#11: Hot dates
When Trixie received her very-first invitation for a second date, she felt more than a little perturbed at the overenthusiastic response from the rest of the group.
Amal messaged: That’s great!
“Good for you, babe!”, Stef called from her bedroom, where she was busy blowdrying her hair.
Jin messaged: What a legend!!! He followed it up with a GIF of Sasha Velour shaking rose petals out of her orange wig.
It was Trixie’s second date since things had become more intense with Nat – and her second date with the same person since she met Nat. She counselled herself, yet again, not to think about Nat on her date with another woman (even though it was hard not to think about Nat all the time, at every moment). Down the corridor, Trixie heard the hairdryer switch off again.
Stef messaged: Where are your words of encouragement, David?
Incoming, was David’s reply.
You know, texted Trixie, all this *encouragement* is starting to make it feel like you guys didn’t think I’d ever get lucky here.
Kit wrote: Trix, you’re doing fine. What’re you going to wear?
Well, Trixie replied, that really depends on Stef’s wardrobe.
The hairdryer stopped humming again. “Hey!”
Nellie was a catch, by any impossible standards. She had wide hips and very short hair, which still managed to produce a halo of tight curls. Her eyes were a dusty sort of hazel. She was, as Amal would say, ‘your standard-issue babe’.
For their first date, Nellie had made all the plans, and she and Trixie had ended up at a makeshift picnic party right on the edge of Merri Creek, watching a friend of Nellie’s spin in tassel pasties and a bright-pink cowboy hat. The whole scene was so impossibly cool and outside Trixie’s social comfort zone, she knew there was no sense even attempting to try and top it all for date number two. So, when the pair met outside Franny’s on an excruciatingly warm Saturday evening, Trixie could only offer a garbled apology. “I’m not very good at, like, picking fun things to do.”
Nellie laughed, and took Trixie’s sweaty hand in hers. “You’re plenty fun, Trix. I’ll sit anywhere if it’s with you.”
Trixie’s chest lifted a little as the entered the bar.
Inside it was even stickier, and Trixie felt a familiar slick appear on her upper lip, under her eyes, around the points where the underwire of her bra rubbed against her skin. She longed to wipe the back of her hand across her face, but she knew it would mean smudged make up and embarrassment. Even the condensation on the jug of beer Trixie bought looked appealing – and the beer itself like an inviting pool she’d like to plunge headfirst into.
Outside, all the tables were taken, so Nellie had snuggled into a chair up against Franny’s cool brick, trying to escape the thirsty heat. She took the glass Trixie offered her gratefully. Trixie sat, feeling her cheeks flushing even as she tried to cool them against the backs of her palms. Nellie dipped her finger into her cold beer and pulled Trixie’s arm toward her, running the cold liquid over her upturned wrist. Trixie felt a little cooler as the beer trickled across her skin.
“Thanks.”
“Pleasure,” Nellie said, settling back and taking a swig. “It’s a messy one.”
“You don’t seem that affected,” Trixie pointed out. Somehow, though the heat was producing blush and sweat on most of Franny’s other patrons, Nellie remained cool- and collected-looking.
She shrugged. “I don’t mind heat. It’s hot back home.”
Nellie was from Nukunu country, just outside Port Augusta, where the summers were scorching. She’d moved to Melbourne because she told Trixie that living in a small town as a lesbian was “bloody impossible”. But Trixie knew she missed home.
“In Sydney it’s always wet-hot, you know?” Trixie said. “None of this dry heat. I’m still not really used to it. But when I go back I get, like, shocked at the humidity all over again.”
“Humidity’s a hard one. This dry heat is easier, I think,” Nellie said.
“How is it I look like a deflated balloon?” Trixie moaned, catching sight herself in a mirror across the venue.
Nellie grinned. “Anyway, tell me about the shop. I’m dying to know what it’s like.”
“Why?” Trixie asked, laughing. “It’s not that exciting, I promise.”
