Dear Rudy,
I woke up in the middle of the night last night from a vivid dream about the time you said to me, ‘You’re not perfect, you know. You just can’t admit your own faults.’ It’s funny to me that I can picture the exact look on your face in the moment you said that, but I can’t pinpoint how old I was or what we were fighting about. It had something to do with the TV, I know that much. I guess that means it was before Netflix, before we could retreat to our own rooms and watch our shows in peace. Anyway, I didn’t say it at the time, so I’m saying it now. I spend more time thinking about the times I have been wrong than I ever spend thinking that I’m right.
And I was wrong about Aggie. She isn’t happy all the time. She’s just more okay with being sad. ‘Happiness isn’t a permanent state of being, Erin,’ she said to me, like it was one of those rules she just knows. I told her I wanted to be happy all the time anyway and she laughed as if it was a ridiculous idea.
She asked, ‘What do you learn being happy? You’re all comfortable and lazy there, you learn nothing. Sad is where it’s at.’
When I was quiet, she said she was sorry, she didn’t mean the kind of sadness that comes with it being September and everything that means. ‘That’s just something you’re going to have to get through and it will shape you and make you stronger but also it just sucks so bad. When my gran died I was a wreck. That’s the wrong kind of sad. I meant breaking-up-with-Mitch kind of sad. You’ll be sad at the time but happier down the track.’
When I asked if she was sad right now she said, ‘Not really, just enough.’ I like the idea of that. It presents emotions as a kind of alchemy, where the right blend might be able to cure us. I think Mum and Dad brought us up to think of emotions as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’, don’t you? Like being angry or upset was something to be rectified as quickly as possible and with as little fuss as could be managed. ‘Bad’ emotions are especially not okay for girls, I’ve learned—you got away with a lot more anger than I ever did.
We worked all day at Robins together, Aggie and I, and Aggie talked for most of the time. She has another gig coming up, and she’s worried she is not going to finish work in time to get there, and she’s got an assignment due, and there’s a girl in one of her classes who is bugging her, and she thinks this boy on her campus is hot but she doesn’t want to know any more about him in case he turns out to be a loser, and she likes the mystery. Her younger sister is driving her wild. Oh, and she’s really into ginger at the moment. Ginger in her juice, and ginger tea, and those ginger lollies you suck on to stop you from getting carsick. They’re actually pretty good. Even if you’re not carsick. She talked a lot about herself, which I liked, but she also listened.
She listened when I talked about Mitch and how he’s not answering my calls, and she listened when I talked about Dee and how we’re maybe not going to always be around each other. She listened when I talked about Dr Lim and you and September and Aunt Cath. She smiled her big smile when I told her about ordering bugs, because she loves bugs.
She’s going to come to your thing next week, even though she doesn’t know you. I think she feels like she knows you because I talk about you, just like I feel like I know her sisters even though I’ve never met them. You’ll like her Rudy. Even if you never get to know her.
Love, Erin