I entered The Hive on Monday morning with the forged medical note I was about to give Simmons burning in my pocket. Tibor had come through for me. I found the coach in his office, engaged in his favourite activity – reclining in his orange, yellow and brown tartan armchair, eating a sugar-dusted jam donut.
‘Lincoln Locke,’ he said, wiping his mouth. ‘I hope you have a very good reason for disturbing my breakfast again.’
‘Donut King, sir?’
‘You wouldn’t be stupid enough to offer nutritional advice?’
‘No, sir. I came to tell you that I can’t be in squad any longer. I’ve been diagnosed with a severe chlorine allergy. After swimming I break out in hives.’
He gave me a sceptical look. ‘Let’s go down to the water and you can show me.’
‘Well, the thing is, the reaction happens eight or nine hours after exposure. Here’s a photo of my arm.’ I showed him the shot that I took in The Labyrinth and gave him the fake medical note, which he read as he chomped into his second jam donut.
‘Hmm, Dr Torsten Mintz. Father of Tibor? Would you mind if I gave Dr Mintz a call to discuss the best way to manage the situation?’
‘It’s a bit early.’
‘Not now, later.’ He finished the donut then nailed me with his gaze. ‘I’m very disappointed about this, Locke.’
‘That makes two of us, sir. I’m devastated that I won’t be able to represent Crestfield.’
‘We can’t have you missing out then. You can train in salt water, under the supervision of one of your parents or a designated guardian. They’d be fully aware that the selection committee’s decision to offer you a place at Crestfield was significantly influenced by your swimming ability.’
Not the worst outcome, but far from the best. If Simmons called Tibor’s father, I’d be toast. I went to the upstairs toilets and spent longer than necessary washing my hands. By the time I returned, the lanes were filled with splashing swimmers. I sat with Gelber and she grilled me on the allergy, then asked me to hand out the pull buoys. Nads was first out, heading my way to grab one. Asking if he enjoyed his break wouldn’t go down well. Best to let him speak first. He snatched the pull buoy without saying a word. Mullows and Starkey followed, looking straight through me. Starkey’s uncharacteristic restraint was unnerving.
Pericles came last and asked me why I wasn’t in the pool. I told him the fake excuse and he called bullshit, so I fessed up.
‘I have a problem that’s way worse than some skin allergy.’
‘Shit – it’s not something fatal, is it?’
‘Far from, but it’s killing me with embarrassment and I can’t talk about it right now. I got Tibor to write a fake medical note to get me out of squad.’
‘For real? Tibor’s a legend. Does that mean you’re off the relay team for the Invitational, and I’m back on?’
‘Simmons is making me train in salt water. Sorry, mate. I’m still on the team.’
‘It’s all good, bruh.’ Pericles gave me a wet bear hug. ‘I hope your embarrassment problem clears up soon.’
After school, Isa took me to her place, a narrow two-storey terrace in Erskineville, to work on our project. As we walked through the kitchen she called out to Delilah.
‘She’s helping with the weeding,’ a voice replied. We went to the garden, where a woman in denim shorts and red singlet was kneeling on a pad, turning the soil. Delilah was pouncing on the weeds she flicked aside. Then, just like Oscar with new company, she trotted up to me and rubbed against my calf.
‘I usually wait till I’m introduced before I do that,’ the woman said to the cat.
‘Terri, this is my friend Lincoln. We’re collaborating on an art assignment.’
‘Hello, Lincoln. I’m Terri, who’s just picked some overripe tomatoes from the vine.’ She tossed one to Isa. ‘Stef’s going to make a batch of passata.’ Terri scratched Delilah’s neck until her tail started snaking left and right, and I felt a sympathetic, irritated tingle in mine. Then the cat twisted around and clawed Terri’s forearm. ‘How quickly she turns.’
‘Dinnertime for you.’ Isa scooped up Delilah. The cat growled and writhed free, then ran and hid among the creepers. ‘Wait till your mother gets home!’ Isa said.
Back in the kitchen, she poured me some water and I asked if Terri lived with them.
