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  ‘Yummy calamari, yummy chicken and yummy vege hotpot for you ladies tonight.’ The waiter placed the dishes on the table.

  ‘Looks like you’re going to have it all,’ Denise smiled at Lauren as she served rice into her bowl. ‘Career, great man and eventually kids, right?’

  Lauren beamed in response but I couldn’t help myself.

  ‘Do you really think you can have it all?’ I asked gently, not wanting to rock the romance boat, but desperate to understand how it was possible.

  ‘Of course you can, and I can.’ Lauren sounded defensive. ‘Don’t you think so?’

  ‘I’m not as confident as you are, Loz. I have a hundred per cent happiness at work; I don’t think it’s then reasonable to expect a hundred per cent with relationships as well.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Lauren looked confused.

  ‘I’m not convinced that we can have everything without some serious trade-offs. It’s not possible.’

  ‘But you think men can?’ Denise asked.

  ‘No, I don’t think men can either.’

  ‘Ploise explain?’ Lauren said, in a perfect send-up of Pauline Hanson.

  ‘Women complain that men have it all because they can have careers and families and lifestyles. But they only appear to have it all, because in reality they trade important things off.’

  ‘I still don’t follow,’ Denise said, before putting a forkful of chicken in her mouth.

  ‘Men trade-off time with their families to have careers and so it’s the same trade-off women make to have careers. But women whinge about it, men don’t.’

  Denise nearly choked as she swallowed too fast in order to speak. ‘God, the feminists will hate you.’

  ‘I’m a feminist, it’s just no-one ever talks about men and kids and so forth, they just say that women can’t have families and careers. Well, they can’t. No-one can. There are only so many hours in a day, so many hours to go round to so many different aspects of life. We all make choices on how the day is broken up.’

  ‘Go on,’ Lauren said, as both girls stopped eating and listened intently.

  ‘Personally, I think it’s because men don’t actually want to be at home, and that’s cool. If I met someone and chose to have kids and stay home, I wouldn’t complain about not having a career. I’d be happy to be a full-time mum until the kids went to school. Or I’d marry someone who wanted to stay home and I’d go to work.

  ‘Everything, for everyone, is a trade-off though. You trade-off time with kids to go to work, or you trade-off going to work to stay home. And you trade-off time for yourself doing either or both. That’s life. But don’t say you lose time with your kids because you have to work to pay off the McMansion and the two cars and three plasma TVs. People – men and women – don’t have to have all that stuff; they trade-off staying home in order to have careers and things.’

  Lauren finally spoke. ‘It sounds like you’ve given this a lot of thought, Libs.’

  ‘I grew up in a house where Mum did everything after Dad died. She had to. She didn’t have a choice and we didn’t have lots of toys or holidays like families we knew.’

  Lauren and Denise didn’t take their eyes off me as I spoke and yet somehow still managed to dish out the vege hotpot for themselves.

  I kept talking, ‘She worked long shifts at Lillyman’s Cordial Factory to feed us all, otherwise she would’ve stayed home like she did when Dad was alive. They had a good groove.’

  I picked up my fork with the aim of eating something, but felt the need to keep explaining.

  ‘Mum worked making our house a home and keeping us dressed and clean and our whole lives organised. Dad busted his guts labouring to give Mum the resources to do that. It worked for them and it worked for us kids, and someone was always home after school.’

  ‘Yeah, I wasn’t a latchkey kid back in Goulburn either,’ Lauren said, and I wondered if it was a small-town thing, mums always being there to mind the kids.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, I loved that Mum stayed home when she could and I was grateful when she worked. She never complained about either, though.’

  ‘To be fair, not all women complain, Libs,’ Lauren said.

  ‘Not all, no. But I work with mothers coming into the gallery with children and they seem to love their lives. I work with a few dads too. I also listen to the women in my book club who never stop complaining about how much of an effort it is to get to a meeting once a month because their kids are so much work, or they can’t find a good babysitter or whatever. I’m over parents complaining about choices they make themselves. Don’t have babies if you’re going to whinge about losing your figure or career or your lack of money or time for yourself.’

