My dad calls the same evening. ‘Whassup!’ he says.
I’m about to head out to write a piece on the new Yayoi Kusama exhibition but I love talking to Dad, so I crawl onto the couch and start picking at my toenails.
‘Dad. You’re like one hundred years old, please don’t try to speak like a homie.’
‘Just keeping it real.’
I groan and he laughs. ‘Where are you?’ I ask.
‘Guess.’
‘Really?’ I sigh. ‘Can you give me a clue?’
‘It’s hot.’
‘Sun bed in Palm Springs?’ I roll my eyes at nobody. This could take forever. ‘The inner core of the Earth?’
He laughs more. ‘Nope. It’s flat and red.’
‘The desert?’
He gets sulky. ‘How did you know?’
‘You did raise a genius, remember?’
‘Yes, that was clever of me wasn’t it,’ he replies. ‘How is your sister?’
‘Working too hard. Still dating that moron.’
I’m wondering whether to mention Tom. I want to share my news with Dad, but he would freak out. Me having a boyfriend is a huge deal—everyone has been waiting for my guy to pop up. But now that he has I’m not sure I want to share him. Dad will get super heavy with me, super-fast.
‘Malcolm is a bit of a corpse isn’t he?’
‘Dad!’ I say, horrified. This is where I get it from.
‘You called him a moron.’
‘But corpse—it’s a little much.’
‘I’m just saying.’ You can almost hear him shrug. ‘When I came to visit last year, he was boring, you know, a bit of a dunderhead.’
‘I know.’
Dad’s surprise visit last year was a disaster. He’s a bit of a cyclone, my dad; rushing from place to place, catching up with friends, old work colleagues, insisting on beers everywhere. Dad teased Malcolm endlessly, which really upset Rose. Especially blowing into town unannounced and expecting us to drop everything to ‘live a little!’ with him.
Dad left us three years ago when I was fourteen and Rose was twenty. He couldn’t handle it anymore. Needed to ‘set himself straight’. I know he went through hell with my Ma, and me, and he deserves a break, but I wish he could have hung around a few years more. Rose and I have handled it all right—we’ve learned to be independent since our Ma died—but as far as I’m concerned, Dad’s lost any right to judge the choices we make. Especially when it comes to love. I’m not surprised Rose has chosen a Gloomy Gus like Malcolm. His predictability is comforting, the exact opposite to our family.
‘And you, my little duckling? How are you keeping busy?’
‘Work mainly. I’m doing a few columns a week as Wynona.’
‘That can’t take up much time. What else are you doing?’
‘It does take time,’ I object. ‘By the time I go to the events and write them up it takes ages.’ I flick through some cheesy catalogue beside me. An advertisement for a massage chair takes my fancy. How nice to sit in one of those for hours. ‘I’ve been going to a pottery class too,’ I tell him.
‘Pottery? You?’
‘Just to watch—it’s soothing.’
He is laughing again. ‘Has anyone told you you’re cuckoo?’
‘A few times, yeah.’ We laugh together.
‘Seen much of Felix?’ he asks.
I go tense. Dad loves Felix, even though they’ve never even met. I know he wants us to end up together—just because the dude is blind. How sad is that? It really irritates me because Felix is awesome. He’s hilarious. He’s brilliant. But more than that, Felix would do anything for me. Anything! And all Dad values is his blindness. It’s so wrong.
‘Felix is busy with his girlfriend,’ I say to upset him. ‘They’re very serious.’
‘Bummer.’ I’m satisfied by the disappointment in his tone.
‘It’s fine with me,’ I say. ‘We’re just friends, I told you that.’
‘I know but—well—I just think you and Felix are well suited.’
I feel my jaw clench. ‘Because he’s blind.’
Dad gets short with me. ‘You have a responsibility to who you choose to love, Olive. You can’t be flippant about it.’
I’m tempted to hang up. It really irks me how he gets like this. Why has he started doing this? When I was small he was great. He treated me as if I were a normal kid, but since I’ve gotten older he’s all paranoid, especially when it comes to boys.
‘Dad. Please don’t.’
‘But it’s true, Olive. It would be easier on everyone if you had a blind boyfriend.’
I feel sick. How can my dad suggest I settle for ‘easy’ over real love?
‘Maybe you should hang out at one of those blind schools?’ he continues. ‘You never know who you’ll meet.’
I’m so disgusted by this idea, I feel like throwing my phone across the room. ‘Sure Dad! Great idea! Maybe I could just post a braille message on their noticeboard—“Desperate Invisible Girl looking for blind man with no other options”.’
‘Olive!’ Dad sucks back a breath. I’ve said the ‘I’ word. He’s not happy but neither am I.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I say and hang up.
I shut my eyes and force myself to think good thoughts. Tomorrow Tom will come. Tomorrow he’ll look at me like he did today—as if he wanted to consume me, gift-wrap me in his arms, not like I’m something to pity. Not like I’m invisible.
The miracle of it hits me again. If the curse is true, Tom is my true love. But is he? What other explanation could there be for him seeing me? Nobody has ever seen me before, not Ma, not Dad, not me. To everyone in the world, besides Tom, I’m invisible.
But he doesn’t have to know that. Right?