It's Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake Page 6

  ‘Exactly. Yes.’ I smile and swoon. Exactly, Niko, exactly.

  ‘Can I ask you something, Noni?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What are your goals here? Do you have a five-year plan, or a personal plan you’re striving for? Do you want my job one day?’ He smiles.

  ‘Oh, I know I don’t want your job,’ I say sarcastically, and Niko feigns offence. ‘But I don’t know. I think this trip is partly to work that out.’ That feels like a natural end to the conversation, an adequate and honest answer, but my mouth keeps speaking without me. ‘I did have a plan. I’m a planner. I need a plan. But when everything happened with Joan, and with the—well, yeah.’ I stop because he’s looking at me far too intently, and I need to lighten the mood. ‘Yeah, well, that plan kind of crumbled like a…a shart in a trumpet. A big one. A really big messy one.’

  Niko laughs but he continues to look at me with sweet, slightly concerned eyes. ‘You could absolutely say that, yes.’

  ‘And now I don’t know what the new plan is in this version of my life, now that has all happened. My mid-thirties feels like a shit time to be working it out though, you know? Sorry. I’ll stop talking about shit.’

  ‘Don’t apologise, please.’ He pauses. ‘Plans change all the time. It’s my favourite thing about us.’

  When he says ‘us’, I think for a brief second he means me and him, and I like the sound of me and him as an us. I wonder what he would do if I dramatically swiped everything onto the floor and we fucked right here on the desk. But my split-second vision of me sprawled across the paperwork is quickly replaced by the far more rational realisation he’s talking about the collective us. The human us.

  ‘Change?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah. That we’re not fixed. That we have free will. That we can always do, or be, something entirely different than what we thought we could. We are endless potential. Always. I mean, it’s an entirely privileged perspective, but you get what I mean, yes?’

  I exhale loudly at this. ‘Yes. What’s that saying? Uncertainty is the only certainty we have.’

  We are both silent for a moment. ‘And I’m sorry too, for everything you went through. I don’t think I ever told you that when it happened,’ Niko adds.

  This startles me. ‘The school sent flowers,’ I mumble.

  ‘Yeah, I know, but that was the school. I mean me. I never told you that I was sorry for it all.’

  I just smile tightly and awkwardly, because I don’t know what else to say. I never know what to say when people tell me that they’re sad about what happened. I feel a weird mixture of gratitude for their empathy but also a fiery rage, because it seems as if there’s no way they could ever understand what happened, and so perhaps they should just fuck off with their misplaced feelings.

  ‘Well, your job will be here for you when you come back.’ Niko smiles. ‘If you come back.’

  I laugh. ‘Oh, I’ll be back. It’s just six months.’

  ‘Take this.’ He opens his top drawer and hands me a business card. ‘If you need a reference, or to call me, it’s all on there.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I reach for the card.

  ‘We’ll all miss you, Noni. I’ll miss you,’ he adds and I’m sure our fingers linger together as he says this. Our eyes certainly do.

  ‘Same,’ is all I manage to say as I stand up and walk out.

  Fuck. Here we go.

  ‘I’m worried you’re having a quarter-life crisis.’ My father looks down his nose at me, concerned.

  I laugh. ‘I think that maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.’

  ‘But your hair?’

  ‘It’s just hair.’

  ‘I mean, I love it.’ He squishes his face up. ‘But I read an article about what it means when your child makes dramatic changes to their appearance. Is this a warning sign, Noni? Should I be worried? You’ve been through a lot these last few years. I’d understand if you were feeling…’ He pauses. ‘I dunno. Out of control.’

  ‘I’m fine, Dad.’

  ‘But Europe is so far away. And you’ve already done Europe.’

  ‘Not all of it, Dad. It’s a big place.’ A waiter puts down our food, and I’m grateful for the moment of reprieve.

  ‘Yeah. But isn’t that just—’

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘Just something you do in your twenties. Not in your thirties.’

  ‘I didn’t know there was an age restriction on European cities,’ I say, biting into my burger a little more aggressively than necessary.

