Page 34 of Isn’t It Nice We Both Hate the Same Things

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I’m reminded of Genevieve when I least expect it.

I’ll be packing my bag for work and remember that time she hit her head on the elevator when leaving her apartment building.

I’ll be grocery shopping and see her preferred brand of almond butter.

I’ll see that book on my shelf that she recommended to me twelve months earlier, that I still haven’t read.

I’ll be at the gym and see that rotund man who once gave unsolicited advice on how she was using the row machine.

My stomach lurches when it happens, and I feel like it’s my body reminding my brain that I miss her.

That I want us to make dinner together and laugh about something absurd her students did that day.

Buy coffee and pretend we’re going to the gym when, really, we’re just wearing activewear.

Joke about the absurdity of Bruce’s silk pyjamas.

Sing belter music in the kitchen. Talk about baby names and work schedules and our families – the good and the bad.

I want to tell her about Graham and what it’s like living with him.

Mostly, I want to talk about my marriage, and my friendship with Josie, and dissect what went wrong.

And when I get yet another text message from Dave and another call from my lawyer asking about the engagement ring, I want her to brainstorm ideas with me and reassure me I’ve done nothing wrong.

I want her to look me in the eye and say it.

You’re not a terrible person, you just left a terrible marriage .

And I think about this all the time. Every day. When I wake up, when I go to bed, when I have a moment to myself at the radio station, when I’m waiting for her to return my call.

Even at Dora’s bachelorette party, I’m thinking about it. While blindfolded, playing a game of ‘pin the dick’ on an A3, blown-up printout of a naked man. Photoshopped to have Cleaver’s head.

‘ So close,’ someone says, as I pull off my blindfold and realise I’ve pinned the penis to Cleaver’s left nipple. ‘ Next .’

We’ve taken a bus down south for the day and there must be twenty of us stationed inside this rustic mahogany winery barn with an endless supply of bubbles and wine.

There are canapés on plates, and waiters in aprons.

It’s raining ferociously, so the outdoor element has been cancelled (group photos on the hill, overlooking the lake, panoramic views of the vineyard, wind in the hair, et cetera).

Inside, the girls are getting rowdy. Drunker by the minute. ‘Did anyone else spot that guy working the bar? Ca-ute .’

‘Slay, girl. Go get it.’

With the exception of Dora’s mother, Rue, and Cleaver’s mother, Florence, I am the oldest here.

By at least ten years. And it might not seem like much of an age gap, but it’s exhausting trying to keep up with the cultural references.

Someone uses Gucci as an adjective and then later, when I’m at the bar, a girl in knee-high white cowboy boots and a necklace with ‘2004’ across the front hands me a new glass of sparkling.

‘Thank you.’ I point at her necklace. ‘What’s so special about 2004?’

She grabs at it, fiddles with it. ‘I was born.’

‘Oh, right. Of course.’

Normally, I’d message Genevieve to laugh about this. Born in 2004! Wasn’t alive for the turn of the century but old enough to have her own baby, if she wants.

I fear it’s time for a nerve tonic and a constitutional.

When the first game starts, we’re directed by Dora to take our seats at the tables. ‘Look for your name,’ she says.

It’s a little hard, with all the streamers and flowers, the heart-shaped confetti, plastic costume glasses and penis straws. But I find mine, eventually, to the side of the barn. I’m at the same table as Dora’s and Cleaver’s mothers, and an empty seat next to me is assigned for Quinn .

I stretch in my seat and crane my neck, watching as everyone else finds their seat and there’s still no one next to me. When I gesture to the empty stool, Dora’s mother leans across. ‘Cleaver’s half-sister,’ she explains. ‘She got caught up at work, but she’ll be here soon.’

Across the room, the girls cheer. Toast to the celebration, take photos with their commemorative glasses (pink, shaped like love hearts, with sparkly cocktails on the sides), and ask Dora all about the wedding planning.

It stings a little to hear her discuss the flowers and the seating and the dress.

I didn’t think it’d bother me this much to be here.

How easily it’d bring back memories. But it’s only been two years since my own wedding.

And I, too, had one of these hens’ parties.

Genevieve, my maid of honour, booked out an entire floor at a tapas restaurant and instructed everyone to wear coloured sequins.

We wore the sparkly hats and the plastic penis glasses and sang pop hits at an obscene volume.

And of course, we played all the games. The guessing games, the truth or dares, the Pictionary, true or false, the pin the penis on the fiancé.

