When Michael Met Mina

  ‘A Hallmark card writer if ever there was one.’ He grins, his eyes lingering for a moment, and then he walks to the bus.

  Michael

  I receive Paula’s Facebook invitation to the movie marathon and accept. As a mark of respect to an occasion of this magnitude, I decide that a generic Facebook invitation with a mere cut and paste picture of Frodo Baggins simply will not do.

  So I play around with some programs and design an interactive e-card invitation using LOTR movie clips and . . .

  And then, at 11.45 pm, I upload it to Paula’s Facebook Event.

  *

  11.50 pm.

  Facebook notification alerting me to a comment from Mina about the LOTR event.

  ‘Not all those who wander are lost.’ J

  A smiley face emoji.

  From Mina.

  If we’re going to do emoji, we might as well have fun with it.

  So I send her a friend request.

  Within less than a minute she accepts.

  I send her an emoji narrative. She sends one back.

  This is going to be fun.

  *

  ‘It’s kidneys this afternoon, Michael,’ Anh says when I arrive at work.

  ‘Right. Got it.’

  ‘I’ve emailed you the details. Your last shift was an improvement but you’re still not reaching target. You have to lift your game. Be ruthless. What do you do if they hang up on you?’

  ‘Move onto the next person on the list?’

  ‘Fail. Hanging up, cursing you, telling you they’re not interested means nothing. Just call them on your next shift or pass their name onto one of us to chase up the next day when you’re not here.’

  ‘But isn’t that harassment?’

  Anh gives me a look that leaves me in no doubt that he thinks I’m an idiot.

  ‘This job is purely about harassment. Would have thought that was obvious. If they register their number off the call list, fine. If they’re too lazy to do that, bad luck, we’re coming after them.’

  ‘Wow, and I thought working for charities would be about goodwill.’

  Anh shakes his head at me. ‘Michael. You’re killing me.’

  *

  Terrence texts me while I’m at work, asking if I want to catch up tonight or play a game online. I make up an excuse to get out of both. If Terrence and Fred find out that I’m going to Paula’s party, I’ll never live it down. I’ll have to deal with them later.

  I go shopping after work and mix and match a few things to put together a Gandalf outfit. If somebody had told me at the start of the year that I would be going to a movie marathon as a cross-dressing geriatric magician at Paula’s house, I would never have believed it.

  *

  ‘You need to pull your weight around here, Michael,’ Mum says as she chops onions.

  ‘Are you crying because I forgot to empty the dishwasher, or because of the onions?’ I sneak a carrot from the corner of the chopping board and she hits me on the hand.

  ‘You know,’ I say, ‘one day there will be robotic machines for all this domestic drudgery. Probably invented at UTS Design School . . .’ I grin at her.

  She groans. ‘Can you make yourself useful and pick up Nathan from after-school care? I don’t have a robotic machine just yet and this dinner needs finishing.’

  Nathan’s school is only a short walk from home. We take our time walking back. Nathan likes to avoid stepping on cracks in the concrete.

  ‘What does it feel like to punch somebody?’ he asks me.

  ‘Well, to be honest, for a split second it feels good. You feel powerful. And then it feels horrible and it goes on feeling horrible.’

  ‘I wanted to punch a kid today. Ray Cooper’s brother. His name is Jason Cooper. Ray Cooper is in my class. He called me a spastic.’

  ‘Ray did?’

  ‘No. Jason Cooper. The brother. After school.’

  I feel a heat rise in my chest. ‘I want to punch him for you.’

  ‘That would be futile,’ he says drily. ‘You’d be arrested for hitting a child. It wouldn’t solve anything.’

  I shake my head. ‘Of course, I won’t be punching anybody. I was just being silly. Was there a teacher around?’

  ‘Yes. Ms Lee. That’s Ms, not Miss or Mrs because she said her marital status is nobody’s business. But she is married and he is from China like Ms Lee and he came here by plane not a boat and she was born in Sydney in 1982.’

  I baulk a little. ‘How do you know that? I mean, why do you know that?’