‘Terri and Mum have been friends forever. She and Stef have the upstairs. The garden’s communal.’
‘Is Terri a lesbian?’
‘She’s an antiques and vintage dealer.’
‘No, seriously.’
‘You’d have to ask her wife.’
‘She doesn’t look like a lesbian,’ I said. Isa rolled her eyes. ‘Sorry. Stupid comment.’
‘Yeah, a bit. And before you ask, my mum’s not in a polyamorous relationship with them and she’s not a lesbian.’
‘I wasn’t going to.’ There was an awkward pause.
‘Some people think Phoenix and I are together, but we’re not. I love her to death but not in a sexual way. Phoenix says gender plays no part in who she’s attracted to – it’s the person that matters.’
‘Do you think sexual orientation’s genetic?’
‘Probably, but I don’t believe it’s a binary thing anyway, not even a scale. I think we’re all on a swirling sphere. What about you?’
I twisted my ear, hoping it might produce an answer – but nothing came, so I shrugged and said, ‘Don’t know.’
‘It’s complex,’ Isa said. She rinsed the glasses, then turned back around and said, ‘Talking of genetics, we should get started on the DNA. I’ve made a couple of base pairs.’
Isa pulled two knitted cigar shapes from a wicker box and tossed me a pink-and-green one. ‘That represents guanine and cytosine. The yellow-and-blue is thymine and adenine. Make sure you stick to those combinations. Here’s the chart,’ she said, passing it to me. ‘I’ve calculated we’ll have to knit five hundred each.’
‘Is that even possible?’ I did a quick mental calculation. ‘If it takes me an hour to knit one and I knit for two hours every day, it would take me eight months and that’s not even taking the coils into consideration.’
‘That’s why we need a crew. Phoenix, Mum and Terri are on board, and your nana is a gun. It doesn’t matter if it ends up a bit shorter than planned.’
We began knitting. After a while the conversation turned to fellow students and Isa suggested we play ‘Hot or Not?’ She mostly said ‘hot’ for the girls, whereas I never said ‘hot’ for any of the guys. After almost exhausting the Year 10 student body, Isa frowned and said, ‘Are you trying to tell me there’re no good-looking guys in our year?’
‘You only chose three or four.’
‘What about Pericles? Hot or not?’
‘He’s my friend. I don’t see him in those terms.’
‘He’s my friend too and I think he’s completely hot.’
‘Okay, I concede he’s good-looking.’
‘Why can’t you say “hot”?’
‘If I said he was hot while knitting it would look indisputably gay, so I’m putting it down first.’ I did so, then cleared my throat and said, ‘Okay. Pericles Pappas is hot for a guy.’
We resumed knitting and worked till sometime after 8 pm, when Isa’s mother arrived home. ‘I don’t smell cooking,’ she said, walking down the hall.
‘We were busy with the project.’ Isa introduced me to Dee, an intensive-care nurse who looked as though she could’ve been Isa’s older sister, and asked how her day had gone.
‘Mr Charles didn’t pull through, which was terribly sad, and I know you’re thinking I’ve had a cigarette and you’re correct and I’ll start quitting again tomorrow. Lincoln, I hope you’re staying for dinner? We’re all vegetarian here. Do you eat meat?’ I nodded. ‘Of course you do,’ she said with a wink. ‘Hot or not?’ She frisbeed an Indian delivery menu to Isa. ‘Order whatever you like, darling, and something for the carnivore while I have a pee. And don’t forget that naan we love, the potato one.’
I shared a dinner with Isa’s family – Dee, Terri and Stef and Delilah – and observed her interacting with the women with warmth and humour. The single hiccup came when I asked for a cushion to go on my slatted wooden stool because it was aggravating the tail, and Terri hassled me for being the only princess in the room. I broke into a sweat and blamed the vindaloo, then Isa deftly took the heat off by passing me the raita. In a lively conversation after dinner, she held her own on topics that ranged from pop culture to literature to world affairs, and I internally conceded something that I’d suspected for some time: Isa Mountwinter was way smarter than me.