her.

Why can’t you just be happy for me, too, Mum? I found myself silently asking my
reflection, but even asking that question made me feel like shit, so I
left it. This is just how it has to
be, I guess, I thought, taking my laptop out into the living room and
distracting myself by reading my way through transgender forums.

It was about an hour later
and I was in the middle of googling the difference between ‘transmasculine’ and ‘trans man’, when I heard Rob’s old ute
pull into the driveway, followed by a very loud knock on the door. Someone
opened it a fraction and then shouted down the hallway, “We’re home, lovebirds!
You’ve got like five seconds to not be naked and all over each other before we
come in!”

Sarah. I could hear the
big smile in her voice, and Rob said something outside on the porch behind her
and they both laughed. She must have
had a good weekend, I thought, and felt a bit bitter-sweet about that for a
couple of seconds before I came to my fucking senses. Fuck it, I’d had
a good weekend, too, hadn’t I?

I set my laptop aside and
stood up to go greet her as she wheeled her case in. She looked down the
hallway at me with exaggerated surprise. “Wow. You’re dressed. That was quick.”
She winked. “Where’s Schoolgirl? Naked and hiding in your room?”

That was a pleasant
thought. I shook my head. “She went home.”

Sarah’s smile hardened.
“Did she,” she said evenly, and then, as Rob took her suitcase into their
bedroom, she approached me and held me at arms’ length, looking me up and down.
Her smile eventually thawed. “Okay, you look way better, I forgive
her,” she decided. “Did you two enjoy having the house to yourselves…?”

Her tone of voice made me
think of the hard packer and I smothered
an embarrassed grin. “I think you should visit your parents every weekend.”

Sarah laughed and gave me
a big hug. “That good, huh?” she said over my shoulder, and then stepped back
from me. “Well, sorry to tell you that you’re out of luck. Project assignment
is any day now, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be spending the next dozen or so
weekends home working. You’ll have to find somewhere else to nail cute
blondes.”

Rob emerged from the
bedroom and gave me the same appraising look Sarah had. “Ey! That’s the way!”
was his assessment, clapping me on the shoulder as he passed me en route to the
kitchen. He then leant out of the doorway, holding a box. “I’m making some tea,
want some? It’s—” he held the box up to read it, “—ginger and chamomile,” he
said, pronouncing the ‘ch’ the wrong way. “It says it stops you from feeling
sick and helps you sleep, so let’s see about that.”

I had to laugh.
Beer-guzzling, ocker Rob sipping branded herbal
tea? “You’re going to drink it?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s
good for Sares’ nausea, and if she sees me drinking it, she feels guilty about
letting me suffer alone and drinks it too.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

Sarah rolled her eyes
towards me. “I hate that man,” she told me in a voice that said the opposite,
and gave him a smack on the rear as she followed him into the kitchen.

Rob did make us all tea,
and then he retreated to his man cave to catch up on footy. “I’m going to check
you’ve drunk it,” he told Sarah, pointing sharply at her before he disappeared.

“I’m pouring it down the
sink right now!” Sarah yelled down the hallway, and then had a sip as she
turned back to me. “It’s good to see you with a smile,” she said honestly, and
then reached up and squeezed my arm. “I’m glad your weekend was better.”

I grinned. “How was
yours?”

She smiled, too. “Great,” she said, with feeling. “I’ll
spare you all the gory detail, but it felt a bit like a Disney movie.”

“Does that mean we’re all
moving into a castle?” I asked her innocently as we went into the living room.
“Because I was going to ask you about whether we could install a moat and fill
it with a few murderous crocodiles and the odd killer shark. You know, to
discourage certain visitors.”

She laughed and wrapped her arms around me, nearly
sloshing scalding tea all over my middle. “That’s the Min I know and
love,” she said, and squeezed the air out
of me. “Welcome back.”

We sat down on the couch
across from each other while she told me the abridged version of her weekend,
finishing with, “So that’s it, then,” she said. “I told them. Family down,
friends to go.”

I raised my eyebrows.
“You’re going to tell everyone now?”

She shrugged. “A few
people. Gemma, a couple of the boys. Oh, and your Schoolgirl.” That made her
grin. “How do you think she’s going to react? Will she cry?”

Um. “Well, I’m sure
she’ll be surprised,” I said, hoping Bree’s surprise was genuine enough to
convince Sarah it was real. I changed the subject. “So what projects are up for
assignment this quarter?”

Sarah noticed my topic
change, but let it slide. “Well, we haven’t got the list yet,” she began before
we speculated on it as we finished our tea. Then I helped her unpack while she
described in too much detail some of the things her body was doing, which
included pulling down her t-shirt showing me the ‘enormous’ veins that you
could see now through the skin of her breasts—Rob was leaning on the doorway by
this point and we both looked a bit wide-eyed about Sarah’s oversharing—before
we parted ways and went to bed.

Despite the ‘scientifically proven!’ label on the ginger and chamomile tea, I
couldn’t sleep. Not even after I got Bree’s ‘no one kidnapped me on the way home you dont
have to worry!!! ;)’
message. After I’d read it, I tabbed back to the message I sent Mum and sighed
at it. Then, because I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I forwarded it to Bree
with a short explanation about what had
happened. When I didn’t get a response straight away, I sent another message. “Did I make a big mistake?”

“sorry i was changing into pjs” she
sent back. “but speaking as someone
who makes horrible huge mistakes all the time even if you did its okay because
things can still work out after :)
:) :)” I was busy reading over her
advice and feeling better when another text came through. “how are you going to get out of this though?? its not like you can
pretend youre marrying henry forever……”

I sighed. “I kind of just hope I can keep it going for
long enough, maybe a few months, and then eventually tell her it’s not working
and we broke up…”

“:| is that going to help??”

I thought about that. “Some space will. I just need her to
leave me alone for a bit. I can’t even figure out what I want because I
constantly worry about her reaction to it. Like, do I want top surgery to fix
my chest? I don’t know, because the
second I think seriously about it, my
next thought is ‘Mum would kill me!’. I’m sick of having her holding an anvil
over me about everything, so fuck it. I’ll told
her what she wants to hear, and now I can focus on my life and myself.”

It didn’t take her long to
reply. “well…. i dont know if you did the
right thing or not but i like hearing you
be really confident :) :) ”

I grinned. “Well, I hope you’ll hear a lot more of it.”

“me too……….. ;) ;) ”

Those winkie faces seemed
a bit suggestive to me. That was further incentive to not be the depressed
train wreck that Mum frequently turned me into, and it made me even gladder
that I’d been stupid and impulsive and just sent that message.

I looked across the room
at the packers on the table and briefly
reminisced on my weekend of being groped and flirted with by my girlfriend,
ending up with a big smile across my
face. I wanted to keep doing that sort of stuff. Not just because it was pretty
damn fun having a cute girl be unable to keep her hands off me, but also
because I wanted to see where it led. Maybe it would give me some clarity about
what exactly I was, and what I needed under my
clothes to feel as good about myself as I did when I was wearing them.

While I was thinking about
that, Bree sent me another message. “its weird how she thinks henrys sister is going
to wreck everything though…… does she
have an evil sister or something???”

I laughed at how she’d
phrased that. It harked back to the Disney stuff Sarah and I had been talking
about earlier. “No, no evil sisters.
She’s an only child, she got all the evil.”

“lucky for you its obviously not
something you pass to your kids ;) ;) ”

I chuckled. That
was definitely the weirdest compliment I’d ever been paid: ‘you’re not evil’. “And lucky for you, your brother
got it all ;)” I told her, and then caught myself yawning and checked
the time. “Anyway, it’s a school night,
so I should probably let you sleep.”

“haha youre getting old its not even midnight!!!!” she said as if
she wasn’t normally unconscious by now.

We wished each other
goodnight, and after that I was finally able to get some sleep.

The following morning, I
made a calculated decision to not lie in bed all day—although
honestly no one would know if I did—and I got up early so I could read through
all the prescribed information for uni in case there was anything I needed to
do before October. There was nothing there I hadn’t read before, but for the
HELP-fee stuff I needed to confirm my personal information was correct. It all
was, except for one detail: Bree had listed me as ‘Mr’ Min Lee on all the
paperwork. It wasn’t exactly true, but I didn’t like my other options so I
checked the ‘correct’ box. I hoped it wouldn’t cause any problems; it was just
a title.

I was glancing up at the
clock around the time Bree normally bounded through the back door, but
instead of footsteps on the decking, I heard a ute in the driveway, followed by
the sound of doors opening and closing. Then I heard the front door
open.

“We’re here!” Bree’s voice
called down the hallway as the car drove off.

‘We’re’?

She came racing down the
hallway to wrap her arms around my shoulders. She kissed me before I could ask
her who ‘we’ was, but my question was answered when Sarah bustled in and held
the door open for someone who was more hesitant. I spotted red hair and pushed
Bree away before Gemma could see.

Sarah was next into the
living room, dumping her handbag and taking off her scarf. She nodded towards
Bree. “Rob passed a stray on the way back
from the station,” she told me. “We couldn’t just leave her there.”

I grinned. “Thanks. I
really need to get her microchipped.” Bree shoved me.

“And now if you’ll excuse
me,” Sarah declared, standing at the head of the table. “I’m going to drown my
sorrows in a subtle ginger blend with apple highlights since I can’t drown them
in alcohol. Get this: Ghana got shelved. Right when
I need the money, of course. They ‘might pick it up in twelve months’,
apparently,” she said, clearly quoting someone she didn’t like.

I winced. What bad timing.
“That sucks, Sarah. Did they say why?”

“No,” she said, obviously
very unhappy about that point, “But at least, unlike Jason, Omar didn’t just
wander in and casually mention it, he called a meeting. The team immediately
started catfighting over whose fault it
was, right in front of him. Grown men whinging
like school kids, the lot of them. I’m way too sick for this crap. Ugh!” She threw her hands up in the air
and stomped into the kitchen.

“I’m… going to go help
her,” Bree said, and there was a very prominent pause where she ordinarily
would have kissed my head before she left. We both glanced at Gemma. “Um,
yeah,” she said instead, and then took off into the kitchen.

Gemma watched her leave,
and then the very second Bree was gone, hurriedly tip-toed over to the couch
and leant right in. For a moment, I
panicked at how close she was to me—especially given Bree’s near kiss—but then
she spoke in a loud whisper. “Do you know what Sarah’s been hiding?”

Oh, god. I’d almost
have preferred that she was trying to kiss me. “Um, what?” I asked,
pretending I had no idea what she was talking about.

Gemma made a face. “Sorry:
context. Sarah finally stopped pretending everything is normal and said she had
something to tell us today after work. I figured you might already have some
idea what it is because you live here. Do you?”

Shit. “Um.” A split second
was not enough time to try and decide if I was going to lie to her or
not.

Gemma interpreted that as
a ‘no’. “Yeah, I have no idea, either. Oh, gosh, that’s actually a relief! What
do you think it is, though? Do you think it’s something to do with how sick and
stressed out she’s been lately? That
detox she’s on hasn’t helped at all. She says she’s fine and it’s nothing bad,
though, so maybe it’s something to do with work?”

I just shrugged mutely to
avoid actually saying something that was categorically untrue.

She looked like she was
about to burst. “Can I tell you something I’ve been dying to tell someone? I’ve
been planning a surprise for Sarah, too,” she said. “Don’t tell her! She’s so
stressed out these days, and it’s been ages since
she’s had a proper holiday. I know Marketing get two weeks off after Christmas
like everyone else, so I had a look at flights and hotels and things for
Thailand and Cambodia—she’s always wanted to go there—and I’ve got it
all planned out. All the things we always talked about wanting to do, all
places we always wanted to go together, and all the amazing things we wanted to
see: it’s finally going to happen.” She had this big warm smile on her face.
“Sare is always the one who plans really wonderful things for people. But she’s
special, too, and it’s time for someone to plan something wonderful for her.
The only thing I can’t decide on is how to tell her. I want it to be perfect.”

Before I could pick my
heart up off the floor, Sarah and Bree appeared in the doorway, ferrying our
Subtle Ginger Blends or whatever they were in to
us. I came over to the table and accepted mine from Bree, sniffed it, and then
wished I hadn’t as my eyes watered.
Subtle, my ass.

We all sat down; well,
three of us did. Sarah stood behind her chair and took a deep breath. “Okay,
before you guys get stuck into Schoolgirl’s homework, I need to get something
out of the way.” There was gravity in her voice.

Gemma glanced at me in anticipation, and then back up at Sarah. She
looked excited, and the ginger wasn’t doing jack about how sick I felt right at
that moment.

“I’m sure you guys have
noticed I haven’t been doing so well lately—mainly because you’ve been telling
me how terrible I look, thanks for that—and so I figured I should probably come
clean to you about what’s wrong. I didn’t really want to tell anyone because I
didn’t know how to feel about it. I still don’t know how to feel
about it, but not talking about it isn’t going to make it go away. I’m sorry I
kept it from you guys.” She exhaled and fanned her arms out. “I’m pregnant, and
it’s due in December.”

Bree
immediately shrieked. It was the kind of ear-splitting sound that
shattered glass, and she leapt from her chair and went and wrapped her arms
around Sarah’s middle. “I’m so happy for you!” she said in one single syllable.
“You’re going to be so happy! I’m going to make you and Rob a big, colourful
cake!”

While she was describing
the cake, I stole a look at Gemma. She looked like someone had just punched her
in the stomach.

“—and I’m not going to use
the colours blue or pink, because it’s stupid to force gender roles on
something that isn’t even born yet, and I don’t want to do anything too baby or
cutesy because you’ll get lots of that from other people, so I was thinking
maybe a rising sun or something to represent a new beginning—”

As she was talking, Sarah
started to squint suspiciously at her.

“—or I was thinking maybe I could just do a stuffed-toy-shaped cake after all? It would
have to be something easy to make with—”

“—Bree,” Sarah said
shortly when she’d heard enough, cutting her off. “That’s an awful lot of
detail to already have figured out in the thirty seconds since I told you...”

Bree gulped. Wide-eyed,
she tried to look innocent. “I just get excited about cakes?” she attempted in
her meekest voice, but Sarah wasn’t buying it. She pursed her lips and gave me
a very accusing glare.

I threw my hands up, and
before I’d thought about what I was doing, I stupidly said, “Don’t
look at me, she went snooping and figured it out herself!” I regretted it
the second I’d said it.

Gemma turned her head
towards me, and the look on her face…
“You knew?”

I threw up my hands. “It’s
not like that, Gemma—”

“Yeah,” Sarah agreed,
talking over me. “Min walked in on me
while I was catatonic and holding the test, and then this one,” she said,
roughly scruffing up Bree’s hair, “apparently doesn’t know how to mind her
own business.”

“I was worried,” Bree
grumbled from under her mop of frizzy hair.

Sarah sat down beside us
and opened her laptop. “Anyway, I’m not telling anyone at work until I’m
basically spherical, so if we could not tell anyone else—especially not Liz, by
the way, that girl can’t keep her mouth shut—that would be great. Thanks.”

That was clearly the end
of the discussion, but Gemma just sat there by herself for a second, reeling.
It was hard to watch. Despite all that planning she’d done, all those shared
dreams she’d thought she was fulfilling, she wasn’t going to get a chance to
give her perfect surprise to Sarah after all. God, my heart broke for
Gemma. She didn’t make eye-contact with any of us, and Sarah didn’t even look
up.

“Isn’t
this exciting?” Bree asked Gemma after she’d gone to grab her tablet from
my room and shifted her chair over beside Gemma’s. “She’s going to be the first
one to have a baby! Who do you think will be next? Liz, maybe?”

“Nah, Liz says she’s not
having kids while Chris is playing the league,” Sarah told us, not looking up from
her laptop.

“Well, it won’t be me,”
Gemma said bleakly.

Bree laughed politely like
Gemma had made a joke, and then tabbed through a menu on her tablet, looking
for a file. “You might accidentally get pregnant from some stranger, you never know.”

“Pretty sure you need to
be having actual sex to get pregnant,” Sarah said with a grin, teasing Gemma
like she always did. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion, and
it just kept going. Gemma didn’t even challenge Sarah on it, she just
pretended to be very interested in whatever file Bree had just opened.

Later, when Gemma had
finished checking Bree’s Maths assignment and gone into the kitchen to refill
our teas, I snuck in behind her and shut the door. She looked up at me as I latched it. “Come to see what else is in the
fridge?” she managed, sounding passably cheerful.

“No,” I said, leaning on
the bench beside her while she waited for the jug to boil.

She deflated. She knew
what I meant. “It’s fine, Min.” She wasn’t looking at me. “Do you want ginger again?
Because there’s a whole box of other weird concoctions on the shelf.”

“I’m not here for that,” I
told her, taking a step towards her and going to put a gentle hand on her back.
“I want to make sure you’re—”

She immediately shrugged
me off and moved away, holding her hands up. “Don’t,” she said, probably a bit
louder than she needed to. “Don’t. Please. I can’t—” She didn’t
finish that sentence, instead dropping her arms and shaking her head. She
looked up at me, but she didn’t speak straight away. When she did, her voice
cracked on the words. “She used to tell me everything.”

Oh god. “Honestly. I
walked in on her. That’s all it is.”

She shook her head slowly,
still looking at me. Her voice was quieter this time. “No, it’s not, Min.” The
jug finished boiling. She poured water one-by-one into all of our mugs and then
refused to let me help her as she carried them out.

“Thanks!” Bree said
indulgently, accepting hers when Gemma passed it to her. “Oh my god,
I’m so over this assignment, I can’t wait for the holidays. I’ve done
this equation like a hundred times and I still can’t get it right. Help! What
am I doing wrong?” Without looking at me, Gemma sat down next to Bree and went
through it.

Sarah glanced up at us.
“Did you two have fun in the kitchen together?” she asked oh-so-innocently.

“Let’s just say she’s
definitely pregnant now,” I said flatly, and then sat down at my own laptop.

Later, Bree fell asleep
with her tablet again, and while I was tucking her in, Gemma escaped through
the back door so I couldn’t privately show her out like I usually did. After
she’d gone, Sarah yawned and stretched, closing her laptop screen. “I’m so glad
I don’t have to pretend I don’t feel weird and gross. Look,” she said,
wobbling the skin on her upper arm. “I’m enormous! My whole body feels
like one big amniotic sac.”

There was literally no
difference. She looked the same. “Yup, you’re basically a whale,” I told her,
disappearing into my room to get into bed with Bree.

I sat down on the edge of
the bed as I kicked off my shoes, and
then spent a few minutes gently stroking Bree as she slept, and thinking about
what had just happened with Gemma. She’d been so excited about that trip. I wondered how long she’d been planning
it for; ages, by the sound of it. Fuck. I hoped she hadn’t booked
everything; my gut told me that she probably had. She’d done everything except
figure out the perfect way to surprise Sarah, and I think she’d been about to
ask for my help in that. God, I felt guilty. Why did I feel guilty?

I was stripping off my
clothes to get into my pyjamas, and I’d taken my phone out of my pocket and put
it on the bedside table when I noticed the LED flashing. I picked it up because
I thought it might be Gemma.

It wasn’t Gemma. It was in
Korean. “I sent you a heavy package in the post, you’ll need to sign for it,
and don’t get it wet! I’ve been collecting wedding inspiration from magazines
since you were a little girl; any time I saw something pretty or clever, I cut
it out and put it in a box. I sat down and went through all my boxes today and
put the ideas I think Henry might like into the package for you. Some of them
are so beautiful, Min, and I’ve had to wait so long for you to actually get
married that there’s plenty of choice.
Make sure you consult me before you make any silly, impulsive decisions,
though. You’re no good at these things, but I’ll help you. I’ll make sure
nothing stops you from having the perfect wedding. It will be so special, so
beautiful - something you and Henry will remember for the rest of your lives.
You’ll be glad I did this for you.”

I stared down at my
screen, feeling a knot form in the pit of my stomach. How did I even respond to
something like this? It made me so angry. So angry, and so tired, and
even thinking about how I was going to reply was paralysing. I wished that she
would just never text me again.

I’ve given you what you want, I thought bitterly. Why can’t you just leave me alone?

While I was standing there
with my phone, Bree stirred and turned slowly over in bed, yawning and looking
up at me. She froze when she saw my expression. Before I could stop her, she
sat up and plucked my phone from my fingers, lying back down and cramming it
under her pillow. “Goodnight,” she said with a little smile, and then closed
her eyes.

SIXTEEN

I don’t know what I expected I’d
achieve by telling Mum I was marrying Henry. Three years with him mediating
between Mum and me had obviously lulled
me into a false sense of security because that illusion was shattered now, that
was for sure.

“You should get pregnant,” was what I woke up to at the crack of
dawn on Friday morning after I’d surreptitiously fished the phone out from
under Bree’s pillow. I squinted at the screen while my eyes adjusted to the light. “Henry is the type of man who would do the right thing and bring the
wedding forward so the child isn’t born out of wedlock.”

She was going to fill up
my SD card with the amount of ‘helpful’ advice she was giving me, seriously. I
quickly shoved my phone back under the pillow before Bree could catch me with
it, but I think I woke her up with my heavy sighing anyway. She made a noise.
“Min,” she said, her eyes still closed and her voice thick with sleep.

“I know.” Chastised, I put
my head back on the pillow. “I just keep worrying it’s going to be a message that
says, ‘I know you’re lying and I’m getting on a plane right now!’”

“There’s nothing you can
do if it is,” Bree mumbled. “So, like, losing sleep over it isn't going to
help.”

“Yeah, I know,” I
repeated. “But I can only face that blinking LED for so long before I need to
know what she’s saying.”

“Maybe just disable it?”

I exhaled. “I can’t. And
even if I could, I’d be checking my phone anyway.” I turned to lie against her back. She was warm. “Logically I
know worrying about it doesn’t help...”

Bree chuckled at that,
taking my arm from on top of me and cuddling it to her chest. “Before I met
you, I used to think I worried
about things a lot.”

We both dozed a bit more
until her alarm went off and she needed to go off to school. Mum had sent
me another message by the time Bree left, as well.

Constant text messages
weren’t the end of it, either: she sent me an email with a suggested wedding
guest list around midday and then checked hourly to ask if I’d read it, and her
messages got increasingly more passive-aggressive as the sun started to set.
So, in the evening while Bree was finalising her mid-year assignments and we
were waiting for Sarah and Gemma to get home, I caved and ended up hunched over
my laptop with Outlook open.

I was straining to read
all the Korean names and didn’t notice the door open. When a delivery slip
suddenly appeared in front of my face, I jumped. A hand placed it on my
keyboard, and Sarah then rounded the table and grinned at me. “I found this
wedged in the front door. Apparently you have a package waiting at the post
office. Anything interesting?”

I picked the card up to
have a quick look at it before sighing deeply and putting it aside. “The
opposite. It’s from my Mum.”

She laughed once. “What a
surprise. That's from her too, right?” She stepped stiffly out of her heels and
leant over my shoulder, taking a peek at the email as she massaged one of her
swollen ankles. “God, my feet are killing me. Is that a list?”

I sighed at it. “Yeah, of
people who should come to Henry’s and my wedding, apparently.”

“Wow,” she said as I
scrolled up and down. “I don’t think I even know that many people.”

“Coming from you, that’s
quite a statement,” I observed with a grin, and sat back. Sarah had so many
friends. Actually… Thinking about them made me realise there was a
notable absence from this conversation. “Where’s Gemma?”

Sarah shrugged, sitting
across from me and examining her foot. There was a clear line in her skin where her heels ended. “She
said she needed to work late, and since Maths isn’t on the timeline for today,
I told her that was okay.”

Bree looked up from her
assignment sheets. “What?” she sounded really disappointed. “But I wanted her
to be here after I submit them so we can celebrate all our hard work together!”

While I was worrying about
my last conversation with Gemma, Sarah gave up on her feet and bent sideways in
the chair and patted Bree on the head. “I’m sure she knows you appreciate her.
Are they already submitted?”

Bree drew a tentative
breath. “No,” she said, “but they’re about to be! I’m just trying to decide if
I should spend more time fixing them or not. I want them to be good enough so
that the school doesn’t kick me out after all this work you guys have done.”

I’d proofread her
discourse analysis myself. “Your essay is fine, Bree, trust me.”

“Yeah,” Sarah chimed in.
“I’m 100% certain that I can quote your lab report from start to finish, the
amount of time I spent looking at it. It’s good.”

“I think you should submit
them now,” I told Bree. “Go on, go for it.”

“Really?” she asked,
inflating like a balloon. “Should I do it? Just like that?” It took us both
nodding at her for her to start to believe it. She could hardly contain her
smile. “Okay!” She spent a couple of seconds tapping away at her tablet, and
then very theatrically gave the screen one final poke. “Done!” she declared,
standing up throwing her hands up in a victory ‘V’. “I’ve just handed in all of
my midyear assignments, and now it’s holidays! I have two whole weeks
where I don’t have to do anything!”

Bree’s idea of a
celebration was cooking us dinner and then turning over Sarah’s whole
kitchen because she was sure she’d seen a bottle of gin
somewhere. She eventually found it, but neither of us was that excited when she put it on the table in front of us.

“The only reason that
bottle still has anything in it is because that brand
is disgusting,” Sarah told us.
“I think someone brought it to a party a year ago and it’s survived all of them
since.”

Since it was the only
alcohol in the house, Bree found a cocktail recipe for gin that included ginger
tea, and then after we’d eaten her pasta, she presented us with a gin toddy.
“Yours is a virgin one,” she told Sarah. A very hard stare over the top of
that ‘virgin’ toddy warned me to stop snickering about it.

There wasn’t enough gin to
make either of us actually drunk—not that Bree would have actually let me get
drunk—but it was pretty nice feeling that buzz again, and it definitely made it
easier to ignore Gemma’s absence, Mum's email, and my flashing LED which
was probably a message asking about the email.

Sarah didn’t have any work
to do because she was between projects—actually half the Marketing floor was,
which was weird—so the three of us crowded around her computer and googled what
a foetus looked like at 15 weeks and all the things that were happening in
Sarah’s stomach. “You’re going to get a bump soon,” Bree observed and then
looked down at Sarah’s front.

Sarah pressed her lips
together and mutely took Bree’s hand, placing it just below her bellybutton.
Bree brightened. “Oh my god!” she said, feeling around a bit. “You can already
feel it!”

“Yeah,” Sarah said
reluctantly. “At least you can’t really see
it yet, but it won’t be long.”

Bree could hardly contain
herself. “Min, come and feel this!”

I gave Sarah an apologetic
look and put my hand beside Bree’s on her tummy. There was an unmistakable
firmness there. “Is it uncomfortable?” I wondered.

She shook her head. “Not
really. My boobs hurt more, but the nausea is the worst thing.”

“This is so amazing,”
Bree gushed, and then stopped probing Sarah’s stomach for a few seconds to wrap
her arms around Sarah herself. “I’m so happy for you! I mean, the morning
sickness sucks, obviously, but it will be over soon and you’ll be a mum
forever!” Sarah looked more haunted than comforted by that.

Rob chose that instant to
arrive home and walk in on us. He gave us a bit of an odd look, but ended up laughing and heading off for
a shower. I think Sarah had endured quite enough of us groping her, and
declared that she was going to join him. After she’d gone, Bree drank another
mouthful of gin from the bottle and giggled about the fact Rob and Sarah were
probably fucking in the shower. She gave the last mouthful to me while
we were trying to figure out how to celebrate.

Neither of us really felt
like watching a movie, and it wasn’t even 10pm
yet so it seemed a bit early for bed.
While I was wondering if perhaps we should go out somewhere and have a drink to
properly celebrate Bree’s hard work and the end of term, Bree wandered over towards the window and pulled the curtains
aside, switching the living room light off so she could see the garden. “It
looks nice out there, doesn’t it?” she decided, and before I answered, she
opened the door and went to see for herself. I followed her.

It was a mild night;
chilly, but thankfully not bitterly cold like it had been for the past few
weeks. Bree was holding the railing of Sarah’s deck, leaning backwards on her
heels with her face turned upward. I looked up, too. Above us there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and
instead, there were a million stars
stretching from one horizon to the other. Far on the distant skyline, the
Southern Cross rose up over the city lights.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Bree
murmured, an incredulous smile on her face.

“Yeah,” I said in perfect
honesty. Living in central Sydney, I’d never seen the sky like this.

“Come on!” Bree said before I’d finished looking at it, and
then bolted off down the stairs and out into the backyard.

I followed her down to
find out what she was doing, and walked
out onto the gumnut-covered lawn just as
she stepped her school shoes off and climbed up onto Sarah’s old rusted
trampoline. It creaked in protest, but that didn’t stop her from immediately
standing upright and jumping on it. Leaves and twigs bounced on the surface,
and she kicked them off, laughing.

Even in the dim moonlight,
I could see what kind of state the springs were in. “It’s too old and rusty,
Bree!” I called up to her. “Those springs are going to snap and you’re going to
get hurt!”

“You’re worrying too much
again!” Bree caught a gumnut that had
bounced off the trampoline and lopped it at me. I ducked. “Come on, get up
here!” From the rosy glow in her cheeks and her heavy-lidded grin, I guessed
she was a bit tipsy.

I twisted and cast my eyes
around: it was dark, and it seemed pretty clear that all the neighbours had
turned in for the night, because none of
their windows were lit.

Another gumnut bounced off my head. “Ouch!” I hissed, turning back to Bree
and rubbing where it had hit. She grinned at me
and bounced aside to make space so I
could get up. The trampoline hadn’t collapsed in a tired heap after all.

I looked up at her
giggling and bouncing around in her socks while I was standing here on the
ground with my arms crossed, and realised she was right: I was worrying too much. I’d lied to
Mum so I could actually enjoy my life, right?

“You know, what the hell…”
I said with a grin, and hoisted a knee up
on the rusted iron frame as Bree cheered at me.

The trampoline sagged
under my weight and made a deep,
concerning groan as I stood up. Bree started jumping before I was
ready and I nearly fell over. She grabbed my arm and stopped me from pitching
down onto the lawn, but in the process landed at the same time as I did and
launched me upwards. The moment I spent airborne flooded me with adrenaline,
and my stomach felt like it was flying up to my throat as I was falling through
the air. In that second—that split second—I vividly remembered being seven
years old and sneaking into the gymnasium at school at lunch to play on the
trampoline while no one was there. It was exhilarating, and I found myself half-shrieking and half-laughing.

“I told you!” Bree said,
trying not to do it again. “I told you it felt amazing!”

I was a bit breathless as I
jumped myself, this time. “I haven’t done this for years!”

“Me neither!” Bree said,
accidentally matching my landing again and sending us colliding together in the
centre. We both laughed. “Me and Andrej
used to have a trampoline when I was little, but Dad sold it a couple of years
ago.”

She was lucky. “I never
had one,” I told her, remembering mournfully into backyards where kids were
playing on them as I walked past on the way home from school. “I always wanted
one, though.”

Bree was seeing how high
she could go. “We should get one!” she announced, as her skirt went up over her stomach and I got a peek at her polka
dot knickers. “When we move out together, I mean!”

I almost didn’t want to
say it. “I won’t be able to afford a house with a backyard, Bree. I’ll be lucky
to be able to afford one with a roof.”

She didn’t look fazed. “We
have the whole rest of our lives, Min,” she said. “One day we’ll be able to
afford it, and then, when we can, let’s buy a brand new enormous trampoline!”

There was something magical
about the idea of spending money on such a ridiculous purchase. Mum would never
approve: a trampoline was a waste of money, she’d always said. But right now,
high in the air, I couldn’t think of anything else I’d rather waste my money
on. I couldn’t stop laughing. “Yeah, let’s do it!”

I would have liked to keep
going longer, but we had to stop bouncing eventually because jumping around in
my tight binder was making me lightheaded. We lay down together on the mat,
looking upward past the tall and shadowy gum
trees in Sarah’s yard at the millions of stars. It was so quiet, all I
could hear was the wind in the leaves.

Bree’s fingertips crept
over and found mine. “Do you know any constellations?”

I shook my head. “We can
look them up.”

There turned out to be an
app for it: I could even hold my phone up towards the sky and it would pick the
brightest stars and tell me what they were called. We spent a little while
playing with it; holding it in all directions, learning about celestial bodies
and what all their names were. Lying still in one spot, though, I began to feel
the chill in the air.

“It’s getting cold,” I
commented, putting my phone back in my pocket. “Maybe we should go inside.”

Bree didn’t make any sort
of attempt to move. “Or maybe we should get the doona.”

I chuckled at her and
tapped her nose with an index finger. “Okay.”

The ground felt too solid
under my jelly legs when I climbed off and tried to walk like a normal person
again. I stole a glance at Bree before I struggled up the stairs to the house:
she was lying on her back, limbs outstretched, gazing upwards at the sky. Her
hair was fanned out around her head in perfect little ringlets. There was a
gentle smile on her face, and while I was watching her, it deepened. I wondered
what she was thinking about.

Inside, all the lights
were out. Rob and Sarah must have gone to bed after their shower. I grabbed the
doona off my own bed, and was about to head straight back outside again when,
coincidentally, my eyes fell on the hard packer
on my desk.

I stopped for a moment.

Don’t make this wonderful night about sex, I immediately thought, feeling
guilty. It’s not the right time,
another voice said, and then, what do you actually think you’re going to do with that ridiculous thing, Min? I smothered them, thinking
about Bree’s generous smile, her outstretched hand helping me up onto the
trampoline, and those polka dot knickers. Something stirred in my chest at the
thought of her.

I abandoned the doona and
went to pick the hard packer up off the
desk. I could put it on now. A
nervous smile immediately rose to my lips at the thought of that, and my
stomach filled with butterflies. Yeah, just in case she wants
to, I could put it on.

Unable to wipe the stupid
grin off my face, I pulled my jeans and boxers down around my knees and
threaded my legs through the harness. It was easier the second time, and I knew
how to fit the shaft in my boxers so my jeans zipped up. I let the front of my
hoodie fall over the bulge. I preferred it hidden like that, actually. I didn’t
much like how the hard packer looked—seeing it made
me really uncomfortable—but as long as it was hidden, I kind of liked
how actually having it felt. I was ready, in case something happened.

I gathered up the doona
again and went back outside, tossing it in a big heap on top of Bree and
listening to her giggle and try and unearth herself from it as I climbed up and
flopped down beside her. We wrapped ourselves in it, and then relaxed back onto the mat.

Bree didn’t speak straight
away. She was staring up at the sky with that same gentle smile she’d had
earlier. “I was just thinking how different my life was six months ago,” she
eventually said. “Everything was shit. It was such total shit. I used to
lie in bed at night and wonder if that’s just the way life was going to be for
me.” She turned her head towards me. “But it’s not.”

Her hand found mine under
the covers.

“That’s not what my life
is. It’s this: lying under the stars with someone who treats me like I’m the
world. Someone who makes me feel like if I asked for one of those stars, she’d
climb right up there and get one down for me.” There were tears in her eyes.
“And I know it might not seem like anything, but I’m really, really excited to get my marks back from those assignments.
I’ve never had that before. Teachers always wrote things like ‘disappointing’
and ‘not good enough’ on my papers. I can’t wait to see what they
write this time.” She smiled a bit, quietly watching me. “I’m just really
happy, Min,” she said. “And I wish this whole thing with your mum would go away
so you could be really happy, too.”

I sighed audibly,
squeezing her hand. “Yeah,” I said, with feeling. “But given the circumstances,
things are actually pretty good. Especially right now, listening to you talk
about how happy you are.” I leant up a fraction, bringing a hand to her face
and tilting her chin with my fingertips.

She broke into a big, open
smile and let me kiss her. Her lips tasted like ginger and alcohol—a sharp
taste, but not unpleasant—an interesting contrast to how soft they were. She
opened her mouth to me and let me kiss her slowly and thoroughly, her lips
occasionally pulling tight on her teeth as she smiled. Her gentle fingers
touched my jaw, combed my hair and then snaked around my back, holding me
against her. I bent one of my knees a little so she couldn’t feel the packer,
but she kept drawing up to me, looping her calves around mine and trying to
straighten it so we could be closer. I didn’t let her, as much as I wanted to.
I didn’t want to ruin a romantic moment.

She was the one who pulled
off her own tie, and unbuttoned her own shirt, and placed one of my hands on
her breasts. Her skin was cool, despite us being wrapped in a doona.

“Your hands are warm,” she
whispered, leaning into me so her breasts filled them and flesh spilt between my spread fingers.

A lot of me is warm, I thought, feeling how quickly my pulse raced as I kissed
down her neck and across her shoulders, and put my warm lips on her chest.

She inhaled and drew up against
me, tugging at my hoodie. “Can we take it off?”

I let her help me pull it
and my t-shirt up over my head, and then she shrugged off her own shirt and bra
and settled against me for what she probably thought was the long haul. We
hadn’t gone further than this since the first week we were together. She knew
what I was struggling with and probably wasn’t expecting more, so when I pulled
back for a moment and took her hand, guiding it slowly down my body to cup the
bulge in my pants, her jaw dropped.

God, what a reaction. I
kissed her open mouth. “Only if you want to,” I murmured into her lips.

She came to her senses and
pulled right up against me, pressing hard against it. “Are you kidding me? Are
you fucking kidding me?” She couldn’t get her knickers off fast enough.

She went to take her skirt
off, too, but I stopped her. “Leave it on,” I told her. At her surprised
expression, I explained, “I don’t want to see the packer.”

“Oh...” She unbuckled my
belt, unzipping my jeans and pushing them down my thighs. I kicked them off.
“So, hang on, you don’t like it after all? After last weekend, I kind of
thought you did…?”

I made a face. “I don’t
know how I feel about it. It’s still on probation.”

She stopped kissing me and
pushed me away for a moment. “Then you can take it off if you want, Min. It’s
totally okay. Don’t wear it just for me.”

I considered that. I liked
her response to it, and that was definitely part of the reason I was
wearing it. It wasn’t the whole reason, though. “I’m wearing it for myself, too.” I promised her. “I just want to see
if…” If this is what I need. If this
is what works for me. If this is what stops me from feeling like something’s
wrong, I thought, but I couldn’t say it.

She looked relieved.
“Okay,” she said. “Well, let’s see.”

She pushed me onto my back
with a firm kiss. I could feel the cotton of her knee-high socks brush my bare
thighs as she straddled me and felt around between us, lifting her hips for a
moment. Then slowly, carefully, she
lowered herself down onto my lap. I didn’t need to be able to see what she
was doing to guess: her lips parted, her eyes fell shut, and she exhaled a
cloud of steam that filled the chilly air between us. I gathered the doona up
around our shoulders so she wouldn’t be cold.

She hardly noticed, relaxing
down onto me and giving me a loose kiss. “Is that okay?” I murmured, glancing
downward as I enveloped her in my arms.

She nodded. “Yeah,” she
said vaguely, resting her cheek against mine for a moment. I moved my hips
steadily underneath her and listened to her take little gasping breaths beside
my ear.

She didn’t stay there for
long. She sat up a little and then took over the movement herself, rocking
gently on top of me. We kissed as she did, our lips matching the rhythm, but
she kept closing her eyes and freezing in the middle of them; the kiss
forgotten as she focused on feelings elsewhere. She opened them eventually,
though, cupping my chin with her hand and looking up at me from under those
long brown lashes. “That’s good,” she breathed. “That’s really good.”

I kissed her bottom lip.
“Tell me if you want me to do something.”

She shook her head, her fingertips frozen on my chin as her mouth
opened again. It was a moment before she spoke. “This is enough,” she murmured.
“It feels really good, Min.” I
smiled, listening to each breath she took and trailing my hands down her body
to her soft, full hips.

When her movements got
stronger she sat back a little, each breath coming quick and fast. I could see down her body between us, to her breasts
bouncing on her ribs and the little fold in her stomach just above the hem of
her skirt. Her soft thighs across me. Her knee-high socks on her calves. The
pearl pendant dangled between us, swaying as she moved, and her hair falling
over my face and tickling my skin. They were all little details that reminded
me that this wasn’t just anyone, this was Bree, my Bree:
someone with endless energy and patience who bought strawberry-patterned aprons
and got excited about tableware. Who dreamt of a quiet, domestic future and all
the children she wanted to love. And she loved me. She loved me with all of that big heart of hers, and
I felt it in everything she did for me and everything she said about me. It
felt endless, and safe, and having her here in my arms, kissing me and making
love to me like this felt like the perfect, complete expression of it. It felt
so natural.

It wasn’t long before the
muscles in her thighs began to quiver, and her lips parted soundlessly, and her
breath caught in her throat, and she stiffened for a moment, shaking,
before she finally exhaled, flopping back against me and breathing heavily. She
lay there catching her breath. I could feel her smiling against the skin on my
shoulder.

After a little while, she
lifted up her head and was about to say something, but she saw my own pink
cheeks and parted lips. Considering them for a moment—and watching my face very
carefully to make sure it was okay—she loosened the straps of my packer,
slipping her hand underneath it and into my boxers to finish me off.
Afterwards, we lay side by side, snuggled together in the warm feather down
doona, gazing up into the trees.

She had a big, satisfied
smile. “Okay, hands up everyone who thinks you should keep the packer,” she
asked ‘everyone’, and then put her hand up.

I laughed and put my hand
up, too, and she rolled over to give me another kiss before relaxing back on
the mat. “I knew it was a good idea!”

I curled one of her
ringlets around a finger. “Yeah. I’m glad you bought it.”

She grinned at me. “You’re glad I bought it?” She
giggled. “I’m pretty glad I bought it! It’s awesome! And, come on, how
many girls can say they chose their boyfriend’s dick for him?”

I laughed at that, but then sobered a little. “’Him’?”

She looked across at me.
“Is that wrong?”

I pressed my lips together
and shook my head. “I’m just used to you she-herring me, I think.”

Bree considered that. “’I
chose my boyfriend’s dick for her?’”
she tried, and then scrunched up her face. “That is one incredibly fucked up
sentence.” She laughed a bit at it. “I just mainly use whatever pronouns seem
right depending on where we are and what I’m saying.”

“Yeah,” I told her. “I know
you just say what seems right. It’s just interesting you chose ‘he’ when we’re
alone together.”

“Well, in heaps of ways
you are a he,” Bree pointed
out. “You always prefer words like ‘boyfriend’ and ‘Mr’ and all that. If you
don’t want me to use ‘he’, I won’t, though. It’s up to you. Which pronouns do
you use for yourself? Like, when you’re alone and you think about yourself?”

I couldn’t remember. “I
don’t know,” I said, straining to recall the last time I’d needed to use them.

She turned on an elbow towards
me. She was frowning. “You’d tell me straight away if you wanted me to use
different ones, wouldn’t you?”

I ruffled her hair and
smiled. “Of course. It’s just that I honestly don’t know the answer, and with
Mum saying ‘wife’ and ‘daughter’ constantly, it’s hard to think. I guess if
those words aren’t right, ‘he’ is, isn’t it? Except that when you guys she-her
me, I don’t even notice. I notice when you use ‘he’, but is that just because
I’m used to ‘she’, or because ‘he’ is wrong? And if ‘he’ is wrong,
why do I prefer it when strangers use it and think I’m a regular guy?” I
sighed. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. The only thing I know for sure is
that I wish Mum would stop talking all day about what a beautiful bride and dutiful wife her daughter
should be. She’s relentless. She couldn’t give a fuck
what I want.”

Bree lay back down beside
me. “Well, maybe she won’t always be as bad as she is now.”

“It’s been like this for
26 years,” I said, and sighed.
Somehow, despite the wonderful evening and the fact we’d just
had great sex, we were talking about Mum again. “Sorry, we’re
supposed to be celebrating, aren’t we? I didn’t mean to turn this into a bitch
fest about how shit Mum can be.”

Bree laughed once.
“Probably as shit as my brother can be,” she said. “Except one day I get to
move away from home and hopefully never think about that psycho fuck and
everything awful he’s done to me ever again.”

I snaked an arm underneath
her neck so I could hug her against me. “You could move out now, Bree,” I
offered, squeezing her. “I’d actually feel better if you never went back to
that house. I don’t know why you do, with everything that goes on.”

Bree exhaled. “Because
it’s my home, Min.” She looked tired all of a sudden.

“But
you hate being there.”

“Yeah, but I love the
people inside it,” she paused. “Well, some of them.”

I wanted to tell her that
she could just love them from a different address, but I left it. It wasn’t
really my place to be pushy about her moving out. Remembering what she’d said
about the house being foreclosed on, they probably wouldn’t be there together
for much longer anyway.

While I was wondering how
long it would be before they were kicked out, Bree spoke again. “I want you to
come over again. Maybe during the holidays? I can do what I was planning to:
maybe pick a night when Andrej is working late and, like, cook a nice dinner
for you and my parents so you can all sit around the table and talk and they
can learn all about you.”

I frowned. Learn about me?
“I thought you didn’t want me to tell them straight away?”

Bree’s eyes were wide.
“Yeah, not straight away. Don’t, like, walk in the door and be all like, ‘Hi,
I’m Min Lee, I’m the big, scary Korean dude dating your daughter and, also, I’m
a trans guy!’ or something. But… you know. Maybe by the end of the night, if
they like you and if it kind of just flows... you should do it.”

“I should do it?” The
thought made me sweat. I kept thinking of Bree’s mum
nearly ramming my car and then
shouting and hammering on my window. I’d rather Bree be the one to tell them,
preferably when I was as far away from their house as possible.

“Yeah, of course you should do it? It’s totally not my
place to come out for you. Also, the sooner you do it, the less we have to
worry about Andrej blurting it out to ruin everything because he’s
a bastard.”

She had a point, but I
suddenly discovered I had something else to worry about in addition
to my wonderful mother. Fuck.  Why couldn’t Bree and I
just have nice, moderate parents who voted Greens and joined PFLAG? “Let me think
about it,” I told her, knowing it was all I’d fucking think about until it was
over.

“Well, we have two whole
weeks,” Bree reminded me. “And I need some time to decide what I’m going to
cook anyway!” She spent a few minutes grinning up at the sky. “I can’t wait to
tell them my marks from those assignments, too. They’re going to
be so surprised.”

I smiled at her. “I’m not
surprised.”

She looked absolutely delighted and shuffled upwards again. “I just
totally lost my virginity to the right person,” she said, and then gave me a
big kiss before settling on her elbows and looking around us. “Are we going to sleep out here, by the way? This doona
is, like, super amazingly warm.” She looked excited.

Since this
was her night, I silenced the nagging voice telling me that someone
might see us, or even that Mum would somehow choose this moment to
arrive on Sarah’s doorstep, and let Bree help me take off my binder. Then,
leaving my top off and tucking the hard packer
and my binder behind me inside the covers, I gathered the doona up around our
shoulders and turned over to be Bree’s big spoon. It was the first time we’d
slept skin-to-skin.

Then, under the clear sky,
a million stars, and gently swaying gumtrees,
we finally fell asleep.

SEVENTEEN

I woke up to the warm sun on my hair,
the sound of magpies warbling, and with Bree’s curls tickling my neck and my
shoulders. I brushed them aside.

She stirred. “You’re
warm,” she mumbled into my shoulder. “And topless.”

“Likewise,” I told her, and kissed the top of her head as she
snuggled into me. I could feel she wasn’t wearing knickers, and I was feeling a
bit smug about that right up until the point where I realised I couldn’t feel
her skirt either. Knowing Bree, she’d taken it off at some point during the
night, unconcerned about being completely naked under a doona in Sarah’s
backyard. I was a bit more concerned, especially about the fact I was topless, too. “We should probably
get up soon.” I felt around for my t-shirt.

Bree hugged me more
tightly. “No,” she said. “Let’s stay here forever.”

A third voice spoke.
“Well, you can if you want, but there’s rain forecast tonight.” It was Sarah,
and she sounded very amused. My eyes flew open to her leaning over the edge of
the decking in her dressing gown, her hands warming on a steaming mug. She
toasted me with it. “Good morning.”

“Sarah.” Panicking, I
frantically ran my hand around inside the doona to make sure the hard packer
hadn’t escaped overnight. When my fingers brushed it, I breathed
a big sigh of relief.

Sarah watched me with
amusement. “Fun night?” She asked rhetorically, taking a sip. “You know, a
lesser person would totally have taken a photo of this
carnage. That would be one for Schoolgirl’s Facebook.”

“You should!” Bree piped
up, the traitor. “It was a really fun night!”

I snaked my arm around
Bree’s head and covered that big mouth of hers with a firm hand. “What she
means to say is ‘Thank god you’re not a lesser person, because then Min would
have to start an album on her own Facebook dedicated to all the times you
look truly awful’.”

Sarah scoffed. “Please,
there would be exactly zero photos in it. I always look amazing, even when
I’m bloated, and aching, and drinking whatever the hell this is.” She held it
up to read the dangling tag. “’Warm orange’. That sounds like something I’d
paint my wall. Anyway, as much as I’d love a blow by blow of what happened on this
‘really fun night’ of yours—” she snickered at her own wording, “Junior here is
probably going to end up playing on that trampoline at some point and I’d
rather not know what nefarious things have happened on it. I’ll leave you two
lovebirds to clean up.” She winked at us, and then walked back to the door,
laughing to herself.

I expected Bree to harp at
me for ruining her photo op when I released her, but she just looked
thoughtful. “You said ‘her own
Facebook’,” she pointed out as we began to try and unearth our clothes.

Once we were dressed, I
gave in and let Bree take a less risqué morning after shot of our sleepy eyes
and messy hair. She forwarded it to herself, and then handed my phone back,
grimacing. “Don’t look at how many messages you have,” she warned me.

I took it off her and just
put it straight into my pocket. “Noted,” I told her and climbed off the
trampoline.

It was easy enough to get
the hard packer into my bedroom—Bree and
I just bundled it inside the doona and walked casually past Rob and Sarah with
it—but I couldn’t get it into the
bathroom without it being clear I was smuggling something under my hoodie. With
Bree giggling from my bedroom behind me, I made a frenzied run for it in case
the other two chose that exact moment to walk down the hallway. They didn’t,
the contraband remained uncompromised, and operation Transport Packer was
a success. Triumphant, I hopped in the shower and cleaned it.

Before I did, I spent a
moment or two holding it against my naked body, trying to get used to seeing it
there so I could decide if I needed a real one or not. I couldn’t get used to
it, though. Having something sticking out of me like that looked sudden and out
of place. I liked using it with Bree because it made the things I felt I should
be doing with her actually possible, but I was glad it wasn’t permanently
attached. I let it fall, and was then faced with what was actually between my legs, and that wasn’t right
either. Feeling weird, I washed it anyway. I was glad Bree accepted my
body—although remembering her touching it made me cringe—but given the
choice, I’d sooner just level everything from my shoulders to my knees and have
nothing there at all.

I stopped lathering the body wash for a moment, listening
to myself. ‘Just level everything’? Did that mean I was genderqueer and not a budding trans guy after all? That was a
tough question this early in the morning, so I put the packer aside and got back to my shower.

I moved on to washing my
hair while I went over the other stuff that had happened last night, most
notably that my crazy fucking girlfriend thought it would be a
fantastic idea for two adults to jump on a rusty trampoline in the dark. I
chuckled at the memory. I wondered if we really would end up going trampoline
shopping at some point. The store
clerks would probably assume we were just shopping for our non-existent kids, I
thought as I got out of the shower, dried myself, and went to tuck the clean
packer in my hoodie on the floor.  I loved the idea of secretly buying a
trampoline for us to play on instead. I could picture Bree pretending
to be super-serious about its key features before she insisted on climbing
right up onto it inside the store to test that they—

—the LED on my phone was
still blinking.

“Oh, fuck off,” I said aloud to it, my
pleasant fantasy interrupted. I dropped my hoodie right back on the floor and
wrapped the towel around my waist so I could go and brush my teeth. I should
have just left my phone in the bedroom; my fucking mother could wait. Fuck! And I’d been in such a good mood!

I kept thinking I could
hear my phone buzzing while I was brushing my teeth, but when I paused to
listen, the bathroom was silent. I
wonder what her fucking problem is, I thought bitterly, scrubbing at my
gums. She’s probably found the
wow-so-perfect placemats for the banquet, or maybe the exact shade of mascara
I had to wear with my wedding dress, or
maybe she knows I’m lying to her.

I stopped brushing,
staring at my reflection. Chill out,
Min, I thought, you know it’s not
that. I started brushing again slowly. I was stressing too much again,
wasn’t I?

I pulled on fresh boxers
and jeans, and then struggled into my
binder. I hadn’t read the texts all night, though, probably not since before
Bree was working on her assignments. That was—I counted—maybe 10 hours? 12
hours? That was a long time. What if me not answering made her suspicious and
she had guessed I was lying?

God, Min, get a grip, I told myself harshly. But not
knowing what the messages actually said eventually got too fucking
much for me, and I ended up very angry at everything and sitting on the edge of
the bathtub with my phone.

None of them were Mum saying she knew I was lying.

“See?” I said rudely to
the part of me that hadn’t shut up about that being a possibility, and kept reading. In amongst the wedding chatter and
advice about Henry and Alice, Mum wanted ‘a nice’ photo of Henry and me because, ‘I don’t understand why my only daughter would need to make her own
mother beg for photos of her and her soon-to-be husband. Doesn’t she care how
difficult it is being so far away?’.

Fuck you, I thought, and then felt really guilty. Mum was definitely being
very passive-aggressive and I hated that,
but behind all her bullshit she probably was really lonely and actually missing
me.

Aside from that photo Bree
had just taken—which I was momentarily tempted to send—I had some old ones of Henry and me on my phone, so I opened my
gallery to try and find one I hadn’t sent her yet. Given how much I hated
photos of me back when I used to dress like a Stepford Wife, there weren’t that
many.

There was a time-stamped one
of Henry and me sitting out on the balcony on the first night we’d become more
than friends, and he was kissing my cheek as he took the photo. God, he looked
young there. There was another one of us at JFK Airport as he landed and I
departed—our business trips nearly aligned. There were a few more in
various locations, and in all of them he had that big warm smile of
his, and in all of them, I had a very tight, forced smile and a layer of fresh
makeup I’d applied before I let anyone point a camera at me.

Seeing those photos now, I
remembered how terrible I thought I’d looked then, and how I’d been completely
sure everyone had thought Henry was too good for me. Mum routinely
even said exactly that to me: ‘I don’t know what he’s doing with someone
like you, but you should marry him before he realises!’

Objectively, the woman in
the picture wasn’t punching above her weight, though. She was pretty; she just
looked tense and uncomfortable because deep down, she knew something was wrong.

It hurt to think of Henry
going back over these photos, knowing what he knew about me now. It was all so
clear to me, seeing them with fresh eyes: I was unhappy then. I hoped he knew
that I loved him anyway.

As for Mum… I shook my
head. I didn’t know how Mum could look at any of these and think she was doing
the right thing by pressuring me to marry him. I looked miserable.

Sharp knocking on the door
startled me. “Do I need to issue an eviction notice to you two? There’s only
one toilet!” Sarah called through the door.

Shit. “It’s only me,”
I called back. “I’ll be out in a sec.”

I smuggled the packer out
past her under my hoodie and, fortunately, Sarah was too preoccupied with getting to the toilet as soon as possible
to care about what I was carrying. I still couldn’t shut my door behind me fast
enough.

Bree was inside getting
ready for her own shower and already buzzing about what she wanted to do with
her free time. “I was thinking that we
haven’t really looked around where Sarah lives, have we? Like, we just go to my
house and come back, we don’t look at what’s close by. According to Google
Maps,” she showed me, “there are all these parks and monuments and stuff
everywhere. Plus, we’re so close to the harbour. We should totally drive around
and see what’s here before you have to move out and...” Her sentence trailed
off when she looked back up at me. “What’s wrong? Why are you stressed out
again? You were so happy just before!”

I gave her a look while I
was hunting through my case for some fresh socks;
what always happened?

She understood and pulled
a face. “Don’t check them, Min, seriously.” She sat on the bed. “I was reading
this thing online which was talking about how you should set, like, a specific
time during the day to stress about things so it doesn’t ruin the rest of your
day. Maybe you should do that.”

I shook my head as I
braced myself against the wall to pull my socks on. “She’d get suspicious.”

“So you’re just
going to let her ruin your whole day then?”

“No…” I said, standing and letting my arms flop to my side. I tried
to put Mum’s crap out of my mind. What had Bree been saying before? “Yeah,
let’s go for a drive around here today, maybe we could even go out for
breakfast.”

After Bree had her
shower—in record time, I might add, fuelled by the promise of a fancy breakfast—we
put on our winter coats and went driving around the suburb to look for
somewhere nice to eat. There was a French Patisserie off a park near the
station, so I sat down at an outdoor table near the grass and sent Bree inside
with strict orders for comfort food.

The morning sun was nice
and warm, and I had my face upturned to it, trying to relax. That was until
Bree returned to the table with two cute little tarts, and in the process of
taking pictures of them and cooing over how pretty they were, said, “These are
probably not that hard to make, you know. I could make something like this for
when we have that dinner with my parents!”

The smile fell off my face.

That’s right, I thought. Bree was planning to put me
in a room with the woman who’d nearly rammed my car and a man who freely told
Bree she was stupid and useless. Not only that, but she was expecting me to
voluntarily tell them over a nice home-cooked meal that their daughter was
dating not only a Korean, but also that
he was transgender. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate to worry about.

She noticed my frown.
“It’ll be fine,” she said, reaching over to give me a loose hug before
returning to her tart. “Even if they’re not okay with me dating you, I’m sure
they won’t throw you out of the house or go off at you or anything.
They wouldn’t do that, I’m sure of it. At least, I think so. So, yeah, if they
have a problem, they’d probably be nice to your face and then tell me later to
stop seeing you.”

“How comforting.”

“Seriously,” she said
through a mouthful of tart, a spoon in one hand and her phone in the other. “If
the whole dinner goes really badly and it’s clear they’re in a
terrible mood, you can always not tell them and just hope that Andrej doesn’t
get to them first. But I think it will be okay.”

That wasn’t much
consolation. I still didn’t understand why having me meet her parents was so
important to her anyway; in the last two years since Andrej had defrauded them
of all their money, they’d treated her pretty poorly. And what kind of parents
let their teenage girl stay over at an adult’s house for months on end without
even meeting the person? I kept my mouth shut, though. I had a
feeling it would upset her.

Suddenly, Bree made an
excited noise. “Oh, there is a recipe for them online!” she announced,
leaning closer to her phone to make sure before she held it next to the tart to show me. “Look! Yeah, these are a
definite possibility! Mum loves sweet things covered in icing sugar.
Serbian food is full of them. What do you think? Do you think it’s a good
idea?”

I think food isn’t
going to make a difference, I privately decided, stroking her hair. Not unless there’s some magic food that makes people friendly and
open-minded.

Bree obviously harboured
some belief that food would do that to her parents, because exactly the right food was suddenly very
important. She spent each night either curled up next to the potbelly stove
pouring over recipes on her sparkly purple tablet,
or banging around Sarah’s kitchen looking for obscure utensils and trying to
figure out how to cook the things she wanted to make back at her parents’
house.

It was weird not having
her draped all over me constantly, and especially weird that even when
we did go for a nice drive around the suburb and find a park with an
amazing sunset view, instead of watching me attempt to speed-paint it in the 15
minutes before the colours faded, she was staring intently at an article on her
phone.

Feeling a bit neglected, I
took my rough painting home to clean up,
but got stuck on a text Mum had sent instead. “I’ve spent every day of my life for the past few years taking care of
my old, sick mother and making sure she’s happy and comfortable in her last
days. My own daughter can’t even find the time to send her own mother just one
single photo…”

I was kind of over it. “I hate photos, you know that.”

“Well I hated working as a cleaner for more than a decade to feed and
clothe you, but I still did it because you’re my daughter. Anything you asked for,
I’d give it to you. But you won’t even send me a photo.”

I grit my teeth, saying
aloud, “Anything I ask for? How about leaving me the fuck alone for
once?” God, my mum was a nightmare.

I needed to get away from
this fucking phone. I stood up, looking around for Bree. She wasn’t in here,
which meant—there was a crash from the kitchen—that she was in there instead. I
went to find her; I could use some Bree cuddles right now.

She was leaning over the
counter with her apron on, very, very carefully
trying to carve something into a carrot while an instructional video played on
her tablet. From the intensity of her concentration, you’d have thought she was
performing brain surgery. While I was watching her, the carrot slipped from her
fingers and she yelped. Her brow was set in a deep frown. “Fuck!” she said,
hurriedly sorting through all the chunks of carrot in front of her one-by-one
for a fresh one that hadn’t been carved. “I can’t do it, Min! I’ve been trying
for fucking ages and I can’t do carrot flowers!”

I would have hugged her,
but she didn’t seem very cuddly right now. “Do we really need carrot flowers?”

“Yes, they’re the hero of
the dish, they make the colour pop,” she told me, obviously quoting a cooking
blog. “And this dish is really pretty, and it’s like a mixture of North-East
Asian and Western cuisine and it’s perfect, but I can’t fucking make it!
What am I going to do?” She sounded really distressed,
and restarted the instructional YouTube video she’d been watching so she could
try again.

I didn’t want to interrupt
her video, so I went back into the living room and sat down in front of my
phone.

It was
flashing again.

If I was labouring under
any misapprehension that Mum would tire of the subject of weddings eventually,
I don’t know what fucking planet I was on. Over the following few days, the
steady stream of messages and emails and calls and links and every
possible thing my Mum could send me was slowly taking up more and more of my
time. It was like all she did all day every day was walk around shops looking
for wedding ideas, or sit in front of her computer and copy and paste links for
me to check out.  She wouldn’t let me leave them either, if I missed
something or forgot something, she’d call and call and leave message after
message until I got back to her. She hadn’t been this relentless since after
she just moved to Korea, and it was fucking suffocating.

I didn’t know what to do
about it, though. I thought I’d already done something about it by
sending her the photo of the ring and telling her what she wanted to hear, but
it didn’t seem to help at all.

To make matters worse,
she’d keep saying things like, “I can’t
wait to have grandchildren. I would have loved to have more children
if your father were still with us, but I’ll never have the chance,” and, “All the terrible
hard work I did my whole life will have been worth it when I see you walk down
the aisle,” and, “You’re my only
daughter, I’m so excited for your wedding! We have to make sure it’s perfect, because I only get one!”

And as much as
I fucking hated what she was doing, I still felt guilty because
didn't have anyone else, and she actually was stuck over in Seoul looking after Grandma with no one to
help her. So, I kept answering those emails and messages,
and reading those links she sent me.

I wasn’t much company for
Bree that week, though. Not that Bree seemed that concerned, because she stressed about how close Tuesday was—the
night both her parents were home at dinner time and the night that Andrej
worked late—and had taken up permanent residence in Sarah’s kitchen so she
could practice all the things she needed to do for
it.

I quite liked all the
interesting smells that were wafting into the living room as a result, but then again, I didn’t have terrible
morning sickness.

I’d gone onto the decking one night to cool off and
figure out what the fuck I was going to do to survive my mother, when the door slid open and Sarah came
rushing out. She came right up to me and clutched me by my shoulders. “Help me,” she said in a pained whisper.

I laughed. “It’ll be over
in a couple of days,” I promised her. “The dinner’s on Tuesday, apparently.”

“Two more days?” she
asked, and then leant a hip against the railing and ran her hands over her
face. “I can’t believe she’s still in there, cooking the same thing for like
the hundredth time. Doesn’t she get bored?”

I shook my head. “She
loves all that domestic stuff.”

Sarah looked affronted by
it. “You know how some people are born housewives?” I nodded. “Yeah, well, I’m the
opposite of one of those. God, it’s like she’s a different species. Do you know
what a ‘table runner’ is?” I shook my head. “Yeah, well, neither did I, but
she’s got all these great ideas about what would look good as one.
How did this happen? How did she end up in this house? I’m so confused.”

“Put it this way: people
like that feed people like us, and ensure the survival of our species.”

Sarah didn’t look
convinced. “That’s a moot point because Mr Kellogg makes the only
food I can stomach these days,” she told me, and then sighed and
looked down at her stomach. “I’m probably not getting enough nutrients. I
should actually care about that, shouldn’t I?”

I looked up at her,
frowning. “What do you—”

She held up her hand in a
‘stop’ motion. “Leave it. I’m tired, I’m sick, and the word on the street is
that there’s a huge project with a huge bonus coming up at
work which I am 100% certain I will miss out on because my belly will pop
the day we’re supposed to be assigned. We’ve been waiting forever,
it’s like the universe wants me
to miss out. Everyone will get their interesting project and massive bonuses,
and I will be broke and destitute when I have to quit work to have this.”
She gestured at her stomach. Then, she slumped. “God, and will you listen to
me? I’m such a bad person. I’m a really, really bad person.”

I gave her a big bear hug.
“Aside from a housewife, you know what else you’re the opposite of? A really,
really bad person.”

“You only say that because
I haven’t brutally murdered your little blonde girlfriend yet,” she said
darkly, and then reconsidered. “Who am I kidding? Then I’d have to start
cleaning the bathroom again. Maybe I won’t kill her after all.”

Since Sarah was stressing
out, I freed up the kitchen for a night by taking Bree out for dinner along the
North Shore waterfront. From where we were seated outside, I could see the
Harbour Bridge stretching along the water,
and the wings of the distant Opera House. Behind them, the lights of the
city—including the towering Frost building and its familiar logo—glowed against
the sky. I hadn’t seen the city from this angle before. It looked so far away.

