A Story of Now
: Chapter 36

Within the hour, the temperature drops, then the wind picks up and blows out their tealight candle. What was a cool, starry night turns much less hospitable. They decide to leave their rooftop kingdom to hunt down some warmth.

Eli clambers down first, and then Robbie stands above, supervising Nina’s wobbly, screeching descent. Claire accepts Jeremy’s hand as he steadies her first, vertiginous step down from the roof onto the ladder. Slightly drunk and wary, she tests her foot on each rung before she puts her weight on it. Once they’re all on land again, they wander back through the courtyard and into the swampy heat of the kitchen.

The party petered out in their absence. The dance floor died and only the dregs are left, sprawled across couches and beanbags in the lounge. Whiny music plays in the background. Two guys play a game on the Playstation with an audience around them. Claire wrinkles her nose. Who does that at a party?

“Yeah, this is our cue to leave.” Eli sighs. “When the gamers come out, the night is over.”

Everyone grabs their things and gathers at the door.

“Hey, should we replace Mia?” Pete asks as he buttons up his jacket.

Robbie pulls on his scarf. “No, she’s fine.”

And that’s when Claire realises that he probably saw what she saw.

“I’m just going to say goodbye to someone,” Robbie says.

While they wait for Robbie, Claire crosses her arms and leans against the wall impatiently. She suddenly feels incredibly over this party. All she wants to do is lie down and maybe watch TV. She wants to replace some quiet.

When Robbie returns, they step out into the street, and the others turn, headed toward the main road. Jeremy stops in the middle of the pavement and turns to Claire. “Hey, you know, if you need a place to crash, you’re welcome to stay.” His smile is wry. “Not trying to lure you into my bed, or anything. I just know you live pretty far. I have a couch, too. And I think I proved myself a gentleman in such a scenario before. Or we could go get another drink or something?”

She chews her lip, not quite sure what to say. This time is nothing like last time. She was drunk then. Very drunk. She knew not what she did. This time there would be the expectation that she’d be making decisions, and she’s not sure she’s in the mood to make any decisions regarding him or anything else right now.

He waits, hands in his jacket pockets, and kind of leans forward over his toes.

She takes a deep breath. All she wants is to get to Nina’s and sleep. She feels so graceless and fed up right now. She wants this night to be over, but she doesn’t know quite how to make it be over.

Then, before she can stop herself or question the move, she rises onto her toes and kisses him once, briefly on the lips. She knows it’s a dumb move, even as she’s doing it. It’s a deflection more than anything, a way out of this night without being an asshole to him.

So, before he can say anything, she tries to excuse herself. “Sorry, I’m really tired. And I said I’d stay with Neen. She just broke up with her boyfriend, and she’s really drunk and—”

He holds up his hands. “Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to explain. It was cool hanging out with you again, though. It was fun. And, you know, maybe we could do it again?”

“Yeah, sure.” But she knows she doesn’t sound as enthusiastic as she should. And she knows she should because he’s being lovely.

“Or not,” he jokes.

“Sorry.” She tries to smile at him. “I’m just really tired. Call me or something? Next week? I mean, if you want.”

He nods. She doesn’t know which message he’s getting. But then, she’s not sure which one she intends to send either.

“Okay, sure.” He kind of hugs her with one arm, but that’s it, as if maybe he’s already figured it out. He jerks his thumb behind him. “Anyway, I gotta go that way. So I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” She sways back and forth slightly, feeling incredibly gauche.

“Thanks for inviting me on your rooftop adventure. See you.”

“Yeah, see you.”

He stuffs his hands in his back pockets, turns on his heels, and strides down the street, shoulders hunched.

She watches him walk away and lets out a breath. What the hell is she doing? She shakes her head and turns back toward the others. They are rambling up the street ahead of her. Even from here she can see the boozy lilt in their collective gait. She digs her hands into her jacket pockets and hurries after them.

Nina turns around just as Claire catches up to them. “What are you doing?”

“Hey, can I still stay at yours?” she asks quietly.

“What?” Nina squawks. She stands stock still on the footpath, her hands on her hips. “You’re coming with me?” She turns and looks down the street, toward the distant figure of Jeremy. “You’re leaving that behind for my scummy couch?”

