With a start, Danika realises that she seldom now thinks of Kim-and-Chris, or Kim as the woman who inadvertently stole her husband. She’s becoming just Kim, her new friend. And Cami’s sister’s mother.
“I thought I’d drop my car at home first,” Kim says. “You can drop your overnight bag and make an informed decision about Bella’s bed versus sofa bed.”
They chat as Kim drives along Wellington Road through Rowville, through the densely packed outer suburbs. Where Danika lives is lush and green, and often wet, on the edge of the Dandenong Ranges, a place of mist and tree ferns.
Once in the inner suburbs of Caulfield and St Kilda, Kim slows to navigate traffic. Danika looks around at the tightly packed shopfronts. That’s one thing she loves about Melbourne; there are still shoppingstreetsand corners, not just bland shopping centres. There are still family businesses and restaurants, not just chain stores.
Finally, Kim noses her car into the parking for her apartment. Danika takes her bag, and they go up to the third floor.
The apartment is messier than the last time Danika visited. That’s a good sign; it implies Kim is comfortable with her. After all, Danika doesn’t tidy the house before her close friends come over.
“Bella’s room.” Kim throws open the door. There’s a single bed with a doona printed with mermaids, and posters on the wall. “I changed the sheets this morning. You might find it a bit cramped though.”
She leads the way to the office and points to the couch. “That folds down. I’ve been told it’s not the most comfortable, but it’s not unbearable.”
“This will be fine,” Danika says. She can pretty much sleep anywhere, and Bella’s bed seems like one imposition too far.
She dumps her bag on the couch in the office and follows Kim back to the kitchen.
“I booked a table at a Sri Lankan place near here,” Kim says. “I hope that’s okay. It has meat and veggie options.”
“That sounds great.” Danika’s mouth is watering already. “There’s nothing like that in Belgrave, just ordinary Indian food—although I’m not sure of the difference.”
“More coconut and vegetables in Sri Lankan, I think,” Kim says. She indicates her colourful loose pants and silky boat-neck t-shirt in soft turquoise. “I wasn’t going to change. Do you need to?”
Danika looks down at her olive-green shift dress. It seems dull and staid compared to Kim’s clothes, her hair too ordered when compared to Kim’s thick and crinkly plait that hangs down her back, wisps already escaping. But she has brought nothing else to wear for the evening, just some casual shorts and a t-shirt for the morning.
As if sensing Danika’s moment of self-doubt, Kim says, “You don’t need to change. You look lovely. Elegant, but casual with it. You’re a beautiful woman, Danika.” She brushes Danika’s arm with a fleeting touch.
“Thank you.” She pulls self-consciously at the waist of the dress, settling it better on her body. “I’m still too thin. But Sri Lankan food may help that!” She smiles and is relieved when Kim grins and agrees.
Kim picks a bottle of red wine from a small rack in the corner and together, they leave the apartment.
It’s only a few minutes’ walk to Acland Street, where narrow bars and funky restaurants jostle together with the European cake shops that have been there for decades, before the street became trendy. Kim leads Danika into a small restaurant with a bright neon sign and gives her name to the server, who seats them alongside the dark-panelled wall.
The menu is a single laminated sheet. Danika peruses it as the server returns with two glasses for the wine. Kim pours and pushes across a glass.
“To us,” she says. “To friendship, and to making our strange situation work for us and our girls.”
“To us,” Danika echoes. She sips.
The server returns to tell them about the specials, and Danika mentally changes her order. Goat curry with mustard greens sounds different, something she wouldn’t cook for herself. Kim orders a lentil dish and a green bean and coconut relish. Danika sticks with the goat curry, and they order vegetarian samosas and rice and green mango pickle.
“How’s Bella?” Danika asks. She doesn’t want to presume there was no fallout from her reconnection with Cami. It’s a strange age, nine, not a small child, the fight for independence already starting, but not yet full of hormones and the influences they bring.
“Good.” Kim’s face lights up, her eyes shining in the low light. “Those months when she refused to see Cami, she wasn’t herself. It was like a piece of her was missing—strange, when the girls had only met so recently. But Bella…floated. Sort of lost. She refused to play soccer. Her excuse was that she might run into Cami, but I think it was more that she was dissociating herself in the fullest way she knew. She hated netball—the alternative she chose—but she’s stubborn. She wouldn’t give up. Now though, she glows. She’s got her confidence back.”
“I’m so glad,” Danika says. “You know, when we told the two of them, I worried it would be Cami who took it hard. But no. She was so happy. I think it was that she lost her dad, but suddenly, there was a piece of him, a piece of family, that she’d gained. She was devastated when Bella refused to see her.”
“I’m sorry about that. But I had to let her decide.”
“No apology necessary.” Danika places her hand on Kim’s arm. Her skin feels good. But it’s the fact that she notices this that startles her.
She touches Mirza all the time, her mum, other friends. She doesn’t notice how their skin feels. But Kim is smooth, soft, maybe from lotion, maybe she just is. Danika flexes her fingers experimentally. Kim has fine, sun-bleached hairs on her forearms. They, too, are soft. She removes her hand.
She takes a breath and tells Kim a story about her work. One of the two orthopaedic surgeons she works for—a brilliant man, but austere and intimidating—had two patients, both called John, having the same operation on the same day. Somehow, the surgeon muddled the notes, so that John One’s report talked about his left knee, and John Two about his right. But it was the other way around.
Danika had noticed and had to summon her courage to email him about his mistake. Surprisingly, the doctor had thanked her, and then sent a gift voucher because she’d saved him from embarrassment.