While I was admiring the
view and feeling really nostalgic about those buildings, my fucking phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it.

Bree was examining her
hands. “Look,” she said, and showed them
to me. “My nails have this weird orange tinge. Did you know carrots can stain
you?”

I hadn’t touched a raw
carrot in years. I shook my head.

“Me neither,” she said, and
then sat back. “Well, at least I can make really nice ones some of the time
now! I’ll just have to buy heaps of carrots for Tuesday in case I get
really nervous and keep fucking them up.”

“Maybe buy some gloves to
go with them this time,” I told her with a grin. “Ones you can wear to dinner.”

She laughed. “Or maybe
I’ll just wear orange and it will look like I’ve done it on purpose!”

Content, she had a sip of
her water and turned her head towards the amazing skyline. She was quiet for a
little while before she sat up and
pointed towards it. “Hey, look! You can see your old building from this place!”
She had a big smile on her face as she sat back. “It’s so creepy to think we
used to sit out on that balcony, eating dinner and looking at this shore
like three months ago.”

Was it only three months?
My phone buzzed again, and I got a bit impatient with it and took it out so I
could just turn vibrate off. “I wonder where we’ll be in another three months.”

Bree watched me switch it
to silent. “Well, I will have finished my exams and hopefully I’ll have my
HSC,” she said, and then gave me a cheeky grin. “And you’ll probably be married
to Henry, so…”

I groaned. “Don’t. She’s
sent me two messages since we got here.”

“Don’t answer them,” Bree
told me. “You’ll encourage her.”

“It doesn’t matter if I do
or don’t, she still keeps sending them.” I put my phone on the table
between us. “I just don’t have any fucking idea what to do about her. I feel
like I’ve tried everything, and whatever I try just makes everything worse.”

Bree pursed her lips as
she thought through what she was going to say. “I don’t want to say it, but
there is one obvious thing
you haven’t tried...”

I shook my head tightly.
“I’m not telling her. She’ll come here.”

“Even if you tell her
everything? Like, about your gender, too?”

“Especially if I tell her everything,” I leant my elbows on the
table and my forehead on my palms. “I don’t know how to deal with her. Henry
used to, she listened to him. He used to just say in a very calm, friendly
voice that everything was fine, and she wouldn’t call for a whole week. Two,
sometimes.”

Bree looked a little
forlorn. “I’m sorry I can’t do that, too.” She took a breath. “Well, it’s been
a month since you bumped into Henry now, maybe he feels better and you can talk
to him after all? I’m sure if he knew that—”

I cut her off. “I tried
that. He told me to let him go, Bree, and
then he turned and walked away from me and didn't look back. I don’t even
think we’re going to stay friends.”

Bree’s eyebrows converged.
“But you were so close… I’m sure he still cares about you. I bet he’d still
help you if you’re desperate, even if you did break his heart.”

I wasn’t so sure. “Maybe,”
I said. “But, Bree, you should have seen his face when I ran into him. I can’t
ask him. I definitely can’t ask him and I’m not going to. After everything I
did to him, it’s not fair.”

“Well,
what else do we do?” she asked as my phone buzzed again.

There wasn’t enough oxygen
in Sydney for how much I wanted to sigh. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t
fucking know. I wish I could just tell her and be done with it,
sometimes. A few days ago, she said she wanted a recent photo of me, and I
seriously considered just sending that one of us on the trampoline.” I exhaled.
“But if I thought she was bad now, when she’s
thousands of kilometres away...”

We sat in silence for a
few minutes, staring out at the harbour. Bree’s eyes lingered on a table up the
far end of the outdoor dining area, where an extended family was
singing Happy Birthday to someone. They finished the song by cheering
and laughing.

“Well,” Bree said, looking
back at me, “I know you find the idea of coming out to my parents kind of
stressful, but no matter what they do, it’s not going to be as bad this,” she
gestured at my phone, “as what your mum does to you every day. And, like, if I
thought they were going to treat you really badly, there’s no way I’d invite
you over and just subject you to that. They’ll probably disapprove and grumble
about it behind your back, but that’s all.” She paused. “And if they shout at
me later for not telling them straight away, well, it’s not anything I didn’t
put up with for two whole years anyway. But they can’t stop me from seeing you,
and I think they’ll realise that. So, yeah, I know they’re not going to like
it, but if they see you’re a regular person first,
before you break the news, they’ll probably just let it keep happening anyway.”

I spent a minute or so
thinking over what she said. “I wish we
didn’t have to tell them at all.”

Bree pulled a face. “Well,
I guess we don’t…”

“…but then Andrej will, I
know.” I sighed.

She reached over and
squeezed my hand. “I think it will be okay, Min.”

I looked down at those
carrot-stained fingers. She was probably right, wasn’t she? It was telling two
people across a table who already thought I was a guy that there were some
technicalities about it. I’d manage. “Okay,” I told her, and relaxed back into my chair.

Something occurred to her
and she brightened suddenly, sitting up straight. “Oh! And Courtney said that
the teachers might have the marks already up early on Tuesday night instead of
Wednesday! That would mean that not only can I introduce you, I can introduce the guy who helped me do—hopefully!—really well at school so I
can stay there and graduate! That would really soften the blow of the
whole ‘transgender’ thing!”

Watching her perk up again
made me feel a little better, so I just tucked my phone back in my pocket and
made an active attempt to enjoy dinner.

I talked myself out of immediately
checking my messages when I got home, too: I gave my phone to Bree so I wasn’t
tempted to find out what was or wasn’t happening on it.  She gave it back to me before she left the following
morning, right after she’d taken a couple more big notes out of my rapidly
thinning wallet.

“No more prosthetics,” I
told her as I gave her a kiss goodbye.

She giggled. “I’m going to
need to spend it all on carrots, trust me,” she said, and then stuffed the
notes into the pocket of her denim skirt. “God, I’m actually a bit excited?
Like really nervous, but excited, is that weird? We haven’t used the dining
room for years, and it’s really pretty.”

I was half awake. “I’m
looking forward to it,” I lied.

She saw straight through
me. “No, you’re not. But, fingers crossed—”
she showed me two sets of crossed fingers, “—it will go well anyway!” Then, she
took off down the hallway and showed herself out, leaving me to contend with
that flashing LED.

EIGHTEEN

There weren’t any other cars parked
by Bree’s place when I pulled up that evening. The sun was setting and staining
the red bricks a vibrant orange, and while I was admiring the intense
saturation of colour, I noticed that someone had weeded the front garden and
pruned the rose bushes. It all looked so neat and tidy. I didn’t have to wonder
who’d done it.

I was early—surprise,
surprise—so I didn’t get out of the car straight away. I sat there for a little
while, scrutinising my body, my hair and my clothes for any sign of femininity,
and then suddenly wondering if I might be really overdressed. I’d put on my best suit because it was the
one that made my shoulders look the broadest, but now I wasn’t so sure I’d made
the best choice. Oh well, it’s not
going to matter how broad your shoulders are after you tell them you’re trans,
I thought, gulping.

How should I say it,
though? ‘I’m transgender’ sounded so vague. I felt like it would raise further
questions, like ‘what does that mean?’ and ‘what do you mean?’. I
couldn’t tell them the full truth—about not being sure exactly what I
was yet—because how did that sound to someone who’d hardly even heard the word
‘transgender’ before? I didn’t want to come across as confused, because then they’d think I was nuts. There
probably wasn’t a gentle way to break it to your partner’s parents
that you’re not what they expected.

Well, I thought, getting out of the car and walking up to the door. Here goes nothing.

I’d been pushing uselessly
at the doorbell for a while before it occurred to me that it probably didn’t
work, and when I went to swing the knocker, I realised the door was open a
crack. I worried for a second about burglars sneaking in and stealing things,
and then remembered the Dejanovics already had one of those in their own
family. There was nothing left to steal. Nevertheless, I closed the door behind
me as I went in.

There was less dust in the
air this time. Less on the side tables in
the hallway, too; they’d been freshly wiped. The door Mrs Dejanovic had
hurriedly closed last time I’d been here was wide open, and the room was neat
with no dirty dishes or rubbish anywhere.

As soon as I took a
breath, I smelt cooking. Bree, I
thought, and followed it.

The kitchen door was open,
too, and Bree was standing on her tip-toes over the stove, stirring a deep
saucepan with a big wooden spoon. She was dressed up: in a summery yellow
dress—fortunately protected by her favourite strawberry-print
apron—with white knee-high socks and saggy old Ugg Boots that were probably
once pink. While I was standing there, she grumbled down at her saucepan. “Why
are you doing this?” she asked the contents.

I disguised my voice.
“’Because I’m scared! Please don’t feed me to your parents!’”

Surprised, she twisted
around, her face lighting up when she saw me. Then, looking me up and down, her
delight turned into something else. “Whoa, okay,”
she said, nodding in appreciation. She wiped her hands and turned down the heat
on the jet so she could come greet me. “You look hot.”

I grinned at the
compliment, looking down at myself. “Not overdressed?”

She held me at arms’
length. “Definitely overdressed,” she said, giving me a cheeky smile and
pulling me down by the tie to kiss me a bit. “And don’t worry, my parents won’t
eat you alive.”

“I was speaking on behalf
of your cooking.”

“Sure you were,” she said,
giving me a knowing look as she went back to stirring it. “Have you decided how
you’re going to tell them? Like, what wording you’re going to use?”

Hah. “I was hoping to work
a bit on the wording of my final will and testament first. You know, just in
case.”

She chuckled. “Oh my god,
Min, I wouldn’t get you to tell them if I thought something bad would happen to
you! Do you seriously think I would do that?” She gave me a pointed look over
her shoulder.

“Not intentionally.” But
she did have a history of very poor judgement…

She rolled her eyes at me,
returning to the topic. “Anyway, I’ve been
thinking about it, and I think I’ve figured out a good way to say it. Maybe you
should avoid trying to explain gender altogether,
because it’ll go right over their heads. Say something like ‘the doctors made a
mistake when I was born’ and make it seem really medical, because that’s something people can understand. I think
they’ll eventually be fine about it.”

“It’s that ‘eventually’ I’m
worried about,” I confessed, and then gestured at the kitchen, which was
littered with Bree’s culinary efforts. “Can I be honest? I feel like you know
it’s going to go badly and this is some sort of nice final supper.”

She gave me a look. “Min.
You’re worrying too much again,” she told me. “That’s not why. I want you guys
to talk and get to know each other and all that, and the best way to get that
to happen is over a three-course meal,
right? And besides, we haven’t had sit-down dinners for ages. Maybe by doing
this, they’ll remember how much we used to enjoy them. I can normally hardly
ever get Mum and Dad in the same room these days, except when they’re yelling
at each other.”

I leant against the
doorframe and put my hands in my pockets, watching her with her soup, or
whatever was in the saucepan. “Is that because of Andrej?”

Bree’s lips pressed into a
tight line. “Yes,” she said. “I mean, they sometimes fought before that, but mainly over really big stuff. Now they
fight over not being able to find car keys, or if someone uses all the hot
water, and when Dad gets angry these days he insults everyone. He never used to
do that.”

“That must be awful,” I
said, and then thought about how quiet my flat with Mum had always been. “When
I was growing up, I always used to wish I
had a dad, but the more I hear about people’s families, the more I realise he
probably wouldn’t have been the hero I wanted him to be. Especially if he and
Mum got along.”

Bree made a face. “Yeah,
no offence, but who would voluntarily choose to marry your mum?”

I shrugged. “Well, maybe
she was different back then, who knows. She probably went through a lot when
she lost Dad, maybe she changed just like your parents did.”

At the mention of my mum,
I automatically felt my breast pocket where my phone was. I checked it briefly;
there was a text from Mum with a picture of bathers she thought I should wear
on my honeymoon, and that was it. I did notice the time, though. “What time did
you say your parents would come home?”

She looked up. “Seven.
Why?”

I showed her the screen of
my phone. “Because it’s ten past.”

She leant forward to read
it and her brows dipped a little. “Well,” she said optimistically, “perhaps
they’re running a bit late and they’ll be here soon.” She grinned at me. “Not
everyone is 20 minutes early everywhere.”

She ate those words when
ten minutes later, they still hadn’t come. I crossed my arms. “How
many people are 20 minutes late, though?”

She looked a little drawn.
“I’m sure they’re just stuck in traffic,” she said. “They have to come all the
way from over the West side, after all. Can you pass me the milk?” I went over
to the fridge and opened it—it was so bare compared to my Mum’s
fridge which was always expertly stacked full of everything—and handed the milk
to her. She poured some into the contents of the saucepan. “My bisque is going
to be gross if they don’t come soon.”

“Turn the heat off?”

She shook her head. “I
can’t, it’ll get a skin, I need to keep stirring so that doesn’t happen, and
that makes it reduce, and so I need to add milk, but—” She held up the nearly
empty milk container. “—I’ve nearly run out.” She groaned, taking her phone out
of her apron pocket, and trying a number. I could hear it ring to voicemail.
She then tried another number. “It’s not a fucking debt collector, it’s your
daughter,” she told her phone, as if they
could hear her. It rang out. “Fuck! This is so fucking typical!” She put her
phone back in her apron. “Andrej gets home at like nine, I don’t want to have
to rush everything so we’re done by the time he rocks up!”

I could barely say it.
“Are you sure they’re definitely going to come?”

From her expression, I
could see she hadn’t thought of that. “Yes,” she said anyway. “Even if they
can’t be bothered to fucking show up on time. And no matter how late they are,
we’re still doing it, I’m not cancelling. I spent all day on the main
course and it’s perfect, and I don’t want to waste it!” She exhaled. “Besides,
I can hardly ever get them to agree to anything. It took me days to
convince Dad that you should come over.”

When we finally heard the
unmistakable din of Mrs Dejanovic’s beaten up old car rattling up the street
and parking outside the front of the house, Bree’s anxiety would have almost
given mine a run for its
money. Her obvious relief made me realise that she had suspected they
just wouldn’t come after all.

That worried me. It meant
she didn’t know them and their reactions as well as she thought she did.

“Thank god!” she said,
throwing her hands skyward. “Okay! Let’s go greet them!” She led me on shaky
legs back down the hallway towards the door, before swinging it open to two
people walking slowly up the dark path. “Hi, guys! You’re finally here! Was it
bad traffic or something?”

A man’s voice answered in
Serbian. It didn’t sound like an apology, even though they were more than half
an hour late.

I felt like I might
actually be visibly shaking, but I forced a polite smile onto my lips
as if I was relaxed and pleased to see them anyway. Bree’s Mum stepped into the
light, giving me a tight smile as she walked past us into the house, but Bree’s
father stopped in the doorway to quite obviously size me up. He was a lot
shorter than me, but, just like Andrej had been, was stockier. He was fair like
Bree and her mother, with greying temples and a thick, long moustache on his
upper lip. That moustache and his equally thick eyebrows made it difficult for
me to tell what expression he was making. It was unnerving.

Bree seemed unaffected.
“Dad, this is Min Lee, my boyfriend,” she said cheerfully, presenting me. “Min,
this is my dad!”

He held his hand out to
shake, and I took it. The skin on his hands was rough like Rob’s; he was
wearing a pair of dirty tradie overalls,
so I guess that explained it. “Dragan,” he said, with the same thick accent
Bree’s Mum had. “Huh, you’re tall. I guess that’s why you need the car you
have.”

I had no idea what to make
of that. It didn’t feel like a compliment as much as an observation, but there
was also sorts of hidden barbs in it; not just tall, but taller than he
expected—that’s what he meant, wasn’t it? Did he mean in general, or because all he knew about me was that I was
Asian? And why did he mention my car and make a weak justification about why I
needed it? To suggest I didn’t need such a good car? It felt... cold,
unwelcoming. I felt immediately like I was trespassing, and his heavy brow and
wide moustache did nothing to comfort me. I just nodded politely at him,
because what else could I do? “Pleased to meet you,” I said in my deepest, most
gender-neutral voice.

Mrs Dejanovic said
something short to him in Serbian as she went up the stairs and he replied just
as shortly, and stepped past me inside
the door, dumping a stack of letters on the hall table which Bree immediately
dived into. Then, he half-turned back to me, giving me a thoughtful look. “Your
English is good,” he commented, like he
found that fact incredibly surprising.

“Thank you,” I said,
instead of ‘of course it’s good, I was actually born here’, as he turned and walked up the hallway,
presumably to go get changed.

“Don’t be long, dinner’s
already probably cold!” Bree called absently over her shoulder at him, wrist deep searching through the mail. He
grunted in reply and disappeared up the stairs.

Then, we were alone again.

“I have a bad feeling
about this,” I whispered to Bree, glancing after him to make sure he couldn’t
hear me. “I think your father doesn’t like me.”

“Nah, he’s just tired and
grumpy, he’s been at work since 6am.
He’ll be nicer when he can sit down and relax,” she said easily, and then held
up an envelope with the Cloverfield Ladies’ crest on it. “Here it is! This will
be my login info for the portal so I can get my assignment results. Oh my god!”
She tore into it and yanked out the letter, running her eyes over it as she
took her phone out of the pocket in her apron again. “I can’t wait to see what
I got!”

Once she’d entered the
details from the letter into the login fields, the results page wouldn’t load.
I tried on my phone, but no dice. “It’s probably some sort of code that doesn’t
work on mobiles,” I suggested.

Bree pulled a face. “That,
or it actually isn’t available until tomorrow after all,” she said,
and then groaned. “That sucks! I wanted to announce it at dinner! Oh
well,” she said, stuffing the letter into her apron pocket and heading back to
the kitchen. “Let’s set up.”

She pulled me back into
the kitchen and gave me a breadboard and a bread
knife to hold while she retrieved the steaming fresh bread from the oven
and plonked it on the board. Grabbing a bottle of Chardonnay out of the
fridge—a good one, I noticed—she bustled me down the hall to a room at the end
of it. It was the dining room, and Bree had clearly spent some time decorating
it.

There was a heavy antique
dining table in the centre of the room, and Bree had draped a pristine white
tablecloth in a diamond-shape across it. Four places were set, with the
traditional two of everything I remembered from Hollywood movies: two knives,
two spoons, two plates, and two chairs either side of the table so we’d all
face each other. There were four beautiful big crystal wine glasses by each of
the four set places, and towards either end of the table were two big crystal
vases with a bunch of lush green foliage in them. It looked beautiful, quite
professional, and like she’d gone to a lot of effort. I was impressed.

“Put the bread in the
middle,” Bree instructed me as she set the wine aside. I followed her
instructions, and then we both stood back. She clutched my hand tightly. “What
do you think?” she asked. “Will it do the trick?”

She was making me nervous.
“Why do we need tricks?”

She pushed me with her
shoulder. “Silly, it’s a figure of speech.” There were footsteps on the stairs.
“Oh!” Bree said, leaping into action and ushering me around to the other side
of the table and positioning me in front of a chair. She quickly peered down
her front to make sure there was nothing on her apron, and then jogged over and
stood hospitably by the door to welcome whoever it was.

Bree’s mum wandered in and
then stopped in her tracks when she saw the table. Bree took a breath, eyes
wide, desperately anticipating her reaction. Mrs Dejanovic didn’t say anything
about the table, though, she just gestured at it and asked Bree a question in
Serbian.

“You can sit anywhere,” Bree
told her, and then helpfully pulled out a chair for her. A bit confused by the
ceremony, Mrs Dejanovic thanked her. “What do you think of the table?” Bree
prompted.

She nodded at her
daughter. “It’s nice,” she said simply.

It seemed like a bit of a
hollow compliment, but Bree melted at it. “I thought you’d like it!”
she said, excitement creeping into her voice. “When I was pruning the roses out
the front, I had to cut off so much foliage, so I thought, ‘why don’t I use
that instead of actual roses?’ and it looks really pretty, I think. And with
the black table and the white cloth, the green really brings some life to it.”

I thought that was a
pretty good colour analysis, but Mrs Dejanovic was literally just nodding
politely at her, the way you’d nod at a child so you didn’t hurt their
feelings.

I don’t think Bree
noticed.  “And then I found the crystal vase in the dining room cupboard,
and we haven’t used that since the last time we—” Heavy footsteps on the stairs
stopped her mid-sentence and she hurriedly stood up straight.

Mr Dejanovic came into the
dining room, looking just as cross as he had at the door. He was also fiddling
irritably with the cuffs of a white dress shirt he’d put on; he obviously
hadn’t worn it for a while because it was tight around his stomach. He didn’t
look very comfortable in it. “Vera,” he said to Bree’s mum to get her
attention, and then presented his arm for her to turn up his troublesome
sleeve. She did so, and then he sat down. “That’s better,” he said, and then
looked forward at his empty plate.

“Oh!” Bree said, and then
hurriedly grabbed the wine bottle and started pouring us all wine, one by one.
“Did you have a nice day at work?” she asked them.

Mr Dejanovic grunted
again. “We finished our order on time,” he said. “So there’s that.”

“What do you do?” I asked
politely.

“I’m a welder at the Radic
factories out west,” he said, and I nodded like I had any idea where that was,
“been there for nearly twenty years.” That was pretty impressive, so I didn’t
have to manufacture a reaction to it.

“Mum does the books there,
too,” Bree told me, half-filling my glass with Chardonnay. “But they usually
work different shifts. And then she cleans the local high school at night.” Mrs
Dejanovic looked very sharply at Bree, as
if Bree shouldn’t have told me that. “What?” Bree said, indignant. “Min’s mum
was a cleaner as well.”

Both her parents looked at
me for confirmation. “She used to work nights, too,” I said. “And very early
mornings. There’s no cleaning work during the day.”

Mr Dejanovic looked like
he didn’t believe me. “She bought you that car on a cleaner’s salary?”

My eyebrows went up. “No,
no,” I told him. “I bought it for myself—or rather, I borrowed the money
myself.”

He still seemed
incredulous. “What does a boy your age do that pays for a car like that?”
Without waiting for my answer, he turned to Bree and said something very stern
to her.

She looked very amused,
which didn’t seem like an appropriate reaction to the tone of voice he’d used.
“Oh my god, Dad, no,” she said,
rolling her eyes. “He’s not a criminal. As if I don’t have enough
problems.” She finished filling her own glass and looked over us to make sure
we all looked settled. “Okay,” she said,
as if her dad hadn’t just called me a criminal. “I’m going to go and get the
first course!”

Then, she went to the
kitchen and left me alone with them.

Mr Dejanovic was still
watching me like a hawk from under those thick eyebrows. “So what do you do
that pays for that car, and,” he gestured at his neck and then towards where Bree had gone, “that nice jewellery you
bought Briana?”

I grimaced.
“I used to work for Frost International. For five years—well, four,
really, plus a graduate internship. I finished up in April.”

They were both squinting
at me. Then, they glanced at each other and had a short exchange in Serbian. At
the end of it, Mr Dejanovic was frowning and shaking his head. He waved vaguely
towards his wife. “Apparently Vera knew you were older, but no one tells
me anything around here. 26, isn’t it?” I nodded, bracing for some
sort of disapproving reaction, but it never came. That was odd; you’d think
parents would care about such a big age gap. “Why did you leave Frost?” he
asked, instead. “Half the men I work with would give a kidney to work for that lot.” He paused, looking a bit
sceptically at me. “Although, I think I just figured out why none of us ever
get hired.”

That felt…wow. Wow, I didn’t know if that was
racist, or ageist, or whether he meant because I was wealthy—which he clearly
assumed I was—but, yeah, wow. I mean, it was possible he
was implying something less horrible, but I couldn’t think what it
would be. It felt really racist, in an Asians Take All Our
Jobs way. There wasn’t anything I could do about it, either. Not without
ruining this whole dinner Bree had set up.

I tried to forget about
it. “I wanted to go back to university to do my master’s,” I told him, avoiding
the whole saga about why I’d left. Then, because apparently I couldn’t just forget about it, I
added, “But you can tell your co-workers that there’s probably a job going in
Marketing if any of them are interested.” I smiled warmly to hide the fact I was having a subtle jab at him.

He didn’t notice at all;
in fact, he laughed like I’d said something funny. “On second thought, you can
keep your job,” he said. “I couldn’t sit at a computer all day like Vera does.
I’d go crazy, and this stupid thing is very uncomfortable.” He pulled at the
tight collar of his shirt. “What master’s are you studying?”

Here we go. I braced
for it. “Fine Arts,” I said, and then quickly added, “I used art so much in
Marketing I decided to specialise in it. I haven’t started in the studios just
yet, though. I’ll start my research period in October.”

While I was explaining it,
Bree very carefully ferried in a tray with four bowls on it. All of them had
some sort of thick soup in them, and the smell was delicious. She noticed
her parents’ frowns. “You know all those paintings on the wall in my room?” she
asked them. “Min did them all. Aren’t they beautiful? I used to follow him on
this website called Deviant Art for years and, like, always secretly
admire him and think that his art was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.
Like, he doesn’t just do one style of painting, either—although he
likes environments—but he can pretty much do anything you want, and…” When she
realised Mr Dejanovic was giving her a very bored look from under his heavy
brow, she took a little breath, flushing bright red and looking down. “Sorry,
I’m talking too much again.”

He looked back at me as
she put soup in front of him. “You quit a job at Frost
International to paint pictures?” he asked rhetorically. I could see
where this was heading; I was beginning to realise I could tell a lot about a
person by their reaction to the fact I was studying art. Before I could
respond, he elbowed his wife playfully. “Oi, Vera,” he said, “I think I’m going
to quit my job at the factory and go back to singing, what do you think?”

She smiled at that. “I
know you’re joking, but you should.”

Bree sat down beside me,
still smarting from being chastised. “Dad’s a really good singer,” she said,
and there was something a bit over the top about it. It felt forced. “You
should sing for us, Dad!”

Instead of being delighted
at all the compliments, he just looked really upset and frustrated for a
moment. It passed. “There’s nothing to sing about,” he told us. “Besides, I’m
definitely not drunk enough yet. In fact…” He held up his glass, and when Bree
and Mrs Dejanovic did as well, I realised I was supposed to copy them. He said a
few words in Serbian which the other two
repeated, and then everyone drank, so I did, too. Despite the good wine, Mr
Dejanovic didn’t take a sip to taste. He downed his full glass in one go.
“That’s better,” he said, and looked
quizzically down at his food, which was garnished with parsley.

Bree hurriedly swallowed
her mouthful of wine. “Oh! It’s lobster bisque,” she told us, presenting it.
“Enjoy!”

I inhaled the steam coming
from the bowl. Despite how nervous I was, it made my mouth water. “It
smells great.”

Mr Dejanovic didn’t look
so impressed. “Well, at least it’s warm,” he said, taking a spoonful.

Bree looked hopefully at
Mrs Dejanovic, but she was just quietly sipping it, looking down at the bowl.
She pulled a face. “It’s a bit too thick,” she said, more gently than her
husband had. “It makes the salt too strong. Do we have milk?”

Bree’s lips pressed in a tight line. “I used it all.” She didn’t
explain why that had happened.

Mrs Dejanovic nodded, and
then looked back at her food, resting her spoon on the plate and pushing it
away a little. She said something in Serbian.

“Oh…” I watched Bree
visibly deflate. Well,” she conceded as best she could, “I suppose this is only
the entrée. The best part is the main course, you’ll definitely love
that. I can’t wait to show you guys, I’ve been working on getting it just right
for ages!”

Paying exactly zero
attention to Bree, Mr Dejanovic asked me as soon as he’d finished his mouthful,
“Do you have a part-time job as well as your studies?” I shook my head. “Well,
we always have apprenticeships going at Radic. They’re not cushy office jobs
like your last one, though: they’re real, good old fashioned hard work. But
they’re honest and they pay the bills. Just speak to me and I’ll fix you up.”

His offer was probably
genuine—which I suppose in itself was a nice thing to
do—but everything about how he spoke and how he
just assumed I had a ‘cushy office job’ was so insulting.
Everything he said felt full of booby-traps and snares,
like he was completely unable to say something that was just friendly and nice.
And he fidgeted, and grumbled, and that frown of his... With his
eyebrows and moustache, it looked so menacing. He was like a caged animal
snapping at the fingers of its handlers.

He was every single
bit the way Bree had always described him, which just left me asking one
question: why was I here?

Still, I needed to
acknowledge his offer. “Thank you, I appreciate it,” I told him, privately
thinking there was no way in hell I’d work with Mr Dejanovic. I
didn’t leave one toxic job with one toxic boss just to jump straight into
another. Honestly, I’d rather starve.

He nodded. “I’ve been
telling Briana to get a job for two years,” he said, still in that friendly,
amicable tone. “Since she seems to have a lot of time on her hands, hey,
Briana? Making all this fancy food?” She opened her mouth to explain, but he
didn’t even give her the opportunity to speak before continuing. “When I was a
boy, I had to work in my father’s shop from when I was nine, there was no making excuses about school or study
back then, you just fit it in! Vera was working on her farm as soon as she
could hold a shovel. Here, this country gives kids the wrong idea. They think
the world owes them something from when they are born. They think other people
should be doing things for them, instead of the other way around. The country
ruins kids. I have two adults in my house: one who thinks everything belongs to
him, and another who thinks just showing up at school is enough.” He shook his
head. “I should send them back to my brother at home so they could have
a real taste of the world.”

I looked across at Bree.
Her eyes were glazed.

“I bet it’s not like this
where you’re from,” he said, and I realised he was talking to me. I looked back
at him, and he clarified, “Asians. Chinese, all of those. You people know hard work. I bet kids have got
it right back in your home country, eh?”

I
was very tempted to let him know that back where I was
from in the far off distant land of Melbourne, it was actually very
similar to here. I didn’t, though. If I was going to have a shot at coming out
to him at some point, I needed to play nice. Sighing internally, I said, “My
mother tells me kids study long hours in South Korea and don’t generally have
jobs.” Actually, that was one of the reasons she cited about never
letting me have a job when I was studying. ‘Don’t I give you
everything you ask for?’ she’d say whenever I mentioned getting one. It was
like being in the twilight zone, hearing a parent pushing their teenager
into work.

“The keyword there is
‘study’,” Mr Dejanovic said. “Which is something my daughter’s never tried.”

That, I had to respond to.
I looked over towards Bree, trying to include her in this conversation. “Actually,
my friends and I have been helping Bree with her subjects recently, and she’s
doing much better. I think you’ll be really impressed.”

He swallowed another
mouthful of bisque, half-choking on it as he chuckled. “Not hard to do better
than ‘fail’, is it?” He chuckled a bit more. “It would be better if she’d make
some money instead of wasting ours on that place. I don’t know what she thinks
an HSC is going to do for her, anyway. It’s not like she could go to
university, is it?” He put his spoon down and gestured at his wife. “Vera can
probably find her some work in the office right now. That would be good for
her: it would get her head out of the clouds. She won’t have to get everyone to
buy things for her, then. She can work hard and buy them for herself for once.”

I wasn’t sure which part
of that had stung Bree more, but I watched her lips part like she’d just been
punched in the stomach. I touched her fingers under the table, but it was too
late. She stood up, strain audible in her voice. “I-I’m going to go and get the
main course ready,” she said as evenly as she could, and marched out.

I wanted to go after her—I
should have—but Mr Dejanovic was already talking to me as he finished his
bisque and wiped his hands on one of the beautiful thick napkins. “Okay, boy,”
he said to me in a no-nonsense tone. “While Briana’s gone, I need to be
straight with you.”

All the blood drained
immediately from my face. What he had been saying so far wasn't the bluntest he could be? I
put my spoon down and nodded mutely.

His moustache made him
look even sterner and more threatening. “I don’t know why Briana thinks it’s
important for us to sit down to dinner with you, but if it’s to butter us up so
you can marry her right now, forget about it. My niece married and got pregnant
at 19. They were separated a year later, and now she just sits at my sister’s
home smoking drugs and listening to rock music. My sister has to take care of
the baby. Me and Vera do not have time to
take care of a baby, so you can forget
about it if that’s why you’re here.”

I stared at him, jaw open.
It took me a few seconds to come to my senses. “No,” I said. “No, that’s not
why I’m here. I’m definitely not interested in marriage yet, either.”

He jabbed a finger at me.
“And do not get her pregnant either, do you hear me? If she gets
pregnant, you’ll have me to answer to.”

Oh, god... “There’s
absolutely no chance of that, don’t worry.”

He grunted, satisfied he'd
made his point, and then leant over and emptied the rest of the wine evenly
into all our glasses.

You should tell him why you can't get Bree pregnant, I thought, feeling panic build at
the thought. Tell him. Tell him
now.

I watched him sit low in
his chair, with his brow low on his face. Honestly, he was probably one of
the least open and welcoming men I’d ever met. His wife was tense and
quiet, but at least she didn’t look so angry. I
hadn’t seen or heard enough of her to know
if she agreed with everything her husband said, but at least I didn’t feel like
she was going to bite my head off.

How the hell was I
supposed to tell these two people I was female? Maybe I should just leave it.

No, Min, don’t you chicken out of this, I told myself, grimacing. Before I
could talk myself out of it, I took a deep breath.

I could barely get the
words of my mouth. “There is something that I wanted to discuss with you,
though.”

They both looked up at me.

I could hear my heart
pounding in my ears. “It’s about what I
am,” I began, and then stumbled. “You
see—” How did Bree put it? Something about doctors making a mistake. I opened
my mouth to say that, but as I imagined the words, I realised it sounded too
simplistic and patronising, but I couldn't think of how else to put it. My
brain was completely empty. I was about to try and
explain it another way when Mr Dejanovic cut me off. He was sick of
watching me flounder.

“—You mean because you’re
Asian?” he asked directly. “You can just say it, you don’t have to beat around
the bush.”

Fuck, I thought, and imagined saying
‘No’, but didn’t. Instead, I just sank back into my chair. Fuck…

He took my silence as a
‘yes’. He glanced at his wife. “Well,” he said. “It’s not what we expected from
Briana but we’re not racists. If she wants an Asian instead of a good
Serbian boy, so be it.”

I grimaced. I
wasn’t sure Mr Dejanovic knew the meaning of the word ‘racist’, but I certainly
wasn’t going to take this opportunity to correct him. I just sunk back into my
chair and spent a minute or so quietly beating myself up over not having the guts to actually tell them.
No one really said anything to me either; it seemed like Bree’s parents were
just as disinclined to have polite
conversation as I was. They both looked so exhausted, I think they probably
didn’t have the energy. The silence was very heavy, though, and Mr Dejanovic
was getting very impatient. He kept checking his watch and looking towards the
door.

Bree broke the silence
when she returned with an alfoil-covered casserole dish. Her smile was back;
that was a pleasant change. She set the casserole dish on the table and stood
back, getting ready to give a presentation. It looked a bit rehearsed. “Before
I show you what I made, I want to tell you a little bit about what it means and
why I chose it, and why some of the ingredients are included. I think it’s a
really beautiful representation of—”

Mr Dejanovic groaned.
“—I don’t have time for all this, Briana,” he said gruffly, and reached over to take the casserole dish. “It’s food,
let’s eat it. I only have an hour to myself before I need to go to bed, and
then get up to go to work again in the morning.”

He put it in front of
himself on the table, and—even though I could see Bree
was desperate to do a proper big reveal of her beautiful dish—he just
tore back the alfoil and held his hand out to me. “Plate.” Mutely, I passed my
plate across to him. Then, he took the serving tongs and just drove them right
into Bree’s masterpiece.

I hadn’t seen it properly
until that point. It was bright and multi-coloured, filled with various East
Asian veggies and covered in sesame seeds. On top of them, beautifully arranged
all throughout it, were those meticulously sculpted pieces of carrots she’d
been practising all week. They were in
the shape of roses, lilies, sunflowers—every flower you could imagine.
Different shapes, different textures, they were all so beautiful and so
different. She’d done it: they were perfect.
The whole dish looked perfect, all her hard work had paid off.

Mr Dejanovic didn’t even
notice. As if he were serving cheap canteen food, he just dug the tongs right into the centre and gutted the
dish, roughly heaping noodles and vegetables on my plate, handing it back to
me. After he’d served us all, he looked down at what was in front of him. “Are
these edible?” he asked Bree about the carrot flowers. She nodded—what else
could she do?—and he plucked a flawless little rose from on top of the dish and
put it in his mouth without even looking at it, crunching it. Then, he picked
up his fork and he and Mrs Dejanovic started eating.

Jaw open, Bree watched as
her beautiful masterpiece and her lovely carrot flowers were unceremoniously
destroyed. No one complimented it as they ate. No one made satisfied noises or
nodded indulgently as they put spoonfuls into their mouths. They just ate
mechanically, transferring the food from their plates into their stomachs.

Bree looked like she was
about to cry. I think the shock was the only reason she didn’t.

It was awful. Even
worse: halfway through it, Mr Dejanovic grunted, searching around in the
noodles with his fork. “Where’s the meat?” he asked flatly.

“It’s vegetarian,” Bree
answered. There was no emotion in her voice.

He scoffed. He said
something that sounded like, “Of course it is,” in Serbian. He didn’t look
impressed.

I’d only just began to
look apprehensively down at the carnage of noodles he’d put on my plate when
there was the jingle of keys outside the door, and the sound of someone fitting
one into the lock.

Bree looked up suddenly,
and then quickly across at the old clock on the wall. It was 9pm.

“Shit!” she said openly,
and then pushed her chair back as she stood up, rushing down the hallway as the
door opened. Mrs Dejanovic called something after her, but Bree didn't reply.
She and her husband glanced at each other, their faces hardening.

I
heard Andrej’s voice in the hallway. “What do you want?” My hackles immediately
rose. I hated the way he spoke to her.

“I just cooked something,”
that was Bree. “If you want it, I’ll bring it upstairs to you.”

He paused. “Yeah, I’m sure
it won't be full of rat poison at all,” he said sceptically. “Then again, your
cooking is so shit it might kill me anyway even if you haven't filled
it with poison. No thanks.”

“Fine, starve then, no one
will care,” Bree said, and I heard footsteps back down the hallway.

“You’re
being weird,” Andrej
accused her, and the footsteps stopped. “Hang on, what’s—”

“Nothing!” There were
sounds of a scuffle. “No! Fuck off, Andrej! Just go up to your room and
leave us alone!”

He obviously overpowered
her, because a second later he was laughing and saying, “What are you hiding
in...” He appeared in the doorway to the dining room and saw us all. “…here.”
The triumphant grin fell off his face.

Mrs Dejanovic said
something quietly in Serbian which sounded like ‘just leave it’ or ‘don’t make
a scene’.

He ignored her, and looked
across the elaborately set dinner table and all our food. “What
the fuck is this?”

Bree was trying to push
him out. It was pointless, because he was
much bigger than she was. “None of your business! Leave us alone!"

He actually looked really
hurt; not that I felt at all sorry for him. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding
me,” he said, shaking his head at his mum and dad. “You guys just decided you’d
have a whole family dinner like old times without me? Not even
without me, but without even telling me, and with her?” He was referring to me. I felt
that pronoun like a slap in the face, but I couldn’t catch my breath from the
shock of it because he took another swing. “She told
the cops to press charges against your son—you remember me?
Your son?—and yet she’s the
one who’s invited to dinner?” He was looking directly at me.

And so were Mr and Mrs
Dejanovic.

NINETEEN

Mr Dejanovic’s heavy brow was low
over his eyes, and Mrs Dejanovic had a settling hand on his arm, as if she was worried he might leap out of
his chair at any second. Both of them looked like they’d aged about ten years
in the space of a minute.

Well, now they know, I thought, there's nothing more I can do. I braced for their reaction.

It didn’t come. Something
was wrong; their eyes weren’t glancing down me. When people found out about me,
their eyes always travelled down my body, looking for evidence. The Dejanovics
weren’t appraising me like that. They were just staring. And it
didn’t last for longer than a couple of seconds before it was over.

Mr Dejanovic seemed a bit
confused about why we were all looking at me,
and then turned sharply back at Andrej. “Let me get this straight,” he
said, “you stole her boyfriend’s computer and punched him out, and
you’re surprised that Briana wants the police to press charges
against you? You’re surprised she doesn’t invite you to a dinner?
What’s in your head, boy? Stop carrying on like a two-year-old and go upstairs,
I can’t be bothered with your nonsense now.” He looked across at me. “Sorry,”
he said neutrally, and then very pointedly went back to eating.

Wait... Wait a second,
he thought that by ‘she’, Andrej meant Bree? Really...? Oh my god, I was about to breathe an
enormous, heaving sigh of relief when Andrej swung his head around to me again
and the breath caught in my throat. He wasn't done.

“’Him’,” he repeated, his lip curling on the word as he said to his
dad, “You’re not serious, are you? As if Bree could find a real man
that would voluntarily spend more than 15 minutes alone with her.”

If I hadn't been so petrified
Andrej was going to succeed in outing me, I would have had a go at him over
that. Bree started to do it herself, but Mr Dejanovic talked over her and cut
her off. “You want to insult him now, boy? Just because he
doesn’t punch you back, that makes him ‘not a real man’? That doesn’t make him
‘not a real man’, that makes him an adult.
Only little boys try to solve problems with their fists.” When Andrej went to
say something else, thankfully Mr
Dejanovic cut him off with, “No! Go on, go
upstairs! Now!”

Before Andrej could leave,
Mrs Dejanovic put her hand on her husband’s arm again and said something softly
in Serbian. When he shook his head and made a gruff noise, she switched to
English. “But there’s plenty of food, Dragi,”
she said. “We can just get another chair for him.”

“What?” Bree piped up,
echoing my thoughts exactly. “You’re not going to let him stay and eat the food
I cooked after he was really mean to me, are you?”

Her mum didn’t look
impressed. “Maybe Andrej would be nicer to you if you were nicer to him,
Briana.”

Andrej smirked at Bree. “Yeah, Briana, it wasn’t very nice of
you to invite everyone to dinner except me and then—”

—there was a
loud thump as Mr Dejanovic slammed his knife and fork flat
against the table. We all jumped and the cutlery rattled as he twisted to
face Andrej and Bree properly. “That’s enough!” he bellowed. He sat straight up
for a second, glaring at them
while they both gaped wide-eyed at him. “You will not argue like this in front
of a guest. Andrej goes up to his room, that’s final.” When Andrej didn’t move,
Mr Dejanovic feinted forward as if he was going to jump up out of his chair and
chase him upstairs. “Go!”

Andrej gave me and Bree
one last pointed look—just in case I was under any sort of misapprehension that
the trouble between us was over—and then grudgingly followed his father’s
orders and left.

Mrs Dejanovic did not look happy. As soon as Andrej
had gone, she took her husband’s arm firmly and had a go at him in Serbian. It
sounded really rude, and like something I shouldn't be here to
witness. Uncomfortable, I sunk down into my seat and glanced at the door.
I might have tried to leave, but there was no way in hell I was
leaving Bree in here by herself. Mr Dejanovic noticed where I was looking
anyway. He turned around and snapped something back at his wife that
sounded like ‘stop it’ or even ‘behave yourself’. It made me
even more uncomfortable.

Bree glanced over
apologetically at me; she looked terrified. I wished she was close enough
for me to touch her.

Mrs Dejanovic didn’t
pay any sort of attention to her husband's request to be quiet, making it
worse by switching to English as she spoke to him. “So you are the only one
who’s allowed to speak?”

Mr Dejanovic threw his
hands up in the air. “Oh, you want to start now, Vera? You want to argue in
front of him?” He gestured towards me. I sunk further into my chair.

Mrs Dejanovic had narrowed
her eyes at her husband, defiantly standing and walking over to the door.
When she got there, she jabbed her finger at him and said something very
harsh that ended in, “You say Andrej acts like everything belongs to him? Like
everyone should do what he wants? Well, I wonder which of us he got that from?”
She put her hands on her hips. “He is trying, Dragi, he is trying, and you
are only punishing him!” With that, she turned on her heels and walked slowly
and painfully up the stairs, calling, “Andrej?” as she left.

Bree watched her go, mouth
open and hand half-outstretched like was about to beg her to stay,
but then as her mum disappeared up the stairs, Bree wilted like a flower. She
surveyed her half-eaten dinner, looking bitterly disappointed.

Apparently, that
expression made her fair game for her very angry father. Mr Dejanovic rose
out of his chair as well. “There, you see what you’ve done?” he asked her,
flinging an arm towards the stairs. “You see? I knew I never should
have agreed to this stupid dinner in the first place. There is
a reason we don’t ever have guests here, Briana. You understand that,
yes? I don’t say no for fun! I say it so people like him,” he gestured at
me, “don’t have to sit through this!”

“I’m sorry…” she murmured.
“I just thought it would be nice.”

“’Sorry, sorry’,” he
repeated, “everyone in this house thinks they can do whatever they like and say
sorry! Sorry doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t change anything. You
think I can say sorry to the bank? ‘Sorry, I didn’t make that payment?’ No!” He
glared at her for a moment, making sure she was listening properly. “It’s too
late for sorry. My blood pressure is probably up again—you will be
the death of me, Briana, I swear it—your mother will be angry all
week, and your brother? If he ends up back at the horses, we’ll know why he did
it, won’t we? Whose fault will that be?”

Unable to snap back at
him, Bree just stood there and weathered his criticism, her lips pressed in a tight line.

Well, it won't be her fault if those
things happen, I thought fiercely. How could
he possibly be blaming Bree for any of this? She'd done nothing
except try to do something nice, and now she was the one at fault? I
wanted to say something, I wanted to speak up in her defence, and if it had
been anyone other than her father saying those things, I definitely would have.
But I thought back to my mother; I'd hate it if anyone else got dragged
into her mire. It would have made things far
worse for me if my friends spoke up, so I kept my mouth shut as he kept
going. I didn’t want to make it worse
for Bree.

“If you truly spent all
that time on this,” he scooped up a fork full of noodles and roughly
slapped it back on his plate with a distasteful expression, “and you truly
believe that this was a good use of your time, then you need to get out
of fairyland and back to reality. You’re an adult now, not a little
girl anymore, and things have to change.” He released a long breath. “You can’t
come in and out of this house anymore when it suits you. Either you stay
and you start paying board, or you leave for good. We work hard, we have bills
to pay, and you make a mockery of that when you come and go as you please,
having stupid dinner parties and flitting around with your head in the clouds.”

That struck
her. “Okay,” Bree forced out of her lips, even though clearly she was
anything but okay.

Mr Dejanovic passed his
hand over his face as he looked from her to me; he was sweating a little. “I
apologise that you saw this,” he said to me, “and I apologise that I can’t
stay. I can’t stay in here, I’m done. I work 100 hours a week and I have no
energy to chat to strangers. Good night.”

Bree opened her mouth. She
looked like she might be about to cry. “Don't you want to finish your dinner?”
she asked in a tiny voice as a last, desperate appeal to him. “I can bring you
a tray. Won’t you be hungry if you don’t?”

He looked sharply at her.
“What, this?” he said, tapping his plate. “Where’s the meat? There’s no
substance! I’ll be hungry even if I do finish it. Why would you even cook
something like this?”

Her lip was quivering.
“W-Well you can’t have something too filling for main or there’s no room for
dessert, and I thought it was really pretty…”

He sighed heavily. “Pretty
isn’t enough, Briana,” he said with gravity. “Not for a meal, not for anything. Good night.” With that,
he tossed his napkin on the table and stormed out, muttering in Serbian.

We listened to him stomp
down the hallway into the front room, and then sigh loudly with relief as a
chair creaked and he turned on the news.  The sound of a news reporter’s
voice giving the traffic report drifted into the dining room, but otherwise,
the house was silent.

Bree stared at the dining
table with her eyes veiled; at the beautiful decorations her parents hadn’t
admired, the carnage of half-eaten dinner they hadn’t liked, and the now-empty
chairs they’d left. She reached out and plucked a delicate carrot rose off the tangle of noodles on her plate. Half of
its perfectly crafted little petals had been snapped off by the serving tongs.

My heart was still
pounding as I stood up slowly from my chair. “I’m sorry, Bree,” I said softly,
approaching her. “It was beautiful. It was.”

Her eyes were unfocused as
she looked at the carrot. “I got the dish to look exactly like the photo on the
website. Like, exactly, and I’ve
never even had like formal training or anything. I thought for sure they’d see my
food and be like, ‘Wow, where did you buy this?’ and then they’d both be so
impressed when they found out that I made it all by myself. Maybe they’d even
ask for seconds.” Her face hardened. “But they didn’t. Of course they
didn’t.” Tears spilt down her cheeks and she wiped them away on her wrists,
walking away from me and over to the table. There, she
started silently picking up plates and cleaning up.

I stopped her with a
gentle hand. “What are you doing?”

She didn’t look at me.
“Well, no one’s coming back here, are they? I’m clearing everything away.”

After what they’d just
done? “Why?”

“Because it won’t happen
magically by itself, and if it doesn’t happen, all I’ll hear about the next
time I see them is how I don’t clean up after myself and I’m a terrible
person.” She slumped. “Not that they don’t think that anyway.”

I took a step towards her
and put my hands on her shoulders. “Fuck them, Bree,” I said quietly. “Fuck
them. Leave the mess. Let’s just go.”

She shook her head and
continued to clean up. I helped her anyway, and then we carried the leftovers
into the kitchen. I expected her to put them in the fridge, but she just
unceremoniously dumped the whole casserole dish she’d worked so hard
on—with its intricate little carrot flowers and beautiful colours—into the bin
and closed the lid. She went to do the same to the four little tarts she’d
made, but I rescued them.

“Other people will like
these,” I told her. “Let’s not waste all your work.”

“It’s already wasted,” she
said, but didn’t insist on throwing them
away.

She grabbed her bag, and
as we headed past the shut living room door, Mr Dejanovic called out something
in Serbian.

Bree’s jaw tightened.
“I did clean it up!” she yelled through the door, and then walked
past me out into the front yard and didn’t stop until she was inside my car. I
climbed in after her.

I didn’t try to comfort
her until Christmas Court disappeared far behind us. She was staring out the
window, the streetlights moving across her face as tears silently rolled down
her cheeks.

While we were waiting in
traffic, I touched her knee. “I'm sorry it didn't work out.”

I saw her eyes close in
the reflection. She shook her head. It was a moment before she spoke. “The more
I think about it…” She looked down at the tarts
on her lap and exhaled. “Like, what did I
honestly think would happen?”

Keeping an eye on the
traffic, I watched her.

“I was telling myself
things are better now, and, you know, Andrej is working and I don’t
think he’s gambling at the moment… And we always used to have nice dinners. I
just thought that maybe…” Her face crumpled. “It doesn’t matter. None of it
matters. Everything is still as fucked as it was, and here’s me ‘with my head
in the clouds’ or whatever Dad says about me, all like ‘Oh, let’s have a dinner
party! You can tell my racist fucking parents how trans you are, nothing could
go wrong!’” She scoffed at herself, her jaw set. “How fucking stupid does that
sound? He’s right. They’re all right. I’m stupid,” she said harshly, fresh tears shining in her eyes.
“I’m stupid. I’m so
fucking stupid. What did
I think would happen?”

The light went green, so I
kept driving. “You’re not. Don’t blame yourself for trying to—”

“—I am stupid,
Min,” she said in this empty voice. “I am. I spent like a whole fucking week talking them into this, with them telling
me no and that it was a bad idea, and what ends up happening? It ends up being
a bad idea just like they said. Like, who was I fucking kidding? Of course it was a bad idea, just like all
of my ideas. I’m a fucking idiot. I never
get anything right. I fuck up everything, everything I try, because I’m a fucking dumb blonde
with an IQ of like 5. Why the fuck would this be the exception in a—”

“—you’re getting really
good marks,” I tried to point out; it was awful hearing her talk like this. “Would someone with an
IQ of 5 be able to—”

“—only because you guys
are helping me with everything!” Bree said, looking at me. “As if I could
do it without you! And even though you and Sarah and Gemma all have IQs of like
a million, I still can’t get over 80% on anything because I’m so fucking—”

I pulled over and put the
car into park. “—Stop!” I told her,
twisting my body towards her and putting a hand on her shoulder. “Stop, Bree.
Stop. You’re not stupid. You know you aren’t. You tried to do something
nice for your family and it didn’t work, that doesn’t make you stupid.”

Her
face crumpled. “Then why are they so horrible to me?” she
asked, her breath beginning to come in sobs. “Why?”

I made her look at me
again. “It’s not you. None of it’s you. There’s just a lot going on and some
people don’t handle it well.”

She shook her head. “Dad
told me to start paying board: he knows I can’t, so he’s basically
kicking me out. He wouldn’t care if I never came back. Like, he actually
wouldn’t care. And it’s so awful, because
I can still remember when I was little and we used to lie on the grass in the
backyard and look up at the sky, pointing out cloud animals together. He used
to smile at me and I’d be able to feel it, like, my big, scruffy dad
who loved me and would do anything for me…” She was struggling to get
the words out. “Now he thinks I’m stupid, and lazy, useless, and he doesn’t care at all about what happens
to me.”

I wrapped my arms
awkwardly around her in the seat and kissed one of her wet temples. “Other
people care about you, Bree.”

Despite that,
she kept sobbing. “Is it awful that I want them to? I want them back. I want
my mum and dad back, I want them back, to when Mum used to sit us on her knee
and tell us about how when she was a little girl, she used to watch
smuggled Hollywood movies and dream of moving to the West and having a
beautiful two-storey house and two children, a girl and a boy. We were her
dream, and her eyes used to fill with tears as she told us that, and she’d sit
in the garden and look up at her beautiful dream house while we played on the
swings. The way she looked at us: I want that back. I want them back,
Min.” She looked up at me with those big blue eyes.

My
heart broke for her. “Stress makes people do horrible things, Bree.
Maybe once the house is sold…?”

Bree didn’t look very
optimistic. “They’ve changed,” she said, leaning her head back against my arm
as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. “I mean, what sort
of parent does all that stuff? Parents aren’t supposed to be like
that. They’re supposed to be trying everything I cook, saving magazine cuttings
of recipes they think I’d like, and telling me I can grow up and be
an amazing chef in a world class restaurant if I want to.”

“Is that what you want?”

She shrugged loosely. “I
don’t know what I want. But it shouldn’t matter, should it? They should be
telling me I can be whatever I want to be, and that I should reach for the stars.”

I felt her on that one, I
really did. I leant my cheek on the crown of her head.

“I’m going to do it
anyway,” she said in this tiny little voice, through her tears. “I don’t care
what they say, I’m going to reach for them anyway. I’m never going to
be angry and bitter and horrible like they are. I’m never going to be like that, no
matter what happens to me. Even though they think I’m fucking stupid and
hopeless, I’m going to get my HSC. I’m going to show them when I’ve
gotten it. And then, who knows? Maybe their stupid daughter will go
to uni as well. I’m going to do all the things I want to do, and I’m not going
to give up on that. And when I have children—I’m going to have so many
children, so many beautiful little children—no matter who they are, no matter
what they do, no matter where they are in the world, they’re always going to
know that their mummy loves them, that she’s thinking about them, and
that she’s so, so proud of them.”

“I’m proud of you,” I murmured to her, but either she didn’t hear,
or it didn’t comfort her. And why would it have? It was her parents that she wanted
to be proud of her, and they weren’t. And boy, did I know exactly how
that felt. I put my arms all the way around her and just hugged her,
holding her until she stopped sobbing. Then, we drove back home.

Sarah spotted us as
we came in, but quickly noted Bree’s expression, pulled a ‘whoa’ face, and gave
us a wide berth. We went straight to bed, anyway, because
neither of us had any energy for anything else, and Bree didn't want the other
two to see her crying.

I felt so helpless,
listening to her sob into the pillow and feeling her chest heave. “Is
there anything I can do?”

”You could make me not be
such a screw-up,” she managed, and then shook her head. “Just hug
me. It feels better when you're hugging me.”

I followed her
instructions, snaking an arm under her neck so I could pull her back against me
and just envelope her in my arms and against my body. She snuggled back into
me, exhaling at length. I felt her relax somewhat. I did, too.

She took a breath. “I’m
kind of glad you didn’t tell them and that they didn’t know what
Andrej meant.”

I opened my eyes. “Yeah?”

I felt her ribs fall as
she exhaled. “Because they’re awful and they’d judge you, and they’re not
fucking allowed to. You’re the only person who actually cares about
me, who always makes me feel better, and it’s not fair they’d take the fact
you’re trans and just, like, use it to decide there’s something wrong with you
and you’re not good enough.”

I chuckled. “Especially
when they could just speak to my mum who doesn’t even know I’m trans and get a whole lot of other reasons why I’m wrong
and not good enough.”

Bree turned her head back
towards me. Her eyes were still red, but she wasn’t crying anymore. “You are
good enough,” she told me quietly. “No matter what she says. You’re perfect.”

Unexpectedly, that hit me
solidly in the chest and made my eyes water. I blinked the tears away. “So
are you, Bree. Don’t listen to your family. Keep your head in the clouds.”

She turned over to face
me, gathered herself in my arms, and then we made another attempt at falling
asleep.

Despite everything, I
eventually slept okay after that.  I don’t think Bree did for a long time,
though, because when I woke up in the morning she was still fast asleep and
didn’t even stir when I got out of bed and got dressed. Her hair was a total
frizzy mess, too, and that only happened when she tossed and turned a lot at
night. I tucked the doona carefully around her shoulders so she wouldn’t get
cold, and stood back.

Her eyes were still a bit
puffy. That set my teeth on edge; what kind of parent freely made their
daughter cry like that? I got it: they were tired from working long hours in a futile attempt to
keep the house. But I bet Bree would have traded a thousand beautiful houses
for another summer lying on the grass and looking up at the clouds with her
dad.

All this thinking about
terrible parents made me remember my own, and on my way out into the living
room, I took out my mobile with the intention of dealing with whatever Mum had
to say to me this morning.

When I unlocked it to deal
with the flashing LED and the little red ‘4’ on my screen, though, the browser
was still open and on the Cloverfield login portal for Bree’s results. I
immediately felt brighter.

Perfect! I thought, dismissing the messages to worry about later. I could
surprise Bree this morning with her great results just to hammer home how wrong
her parents were about her. That would cheer her up.

I entered the information
just like Bree had and then tapped submit, but nothing happened. Nothing
happened when I opened my laptop and tried on there, either. I was entering
everything right, so maybe it was broken? I glanced at the bottom of my screen:
8:02am. I’d have to wait until business
hours to give them a call.

I got up to make myself
some tea while I was waiting—mainly so that I could curl my fingers around the
warm mug to stop them from freezing and falling off—and noticed two of the tarts were missing from the fridge. That was a
good sign. If Sarah was going to forge through her terrible morning sickness
and attempt a tart, she must have thought they looked pretty good. I would have
to show Bree.

I took my warm mug back to
the table and sat in front of my laptop, spending the hour reading over the guidelines for my research proposal
for uni. I kind of liked the fact they called developing new techniques, practising my skills, and exploring topics
through art ‘research’. I’d never really thought much about the legitimacy of
art before—thanks to Mum for always being so dismissive of it.

I was still stuck imagining
all the things I was going to paint when it hit 9am.
I tried the portal one more time, and when it didn’t work, I figured I should call the school. The number was on their
website.

It only rang a couple of
times. “Cloverfield Ladies’ College, how may I direct your call?”

That was quick. “Um, to
whoever I speak to about the access portal not working.”

“Oh!” the woman said. She
sounded young. “I might be able to help you with that. What’s wrong?” I
explained it to her, and she said, “Are you sure you’re entering the right
student number?” We went through her usual checklist of what might be wrong,
but she wasn’t able to figure it out. “Maybe it’s only a problem with her
account,” she suggested. “What’s her name?”

“Briana Dejanovic,” I said.
There was a long pause, so I elaborated. “Which is D-E-J—”

“—it’s okay, I know who
she is,” she said, and then there was another pause. “Um. Okay. I’m sorry, but
Briana will actually need to come into the registrar’s office in person to
collect her results.”

My stomach dropped into my feet. “Oh... May I ask why?”

“I’m sorry, we can only
discuss it with Briana or her parents, and only in person.” When I went to ask
her another question, she cut me off. “I’m sorry. If Briana is able to come
into the office, we can explain exactly what the problem is.”

Since she wouldn’t budge,
I thanked her and then hung up.

Shit.

I stared down at the
little access portal on my screen and
then locked it. I didn’t need the office to explain exactly what the problem
was: Bree’s marks were being held hostage. And if Bree’s marks were being held
hostage, it was because the school wanted us to hand over something first. And
given that Bree said her parents hadn’t been able to pay her school fees in two
years, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to join the dots and work out what was
going on here. Bree had warned us all along.

I put my head in my hands
for a second. But seriously: now? Halfway through the fucking year, after Bree had done all of that
hard work night after night, month after month? After we all had? It
seemed so cruel to get Bree’s hopes up, to let her hand in all her assignments
only to pull this, and now.

They’d better not kick her out, I thought, remembering last
night. Fuck, they’d better not kick her out now.

TWENTY

Cloverfield was as grand as I
remembered it, with its big old buildings and manicured gardens. The huge oak
trees out the front of the grounds had shed the last of their gold and orange
leaves all over the lawns, and there was a groundskeeper faithfully raking them
up. Aside from that groundskeeper it was quite empty, and as I walked into the
school, the odd staff member I spotted were all wearing casual clothes.
That made me self-conscious, because I’d
put on a full suit. I wanted to make a good impression on whoever I needed to
speak to about Bree.

The
reception was well
signposted, and I followed all the arrows through ornate buildings until they
pointed towards some huge double doors. Heat blasted me as I walked inside.

The lady I’d spoken to on
the phone was seated on the other side of a long hardwood reception counter,
with a big Cloverfield crest hung on the stone wall behind her. “Can I help
you?” she asked me in a polite voice that suggested she thought she probably
couldn’t. I suppose teenage boys—or people who barely looked older than
them—didn’t come in here alone very often.

“Erm,” I said, trying to
speak quietly because I sounded more like a guy that way, “I’m sorry to bother
you. I’m Min Lee. I called you about an hour, an hour and a half ago.”

Recognition dawned on her
face, and it hardened. “Oh, Briana’s boyfriend,” she said, looking
uncomfortable. “I was very clear that our policy is that we can only speak to a
student or her parents…”

“I know that’s what you
said,” I told her, and then reached into my pocket and took out an authority
form that I’d put in front of Bree while she was semi-conscious. After she’d
signed it, I was out the door before she was awake enough to try and follow me.
“But, listen,” I said, unfolding the form and putting it on the desk in front
of the receptionist. “Bree’s parents aren’t going to come in, and Bree is
feeling really terrible this morning. I found this form on your
website to allow other people to speak on a student’s behalf, and I thought
that if I got Bree to sign it, you could speak to me instead.”

The receptionist glanced
down at the form and pointed to two empty
fields below Bree’s signature. “This form needs to be co-signed by her parents
to be valid,” the receptionist said politely. “If it can’t be signed by the
parents, we need a family court order. I’m sorry, students can’t sign for
themselves, it’s policy.”

“But there are extenuating
circumstances,” I persisted, pushing the form forward on the desk a little.
“Her parents are not available to sign this. Surely there must be some sort of
policy for situations like this?”

The receptionist looked
genuinely apologetic. “I understand you’re trying to help, but I’m sure you can
imagine how difficult it would be for the school if students were getting their
boyfriends to act on their behalf without getting their parents involved.”

This was frustrating.
“Her parents aren’t involved, that’s the problem,” I told her.
“That’s the whole problem. Bree’s in a really bad place now, I can’t put her
through this. Please, there must be something you can do, someone I
can speak to?” She was watching me closely, so I repeated, “Please?”

The receptionist frowned
at me for a moment or two, deep in thought, and then shook her head and sighed.
She looked resigned. “I’ll check her hardcopy file. But I can’t promise there’s
anything that would help you in there,” she warned me. Standing, she went
through into a back room behind the desk while I leant on the counter and
waited.

It felt like eternity before the
receptionist returned, and when she did, it was with a very thick manila
folder. She sat back down in her chair, spreading the folder open in front of
her. The second she did so, a red slip of paper fell out. She retrieved it,
holding it so I couldn’t read what was written there. I didn’t need to; her
whole expression changed. “I’m so sorry,” she said, closing Bree’s file. “I
should have checked while you were on the phone. I need to speak with someone
if you’d mind taking a seat for a moment? I can’t promise anything.”

I exhaled. That sounded
hopeful, though, didn’t it? I took the authority form and went to sit on one of the chairs opposite the desk
while the receptionist picked up the phone and spoke in hushed tones to
someone.

I strained to listen to
what she was saying, but I couldn’t make out individual words. Say yes, I willed whoever was on the end
of that line. Say someone will tell
me what’s going on.

After she hung up, she turned back to me. “Thanks for
your patience,” she said. “The Principal will see you shortly.”

I don’t think I’d heard
more welcome words in ages. What a relief; no matter what the issue with Bree
was, even if it was the fees, I was sure if I was able to actually
discuss it with someone, I’d be able to negotiate a good outcome for Bree. Things
were so tough for her right now, after all. “Thank you,” I said, sure my
gratitude was audible.

The Principal certainly
was out shortly, I was hardly waiting even a minute.  I heard her coming
down the corridor before I saw her: walking with short brisk strides as her
heels clipped on the floor. I expected someone taller than her by the authority
in her gait, but when she came into the room she was very short, and she had
her greying hair pulled back into a bun exactly like Diane Frost’s. That made me nervous.

She came right up into the
centre of the room, surveying the reception area until she saw me in the
corner. Her eyes settled on me. “Mr Lee?”

I stood, despite my
shaking legs. “Yes?”