  I suppose it seemed like I must’ve given the topic some thought now that I was providing social commentary on the issue I knew little about, not having kids and not in the position to have them. I wasn’t even sure I wanted them. I took a sip of my wine.

  ‘That’s what you think?’ Denise said, raising her eyebrows.

  ‘I’m just saying that we all make sacrifices and compromises in life to have what we want.’

  ‘So it’s okay to trade-off wages and working conditions for women then, is it?’ Denise was the union rep at her school and always conscious of equity in the workplace.

  Lauren raised her eyebrows as she looked at me, equally questioning and awaiting my response.

  I got defensive. ‘I didn’t say that. You’re talking about a different issue. Of course I support equality in the workplace, but I’m talking about choices we make as individuals to have both work and home lives. I don’t necessarily want or need to have the fabulous home with every gadget and heaps of living space; god knows I fall asleep as soon as I get home after work anyway.

  ‘I made a choice to have a career in the arts – which we all know is crap money – and I love it. I love my life, and if Lauren takes maternity leave then I’m going to move up the ladder faster and be next in line to take Emma’s job as director.’

  I could see Lauren gasp with surprise and fear at the thought of me taking her holy grail. Denise smiled and gave me a wink, knowing I was joking.

  ‘I’m kidding, Loz,’ I said, to put my friend out of her unnecessary misery, ‘but I know your priorities have changed now you’re with Wyatt. You want to settle down and have a family, right?’

  Lauren was calm but her tone was serious. ‘Yes, I do. But I still want a career even if it’s not as the director of the NAG. So that hasn’t changed.’

  I tried not to look sceptical but knew it was in my voice. ‘We’ll see how you feel about that once you hold little Wyatt junior or little Libby – yes, you will call your firstborn female child after me – because I bet you’ll be thinking otherwise. I’ve seen it happen before: career women have babies, look at the kid they’ve just brought into the world and never want to go back to work again.’

  Lauren nodded, half-conceding. ‘That would be fine, but don’t write me off, Libs. I’m still career-focused for the next few years. I’ve been toying with the idea of reviving the Aboriginal Arts Management Agency after my work at the National Museum of the American Indian was so successful. And if I do that, then Emma’s directorship is all yours!’

  ‘Gee, thanks for letting me have it in that case.’ I laughed as I finally caught up on eating what was left of the hotpot. Denise had been devouring every dish.

  As if as an afterthought, Lauren added, ‘Anyway, I’ve got some time before my fertility is apparently going to drop and the biological clock starts ticking.’

  ‘Jesus, a woman’s got to think about fertility too! It’s all too complicated for me,’ I said sarcastically as I looked at my watch. ‘My own clock says we should just eat, drink and be stunningly single!’

  ‘Libby, sometimes you are so negative.’ Denise poured me some more wine.

  ‘I’m not negative: I’m a realist, as opposed to a romantic, that’s all. That’s why we all get on. There’s a mix of Yin and Yang,
up and down, in and out, black and white. It’s called balance.’ I looked at Lauren. ‘As far as I’m concerned, life is a series of cycles. It’s complicated and complex, and quite frankly, I’d like to keep mine as simple as possible. If that means no bloke, then so be it.’

  Lauren shook her head. ‘God, you’re so depressing, do you really mean this? What happened when I went away?’

  ‘Let’s see, when you went away, I kept working my butt off at the gallery, Emma promoted me to manager of educational programs, as you know, and Denise and I hung out as much as we could. She moved in with Caro, then she met David and I only saw her sporadically.’ I looked at Denise. ‘And that’s cool, really. I don’t need constant company or attention, and I’m comfortable with myself.’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ Lauren said, laughing. ‘I think you have just managed to depress us all.’

  ‘Hypothetically speaking, Libs, if you were interested, what kind of man would you want?’ Denise asked, determined not to let me off the potential-husband hook.

