SEVEN
At last Jordan was on the other end of the line. And he was speaking to me as though nothing was wrong.
‘Hey, babe. Day’s fining up for us.’
Hearing his voice gave me none of the usual pleasure.
‘I’ve been trying to call you all morning!’
Jordan paused, registering my churlish tone. ‘What’s up, hon?’
‘I spoke to you earlier, didn’t I?’ I was beginning to wonder if I’d only imagined that brief exchange before we were cut off.
Jordan yawned. ‘Sure. I reported the fault.’
I’d always loved the fact that Jordan had used a grill for six weeks after his toaster broke. Reporting the fault would have been almost too demanding a task for his laid-back self. Today, though, it had been worth the effort.
‘Guess what, Beth? I had a haircut. Be prepared! And Gus parted with his dreads. Very traumatic for Gussy Boy. I had to take him for a capuccino afterwards.’
I gave a small sob. ‘Everything’s gone wrong.’
‘Has it?’ Jordan didn’t sound perturbed. He was even amused. ‘Couldn’t be as bad as Gus’s crewcut. You should see him, Beth.’
I felt myself turning to egg yolk inside as I summoned the courage to broach the insidious matter. ‘Tracy wrote me a letter,’ I muttered.
Jordan stayed upbeat. ‘Oh, yeah, I already know. There’s been an addition to the guest list. I was going to say yesterday she was coming –’
What an arrogant assumption. ‘No, you’re wrong. She’s not coming. That’s not what Tracy’s letter was about.’
‘It wasn’t?’
Don’t act dumb with me, Jordan.
‘You said you hadn’t seen her in ages. And that’s not true.’
He replied with controlled patience, as if he were speaking to a peevish three-year-old. ‘Listen, I know how you feel about Tracy. But you’ve got nothing to worry about. She’s just an old friend.’ He laughed deprecatingly. ‘And she’s bringing her fiancé with her.’
‘So you’re going to keep on lying?’
A drawn-out pause followed.
‘What’s up with you, Beth? Not feeling loved?’
‘That only makes it worse, knowing you weren’t for real.’
‘Oh, come off it!’
Was he admitting to deceit or just lashing out?‘
I think we’ve made a mistake.’
Once I’d spoken these words there was instant relief, similar
to when you remove a splinter from a fingertip with tweezers. For twelve hours I had been summoning the courage to say just this.
I heard a sniffle on the other end of the line. Then some clicking sounds: a ballpoint pen being jabbed in and out.
‘You’re telling me this on the phone?’ he asked sternly.
‘Well, I hardly slept last night, you know.’ I was already
recoiling from the ugly confrontation.
Jordan’s response was vigorous and predictable. ‘Look here,
Beth. It’s not just your wedding to decide what to do with. It’s my wedding too.’
‘What’s up, mate?’ Angus’s muffled voice could be heard in the background.
After Jordan blew his nose a few times he told me tersely: ‘I’ll get in the car and come straight down. Don’t do anything rash till I get there.’
My desperation overflowed. ‘I feel totally wretched, Jordan. Worse than I ever felt in my whole life.’ This was my excuse and it was also partially why I had inflicted my hostility on him. Yet I still felt he was guilty of some big pretence, the full extent of which I didn’t yet know.
Silence again.
‘I’m sorry you’re feeling that way. You know it’s probably just nerves. Get a massage or something. Go for a walk on the beach.’ A note of sensible kindness had returned to his voice.
The hand that put the phone receiver back on the hook in the billiards room was trembling. Oddly, while challenging Jordan I had experienced a strong sexual urge. It was probably just a base physical reaction provoked by the vicious, uncouth me who had reared her head on the phone. What had made me so horny? I had forged a united Beth, that’s what. I needed to release a lot of concentric force to say what I had to say. Never mind that I’d twisted the phone cord tightly around my arm like a tourniquet while doing it.