  ‘Aren’t you worried about your career?’ He looks genuinely worried, which is a welcome change from the usual glum look permanently plastered on his face.

  ‘It’s just a semester, Dad.’

  I take a sip of my tea as a way to stop myself spiralling into a parent-fuelled rant like a teenager. Which is precisely how my dad makes me feel. He has good intentions, but he has never dealt with the trauma of my mum leaving him for another man when I was thirteen. Their divorce was messy and complicated. I lived with Mum—it was the practical option, since Dad worked away so much, but he got into this habit of trying to parent me extra hard when he did see me. Like he felt like he had to make up for our time apart. It’s a habit that hasn’t died.

  ‘Okay,’ he says, but his eyes tell me he doesn’t believe me. ‘Just don’t change too much.’

  I can’t help it. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I like old Noni.’

  ‘But maybe that’s just it, Dad, I don’t think I do.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he scoffs. ‘You’re being silly—there’s nothing wrong with you.’

  10

  I walk into the café all too aware of the clothes on my body and the makeup on my face. The clothes and makeup that I had spent hours agonising over, for the very specific reason that I want them to look like I had not spent hours agonising over them.

  Joan and I have agreed to meet in the coffee shop on the corner of the street near our solicitor’s office. I’m nervous. Nervous because I care what Joan thinks. Because I want her to think that I look good—that I look happy, but not too happy. It’s got to be the exact right balance of happy. Too happy and you’re the asshole swanning about revelling in how amazing your life is now that they’re no longer in it. Not happy enough and you’re the loser who clearly can’t live without them.

  I check my phone while I wait and there’s a message from Molly. She has sent a stunning photo of a bright orange sunset. The view from the hot tub in Estonia.

  Looks awful, I reply.

  Thought you’d say as much.

  I send her a photo of the menu: The view from this suburban café.

  Eat some overpriced avocado for me.

  ‘Noni,’ Joan says, standing next to me.

  After the pleasantries and the polite hug—which puts bodies in contact that haven’t been in contact for a long time but that know each other so well, bodies that reel with memories of each other—we sit. We talk. We find a conversational flow. A flow that, while still stilted by what was and what is now, sits somewhere close to comfortable.

  ‘Really? Head of the junior school? That’s amazing,’ I tell her. Joan has pined for this position, this promotion, for a long time.

  ‘It’s fucking frightening, that’s what it is.’ She sips from her coffee. She looks happy. Nervous. Her hair is darker and shorter and she’s wearing clothes I don’t recognise.

  ‘So, old dickbag Denise has finally jogged on?’ I muse. We hate Denise.

  ‘Yup. Thank god. I nearly texted you when we got the email.’ She pauses briefly and we eat and sip as a way of momentarily acknowledging that this news would have once caused celebratory lounge-room dancing and dinners out.

  ‘It ended up coming down to me and Brian.’

  ‘And he’s a lazy wanker.’

  ‘Exactly, that’s what I was about to say, but he looks good on paper. I didn’t know what they were going to do. I was a bit stunned when they told me.’

/>   ‘It’s great. You’re going to be great.’ I mean it.

  ‘I hope so. It was time for a change. Not even a change, Nons, a new challenge, I guess. I need to use my brain in a different way.’

  ‘You know what this means, though?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re going to have to deal with kids in grade six, and they’re basically teenagers. Are you going to be okay?’ I smile.

  She laughs. ‘I did think that. Gross.’ We never could quite understand the other’s preferred age range. Joan is strictly early childhood and I am very happily fifteen-and-up. The other end is petrifying to both of us. ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ was the most common phrase spoken in our house as we shared evening what-happened-at-work-today anecdotes.

  ‘And you? What’s happening with you?’ Joan asks.

  ‘Not much.’ I smile, unsure why I’m not being forthright about my adventure, about travelling, about Molly. I feel nervous about telling her. So many of my major decisions were previously made with Joan in mind. I don’t know what I’d think if I told her and her opinion was less than positive. I think she’d still have enough sway to make me doubt my choices, and I’m barely clinging to my plan being a good idea as it is.