She came over to me and
extended her hand. “Hilda McDougall,” she said as I shook it. Her grip was
firm. “I’m the Principal. Would you mind stepping into my office?”

I followed her and her
clicking heels up the corridor into a large, bright office with a heavy desk in
the centre. She invited me to sit in a seat opposite with a gesture. All
over her office, on all the surfaces and all the walls, were photos of student
sporting events, musical recitals and plays, all meticulously labelled and
dated. Some of them were from the 90s—she must have been Principal for a while.

As I sat, she closed the
door behind me and went to sit on the other side of her table. “I understand
Bree signed something for you?”

“Oh!” I said, and felt
around my pockets, “Yes.” I passed it across to her.

She put her reading
glasses on and unfolded it, running her eyes over the page—I saw a ghost of a
smile on her lips, probably from the fact that Bree had written ‘best boyfriend ever’ in the ‘Relationship to Student:’ field—and then
she spent a few seconds checking something on her computer.

She turned away from the
screen. “You’re lucky,” she said, actually smiling a bit at me. “In my past
life I taught law. The receptionist wouldn’t have known to check to see if Bree
was 18. Since she is, this,” she waved the authority in the air before placing
it aside, “is acceptable. It’s not really our policy to allow students to sign
forms for themselves, but being the Principal does give me certain flexibility to make calls like this.”

God, my heart was
pounding. “Thank you.”

“So, I understand there
are ‘extenuating circumstances’ about why you are here instead of Mr and Mrs
Dejanovic?” she asked, leaning forward and lacing
her fingers on the table.

I nodded. “Bree and her
parents have had a falling out. She’s living with me at the moment.”

Her eyebrows went up.
“Well, that explains why they don’t answer the phone and never return our calls
or our letters,” she noted. “This is actually the first time in two years I’ve
been able to discuss Bree with someone. I can’t even get Bree
herself into my office.” It occurred to me that she wasn’t calling
her ‘Briana’; I wondered if it meant anything. She gave me an appraising
look, and I was glad I wore my suit. “I must say, though, it is very unusual to
be discussing something as serious as I need to with a student’s boyfriend.”
She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head in concession. “Oh well, I’m
prepared to accept there are no other options at this stage.”

Discussing ‘something as
serious as I need to’..? I swallowed. I did not feel good about her
tone of voice.

She was looking directly
at me. “Has Bree told you about the state of her school accounts?”

My stomach dropped. Oh god, that is what this is all about. I swallowed. “Yes, she has.”

The Principal nodded,
sitting back and watching me sombrely for
a moment before taking off her reading glasses. “Mr Lee,” she began,
“Cloverfield prides itself on the social inclusion programs we run, and every year we send a hundred open-minded,
responsible young women out into the world to change it. Making sure every
single girl feels valuable and empowered
to effect change is one of our primary goals.” She paused. “But we’re an
independent school, we’re not government-funded. We rely solely on fees for the
costs of tuition, maintaining the school grounds and programs like the ones you see on this wall here,” she swept her
hand out, gesturing at the dozens of photos on the wall beside her. “Bree’s
fees haven’t been paid for two years. We’ve allowed her to study here because
there is a general awareness amongst the staff that Bree is facing
difficulties, but recently we’ve started to get complaints about her.”

What? “Complaints?”

The Principal nodded once.
“It used to be just about her uniform, but recently staff have come to me to
express concern that Bree has several brand new electronic devices. One week
she was wearing a new gold bracelet, now she’s wearing a new gold
necklace—which aren’t part of the uniform code anyway, you understand. She
wears her uniform to show them off as if there isn’t a uniform code and ignores requests to fix this.
Furthermore, just a couple of months ago I had a very angry staff member in
here making claims about Bree being deliberately inappropriate with a young man
right outside the front of the school in
an expensive car.”

My blood ran cold; I
remembered that. “She just kissed me,” I said, feeling sick. “I wouldn’t have
let her if I knew it was going to cause trouble for her.”

The Principal nodded once
to acknowledge what I’d said. “When students are wearing their uniforms, they
represent our college, and their behaviour is expected to maintain the good
reputation we have in the community. Bree does not have a strong history of
doing that. And, unfortunately for Bree, that particular staff member has a
wife on the school board,
and insisted I take Bree’s accounts before the board because of their
non-payment. I was not in a position to refuse.”

Pale, I listened, waiting
for her to continue. Fuck, I couldn’t believe I’d been
so thoughtless about that. Why had I let her pash me in front of that Maths teacher? What the hell was I thinking?

After a pause, the
Principal continued. “When I presented her accounts and the complaints about
her, the board instructed me to either collect the fees and address Bree’s
behaviour, or terminate Bree’s tuition.”

Hearing her
actually say it was like being punched in the stomach. I gulped
a breath. “So you’re asking her to leave?”

She tilted her head again.
“We’re asking that her fees be paid,” she
corrected me. “And unfortunately, we’re
unable to make any more payment arrangements with her parents because they’re
simply not kept. We need her fees in full, at least for last year. This year, I
can be more flexible about.”

“How much is it?” I
managed to ask, as if there was any
chance in hell her parents could afford it.

“Last year was $21,550.
This year is $22,230.”

That knocked the wind out
of me. “Nearly $44,000?” She had to be kidding; who on earth could
afford that?

She nodded once. “We’re an
independent school, Mr Lee. Our fees are comparatively cheap, given the area
we’re situated in.”

I wondered on what planet
that amount of money was considered ‘cheap’. I sat back, taking a deep breath
and trying to get my head around that number. $44,000? Fuck. “I don’t see her parents
paying that,” I said honestly. “I’m not sure what you know, but they don’t have
the funds to pay anything near that amount at the moment.”

“Ordinarily we’re prepared
to work with parents who are struggling,” she said. “But, as I mentioned,
Bree’s parents don’t return calls and they haven’t engaged with us. I’m sorry
it’s come to this, but perhaps it’s for the best.”

How could kicking Bree out
of school possibly be for the best? “What do you mean?”

The Principal gave me a
pained expression. “I’ve known Bree for six years,” she said. “And she’s a
lovely girl, no one would doubt that, but I think you’ll agree with me that
academic performance is not a strong point of hers. At Cloverfield, more than
90% of our girls go on to university—usually one of the top universities.
Perhaps Bree would be more at home finishing her HSC in a TAFE, or perhaps one
of the local public schools? I’ve already spoken to the Principal at Eastern
Beaches High School, he says classes are quite full there, but he’s prepared to
transition her into one of them given her circumstances. She could start on
Monday, in fact.”

What on…
“You’ve already made arrangements to kick her out?” I asked, my jaw
open. “From Monday?”

“It’s for the best, Mr
Lee,” The Principal assured me. “Her parents will only have to repay 18 months’
worth of fees instead of two full years. And Bree will fit in better in a
public school, I think. They’re less focused on academic performance, and
there’s no uniform code for her to be constantly breaking.”

God, I couldn’t….

I sat there with my jaw
open, unable to process any of this. “But Bree’s been doing so well recently!”
I said. “Couldn’t she apply for a scholarship or something?”

She seemed so calm. How
could she be so calm about this? “Cloverfield scholarships require recipients
to keep their grades above 85. Bree’s grades have improved—I suppose
she has you to thank for that?—but they’re still hovering around 75. It’s not
enough for me to justify awarding her with a scholarship.”

“So you’re kicking her
out,” I said, breathless. “Just like that.” The Principal didn’t deny it.

God, I couldn’t imagine
taking that news home to Bree. She was probably still in bed over the stuff to
do with her parents, and now this? I shook my head. Poor Bree, nothing
ever went right for her.

I couldn’t accept that it
ended like this, I just couldn’t.

I was staring open-mouthed
at the desk, when the Principal said very carefully, “If you don’t mind me
asking, are you or your family in any position to assist Bree with paying her
fees?”

I looked up at her. “I
wished you’d asked me that question four months ago,” I said, and then sighed.
“I was working in a high paid job. I’m a student now. I’m broke, I should
probably have gotten a part-time job months ago.”

She wasn’t rude about it,
but she did probe further. “A broke student who drives a prestige car, buys
expensive electronics and jewellery for his girlfriend, and arrives to collect
Bree’s marks dressed as you are? You can forgive people for thinking there’s
money around that would be better spent on Bree’s schooling.”

“Well, you can tell those
people things aren’t always as they seem,” I said a bit sharply, and then
realised how rude that sounded. “I’m sorry, it’s just… Bree’s been working so
hard the last couple of months. She’s just had to leave home. She doesn’t need
this right now. You can’t kick her out. Surely you can wait three more
months for her to finish her HSC?”

She didn’t budge even a
fraction. “I’m sorry Mr Lee. The school board have given me instructions, I’m
not at liberty to ignore them.”

“Can you at least give us some time? Maybe I could speak to Bree’s—”

“I’m sorry. I need payment
before Semester two starts on Monday.”

I could hardly fucking
conceive of what was going on here. “But Bree’s parents have no money, and they
don’t care about her education. They’re not going to be able to pay it, and I
have less than $500 in my bank account.”

She didn’t miss a beat and
picked up the receiver on her phone. “Alright,” she said. “I’ll call Eastern
Beaches to let them know Bree will start with them on Monday.”

I sat forward, holding my
hand up to stop her. “No,” I said, “Please, she has friends here!”

The Principal was still
holding the receiver. “Well, then,” she said. “How would you like to pay?”

I sat back,
breathless. I can’t go home to tell
Bree she’s been kicked out! I thought,
that would destroy her,
especially after last night. All that work she’d done to get her grades up,
wasted. And what about Sarah and Gemma? They’d put in the hard work to ensure
this didn’t happen, I didn’t want to feel like they’d wasted a large
chunk of their free time and energy over the past two months for nothing.
Everything we’d done, all of Bree’s hopes and dreams about—

“—Mr Lee, if you don’t
want Bree to be transferred, I need at least last year’s fees. How will they be
paid?”

I couldn’t think straight.
This was just… I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t have that kind
of money.”

She didn’t look like she believed
me. “Well, how much do you have access to right now? Do you have a credit card
or an overdraft?”

“I have a credit card, but
the limit’s only $10,000…”

She relaxed and put the
phone receiver down. “Alright,” she said. “I can accept that as a deposit to
release her marks,” she told me. “If you are able to provide the remaining
$11,550 before next Thursday—that’s the next board meeting—Bree can remain the
rest of the year with us, providing her marks stay stable and her presentation
and behaviour improves. We can discuss this year’s fees at the end of semester. Is that suitable? If it’s not, I’ll
need to start transferring her to Eastern Beaches immediately so the paperwork
is ready for Monday.”

I just… I couldn’t….
$21,550? That was so much money,
I couldn’t even imagine that—

“—Mr Lee? Do you want me
to transfer Bree?”

“No…”

“Okay then,” she said.
“I’ll get this arrangement organised.” She put her reading glasses on her nose
again and swivelled back towards her computer, typing something up. The printer
on her return sprung to life, spitting
out a piece of paper. She plucked it off the tray and held it out to me. “Take
this to the reception desk. They have an EFTPOS terminal there.”

I stared dumbly at it. Had
I just agreed to—? I didn’t want Bree to be kicked out, but I couldn’t afford
$21,550, I couldn’t. Since she wasn’t giving me much of a choice, I went to
take the sheet of paper from her, numb and completely spun out, but she held
onto it when I tried to pull it from her. We made eye contact. “I need you to
understand I’m serious about this,” she said. “$10,000 today, $11,550 next
week, no extensions. Bree needs to wear her school uniform properly, she needs
to behave appropriately, and keep her marks above 75. Is that fair?”

“Yes,” I rasped, even though
I honestly couldn’t have been trusted to think anything through at that point.

She let me take the paper.
“Good,” she said, sounding somewhat satisfied. “I’m sorry I had to do this, Mr
Lee. It is honestly outside my control. I’m glad Bree has someone generous like
you looking out for her, though.” She smiled briefly.

With that, she ushered me
out and deposited me in the hallway. I stood there completely disoriented for a
second, unable to make sense of what had just happened. Then, because the
Principal was watching me and I didn’t want Bree to be kicked out, I obediently
took the sheet of paper to reception and handed it over with my credit card.
She didn’t close her office door until the receptionist was running it.

“Great!” the receptionist
said, pressing buttons on the EFTPOS machine. “I’m glad this is all sorted out.
Debit or Credit?”

My ears were ringing. Was
I really doing this? “Credit,” I replied automatically, and she passed me the
terminal. My fingers moved by themselves to enter the PIN, and then after ‘Approved’ appeared on the screen,
the receptionist stapled a copy of the receipt to the piece of paper and handed
it back to me.

“I’ll activate Briana’s
portal access,” she promised cheerfully. “It might take 15 minutes to work,
though. I’ll see you in a week!”

I took the receipt from
her, folded it and shoved it in my pocket, and then walked out of the warm
reception into the gardens in a complete daze.

I was sitting in my car
and feeling around beside me for my seat belt when it really hit me: I’d just
paid ten thousand dollars to
Bree’s school. $10,000.

I stared forward out of my
windscreen with my jaw open.

I just… I mean, seriously?
What the fuck was I doing? I’d known Bree for four months. Well,
longer if you counted chatting online, but… $10,000?

God, what was I…?

What have I done? I thought, my
chest tightening. I tugged weakly at my tie, trying to move air through my
throat. What have I done? What the fuck have I done? I’d just
completely fucked myself over and I didn’t even know if it was going to change
anything. What if I couldn’t get the other $11,550? God, I…

God. I was so, so, so incredibly fucked.

TWENTY-ONE

This isn’t a disaster, I repeated like a mantra for the whole drive home. This isn’t a disaster, this isn’t a
disaster, I’ll figure something out.

Even still, I’d nearly run
a red light because I was so preoccupied—that would have been a disaster—and I got stuck sitting in my car
when I finally managed to get safely back to Sarah’s. I needed to check what
I’d paid $10,000 for.

Just do it, Min, I told myself, parked in the driveway
with my shaking thumb hovering over the ‘submit’ button on the Cloverfield
Portal. This was it, the moment when I found out if all the faith I had in Bree
to do well was justified, or if I might as well just have cashed that $10,000
and scattered it on the wind.

My heart
was pounding against my ribcage; every possible scenario had already
gone through my head on the drive home: Bree did really well, Bree did really
badly, the portal still didn’t work because the Principal was just
lying to get me to front up with Bree’s fees, every possible outcome. Now, I
was just staring at the web page, willing
myself to bite the bullet and press the damn button. Whatever the outcome was,
I needed to know so I could manage it.

Bracing myself for it, I
tapped ‘submit’.

The first thing I saw was
an enormous ‘64’, and for one terrifying second I thought that was Bree’s
average and I was even more fucked than previously thought. Once I
zoomed out and saw a mixture of other marks, though, namely an 81 in English, I
breathed a small sigh of relief. The 64, not surprisingly, was from Maths, the
teacher who’d singled Bree out for not having a tablet a few months ago, and
the one who’d complained to the Principal about her. I swear to god he had it
in for Bree.

With some help from my
calculator app, I pinned her average at 73. That wasn’t exactly the 75 the
Principal wanted, but I figured if Sarah, Gemma and I kept helping Bree and she
kept focusing on her grades, it wouldn’t be long before she’d hit 75.

That was assuming I could
find $11,550 and keep her in the school in the first place.

Still, this wasn’t a
disaster, was it? Bree could hit that grade average she needed, I could speak
to her about her behaviour, and the
money? Fuck, it was a lot, but I needed to keep reminding myself that my
mother had managed to pay several years of school on a cleaner’s wage. I only
needed to afford one, and, honestly, I wasn’t completely broke, was
I? I was waiting on all my entitlements from Frost—which would be at
least $8,000 if everything went according to plan—and I could always just
get another credit card or something, and worry about the repayments later.
Also, I couldn’t forget my Lexus, I had to get rid of it anyway. Finally,
if worst came to worst, and if all else failed and I still needed a bit more
money to get to that full $11,550, I could always go cap in hand to Mum, as
much as the idea of needing to prostrate myself before her was a giant no
fucking way.

No matter what happened,
though, one thing was certain: I couldn’t tell Bree. She felt very
uncomfortable when I spent big money on her, and I’d never spent
anything near this amount. She’d probably drop out before
she’d let me pay $21,550 for her fees, and she’d definitely never forgive herself. I didn’t want her
to feel that way. She deserved to feel proud of herself for once.

I sat back in my seat.
Anyway, I didn’t pay $10,000 to lock myself in my car and stress, did I? Bree
had been desperate for her marks. Time to bring them home to her.

All the lights were still
out, so I tip-toed inside, changing very, very quietly out of my suit
and putting it away before I knelt down beside her bed.

Bree was curled in a
little ball on her side, her fists tucked under her chin and her hair
everywhere. I brushed it gently off her face. She stirred, opening her puffy
eyes. She looked so tired.

“Guess who’s got some good
news for you,” I said as casually as I could manage. She frowned a little, so I
unlocked my phone and held up the results screen so she could see. She squinted
at it.

When she realised what it
was, she hurriedly half-sat up, wrenching the phone from me. I saw her scroll
up in disbelief, looking for her name. “These are mine?” she asked anyway, the
frown fading. When I nodded, all that tired sadness melted away as
her face simply lit up. “I got an 81?”

I grinned at her. “I guess
those stars you’re reaching for are a bit closer than you thought.”

Unexpectedly,
she threw her arms around my neck and squeezed the life out
of me. “Thank you!” she said, not knowing exactly how much she was thanking me
for. She planted several quick kisses on my cheek. “Thank-you-thank-you-thank-you! Oh
my god! 81!” It wasn’t long before she was upright and jumping up and down on
the bed, cheering.

I stood back and watched
her, a big smile on my face, too. This Bree, the one
bouncing around my bedroom with her arms in the air, this was
my Bree. It was like she’d suddenly had the life pumped back into her. This is what I paid for, I thought, watching
the joy and elation on her face. This is
what I’m paying for.

…she was seriously going
to break the bed, though. That would be interesting to try and
explain to Sarah. I took her hand to stop her. “Uh, I know we used the
trampoline as a bed, but just FYI it doesn’t work so well the other way
around.”

She looked chastised for a
second. “Sorry,” she said, climbing down. Then, she bounced on her toes again
and grabbed my arms. “I got an 81!” she repeated, her excitement creeping back.
“I have to tell everyone!” She grabbed both our phones and rushed off with
them, her socks slipping a bit on the floorboards.

After she’d taken selfies
with the results and posted them all over her many social media accounts, she
was a bit calmer. “I can’t wait for Sarah and Gemma to see!” she said. “I mean,
I know I only got 64 in Maths because Mr Preston is a total asshole, but
I’m sure Gemma will get that a 64 when the teacher fucking hates
me is basically the same as getting 100.” I wasn’t so sure, but since Bree
had come up to me and put her arms around my waist, I didn’t mention it. “We
should do something really special to celebrate and thank them! We could all go
out to dinner, or something? Somewhere really nice, and then maybe go clubbing
or something afterwards like Gemma always wants to?”

That sounded expensive.
“It’s a work night for them,” I pointed out.

She made a face, hanging
backwards off my middle. “On Friday
then?” she asked, and then dangled a carrot in front of me in a sing-song
voice, “I’ll let you drink…”

…which would have been a
tempting offer if I could afford to drink. I supposed I didn’t have
to actually lie about what the problem was, just avoid
mentioning why it was. “I’m running a bit low on money, we’re going
to have to dial back a bit on the extravagance. Maybe we could all celebrate
here?”

“Oh,” she said, completely
accepting it without question. “Well then, you should totally open up for art
commissions. Come on!” She grabbed my hand, towed me over to the table where my
laptop was, and pushed me to sit down in a chair. Pulling another one up beside
me, she reached across me and pressed the power button. “We can figure out your
prices right now.”

I looked sideways at her.
“Aren’t we supposed to be trying to figure out how to celebrate your marks?”

“We can celebrate better
if we’re not starving because we can’t afford food,” she pointed out.

That was a valid point, so
even though it didn’t solve my immediate problem of needing $11,550 right
now, it would be good to have some cash flow. Bree went through my art folder
with a fine tooth comb and told me which pieces she thought I should use as
examples to advertise, and then we googled around to find out what the going
rate was and priced them all. I put all the info and examples together in a big
image and uploaded it to Deviant Art. “I don’t know if any of my followers are
still active,” I confessed.

Bree looked smug. “Send
the ad to me, heaps of people
follow me.” She paused for a second, cringing a little. “Okay, so most of them
are just creepy guys kind of hanging around hoping I’ll post tease pics of my boobs again, but that doesn’t
mean they can’t be art fans too.”

After she’d uploaded it
everywhere, she went to have a shower, which left me free to start my search
for that $11,550.

I started with Frost.
They’d been investigating my complaint about Jason for months, I supposed there was a reasonable chance they might be
close to reaching a decision and paying out. It didn’t hurt to ask them, did
it? I grabbed my phone, dismissed all of Bree’s many status update
notifications, dismissed some more texts from Mum, and then called
Frost and asked to be put through to HR.

“Hello, Min,” that sounded
like James Chen. “I must say you’ve got excellent timing! I was actually due to give you a call. How are you?”

Nearly broke, actually. “Very well, thank you.”

“That’s good to hear. Listen, I have some information about your complaint,
which I imagine is why you’ve called. I can’t be too specific, but we’ve
needed to broaden our inquiry a little because it’s such a complex issue, which
is making it all drag on a bit and is also causing a delay in calculating your
entitlements. Apologies for that. I also needed to ask you a rather personal
question, is now an appropriate time to do that?”

I blinked. “Um,
sure,” if it will lead to me getting
paid faster…

“Okay, excellent. What I
wanted to know is if there was anyone else—anyone else at all—who factored into
your decision to leave Frost on April 30, even if they weren’t the main
reason?”

That was very left field. I was glad this wasn’t a video
call and that he couldn’t see the expression I made. There most
certainly was another person: Sean Frost, but I wasn’t stupid enough
to make a complaint about the co-CEO. He was very smart, very powerful, and very
dangerous. I wondered if that was who James meant; maybe James was having the
same trouble with Sean that Henry had. I didn’t want to risk it, though.

“No,” I managed. “Jason
was why I left, for the reasons I detailed in my complaint.”

There was a long pause. I
don’t think he believed me at all. “Okay, thanks very much for that. Well,
that’s all I need for now. Is there anything else you wanted to ask me?”

There wasn’t, so I thanked
him and hung up, running a hand over my face. ‘Drag
on a bit’ was an understatement. How long did it really take to
investigate a complaint about one person?
Oh well, at least the silver lining was that as long as the complaint carried
on, Jason wouldn’t be manager, which
meant Sarah didn’t have to put up with taking orders from that prick while she
was pregnant and ill.

Okay, so Frost was out. I
wasn’t going to be getting money from them in the next seven days.

My next option was to just
apply to a few banks and whack the rest
of the money for Bree’s school fees on credit. I didn’t really like the idea of
having so much credit card debt, but at least it was something I could chip
away at over time. Besides, it wasn’t like I was going to end up like Bree’s
parents. $21,550 worth of debt plus my car loan was a bit different than
$600,000 of it.

After spending some time
hunched in front of my computer and browsing banking websites, I quickly
discovered the banks wouldn’t even look at me without at least three months of
steady income, and neither would the second tier lenders. Even the dodgy payday
places wouldn’t let me leave the income field blank, and a little box came
up saying, ‘Hmm, it looks like you don’t
have an income. We’ll be happy to help you afford that special something when
you do!’.

Gee, thanks, I mentally told that patronising little pop-up box and
closed the tab.

Well, shit. At least I still had selling my car to fall back on. As much as I
didn’t want to—it was a really reliable, really comfortable car—I couldn’t
afford $500 a fortnight for it anyway. It would be a bit sad to get rid of it,
though. Henry had always joked about the fact we had matching cars, and
Mum loved the car and loved that Henry and I had the same model.
‘Obviously you’re supposed to be together, you have the same taste!’, she’d
told me sagely. It was a moot point because Mum had chosen my car.

Resigned to my fate, I’d
taken a Dustbuster and a rubbish bag out into the driveway to clean up the
interior for sale when Bree, obviously finished in the shower, wandered out.

She watched me a bit
forlornly. “You’re selling your car?”

“Yup,” I told her, pulling
a prehistoric Red Bull can out from under the driver’s seat. It was so old it
might as well have been fossilised. I tossed it in the rubbish bag. “You’re not
going to be able to brag about your rich boyfriend anymore, sorry.”

Bree didn’t look bothered.
“I’ll just tell everyone you gave up the high life to live your dream. That’s
more romantic anyway,” she said, and went back inside the house, returning a
couple of minutes later with a bucket and a sponge. She set to work on the
exterior.

When we were both done, I
went and put the rubbish bag into Sarah’s wheelie bin, and came back to take a
few photos of my car in case I needed them. Bree was sitting in the back seat
looking all nostalgic, and posed suggestively
for one of the pictures when I pointed the camera at her. It was the type of
photo you hoped people wouldn’t come across when they were going through the
gallery on your phone. I pulled a face. “I’d better delete that,” I told her,
spending a little too long gawking at it before I did.

She stopped me. “No way!”
she said, “Put it in the advert! Sex sells,
right? Say, ‘Look, I was just driving around and I picked up this cute
schoolgirl, and now I’m totally nailing her. You could be nailing one, too:
just buy this hot car’!”

I half-laughed,
half-sighed, and pulled her out of the car so I could lock it. While Bree was
facebooking her friends about all their marks and waiting for Sarah to get
home, I sat down in front of my laptop again to phone around a few dealers to
get their prices on my car. As I started, I opened a blank document to write
down the details of the dealers that were interested.

After six phone calls, my
document was still blank. “We can’t shift second-hand luxury cars,” one guy
told me. “People who have the money buy new ones, and these just sit in our
yard, depreciating in value.”

I ran out of prestige
dealers and started to call ordinary ones, and there was only one who was even
remotely interested. He sighed at length through the receiver. “I’ll be honest
with you: you could bring it in, but we’re not going to be able to give you
what it’s worth,” he said. “I’ll give you $40 kay
for it if it’s in good condition. How much did you say you owed on it again?”

I pressed my lips together.
“Nearly $48,000.”

He made a noise. “Well,
you can give us a bank cheque for the difference, if you want. We can take care
of it.”

Yeah, sure. Let me just shake my pockets for that spare $8,000, I thought bitterly. “Thanks, I think I’ll try and sell it privately.
How much do you think I should advertise it for,
if you don’t mind me asking?”

“You might be able to get
closer to what you owe,” he said. “But people are going to be pretty reluctant
to buy a car that’s still under finance. Especially one this expensive. It’s
too risky.” I thanked him and dropped my phone on the table.

Well, that was a waste of time, I thought, running a hand through
my hair. Shit. So, Frost wasn’t
going to pay out, no one was going to give me credit, and no one wanted my car.
I posted an ad for the car on Gumtree anyway—not including Bree’s choice
pose—just in case I could tempt anyone. In two hours, I didn’t even have a
single hit.

The last possible thing I could
think of was getting commissioned to do another business piece like the one I’d
done in Broome. I still had those photos of my picture in the Frost lobby, too,
maybe I could make some inquiries? I googled a few different corporate art
brokers, but didn’t end up contacting them because they all advertised long
relationships with suppliers and artists with ‘decades of experience’. I
supposed I could set up my own similar business, which would be really handy if
I needed to find $11,550 in the next five
years.

I shifted uncomfortably in
my seat. This wasn’t looking good at all, was it? This was not looking good. What the fuck was I going to do? I was running
out of ideas.

Ironically, I googled ‘how to cook meth’.

When I heard sharp
footsteps up the side of the house and on the decking stairs, I looked towards
the window. It was already evening; I hadn’t even noticed.

The back door slid open,
and before the person announced themselves, Bree shrieked, “Sarah!” and took
off across the room to wrap herself around Sarah’s middle. She pulled back
immediately, shouting an exclamation and putting a hand on Sarah’s stomach. “Oh
my god!” she said. “You can really feel it now! That must be so awesome, you’re
going to be a mum soon! Did you see my Facebook?”

Sarah’s eyes were wide.
“Um,” she said, catching up with everything Bree was saying. She left the mum
stuff alone. “I’m pretty sure that’s a rhetorical question because
I commented on your Facebook,” she pointed out. Then, she looked
smug. “Did you see my Instagram?”

Bree looked up at her.
“No…?” she said, and then went to get her phone to have a look.

Sarah leant towards me a
bit. “Wait for it…” she said neutrally.

There was a shriek. “Oh my
god, you had one! Did you like it?” Bree came rushing back in with her phone. I
made a ‘gimme’ motion so I had some idea what was going on.

Sarah had uploaded a
picture of one of Bree’s tarts to
Instagram with the comment ‘Don’t you
wish your girlfriend baked tarts like this?’ and the tags #myhousematesdoes #totallyhealthybreakfast.
The photo made the tart look even more impressive, and a number of people had
commented exactly that and were asking her if ‘her housemate’s gf’ was a pastry chef. Bree looked over the moon. “Look at what everyone’s
saying!” she said, positively glowing from the praise.

“Well, it tasted every bit
as good as it looked,” Sarah assured her as she dumped her handbag and sat down
across from me at the table. “And when a pregnant chick
with relentless morning sickness tells you your food tastes good, you
know you’ve done something right.”

Bree abandoned her phone,
silent for a moment as she looked up at us. We were sitting opposite each other
at the table, smiling at her. Her eyes started to swim. “Are you guys hungry?”
she asked eventually. “It’s dinner time.”

Sarah and I glanced at
each other. “I am,” I told Bree even though my stomach was in knots, and Sarah
nodded in equally enthusiastic and false agreement.

Bree spent another couple
of moments gazing adoringly at us and
then went off to the kitchen.

“Thank you,” I said
quietly to Sarah when she’d gone.

Sarah grinned. “Hey, I’m
not doing her a favour, it was a good
tart,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “Even though eating sweet little European tarts is more your thing that mine…”

Did she just—?
I snorted. “Yeah, better stick to Rob’s 100% Australian beef sausages.” I
told her, and we laughed a bit over that. It didn’t take very long for either
of our smiles to fade, though. She looked pale.

I should tell her what’s going on with Bree’s school fees, I thought, and then for a moment
wondered if Sarah would lend me the money. I caught that idea
before it went anywhere: no, I told myself forcefully, absolutely not, what
are you thinking, Min? Look at her! She’s four months pregnant, sick as a dog, and
you’re thinking of getting money off her?

She spoke again before I
had the opportunity to say anything at all. “Well, whatever I eat now is
probably going to be my last supper,” she confessed, resting heavily against
the spine of her chair. When I frowned at her, she said, “Diane booked an
appointment to see me at 9am tomorrow. It
appeared in my calendar at like 4 o’clock. No description, nothing. No one even
called to tell me. I mean,” she made a face, “she did kind of catch me hurling my guts up in the women’s
yesterday, but it was early enough in the morning that she probably just
thought I was hungover, so I don’t think she’s guessed I’m pregnant or
anything…” She looked down at her stomach and held her jumper against it. There
was a definite bump, but it wasn’t a dead giveaway.

“You just look bloated,” I
reassured her.

She sighed. “Yeah. So, no,
I have no idea. What would Diane Frost want to talk to me about?”

We hadn’t figured it out
by the time Bree came in with two enormous steaming plates of pasta. Neither
Sarah nor I made it very far into them—Sarah wasn’t feeling great and I was too
stressed out to eat much—but Bree just went to put it in the fridge for us to have another day.

While she was out of the
room again, I thought I might have a go at just telling Sarah what
had happened, at least. She was very resourceful and very pragmatic and would
probably have some ideas about how I could raise money. I didn’t get the
chance, though, because Bree returned far too quickly and hovered nervously
around us, finally bursting out with, “Sarah, can I have a movie night in your
house on Friday to celebrate my marks?”

Sarah chuckled. “Next
week,” she told Bree, pulling herself stiffly out of her chair and heading
towards the bathroom. “Rob’s away this weekend—Daz got some work for them out
of town and I told Rob I’d dump him if he tried to fuss around me instead of
taking jobs. We need all the money we can get.”

I sighed. It didn’t look
like I’d be able to ask any favours from Sarah. It was probably for the best: I
didn’t need another reason to not be able to look myself in the
mirror.

Bree, on the other hand,
was delighted with that answer. She went and lay on the couch closest to the
potbelly stove to plan her big movie night
while I opened my laptop again and tried to figure out what
the fuck I could do to get $11,550. There were lots of blogs on the
internet about how to get money fast—most of them were probably scams—and the
legit ones involved selling, pawning or renting out assets. The only asset I
had was my car, unless you counted my PlayStation
which wasn’t worth more than a couple of hundred anyway.

When I’d finally come to
the realisation I had exactly zero options left and given up for the
night, I shut the screen more loudly than I probably needed to. I winced about
that when I saw Bree had fallen asleep on the couch, but I didn’t seem to have
disturbed her. She did stir as I carried her to bed and tucked her in, though,
opening her eyes and looking at me. She looked so peaceful. “That’s a beautiful
smile,” I told her.

She squeezed my hand. “I
was just thinking,” she murmured, “sometimes I lie in bed and think that
nothing’s going to work out, and there’s no point to anything. But
there is a point. Everything is going to be okay. I’m so
happy about my marks. Like, if those are the marks I get for half a semester of
hard work, can you imagine what they’re going to be like after a full one?”

A lump formed in my
throat, and I stroked her cheek with my thumb. “I’m going to stand up and clap for
you when they hand you that diploma,” I told her, and then gathered the doona
up around her neck and kissed her goodnight.

The living room was so
quiet without anyone else; all I could hear was the clock and the crackling of
the fire in the potbelly stove. I sat down on the end of the couch that was
closest to it, holding out my hands toward it so they warmed.

I was not going to fail to pay that other
$11,550. I was not going to see
anything happen to Bree’s beautiful smile, I just wasn’t. I just had to think
clearly about this.

I was—I counted—$58,000 in
debt with $400 in the bank and no income, and I needed to find another $20,000
to get rid of my car and pay those damn school fees when I didn’t even have the
$500 I needed for my next car payment.

I froze. Hang on, my
fortnightly car payments came out on a Friday, didn’t they? This Friday or…? I
took out my phone and checked my banking app for the last debit. To my horror, I realised that
it was this coming Friday, in two days’ time. I stared down at
my phone. The LED flashed.

Don’t forget you can always ask Mum to help, I reminded myself, eyeing that
little light. ‘Fuck that’ was my initial response. I didn’t need to be
guilt-tripped for the next two decades about how I’d ripped money out from
under my dying Grandma and my poor, sweet mother. I would actually rather start
lopping off and selling my own body parts.

Well, it’s either ask Mum or watch Bree’s world crumble
around her again, isn’t it? That voice said again, and I groaned and put my head in my hands. Mum
complained a lot about money—especially because she’d rather be working
full-time than looking after Grandma—but I was never sure how much of that was
just because Mum loved to complain. I had sent an awful lot back to
her when I was working for Frost, but she never said what she did with it.

The more I thought about
it, the more I realised asking Mum was probably my only available option. She’d
give me hell for it, of course, probably calling me lazy, and irresponsible,
and maybe she’d even throw in some anecdote about how at my age she was raising
me all by herself with only the Church and God supporting her. But whatever,
that stupid car had been her idea anyway, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t already
heard everything she’d say about me.

I unlocked my phone and looked down at the little red ‘17’
over my messages icon. I hadn’t read any of them since yesterday afternoon.
Figuring I should probably read them before calling her, I took a deep breath
and opened them.

They started off
reasonably benign, talking about romantic winter honeymoons, and had Henry and
I considered coming to South Korea in February for the snow season? They got
progressively crotchety, though—one of them said very passive-aggressively ‘I would have slept better if I knew my daughter
was safe’—and then they slowly escalated and were just a series of ‘Min, are you okay? Why aren’t you answering?”
and several voicemail notifications.

I sat back.
Three voicemails, I counted, one of them from ten minutes ago.

She knows, I immediately thought, and then reminded myself that
she didn’t know about anything I was hiding. She was just worried
about me; she always worried about me when I didn’t answer. Even reassuring
myself that it was fine, it still took a lot of coaxing to finally have that
phone against my ear and the voicemail number
dialling.

My heart was pounding.

“Message one,” the
automated voice told me, and then Mum’s voice cut in. She
sounded really panicky. “Min! Min, why aren’t you answering me?
What’s happened? I have this terrible feeling something is off, and so I looked
on the news and saw the flu is going around
Sydney. Are you okay? Is Henry okay? Is everything alright? Why aren’t you
answering my calls, Min? It’s making Grandma very upset, and you know how bad
her health is. She’s just sitting here crying. Why are you doing this to us?”

The next one was, “I can’t
take this anymore, I can’t lose anyone else, you’re forcing me to call Henry, I
have to do it, you haven’t given me a choice!” I grimaced, and the next
one began, “Min! Why didn’t you tell me Henry had changed his number? It’s like
you don’t want me to talk to him! I
don’t understand why you’d do that, Min. That’s a really horrible thing to do
to your mother. Now I can’t find out if you’re okay, and I won’t be able to
sleep worrying about what’s going on with my daughter and why she won’t answer
any of my messages.” The automated voice finished with, “End of
list.”

I hung up.

Closing my eyes for a
second, I exhaled at length. Every single time I interacted with my mother, it
was like she just stuck a plug into me and drained the life out. As much
as I would have preferred to just put away my phone and continue to ignore her,
I forced myself to quickly send her an apologetic text saying my phone was
playing up and I’d email her tomorrow.

Well, that settled that.
There was absolutely no way I was going to ask Mum for money now,
because how would that go? ‘Hi Mum, yeah, I was just ignoring you because you
drive me nuts, can I have $20,000?’. She’d ask for Henry’s new number next time
I spoke to her, too. It wouldn’t be long before she figured out what was going
on when I couldn’t give it to her. It wouldn’t be long at all.

“Fuck,” I enunciated
and then exhaled.

Just to confirm how very
screwed I was, I called Henry’s number. It rang to
an error message advising me the number had been disconnected. There was no
forwarding number offered, and I checked the last text message I got from him
in case I’d dismissed it accidentally in the tide of messages from my mother. I
hadn’t, the last text was from months ago.

My heart sank. There was
really only one reason why he wouldn’t pass on his new number to me, wasn’t
there? I looked down at Henry’s contact in
my phone—his smiling face, the mobile number I’d called so many
times. With what felt like enormous difficulty and great ceremony, I deleted
his contact and watched that face disappear before I locked my screen again.

It still felt so weird to
be doing that, slowly deleting him out of my life like he’d never been here.
Like he wasn’t my whole world for four long years. There wasn’t much left of
him in my world now: just a few things he’d given me, his suit, and high scores that I was slowly
overwriting in all the games we’d played together.

It seemed so surreal that
someone who had been about to propose to me, someone who’d been about to slide
a ring onto my finger and ask me to spend the rest of my life with—

—I sat up, realising what
I was thinking.

The ring.

TWENTY-TWO

I waited until I was sure Bree was asleep
to tiptoe into my room. It was pitch black, and I had to get down on my hands
and knees to feel around for my bags without knocking anything over. The zip on
my case had never sounded so loud as when I was trying not to wake someone with
it, and I pulled it inch by inch, tooth by tooth, open far enough so I could
rummage very quietly around inside. I spent ages with my arm bent awkwardly in
there, feeling blindly around in all my
clothes until my fingertips brushed the pressed velvet ring box.

I very slowly eased my
closed fist out and snuck back out into the living room, taking the box over
with me to the warm pot belly stove. I
sat there, looking down at it cradled in my palm.

I didn’t want to open it.

Come on, Min, I told myself. This
is the answer you’re looking for. Henry paid $27,000 for it. That’s $11,550 for
the school fees, $8000 to offload your car, and a big chunk off your credit card. This is what you need.

That was sound logic and
all, but I still didn’t want to open it. Maybe there’s another way, I thought, maybe I should wait and see.

Yeah, maybe a missing great aunt will die with me as her only
heir and I’ll inherit millions, I thought sarcastically, rolling my eyes at myself. I
didn’t have time to wait and see, anyway, I had a car payment due in two
days. Seriously, I thought, it’s really sad to lose it, sure, but what else
are you going to do with it?

Keep it because Henry gave it to me, I answered myself immediately and then opened the box. As soon as
I saw the familiar design, and as soon as I saw the inscription, ‘...to my best friend and soulmate: will you be
my wife?’,  I nearly snapped it shut again.

I swallowed against the
lump in my throat. I needed to be pragmatic about this. Henry wasn’t talking to
me anymore. He’d always said he might find it too painful to stay friends, and
he’d certainly seemed pretty upset when he’d refused to have dinner with me at
the restaurant. He hadn’t tried to contact me since then, and now he’d changed
his number. He’d moved on, I needed to get that into my thick skull. There was
no point in keeping this ring shut up inside a box indefinitely to remember him
by when it had the capacity to change two lives.

Henry probably wouldn’t even want me to keep it if it could
help me, I realised.
He’d tell me to sell it; he even had told me I could sell it when he
first gave it to me. He’d definitely tell me not to worry, and to just do what
I needed to do.

And then he’d go away and feel secretly awful about the fact
I’d done it, I thought, and knew it was true. Well, I reasoned, he can’t feel awful about something he doesn’t know about, can he?
He wasn’t talking to me, so he wasn’t going to find out. No damage done. Well, apart from how
crap I felt about having to do it.

Since there wasn’t going
to be a feel-good way I could do this, I just resolved to do it and accept it
would suck. Selling a ring given to you by someone you loved would never not suck. I’d decided to do it
first thing in the morning so I could get it out the way and not have
it hanging over me.

I tried everything on Wiki
How to calm down before I went to bed: deep breathing, counting to ten,
watching cartoons to distract me. It was
one of those times I really wished I’d stashed a bottle of red somewhere,
though, because the ‘calming properties of chamomile’ turned out to be a
lie.

In the end, I just decided
to go to bed and sleep it off. After I slipped
under the covers, though, I lay there wide awake for ages.

At 3am after I checked the time, I found myself going through my phone
gallery again, torturing myself
with pictures of Henry. It was particularly painful looking at that picture of
us from when we’d just hooked up; Henry looked so bright-faced, and that smile
of his was so big. I remembered taking that photo; we’d talked all night
beforehand. He’d confessed he was terrified that I’d move back to Melbourne.
‘Terrified enough to move back with me if I go?’ I’d joked, and,
straight-faced, he’d said immediately, ‘Yes’.

The memory made me smile.
Then, when I realised I was smiling, I sighed and let it fall. It felt like so
long ago. Gazing up at the dark ceiling, I wondered where he was and what he
was doing now.

He’s sleeping, I told myself dryly. Like every other normal person. It’s 3am.
I put my phone aside and tried to join
them all.

I slept like absolute
shit. The one benefit of that was being
up at the crack of dawn when Sarah left for work, though. It gave me
a great alibi about being out
of the house too early for Bree to come with me: dropping Sarah off. I suppose
I could’ve probably just told Bree I needed to run some errands by myself, but
Bree would have asked what they were. Maybe she would have accepted whatever I
told her, but I couldn’t run the risk that she wouldn’t. I didn’t want her to
worry, I just wanted her to focus on her good marks and look forward to even
better ones.

I was in luck; she didn’t
even open her eyes when I roused her and told her I was off. “If you crash and
die, I’ll kill you,” she mumbled through a yawn as I ran out the door.

Sarah turned out to be the
one who was suspicious. She gave me some serious side-eyes for most of the
journey. “Not that this isn’t great,” she told me, holding her fingers in front
of the heating vents. “Especially since Diane is probably going to have me for
breakfast this morning, but why today?”

I shrugged. “Rob’s out of
town and it’s cold.” When she didn’t reply, I glanced across at her. She
could not have looked more sceptical. I sighed; I guessed I could
give her some information. “Well, this might be your last opportunity
to enjoy my Lexus. I’m probably going to sell it today.”

I saw her relax in my
peripheral vision. “Oh,” she said. “Well, that sucks. Your Lexus
is way nicer than Rob’s old ute. So, which minor tropical island will
you be purchasing with the proceeds?”

Instead of laughing, I
grimaced. “Just paying off a lot of debt against it, actually.”

That was way too
interesting for Sarah to leave it. “Oh, yeah? How much is ‘a lot’?”

My grimace deepened.
“$48,000.”

She sucked air sharply
through grit teeth. “Jesus!” she said, waving her hand at me. “Yeah, okay. Sell
your car. I’ll take the train tomorrow.”

I dropped her outside
Frost, wished her good luck for her meeting with Diane, and then went and
parked under the hotel. It was quite
full. I had to park all the way down the back as a result, and as I got out of my car
and walked through rows and rows of other cars to get out, I found my eyes
scanning them all, looking for his bottle green Lexus.

I didn’t know what I was going
to do if I found it. I had a momentary vision of leaving a little note for
Henry under the windscreen wiper—I’d been hanging around Bree too long,
obviously—but I knew I couldn’t do that to him. I didn’t end up needing to make
a decision, though, because his car wasn’t there. Good, I thought. It was better I didn’t find it. I was about to
sell the engagement ring he’d lovingly bought me, I didn’t need any more
reasons to feel shit about that.

There was a cluster of second-hand jewellers
in the middle of the city, and I walked uphill through the bustle of morning
peak hour to go sit in a café and wait for them to open. After I’d had a
coffee—the breakfasts there were $19 and I couldn’t justify spending that much
money on one meal anymore—I noticed there was a newsagent nearby that opened
early, and to pass the time I wandered through it, flicking through magazines
and photography journals, before I found myself in the gift card section.

I should buy something for Bree to congratulate her, I thought, lifting a celebratory card out to consider it.
Immediately, I could see what a great idea that was: it was a nice thing to do
anyway, and also, it gave me further motive to not be home for ages. I chose a
card with a shooting star on the front of it, and the text ‘Believe’ inside. I could probably get my
acrylics out and embellish it a little at home.

Feeling satisfied with my
purchase, I went and waited outside the front of the jewellers that looked the most promising for the final ten minutes
before it opened.

A greying, librarian-like
woman eventually stopped in front of the door, leafing through her keyring.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said as she let us both in and pulled the
roller shutters up. I had to wait for her to go around and turn the lights on
in all the cabinets and uncover their contents before she came to stand behind
the counter for me. “What can I do for you this morning?”

I took out the engagement
ring from the ring box and put it in
front of her. “I’m looking to sell this,” I told her.

Her eyes widened when she
saw it, and then she looked me up and down. “You’ll need to provide ID and
contact details,” she said, as if she
thought that might be a problem for me. In answer, I took out my driver’s
licence and put it on the counter. She glanced at it before picking up the
ring. “Your mother’s?” she asked, holding a loupe up to her eye so she could
get a closer look at the diamond.

I swallowed. “No. Mine,” I
told her simply.

She looked at me for a
moment, and then chuckled and went back to the ring. “Well, at least I know
you’re not trying to sell me stolen goods,” she said. “Those sort of people
always have some elaborate story about how they came into possession of such
expensive jewellery…”

I shook my head. “I got it
the usual way. I just can’t use it anymore.”

“Well, I’m sorry things
didn’t work out,” she told me. “I’m sure when you’re a little older, you’ll
meet Miss Right.” She paused for a few seconds, frowning at the ring, and then
gave me a perplexed look. “This is a Frost diamond.” I think she
wanted confirmation, so I nodded. “Do you have the valuation certificate?” I
shook my head, and she sighed. “Alright,” she said, and then went back to
examining it. “You can return Frost diamonds for a full refund, you know. For
up to a year after purchase, it’s one of the fabulous things about that
company.”

I sighed. That was exactly
what Henry had said he didn’t want to do. “That’s not going to
happen.”

“Yes, I’m sure it would be
embarrassing having to do that,” she said, weighing the ring and making a note.
“But when you hear my offer, you might reconsider.”

I frowned at her.

“I’ll give you $7,300 for
it,” she said, putting the ring down on a velvet pad in front of her.

My jaw dropped. What!
“But it cost $27,000!”

This was obviously a
conversation she’d had many times. “Diamonds are like cars, Mr Lee.
As soon as they leave the dealer, they drop a whole lot of value. Now, if
you’re able to produce the valuation certificate with a Frost logo on it, I can
probably go as far as nine, but no more. I need to resell it myself, you
understand.”

I was still reeling.
I mean, of course I knew how much
diamonds were marked up, I used to sell them for a living… But it hadn’t even
occurred to me for a second that they wouldn’t retain their value. Value
retention was one of the hooks we used to sell them to people! Surely
they wouldn’t drop that far?

She noted my expression.
“Did you want to perhaps consider returning it after all?”

I grabbed the ring off the pad and my ID off the counter. Or I
might try a fairer dealer, I thought. “Thank you, I think I will,” I said,
and then hightailed out of there.

My jaw set tightly, I
walked briskly across the road towards a couple of other dealers, weaving
through traffic and trying not to get run over. As if I would accept $7,300 for a $27,000 ring, I thought as I
avoided being mowed down by a cyclist in a hurry. Who in their right mind would
do that? Honestly, the only people who were likely to undersell themselves so
much were actually people trying to offload stolen goods!

I tried the next store,
and the offer was $5,100, and then next store which said $8,000, and
I kept going through them, one after the other, trying to get anything
even close to the original value. I ran out of second-hand jewellers
in the middle of the city and started to follow Google Maps out towards the
fringes of it, eventually finding myself surrounded by sex stores, dodgy little
restaurants with flashing neon lights and even dodgier ‘cash’ stores. ‘Money Lent Here!’ one of them announced.
‘Cheques cashed on the spot!’
promised another. Even the people walking around me had changed; it had gone
from sharp business people to international students clutching Woollies bags on
their way home, and the odd illegal busker. There was even an old guy staggering
into traffic, hiding a bottle in a brown paper bag as he sang. Reflexively, I
felt for the wallet in my pocket to make sure it was still there.

I was walking briskly past
a ‘Fast Cash for Diamonds!!!’ sign,
worrying about what happened when I reached the edge of the CBD, when it occurred to me that I might as
well try one of these places. I stopped and looked at the shopfront; it had
big, bold text all over it that said things like ‘WE BUY DIAMONDS FAST!’ and ‘SUPER
DIAMOND BARGAIN CENTRE’. Based on that, I didn’t like my chances, but I
thought I might as well try anyway. I walked inside.

It was a shallow store
with wall-to-ceiling display cases all chock-full of gold and diamonds and all
sorts of jewellery, but zero care had been put into how they were showcased; it
was like they were all just being haphazardly stored behind the bars and glass.
There were cameras everywhere inside, too, and I looked up nervously
at one of them. It pivoted towards me as I moved.

The guy behind the counter
stood up. He was probably my age—the age I really was, not the age I looked—and
he was Asian, too. “Welcome to Super Diamond Bargain Centre,” he said
unenthusiastically, hurriedly taking off his cap. I think someone might have
told him he wasn’t supposed to wear it when he was serving customers.

“Hey,” I said neutrally,
approaching him. “Guess what I’m here to do.”

He stared at me for a
fraction of a second, and then laughed. “Ask directions?” he suggested,
relaxing. “Seriously, that’s all people have been doing all morning. Oh, and
there was an old guy who came in here and asked if he could use our toilet.” He
gestured behind him. There was literally just a wall.

I liked him immediately.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m here to find out how much you’ll give me for
this,” I put the ring on the pad in front of him.

“A man of business, I like
it,” he told me, and picked it up. He
used a loupe for a couple of seconds too, and then unhooked something that
looked like a thick tablet stylus from his belt and held it against the diamond.
It beeped, and gave him a reading. He held it so he could see it, his eyebrows
going up. Not believing it, he tried again. Obviously he got the same reading
because he started to hold the ring differently, and put the loupe to his eye
again. “Where does a guy your age get something like this?” he wondered aloud.

I put my licence on the
table, and he glanced at it. “Hah, you’re Korean as w—what.” He double-took, lifting the licence from the table and
holding it so he could consider me against it. “Okay, the diamond is definitely
real, but this is definitely fake. You are not 26,” he told me, and then considered the photo, looking
impressed. “Where did you get this done? It’s really good.”

I knew where this was
going to end up. “At the RMS like everyone else,” I said flatly. To save
explaining why I looked so young, I emptied a few more cards onto the table in
front of him. Some of them still had my old title on them.

He picked them up, reading
them as he said, “How did you get them to believe you’re—whoa you’re a girl.” He looked up at me blankly. “And I’m
an idiot. Okay, that explains how you got the ring. Nice one, Seung. You get
one customer in here all morning and look how you’re doing. Okay…” he said,
moving right along and pretending he hadn't just shoved his foot in his mouth.
“Well, um, what did you want for this?”

Now we were talking.
“Well, it was $27,000 retail…”

He stared at me. “Okay,
well, I was thinking more in the $4000 range.” At my expression, he made a
face. “Okay, maybe six or seven, but I can’t go higher than that.”

I exhaled.
I wasn’t going to have more luck in here, after all. “That’s what
everyone else says…” I told him.

“Yeah, but I’m nicer than
all of them, so sell it to me,” he told me with a grin. When I didn't smile, he
sobered, putting the ring on the pad in front of me. “Dude,” he said, and then
looked mildly alarmed, “or, girl, or whatever. Fuck. Listen, I’ll be straight
with you, okay? This diamond is really good, but it’s second hand. Some guy
looking to buy his girl a brand new diamond can get one close enough to this
one over there,” he pointed at the window to a diamond wholesaler on the
corner.

I twisted to look and then scoffed. I recognised the
brand—if you could even call it that—it was a bargain basement place with low-quality stock. “This one
is much better quality than those.”

He nodded. “Yeah. You and
I know that, but he doesn’t,” he said, pointing at a couple cooing over diamonds in their window,
“and she doesn’t,” he pointed at a woman admiring rings across the
road. “Regular people don’t know the difference between a $4000 ring and a
$40,000 one. So the $40,000 ones are impossible to sell, at least at second-hand places like this. People come here
for a bargain.”

“But I need at least
$12,000,” I told him. “Can you tell me anywhere that would buy it for
that price?”

He shook his head.
“Sorry,” he said. “I mean, you could try eBay? People will try to scam you on
there with a ring this good, though.”

I sighed at him. “Is there
anything else you can think of?” I asked him. “Any other way I could get
even close to what this thing is worth?”

“Well, if it’s insured,
you could ‘lose’ it,” he suggested ever so casually,
like he wasn’t recommending I commit insurance fraud. “Then you make even more
by selling it to me on the sly later. Everybody wins.”

Who did he think I was, Andrej? If that was the only option, it
looked like I wasn’t going to get the $12,000 I needed. I took the ring off the
pad and put it back into its box. “Okay, well,” I told him. “Thanks for your
honesty.”

“Sorry,” he repeated,
looking a bit unhappy about having to say no to me.

I nodded stiffly, slowly
walking outside again. I stood there in front of the shop for a second,
surveying the street. If this guy was offering me $7,000, I very much doubted any
of the other places around here were
going to offer me any more than that. I took out my phone and checked Google
Maps; there weren’t any other second-hand
jewellers even close to here, I’d have to
get my car and drive out into the suburbs. Bree was going to wonder where I
was.

Well, what the fuck was I
going to do? I couldn’t just drive around all day and get quote after quote, because all the places I’d been had
given me basically the same price anyway. This ring that had cost Henry $27,000
was worth about $8,000, if that, or whatever these places would sell it for
after they'd bought it from me. There was something so hurtful about that. The
fact Henry had put so much of his salary into something valuable, something
beautiful for me, for it to ultimately be worth so little felt… well, it felt
like a metaphor. It probably served me right for trying to sell it anyway.
Maybe this was a sign from the universe that I should hang onto it. At least to
me it would always be worth more than $8,000.

I had no idea how I was
going to pay Bree’s school fees, though. Maybe I wasn’t going to be able to.
God, I didn’t want to break that news to her. I didn’t want to be the one to
crack that smile of hers.

While I was clutching the
ring box in my jacket pocket and trying to figure out what the fuck I
was going to do to get the rest of those fees, someone stepped out beside me.

“Smoke?” ‘Seung’—I think
he said—offered me, holding a packet of cigarettes towards me. I shook my head,
and he put one into his mouth and lit it, thoughtfully blowing the smoke away
from me when he exhaled. “Must be pretty special to you,” he said about how I
was handling the ring box in my pocket.

“Yeah,” I said with
gravity.

He turned to look at me
for a moment. He didn’t say what he was thinking, though. He just had another
puff of his cigarette. “Sorry I can’t buy
it off you.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s
okay. Part of me doesn’t want to sell it anyway,” I confessed. “I don’t know. I
really need the money, but I don’t want to sell it. Go figure.”

Whatever I’d said made him
stop mid-inhale, with the smoke seeping out of his open mouth. He gathered himself, and blew it out. This time, he was
smiling. “Well, I’ve got news for you, friend,” he said. “That’s called
‘pawning’. And that, I might be
able to help you with,” he tossed his half-smoked cigarette onto the sidewalk
without giving it another glance and led
me back inside the store. “Come on.”

I followed him, feeling a
bit uneasy.

“How good are you to pay
back a really terrible loan?” he asked over his shoulder as he took keys from
his belt and undid one of the top display cases. He reached up on his tiptoes
towards a satin ring bed, but only his fingertips touched it.

I leant over his head and passed it down to him. “I’m good for it,” I
said, because I’d never not paid a bill
in my life. I’d figure something out.

He gave me a bit of a
weird look about how much taller I was,
but he didn’t comment on it. “Yeah, but are you good for it-good for it?” he asked
instead, taking the satin bed over to the counter and pulling a few rings out
of it. “Because Dad uses really fucking scary debt collectors if you’re not.”

That sounded
familiar. A rock formed in my stomach. “No, I’m good for it.”

He stopped what he was
doing for a second to look me in the eyes. “Because I’m about to give you a
really shitty loan. You okay with that? Like, how much do you need the money?”

I closed my jaw. I’d come
this far. “I need it,” I told him resolutely. “Give me the loan.”

“Okay,” he said with a
grin, getting back to what he was doing. “Good answer. Can you put this back?”
He handed me the satin ring bed. I blinked, and then put it back in the top
case. He locked it after me. There were a series of gold rings on the counter
in front of him, and he held his hand out in a ‘gimme’ motion. Without
thinking, I passed the ring box to him, and he took it, opened it—his brow
dipped as he caught sight of the inscription—and then handed it back to me,
putting Henry’s ring into a little plastic bag and writing a number on it. He
wrote the number on a carbon-sheeted invoice pad next to him, and then put the
rest of the rings into another bag and did the same.

“What are those for?” I asked, since their numbers were going on my
ticket.

“Those are the other rings
you’re pawning so I can give you $12,000,” he said with
a dead straight face.

A tightness began to form
in my chest. This was… yeah. This was dodgy. I pushed that feeling
aside, though. Did I need the money or not? “What are the terms?”

He shrugged. “We don’t
really do terms. Just pay the money. Can I see your ID again, please?” I handed
it to him, and he took a photo of it with his mobile, and of both sides of my
credit card and my visa debit, too, and then he ran them through a hand-held machine. “You want it over
six months or a year?” he asked.

God, this
was not good. “A year,” I said, thinking the repayments would be
lower.

“Okay,” he said, and tapped away at the calculator.
“That’s $320 a week. Is that cool?”

The air caught in my throat.
How the fuck was I going to
afford that? It wasn’t like I had much of a choice, though, so I nodded mutely.

“Okay, cool,” he said, and
then spun his invoice pad around. “Write your phone number here,” he said,
pointing, “and sign here.” I followed his instructions.

Then, like it was the most
normal, ordinary thing in the world, he unlocked an innocuous-looking cupboard
beside him and took out a huge wad of $100s and started to count
them.

I hurriedly looked behind
us, out the door. No one was watching. “Can’t you just, I don’t know, bank
transfer the money to me?”

He stopped counting for a
second. “Yeah,” he said, squinting, “we don’t really do bank transfers.” He put
the notes he’d selected into a money counting machine, which read them as
$12,000, rolled them up, put a rubber band around
them, and then simply gave them to me with the invoice he’d
written out. “Glad I could help you after all,” he said, sounding like he
genuinely meant it. “If you have trouble paying it, please tell
me before you miss a payment, yeah? Number’s on the invoice, ask for
Seung-hyeon and just say you’re a friend. Like I said, Dad doesn’t mess around,
and if he finds out all those other rings aren’t actually yours, he’s going to
kill me, too. So just pay on time, yeah?” He reached over and clapped me twice on the shoulder.

I stared at the wad of
notes. “H-How do I pay—”

“Oh, don’t worry about
that,” he said. “We’ll just take it directly out of your bank account.”

Of course you will, I thought, and quickly put the roll of
notes into the breast pocket of my jacket, buttoning it up. “Well… thank you,”
I said, not 100% sure that it was the right thing to say to him.

“No problem,” he said,
beaming. “Like I said, glad I could help.” While I was gathering up all my
cards and stuffing them back into my wallet, he was watching me a bit
curiously, tapping an unlit cigarette against
his mouth. “Hey, can I ask a question?”

I looked up at him as I
put the wallet back in my pocket.

“That ‘wife’ thing. Did
you… get that from someone, or were you going to give that to someone?”

Given that he’d obviously
bent some rules to help me, I felt like I couldn’t brush that question off, no
matter how personal it was. “I got it from someone,” I told him. “But the
money’s for a girl.”

“Ah,” he said, looking like
someone had told him something really interesting. When I frowned at him, he
held his hands up in a ‘don’t shoot’ position. “Hey, I’m not judging, I’m
a pawnbroker.” I worried about how easily that word rolled off his tongue
as I left.

Even though the wad of
cash wasn’t visible in my pocket, as I rushed through the city back to my car,
I felt like I had a huge red target on my back and my own neon flashing sign
saying ‘rob me! I’ve got stacks of cash!’. I wished I could just bank it
so I didn’t have to carry more than a few hundred on me, but I knew from
transferring money to Mum in the past that anything over several thousand meant
you needed to fill in reams of paperwork about where you got the money and what
you were doing with it. I had a feeling Seung wouldn’t want me to do that.

I drove
it straight to Cloverfield without passing go, handed it across the
counter to a very wide-eyed receptionist, and didn’t rest until I was sitting
back in my car with my change and the receipt. My heart was racing. I put
my hand on my chest.

It’s okay, I told myself, trying to calm
down. Bree’s fees are paid. They’re
paid. You did it like you knew you would. You can relax.

And I would have relaxed,
except I had maybe $900, and out of that I was going to lose $500 for my car
tomorrow, and god knows when that dodgy diamond place was going to take their
$320 out. Early next week, probably. I unlocked my phone and entered everything
into the calculator app—my credit card repayments, the fortnightly repayments
for the car, and now these repayments— feeling rising dread as I tapped the
equals sign. ‘650’ appeared on the screen, and I stared at it for a second.
$650 per week.

I was unemployed, two
months away from being a full-time student and I was supposed to be figuring
out my big proposal for my absolute dream degree right now. On top of
everything, in a few months’ time I was going to lose the room I was staying in to Sarah’s baby, and god
knows what the fuck was going to happen with Mum. I’d been
ignoring her so much that it was all going to come to a head at some point.

I stared at the receipt in
my hand, the full weight of the situation I was in finally settling on my
shoulders. My chest tightened, but I held my breath and refused to
hyperventilate this time. I wasn’t going to go to pieces over this. I
couldn’t, I needed to get a fucking job ASAP.

TWENTY-THREE

When I got back to Sarah’s, the first
thing I did was get out of my stupidly expensive fucking car and pat myself
down for coins. I’d needed to deposit all the money left over from
Bree’s school fees into my account for my loan repayments, so I had almost
nothing left. In fact, with the change in my wallet and between all of my
pockets, I had—I counted—exactly $24.15 on me. There was probably more in my
other jeans and in various places in my room, so I went inside to have a look.

Bree was still in the
shower when I walked through to my bedroom—thank god—so I slipped the empty
ring box back into my case, and then
shook out all my clothes and scavenged around my room for change. I ended up
with several small notes I’d shoved in my pockets from various outings, and a
$50 I’d put in my bedside table for
emergencies and then subsequently forgotten about.

This is an emergency, right? I reasoned,
and fished it out from underneath all my junk. I ended up with a bit under
$100—which was a tank of petrol and some Opal money for Bree at least—so I
tucked it all in my wallet and then sat down on the bed for a second, looking
at my small, upturned room that I’d shaken out for coins.

Congratulations, Min, I told myself. You’re
stuck with the world’s dodgiest loan from Sydney’s dodgiest pawnbroker for an
entire year.

But Bree can finish her year at school, another voice said, and I don’t have to give up Henry’s ring, and I don’t have to ask Mum for
money. It comforted me somewhat, but I still felt really restless. I
needed to get a job.

I actually had no idea how
to go about looking for a job; I mean, I knew about Seek and MyCareer and those
websites, but I wasn’t sure how the interview process for professional
positions was likely to go for me. As a guy, I looked way younger
than 26. I wouldn’t even be considered for the positions I was qualified and
experienced for. It probably wouldn’t matter anyway; I didn’t think I’d get a
very good reference out of Frost after what I’d done, and the interview process
was probably too long. I needed work now, not in four to six weeks.

The only places I’d heard
about employing people straight away were cash-in-hand and off-the-books jobs,
so I took my phone out and did a quick Google search for them, and just ended
up with a bunch of I Make Thousands
at Home, Ask Me How! websites. I’d had my fill of dodgy with the
pawnbroker, I didn’t want to waste time on jobs that wouldn’t end up paying me.
I almost didn’t even care what it was—not like I had the luxury of
being picky anyway. I just needed a job that started now, had heaps of hours,
and that I could eventually fit around my master’s.

