Chapter 19
Rapunzel prodded one of Aunt Rhonda’s bronze statues of Eros. “Peach, what the fuck?”
“I’m sorry,” Kate said nervously. “I know it’s a bit fancy.”
“No, it’s beyond a bit fucking fancy.” Rapunzel brandished her bottle of Southern Comfort at her. “Here. Although, I feel like I should have brought caviar or quince paste or something.”
“It’s great, thank you so much. Do you guys, um, want to come in?” Kate gestured down the hall where her immaculately clean lounge room was waiting, the coffee table loaded down with sweet potato brownies, fairy cakes, veggie sticks, homemade hummus, and sandwiches—the result of a slightly manic cooking outburst when she got home from work.
None of the girls moved. They looked at her, she looked at them. It was strange to see Tam, Casey and Rapunzel in non-wheeled shoes. They all looked shorter than usual, even Rapunzel, who had to duck to get in the doorway. Both Tam and Rapunzel were in jeans and hoodies, but Casey was wearing a long-sleeved amethyst coloured maxi dress and—Kate had to admire the way she made it look utterly natural—a white rose flower crown. “Macca,” she said in a conversational tone, “Do you seriously live here?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
Kate tugged at the hem of her A-line skirt. “Yes.”
“No, seriously? Do you live here?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“I think she’s made it abundantly clear that she lives here, Case.” Rapunzel set off down the hall toward the lounge room. “Fuck,” she called behind her. “You guys have to check it out. This room’s even fancier.”
Tam and Casey followed Rapunzel, wearing dubious looks, as though this might be a practical joke. Kate walked behind them and when she entered the lounge she found Rapunzel lying across her couch, a sandwich in each hand.
“Thanks for all this food, Peach. You didn’t need to make anything, we coulda just ordered pizza.”
“Its fine, I really needed something to do while I waited for you guys.”
Casey was gaping at her again. “Do you…?”
“I promise I do live here.”
“Right…” Casey’s indigo-blue eyes narrowed. She turned to Tam who was toeing off her pink Cons. “Where did you picture Macca living?”
“On one of those red mushrooms with white spots?” Tam glanced at Kate. “I’m saying you look like a fairy, no offence.”
“None taken. Would either of you like a drink? I have red wine, white wine, orange juice, apple juice, tea, coffee, or—”
“Macca,” Casey said. “You live here? By yourself?”
“The next person who says that is going to collect a bottle to the head,” Rapunzel said through a mouthful of chicken and cheese.
Casey walked over to the window and looked out at the city. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be a dick, but this is the nicest apartment I’ve ever been inside. I thought you were an office drone like me.”
“I am,” Kate said at once. “Or you know, a civil engineer.”
“So you’re like…wealthy?” Tam asked.
“No, she isn’t,” Casey said before Kate could reply. “She grew up poor, with heaps of brothers and sisters, like me, Maria told me.”
Rapunzel pounded a fist on the coffee table. “Stop talking about Peach like she isn’t here and sit down and eat some fucking sandwiches.”
Perhaps she was a Domme, because Tam and Casey instantly grabbed food and dropped their asses onto Aunt Rhonda’s couches. Kate hovered, wondering if she should offer drinks again. She’d never had friends in the apartment before. It was stressful.
“Mac,” Rapunzel said. “Sit down.”
“What about drinks?”
“Got any glasses? We’ll crack open the Comfort.”
Kate pulled four of Aunty Rhonda’s crystal tumblers from the bar and set them on the coffee table. Rapunzel poured large quantities of peach-coloured liquid into them as Tam stood and wandered toward the window.
“What a view,” she said. “This place would be excellent for parties.”
Kate almost said she didn’t have enough friends for parties, but stopped herself just in time. “You guys can always crash here if you’re in the city. I have heaps of space.”
“Don’t say that in front of Rapunzel, unless you want a roommate,” Casey warned. “She’s on the prowl for new digs.”
“I wouldn’t mind a roommate.”
Rapunzel looked up from her bottle work. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, I thought about putting up an ad on flatmate finder, but I’m worried I’ll get stuck with someone insane and then I’ll have to evict them and they’ll kill me.”
