Page 6 of Isn’t It Nice We Both Hate the Same Things

CHAPTER FOUR

I’ve lost the ring, I’m afraid, and I was hoping he’d never ask for it back. Was really praying Dave would forget about the whole thing, maybe have some kind of memory loss incident.

But no.

He’s remembered. Of course he’s remembered.

It’s the day after Josie’s fortieth and Genevieve and I are hiking.

Rocky, slopy inland terrain on a sticky, humid afternoon.

We underestimated the fitness level required, and it feels like it’s about to rain.

Genevieve keeps pausing to catch her breath.

My knees ache, my back is burning. We’re navigating rocks, roots and gravel, and progress is slow.

My hair is damp with sweat, and I’ve got horrendous blisters forming along my toes.

We wanted to connect with nature, but I feel like we’re about to connect with the afterlife.

‘This is lovely, isn’t it?’ she says, grasping her water bottle.

‘Beautiful.’

‘We should do this more often,’ I say, and she nods in agreement, wiping the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand.

When Dave and I split, Genevieve insisted we do everything I didn’t get to do when he and I were together. And there are so many examples.

The man is allergic to strawberries. Deathly allergic.

So I never had them in the apartment, never dared to eat one near him.

What have I done since ending the marriage?

Buy just about every strawberry I could find and shove them straight into my mouth.

Leave strawberries in the fridge and on the kitchen bench.

Even bought strawberry-scented lip gloss.

The man works for his family’s vineyard and refuses to buy wine that retails for less than twenty-five dollars. Won’t have anything that cheap in his mouth, he’d say, and he would select an offensively expensive bottle whenever we went out for dinner.

The first wine I bought post-separation cost seven dollars and tasted like arse, but I drank the entire thing one afternoon and sent him a drunken text saying, Guess who’s got something cheap in their mouth. (Did not go down well, would not recommend.)

And, of course, he hated hiking. Found it boring. Didn’t like the impact on his knees. He ruined countless hikes complaining about the heat or the incline or how often we’d pass someone and they’d say ‘Not long to go!’ that it wasn’t even worth it.

‘Love the view,’ Genevieve says, once we reach the top.

Clouds blanket the city, obstructing the entire skyline. ‘So good.’ Then I turn to her. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Really good.’ Her face is pale, her lips chapped.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Promise.’

We find a spot to sit and rest our legs, taking a moment to recover before the descent back to the car.

Without realising, I check the group chat on my phone.

Our group chat – Josie, Shaun, Dave, Emmanuel, Diego, Cinar, me.

Scroll through to see if I’ve heard from anyone last night.

Look again to see if I’ve heard from Josie, after what she said. Genevieve clocks it straight away.

‘Anything?’ she asks, nodding at my phone.

I shake my head.

After everything she’s put him through. And she turns up here?

Nothing can capture how much that gutted me – how awful it feels, to hear your closest friends complaining about you as if you’re a leech who needs to be surgically removed. She turns up here? Like I’m some stranger without an invitation. I RSVPed, bitch.

It’s enough to keep me up at night, and I fear I will be thinking about this over and over in my head at 3 a.m. for the rest of my life.

Genevieve lets out a sympathetic sigh. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’ve been friends with them for so long.’

‘But they knew Dave first,’ she says. ‘And now you’re no longer together.’

They knew Dave first . I’d never thought of us like that. Never thought of them as his friends, but simply, our friends.

I don’t respond immediately, because I don’t want to admit the truth. Don’t want to acknowledge, out loud, that I understand what she’s trying to say. That something might be different now. That leaving Dave might have changed the group in a way I, perhaps foolishly, wasn’t anticipating.

‘I don’t care that he knew them first.’ They’ve been with me for a decade.

They feel more like my family than my actual family, and I don’t know what this would look like if they weren’t there anymore.

I think of them fading away and I feel this huge cloud settle over me.

I will be alone. Alone. I’ll have Genevieve, I’ll have Bruce, and I’ll have nobody else.

The thought makes me want to hurl.

Genevieve changes the subject. ‘What are you going to do about the ring?’

The engagement ring. That beautiful, lost ring.

I know exactly where it is, I just can’t get to it.

It’s lying at the bottom of the city’s harbour after a waterside stroll ten months earlier.

My fingers so swollen that my rings were rubbing my skin, I took them both off and the engagement ring slipped out of my hands and into the water. I was so distraught I threw up.

Dave never noticed the ring was missing, and I never told him. But now he remembers it exists.

‘Honestly,’ Genevieve continues. ‘The gall of that man. You don’t owe him anything.’

‘He paid for the ring.’

‘And he’s paid for almost a thousand golf lessons and he’s still shit , but is he going to ask for his money back? No.’ Genevieve exhales rather dramatically.

I glance down at my left hand. ‘I have no idea what I’m going to do. You got any ideas?’

‘Plenty.’ She starts counting with her fingers. ‘Tell him you sold it. Tell him it’s yours. Tell him he doesn’t get to make demands. Tell him he’s got knobby knuckles. Tell him you’ve regifted it. Tell him he’s the reason the marriage didn’t work out.’

