Chapter 8

That afternoon I lay on my bed smoking with the window open, dressed in a vest and my underwear. I was hungover and still hadn’t heard from Bobbi. Through the window I could see the breeze rearranging the foliage and two children appearing and disappearing from behind a tree, one of them carrying a plastic lightsaber. I found this relaxing, or at least it distracted me from feeling terrible. I was a little chilly, but I didn’t want to break the spell by getting dressed.

Eventually, at three or four in the afternoon, I got out of bed. I didn’t feel like writing anything. In fact I felt that if I tried to write, what I produced would be ugly and pretentious. I wasn’t the kind of person I pretended to be. I thought of myself trying to be witty in front of Nick’s friends in the utility room and felt sick. I didn’t belong in rich people’s houses. I was only ever invited to places like that because of Bobbi, who belonged everywhere and had a quality about her that made me invisible by comparison.

I got an email from Nick that evening.

hi frances, i’m real y sorry about what happened last night. it was fucking stupid of me and i feel awful. i don’t want to be that person and i don’t want you to think of me as that person either. i feel real y bad about it. i should never have put you in that situation. i hope you’re feeling ok today.

I made myself take an hour before responding. I watched some cartoons on the internet and made a cup of coffee. Then I read his email again several times. I was relieved he had put the whole thing in lower case like he always did. It would have been dramatic to introduce capitalisation at such a moment of tension. Eventually I wrote my reply, saying that it was my fault for kissing him, and that I was sorry.

He emailed back promptly.

no, it wasn’t your fault. i’m like 11 years older than you and it was also my wife’s birthday. i behaved terribly, i real y don’t want you to feel guilty about it.

It was getting dark out. I felt dizzy and restless. I thought about going for a walk but it was raining and I’d had too much coffee. My heart was beating too quickly for my body. I hit reply.

Do you often kiss girls at parties?

He responded within about twenty minutes.

since i got married, never. although i think that might make it worse.

My phone rang and I picked up, still looking at the email.

Do you want to hang out and watch Brazil? Bobbi said.

What?

Do you want to watch Brazil together? Hello? The dystopian film with the Monty Python guy. You said you wanted to see it.

What? I said. Yeah, okay. Tonight?

Are you sleeping or something? You sound weird.

I’m not sleeping. Sorry. I was looking at the internet. Sure, let’s hang out.

It took her about half an hour to get to my apartment. When she did, she asked if she could stay over. I said yes. We sat on my bed smoking and talking about the party the night before. I felt my heart beating hard in the knowledge that I was being deceitful, but outwardly I was a capable liar, even a competitive one.

Your hair is getting really long, Bobbi said.

Do you think we should cut it?

We decided to cut it. I sat on a chair in front of the living-room mirror, surrounded by old pages of newspaper. Bobbi used the same scissors I used to cut open kitchen items, but she washed them with boiled water and Fairy liquid first.

Do you still think Melissa likes you? I said.

Bobbi gave me a little indulgent smile, as if she had never actually ventured that theory.

Everyone likes me, she said.

But I mean, do you think she feels a particular connection with you, in comparison to other people. You know what I mean.

I don’t know, she’s difficult to get a read on.

I find that too, I said. Sometimes I feel like she loathes me.

No, she definitely likes you as a person. I think you remind her of her.

I felt even more dishonest then, and a sensation of heat crawled up into my ears. Maybe knowing that I’d betrayed Melissa’s trust made me feel like a liar, or maybe this imaginative connection between us suggested something else. I knew I was the one who had kissed Nick and not the other way around, but I also believed that he’d wanted me to. If I reminded Melissa of herself, was it possible I reminded Nick of Melissa also?

We could give you a fringe, said Bobbi.

No, people mix us up too much already.

It’s offensive to me how offensive that is to you.

After she cut my hair we made a pot of coffee and sat on the couch talking about the college feminist society. Bobbi had left the society the previous year, after they invited a British guest speaker who had supported the invasion of Iraq. The society president had described Bobbi’s objection to the invitation as ‘aggressive’ and

‘sectarian’ on the group’s Facebook page, which privately we all agreed was total bullshit, but because the speaker had never actually accepted the invite, Philip and I had not gone so far as to formally renounce our membership. Bobbi’s attitude toward this decision varied greatly, and tended to be an indicator of how well she and I were getting along at a given time. When things were good, she considered it a sign of my tolerance and even self-sacrifice to the cause of gender revolution. When we were having a minor dispute over something, she sometimes referred to it as an example of my disloyalty and ideological spinelessness.

Do they have a stance on sexism these days? she said. Or are there two sides to that as well?

They definitely want more women CEOs.

You know, there’s a distinct lack of female arms dealers, I’ve always thought.

We put on the film eventually, but Bobbi fell asleep while we were watching it. I wondered if she preferred sleeping in my apartment because being near to her parents caused her anxiety.

She hadn’t mentioned it, and she was usually pretty free with the details of her emotional life, but family things were different. I didn’t feel like watching the film on my own so I switched it off and just read the internet instead. Eventually Bobbi woke up and then went to bed properly, on the mattress in my room. I liked having her sleeping there while I was awake, it felt reassuring.

That night while she was in bed I opened up my laptop and replied to Nick’s last email.