Casey made sympathetic noises. “I get it. My last roommate used to wash her pet chickens in our shower.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. And I’ve learned there are two responses to that statement: ‘what the fuck’ and ‘why would you wash a chicken?’”
“Here, this one’s yours.” Rapunzel handed Kate a tumbler full almost to the brim with peach liquor.
“Do you think it’s big enough?” Casey asked.
Rapunzel poured a thimbleful of Southern Comfort into a tumbler. “That one’s yours, Case.”
Kate laughed and took a small sip of her drink. It was sweet, spicy and strong . “Thanks. It’s good.”
Tam wandered back toward them and picked up her glass of Southern Comfort. “Kate,” she said in her red-velvet voice. “I don’t want to be rude, but I have to know, how do you afford to live here with no roommates? The rent must be insane.”
Kate looked down at her drink. “I…”
Tam put a hand on her shoulder. “We’re not bitches. I promise we won’t judge, it’s just…this is like when the regular kids go and visit Richie Rich, and he has a McDonald’s inside his fucking house.”
Kate couldn’t help but smile at that. “I’m not Richie Rich, I only have this apartment because…”
“Go on, Peach.” Rapunzel was reclining on the couch again, big and butch and calm.
Seeing her there, blatantly not giving a shit about anything, gave Kate the strength to say it. “My Aunt Rhonda was kind of rich because she took photos of Patti Smith, and when she died, she left this place to me. I like living here, but I can’t get my head around living here. Having this much money and space after being so poor freaks me out. I know it’s ungrateful, but sometimes I wish Aunt Rhonda never left her stuff to me. If she didn’t, things could just be how they were before, which was shit, but at least it made sense and my family didn’t hate me as much.”
She said all of this very fast. So fast that in the silence that followed, she wondered if they’d understood a single word. Then Rapunzel reached across and patted her leg. “I get it,” she said, as though she heard stories about blood feuds and excessive wealth every day. “It’s a cool place though; your aunt must have been awesome.”
Kate started to cry. She couldn’t help it. “She was awesome. She was my best friend.”
“Oh, Mac.” Casey stood and pulled Kate into her arms. She smelled of patchouli and lavender oil and was as warm as a puppy. Kate hugged her for all she was worth, sobbing a big wine-coloured stain into the amethyst dress. When she finally pulled away, she expected to see the other girls staring at her in disgust. They weren’t. Both Tam and Rapunzel wore looks of concern so sincere Kate almost started crying again.
“Sorry about that,” she said wiping her nose on her sleeve. “I know you shouldn’t cry because someone left you a nice place to live.”
“It’s cool,” Tam said. “Still, if everyone I loved died, none of them would leave me with shit.”
“Tam,” Casey scolded. “Don’t say stuff like that!”
“Why? Will I curse them or something? Ooh, look, records.” Tam ran over to the shelf and scanned the rows of vinyl. She tugged out a record. “Can I put this on?”
“Of course.”
Tam let out an excited squeal, and a few seconds later Billie Holiday began to croon from her aunt’s record player.
Rapunzel gestured to the couch. “Sit back down and drink up, Peach. You’ve had a shitty day, and this is the Janis Joplin cure for sadness.”
Casey frowned. “Didn’t Janis Joplin kill herself?”
“She OD’d on heroin,” Rapunzel said defensively.
“So, should we be following her advice?”
“Shut up and drink, moll.”
So they sat down and drank and talked about the derby league and a conservative politician’s gaffe and the fact that Thunderbox and Rapunzel went on a date.
“Pillow queen,” Rapunzel said with a mournful sigh. “Funny how they come out of nowhere. I’d have thought a girl like that would have been a tiger in the sack…”
As the Southern Comfort bottle emptied and the sandwiches and brownies disappeared, Kate began to feel a hot, internal glow. Most of that was alcohol, but part was knowing she had guests in her home. The girls were enjoying themselves, she could tell by the way they kept talking and laughing, the way they accepted glasses of wine once the Southern Comfort was gone. She decided she wouldn’t bring up Ty. This was her first ever get-together, she didn’t need to freak Tam, Casey and Rapunzel out by divulging all of her secrets. Unwittingly, her thoughts wandered to Ty. He’d accepted her period lie instantly, but she had no idea where he was now. Was he at home or trawling a bar for another dirty little secret? Her chest clenched.
