Shampoo (24 page)

Would’ve been really mortifying,
except that all of Matt’s friends paid me so much attention I
couldn’t believe it.

They all took it so well, and I
ended up surrounded by ten of Matt’s mates.

No wonder I didn’t want to
leave!!!!

I could tell Matt was getting
upset though, but I didn’t know how to tell Daryl and Sue to stop,
cause I don’t officially know Matt likes me!!

Daryl and Sue are so sweet
together they make my teeth ache, so in love STILL, after more than
20 years of marriage. Daryl dotes on Sue, getting her drinks,
picking up crackers and cheese for her and bringing it to her,
WITHOUT HER EVEN ASKING!!!

That blew my mind. I love how he
looks after her, protects her, yet you’d never question her
independence or strength. She’s stronger WITH his
protection.

Oh it’s so damn sweet it makes my
heart break. For myself. I want that. I’ve ALWAYS WANTED
THAT.

I told them how much I want what
they have, and a man like Daryl to dote on me, and Daryl was all,
“You’ll get it, Pinky,” and Sue was all, “You have to EXPECT it,
Pinky, DEMAND IT OF MEN, or you chuck them out the door! It’s all
about knowing your worth, Pinky.”

That’s my ENTIRE PROBLEM. I
clearly don’t know how much pink is worth.

The more the night wore on, the
more I wanted Matt!! I suddenly CRAVED him, and the way he was
here, in his surroundings, with his mates and family.

He’s like suddenly the popular guy
amongst the hottest group of guys I’ve ever seen.

And his family is so damn perfect
and adorable. I just wanted to pack my pink bags and move
in.

It’s bizarre. At work, Benny,
Quinten, Paul, ALL OF THEM, pick on Matt constantly, but here, on
his own turf…he was a completely different guy!!! It was a
completely different world.

Sometimes I wonder if it hurts
Matt, if he went home and cried at how he’s sometimes treated by
the warehouse crew…but now I see he doesn’t have to!! He has this
whole great life outside of work! He has wonderful mates that ADORE
him and treat him with respect and love.

My heart was full just watching
him in his wonderful life. My heart ached to be a part of
it.

What do I have with Ever?? His
bedroom?? He refuses to take me on anything with his mates. His mum
is very similar to my mum, a single woman with disabilities, living
in a housing commission house in Inala.

In fact, my mum’s house is a
street away from Evvy’s place.

Really it’s quite odd how similar
Evvy and I’s upbringing was…

(at least till Nat and I moved in
with Dad)

What can he offer me that I really
want?? He’s offering me nothing!

Yet look at this life with Matt
laid out before me…

Lachlan’s girlfriend Melinda, I
chatted to a lot at the party, and the subject of Matt was brought
up, and she was all, “You know he likes you, right??”

And I was all, “Well, I don’t know
– ”

And she was all, “Come on,
Karina!!”

(odd, when people call me by my
real name. I do a double take, like are you talking to me? Or
someone behind me??)

“
You KNOW he likes you.
Ask him out, what have you got to lose??”

Ah, my dignity??

(not much of that left
anyway)

My freedom?? My
Everard??

A little tidbit about Melinda.
Just to prove further how incestuous Sin is

(there’s lots of couples at work,
and brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers),

Melinda was part of the original
group of staff that started, her, Regina, Sherrie, Katie and Sara.
Apparently, while Melinda dated Lachlan down in the warehouse,
Lachie and Sherrie had a bit of a flirtation or moment or affair,
then Melinda and Sherrie had a big bitch fight

(I would’ve paid to see
that!),

and Sherrie demanded of John Cash
and Daryl Young that Melinda be fired.

Sherrie wields a bit of scary
power with the bosses. They trust and respect her
opinion.

Lachlan and Melinda stayed
together, all these years, and I sometimes sense Lachie takes a
perverse pleasure in staying with Melinda, and taking her to every
work thing, where Sherrie and Melinda still don’t talk to each
other and the bosses avoid her out of guilt.

I don’t normally talk to Lachlan
and Melinda at these things, I don’t know why. Lachlan is almost
too cool, this hot surfer type, confident in himself, too cool, too
hot, for me to ever think he’d want to hang out with someone like
me.

But at Matt’s party, I hung out
with Mel, and found I really, really liked her!!

(new friend, new friend, whoop
whoop whoop – that was the new friend alarm)

So, after MAJOR BOY REVELATIONS,
Gerry drives me home, I go to bed, dreaming of Matt and not Evvy
for once…and Ever rings and wakes me up at 2am!!!

Making his presence known
again.

I just can’t escape the
fucker!!!

He rang my mobile, too, and it
took me ages to find it buried under things in my room, but there
was no confusion he wanted me or Dan with him ringing my
phone.

“
WOMAN!!!” he yelled,
extremely loudly, background noises of the city, clubbing, to be
heard. “Whatcha doing??”

He has NEVER called me while he’s
been out. “Ah, I’M ASLEEP, you big knob – ”

“
I LOVE IT WHEN YOU
TALK DIRTY!!!!” he yelled.

“
Is there a reason
you’re calling??”

“
What??”

“
Is there a reason
you’re – ”

“
WHAT!”

“
Is there a reason –
”

“
I CAN’T HEAR YOU,
WOMAN!”

“
NEVER FUCKING
MIND!!”

A pause. “WHAT??”

