Nicole looks pensive. ‘How would you feel about living with a couple of uni students?’
‘Huh?’ Eloquent.
‘My girlfriends are moving into a four-bedroom townhouse in Hawthorn soon. I’ll be taking the third bedroom, but we’ve been looking for someone to fill the fourth. Three hundred a week. Brooke’s dad owns the place.’
‘Can I think about it?’ I ask.
Nicole’s offer has short-circuited my brain. I don’t know if I can remember the last time I just turned up to work and worked, because these days it always seems to get sidetracked by potentially life-altering events.
Could I really just…move out? I don’t have much furniture to deal with—almost all of what’s in our apartment is Bee’s. Packing up my room wouldn’t take longer than a day. We’re on month to month, so it wouldn’t be a hassle to break the lease; just need to call Brian.
I wonder what my life might be like, living in the inner city with a bunch of uni students. And then I remember that it’s not like I’m in a place in my life where I’m headed anywhere near home-ownership, marriage, babies. May as well…not so much relive my youth as go back and give it a first crack.
Maybe I need someone to remind me that I’m young sometimes.
By the time we settle in with the discarded alcohol at the end of the shift, I’m ready to find the answer in the bottom of thebottle. And I realise that, wherever I go, the moving-out bit is a foregone conclusion. I’m not considering the pros and cons of doing it; I’m thinking logistics.
I turn to Nicole. ‘I’m in.’
She squeals and hugs me. ‘Yay! I’m starting a group chat now so we can discuss. When can you move? Do you have a fridge? Can you cook?’
‘What’s happening?’ Reg says, walking over with a fresh half-finished bottle.
‘We’re gonna be roomies!’ Nicole shrieks, in my ear, still squeezing me so I can’t escape it.
‘Yay!’ He joins the hug, and I feel a dribble of spilt bubbly down my back before he pulls back and we settle around the table. ‘So,’ he continues. ‘In other big life-change news, I am going to be switching to days only from next year.’
‘What?’ I ask. ‘Why?’
‘José and I are looking to have a child next year. Can’t really be staying out to all hours drinking fancy plonk with you degenerates when I’m a dad.’
Nicole and I leap from our seats and renew the group hug. I try to pour all my joy into it for Reg. It’s really the best news.
Unfortunately, it means Nicole’s shrieking again. ‘That’s so exciting, Reg!’ Glad he gets a taste of the ear damage too. ‘You know, Nicole is a very pretty name for a baby girl.’
‘It is, but you’re getting well and truly ahead of yourself, my love,’ he replies, patting her on the back.
Reg confesses that this is the reason for the nicotine patches he’s been using (the booze being a work in progress); then we spend the next ten minutes spitballing increasingly ridiculousbaby names. I don’t think little Asparagus (Gus for short, obviously) and Mayonnaise (May) will ever appreciate our creativity. When he tells us about how José wants to raise the baby bilingual, I swear there are tears in his eyes.
Nicole’s phone pings and while she’s distracted, I whisper to Reg, ‘Are you scared? This will be such a massive life change.’
He glances over at Nicole, still furiously texting. Her thumbs must have calluses.
‘I’m terrified.’ He shrugs. ‘It’s scary. But it’s usually the scary things that carry the big rewards.’
‘I’m frightened of change,’ I admit. ‘But now I think I’m much more scared that nothing ever will change.’
He nods, and pats my hand. ‘That’s what a lot of people never understand. Stagnation is a poison. Jump into this new life headfirst, Gertie-girl—see where it takes you.’
Reg goes home shortly after that, but before he does he lets us make fun of him for calling it early. ‘Will we ever see you again, Reg?’ Nicole asks.
‘I’m going to day shift, Nic, not palliative care. Besides,’ he winks as he gets up to leave, ‘this won’t be the last time you see me. Someone still needs to teach you youths the value of good champagne.’
‘Or domestic sparkling,’ I say.
‘That too.’
Then Nicole demands a full and comprehensive synthesis of the shit show that was my last week, making all the appropriate shocked and horrified faces, revelling in the sick burns I lobbed at Will, lamenting how it went down with Arthur.Are yousureit’s over, Gertie? Like really, really sure?