  ‘Hypothetically speaking, I don’t imagine a relationship ever happening again.’

  ‘But you have to visualise it to make it happen.’ Denise wiped some sauce from the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Have you been listening to me at all?’ I said, pretending to pull hair out of my head. ‘I actually like my solitude. I like being alone. I’ve never been happier since I got myself mortgaged to the eyeballs and bought my little place in Braddon. Bonnie and Clyde love it too. I have an exercise routine that keeps me relatively healthy despite my inability to cook much, and I can still hang with you girls. And you,’ I poked Lauren in the arm, ‘haven’t dropped off the radar completely, yet.’

  I was putting on a brave face. I knew that eventually our friendship would become like Emma often warned: ‘When you’re married with kids and everything is about the soccer and excursions and homework and so forth, you really don’t keep up with the perils of single life.’

  In Manuka, shortly after, we took the stairs up to the Julep Lounge and met up with the latest member of our posse, Caro, a forty-year-old, brown-eyed, long-legged, thin-hipped, thin-lipped, wispy-haired, big-drinking, dry-humoured, highly-accomplished lawyer. She was waiting with cocktails for all of us – one of the many bonuses of the electronic message stick known as the BlackBerry.

  ‘Can you believe this place was named one of the top fifty most influential and best bars in Australia over the last ten years?’ I told Lauren as I sipped my Bellini and witnessed a hen’s night in full swing.

  ‘I’ve never seen so many trashy hens in one city, on one night, ever!’ Denise leant over the table and whispered so as not to offend anyone nearby. ‘Last night Dave and I went for dinner at Flint and then went for a drink in the North Quarter and, I kid you not, we saw eight,’ she held up eight fingers, ‘hens and their entourages along the way.’

  ‘That should give you some hope, Libs,’ Lauren winked at me.

  ‘Hope for what?’ I shook my head in exasperation.

  ‘Finding your soul mate, falling in love, getting married.’ She had a glassy-eyed romantic look in her eyes.

  ‘And having a trashy hen’s night, it seems,’ I threw a nod to a hen wearing devil’s horns at the bar. ‘Trust me, you’ll be having yours first, my dear tidda. Let’s talk about that.’

  ‘Aha, so there was a hint! You do believe romance is possible then.’ Lauren acted victorious.

  ‘Of course I believe it’s possible for some, but I don’t believe in soul mates or love anymore,’ I answered coldly. ‘I believe in compatibility and companionship, real things – things that can be proven and tested and demonstrated.’

  ‘What about the love of your life? The One? Do you believe in the One?’ Lauren looked like she might start crying if I said I didn’t believe in it like she did.

  ‘For a fleeting, blink-of-the-eye moment, I believed. Years ago.’ I remembered back to being a student. ‘When I was studying at Melbourne Uni, I dated a guy, Andy, whom I’d met at a reconciliation event on campus.’

  ‘Oh, the politics-science major who wanted to be President of the Republic of Australia one day?’

  Lauren had been the only person I’d discussed Andy with. The experience had been so painful at the time, and for years after, that for my own emotional wellbeing I didn’t ever bring his name up, but tonight seemed an appropriate time to use him as justification for my defined ‘negativity’ in relation to love.

  ‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘Andy was so passionate about everything: his study, politics, cooking, singing, sex and me. He could’ve been in one of my firey calendars with his sixpack, huge biceps and steamy bedroom eyes.’

  I found myself smiling about him now for the first time in eight years, but I also felt the pain beginning to form in my chest. I knew exactly where my story was going to end.

  ‘You’ve never told me about him,’ Denise said, almost disappointed that I hadn’t shared my history. I gave her an apologetic look.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘it’s not about me, go on.’

  ‘We were hot and heavy and everyone thought we were made for each other. I sure felt that way, and he said he did. We adored one another and couldn’t get enough of our time together. He made me laugh all the time, even on the bad days. He inspired me to study more, live more. We went out for three years, the entire time of my undergrad degree, and we were inseparable.