The release of energy didn’t do me any good. I wasn’t able to discuss the letter’s contents or get him to talk about his ambivalent feelings. In spite of my efforts, the wedding caravan down to Portsea hadn’t been halted. I had voiced my gripes but failed to explain what was really troubling me.
Oh yes, we might have been playing a game of tennis, and he might have said, ‘Hang on, chum, haven’t you noticed we’re playing doubles, not singles?’ while willing me towards mutual victory. ‘Don’t drop your service this time, Beth. I’m counting on you.’
Jordan was better at dealing with people than I was. Already his version of reality was replacing mine. I had picked a fight with him on our wedding day like an immature girl who couldn’t handle the stress. I had taken him to task simply because I couldn’t forgive him his longstanding attachment to his old girlfriend, Tracy Breeze. How petty.
I checked the time: it was exactly twelve o’clock. Judy had said she would be here by now, so I went back upstairs to look for her. And there she was, standing in the corridor, locking up her hotel room.
Judy started laughing when she saw me. Her face was infused with a kind of reckless joy. When I got close she grabbed my forearms and towed me with her as she jumped up and down, chanting: ‘You’re getting married! You’re getting married! You lucky duck! You lucky you!’
‘I know, I know,’ I confirmed, genial yet passive, my feet rooted to the carpet. How could I douse her enthusiasm with my sob story that Jordan was a liar?
When she saw my expression, Judy’s mouth sagged. To appease her I reached out and pulled on one of her ringlets, saying the hairdresser had done a terrific job with the poodle perm.
I opened the Bayview Room door and Judy entered the living area. ‘Nice, Beth, very nice,’ she said approvingly. ‘Have you seen the single rooms? No TV, no ensuite, not even a tea bag to make a hot drink. Would you mind if I took a shower in here? It’s a bloody long drive from Bentleigh to Portsea and I’m sweating like a pig.’
Neither of us had aircon in our cars. Judy went to the sink and poured herself a glass of water.
‘I’ll get you a towel,’ I said, going into the bathroom. I had better wait until she was refreshed before telling her about Jordan.
‘What an enormous bathroom! You don’t mind me doing this, do you?’ Judy asked warily.
This was the new Judy. The one who was always challenging me to say no to her very reasonable demands, as though my inhospitable meanness forced her into a position of continual defensiveness.
‘No, Judy, I’m very glad you’re here.’
She picked up a little box on the vanity cabinet and removed a transparent shower cap. ‘Can’t be too careful with my hair,’ she muttered as I closed the door and left her to it.
This year I’d seen much less of Judy. I didn’t have time for our usual get-togethers because I’d been hanging out with Jordan, as well as doing my stressful teaching rounds. In fact I had lost the desire for the tell-all sessions we used to have. I was unburdening myself to Jordan now. And he lapped up my dishevelled admissions like a mother cat eating her kittens’ poo. Judy was much less appreciative. Sometimes my conversational offerings just hung there between us because Judy had her mind on something else or she thought they were unworthy of comment.
I had spent whole days with Jordan, oblivious to Judy’s phone calls ringing in the background.
‘So Jordan’s your new best friend, right? I’ve been displaced, haven’t I?’
I didn’t appreciate her snitchyness, though I assured her she still had a big role to play in my life. She was the first to hear about my first date with Jordan, our first kiss and the first screw.
Judy didn’t have to fake being pleased, either. She was as excited as I was. And just as amazed. ‘Jeez, the speedster boy from school! Are you going to take up cross-country running or what?’
Okay, so I’d been avoiding spending time with Judy of late, but I still love who she is, if you get what I mean.
After her outburst about being displaced, I told myself she was just going to have to accept a changed me.
‘So how does Jordan fare between the sheets?’