*

After that I went back and forth on the question of whether to tell Bobbi that I had kissed Nick. I had, regardless of my ultimate decision, meticulously rehearsed the way I would tell her about it, which details I would emphasise and which I would leave out.

It just kind of happened, I would say.

That’s crazy, Bobbi would reply. But I’ve always kind of thought he liked you.

I don’t know. He was really high, it was stupid.

But in the email he definitely implied it was his fault, didn’t he?

I could tell that I was using the Bobbi character mainly to reassure myself that Nick was interested in me, and I knew in real life Bobbi wouldn’t react that way at all, so I stopped. I did feel an urge to tell someone who would understand the situation, but I also didn’t want to risk Bobbi telling Melissa, which I thought she might do, not as a conscious betrayal but in an effort to weave herself further into Melissa’s life.

I decided not to tell her, which meant I couldn’t tell anyone, or no one who would understand. I mentioned to Philip that I had kissed someone I shouldn’t have kissed, but he didn’t know what I was talking about.

Is it Bobbi? he said.

No, it’s not Bobbi.

Worse or better than if you had kissed Bobbi?

Worse, I said. A lot worse. Just forget about it.

Jesus, I didn’t think anything could be worse than that.

There wasn’t any point in trying to tell him anyway.

I once kissed an ex at a party, he said. Weeks of drama.

Ruined my focus.

Is that so.

She had a boyfriend, though, which complicated things.

I bet, I said.

*

The next day there was a book launch in Hodges Figgis and Bobbi wanted to go and get a copy of the book signed. It was a very warm afternoon in July and I sat inside for the hour before the launch pulling knots out of my hair with my fingers, pulling them so hard that little broken strands of hair tangled and snapped out. I thought: probably they won’t even be there, and I’ll have to come home and sweep up all these strands of hair and feel terrible.

Probably nothing of import will happen in my life again and I’ll just have to sweep things up until I die.

I met Bobbi in the door of the bookshop and she waved at me.

She had a row of bangles on her left wrist, which rattled elegantly down her arm with the waving gesture. Often I found myself believing that if I looked like Bobbi, nothing bad would happen to me. It wouldn’t be like waking up with a new, strange face: it would be like waking up with a face I already knew, the face I already imagined was mine, and so it would feel natural.

On our way up to the launch I saw Nick and Melissa through the staircase railings. They were standing next to a display of books. Melissa’s calves were bare and very pale and she was wearing flat shoes with an ankle strap. I stopped walking and touched my collarbone.

Bobbi, I said. Does my face look shiny?

Bobbi glanced back and scrunched up her eyes to inspect me.

Yeah, a little, she said.

I let the air out of my lungs quietly. There wasn’t anything I could do now anyway since I was on the stairs already. I wished I

hadn’t asked.

Not in a bad way, she said. You look cute, why?

I shook my head and we continued up the stairs. The reading hadn’t started yet, so everyone was still milling around holding wine glasses expectantly. The room was very hot, though they had opened the windows out over the street, and a cool mouthful of breeze touched my left arm and made me shiver. I was sweating.

Bobbi was talking about something in my ear, and I nodded and pretended to listen.

Eventually Nick looked over and I looked back. I felt a key turning hard inside my body, turning so forcefully that I could do nothing to stop it. His lips parted like he was about to say something, but he just inhaled and then seemed to swallow.

Neither of us gestured or waved, we just looked at one another, as if we were already having a private conversation that couldn’t be overheard.

After a few seconds I was conscious that Bobbi had stopped talking, and when I turned to see her she was looking over at Nick too, with her bottom lip pushed out a little, like: oh, now I see who you’re staring at. I wanted a glass to hold against my face.

Well, at least he can dress himself, she said.

I didn’t pretend to be confused. He was wearing a white T-shirt and he had suede shoes on, the kind everyone wore then, desert boots. Even I wore desert boots. He only looked handsome because he was handsome, though Bobbi wasn’t sensitive to the effects of beauty like I was.

Or maybe Melissa dresses him, said Bobbi.

She was smiling to herself as if concealing a mystery, though her behaviour wasn’t in the least mysterious. I ran my hand through my hair and looked away. A white square of sunlight lay on the carpet like snow.

They don’t even sleep together, I said.

Our eyes met then and Bobbi lifted her chin just barely.

I know, she said.

During the reading we didn’t whisper in each other’s ears like we usually did. It was a book of short stories by a female writer. I

glanced at Bobbi but she kept looking forward, so I knew I was being punished for something.

We saw Nick and Melissa after the reading was over. Bobbi went to meet them and I followed her, cooling my face against the back of my hand. They were standing near the refreshments table and Melissa reached over to get us both a glass of wine. White or red? she said.

White, I said. Always white.

Bobbi said: when she drinks red her mouth goes like, and she gestured to her own mouth in a little circle. Melissa handed me a glass and said: oh I get that. It’s not so bad, I think. There’s something appealingly evil about it. Bobbi agreed with her. Like you’ve been drinking blood, she said. And Melissa laughed and said: yes, sacrificing virgins.

I looked into the wine, which was clear and almost greenish-yellow, the colour of cut grass. When I glanced back at Nick he was looking at me. The light from the window felt hot on the back of my neck. I was wondering if you’d be here, he said. It’s nice to see you. And he slipped his hand into his pocket as if he was afraid of what else he might do with it. Melissa and Bobbi were talking still. No one was paying us any attention. Yeah, I said. You too.