‘We can order a pizza,’ I said, as Elias strode away.29‘You can have Fiona’s old room for the night.’
Sadie bit her lip. It left a fleck of lipstick on one of her front teeth.
It felt like a sign she might be wavering, so I played my trump card. ‘You don’t even have to talk to me if you don’t want to.’
‘Fine,’ my wife said.
I thought she was going to take me up on it. She disappeared as soon as we got back to the house. The pipes groaned as she took a shower so long I was vaguely concerned even my parents’ state-of-the-art hot water system would run out. Finally, there was silence for such an extended period of time I thought she’d gone to bed.
But then she emerged, wearing a familiar pair of pyjamas,30wrapped in a huge olive-green cardigan. ‘Were you serious about pizza? I’m starving.’
‘Sure. The usual?’
She nodded. One of the few things we’d never fought over was our pizza order. Sometimes, despite that promise we’d made when we moved into the share house to stay out of each other’s way, we’d both be conscripted into a pizza night, and whenever that happened, she and I always split the same thing – pesto chicken pizza, side of garlic bread. I’d eat my share in one sitting, but she’d always save one or two pieces of pizza and have them for breakfast the next day.31
‘I hope your sister doesn’t mind me borrowing this cardigan,’ Sadie said. ‘It was hanging on the back of her desk chair.’
It was actually my cardigan – Fi had stolen it from me years ago, back when we were still close – but I wasn’t about to tell Sadie that. ‘She won’t mind. Want something to drink? I can raid my parents’ wine cellar.’
‘No. That’s okay.’
Then she rubbed a hand over her face. ‘Actually, you know what? Yes. Maybe a drink will help.’
‘Any preference? White? Red? Rosé? Sparkling?’
‘Not red,’ she said, a little stiffly. ‘Anything else is okay.’
I second- and third- and fifteenth-guessed myself before I finally decided that no, it wasn’t too much to choose a bottle of champagne.32‘They won’t notice,’ I said, when Sadie protested. ‘They order cases of it from France on the regular.’
‘I don’t care what they think. It just seems like a waste. I probably won’t drink more than a glass.’
‘Elias can drink the rest when he gets home.’ I popped the cork. ‘We should celebrate.’
She made a noise somewhere between a scoff and a disdainful snort.
‘We’re both gainfully employed.’ I poured the champagne too fast and it started fizzing wildly, so I had to stop before the glasses overflowed. ‘And we’re pioneers of a bold new strategy for casual conversion. Future higher education union heroes. That deserves celebration.’
The pizza arrived as I finished filling up our glasses. We carried it to the lounge room, setting everything down on the coffee table. ‘They won’t give a shit about the wine, but this, my parents would care about,’ I said, passing Sadie a plate. ‘There’s a strict no-eating-on-the-couch policy in this house.’
‘Sometimes I wonder why you are the way you are, Jonah,’ she said, ‘and other times it makes perfect sense.’
I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but I had a strong suspicion that if I tried to find out, it would lead to an argument – and much as that would signal a return to normalcy, it didn’t seem like the most auspicious beginning to a marriage, even one like ours.
So I raised my glass instead. ‘Cheers, wife.’
Sadie rolled her eyes, but she clinked her glass against mine. ‘Cheers.’
We drank. ‘Want to watch something?’ I nodded my head at the TV.
‘Okay.’
I helped myself to a piece of pizza. ‘Any preferences?’
‘As my wedding gift to you,’ Sadie said, tearing open the foil wrapper of the garlic bread, ‘I’ll let you choose.’
She broke off two pieces before passing the bread to me. ‘Within reason, anyway. No documentaries. And nothing about men doing violence and not having emotions. Preferably something where women at least speak, even if it doesn’t technically pass the Bechdel test.’
‘Noted.’ I took a bite of pizza, chasing the cheese, before turning on the TV. ‘Just for clarity, my “within reason” excludes all reality TV apart fromSuperchef.’