  He shrugs and then takes a wide step to avoid a crack. ‘I asked her if she was an illegal and she said that is a hurtful thing to say and read us a book called The Arrival. It has beautiful pictures but yours are better, except you can’t do eyes the way that illustrator does them and his family were boat people too, I think. But a long time ago.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I mutter under my breath.

  ‘Ms Lee is Buddhist.’

  We turn the corner into our street. There’s a man leaning against a car parked in front of our neighbour’s house. He walks towards us, blocking our path.

  ‘Michael Blainey?’

  ‘Yeah?’ I answer without thinking.

  ‘I’m a journalist with Vice newspaper. What’s it like being the son of the founder of a racist organisation like Aussie Values?’

  I instinctively put my arm around Nathan. ‘Piss off,’ I say and try to hurry Nathan up, but with the concrete crack thing, there’s no chance.

  ‘Do you agree with your father’s policies?’

  ‘Come on, Nathan,’ I hiss trying to drag him along, but he refuses to be hurried, and continues concentrating on not stepping on the cracks.

  ‘Is that your brother?’ The man is walking right alongside us. ‘How do you feel, kid?’ he asks Nathan.

  ‘Leave him alone!’ I say, trying to shield Nathan.

  ‘Feel about what?’ he asks cheerfully, not looking at him, his eyes focused on the ground.

  ‘Do you think we should stop Muslim immigration to this country?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you agree with your dad?’

  ‘I said leave us alone,’ I yell.

  ‘Muslims are trying to take over,’ Nathan cries cheerfully. ‘I like the toilets in their mosques. There are hoses inside.’

  I carry Nathan and run with him to the house, trying to block out his screaming at me to put him down, to not touch the cracks. I rush into the house and slam the door behind us.

  I’ve freaked him out and he’s crying his lungs out. I crouch down to his level and try to calm him down. ‘I’m really sorry, Nathan. I didn’t mean to scare you. But that guy wasn’t nice.’

  Mum rushes into the hallway.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she cries in a panic.

  Nathan’s sobbing uncontrollably. Mum holds him close to her and yells at me to grab his plane model from the lounge. I run and get it. She gives it to him and gently lowers him to the hallway floor. She sits next to him until eventually, after a very long time, he stops crying.

  *

  Mum and Dad talk to me after Nathan’s gone to bed. They expect that the media attention will fluctuate in intensity, but reassure me that a repeat of this afternoon is unlikely.

  I think about Mina and her parents’ restaurant. The Protect Australia rally that Aussie Values is organising with other like-minded organisations is in the next few weeks. The upcoming protest at a council meeting regarding the Islamic school application out in Jordan Springs.

  ‘Is it all worth it?’ I ask them.

  ‘We’ve been pushed into this corner,’ Dad says with a heavy sigh. ‘I don’t relish being one of the few who are actually concerned enough about the state our country is in to do something about it.’

  ‘It’s a burd
en actually,’ my mother says faintly, stretching her arms up and yawning. ‘Oh boy, what a day.’

  ‘It’s harder for you to see how much things have changed, Michael,’ Dad says. ‘So many migrants have come to this country and assimilated to our culture, and we’re richer for it. This isn’t a racist country. It offends me when people say that. But there are groups who refuse to assimilate.’

  Mum picks at an invisible piece of lint on her trousers and heaves a sigh. ‘What frustrates me most is the arrogance. The ones who walk around puffed up with this . . . I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s like they don’t even care that we have a problem with their way of life clashing with ours.’

  ‘But what I don’t get is how you can tell if somebody’s assimilated enough. Who decides?’

  Mum stands up, yawning again. ‘I’ve got an early start. Let’s talk about this another time.’

  Dad gets up to make a coffee and offers to make me one. I’ve got a pile of work ahead of me so I say yes and follow him to the kitchen.

  ‘Studying hard?’ he asks. ‘Or am I not allowed to ask?’

  ‘Yeah, better not,’ I smile.

  He grins. ‘I’m proud of you. I can see you’re putting in the effort, Michael. You always have. Well, except for year eight.’ He shudders. ‘Still trying to forget dealing with you that year. Your generation don’t do puberty blues like we used to?’

  I chuckle.

  ‘I appreciate that you’re opening up to us with your doubts, Michael,’ he says. ‘I want you to feel that you can tell us anything.’