“So what? Shut up. I’m tired.” Claire grabs her arm and turns her around. “Let’s go.”

Nina laughs. “Oh-kay then.” She steps off the curb and skips over to join Eli, Dan, and Pete, who, for some unknown crazy reason, are walking up the middle of the road. They follow the white painted lines, playing some weird game of follow the leader. They take turns at the front.

Claire falls into step with Robbie. He automatically slips an arm through hers and holds out his beer.

She shakes her head. She doesn’t want anything else to drink tonight. They walk on in silence. The strains of music from another party come from somewhere nearby, and there is a siren in the distance. Robbie lets go of her arm and thrusts his hands in his pockets. It’s freezing.

“Hey,” she says quietly as they trudge along, watching the others do whatever lunatic thing they are doing.

“Hey, what?”

She gnaws at her lip and wonders if she should even be asking this. But then, because she can’t stop herself, she asks anyway, “Is Mia, like, bi…or something?”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. He drains the last of his beer and tosses it into a trash can as they pass. “You know what that sounds strangely like?” He turns and gives her a look.

“What?” She knows she’s somehow about to regret asking this question.

“Something you should be asking Mia.”

“Yeah, I know,” Claire stutters. “I just…wondered…”

He’s silent for another long moment. “She’s just doing her thing. Figuring stuff out.”

She nods and doesn’t say anything else, sensing he’s being protective of Mia somehow and that she has unthinkingly tested his loyalty. Slightly mortified, both by the asking and the being chastised for asking, she changes the subject. “So, is Eli going to come to the lake with us?”

“He wants to,” Robbie says as they walk the last stretch to a main road and, she hopes, toward a cab that will take her to a bed. “If that’s still cool?”

“Of course,” she tells him quickly. “I said it was.”

“Just checking. He’s pretty excited. And he says he’ll bring food. He’s an awesome cook.”

“Good. Because I am not cooking.” She hadn’t even thought of food, actually, but they’ll have to eat.

He laughs and throws his arm around her. “Yeah, I didn’t picture you as the Nigella type, somehow.”

“Definitely not.”

He squeezes her closer and holds her there. She knows it’s partly his way of telling her that it’s okay she overstepped.

She looks at the others. They’ve given up follow the leader and moved on to piggyback rides. Pete has Eli, and Nina is doing a terrible job of carrying Dan. She picks him up, takes a step or two, and then drops him. Then she does it all over again as she laughs hysterically. Claire shakes her head.

Robbie laughs. “Maybe we should invite this Dan guy. Nina seems to quite like him.”

“I was just thinking that too.”

“Hell yes!” Nina yells suddenly.

“Can she hear us?” Claire giggles, baffled.

“Nope, that was some other can of crazy, I think.”

And he’s right because Nina suddenly gives up trying to pick up Dan, spins around, and trots over to Claire and Robbie.

“Karaoke!” she cries. “We’re going to Chinatown to do karaoke. How fun will that be?”

“Um, none?” Claire shakes her head.

“Oh come on!” Nina pleads, hands clasped together. “It’ll be hilarious!”

Robbie shrugs. “Why the hell not?”

“Come on, Claire,” Nina begs, grabbing her shoulders and shaking them.

But Claire shakes her head and digs the toe of her boot into a crack in the pavement. She doesn’t have karaoke in her tonight. Or any other night, really. “Sorry, but listening to you guys duet your little hearts out is not my idea of a good time right now. Lying down and watching shitty television, however, is.”

Nina pouts at her. “Killjoy.”

* * *

When Claire gets back to Nina’s empty, messy flat, she gets exactly what she wished for, a little peace time. She curls up on the couch with a blanket around her and watches an awful new modelling reality show Nina recorded. It’s as heavenly as it’s going to get tonight.

She should really sleep, but it’s after four, and she’s wide awake. Tired but wired, her mind turns over everything that happened from when she left her house to now. But mostly, it turns inexorably back to that moment on the roof, to Mia and that girl. To that hand on Mia’s waist.