  ‘I found it easy to love him, even after teenage heartache in Moree. Andy insisted on coming up home because he wanted to see Gamilaroi country and meet Mum and my brothers. It was the only time the boys were on their best behaviour. I was amazed that Bazza didn’t give him a hard time.’ I smiled thinking about my protective brother.

  The girls said nothing, just listened. It was the first time I’d talked about my past with men that didn’t involved me trying to turn it into a silly television sketch to hide the disappointment of another bad choice. Andy was different, and I could tell the girls knew it.

  ‘When we went back to country it was the most important thing a man had ever done for me. He cared about my heritage. He wanted to see where I called home. I took him to meet all the aunties and uncles, most of the cousins and we hung out in Stanley Village and Mehi Crescent.

  ‘He loved it. And I loved being back home with the mob. I took him to the library and we talked about the Freedom Rides in Moree. It was important for me, if I was going to be with a whitefella, that he understood my history.’

  The girls nodded in agreement, understanding the issues involved with interracial relationships; Lauren had been in one with Adam, Caro had been married to a Frenchman, and Denise had witnessed the dramas both Loz and I had had over the years.

  I continued, ‘Mum even shouted us a night in a motel with an artesian spa so we could have some privacy. We soaked up the energy from the underground minerals and talked for nine hours straight about politics, the future, how we were made for each other.’

  ‘I always thought he sounded perfect – for you, that is, until …’ Lauren said, putting her hand on mine, knowing the heartache I had been through.

  ‘He was. Then out of the blue, a few months later when we were back at uni, some girl from over west showed up at a function at the Wilin Centre with a local student she was dating and everyone, including me, could see how Andy reacted to her. The way he looked at her was so intense you could almost grab his stare out of the air. I knew that look: it was the way that I looked at him. The way I thought he looked at me in return, but I knew then I had been wrong.’

  ‘What happened next?’ Caro spoke for the first time, typically the listener of the group.

  ‘The problem was that she looked at that other fella the way that Andy looked at her and I looked at him. And while he never said anything, I knew immediately that it was over between us. I knew that the one I thought was my One, now thought the other woman was his One, and she thought someone else was her One.’

  I took a sip of my Bellini.

  �
�Andy just faded out of my life then because he was focused on her and how to get her. I cried every day for a year, and swore I’d never fall in love again, never trust again. And so there’s been no bar, no expectation. That’s why I have the fucked-up relationships I’ve had. And I don’t want any more. None, zero, nil.’

  I took a deep breath of relief at getting the truth off my chest. I’d carried it all too long, too painfully long. At least now the girls might stop humbugging me about meeting a fella. Maybe I should’ve told them sooner.

  ‘So,’ I said, looking at Lauren, ‘to answer your original question, I think if everyone is expected to end up with someone then there probably needs to be at least two or three Ones to choose from, if in fact there is such a thing.’

  The women looked at me sympathetically. Even I felt a little sorry for myself.

  ‘You still have to believe your soul mate is out there to make it happen,’ Lauren said. ‘You have to at least be open to it.’

  ‘Assuming I believe – and I am not saying that I do – how will I know when I meet him? Or, more to the point, how will I know when he meets me?’

  ‘That’s easy,’ Caro said. ‘He takes you shopping at Tiffany’s, would rather make love on Sunday afternoon than watch the rugby, and your bum never, ever, ever looks big in anything!’

  She raised her glass in a toast and took a sip.

  Caro was divorced with no kids and, although sometimes cynical and somewhat scarred, she was emotionally wise about love and how to negotiate the world generally. Caro wasn’t particularly interested in meeting men at this stage in her life, although she believed everyone should get married at least once. ‘My wedding was the best party I’ve ever been to,’ she often told us.

  She’d had more life experience than the rest of us and was a blessing for me. Ever since she moved in with Denise when Lauren was abroad, we had all started hanging out together and she often invited us to events and seminars being run by her office at the National Centre for Indigenous Studies at the Australian National University.