Page 17 of Isn’t It Nice We Both Hate the Same Things

CHAPTER TWELVE

When my car needs servicing, I face a minor crisis.

Such an absurd, unforeseen crisis that I actually feel like a complete fool. Idiotic and reckless, really.

I’m parked across the road from my mechanic’s garage and have been for the last fifteen minutes, psyching myself up. Motivating myself like one might before a public speech.

I’m not sure what the protocol is here, because Emmanuel’s husband Diego has been my mechanic for eight years and does the service every six months for a discounted rate. Has even helped me find a new car twice.

What now?

I haven’t seen the man since I left Dave.

But he’ll know if I switch mechanics. Not right away, but eventually.

He might be at the breakfast table with Emmanuel at some stage and realise I’ve missed my six-month service, then deduce I’ve visited another mechanic out of sheer embarrassment at having to run into him.

Selfishly, part of me is wondering if he’d still give me a discount.

‘Don’t worry about any of that,’ Mum says, on the phone. ‘Just focus on yourself, okay? And maybe stop hovering outside in your car. They’ll think you odd.’

She’s called to ask if I’ve booked my flights home yet (I haven’t) and gets absorbed in the tale of Diego. When I tell her I kept my servicing appointment but am parked kerbside across the road, working up the nerve, she chastises me.

‘It’ll be awkward for a moment . And you shake it off and you say hello and then you get on with it.’

One of Mum’s favourite sayings for an awkward or tense situation. And then you get on with it .

I peer across the road, running an eye over all the workers.

No Diego. Which is odd, for a Saturday. He’s always working on a Saturday.

Could he have seen my car on the schedule for today and called in sick?

Could he and Emmanuel be on a holiday, travelling somewhere?

Could he be hiding somewhere out the back, waiting for me to drop off my car and leave?

It’s been five weeks since Josie’s fortieth and I feel apprehensive about running into the group.

Any of them. I’d been so confident knocking on Josie’s door, and now that confidence is shot.

And it’s witless, I know, to be cowering here instead of pulling myself together.

But when Dave and I separated, everyone else’s lives just continued and yet, I’m still here, struggling.

I’d ring Genevieve to relay how daft I’m being, but she and Bruce have left to visit her parents for Christmas, and except for a few sporadic texts, we haven’t spoken.

I’ve been trying to give them space – let Bruce help Genevieve and let Genevieve be with her parents.

And as such, I’ve been alone in their apartment, drowning in deafening silence and extreme loneliness.

When I first moved in, after I left Dave, I felt unable to breathe.

Wishing it wasn’t so crowded. But now, I fear I’m experiencing too much of the place – I am simply not fit to live alone, I feel.

Genevieve invited me to join them, of course.

She knows I don’t enjoy spending Christmas with Mum and Naya, because it reminds me too much of Dad.

Of his empty seat at the table and how I miss his loud, festive aprons, and the shortbread he’d bake every Christmas Eve.

How I’ve spent almost every Christmas over the past ten years with Dave’s family, purely to avoid my own.

But I declined, preferring to work through the holidays and better the show, come up with plans to reclaim our top spot. Keep busy and wait for the festive period to pass.

In the car, phone pressed to my ear, Mum speaks. ‘Have you heard from him, recently?’

Dave. She doesn’t need to say his name, with that cautious, careful, quiet tone.

‘He’s still asking about the engagement ring.’ I glance down at my left hand.

She inhales sharply through closed teeth – a piercing noise. ‘You still haven’t told him you lost it?’

‘Still haven’t replied to his messages. Still haven’t called him back.’

There’s a silence on the other end of the line. Just for a moment.

‘I think he’s asking for it so that I’ll see him,’ I say. ‘When I left, he wanted to work it out. Wanted to talk it through.’

‘Oh.’

‘But I was done.’

I haven’t told her what happened with Dave – not yet. I can’t trust her to keep it to herself. Genevieve stays loyal, like a vault. Knows all my secrets. But my mother would tell my sister the first chance she got. And then who knows where the information would end up?

‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out,’ she says. ‘I know I’ve said it before, but I feel like—’

‘Tell me something that will make me laugh,’ I interrupt, as I continue searching for any sign of Diego. For any sign of my old life. ‘Something funny.’

I’m wondering why I didn’t just switch mechanics.

Find someone else. Ignore the fact that Diego would’ve realised at some point.

But I’ve already changed so many things in my life – can’t I keep this one small thing the same?

Maybe it’s because I want him to tell the group that he saw me.

Remind them I exist, so that they’ll reach out, apologise and invite me back into the fold.

Or it could be that I need to prove I can do this.

Prove I can face these run-ins and come out the other side, stronger.

That I’m not going to let what happened at Josie’s birthday change who I am.

It might just be all of the above.

Mum picks up on the topic change. The need for a lighter conversation. Says ‘Oh’ in a perky tone and then thinks on it for a second. ‘Well, Leonard’s hurt himself again.’

It makes me smile. ‘Of course he has.’

‘Nothing serious.’ It never is. ‘He was regrouting outdoor tiles yesterday and tripped over. Got a bruised chin.’

‘Naya’s furious?’

‘Fuming. He’s been at the doctors twice already. I took him an ice pack this morning and let him unload his woes for a while, to give Naya a break.’

Mum might be the only person who can stomach Leonard when he’s injured.

She lets him ramble about his cuts or bruises or scrapes.

Has always had a soft spot for him, because he helped take care of us after Dad died.

When Mum was deep in grief and couldn’t leave her bed.

When we needed help with cooking and cleaning.

When I needed someone to drive me to school. It was Leonard.

He may seem ridiculous, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

‘You’re very good to him,’ I say.

And then I spot Diego, reversing a car out of the shop and parking it down the back of the lot.

He’s here .

My chest constricts, my throat closing up.

Wearing that dark blue jumpsuit, patterned with grease and oil.

A rag draped over his left shoulder. Thick, black hair tousled and standing to attention.

Four-day stubble. Emmanuel once told him if he ever fully shaved his face, it’d be grounds for divorce.

I wouldn’t say Diego and I were super close, but he’s certainly the most interesting of the group.

The most layered. When he shares stories of his family – scattered around Brazil – it’s clear he had a lively upbringing.

Rich, flavourful music. His mother the heartbeat of the family.

He talks to his extended family – aunts, uncles, grandparents – almost as often as his own siblings.

They eat together, venture together, consume culture together.

When he drinks, he and Emmanuel start to samba.

Dancing is something he could never live without, he once told me, and one Sunday a month he volunteers at the local community centre teaching locals all that he knows. Community is everything to him.

Not long after I met him, I told him my father died when I was twelve and he pulled me into a hug and shed a tear. Told me he couldn’t imagine what that would’ve been like. Called it an unimaginable horror. It was the most empathy I’d received from anyone.

Maybe that’s why I’m actually here. Because he’s a good person, and I like talking to him. Because I’ve enjoyed coming here every six months, spending time with just the two of us, away from everyone else.

‘Are you still parked across the road?’ Mum asks.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m hanging up now. You’re worrying too much. I’ll talk to you later. About to send you tonight’s recipe.’

She cuts in with an afterthought. ‘And book your flights, please.’

‘Tonight. I promise.’

Then she’s gone.

Diego isn’t there when I park the car. Isn’t there when one of his colleagues greets me, checks me off the schedule, and takes my car keys.

I scan every corner of that shop trying to spot him, but no luck.

‘You need something?’ his colleague asks. A short, lanky boy. Early in his career, I suspect. Not an ounce of dirt or grease on his jumpsuit.

‘Diego? I thought I saw him, earlier.’

‘Oh, yeah, he’s here somewhere.’ He turns around, lowering his clipboard. ‘Bathroom, maybe. Or the back room on brea— Oh, there he is.’

The boy points, says ‘Diego!’ in an unnecessarily heightened volume. So, of course, Diego hears. Of course he looks our way, caught unawares.

And then he freezes.

Body rigid, feet no longer moving. He gives a trying smile, a half-wave, and then darts off. Scurrying away like a beetle.

And he doesn’t return.