  I eye him, a lump forming in my throat. ‘Hmm.’

  I want so badly to blurt it out. I don’t want to be an architect. Two sugars in my coffee thanks, Dad.

  Mina

  I go as Aragon.

  Jane comes as Galadriel, Leica as Arwen and Cameron as a dwarf. Paula’s dressed up as Frodo Baggins. There are a couple of Gandalfs, someone in a Gollum mask, an Elizabeth Bennett, a Professor Snape and, inevitably, someone shows up in a Star Wars costume.

  The doorbell rings and I answer it.

  ‘Another Gandalf,’ I say, smiling at Michael.

  ‘Really?’ he says, disappointed. ‘I thought I was being original.’

  I cock an eyebrow at him. ‘Well, your beard’s the best so far.’

  Jaxon is standing beside Michael. He’s in year eleven as well but I don’t share any classes with him. I’ve seen him on the basketball courts with Michael at recess a lot of times though. I look him up and down and laugh. He’s all in black spandex. He’s got a big orange, red and yellow oval over his head with a slit down the front, covered with a black stocking that he can see and breathe out of. His head is like a big ball of flame.

  ‘I give you the Eye of Sauron,’ Michael says in a dramatic voice, ushering Jaxon in.

  ‘That is awesome!’ we all cry.

  ‘He won’t answer,’ Michael tells us. ‘He’s sworn to stay in character all day. He takes his Lord of the Rings nerdiness seriously. A man can only respect that.’

  Jaxon surveys the gathering, doesn’t say a word, steps into the cinema room on our right and sits down, hands folded in his lap, facing the TV screen, patiently waiting for the movie to begin. It’s hysterical and we all burst out laughing, but Jaxon doesn’t so much as flinch.

  ‘Aragon?’ Michael whispers to me when we’re standing at the buffet spread Paula’s laid out, getting a tub of popcorn before the first movie starts. She’s really worked wonders with the emotional blackmail; thanks to her parents’ credit card there’s a Bilbo cake, loads of food, a popcorn machine and enough junk food to turn us all into diabetics.

  Michael looks me up and down, amused. ‘I was hoping you’d come as Arwen.’

  I can feel my cheeks burning. Is he flirting with me?

  ‘Aragon’s hot,’ I declare.

  ‘Right. Okay, but that doesn’t really explain why you’d dress up as him.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ I say, grinning. ‘But I didn’t feel like doing the whole pretty elf thing.’

  ‘See, I think Arwen’s gorgeous but I’m not going to come dressed in a white dress and crown now, am I?’

  ‘You’d be fetching in a dress, Michael,’ Paula says as she walks past us with some soft drinks.

  ‘And what’s that badge say?’ he asks, pointing to me.

  ‘Mrs Ryan Gosling,’ I say seriously.

  He bursts out laughing.

  We all mingle around the food for a bit, getting all the introductions over with.

  I go to the bathroom and find Jane standing outside waiting for me when I’ve finished.

  ‘Hey, do you know if Paula invited Terrence?’ she asks shyly.

  ‘She didn’t,’ I say.

  Her face crumples. ‘Oh, okay. I thought she must have because Michael’s here.’

  ‘Nope. Neither of us have a good history with Terrence, do we?’

  She looks uncomfortable. ‘I think he just does it to show off. I don’t think he means it. We were paired up together in Maths the other week and he was really nice.’

  ‘It’s not my problem if he has multiple personality disorder. I get the racist, angry personality and Paula gets the juvenile bully. Don’t blame us if we can’t see his good side.’

  ‘Hmm,’ she murmurs.

  I take pity on her. It’s not her fault she’s fallen hard for him.

  ‘Come on, let’s go inside now. Forget about him for the next few hours at least.’

  I drag her along by the arm.

  *

  My phone beeps. It’s Maha telling me she’s about to ring the doorbell and she wants me to answer so I can assess the suitability of her outfit. I text her back and run to the door. She’s standing with another one of our friends from Auburn Grove Girls High, Tammy Xiang. Maha looks slightly nervous. I burst out laughing. I should have known she wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a Lord of the Rings costume. She’s come as Marilyn Monroe, white dress, high heels, blonde wig, fake eyelashes. Tammy’s dressed as Galadriel.