Previously I might have divulged the nitty-gritty to Judy without scruple. But such indiscretions befitted a younger me who went reeling from one insecure relationship to the next. In the past it had been a form of self-disparagement that had me exposing the deficiency of those guys in all their inglorious detail. However, I had had no reason to squeal on Jordan behind his back because up until today he hadn’t let me down. As contented and stolid as a Buddha, I had sat opposite Judy in a bayside bistro and refused to tell her about the size of Jordan’s dick, or whether we had had oral sex. And my deprived best friend could only retaliate by taking the waiter to task for the trifling amount of seafood in her marinara.
When Judy came out of the bathroom after having a shower, I offered to make her a hot drink, assuming we would sit down for a heart-to-heart.
‘No thanks, darl. Silly me left my matching shoes behind. I’m going to have to backtrack to Rosebud and find me a new pair to go with my dress.’
To waylay her I blurted out my news about Tracy’s letter and how I didn’t think I could go through with the wedding anymore.
Judy’s response was to ask to see the letter, but I told her that I had left it at home. I didn’t want her to read the phrase ‘you wouldn’t be the lucky girl’. Judy’s eyes would light up for a moment if she read that bit. Hmm, so he never was the full per cent for you, was he? I thought so.
Judy didn’t say anything for a while. She sat on the sofa, elbows on her knees, forehead wrinkled in concentration. Her upper body was formidable. She had biceps and large, super-firm breasts. Today she was wearing a yellow T-shirt with Somers Life-Saving Club printed on the front. If it weren’t for the wedding she would be on Somers beach today watching swimmers through a pair of binoculars.
‘So you’re thinking of pulling out?’ she repeated.
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘Because he loves Tracy and not you?’
‘That’s the general idea,’ I said, crumpling inside.
Judy pressed the tips of her fingers together. ‘Come on. You don’t really believe that.’
‘Yes, I’ve always known he loves Tracy.’
‘Because Tracy told you so?’
‘No. From when we were at school.’
Judy mimicked in a whining voice, ‘From when we were at school.’
‘Don’t be like that, Judy. My feelings mean something. I can’t just brush them off.’
She became serious again. ‘You’ve been happy with him until now.’
‘Well, I didn’t know about the other proposal.’
‘Is it even true? What’s Jordan got to say about this?’
‘He’s driving down here to talk to me, but he only just left.’
Judy frowned. ‘You’re in two minds about this business, aren’t you, Beth?’
‘Don’t say I’m Fifty-Fifty Beth. I know all that. I need some impartial advice from you.’
Judy bristled. ‘I can’t be impartial. I know you too well. You’ve got yourself into a real state, and when you don’t understand things, you tend to panic and shoot yourself in the foot.’
‘That’s not me.’
‘Yes, it is, Beth. You’re in a real state. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
She stood up and halted my agitated circling by putting her hands firmly on my shoulders. Up close her arms were a freckle-fest. They weren’t brown from the sun; they were simpled riddled with freckles.
She led me to the sofa and when we sat down she put her arm around my shoulders.
If I kept her close, I wouldn’t come to harm.
‘Part of me still wants to marry Jordan,’ I confided. ‘The part that wanted him when I was fifteen. But the other part of me, university Beth, knows better and she doesn’t want him anymore.’
Judy shook her head. ‘But university Beth got involved with him. Are you still in love with him or not? That’s all that matters.’
‘I don’t know if I am,’ I wimpered.
‘People always know if they’re in love with someone.’
‘No, they don’t!’ I said indignantly. ‘Not at the point where love is dying, when you’re in between and you still want them, but you don’t want them – I’m at that stage. Oh, course I’m still in love with him, but I loathe him too. How could he do this to me?’
‘Okay, but why is your love dying? Because of this silly letter business? It’s your pride then, and if you act on your pride you’ll only end up regretting it. And who do you think is going to tell people the wedding is off?’
My fists were clenched.
‘I hope you don’t expect me to do that for you, Beth.’
‘Judy, you don’t seem to understand. There are two Jordans now: the Jordan I loved and the real Jordan. They’re not the same guy.’
Judy whistled through her teeth. ‘As if they ever were.’