I tapped my phone against
my chin, thinking. From what I remembered her saying, Sarah had worked quite a
few different jobs while she was at uni, hadn’t she? I suspected some of them
were cash-in-hand, too. She’d probably know how to find those jobs—she might
even be able to tell me a place that would hire me. I could ask her.

I looked at the clock; it
was lunchtime. I considered texting her about it now, and then remembered she’d
had that mysterious meeting with Diane.  It would probably
be really insensitive to be bothering her about my own problems if it
had been about something serious, so I sent, “Hey, just checking to see if Diane did
in fact eat you alive this morning?” instead, and hoped she’d say it
was fine so I could ask her about work.

She didn’t reply in her
customary 15 seconds flat, so I guessed she was still in that
meeting. I sat on my bed and stared intensely at my phone for a minute or two.
I’d have to wait.

Sighing, I got out all my
acrylics to embellish the card I’d bought Bree while I tried to ignore
everything.

While I was in the middle
of it, a knock on the bedroom door startled me. I was sure the water had been
running just a minute ago, and Bree normally spent ages fixing her
hair afterwards…

“Hey, it’s me!” her voice
called, and the door started to immediately open.

I wasn’t finished with her
card. “Wait! Don’t come in!” I said back, and the door stopped swinging. “Can
you give me a few minutes?”

There was a long pause.
“Why?”

I blinked at the door.
“Because I’m in the middle of the something?”

She was silent for a
second again. “Well, I need to get some clothes, I have to come in.”

I exhaled, and grabbed a box to put over the paint and the card.
“Okay, just give me—”

No sooner had I said
‘Okay’, though, Bree burst in—fully
clothed, despite what she said—and surveyed my room critically. She looked at
me, and then at the box on my desk. Her brow was deeply furrowed.

“What are you—?” I began
to ask her just as she reached out and lifted the box ceremoniously off the
table like she expected something awful to be hidden underneath it.
Like she was bracing herself for whatever she’d find.

It was just my paints and
a card, and from the starscape I was painting on it, it was clear who it was
for. Seeing that must have been an anti-climax for her, because she exhaled at
length, looking so confused.

I was also completely
confused. “Surprise,” I said flatly, giving her a really odd look as I took the
box from her and set it back on the floor.

She was still staring at the
card, looking haunted. “I’m sorry, I just… Andrej used to disappear, you were
stressing about money yesterday, I don’t know, I thought…”

“You thought I’d snuck a
horse race in here?”

Bree’s eyes were
unreadable. “No, I know you don’t gamble. It’s just…” She shook her head,
looking down her body for a second. “You’ve been… I don’t know. Never mind,
it’s stupid. I’m stupid. I’m being
paranoid. Sorry.” She snapped herself out of it,
changing the subject as she gestured at my desk. “And now, look, you were trying
to make a surprise for me and I ruined it.” She scrunched her face
up, closing her eyes for a second. “Story of my life…”

I ignored the uneasy
feeling in the pit of my stomach and gave her a hug, careful not to get paint
on her. “It’s not ruined,” I told her. “I’m just not finished yet. You want to
watch?”

She did, so she went and
grabbed a chair from the living room table and dragged it up beside me. “Did
you get any commission inquiries yet?” she wondered. “Heaps of people commented
they were going to check you out.”

I made a non-committal
noise. “Maybe,” I told her. “But I know Mum’s also emailing me as well because
I told her my phone was broken, so…”

She understood. “You want
me to check for you?” I gave her a grateful smile
and leant sideways so she could wiggle the phone out of my pocket and unlock
it. In my peripheral vision, I could see her scrolling down a list. She glanced
up at me. “So am I telling you or not telling you about how many emails she’s
sent you?”

I made a face. I could
guess. “Just look for commission inquiries.”

She pressed her lips
together. “Okay,” she said brightly, and then kept scrolling. “Oh! Okay,
there’s a couple. Let me read them out.” She tapped on one, and I saw her eyes
moving on the screen as I finished mixing a purple. Maybe I wouldn’t need a job
so quickly after all?

As she was reading one of
them, Bree’s eyebrows were up. She didn’t look impressed. “Wow. Um, okay. This
might be paraphrasing a bit: ‘I’m a stupid fuck who thinks that $30 is a
reasonable amount of money to pay for you to do me a full illustration’. Um,
let’s just go to the next one…” She tapped on it. “This one is—whoa, I know this guy. He follows me on
Facebook, he’s 41 and creepy as fuck. And—ugh!—he
wants you do to nudes of me.” She paused,
thinking. “$500 is a lot, isn’t it?”

I stopped painting for a
second to stare at her. Was she for real? “No,”
I said firmly.

She shrugged. “Okay. Well,
that’s it, the rest of them are in Korean.” She put my phone in front of her on
my desk and stretched.

I sighed. I shouldn’t have
gotten my hopes up. “They’re probably Mum warning me artists don’t make any
money and if I lose Henry, I’ll die alone
in the gutter.”

“Well, not alone,” Bree
pointed out, grinning. “And you’re literally just starting out. Give it some time,
eventually you’ll be this big famous artist who’s really rich, and I’ll point
at the TV and be like, ‘That’s my boyfriend!’”

Yeah, if I wasn’t bankrupt
by then. I sighed. “I need a job.” I glanced across at my phone; Sarah
still hadn’t replied? “No text messages?”

Bree checked it and shook
her head. “Who are you waiting on?”

“Sarah. She had a meeting
this morning.”

Recognition flashed across
Bree’s face. “Oh! That’s why she didn’t respond to me earlier.” I glanced
quizzically at her, and she explained, “All my assignments and classes are up
on the portal already, so I texted Gemma and Sarah to find out what nights they
can help me, because I was going to do my
timeline myself instead of Sarah having to do it. Hang on.” She got up and
ducked out of the room, returning with her tablet. She held it so I could see;
she’d marked all her assignments and exams in already. The first one was on Oct
2. Two months away.  “Look! I figured out how to use it. I don’t know when
Sarah and Gemma can help me, though. Do you think it’ll be the same?”

I shrugged. I didn’t think
I could speak for them. “Ask them?”

“I did. They haven’t
replied.” She sat back, making a face. “Gemma hasn’t replied since yesterday,
actually. Like, at all. I think she is upset with me for only getting
64 in Maths, so I texted her about that and told her my teacher is a fucking
asshole, too, but nothing.”

I stopped painting for a
second. I found that a bit concerning, and I wondered if she was a bit upset with Bree about it.
Then again, Gemma wasn’t judgmental, was she? She also struck me as a bit
absent-minded as well, so it was possible she’d just read the messages while
she was busy and forgotten to reply. I sort of recalled her taking ages to get
back to me on the odd occasion I’d messaged her. “Give it a bit longer,” I
suggested, and then put the finishing touches on the card.

Bree loved it, and insisted on putting it out to dry on
the main table so that everyone could see it. “Don’t spend any more money on
me, though,” she told me sternly, making me panic for a second that she
knew. “Like, a card is okay but you don’t need to buy me jewellery or anything.
Just paint me things. That’s the best
present. I used to always totally fantasise that you painted me things before I met you.” Then, she went to
go fix us some lunch.

I glanced up at the clock;
it was nearly 1pm. I still hadn’t heard
from Sarah, and I’d never had any sort of meeting with Diane that
went for four hours. Diane didn’t have that sort of time. I worried about it and fished my phone out of my pocket again.
Maybe it had gone really badly and that’s why Sarah hadn’t replied, or maybe
Diane was doing the performance reviews this year or something? I sent another
hopefully more sensitive text. “Hey, I
hope everything is going okay…”

That message, I got a
response to. My phone surprised me by vibrating in my hands. “Sorry, I’m in a really heavy meeting that’s
probably going to go until Christmas—just ducked out for a couple of seconds to
text you from the ladies’—I’m a total mess right now—have stuff to tell you but can’t do it now or over
the phone. You’ll be home tonight, right?”

I frowned at my phone. Was
that bad? “Yeah... are you okay?”

“Definitely not, but I don’t have time to text it to you now.” There
was a pause and then another one came through. “Also that is totally not a cue for you to spend all day worrying about
it btw.”

I laughed aloud. “Good, because I have quite enough to worry
about already.”

“Hah. We’ll make a night of it when I get back, okay? We can put
Schoolgirl to bed nice and early, eat bland cereal and cry about our crap
lives, it’ll be great. I have to go right now xxxxxxxx”

I ran my eyes over that
last message a couple of times. Well, she wouldn’t have joked around if it
was terrible, right? Still, despite the fact it wasn’t
really bad, it still didn’t seem like a great opening to be all like, ‘Hey…
tell me where I can get cash-in-hand work!’. I should probably leave that for tonight, if we were going to hang out.

It would be nice to just
chat with her, there was so much going on for me at the moment. Fuck
it, just chilling with her and letting everything out actually
sounded fantastic, didn’t it? If anyone could hear the stuff that I’d
done, it’d be Sarah. She’d fucking kill me for it—whatever, I deserved
it—and I’d have to make sure that she understood I wasn’t fishing for money,
but it would be great to tell her. She’d probably have some ideas about how I
should try and juggle work and school, too. She’d been through it, after all.

Over lunch, Bree decided
to start going through some of her assignments to see what they were like, and
her cheerfulness faded a bit. “This stuff is intense,” she said, showing
me some of the Chem homework. I’d never seen so many hexagons in my life. “It’s
going to be a crazy hard semester, I hope I do okay.” She closed the file and relaxed back into her chair. “Oh well!
I can spend some of the weekend going
over this stuff with Sarah and Gemma so I won’t have to sit in class and look
like an idiot.” She set to work reading an assigned text.

I sat in front of my laptop and reposted all my commission ads in
various places to see if it would result in any more email inquiries. It hadn’t
by the afternoon. I waited, sitting with my phone next to me and pouncing on it
each time my LED flashed, hoping it was an inquiry, or even Sarah, or Gemma…
and each time, it was in Korean.

Bree was watching me out
of the corner of her eye while she leant on her elbows and slogged her way
through a chemistry text, and she didn’t have to say anything for me to know
what she was thinking: that was a lot of emails, even for Mum.

I couldn’t face any of her
crap, though, because not being able to do anything productive except wait for
Sarah was killing me. I used to make nearly $450 a day working at
Frost. Today, I hadn’t made a cent, and the clock was ticking on finding some
reliable way to pay back my ridiculous debts.

Sarah wasn’t home by
dinner time. My stomach was in knots and I wasn’t the least bit hungry, so Bree
ended up eating most of my dinner.

By seven, after Bree had
washed our dishes and sat back down at the table, she was even looking at the
clock herself. “I wonder where Sarah is.”

I checked the time on my
laptop. “At seven? Probably still at work. She had some big meetings this morning
so I think it might finally have been assignment day today.” And from her
earlier text messages, I gathered she wasn’t too happy about the project she’d
been assigned to. Part of me hoped it was because she’d been put as Team Admin
which meant that she’d be able to keep normal hours and bring extra work
home. She’d hate it, but
given that she was pregnant, it was probably better for her than something high
power and high stress.

Except an hour later she
wasn’t home, either, and when it hit ten, Bree was yawning. “It’s really late
and they still haven’t replied to me. Neither of them has.” Something occurred to her, and she turned
to me. “Hey, do you think they’re out together?”

My eyebrows went up.
“Maybe,” I said. It was a thought. They used to hang out all the time, so I
supposed it was possible.

Bree seemed pretty content
with that explanation, and so I stoked the fire for her and she lay on her back
reading textbooks on her tablet until she predictably fell asleep. I watched
her for a little while as her chest slowly rose and fell. She was just like any
other year 12 student, now. Worrying about her schoolwork, preparing for her
final exams. Not worrying about money.

This is what you got that loan for and why you’re not telling
her, I reminded
myself. This is what Bree gets out of it.

I just had to make sure I
could pay it back, which meant getting a fucking job. I looked up at the
clock; 10:44pm. That
was late. Even for me that would have been late, and Sarah
had usually left before me.

I helped Bree to
bed—“You’re supposed to carry me…”—tucked
her in, and then went and sat at the table in front of my laptop.

A whole day had passed. I
should probably have been sending my resume around for those professional
positions anyway, shouldn’t I? Maybe I could pick up some temp job where they
were so desperate for someone to start immediately that they wouldn’t care if I
looked maybe 20 max, hadn’t worked for
three months, had only had one proper job in my life and no referees from it,
and that the sex markers on all my IDs were completely at odds with how I….fuck. Fuck, who was I kidding? That
type of job didn’t exist. No one would ever be that desperate for a marketing clerk. Not to say I
wouldn’t find someone to employ me eventually—I was good at marketing
and material design, I knew eventually that would mean something—but
‘eventually’ was way, way too far
away. I needed Sarah to give me some advice on how to get a job now.

But what if she didn’t
come home tonight? I mean, it wasn’t unheard of for Frost to put late-working
teams up at the hotel I’d lived at for four years. Maybe she’d—

Keys turned in the front
door.

I sat up straight,
listening. I heard the click of the lock, and then the
long screech as the old door swung open. It was her; she sighed as
she took her coat off. Finally.
Feeling a surge of relief, I jumped up, abandoning my laptop and going to greet
her. There was probably still enough time for late-night chats before we went
to bed. She might want to debrief after such a long day, too.

I was in the middle of
making a joke about secret double-lives because she was out so late when she
turned towards me and the words caught in my throat. She looked terrible. Drawn and pale, and so, so
exhausted.

My grin fell. “Whoa,” I
said, rushing over to her. “Are you okay?” I put my arms out for support.

She batted them away.
“Yeah,” she said in a gravelly voice. It was the kind you had when you’d done a
lot of late-night talking.

I squinted at her. “Yeah,
you’re totally the picture of good health. You should start a blog.” I put an
arm around her anyway, but she just made a beeline for the bedroom and
struggled with her dress.

“Can you get that?” she
said, pointing down her back. I did her zip for her, and she pulled the dress
straight off, and her bra followed suit. At my wide-eyed expression, she rolled
her own eyes. “Please, you’re going to be seeing these hourly after I’ve had
Junior here,” she flatly reminded me. She had an old t-shirt over her head
pretty quickly anyway and just climbed
straight into bed. She didn’t look like she was trying to go to sleep, though.
She just stared at the ceiling.

This was very unlike her.
Gingerly, a sat down on the edge of the mattress. “Can I get you anything? A
Panadol, maybe?”

She shook her head.

“Maybe a bowl of bland cereal…?”
I attempted with a bit of a grin.

She sighed, looking at bit
guilty. “I’m sorry, I totally suck. I thought I’d be home earlier and we could
hang out a bit, and then I looked up at the clock and it was past ten…”

Oh… so no chats after all?
I swallowed. There went my grand plan of getting Sarah’s help with the hole I’d
dug around myself. I waved my hand dismissively anyway, despite the fact I
was screwed. I supposed it wasn’t her problem anyway.

A silence stretched
between us. Sarah just stared upwards, almost unblinking. I watched her. This
was more than just being tired and sick, wasn’t it? I couldn’t tell if she was
depressed, or sad, or angry… or whatever she was, but she wasn’t just tired.
She was tired and something. Sarah was top of her class at hiding her emotions,
though. It could be anything.

I touched her calf over
the doona. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” I asked gently.

Her jaw tightened. She
turned her head towards me on the pillow and said with gravity, “What am
I doing, Min?”

I didn’t know how to reply
to that. I just kept slowly rubbing her leg.

She looked back up anyway.
“I’m not mother material. I mean, look at me: it’s
past 11 and I’ve been at work for 15 hours. I didn’t have lunch. I
forgot, actually. I had a Mars bar for dinner. I can’t even feed myself.”
She shook her head. “And I know I should, but I really don’t want to
quit my job, or take leave or anything, I really don’t, but it’s like my body
isn’t giving me the choice. I used to
always know how far I can push myself. I’ve never had a problem with it, never,
but by mid-morning today I was already tired. I was sitting in front
of Diane this morning and I was already tired. I’m so goddamn tired and
there’s nothing I can do about it, and do I seriously think that’s going to get better when I’ve been up all
night with a screaming infant?”

“I’m sure you’ll find a
way to manage it,” I told her, trying to be reassuring.

She sighed. “Maybe,” she
said. “Probably at the expense of my kid. I’m going to be that mother who skypes
her children from hotels and tells them to brush their teeth and that I’ll see
them in two weeks. ‘Mummy’s busy with work, honey, what was your name again?’ I
can see it now.”

I couldn’t figure out why
all of this had suddenly blown up. “Did something happen at work?” Something
occurred to me. “Did someone figure out you’re pregnant?”

She shook her head. “Not
yet, thank god. It was assignment day today.”

“Oh,” I said. I’d been right. “Did the goss about that big project you were talking about turn out to be
right?”

She
looked very bitter. It wasn’t an expression I’d often seen on her. “Yes. They’re calling it
‘Flagship’, it’s a 160-million-dollar media saturation project. Television,
radio, billboards, print, everything,
across 11 countries. Almost 75% of the Marketing team is on it, and the aim is
to hit it all at once in the lead up to Christmas. The bonus for meeting sales
targets is $18,300, and they’re flying everyone who’s on it out to some resort
in the Blue Mountains for two weeks to figure out how to do it.”

My eyebrows went up.
“Wow,” I said. “But I bet they’re going to make people work for it. Frost
wouldn’t give out that sort of bonus unless there was a shit tonne of overtime
involved.” I was about to ask her if she was successful,
but then noted her lips. They were pressed in
a thin line.

She was watching me.
“Aren’t you going to ask if I’m on it?” she prompted anyway.

I opened my mouth, and
then closed it. “Should I?” She nodded stiffly. I wasn’t sure what to expect
because she looked so emotional, I didn’t know what she was playing at. “Okay,
are you on it?”

There were tears in her
eyes as she said, “I’m Lead.”

TWENTY-FOUR

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I
asked, glancing up at the clock on the wall while Sarah, dressed only in underwear
and probably freezing half to death, dug through all her clothes. It wasn’t
even 7am yet.

“The executive coach
leaves at eight,” Sarah told me in answer.
She then yanked a piece of clothing of its hanger and looked critically at it.
“Ugh, I hate this top. I don’t even know why I bought it.” She pulled
it over her head anyway and then turned
and presented herself to me. “What do you think?”

It was so baggy
it looked like maternity wear. I shook my head.

She groaned. “I knew
it!” she said, pulled it off, and kept digging. “I’m screwed. I’m completely
screwed. They’re going to take one look at my stomach and demote me on the
spot, I know it.” She took out another dress. “Maybe this one will look okay?”
She pulled it on, but it wouldn’t zip up. Making a frustrated noise, she
chucked it on the floor and turned back to the open wardrobe.

“How long does the project
run for?” I asked her as she started rummaging through her clothes again.
“Maybe they won’t demote you.”

“The campaign launches in
mid-November,” she said. “And I’m due in December.”

I winced. That was cutting
it really fine. She’d
probably be feeling even worse in her last trimester, too, when all the really
hard work would be happening. “Maybe it wouldn’t be terrible if they
do?” I asked tentatively. “I mean, you’re still really sick all the time, and
wouldn’t it be better for both you and the—”

“You sound like Rob,”
Sarah said, cutting me off. From her tone of voice, it was clear she didn’t
want to consider that at all.

Well, she should be considering
it, I thought. When I’d been Lead, I’d quite literally nearly worked myself
to death, and I was only heading up a very small team. Sarah was still nauseous
every day and she’d been going to bed really early recently. She could
kiss that sort of luxury goodbye if she was running a project of this
size. She was going to have it far
worse than I did.

I realised she’d been
watching me while I was lost in thought. “I can feel you
disapproving,” she told me sternly. “It’s like a quiet person superpower. They
sit there, and you can just feel them
judging you.”

I blinked at her. “I’m not
judging you,” I said, trying not to look down at her swelling stomach. “I’m
just worrying about you, like Rob
probably is. You’ve been really sick for two months, and now you want to take
on something like this?”

She put her hands on her
hips. “Hey, I’m not exactly looking forward to how crap it’s going to feel
working long hours and late nights with Junior here doing a number on me,
either,” she said, gesturing to her stomach. “But this is a once in a lifetime
opportunity. I’d given up on this happening to me, but it’s finally happening: I’m about to lead one
of the biggest marketing projects Frost has done since the business was
launched, Omar’s even going to play a personal mentoring role for me so I don’t
mess up. I know I can do this. I’m excited about
doing this. I’m going to have team leaders and actual staff reporting to me.
When I imagined my career, this is what it looked like.” She paused for a
moment to think about what she’d said, tilting her head and cringing.
"Okay, so, granted, I imagined a lot fewer chauvinist pricks in my
workplace, but yeah. I don’t care how sick I feel, I’m not giving this up. No
one should expect me to.”

I felt uneasy. “No
one is expecting that. It's just...” I took a breath. “So you’re
definitely going to do it, then? No maybes?”

She gave me a look like
‘are you kidding me?’ and turned back to the cupboard. “I’ve been waiting seven
years for this,” she said, and then pulled out another top. “Ugh,” she grumbled
about it as she tried it on, ending the conversation.

While I was helping Sarah
fill her suitcase with belly-hiding clothes, my mind wandered back to where it
had been last night. I kept waiting for a break in the stream of Sarah
stressing about how she looked for an opportunity to
even mention that I could use some advice about getting a
cash-in-hand job. When it finally came—“Earth to Toyboy, urgent opinion
required on this blouse! How come you’re so totally spaced out this morning,
anyway?”—I took one look at her, pale and wound up, and just left it.

It wasn’t long before
Rob’s ute rattled up beside the house and
he grabbed the full suitcase to load it up on the tray for her. She spent a
couple of seconds agonising over her silhouette in the full-length mirror before making a defeated noise and putting on
some bright red lipstick, ‘to distract people’.

She paused as she was
following Rob outside to give me a hug and look anxiously down the hallway
towards my door. “Tell Schoolgirl I’ll call her so I can properly apologise about not being able to help her with Chem for
a while, could you? I haven’t really got time to…” She checked her watch.
“Shit. Okay, I’ve really got to run!”

I said goodbye to her, my
chance of getting any sort of timely cash-in-hand job advice and the likelihood
Bree was going to get that 75 average I’d promised the Principal, and closed the front door. My fingers lingered on the
handle for a second. ‘Shit’ is just about
right, I thought. Shit.

Well, I just needed to
start looking for work, didn’t I? Any sort of work, even from the
places that would want to put me through three interviews. Maybe if I could
slog my guts out for a couple of months now,
I could save up some money and go back to part time when my research period
started at uni.

I tiptoed into the bedroom
to put on an extra layer under my hoodie so I didn’t have to add ‘hypothermia’
to my long list of problems, but Bree wasn’t asleep after all. She was lying in
bed staring at the ceiling, and I could see the shoulders of her dressing gown
peeking up over the doona. She’d been up already.

Frowning, I paused and
listened for Rob’s ute, but it was
probably already gone. “How long have you been awake?” I asked her. “You just
missed Sarah. She got promoted at work and she’s going to be away for a couple
of weeks while they have strategic meetings and figure out how they’re going
to…” Bree was just staring at me. She looked guilty. “What?”

She gave me a pained look.
“Um, I know all that...”

I stared at her for a
second, and then it dawned on me why she was wearing her dressing
gown and how she knew. I sighed at her. “You
were eavesdropping!” She sunk back into the mattress, looking remorseful
as I shook my head at her. “I keep forgetting who I’m dealing with! Well, why
didn’t you just knock and come into the bedroom? It wasn’t exactly a private
conversation, she would have been happy for you to help, too.”

Bree shrugged—she wasn’t
telling me something—and then changed the subject when she noticed I was taking
off my hoodie. She looked hopeful. “Are you coming back to bed?”

I shook my head, sitting
down on the edge of it anyway. I was itching to deal with my lack of
income. “I need a job.”

Bree looked past me to my
bedside table where my phone was flashing. I’d been ignoring it. “Yeah,” she
said, “you can pay someone a salary to spend all day replying to your mum, that
way she won’t suddenly show up on the doorstep.”

The colour drained from my
face. “Don’t joke about that,” I told her darkly. God, I didn’t even want to
think about it.

Bree looked guilty again.
“Sorry,” she said, and changed the
subject. “Maybe I should get a job. That way I can pay for a Chem
tutor since Sarah’s obviously not going to help me anymore, and maybe one for
Maths, too…”

I began to say, “No, you
need to focus on your studies,” when halfway through it I realised the rest of
what she’d said and did a double-take. “Wait, why Maths? Did Gemma tell you she
can’t help you anymore?”

Bree made a face. “No…” she said, “she didn’t tell me anything. I texted her like six times in
the last two days and then I realised I was
being kind of like your mum so I stopped. But yeah, nothing. I think she’s probably disappointed about my 64 and
thinks tutoring me is a big, fat waste of her time.”

Frowning, I watched Bree
for a second. “That doesn’t seem like Gemma, does it?” I asked. It was a
genuine question.

Bree shrugged. “She’s
probably too nice to tell me that it’s a crap mark and she’s really
disappointed or something, because nice
people don’t generally just completely ignore you for no reason, do they?”

That made me think of
Henry telling me to leave him alone at the restaurant and then changing his
phone number. I grimaced. “Maybe if the person had done something awful to
them,” I said. “But getting a 64 doesn’t really constitute ‘awful’, does it?” I
grabbed my phone from the bedside table. Quickly dismissing the email
notifications, I opened messaging. “Maybe she’ll respond to me. What should I
say?”

Bree gave me a very
pointed look. “Um, Min, I think you might know her a bit better than
I do…”

I rolled my eyes at her, and then frowned at my phone, tapping my
thumbs on the side of it and trying to think. Above the text box was the last couple
of conversations I’d had with her, including the one where she’d called herself
a home-wrecker for kissing me while I was with Henry. We’d hardly texted each
other since then, and it suddenly struck me as really weird to be
asking her what was up when she wasn’t texting back
my current partner. “You know what?” I told Bree, “I’m just going to
ask Sarah.” I quickly tapped out, “Gemma
hasn’t been returning Bree’s messages for a couple of days, do you know what’s
going on?”

I’d barely locked my phone
before the screen lit up again. “??? Did
Schoolgirl stick her foot in her mouth again or something? Gem can be a bit sensitive.”

I looked at Bree. She had
a completely blank expression as she shook her head. I replied, “She says she didn’t...”

“Well did something else happen? I have no idea what my friends are
doing these days. My life is herbal tea, nausea and hiding my stomach from my
co-workers.”

I was about to type, ‘No,
not that I know of’, but I only got halfway through it before I remembered the
last exchange I’d had with Gemma and my blood ran cold. I’d lied to her face
about not knowing what was going on with Sarah. Her expression when she found
out…

Bree saw my own
expression. “What’s wrong?” Grimacing, I told her. Instead of looking worried,
though, she brightened immediately. “That’s great!” I gave her a really weird
look, and she explained, “Well, it means it’s not my fault, doesn’t it? Oh my god, I was so worried that she
thought I was some blonde bimbo and teaching me was pointless. I’m so glad
it’s actually your fault!”
She paused. “Um, I mean that in a non-mean way. I’m sure it was an accident.”

Ouch. I closed my
eyes for a second. Great, that was person number two who was no longer speaking
to me. Henry, and now Gemma. I was doing great at this friendship
thing. I exhaled audibly. “I’m sorry, Bree. I completely forgot about
that.” I finished my text to Sarah, saying, “I think this is about the fact that Gemma found out I was hiding your
pregnancy from her. She’s probably angry at me, and by extension, Bree.”

“Mmm…” came the very neutral reply. “She’d be more likely to be angry at me for
that than you. Let me follow up xx”

I pressed my lips in a thin line, putting my phone in my pocket.
“Sorry, Bree,” I told her. “I’m such a fucking screw-up these days.”

Bree smiled up at me.
“Maybe I’m contagious,” she said sheepishly, and then squeezed my hand.
“Anyway, don’t worry, I’m sure Sarah will sort it out.” She sat up and
stretched her arms way above her head, yawning. “I’m going to have a shower.”

Bree disappearing freed me
up to continue my quest for work. I’d sat down at the kitchen table to update
my resume and make it look like I’d done anything in my life other than being a
marketing slave at Frost and painting a wall in someone’s café, when the back
door opened again, startling me.

Rob jogged in, closing the
door promptly behind him and taking a few deep breaths. His head and shoulders
were wet. I looked out the window; it was pouring outside.

He spent a few seconds
staring out at the rain, and then turned towards me and jerked his thumb at the
door. “You know, I was feeling guilty about coming back here to say
goodbye to Sares when we’re so behind schedule on Dazza’s contract,” he told
me. “But I reckon I wouldn’t be laying a single brick
in that anyway.” He walked past me to the kitchen. “Cuppa?” He
disappeared before I could answer.

I was trying to figure out
if I should mention the painting in the Frost atrium, when Rob plonked a big,
heavy mug of tea on the table next to my laptop and sat opposite me, drinking from his own and looking uncomfortable. His
fingers were drumming the table.

He heaved a sigh when he
saw me watching him. “Did Sares tell you about her promotion thing?” I nodded,
and he frowned. “It’s good, isn’t it?”

I squinted at him. He…
wasn’t acting like that was how he actually felt about it. “Sarah seemed
relatively happy about it,” I said neutrally. “Not happy about the timing… but
happy about the project.”

He sat heavily back in his
chair. “That’s what I think,” he said, as the floodgates opened. “It’s great
those wankers in head office are finally noticing how awesome Sares is, but…
yeah, did they have to fucking pick now to
promote her? When she should be taking it easy and relaxing?”

I chuckled. I
could not imagine Sarah with her feet up for any length of time.
“Sarah’s a bit Type A for ‘taking it easy’,” I pointed out.

He gave me that one.
“Yeah, okay. That’s probably true. But I don’t mean she should laze around in
bed or anything…” He shook his head. “You were bloody stressed out when you
were Lead, yeah?  When I told Sares that, she just said it was because you
were having an identity crisis as well.”

I tilted my head. She had
a point. “Well, that’s true,” I said, and then debated whether or not I should
be completely honest with him. I decided I should be. “I also had four team
members. She’s going to have—god, I don’t know—I guess 20? 25? Yeah, it will be
really full on, even without Jason as a manager. She’ll be doing late nights
and seven days a week.”

His looked mortified.
“With how sick she’s been?” I nodded, and his face crumpled momentarily. “That
woman kills me,” he told me, looking up at the ceiling for a second and taking
a deep breath. “She fucking kills me. I wish she’d just quit working for those
bastards. She’s got our little baby inside her, she’s sick, and she’s basically
going to be running a fucking department full of wankers who stare down her top
and tell her to get back in the kitchen. She shouldn’t be working in that
place.” He sighed at length and sat forward again, deep in thought. “Maybe I
should sell my house in Broome,” he said eventually. “Maybe that’s the way to
go. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about working in a stressful job. She could
just focus on taking care of herself and our little one.”

I watched him. “I don’t
think money is the only reason she’s doing this, Rob.”

He looked at me for a moment and then finished his tea. It was a
second before he spoke again. “And that’s why she kills me,” he said, gazing
into his empty cup. “Fucking hell. It can’t be good for the baby. It can’t be.
It’s not good for either of them.”

I didn’t have a chance to
try and comfort him because there were
footsteps in the hallway. Rob stiffened. “Shower’s free!” Bree called,
appearing in the doorway with only a towel around her. Spotting Rob at the
table, she raised her eyebrows. “Rob? Aren’t you supposed to be going back down
the coast somewhere? Sarah said you wouldn’t be back ‘til next week.”

He twisted in his chair.
“Yeah, I shouldn’t be, not with how far behind we are,” he said. “I just wanted
to say goodbye to Sares since she’ll be away for ages. I’ll head back there
tomorrow morning.”

“Oh. Well, hello!” she
greeted him a bit belatedly, and then
went to put some clothes on.

Rob sighed and turned back
to me. “You know, I could really do with a shower I don’t need to share with
five blokes, I bet there’d even be some hot water left,” he said, pushing
himself to stand. “Sorry about the whinge fest. I’ll leave you to your uni stuff, or whatever you’re doing.”
He gestured at my laptop.

I laughed once.
“I should be doing that stuff,” I told him. “But what I’m actually
doing is looking for a job.”

“Another marketing
position?” he wondered.

“Honestly? Anyone who’ll
take me. I need money.”

He was going to say something
else—something to end the conversation, I think—but then he froze for a moment,
half-turning back towards me. “Anything?” he asked, to clarify. When I
nodded, he frowned deeply for a couple of seconds. “You know, I heard Daz say
he could use a couple more labourers on this housing estate we’re doing, and
that was before the rain. They’re hard to get down the coast,
though…”

My heart lifted. Oh my
god. “Do you think he’d take someone with no experience?”

Rob made a noise. “He took
me, didn’t he? All you really need to be is fit and strong.”

I looked pointedly down at
my tall but ultimately scrawny body. I was definitely neither of those. “Fuck.”

He laughed soundly. “To be
fair, I only got this way from working the mines,” he said, proudly flexing his
tree-trunk biceps. “I probably looked a lot like you before that. I’ll ask Daz,
but I’m pretty sure he’ll take you tomorrow and Sunday, at least. I’ll let you
know,” he promised, and then went off to have a shower while I did what would
have been a very embarrassing little dance if there’d been anyone to
see it.

I could barely fucking
contain myself, waiting for the word from Daz. Rob was the exact
opposite of me in that he wandered around the house, tinkering with
various things, chatting casually to us and not prioritising
getting an answer for me. It was agonising. I spent the day trying not to
perish with anticipation and sending off my resumes, but by the evening the
only emails I’d gotten were from Mum. I was trying to type out a short reply to
her about how busy I was—not that she’d believe me without a detailed list of
everything I’d done so she could scrutinise it item by item—when Rob held his
brick-like phone in front of my face.

I blinked, and then took
it from him so I could read it. “yeah
cool tell her ok can do sat & sun not
sure about next stage tho we’ll see.” It was clearly from Daz.

I felt like a million
tonnes had been lifted from my shoulders. It was two days, but at least it
was money.

“We’ll drive up at five
tomorrow morning,” Rob told me with a broad grin. “You good with that?” I was
good with anything at this point, so I nodded. He thumped me on the
back so hard it made me cough.

Rob lent me a high visibility rugby top, and after
I’d packed for tomorrow, I sat down with Bree to have a look at what she’d put
on her timeline and some of the homework she had lined up. We’d just opened up
one of her assignments to go through when my phone buzzed.

It took me a second to
psych myself up to check it in case it was Mum, but it was Sarah. “Are you free? Can I call you now?”

I frowned at the message.
Sarah pretty much never called me. “Give me a sec,” I told Bree, and then went into the kitchen and shut the
door so I didn’t disturb her while she was reading.

Sarah answered
immediately. Her voice echoed like she was in a bathroom. “Hey,” she said,
rushing to speak, “I’m really sorry to do this, and I have to be quick because
I’ve been in here for like 15 minutes, and pretty soon ‘women’s stuff’ isn’t
going to cut it and they’re going to suspect something’s up with me. Listen,
Gem’s not answering me. She’s not answering my texts and she’s not answering
when I call. At first I thought maybe she’d just lost her phone again because
she’s hopeless like that, but when I asked Liz to pass on a message,
she said Gem wasn’t at work today.”

A knot formed in my
stomach. “So what does that mean?”

“I don’t know, Min,” she
said. “I don’t know. Can I ask you a massive favour?”

Like she even needed to
ask. “Bigger than letting someone live with you for several months, rent-free?”

She snorted. “Okay, good
point,” she told me, and then sobered. “It might be one big false alarm and
she’s just really pissed off at me because I didn’t tell her for ages
that I’m pregnant, but can you go over to her house and check? It’s not that
far from mine, I’ll text you her address. I just need someone to see what’s
going on.”

TWENTY-FIVE

Sarah wasn’t kidding when she said
Gemma lived close by. I took my car because it was late, but after I’d punched
Gemma’s address into my GPS, I only drove maybe five or six blocks before it
politely informed me I’d reached my destination. I might as well have walked.

The four-storey building I
parked beside seemed really out of place
amongst the double-fronted family homes around it,
and really dated as well. I found it an odd choice; if you were going to buy an
apartment, why buy it all the way out in the middle of suburbia? There was
nothing out here.

I didn’t get out of my car
and go in straight away. Gemma hadn’t invited me, and she probably wouldn’t be
happy about me visiting either. Ignoring people’s messages was the exact
opposite of inviting them to show up on your doorstep—as I knew very well—and
yet, here I was.

I leant heavily on my
steering wheel and frowned at the building through the rain. I should turn around and go home, I
thought. Gemma didn’t want me here, Bree didn’t want me here, I didn’t want to be anywhere I wasn’t wanted; the
only person who had any interest in me being here was Sarah… who also happened
to be someone who had done and continued to do countless favours for
me, let me live in her house, had arranged an amazing surprise party for me,
supported me when I needed it… Okay,
okay, I get it, I told myself. Groaning, I got out of the car.

As I jogged through the
rain to the shared entrance, a sensor light clicked on in the doorway. The
front door was locked when I tried it, and while I was looking for a buzzer, I
found 18 of them in a little grid beside the mailboxes.
Number 13, Gemma’s, had ‘G. Rowe’ in
neat text beside it. I think that was the first time I’d ever seen her surname.

Instead of pressing it
straight away, I stared at it like an idiot. Go on, Min, I told
myself. Just press it, let her tell
you to go away, and then you can report back to Sarah that she’s fine, and go
home. Not surprisingly, though, I wasn’t that excited about hearing someone
be angry with me.

I made a face at myself, I
needed to toughen up. I’d caused this mess: she probably wouldn’t have been
angry with Sarah at all if she hadn’t found out I’d known about Sarah’s
pregnancy first. Taking a deep breath, I pressed the buzzer.

My heart pounding, I
listened to it crackle. I couldn’t hear anything distinct, though; no
footsteps, no movement, nothing to suggest someone was deliberately being silent.
I was in the middle of texting Sarah again to ask her if maybe Gemma might have
just gone out somewhere since it was Friday night,
when I heard the sound of exhaling and the buzzer cut off. I glanced up from my
phone. She was home.

And I should have said something, I thought, my face going red. I was
like one of those guys who called up girls and just breathed down the line. I
didn’t know I was supposed to speak, though, I thought she’d probably say hello
first. I leant my forehead against the wall for a second, grimacing.

I did eventually manage to
convince myself to press it again. “Hello? Gemma, are you there? It’s Min. Um,
sorry about before.”

There was a sharp inhale.
“Min? What are you doing here?”

My face went even redder.
What the fuck was I doing
here? I swallowed. “I’m sorry, Sarah was worried, and she’s away on business,
so…”

“Oh…” she said, and I
couldn’t read her voice. There was a long pause, and during the silence I
managed to convince myself that driving here was a huge overreaction and Gemma
probably thought I was ridiculous. Her reply didn’t help. “I’m sorry I worried
you, I don’t—I mean, I don’t feel like visitors.”

Ouch. Coming from someone as nice as Gemma, that was basically the equivalent
of ‘fuck off’. “Okay,” I said, feeling stupid. “Okay, sorry, I’m sorry to
bother you. Sorry.” I winced at myself,
and then stood away from the buzzer.

Don’t say anything else, Shakespeare, I warned myself. You’ve fucked up enough, she already wants
you to leave. I exhaled a big puff of air, grimacing. Well, at least she
was okay and I’d done what Sarah had wanted me to do.

Feeling like the world’s
biggest screw-up—not only were my
finances a smoking wreck, not only was Henry not
talking to me anymore, Gemma wasn’t either—I turned and began to walk back out
to the car with fat raindrops hammering
my scalp and shoulders.

I only made it halfway
across the road before it hit me what a coward I was being. Who was I kidding?
This was not what Sarah had in mind, she didn’t want me to come over
here and just check that Gemma was alive,
because of course she was. Simply being alive and answering her
buzzer wasn’t an indication that she was okay. Not in the sense Sarah had meant
it.

I stopped in place and
just stood there under the streetlights in the middle of the road. What are you going to do about it? I
asked myself, the rain drumming on me. Are
you going to bother Gemma when she told you to go away?

Yes,
I decided, and then turned and walked back over to the entrance and spent some
more quality time staring very intensely at the buzzer.

Should I bother her,
though? Should I really? Mum was always doing this shit to me, and
the last thing in the world I ever wanted was to be anything like Mum. Maybe I just needed to leave it.
Maybe this was like the whole Henry-me situation: even though I wanted to make up with Gemma for my own
sake—and for Sarah’s and Bree’s—I shouldn’t try because Gemma didn’t want it.
If that meant Bree didn’t have a Maths tutor and got kicked out of school, and
it meant Sarah lost an old friend, that was on me, wasn’t it? I scrunched up my
face, trying to think.

Fuck it, I should at least apologise to her, I decided. I’m
obviously the reason she’s not okay, and she should at least know that I’m
sorry.

Taking a deep breath, I
pressed the buzzer. “I’m sorry, Gemma,” I said clearly into it. “I’m sure Sarah
would have preferred not to tell me, either, except I caught her with the
pregnancy test. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I just didn’t think it was my
place.” I paused, waiting to see if she was going to respond. When she didn’t,
I sighed deeply. “Anyway, please don’t be angry at Sarah or Bree, because it’s my fault. I’m sorry.” I took a breath.
“I guess I’ll leave you alone now.” I stepped back from the intercom,
figuring that at least I’d tried.

The exterior door gave a
very pronounced click.

I turned my head sharply
towards it; was that what I thought it was? I reached out and experimentally
tried the door again. This time, the handle turned all the way. My heart
lifted, maybe this was an olive branch…?

Completely terrified of
the conversation I might be about to have, I walked in and followed the numbers
on doors upwards until I was standing in front of a big ‘13’. My heart still
racing, I knocked.

I didn’t know what to
expect. I didn’t know Gemma very well. She didn’t seem to be the kind
of person who would hold a grudge, but then again, I’d liked Sean Frost, hadn’t
I? Just in case, I should open up with how sorry I was, and how much it was all
my fault, and—

—her door slowly opened,
and I took a deep breath, ready to blurt everything out.

But instead of being faced
with a pair of accusatory eyes, or a frown or, well, any sort
of anger, Gemma’s eyes were puffy, her nose was red and the fingers of one of
her hands were wrapped around a half-finished bottle of champagne.

God, she—she
looked really terrible. She was still dressed in her pyjamas—I had a
feeling she might have been like that for a while—and she had that broken look
of someone who was barely holding together by a thread. I forgot what I was
about to say.

She followed my eyes down
to the bottle of champagne and held it up
so I could see. “It’s the one I bought to share last month, remember?” she
asked quietly, her voice wavering. “Sare and I used to drink it in uni, and I
thought it would be fun for us to drink it again because the taste is really
nostalgic for me. It reminds me of finishing exams, summer house parties, and
getting drunk at Bondi while we checked out the lifeguards together...” When
she looked back up at me, her eyes were swimming. Her voice broke as
she said, “She used to tell me everything, Min. Everything. Her hopes, her
dreams… Now she won’t even tell me when her whole life is about to change
because she’s pregnant.” With that, her face crumpled and she
began to cry.

I stood there for a second
with my mouth open, paralysed, before I
managed to pull myself together. I glanced both ways down the hall. I couldn’t
just stand here and gape at her, no matter how much of a surprise this was.
With Sarah’s instructions to hug girls when they cried at the front of my mind,
I walked her a few steps back into her apartment, closed the door and pulled
her in a big, firm hug.

That made her cry even
harder. Completely stunned, I just held her against me, staring wide-eyed over
her head at her messy little kitchen and the little metropolis of empty alcohol
bottles gathered beside her recycling bin. That was how mine used to
look.

“This is so ironic,” she
murmured into my chest when she’d relaxed a little. She was still heaving little
breaths.

I hesitated for a moment
before beginning to stroke her hair, not sure if I was crossing a line.
“Because you’re angry with me?”

She leant into my hand.
“Kind of, yeah.”

I flinched.
I knew it. “I’m sorry,” I said, slumping, “I just didn’t know what
else to say when you started talking about the holiday. I shouldn’t have said
anything.”

I felt her frown against
me. After a few moments of being completely still, she pulled back, giving me a
strange look. “What?”

I stared blankly at her.
“Um, when I lied about not knowing what was going on with Sarah.” She was still
frowning at me. “That—that is what we’re talking about, right?”

She stared at me for a moment and then laughed. It wasn’t a happy
sound. “Oh my gosh,” she said, wiping her
eyes again. “No. No, that’s not it…”

I’d done
something else? “Then what…?”

Wiping her eyes on her
wrists, she considered me a bit critically like she was trying to make a
decision. Then, she sighed. “You want to come in?”

She led me through into
her cramped, little living room and to
her old, worn couch. I sat in the part
with the least amount of orange cat hair, and she flopped down beside me and
offered me the bottle. When I declined, she looked even more miserable
and drank deeply from it herself.

I glanced around her
living room while she did that; it had the usual ‘chick’ décor, hair ties on
door handles, charger cords for everything everywhere, the odd plush
toy, and a photo mural on the wall. I squinted at it. Lots of the photos were
of her and Sarah, and in some of them, they both looked like teenagers. It was
disorienting seeing them both so young.

After Gemma had swallowed
the champagne, she rested the bottle on her lap and gazed across at me. I
turned stiffly back to her, bracing myself for a redress. My palms were
practically sweating; I had no idea what I’d done. “Sare sent you
here because she’s on business?” she asked, and I nodded like I was in a job
interview. “Like, she just called and told you out of the blue?” She looked
hopeful.

I made a so-so movement
with my hand. “Yeah, she called me. Not really out of the blue, though: Bree
was worried that you weren’t replying to her, so I texted Sarah to ask if she
knew why.”

It was like deflating a
balloon. “Right,” she said. “Of course.” She had another long swig of
champagne. “She didn’t even notice that I haven’t texted her for two weeks...”

I winced. “She’s just
busy.”

Gemma closed her eyes for
a moment. “I know…” she said. “I know she is. I know she’s in love with Rob
now, and she has other friends—she’s always
had other friends, she’s Sare—but it’s like… with this.” She held up the
bottle. “Drinking it just brings everything back, the way
things used to be.”

I listened, still at a
loss as to what I’d done.

“We had all these plans
for after we graduated, everything was mapped out. We had a list of countries
to visit—the plan was to see one every year—a list of companies we were going
to apply to together for work, all this stuff. We wanted to take a year off and
volunteer abroad before we turned 30. We even agreed to have our children at
the same time, so they’d grow up together and always be best friends like we were.” She gazed up at the
ceiling. “One night maybe three or four years ago, we were getting wasted on
her decking after her old boyfriend had left her, and she turned to me with her
makeup everywhere because she’d been crying and said, ‘Move in with
me, Gem’. And I was like…” She took an eager breath. “I
was so excited. I was already trying to figure out how I’d get this
place rented, and how I was going to get my cat used to her house, I could
hardly even sleep at all that night because I was just, like, bursting with how much I was looking forward to it…
But in the morning she didn’t even remember she’d said it.” She looked across
at me.

Suddenly, the penny
dropped and I understood exactly what she was saying. “And now I’m living with her.”

I’d hit the mark, and her
face crumpled. “And she’s always talking about you. It’s always
Toyboy this, Min that, and she took you up to Broome—she’s been telling me for
three years that it would be fun for me to visit there. And
you say you discovered she was pregnant by accident, but that’s crap.
Sare’s not like that. She would have hidden it if she didn’t want you to know,
so she wanted you to know,” she told me. “She wanted you to know. You. Not me.”

I was probably white as a
sheet; I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t mean to steal Sarah. That wasn’t
what had happened, was it?

She saw my expression and looked momentarily horrified at
herself. “Oh, no, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all
this. I sound so jealous and awful. Gosh, I’m so drunk,” she said, holding
up the bottle to eye level so she could see how much was left. She choked up again
when she saw the label. “It’s just that I don’t know what I did wrong. I don’t
think I did do anything wrong. It’s like everything was fine and now
suddenly she doesn’t need me anymore. I just wish—” she began, struggling to
say it, “I just wish someone could tell me what changed.”

This was all beginning to
sound very familiar to me. “Sarah did,” I realised aloud. I reached out and put
a hand on her back. God, this was so, so familiar. “Not because she doesn’t
care. She does. It’s just things have happened to her recently: she’s pregnant
with an unplanned baby, she’s just been promoted at work. She and Rob are
serious, they’ll probably get married soon, I guess. She hasn’t forgotten about
you, she’s just at a new stage in her life, and—”

“—And she’s going
there without me,” Gemma finished in a small voice. “Even though she always
said we’d do it all together.”

I rubbed her back.
“Sometimes things don’t go according to plan.”

Gemma digested that for a
little while, taking another mouthful of champagne and swirling the rest around
in the bottle as she thought. Eventually, she heaved a sigh. “She got
promoted?” she asked me, for clarification.

I nodded. “She’s leading a
huge team right now. They’re off in the Blue Mountains for a couple of weeks,
setting it all up.”

Gemma forced a smile.
“That’s great,” she said, but her smile immediately wavered and fell. “I just…
Well, you want to know something really stupid?” she asked. I listened intently
as she told me, “Last November I got offered a big promotion based in the New
York office. It was a big pay increase, working with some of the top risk
management analysts and statisticians across all of our brands, and networking
with others from other big energy companies.” She exhaled at length and then
laughed once, humourlessly. “I didn’t even consider it, not for a single
second. Stupid, right?” She looked up.

Oh, god. “You didn’t
tell Sarah, did you?”

She shook her head. “She
would kill me for saying no to it. I don’t even know why
I did say no. It was so stupid, and
if I’d known all this was going to happen anyway…” She looked across at her TV
cabinet; there was a photo of her and Sarah in snorkelling gear in front of a
brightly coloured reef, beaming at the camera and holding up starfish. It
looked like it was taken a lifetime ago. “I’m losing her,” Gemma murmured,
gazing at the photo. “I’m losing my best friend.” She put her head in her hands
and cried.

I sat with her while she
did, rubbing her back and staring across at all those photos of the two of them
together. There were so many memories there. So many holidays, study binges and
Frost Christmas parties. They both looked so happy;
it gave me a secret window into Sarah’s life that I'd never had before.
Part of Sarah’s struggle with her pregnancy made a lot more sense to me.

“I don’t think it’s as
simple as losing her,” I told Gemma eventually,
when her tears had subsided. “If her life is suddenly changing, it’s as hard
for her as it is for the people close to her.”

Gemma looked up from her hands. “Did she tell you that?”

A gave her a wry grin,
gesturing to my body and my clothes. “No. I just know from experience.”

She half-smiled in
appreciation of what I’d said. “I forgot about that,” she admitted, and then
watched me for a moment, her smile fading. “’For the people close to her’,” she
repeated thoughtfully. “Did you lose people when you transitioned?”

Henry. Thinking about it was like a punch in the stomach. “One person,” I
said, and then reconsidered, thinking about the persistent flashing LED on my
phone. “So far. But I’m the world’s worst hermit, so I really only had one
person anyway.”

Gemma held up her bottle.
“Hey, I’m drinking at home by myself. This is day four. I think I win the prize
for the world’s worst hermit,” she told me, and then lowered the bottle again,
getting back to what I’d said. “So, what happened with your one person? Was it
really awfully painful trying to get over them? Did you drink yourself half to
death, too?”

The way she’d put that
made my blood run cold. “I was the one who changed, and I don’t know how my one
person got over me.” I paused. “Assuming he has.”

Her lips parted. “Oh,
right,” she said, and slumped a little.

Something occurred to me
while I was thinking about Henry and gazing across at her slumping just like
he’d been the last time I saw him in the restaurant. It took me a moment to ask
it. “Tell me,” I began, “would you want to be a part of Sarah’s new life? Even
if it’s different?”

She nodded, still looking
down at the bottle. “Yes,” she said, with feeling, “so much. But I just don’t
know how I’m supposed to fit anymore. It’s like she’s got all the
positions in her brand new life already filled, and where am I even supposed to
fit now?”

That answer… God, this was
too close to home, too close. It reminded me of how Henry’s voice broke on that
late night phone call about the meeting, and of how much he’d struggled not to
hug me at the restaurant, even though he’d turned away from me afterwards.
Maybe he thought he didn’t fit in my life anymore, either.

“I bet she wants you to,”
I said, swallowing down emotion of my own. “I bet she really, really wants you
to fit.”

Gemma must have noticed, because she nudged me with the neck of
the bottle. “Are you sure you don’t want some of this?”

I took it from her, sighing.
My mouth was really dry. “Maybe one glass.”

While I was drinking it,
Gemma took me on the tour of all the photos of Sarah and her, animatedly
telling me all about the crazy adventures that had led to some of the weirder
ones. It was interesting hearing stories about the two of them, and also sad to
think that their shared adventures were on hold for a while. Maybe forever.

Gemma put the last photo
frame back on her mantelpiece. “After this holiday here, next up was Thailand…”
she said wistfully, and sighed.

I made a face. “I’m sorry
about that holiday you had planned for the two of you.”

Her eyes were veiled. “Me
too,” she said, and nodded at some travel
brochures on her coffee table. They featured elephants, and palm trees, and
beautiful pristine tropical beaches with crystal clear water. There were also
annotated Post-Its all over them. “I spent so long planning it. It
was going to be amazing.”

I bent forward and picked
up one the brochures, leafing through it. She’d put so much effort into it. Something
occurred to me. “You probably wanted to do some of this stuff too, right?”

She knew exactly what I
was onto, and shook her head. “I can’t go without her, Min. Besides, she’s due
in December, which is when I planned it.
However she feels about me, I’m pretty sure it would be a massive dick move to
be away when she gives birth to her first baby.”

“Well, she’s away right
now for two weeks…” I pointed out. “You can move the dates, right? If you want
to do some of this stuff, you definitely should do it, even if you have to do
it by yourself. Besides, maybe taking a break from her would make everything a
lot clearer.”

She was silent for a
moment, and I saw possibility glimmer in her eyes. It was quickly gone, and she
shook her head. “No, I don’t want to go without her.”

I
shrugged. “Okay. It was just a suggestion.”

I left her place somewhere
around midnight. I didn’t drive home straight away, though. Sitting alone in my
car with the rain pouring down my windshield, the conversation I had earlier
with her was stuck fast in my head. I couldn’t shake it.

I ended up with my phone
in my hands, staring down at the bright screen in my dark car. I dismissed all
the notifications and opened up text
messaging.

“Now that I’ve spent the evening with Gemma and she’s okay,” I
texted Sarah, “can I get you to do
something for me this time?”

She replied immediately. “So she IS okay? Thank god, I’ve been
checking my phone every five seconds for hours. My team is giving me some weird
looks, let me tell you. At this point, I’d
pretty much do anything for you. Ask away.”

I wondered how she was
going to receive it. “Have you seen Henry
lately at work? How does he look?”

“…funny you should ask that. He’s up here for a couple of days with the
HR interns doing our project contracts for us. At least I heard he is, I
haven’t seen him because I’ve been in meetings forever. I can probably snoop
around at lunch tomorrow if you want. How much info are you after, though?
Because it’s kind of unhealthy to be getting friends to stalk your ex. Do you
just want confirmation he’s okay, too?”

I tapped my thumbs on my
phone for a moment. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. “Yeah, just tell me if he looks okay.”

“Okay, can do, Mister!” was the quick reply. “Thanks for taking care of Gem. It means a lot xx”

I smiled. I had a good
feeling about those two. I was just starting the engine when another message
came through. I wasn’t sure what else Sarah had to say to me, but I checked
before I pulled away from the kerb
anyway.

It wasn’t from Sarah,
though, it was from Gemma. “So maybe
it wasn’t such a great idea to do this while I’m really drunk, but I did change
my tickets after all... My plane leaves tomorrow at 8:10am, Sydney to Bangkok. I decided to upgrade to first class.
I’ve never flown first class before!” Another message came through. “Since this was totally your idea, you’ll
feed my cat, right?”

I chuckled. “I’m happy to.”

“Thank you so much! The keys are in Sare’s hall table. I’ll bring
you back a big present for doing it, I promise!” There was a pause, and
another message came through. “Thank you,
Min. Really, I mean that. I haven’t taken my suitcase out of the cupboard in a
long time.”

I bit my lip: she was
going on her adventure after all. “Anytime
:)” I replied, smiling like my emoticon, and then headed home.

TWENTY-SIX

Bree wasn’t asleep like I’d expected
her to be when I tiptoed back into the bedroom. She wasn’t just awake, either:
she was sitting up in bed in her pyjamas, knees to her chest with the bedroom
light on, watching me tensely as I closed the door.

I glanced at my phone; it
read 12:13am. She was normally
completely passed out by now. Then again, I wasn’t normally over by myself at
Gemma’s. “Are you waiting up on me?” I
asked with a grin, turning to face the wall so I could start getting undressed.

“Yes,” she said without
hesitation. She was completely serious.

I frowned over my shoulder
at her. Did she actually think I’d cheat on her? “After what I did to
Henry, I’d never—”

“Not that,” she told me.
“I didn’t think you’d be over there having sex with her or anything. It was
just that I was going over all the Maths homework because we’ve got a big test
coming up next week and, like, it’s supposed to just build on what we learnt
last semester, but I literally don’t understand any of it. The
word problems are the worst, I don’t even know which formulas to apply to
them. So, I was just kind of…” She made a face. “Like, did you make up with
her? Are you guys okay?”

I rummaged around in my
case for an old t-shirt, pulling it on. Thinking of that last text message, I
smiled to myself.  “Yeah.”

Bree sighed with audible
relief. “Awesome,” she said. “So that means Gemma can help me with my Maths
homework, right?”

I turned back to her,
giving her a pained look. “She’s flying out to Thailand tomorrow.”

Bree’s face fell. “Oh…”
she said, but still managed a very convincing. “Well, I hope she has heaps of
fun…”

I sat on the edge of the
bed and made her scoot over so I could fit, putting an arm around her as I
climbed under the doona. “If your test is next week, you’ll probably learn all
the stuff you need to know in class before it, yeah?”

She seemed doubtful. “Mr
Preston always wants us to have the exercises done before class so he
just focuses on the stuff we can’t do. Like you can’t even say ‘I can’t do any
of it’ because he always thinks that’s
just me making excuses for being lazy and not doing the homework. But here,
look at these,” she reached across and grabbed her sparkly tablet from the
bedside table, switching it on and showing me the problems. I had to admit they
actually looked pretty damn hard. “See?” she said. “So I was hoping Gemma would
be able to help, because she always gets
really excited about the problems that are presented
like stories.”

“Well, she’s getting
excited about beaches and palm trees for the next two weeks, I think,” I told
her, helping her put the tablet back on the bedside table as we shuffled down
the mattress and lay down. “She might help after that, I don’t know. But maybe
you’ll be able to find something on the Internet in the meantime? Or maybe your
friends can help?”

“Maybe…” Bree said at
length, and then lay her head on my shoulder. She didn’t sound very confident.

I didn’t feel particularly
confident, either; not that I’d ever tell her that. Bree could turn out a reasonable
English essay—I always found how righteous and passionate she got about her arguments to be kind of endearing—but
maths was not her strong suit. If Gemma’s intensive help had only
lifted her from 51 to 64, I was worried about what losing Gemma would do to her
average, and what a sliding average meant to whether or not she was allowed to
stay at Cloverfield.

If I’d just put myself
$21,550 in debt for Bree to only get an extra two weeks at Cloverfield… I didn’t
know how I’d handle that. Would I tell Bree what I’d done? What would it
achieve? It would make her feel extra bad for not only costing me money, but also not being able to keep her
marks up. Then again, I wasn't sure
I could keep that sort of secret from her for very long, or that it was the
right thing to do, and I couldn’t stop stressing
about it.

I don’t know what time I
fell asleep as a result, but it only felt like five minutes before someone was
vigorously shaking me. “Wake up, Min,” that was Rob’s voice. “Come on, mate,
we’ve got to get going.”

Somehow I managed to get
up to dress myself in a combination of my
own clothes and the ones Rob lent me, and
then I packed an overnight bag full of whatever was in arms’ reach, stumbling
out of the house into Rob’s ute. I think
I slept for the first hour, though, because I don’t remember leaving Sydney or
when Rob stopped to grab breakfast. As I woke up and tried to figure out where
the fuck I was and what was going on, he pushed a brown paper bag at me while
he kept his eyes on the highway. “Here,” he said. “Maccas, brekky of
champions.”

I could smell it. I took
it off him and opened the bag, salivating at the contents. I didn’t really do
early breakfasts, but I could make an exception for fast food. “Thanks,” I
said, and then worried about the fact it was probably $10. “What do I owe you?”

He shook his head. “It’s
great to have company on the drive,” he explained, gesturing out the
windscreen. His high-beams lit the road, but it was still dark. Over the high
mountains on the horizon, though, a dim light was beginning to glow: daybreak.
“You see? It’s not that entertaining out here.”

I already had a mouthful
of Egg McSomething or whatever he’d bought me, so I swallowed hurriedly. “Must
have been pretty entertaining watching me sleep for an hour.”

He laughed; in the
small space it was so loud it nearly burst my eardrums. “Nah, it’s great to
have you,” he said. “Honestly, most corporate folks look down their noses at
manual work, but it’s great. Today, you know what we’re doing? We’re building a
house. It’s for a pair of newlyweds—childhood sweethearts, Daz reckons they
are—and they’re going to start their family out there on the coast. Their kids
will spend their whole childhood running between the waves and the veranda.
They’ll remember it forever, and we’re going to make it for them, with these.”
He held up a hand and twinkled his fingers. “You can’t do that in an office.
Maybe you won’t want to go back.”

I chuckled at him. He was
hugely sentimental for a guy who at first glance looked like he’d be more
comfortable punching someone than hugging them. “Honestly, I’m just really
happy to get some work.”

“Nah, I reckon you’ll love
it,” he said, beginning to gush. “I love working with that lot, they’re great.
Daz you know, but then there’s the other
guys,” Rob went through the other four men, who all
had incredibly Aussie names like ‘Jonno’, and ‘Jules’, and ‘Fitzy’,
telling me about who they were and listing the states and towns they were from.
“All country boys like me,” he declared. “They’re real good value. Jonno’s a
licenced sparkie but he’s not too proud
to lay some bricks. Just a bunch of really unpretentious blokes.”

He told me a few stories
about them, and they sounded pretty nice, if in a really ocker, blokey way that I didn’t fully
understand. Still, if they were like Rob, I could probably really enjoy working
with them. Maybe this job would end up being more than a couple of days after
all. It was comforting to imagine not having to worry about my finances
anymore.

The rest of the drive was
pleasant. We lost radio reception so Rob stuck in a classic
rock cassette tape—I couldn’t believe those even existed anymore—and
sang along to it. He was definitely a better singer than Bree, and by the time
the sun was starting to brim over the horizon, we were turning off on a yellow
sand road to the beach and pulling up behind several other utes.

Between us and the ocean
was a big shell of a house with
half-finished brick walls. The rest of the walls were covered with blue tarps
which flapped loudly against the drywall in the chilly morning breeze. The air
smelt of salt, seaweed, and someone’s morning BBQ; I looked along the foreshore
to another house some distance away. There were other houses, too, but they
were so generously spaced that they didn’t interfere with the feeling of
solitude. Even though the wind chill was about minus a hundred, it was
beautiful. It seemed like a really nice place to build a family home.

While I was distracted,
Rob startled me by dumping a huge box of tools in my arms. I nearly
dropped it. “Here, could you take those around the front while I get the rest
of the stuff out of the tray?”

I gulped. “Sure,” I said, and began to work my way around the tarps.

I was busy watching my
footing in the sand when I rounded the front of the house. There, in front of
me, were four white guys all in their high viz jumpers, seated on collapsible
chairs and passing around a thermos. I smiled in reflex when I noticed little
things Rob had told me about—“Fitzy has
more freckles than Gemma!”—but then I noticed how rough they looked. How
blokey they were. From their hard-knocks appearance, it was clear they
worshipped at the altar of traditional masculinity—I did not feel good about that—and they were
all looking at me. Not like I was an old friend, either.

My blood ran cold.

“Ey! What do we have
here?” One of them shouted, standing up. Jonno, I think. He sounded friendly
enough, but it felt like the opening scene in a Hollywood movie before the protagonist
gets beaten up. My legs felt weak; I wanted to turn around and go running back
to Rob.

He came up to me while I
was standing there, frozen. He was as tall as me. “Daz never mentioned Rob was
bringing fresh meat!” he said, clapping me
on the back. I tried not to cough. “So what are you, bro?”

I didn’t understand his
question, so I stared at him, panicking.
Was he talking about my race? My gender?

“He probably doesn’t speak
English, Jonno,” Fitzy called from the circle of deck chairs, “Look at him. He’s
probably fresh off the boat.”

While I was reeling from
that, another one of them casually piped up with, “Nah, Daz said he’d never
hire illegals, maybe he’s just a student.”

Jesus Christ. “I am a student,” I managed before they could say
anything else fucked, and they
all looked at me as if they were totally shocked I could speak. “Or I’m about
to be, anyway.”

“There we go!” Jonno told
the others, presenting me to them like I was a performing animal. “So what’re
you studying? Let me guess: medicine?”

I felt sick. I almost
wanted to lie. “Art.”

