Being Kalli (14 page)

“Our
day is going to be so good, Kalli.” She jerks up as if she’d never been down and rubs her hands together.

“Boys,” she calls, as they turn and drop everything in their hands. “We’re getting monster trucks and we’ll search every store until we get two perfect
ones.”

Our aft
ernoon transpires onward and upward. Mum, Seth and Tristan look like they’re having the time of their lives. We enter a small, boutique toyshop. Price tags are printed—I’m sure—for shock value. There’s a toy figure crafted so alike a full-scale sports car I have to squint at it in my hands just to make sure someone hasn’t shrunk the real deal. When Mum starts making
vrooommm
sounds and the boys follow suit, all three of them crawling on the floor with the cars still in the boxes, I’m not surprised when a man in a suit comes around from the back and tells us we probably can find what we’re looking for at Toys R Us.

It gets
worse at Toys R Us (or better, depending on how you look at it). A whole store dedicated to every sort of toy for children of all different ages.

“Hey, kiddos,” I say. All three turn. “I’ll just grab an ice cream and wait in the food court.”

Mum nods and the boys go back to playing. I can’t get out of there fast enough.

I buy
an ice cream from McDonald’s and savour the crunchy pieces. Still waiting, I buy some chips. As I’m a couple away from finishing, I see the twins. They come barrelling down the food court, getting everyone’s attention. They both have one over-sized shopping bag in each hand.

They jump all over the place and try to unpack their monster trucks right there, but I manage to break
them a deal to hold on. A deal that involves ice cream.

When Mu
m sits beside me, I say, “You’re in a good mood today.”

She nudges me. Gives me a look. “Don’t you know
it. We had so much fun. ‘Ey boys?”

They are licking so hard and fast neither notice.

“Oh well. I think that’s a yes?”

“I agree.”

We sit, watching the boys and waiting for this silence between us to end.

“Can I ask you a question?” I say after a while.

“Sure, Kalli. What’s up?”

“Was it hard? Stopping, I mean? Not just
that, but was it hard missing out with Betsy, or spending your weekend at home instead?”

“Life’s too short to be sad. We had a great day today, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, but that’s not what I meant.”

Mu
m looks away, but I notice she bites her lips and pulls her hands under the table. She needs to hide them from me? Just like that, I go from feeling on top of the world to having that feeling turn dark and overwhelming in a flash.

“You’re so serious. I want to make my family happy. Didn’t you have fun today?”

“Equals parts embarrassment and fun, yeah,” I agree.

“When did we stop having fun like this?”

I eat the last of my chips, carrying out the moment as long as I can, unnoticed. “Oh, I don’t know.” It’s the most respectful answer. What I’ve always thought was age ten, and the times before and after you were with Chester. Chester was the only good man in your life.

“
For me, I’ll always regret losing contact with the first boyfriend I moved in with. But it put a rift between you and I, so it was for the best, in the end.”

She can’t be serious. He was a monster; didn’t He e
ver fuck her like he fucked me?

Mu
m leans in, lowers her voice while the twins are poking at their ice cream and licking their fingers. “Chester and I were always too different. It was sweet, though. It’s just a shame. But the kids … well, with you guys, we’ve had a great day.”

I don’t answer, just pull out my phone because I can pull off
being a typical rude teenager. That’s normal and easy. And I
have
to can this topic right here and now.

“You okay?”

I slowly put down my phone, pretend to look at something important for as long as possible before snatching up her gaze. “Sure, why?”

“Ah, nothing.”

It’s the first time Nate has initiated a text to me since my Donovan fuck up. We haven’t spoken since he came here that day. I’ve texted with little silly emotes but that didn’t say much, and he didn’t send anything back.

Now, as I stare at my phone
with his message, I forget my toast is cooling and I’m hungry. Funny how in a moment my body can send signals to my head—groaning stomach that actually feels like something sharp is turning over inside me, images of food rolling around in my thoughts, and then change them to my gut clenching at the thought of both reading and ignoring the text. The anticipation is a box of sustenance, and inside it could actually be anything. Sitting here about to read it is almost too enticing, but eventually I open the text:

Nate:
Meet me at the café?

Kalli:
Now? Yup, leaving. What’s up?

Nate:
You’ll see.

You’ll see
.
Two words that have sent my head in a spin. The house is moving for a moment or two until I blink rapidly and focus on my cooling toast.

I let out my hair, spray more perfume on for good measure, and touch u
p my light makeup. I change my T-shirt for a tight, low-cut tank. I don’t have pride to protect, so I might as well use what I’ve got.

When I arrive, I spot Nate with o
ne of his arms curled around the back of the couch that he is pressed hard against. He has two vanilla chai lattes and I focus on my straight, yet content face.
This doesn’t mean he’s happy with me. Don’t be overbearing
.