I ignored her. ‘Jordan saw me as an easy lay because I was a total goner. Isn’t that awful? I could walk away from him now and it wouldn’t matter. Only the wedding stands in my way. The wedding means something – it means people will think I’m worthy of being loved. And if I don’t get married today they are going to look down on me, aren’t they? Oh yes, I know what’s in store for me. But why should I marry Jordan just to make people think well of me? My future with him is ruined. I already feel I’m walking forward into a post-Jordan world. Yesterday this was unthinkable. It’s quite amazing. I have put myself under a spell –’
‘You can say that again.’
‘Will you let me finish? The spell has been broken and I don’t think it will come back. It’s been twelve hours since I read the letter and my attachment to him keeps being whittled away. You’ll say it’s the shock and hurt, but it feels like it’s over, it really does.’
Judy’s hazel eyes were boring into me. I thought she was going to condemn me again for being a romantic fool. She was sitting so close I could smell the pungent hairdressing tonics used to colour her hair. She had gone so pale her freckles seemed to pop out of her skin, like flies on flypaper.
She exhaled and spoke quietly. ‘I do know what you mean, Beth. That switch from desire to aversion. That’s what happened with Troy.’
‘Troy? You mean that copywriter you had a crush on?’
‘Yep, that’s the one. I didn’t tell you the full story. I had something with him, Beth.’
I was surprised to hear this.
‘It was a few months back. You were getting engaged.’
‘So go on.’
‘Troy was still living with his folks so we’d meet in pubs or at my flat. When his parents went away he invited me over for dinner. You won’t believe this, Beth, but he answered the door in a stormtrooper’s outfit. You know those white robot suits? He even had a battery-operated gun. “Is that you, Troy?” I said. His voice was muffled because of the mask. “Come inside, Princess Judy,” he replied.
‘I was put out, but I went inside hoping things would improve. But what would you reckon? Troy wouldn’t take the costume off, and he chased me around the house zapping me with the gun like he was demented. I was thinking, what on earth is going on? What has happened to the quiet respectful guy I got to know at the office? When he realised I wasn’t amused he stopped the farce and got back into his normal clothes. Then he showed me his bedroom. “This is what it’s all about,” he said proudly. There was a great big cardboard Chewbacca in one corner. And heaps of Star Wars toys and posters and starship models. He even had a Star Wars doona cover and curtains. It was a shrine to Star Wars in there. Troy showed me all his stuff and then he gave me a present. It was a Princess Leia dress he had bought especially for me. It looked like a nightie with a hood – I wouldn’t put it on because I wasn’t in the mood for sex.
‘Later we sat down to dinner and he went back to being the witty copywriter I used to like so much. But I didn’t go back to feeling the same way about him. I tried to be accepting: yes, Troy was being a bit of an imbecile but I could be childish sometimes too. But when I woke up the next day my attraction had completely gone. What a prick. Some actions are forgivable and your feelings bounce back, but with Troy my feelings never recovered.’
Judy stood up stiffly. ‘Don’t tell anyone about Troy, will you, Beth?’
I smiled. ‘Okay, but why does it matter?’
‘Other girls at the office seemed to know he wasn’t quite right. I don’t want them to know I had something with him.’
She moved towards the sink and poured herself another glass of water. ‘So, Beth, you want my advice? I reckon when Jordan turns up here today it will be okay. The sooner he arrives the better. You’re going to have to remember what it was like to be fifteen. The part of you that still loves Jordan should be enough to get you through today.’
I was disappointed. ‘I thought you’d back me pulling out.’
‘Nah, your situation’s different. You have to stoke it up a bit, keep the fire going a little longer.’
I mulled over her advice. ‘Resume being juvenile Beth?’
‘That shouldn’t be too hard for you, should it?’ she said with a lopsided grin. ‘Pretend Jordan’s sixteen. That should help.’
