My mother flaps her program at Sabrina, her made-up face scandalised. ‘Shush! Keep your voice down!’
‘What? Why?’ Sabrina demands. ‘Zeke is out. It’s no secret.’
‘Zeke doesn’t make it his entire personality,’ my mother says crisply. ‘He’s not one of those annoying ones.’
Sabrina looks at me, incensed. I shrug.
‘And he likes girls too,’ Dad says.
Years ago, I softened the blow to my parents by saying I was bi. They’ve latched onto it as proof I’ll eventually revert to normal.
‘You do?’ Sabrina says, blinking.
Years ago, I softened the blow toherby saying I wasn’t bi, so she shouldn’t feel offended I wasn’t into her.
Uh oh.
‘I mean, dunno, bicurious or whatever …’ I mutter, eyes on my samosa-less plate.
Sabrina’s gold bangle clinks against the side of a champagne glass she immediately plucks from a nearby waiter’s tray and raises to her lips, eyes away from me, cheeks pink.
‘Now, darling, I don’t want to talk about thishere!’ my mothertrills, as if a ballroom isn’t the gayest place on earth. ‘Your father and I want to take you out for dessert. We should get a move on.’
I’m happy to bring things to a close. Having Sabrina and my parents in the same space is my two worlds colliding, and a massive miscalculation on my part. ‘Okay, let’s head out, then,’ I agree. I can’t bring myself to look Sabrina in the eye, so I politely address her gold bangle. ‘See you at home, yeah?’
My parents take me for a swish dessert up at C Restaurant, the high-class revolving restaurant at the top of a skyscraper on St Georges Terrace. I have a poached pear with hazelnut cream and a pistachio-flavoured molecular gastronomic foam. My mother has coffee spiked with Baileys. Dad takes an espresso. We came here for the view of the twinkling orange-and-pearl phosphorescence of Perth, stretching from the Swan River to the Darling Ranges. I spend most of the time wondering how much force I’d need to run at the glass windows with to smash through them, and how long the fall would take.
My parents give me my graduation gifts. From Robbie and Natalie, I get a one-litre bottle of Absolut Vodka and a box of Lindt chocolates. We might not be super close, but at least they know what I like. My parents gift me a crisp grey business shirt from Tarocash (for job interviews), a set of cufflinks (ditto) and the reliable oldArchiecomic.
‘I like Sabrina, but she can be very forthright, can’t she?’ my mother prods, sipping her Baileys froth.
‘She means well,’ I say meekly. ‘She just has some strong opinions, I guess.’
‘I don’t like that overbearing tone of hers,’ my mother tsks. ‘It’s not attractive in a woman, is it, Sam?’ she adds, without a single trace of irony.
Dad dutifully shakes his head, also sans self-awareness.
‘If she could tone it down, she’d be so good for you,’ my mother adds.
I drop my spoon before I’ve even touched my dessert. ‘Mum, you know I’m …’
I never say the word with my parents, but the ellipsis is always understood.
‘Don’t be silly, Zeke!’ my mother goes on, rapidly stirring her Baileys coffee and licking the spoon. ‘You used to date her. She’s clearly still fond of you. She has a good job, comes from a good family. You already live together, for goodness’ sake. How much of a change would it really be?’
‘I saw you kiss her in the rear-view mirror when I drove you to the ball,’ Dad says. He splays his hands. ‘What’s so bad about being with a woman?’
‘Sam!’ Mum hisses, scandalised. She glances over her shoulder and shoots a nonchalant smile at the maître d’. ‘Don’t say things like that in public.’ She fixes her ice-cold stare on me. ‘Now, love, about a job,’ she goes on, in classic Anna Calogero steamroller mode. ‘I know you keep saying you won’t move home, but what if there was a job there for you? Your father could use some help with the office admin. I can’t help as much as I used to now I’m doing insurance with Elders again.’
I freeze. ‘You want me to be a desk jockey for the family business?’
‘It would mean so much to have both of you boys back home,’ my mother says, slapping the top of my hand a tad too hard. ‘We don’t get to see enough of you anymore.’
For which I am eternally grateful. I swear, if I hadn’t moved to the city to get away from them, I would’ve lost it by now.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever move back to Gero,’ I say, using a dessert spoon to saw through my poached pear the way I imagine a surgeon would saw through a human femur. ‘I’ll find a job down here in Perth.’
My mother glances sideways at my father and her lips curve into the smile I only ever see when she successfully springs a trap for a nemesis.