I leave a respectable gap and
wedge my handbag on my other side. I place my hands in my lap. Then, realising I look like a British royal or a VIP, I loosen my grip and fumble, something to do with my hands.

Nate pulls out the photo book I did for him. He flicks right to the last few pages, which doesn’t make sense because I haven’t
added any photos that far down.

But he has.

The open page has me arched back on the piano, closely resembling Michelle Pfeiffer in
The Fabulous Baker Boys
in that amazing scene, except I’m in my lace underwear in the fields. The image has a misty tone to it, with the colours paired down, the background blurred and some effect to draw attention to me modelling.

I look
…

“Tell me this story,” Nate says.

“Nate.”

I hang my head. The others were special, funny, even mundane
, but perfect because Nate took the shot or was in them, and they had a memorable story behind them for both of us. This one just reminds me of the beginning of The Mess and the past comes crashing back like an unexpected recoil slapped to my chest.

I fight the urge to splutter. Since it’s an imagined sensation, not a literal one, I focus on pushing it away to somewhere I can’t think of right now, and it works.

“That was Kalli crazy for your attention. That was her becoming infatuated with you, although she didn’t know it was happening.”

Nate rubs his thumb in a circle over the picture.
“More.”

“Um.” I look up to his eyes, but he’s still locked on the photo.

“That Kalli wasn’t sure what to feel because she hadn’t been in a situation like that before—caring about someone. She wanted all your attention—craved it.”

“Was it too much to ask to give me all of your attention?”

I close my eyes and remain still. I start seeing the path. The inevitable road where this will lead no matter what I do. I could fight my case and have him teetering on the edge of will-I, won’t-I, or I could suck up to him, be too overbearing, and have him back off completely.

A tear betrays me, slips from my closed eyes and
it’s hot down the side of my nose. I don’t want to wipe it because that will draw attention to the fact I’m crying when I really have no right to.

“Come here,” Nate says, holding out his arms.

He was astute to notice, anyway.

I blink at his fingers, wanting to escape in his touch, but repelled at the same time by the sympathy. I absolutely don’t want to start that. Being a charity case would hurt more.

“Kall Bell.” Nate snatches up my lingering fingers, debating his hands. “Here,” he says as he holds me against his chest.

So many questions run through my mind. There’s everything to ask
, and yet I just be. I hold onto this moment and erase the rest. This is a hug, and it’s not linked to anything good or bad. Nate has his arms tensed around my body, trapping my arms still, where they lie near his waist. I hesitate then slip my arms around his middle.

It’s just a hug.

I want to believe this.

But it breaks my heart. This is a good friend to a good friend hugging. There’s compassion and care in this hug, but there
isn’t more to it.

He pulls away too soon.

“Here’s what happened for me. I’ve liked you since we started uni. I know it’s only been half a year or less, but every time we kissed I faked being drunk or got myself drunk to get away with touching your waist. I waited to speak to you on the dance floor just to feel my lips at your ear. I invented a school project to photograph you because you’re the most beautiful girl I know.

“After we
made out and got under each other’s clothes I’d already lost my strength in you. You were all I thought about during my days, and in my dreams at night. You were my dream come true every moment we got close, and I barely had any part of my life that was just me, that wasn’t you weaved into my actions somehow.

“You didn’t realis
e when you left that night, you took that part of me without returning it. I was lost and hurting before I heard what happened, saw you. But once people were saying what you allowed that fuckhead to do to you against the wall, him publicly owning you, all those noises, and then seeing you and sensing him all over you, and not me anymore, it was like you burned that part of me all in an instant.”

Of course
I’ve imagined what went on for Nate. I’ve had the time to agonise over it, to hate myself for treating sex carelessly, treating his trust carelessly, and treating his delicate feelings so carelessly.

But never was it animated like this. Never did it feel like I was projected within his body, having me hurt him and myself with my spinning out of control.

Because I now wonder how
I
’d get over something like that if it happened to me.

That’s utterly terrifying.

“It doesn’t have to be over. I’m so ready for this.”

Nate doesn’t answer, but his body language is enough. He’s still lounged against his side of the sofa, but it’s the gap between us that does the most talking. His muscles look
relaxed this way, unlike they do when he’s against me. Then, he’s tense, unsure or uncomfortable. The way he looks tells me he needs this space.

I look down to my lap. It’s not a conscious decision, rather a need to feel smaller, more insignificant. In this moment I foresee no more vibrato
/ vibration. We won’t ever find the sweet spot again in our friendship where we perfectly match; I’m the attention, he’s the looker. We used to fit like that, like two adjacent puzzle pieces.

In my head we make sense, now. I suppose we made sense in his head
, pre-Kalli stuff-up.

