When Mum announces that she and Dad are going out for the afternoon I call Dan and ask if he wants to come over and be my sous-chef. He arrives as I’m weighing the chocolate for the brownies.
“Perfect timing,” he says, grabbing a handful of chocolate buds from the bowl on the scale.
I try to swat his hand, but he moves too fast for me. “I just finished weighing that!”
“Sorry. How can I make it up to you?” He grins suggestively.
“You can make it up to me later. Right now the oven’s preheating and I’m already running behind schedule.”
“So what should I do? Sift some eggs? Beat some flour?”
I know he’s joking, but I’m beginning to regret asking Dan to help. We’ve had fun making brownies together in the past, but that was more an excuse to brand each other with floury handprints and lick melted chocolate off each other’s fingers – it had never mattered whether the end product actually turned out well. But these are the first real friends I’ve had since starting high school and I want everything I make for them to be perfect.
“Just sit down for a minute while I finish getting organised.” I sound like Mum, which I hate on principle, but I’m starting to understand her saying “no” every time I asked if I could help make dinner when I was little. (Now she moans that she practically has to beg me to peel a potato, so I guess I’ve had my revenge.) Dan doesn’t seem to have noticed though; he sits at the kitchen table and flips through a copy of The New Yorker.
Ziggy gets home a few minutes later. “Good afternoon, Danielle,” he says when he sees Dan. “You look ravishing, as always.”
“Likewise, Zigolina, dear. Have you done something with your hair?”
When Dan and Ziggy first came up with nicknames for each other and started talking as if they were two middle-aged women in an Oscar Wilde play, I thought it was funny. Now it just annoys me, especially when it eats into my time with Dan. Dad says it’s their schtick – their act together – and all but applauds if he’s around when they do it. I think Mum’s just relieved that Ziggy talks to an adolescent male other than Biggie, whom she calls “that little hoodlum” when Ziggy’s not around.
“I’m on my way to the fitness centre,” says Ziggy. “Care to join me?”
Ziggy’s “fitness centre” is a punching bag suspended in the corner of the garage where he’s taped some posters of boxers and big boofy footballers. It’s a pretty tight squeeze when the Volvo’s parked in there, but that doesn’t seem to bother him.
Dan pushes back his chair. “Well, one must look after one’s figure.”
“I thought you were here to help me,” I protest.
“I am,” says Dan, leaning across the countertop to kiss my cheek on his way past. “Give me a yell when you find something for me to do.”
The garage door has barely closed behind them when the distinct sound of boxing-gloved hands meeting vinyl punching bag starts. I reset the scales and start weighing out the sugar.
Ninety minutes later they’re still out there. Last time I went to the garage to remind Dan that he was meant to be helping me, he and Ziggy were doing push-ups. The time before that it was squats. When I asked Dan to come back to the kitchen Ziggy made a whip-cracking motion and Dan told me he’d be with me in five. That was half an hour ago. In between sorties to the garage, I’ve got the brownies baked and set aside to cool, the white Christmas slice is in the fridge, and the candy cane crackles decorated. That I’ve managed to do it all by myself would be quite satisfying if I wasn’t so annoyed with Ziggy for hijacking my boyfriend.
“It smells fantastic out here,” says Dan when he finally comes in. His cheeks are flushed pink from exercising and his face glistens with a light layer of sweat. Annoyed as I am with him, it’s quite a good look.
“If you do a top job with the washing up, I’ll let you lick the brownie bowl,” I tell him.
“I’ve got a better idea,” he says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his iPod. “I downloaded some new stuff. Why don’t we take a break and listen to it in your room?”
I weigh the risks. If Mum finds out Dan’s been in my room (or a certain stinky adolescent tells her he was there), I’ll be grounded for the rest of the holidays and my chances of having my curfew extended will be less than zero. But Mum said she and Dad wouldn’t be back before six, and Ziggy wouldn’t want to get on Dan’s bad side, so I figure it’s pretty safe.
I race up the stairs ahead of Dan and make him wait outside while I check that there are no bras/tampons/pimple creams lying around. Boris lifts his head from my pillow and swishes his tail to show that he doesn’t appreciate having his between-naps nap interrupted. According to Vickypedia (our nickname for Vicky because she knows pretty much everything about everything), cats sleep twelve to sixteen hours a day. I reckon Boris does eighteen to twenty. He’s so sleepy that he doesn’t complain when I lift him off the pillow and into my laundry basket (his second-favourite sleeping spot).
Dan’s only been in my bedroom twice before. The first time was just after we got together, which even though all he did was marvel at the crappiness of my CD player and mini speakers, resulted in Mum’s no-boys-in-bedrooms rule being spelled out in no uncertain terms. The second was when he had to help put together my new bookcase, after Dad dislocated his thumb using the allen key. This time he takes a long look around, inspecting the spines of my books and the various ornaments and knick-knacks I’ve accumulated over the past sixteen years. He holds up a small glass figurine in one hand and a wooden one in the other.
“How did I not know you have a thing for wombats?”
“They’re from Grandma Thelma. When I was six she took me and Ziggy to the wildlife park and apparently I loved the wombats so much that I refused to move from their enclosure until the keeper forced us out at the end of the day. Ever since, every time Gran sees a wombat she gets it for me. I tried to tell her I was past my wombat phase a couple of years ago, but she thought I was joking.”
Dan nods and moves towards my bed. As he sits, he registers the photo of the two of us on my bedside table. If I’d noticed it, I definitely would have hidden it away. Or at least put it somewhere less … bed-y. I sit next to him and he hands me an earbud and presses play. The music starts with a strong bass line, followed by some serious guitar. It’s hardly a love song, but that doesn’t stop Dan leaning in to kiss me. Or me kissing him back.
It’s only when he eases me back onto the bed, somewhere around song four, that I realise Boris has reclaimed his spot on my pillow. He opens one eye and then gives me a slow, disapproving blink as he closes it again and swats his tail against Dan’s back.
“I think your cat’s jealous,” laughs Dan. “I don’t blame him – I wouldn’t want to share you, either.” He runs his hand down my cheek and pushes the hair away from my neck as he leans in to kiss it.
And then there’s a knock on the bedroom door.
“Shit.”
“Shit.”
Dan springs up from the bed, dragging my earbud with him and tucking in his T-shirt, despite it being untucked to begin with.
“Freia,” calls Mum. “Are you in there? The kitchen looks like a bomb’s gone off!”
I straighten my clothes and open the door.
Mum is standing with her arms crossed and her lips tightly clamped in a thin, humourless line. It gets even thinner when she sees Dan. “I think it’s time Daniel went home,” she says, not taking her eyes off me. “Freia, your father and I would like to see you downstairs in two minutes. Daniel, we’ll see you soon, I’m sure.”
“I’m really sorry, Fray,” says Dan when she leaves.
“What for? It’s not as if you dragged me up here against my will. Anyway, Mum said ‘Daniel, we’ll see you soon’, so at least she’s not planning to put me in solitary confinement for the rest of the holidays.”
“Unless what she meant was ‘Daniel, we’ll see you soon when we haul you back here with your father to punish you, too’.”
The thought of Mum and Dr Phil joining forces for a parenting uberlecture makes me shudder. “I’d better get down there. The longer I keep them waiting, the more time they have to stew on it.”