Then she pauses, looking over at me. Her voice lowers. ‘Or, you know, you could tell him the truth.’

‘I think I’ll just ignore him.’

‘That works too.’

And then we rise, because the wind has picked up and we’re getting chilly. Genevieve’s phone pings and it’s Bruce asking how the hike is going. Asking how she’s feeling today, if she’s eaten enough. She taps out a response and I wonder how much she’s sugarcoating.

A moment later, I start to wonder if Dave would’ve been like that with me, if we’d decided to have kids.

How concerned he’d be about me, on a hike, during peak sickness.

And the fact I have to wonder at all tells me what I need to know – that we spent so much of the relationship focused on him, and his problems, that there was never a lot of time left for me.

‘Bruce sent through a listing,’ Genevieve says.

It’s a regular thing we’ve been doing, Genevieve and I, while she and Bruce hunt for a home.

Look over listings on weekends, compare prices, swipe through photos of bedrooms and gardens and kitchens and driveways.

And then, when that property doesn’t work out because someone outbid them or the auction price grew too high, we go back to the listing and moan about all the things that were wrong about the house – a lack of charm, too much wooden panelling, no secondary space for entertainment, no direct sunlight or ventilation.

It’s been a year of this.

‘Thoughts?’ she asks, passing her phone to me.

This house is on the outskirts, nestled within a gated village. Semi-detached, beige and white. Oak columns at the front door, a small garden bed. Three bedrooms, small yard, all the basics ticked.

But it’s a little too well-kept and I fear it’ll sell for higher than predicted. ‘Looks nice.’ I hand her phone back.

‘He’s going to organise a viewing.’ There’s still a flicker of hope left in her voice when she talks about listings, and I wonder how long until that starts to sour.

It’s remarkable, how much our lives are diverging.

I’m negotiating a settlement with lawyers and she’s attending house viewings and ultrasound appointments.

I’m sleeping in her second bedroom and she’s ready for maternity clothes and books on childbirth.

She’s hunting down three-bedroom homes and researching school catchment zones, and I’m learning what it’s like to be alone after spending a decade with the same man.

I’m also learning how much I loathe being alone.

For so long, we’d been on the same path together. But somehow, along the way, I turned around and Genevieve kept going.

‘You know I’ll move out, if you decide to stay in the apartment—’

‘I know, I know, you’ve said.’ She sips. ‘But, baby or no baby, we can’t stay in that place. It’s just too small.’

But if you can’t find somewhere to live, what happens then? It’s something she won’t acknowledge, no matter how many times I ask. No matter how many times I press.

Genevieve darts off to vomit behind a tall tree with white bark, the trunk so wide she can tuck herself behind it. I realise we’re done here.

When she returns, I hand her some anti-nausea tablets.

‘I’m totally fine.’

‘You’re totally not.’ I wait for her to relent and ingest the tablets, then pack everything away.

‘I felt really good on the way up,’ she says, defensive, then wipes sweat from the back of her neck.

I hold her stare. ‘Really?’

‘No.’

And then we laugh.

‘I should’ve cancelled this,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry.’

She shakes her head. ‘I wouldn’t have let you.’ She pops a few mints into her mouth and sips more water.

Descending, I glance around. No other people in sight, and droplets landing on our heads as the rain rolls through. Out of habit, I check my phone again. No new messages. They really aren’t going to say anything to me, after what I heard? Put on your big girl pants, Josie, and apologise to me!

Genevieve catches my mood and is quiet for a moment. Pondering. And then she turns towards me. Forces me to stop. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Anything.’

‘You haven’t contacted them in six weeks. But you’ve also not been in touch with anyone in the group,’ she says, eyebrows rising. ‘So does that mean they haven’t contacted you , either? Haven’t even checked in to see if you’re okay?’

For a few moments, I say nothing. Digest her question.

And then I step back and think about what she’s asking.

I’d been so focused on my marriage, and on Dave, that I’d only been thinking about my actions these past six weeks.

Not theirs. And suddenly, I feel small again.

My chest constricts. My throat feels dry.

Slowly, I respond. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. Not one of them contacted me.’

Had I really not noticed? Six weeks of going through hell , and they didn’t bother to reach out. Didn’t ask if I was okay, didn’t think to call. Didn’t offer me their couch to sleep on. Didn’t do anything .

Something about these friendships is different, now. Has morphed into a shape I do not recognise. And there might not be a way back.

‘What arseholes .’

Genevieve is sympathetic. ‘I’m sorry.’ And then she covers her mouth with her hand, her eyes closing.

‘How are you really feeling?’

After a moment, she speaks. ‘Like trash,’ she says. ‘And I’m worried all this vomit is ruining my teeth.’

‘Smile for me.’

She grins, cheesy and wide.

‘All still there.’ I tug on her arm. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

It’s a quiet day on the mountain, but we eventually pass someone. A struggling young man, red in the face, sweat darkening his singlet.

Genevieve calls out. ‘Not long to go!’