They all looked at each
other, eyebrows up. It wasn’t because they were impressed, either: they were
smirking. “Well, that sounds fancy,”
Jonno said, slinging a menacing arm over my shoulder to lead me to where they
were drinking coffee. “But don’t worry. This job’ll put some meat on those scrawny arms. Come sit with the
boys!”

I was literally at the
point of throwing up from fear when I heard a familiar voice. “Hey,
you’re here!” that was Daz, thank god.

He ducked out from under
one of the tarps, looking just as tattooed as I remembered him. He grabbed the
thermos off one of the younger men to take a swig off it. “That’s the stuff,”
he said, and then gestured at me. “So, I see you all met Min.” He thumped me
collegially on the shoulder. “Thanks for the help. Because of the fucking
weather and this useless mob here, we’re miles behind.” He was
grinning at them as he said that. Apparently they all related to each other
through insults.

“Easy, Daz,” Jonno said,
his arm still threateningly across my shoulders. “You’re going to make Min here
think we’re a pack of bludgers.”

Daz laughed. “Well, I
don’t know what you told her—” The breath caught in my throat. “—But she’ll learn
pretty quickly how shit you all are. Come on, get up, let’s get going.” He took
a few steps back towards the house.

No one else moved, because they were all staring at me.

My vision greyed. It was
like one of those nightmares where you’re stuck in place and unable to move.

“’She’?” Jonno asked, and quickly retracted his arm. He seemed a bit
irritated. “Why didn’t you say you were a girl?”

Daz opened his mouth. God,
he was going to say it. He was going
to say it. “Because she’s not,” he told them casually as Rob came
around the side of the house. “What’s the word? I forget the word. Transsexual,
is it? But she’s not a girl anymore.”

Rob looked alarmed. “Hey!”
he called to Daz. “What the fuck are you doing, mate? It’s ‘he’ outside the
house. Only Sares and co ‘she’ him.”

“Oh,” Daz said, and then
looked appraisingly at me. “You serious? Why the fuck didn’t you say so? I’m
not psychic. Oh well, there’s
only one letter difference between ‘she’ and ‘he’, right?” he said, thumping me
on the shoulder again and lifting the tools out of my hands. “Thanks for
bringing these.”

All the other men were
looking at each other with a mixture of confusion and intrigue. One of them
laughed like he’d just heard a really good story. “What the fuck?
What is that then?” he was looking down at my tracksuit pants; I’d
worn the packer today. My cheeks went bright red.

Daz tossed the guy
something that looked like a giant cake server. “Like you don’t stuff socks
down your undies, Jules, you total soft cock,” he said, and the others tittered.
“Come on, get going!” He drummed on the fabric of one of the chairs. “I don’t
pay you to sit around drinking coffee, girls, let’s
go!”

The crew all reluctantly
got up, giving me some sideways looks on their way over to the pallets of bricks, and whispering to each other. I wasn’t
very happy about the gendered slur Daz had levelled at them, but they were like a pack of schoolgirls,
stealing looks at me and laughing to each other.

Fantastic, I thought, standing at the corner of the house while they all
tried to avoid being landed with the task of teaching me anything. I’m in high school again.

It took the entire period
of time Daz spent orienting me around the work site for me to catch my breath
and process what had happened. What was most difficult to get my head around
was the fact none of the men seemed to think anything was wrong with that
introduction; Daz, in particular, was just being friendly and jovial as if he
hadn’t outed me in the most painful fucking fashion to my workmates.
Still, I supposed it was a step up from my last boss telling me to
keep my ‘Asian-ladyboy bullshit’ at home. At least Daz didn’t mean to cause trouble for me, and
at least with the other men avoiding me, they weren’t asking me really private
questions like it was Discuss Min’s Genitals Day or, I don’t know, tripping me,
or whatever the male version of nasty schoolgirls was.

Rob didn’t appear to
notice much was wrong, either. When Daz went to go check what the other guys
were up to, Rob demonstrated how to mix the mortar—joking and chatting like he
did when he was happy—and then taught me how to prep for laying without
mentioning anything about the other guys or what they’d said. We set up the
levelling string together, and then he supervised me shakily trying to lay brick
by brick on the already half-finished wall. When he was satisfied I wasn’t
going to screw up, he got a saw and spent some time cutting bricks for the
fiddly edges while I filled in the dipping centres.

Once I got into the
routine of it, it was strangely relaxing; if I discounted the laughing and
joking the other guys were doing around
the other side and the fact I was pointedly absent from it. With my hands busy,
I had a lot of time to think. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have minded that, but this
morning, all I could think about was the fact that I’d left Frost specifically
to avoid the sort of treatment I was getting on this work site. I didn’t
have the luxury of walking out this time either: not with my enormous debts. I
sighed.

That got Rob’s attention.
“You right?” he asked, giving me a long, measured look. My jaw tightened, and I
buttered another brick and carefully laid it. My silence must have been answer enough, because he looked
thoughtful, guessing what I was stressing about. “I didn’t understand your whole
gender thing at first, either. It’s not something that’s in your face every day much, is it? I didn’t
know it existed. But still, it doesn’t mean they won’t see you working and see
you’re just like them,” he told me. “They were a bit wary of me first, too. But
they’re good blokes, they’ll come good.”

I wasn’t just
like them, though. That was the problem. I knew what I wanted to say: ‘if
they’re wary of a regular straight white tradie,
how are they going to feel about a genderqueer Korean artist?’ I didn’t say it,
though. Maybe he was right and they would end up being fine about it, though,
who knew.

At lunch, the boys all
drove into a nearby town to eat. I didn’t go because on top of not wanting to
feel like the ugly kid no one picks for dodgeball, I also really didn’t
want to spend any money. Rob gave me a bit of a sad look as he left, but it was
a relief when they were all gone.

I washed my hands and
grabbed a banana from my bag, going to sit on the sandbank to wait for Sarah to
call me after she’d checked up on Henry.

I braced myself when I
first took my phone out, expecting to be bombarded with flashing LEDs and a
tonne of notifications, but that wasn’t what was on my screen at all. My phone
was dead still, and the lock screen just displayed the clock. For one beautiful
second my heart lifted, and I thought maybe, just maybe, Mum was getting sick
of constantly bothering me and had gotten herself another hobby… and then I
noticed the little alert up the top of my screen: no data coverage.
I sighed. There went that
fantasy, but at least she couldn’t bother me out here. That nearly made up for
the rednecks I was working with.

While I was enjoying being
able to look at the screen of my phone without feeling excruciating anxiety, it
occurred to me that it had been several days since I’d stopped engaging with
her wedding bullshit. Come to think of it, the last day had been before Bree’s
catastrophic dinner, hadn’t it? That was—I counted—five days ago. Nearly six. I
felt uneasy, but I had enough to worry about without rehashing all of that crap.

It took Sarah longer than
I expected to report back to me, and I was busy trying to figure out if one bar
of signal was enough when the phone
buzzed in my hands.

“YOU TOLD HIM. NOT COOL.”

I blinked at that. Told
Henry, she meant? It took me a couple of seconds to figure out she meant the
fact she was pregnant. Maybe she was being
ironic, though, because of course I hadn’t. I went with that. “Told Rob, you mean? I’m pretty sure he
already knows ;)”

I had another bite of my
banana, waiting for her to fire something back. Maybe she was messing with me?
I’d finished my banana and she still hadn’t texted back. That made me
worry; maybe she was serious. “…because
Rob’s the only guy I would have told anything to in the last few months,” I
typed, and when I didn’t get a response to that, either, I added, “Because, as you know, I’m not talking to
Henry, which is the whole reason I asked you to check up on him.” I was
midway through typing something else when she replied.

“Okay, okay. That’s kind of a good point. Sorry I went off at you, he just clearly already knows and it’s
REALLY weird, that’s all.”

I wasn’t surprised. “He probably just guessed. His sister is
pretty much constantly pregnant, and they’re close. She’s pregnant right now,
in fact. With twins.”

“She has my sincere condolences. Anyway, yeah, it turns out I don’t have
a bright future as an international spy ahead of me. He sprung me following him
after like two minutes and then gave me a really awkward lecture about stress
levels and folate. So, anyway: HR knows. HR at Frost knows I’m pregnant. I am
seriously waiting any minute for someone to tap me on the shoulder and send me
in a taxi home, disgraced.”

I highly doubted
that was about to happen, not if Henry was the HR person that knew. “Henry won’t tell anyone. He takes the whole
HR confidentiality thing very seriously.”

“Well, it might not matter soon, because my stomach’s starting to touch
the front of my tops. It’s over. The end is nigh. They’re going to demote me and
burn me at the stake, Min. Send help.”

I laughed. “As HR manager, I’m pretty sure Henry won’t
let them burn you at the stake. It’s not in the OH&S manual.”

“Since when has anything Frost ever does been
in any HR manual?” Sarah asked. “Anyway,
in other news, did Rob just tell me you’re moonlighting as a brickie now?? And
Gemma just texted me and told me she’s on her way to Thailand??? Honestly, I’m away for like one day and
everything turns upside down. I should have hired a babysitter for you lot.”

Sometimes I thought I
probably needed one. I didn’t bother telling her about how badly my so-called
co-workers had taken me being outed; I didn’t want her to worry. She’d bother
Rob if she knew, and she had enough stuff on her plate already. Plus, it wasn’t
like I could really do anything about it; I needed the money. I just needed to
tough it out.

While I was lost in
thought, another message came through. “Wow,
I nearly forgot the whole purpose of my assignment!” it said. “Mission: Check on Henry. Um, there’s really
no nice way to put this, so how would you like the news?”

It sounded like she didn’t
want to tell me that he was fine without me, so I braced myself. “Shoot.”

“Well, all the interns love him and he’s super professional and all
that, but…” There was a pause between messages. “I don’t know, dude. There’s something a bit off about him. He’s
got the saddest polite smile I’ve ever seen. I don’t think he’s doing that
great.”

I had to read that message
twice. It was simultaneously the best news and the worst news I could have
received, and despite the fact part of me was cheering, ‘He misses you!’, the rest of me kept remembering how miserable
Gemma had been—what if he was like that?—and how upset he’d been on
the phone, and when I’d bumped into him at the restaurant. God, my heart ached thinking about him sitting
alone in his house, crying like she had
been. I hoped he wasn’t doing that. It was probably my fault if he was, though,
wasn’t it?

Before I’d thought it
through, I texted Sarah, “Can you tell him
to call me? Tell him I miss him and I want to help.”

Her reply was quick. “Uh, no can do, Mister. He’s obviously trying
to get over you. Just leave it and give him some space. It’s not for you to get
involved anymore.”

Yes, but I know I can make him feel better, I thought fiercely, and then took a
few breaths. Or maybe I couldn’t. Maybe seeing me again would make him feel
worse? Ugh. I thanked her and dropped the phone in my lap, running my
hands over my face. She was right.

It wasn’t long before the
sound of revving utes trying to navigate the loose sand got me up off the
sandbank and back onto the work site, where the chatter of loud, ocker voices and slamming car doors was already
obscuring the wind and the waves. Tucking my phone away, I got back to work.

I couldn’t dwell on how
Henry was feeling for too long because, embarrassingly, Daz and Rob had clearly
had a word to the other boys over lunch
about me. The other four were a lot more subdued, suddenly: too suddenly.
That was almost as bad as them whispering; I hated the thought of people
needing to be told to behave around me.

I was half-heartedly
mixing some water into the hardening mortar when Rob took the shovel out of my
hand and placed something into it. When I looked down at it, it was a Red Bull.
He grinned at me. “Have one for me, would you?” he said. “I promised Sares I
wouldn’t.”

At least some of my co-workers were awesome, I thought, grinning, and sipped at it while I turned the mortar with my
other hand. It reminded me a lot of Sarah sneaking me Red Bulls when people were being terrible at Frost; I wondered if
she’d told him.

Before we could start
again, Daz carefully went over the brickwork Rob and I had done that morning
with his spirit level. When he was done, he patted Rob on the back and gave me
the thumbs up. That made me feel much prouder than I’d expected it to, and I
was smiling as Rob and I got back to work on the wall.

We had to finish as the
sun went down, so I helped clean up the site and put the tarps back over it,
and then we all drove in a big convoy back to the tiny nearby town. Daz must
have rented us a holiday house to stay in there,
because we all pulled up beside an ordinary-looking house. The guys all hopped
out and started carting things onto the front veranda: a half-empty slab of
beer, a BBQ, bags and eskies.

I’d lifted a big esky off
the tray of one of the utes to help, but
immediately one of the boys said, “Nah, let me carry that,” and took it off me.
I offered to help with the BBQ, too, but no one would give me the tongs. The
final clincher was when one of the boys started to make a really rude joke and
Jonno hushed him. They all awkwardly tried to avoid looking at me before
someone changed the subject.

Honestly? I might as well
be standing here in a fucking Cinderella dress, for how they saw me. The worst
thing was that they were actually starting to make an effort—Jonno even put a
beer in my hand, but only after he’d helpfully taken the lid off it,
something he didn’t do for anyone else—they just had no idea what they were
doing wrong. Rob looked absolutely overjoyed when one of them made a huge,
lumbering effort to ‘he’ me—after which he expected me
to thank him—and I didn’t have the heart to explain to Rob why that
hardly made a difference.

I couldn’t say anything about
it to the rest of them anyway. I’d put big money on them getting all weird
around me again if I asked them to stop treating me like a lady just
because I was different.

Before long, it got really
exhausting sitting around those white, stubbly faces and being constantly aware
that I was the odd one out in every way, so I stood and mumbled something about
not having slept much the night before, and went and shut myself in one of the
bedrooms in the house.

I sat down slowly on the
edge of the bed. I’d had a few beers; less than it took to make
me really drunk but my head was swimming a little.

I don’t want to be here, I thought, gazing down at the gaudy carpet on the
floor. I didn’t have much of a choice, though, because I had debts that needed
to be paid. I couldn’t be picky about what I did for money anymore, and who’s
to say if I walked out on this job that the next place wouldn’t treat
me worse? I just had to deal with it.

I’d just rather deal with it at home with Bree to cuddle, I thought, and then reminded myself
she probably wouldn’t have been able to pay that much attention to me
if I was there anyway: she had too much studying to do. I wondered if she’d
managed to get her teeth into those maths problems she was worried about during
the day, though?

Figuring a short phone
call wouldn’t interrupt her too much, I dialled her number. It would be nice to
have a chat with her.

She must have accidentally
left her phone on silent, though, because she didn’t answer. Sighing, I figured
I'd go and have a shower before the bathroom was full of drunk men. I was in
there with my binder halfway over my head when something rattled, and I
realised it was my phone vibrating on the vanity. Unfortunately, my forearms
were weak and aching from mixing mortar all day, and that, plus being tipsy,
meant I wasn’t able to struggle out of the binder fast enough. I missed
the call by a millisecond.

Groaning, I tried her
again, this time getting the message, “The person you are calling is on the
phone…’ which meant she was probably trying to call me.

I laughed a bit at that and put my phone back on the
vanity to wait for her to call through. She must have done exactly the
same thing, because I finished with my
quick shower and was getting into my pyjamas before it buzzed again. I answered
it immediately.

I was in the middle of
saying, “This is phone tag, right? Does that mean I’m ‘it’?” when I heard the
three international dial tones.

All the blood drained from
my face.

The voice that answered wasn’t
the cheerful, bubbly voice I was expecting; it was the complete opposite. “Oh,
so I see your phone is working just fine now,” it told me dryly in Korean.

It was my mother’s voice.

TWENTY-SEVEN

I stood there staring at my face in
the mirror with the phone against my ear. The combination of shock and alcohol
was paralysing, but I had to do something. You could just hang up, I told myself. Hang the phone up, Min. Turn it off. You don’t have to talk to her
right now. Don’t wait, just take the phone away from your—

“You sounded like you were
having a good time with the person you thought was calling.”

Bree. My voice rasped when
I spoke. “W-We’d just been trying to call each other, that’s all.”

“Are you having a good
time, Min?” She sounded deathly calm. That was always a bad sign.

It wasn’t like I could
pretend I didn’t have good reception, either; she was crystal clear. She’s going to kill me, I thought. She’s going to—

“Are you having a good
time?” When I didn’t reply, she prompted me, “Well, are
you?”

“No,” I managed.

“I think you are,” she
told me. “You want to know what I’ve been doing?”

I closed my eyes. It was
too late to escape this conversation, wasn’t it?

“I’ve been worried sick
for days, Min. Worried sick. I
was sitting here imagining all the awful things that might have happened to my
only daughter, my only family left in the world apart from my dying mother.”

“I told you why I wasn’t—”

“Oh, yes,” she
interrupted. “You told me. ‘My phone is broken’. Is that true?”

Well,
technically… “Actually, my phone was broken after I—”

She
saw straight through me. “Is your phone broken, Min? Is it broken
now?

I swallowed, watching my
lips press into a thin line in my reflection. “No.”

She let that hang in the
air for a moment. “So you lied to me.”

My whole face hardened;
there was no point in arguing. “Yes.”

She exhaled with what
seemed like excessive disappointment.
“Why, Min? You know how my nerves are. Why would you ignore text after text,
email after email, knowing how much it worries me? Why would you lie to me about it?”

I wished I could
think of something smart to say to deflect all of this, but I’d had too many
beers and my head was spinning. All I could do was stare dumbly at my
reflection.

“Why, Min? Do you have
a brand new family and you don’t need your boring old mother anymore,
is that it? I mean, is it even true about Henry not telling his family about
the wedding? Maybe you just don’t want me involved, maybe you think their ideas are better. Will you even
tell me about the wedding, I wonder? Am I even invited to—”

“Mum…”

“Don’t you ‘Mum’ me,” she
said, throat tight. “My only daughter—the most important person to me in the
world—is finally getting
married. I’ve longed for this my entire life. I’ve been planning for it, dreaming of it. I’m so excited
for you. This is my only chance for a beautiful wedding, I don’t have
other children. But it seems like you don’t even care. It’s like
you’re trying to take it away from me! I’ve just been sitting here
crying all day. I don’t know what to do with you.”

And I didn’t know what to
say to that. She wasn’t going to get a ‘beautiful’ wedding out of me,
not for many, many years. I didn’t want to feel guilty about it either because
I didn’t choose to be the way I was, but she wasn’t pretending to be upset, she was upset. Ugh…

“Why are you doing this to
me, Min? Why would my own daughter do this to me?” She paused. “Is it Henry’s
mother? Does she want this wedding all for herself? Because she
already had her chance when she let her daughter marry that awful
Chinese man, and she doesn’t—”

“No, Mum.”

She made a noise. “Well then, what is it?
What’s wrong with you? Why are you pushing me away just at the moment
when we’re finally about to have everything we’ve always wanted?
Don’t you want me to be part of your life?”

I kept my mouth shut.

“Maybe now that you’ve got
a sparkling social life, it
doesn’t matter to you what happens to the mother who gave up everything to make
sure you—” She stopped abruptly as if something had occurred to her. “Wait.
It’s your new ‘friends’, isn’t it?” She didn’t give me time to reply.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with them recently.”

I stifled a groan. “No, Mum, they—”

“—have clearly been in
your ear. That unmarried white girl from Frost you’re staying with, how old is
she? How interesting that you quit your job at Frost right before moving in
with her. Did she tell you to do that?” She didn’t give me enough time to
reply. “I bet she did.” She exhaled. “I bet Henry would think she’s—”

“Henry likes Sarah,
Mum.”

She huffed. “Well, you
could say Henry likes anyone right now, Min, and I wouldn’t know any
better, would I? Not since you told Henry not to call me. Anyway, now that
you’re not working seven days a week, it’s time you started going back to church.
Maybe you’ll meet some nice friends—”

I grit my teeth.
“I have nice friends.”

She still wasn’t
listening. “Henry could go with you to church, too. When he was over here at Easter, he said he was interested in learning
more about Catholicism. He really is such a good man, I think he’d even repent
and convert for us. Then you could get married in a Catholic church, wouldn’t
that be beautiful?”

I clammed up, because there was no fucking point.

I could hear—a keyboard, I
think. Was she typing?  “…Anyway, I think you living with this
‘friend’ is bad for you; you should move out straight away. Henry always
said you’d be welcome to move in with him. And I suppose it’s a bit unorthodox,
but you could always set up another bedroom so people don’t think you’re living
in sin. I’m sure Henry can help you afford a moving van to—oh, never mind, I
see you have a bit of money in your account anyway.” I heard a mouse clicking.
Was she…? “Hmm, what’s this deposit on Thursday? $450? Where did you
get that money? Oh—silly me. Henry probably thought ahead and gave
you some money so you could afford the car repayment yesterday…”

I bristled;
she was in my online banking. “I’m not moving out, Mum.”

She paused for a moment and then kept speaking like I hadn’t
said anything. “It shouldn’t cost too much to rent a van—oh, look, there’re even Korean people who do it in
Sydney! They look very nice. This photo on the website looks like the son of
one of the ladies from Church. Such a lovely boy. How much do you think it
would cost for tomorrow—”

“It doesn’t matter how
much it’s going to cost, Mum, I’m not moving out of Sarah’s!”

“Oh, dear, that’s a bit
more than you have. Hmm…” I heard more mouse-clicking.

“Mum!” I raised my voice
when she kept not listening. “Mum, I’m not moving!” I repeated it in
Korean, which was probably a bit rude. “Do you understand? I’m not moving!”

This time, she responded
to me. “Yes, you are,” she said, sounding very sure of herself. “I just rented
you a van for tomorrow morning, at 8am.
There wasn’t quite enough money in your account so I thought I’d be a bit
generous and pay the rest of it with my money. Good, I’m glad that’s sorted.
Now we can get back to your wedding without your friends meddling.”

Did she just…

I couldn’t… did she
just fucking use the last of my money to rent a fucking van? “Cancel it!”
The words burst out of my mouth as I watched my face go red in the
reflection. “I need that money, I have debits coming out and I don’t want to—”

It was like I’d hardly
even spoken. “Henry can give you the money. Anyway, this may seem a bit harsh
to you, Min, but I’m doing it for your own good. You
make terrible decisions by yourself, and your friendship
with that woman was a bad decision. She would have ruined the life
I’ve worked so hard to build for you. In
the end, when you’re happily married to Henry, you’ll realise I was right to be
strict with—”

“—No! Mum! Mum,
stop! Cancel that, I need the money, I really need the money!”

She sighed impatiently.
“For what, Min?”

“I have car repayments,
credit card repayments, and I have a loan that I—”

“You have a credit
card?” She didn’t sound surprised. “How long have you been hiding that from me,
Min Lee? I bet it’s maxed out, isn’t it? You know, I think I’ve let you try and
manage your own finances for long enough now, it’s really clear you’re terrible
with money. Look at this: $400 on a pearl necklace back in May? Really, Min, that’s the
reason you don’t have any money. If you hadn’t spent that, you’d have some
money left after paying for the moving van now. You can get angry at me all you
like, but in the end, it’s your fault—”

I saw red. “No!” My voice echoed off the walls of
the bathroom. “I’m an adult, I have expenses that I need to pay, you can’t
just go rifling around in my account when your—”

“Oh, yes, Min, you’re such
a responsible, mature adult. So mature you waste all your money and then blame
me when there’s none left. So mature you just ignore your mother’s messages
when you can’t be bothered spending five minutes to reply to them, even though
you know I’m excited about your wedding—”

I didn’t know where
to fucking start with her. “You know what, Mum? If it was five minutes, I wouldn’t mind! But you expect
me to be constantly available to you all day to talk about weddings
and honeymoons and—”

“Well, excuse me for
caring about my only daughter’s wedding! What a terrible mother I must be,
wanting the best for my daughter! I’m sorry if I’m interfering with your busy schedule of being unemployed and doing
no housework when I see something beautiful I want to share with you. I don’t
mean to drag you away from your friends for five minutes—”

“I bet
that’s exactly what you want, Mum. I bet you wish I
had no friends and I could spend all day, every day paying attention
to you and doing what you want!”

“Min – Lee!” she bellowed down the phone, and the speakers hissed
with static at the volume of her voice. I had to hold it away from my ear,
wincing. “Listen to yourself! Listen to the way you’re speaking to
your own mother!” She paused, letting silence
hang between us for a moment before she spoke again. “I gave up everything for
you—everything you have is because of me. And, yet, you take me for
granted. You’re selfish, rude to me, so cruel to me, blaming me for
things that aren’t my fault, ignoring me when you feel like it, taking away the
things that are important to me just because it’s not convenient for
you to share them. Sometimes I wonder why God gave me such a terrible daughter,
and then I remember that He gives the toughest challenges to the strongest
people. That’s the only way I get through the torment of being your
mother, Min. The only way.”

My lips were pressed so
tightly together that in the mirror I
could see they were white. I couldn’t think straight. I wanted to break the fucking mirror.

“Apologise to me, Min Lee,” she demanded. “Apologise for being rude, and cruel, and ignoring me.”

She had to be fucking
kidding. “No.”

“What do
you mean ‘no’?”

“Shouldn’t you be the one
apologising to me? You just took all my—”

“—I do what needs to
be done, Min. And it’s really hard sometimes, especially when my own
daughter acts like I’m some sort monster for simply trying to take care of
her. You’re selfish and you always push me to the point at which I’m forced
to—”

“—no one forced you
to spend all of my money! You just want to control every little—”

“’Your’ money,
Min? Your money? Whose money do you think paid for all your school
fees for fifteen years? Whose money fed you and clothed you for 20 years?
Should I have kept a ledger so you know exactly when you’re done
paying me back? Should I have—”

I was shouting into the
phone, the volume making the microphone hiss. “That’s just it,
Mum! When do I stop having to pay you back? When is enough
enough? When do I stop having to do every single little fucking thing you
want me to do, Mum? When do I get to
live my life?”

Her throat was tight.
“Well, you’d be about to, Min. You’d be about to if
your friends would just stop interfering with your marriage to
Henry—”

I could hear the words as
they tumbled out of my mouth, helpless to stop them. “There’s not going to be
any fucking marriage to Henry, Mum! I broke up with him three months ago! We – broke – up!”

For a second, the receiver
was silent. All I could hear was the sound of me panting, and my
heart hammering in my ears. My reflection gaped at me.

I did it.

When she first spoken, it sounded uncertain.
Disbelieving. “But the ring you—”

Now there was no stopping
me. “I pawned it.”

“You pawned—” The
last syllable choked off. Then, she took a few breaths,
and gathered herself. “You stupid,
stupid girl,” she told me,
spitting the words out like she was scolding a bad child. “You stupid girl. You are throwing
everything away, everything you’ve
worked so hard to build. First your world-class job, now your perfect husband. You get on that phone this very
instant, Min Lee! You find his number and apologise and tell him you want him—”

“—I don’t have his number,
Mum! He doesn’t want to talk to me—”

“—Then drive to his house!
Tell him you were wrong and that your stupid tramp friend has been in your ear,
telling you that marriage isn’t—”

“—stop insulting my
friends, Mum! They actually care about me. About me! Me! The way I am, not the way they keep trying to force me to
be! None of the things you were telling me—”

“Shut up! Shut up, you stupid, stupid girl!
You think your friends are going to hang around and take care of you
when you’re old and childless? You think they’re going to spoon-feed you like I
do your Grandma? No! Your family does that. Those ‘friends’ will
disappear, Min, mark my words. The
second you’re old and alone, they will disappear. Everyone will turn on you and
you won’t even be able to afford to fill a shopping basket. No one will employ
you. People will turn their nose up at you in the street. There will be no one
to call at night when you’re alone and lonely, no one to—”

“—my friends aren’t like—”

“You’re stupid! You don’t know what people are
like to old single women! If you did, you wouldn’t throw Henry away like a piece
of garbage and you’d marry him quick smart. God, you are stupid! Why do I
have such a stupid, stupid daughter? Henry is the best
man you will ever find, Min Lee. No one else would look twice at you, you’re
tall, plain, selfish, and mentally ill. But Henry—that wonderful, wonderful
man—put up with you, and he was prepared to marry you, and now you’ve cast
him aside—”

“—which means you’re in
luck, Mum! Now’s your chance, while he’s single. You can cut out the
middleman and marry him yourself!”

She stopped yelling at
me and her words died on her lips. I thought she was going to deliver me an
ultimatum, a threat, or maybe one final shocking blow—I was ready for
it, I was so ready for it, because
I had one more final, shocking blow to tell her myself—but then there was
a smack down the receiver.

For a moment, there was
total silence, and then empty dial tones beeped in my ear.

She’s hung up on me, I realised, staring at my red face and open jaw in the
reflection. She’s fucking hung up on
me!

I yelled—a noise
from deep within my chest that strained my vocal chords and
echoed off the tiles—grabbing at my hair, just, fucking—why was she like this? Why? Why did she think she could just take my money
whenever she wanted to—fuck her—calling
Sarah a tramp? Sarah was fucking awesome. She was there for me. She made me
feel like I was this funny, interesting person and just—ugh, how dare
she? I leant heavily on the vanity, watching my heaving chest rise and fall in
the mirror.

The words were on the very
tip of my tongue, the very edge: ‘I hate you’, but there was no
fucking point in saying them. She wouldn’t be able to hear them, and even if
she did, she’d probably think I was just being difficult.
It would be more evidence of the great burden she had, being my
mother.

I sank down onto the
closed lid of the toilet, putting my head in my hands. It was pounding.

Well, she knows now, I thought, staring at the cracked
white tiles of the bathroom floor between my bare feet. That means no more wedding talk.

I wondered what it meant
instead, though.

Well, for starters it means you have no fucking money, I realised, feeling my heart
jump-start again. I needed to inspect the damage. With shaking hands, I dialled
my bank and tried to remember my phone banking password—I think it had
been years since I used it—and then listened to the automated voice
awkwardly recite my bank balance: ‘one…. dollar and ninety-…one cents’. I closed my eyes.
She hadn’t been bluffing. Of course
she fucking hadn’t. And she’d transferred it to her own account first, so I
couldn’t even cancel the transaction.

I wondered what she was
going to do next.

While I was imagining her
face appearing in my bedroom doorway in the middle of the night like it used to
when I was a kid, my phone buzzed in my hands and lit up.

It’s her! I thought immediately, panicking and nearly
dropping the handset on the tiles. I couldn’t do it again, I couldn’t deal
with—

The display on the screen
underneath the number was a big, smiling face framed by blonde
curls. Bree. I exhaled with loud, audible relief, and answered,
closing my eyes.  “Hey…”

“I finally got you!” she
said brightly, and then on hearing me, paused at length. “Wait, are you okay?”

I half-smiled at that. For
someone who was completely tone-deaf, she was surprisingly perceptive
about the smallest changes in my voice. “No…” I told her through a tight jaw.
She gave me space to reply, and I managed, “I fucking hate my mother,
Bree...” and then, before I could stop myself, I just spilt out
everything that had just happened in one big verbal vomit—the phone call, the
argument, what Mum had said about my ‘friends’ and what she’d done with my
money—until I felt exhausted like I’d just run a marathon. “So now
I’m fucked,” I finished. “I’m
broke, like really broke, and I have no fucking idea what
she’ll do next. I almost expect her to call the university and cancel my
master’s, or, I don’t know, harass Sarah at work and tell her she’s ruined my
life or something…”

Bree made an attempt at
comforting me. “Maybe she’ll just calm down and do nothing? Like, she already
spent all your money, maybe that’s enough? My dad
sometimes explodes but it never lasts very long and then he acts like
nothing has happened…”

I sighed. “No, Mum doesn’t
let stuff go, and I’ve honestly never talked back to her. She
was really angry with me, I don’t know what she’s going to do. She’s
probably planning something right now. I hope she doesn’t come here.
I really hope she doesn’t come here...”

“Do you think she would?”
Bree wondered aloud. “Like, would she just show up like that?”

“I don’t know if she’d
‘just show up’, because she has to get
someone to look after Grandma, and I don’t know if she’s got enough money to
drop everything and come right now,” I said, and then groaned and ran a hand
over my face. “Who am I kidding? I don’t know. I don’t know what she’ll do.
I’ve never yelled at her before, and now she knows about Henry and me…”

“At least she can’t take
any more of your money, because it’s all
gone.” I think that was meant to cheer me up. “You should change your banking
passwords right now anyway, though.”

“I can’t,” I told her.
“There’s no data reception out here. I’ll change it when I get back.”

Bree was silent for a
moment, and I knew what she was about to offer: ‘Give me your password, I’ll change it for you!’.
That was not going to happen, because she’d take a peek at my
account—let’s be serious, this was Bree
and she wouldn’t be able to help herself—and I didn’t want her to
find anything in there that might suggest that I’d gone behind her
back and paid her fees.

Fortunately, she let it
go. “Oh, well, it’s good Daz is paying you in cash, at least you don’t have to
worry she’ll take it from you before you can change it,” she said. “How is it,
by the way? Is it fun working with them?”

I sighed heavily; this job. “I don’t think this is going
to work out,” I told her, and then gave her the abridged version of what it was
like to be a genderqueer Korean artist around ‘classic country boys’ or
whatever Rob had called them. “I mean, I’ll work with them for as long as they
let me, but…”

Bree had a much stronger
reaction than I had. “That fucking sucks,” she said. “I thought for sure
it’d be fun working with Rob! Oh, well, whatever. You can get a job somewhere
else and not come out to anyone.”

I wished it was that simple.
“Awesome, it’s all sorted!” I said with false enthusiasm.

“Don’t be like that, I’m
sure we can find something,” Bree said optimistically. “Maybe if you
worked around women it might be better? I mean, I know that’s weird, but if you’re
saying that working around super
masculine country boys makes you feel different and feminine, maybe working
around really feminine people will make you feel more masculine or
something? Like maybe in an office with lots of women?”

I frowned. She was being oddly specific. “Do you have
somewhere in mind?”

“Nah,” she said
innocently. “I just meant for example.”

I wasn’t sure I believed
her, but I was too fucking tired to worry about it. “Maybe,” I said. “But after
the day I’ve had, honestly? I just want to focus on getting this job
done and getting paid so I can put something in my account.” I
ran my hands through my hair. “Fuck!
Why did she have to raid my account now?
She could honestly have done it at any other point in my life and it wouldn’t
have mattered at all. I have debits that
are due to come and I don’t know what day
they will—maybe even tomorrow.”

“It’s okay if they bounce,
you can pay them when you get back,” Bree told me sagely. “Big banks don’t care
if you’re a few days late with payments.”

Big banks, maybe. But
dodgy pawnbrokers certainly would, and Seung had been super fucking
clear about paying on time. I needed to have my cash in the bank first
thing tomorrow morning, just to be sure. “Mmm,” I said neutrally.

Bree noticed, but I think
she assumed it was just because of the argument. “I suppose it’s stupid to say
‘don’t think about your mum’, yeah? I’m always really fucked up after I argue
with Mum and Dad.” Her tone softened. “But look on
the bright side: at least your mum knows now, right? You won’t have, like,
a million texts and emails about weddings making your phone go nuts
and reminding you that you haven’t told her.”

I looked down my body at
my men’s pyjamas. “I haven’t told her everything, Bree,” I reminded her
soberly, “and she was so angry
about Henry
and me. I just…” I put my head in hands again and made a really
frustrated noise. “Fuck. Everything is so fucked.”

I would have liked to
spend a bit longer talking to Bree because I was still shaking, but the
other guys started to trickle back into the house, and a heavy knock on the
bathroom door reminded me that I shared it with six other people. Promising I’d
call her back in a bit, I hung up on her so I could quickly finish up in the
bathroom, and then went to grab a drink
of water from the kitchen just to make sure I didn’t need to add ‘hangover’ to
my long list of problems.

I bumped into Rob at the
sink, and he gave me the once-over as I chugged a whole glass of water. “You
don’t look so great,” he observed.

I bet I didn’t. “Probably
your cooking,” I told him. “I think that once a sausage turns black, you’re
supposed to remove it from the BBQ, not turn up the gas.”

He laughed. “Nah,
mate, it’ll put hair on your chest!”

There were a lot of things
I disliked about my chest, but hairlessness wasn’t one of them.
“Thank god it’s only for one night, then.”

He was still chuckling.
“Two nights,” he corrected me, and then
double-took at my blank expression. “Oh yeah, you’d disappeared by the time Daz
told us, whoops! He doesn’t reckon the walls are going to get finished tomorrow
after all.”

I froze. What? “We’re
not going back to Sydney tomorrow night?”

Rob shook his head, having
another mouthful of water. “Nah, we’ll probably stay into Monday and go home in the afternoon—maybe even on Tuesday
morning. Another day-and-a-half to finish up, Daz reckons. Ah well,” he said,
carefully plucking my glass out of my stiff hand and washing it for me. “I’m
not complaining: it’s more money, right?” He put our glasses to dry on the rack
and thumped me on the back as he passed behind me. “’Night!”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Not even Bree reading me an ‘oh my god, so beautiful’
prescribed English text over the phone as a bedtime story helped me sleep. I
let her go when she was falling asleep herself, and then just lay there staring
at the ceiling while one of the boys snored loudly in the room beside mine.
Between the human lawnmower on the other side of the wall, the fact I’d had an
enormous fight with Mum, and the
fact she’d taken all my fucking money right before a loan
payment was due, there was no way I was
getting a good night’s sleep tonight.

To make everything a
million times worse, the alcohol was wearing off and my body ached from doing all that manual labour.
Normal painkillers never worked at all for me anymore, but I tried to take a
couple anyway, tossing and turning for ages before I finally fell asleep. I
don’t know how long that took, but when there was a loud, sudden knock on the
bedroom door, I felt like I hadn’t slept properly at all.

At least most of the guys
looked even worse than I felt; there were a lot of sunglasses at the breakfast
table and the Panadeine Forte was being passed around like breath mints.
Meanwhile, Rob—the only one of us who hadn’t
drunk—was whistling cheerfully away at the BBQ, charring some breakfast
sausages to a perfect crisp for us.

I could barely fucking walk because my back
was killing me, so when the Panadeine Forte arrived in my hands, I
nearly popped a couple of them myself. When I opened the phial and looked down
at those familiar pills, seeing the shape of them all piled on top of each
other reminded me of having a palm full of them on the floor in my bathroom.
Pressing my lips tightly together, I passed them right along. I was not going back there.

Jonno looked surprised I
hadn’t taken any. “Tough guy, eh, Korea?”
he asked me with a broad grin, accepting the phial from me and tossing a couple
into his mouth.

I stared at him. Did he
just call me ‘Korea’?

I asked Rob about it later
when we were in the car on the way to the work site, and he laughed. “Yeah, I
told you they’d get used to calling you ‘guy’!” he said, spectacularly missing
the point. I didn’t have the heart to explain the problem with the rest of that
sentence, and I didn’t bring it up with the rest of the guys when we got on
site, either. They were all calling each other nicknames, too, it was just that
no one was ‘Australia’ or ‘Whitey’, so I kept my mouth shut. On top of being
trans and Asian, I didn’t want to also end up being known as the guy
who couldn’t take a joke, or whatever they’d think about me.

I did make the mistake of
mentioning I was sore, though, which of course meant that none of the
boys would even let me touch any
of the pallets, or the wheelbarrow, or anything weighing more than a single
brick. It was frustrating, and when I asked them not to help,
they acted like I was really ungrateful. I gave up and just angrily churned the
mortar by myself, thinking there was no fucking point in he-ing me if they weren’t going to so much as
let me get my petticoats wet.

I was busy stewing on that
and I didn’t notice the time until my pocket buzzed. I had to take off my glove
so I could unlock my phone and see what Bree had to say. “um…..i think i waited long enough to say that no moving guys
came………….” I checked the clock: it was 9am.

I sighed heavily at my
phone. Mum hadn’t messaged me, either, and when I spent a couple of seconds
calling my bank to find out if I’d been refunded from the movers, my balance
was still $1.91. I hung up with no idea what was going on, and it was making my
headache worse.

I didn’t stop worrying
about it, though, and while I was supposed to be paying attention to getting
the bricks exactly level, I found myself counting the hours since Mum and I had
fought. The flight to Australia is
11 hours, I told myself. And
she’d need maybe three to pack, and how long would it take her to find someone
to look after Grandma?

“Oi, Min!” Rob’s booming
voice shook me out of my head. “What are you doing, mate?” He was pointing at
the row of bricks I’d just laid—and sure enough, the perpends between all the
bricks were all way too thick, I was going to get to the end and have
nowhere to put the last brick. Swearing, I pulled the last dozen bricks off and
repositioned them, trying to focus on what I was actually doing.

We finished the walls the
afternoon of the following day, and then spent an hour or so cleaning up the
site before we left. I took some photos of the finished redbrick walls for myself, because the brickwork looked so
satisfyingly neat I thought I might be able to make a Photoshop texture out of
it—supposing I felt like painting anything ever again.

Daz came over to me while
I was trying to get the frame right, and clapped me on the back. “How are your
arms?” he asked knowingly, and then laughed when I shot him a very telling
glance. “I couldn’t even brush my teeth after I’d laid my first house,” he told
me, and then mimed shakily trying to hold a toothbrush while I chuckled at him.
“Anyway, like I told Rob, we don’t ordinarily need another set of hands, so I
don’t know how much work I’ll have for you, but here’s your share of the
plunder for three days of hard work anyway.”

He slipped a wallet that
was fat with fifty dollar bills out of his back pocket, and took out
a clipped section of them, passing it to me. I thanked him and was about to put
them in my own wallet when he gave me a weird look. “Don’t you want to count
them to make sure I didn’t rip you off?”

It seemed rude to do it in
front of him, but I took the clip off and tabbed through them anyway. There
were 14 of them—$700. That was a couple of weeks’ worth of loan
payments for Seung plus Opal money for Bree and petrol for me. I think I
laughed with relief. “You’re definitely not ripping me off.”

He clapped me on the
shoulder. “That’s the way,” he said, and then pointed at my handful of cash as
he turned to walk away. “That doesn’t go on your tax return, either, just so
we’re clear.”

I saluted him, tucking the
notes into my wallet. At least I’d be okay with the pawnbrokers for a while,
just as soon as I’d changed my banking passwords and put the money in my
account.

We loaded up Rob’s ute with some of the tools and other junk from
the yard, and then set off for the long
drive back up to Sydney.

“Well, I’m buggered,”
Rob said as we finally made it back to the highway. “I think I’ll sleep for
about three days! What about you? You sore?”

“I’ll let you know if I’m
ever able to feel my limbs again,” I told him, checking my phone for data
coverage.

“It feels good here,
though, doesn’t it?” He thumped his big barrel chest. “That we built that nice
house? I always want to buy them and move right in when we’re done. I get
really attached.” He laughed at himself.

I opened my mouth to reply,
but then I noticed I had a text message. Pausing for a moment before I spoke, I
unlocked my phone. I expected it to be from Bree, but it was from an unknown
mobile number.

Mum’s in Australia! was my immediate reaction, and I
think my gasp sounded like a choking noise.

Rob reached over
and thumped my back, making it worse. “Hey, you right there?”

“Yes,” I managed,
shrinking away from his paddle-like hand as my eyes
watered. I blinked to clear them, and, taking a deep breath, mustered up the
courage to finally open the message.

“Okay so here’s the problem: I’m standing in front of an ATM and it’s
telling me this:” There was an attached photo of—the breath caught in my
throat—an ATM receipt with the last four digits of my bank account
number and ‘insufficient funds, transaction cancelled’ printed on it.

I leant towards the screen
of my phone, my stomach dropping. “Not
okay, Min. You said you were good for the money.”

That was… I
swallowed. He was taking the money directly out of my bank account in
cash? I hurriedly tried to text him
back. “I didn’t know you’d take it out
this early so I only have cash because I haven’t banked it yet. I’m not in Sydney right now but I can drop it around
to the store tonight.”

“When?”

My heart was pounding as I
typed out a reply, and I was acutely aware Rob was glancing curiously towards
my screen while he was driving. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Is something
wrong?”

“Kind of,” I told him,
tilting my phone surreptitiously so he couldn’t see what I was writing. “Just
arranging to meet someone.”

“Ah, right,” he said. “Do
I need to drop you off somewhere? Because I reckon most of Sydney is between us
and Sares’ place anyway, it’d be fine.”

I considered that for a
moment, but then decided I didn’t want Rob dropping me off at night in the
dodgy part of Sydney with a full wallet. Besides, I didn’t want him or Sarah
guessing I owed anyone money anyway. “Thanks, but I’ll grab my car from home.”

He grunted, turning his
attention back to the road as I finished typing, “Should be home at maybe 7pm, can
I drop the money around to the store after that?”

“Okay.”

I stared at that single
word reply. He’s angry with me,
I thought, feeling a bit sick. It wasn’t even
my fucking fault that the money wasn’t there. It was because
of Mum that I wasn’t good for my debts for the first time in my whole
life. Fuck! I let my phone fall into my lap,
and then sat heavily back in the seat. Well, maybe I could pay next week’s
payment in advance and maybe get back in his good books again?

I changed my online
banking password as soon as we had data coverage,
and then fidgeted restlessly in my seat while we sat in traffic on the M1 for
what seemed like an eternity. We
got back to Sarah’s at maybe 7:30pm—I
wondered if I should text Seung to update him?—and so I didn’t
look totally rude and unappreciative for Rob getting me a job and
driving me to it, I hurriedly helped him unload the tools off the tray in the
shed before I went to the city.

I spent what felt like
ages trying to hang up Rob’s tools on their drawn outlines on the shed wall,
and then went back to the ute to get my stuff.

While I had the door open,
Rob came jogging up to me from down the driveway, smiling broadly. “Hey!” he
told me. “Your cousin is here—nice bloke, actually! Was that who you were going
to meet? Here, I’ll put your stuff in the house for you.” He wrenched my bag
from me and gently nudged me down the driveway. “Go on, it’s fine!”

I stared at him, all the
blood running out of my face. Cousin? Neither Mum nor Dad had any siblings. Oh my god.

When I got around the front of the house, I could see a
figure standing at the steps up to the
porch with his hands in his pockets, and after a couple of seconds I realised
who it was. “Seung?”

He looked up. In the porch
light, I could see beads of sweat on his face, despite how cool it is. “You’re
really late,” he said quickly, like he’d
been waiting for me. “You told me 7pm!”

“I said about 7pm,” I corrected him. “What are you doing
here? I was about to come into the city!”

He shrugged. “You’re a first-time borrower and you missed your first
payment,” he said, “and you’re scaring the shit out of me. I was sitting here
in the dark waiting for you to come, thinking, ‘this girl has given me a fake
address, and I’m going to have to take that $12k out of my own money for Dad’, and then this
huge fucking biker-looking guy just comes walking up to me and asks what I’m
doing at his house. I thought I was a goner.”

“Rob wouldn’t hurt a fly,”
I said automatically before I’d realised what a fucking idiot I was
for saying that. I should have told him Rob had a black belt in five
different disciplines plus an extensive collection of illegal firearms.

Seung wiped his forehead
with his palm. “Yeah, well, I know that now, but in the dark…” He laughed
nervously; it struck me that he probably didn’t make house calls very often.
“And then he invited me inside for dinner and for a second I went, ‘he’s going
to kill me’. Then I realised he was actually inviting
me inside for dinner.”

I grimaced. Rob…

I think he realised how
amateur he was being and tried to stand straighter. He was still nowhere near
my height. “Anyway, I’m here for the money.”

Like that wasn’t obvious.
I took my wallet out, opening it to get him the $320. “You didn’t need to come
all the way out here to—”

He took a step forward and
just snatched it off me. When I said, “Hey!” and went to take it back off him, he gave me
a very sharp look.

“I didn’t bring security
this time,” he told me pointedly, unfolding my wallet and taking
out all of the notes so he could leaf through them. Then, to
my horror, he tossed the empty wallet back at my feet and
tucked all of the notes in his pocket. “Okay. Thanks.”

What the fucking—I
couldn’t—did he just take all of my—? That was nearly $800! “Are you taking next week’s
payment, too?”

He looked uncomfortable.
“Look, I had to pay my brother to watch the store, and he’s going to tell Dad
what I’m doing if I don’t give him $200. I’m keeping the rest in case you fuck
up again, because this wasn’t exactly a
fun trip to the North Shore for me. So, yeah. I guess you could call it a
default fee.”

He started to walk back to
the car, but I jogged stiffly after him on my sore legs and grabbed his arm as
we got to the bottom of the driveway. “That’s not fair,” I told him. “I didn’t
know you were going to want the money five days after you gave me the
loan, and I worked really hard for—”

He pushed my hand off.
“—Don’t, seriously. Don’t be like this, or—”

“Or what?” I asked. “Or
you’ll repossess my wallet, too? Because there’s nothing else in it!”

He turned to square up
with me, glancing up the driveway. “That’s a nice car,” he commented. “Maybe
you could sell it and pay off the ring. Or maybe you could give it to me and we
could forget about the loan.”

“It’s under finance,” I
told him, “or else you could fucking have it.”

“Is it insured?” he asked.
“Because, you know, things get stolen all the time, and maybe we could come to
some sort of agreement where it could go missing and—”

“I’m not committing
insurance fraud!” I told him, my exhaustion, my temper, and fucking everything getting the better of
me. “And you shouldn’t be taking all my money, I’m fucking sick of people just helping
themselves to everything I own like I can’t have a single fucking thing in
the world that—”

“Dude, I gave you
$12,000!” he said. “Sorry that I want it back, but I’m not a charity?”

“You wanted $320 a week,
not $800 a—”

This time, he found the
guts to shut me down. “Okay!” he said, holding his hands up to placate me.
“Okay. Here’s the thing: I came here by myself because I don’t get customers
like you that often, and I thought you seemed pretty cool and easy to deal
with. I could have gotten a couple of Dad’s friends to visit instead,
and you know how that would have gone down?” He gestured at the house. “They
would have been sitting inside waiting for you when you got home.
They wouldn’t be putting up with this,” he gestured at how close I was
standing to him, “and it would have cost you a hell of a lot more than $800 for
the pleasure of having everyone in your house scared shitless by them.
Basically, you got a pretty good deal getting me to come here. But you know
what?” he asked me. “I’m not coming again.” He held his hands up in a ‘don’t
shoot’ motion. “I was wrong about you being one of those customers that doesn’t cause trouble, pays on time and is easy
to deal with. You’re the same as everyone else. I’m sending them next time, so don’t default,
okay?”

I
was trembling with anger and I didn’t trust myself to say anything that
wouldn’t get me into trouble, so I didn’t say a word.

He exhaled, relaxing a
bit. “Look, I lent you $12k. Do me a favour and just make sure there’s $320 a
week for me to draw out, and there’s not going to be any trouble at all, okay?”
He sighed in what felt like disappointment
at me one last time, and then walked back across
the road, wiping his brow again on his wrist as he got into his car. I spun,
stomping back up the fucking driveway to collect the wallet he’d
just tossed on the footpath like it was nothing.

None of this would have
happened if Mum hadn’t spent all my money, I thought, scooping up some of the
loose change that had fallen out of my wallet when he’d thrown it. If the
$400 had been in there, I’d have been good for that payment. I’d have been
completely fine for—

For two weeks, a more sensible part of me interrupted
as I sat back on my heels for a second, frowning. After which you’d also be fucked, don’t kid yourself. You shouldn’t
have gotten that stupid loan in the first place.

But if I hadn’t done it, I reasoned, I would have wasted the $10k that I—well, that I probably shouldn’t have
spent on Bree’s school fees anyway, to be honest. I shook my head;
what was I thinking? This isn’t
Pretty Woman, Min, I told myself. You’re
not some billionaire sugar daddy descending from on high to solve all her
problems, you’re an unemployed, broke
artist.

But I had the means to help her even if it was just through
getting dodgy loans, so why shouldn’t Bree be able to finish her
school? I found
myself asking. Why should she have
to suffer because her brother defrauded her family, why is
that her problem?

… and why had I made it
mine?

Because Bree is all alone otherwise, I thought fiercely. No one is batting for her. No one’s
protecting her from any of that. And, boy, did I know how that felt.
Boy did I fucking know how that felt.

It was too late to be
debating whether or not I’d done the right thing anyway, I decided. I probably
hadn’t, but it was done now. We just
have to keep her in school, I told myself, chewing on my lips. She just has to finish, then it will be all
worth it.

While I was tucking the
coins back in my wallet, the front door opened a fraction and light spilt out
onto the porch. “Min?”

Bree. I hurriedly
straightened, trying to pretend I was just walking up the path, but it turned
out she wasn’t going to quiz me about what I was doing. She rushed out of the
house in her knee-high socks and slipped all over the porch to pad down the
stairs and throw her arms around me. I really wasn’t in the mood for
being touched, though. She could tell immediately and pulled away.

I was still fuming
from everything, and when I looked down at her, all I saw under that
chin was a whole lot of bare cleavage, the non-regulation jewellery,
an untucked shirt, a loose tie, and everything the Principal had told
me about how Bree shouldn’t wear her uniform if she wanted to keep
going to Cloverfield. Was Bree trying to
waste $21,550? Was she seriously trying to waste it? “Did you go to school like
that?” I probably sounded angrier than I meant to.

Bree’s big smile fell, and
she looked down her body. “Um?”

“I told you about how you need to wear your uniform for—”

She flinched at the volume
of my voice, dropping her arms from me. “Yeah, you did,” she told me a bit
uncertainly. “Forgetting that this is my body, and how I wear my
clothes is actually none of your business?”

Seriously? I took a steadying breath. “We’re not talking about regular clothes,
Bree, we’re talking about a school uniform. When you wear it, you’re representing
the school and you need to—”

“Thanks, Mum,” she said really sarcastically, and
then immediately looked alarmed. “Um, I didn’t mean ‘mum’ because you’re—well,
it’s not misgendering you, it’s an expression that you say when someone is
acting like they're thinking they can
just boss you—”

“—Some
people are allowed to boss you around!” I told her. “What are you
going to say when your future actual boss tells you not to wear whatever you want to—”

She looked me dead in the
eye. “I’ll say, ‘fuck you, I’ll wear whatever I want to the pitch and I’ll nail
it’.”

I stiffened. “That
is not the same thing!” I told her. “And by the way, you do realise
doing that basically got me fired, right? Do you want to be
kicked out of school?”

“What
do you think, Min?” She took a step away from me, giving me the
once-over. She was white as a sheet. “What the hell has gotten into you,
anyway?” she asked, starting to look a bit upset. “You’re never like
this. Like, I get that your Mum is stressing you out, and money is stressing
you out, but can you not come back home and yell at me over something totally unrelated? If I wanted
to be yelled at constantly over stuff that’s not my fault, I could just go back
to my parents’ place!”

She might as well have
punched me. I stood back, things suddenly in perspective. God, what was I
doing? I tried to get myself together. “It is related, though,” I
told her more gently, and put my hands on her shoulders. “The uniform stuff is
related. Fuck. Look, please just
don’t get kicked out of school, okay? You’ve done all this work, and I don’t
want to see you throw it away over not doing up your top buttons.”

She held my wrists, trying
not to let me see her bottom lip was quivering. “Don’t yell at me over something like this,” she pleaded.
“Please, please don’t. It’s not worth it.”

For $21,550, it might have
been worth it. It was on the tip of my tongue: ‘The Principal said she’d kick
you out if you didn’t wear your uniform properly’, but then I’d have to explain
why I’d spoken to the Principal in the first place, and then everything would
end up coming out. I kept my mouth shut while I tried to figure out what I
could tell her without giving everything away.

In the end, I couldn’t
figure it out because I couldn’t fucking think straight. “I’m sorry,” I forced
out of my lips. “I’m just—money is a big problem for me right now,
and I’m just—”

“—Taking it out on someone
who isn’t the problem, which is kind of the story of my life…” Bree finished
quietly. She was shaking. “Look, if you’re starting to really regret
buying me the tablet, and the necklace, and my phone and stuff,
and that’s why you’re so angry, I’ll just sell them and give you the
money. I’d rather get kicked out of school because I can’t do the homework than
feel like I’m the reason you’re so stressed out.”

I closed my eyes and let
that sink in, my mouth firmly shut. That settled it: I wasn’t telling
her anything until she’d graduated. Not now that she’d seen me like
this.

I let her lead me inside,
and I had a long, hot shower because I was sore, exhausted, and my head was
full of cotton wool.

When I was done and I went
back to the bedroom to put my pyjamas on, she was sitting tensely on the edge
of the bed, holding her phone and waiting for me. Her top button was done up and
her tie was straight. Even though that was exactly what I wanted, I felt kind
of awful about seeing it. She looked so uncomfortable.

“It’s not about what you
wear,” I tried to quietly explain. “You could honestly walk around the house in
a bikini if you—”

“I know,” she said, and
then turned those big blue eyes on me. “Just don’t ever yell at me when you’re
stressed out, okay? Like, I can’t take any of it, not even you
raising your voice for a second. It reminds me of home.”

I sat down beside her,
trying to smother a wave of self-hatred. Part of me could
almost not believe she was still talking to me after how
I'd yelled at her; I don't know if I'd talk to me. I nodded. “I’m sorry.” I put a warm hand on
the cool skin of her knee, and squeezed
it. “Are you okay?”

She shrugged, seeming a
bit distracted. She was turning her phone over in her hands a bit anxiously, I
thought. “Min,” she began, “how desperate would you say you are to get a job?”

Was this a trick question?
“Very desperate.”

She nodded. “That’s what I
thought,” she said, and then looked really guilty. “So I did something.”

I frowned. “’Something’?”

She nodded. “I know
somewhere that has jobs that they can never get people to stay in, so I just
thought I’d call and check to see if they were still recruiting.”

I glanced at my phone.
“At 8pm at night?”

She grimaced. “Yeah.
Anyway, I don’t think you’re going to like working there, in fact, I think you’ll hate it, and so I was
like, ‘why am I doing this to Min?’ and then I’m like, ‘well, it’s only for like
a month or two until she starts uni’, and then I was like, ‘why would I want
the person I love to be unhappy even for a couple of months?’ and then I was
like, ‘Min’s really unhappy anyway, she’s going to be really unhappy without
work, maybe this is the lesser of two unhappies.”

I watched her
suspiciously. “So you just found work for me, just like that?” She nodded.
“Who’s it with?”

She looked up at me,
grimacing. “My mum.”

TWENTY-NINE

Following the flow-on from
Mum taking my fucking money, I would have been ready to start
work anywhere the following day. According to Bree, though, her mum
had to sell the idea of me working there to her boss and her husband,
who seemed personally affronted by the fact I didn’t want to work on the
factory floor with him.

“He just thinks it’s
stupid to take a $40k per year job when you could have a $55k one,” Bree told
me as we sat in my car by Cloverfield early on Friday morning,
passing a thermos of instant coffee between us.

“I am willing to sacrifice
$15k a year to not work with your dad,” I said, and then checked my phone
again; I probably had another five or so minutes before I needed to leave for
work.

When I locked the screen
afterwards, my phone was dark; that was still so disorienting. No
flashing lights, no notifications. Nothing. It was only when Bree stopped
sipping her coffee and frowned across at me that I realised I was doing ‘that
teeth-grindy thing’ again.

She nodded at my phone.
“Isn’t that technically what you wanted? Her to stop hassling you?”

Not like this, I thought, and then
put my phone back in my breast pocket. Not with this feeling hanging over
me that she was planning something. “Sure,” I said. “The silent treatment
from my mother. Who doesn’t want that?”

Bree took a thoughtful sip
from the thermos, her fingers peeking out from under the long sleeves of her
jumper. “Well, I hope you don’t hate working with my mum, too,” she
said. “Like, not that I’m nominating her for Mother of the Year or anything,
but she got you a job, right? She can be okay. At least she’s not scary like
Dad.”

“She tried to T-bone my
car at 60 kilometres an hour.”

“She thought you were a
debt collector,” Bree reminded me. “I mean, I don’t think you’re going to have,
like, an amazing time or
anything, but hopefully it won’t be awful working with her. At least not
Frost-awful.”

“Hopefully,” I said. At
least I wouldn’t have to be out like I
was with the construction guys; that job might have gone very differently if
they’d continued to think I was a guy. “As long as no one guesses I’m female.”

Bree gave me the
once-over. “They won’t,” she said easily,
like it was no big deal.

“Some people do,” I
reminded her, shifting nervously in my seat. “And it will be broad daylight,
and there will be lots of people.”

“Yeah, and you’re wearing
your packer,” Bree told me, and nodded
down at my crotch. “So all those people will literally just glance at you, see
your short hair, your flat chest, and the lump in your pants and never
even question it.” She passed me the thermos so I could have a
mouthful. “Honestly, Min, you’re overestimating how much they know about gender. The people Mum works with are all old.
It was this enormous scandal when their old boss came out because
most of them had never met a gay person before, so I guarantee none of them have
any idea what ‘transgender’ is. It’ll be fine. You look like a guy, they will
literally never think to wonder if maybe you aren’t. I mean, seriously: Andrej
was standing right there saying ‘Min is a girl!’ and Mum and Dad just thought
he was insulting you.”

That was a very good
point. It was also very reassuring that there seemed to be no need to come out
to them anymore; honestly, coming out to Mr Dejanovic was right up top on my
list of things that I would sell my soul to avoid. I had a mouthful of coffee
while I thought about that, and then passed the thermos back to Bree.

She accepted it from me
and tipped the last of the coffee down her throat. Putting the thermos
back in the cup holder, she sighed. “I think that means I should probably
go.” She peered resentfully down her body at her tucked-in, buttoned-up shirt
and her straightened tie.

I touched her thigh.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.

She sighed again. “He’s
going to think he’s won when he sees me like this.”

“Your Maths teacher?” She
nodded. “Let him. Maybe he won’t bother you as much.”

Bree turned around and
gave me a really strange look. “Who are you?”
she asked, and I was about to reply when she scrunched up her face and put a
hand on my arm to silence me. “Sorry,” she said
before I could speak. “Sorry, that was totally rude. I’m just—” She exhaled. “I
have no idea about the Maths homework I’m supposed to have done, and
he’s going to pick on me and be nasty about it. Part of me just wants to hide
in the library...” At my expression, she added, “Don’t worry, I won’t. I just
feel like it.”

“It will be over in two
months,” I promised her. “You just need to hold tight until then and try and
get the best grades you can.”

She watched me for a few
seconds, her expression unreadable. “Yeah, okay,” she said a bit vaguely, and
then opened the door and gave me a very chaste kiss in case anyone was looking.

I stayed put until I saw
her disappear inside the grounds—without the usual spring in her step, I
noticed—before pulling away from the kerb.

The drive from Bellevue
Hill out west to the factory was long, and it reminded me of all those times
I’d spent ages in the car to get to Henry’s place in the suburbs. As I drove
along the highway, I watched all the apartment buildings get smaller and the
trees get bigger, and when my GPS told me to turn off into an industrial
estate, I think I’d been driving for nearly 45 minutes.

The area the factory was
in was a complex with a dedicated secure car park. When I drove cautiously past
the gatehouse, though, there was no one inside it and the gate was wide open. I
felt like I was trespassing. I found a park and got out of my car,
self-consciously smoothing down my shirt and walking towards what I thought was
probably reception.

The receptionist was a
girl who was about Bree’s age and she made me wait for a couple of seconds
while she finished texting someone. “Oh,” she said when she finally looked up,
“You’re Briana Dejanovic’s boyfriend, right? Lee something?” I noticed she
pronounced ‘Dejanovic’ the same way Bree did; she was probably Serbian, too.

I nodded. “Min.”

“Yeah, that’s it,” she
said. “Hang on, I’ll buzz Vera.” It took me a second to remember that that was
how Mrs Dejanovic had introduced herself to me.

I loitered uncomfortably
in the small reception area while I waited for her to show up and collect me.

Compared to the enormous
and sleek atrium at Frost HQ, the reception area in—I glanced up at the sign—‘Radic Automotive Manufacturing’ was
small, tired and dated. There was a single couch opposite the reception desk,
and its faux-leather cushions were cracking and peeling. The carpet hadn’t
fared much better; it had a couple of suspicious stains on it, and the fake
flowers on the side table beside a stack of two-year-old magazines hadn’t been
dusted in some time. The receptionist was on her mobile phone again, too.

“Min?”

I looked up, my heart pounding. Mrs Dejanovic came
bustling into the reception area, looking right at me. She was wearing a floral
shirt and a pair of slacks, and that made me feel really self-conscious; I was
in a full suit again. I swallowed. I hoped it wouldn’t make her look too hard at me in all this daylight.

She nodded in greeting,
and then her eyes travelled up and down me—for a second I panicked that I might
be readable as female—but that wasn’t her reaction. “Smart casual is okay,” she
said about my suit and then gestured for me to follow her.

To get to the office, she
had to lead me along a walkway at the edge of the factory floor. The floor
itself was huge and divided into separate areas with different machines,
and there was a huge arched ceiling with enormous ventilation fans spinning
above everyone. The machines formed some sort of complex assembly line and
there were dozens of people working on it. Mr Dejanovic works out there somewhere, I thought, casting my eyes
across the floor. I couldn’t see him, though. Maybe it wasn’t his shift.

The offices were enclosed
on the other side of the factory—thank god, because the air on the factory
floor smelt positively carcinogenic—and there were windows on all sides. It was
all open plan with about ten or fifteen mismatched desks and wobbly partitions,
and about the same number of mismatched people working at them. All their faces
looked up at me as we entered. I felt like a deer in headlights.