How did she not know this? Or, more confusingly, what is it exactly she should know? Why has this potential for Mia to be into girls never occurred to her? Why didn’t she ever consider that their kiss might not have been a first for Mia or maybe even that unusual for Mia? That would explain that moment of crazy. Maybe Mia kisses girls all the time, and Claire just never knew.

She rests her head against the sofa cushion and bites her bottom lip. That can’t be it. She’d know if that was usual for Mia, wouldn’t she? Claire knows about the guys in Mia’s life. About Pete. About the ex-boyfriend she cheated on at a party. And just a week or two ago, Mia told her a story about a guy she dated for a year in her last year of high school. Surely girls would have come up if there’d been any. Maybe Mia’s not the most forthcoming about her love life, but she’s not that secretive either. She clearly wasn’t that secretive about it tonight, not if Claire and Robbie could both figure it out.

Claire’s not sure why this new piece of information has thrown her. It doesn’t change anything, does it? It’s not as though Mia being with a girl should toss any kind of spanner into their friendship. But for some reason seeing her with that girl tonight and witnessing what was clearly a current of something between them has weirded Claire out. And she’s not sure if it’s envy because she wanted her friend all to herself, or if it’s something else.

The something else, she knows, is the fact that they kissed once, drunk at a party. And now, knowing what she might know about Mia after tonight, that kiss has taken on a new shape in her mind. It’s bigger and maybe more important in a confounding, as yet unknown way. She can’t figure out the dimensions of that part yet, though.

When she thought about it before, she put that kiss down to the intoxicated giddiness of their newfound friendship, combined with a lavish amount of hysterical laughter and tequila. At least that’s what she thought. But now she isn’t sure. She wishes she could remember that moment better, but she’ll probably never get that night back in full.

What she does know is Mia treated the kiss like no big deal. And maybe it wasn’t. Maybe there’s no connection between that drunken moment and what happened tonight. Not for Mia, anyway. But Claire can’t help feeling a kind of sharp awkwardness. It’s as though something shifted and became charged with a feeling she can’t explain. She doesn’t know how to re-orient herself around this new knowledge about Mia.

She sighs, shakes her head, and turns up the television as if it might drown out all these stupid, confounding thoughts. Why the hell does she have to have feelings about this anyway? So Mia might be bi. So what? Claire is irritating herself with her overthinking.

She is saved from it, though, by a key turning in the lock. Nina charges in, somewhat drunker and surprisingly sans Dan. Claire is thrown by that. She thought that was a sure thing.

Nina kicks off her shoes, grabs a cushion from an armchair, and throws it against Claire’s leg. She curls into a foetal position, her head half on Claire’s lap.

Claire moves the remote and yawns. “No Dan?”

“Nope.” Nina shakes her head. “No Dan. I’m trying a new go-slow thing these days. It’s all part of making better choices.” She leans over and fossicks around under the couch. Then she sits up, book in hand, and offers it to Claire. It’s called Making Better Choices About Love.

Claire takes it from her and examines the pastel blue and pink cover. She smirks. “So your book told you to go home alone tonight?” She returns it to Nina without opening it. All these self-help books are the same, trite nonsense spouted in upbeat, patronising circles that go on for a couple hundred pages. Her cousin reads all of them and tries to lend them to Claire.

“Yup. At first at least.” Nina nods. She flicks through it for a second and then throws it on the floor. “Stupid book.” She lies back down.

Claire smiles and stares vaguely at the TV screen. “I thought you might be into Pete.” She pokes Nina in the shoulder.

“Nah,” Nina says through a yawn. “Not Pete.”

Poor Pete, knocked back by both Nina and Mia. And he’s so nice too.

“Hey, are you okay? You don’t usually go home while the party is still going.”

“Just tired, I guess.”

“Fair enough.” And so is Nina, apparently, because five minutes later she’s asleep, snoring against Claire’s leg.

Claire tries to wake her, but she won’t be woken. She just grumbles and pushes Claire’s hand away. So Claire covers her with a blanket and trudges into Nina’s room. She turns off the light, falls into bed, pulls the covers over her head, and tries her damnedest not to think anymore.