“Are you kidding? Working in a bookshop is, like, the dream.”
In fact, Nellie was a decently well-known poet, whose slim, olive-bound chapbook was currently sitting in boxes on the trestle table in Carr St, waiting to be put on display. She was well-known for haunting a café on High Street, with three other poets, drinking cold drip and writing reams of poetry she rarely showed anyone.
“Well, it’s – I don’t know!”
“It must be pretty exciting, I reckon.”
Trixie smiled. “Well, I think it is.”
“I am so jealous,” Nellie said. “And do you write at all?”
“Oh, no,” Trixie said, shaking her head. “I mean, not like you. And also, no. Not at all.”
“Right.” Nellie chuckled. “So, just a reader.”
“Yup, big reader.”
“So, go on, what’s in the bag?”
Trixie, who was draining her glass, paused to raise an eyebrow. “Hey?”
“Big Readers are always carrying something around,” Nellie said. She reached into her cord jacket and from its inner pocket she pulled a well-thumbed copy of Marilyn Chin’s Hard Love Province. She showed Trixie the cover. “Your turn.”
“Oh, I—”
“Come on, Trix!”
“OK, Trixie said, “but this is going to be embarrassing.” Trixie reached into her canvas bag and pulled out a slim, olive-bound volume. It was upside down, so the small portrait on the back, peering up at Nellie, was like a mirror.
“Oh!” Nellie started to laugh. “Oh, that is . . . I’ve not seen it out in the world yet.”
“I opened the box early so I could buy it,” Trixie admitted. “I was curious.” She turned it over and the light blue title caught the yellow-ish lights of Franny’s: Under the waves by Nellie Marsh.
“So, do you like it?”
Trixie grinned. “I’ll let you know.”
Trixie stayed at Franny’s with Nellie until she saw Amal burst through the door with a collection of her ‘party’ friends – late-night club lovers who gave Amal the nights out she never got with their group. Not wishing to be quizzed for an hour by Amal and her buddies, Trixie suggested they wander down the street and find somewhere to get another drink and something to eat. She and Nellie left Franny’s hand in hand, giving Amal a small wave as they exited (to the sound of Amal’s friends cat-calling).
They ended up at the Westgarth – as one often does when wandering down High Street without much idea of where to go – sitting in the window with very large glasses of rosé. They read through the list of films showing, arguing whether or not it’d be too difficult for Nellie to watch a movie with subtitles since she’d forgotten her glasses. (Nellie was adamant she didn’t need them, but Trixie had just watched her misread the word popcorn on a sign at the entrance to the cinema.) Then it was: horror or romance? Melodrama or comedy?
They were still arguing when a familiar voice caught Trixie’s ears. She turned in what she thought was a nonchalant manner to look at the ticket line, swollen with hip twentysomethng couples. Nellie watched her, grinning. “What’re you doing?”
“Just . . . oh god!” Trixie shook her head and rolled her eyes dramatically as she spotted David standing in the line beside a blonde-haired woman who was mostly obscured by David’s broad shoulders. “We can’t get away from them!”
“From who?”
“My stupid friends.”
Nellie laughed. “Well, don’t you all live over on the westside. What are they all doing here?”
“Goodness knows. How do you feel about meeting yet another one?”
Nellie considered this, then grinned again. “Will this one cat-call me?”
“Look, I doubt it. But I wouldn’t put anything—”
Trixie gasped. She couldn’t help it. David had shuffled forward in the line, leaving his date behind for a second as she tapped on her phone. Trixie did recognise her after all: it was Marta, Kit’s famous scientist date. On a date with David.
“Oh. My god. Oh my god.”
“Trixie? What?”
“Shh! I mean, not shush, but, you know. We have to—”
“Are we going to say hello to your friend?” Nellie asked. Trixie turned to her, blushing and frantic.
“Ah, no. We’re going to hide from my friend.”
Nellie frowned.
“What?”
“Well, that might be a bit hard.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s coming over.”
