Like a Book Page 13

  “Hey,” June said.

  Trish jumped and dropped her phone into her handbag. “Good morning.”

  “How was your night?”

  “Oh, fine, I spoke to Leigh on the phone and got a few chores done. Can I get a latte please? I can only sit for a minute this morning, I was hoping to start early so I can finish early today. Leigh needs me to come and do a dress fitting thing. There’s always something with her.”

  “Right,” June said. Trish’s rapid speech sent her a clear message, that she was to stay away.

  They sat down on the steps, Trish putting space between them as they took their places.

  “Do you have a lot of work to do today?” Trish asked.

  “Mainly revisions. I’m not happy with some stuff at the beginning. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever finish this thing.”

  “Of course you will.”

  Trish fiddled with the lid of her coffee cup. Her nails were cut short and covered in clear polish, and her fingers were long. Only yesterday, they’d been on June’s breasts.

  “How is your sister, anyway?”

  “She’s good,” Trish said.

  June stared out at the quad. She couldn’t understand why Trish was acting so ashamed of what they’d done. They’d gone against their agreement, but why should they take that so seriously anyway? It had always been flimsy.

  “Well, thanks for meeting me,” Trish said, standing up abruptly and clutching her bag in front of her. Her knuckles were white where they gripped the strap.

  “No worries. I’ll see you later,” June said.

  June stayed on the steps, Trish hurrying away from her. She had allowed herself to hope for too much. As she lay in bed the night before, she’d imagined the intimacy they’d shared bonding them, making them able to talk properly. She’d even thought about joking around about how close they’d come to being caught. If they could laugh about it, it might break any tension.

  As soon as Trish had started talking, June knew that a joke would never land. Trish was just meeting June to be polite. She really didn’t want to be there.

  It was what June deserved. The idea of their romantic friendship was ridiculous, and June had always known it. She was pathetic for proposing it to begin with. There was no point in being upset with Trish, not when Trish had made it so clear that she didn’t see June as a serious prospect. Trish wasn’t the first person in the world who wanted to have her cake and eat it too. Before they kissed in the library June had told Trish to do just this, had practically given her an instruction manual in how to treat June badly.

  Trish’s attitude was painful, but there was nothing more painful than her own willingness to keep exposing herself to it.

  * * *

  Trish had always been a prolific list maker. There were lists clipped to her fridge, for recipes she wanted to try or improvements she wanted to make for the house. There was always at least one to-do list crisply folded into her purse, in a compartment she reserved for that purpose. The natural thing to do when she was having difficulty with making decisions was to make a list of pros and cons.

  This situation warranted lists, a lot of them. Trish couldn’t come to a decision about what to do about either Katrina or June. She couldn’t even decide whether she should see Katrina for dinner.

  Trish sat at her dining table, spreading a couple of pieces of paper in front of her. She would dedicate one page to the pros and cons of seeing Katrina, and another to the pros and cons of pursuing something more with June.

  For the dinner with Katrina there were a few things in the positive column—for example, that it might give her a sense of closure. They hadn’t talked in a long time and she still had so many questions. Trish wrote that she owed it to Katrina, and to herself, because they had spent so much time building a life together. The negatives she wrote down were that spending time with Katrina would likely only confuse her more, and that being together might make her feel locked into more dates. She wasn’t sure that she wanted that.

  The list about June was more difficult. The first thing Trish thought of was their mutual physical attraction, and she flashed back to their encounter in the library as she wrote the words. She added the things they had in common (subdivided into things like values and taste in books), and the fact that they had so much fun when they were together. Trish wrote down that she liked talking to June.

  Under the negative heading, Trish wrote about their age difference, and the instability in June’s life. There was her lack of a full-time job and her odd hours. Trish couldn’t imagine spending a lot of time with June’s friends aside from Ollie, so she wrote that down too.

  The list was growing, and Trish hadn’t covered the thing that scared her the most.

  “Not a serious person about relationships,” she wrote neatly. The whole romantic friendship thing had always been a game for June, and Trish guessed that she was open to all kinds of games when it came to relationships. June might play around on her when she got bored, or she might not even want to be together as a proper couple in the first place.

  Something told her that she and June might have very different ideas about what a relationship would even look like. By the end the cons outweighed the positives, but it didn’t seem like a true reflection of how she felt. Maybe there were some things that couldn’t be captured by a list.

  She needed to gather more information. It wouldn’t hurt to see Katrina and hear her out. It was important that she deal with the Katrina situation first, because the outcome of that would determine where things went with June.

  Trish laid the pieces of paper on top of one another and tucked them into a folder. She’d have to add to them over the coming weeks, because she didn’t know how she was going to make any decisions otherwise.

  On Friday morning, Trish chose her clothes carefully. She decided on an outfit that she had purchased after the breakup, a black-and-white dress that was suitable for work but that was nice enough for a restaurant too. She had to prove to Katrina that she was doing just fine without her.

