‘Yeah, I’m going to need you to get out of that shift.’
‘I would absolutely do that for you, but if I get out of that shift, I’ll be late on rent this month.’
‘You can just owe me.’
The thought of owing money gives me hives. ‘Sure, but why do you even need me to do this?’
Bee sighs. ‘His friend is coming too…’
I sigh right back. ‘So, it’s a double date?’
‘No! We want to have dinner with each other, not you. You’ll be at a different table.’ She pauses. ‘And we booked tickets to the movie in two separate rows.’
‘So we’re…what? Witnesses? Supervisors? Chaperones?’
Through a mouthful of noodles, Bee says, ‘Chaperones is probably the closest label.’
‘Why? You’re adults.’
‘Yeah, but youareolder than me.’
‘Thirteen months! It’s only thirteen months!’
‘It wasn’t only thirteen months when you got your driver’s licence before me.’
‘And you got free rides everywhere for that thirteen months. As well as the subsequent four months it took you to pass your own driver’s test.’
Bee has that scandalised look she only uses when she’s about to be really offended by an offhand remark, which means I’ve lost. She knows I feel compelled to pay emotional restitution any time I offend her, though she’s kind enough to use the power sparingly. ‘I thought we were never going to mention the four months again! Now youhaveto come.’ She gets up and leaves the table, taking her gin with her but leaving the bowl. I pick up both bowls and my glass and take them backto the kitchen, which hasn’t miraculously cleaned itself while I’ve been eating.
Chaperoning is the theme of the weekend apparently, because I am required for the date prep as well. Bee has booked both of us in for mani-pedis on Saturday morning. I’m not allowed to wear colourful nail polish at work, so I spend forty dollars to have someone file my nude nails. It doesn’t really matter anyway—it’s not my date. Chaperones don’t need red-wine nails.
Thankfully, Bee does not require company while she showers. But then there are face masks, body lotions, body bronzing, hair drying, hair styling, layers of makeup and at least five outfit changes. Look, I’m not claiming to be low maintenance. Frankly it’s a concept used to shame women for enjoying nice things, and fuck that. If roughly sixty per cent of my pay didn’t go to rent, I might, in fact, be slightly more costly to maintain. But this feels a little like preparing for a wedding rather than a random Saturday night. It is five hours of my life I’m not getting back. On the other hand, if I consider the rent advance payment in kind for time and labour in my capacity as chaperone, it makes me feel better about the whole thing. Not that Bee would ever make me feel bad about it. Also, my skin has never felt this damn smooth.
He rings the doorbell at five past seven and I peek around the wall to see what kind of greeting is deemed appropriate for the situation. He goes for a cheek kiss (with lips, not cheek to cheek) into a hug. She brings his jacket out from where she held it behind her back and presents it bashfully. He grins andtakes it like it’s a priceless artifact.
‘Come on, Gertrude!’ Bee yells. I pop out from behind the wall and allow Bee to introduce me.
‘Hi, Will! Nice to meet you!’ I opt for a handshake. Seems chaperone-y.
He doesn’t reach out to take it. ‘William,’ he says, deadly serious. ‘Not Will. William. Never Will.’ I slowly lower my empty hand back to my side. He doesn’t let the moment pass. Bee is looking at me very seriously as well. He just lets us all sit in it. I have to break the silence with my bubbliest voice. I can’t ruin this for Bee before we’ve even left the house.
‘William! Sorry about that, William. It’s William. Got it. Shall we go?’ I powerwalk out of there ahead of them and towards a car idling outside. There is a man in the driver’s seat, with his arm resting on the open window.
Him.
Never having been on one myself, I have often wondered about the standard cliché dinner-and-a-movie date. Is it better to do the dinner or the movie first? Movie-first allows for a topic of conversation to fill the silence at dinner, but I feel like meeting someone and then immediately sitting quietly in the dark with them for several hours would be somewhat unsettling. In short, I wonder whether it’s a good idea for a first date at all.
I can now, however, readily name something that is more awkward than going on a dinner-and-a-movie first date…and it is chaperoning a dinner-and-a-movie first date. Doing so with the guy I squabbled with in the middle of an event the week before is just extra bonus awkward I hadn’t accounted for.
It probably should have occurred to me before now that this guy might be my counterpart for the evening. But presumably William (never Will) has more than one friend. For all I knew, this guy was the only one free on short notice to attend last week’s footy event with William, and there are much cooler, nicer friends to be paired with. Sadly, no.
‘You,’ he says with a shit-eating grin. I don’t dignify him with a response. Instead I dignify him by making a stupid face and getting in the front seat. Together we watch in silence as Bee and William wander down the stairs hand in hand, staring at each other.
‘Jesus, hope they don’t go ass over tit,’ he mutters, and I turn my laugh into a throat-clear. It isn’t enough to drown out the anxious voice in my mind scream-reminding me of our last meeting, but it turns the volume down a fraction.
William opens the door for Bee, and I swear she curtsies before getting in. ‘Hi,’ Bee says to the friend. ‘I’m Bianca.’ She doesn’t react to my raised eyebrows at the full name use. I thought ‘Bee’ was supposed to be young, fresh and fun in a way that ‘Gertrude’ isn’t. She holds out her hand to shake his. ‘Lovely to meet you.’
‘I’m Arthur,’ he says, returning the handshake. Arthur. It matches him completely, like he simultaneously gives off old-man and cartoon-aardvark energy. I hate myself for liking his name.
