I decline and return to the TV.
‘Jesus, that outfit is septic,’ I say. A movie star wears a mermaid-style silver dress. ‘She looks like a bit of salmon wrapped in tin foil about to go in the oven.’
‘Why you watching this junk?’
I can’t think of an appropriate answer so I say, ‘The show’s only on for ten more minutes.’
‘You gotta be more discerning about what you consume.’ Dolores’ jaw tightens as she looks at the screen.
The presenters discuss another celebrity, donning a red skin-tight playsuit and giant strappy heels. Her hair is in a high bun.
‘God, she’s fabulous. Imagine looking like that,’ I say.
‘You don’t know what her life is like.’
‘It wouldn’t matter what anything is like if everyone thought you were that thin and beautiful.’
Dolores puts her hand on my shoulder. ‘Beauty’s not about what anyone else thinks. Do you want a coffee?’
I follow her and stand behind the kitchen island. She grinds coffee beans and thumbs a different switch on the machine, laying a cup under it. Then she opens the fridge door and bends over, disappearing except for her backside rounded out in her black yoga leggings. She’s not skinny, nowhere near it, but still, I feel a hot twang of envy flush through me.
‘You seem so comfortable, Dolores.’
She stands and turns around, holding a carton of coconut water. ‘What do you mean?’
‘In yourself. You seem to be fully yourself.’
‘Well, kiddo, I’ve been myself for sixty years now. There comes a moment in life where you have to give in and be like, okay, I suppose this is it. This is me. I might as well start bloody enjoying it.’
She leaves the carton on the counter and stacks some of the veg into the fridge.
‘But are you not scared of getting older?’ I tap my fingernail against the marble. Steaming water and coffee blend into the cup.
‘No. I’m slower, for sure, but I prefer how I am now to when I was younger.’
She doesn’t seem slow to me, always prancing around light-footed, learning new things; even when she meditates on her patio she seems energetic and she’d only be sitting there, looking ahead, with her hands resting on her knees.
‘The body breaks down. But Nat, getting older is a privilege.’
‘What?’ I scrunch my face up at her crazy talk. The way people bitch and moan about it. Afraid of it. Disgusted by it. ‘Is it not a burden?’
‘No, it’s a gift. Think about it. What’s the alternative?’
I want to probe more and make her say something negative, to dim some of her lightness.
‘Would you be tempted to get surgery?’
Dolores raises an eyebrow. ‘That’s a blunt question, Natalie.’
‘I’m not saying that you’d need it. I swear.’ I fill with a familiar awful sensation, already regretting my stupid words.
‘For my breasts, is it?’
On mention of them, I look at her chest. ‘No, I meant for your wrinkles, Botox or a facelift or something. What’s wrong with your breasts?’
Dolores smirks. ‘Natalie, I don’t have breasts.’
I feel a thunk inside, like my heart has dropped.
‘You know this already? No?’ She stares at me.
‘No.’
‘Removed eleven years ago. All clear since.’
‘No, I didn’t know.’ I look at my aunt’s face and down to her chest again. ‘But you do have breasts?’ I point at the curved mounds under her white T-shirt.
‘No, I have double mastectomy bras.’
I check again and then scan her face to see if she’s joking. She remains neutral. I’m the Coyote, falling off a cliff. Nowhere to backtrack or scramble to. I cover my eyes with my hands. ‘Sorry, Dolores, I didn’t know. I’m such an asshole.’
She says nothing but plucks a glass from the cupboard and pours the coconut water into it. Then she takes her cup, and puts an empty one under the machine. Pushes the button to fill it.
The coffee trickles.
Finally, after what feels like half a century, she says, ‘Look, it’s okay. If you didn’t know, you didn’t know. Your coffee’s there; I’m gonna sit out front for a while. Get some vitamin D. The Build-up is upon us, the air’s getting heavy.’
She gives me a thin-lipped smile as she walks by and goes out the sliding door to her deck.
I’ve fucking ruined everything. And now something comes back, all those years ago, when I was in first semester of teaching college and my mother was worried – Dolores in Darwin was having a big operation, doctors were hopeful, my mother’s joy at the news that it was a success. One of my classmates was my boyfriend, a young man who loved teaching kids and loved taking speed at the weekends.
How the hell did I forget?
I grab a big pack of lentil crisps from the cupboard, stuff handfuls into my mouth. When I’m finished I look for something else but sigh at Dolores’ healthy food. I pull a strip off a head of lettuce and wrap it around a tomato. I squirt mayonnaise on it, add a couple of olives and take a huge bite but it’s not the same. I toss it in the bin and take my coffee from under the machine. Dollop honey into it. Burn myself with a mouthful.
Maybe I’ll pack my stuff and go. Let her know about the party, leave them all to it.
I sit in front of the TV. The presenters snigger at a male musician’s orange and red checked waistcoat and tie for the event.
‘Did he not get the memo that waistcoats went out of style three decades ago?’
I think he looks cute and awkward as he picks at his guitar on stage. He sings sincerely in the clip.
‘And our final fail of the evening is Kara Perlance, wearing a tent? Is it a green tent?’ She turns to her co-presenter. ‘Maybe it’s a dress, and a home for when she camps with bears.’
Her co-presenter chortles. She of the lollipop head and stick-like body. ‘Camps with her family, you mean?’
The first presenter catches her breath and says, ‘You are too much.’
The camera zooms in on Kara Perlance, a famous actor in a popular crime drama, standing with her partner, on the red carpet. She’s gloomy-looking as the cameras flash and people call her name. She squirms and rests an arm across her belly.
‘Kara, is it true you’re pregnant?’ a voice shouts from the crowd.
Kara swings a sad glance to her partner. He puts his arm around her. The presenters laugh at the journalist’s comments.
I switch the TV off and look out to Dolores, where she sits, motionless, hands on her knees, watching the sky gather clouds.
In my room, I lie on the bed and decide to tell Dolores about the surprise, and that I’m going to slip away later. Won’t be in her home scoffing all her sunflower seeds and mushroom ravioli anymore. Then I’ll call to Bruce, give him the USB stick and the new plan. They can go to the event together and I can pack up and move on.
They’d still have a great night. A better night, without me being in the big fat way of their tidy lives and their surviving cancer and divorce and growing old gracefully. It’s too hot for me here anyway.
I slink downstairs and out to the decking. The daylight is greyish. Dolores smiles. It’s so oppressively humid, it’s as though some invisible animal is breathing all over me. I’m reminded why I stay indoors and downstairs most of the time, cocooned by cold air.
‘Dolores, I forgot to tell you earlier, the A/C is broken in my bathroom.’
‘Bruce will have a look at it. It disconnects every so often in the upstairs rooms. It’s happened before. No big deal. Can you smell the rain? I reckon it’s on its way.’
I pick at my skin.
‘Are you okay, Natalie?’