  It had been almost a week since the thing with June in the library. They were still getting together most mornings for coffee, and June never tried to raise the subject. Trish was uncomfortable in the beginning; the first day they’d seen one another she’d been so nervous that she hadn’t stuck around for long. Once she’d been assured that June wasn’t going to say anything, things just felt normal again.

  Trish even allowed herself to wonder if something like that could happen again, if the conditions were right. Thinking it made her feel guilty, but no amount of guilt could make her stop wanting June.

  As usual, Trish clocked where June was working for the day, in one of her favorite quiets spots on the first floor by a reading room. It was always easy to tell if June was having a good day or a bad one. Sometimes Trish would see her slumped down in her chair like a surly teenager, picking away at her laptop slowly. Other days she would be sitting rigidly in the chair with her fingers flying over the keyboard, her face a mask of blissful concentration. Right now, June wasn’t typing at all. She had a sheet of paper in front of her and her chin propped upon her hand, deeply satisfied.

  “It’s going well, is it?” Trish asked.

  “I think I’ve really nailed this section,” June said, the light catching her eyes as she looked up at Trish. It brought out the color more than usual.

  “Your modesty never ceases to amaze me.”

  June gestured toward a nearby chair. “Come, read it. Enjoy my cogent argument. I always know it’s good when I can imagine Anne calling it cogent.”

  “Or astute. That’s a good one,” Trish said. She lowered herself into the chair, pulling it into the table across from where June was sitting, and took the pages from her.

  “Oh yes, I sure do love being called astute.”

  Trish disliked academic writing that made the work too hard to follow, and she hated big words that were only there for the author to show off. But there was a beautiful clarity
in June’s writing. When she was finished, Trish held up the pages.

  “I can confirm that this is both cogent and astute.” June grinned at her. “No, seriously, I can see why you’re pleased. This is fantastic. It ties everything up so well, really brings it all together.”

  Trish jumped when she felt the warm length of June’s leg press up against hers. It was the first time June had touched her all week. They were joined from ankle to knee, and Trish lightly pushed her leg back against June’s.

  She flicked back through the writing to read out a couple of sentences that she particularly liked. Trish had come to love the sensation of June watching her, hooked on the steady gaze that made her feel like she was pretty. At times, she caught herself performing for June, doing little things she wasn’t conscious of at first, like flicking her hair or sitting in a way that would flatter her figure. It would embarrass her if anyone else ever noticed, but she loved the way June responded to her.

  “Can you read out some more?”

  “Oh, you really are pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”

  June looked back at her, not smiling anymore. “It’s not that. I think you have a sexy voice. I like hearing you.”

  Slowly, Trish cleared her throat and then began to read. She put the paper down on the table so that it wouldn’t show that her hand was shaking.

  “Thank you. Is there anything you noticed that needs work?” June asked quietly.

  Trish shook her head and pushed the papers back across the table. “Not a thing. Would you like to have lunch with me to celebrate?”

  June pulled her legs away. “I’d love to, but I might just grab a sandwich to go. I should get across to class.”

  Trish tried to cover her disappointment. Their lunches together, and the opportunity they afforded to talk at length, always made her days so much brighter. They hadn’t had lunch this week.

  “What are you doing this weekend?” June asked, standing to pack her things.

  Trish hesitated, unsure of whether to reveal that she had plans with Katrina. She should have thought about this, because keeping quiet about it now would make her feel like she was lying. Dinner with Katrina was literally the only engagement she had for the weekend.

  “I’m meeting Katrina for dinner,” Trish said. June paused, a pen between her fingers. She slowly tucked it into her bag.

  “I didn’t realize the two of you were still friends.”

  “We’re not really. She just came over last weekend, asked me if I could meet her for dinner,” Trish said. When June remained quiet, Trish talked on. As it came spilling out of her she realized how much she’d been needing to talk to someone about it. “She wants to talk about things actually, about us. I feel like I should hear her out. It’s very strange, I never expected it.”

  “Oh. Right,” June said. She didn’t meet Trish’s eye as she pushed her laptop into her backpack.

  “So, um, yes. We’re going to a place in Toorak. What about you, what are you doing?” Trish said. June was not receptive to this conversation, and she wished she hadn’t said anything. She didn’t know why she’d thought she could.

  June shrugged. “Not much. I’m working on Sunday night. I have a game tomorrow night.”

  They had talked about Trish coming along to other roller derby games, but June clearly didn’t intend to invite her, and Trish didn’t want to invite herself. Had June been about to invite her, before she’d screwed everything up?

  “Well, good luck. I hope you win again,” Trish said.

  “Thanks. Have a good weekend.”

  “You too.”

  “You look really nice, by the way,” June said. “I like your dress.”

  In the moment before she moved to leave, June finally stopped avoiding eye contact, and her glance felt like a punch in the stomach. There was so much pain in her expression in that moment that Trish wanted to hold her, to soothe her, but she had to let June pass.

  Trish looked down at herself, at her dress. She wished she’d never worn it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Katrina took Trish’s arm as they walked, guiding her around a puddle. They’d parked the next street over from Ryori, a Japanese restaurant in Toorak. Trish rarely visited the affluent neighborhood and she looked around warily, wishing she’d taken the initiative and picked the place herself.