  ‘I think that is a boldfaced lie.’ She raises her eyebrows and tilts her head to the side, searching my face for information.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Hold that thought,’ she tells me as she stands up. ‘I want to hear everything.’ She walks towards the bathroom and I exhale loudly. This is good. This is okay. We’re both okay.

  Her phone flashes with a message and I glance at it without thinking. The message is from someone named Que, and it says, Babe, can you get a tin of cannellini beans?

  My throat tightens. Babe. Cannellini beans. She’s seeing someone. She’s living with someone. She’s someone else’s babe. Someone else’s go-to for shopping errands. Oh god.

  Another message flashes up: three red love hearts. I can see her phone lock screen is a photo of a mousey woman holding Carson and smiling wide. It’s like someone has flicked a rubber band at my heart. Shit. I look towards the bathroom to see if she’s on her way back yet because I just need a minute to recalibrate. To fit this new information into my brain. Joan has moved on. Another woman is holding my dog. Another woman is making dishes with cannellini beans with my Joan. I don’t even know how you use cannellini beans so that means she’s making new recipes with this new woman. She doesn’t want me anymore. She doesn’t need me anymore. And I can’t tell if I’m upset because she’s with someone else, or upset because she’s with someone else first. And then I feel fucking miserable. Miserable that I think it’s the latter. I want Joan to be happy. She should be happy. I couldn’t make her happy.

  My breath is quick and heavy in my chest as I stand up and walk outside. I hear Joan call my name as I get out of the door with a ding of the bell. I walk a few paces down the street, staring at the sky, trying to will the oxygen to fill me up but it doesn’t feel close enough, like it’s right within my grasp but I can’t grab it. I start to panic.

  ‘Noni? What happened?’ I try to speak but nothing comes out. ‘Hey, hey, hey, come here. Come here. Lean here.’ There’s pressure on my shoulders and I’m being pushed backwards until my back meets a hard wall. ‘Breathe. Breathe. Noni, look at me. Breathe.’ Joan is holding my face. Her voice is slow as she rhythmically tries to catch my breath with her voice. ‘In.’ Pause. ‘Out.’ Pause. ‘In.’ Pause. ‘Out.’ I fall into her rhythm. She wipes away a tear. I squeeze my eyes shut.

  Eventually I exhale loudly and peel my eyes open. Joan wipes both my cheeks quickly with her thumbs, her hands still pressed gently onto my face, eyes staring into mine. This is second nature to her. Dealing with me. This is like breathing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I squeak.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. What happened? Selling the house, it’s a lot, yeah? I’m freaking out a little too,’ she soothes.

  I bite my lip, ‘Cannellini beans.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Someone needs you to get cannellini beans.’ She has no idea what I’m talking about, but I watch the recognition collect on her face as she pulls her phone out of her pocket.

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have read it. I didn’t mean to read it. I just—’

  ‘Fuck, Nons.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry,’ I rush.

  ‘No, I mean that’s shit, that’s a shit way to find out. I didn’t want you to find out like that.’

  ‘I’m fine. I am. I want you to get cannellini beans for someone else. That’s good.’

  ‘It’s new,’ she says, stepping away.

  ‘It’s good. I’m okay. I am. I don’t even know why that happened. I’m sorry. Let’s just…’ I look at my watch. ‘We’re going to be late.’

  ‘Noni, do you want to talk about this?’ Joan’s eyes are squinting with concern.

  ‘No. I’m fine. Really. I am. Just overwhelmed. This is all very overwhelming.’

  ‘Yeah. It is. But we can still talk to each other. We don’t just have to be all pleasantries, you know? It’s fucking weird.’

  ‘It’s so weird. You feel weird?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes.’ She nods and softens. ‘I’m still me. There are parts of us that are still us. That—fuck.’ She sighs loudly, throwing her hands over her head, which is a very specific Joan sign that she doesn’t know what to say. Right elbow over her eyes, left hand holding her elbow means she is exasperated, speechless. Two hands clutching her own face means she is angry. Will I ever know this level of detail about someone else?

  ‘I know you,’ I mumble.