Trixie moaned softly as she turned to see Marta bounding toward them, David trudging behind, holding two beers. Marta looked as polished and perfect as ever – her hair tied half-up in a fountain of blonde on her crown, cascading across her shoulders. She was wearing what would charitably have been called a ‘slip dress’ in the nineties, but was probably actually lingerie. She looked divine.
“Hi Trixie!” Marta pulled Trixie into a hug.
Trixie let her, while privately thinking they were not at a stage where hugging was strictly necessary. “Hi Marta,” Trixie said into her blonde shoulder. Then, on release, she gestured to Nellie. “This is Nellie. We’re trying to decide what movie to see.”
“Oh my god, I know! It’s so hard. There’s so much to see. I’m such a sap so we’ve gone for Now Voyager. Emma Stone is, like, the perfect pick to match Bette Davis.”
“The eyes,” David said, arriving beside Marta at last and handing her a drinks. “Hey, mate.”
“Hi, mate,” Trixie replied. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Yeah.” David stared at Trixie, and seemed to be trying to convey a complex lot of information with one dart of his dark eyes.
“Hi,” Nellie said, leaning over to shake David’s hand.
“Nellie, David said, causing Trixie to blush, “you’re famous.”
“David,” Trixie cautioned.
“Trix, please come to the movie with us. It’ll be like a double!”
“A double . . . date?” Trixie asked, raising an eyebrow at David.
“Sure!”
Trixie gave Nellie a questioning look. Nellie shrugged. “Didn’t think I was going to get you into the Ari Aster.”
“Trix hates horror,” David explained.
Trixie rolled her eyes. “I do not hate horror.”
“Oh,” he replied, quick as a shot, “must have been someone else who cried in terror when we watched Silence of the Lambs, then.”
There was a pause, where everyone shifted uncomfortably. “Well, that’s a scary movie,” Marta offered.
“Trix, let’s get tickets,” Nellie said. She took Trixie’s hand and led her away, toward the ticket counter.
“We’ll save you seats,” Marta called after them.
Once installed in the line behind a very teenaged couple on a very teenage date, Nellie said slowly, “So, that guy is your . . . friend?”
“Apparently,” Trixie replied.
“Right.”
Nellie was being dragged out of the cinema on Marta’s arm, forced to discuss who was the better Jerry Durrance: Paul Henreid or Ryan Gosling. Trixie and David strolled behind them, an uncomfortable distance apart. As the women ahead of them strode ahead, so fast they were almost out of sight in seconds, David sidestepped a pile of dropped popcorn and ended up at Trixie’s side. “So, not a Gosling gal, huh?”
“What.”
“Why are you mad at me?”
Trixie stopped and gave David a very pointed look.
“OK.”
“Did you tell Kit you were dating their date.”
David rolled his eyes. “Trixie, they don’t even like each other.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“OK. No. I didn’t tell them.”
“And you’d consider that . . .” Trixie paused, waiting for David.
“Yes, OK, it’s shitty. I’m a shit friend.”
Trixie folded her arms triumphantly. “Thank you for admitting it.”
“There’s no need to be stroppy, Trix. I know it’s shitty. I’m saying it’s shitty.”
“Just as long as you know.”
David peered at Trixie. “Why do you care so much?”
Trixie threw a look of deep disgust at him. “You know what, David? I really don’t care about anything you do.”
Then she marched ahead to catch up with Nellie and Marta. The scorching night was still itchy and uncomfortable, but Trixie linked her arms into both Nellie’s and Marta’s, just because she knew how much it would piss off David.
The Broken-Heart Brigade is released via weekly e-newsletter instalments through Substack. It is supported by Matilda’s generous subscribers, Melbourne City of Literature, and the City of Melbourne COVID-19 Arts Grants.
The Broken-Heart Brigade is made in Naarm (Melbourne), on stolen Wurundjeri land that was never ceded. Matilda pays respect to the rightful Aboriginal owners of the land on which she lives and works, and hopes the readers of her writing do too.