  I throw my arms around them and we jump up and down squealing.

  ‘Do I look okay?’ Maha asks, self-consciously tugging at her dress. She looks down and her blonde wig tilts slightly to the left. She fixes it, grinning widely at me.

  Tammy looks equally nervous. ‘You’re sure everybody’s dressed up?’

  I grab them by the arms. ‘You both look fabulous.’

  Tammy leans in close to me. ‘Are they snobs?’

  ‘No!’ I laugh. ‘Not this group. And certainly not Paula.’

  ‘Paula’s the one who owns this mansion though?’ Maha looks at me quizzically. ‘I thought it was an apartment complex at first.’

  I giggle. ‘So did I. Wait until you see inside.’

  ‘So Paula’s cool with us being here?’ Tammy asks as she adjusts her pixie ears. ‘Man these are itchy.’

  I burst out laughing and throw myself at them again. ‘God, I’ve missed you guys!’ They hug me back.

  ‘What’s with the street?’ Maha asks in an urgent whisper, as I lead them inside. ‘I swear to God it felt like we were driving in a national park.’

  Tammy rolls her eyes but laughs affectionately.

  ‘I bet you they have millions of redbacks and funnel webs here,’ Maha says. ‘Guaranteed. So introduce us to your friends. Any cute guys? Actually, hold that thought. We’re at a dress-up party for a trilogy about hobbits. It would never work.’

  Paula, Leica, Michael and Cameron are huddled together by the food table. As I lead Maha and Tammy towards the table I feel nervous. What if they don’t get along? What if Maha thinks Paula’s geeky and uncool – especially if she drops an Oscar Wilde quote? And what will Paula think if Maha says ‘youse’? I close my eyes for a moment and inhale sharply.

  Paula catches my eye. She breaks from t
he group and quickly comes over to welcome Maha and Tammy. When Paula introduces Michael, my body tenses with the fear that Maha might throw me a knowing glance. But to my relief she doesn’t so much as flinch. It’s only when Michael’s looking the other way that she furtively winks at me. I smile into my drink.

  ‘So, Lord of the Rings,’ Maha says, facing Michael and Paula. ‘Is it some kind of religious wedding rom com?’

  Maha is deadpan and I lock eyes with Tammy and snort.

  ‘I’m joking,’ Maha says with a grin. ‘It’s all about power and temptation, death and courage, and is based on Tolkien’s iconic fantasy series.’

  ‘Wikipedia’s awesome, isn’t it?’ Tammy says, grinning at Maha.

  Leica is trying to use a straw to collect a piece of strawberry out of the bottom of her glass. ‘I’m not a fan either,’ she says casually. ‘I just came along to see who’d have the guts to show up in elf tights.’

  ‘Um, excuse me, your boyfriend,’ Michael says, motioning to Cameron who’s pulling his fake beard down so he can scratch his chin.

  It’s like this for the next fifteen minutes. Everybody cracking jokes and telling funny stories. Tom, one of Paula’s poetry slam friends, is especially animated and bounces off Maha’s self-deprecation and bubbly personality. When we eventually make our way through the house to the cinema room, I catch myself feeling a wave of anxiety about who Michael will sit next to. It turns my stomach to think he might not choose to sit next to me.

  We file into the large room and Maha leans in close enough so only I can hear her. ‘You’ve got a good group here, Mina,’ she says in a hushed tone. ‘I was expecting some alphas but they seem really nice. As for you: I was expecting to find you curled into the foetal position, confused and disoriented. But you’re part of the designer, overpriced furniture around here now.’

  I chuckle. ‘I miss Auburn badly. But I’m starting to settle in here too.’

  Maha glances at Michael and then nudges me and grins. ‘Yep. I can see why.’

  I roll my eyes at her. ‘I owe it to Paula, not Michael.’

  The gleam in Maha’s eyes tells me she’s thoroughly unconvinced. ‘I’m grabbing a beanbag with Tammy. Sit here and I’ll bet he’ll be beside you before the opening credits are done.’