  ‘I don’t know what to say, Nons, this is just big, yeah? It all feels fucking big.’ She glances at me and then leans against the wall. We stand next to each other, neither of us saying anything. We are silent, but the space between us is not. It’s alive with over nine years of knowing. Filled with years and years of memories, conversations, sex, love and arguments. The space between us churns with energy, but still neither of us says anything.

  Finally, I look at her. ‘I don’t know if I’m ever going to get cannellini beans for anyone else.’

  She looks sideways at me. ‘Oh, Nons, of course you are.’

  ‘No. No. I mean, I don’t even know if I can, if I know how. Like, I only know how to get you cannellini beans.’ I smile, knowing I don’t make sense, but knowing that Joan will make sense of it anyway.

  She laughs. ‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’

  ‘But this is what I want,’ I say. I don’t want her to think this is some kind of legume-centred plea to get her back. Because it’s not that at all. ‘This is good. But it’s—’

  She cuts me off, ‘Weird.’

  I nod and we hold eye contact for a moment before both looking away. I watch the business of a Saturday morning passing us by. Couples in cafés eating breakfast. Bloody-Mary-drinking groups of twenty-somethings. Tired mums pushing prams. Then a little kid in a neon helmet on a scooter speeds past us, followed quickly by a dad with a baby strapped to his chest calling his name loudly. He nods at us, with a ‘kids, huh?’ expression, as he strides past. Joan and I look at each other and I feel an all-too-familiar ache in my heart. I can see she feels it too. I see it punch her in the guts and constrict in her throat the same way it does for me. The ache for everything that could have been. For what should’ve been. I want to touch her. Hold her hand. Lie and tell her that it’ll be okay. Anything to take the ache away. Even though I know there’s nothing that ever will.

  ‘I really fucking miss you,’ she says.

  The tears spring into my eyes and I try to smile through them. ‘I really miss you too,’ I mumble.

  Now Joan starts crying as well and we sob and wipe tears and she wraps her arms around me and I lean into the hug fully, lean into her fully, and she leans into me. Tears and snot and feelings pour out of me like a cartoon oil leak finally springing freely from the dirt. The comfort eventually turns to embarrassment and we
pull back, laughing.

  ‘We must look fucking ridiculous,’ she says.

  I mumble a yeah as she fixes my makeup with two swipes of her thumbs on my cheeks again and I touch my face insecurely. The vulnerability is big and raw around us.

  ‘I don’t even know what cannellini beans are,’ she says and I laugh loudly. ‘She’s a vegan,’ she adds, raising her eyebrows with an amused expression.

  ‘You fucking cliché.’ I laugh.

  ‘I know. She keeps telling me that Birkenstocks are the most comfortable shoe ever created.’

  ‘And you told her she is wrong, yes?’

  ‘Yes, of course. But I have developed quite an affection for tahini.’

  I scrunch up my nose in disgust. ‘You’ve changed.’

  ‘Says she with the bombshell fucking pixie cut.’

  She holds her arm out for me to put mine through, and I do, and we walk towards the solicitor’s office. I exhale.

  Okay. I can go now.

  11

  The sake is free-flowing, nineties hit after nineties hit is being murdered on the karaoke machine and Diana, the Home Economics teacher, has just done an emotionally rousing version of ‘Black Velvet’. You haven’t met a group of adults who need to unwind until you’ve met a bunch of high school teachers at the end of the year. Shit is getting real. I’m wearing the pencil skirt. I’m drunk. Tonight is the night I’m going to make a move on Niko. I’ve decided. Lindell has decided. It. Is. Happening. I’m leaning hard into doing what feels good, and I know that Niko will feel good. And if he doesn’t, I’ll have six months to recover from the embarrassment.

  ‘Thank you for another excellent year, Noni,’ Niko says as we stand at the bar. We have always been able to banter easily. Other staff members find him a bit abrasive, but I like that he just says what he thinks. You know where you stand with him. I wish I was able to be like that. I guess we’ve always flirted, but I was with Joan for so long that we just never crossed the line. That is, until tonight.