It doesn’t matter. It’s over, it doesn’t matter.
Rapunzel slapped her hands to her knees. “So, we all know why we’re here, to suss out where our mysterious teammate lives, get drunk and help her with her life-woes. Now, I think we can all agree Macca’s apartment is the tits.”
Casey nodded. “Oh yeah.”
“No question,” Tam said.
“And we’re pretty drunk?”
“Oh yeah.”
“No question.”
“So we need to get a move on before we’re too wankered to give good advice.” Rapunzel nodded toward her. “Mac, I hope you don’t mind, but I already filled Tam and Case in about how Ty’s your boss and a prick, hope that’s okay?”
Kate blinked at her. “Erm sure, but hang on…mysterious? I’m not mysterious?”
“You are,” Rapunzel and Casey said at the same time.
“We’ve been teammates for three years, and we barely know anything about you,” Tam pointed out. “And now we do know things about you, they’re things like ‘you’re sleeping with your boss’ and ‘you live in a rich person apartment.’”
“When you say it like that, it sounds impressive, but I’m seriously not interesting.”
“Then why does Maria like, worship you?”
Kate gaped at her. “She doesn’t worship—”
“She does.”
This time all three girls spoke at once.
“Put it this way,” Tam said. “Rapunzel thought you might be gay, Maria was that into you.”
Rapunzel yawned. “Yep. Then we talked, and I realised you’re about as queer as this.” She tapped a foot on Aunt Rhonda’s coffee table.
Kate stared at her. “But…Maria and I have been friends for ages. She never made a move and I promise I’m not one of those self-pitying people who think no one finds them attractive. If she did like me like that, don’t you think I’d have noticed?”
Rapunzel shrugged. “Not if she didn’t want you to. She’s pretty devious. Great coach, amazing hair, devious as fuck.”
Casey drained her glass of Cabernet. “Let’s talk about Maria later. I want to know Ty’s deal.”
“What about Ty’s deal?” Kate asked.
“How’d you start screwing him? You look so whole-wheat, I bet the story’s really sleazy.”
And just like that, Kate was crying again.
“Good one, Hindley. Ten out of ten for tact.” Tam got up and rubbed Kate’s back. “I don’t blame you, Mac. The man is insanely buff. Especially for an old guy.”
“He’s not that old,” Rapunzel interrupted. “He’s forty-five. Only twelve years on me.”
“Yeah, but Macca’s, what, twenty-three?”
“I’m twenty-five.”
Tam raised her eyebrows. “Shit, I was aiming high. I thought you were twenty-two.”
“I have a baby face. If you want to know the whole story, me having a baby face is probably a good place to start.”
Tam raised her dark eyebrows. “Go on, then.”
“I should warn you, it might get weird.”
“I love weird.” Tam settled back into her place on the couch. “Let’s do this.”
Kate tried to start with the pub in Bendigo and Ty carrying her to his hotel room, but that demanded an explanation of her ADHD, and she couldn’t talk about her ADHD without talking about getting diagnosed, something Tam, who was doing a Master’s in psychology, found particularly interesting. By the time they returned to Bendigo, it was almost midnight. Explaining the daddy situation and Ty’s trip to Queensland and her eavesdropping session in The Breton Club took so long they needed two separate bathroom breaks. They also killed the two bottles of red Kate had dug out of Aunt Rhonda’s wine rack, hence the bathroom breaks. When she was finally done all of them were lying on the floor, their finger-stained wine glasses balanced precariously on the carpet in front of them.
“So…” Tam said slowly. “That’s one intense story.”
“Yeah,” Kate and Rapunzel said at the same time.
Casey stared at Kate, her large eyes slightly unfocused. “So…you and Ty pretend like he’s your daddy while he fucks you?”
Kate squirmed against the carpet. “Not my actual father, neither of us likes the incest thing but, yeah.”
“And he spanked you?”
“Yeah it, erm, felt nice, though.”
“And Ty’s into that?”