“So this is Briana’s
boyfriend at last?” someone asked, pronouncing Bree’s name with a trilled ‘r’.
The woman speaking had dyed brown hair and grey roots peeking through, and when
she stood up and walked around her desk to come and shake my hand, she had a
bit of a hunch. “He looks very sharp, Vera! I like a man who can dress!”
Despite the fact she was giving me a cheeky smile, she was probably about sixty
and a grandmother, so I didn’t think she was genuinely flirting with me. She was just being nice, so I managed a polite
smile at her as we shook hands.

Mrs Dejanovic gestured at
the lady who was speaking to me. “This is Ljiljana,” she told me, which
explained her accent, “She does payroll and rosters.”

I think Ljiljana noticed
my expression. “Just ‘Lilly’ is fine,” she promised, and then went and sat back
down. “Anyway, it’s lovely to meet you! We were all worried about Briana for a
while. That girl has a bit of a wild streak.” She grinned at Mrs Dejanovic. “I
wonder who she gets that from!”

“Definitely from my
husband,” Mrs Dejanovic told her flatly, and then led me over to an empty desk.
Because I must have looked a bit puzzled about that exchange, Mrs Dejanovic
gestured towards Lilly. “She’s my—how do
you say?—my ‘aunt-in-law’? I don’t know the English word.”

“I don’t think there is an
English word for that,” I told her. Korean probably had a specific word, too,
but I didn’t know it either.

Lilly was still chatting away,
and I think it was supposed to be to us. “Anyway, Briana’s always been
rebellious, so if her idea of rebellion is dating an Asian boy, well, good. Let
her think she’s doing something radical. Less chance of
her actually doing something radical like heroin or getting her nose
pierced, I say.” I wasn’t sure how to take that.

After I’d hung my jacket
over my chair, Mrs Dejanovic introduced me one by one to the dozen or so other
people in the office. They were all women, every single one. A good
chunk of them had what I supposed were Serbian names, too—I thought it was a
bit rude to ask—but there were also a couple of Anglos and two Indian ladies
who were sisters. Actually, there seemed to be a lot of family in
this factory. As people were introducing themselves, they also added tidbits of extra information like, ‘My husband
works on the floor’, and pointed out other people in the office that they were
of some relation to. The only person who wasn’t related to anyone was
their boss, the general manager, and he was elsewhere meeting with clients,
apparently.

After introductions, Mrs
Dejanovic sat me down at my desk and went through all the usual orientation
stuff; where the evacuation points were, who the first aid officers were, and
how to get to all of the toilets. Then she helped me log in and explained what
I’d be doing. As far as I could ascertain, my position was a very ad-hoc one,
bits and pieces of all the easy stuff other people didn’t have time to do,
which was mostly data entry, filing and keeping various spreadsheets up to
date. Nothing I was going to have any trouble doing at all, so by mid-morning
she’d already finished teaching me what I needed to know.

Satisfied she didn’t
have to supervise me anymore, she rolled sideways to her own desk to get stuck
into her own work. Around her desk, I
caught a glimpse of colours and decorations, so I peeked over the partition to
get a better look. Her desk was plastered in cheat-sheets and knick-knacks—the
hallmark of someone who’d been in a job for a long time—and while I was waiting
for the ridiculously slow internal database system to finally load, I
found myself browsing everything she had there. Most of the walls were just
codes and data sheets she needed to refer to, but she had a collection of
little crystal animals underneath her monitor, and in a frame beside her desk,
a brightly coloured photo full of people I recognised.

It was a family photo taken in summer, with two laughing parents: Mr
and Mrs Dejanovic looking a lot younger and thinner. Mrs Dejanovic’s hair fell
over her shoulders in curls like Bree’s, and Mr Dejanovic was smiling broadly
under his moustache. At their feet were two blond children—a boy, probably
about seven or eight, with his curls cropped, and a little girl of about four
or five with her curls wild about her face. She had one arm wrapped around Mrs
Dejanovic’s leg, giving the camera a big smile and proudly displaying a gap
from two missing front teeth. Bree, I
thought. Even as a four-year-old, she was absolutely unmistakable. They were
all standing barefoot on a lush green lawn in the bright sunlight, with white
roses and red bricks behind them. It was one summer’s afternoon, frozen forever
in time, with everyone laughing and hugging.

I was so busy staring at
it that I didn’t notice when Mrs Dejanovic looked up at me. Inhaling sharply, I
looked away from it. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

I couldn’t read her
expression, but she didn’t look angry. “Beautiful, wasn’t she?” she said
quietly, maybe thinking I’d just been looking at Bree.

I smiled faintly,
wondering whether or not I should agree with my girlfriend’s mother on that; I
did, anyway. “Nothing’s changed.”

As soon as I’d said it,
though, I realised what a terrible thing it was to say in the context
of their family, and all the blood drained from my face.

Mrs Dejanovic watched me
for a moment, eyes veiled, and then went back to her spreadsheets. Cursing
myself, I turned back to my own screen.

It was a bit difficult to
concentrate, to be honest. This office seemed to have a culture of constant
talking—not an issue in itself, but I was trying to enter long strings of
numbers—and at any one time there were several conversations taking place. Mrs
Dejanovic was absent from most of them; unnaturally, I thought, her eyes glazed
as she mechanically cross-checked purchase orders. She didn’t even smile at me
when I put some documents I’d entered on her desk, and it was difficult not to
take that personally.

She hates me, I thought, watching her out of the corner of my eye and
feeling terrible about the ‘nothing’s changed’ comment. I wasn’t sure if I
really believed that she hated me, but the complete and total lack of warmth
made me feel really insecure. I hoped I hadn’t blown it with her.

Lilly was the opposite.
“It’s so great having a man around,”
she gushed after I’d helped her reach something that was on top of the
four-drawer filing cabinets. “Would you like a mandarin? The tree in my yard is
dropping them faster than we can eat them!”

I took one to be polite,
and then sat awkwardly and ate it while she fawned over me. It was harmless; in
exactly the same way Sarah and I usually flirted. Nevertheless, everyone was
entertained by it, and when Lilly said, “I wish my late husband had been as
tall as this boy here!” I decided to take a risk.

“Well, if I was twenty
years older…” I told her with a half-grin.

She laughed—as did
most of the people listening—and waved her hand
dismissively at me. “Twenty? Twenty?
You shameless flatterer. Here, have another mandarin, they’re full of Vitamin
C.”

I glanced sideways at Mrs
Dejanovic; she was still cross-checking her orders like nothing had happened. I
didn’t know what to make of it.

I got some insight when I
went out to the carpark at lunchtime: I was sitting in the peace and quiet of
my car working away at my muesli bar, when I spotted Mrs Dejanovic coming out
of reception and going to sit in her car, too. I had thought she was doing
exactly what I was, just trying to get out of the noise, but when I walked past
her car on the way back inside, she had the drivers’ seat wound back and she
was sleeping.

That’s right, I thought, stopping to look at her for
a second. She works night shift as a cleaner just like Mum used to.

I was so distracted
thinking about it that I nearly walked straight into the women’s
toilets—a habit that was really
difficult to break—and then, red-faced, quickly high-tailed to the men’s.

The factory obviously had
a lot more men than women because there were several guys already in the men’s
and, despite the fact there was a long row of urinals, there was only one
cubicle. Naturally, it was already occupied. Hyper
aware of how I looked—I could see my smooth face in the mirror, and it
was in very stark comparison to all the rough chins
and beards around me—I waited impatiently for the cubicle to be free. Several
men passed through the toilets while I waited, and every single time someone
looked at me, every single time, I
felt like their eyes would be able to see right through my clothes. I was
just waiting for someone to say, “Hang on—!” and for them all to
chase me out of the factory brandishing pitchforks.

I was busy squinting down
at the pair of feet I could see under the
wall of the cubicle and wondering what the hell that guy was up to, when three more men walked into the
toilets.

To my horror, I recognised
one of them.

“Hey, look who it is!” Mr
Dejanovic, dressed in his work shirt and overalls, greeted me and then gestured at me to his two friends.
“This is Briana’s boy. They’re trialling him in the office today.” They nodded
at me.

I smiled tightly at the
three of them, and then glanced nervously at the cubicle again. Hurry up, I thought, sweating.

One of the men laughed
good-naturedly. “So that’s who he is! I saw him walking down the
gangway with Vera and I thought he was one of the auditors. Why are you wearing
that suit? You don’t need to wear that getup
all the way out here.”

They were
all looking at me, and I realised he expected me to answer. My throat
felt like sandpaper. “It’s the only work clothes I own,” I rasped, feeling
excruciatingly self-conscious.

Mr Dejanovic’s two friends
looked a bit surprised by that as they continued to the urinals, so he
explained, “He used to work for Frost.”

Their eyebrows jumped as
they unzipped. “What are you doing here, then?”
one of them asked, and before I could look away, I got a really sudden and
unwelcome eyeful of Mr Dejanovic that I did not need to see. I
couldn’t stop myself from going bright fucking red.

Mr Dejanovic noticed but thank god didn’t guess why. “He quit his
job to be an artist, which by
the looks of things didn’t work out so well for him.”

“What a waste of a good
job,” his friend lamented, sighing, as I stared at the ceiling to avoid any
more embarrassment. “This is why they shouldn’t give those jobs to kids straight
out of school. They don’t appreciate them.”

“They also don’t have
families to support or mortgages to pay,” Mr Dejanovic’s voice agreed. “Or have
any idea what hard work is. They just want everything handed to them on a
silver platter.”

“That’s exactly right: my
kids are just hanging around waiting to inherit my house, I think.”

“Sounds just like my
house,” Mr Dejanovic said dryly, which made me look down from the ceiling in
surprise.

They’re not inheriting your house, I thought, frowning, you’re about to lose it because of Andrej’s gambling, and Bree isn’t ‘hanging around’,
you basically told her to get out unless she could pay board!

I wasn’t going to say anything of course, but Mr Dejanovic saw that movement
and locked eyes with me in the mirror in warning. It was such a fierce stare
that it actually made the breath catch in my throat. To hammer it home, he
said, “Maybe I’ll just sell it and move to the mountains so they wait a bit
longer before trying to bury me!”

While all the men were
laughing with him and I was hoping the ground would just open up and swallow
me, the door to the stall finally swung open. I pushed past the poor
guy coming out of it and fled inside, standing in the safety of those four
walls while I listened to the three of them complain about children of
today. Even after their voices had long since disappeared, I didn’t come out of
the cubicle until I was 100% certain they were definitely gone and I wouldn’t
just look like I’d seen a ghost.

Mrs Dejanovic was already
back in the office by the time I returned from lunch. She didn’t look up as I
came in, but I could see clearly that she’d put some concealer under her eyes, because it was one of those cheap ones
that wasn’t matched to her pale skin. “I
emailed you some tables that need completing,” she told me neutrally when she
saw I was looking at her.

Mutely nodding, I sat back
down at my desk to do them.

Through the afternoon, the
conversations people started to have were
about the weekend; who was having who over for dinner, whose husband was
working this weekend, and what so-and-so in Spare Parts said about whose daughter, and can you believe it? While they were
chatting, my mind turned to the weekend as well—or more accurately, Monday. Monday when Seung would want to take a payment from me.

The threat of Seung’s
‘scary’ collectors managed to help me work up enough courage to ask Mrs
Dejanovic about payday. “Excuse me,” I said uncertainly, leaning towards her
desk. She made a non-committal noise to indicate she was listening while she
flipped a page. “Which day do you get paid on here?”

“Tuesdays,” she said, and
as my heart dropped into my stomach, she added, “but normally it comes in on
Monday night at about eight. Why?”

Because you’re not the only one with debt collectors after
you, I thought.
“Just curious.” I paused. “Will I get paid for today next week?”

This time, she sat up and
looked across at me, eyes narrowed. I spent the entire duration of the several
seconds she was considering me sweating. “Lilly?” she said loudly, making
me jump. Lilly’s face peeked over the partition behind us. “Will Min get paid
for today next week?”

“Oh!” she said. “Oh, good
point. Thanks for reminding me.” She disappeared behind the partition for a
moment and I heard papers rustling. When she appeared again, she stood up and
reached over the partition, handing me a manila folder. “This is your welcome
pack,” she told me as I accepted it. “Your letter of offer, Tax File Number
forms and all the essential info. If you bring it back all filled in on Monday we should be able to pay you.”

It was like having a
weight lifted off my shoulders. “Okay, thank you,” I said, smiling
down at it. I didn’t miss that Mrs Dejanovic was still watching me as I turned
back to my desk.

Knock-off was 5pm, and boy was everyone ready to
head out the door on the dot of five. That was unfamiliar; I’d spent so long at
a job where you just stayed until the work was finished.

Mrs Dejanovic stayed
behind after everyone had left and disappeared into the toilets, and since I
was feeling so much relief about how soon I’d be paid, I thought I should take
the opportunity to thank her for getting me a job in the first place. When she
appeared again, she had a different, much older shirt on, and had her hair tied
back. She looked a bit surprised to see me still hovering around my desk, and self-consciously smoothed down her
old shirt like she was embarrassed to be seen in it. I knew what that was
about; she was headed off to her second job, cleaning high schools or whatever
Bree had said she did at night.

“I just wanted to thank
you for everything you did to get me this job so quickly,” I told her as
graciously as I could to explain why I was still here. “I didn’t get the chance
before.”

She packed up her handbag and shut her computer
down, looking at me a little warily. “We needed someone quickly. As you can
see, there is a lot of work.” She nodded a goodbye,
and then walked past me. “Pull the door shut behind you. It locks automatically
at quarter past.”

I stared after her as she left, feeling uncomfortable.
There had to be a reason why she didn’t say, ‘you’re
welcome’ or even ‘my pleasure’ like Bree did, didn't there? It felt like
an intentional omission, which made me feel like I wasn’t welcome at all. But
if I wasn’t welcome, she wouldn’t have made such an attempt to get me starting
here as soon as possible, would she? Maybe I really had blown it with the
‘nothing’s changed’ comment, after all? I sighed. I had enough mind games
from my own mother, I didn’t need them from someone else’s.

The drive home was worse
than the drive in; I literally sat in traffic watching my petrol gauge slowly
drop for an hour and a half. Being bumper-to-bumper for eternity gave me a lot
of time to think, and my mind kept drifting back to Monday and paying Seung.
I’d probably only have part of the payment, but he’d taken at least $200 extra
last time as assurance so I could just ask him to use that. That was the
pawnbroker loan taken care of; I was going to be late on my car repayment next
week for the first time in four years, though.

I looked around me at the
interior of my car. This stupid
thing is so expensive that there’s no way I’d be able to afford it unless I’m
working full time, I thought. Not
with the other loan and my maxed out credit
card as well. But I couldn’t work full-time and do my master’s,
so what the hell was I going to do?

I probably just shouldn’t go to uni while I’m paying
everything off, I
realised, and then spent a moment letting that thought settle. It was true: I
couldn’t work full-time and fit in all my classes and studio hours.
As depressing as that was, there was no way out of it. I wouldn’t be able to
concentrate on classes while I was worrying about money.

While I was stuck at a single set of lights for three cycles, I
googled the census date for my master’s; it wasn’t until the end of August. I
breathed a sigh of relief; I could just defer and do it next year when I’d
finished paying off that pawnbroker loan. It really sucked to be
doing that—I was really looking
forward to finally studying art like I’d always wanted to—I needed to be honest
with myself. I was supporting Bree now, and I needed to be able to take care of
her, too. I’d just have to wait until I’d finished paying off the debt for her
fees and then start uni.

Anyway, when I thought
about it, working with Bree’s Mum wasn’t terrible.
It didn’t even resemble what I wanted to do with my life, but I figured I could
probably weather it for a year as long as no one found out that I wasn’t a guy.

By the time I got home, I was depressed, exhausted and hungry. I
had expected Bree would have dinner ready by now, but instead, she was bent
double over the kitchen table with one of Gemma’s maths text books looking pale
and drawn.

She looked up at me as I
came in. I could tell immediately she’d been crying.

“It didn’t go so well
today?” I asked her, putting a gentle hand on her back.

She leant into it, shaking
her head as her lips quivered. “Mr Preston is awful,” she said, and then twisted so she could bury her head in my
stomach and give one great, heaving sniff. “He asked me to get up in
class first thing. Like, he was hardly in the door. He picked the
hardest question, and he made me stand up and try to do it on the board in front
of everyone, and he didn’t help at all. Then he spent like ten minutes with
what I’d done up there getting people in my class to say what I’d done wrong
and come up to fix it. It was…” She shook her head. “I hate him,” she
said. “I hate him. And then
after the class, he’s like, ‘I hope your boyfriend didn’t make a really big
mistake’, and I was like ‘what does that mean?’ but he just turned
around and kept walking. Like, why would he say that? Am I too stupid for
anyone to date or something?”

I swallowed. Oh, god,
the fees... “He’s probably just being nasty, but that’s
an unacceptable way to treat a student. I’ll go straight to the
Principal to make sure he doesn’t say anything like—”

She shook her head against
me. “No…” she said at length. “No. It
won’t change anything, and they probably won’t believe you anyway. I haven’t
exactly been a star pupil, and he’s been teaching there for ten years.”

I pressed my lips
together. I considered doing it anyway, just to be sure he wouldn’t tell her.
“Okay.”

Suddenly, she sat up straight. “Oh!” She hurriedly
tried to wipe her eyes. “Oh my god, I’m crying all over you and you were
working with my parents today! Are you okay? Was it terrible?” she asked,
looking up at me with puffy eyes. “Because if it’s awful, you can just not show
up on Monday. I mean, they’ll be angry, but—”

“No, I’m definitely
showing up on Monday,” I told her. “Because I need to return my welcome pack so
I can get paid. About what it’s like to work there, I don’t really know if I’ve
been there for long enough to make a call on that yet.” I had a short think.
“It’s okay,” I decided. “It’s manageable. The job is straightforward and people
are mostly friendly.”

“Yeah, people except Mum
and Dad,” Bree muttered.  “Oh well, it’s only for like seven weeks or something
and then you’ll stop and go to uni, so I guess it doesn’t matter.”

On that point, I was
silent.

She noticed. Of course she noticed. “Why aren’t you agreeing with me?” she asked,
looking up at me with those big blue eyes.

I opened my mouth, but it
was a second before I spoke. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to tell her right
now, but it wasn’t as if she wouldn’t notice, was it? “Well, I was thinking I might give it a year, and then
see where I am financially.”

“What?” she asked, spinning around in her chair to face me. She
sounded aghast. “You mean stay working and not go to uni?”

I nodded slowly. “Just for
a year. Then I’ll reassess where I am, and we’ll see.”

That didn’t help. “No!” Bree told me, her voice straddling
two octaves. “No, you won’t! You’re supposed to start uni this year,
remember? Sydney College of the Arts, the degree you’ve been dreaming of
your whole life? You’ve already waited so long, why would you wait another
year?”

I—didn’t expect this
strong a reaction from her. Mild disappointment and reluctant understanding,
maybe. But this? “Bree, I’m not giving up on it, I’m still going to go, just
not this year. I’ve got two people to support now, not just myself. I need to
make sure we have everything we need, and I’m not in a financial position to—”

“—Fuck money!” Bree interrupted me. “Don’t you dare say this is
because you need to take care of me,
because I don’t care about money! We can just flat share in a little room
somewhere, even if it’s miles out. We can be poor and do all the things we
love. I’ve been fucking broke for two years, so believe me: I’m used to it. I
don’t even care if we have to live in a caravan, it doesn’t matter. You can
sell your paintings, and I can—”

“—Bree! You’re being irrational, I’m not saying I’ll
never go—”

She stood up. “Yes you
are!” she said over me, raising her
voice. “You say ‘just one more year’ now, but that’s how it starts! That’s how
it always starts! Next year you’ll be like, ‘just one more year’, and then
before you know it, you’re sixty and retiring and you’ve missed out on your
whole life!” When I tried to placate her, she shouted me down. She
seemed really upset. “You wanted this so much,” she told me. “You
wanted this so much. You cried about it. It was the most beautiful
thing, watching you cry and hold that acceptance letter. Why are you giving up
on that? Why are you giving up? No!”
she said, when I tried to speak. There
were tears in her eyes. “Tell me, is it something that people do? Do they get
to a certain age and just give up on everything they want? Is there some switch
that flicks off in people’s heads that goes,
‘hey, time to give up on life’? Because I’m not going to watch another person do that!”

“Bree, I—” I went to put
my arms around her.

She pushed me away. “No!”
she said and then burst into tears, ran off down the hallway, and slammed the
bathroom door behind her. She was sobbing so loudly I could hear it in the
living room.

Sighing, I sank down into
the chair she’d been in. It was still warm. There was no use in attempting to comfort
her, because I didn’t have anything to
say to her that would. She’ll
understand when she’s finished HSC and I can tell her about the fees, I
decided, trying to ignore the sounds she was making. It was so hard to
listen to her being this upset, especially knowing I’d caused it.

She didn’t come out all
evening; it was only when Rob came home and announced that he was covered in
filth and needed a shower that she reluctantly slunk out and went and shut
herself in the bedroom instead.

Rob watched her go, eyes
wide. “That time of the month?” he asked me in complete seriousness. I pat him
on the back as he went into the bathroom, and then tried the bedroom door. It
didn’t move; she’d locked it.

I pressed my lips together,
and then went and sat out in the living room again. Since there was nothing
else I could do for Bree right now, I opened the welcome pack and went through
the documents. The salary was less than a third of what I’d been on at Frost,
and they wanted to employ me casually, so I guessed there would be weeks when I
wasn’t working as much. Paying my debts alone was more than $600 a week, so I
didn’t know how I was going to afford my phone, or petrol, or food.

I wonder if Mrs Dejanovic can get me a cleaning night shift as well, I thought wryly, and then sighed.
At least I’d have some money for Seung on Monday, that was the main
thing. He’d taken $200 extra last time, and since I’d be getting about $150 for
today, he could take the extra $120 out and I’d have $30 for petrol. That would
have to do.

I took my phone out. “Hey,” I
texted him, “I got a steady job, but I’m
only getting paid for Friday this week, so if you could use that extra $200 you
took on Tuesday, you can take the $120 remaining out from my account after 8pm this Monday. After this week it should be
fine for the rest of the loan, there’s no need for anyone to visit.”

“Where are you working?”

I read over that a couple
of times. Didn’t he believe me? Oh well,
I conceded, thinking that it wasn’t really that
strange of him to ask. Mainstream credit providers always wanted work
details. “Radic Automotive.”

I waited a few minutes for
a reply, but I didn’t get one. Feeling uneasy, I put my silent, dark phone back
in my pocket, and completed the rest of the forms. The only thing that was
missing was my ID, and I could photocopy my driver’s licence on Monday.

Bree slept on the couch
over the weekend. I didn’t sleep as a result; first of all because I was
worried about her, and secondly because I had this niggling fear in my head
that she might dump me, and I might be in financial ruin over someone who
didn’t even want to stay with me. The idea of her leaving me was a really
distressing thought in itself— because what the fuck would I do
without her?—and so I lay awake in my cold, empty bed with my
chest aching for her, trying to imagine how my life would look
without my Bree.

On Monday, Bree did at
least say goodbye to me before she left, which gave me some fleeting hope she’d
forgive me for giving up on my dreams or whatever. She didn’t go as
far as letting me drive her, though, so I made the trip across the harbour by
myself.

The first thing I did when
I got to work was photocopy my driver’s
and hand all my completed paperwork to Lilly, who said she’d put it through
immediately.

Mrs Dejanovic was a few
minutes late, and when she came rushing in, it was with some of that cheap
concealer on under her eyes again, and mumbling something about neighbours
being too loud.

Neighbours, I thought, sure.

“You really need to move
house, Vera,” Lilly said over the partition. “Just sell up and leave. Councils
are useless these days.”

Mrs Dejanovic glanced at
me to gauge my reaction, but she didn’t say anything about what she saw and just
tried to get quickly stuck into her work.

When we were all sipping
away at our coffees, working solidly, Lilly made a concerned noise from over
the partition. I didn’t like the sound of it. “Min?” she came around the desk and put the photocopy of my driver’s
licence on the table. “I hate to be a pain, but I can’t use this.”

“Do you need the back,
too?” I wondered, and leant sideways to get my wallet out of my pocket.

She stopped me. “No, I
can’t use a driver’s licence, I mean. The auditors tore through us a couple of
years ago about insufficient ID—it’s a workplace insurance thing, you see. We
need to be able to prove everyone is a citizen. Don’t worry, though! I don’t
want you to think we’re trying to get out of paying you. I’ll do a very special
pay run just for you tomorrow when you bring it.” She winked a
crinkled eye at me.

The blood began to drain
from my face. No pay today? “I’m definitely a citizen, so what do you need
exactly?”

“A birth certificate,” she
said, and then sat back down at her desk, humming to herself.

THIRTY

It was lucky my new job required
minimal brainpower, because I couldn’t
think about anything else: my birth
certificate was standing between me and getting paid. The second I handed it
over to Lilly, that was it, I’d have to face another scandal. All the whispering, the staring, and all of those awkward questions. Everything I’d had at
Frost, but with the bonus addition of my girlfriend’s parents suddenly finding
out that their daughter’s boyfriend wasn’t actually a boy.

Well then, Einstein, you’d better figure out a way to deal
with this, I told
myself, staring at my frowning reflection in the computer screen. Because If you don’t, Seung’s not
getting paid and you’ll get to meet his hired goons.

After I raced home from work, the first thing I did was
turn my whole fucking room over to actually find the certificate. I don’t think
I’d used it for years, and as a result, I had no idea which document
folder it was in and I had to go through all of them.

I found my passport
first—which was also proof of my citizenship—but when I opened it to consider
if I could use that instead, I came face-to-face with a photo of
the old me, the one with long hair, false eyelashes and pink
lipstick. I made a disgusted noise and put it aside. It might have had a very
small and innocuous ‘F’ beside ‘Sex:’, but that photo said way too
much.

While I was leafing
page-by-page through an old sketchbook to
see if I’d tucked my birth certificate in there, it occurred to me that if it
had a small ‘F’, too, perhaps this wasn’t a lost cause after all. It was a full
page of information, and Lilly was only looking for my citizenship, wasn’t she?
Bree had made a pretty good point about people generally seeing what they
expected to. Maybe I could just casually hand it to Lilly and she’d glance at
it, photocopy it, and tuck it away in a folder to never be looked at again.

That seemed like my best
bet so far, so when I finally found my stupid certificate in with my
tax stuff from five years ago, I breathed a sigh of relief that I wouldn’t have
to use my passport, and sat back on the bed to unfold it.

The certificate itself was
pink and green—which to someone with five years of graphic design experience
was a very painful combination—and printed on thick, almost cardstock-like
paper with an embossed security pattern that I could feel when I ran my fingers
over the surface. Min Lee, it
read and, instead of ‘F’ like I’d expected, the word ‘FEMALE’ was printed in bolded capitals right under my
name. You couldn’t miss it. There was absolutely no chance in hell Lilly would.

“Fuck!” I said aloud, and let my hands flop into my lap.

There was no way around
it, was there? I had two choices: either I wasn’t going to get paid and I could
look forward to being terrorised by debt collectors, or I was going to have to
tell someone at the factory that Briana Dejanovic’s boyfriend was female.

Who the fuck was I going
to tell, though? Lilly was friendly, but if she thought the idea of Bree getting
a nose piercing was radical, how was she going to feel about me being female?
She was related to the Dejanovics too—and Bree always said her parents were
terrified of people whispering about them. Everyone in the factory knew
everyone; it wouldn’t take long for a scandal like this to spread like
wildfire.

But if I didn’t tell
Lilly—the payroll clerk who’d be actually transferring my salary to me—how the
hell was I going to pay Seung?

Well, he wasn’t getting
paid tonight like I’d said he would be, so I had to give him some reason why the money wasn’t there
and hope to god that it wouldn’t result in a visit from his scary debt
collectors. After agonising over what to say for 15 minutes, I settled on, “They couldn’t pay me today because they
needed to sight my birth certificate, but it’s in my hand and you will
definitely, 100% get the rest of the money tomorrow.” When he didn’t reply,
I checked all the doors and windows were locked, feeling uneasy.

I wanted to talk my
options with Bree, but when I sent her a text to ask her when she was getting
home, she sent a message back saying that she was staying at Courtney’s for the
night. Maybe they’re working on
homework together, I tried to reassure myself as I cleaned up my
ransacked room, which included tucking
my hard packer right down the bottom of my suitcase so that trespassing debt
collectors wouldn’t find it. Or
maybe she knows you’ve been hiding the fact you paid her fees, another
voice said. I gulped.

Rob didn’t come home,
either, so for the whole night I had the pleasure of lying in bed alone in a
big empty house, and imagining every tiny sound I heard was debt collectors
coming to split my knee-caps, or kidnap me and hold me for ransom, or whatever
it was that scary debt collectors did.

When I headed to work the
next morning—fuzzy-headed because there was no fucking caffeine in
Sarah’s house—my petrol tank was nearly completely empty. The warning light was
glowing on my dash for most of the trip. I’ll
get paid today, I thought, touching the birth certificate in my breast
pocket. It’s okay.

For the last two days, I’d
taken my blazer off and hung it on the back of my chair, but with the birth
certificate in it, I didn’t want to leave it alone. I trialled folding the
certificate again and putting it in my suit pants, too, but it felt like it was
about to fall out all the time, and that was worse. Anyone could come
across it on the floor, open it and see, ‘NAME:
MIN LEE, SEX: FEMALE’ on it. So, I opted to leave my blazer on in the
20+ degree office while I was trying to work.

“You don’t have to be so
formal,” Mrs Dejanovic told me when she saw me struggling with it. “A shirt is
enough, even with short sleeves. Dragi doesn’t even wear a singlet. It gets hot
in the factory.”

You’d see a lot more than you’d expect to if I took my ‘singlet’ off, I thought, but despite the layer of sweat that was
probably clearly visible on my upper lip, I just said, “It’s fine, I’m actually
a bit cold.”

I spent the whole morning
sitting uncomfortably at my desk stressing
about who I was going to show the certificate to and how I was going to do it,
and by lunchtime I was dying to
take my jacket off. I went out to the car park and sat stewing in my car,
trying to decide if I should just tell Lilly after all and beg her not to say anything to anyone else. I wasn’t sure I trusted
her not to say anything, though, and I didn’t want to make another bad decision and screw everything up.

Maybe I should wait until tomorrow so I can ask Bree what to
do tonight, I
thought. In the grand scheme of things, a single day wasn’t going to make that
much difference to Seung, was it? But to me, it could be the difference between
keeping my job and maintaining whatever tenuous relationship I had with my
girlfriend’s parents, and losing everything.

By half-past, I’d talked
myself into that, and so I took my phone out and agonised over what
to text him. “I know I said I’d get paid
today,” I typed, “but there’s an
issue with my ID. Tomorrow, for sure. I need the money as well.”

I got an immediate reply.
“Jesus Christ, Min!” It was a few
seconds before the next one came through, and I stared intently at my phone and
anxiously tapped the steering wheel, bracing for it. “This is bullshit. Whose pocket do you think the money comes out of to
balance the till when you don’t pay? I can’t take another year of this crap,
you’re stressing me out. It’s today or I get my dad’s people involved.”

I read that a couple of
times, feeling sick. I wondered who his people were and what they did. “Just one more day,” I texted him. “I mean it.”

“You don’t know how often I hear that.”

He didn’t reply after
that, and after I’d sat there for a few minutes waiting, I realised he wasn’t
going to. He wasn’t giving me any extra time. Well, then: that settled it. I
was going to have to tell someone today, someone
who could keep a secret. There were two people here who I knew for a fact were
very good at keeping secrets, but only one of them probably
wouldn’t shout at me. I needed to tell Mrs Dejanovic. But how? How
should I frame it?

I sent a text to Bree, “I need to come out to your mum because the
office won’t pay me without a birth certificate, how should I do it? What
should I say, should I keep it clinical?”
and then I spent the rest of my lunch break sitting in my car and waiting for
her to reply. By 1pm when I needed to go
back inside, she still hadn’t. That was so unlike her, I
could usually count on her to get back to me quickly. Just in case she was
punishing me, I sent her another message. “Bree,
I really need your help on this one. I know you’re disappointed with me about
the master’s stuff, but please, I need your input on how to tell your mum.”
She didn’t reply again, but I couldn’t sit and worry about it because I really needed to head back up to the
office.

When I sat down at the
desk beside Mrs Dejanovic again, my heart was hammering in my chest as I
unlocked my computer.  Giving me a sideways glance, she mutely placed a
stack of filled purchase orders on my desk for me to enter. I started on them,
checking my phone every five minutes to see if Bree had replied with
instructions on what to do. By four she still hadn’t—why hadn’t she?—and it was
getting to the point where I wasn’t going to get paid if I didn’t do something
very soon.

When my
phone finally buzzed, I jumped
on it, hoping Bree had some pearls of wisdom about how to handle her mother,
but it wasn’t from Bree at all, it was another message from Seung. “Right this second is your last chance: am I
getting paid today or not?”

I exhaled, reading over it and then putting my phone aside.

You need to just do it now, I told myself, staring at my screen. Come on, you’ve done much harder things:
think of that pitch at Frost. You’d worked with those people for five years;
you haven’t even known people here for three days. What’s the worst that could
happen?

I looked across at Mrs
Dejanovic mechanically typing away at her numeric keypad. Bree said she was
okay, and despite the cool reception she always gave me, she had gotten me a job.

Shit. I took a deep breath, here goes nothing. “Um,” I began,
“Can I speak with you for sec?” I paused.
“In private?”

She looked up from her
keyboard, frowning at me. Over the partition, Lilly glanced up at us; it was
clear she was listening. Mrs Dejanovic noticed, and I may have seen her do the
faintest of eyerolls. “Okay,” she said,
and then stood, leading me out of the office.

She stopped as soon as we
were out in the open hallway that led downstairs to the floor, turning back
towards me. Her arms were crossed.

I glanced nervously at the
door beside us. It didn’t feel very private. “Can’t they hear us?”

She shook her head. “The
factory is too loud.” I hadn’t noticed until that point, but the sound of
machines being operated was louder out here.

I nodded, and then stood
there for a second, licking my lips. Fuck.

“I have enough secrets in
my life,” Mrs Dejanovic prompted me. “Tell me what is all this sweating, and this dressing up, and looking at your
phone every five minutes. Don’t add to my secrets.”

I grimaced. “I think I’m about
to,” I began apologetically, and then took a steadying breath. “Something’s
happened and I really need money, but I can’t get paid until Lilly
sees my birth certificate, and there’s something on it that I don’t want her to see.”

Her eyes narrowed and she
crossed her arms more tightly.

God, how the hell did I
say it? “It’s really personal, and I really, really don’t want anyone
here to know. Bree and I were trying to figure out how I should tell you and
your husband, and I know now isn’t a great time, but…” I made a face. “I kind
of don’t have a choice. I need to get paid, so I need to tell you now.”

She looked unmoved. “Tell
us what?”

I watched her for a
moment, and then, with a shaking hand, reached into my breast pocket,
retrieving the folded birth certificate and holding it out to her.

Squinting at me, she
accepted it. I watched her eyes run over the text, bracing myself
for impact. She was frowning. “It says ‘Melbourne’,” she said, “and
you are a citizen, so I don’t—”

The wait
was agonising, and I couldn’t stand it. I wanted it over and done with.
“Here.” I pointed to the bold text below my name.

It took her a moment. She
held the certificate closer to her face to check she’d read it right. Her eyes
jumped back up to my name, and then up to my face. She looked aghast. “Is
this a fake?”

Swallowing, I shook my
head.

She glanced up and down my
body, pausing on my chest and my crotch. “No,” she said easily. “No, it’s a
fake.”

I opened my mouth a moment
before I spoke. “It’s not fake,” I told her with gravity.

“No,” she repeated, and
for a moment she had a look of complete and utter disbelief. Then, something
occurred to her and recognition dawned on her face. “Andrej wasn’t lying,” she said, taking a
shallow breath. “My god, you are a
girl!”

“Not exactly,” I managed
to say. “I’m female, it’s not the same as—”

“How is it not the same?”
she asked, sounding measurably distressed. “Are we not the same?” She gestured
at her own body.

I winced. “At the moment,”
I told her, and she inhaled in a gasp and put a hand on her forehead, taking a
step away from me. “But I’m transgender,” I tried to explain. “It’s a medical
condition where someone isn’t the right—”

She wasn’t ready to
hear any of that, and she interrupted me. “Briana knows this?” she
asked, sounding very upset. “She likes this?”

Oh god. I didn’t want to
out Bree, but I also didn’t want to lie to her mother. My silence was answer enough.

Mrs Dejanovic put her
other hand to her chest—the birth
certificate clutched in it—and muttered something in Serbian. This time after
she’d looked me up and down again, her tone was more combative. “Did you make her that way? Did you trick her and
lie to her the way you lied to us? To
our faces?”

What on—? “I’m not
tricking you or Bree! This isn’t—”

“Yes!” she said over me. “This is a trick! You are a girl, and
you want us to think you are a boy, it’s a trick!”

“It’s not a trick!” I
told her, gesturing down my body. “This is how I feel comfortable. This is how
I am, it’s not a costume. I’m not lying to you about any of—”

“—is that the
truth?” she said, pointing at my full crotch. “Is that real?” She knew the
answer.

I flushed bright red. “Believe me, I’m just as uncomfortable with my
female body as you are. Bree is the only one of all of us who isn’t.”

She shook her head. “I don’t
understand,” she said, her hand slipping from her forehead to her mouth while
she stared at me, wide-eyed. I went to say something else, but she put a hand
up to silence me and took a step away. “No more, please, no more. I knew there
was something, I knew it. I didn’t know it was this. God, and I got
you a job here! Dragi is going to kill you if anyone finds out. He will kill me, too.”

I took a shaky breath.
“They won’t if you and Lilly don’t tell them.”

“Lilly will tell everyone,” she murmured, lost in thought
for a second. I started to apologise, but she shushed me again. “Stop,” she
interrupted. “Stop. Don’t give this to Lilly, please. You can’t work here. You
have to leave, you have to leave now, before—”

What?
No! “—I can’t leave!” I told her. “I can’t. I’ve got no petrol
in my car, and I—” My phone started to buzz in my jacket. I ignored it. “—and I
can’t support Bree if I don’t have a job!”

She glanced at the pocket
the noise was coming from. “You will just have to find a different job.”

I threw my hands up. “You
don’t know how much I need money right now,” I told her. “Believe me, I wouldn’t have come out to you at
such a terrible time if I didn’t. I’m doing this because I need to tell someone
here so I can get paid today.” At least my pocket had stopped buzzing.
“Not tomorrow, not next week. Today.”

Her eyes narrowed again.
“Why? Why do you keep talking about getting paid? Why do you need money right
now?” Her brow lowered. “Are you like Andrej, is that why you two were fighting
with each other? Are you and he both—”

“No!” I told her. “No, no,
I’m not like Andrej at all. I don’t gamble, I just have bills that really need
to be—”

“Bills can wait!” she told
me. “You call the company and tell them to wait! You can’t work here!”

I opened my mouth to
reply, and a loud, traditional phone ring interrupted me. It was coming from
Mrs Dejanovic’s pocket. She frowned at me and, despite the poor timing, took it
out just to check it, double-taking when she saw the display and frantically
putting it to her ear. “Briana?”

Bree?

The phone cut out
immediately, and Mrs Dejanovic swore in Serbian, and then said, “Of course she
has no credit,” and called her straight back. Through the receiver, I could
hear Bree’s frantic voice, but she was speaking in Serbian and I couldn’t
understand her. Mrs Dejanovic could, and she went white as a fucking
sheet. “Here?” she said in English, and then pushed the birth certificate back
at me and rushed down the corridor to the window that overlooked the carpark.

I followed her, and
through the window I could see why she’d gone white.

There was a big unmarked tow truck parked halfway up the car park and
two big men moving around it. My heart in my throat, I spotted a mop of familiar blonde curls by the gate—she’d
picked today to wait for me outside work again?—but she was quite far
away from the men and the truck, and they weren’t paying any attention to her.
They were too busy attaching a hook to my car.

Oh my god. I put a hand on the window. Mrs
Dejanovic looked up me, jaw open. “That’s your car?” I nodded, and for a second
I could see the deliberation on her face. She came to a
decision. “I’m coming there,” she told Bree in English, and then went to go and jog down the stairs.

I followed her down them
and out the fire escape—a sign said it was alarmed, but nothing went off—as she
ran out into the car park.

Bree rushed up to us. She
was panicking, and there were tears running down her face. “I’m sorry!” she
told me, gripping my arms. “I wanted to help but I don’t have any credit, like
not a single cent, so I came here so I could call you down and we could talk in
person but they must have followed me,” she said in a single breath. “They must
have followed me and now they won’t stop and I don’t know what to do, I’m
sorry, I’m sorry, I fucking hate Andrej and I hate how
collectors are always following us fucking everywhere because of him,
I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

I hugged her, the blood
draining from my face: she thought the collectors were here because of Andrej’s debts. “Don’t do anything,”
I told her, turning to look towards the—

—Mrs Dejanovic
was sprinting towards the men. Beside me, Bree shrieked.

“No!” I shouted, and let
Bree go so I could follow her. She was
surprisingly fast for being so short and plump, and I couldn’t catch up
to stop her. “No, leave it! Let them have it!”

She didn’t listen, and by
the time I got there, she’d swung one of the men away from my car and pushed
him into another. “You leave him out of this!” she told the man harshly, and
then winced and corrected herself, “Her! You leave her out of this!”

The guy stood up, giving
the tiny woman a strange look. She obviously hadn’t hurt him at all. “Fucking
hell, lady!” he told her as the other guy came running over from the truck.
“I’m just doing a job, Jesus Christ!”

She was not intimidated in
the slightest as the other man arrived and took her by the arm, I think
intending to threaten her. She roughly pulled away from him. “If you have a
problem with my family, you take it up with me or my husband,” she hissed. “You
don’t bring other people into it!”

Oh god. “Don’t,” I told her, almost scared to step into the scrum. “Don’t,
please, just leave it…”

The guy put up his hands
in a ‘don’t shoot’ position. He was also completely unintimidated by
Mrs Dejanovic; maybe he got this all the time. “Lady, if I ever have a problem
with your family, I’ll definitely do that,” he told her casually, “but I’m
pretty sure you’re not related to that chick.” He looked past her, and pointed directly at me.

I took a sharp breath.

The ‘chick’ reference to
me was enough to make Mrs Dejanovic turn and stare. It was clear they knew who
I was, but just to hammer the point home, the guy’s eyes lingered on my crotch,
and then he took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and held it up so he could consider it. It was a photocopy
of my driver’s licence. “Right…” he said at length about it.

“Why does it matter if I’m
related to her or not?” Mrs Dejanovic asked them, but she was faltering. There
was something uncertain in the way she spoke.

The guy looked at us like
we were both crazy. “Because it’s her unpaid debt I’m collecting on,
that’s why.”

Mrs Dejanovic turned, and
I watched her face harden. Beside me, Bree stopped whimpering, her
jaw open, and the look on her face…

Shit.

THIRTY-ONE

“What does he mean your debt, Min?” Bree asked in her
tiniest voice. “Aren’t these guys here because of Andrej?”

I was about to answer her,
but while everyone was staring at me, the two men who’d been towing
my car took the opportunity to get back to it. I had to
say something at least, this was crazy! I’d told Seung I
was going to pay him! “Hey,” I said very tentatively—I didn’t want to make them
angry—as I stepped forward beside the one who was crouched by my car. “Seung
knows I’m going to pay him tomorrow when I—”

The guy gave me a tired
look. “Are we going to have a problem?”

I inhaled sharply.
“There’s no problem, Seung knows—”

“Good, because if we’re
going to have a problem, I’m going to need to call the boss,” he said, and then
stood up, brushing the dust off his hands. “Unless you’ve got $1,500, that is.
Because $1,500 would solve all your problems.”

They were charging
me more than… “But my repayments are $320!” I protested, only to be
met with a flat stare. Fuckers, I
thought, and shook my head in answer to
his question.

He shrugged. “Towing it
is, then,” he said, and then crouched back down in front of my car. I watched
helplessly as he fit the chain from the back tray to it. This was nuts, my
car was worth way more than the loan and it was under finance!

I could feel the two
others staring at me. Bree’s brow was low. “But I thought you said you were up
to date with your car repayments,” she persisted. “Why are they taking it,
Min?”

“Hang on,” I said a bit
shortly to her, and then addressed the guy again. “Seriously, I’m only two days
overdue, I don’t understand why—”

He groaned. “Take
it up with the pawnshop. I’m just here to tow your car.”

Both Mrs Dejanovic and
Bree baulked. “Pawnshop?” Bree repeated, her voice in
the stratosphere. She took my arm and spun me around to face her. “How can you
pawn your car if it’s under finance? That’s not legal!” From her expression, I
think she already knew the answer.

Shit. I stood there floundering.

Her face crumpled and she
shook my arm, her voice raw with emotion. “Oh my god, do you have
an illegal loan? Do you have
illegal loans just like my fucking
brother? Tell me you’re not that stupid!”

I bristled. “No, not just like your brother has, I didn’t
do anything like what he—”

She shoved me and gestured at the guys. “Then why are they
taking your car even though they legally can’t? Why are you
just letting them? What are you worried they’re going to do if you
don’t give it to them, Min?” She shoved me again.

“It is gambling.” Mrs Dejanovic said
tightly from behind me. “It is gambling, isn’t it?”

“Of course not!” I told
her over my shoulder. As I did that, I noticed the tow truck guys were
listening. Glancing uncomfortably at them, I tried to lead Bree a bit away, but
she wrenched her arm roughly free and glared at me.

“You know,” she said
loudly enough for them to hear, “If someone had asked me a couple of weeks ago,
‘Does Min gamble?’, I would have said, ‘Of course not!’ But then again, I would
have said ‘of course not!’ to you getting loan shark loans, too. I don’t know what’s going on with you
anymore, you’ve stopped talking to me
like you used to! What are you hiding from
me?” Her voice echoed around the car
park.

“Bree, I’m not going to
fight with you here! Can we please go somewhere else to—”

She shook me.
“No!” she said. “No, we can’t go
somewhere else! I’m sick of everyone fucking hiding everything from people, and
hiding everything from me, and having to pretend everything’s okay when
it’s not! Why won’t you just tell me what’s going on, Min?”

Her face was contorted
with emotion; she was on the cusp of bursting into a flood of hot, angry tears.
I took a careful breath. “I just wanted you to focus on your HSC, Bree. I
didn’t want to distract—”

“Well I’m distracted!” she
interrupted, trembling. “Do you
think I didn’t notice you were hiding something? You think I wouldn’t notice
you’ve started pushing me away and stopped telling me everything? I can’t stop
thinking about it—”

“—I was just trying to do
the right thing, Bree!” I told her, gesturing roughly at the men towing my car.
“It’s not like I invited debt collectors to come and—”

“—they’re
fucking loan sharks, Min, this is
what they do! They stalk you and do awful things, what did you expect to—?”

“—I expected to be able
to pay them back!”

“For what, Min?” she asked,
grabbing a fistful of my shirt. “Tell me! Tell me what was so critically
important that you thought, ‘hey, I don’t care about my safety or how this is
going to make Bree feel
after she’s spent years being chased by’—”

Was she serious?
“—Bree! After everything I’ve done for you, how can you say I don’t care about
you? You’re the reason I—”

“—I’m the reason you what?
Got a loan shark loan? Bullshit! How could you be thinking of me at
all when you took out loan shark loans knowing I’ve been chased by them, and stalked by them, and harassed
by them for the last two and a half—”

The words
just spilt out of my mouth. “I
paid your school fees, okay?”

There was total silence
for a moment, except for the sound of the car being winched beside us. Over my
shoulder, Mrs Dejanovic’s hand was over her mouth.

Bree’s hands dropped from
my arm. “What?”

I exhaled. Well, it was
out now. “I maxed out my credit card and pawned Henry’s ring so I could.”

Another silence stretched
between the three of us. It took Bree a few horrified seconds to catch up. She
was still completely stunned. “But I thought they were letting me stay because
my marks were so good now…”

I winced. “Well, they are
better, but—”

Her jaw tightened. “—but
not good enough for that. I get it,” she said bitterly. After another
breathless pause, her expression sharpened and
she shoved me. “You fucking idiot,” she hissed. “You idiot! Why
did you do that?”

This was not what I expected. In fact, this was
the polar opposite of the reaction I’d imagined she’d have when I told
her; guilty, maybe, but angry? Angry that I volunteered my
own resources to help her stay at the school she loved? “Sorry,” I said a
bit sarcastically, “I guess I wanted you to get a good education, just like—”

She wasn’t listening to my
reply, because something else had
occurred to her. “Oh my god, so this is why you’re giving up art school!”

She was making such a big
deal out of this! “’Deferring’ is not that same as—”

She talked over me. “You said, ‘Maybe I’ll do it in a
year’,” she imitated my deeper voice. “That means never! Oh my god,” she repeated, shaking her head, looking aghast. “Oh my
god. Well, I’m not okay with it. It’s not okay, I won’t accept it. We’ll just
have to go to the registrar and ask them to pay it all back so you can pay the
debt collectors and—”

I stopped her. “There’s no
point, they won’t,” I said shortly. “It’s last year’s fees, not this year’s. I
made an agreement with the Principal that they wouldn’t transfer you to a
public school for not paying this year’s if you keep an average of 75, behave
yourself and wear your uniform correctly—”

“What?” she interrupted
me, her jaw dropping in disbelief. “You’ve had, like, this whole conversation
with them without me?” She couldn’t have looked more betrayed. “Without giving me the choice? Without making me part of a decision that’s about me?” It took her a moment to get her head
around that, and she gaped at me,
running a hand through her curls. “Do you realise how fucking stupid this makes
me look to them? Well, fuck that. Just fuck that. I’ll go to the public
school.”

What? No! I gripped
her shoulders. “Bree, I paid all that money so you could stay! I paid over
twenty grand, you have to stay at Cloverfield and finish the year there!”

She narrowed her eyes at
me. “’Have to’? So, like, that’s an order? You decided by yourself to pay
all this money for me and now you’re allowed to tell me what to do?”

I saw red. “No, but I
think you might actually respect the fact I paid a really big sum of
money for you and went through a whole
shit tonne of crap for you so that you can—”

She shrugged my hands off.
“For me? For me, Min? How can it possibly be for me? You
didn’t ask me! You didn’t ask me what I—”

“You said you
wanted to stay at Cloverfield! That was the whole fucking point of
everything me Sarah, Gemma and I—”

She threw her arms out.
“Not like this!” she said. “Not like this! Not with debt
collectors following me around, and you hiding things from me,
and giving up everything that’s important—”

“You’re important to
me, Bree! That’s the whole reason I did it: you! This was for you!”

The shoved me again. “Then
you might have fucking asked me what I want! Go on, why don’t you ask
me what I want?” She took a step away from me, looking me up and down and
shaking her head. “I get that you spent all that money, I get it, but how can
you not see how fucked this is? It’s not generosity, it’s fucking crazy! It’s like ransom! It’s like…
how could you possibly spend that much money on someone without asking them if it’s okay? Without asking them what they want?” She grabbed
my arms again, and shook me. “Why didn’t
you ask? Why didn’t you say, ‘Hey, Bree, can I give you the enormous, generous
gift of being followed around by debt collectors, of hiding shit from you, and
watching me struggle, and suffer, and give up stuff I really want so you can
keep pretending that you’re good enough to be at
Cloverfield?’ because you know what I would have said?” She glared up at me,
her lip quivering. “I would have said no,
because I want to watch the person I love, the person I most look up to in all
the world, live the life she’s dreamt—”

She was missing the
point. “Can’t you see that I did this so you could
live your dream of graduating from—”

“Don’t you give up your
life for me!” There were tears in her eyes. “Don’t you fucking do that! How do
you think I’d feel ten, twenty years from now, looking at you all bitter and
jaded because you never got to be an artist after all, knowing that you gave it
up so I could graduate from some school where they think I’m the worst student
on the—”

“Fucking hell, Bree, I get
it, I should have asked, but you’re acting like
I threw myself on a sword for you or something! All I did was make an adult decision to spend an enormous
amount of my own money for you to try and help you, because you have no one else! You
wouldn’t be able to do this without me shelling out—”

“No,” she told me. “That’s not what you did. This wasn’t an ‘adult
decision’! An adult
would consult the person they’re making the decision about! You made
a decision about what you thought
was best for me behind my back and then sacrificed everything for it, and now you’re, like, demanding I
be grateful about it and do what you
say!” She took a step towards me. “And you know who you fucking sound like? You
know who you sound like, Min?”

I groaned. “I don’t
know, someone who loves you and honestly thought they were doing the
best for you?”

“No,” she said with
gravity. “You sound like your mother.”

That hit me like a tonne
of bricks.

You could have heard a pin
drop; I guess the tow truck guys were already gone.

Like my mother? I stood there with my jaw
open, reeling, looking down at that
angry red face and that crumpled brow and trying to even draw a single, shallow
breath.

No,
I thought, no,
I’m nothing like Mum. It was
a fucking horrible thing for Bree to say! My mother had wrecked my life. She made me
feel like shit about
myself. I was just trying to do the best for…

…god, was I like her? ‘I was just trying to do the best for you’?
That certainly sounded like
something she’d say to me…

While I was standing there
still horrified by the comparison, Bree reached around her neck and undid her
necklace, lifting my palm and placing the pearl into it. I let her, paralysed.
When she bent down to retrieve her beloved sparkly tablet from her
schoolbag and held it out to me, I managed to pull myself together
enough to stop her.

“It’s for your school,” I
rasped. “You need—”

Her throat was tight.
“Right now I need to get rid of this yuck
feeling that I’m responsible for you not going to art school, losing your car,
and having creepy debt collectors chasing you.” She waved it at me. “Take it.
Sell it. Sell them both.” She pushed it into my hands until I gave in and
accepted it from her. When she took her phone out of her bag and went to
hand that to me as well, I stopped her.

“Bree, we bought that
Chinese brand specifically so that Andrej couldn't pawn it and—”

Her voice broke. “—Just take it, Min! Take it. I don’t
care. I don’t want it.” She pried open my free hand and forced it into my grip,
and when she’d done that and my hands were full, she pushed the Opal card I’d
given her back into my pocket.

I couldn’t stop her. “How
are you going to get home without your Opal card?”

“You can come home with me,”
Mrs Dejanovic offered quietly from behind us. “Dragi won’t mind if I explain—”

“No,” Bree said shortly,
shutting us both down. “Courtney lives close. I’m going to stay at her place
for a bit.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and gave us both one final
miserable look. Then, she shoved me again, made a disgusted noise,
and turned to walk out of the car park. As she left, she was wiping her eyes on
her wrists.

I stood there for a
moment, watching her walk away from me.

What had I done?

Beside me, Mrs Dejanovic
released a long, heavy sigh. I turned toward her; her eyes were glazed as she
watched Bree disappear around the corner. After her daughter had gone, she gave
me a long, searching look—there was such resignation on her face—and then
without saying anything, she checked her watch, and made her way slowly back
inside the factory with her shoulders slumped.

I didn’t know what she
thought of me. I guess it didn’t matter, did it? I couldn’t work here
anymore. Not now that she knew about me, not now that I was fighting with
Bree, and not now she knew that I had illegal loans just like Andrej. I had no
reason to be here.

My head spinning and my
hands full of the presents I’d given Bree, I left the factory on foot.

I thought I might meet
Bree at the train station, but she wasn’t there. It was full of school kids in
different uniforms, giggling together, chatting and playing cheerfully on their
phones. I sat up the other end of the
platform.

Well, that’s it, then, I thought, looking down at Bree’s things in my lap. I owe $48,000 on a loan for a car I don’t
have anymore. I owe $10,000 on a credit card, and god knows whether or not I
still owe $12,000 on the pawnbroker loan. I did some mental addition:
$70,000. I owed $70,000. And the person I’d done it for, the person who’d
changed my life and whose life I thought I was changing for the better, hated me
for it. But it was too late to undo what I’d done. It was too late.

I give up, I thought, sinking into the bench. Maybe I’d end up bankrupt before Mr
and Mrs Dejanovic did; how ironic. I might even end up
bankrupt and single, and it would be my own damn fault.

I turned Bree’s phone over
in my hands; I couldn’t even text her to apologise. I love you, I thought, feeling the little diamantes she’d stuck on
the back of it with my fingertips.  I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.

If
I was anything like Mum, though, ‘sorry’ would never be
enough. God, was I like her, though? Was I? I couldn’t think
straight to give myself an answer; my head felt like it was stuffed full of
cotton wool.

It was
a long trip home without my car. I didn’t really know what the fuck
was going to happen with it—was Seung holding it to ransom, or was he going to
rebadge it and sell it, and did I even still owe the money?—I knew I should
call him and ask, but with every fibre of my being I did not want to
make that phone call.

All I wanted to do was
find Bree, get down on my knees and beg
her to forgive me. To plead with her to come home with me. But there was no point, because I knew she was too angry to say
yes.

What am I going to do without her? I thought, getting off the train by
myself at Sarah’s station. Everything that was going on for me had just
spiralled into a vortex of chaos, and
now I didn’t even have her to tell me I was doing the ‘teeth-grindy’ thing again, or to make a cake to cheer
me up, or to wrap those soft arms around me and tell me everything was going to
be okay.

The streetlamps were
beginning to click on when I made it around the corner to Sarah’s place, and I was
in the process of trying to figure out what the fuck happened now. I’d reached into my pocket for my keys, when I noticed the front porch light was
on.

I stopped in place,
frowning.

Sarah never left
that on—not unless she was expecting someone, which she
would have told me about—and it wouldn’t have been Rob, either, because Rob’s
car wasn’t parked beside the house where he always left it. Up the driveway, I
could see the living room light was on, too. Someone was inside.

My blood ran cold.

Shit, I thought immediately, if those guys aren’t home, it’s the debt collectors waiting for me like
Seung said!

I turned to look around me; there was no one out in the street. There were no dark cars parked
anywhere—Bree had always talked about there being dark cars—but that didn’t
mean anything, did it? They might have parked them around the corner.

Shit, I kept repeating to myself. What did I do? Should I call the police? I wanted to, but I had a
feeling things would only get worse for me if I did. If they were willing to
make house calls to Sarah’s house, they’d be willing to make them to Bree’s
parents’ or even Courtney’s. Fuck,
I couldn’t get anyone else involved again, I couldn’t!

Maybe it’s not collectors, I tried to tell myself. Maybe Sarah was home early, or maybe Bree hadn’t gone back to
Courtney’s after all. It wasn’t a convincing argument; Bree wouldn’t have
beat me back here, and I doubted that Frost would release its Marketing team
this early on a Tuesday, especially if they were up in a summit somewhere and
had a huge project in the works.

It’s definitely debt collectors, I thought. No one else could get
in. Fuck. What more could they take from me? They already had my
relationship and my car, did they want to go through the house, too? God, I
hoped they wouldn’t take Sarah’s or Rob’s stuff. They probably would; they
didn’t seem too attached to the concept of ‘fair’.

I couldn’t just
stand here, though. Rob and I got home on a Tuesday night last week, and I
didn’t want collectors to be here when Rob got home. I just had to go in and
see what they wanted.

I looked down at the
sparkly purple tablet, and then awkwardly tucked it in the small of my back
behind my belt, snug in the elastic of my briefs. I didn’t want Bree to lose
anything else because of my shitty choices.

I tip-toed up the front
stairs to the porch, trying very hard not to jingle my keys as I very,
very quietly tried to slip one into the lock. My hand was shaking.

Come on, Min, I thought. They’re
probably not going to hurt you, because
they wouldn’t want to draw attention to themselves, would they? Maybe
Seung just sent them to scare you for
giving him so much hassle.

I was trying
to silently turn the lock when the door wrenched open.

I shouted with surprise,
ducking like someone was going to hit me, but the person just
laughed heartily. I recognised that laugh: Rob. “What are you sneaking
around for?” he asked as I straightened. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

Oh my god. I was panting. “Fuck,”
I told him, giving him an impromptu hug and patting his back a couple of times.
“You scared the life out of me. I thought no one was home. Where’s your car?”

His eyebrows went up. “Oh,
yeah,” he said. “Well, your car wasn’t blocking it for once, so I parked up
around the back instead. I hope you’re okay with that.”

I shut my eyes for a
second. Of course. “I am so glad to see you,” I told him
cryptically. “I have had the worst fucking day.”

He laughed again. “Well,
sorry I topped it off by surprising you,” he said, his smile growing. “But I’ve
actually got another surprise for you!”

I squinted at him. I
was not in the mood. “You do?”

He grinned. “Yeah.” I
stopped for a second, but he gave me a push and ushered me up the hallway.
“Nah, come on, I reckon you’ll love it.”

I wasn’t so sure. “I don’t
really feel like being surprised right now, Rob…”

He thumped me on
the back. “Cheer up, mate,” he said. “I’d give everything I’ve got for the
surprise you’re about to get! Not all of us get to have rellies visit like you do.”

I stopped in place.
‘Rellies’ as in relatives? Like, Seung-saying-he’s-my-cousin relatives? Korean-debt-collectors-claiming-to-be-members-of-my-family relatives?
Or—?

My vision greyed, but Rob
kept excitedly propelling me forward into the living room.

“Guess who’s come to visit you!” Rob announced,
presenting her to me with a big, broad smile on his face like he was really
excited about it.

The shock of who was
sitting at the dining table winded me.

That neat hair, that nice
dress, that sour expression… God, I hadn’t lived with her for five years, but childhood panic reached
right through those five years to instantly grip me around the throat just like
it always had when I was a kid. I couldn’t breathe.

Mum looked up, and, I
don’t know if it was the light, or my haircut, or, well, everything about
how I looked—but she didn’t recognise me straight away. She was going to say
something to Rob, but at that moment she
double-took and the words never left her mouth. She saw me. Jaw wide open, recognition flashed across her face.
She half-stood, taking a few staggering steps towards me as she propped herself
up on the table for support. It was like she’d seen a monster. “Min?”

I was frozen in place. It
was like a nightmare. “Mum.”

THIRTY-TWO

Her eyes were on my suit, my flat
chest, my padded shoulders, and finally my short hair. A tiny gasp escaped from
her mouth, and she stepped forward to roughly pull me down so she could inspect
me. She was still wearing the same perfume. “Min,” she began in Korean, “what in God’s name have you done to
your lovely long hair?”

I didn’t have time to reply, because she held me back at arm’s length
and was scrutinising my body. “I don’t know what you—” The words died on her
lips.

I knew what she was
looking at: I was wearing the packer. The room began to spin; Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell was I going to do?

“What—?” Her eyes were
wide as saucers as she looked back up at me, confused. “What is this?
Why are you doing this to me, Min? Why?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Is
it to punish me?”

I could barely get air
through my throat. Glancing furtively back towards Rob, who was
looking really confused and uncomfortable, I answered quietly in
Korean. “No, it’s not, I—”

“—Oh, God—” She released
me and took a few steps away, her hand reaching to clasp the pearls at her
throat. “What have I done to deserve this daughter?” Her eyes dipped to my
crotch, and then she immediately jammed them shut for a second as if she’d seen
something illicit. “Tell me no one else saw you like this!”

I
licked my dry lips. “I actually just got home from working at—”

She cut me off with a
pained noise. “Oh!” She put her face in her hands for a moment, before looking
back at me, glaring. “God!
You always have to be the centre of attention, don’t you, Min? Everyone
always needs to be talking about you! I thought you grew out
of that little habit after the big fuss you caused in high school,
but apparently I was wrong.”

Did she just say… I
clenched my jaw. “Mum, that’s really
not very—”

“Well, I don’t have the
energy to deal with you acting up right now. Not after I’ve travelled all this
way to see you and spent all week looking for someone to mind your grandma for
a few days.” She straightened, gathering some composure. “I’m too tired to deal
with this nonsense. Go and put some proper clothes on this instant. Then I suppose we’ll have to figure out what on earth
to do with that awful hair once you’re done.”

I took a long uneven
breath. Even if I’d considered the idea of putting on a dress for her, I didn’t
have any. At least, not in my possession. “I can’t.”

Her expression soured.
“What do you mean ‘I can’t’? Do it!”

I stayed put. “I mean that
wearing dresses makes me feel uncomfortable, and I can’t—”

“—Uncomfortable?” Her brow lowered. “Well, I’d like to wear a
dressing gown all day because it’s more comfortable,
but people can’t just live like animals, we all have to be presentable!” She
gave me the once-over, shaking her head. “What’s gotten into you? Hurry
up! Change! I don’t want to see you in this ridiculous suit anymore.”
She shook her head at it. “God, you look so ridiculous. I’m embarrassed to look
at you. Take it off!”

“No,” I told her firmly,
but my voice was shaking. “This is how I’m comfortable, I’m not going to take—”

She grabbed me
by the elbow and viciously dragged me past shell-shocked Rob into the hallway.
“Which one of these doors is your bedroom!” she demanded. “Tell me!”

“Mum!” I tried to pull
away from her, but she had me in a vice-like grip.

“This one?” She looked at
me and judged the answer by my silence, dragging me
into it and flinging me free towards the bed, looking around us, aghast. “What is this mess?”
she asked. “God! Keeping clothes in a suitcase! Unbelievable!”
She knelt awkwardly down anyway and unzipped it.

My heart was in my throat: the suitcase! “Mum, there’s
nothing in—”

She made a disgusted sound
as she opened it. “—and your clothes aren’t even folded!” she interrupted me,
holding one up. It was a men’s shirt. She took out another piece of clothing,
and another, holding them up, and each of them were menswear: a t-shirt, a
hoodie, my spare pair of jeans, nothing that
resembled anything feminine.

