My nerve endings actually feel like they’re on fire as I resist the urge to do the same. Just click that little heart and turn it pink.
But I can’t bite, because that’s what she wants. That’s what Brooke says anyway, and she understands these things much better than I do.
Within two weeks, I feel like I’m catching something. My feet are really itchy. And it usually starts when Nari talks about the grad job she’s starting next year at a big four firm. Or Nicole talks about law school. Or Brooke talks about her teaching placements. Or their friends doing the GAMSAT or waiting to hear back from fifty job applications for various assistant roles in marketing, advertising, sales.
They all kind of look at me. Not in a pitying way, which I’m also grateful for. But just in that way where it’s clear I have nothing to add to the conversation.
But like I said, I think it’s catching. When I go up to bed, I start looking at university websites. How much is a degree these days anyway? Is there a way to get a professional job at twenty-eight with no experience so I can just skip the whole retraining thing? Every night, my dreams are swimming with the different versions of me I could be. Teacher Gertie. Nurse Gertie. Generic business professional Gertie in a black pencil dress and heels that would give me blisters.
But what would you do if there was nothing holding you back?Someone asked me that once, and I didn’t have an answer. Now I have the answer, but no asker to tell it to.
One Thursday night after a few glasses of wine, I am bombarded with a series of messages from Bee to supplement the missed calls I haven’t returned.
I owe fifteen dollars pro-rata from last month’s internet bill. And it would be respectful to contribute something to the water bill because it’s quarterly. And how the hell could I do this to her? How could I be so selfish? So cowardly? So inconvenient? Did I know that Brian assumes that Bee is staying at least next month because it has been a fortnight and Bee didn’t give him notice that she was moving out? So now she has to pay the whole thing or get some weirdo in who might murder her and then there would be a podcast and a shitty Netflix documentary or, worse, one of those free-to-air Sunday night investigations. And some calm-voiced news anchor moonlighting in a voice-over gig would call it back to all beginning when her bitch of a so-called best friend left her high and dry. And did I know that she has already turned my bedroom into adressing room-yoga retreat-guest room? It’swaybetter now that she’s not bogged down by my daggy taste and bad energy.
I wonder if she did a sage cleansing.
While I have made many great strides in feeling my anger towards Bee and all that shit, she burrows her way in. I am a shit person. What kind of person does what I did? Look at me, sitting in my new room after wine with the girls just living it up while I saddled someone else with financial stress? Disgusting. I have to turn off my phone and throw it across the room.
Then something interesting happens. With her voice in my head and the wine in my veins, I bring back up one of those university websites, and I fill out some forms before I can talk myself out of it. Unfortunately, I’m sober when I have to tell the girls about it over smashed avo and eggs the next morning. ‘I’ve decided to go back to study next year. I signed up for a Master of Human Resource Management.’
I’m not expecting a bunch of twenty-one-year-olds to be excited about the glamorous prospect of a career in HR, but maybe some mild congratulations?
Instead I get yet another group hug. Is this a thing all people do, or did I just somehow end up ensconced in a group of compulsive huggers?
‘We have to throw a celebratory dinner!’ Brooke cries. ‘I’ll text Mum.’
‘But I didn’t do anything yet?’
‘You signed up, Gertie,’ Nari says. ‘You made a commitment.’
‘To a massive HECS debt,’ I say.
‘And a new future!’ We open the good bubbles left behind by Kate, which we have been saving for the ‘right occasion’.
Brooke looks up from her phone. ‘Mum’s doing a roast this Sunday in your honour. You’re not a vegetarian, right Gertie? I don’t think my mum believes in them.’
‘You’ve seen me scoff chicken nuggets at one in the morning.’
‘Yeah, but I know like five “vegetarians” who forget they are when there’s alcohol and nugs around.’
‘I eat meat. You’re fine.’ I don’t want to give away the thrill I feel at the prospect of a Sunday family roast. I’ve never had one before.
Nicole sidles up to me, squeals and grabs my hand. ‘Gertie! This is so exciting! Are you going to keep the catering job when you’re studying?’
‘I mean, I don’t really have a choice. I have to pay rent. I have to eat food.’
‘But how will you do it all?’ Her voice is smaller now, like she doesn’t want the others to hear.
‘I don’t know. I just will. Because I have to. It can’t be too bad. People do it all the time. Some people study andhave kids, which seems way harder.’
I empty my glass and leave Nicole looking thoughtful as I take it to the kitchen.
A few days later, she knocks softly on my bedroom door while I’m getting ready for work. She’s nowhere near ready, and we have to leave in ten minutes. ‘Hey Gertie?’ she says. She clearly wants to tell me something but doesn’t know how.
I stay silent and try to look encouraging.
‘I’ve been thinking about how you’re going to study and work next year. And it kind of inspired me. I think I’ll stay working too once I’ve started law school.’