  She wondered what June would think. She looked up at the sign over the door, doubting that June would have anything good to say about somewhere so pretentious. When Trish checked the menu online, the dishes were crazy expensive.

  “I feel really underdressed,” Trish said.

  “I already made a reservation, it’s really hard to get into this place on a Friday night!”

  “I know, but…”

  “You’re going to love it. And you look perfect, you’re going to be the most beautiful woman in there.”

  Trish let Katrina open the door for her. When they were shown to their table, Katrina pulled out a chair for her, despite the fact the hostess was about to do it.

  “Should we get a bottle of red?” Katrina asked, scanning the menu.

  They always ordered a bottle of wine of Katrina’s choosing. Trish had already decided that she was going to be paying for her own half of the meal. Katrina would order the most expensive wine she could and then insist on paying for it.

  She wasn’t in the mood for wine, anyway. “Actually, I think I’ll have a beer.”

  Katrina laughed. “Since when do you drink beer?”

  Trish ignored the question, reading over the descriptions on the beer list until she found a wheat one that looked good.

  They made small talk about mutual acquaintances until their food arrived. She was already tipsy from her beer, enough to ask Katrina the questions she’d been rehearsing in her mind all week.

  “So, what’s this all about, Katrina? I don’t understand why we’re here.”

  There was something affected about the way Katrina wiped her mouth with her napkin, took a deep breath, and held Trish’s hand. It was clear to Trish that she wasn’t the only one who’d been rehearsing.

  “We were both young when we got together, weren’t we?”

  “Not that young. We weren’t exactly teenagers.”

  Katrina shook her head. She had always been easily irritated when Trish disagreed with her, and even the small correction bothered her. Trish might have been more assertive with her earlier if she had known how good it would feel.

  “Okay, maybe we weren’t that young. But young enough that I still had a lot of questions, felt like I hadn’t experienced things. I guess I got curious, and I wondered what else was out there.”

  Somewhere inside she’d always known that Katrina felt that she wasn’t enough, but it was hard to hear her say the words aloud. Trish searched Katrina’s face, finding nothing there. Katrina wasn’t even aware that she’d said anything hurtful, and she just kept on talking.

  “It was immature of me. But if I was going to commit to you for the rest of my life, I needed some time on my own to be sure of what I wanted.”

  Trish looked over Katrina’s shoulder, avoiding her eye. “You weren’t on your own for very long, though, were you?”

  “I didn’t plan that, it just happened. It was a mistake.”

  “Seemed pretty serious to me.”

  “Things aren’t always as they appear, you know that. Listen, I can see now that taking a break at all was a selfish thing to do, and that I should have trusted my instincts in the first place. You and I were always supposed to be together. I think we’re supposed to be together now.”

  Katrina was leaning forward in her chair, and Trish subtly leaned away from her. Katrina’s hand was clammy on top of hers, and Trish wondered if she was nervous for once. Katrina had always been able do things without breaking a sweat that Trish would never dream of.

  “I want us to be together. I want to make up for the time I made us lose. Maybe we could even have some conversations about starting a family.”
>
  Trish pulled her hand out from under Katrina’s and picked up her beer glass. Katrina had always been good at persuading her to do things. She had a knack for talking Trish into big purchases that she wasn’t sure about, or for guiding her toward clothes she wanted to see Trish wearing. Now Trish felt herself once again drawn into Katrina’s version of reality, losing grip on things that she had been so sure of just moments before.

  “I’m not sure what I want to be honest with you,” Trish said. “This is all really confusing.”

  “Then don’t decide right now. You don’t have to be sure. I’m just asking for a second chance, just to see what happens.”

  “What would that look like? What does a second chance mean to you exactly? You make it sound so much simpler than it actually is, like you think we can just pick up where we left off.”

  “I don’t think that at all. I think of it as a fresh start, where we get to know one another again.”

  “How can we really have a fresh start after everything that’s happened? How could you be so sure about breaking up and then be so sure about this too?”

  “I just am. It’s simple to me, really.”

  “Lucky you,” Trish said.

  Katrina grasped her hand again. “It’s okay, Trish. We can make this simple. Let’s just try. We could just see one another a couple of times, feel things out. Go on another date or two. You can call it off whenever you want.”

  “Of course I could.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant I’m not expecting you to make any big decisions any time soon. Trish, I’d do anything for a second chance.”

  Trish stared down at the table. There was a huge part of her that was already sure she didn’t want to go down this road. Still, she couldn’t imagine cutting down Katrina’s hopes over dinner. This had been so important. It felt important now to at least give it all some serious consideration.

  She nodded. “Okay. Just to see.”

  * * *

  When June got home, she crawled onto her mattress, not bothering to turn the lights on. She stared into the dark. Trish had indicated so many times that she wasn’t interested in a relationship, and June ignored it. Even when she had been trying to be a good friend, she had held out hope that Trish would change her mind one day. It had been unthinkable that she wouldn’t.