The game to see how well you know the bride, the one where you ban a word and have to drink if you accidentally say it, that collage game where there’s photos of the bride and everyone has to guess how old you were at the time.

And my personal favourite, where everyone guesses if the name being read out is the title of an adult film or a nail polish.

And because I know them all, when the maid of honour Issy sets up a television towards the front of the barn, I’m aware of what’s coming.

The Mr and Mrs Quiz.

This would be the perfect time to hear from Genevieve. You’re not a terrible person, you just left a terrible marriage . Because watching two people talk about how much they love the other is enough to make you feel horrible about your own relationship ending.

When Cleaver’s face appears on screen, the group cheers.

Shouts his name. He’s wearing a long-sleeve shirt, and his reading glasses are perched atop his nose.

Two-day stubble, if I had to guess, and dishevelled hair like he’s just woken up.

He’s smiling at the camera, and when Dora sees that, she breaks out in one too.

It’s immediate, how happy she is to see him on the screen – hands clasped together, chest puffed with pride, the ends of her auburn bob flicking back and forth as she shimmies in her seat.

I’m not sure I would’ve smiled like that at Dave. In the beginning, of course, but not towards the end. At my hens’ party, when we played this game, I don’t remember feeling as happy as Dora. Deep down I think I knew, even at my own hens’, that Dave and I weren’t going to work out.

And yet I married him anyway.

Issy commences the game, explaining that they’ve already asked Cleaver a set of questions about their relationship, and she’s going to ask Dora the same.

‘Let’s see how they measure up,’ she says, which prompts a woo from one of the girls on the table to my left.

It’s pretty seamless after that. Issy asks a question, Dora answers it, then she plays the video to check if she and Cleaver have said the same thing.

Who cooks more? Dora says Dora, Cleaver says Dora.

Who initiates sex more? Dora says Cleaver, Cleaver says Cleaver. One of Dora’s girlfriends yells out bullshit and the friendship group laughs.

Who said ‘I love you’ first? Cleaver, unanimously.

Who is the better kisser? They each say themselves.

What Disney character is Dora most like? This is on brand for Dora, whose favourite movies are all Disney. She says Snow White, but he says Sleeping Beauty (then makes a joke about what she’s like when she hasn’t had enough sleep, and it cues laughter from the crowd).

And so it continues.

When listening to the game, it’s impossible not to think of your own relationship.

I’m almost certain the other girls – the ones in a relationship, anyway – are thinking about their own partners right now.

What is their weirdest quirk? Who is the better kisser?

Who is the tidiest? The most efficient? The one most likely to become famous?

Mainly, they’re thinking, how well do I actually know my partner? How compatible are we?

I cannot help but think of Dave as each question is asked.

He cooked more.

He initiated sex more.

He said he loved me first.

I was the better kisser.

The Disney character? It stumps me, for a moment.

Who would he be? He’s considerate. And caring.

Quite wise, when he wants to be. So at first I think of Rafiki.

But Dave’s emotional understanding, his ability to read other people, is not as sharp as it could be.

Maybe Genie from Aladdin ? Wise-guy. Fast-talker.

Keeps everyone entertained and keeps the conversation flowing.

But unhappy. Trapped. Confined. In desperate need to be set free.

You’re not a terrible person, you just left a terrible marriage .

‘Q! You made it!’

The game pauses, Cleaver’s latest answer halted. My fingers move away from the phone.

Dora’s hugging her sister-in-law, who has finally arrived, small and the only one dressed in dark colours. Her hair is saturated from the pelting rain outside, and Cleaver’s mother runs off to find something that might help dry her.

The sister-in-law exits the hug and turns to the group to wave, and I recognise her immediately. Her chopped locks and her pointed nose. That warm smile and keen, observant eyes.

Quinn. Cinar’s Quinn. Visual artist divorcée who used to dress like Frodo Baggins. That Quinn.

‘You’re over there,’ Dora says, pointing my way.

And we lock eyes. Quinn’s face warms as she recognises me, offers a half-wave, and then makes her way over.

‘I’m saturated,’ she says, stopping just short of the table. She wrings out her hair, lets it drip onto the concrete floor below. ‘Couldn’t find my umbrella.’ Her nose crinkles with her smile. ‘How are you?’

I’m about one inconvenience away from a mid-tier meltdown. ‘I’m really good.’