“I don’t!”
“Did you quit for Jake?”
“Nah, unfortunately, he thinks it’s kind of sexy.”
At least he did when he was in a Zoom meeting, and I walked past, vaping in a thong. I’ve never seen a man shut a laptop so fast.
“So, why now?”
“I don’t know. I guess I was just sick of living in fear of quit campaign ads aimed at sixteen-year-olds. The gum’s okay. At least it’s stopping me from getting vape rage like the last time I went cold turkey.”
The door to Stabbies opens, and a hot goth pushes a pram inside. My stomach drops. “Shit. I think Betty’s here.”
The hot goth scans the bar, and I get to my feet. My knees feel like water.
“Hey, Betty?” I call.
The hot goth looks at me with Rhys Muldoon’s pale green eyes. She gives me a wry smile and heads toward me.
“Ada?” she says, parking her pram beside the booth.
I think I might be sick. “That’s me. How… How are you?”
“Fine.” Her eyes drift to Cece, still standing beside me.
“This is my mate, Cecelia Taylor,” I volunteer. “She owns this place, and she’s from Pukekohe. Do you guys know each other?”
Betty nods. “I think we played netball together once.”
I study Rhys’s sister as she and Cece talk. Her eyes are pure Rhys, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Rhys had rusty brown hair and the kind of acne that makes people wince, but Betty is porcelain-skinned, and her shoulder-length curls are jet black. She’s three years younger than Rhys and I, and ran with the alternative crowd in Pukekohe who were still way too cool for us.
“She won’t even look at me when she’s with her friends,” Rhys used to mutter whenever we spotted her at lunchtimes.
Cece coos over the pram then heads for the bar. Betty returns her full attention to me, and I fight the urge to run.
“Cute baby,” I say, and instantly feel like an idiot.
Betty looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Yeah, he is.”
I nod toward my playpen. “Shall we?”
We sit on opposite sides of the booth, sizing each other up likeboxers about to get in the ring. A thousand unspoken accusations seem to emanate from Rhys’s eyes. She clearly doesn’t want to be here, and I wouldn’t have asked, but yesterday I was doom-scrolling the Pukekohe reunion Instagram account, and I stumbled across a monstrosity. The Cunt At Large herself, Jenny Wallis, had posted a photo collage calling all graduates to come‘Celebrate 100 Years of Smiles!!!’
One of the photos was a class picture that included Rhys, his face half-hidden behind his fringe. The caption read:
Let’s go, Pukekohe crew! These were the best years of our lives!
The comments were all brain-dead affirmations. Except one. @BettyMDunes wrote:
Take this fucking post down. I didn’t consent to having my dead brother used for nostalgia porn by the bitch who made his life miserable.
An hour later, the post had vanished, but I’d already DMd Betty asking her for a coffee and a chat. Not that she seems like she wants to chat. She eyes me, her expression cold, and I have the distinct feeling I’m failing a test I didn’t know I was taking.
I clear my throat. “Thanks for coming. Can I get you a Coke, or a latte, or a drink?”
She shakes her head.
Straight to it, then.