She said his name as though she was savouring a delicious cocktail. Kate remembered the hungry way Casey had studied Ty’s face, his body and his expensive clothes. She’d pressed him to talk about himself and laughed at his least funny jokes. Beyond moist just from breathing his air, as Rapunzel said. Kate hadn’t been jealous that night, and she wasn’t jealous now, only aware that she must have looked just as obvious in her own lust for Ty, probably even more so. “Yeah, he’s into that.”
“God.” Casey closed her eyes. “God, that’s so hot.”
“Seriously?” Tam said, looking surprised. “I didn’t think you were into kink.”
“I’m not, but the way Mac described everything, and knowing what Ty looks like…” Casey let out a long, luxurious sigh. “Shame he’s turned out to be such a cunt.”
“Agreed,” Tam said. “About it not working out, not that he’s a cunt. Cunts are good things. I should tell Tim about this daddy stuff. Maybe we could give it a try.”
“I used to do daddy stuff with my ex,” Rapunzel said, crunching a leftover carrot stick.
Tam wrinkled her brow. “But, you’re a woman.”
“Oh, fuck. Really?” Rapunzel grabbed her tits. “What the hell? What are these? Tambara, I’m a woman—”
“Don’t—”
Rapunzel threw her head back. “Nooooooooooooo!”
Kate and Casey laughed.
“Yeah, lol,” Tam said, rolling her eyes. “I just mean, well…you don’t have a dick.”
“They have invented this thing called a strap-on Tam, look it up.”
“No thanks. Hang on, why would you pretend to be your ex’s dad? Why not her mum?”
“I dunno, it’s a taboo thing, I guess. Ask Kate.”
“Don’t ask me!” Kate said. “I only know my own weird head. I know nothing of lesbian BDSM.”
Rapunzel muttered something under her breath.
“What was that?” Kate asked, feeling uneasy for the first time since they’d started drinking.
Rapunzel exchanged a meaningful look with Tam, then sighed. “Sorry, I was being a shithead. I said ‘Maybe Maria can help you with that?’”
Kate winced. “Is this the part of the night where we talk about Maria?”
Rapunzel looked at Tam who donned a serene expression Kate was sure would form the cornerstone of her psychologist’s practise. “Yes. Although, there isn’t that much to say, besides Maria’s in love with you.”
“But she’s never even made a move on me! I was at her house all the time, she never even tried to kiss me!”
Tam raised a palm. “Let me explain. We don’t want to bitch about Maria, but we all feel weird about how she treats you. She’s possessive, she doesn’t like you being friends with anyone else, and whenever you’re alone with us, she muscles in. Remember the after-practise drinks?”
“That was kind of a weird night,” she admitted.
“Yeah, because of her,” Casey said. “How did she feel about you dating Ty?”
“She didn’t like him.”
“I bet she didn’t.”
“Yeah, but it was him specifically! She doesn’t, like, want me for herself. She’s always tried to set me up with guys in the past. They weren’t the best choices for me, but—”
“She knows you’re straight,” Rapunzel interrupted. “She knew she was never gonna get to fuck you, deep down. But if you want my dyke opinion, she tried to set you up with nerds so she could always be your number one, your mama bear. Ty’s different. He’s older and you’re so obviously in love with him—”
“I’m not!”
“Peach,” Rapunzel said gently. “No judgment, but you are, and I’m sure Maria knew that and was fucking terrified about it. I’m sure she thought he was going to take you away from her.”
The four of them fell silent. Kate thought about the coffee she and Maria had all those weeks ago, how she’d seemed disturbed, not by her attraction to Ty, but by the fact she was trying to seduce him at work.
“It’s more than jealousy,” she said. “Maria doesn’t want me to change. When she met me, I was so shy I was basically a lobster-person—”
“I remember,” Casey chirped. “I asked if you were new and you were so surprised you screamed a bit.”
“Yeah,” Kate said, her cheeks blazing. “Well, it’s like even though Maria helped me open up, she only wants me to go so far.”
“Because she’s scared she’ll lose you,” Tam said. “She helped you learn to walk, but when it looked like you were going to run away, she tried to hobble you.”
Kate nodded, tears budding in her eyes again. “She wants me to stay the way I am, but I can’t. Ever since Ty and I started hooking up, it’s like I’m going through second puberty or something. All I want is for things to change.”
“Like what?” Tam asked gently.