“
OH MY GOD YOU’RE BEING
REALLY FUCKING PAINFUL RIGHT NOW – ”

“
I heard
THAT.”

“
Oh good!!”

“
Can you come
out??”

“
Even for me, two in
the morning is a bit much – ”

“
Or I can come there –
”

“
You’re
drunk!”

“
What??”

Oh, dear Lord.

“
YOU’RE
DRUNK!!!”

“
Well, YEAH, way to
state the obvious there, woman – ”

“
I’ll talk to you
tomorrow, Everard.”

“
WHAT – ”

Oh my God, I so hung up on his
drunken ass.

Then dreaded he would rock up
here, completely wasted.

He didn’t, but the point was…since
when do I dread seeing Ever??

Oh my God, and I’ve completely
forgotten the other major news – yesterday, after my lovely
afternoon nap, Nat threw a pink envelope on my bed that all of us
had neglected to pick out of the letterbox Friday night

(now forevermore known as Spew
Madly Night),

and it was a gorgeous card with
the most heartbreaking poem in it from Rich.

My heart fluttered as I opened the
envelope. I read it in tears. Was W.H. Auden’s Stop all the Clocks,
with Richard twists, written in his hand:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the
telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with
a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with
muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the
mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning
overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message
‘He is Dead’

Put pink crepe bows around the
white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policeman wear
pink cotton gloves.

She was my North, my South, my
East and West,

My working week and my Sunday
rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my
song.

I thought that love would last for
ever. I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now, put
out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the
sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up
the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to
any good.

He’d signed it, followed by a big
heart:

This is me without you,

In my coffin.

Love Rich.

My heart stopped, and the tears
POURED…

But then I put the card on my
pillow and got ready for Matt’s party.

Monday 25 September
2000

8.32pm

So Sunday, Nat forced
me to clean the house with her (UGH!!), then we went to the movies
and saw, ‘Centre Stage,’ WHICH I LOVED SO MUCH!!!

We got home about 4pm, I plodded
around the house, washed my baby. Then Nat and Dan decided to go
down the coast for dinner, and, of course, I wasn’t invited, but I
really wanted to do something!!

The three of us were all in the
kitchen when I asked, “Who should I ring to do something?? Evvy,
Graham, Richard, Matt??”

“
Matt,” Nat replied
instantly.

“
Evvy,” Dan said,
forever loyal to the butthead.

“
I’m sick of being
treated like shit by Ever,” I announced, to which Dan raised his
eyebrows and drawled, “REALLY??” in this fascinated manner that I
knew meant he’d run and tell Evvy just what I’d said.

“
Matt,” Nat and I
concluded, at the same time.

So Nat and Dan headed down the
back stairs and I dialled Matt’s number, got Matt, said, “Hi, Matt,
it’s Karina,” to him yelling straight away, “SETH!!! It’s for
you!!”

(Seth is one of his friends that
chatted me up all night)

“
Wait wait wait wait
WAIT!!!” I yelled over him talking to who I assume was Seth. “Matt,
I’m ringing for you.”

Silence. I think he actually fell
over.

“
I was ringing to see
if you wanted to see a seven o’clock movie with me,” I managed to
get out amongst all that silence.

“
Oh my god, REALLY??”
he chuckled/laughed/goofed.

“
Yeah,
really!”

“
Oh SHIT!! I’d love to,
but we’re all just about to go out, how about we go during the
week?”

“
Okay! Cool. Sounds
good!”

Matt laughed. “You just made my
day, hahaha, SHIT!!”

We got off the phone. I was still
standing there when he rang back.

“
It’s me, haha, why
don’t you come out to dinner with us all?? It’s just all the people
you met last night. Holy goly, I can’t BELIEVE THIS!!” he boomed
into my ear.

Let’s all just take a moment and
examine his ‘Holy Goly’…

What the fuck is a Holy Goly?? And
why do I still like him after I’ve heard him speak this
way??

I thought about going to dinner
with them all, but I’d have had to have been so ON. You know, new
group of people, new people to win over, I’d have to be witty and
sweet and BLAH.

Totally didn’t feel like working
so hard.

In a movie, with a date, I
wouldn’t have to speak or be on.

So I declined, saying I really was
on my way out to the movie, and we hung up.

The phone rang, AGAIN, just as I
was walking away, and this time it was Evvy.

Sleeping dogs just never
lie.

“
You hung up on me,
woman!!”

“
I’m surprised you even
remembered, you were so WASTED.”

“
Well, I DO remember
it! What are you doing tonight?”

“
I’m just gonna go see
the 7pm session of ‘Road Trip’ – ”

“
Can you stop in before
the movie?”

“
Yeah, I
guess…”

So I went there. At first it was
lovely, he was all over me, kissing, cuddling, trying to strip me
naked but I wouldn’t let him.

At quarter past 6, I decided I’d
better get moving to make the movie, and Evvy wouldn’t let me go!!!
He was really stubborn and forceful about it, which was hot and
turned me on at first, then it just really started to piss me
off!!

I felt trapped!!

He was cuddling me to his chest,
kissing me, arms wrapped around me…God, I love it when he’s like
that!!! I literally melt. But a part of me kept whispering it never
lasts, he never keeps up this affection, he can’t maintain it, and
we are bordering on it’s over because he just can’t do
it.

I suddenly just wanted to escape,
I didn’t want to miss my movie (even though I’ve already seen it)
for a guy who would not be around long term.