A devilish gleam appeared in her eye. All of a sudden she was reacting as if this was some kind of scrape we had got ourselves into at school.
‘But that will bring the baton-changers into the picture.’
Judy started to laugh, but it was half a jeer. ‘Aren’t they coming to the wedding anyway? That will make things easier for you.’
Nothing was going to make things easier for me today.
‘Remember those lunch times at school, Beth? You used to make me go with you to watch the athletes train. We would sit in the little pavilion and eat our lunches while the batonchange girls were running around on the track. Those bloody girls. You were so much in love with them it was nauseating, Beth. You’d get excited and say to me, “The best bit’s about to happen, Judy.” And what was the best bit? It was Tracy and Jordan making out on the oval. Honestly, Beth – it used to turn you on then, so why does it bother you now?’
I was offended, and not just by her jab about Tracy and Jordan.
‘I thought you enjoyed our spectator sport, Judy!’
‘Are you kidding? It was you who wanted to be a batonchange girl, not me. I had to sit outside in the cold so you could drool over those ballerina girls.’
Judy was being unfair. I did stuff that she wanted me to do. I joined her swimming squad, didn’t I? Some fun that was, inhaling chlorine gases for two hours after school. And how grotty was that public pool! I used to count the bandaids floating past. And what made our eyes sting? Not chlorine in the water, but gallons of pee. Sure, I liked swimming, but it came at a cost.
Judy was relentless. ‘Remember when you cut Jordan’s face out of all the sports photos in the school magazine? You kept those little snaps in your wallet like he was your boyfriend. You never liked the guys who liked you, Beth – it had to be Jordan or no-one.’
‘I was young, okay. And what are you saying? That this year has been a regression?’
‘Pretty much, Beth.’ She ruminated a bit. ‘I’ll allow he’s been good for you, though. You’ve been a lot less anxious. You’re better off with him than without him. I haven’t seen you spinning out like this for quite a while.’
After scooping her bag off a chair Judy made her way to the door.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked in alarm.
‘Told you – going to find some satin pumps to match my dress.’
Judy opened the door and turned back to face me. ‘You love a dream, Beth. And you love a dream about yourself more than anyone I know. So you’re going to put your fairy princess outfit on and you’re going to keep the charade going for the next twenty-four hours. Can you do that?’
‘Possibly.’
‘This is your bridesmaid talking. You’re going to follow through on what you’ve agreed to do, okay? And if you’ve made a mistake, well, phooey. We make ’em all the time but we don’t go around spoiling things for everyone else.’
It was becoming a high-school-ruler stabbing.
‘I’ve heard it all before, Beth, and you know what? I don’t believe you’re sincere about pulling out. You’ve won the jackpot and you don’t want people to resent you for getting so lucky. So you make out you’ll throw it all away, when nothing is further from your mind…’
‘Shut up Judy,’ I told her coldly, for she had given me no compliments. ‘Go and get your party shoes.’
After she left I went into the master bedroom and sat on the end of the double bed where Jordan and I had slept two months ago. I clasped my hands together and stared out the window. Boy, Judy was harsh. I thought she’d go lenient on me today, but no way was she going to do that. Yet I trusted what she had to say more than I trusted Tracy and her letter. I should really give her advice some serious consideration.
Could I will myself back into a state of juvenile bliss? When I first got together with Jordan every moment had felt like borrowed time. Overdose on it and you’ll outgrow it. And I had outgrown it. I was starting to dig being adult Beth and I was looking forward to being emotionally settled in life, partnered off with a job about to start, living in my own little pad with an electric typewriter in the second bedroom, where I had recently composed a long lyric poem about my missing dad in the style of the New York poet Diane Wakoski while Jordan was out drinking with his mates. The dreamlike Jordan had faded, but having a real-life playmate coming and going from my place was kind of nice. And I didn’t care that Jordan’s hair was thinning or that the noisy exhaust from his Datsun Sunny made my neighbours come out of their units and frown.