“Everything. I want a job where people take me seriously. I want to wear clothes that make me feel good. I want to talk to people without worrying they hate me. I want to not be trapped inside my aunt’s house and trapped inside my own head. I just always thought…”
“What?” Tam pressed .
“I…I always thought I’d have a guy to protect me when I was older.”
She looked around the circle. “I know that sounds pathetic and unfeminist and sad, it’s just what I thought. I wanted to meet someone who’d show me how to be who I really am. You know, love me so much I understood everything about the world?”
“It’s understandable,” Tam said. “It’s what girls get told to want, the prince who rescues you. But men are just people, they’re flawed, they change their minds. You don’t want them to hold ultimate power over you.”
“I know,” Kate admitted. “And I don’t want that really. It was just a nice idea, y’know?”
All the girls nodded.
“So,” Kate said, wiping her eyes. “Does anyone have any ideas about how to change yourself in every single way?”
It was a weak joke and she didn’t expect anyone to respond, let alone shoot to her feet the way Casey did. “Do you have candles, a bowl of water, notepaper, and a pen?” she asked.
“Erm…yes?”
“Excellent.” Casey picked up her handbag and pulled out a thick wand of what looked like weed.
“Whoa, what’s that?” Kate asked, alarmed by the sheer volume of contraband now in Aunt Rhonda’s apartment.
“Don’t worry, it’s a sage bundle. Can you please go get the other things?”
Rapunzel pressed a hand to her eyes. “It’s about to get fucking Wiccan in here, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” Casey said, pulling several shiny rocks out of her bag. “Yes it is.”
She named the ceremony the ‘healing and reinvigorating ritual for Katie May McGrath’s vagina, heart, and other areas that may need cleansing.’
Kate hadn’t wanted to use her real name but Casey said it was important. “Names have power. If the name’s wrong, the spell could go bad. But at least the moon’s waxing, which means—”
Rapunzel pressed a hand over her friend’s face. “Please hurry up before my disbelief turns this witch circle into a black hole?”
The ritual took almost an hour, but the time passed quickly. Kate wasn’t sure if that was the novelty of watching Casey chant and wave sage and utter incantations, or if it was actually doing something.
It didn’t matter, she realised, as Casey tried to bully Rapunzel into holding a chunk of rose quartz. The real charm was that someone cared enough about her to wave burning herbs all over her body to break the ties that bound her to people and things that no longer served her. When the ritual was done, Kate was holding three pieces of paper—a list and two letters.
“Take those and do with them what you must,” Casey said, waving the sage over herself and then Tam and Rapunzel. “You’re officially purified.”
Rapunzel raised a pierced brow. “Officially?”
Casey shot her a dirty look. “I think you should choose a new name, Mac.”
“I will. Births, Deaths and Marriages is on the list—”
“No, not that. I mean a new derby name.”
“Why?” Rapunzel howled. “Princess Bleach is awesome.”
“‘Princess’ is a word Kate’s brothers and sisters used to pick on her because she had undiagnosed ADHD. It’s not exactly associated with happy memories.”
Kate thought about it. “If I change my name, can I still like baking and pink jumpers?”
“No,” Rapunzel said. “Also, you need to shave your head and join the navy.”
Casey rolled her eyes. “Ignore her. Of course, you can like all that stuff, but you can be a more authentic version of that person. Embrace the other aspects of your womanhood besides sweetness.”
Tam patted her arm. “You’re so granola.”
“Thank you. So Kate, new derby name. Any ideas?”
“What about The Inferno?” Rapunzel suggested.
They all pulled faces.
Tam poured herself another glass of wine. “I think we can do better than that. You like cooking, Mac. What about…Julia Wild?”
Rapunzel made a fake gagging noise and Tam glared at her. “Oh, I’m sorry, The Inferno.”
Kate looked at her hands and, like a key slipping into a lock, it came to her. “Sylvia Wrath.”
The girls stared at her.
“Who?”
“Sylvia Plath was a poet,” Kate told them. “I like poetry.”
“Cool,” Rapunzel said. “I hate it. All that fucking rhyming and sentences that don’t make sense. But Sylvia Wrath is a boss name.”
“Agreed.” Casey picked up the box of matches. “Write it down, and we’ll sage it.”