“Mum, stop, you’re not going to find—”

“—What is—ugh!” She held
up a pair of my briefs—clearly men’s briefs, I needed the Y-front to hold the
packer in place—and made a pained noise, throwing them fiercely down hard
on the floorboards so she could keep digging deeper into it, faster, looking
for something she recognised.

She reached the bottom of the
case, pulling out my summer t-shirts, and lighter jumpers, my cotton pyjamas...
I inhaled sharply; I’d hidden the hard packer
under everything, and that was the
last thing in the world that I wanted her to see. I needed to stop
her right now.

I quickly stepped forward
and took her arm. “Mum, there’s only men’s clothes in there.”

She made a frustrated
noise. “Well, where are your clothes?”
she asked tiredly, like she was sick of
the conversation. “Are they in one of these other bags?” She stood stiffly to
go and inspect another case, but I stopped her.

“No, they’re not.”

She turned towards me and
put her hands on her hips, sighing. “Well, where did you—”

She wasn’t going to like
the answer. “I gave them away. All of them.”

“You gave—” Her jaw hung
for a moment. It didn’t last for long; her face quickly hardened. “The
clothes I bought you for work?” she asked for confirmation. “All of
the beautiful designer clothes that I had specially tailored to fit
your long body so you didn’t walk into Frost International looking like you’d
been shopping at K-Mart?” She sounded increasingly upset. “You gave those away?”

I swallowed. “Maybe if I
explain why I—”

“It doesn’t matter why!”
she interrupted. “I bought those for you on a cleaner’s salary, Min!
Do you know how long a cleaner has to work to afford labels?” When I didn’t
immediately answer her, she continued, “Of course you don’t, you walked
straight out of university into a six-figure salary because someone paid for you to have a good
education. Well, those clothes took me a long time to save up for, so
you get them back right now! Ask whoever you—”

“I appreciate you did that
for me, I do. But wouldn’t you rather someone who
feels comfortable in them wears them? I always felt really
uncomfortable when I—”

She exaggeratedly rolled
her eyes. “—Oh, stop being so precious, Min! We’re women! Women have to endure all sorts of discomforts, that’s just
part of being a—”

“No, Mum, you’re not
listening to me! The discomfort I feel is not an ordinary part of
being a woman, not at all. I’m not talking about sore feet because of heels, or
tight bras or—”

She was beginning to raise
her voice. “Then what are you talking about, Min? What made
my incredibly selfish daughter give away thousands of dollars’ worth
of clothes her mother worked her knuckles to the bone to buy for her, hmm?
Because I can’t imagine anything that—”

Did I need to spell it out
for her? “—Because women’s clothes make me miserable, okay? Being a woman made
me miserable. I always felt huge and uncomfortable and wrong. I’m happy like
this,” I told her, gesturing down at my body. “I don’t
feel wrong when I’m in men’s clothes and when people treat me like
a—!”

She frantically cut me off
before I could finish. “Don’t be ridiculous,
you silly girl!” she told me, her
voice shooting up an octave. “You’re not five anymore, you can’t just wear
gumboots and a tutu because you’ve decided you like it! You’re an adult now and
you’re getting older, Min. Boys might
find tomboys fun to play with in the schoolyard, but no respectable man like
Henry would be seen dead with one on their arm!”

“Good, because a
man is exactly the opposite of what I’m looking for!”

She scoffed. “You might
think you don’t need one now, but your short hair and your men’s
suit are going to seem pretty worthless when you’re old and all alone with
no one to take care of you!”

“I didn’t say I’d be
alone, I just said I wouldn’t be with a man!”

She scoffed. “Your
so-called friends won’t have any interest in you at all after they
have their own families, believe me! Henry is
the one you should be trying to impress, not them,
because he’s the one you’ve…” Something occurred to her. “…he’s the one you’ve
been…” The words died on her lips as she finally heard the implication of what
I’d said.

She never finished the
sentence, because she took a step back from me, finally taking a really good
look at my room. The two pillows, the cherry-print bra with cups that
were way too big for my small breasts hanging on the back of my
chair, the framed photo on the bedside table with Bree smooching my cheek...

She picked it up, her
jaw open. She was completely silent for a second. “My God,” she said eventually, looking down at the photo.

This was it. This was the
moment I hoped would never come.

I closed my eyes for a
second. “Bree,” I told her. “Her name’s Bree.”

She took a ragged breath,
dropping the photo back on the table and shaking her head stiffly. “No. No, I don’t believe it! This isn’t
happening. This can’t be happening, you’re about to marry Henry!”

I swallowed. “I didn’t know
how to tell you, Mum.”

She looked up at me,
horror and disbelief evident on her face. “So you lied to me?
You lied to your own mother?” She turned sharply away from me for a
moment, putting her face in her hands and making a series of agonised sounds, before
turning back and taking a step towards me. “’Henry can’t talk to you because
he’s busy on a project’? Really?” She grabbed my lapels. “Tell me this
isn’t what happened,” she said through tight lips. “Tell me you didn’t
leave Henry, lovely Henry, the HR Manager for a Fortune 500 company, the man who wanted to marry you, for that,” she gave me the once-over, “and for this?”

There was no point in
answering her. She knew the answer. Shaking, she shrank away from me like everything in my room was encroaching
on her, staring at me with a mixture of horror and confusion. “Where did
this come from?” she asked in a tiny voice. “Who are you and what
have you done with my daughter? The daughter who loved Henry and wanted to
marry him?”

“I never loved him like
that. I wanted to, believe me, and I
tried. I tried for three years. But I couldn’t.”

She didn’t reply. Instead,
she looked at me with new eyes. The anger was gone, and in its place was
something far, far worse: disgust.

“What’s wrong with
you?” she asked, desperately shaking her head at me. “Who couldn’t love Henry?
He’s everything any woman could want in a husband, and he wouldn’t
have left you, Min! He wouldn’t have left you to raise your children on your
own, he would have stayed with you! God, when you told me you’d left him, I
knew you weren’t in your right mind, and I knew it had something to
do with your mental illness, but I never thought…” She took another hoarse
breath. “God, I never thought it
could be this bad. Look at you! You need psychiatric treatment. Your mental illness
is completely out of—”

My illness? “—Anxiety
doesn’t cause this, Mum, it’s—”

“Then you were obviously misdiagnosed!” she interrupted me, backing
away. “It’s something much, much worse. You are sick. You are sick,
Min, there is something wrong with your brain! Look at the disgusting, depraved,
and perverted things you
are doing!” Her mouth twisted on the words, her face contorted with
disgust. She was pressed back against the door as if she thought I might be
contagious. “Why are you doing all this? Are you trying to make people think
you are a real—”

“—because it
feels right, Mum!” I answered. “It’s the only way I feel—”

“This is crazy!” she was repeating, hardly
listening to me. “This is sick and crazy. You
do realise you’re not actually a man, don’t you?
You’re not a man, no amount of wearing men’s clothes is going to turn
you into one! Underneath them all you’re still the little girl I gave birth to,
and when you stand before God in Heaven—God willing, you actually get
there!—it will be as that same girl. You
have a girl’s body and a girl’s—”

I felt ill. “—I know, Mum,
okay? Believe me, I know I—”

“Then why are you doing
this?” she asked. “Why are you putting me through this if you know? Why
are you depriving me of my
daughter and a wedding and a family if you know?”

A lump formed in my
throat. “I’m not trying to take anything away from you, Mum, it’s—”

“There’s nothing
you haven’t taken from me! I spent twenty years giving
every part of me so you were fed, wore the beautiful clothes I never
had as a little girl, and received a good education... I gave up my career for
you, my country, my home, everything
I knew! Everything I knew, Min! I came ten thousand kilometres to make a home and a future for you,
and this is how you repay me?”

“I can’t repay you, Mum,”
I managed through my tight jaw. “I’m never going to be able to repay you. You
act like the debt’s settled when I do everything you want me to, but the second
that stops, suddenly I owe you again, and I can’t live like that! I can’t live
the life you gave up and be happy!” I presented myself. “This
is me! This is me, living the
life that’s right for me, this is how
I am!” I let my hands fall to my side.
“But I’m still your child. I’m still the person you raised all by yourself. You
can see that, can’t you?”

“No, I can’t,” she told me
firmly through quivering lips. “I don’t know this crazy, delusional person
in front of me. I don’t want to
know her. I want my daughter back.”

Like
she’d punched me in the stomach, I reeled, breathless. I shouldn’t
have said it, I shouldn’t have, but I was aching from that blow and
before I knew it, I’d spat at her, “Well you can’t have her. She’s gone.
You’re never getting her
back.”

I saw immediately how much
that hurt her, and she took a step away from me, her hand rising up to the
pearls at her throat again. For a moment
she just stared at me like she couldn’t believe I’d said it, and then
she shook her head, defeated. I expected her to insult me, or yell at me,
or belittle me, anything. But she didn’t, she just spun on her heels
and marched out through the bedroom door.

She was out into the
living room well before I could follow her there, an anxious hand on her chest
and half-walking, half-jogging towards the door. Rob was hovering nervously by
the table, but I didn’t have time to address him,
because Mum was already at the door. She grabbed the handle and went to pull
it, but the door just rattled and stayed put. It was locked.

“Let me out!” she said in
English, her voice shooting up high as she shook the door. “Let me
out! I need to get out of here!”

I felt for the keys in my
pocket as I went over to her. “It’s locked, Mum, just let me—”

She darted away from me as
I got there, her hands in the air as if she thought I was going to try and
physically stop her. “Don’t! Don’t!” she told me—it wasn’t clear what she
thought I was going to do—but she’d already lost it. “Oh God! Oh God! I
can’t breathe! Look what you’ve done to me, you monster—!”

She was reaching for her
throat, pulling at her blouse and her pearls, gasping each
breath and clutching at her chest—

—and that’s when I looked
past her and saw Rob, white as a
sheet. His eyes were glazed; I don’t know if I’d seen him like that before. He
was somewhere else. “She’s having a heart
attack,” he realised aloud. “Min, she’s having
a heart attack!” He sprung immediately to action, rushing towards her. “Here,
sit down, Mrs Lee,” he said in his broad accent, carrying one of the heavy
kitchen chairs in a single hand like it was nothing but kindling and placing it
neatly behind her. “Sit down, it’s going to be okay.” To me, he said, “It’s
okay, I learnt what to do. You just call triple-0, yeah?”

I pulled him back. “Rob,
it’s not a heart attack,” I told him. “It’s just a panic attack, I get these
all the—”

“It’s a heart attack!” he
insisted, pushing Mum down into the chair. He put a hand on my shoulder briefly
and squeezed it. “I know it’s difficult to watch, but I need you to call…” He
trailed off, considering me. “Actually, you know what? I’ll call
triple-0. You look like you could use a bit of a sit-down, yourself.”

His phone was already out
of his pocket and in his hands as he finished speaking. He thumbed out the
number and then put the phone against his ear. “Ambulance, please.” He’d put a
warm hand on Mum’s shoulder, just like Henry used to.

She didn’t stop him from
calling. She didn’t do any of the things she would have done if it
was me telling her to sit
still. She was meek and sweet with Rob like
she was with Henry, and now Rob probably thought I was this giant asshole who
hated their mother. At least Rob would see I was right when the paramedics
arrived and gave her a clean bill of health.

I was busy pacing,
listening to him talking to the operator and watching him fuss over Mum,
absently reaching around to rub an uncomfortable spot on the small of my— Oh,
Bree’s tablet was still tucked in my belt and poking directly into me. I’d
completely forgotten about it; I took both it and Bree's mobile out and put
them on the table. They did serve to remind me how fucking awful my
day had been from the very beginning,
though, and how this medical circus over a panic attack was not what I needed at the end of it.

It wasn’t even five
minutes before the unmistakable wail of a siren came up our road and pulled
into the driveway. There was a firm knock on the door—“Ambulance!”—as I opened
it for them. Three serious people in uniforms marched single-file into the
house carrying big, heavy medical kits and the two female paramedics got
straight to work on Mum.

“You’re Mrs Lee, aren’t
you?” one of them asked a bit too slowly and clearly. “Can you tell me how
you’re feeling right now?” Mum didn’t respond straight away; her lips were
pressed too tightly together. “Mrs Lee? Can you understand me?”

“She’s
having a panic attack,”
I told them when she didn’t answer. I may have sounded a bit unsympathetic.

Everyone looked at me. “You’re
her son?” the paramedic at Mum’s side asked innocently.

That made Mum finally
look up at me, and when she saw me and saw all the people looking at me, a
pained sound escaped her lips. “Oh! I can’t look at her, I can’t even look at
her for a moment,” she told them, and then started dramatically clutching at
her chest again. “My daughter…”

The ambos glanced at each
other, not sure what to make of that, but started to prop her up and clip
things on her anyway.

Every time they took a
reading from her, I expected them to smile and say, ‘You’re fine, Mrs Lee!’,
but they didn’t. No one told her she was fine. They kept piling more and more
equipment onto her, and when they started attaching adhesive leads by her
collarbones and under her ribs, their mobile unit flashed at them. I didn’t
know what that meant, because they
weren’t rushing like it was a critical emergency, but they weren’t
patting her on the back and leaving, either.

While they were lifting
her onto a stretcher, one of the paramedics took me aside and quietly asked,
“Sorry, but can I ask about this ‘daughter’ she keeps mentioning? Was there a
recent death in the family, maybe?”

Shit. I grimaced at him.
“Not exactly,” I told him carefully. “Technically I’m her daughter.
That’s the problem.”

He frowned at first like
I’d said something cryptic, but after a few moments his eyebrows lifted and his
mouth formed a perfect ‘o’. “Oh, right,” he said, putting two and two together.
“And it’s distressing her to see you like that now, I understand.” Thankfully,
he didn’t linger on the topic. “Would you mind if I asked some questions about
her history?”

I can’t even remember what
he asked, because while I was answering, they wheeled Mum right past me to load
her into the ambulance. With all these cords and clips and machines connected
to her, it suddenly hit me they were loading
my mother into an ambulance. They hadn’t given her a clean
bill of health. They hadn’t waved goodbye and left. Instead, my mother was on
that stretcher, with an oxygen mask over her face and her eyes closed. She
looked so small, lying down like that. Small and pale.

And no matter how much I
told myself I was stupid and I needed to snap out of it, I couldn’t get rid of
the crushing realisation that I’d
done that to her.

While I was mutely watching
the ambulance back out of the driveway, pausing for a second in the centre of
the road before it lit up and the siren started whooping, the door to the house
shut behind me. “Come on,” Rob said as he jogged past me towards the car.
“Let’s go. They’re taking her to the Royal Prince Alfred.”

No sooner had I got in the
passenger seat, Rob was reversing out of the driveway at the speed of light and
screeching up the road in the same direction the ambulance had gone.

“It’s going to be okay,”
he told me as I belatedly did up my seatbelt, even though I hadn’t said
anything. “They probably caught it in time. She’ll be okay.” Aside from saying
that, he stared forward at the road, eyes still glazed. I watched him for a
moment, wondering if I should ask him if he was alright, but I didn’t
want to intrude.

Rob probably got about ten
speeding fines along the M1, but he hardly slowed down at all until he pulled
in beside the entrance to a beautiful big old building with a sign above us
that said, ‘Welcome to RPA—AMBULANCE ONLY’.

Rob looked unfazed by it.
“Bugger ‘em,” he said, and then turned to me. “Get out, go see your mum, I’ll
find us a park.”

I thanked him and did as
he instructed, walking through the main doors into the ER waiting room.

There was
a queue at triage. Of
course, I thought, standing at the back of it and fidgeting with my phone,
wondering if I should text Sarah to let her know what was going on. I probably
would have, except there was a sign with big red letters right in front of me
that said, ‘Mobile phones to be switched
off at all times in the ER’, so I left my phone in my pocket.

The line moved at a
gruellingly slow pace—and I learnt things about the people in front of me that
I never wanted to know—until finally I was face to face
with the triage nurse. Despite having bags the size of small sauces under her
eyes, she smiled at me. “What’s the problem?”

Where do I start, I thought ironically, but said, “My
mum came in here by ambulance just a little while ago, is this the right place
to ask about her?”

“Mm-hmm,” she said, and rolled sideways to her computer.
“What’s her name?”

“Yeong-suk Lee,” I told
her, and then at her blank expression I continued, “Y-E-O-N—”

“Oh, it’s okay, I found
her,” she said, and then her eyes scanned the screen. “And you are—” Her
eyebrows went up, and she glanced up at me before squinting at the screen for
another couple of seconds. Her expression sobered. “Min, right?” I nodded, and
she rolled sideways to a phone, lifting the handset. “Hang on a moment, I need
to grab a social worker.”

A social worker? “But
she’s okay, right?” I asked while the nurse was waiting for someone to answer.
“You’d say if she wasn’t?”

The nurse gave me a polite
smile. “If you just go and wait by that door, Lisa will see you very shortly.”
She was gesturing to the side of the window so I stepped aside, and immediately
she turned her attention to the next person in line.

I stood there for a
moment, frowning, and then obediently went and stood by the door she’d pointed
to. That was a bad sign, wasn’t it? That a social worker had to be
the one to tell me something?

I was standing there
waiting for ‘Lisa’ when Rob came bursting into the ER, a phone
pressed against his ear.

“Fuck!” he said loudly and then noticed all the children around us.
“Um, sorry,” he said sheepishly to the families around me and then pulled the
phone away from his ear, looking at it. “Sare’s phone is off,” he told me,
looking worried. “I tried her like five times, no dice. Did she say anything to
you? Have you heard from her?” I shook my head, and he pursed his lips. “Well,
maybe the battery’s flat. Anyway, did they tell you about your mum? She’s fine,
right?”

I opened my mouth to
answer him when a woman’s voice called, “Min Lee?”

I closed my jaw again.
“I’ll let you know in a sec,” I told him, and then followed ‘Lisa’ through the
door.

The woman who’d called me
had a similar stature to Bree’s mum—even with the curly hair, except this
woman’s hair was dark brown—but where Bree’s mum had been cool and distant, Lisa
was warm and receptive. “Sorry about the awful wait,” she told me, leading me
through the double-doors and into a small office down the end of the corridor.
She closed the door behind her.

I sat down in one of the
chairs facing her desk. There were little plastic figurines all over the edge
of her table and a toy box in the corner; I guessed she saw a lot of children.

She spent what felt
like eternity pouring me a glass of water and sitting back down at her chair. When she
was finally done, she leant forward on the desk. “This might be a
very difficult conversation,” she began. “So if you need to go to the toilet,
or you need anything—”

My blood ran cold. “Thank
you, I’m fine,” I said shortly. Why was it going to be difficult?

She nodded once, and then sat
back. “Are you close to your mother?”

What kind of question was that? “Why, is she not okay?” I
asked, getting to the point. “She’s
okay, right?”

Lisa grimaced. “I’m very
sorry, but I can’t actually tell you that.”

Why not? “Is she in theatre
or something?”

Lisa took a slow breath.
“Well, Mrs Lee requested that details of her medical condition are withheld
from you for now.”

I didn’t—wow. I just—she didn’t want her own kid to know how she was? I
immediately knew why, and my worry about her hardened into something else. “Fine,” I said bitterly. “But can you at
least tell me if she’s going to be okay?”

Lisa looked genuinely
sympathetic. “I’m sorry, I’m not able to give you that information. You’re
welcome to wait to see if she changes her mind, but
unfortunately she was very specific about what she wanted.” She paused.
“And what that is will be difficult for you to hear.”

“What’s going to be
difficult for me to hear?”

She laced her fingers.
“Mrs Lee asked that you not be permitted to access her records or visit her
until you ‘stop antagonising’ her – her words. Specifically, she said she’d be
happy for ‘her daughter’ to see her, but no one else.” Lisa’s face softened,
and her eyes dipped to my body for a second. “I take that to mean that she
won’t see you unless you present as a woman to her.”

I already
knew exactly what she meant before she clarified, and I was clenching
my jaw so tightly my teeth ached. I shouldn’t have been surprised, should I?

Lisa looked appropriately
apologetic. “I’m sorry, I know this must be hard for you. We have counsellors
on call here,
if you need to speak to someone. I’m also happy to listen.”

I elected
to not pour out my soul to a complete stranger, so she released me
back into the waiting room and I stood there for a second amongst the sea of
sick and injured people, lost.

I surveyed the waiting
room for Rob’s high viz jumper—I should at least tell him I had no news for him
about how Mum was—but I couldn’t see the bright orange sleeves anywhere. He’d
disappeared. I waited for him for a few minutes just in case he’d gone to the
toilet or something, but when he didn’t return, I ignored the ‘no mobiles’ rule
and tried calling his phone. He’d turned his
off, too; clearly he was actually following the rules this time. I’d
just have to wait for him to call me.

Because I couldn’t think
of what else to do while I waited, I
wandered outside into a little courtyard to get away from all the commotion so
I could hear myself think.

It was a little linear
garden between two old buildings, filled with bronze sculptures that had a
medical theme; a mother holding a tiny baby, angels lifting a frail and
skeletal man from his hospital bed. It seemed like a strangely artistic series
to have in a hospital, and I was wondering about that when I came to an
entrance to the building opposite, and a sign above it read ‘University of Sydney’.

My school, I thought, looking up at it. Or, at least, a campus of the school I
was supposed to go to. I had no idea if that was still even
happening.

I had no idea
what to do about anything, actually. Not just about Mum, but in general. About
Bree, about my debts, about everything. I’d completely fucked it all up. I’d mishandled the stuff with Mum and the stuff with Bree through some
really fucking stupid, impulsive
decisions—seriously, what had I been
thinking?—and it was too late to try and
undo the damage I’d done.

Maybe if I hadn’t lied
to her, I thought
about Mum. Maybe if I’d sat her down and
faced her like an adult about what’s going on for me. Maybe I wouldn’t have
given her a fucking heart attack and neither of us would be here. God, why
did I always fucking do this?

But I’d done it, and any
structure or direction I’d had about my life was shot to hell as a result. I
literally couldn’t imagine what was going to happen to me tomorrow, let
alone next week, next year, or further in the future.

That bright future, all my
hopes, my dreams, everything that I wanted for my life and the people I cared
about, they were all slipping through my fingers like grains of sand.

I just felt so lost. So fucking lost. A lump formed in my throat. What
was going to happen to me?

I didn’t want to cry in
public, so I walked further away from the ER, eyes downcast so no one could
see.

What was going to happen
if Mum wasn’t okay, and the
last time I ever saw her was as she was loaded into an ambulance after we’d had
an enormous fight? What if she was lying in her room dying now, alone, by
herself, refusing to see me because I wouldn’t put on a dress? Would the
staff let me see her if she was
dying? Like, after she was unconscious so I could at least say my last goodbyes
to—

—deep in thought, I
nearly crashed into someone who’d stopped abruptly in front of me,
stunned. I glanced up and mumbled an apology, but when I saw who it was,
recognition slammed me like a
tonne of bricks.

It was Henry.

THIRTY-THREE

He still looked the same, everything
about him was the same; his stiff pressed shirt, his awful paisley tie. And
even though Sarah had been right in her assessment of him—he seemed sad,
somehow—everything about him was warm and familiar, and my life was such total shit right now that I just wanted
to hug him.

I didn’t, though. Of course I didn’t. He’d made his feelings
about me clear when he’d left me in the men’s at the restaurant and then
changed his phone number. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, and with all my resolve and
all my strength, I turned to walk away and leave him alone.

Unexpectedly, he stopped
me. “Min.” When I looked back at him, I saw his eyes travel between mine; it
was clear I’d been crying. He must have guessed why that was. “Oh no,” he said
gravely. “Oh no, is she okay?”

How did he—? Had Mum found
some way of calling him? She must have, that must have been why he
was here. Fuck. “I don’t
know, she won’t talk to me. She didn’t tell you?”

He seemed a bit guarded.
“She was very brief with me, very brief. I’m surprised she told me
anything at all.”

I wasn’t as surprised.
“She completely loves you, of course
she would.” I sighed at length. “I’m sorry she got you involved again. You
don’t have to stay here, you can just go and—”

He put a hand on my arm to
silence me, looking really confused for a moment. “We’re not talking
about Sarah, are we?”

What? I blinked at him. “Sarah? No, Mum’s here, and I—” Hang on. “—Wait, why
would we be talking about Sarah?”

Henry had a very deep
frown. “Because I thought—I don’t—your mum is
here?”

We stood staring at each
other with our jaws open. I had no
idea what was going on.

He broke first with nervous chuckle. “Perhaps we should start this
conversation again.”

I was way too
stunned for that. “Did you say Sarah’s
here?” He nodded. “What! Is she okay?
Is it the baby, or—?”

He shook his head. “I
don’t know, Min. She needed a manager to authorise a taxi all the way from
Clifftops. I asked her why, and she told me she needed to come here
immediately. That’s all I know.”

I didn’t believe him at
all about not knowing more; I thought he was doing his Mr HR Manager
Confidentiality thing again. “And yet you came here to see her,” I pointed out,
giving him a suspicious look.

He sighed at me. “I’m here
because Alice had her twins last night.”

I opened my mouth. Oh. Suddenly things started to slot into
place, and I grimaced. “Sorry. I’m just…” I shook my head. “I’m a fucking mess.
Ignore me. God.” I looked back
up at the main RPA building. “Sarah would be in Maternity, right? Would they
let me visit her this late, do you think?”

I’d taken a step back
towards the entrance of the hospital, but he frantically stopped me by taking
my arm. “Min, please don’t. I shouldn’t have told you.”

I gave him a look. “Of
course you should have told me. Sarah’s a close friend. If she’s miscarrying or
there’s something wrong with—”

He cut me off. “Look,
Sarah told me as an HR manager because she needed my assistance as an HR
manager. She obviously didn’t want to tell anyone else, it’s a terrible breach
of confidentiality that I did,” he said, and then dropped his arm.
“Please, I’m in enough trouble at work as it is.”

I was in a difficult
position. I almost wanted to go looking for Sarah anyway—I couldn’t imagine
what it would feel like to have some sort of pregnancy-related emergency and
need to go through it alone—except then I remembered Rob was missing, too. That must be where he went, I thought.
I should probably give them some privacy. Besides, it would be really bad
form on top of cheating on and leaving Henry to also do something that might
get him fired.

“Okay,” I said, sighing.
Rob would probably do a better job of taking care of her anyway.

Henry visibly relaxed. “Thank you,” he said with gravity. “Not
that I think Sarah would have complained, but these things have a habit of
getting out, and the fact you’re involved would have made it look so much worse.”

The fact that I was involved? While I was trying to
figure out why that would matter, it occurred to me that I’d never found out
what the fallout was over that pretend directions interview—whatever it
actually was—or any more at all about why
Sean had set us up. I wanted to ask Henry what happened and if he was okay, especially if he was okay. The words
were on the tip of my tongue; I wasn’t sure he’d want to hear them, though, or
even if it was my place to say them.

We stood facing each other for a few seconds, both of us
holding our breath, on the cusp of speaking.

In the end, I did first. I
didn’t want to add ‘hurting Henry some more’ to my list of ways I’d fucked up
today. “You can go, if you want. You cut
contact with me for a reason.”

He exhaled. “Well, I
didn’t do so well the last few times we talked…” he said candidly, but his
sentence sounded unfinished.

“You should go,” I told him firmly,
before I could get my hopes up. “Honestly, you should run as fast as you can.
My life is a fucking train wreck at the moment and I’m about five seconds from
a nervous breakdown.”

He smiled slightly.
“Well,” he said simply. “That makes two of us.”

I looked up at him. There
was something so fragile and hollow about his polite smile. “That’s my fault,
isn’t it?”

He tilted his head. “It’s
a combination of factors,” he said dismissively, adding, “and none of them are
that my mother is in hospital…” I think he meant for me to elaborate.

I didn’t. “You’re
deflecting.”

He chuckled at the fact I’d caught him; it didn’t last long. “I
am,” he admitted. “Because if I talk about what life is really like for me at the moment, I’m going to have that breakdown
you mentioned right here outside the hospital. I’d rather hold onto the last
shred of my dignity instead.”

God,
I knew that feeling. “Well, on the bright side,” I said wryly, “if we do have our matching breakdowns out
here, there’s a ward inside especially for us with lots of drugs to make all our problems just disappear.”

“Fantastic. I’ve been
wondering if I can take a pill that will kill my boss.”

I laughed, because I hadn’t been expecting him to fire
back so quickly given how miserable he seemed. He looked delighted by the fact
that I did, and for a couple of seconds we smiled at each other.

His open smile faded
quickly to something more private, and he spent some time considering me again
before he spoke. “Things have been difficult for
me recently,” he said soberly, stumbling over the words. “Really difficult.
This is a nice surprise.” He half-turned his body towards the street, gesturing
behind him. “Look, I’ve rented a serviced apartment just a short walk up the
road from here—close enough that you can be back here in a flash if you get any
news. Since visiting hours are almost over anyway, you’re welcome to come back
with me.”

I held my breath; this was
the olive branch I’d been desperately
hoping for over the last four months. Say
yes, Min, I willed myself, but just as I was on the brink of making up with
him, I remembered just how deeply I’d involved him in my lie to Mum. I wished I could just push all of that
aside and not worry about it—he would have let me, I was sure of it—but it
wasn’t the right thing to do. I’d got myself into enough trouble recently by
not saying what I needed to.

“Henry,” I began
tentatively. “There’s a couple of things I should probably tell you before you
invite me over.” He gave me his full attention. Bracing for him to retract the
invitation, I forced out, “I lied to Mum and told her you’d proposed to me to
stop her from constantly nagging me to marry you. I took a photo of your ring
on my finger and sent it to her.”

He nodded slowly, but he
didn’t look disappointed or angry. Just sympathetic. “Well, it probably wasn’t
the best thing to do,” he conceded, “but knowing your mum, I can’t say I don’t
understand why you did it.”

I grimaced. “…and then I
pawned the ring.”

His eyebrows jumped, but
he looked more surprised than hurt. “Okay...” was all he said.

…That was it? It was
disorienting. “You’re not angry with me?”

“About what?” he asked.
“About the ring? I told you that you could sell it, remember?” When I looked
sceptical, he put a hand on my arm for a moment. “Four months ago, I found out
the woman I was head over heels for never really existed. You honestly think I care
about a ring?”

Well, when he put it like
that… “I was worried I’d upset you even more.”

He just smiled, and when
it was clear I’d run out of things to confess, he put his hands in his pockets
and took a step backwards towards the road. “Come on.” He inclined his head in
the direction he’d indicated he was staying.

I still felt uneasy. “Are
you sure this is a good idea?”

In answer, he took another
step backwards, trying to coax me to
follow him. He eventually succeeded, and then we were walking side by side, our
footsteps matching, just like we always used to.

It was so nostalgic,
walking along a city street with him. The buildings weren’t exactly skyscrapers
like they’d been when we walked back to my apartment in the CBD, but the shine
on the wet road and smell of damp as the cars tore past us was so familiar. I
almost expected to be clutching a handbag under an arm.

I was busy glancing over
my shoulder back at the hospital and wondering whether I’d be close enough if
something happened to Mum or Sarah, when
Henry looked thoughtfully across at me. “Why did you pawn it, anyway?” he
wondered aloud. “Wouldn’t it have been better to sell it outright?”

God. “A lot of things would have been better than what I did,” I admitted. He
remained silent, prompting me to continue. I sighed. “How much do you want to
hear?”

“Whatever you feel
comfortable telling me,” he said warmly. “Go on, distract me from my own woes.”

I took a deep breath and
launched into the saga about Mum hassling
me to marry him, and about Bree’s school fees, and about all the stupid shit I’d done to make everything
a hundred times worse. I’d forgotten how easy it was to talk to him. He was such an attentive listener. Before long
we’d ended up in a little park near the hospital, sitting on the steps of a
gazebo to wait out the rain as I finished telling him everything. “…And so
that’s it. She knows. I probably gave my own
mother a heart attack, and she won’t tell me anything unless I pretend to
be a woman again.”

“Well, I very much doubt
you’re the sole cause of her heart attack if she had one,” he reassured me,
“and I don’t think she’d be immediately cured if you put on a dress, either.
You’re not doing her a disservice if you refuse to.”

“I don’t want to do it
anyway,” I confessed. “And it’s not so much a
want, really. I can’t. I can’t
do it. I can’t even tell you what it does
to me, having to look like that and act like that. I hate it, it makes me fucking miserable, and I told her. I told her that. Why would she want her own kid to be miserable?”

He shook his head
slightly. “I’m sure she thinks she’s doing the right thing.”

He was probably right, but
I didn’t understand it. Not one bit.
“How could making your kid miserable ever be the right thing? How can she
look me in the eye while I’m saying, ‘Mum, that makes me unhappy’ and go, ‘fuck
it, I don’t care, I know what’s good for you and you’re going to do what I want’?” I looked across at him,
swallowing. “You know what she said to me when I told her I’m finally happy
like this? That I can finally look in the mirror without hating myself? She called me disgusting,
and depraved, and sick, and she said she was ashamed of me.”

His expression softened.
“Oh, Min…” he said gently. Only Henry could layer so much tenderness and care
into just two syllables. “You’re none of those things, and it’s such a pity
she’s refusing to see the person you really are.” He paused. “Would you like to
hear something Sarah said to me about you instead?”

I frowned. “Sarah?” He nodded. “Okay…?”

“We haven’t spoken much
since you left me, but I had a few words to her at Clifftops, and she said she
admires you, and thinks that anyone who
can go through what you’ve been through and still have passion and hope for the
future is incredible.” That cut close to the bone, and I swallowed against my
tight throat. He didn’t stop there, either. “And personally, I think you’re one
of the bravest people I’ve ever met.”

I looked at him,
sceptical. “Me?” I scoffed. “Brave? Are you serious? I’m the most anxious
person I know.”

“Yeah,” he said with a
smile. “But it takes courage to leave ‘safe’ and ‘familiar’ and to walk away from situations that are bad for you. I
can’t imagine the sort of courage it took to admit to yourself that you needed
to change every single thing about your life to be happy. And you did it, you
made those changes. You’re living your truth. I think it’s a shame your mum
can’t see that, because if she could, she would be so proud of her strong,
resilient, incredible son.”

I bit back tears. “You’re
just saying that to make me feel better.”

He nodded. “I am, but it’s
also true. And I know it’s easy for me to say, but don’t take your mum’s words
about you to heart. She lives in a tiny, safe little world. Maybe eventually
she’ll open her eyes and finally see the Min the rest of us do.”

Somehow, I doubted that
was going to happen. Especially now. “If she’s around long enough to, that is…”

He watched me for a
moment, thinking. Eventually, he said, “If you’d like me to help, just ask. You
know she’d talk to me; perhaps it would make you feel better if I was able to
find out what her medical situation is for you.”

I did consider it for a
moment—it would be such a relief if I
could just find out that she was going to be okay—but then I remembered his
strained ‘thank you’ when I’d finally
managed to get Mum to stop calling him in June. I did not want to push him back into her web. “No, that’s okay,” I told
him with a sigh. “You’ve helped me enough with Mum over the past four years.
Thanks, though.”

He gave me a short nod.
“Okay, well, keep me posted,” he said. “You know I’m always happy to help.”

That offer made me think:
aside from the fact both Mum and Bree weren’t talking to me—and it would be really bad form to ask him what I should
do about Bree—I really only had one major problem. “What I could really use
your help with is figuring out what the fuck
I’m going to do about my money situation,” I said. “Because, honestly, I’m out
of ideas.”

He sat back, his eyebrows
travelling up his forehead a little. “Alright,” he said easily. “Well, how much
do you owe?” I gave him a breakdown of my debts, and when he did some quick
mental addition, it sent his eyebrows into his hairline. “Jesus, $70,000?”

I cringed. “Yeah.”

He gave me a bit of a
wide-eyed look. “Good god. Alright,” he said, thinking, “How much was the
factory paying you again?”

I shook my head. “I can’t
go back there. Not without telling Bree’s entire extended family and all their
work colleagues that I’m transgender.”

He exhaled. “Okay, so you have
no income, no assets, and a debt of $70,000.” I nodded, grimacing; when he said
it like that, the situation seemed pretty grim. To be honest, I’d already felt
like it was anyway. It was clear there weren’t many options. “Well,” he said
carefully. “I suppose I could cut a few cheques and give you some breathing
space. You can start to pay me back when you’re working again. I can promise not to send scary debt
collectors around if you miss a payment.” He smiled.

I made a strangled noise.
Was he offering to—? “No,” I said
firmly. “Henry, no, that wasn’t what
I meant when I asked for your help.” The more I thought about it, the more abhorrent the idea was. “Are you seriously offering to lend seventy grand to the cheating ex that
you could hardly speak to for months because it was too painful?”

He actually looked a
little hurt. “No, I’m offering to help someone I care about,” he said shortly.

Whoops. I put my hand on his, jamming my
eyes shut for a second. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean it like that. I just
don’t deserve that kind of help from you, that’s all.”

He disagreed. “You paid
more than twenty grand for Bree and you’ve been with her for three months,” he
pointed out. “And you didn’t even have the money. I have the money, it’s just sitting in a term deposit, waiting for
me to actually have someone to spend it on. It might as well be put to good use, because it’s not as if I’m going to need
it in the near future...”

I squeezed his hand and
shook my head. “That’s—god—really generous
of you. But no. No more debts.”

He nodded, his eyes glazed
for a moment. “Sorry,” he said
eventually. “Sorry, that was—” He swallowed. “I’ll have a think to see if I can
come up with another solution for you.”

If he’d been in a reasonably
good mood a few minutes ago, it was ruined now. “Thank you,” I said, and then
put my hand back in my lap. “I’m sorry.”

We sat there in silence,
staring at the reflection of the street lights on the road as the rain fell at
our feet. I stole a couple of glances at him; did he mean what I thought by
that ‘no one to spend it on’ comment? “You’ll need your money one day,” I told
him. “You should save it for then.”

He laughed once. “That’s
the plan,” he said bleakly. “When I started working at Frost, the first thing I
did was work on paying my house off so that when I started a family, I wouldn’t
have to worry about the price of housing. Then I saved for wedding—a proper
traditional one, you know my parents would want to invite half of Australia.
Now, I’ve saved three sets of private school fees and I’m working on university
tuition.” He looked across at me. “But there’s just one problem with all of
that.”

You don’t have a wife or any children, I thought. I didn’t say it, of course I didn’t. The guilt gnawed at me, though. It chewed
on my insides: he’d been expecting that to be us for the last three years. It
was better that it wasn’t, because he deserved a proper wife, not one that was
just pretending to be happy. “One day you’re going to meet some lucky woman and
make her the happiest person in the world,” I promised him.

He exhaled, visibly
deflating. “No, I’m not,” he said with conviction. “All I do is work, and
there’s no fucking way I’m ever going
to be able to date someone from work again, not now.”

God.
“Because of me?”

He shook his head. “Jason
made an offhand comment that you’d been working under him for years with no
issues, but that you quit right after we broke up. Management knows our breakup had nothing to do with
it, but Sean Frost is taking great delight in getting his lapdog—”

“—his lapdog?”

“My assistant manager,”
Henry clarified, “to interview all of
my employees and all of your
ex-co-workers as part of your complaint to make sure the ‘investigation is
appropriately thorough’, which is code for ‘the entire office thinks Henry Lee
is a predatory womaniser with no professional boundaries’.” He
sounded very bitter.

Suddenly it made sense why
my complaint was taking so long to be resolved. It was a pity; I could really have used that $8,000 yesterday.
It was too late now, though. “Why are they doing it? Is Sean just being a
sadistic fuck, or—?”

Henry pressed his lips
together. “He wants me to take leave,
because if I do, James gets sign off on
everything and Sean can push whatever he wants through HR without being grilled
about petty little inconveniences like needing
to follow industrial law.”

He seemed a bit
tight-lipped on that point, I opted not to press any further. Instead, I
extended a tentative arm around his shoulders. He didn’t stop me. “Just quit,”
I told him, rubbing his back. “It’s not worth it.”

He made a hesitant noise
and shook his head. “Then where would people like Sarah be when they need
help?” He sighed at length. “Besides, I don’t want to give Sean fucking Frost the satisfaction of
driving me out.”

“Well, I don’t want to watch Frost destroy you.”

“You won’t,” he said,
“because I’m not going to let it. I’m just—” He shook his head. “Things are
just hard right now. I’ll be alright in the long run.”

I decided to trust him on that
point. “Okay, I hope you’re right.” I hugged him firmly for a couple of
seconds, and then we both sat back up again. I watched him surreptitiously dab
his eyes on his sleeves but didn’t draw attention to it by offering him a
handkerchief. Instead, I said, “PS, if you get the chance to fuck Sean over, as
someone who’s had the pleasure, I highly
recommend it.”

He laughed a little at
that. “I’ve heard about four different versions of that story and I like all of
them,” he told me and then took a long, slow breath and exhaled, looking up at
the sky. The clouds had parted and the rain was clearing. We could safely walk
back to his apartment.

He looked across at me for
a moment before he stood up. “It’s so strange,” he reflected, his eyes running
over the length of me. “You look nothing like the Min Lee I knew, and when you
told me you were transgender, I had this image of you gallivanting off into the
sunset with Bree, a completely different person. I’d just be left behind as
this figment of your past life, someone who you’d rather forget.” His voice was
a bit unsteady. “But now you’re here, now we’re talking, it’s still you. It’s
still you in there. Your laugh, the
way you speak, the way you think, just how very well you know me… You haven’t
gone anywhere. And inside this man I hardly recognise, I can still see my best
friend.”

I swallowed. “I’m so sorry
I can’t be more to you, Henry.”

He had such a gentleness
in his eyes. “That’s alright,” he told me quietly. “I think this might be
enough after all.”

I let him help me up, and,
figuring we should head back before it started raining again, we dodged puddles
and cars on the way to the place he’d rented nearby. Then, just like we had for
four years, we poured ourselves a glass of wine and sat opposite each other on
the couch, controllers in hand.

My problems weren’t going
to be solved tonight—if they could even be
solved—but I had Henry back. I had him even though I’d given up hope that I
ever would and accepted our story was over. But it wasn’t over. And that made me feel like everything else
might turn out okay, after all.

THIRTY-FOUR

The fluorescent lights in the
hospital waiting room were really bright compared to the dim and
overcast sky outside, and first thing in the morning, they made my dull headache
worse. It didn’t make me regret finishing the wine and spending the night in
one of Henry’s spare beds, though, not at all. With everything crumbling around
me, it had been a relief to not have to go home to Sarah’s all by myself. It
also meant that when I finally got a call from Rob this morning about
her, I was close by and it hardly took me five minutes to run through the
drizzle back to the hospital.

“You’re in early!” the
receptionist at Women and Babies told me when I asked about Sarah, and then she
leant back to have a look at the board with all the patient names on it behind
reception. “She’s in 519. Her partner’s in there, too. Make sure you knock.”

I followed her directions up
the corridor to 519, but I never got the opportunity to knock, because as I
lifted my knuckles to the door, it wrenched open. Rob was standing in the
doorway, red-faced and upset. I’d obviously interrupted him in the middle of
storming out. “Sorry,” he told me, distracted. He looked like he wanted to say
something else, but instead he just stepped carefully around me so he could
stomp down the corridor in a fluster.

I watched him disappear
behind reception where the lifts were, stunned. What was that about?

Inside the room, Sarah was
lying flat on her back, surrounded by several machines—some of them were
connected to her by various leads and tubes—looking just as upset as Rob had.
She turned her head towards me as I came in, and her face softened. “Look who
it is…”

“Hey,” I greeted her,
glancing apprehensively at all the machines as I wandered over to her bedside.

She saw my expression.
“I’m not as sick as I look, I promise. No matter what Rob told you.”

I felt uncomfortable. “He
didn’t say much to me.” I pulled a chair up to her bedside and sat in it. “Are
you okay?” I didn’t know how to ask it. What if she’d miscarried? “What
happened?”

She sighed. “It’s
nothing,” she said, but it obviously wasn’t nothing,
because she immediately wanted to explain what it was. “Well, nothing serious,
anyway. I had a shower in my hotel room last night, and before I knew it I was blacking out. I thought it was one of
those things that would go away—you know, like if you stand up too quickly—but
it didn’t. After ten minutes of not being able to see properly, I figured it
was something I should get checked out ASAP. I got a taxi down here because I
didn’t want anyone to see an ambulance and freak out, and I would have just
been in and out, except that when I got out of the taxi I blacked out again.
Because I was a bit out of it afterwards, the ER staff called Rob and
he freaked out.”

I didn’t blame him. “If
someone called me out of the blue and told me Bree was in the ER, I’d freak
out, too.”

She looked a bit annoyed.
“I told them not to,” she said. “I specifically told them not to worry him
because I knew what would happen. But because I kept answering their questions
wrong about what day it was and all that, they called him anyway.”

Oh. Suddenly, Rob
being upset made sense. “And he’s worried about you.”

Her expression hardened.
“Yes, and I keep telling him he doesn’t need to be. It’s just low blood
pressure, it happens to heaps of women mid-pregnancy, and vomiting
all the time just made it worse. They’ve given me a script for the nausea, so I can eat and drink properly
from now on and I’ll definitely be fine, but Rob doesn’t see it that way,” she
said. “I told him I’m planning to go back to work this afternoon—because I
am—and he just went off at me.
‘How can you be so stupid’, ‘Don’t you care about your health at all’, ‘You’re
responsible for two lives now’, all that crap. I don’t need it. It was bad
enough with the doctor in the ER patting me patronisingly when I asked if I’d
get back to work last night. He was like, ‘You’ve got more important things to
think about now’, like, ‘silly girl, your real job is to be a living,
breathing gestation machine for your foetus’.” She was getting upset, and the
machine beside her played a couple of low-grade
warning tones and her heart rate flashed. She immediately reached over and
reset it. “I watched the nurse do that,” she admitted,
and then sighed. “I get that it must have been a really awful phone call
for Rob to get. But just because he got a nasty phone call and it scared him,
that doesn’t mean I should just drop everything and be a stay at home mum for
the next 18 years.”

“Does he actually think
that’s the answer, though? Maybe he was—”

“His exact words were, ‘Do
you really think working at that bloody
place 24/7 is good for either you or our little one, Sares?’” She
imitated his big, booming voice.

Privately, I tended to
agree with Rob. The terrible pressure and stress at Frost were bad at the best
of times, I didn’t know what they’d be like to someone who was
pregnant and suffering from morning sickness. I didn’t want to sound
like I was siding with him, though. Even though I knew she’d hate to
quit marketing projects, I half-heartedly attempted, “Well, maybe you could
stay there and do admin, or—”

“No,” she said firmly.
“No. The only reason I put up with the crap I do at Frost is because I love my
job. If I quit that, what’s the point of being there at all?”

I didn’t have an answer
for her. She exhaled at length. “Anyway, sorry,” she said. “Sorry to dump all
this crap on you first thing in the morning. You’re probably half-awake.”

I shook my head. I’d been
dumping my crap on her for months and she’d always been there for me.
“I just had the world’s strongest instant coffee, I’ll be awake until Sunday.
Be my guest.” I made a gesture inviting her to continue.

She smiled vaguely at
that, but she didn’t take me up on the offer. “I’m kind of over talking about
how sick I feel,” she admitted, and then something occurred to her. “Oh! Do you
want to hear about the project? You’re like the only person who’ll understand
me when I talk about it. Rob’s eyes just kind of glaze over.” When I nodded,
she brightened. “We did decide to
call it ‘Flagship’, after all; I really like that name. I’ve got 24 staff on
it, and so I organised them into different teams with their own sub-Leads
because otherwise it just gets too much for me.” She launched into this
complete description of where the project was up to and how she was organising
it—I had a feeling she’d been asked more than once to report on it—with animated
descriptions of how, like, intense the
media campaign was going to be and how much money she had the sign off on.
“It’s mind-blowing,” she finished. “We can get the best contractors for
everything, we don’t need to cut corners. I can’t wait to see how
it’s going to turn out.”

It was so endearing
listening to her gush about the project that I was hesitant to ask anything
that might knock that smile. My curiosity got the better of me, though. “No
one’s being weird about having a female lead on such a big project?”

Her eyebrows went up. “You
know what? They’re actually not.” At my sceptical expression she nodded. “I
know, I was surprised, too, because they’re a pack of sexist wankers. I think
maybe it’s because they know I wouldn’t put up with crap.” She deflated a
little. “Of course, they don’t know I’m pregnant yet, so maybe that will be the
clincher… I’ve been thinking, the second I start to show I’ll just get everyone
in a room and just tell them at the beginning of the meeting, and then move
straight on to other business like it’s no big deal. But before I do that, I
kind of think I should wait until I know what I’m going to do about leave.”

I thought she'd already
made that decision. “Didn’t you say you were going to work right up until
you give birth, take all your maternity leave, and then quit once it was all
used up?

“Yeah…” she said vaguely,
but she didn’t sound convinced. “That was the original plan.” I gave her a
pointed look, and she sighed. “I don’t want to quit, Min. I’m loving this stuff. You know how
good it feels watching a project you worked hard on coming together? Well,
there’s this whole other level of pride when I’m the reason it’s
working. Not only that, but look at where
I am: I’m heading an enormous project under the personal mentorship of the
acting manager. I’ve got my foot on the next rung of the ladder. I’m nearly
there, and if I do a good job on this project, who knows what’ll happen next?
I’ve been waiting seven years for this. It’s here, it’s finally
happening. I don’t want to give that up.” There was an implicit ‘but’. “Except
I’m pregnant.”

“So what are you going to
do instead?”

She shook her head. “I
don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know. I mean, look at
me.” She gestured at the machines attached to her. “I’ve been hugging toilet
bowls for weeks. I know Rob has a point, and maybe he’s right. I want to
keep working—like, I really want to—but is it the right thing to do? Maybe
I should quit and ‘take care of myself’.
People keep saying kids are happier with stay-at-home
mums anyway…”

“But
would you be happy as a stay-at-home mum?” I already knew the answer.

So did she. “No, I’d
be fucking miserable if I had to quit all of this right now, just as
my career is taking flight. All I know is work. I’d be leaving everything I
know and love to be a housewife, and I’d be hopeless at that because I’d hate
it. But whatever, people always wax poetic about the great sacrifices mothers
make for their kids, don’t they?”

Something about the way
she’d phrased that struck me.

‘Leaving everything I
know’, ‘the great sacrifices mothers make’… I’d heard those words before.
A deep uneasiness began to settle in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t pinpoint
what it was. “I don’t know if making big sacrifices is the answer…”

She looked across at me. “So
you think I should stay at work?”

I was beginning to think
that maybe she should. “I’m saying sacrifice isn’t always this big generous
gift that people think it is.” I couldn’t explain why I was feeling that so profoundly, at least not straight away.

Sarah tried to help.
“Because it will make me unhappy?”

“Yes,” I said, but that
wasn’t it, exactly. I mean, it was
awful for her to be unhappy, but was that what I meant? Maybe it was...

Piece by piece, the jigsaw
fit together in my head as I tried to figure out what I meant and what I wanted
to say. It was when I thought about constantly hearing Mum telling me
over and over what she gave up for me, and when I remembered
her constantly buying me all these new clothes, and toys, and books
that I didn’t really need while she stayed up late at night and mended her old dresses that it began to make
sense. I remembered how that felt, how it felt when she pushed me through
the gate of an expensive Catholic school with a brand new haircut while
she used cheap store-bought dye that turned her hair blue. I remembered how
it felt watching her struggle and suffer while I
didn't, and finally I got it. That feeling in my chest.
That guilt. How gross it
made me feel, how selfish it made me
feel, knowing that the reason she couldn’t buy herself nice things was because
of me.

The words formed on my
lips even before I’d figured out how to articulate them. “If you quit, you
think your kid won’t know you’re miserable?” I asked her; it was a genuine
question. “You think they won't grow up knowing you’re miserable because you
quit doing what you love for them? Because that’s not going to happen, I
promise you. They’ll know. They’ll know, and they’ll know it’s their fault.”

A look of recognition
passed across her face. She knew who I
was talking about. “It’s not your fault, Min.”

I shrugged. “I’m still
always going to know she did it because of me. She left everything for me. She
left the country she knew, the career she loved, all supposedly for my own
good. She went without all the things she
needed to give me the things I needed.
And she hated it,” I told
Sarah. “She hated it. And I
knew.”

As I spoke, everything
just fell into place. Everything made sense. I understood what had gone
wrong for Mum and why she was so completely obsessed with my life. I
understood why I felt so fucking awful every time she mentioned
it, and the words just came tumbling out.

“I’ve spent my whole
fucking life trying to compensate her, Sarah. Trying to compensate her for what
she gave up by doing everything she wants, but it’s never enough. No matter
what I do, it’s never enough. She’s never happy with me, and of course she fucking isn't: she's unhappy, herself. She's not doing
things she loves or living the life she wanted, because all her attention is focused
on me. Her entire identity is me! And let me tell you what that does to a
kid,” I told Sarah. “Let me tell you: I’ve been feeling fucking
guilty since the day I was born. Guilty, and like I have to do every tiny
little thing she wants. I feel like I’ve had this enormous fucking debt that I
will never repay hanging over my head every day of my life, and it
keeps getting bigger and bigger every time she does something for me.
Every time I watched her give me something brand new while she went without, it
grew. Every time she gave something up so I didn’t have to, it grew. Let me
tell you: that type of sacrifice isn’t a gift. You’re not doing something kind
when you give up something that’s important to you for someone else. It’s
pressure that never goes away for them. They’ll always know what you
lost. It’s a fucking trap that haunts
them forever.”

I gathered Sarah’s hands
up in mine, my jaw tight. “Please, don’t
do that to your kid, please. Stay at work. I mean, obviously eat more and get
enough sleep, but stay there. Stay there and finish your amazing project and
collect the accolades you deserve. Get promoted. Work, travel, live the life
you imagined, don’t let having a kid stop you from doing that. Maybe you won’t
be constantly around for your kid 24/7, but when you are, you’ll be happy. Your kid will get to see their
mum happy and doing something that she loves,
and that’s worth so much. That’s worth so much, Sarah. Your kid will
see how to be happy, and you’ll never have to regret the amazing life you didn’t
lead for them.”

A silence stretched
between us as my words hung in the air. I swallowed. “That's what I think
you should do.”

There were tears in
Sarah’s eyes when she finally spoke. “Thank you,” she said with feeling. “Thank
you. I think that’s exactly what I needed to hear.”

She pulled me into a firm
hug with her arms wrapped tightly around my neck. She didn’t let me go for a
long time, but when she did, her eyes were red. “You’re incredible, you know
that?” she murmured, squeezing my hand.

I smiled in appreciation
of her compliment, but I didn’t feel particularly incredible. My head was a big
jumble of what I’d just realised about Mum, and I couldn’t think straight.

Sarah was already feeling
around on her bedside table for her mobile, so I handed it to her and she went
straight to her phone book. “They’re discharging me from here after lunch if I
keep my food down and my blood pressure is back within range,” she told me.
“I’m going to call work and tell them I’ll be back this afternoon, and I’ll make
it to the planning meeting tonight. And then I think I probably need to have a
long chat with Rob before I go.”

I nodded. I think that was
my cue to give her some space; I didn’t mind, really. I needed some space for
myself because my head was spinning.

The ward was full of
people on my way out of it. So many big swollen bellies and women holding their
new tiny babies with looks of total wonderment and adoration in their
eyes. And in amongst all this joy and new life, all I could do was ask myself
how many of these women were leaving their lives for their children, and how
many of their children would end up like me.

How many of them were
being told right now to focus all their energy and attention on their children, like ‘good’ mothers should? Were they
being pressured by their partners, or by work, or by TV
or whatever to leave work when they really didn’t want to? And how
many of these children would become the complete focus, the hobby, and the
life’s work of these mums to fill the void opened up in their lives as a
result?

At least there’s one baby who won’t, I thought, thinking of Sarah. At least there’s one baby who’s going
to watch their mum doing her thing, living her own life, and being happy.

I stopped in place. That
was the answer, wasn’t it?

It hit me square in the
chest what was missing from Mum’s life: her own life. Her own job, her own dreams, her own future. While
she was sending me all those texts and emails, all the beautiful dreams for
‘our’ wedding to Henry, she was missing out on her having her own beautiful
white wedding, the one she’d always dreamed of. It had been 26 years since
she’d had a boyfriend, and the way she talked about Henry, she must
have missed having one so much.

But it wasn’t too late. It
wasn’t too late for her, was it? She could still have those things. She could
have them even if her daughter turned out to be a son, and even if he didn’t
marry her ideal man with a big white wedding after all. She could have them
even if her kid was a poor artist and not a marketing clerk for a Fortune 500
company. She could still have the wedding, the marriage, and the future she
dreamt of for herself, and it wouldn’t matter at all if I never put on another
dress again.

It all seemed so simple.
It was all so simple, I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before. But it
made sense. This was what was missing. This was the answer,
and I had to tell her. I was bursting to tell her, now that I
understood what was wrong. I had to tell her now.

I stepped into the lift
and pressed the ‘G’ button, ‘Emergency’. If she was still down there, I was
going to find her.

THIRTY-FIVE

The ER was so full that I was lost in
a sea of parents cradling fevered babies and people holding bandaged limbs as soon
as I stepped out of the lift. There were nurses buzzing around and there was
probably a security guard somewhere, but everyone was busy and preoccupied.

And since I seriously had
nothing to lose—they weren’t going to let me see Mum if I did it the proper
way, were they?—I took a deep breath, straightened my back, and just walked
through the double-doors into the ER like I was meant to be there.

Absolutely no one stopped
me. They didn’t stop me walking through the ER past some of the recent-arrival patient beds, or when I stepped
around nurses, and they didn’t stop me when I went right up to a big patient
information board to read it. In fact, one of the ER nurses who’d been making
some adjustments to the board glanced at me. “Sorry,” she said, and moved aside so I could see it better.

I didn’t understand why
she didn’t immediately guess I was an imposter and chuck me out until I saw
another guy in a suit talking to a patient; he had a stethoscope around his
neck. He also had a lab coat on, too; I probably should leave before anyone
noticed I didn’t have either of those.

Mum’s name was easy to
spot on the list, and since there was an emergency evacuation map just beside
it, I leant in to match Mum’s room unit and room number with the areas on the map, and then left to find it.

The map led me out of the
main ER—a relief, given that arguing with Mum surrounded by patients, nurses
and doctors would definitely have gotten me kicked out—and down the
hall in a suite of small private rooms. Most of the rooms had big observation
windows, and as I walked down the hallway, I passed people attached to a dozen
machines and sleeping, as well as the odd person having blood drawn or
consulting with the doctors.

I began to worry about
what I’d find in Mum’s room. What if she was attached to machines,
too? Should I really be having the type of conversation I needed to have with
her now? Maybe I should wait until she was better to show up
looking like this. Maybe it was selfish.

I was still having that
internal debate with myself when I found her room. Before I walked up to the
observation window, I braced myself for what I might be about to see. I wasn’t
sure how I’d deal with seeing her really sick, especially given that it was the
truth about me which had given her a heart attack. I couldn’t put it off,
though. I had to face it at some point, didn’t I? Holding my breath, I looked
in.

She was sitting upright in
bed with her hands folded in her lap, relaxed and watching TV. None of the
machines next to her were on; she didn’t
even have a drip running into her. Her hair was brushed, and she was wearing
her own clothes. While I was watching her, she chuckled at the program that was on.

I gaped.

You had to be fucking kidding me. She
was completely fine? All this
time?

I burst through
the doors into her room, pulling the curtain across the window behind me.

She jumped, a hand on her heart and her eyes wide when she
saw who it was. Then she took a big, angry breath and puffed all up. “What are
you doing here! I specifically told the nurses that—”

I talked right over her.
“How could you let me believe you were really sick, Mum?
That I’d made you really sick? How could you do that to your own child?”

I could practically see
the moralising on her face. “You don’t understand what—”

I put my hands up in a
‘yield’ motion. “You know what? I don’t care. I don’t care what your twisted
reasoning was, because nothing that you could say would make it
alright.” And here I was thinking I was
being selfish... “Ugh! I
was so worried about you! Don't you get how messed up that is?”

She folded her hands in
her lap. “You need to understand how much it affects me to see you like this, Min.”

That was irrelevant. “How
does that have anything to do with me not being allowed to
even know you’re okay? Because from what I can see, you were trying
to blackmail me into dressing like a woman by making me feel bad about
something that didn’t even happen!”

“It did happen, Min.
Seeing you like this did make me sick.” She reached for where her
pearls normally were on her neck. “And seeing it all again, with
you yelling at me and dressed like this—”

She
was not going to make me feel guilty about this. “So I should go home
and change, should I?”

“Yes,” she said simply.

“Into what, Mum?” I asked.
“What were you planning I’d change into? You know I gave away my clothes and I
have no money.”

She opened her mouth, but wavered on that point.

“So yeah, we’re going to
talk with me dressed like this,” I finished, watching her purse her lips and
clamp shut like a pressure cooker. “I realised something about us in a
conversation I had today. My friend just got promoted, which is really bad
timing because she’s pregnant. She asked me if she should quit her job to focus
on taking care of herself and her baby. I told her she shouldn’t because she’d
be miserable, and then I realised what went wrong with us,” I said.
“You’re miserable because you left Korea and gave up being an accountant for
me. You thought you had to give all that up and it was the only way for me to
have a good life, but you don’t have to, and you shouldn’t have. You should
have stayed the person you were, doing the things you love, and then maybe you
wouldn’t resent me so much. Because you do, Mum. You’re miserable and
you do horrible stuff like this whole ‘don’t tell Min she didn’t
kill me’ thing. You’re unhappy you don’t have your own life so you constantly
pick at mine and tell me what to do, and I hate it. Go back to the job you knew you were good at. Go back
to doing all the things you love and have your own life. Because it’s
not fair for you to be hounding me about mine.”

When I finished, I stood
there, letting the words hang in the air as I took a few deep, slow breaths.

It was silent.

I wasn’t sure what I expected;
not this, though. Not silence. Instead of shouting at me, Mum was watching me
with a very stiff, very stony expression.

Eventually, she took a
small breath. Her tone of voice made me feel uneasy. “So I should just go back
to work?”

I realised how I might
have sounded. “Well, I know that won’t solve everything, but—”

“You’re right. I’m sure it
will be easy for me to find an accounting firm that wants my two decades of
cleaning experience to back up a degree I finished nearly 30 years ago.”

I—I didn’t have anything
to say to that.

“And I should have stayed
in Korea and kept working as an accountant when I had you, should I?” she
asked. “Do you know how single mothers were treated in Korea in the 80s, Min?
Do you?” She paused, and when I didn’t answer, she told me. “You were a
liability to the company—they fired you on the spot. No one wanted a woman
who’d be gone all the time, and no one wanted to be associated with you, no one, let alone your children.”

She’d mentioned something
like that before, but… I half-heartedly began, “Well, couldn’t you have
arranged some sort of childcare here, and kept working as—”

“I didn’t speak English,
Min! I didn’t have a single cent of money! I stayed in a refuge with
twenty other women and took food packages from the Church—God knows where we’d
both be without them. They got me a job cleaning high schools at night while
you slept in a sling on my back. After months and months of working
night after night, I finally had enough
to move out into our two-bedroom flat and start standing on my own two feet. I
did all of that for you, Min. I did all of that so you wouldn’t be spat
on in the playground in Korea for being the child of a single mother.”

That floored me. She’d
never told it to me quite like that before.

“And now,” she began
calmly. “Now you complain about needing to answer my text messages.  Now
you complain that you don’t feel like working in marketing anymore, when every year of your first-class
education that led to your first-class job was paid for with my sweat and
blood. Now you complain I’m too interested
in you finally getting married, and finally having a complete family
and a happy future. I’m not going to apologise for doing those things or for
wanting that for you. That’s being a mother. As soon as I held you in my arms
and looked at your tiny face for the first time, all those things were a
given.” She watched me for a few seconds. “You tell me I should be happy, Min?
Is that what you’re telling me? Well, I can’t be. Not while you’re doing this,” she gestured at my clothes,
“intentionally choosing such a difficult life for yourself, hell-bent
on destroying the bright future I worked day and night for two
decades to hand to you on a silver platter. You want to know why I’m unhappy?
Why I’ll try anything to fix it? That’s it. It’s because my
selfish daughter has taken everything I’ve built for her and has thrown it
away like it’s nothing. She doesn’t appreciate the sacrifices I’ve made
for her, and she doesn’t appreciate how lucky she is.”

Each one of those words
struck home; I felt the familiar guilt seeping into my chest. I
sounded stupid when she said it like that. Stupid, and selfish. Was I being selfish? Was I?

It was easy to feel guilty
over all the memories I had of her going
without so I didn’t have to, so easy. It was such a familiar feeling I almost
sank into it. The self-loathing was familiar, the feeling of knowing I was a
bad daughter was so familiar. I was a bad, bad daughter.

It was only when I looked around me and remembered where we were and what
had brought us here, that things began to not add up. The light began to peek
through the holes in her perfect story about what a bad, selfish
daughter I was and what a good, selfless
mother she was.