But again, we
’re on two different trains passing in opposite directions.

Nate shakes his head, and I take my answer. Not yet. Yet being the operative word of hope I hang on to.

Nate stands and as he starts to leave, my heart lurches to stop this, and I call just loud enough for him to hear, “What are you going to do? What happens now?”

He turns his head without facing his body to me. “I’m figuring that out for myself.”

• • •

Later that day I’m on my bed, fiddling with my phone, wondering if it’s right to call Aunty
Nicole back about the her and Mum saga. No matter the mess I make here or the time I spend cleaning it, it’s the same. It has been ever since that party and the rift between Nate and I. It’s so quiet, but not the peaceful one; rather, a quiet where I’m always tensed, looking over my shoulder. If I’m not thinking about Nate, it’s something else. Once, when I was little and everyone was speaking, Nicole and I were playing the card game snap, and I asked her why I had to sit back from the cards that far like she told me, and why I had to hold my hand either on my cards or by my side.

“But
Mum let’s me sit with my legs out, lying around the cards, and she never ever cares about my hands. Why are you so mean?”

Aunty Nicole told me, “They are the rules. Games aren’t any fun if you cheat.”

I, being the kid I was, scowled and acted disinterested because she wasn’t fun at all. I wanted to peek at her cards and she wouldn’t let me. I wanted to play the way I knew, and I got confused remembering all these new restrictions.

Sitting
on my bed, I know now games with Mum versus Aunty Nicole weren’t fun versus boring. They were different. Mum and I don’t worry about rules. We can be reckless and weird. Mostly spontaneous. With Aunty Nicole, I’d have to be on the ball, decisive, thinking a step ahead. It excited me in an alternate way.

I don’t know which t
ype of person I prefer to be. Mum had thought her ways were fine; my aunty was always uptight about everything. I adore them both, and don’t want to choose who I love best. It’s not that I’m on my aunty’s side of this argument, but I miss the banter. The sisterly back and forth. The teasing. And the fights.

All that
feels like a dream sometimes. A dream that I long to have back.

For the firs
t time it doesn’t matter to me if I don’t get at least one guy a party, or if I’m not the hottest girl in a room. I don’t want to study to get the certificate so I can land the high-paying job that’s generally expected of university students, either, but I want to let things just happen.

I push the memories to the side and
dial Aunty Nicole. The memories plant an ache in my heart that blossoms into full longing. She answers on the second ring.

“Kalli!
Hey, how are things?”

We catch up on bits and pieces
, trying to talk like we did before I knew the big secret. I now have to work hard at my tone of voice and choice of sentences so I can imitate being normal. But it’s hard, trying to act like the person I was then.

She tells me about my cousins. One is going to
university open days and the other is choosing subjects for their final high school year subjects. She talks about them like a proud mum, adding in phrases like “oh my God, and you know” before something important like an A+ grade on a test. I’ve always idolised her as a mother and a person. Not seeing her regularly since seven, I think, however, she’s a fantasy in my mind. No one is perfect, even when they seem to be a lucky one with no hang-ups like the rest of us.

Her voice pulls up my attention to the change of topic.
“I have to request one thing.”

“Uh-oh,
what is it now?” I say, adding a coy edge to my tone purposefully.

“Can we stop pretending to be interest
ed in this full-time working, mum-of-two bored woman? I won’t believe you if you tell me your youthful, university self has nothing interesting to say.”

I sigh then cover my mouth as if that’ll take it back.
It’s not that I was bored at her, but rather the relief that she understands I have issues I’m hiding. Out in the open, I decide to give a no bullshit answer since I blew my cover anyway.

“Ha! There is plenty. Where do I start?”

“At the juiciest,” she replies.

I’m about to say, “There’s n
othing to say” which is what Mum says. Considering I have so much going on and life is not normal at the moment, I’m a little concerned about that being my reaction. I need to stop burying.

“Uh,” I go with. “It’s long.”

It’s the truth.

“Mary or boy stuff?”

“How …” I don’t even finish; I’m sure she knows where I’m going with it, basically.

“I was nineteen and at
uni too, my dear. I had a non-standard Mum, too. So, which is it?”

“Both. But
you
can fix one.”

“How’s that?”

All I can hear is her retort last time, biting back at me when I pushed too far on this topic. But her tone of voice during this call is honest, interested, unlike many times where out of habit, we act cordial, asking about weather and life and recent events. This call, she’s daring to ask for more, although that’s me assuming lots here.

“See Mum
… I know—I’ve heard it from both of you, how long it’s been. Just hear me out.” I pause, not sure why because I’m not inviting her to say her piece. Just before I start, and she hasn’t said a word yet, I know it’s because I’m testing to see how invested she is, if she is willing to see Mum, hoping I have the magic beans.