Rapunzel groaned. “Not more fucking sage.”
But they did sage her new name and then—because Casey thought it was a good idea—they saged her old derby uniform and then—because Rapunzel thought it was a good idea—they lit Aunt Rhonda’s coal barbecue on the balcony and cooked a t-shirt Ty had left at her place. As Casey and Tam argued about the influences of the moon on civilisation, Rapunzel slung an arm around Kate’s neck. “Miss him, don’t you?”
Kate nodded.
“I can tell. You’re having fun, but part of you wishes he was here. Wishes you’d ignored what you’d heard today, and he was with you instead of us.”
Kate looked up at the velvet black sky, too numb and drunk and happy and sad to cry. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. It’ll fade with time. I know hearing that makes everyone feel like shit, but it’s the truth. You’ll get there.”
Kate thought about Rapunzel in Rumba Bar talking about how beautiful people needed respectful partners. “Do you want to talk about—”
“No.” Her tone was friendly but firm. “You know when we were doing all that sage crap, I thought of a line. I think I jacked it from Game of Thrones, but you should listen to it, anyway. Here we go; set fire to the princess, let the woman rise from the ashes.”
Kate thought about it and found it made a surprising amount of sense. “I like that.”
“Cheers. I feel like I’m combining a bunch of different metaphors with some phoenix shit, but you get the gist.” Rapunzel took a long swallow of wine. “Peach?”
“Yeah?”
She cleared her throat. “Are you, uh, really looking for a roommate?”
Kate could hardly believe her ears. “No, but I seriously wouldn’t mind one! Do you really want to live with me?”
Rapunzel’s face lit up in a way Kate had never seen before. “Hell yeah, I want to live with you! How soon can I move in? How much rent do you want a month? Can I bring my cat?”
“Lesbian cat!” Casey shouted from the balcony’s edge. “She’s a cat with a lesbian. What a cliché!”
Rapunzel shook her head. “Munted,” she said. “Absolutely munted. You should be careful, Peach, she probably fuckin’ cursed you during that ritual.”
“I don’t mind. Anyway, I don’t know anything about having a roommate, but I’ll look it up and get back to you with rent prices and—”
Rapunzel gripped her shoulders. “You mean it? You’d let me live here?”
“Gosh yeah! I really like you, Rapunzel.”
“Oh, Peach.” Rapunzel pulled her into her chest and hugged her so tightly Kate felt her eyes pop. “I like you, too, you adorable bug-person. You won’t regret this.”
Kate smiled into her jumper. “I know. Plus, having you here means I won’t be tempted to invite Ty around.”
“Accountability,” Rapunzel agreed. “Plus, if he shows up here like he did at derby I can punch him in self-defense. Y’know, for invading my home.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s how self-defense works, but—”
“Katie!”
Kate looked over to see Mr Petkovic from next door leaning out of his living room window. He didn’t looked very happy. “Hey Mr Petkovic, what’s up?”
“What in the hell are you doing?” he shouted back. “It’s three in the fucking morning, and you’re having a barbecue! Why are you having a barbecue?”
“We’re, um, cooking the t-shirt of a guy who was a jerk to me?”
Mr Petkovic didn’t seem to think that was an adequate explanation. “Go inside, you silly girls!”
“Hey!” Tam yelled. “We’re doing witch stuff out here!”
“Yeah, we’re allowed to burn shit on coals if we want to!” Casey screamed. “You can’t tell us what to do! You’re not our dads!”
Tam and Casey were debating Mr Petkovic on what was and wasn’t a violation of city burning laws, when Kate realised something. She nudged Rapunzel, “This is my first ever noise complaint! That means this was my first party! I mean there are only four of us…”
“Hey, two’s a party, three’s a crowd, four’s a fucking blowout. Nice work, Sylvia Wrath.”
They smiled at one another and listened to the debate until Mr Petkovic gave up and slammed his window shut. Then they heard Casey ask, “On a scale of one to inevitable how likely is it that you’re gonna throw up right now?”
“Eleven,” Tam moaned. “Eleven.”
Rapunzel let go of Kate. “Shit. Do you have any buckets, or can she just do it over the side?”
Hosting a party, Kate learned, made you responsible for those kind of decisions.