And
when it peeked through, a flood of memories of the awful things
she’d said and done to me followed. When I’d finally mustered the
courage to tell her how badly I was being bullied at school, and she’d brushed
it off and told me I needed to try harder to make friends. When I finally made
a friend, and she’d taken my phone off me, read all his messages and then
forced me to type one out to him saying we couldn’t be friends anymore because
she thought I was secretly sleeping with him. When she took my drawing tablet
from me and sold it because she’d once caught me ‘wasting my time’ and painting
instead of doing my homework. She didn’t even understand why I was so upset.

‘I want the best for you’,
that’s what she always said. That was the story she told herself while she
hovered around doorways, completely convinced she’d eventually find evidence I
was defying her.

But that’s what it was: a
story. And I didn’t believe it anymore.

“How should I show I
appreciate you?” I asked her, it was a genuine question.

She didn’t expect that.
“Pardon?”

“How should I show I
appreciate you?” I repeated. “In your mind, how does appreciation look? Because
I do appreciate you.”

She scoffed. “No, you
don’t. You’ve never appreciated me. You’ve complained every step
of the way about all of the wonderful things I gave you: your education,
your degree, your job—”

“I was bullied at school.
I never liked marketing, and I was treated badly in my job.”

She sighed at me. “See?
You find fault with everything. You’re never happy.”

I wished I could make her
hear how that sounded to me. “You’ve just described yourself, Mum,” I told her.
“And I’m not ‘finding fault’, I’m telling you what’s making me unhappy.”

She looked like she could
hardly believe her ears. “Yes, it must be a miserable life having lots of
money, nice clothes, a fantastic job, and a perfect boyfriend.
How difficult it must have been for you to cope with those things.”

“What if it
actually was? Should I have kept them anyway to show my
appreciation for everything you’d done?” Before she could cut in, I added,
“You said you came to Australia to give me a better life. Don’t you actually
want me to be happy?”

Unexpectedly, a look of
resolve settled firmly on her face. “Yes,” she said with conviction. “Yes, I
want you to be happy. That’s why I came here: I’m not going to let
you throw those things away on a whim. Maybe you’re getting cold feet
about the responsibility of marriage and motherhood, I don’t know. It would
certainly explain all this nonsense,” she waved her hand vaguely at my
suit. “But you don’t have to do it all alone like I did with you. You’ll have
Henry, and you’ll have me.”

“But what if I don’t want
those things, Mum? What if I don’t want to be a mother and a wife?”

She baulked. “You don’t want a family?”

“That’s not what I said.”

She snorted. “I suppose you
think you’re going to be a father then?”
She said it half-laughing; I think she was trying to highlight how preposterous
it was.

It wasn’t a joke to me,
though. And it wasn’t a joke to the people important to me. “Maybe.”

She spent a couple of
seconds considering me with a look of incredulousness
on her face, and then shook her head
firmly. “You know what?” she told me. “I’ve entertained this madness for long
enough. This is ridiculous, Min, ridiculous, so here’s what’s going to happen:
I’m going to use some of my own meagre savings to buy you some proper clothes,
and then I’m going to contact Henry, tell him you realised you’ve made a
terrible mistake and then you’re going to make up with him. You two are going to get the counselling you clearly
need, and then—no excuses this time, Min Lee—you’re
going to start going to Church again. God has a plan for you, and it’s
not this.”

I said it calmly. “Yeah,
none of those things are going to happen, Mum.”

She reacted more to my
calmness than she ever had to my tears. “Yes, they are,” she said, sounding
impatient. “If you think I’m going to just let you ruin your life,
you’re mistaken. I know you find it hard to believe when you force me to be
tough on you, but it’s true: I love you, and because I do,
I refuse to just stand by idle while you destroy everything we’ve
worked so hard for. I want you to be happy, Min, and I will fight for that. I
will fight as hard as I need to, I won’t give up on you.”

“For the things that
actually do make me happy? Or the things you’ve decided should make me happy?”

Her brow went down over
her eyes. “You don’t know anything about happiness, Min Lee,” she
told me, “I was your age once, I thought I knew everything, too,” and then she
launched into a bitter tirade with the same tired, old lines. I was ruining my
life. Art wasn’t a career. No one would marry me if Henry didn’t. No one would
look after me when I was old and frail, and, God, she couldn’t deal with
that thought, she couldn’t deal with it…

I didn’t hear much of it, because I was watching her. I was watching
her mouth twist and her eyes narrow. I watched her point at me, gesture at me, smack the
blanket to emphasise a point. And finally, I finally saw it the way
other people must see it. She was yelling at me, insulting me. Belittling the
things and the people I loved in the same breath that she painted herself as
this noble, self-sacrificing martyr.

This was the woman
I’d come rushing down the lift to share insights about happiness with? This was
the woman I agonised for months about coming out to, like how I did it would
have made a scrap of difference? This was the woman I’d spent so much energy trying to protect
from the truth—and why? Why did I think that would matter? What did I think I
could change?

After I came out to her, she was never going to hug me
while I cried and tell me, “You know, Min, I always secretly wanted a son,”
with a warm smile. I was never going to be able to introduce Bree to her, and
have Bree present her with a Korean dish she’d spent weeks perfecting to have Mum accept it with anticipation and
delight. She was never going to hold up a painting that I’d made especially for
her and tell me with pride and admiration in her eyes, ‘Oh, Min. It’s beautiful.’ And I was never going to
have the Christmases, the Lunar New Years, the Birthday celebrations that in my
heart of hearts I so desperately wanted from her, with us both
smiling and laughing like I saw everyone else’s families doing. As a child, I’d
felt like everyone in the world had those things but me.

I understood now: I was
never going to have those things. She was never going to be that mother. And I
was done.

I was done.

She was still going
off at me. My hands unsteady, I took my phone out of my pocket and popped
the case off. While she watched, I slipped my SIM card out, snapped it in half
and put it gently on the mattress beside her.

The words she’d been
saying died on her lips. She spent a moment of silence looking at the broken
SIM card, confused. “What are you doing?”

“Listen to us. We can’t do
this, Mum.”

She must have been
genuinely shocked, because she didn’t
pick up where she’d left off and get stuck into me again. She just
stared at me in disbelief.

I put my phone back in my
pocket. “I need my own life, and you need yours.”

That got her attention.
“What is this, Min?” She already knew the answer, and I could see
the anguish creeping onto her face. It was hard to look at. “You’re
not doing what I think you’re doing, are you? You wouldn’t do that to me. You
wouldn’t do that to your own mother.”

I ignored the knife
twisting in my gut. “I hope you have a good flight home.”

Her lips were quivering.
Her jaw was set. If she hadn’t been so keen on painting herself as this ill
victim put in hospital by her selfish
daughter, I have no doubt she would have sprung out of bed to physically stop
me. But she didn’t. Even to the last moment, she had to keep up that façade.

I nodded then. This was
it. I took one last look at my mother, the woman who’d raised me all by herself
with nothing, and let the words
I was about to say sink in. “Goodbye, Mum.”

I think she said something
else, but I didn’t hear it. It took all my energy and all my resolve to turn my
back on her. To turn away from her—the woman who had sacrificed everything
that she was for me—and I took one step away from her, two steps, three
steps. One foot in front of the other until I was at the door and my fingertips
were resting on the cool handle. I could hardly see it through the tears in my
eyes.

Then, with all of my
strength, I walked through that door and closed it behind me.

THIRTY-SIX

I shouldn’t be bothering Sarah, I
knew I shouldn’t be. But I just… I don’t know. I’d done laps of the hospital
trying to empty the big well of emotion in me without sobbing in public,
and nothing helped. I didn’t want to go and sit in Henry’s empty serviced
apartment while he was at work. I didn’t want to go home to Sarah’s empty
house. Bree wasn’t talking to me and I had no money,
and no family, and there was nowhere left to go, and so I burst into
room 519—Sarah half-sat up in bed, startled—and this big verbal vomit of
everything that had just happened
came gushing out of my mouth, blow by blow, before I could stop
myself. “…and so it’s over,” I told her when I’d run out of steam. “It’s over,
and I just... I just…”

I let my sentence trail
off as I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. I had no idea how to finish it.

Sarah was propped up in
bed on an elbow, gaping at me.
“…whoa.”

Beside her, the machine
made that low warning tone again. She grimaced. “Nice timing, buster,” she told
the machine as she expertly reset it.

I watched her fiddling
with the buttons on it, and my eyes followed all the leads attached to her in
her hospital bed, and the IV in her arm, and all those numbers on the screen,
and… honestly, what the fuck was I doing? She was sick, and what
the fuck was I doing just dumping all my shit on her when she had
plenty of her own to deal with?

“I’m sorry,” I said
quietly. “Sorry, this is stupid, you’re trying to get better.” I turned sharply
to leave.

“Wait!” she called as I
lifted my hand to the door. I paused, and she jabbed a finger at me. “Oh, no,
you don’t! No running away, Mister. Sit!”
She pointed at one of the visitor chairs along the wall. Mutely, I followed her
instructions.

She sat up very slowly and
swung her legs over the side of the bed. She stayed like that for a second—I
think to make sure she wasn’t going to black out again—before climbing down.
Then, in a hospital gown and with bare feet, she took a machine in either arm
and towed them across the floor to where I was sitting.

“Sarah…” I told her as she
lowered herself down into a chair beside me. “Get back in bed, you’re supposed
to be getting better.”

“I am better,” she argued,
pointing to one of the numbers on the machine. “Look, it’s over 100 now, I’m
fine. Here.” She put her arms very carefully around me. “Just watch my IV, the
nurse said she’d make me stay another night if I pulled it out.”

She rested her head on my
shoulder and gave me a big, firm hug. “Can I say it?” she asked. “I know it
sucks, but I’m glad you did it. Your mum is nuts and she’s been
stressing you out for ages. You’ll be way better without her looming over your
life.”

Part of me agreed with
her, and the other, larger part felt really guilty that I was letting
someone say that about her. I didn’t know how to explain that, so I just said,
“Yeah.”

She saw my expression
anyway. “And I know you feel really bad about it and probably she was pretty
nice sometimes, but don’t forget that in between the very occasional ‘nice’,
she made you feel like absolute shit.”

That, she hit the mark on.
I closed my eyes for a moment. “Yeah.”

“You did the right thing,
Min.”

I nodded slowly. “I know.
I just—” I exhaled. “Honestly, everything she did was for me, to give me a
better life and a happy future. It’s just that she can’t fucking accept the
future that I want for myself, even though I told her over and over and
over again that what she wants for me isn’t going to make me happy. She
won’t listen, she never listens. If she’d just fucking listen to me…”

“Maybe she will one day,” Sarah offered.

I couldn’t ever see that
day coming. “Maybe,” I said anyway, and then sighed.

Sarah squeezed me. “Well,
regardless: you did it. Like you said, it’s over. And it probably hurts like
hell right now, but it won’t always. It
will fade, and one day you’ll be in that happy future you want so
much—I don’t know, like as some world-famous artist living in a big, beautiful
house with Bree and a million happy kids, or whatever—and you’ll look back at
what you did today and be so proud
that you were strong and that you stood up for yourself so you could make it
there. I know I sure as hell am proud of you.”

I don’t know what it was
about that word, but it twisted a knife in my gut. I rested my cheek against
the crown of Sarah’s head and exhaled at length. “My happily ever after’s a bit
simpler than that,” I told her, closing my eyes. “I’d just settle for it being
‘happily’.”

“Well, it’ll be easier
now,” Sarah promised, and then gave me another firm hug.

We sat like that for a
bit, but we were interrupted by the startlingly loud sound of Sarah’s phone
buzzing, amplified by the plywood bedside table.

She rushed to answer it
before she got in trouble from the ward staff for having it on. “Work,” she said in a tired voice as she
grabbed it. “$500 says it’s Omar. ‘Sarah, I looked behind me and you’re not following me around like a duckling this
morning, where are you?’” She went to glance at the screen before she answered
it, and what she saw made her pause for a second. Her expression changed.
Glancing at me as she sat down, she said very clearly, “Hello, Henry.”

I looked up.

She was still watching me
as she listened. “No, no, it’s fine. I’m okay, it’s nothing serious, I wouldn’t
be answering my phone if it was. What can I do for you?”

I could faintly hear Henry
through her receiver. “Well, that’s good to hear, I’m so glad you’re okay.”
There was a long pause, in which Sarah’s eyes got narrower and narrower.
“Listen, I’m so sorry to do this to you. I’ve been trying to call Min for the
last hour but his phone off and I can’t find him anywhere.” Sarah’s eyebrows
shot up, and she mouthed ‘him?’ to me. I shrugged as Henry continued, “Have you
heard from him?”

Sarah still had a really
strange expression. “Yes, actually. Would you like to hear from him yourself? He’s right here.”

“Oh, ‘here’ as in on level
five, RPA? I’m in the waiting room. Do you think he could come out for a
second? I have something for him.”

Sarah considered my red eyes.
“Uh, I think he’d probably pass on being in public
right now, actually.”

I was about to argue it
was fine, but Henry was already speaking. “Oh…” he said. “Oh. Well, if you
could just let him know I’m looking for—”

Sarah rolled her eyes.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m in 519, come right in.” Before he could protest, she
hung up and turned to me. “Min,” she said sternly, in an I told you not to do this voice.
“Why is Henry looking for you?”

I sighed at her. “I didn’t
call him, I bumped into him last night. His sister is here because she’s just
had twins.”

Sarah face relaxed. “Oh.” She might have
said something else to me, but there was a very polite knock on the door. “Come
in!” she called instead.

The door opened gently.
“Er, sorry,” Henry began, spotting us both seated beside it. Then, he
noticed Sarah’s machines and frowned. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

She didn’t miss a beat.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asked innocently.

He smiled a little.
“Touché,” he commented. When he looked down at me and saw my expression,
though, his smile fell away. “Oh, no,” he said, and then—glancing a bit
nervously at Sarah—he added in Korean, “Your mother?”

I nodded, and said in
English, “Don’t worry, she’s okay. I just told her I don’t want anything to do
with her anymore, and I broke my SIM card.”

It took him a moment to
process that, and like a true psychologist, he didn’t let thoughts show on his
face. He did look like he really wanted to say something else about
it, though, but I think because Sarah was there, he didn’t. He just put a warm
hand on my back and rubbed it for a moment. “Well, I can see the position of
‘shoulder’ is already taken,” he said neutrally. “So how about I just give you
something that might cheer you up a little and be on my way?” He took a folded
piece of paper out of his pocket and passed it to me. He had a knowing smile.

I took it, opening it as I
spoke. “It’s fine, Henry, we’re not kicking you out or…” The words trailed off
as I saw what it was.

It was carbon copy paper,
and up the top was a logo that read Orchard Place Fine Jewellery, and then
further down was a grid with ‘white gold,
1.5cts P FROST ORIGINAL custom box…’ I began to realise what it was as my
eyes tracked down to the ‘$27,000—’.

Oh my god. My breath caught in my
throat. “It’s the receipt for your ring.” I gaped up at him. “Does this mean
what I think it does?”

He nodded, and pointed to
the fine print down the bottom that read ‘Buy with confidence: exchanges or refunds on engagement rings welcome, receipt must be presented’.

And I was holding the
receipt. Oh my god.

My relief was short lived, because Henry followed up with, “I had a
think about other ways I could help you, and, assuming you can get your ring
back off the pawnbrokers to get a refund and pay them out, you’re set.”

Beside me, Sarah froze. “Pawnbrokers?”

Shit. Henry’s eyes
widened in alarm, and his hand flew up to his mouth. “Oh—oh god, I’m sorry,
Min, I thought because you’d told her about your mum that you would have told
her about—”

Sarah wasn’t listening to
him, she was talking to me. “Pawnbrokers,
Min?” she asked sternly. “What the hell is he talking about?”

When I took too long to
answer, she sat up straighter and her machine alarmed again. “You shut up,” she
told it sternly.

I waited until she’d reset
it again, spending those few second psyching myself up to do the inevitable.
There was no point in lying to her about it. “Don’t kill me,” I said, like it would stop her. “I paid Bree’s
school fees a couple of weeks ago...?”

She joined the dots quickly and shoved me again.  “With
a pawnbroker loan? What’s wrong with you!
We all put lots of effort into helping Bree to do well, I would have
drawn down against the house if you needed money that badly!”

My face was still
scrunched up. “And that’s why I didn’t tell you. You’d want to help.”

She scoffed. “Damn
straight, I’d want to help. I’m on about a billion dollars a year now that I’m
Lead, and owing me money is a hell of a lot better than owing it to a
pack of seasoned scumbags.” She looked up at Henry and jerked her thumb at me.
“Can you believe this one?”

Her reaction made him
smile. “We all make mistakes,” he said mildly.

Sarah made a disgusted
noise. “Ugh, no wonder the interns love you,” she muttered. The
machine began to alarm again. She turned sharply to it. “Okay, okay, that’s it.
You know what?” She grabbed big fistfuls of the leads and yanked them all off
her so they were dangling by their cords. “There. Are you happy now?” she asked
it as she reset it one last time and then looked back at me. “The docs will
probably clear me to go soon, and you’re going to come with me to the bank so
we can get a cheque to pay those bastards out. I’ll figure out some way you can
pay me back afterwards.”

Like I’d ever let her do
that for me. “Thanks, but I should be okay now that Henry gave me this,” I
waved the receipt, “Assuming they’ll give me back the ring so I can return it,
that is.”

Henry was right—the
receipt did cheer me up. It
didn’t make me feel better about Mum, but it did make me feel better about
the smoking crater my life had recently turned into. It was nice to feel like
there might be a way out of the hole I’d dug for myself, and having something
to do was infinitely better than wandering around the hospital feeling sorry
for myself.

I’d been planning on
walking back to the city—it couldn’t be that far, right?—but Henry
insisted on driving me to the pawn shop since he was headed back to work for
the afternoon anyway.

Seung stood when I marched
in, pulling off his cap and backing nervously against the wall. He tried to
correct his stance to be more casual as I got up to the desk. “Hi,” I said,
also casually. “I’m going to need my ring.”

He sounded convincing
enough. “Yeah, well, you should have made your payments.”

“I’m going to, but I can’t
without the ring.” I took the receipt out and held it perhaps a little
aggressively in front of his face until I was sure he’d read it. “See? You can
get all your precious money.”

He
swallowed. Now there was doubt visible on his face. “How can I be
sure you’d even come back?”

I had to argue with him to
get him to hand it over—which he reluctantly did in the end, conceding cash was
easier for him than trying to find a buyer for my stolen Lexus—and then Henry
and I fed the parking metre and walked up
to the jewellers. I knew Henry wasn’t looking forward to returning it, so I
hovered around outside the shop and gave him some privacy while he did, and in
less than five minutes he walked out with a receipt and a thoughtful
expression. “That wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be,” he confessed, and
then we walked back down to the pawn store via Henry’s bank.

Seung jumped when I
interrupted whatever he was doing on his mobile by smacking a wad of
cash on the counter. “Here.”

He smoothed his hair back,
taking a steadying breath. “That doesn’t look like $20,000.”

What the
fucking— “That’s because it’s $12,000.”

He sat back. “$320 a week
for a year is $16,660. Plus who’s going to pay the tow truck guys?”

I probably argued with
that fucker until steam was
coming out of my ears, but in the end, he wouldn’t budge on $18,000. I was just
so sick of the whole nightmare I agreed to pay him that as long as he
immediately got my car delivered to the dealership that offered to settle
everything for $8,000. Then, after I’d phoned the dealership to organise it,
Henry and I made another awkward trip into
the bank to take out another whole stack of money while the teller
stared at us like we were criminals.

I came back one last time
to give it to him, and then glared daggers at his forehead while he
counted it. How could anyone justify screwing people like
he did, seriously? And to think I’d liked him when I first met him…
“Tell me, how do you sleep at night?”

He didn’t even look up. “I
pay my bills on time.” I think the moment he said that he knew I was
about five seconds away from just trashing his store, so he sighed
and sat back to answer me properly. “Look,” he said, “you really needed the
cash and you said you were good for it. I specifically asked you like three
times if you could afford it or not. You knew what you were getting
into.”

“You showed up at my
house the day a payment was due. I
was two days late when you took my car,” I reminded him. “How could
anyone expect that sort of crap?”

He didn’t answer me, he
just waved the money. “Well, this is $6,000. That’s it, we’re done.” When it
didn’t look like he was going to say anything else, I shook my head roughly and
turned to leave again.

On my way out, he called
out to me. “I’m sorry, man. I probably would have given you extra time if it
was just me, but this place isn’t even mine.
It’s my dad’s. He makes the rules.”

I had to turn around again
for that one. “Yeah. But you’re behind the register,” I pointed out,
and then left.

Henry was counting the
last of the cash as I climbed back into the passenger seat, and when I
closed the door, he dropped a wad of notes in my lap and then went to put his
seat belt on. I gave him a strange look; there had to be more than a thousand
there. “Um.”

“It’s the last of the
money from the ring,” he said. “Yours.”

I rolled my eyes.
“It was your money that
bought the ring in the first place,” I argued, gathering the notes and trying
to stuff them into his suit pocket. He accelerated suddenly from the kerb,
knocking me back in my seat so I couldn’t. Then, he grinned at me.

I sighed. “Come on, Henry,
it’s your money.”

He looked unaffected. “My
net position from this morning is still zero if I give it to you,” he said, and
when I went to protest again, he stopped me. “Come on, Min. I’m a millionaire.
Your credit card is still maxed and you’re unemployed. Take the money.”

He had a point, so I
carefully tucked the notes into my wallet, feeling uncomfortable. After I’d put
it back in my pocket, I spent a few moments watching him while he drove back up
George Street towards Frost. Why was he helping me so much and
spending so much time with me? What was in it for him when we weren’t even
going out anymore? I mean, he was nice, but…

“Why are you doing all
this for me?” I asked him eventually as we turned off under Frost HQ into the
car park. “Is it because of Mum? Do you feel sorry for me?”

He pulled into his
assigned parking spot, set the handbrake, and gave me a weird look as the
engine went quiet. “Um,” he said, pulling his mobile off the dock and putting it
into his pocket. “I suppose there is an element of that, yes.”

“An element? What else is
it, then?”

He leant back in his seat.
“Why are you suddenly suspicious of my motives? I thought we’d sorted all this
out last night.”

I exhaled. “I don’t know,”
I said honestly. “We just broke up, that’s all. You’re
being really nice to someone you’re not even with...”

Something clicked, and he
smiled a little. “And naturally as your only value to anyone is as a girlfriend and a wife, there couldn’t
possibly be any other good reason I’d be nice to you.” He got me right in the
guts with that one, and as I smarted from
it, he touched my forearm in apology. “I know why you feel that way, I do. And
I know you’re only used to receiving generosity when there’s a hidden barb of
obligation behind it. But I’m not trying to sleep with you,” he told me,
smothering a grin as he gave me the three-fingered salute. “Scout’s honour.”

I had to laugh at that. He
did, too, giving my arm one last squeeze before he took the keys out of the
ignition and opened the door. “Are you going to be alright?” he asked as we got
out of his car. “Because I can find a good reason to not be in the office this
afternoon if you need company. We can go back to my place and finish the game
we started last night. What do you say? Nothing more relaxing than simulated
warfare.” He had a completely straight face.

I chuckled, giving him a
hug. “Thanks,” I said, meaning it. “But you’re in enough trouble at work, and
I’ll be okay.”

He held me at arms’ length
for a moment to make sure I wasn’t hiding how I really felt, and then nodded.
“Well, I’ll email you my number—make sure you give me your new one when you get
it,” he told me as he got his briefcase out of the boot. “Call me day or night.
I’ll leave my volume up for you until you feel better.” He briefly hugged me
again, locked his car, and then walked over to the lift, giving me a little
wave as the doors closed.

I had a smile on my face
all the way out of the Frost carpark, and since I was close to where I used to
live and I had a few hours to kill, I went to the telco shop I always used to
go to and got them to organise a new phone number for me.

A few hours to kill before what? I wondered as I sat and waited
for the guy to come back with a newly activated SIM card; I wasn’t working
anymore, I had nothing that I needed to do. I answered myself: I’d been
inadvertently counting down to when Bree finished school like she was coming home. That made my smile fade. She
wasn’t coming home tonight. I wanted her to, though, didn’t I? At
some point what had happened today was going to hit me, and when it did, I
wanted her to be there with her arms around me.

Then you’re going to have to apologise to her, Min, I realised. But how did I do that when I had no way of reaching
her, except through someone else?

I was thinking on that as
I fit the new SIM card into my phone on the way out, and as soon as I turned my
phone on, it went off in my hands and surprised me.

For once in my whole
fucking life, I wasn’t terrified of who it would be. I checked
straight away. It was an email notification from Sarah; her home email, not her
work one. “I have an amazing idea,”
the subject line read. There were a couple of attachments; one of them was a
standard form Frost used for hiring contractor services, and the other one was
a long prospectus for the project she was doing. I understood why she
was sending me these from her home email, now. She wasn’t supposed to be giving
it out. I went back to the email message.

“I am brilliant,” it began, and I rolled my eyes. “Since you left Frost, no one on the team has
graphics skills beyond the basics and so we have to put the graphics out to
tender for this project. So here’s what I’m thinking: start a business, and
call it a name that sounds nothing like ‘Min Lee’, and then bid on the tender.
I’ll tell you what the lowest bid is so you can make sure you undercut them.
That way when they choose you, even if they find out who you are in the long run, it won’t look like
nepotism. It will look like the natural choice.” There was a line
break. “…You know, supposing you’re interested…”

I stared at it.

Was she fucking
serious? Was I interested in getting money to do art, without all of the
bullshit of actually working for Frost? I could barely dial her
number fast enough.

She answered immediately.
“Sarah Presti.”

“It’s me.”

“Oh,” she said, laughing.
“Right, new phone number. Did you get my email? Genius, right? I was
trying to think of some way I could help you without your pesky pride getting
in the way.”

I ignored that comment.
“Is that actually something I can do, though? Bid on a Frost tender?”

“Uh huh,” she said,
sounding smug. “It’s a big job, though, and the deadlines are insane—not that I
don’t 100% know you can make them—but
Min,” she said in a sing-song voice, “it’s lots of ca-ash.”

I was scared to ask. “What
do you think I’ll net?”

I could hear the smile in
her voice. “The lowest bid is $28,000 at the moment, with probably $10,000 to
$12,000 worth of materials in that, and between you and me? The quality of
their stuff is crap, you can do way better. So I’m thinking you can probably clear twelve grand, easy, and the job
will be finished by October, with maybe some on-call support as required.”

“By October…” I said,
realising what that meant.

“Isn’t that when your
classes start?” Sarah asked innocently, knowing the answer. She let it hang in
the air for a second before speaking again. “Anyway, you’re welcome. Put
together a killer submission—you know what Frost looks for—and knock
‘em dead. And when you nail it, there will be heaps more work in the future,
too. It’s totally perfect, right? It’ll be great kind of having you on the team
again,” she finished triumphantly, and
then hung up before I could either refuse or burst into tears
and thank her.

I stood there in the
street, staring at my phone. I felt like someone had stepped in front of me and
parted the raging seas, and I could finally see my way through them to dry land
on the other side.

In the space of a day, I
could finally see my way through.

And I had to wipe my eyes
on my sleeves again, because
I never would have expected a day that started out like it did to end
up like this. I just had such wonderful friends who did wonderful things for
me exactly when I really needed them most.

THIRTY-SEVEN

After I’d wiped my eyes and checked
the clock on my phone, I knew exactly where I wanted to go next.

It was 1pm; early enough in the afternoon to give me
just enough time to take a train back to Sarah’s, shower and change into comfy clothes,
and then hopefully meet Bree as she came out of Cloverfield at three.

I rushed so I wouldn’t be
late and miss her and, as a result, ended
up at Cloverfield quite early. It gave me the opportunity to catch my breath
and find somewhere outside the gate to sit and wait for her. When the school
bell finally rang, students poured out of their classrooms all clustered
together in their peach and white uniforms, chatting as they spilt out onto the
footpath.  I stood up, scanning their heads for Bree’s tell-tale curls—and
because I was looking for those, I nearly missed her completely.

When Bree came out of the
gate, her curls weren’t free like they usually were; she’d pulled them tightly
back off her face in a low, neat ponytail. Her top button was done up, too, and
despite the fact all the other girls were walking together in twos and threes,
she was alone and withdrawn, her eyes on her feet as she began her trip to the
station. I hardly recognised her at all.

Once she was away from the
crowd, I called out to her. “Bree!”

She turned, spotting me on
the other side of the road. She didn’t look very happy to see me. There was
enough anger mixed in with her surprise that I didn’t really know how to
approach her. I took a few steps towards the road, worried she’d just tell me
to get lost. She didn’t. She was just staring at me with a chilly expression,
waiting for something.

I took a breath. “I’m
sorry.”

She was silent for a
moment, considering me. A couple of girls walked
past her and down the road before she spoke. “How long have you been waiting
there?”

“A bit under an hour.”

One of her eyebrows
twitched. “You’re sitting waiting for me outside my school?” I nodded, and she
scoffed. “You used to hate it when I waited outside your work.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, letting
a car pass and then walking across the road to her, “I’m a hypocrite.” I gave
her a faint grin, but she didn’t return it.

She looked so different
with her hair tied back. Older, maybe. I wondered why she’d done it. Her shirt
was also a bit small, too, and having the top button done up and her tie
nestled in it made the collar look like it was cutting into her neck and
strangling her. I felt a twinge of guilt I’d been pressuring her to keep it
done up like that, so I reached up to undo the button for her.

She leant away from my
hand. “It’s okay. Leave it.” She noticed my expression. “Mr Preston said he’d
tell the Principal if I didn’t wear my uniform properly. And, yeah,” she
touched her low ponytail. “Apparently ‘crazy curls’ aren’t in the school dress code,
either.”

That made me bristle. I’d
begun to think about what an asshole that guy was when I remembered I’d been telling her to follow the dress
code, too. I felt the knife twist in my chest.

She looked right back up
at me. She was still waiting.

“Anyway, you were right,”
I told her quietly. “I did do exactly what my Mum always does.”

She swallowed, still
listening.

That wasn’t enough? I
wasn’t sure what else I could say. “And I know it means absolutely nothing that
I thought I was doing the right thing, but—”

“That’s exactly it, Min,”
she said suddenly, emotion finally seeping into her voice. I must have touched
a nerve, because her
face crumpled and she stepped forward to take a handful of my hoodie.
“Why? Why would you think that was
the right thing? Like, I can’t figure it out. You’re the person who knows me
the best in the world, and yet you do all this and somehow think it’s the right thing?”

It sounded so stupid to me
even as I tried to explain it. “You were so excited about your marks. I didn’t
want you to feel like you’d done all that work and had done so well only to
have them tell you to pay up or get out.”

She shrugged in defeat.
“But I did,” she said. “And they did, and making me wait to find that out
didn’t make it better. It made it a million, billion times worse. I was
happy about something that wasn’t true. It was this horrible false victory
where I thought my marks were good enough and I was good enough, but I wasn’t.” Her voice wavered on the last word. It hurt to hear it.

I brushed my fingertips
against her arm. “That’s exactly how I didn’t want you to feel,” I
told her. “I wanted you to see that you can do well, I wanted to show
you that you are smart, and—”

“But you did the
exact opposite, Min,” she told me, her hand tightening around her fistful
of my hoodie. “How do you think it makes me feel knowing my boyfriend thinks
I’m too fragile to cope with bad news? That I’m so fragile, he’ll pay some huge sum of money and sacrifice his future
for an extra three months of not telling me the truth?” She let her
hand drop, shaking her head. “And how you didn’t even ask me
what I want and just made the decision without me? Is that supposed
to make me feel like you think I’m smart?”

Listening to her, I felt
ill. I hadn’t considered that at all.

It didn’t end there. “And,
like, you did everything you could to make that even worse.
You know what Andrej did to my family. You know about all
the debt collectors, but you got involved with them anyway. So it’s like my
feelings matter so little that not only did you not ask me what I wanted, you
didn’t even care how doing any of that other stuff would make me feel. Well,
let me tell you, Min: it makes me feel like the one person in the world who I
love with all my heart doesn’t respect me at all.  That he thinks I’m just
this stupid fragile kid who can’t be trusted with decisions about her future.”

My face was burning, but I
forced myself to listen to every single little detail of what she said.

“So now
I’m stuck here,” she finished. “I’m stuck in this expensive school
where like maybe one single teacher respects me, and everyone else now thinks
I’m a dumb blonde with a sugar daddy who probably does her homework and bails
her out of everything. And since the holidays, the Principal obviously told the
teachers about your deal with her, because they’re all having a great time
telling me everything I’m doing wrong. Especially Mr Preston. He
reminds me every class when he thinks I’m not paying enough attention, and now my
friends are starting to ask what’s going on. It’s so fucking humiliating. It’s so humiliating I can hardly breathe.
But it’s not like I can just leave or hide in the library like I used to. I’m
stuck there listening to them because I can’t just leave when you paid all of
that money for me to stay.”

I stood there, digesting
that. Everything she said made perfect sense, and, god,
I felt so sick. I was so sure that keeping her in Cloverfield was the
best thing I could do for her, even if I knew some of the teachers didn’t like
her. On reflection, I don’t really know what I’d been
thinking. I felt stupid. I felt particularly stupid about thinking
that maybe she’d be a bit angry at first, but that she’d ultimately forgive me
because I’d helped her get good marks; that she’d ‘thank me in the long run’.
Where had I heard that before…?

And as much as I suddenly
realised exactly what I needed to do, accepting it was taking that knife buried
in my chest and twisting it with my own hands.

I already knew her answer
before I’d asked. “You would have transferred, wouldn’t you? If I’d asked you
what you wanted?”

She nodded.

I mirrored it,
feeling sick to my stomach. Of course
she would have. “Then you should do it. You should transfer.”

She froze for a moment. I
don’t think she expected that. “What?”

“You don’t have to stay
here. You can transfer to the public school if you want. It’s okay.”

For a moment, she was
breathless in disbelief. “But you paid so much money!”

My ears were ringing. “I
don’t want to force you to do anything that makes you miserable—I’ve been
through enough of that myself with Mum. Do what you need to do. I’ll manage,
and we’ll be okay.”

She gaped up at
me. I think she was waiting for me to retract it, or change my mind, or
something. When I didn’t, she closed her jaw.

Tentatively—I wasn’t sure
if she’d let me touch her—I reached behind her head and carefully eased her
thick curls out of that tight ponytail. She let me, and she let me gently
loosen her tie and undo her top button as well. When I was done, I was looking
down at the Bree I recognised, and she was looking up at me with those
beautiful big blue eyes.

“Thank you,” she murmured.
“I just want to get away from everything here.”

And that was
it. That was the conversation I’d been desperately struggling to
avoid having with her.

I closed my eyes for a
moment. I’d wasted $21,000—more, really, since Seung had made me pay
$18,000—and so
much time and effort and stress trying to avoid
the inevitable. And the inevitable was okay, in the end.

All of it. It was all
okay. I felt like I’d been holding my breath for four months and I
was finally able to exhale.

Her fingertips found mine.
“What’s wrong?”

God, what a
question. “So much had happened,” I told her, opening my eyes again. “The
last two weeks… the last 24 hours even, I don’t know where to start…”

She watched me for a
moment. “Well, I’m on my way to the station,” she said, lacing our fingers
together. “Walk me?”

Hand in hand, we set a
slow, leisurely pace past the stately houses and neatly trimmed hedges, and
I finally told her the truth about what had happened. All of it,
right from when I’d snuck down to Cloverfield to speak with the Principal,
right up until my last phone call to Sarah. It was such a relief to
just say it all. To not have to hide, or lie, or conceal anything
from her. With every word I said, weight lifted clear of my shoulders, and by
the end of it I felt completely purged. She listened like she always
did—stopping me only once to clarify that yes, I’d definitely said
my mother was here. After I’d finished, we walked for a bit in
silence.

While we were waiting for
the lights to turn so we could cross the highway to the station, she gave
me a thoughtful look. “You seem okay,” she observed.

I considered that. “Every
time I think about it, I get this jolt in my chest, like, ‘oh, that’s
right, I broke off contact with my mother’, and it hurts, but…” I
shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess I’m better than I thought I’d be.”

Bree’s eyebrows went up.
“’Than you thought you’d be’? You thought this might happen?”

It hadn’t even occurred to
me until she asked, but now that she had, I knew the answer. “Yeah, I think
part of me always knew it would come to this,” I realised aloud. “I think I
always knew.”

Bree spent a few seconds
in reflection. “I think she did, too,” she decided. “People ruin their lives
holding onto things they can’t really have. Just look at my parents.”
Her eyes were veiled for a moment. “Anyway, what’s on the cards for you now
that’s all over?”

I shook my head. “I don’t
know,” I told her, my eyebrows high. “I’ll do my master’s, I guess, and in
between assignments I’ll do contracts for Frost. Other than that, I’m not
sure.”

She had a specific
question in mind. “Maybe you’ll discover you’re a regular trans guy after all,
now that you don’t need to worry what’ll happen if your mum finds out you got
surgery or started taking testosterone?”

I blinked. I hadn’t even
gotten that far yet. “Maybe,” I told her, “But I don’t really know how I feel
about those things anyway.” There were so many ‘I don’t knows’. “Mum always told me what to do, what to wear, where to go…
all of that. Now that I’m not going to let her do that anymore, I just feel…” I
shook my head. “Not free, really. Kind of like an animal that was raised in
captivity, and then you take it to the forest and release it, and it just
stands there with no idea what to do.”

“But you definitely want
to be an artist,” she pointed out.

I grinned down at her. I
knew the answer to that one. “Yeah, I definitely do.”

She smiled at that. “Well,
that’s a start. You know some things.”

I nodded slowly, looking
back out towards the station. “I suppose I can do whatever I want,” I realised.
“It’s just such an unfamiliar feeling, not having to
always worry about what Mum will think or how I’m going to hide it
from her. I can’t even imagine the kinds of things I’m allowed to want for
myself now.” I smiled faintly, thinking about them. “Anything in the world, I
guess.”

Bree mirrored my smile,
watching me wistfully for a minute or so. Then she sighed deeply.

I squeezed her hand. “Is
everything okay?”

She exhaled again. “I want that,” she said simply. “I want
to be able to want anything in the world without always knowing in the back of
my mind what’s going on back home. They’ve been teetering on the brink of
bankruptcy for so long, part of me is always counting down to it. I want to
be free of it, too. I don’t want it to be my worry anymore.” She sighed again. “I can’t wait until we’re
renting a little flat of our own somewhere.”

I frowned at her. “That’ll
help?”

She shrugged. “I just want
to get my stuff out of my parents’ place for good so I can put all of this crap
behind me.”

“How much stuff is still
there that you want to keep? I thought you’d taken most of it.”

She shrugged. “A few bags,
maybe. Some important things.”

A few bags? I considered
that. If it was that little, it would probably fit in the corner of my room at
Sarah’s…

The pedestrian crossing
buzzed, and the light went green. I took a deep breath. “Let’s get it now.”

She gave me a sceptical
look. “You don’t have a car anymore,” she reminded me as we crossed the road.

“Yeah, but I have arms,” I
said, and flexed one of them.

That got a cute little
smile out of her. “I kind of know a lot about those,” she told me wryly, and
then sobered as we came up to the entrance to the eastbound platform. “You
really want to go now?”

I nodded. “I’d get your
things myself, but I don’t know what you want,” I told her, and then tugged her
gently towards the ramp.

She deliberated for a
moment looking worried, and then let me
lead her.

We took the eastbound
train together—a trip she must have done a thousand times during her time at
Cloverfield—alighting at Bondi Junction to make
the climb uphill towards her street. There were no cars parked outside her
house, but Bree paused by the door for a moment to listen anyway before she let
us in.

Inside, dim winter light
filtered through the windows beside the door and fell on all the dusty display
cases in the hallway. There was a musty smell in the air, and through the door to
the living room, I could see stacks of dirty plates and wine glasses that had
accumulated beside the chair Mr Dejanovic sat in to watch TV. It was completely
silent except for the grandfather clock ticking at the end of the hallway.

Bree’s room was exactly
how we’d left it; with printouts all over the wall, her bed perfectly made, and
her possessions neatly arranged in their rightful places. It was dusty, though.
Dusty, and dark.

She automatically reached
over beside us to turn on the light, but when she flicked the switch, nothing
happened. She flicked it uselessly again. Her lips parted for a moment.
“They’ve had the power cut off,” she realised aloud. Taking a deep breath, she
went over to her sticker-covered wardrobe anyway, took a rucksack from inside,
and began to select things to put into it.

I watched her packing,
picking a couple of fantasy books from her shelves, some summer clothes from
her drawers, and little box decorated with magazine cut-outs and diamantes that
looked like it had been done by a child.

She paused when she got to
her framed photos, lifting one from the shelf to look at; it was the same
laughing summer photo of the four of them that Mrs Dejanovic had on her desk.
Bree spent a moment looking down at it with her back to me, the rucksack in one
hand and the photo in the other. Dim
light from her slatted windows spilt across the floor, and the shadows fell
over her like the rungs of a prison cell. It was both awful and beautiful. It
would have made a beautiful, melancholy
painting. I tried to hold the image in my mind.

We shared the bags between
us, but before we left, she stood back and surveyed her room one last time. The
deceptively neat desk, the books in alphabetical order and the perfectly
positioned photo frames. The room she’d spent her whole childhood in.

It all seemed so normal,
like the bedroom of any teenage girl. No one would ever guess what went on in
this house and what Bree had been living with. Looking at her face, though, I
could see it.

“I made it,” she murmured.
“I made it after all. I survived, and now I’m finally leaving.”

Something about how she’d
phrased that touched me; striking through the deafening numbness I’d felt since
this morning. That was it, that was exactly the feeling. I couldn’t
feel happy or sad about leaving Mum,
because it was what I needed to do to survive. And now, like a soldier who was
somehow still standing at the end of a bitter war, I wasn’t cheering. There was
no sense of victory. I was falling to my knees and touching the scorched earth,
unable to believe I was still here to walk on it. I got through it, I thought. I’m still here.

“I don’t know why I
thought I could change anything,” she confessed. “But I did.”

“You tried,” I told her
quietly. I knew how she felt.

“I did,” she said in a tiny
voice. “I really, really did. I worked and worked but it didn’t make any
difference in the end, because I don’t
really have a family. I have these beautiful memories of a family I once loved
with all my heart, but that family’s been gone for a long time. They’re not
here anymore.”

We walked out of her
bedroom for the last time, and down those grey steps with the printed roses.
She’d rushed down the hallway every other time I’d followed her through it, but
this time she walked down it in slow procession, her eyes touching all the
porcelain figurines, the little silver bowls, and drinking in every inch of how
the hallway looked so she could commit it to memory. When she closed the front
door behind us, we walked down the stairs onto the street for one last look at
the house.

The clouds had parted
enough for the setting sun to light the red bricks, and the sky to reflect in
the upstairs windows. It was still charming, even with its peeling awnings and
unweeded garden.

“I wish you could have
seen how it looks with the roses in bloom. That’s how I want to remember it,”
Bree told me, and then looked up at me. There were tears in her eyes. “I was
supposed to grow old in that house.”

We looked up at the red
bricks and slatted windows one more time, to get one last, final glimpse of her
childhood home. Then, with tears spilling down her cheeks, she turned around
and walked away from it.

Side by side and with her
bags in our arms, we headed home.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Bree’s graduation was in the new
spring, on the first clear and mild night in months. The air smelt like salt water, and if you stopped and
listened, you could hear the distant roar of the waves crashing on the sand
down the road.

Eastern Beaches High
School didn’t have the grand assembly hall that Cloverfield did, and her
graduation wasn’t anywhere near as impressive as her formal had been. The high
school’s utilitarian yellow-brick gymnasium had been converted into a makeshift
auditorium with rows and rows of classroom chairs instead, and a
student-painted banner above the constructed stage read ‘Goodbye & Good Luck for your Exams!!’. Unfortunately, ‘Exams’ was in skinny, squashed letters
because whoever was painting the banner had run out of room.

Despite the meagre furnishings,
there was still a sense of occasion. Earlier today had been the last classroom
day for all the year 12s before they broke for swatvac
and their final exams, and everyone had gone home and gotten dressed up in
their best clothes. Now they were all lined up beside the stage while the
Principal—a stately man in his late 60s who was dressed in his full academic
gown—got ready to invite them up one by one to collect their placeholder
certificate in anticipation of receiving their real HSC at the end of
the year. Bree was among them.

I watched her buzzing
around the group in her beautiful new cornflower blue dress—if you can call
something bought from an op shop new—chatting with her new friends. They looked
like a nice bunch of kids, and Bree seemed much more cheerful than she had six
weeks ago. It was such a relief to finally see a real smile on her
face.

Beside me, Sarah, Gemma
and Rob were watching her, too. Sarah leant over to me. “So, you all ready for
later tonight?”

I shook my head. “I’m
going to ask Henry to help when he gets here.” I then spent a second
considering how animated Bree looked while she was deep in conversation with
her colleagues. “Do you think I should have invited her new school friends,
too?”

Sarah laughed once. “Not
unless you were thinking of inviting all of year 12 over to my place. Look at
her.” Bree had moved to talk to another group of people.

“Wow,” Gemma sounded
unsettled, “she’s been at this school for like five minutes and already she
knows her entire year.”

“That’s what happens when
you actually talk to people,” Sarah told her with a smirk. “You get to know
them.”

Gemma looked insulted. “I
talk to people!”

Sarah scoffed. “Yeah, when
you’re drunk.”

I was listening to Sarah
and Gemma bickering and waiting for the presentations to start, when I noticed
the far door to the gym subtly open and someone
familiar slip inside. I sat forward. I’d been wondering if he’d get here
in time. “Henry’s here,” I said to the other three, and then tried to wave. We
were seated in darkness, though, and even with all four of us silently waving
at him, all we were doing was annoying the people behind us.

In the end, as the
Principal started his speech, I had to sneak over to the side of the hall to
where Henry had entered. It was probably for the best, anyway, because there
were no more empty chairs over with the others.

“There you are,” he
whispered as I snuck over.

I gave him a brief hug.
“Thanks for making it. I hope we didn’t get you in any trouble.”

He shook his head.
“Operations needs to stop scheduling meetings when I have my calendar blacked
out,” he said. “Speaking of which, can you tell Bree I was able to
get the night before her Psych exam off? I should be back in Sydney on the
20th.”

Someone who was seated near
us gave us a dirty look for speaking while the Principal was, and we had to
move to the back of the gym so we wouldn’t bother anyone.

“You can tell her yourself
tonight,” I whispered to him. “Sarah told you, right?”

He pursed his lips. “She
did mention something about needing to get together to set Bree’s revision
timetable, but no details.”

I shot him a deep grin.
“That’s the official story,”
I said, “but what I’m actually doing is having a surprise graduation party for
Bree.”

His eyebrows went up, and
he gave me a look of frank surprise like
he wouldn’t have expected it of me. “That’s a nice idea.”

“Yeah, it’s completely
plagiarised from something Sarah did for my birthday,” I whispered, “but I
still think Bree will love it. The problem is I’ve been up until 2am every night trying to meet graphics
deadlines for the Frost contract, so I haven’t finished organising all the
finer details. I need your help.”

“What would you like me to
do?”

“Well, Sarah and Gemma
need time to go back to Sarah’s place and set up, but I can’t go too, because
if I tried to go home separately from Bree after her graduation, she’d either
get really suspicious or get upset because she’d think I was angry with her,” I
explained. “So I need you to take us back in
your car and drive the really, really long way home. Do you think you can come
up with some reason that needs to happen and get her to agree to it?”

He inclined his head.
“Consider it done.”

I sighed with relief.
“Thanks, you’re a lifesaver,” I told him, giving him another brief hug. “I
had no idea what excuse I was going to give for Sarah, Gemma and Rob
needing to go without us.”

He gave me his default smile, and then turned his attention to the
Principal as he finished his speech and started to call up students to receive
their certificates.

That smile worried me a
bit, and I watched him for a minute or two. I still had this niggling worry
that he wasn’t really okay with tutoring Bree, but that he felt like
it would be rude for him not to offer to help given he had his master’s in Psych. And what if he felt like I
was just using him for a lift home?

I caught
myself stressing about it and mentally forehead-smacked. Come on, Min, I told myself. That
smile could easily just have been because he was thinking about what he’s going
to say to her to get her in his car.

I wasn’t going to solve
anything by dwelling on it right now anyway, so I listened to the Principal,
too.

Bree was low down on the
list of students, and was practically
self-combusting from anticipation by the time she was finally called up. I took
lots of photos of her receiving her placeholder certificate—including one of
her posing for a selfie with the Principal on stage even though the students
had been specifically told not to take their phones up—and then afterwards she
and several other girls started to take a whole lot of photos of each other
with their certificates.

I’d been so busy watching
Bree and appreciating how beautiful she looked tonight in her new dress, that I
didn’t notice Sarah approaching Henry and me. “God, look at you two,” she said,
feigning disgust. “You look like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. You’ve even got
the same suit on.”

I frowned at her, and then
looked down at myself and across at Henry. She was right. At least I hadn’t
decided to wear one of his old paisley ties, too; it would have been nearly
identical to the one he was wearing. We glanced sheepishly at each other and
laughed.

“What can I say, Min has
excellent taste in clothes,” Henry said as he greeted Sarah, stepping in
briefly to give her a very professional cheek-kiss and a quick once-over. “You
look fabulous as well. How far along are you now?”

“24 weeks,” Sarah told
him. “Which leaves me a pithy 13 weeks to figure out how to be a mother.”

He laughed. “Well, if you
manage with children as well as you manage with your team at Frost, you’re
going to do great.”

He couldn’t have possibly
complimented her in a better way. “Thank you!” she said, a hand absently
resting on her stomach. It was the first time I’d seen her do that. “To be
honest, I’m probably going to be delegating a lot of the hands-on stuff to Rob,
though…”

Henry looked unfazed. “All
the best managers do.”

Sarah stared at him for a
second with an exaggerated look of adoration, and then linked arms with him,
turning around and saying jokingly to Rob as he walked up, “Okay, sorry, but
Henry is totally my new date for the rest of tonight.” She escorted him out of
the gym, saying as they left, “You are such
a suck-up.”

Rob didn’t look
intimidated by Henry in the slightest and just turned to Gemma. “Looks like
you’re my new date then,” he said amiably and offered his arm.

“Story of my life,” Gemma
said dryly as she took it. “I have this wild fantasy that one day I’ll be
something other than the consolation prize.”

As I followed them outside,
I asked about what Sarah had said. “‘Delegating the hands-on stuff to you’? So
you decided to stay home with the baby after all?”

He shrugged and looked at
me over his shoulder. “Well, Sares got a big pay hike with her new gig which
means we’ve got a buffer now, so why not? Waterbank isn’t going to reopen anytime soon—fuck knows what’s going on up
there—and someone needs to stay home with our little one. Who better to than
her daddy?”

We had to hang around for
Bree to finish up with her friends before she came to meet us by the front gates. When she got back, she
spent a few moments very visibly trying to gather some courage before she said,
“Min,” in a deferent I’m-about-to-ask-you-something voice, “Priya’s
whole family is going to dinner at some amazing restaurant tonight, and I was thinking it would be really nice for us all
to go out together afterwards? It doesn’t even need to be somewhere we have to
spend money. Maybe we could just walk along Darling Harbour like old times? It
just kind of sucks to do nothing for my graduation.”

Oh, god. I
was bursting to tell her what I had planned for tonight, but I
couldn’t. “We need to get your study timeline sorted out,” I said, and then
gestured at the others. “And everyone has work
tomorrow.” ‘Everyone’ looked suitably innocent.

She considered their
doubtful expressions and then sighed deeply, looking crestfallen. “I know,” she
said, the disappointment audible in her voice. “I just thought I’d ask anyway…”

I hugged her, dying inside. I had a new appreciation for
how difficult it must have been for her to keep Sarah’s surprise birthday party
for me a secret.

As we all split off to get
into our separate cars, Henry pulled me aside. He looked uncomfortable, and it
wasn’t until he spoke that I realised it wasn’t genuine. “I know it’s pretty
cramped with everyone in Rob’s ute,” he
said, surreptitiously checking to make sure Bree was listening, too. “My Lexus
is much bigger, and it’s a long drive back by myself. I know I’m not as much
fun as Sarah, but would you and Bree like to keep me company anyway?”

It was an absolute
bullseye. Bree looked like her heart was going to break for him, and when I
glanced down at her, pretending to check it was okay, I could see she was
completely sold.

“Hmm,” I said at him anyway. “Leather seats and climate
control or Rob’s lap and a broken window? Tough choice.”

“I’ll tell the others!”
Bree assured us, and then zipped off to
do that.

As soon as she was gone, I
gave Henry a hard look. “You do realise a fairy dies every time you use your
powers for evil, right?”

He gave me a charming
smile. “She’s going to love the surprise, and it will be nice to have
your company.” We all climbed into our respective cars.

Bree had been deeply
immersed—or so I thought—in choosing a filter for the photos she’d just taken
before she uploaded them, but when we turned out onto the road she looked up
and out of the car for a few seconds, frowning. “Um, why are we going this
way?” she asked Henry. “Trust me, the other way’s much faster.”

Henry and I glanced at
each other. We had our work cut out for us. Henry looked at her in the rearview
mirror. “I’m just more familiar with Anzac Parade, that’s all,” he said
pleasantly. “It won’t be faster if we get lost.”

Bree eyed the GPS on
Henry’s dash sceptically, but
didn’t say anything.

He noticed. “But if you
know a quicker way, would you like to direct me?”

She brightened. “Sure! But
you’ll need to chuck a U-ey at the end of the street.”

Henry did the world’s
slowest and most careful U-turn, and then
drove back in the direction we’d come from. As we passed Eastern Beaches again,
Rob’s ute was in the queue to turn out of
the carpark. We drove past him.

Shit. I glanced at Henry, who looked
entirely unaffected. “That’s right,” he was saying to Bree, “you’re from the
Eastern Suburbs, aren’t you? I should have just asked you for directions to
start off with. Are you going to move back here again once Sarah has her baby?”

Bree laughed darkly.
“Sure, if we win the lottery.”

“We’re far more likely to
need to rent someone’s garage in the far Western Suburbs,” I added,
exaggerating our financial position a little. “I’m not going to be able to do
contracts for Frost all the time because of uni, and I’ll be paying
off my credit card for a while.”

“Well, I don’t live in the
Western Suburbs, but I have a very nice garage,” Henry told us with a
completely straight face. “Very spacious. It even has a concrete floor. I hear
the industrial look is in vogue now.”

I laughed at that. “Yeah,
wouldn’t that be the ultimate schadenfreude? Having your semi-employed ex and
the girl he cheated on you with living in your garage while you have an entire
three-bedroom house and a world class job?”

“Exactly,” he said. “I’m
already planning how my future girlfriend and I will sit on the back porch
drinking champagne and cackling at you.”

“Well, as long as you both
don’t mind being kept awake late at night by the sound of regretful sobbing as
I cry over what a huge mistake I made when I left you.”

In the mirror, I could see
Bree’s brow was crinkled. “Guys, I know you’re joking,” she said uncertainly,
“but it’s hard for me to tell how much you’re joking because
sometimes it’s also a bit true and you’re stressing me out!”

I reached behind the seat
and touched her knee. “Sorry, we are joking,” I promised, and then
sobered and answered Henry properly. “We’ll probably just get a studio or a
one-bedroom place as close to my uni as we can afford,
unless Bree gets into uni as well, and then we’ll need to take that into
account too.”

Henry looked at her in the
rearview mirror again. “So you did decide to go to uni after all?”

Bree made a hesitant
noise, and then scrunched up her whole face and shrugged. “Depends how good my
ATAR is and if it’s high enough to get in somewhere decent.” She didn’t look
very convinced that would happen. “But I kind of don’t know if I want to jump
straight into uni anyway. I’d have to study like I’ve been studying with you
guys for another three or four years, and that’s like…” She shook her head. “Do
I really want to do that? There’s not really anything that
I’m desperate to study.”

“You enjoy cooking,” Henry
pointed out. “Perhaps instead of uni, you might be interested in doing an
apprenticeship and becoming a chef?”

“No, I already looked into
that,” Bree said, “and your whole apprenticeship is basically being screamed at
by an old guy for three years until you do everything right, and
then you have to scream at other people when you’re a chef, and
I really don’t want to be anywhere that people are yelling at each other
all the time.”

“Fair enough,” Henry
conceded. “Well, you like helping people, would you consider community service
or welfare?”

From the tone of Bree’s
voice, apparently not. “No, because if someone told me a sad story I would literally
just start crying, and then we’d both be crying and that wouldn’t be
very professional.”

That was a good point.
“We’ll think of something,” I told them both.

Bree sighed. “You guys are
lucky,” she lamented, flopping back against the seat. “You’re both really good
at the things you’re passionate about so it’s really clear what you need to do
with your lives. I totally love art, but I’ll never be an artist.”

I was just thinking that maybe there was some sort of parallel design
or decorating career somewhere in that statement,
when Bree sat up straight and made a loud exclamation. “Oh my god, where are we? Why are we
in Mascot? We’re nearly at the airport!”

Henry glanced towards me;
his eyes were twinkling. “Sorry, I thought you were going to direct me!” he
told Bree innocently. “I figured you’d just tell me when I needed to turn!”

She jammed her eyes shut.
“Fuck, I got totally distracted. I’m so sorry! Okay, you have to turn around
here because the tollway is in the other direction.”

Henry didn’t need to pull
any more stunts to make sure we got home a lot later than the others; he just
drove cautiously and calmly—like always—and kept Bree talking by making her go
over the material she’d gotten wrong on the Psych practice exam.

By the time we got back to
Sarah’s and pulled in behind Rob’s ute,
it was well past when the others would have arrived home. I hoped it
was long enough.

Bree was still chatting
away as we walked up the back stairs, when she stopped suddenly, nearly causing
me to collide with her. “The back light’s off,” she observed. It was a loaded comment, because the last time Sarah had left
the back light off was
for my surprise party. She was holding her breath.

This was fucking killing me. I was desperate to tell her, but we’d
gotten this far without her guessing, and I wasn’t going to blow it at the last
minute. I managed to say casually, “The moths are making the sensor play up
again, I heard Sarah complaining about it last night.” That was actually also
true, which Bree clearly acknowledged.

She watched me for a
moment while I made a special effort to act naturally. Beside me, Henry was
frowning down at emails on his phone and apparently only half-listening.

She exhaled at length and
slumped, continuing up the stairs. The disappointment on her face was like
a knife to the heart, I swear. I was seriously going to need therapy after
this. We only had a few seconds to go, though.

I pretended to pat myself
down for my keys. “Shit.”

“I have mine,” Bree
offered miserably, and then fitted them
into the door. I watched her slowly open it, and slowly—

The
light flew on to the sound of party whistles and party poppers
exploding. Bree stopped suddenly again—nearly causing me to collide with her again—her jaw wide open.

Gemma, Sarah and Rob had
constructed a multi-level display on the dining table out of thick textbooks, and on each of the levels was a
different type of food. There was a little
wrapped present on the highest one, and in the centre of the table was a
horribly amateur cake that was supposed to look like a graduation cap.

“Surprise,” I said beside
her ear.

She closed her jaw and
turned to me, for just a second looking at me with such total love and
adoration that she gave me butterflies. Then, her brow lowered and
she shoved me. “You bastard!”
she said, but there was a smile on her face. “Moths! Moths! Really?”

Then, she looked sternly
at Henry. He put his hands in a ‘don’t shoot’ position and pointed at me. “I
knew nothing about this, I swear,” he said, obviously knowing something about
it. She shoved him too, and he laughed and apologised, putting his hand on her
back as he did so. It was such a tiny gesture, but it spoke volumes about his
feelings towards her. You wouldn’t inadvertently touch someone you disliked
that way.

“Surprise!” Sarah repeated,
coming forward to the door and towing Bree over to the table. “You didn’t think
we were going to let you graduate without having a party for you, did you?” she
asked, and then presented the cake. “Tada! Min and I had a go at it. Sorry if
we suck, it’s the thought that counts, right?”

Bree’s smile threatened to
crack her face as she reached out to delicately touch the black marzipan icing.
“You guys made me a cake…”
Her voice wavered like she might be about to cry.

Sarah saw it and briefly
wrapped her in a big, squishy hug. “You can’t cry yet, you’re not even drunk!
Here,” she said, pulling me over, too, “hug your boyfriend, this is all her
fault.” She flinched and glanced back at Henry before correcting herself. “Erm, his fault,
I mean.”

Sarah dumped Bree on me,
and I put an arm around her as I carefully reached over and plucked the little wrapped present from the tallest tower
of books. “We all pitched in and got you a little something.” I placed it into her hands.

Bree stared down at it,
breathless, and torn between laughter and tears. Slowly, she pulled off the
blue silk ribbon and carefully unwrapped the thick, luxury wrapping paper.
Underneath it was a long white leather box, and when she opened it, inside the
box on a velveteen cushion was a beautiful silver pen.

“It’s a good luck pen,” I
explained to her as she lifted it out of the box and examined the strange
texture of it. I put my hand over hers and held it closer to her face. “See
that? If you look closer, there’s a good luck charm there, engraved in the
silver. I forget exactly what it says, but it’s something like, ‘may you
remember every word you read, may the words pour out of you like a flower river’ or something wanky like that. All those little tiny lines there are sentences.
If you put it under a strong magnifying glass, you can read it.” I let go of
her hand so she could explore it herself. “Not that you’re going to need good
luck because you’re going to do great all by yourself—but for that bit of extra
confidence in your exams, now you have a magic pen.”

Bree’s eyes were glazed as
she ran her fingertips over the surface. The engravings had been bevelled so
they twinkled in the light, and as she turned the pen, it sparkled in her
hands. “It’s beautiful,” she said, and then she looked up at me, and then
across at Gemma and Sarah who were grinning, arm in arm, and over at Rob who
toasted her with a mug of pretentious tea, and back at Henry who smiled warmly
at her, and then she choked up.

I wrapped my arms around
her. “Good luck for your exams,” I told
her quietly, kissing the crown of her head.

Sarah blew a party whistle
again. “Okay, let’s cut this terrible cake,” she said. “I’m dying to know if
Min and I are as hopeless as we felt while we were trying to make this thing.”

We all sat down to eat—we
could have drunk, too, since Gemma bought a bottle of champagne, but we all
felt too guilty about drinking in front of Sarah and Rob while they were
abstaining. Instead, we passed around our phones to select the best photos of Bree’s
graduation to upload while we chatted.

“Here’s my problem,
though,” Sarah was saying in between mouthfuls of terrible cake. “What am I
going to call Bree now? ‘Toyboy and Schoolgirl’ has such a great ring to it,
I’m not sure I’m going to be able to beat it.”

“People sometimes call me
‘Goldilocks’,” Bree offered. “Or ‘Shirley Temple’.”

Sarah didn’t look taken
with either of those. “Not the same. And what am I going to do if Toyboy goes
on testosterone and doesn’t look 18 anymore? My world is falling apart.”

“You’re safe with ‘Toyboy’
for now,” I promised her, although I’d been catching myself wondering more
about what it would be like to not have any feminine curves that I needed to
hide. I was sick of having secrets.
“I’m not even close to a decision yet. I’m just going to focus on finishing
this Frost contract and doing my master’s for now.”

“It would be so cool to
watch someone go through that, though,” Gemma reflected. “Like, with
testosterone and all that stuff.”

“Glad I could be of
entertainment to you,” I told her dryly and threw a lump of marzipan at her
head.

It actually got caught in
her waves and she had to fish it out. She put it in her mouth, chewing
thoughtfully on it. “I’m serious, aren’t you even a tiny bit curious what you’d
look like?”

“Of course he isn’t,”
Sarah said, gesturing at Henry. “Here’s one we prepared earlier. God, as if they’re not basically twins already.”

Henry grinned. “I think
you should start taking it now,” he told me neutrally. When everyone looked at
him, he added, “You can go to all my breakfast meetings for me while I sleep
in.”

We finished the cake and
broke out all the other junk food, and Gemma started telling us all a story
about something that happened to her in Thailand while we listened and
complained how jealous we were. Afterwards, she passed around her phone to show us all photos as we laughed, and joked,
and stuffed ourselves full of crap food.

Bree was quiet despite the
fact the party was for her, and she sat close to me, listening, watching
everyone, and clutching the case with her beautiful
good luck pen in it. In the reflection of the dark window opposite us, I could
see she was smiling peacefully. I was surprised to notice that I was smiling,
too.

It was so domestic,
sitting around Sarah’s dining table like this. Being surrounded by people who
wanted to do nice things for us; who enjoyed making us happy and went out of
their way to help us. There was so much safety in it. I felt like anything
might go wrong for me and I had this group of people who’d all rally around me
and try and make it right again.

And I couldn’t describe
how that felt.

How it felt to feel supported. To feel accepted. To feel loved and celebrated for who I was, and to watch
the same people celebrating the girl I was in love with. I almost couldn’t
believe it was real. It felt far, far too good to be real.

I didn’t need to go it
alone after all—I wished I’d known that earlier. When I’d needed
someone and Mum wasn’t there for me,
these people—all of them—were. I cast my eyes around the table, feeling such an
ache in my chest for every single one of them.

I might have had a shitty
childhood and a mother who didn’t love or accept the real me, but
that wasn’t my last shot at being part of a family.

I’d found them, and all of
them loved me exactly the way I was.

THE
END

***

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

Under My Skin

Flesh & Blood

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